"Come," said Dick, taking Catherine's hand and leading the way towards the open window, when at last the Landgrave slept. "Put out the light, Antoine, and let us hasten. In a few hours, that old snoring rascal will be a prince again!" CHAPTER XXI. "THE ROAD TO PARIS." Dick descended first, then came Catherine, Gretel next, Antoine last. While the four were speeding, in the darkness, from the open grounds of the palace, Antoine bethought him that he had not yet dismissed the horse on which he had come from Spangenberg. He therefore went and got the animal, in sight of the guards at one of the doors, who supposed he had left the palace by another exit. He then rode boldly out of the town, crossing the bridge to take the Melsungen road. As he not only knew the password for all guards and patrols, but was also known to have been riding on the Landgrave's business, he was not detained a moment on the bridge. He rode on to a place that Dick had named as a rendezvous. Meanwhile, Dick and the two women joined Romberg at the riverside, silently got aboard the boat, and rowed up the Fulda to a point some distance out of the city. Here they disembarked and found the two horses where the gentlemen had left them. In a few minutes they, too, were pressing forward on the Melsungen road, Catherine mounted behind Dick, Gretel behind Romberg. "What road is this?" asked Catherine, whose sense of locality and direction had been confused by the darkness and the haste. "It leads first to Melsungen," said Dick, "but for us it is merely the first stage of the road to Paris; we shall not stop, except to eat and sleep and change horses, till we arrive there." Dick felt certain he could now return to Paris without incurring danger there. He would make himself known at once to the American commissioners, and so establish connections that would not allow of his being imprisoned again without inquiry. As a citizen of a country now France's ally in war, he would have little, if anything, to fear from Necker, as long as he should act prudently. As for the secret Brotherhood, perhaps it no longer existed. Now that he had not four armed men at his elbows, he felt he could take care of himself. But he trusted most to the likelihood of his being unrecognized after such a lapse of time. Meanwhile, he was yet several days' journey from Paris, and far from being out of the dominion of his friend, Frederick II. of Hesse-Cassel. When the four riders, on the two horses, neared the place where Antoine was to have waited, they heard a horse coming towards them from ahead, and soon the dark figure that loomed up on its back proved to be his. "Monsieur," he said to Dick, "there is a body of horsemen approaching from the direction of Melsungen. They must be the troops that the Landgrave sent in search of you after your escape yesterday." Antoine had been informed of recent occurrences by the messenger whom he had accompanied to Spangenberg.