For Bigot I was to be a weapon against another; for Doltaire,
against myself.
What a gull they must have thought me! I might have known that,
with my lost papers on the way to France, they must hold me tight
here till I had been tried, nor permit me to escape. But I was sick
of doing nothing, thinking with horror on a long winter in the
citadel, and I caught at the least straw of freedom.
"Captain Moray will like to spend a couple of hours at his lodgings
before he joins us at the palace," the Intendant said, and with a
nod to me he turned to his coachman. The horses wheeled, and in a
moment the great doors opened, and he had passed inside to applause,
though here and there among the crowd was heard a hiss, for the
Scarlet Woman had made an impression. The Intendant's men essayed to
trace these noises, but found no one. Looking again to the Heights,
I saw that the woman had gone. Doltaire noted my glance and the
inquiry in my face, and he said:
"Some bad fighting hours with the Intendant at Chateau Bigot, and
then a fever, bringing a kind of madness: so the story creeps about,
as told by Bigot's enemies.
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