Pagina 250 de 896

With a wild rattle and clatter, and an inhuman abandonment of

consideration not easy to be understood in these days, the

carriage dashed through streets and swept round corners, with

women screaming before it, and men clutching each other and

clutching children out of its way. At last, swooping at a street

corner by a fountain, one of its wheels came to a sickening

little jolt, and there was a loud cry from a number of voices,

and the horses reared and plunged.

But for the latter inconvenience, the carriage probably would not

have stopped; carriages were often known to drive on, and leave

their wounded behind, and why not? But the frightened valet had

got down in a hurry, and there were twenty hands at the horses'

bridles.

"What has gone wrong?" said Monsieur, calmly looking out.

A tall man in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from among the

feet of the horses, and had laid it on the basement of the

fountain, and was down in the mud and wet, howling over it like a

wild animal.