But his enemies might be lurking for him in this thicket. Every step forward might involve him in fresh dangers. Exhausted and in despair, Jean Debry supported his tottering body against a tree, the sturdy trunk of which he encircled with his arms. This tree was now his only protector, the only friend on whom he could rely. To this tree alone he determined to intrust his life.
Heedless of his wounded arm and the racking pains of his other injuries, Jean Debry climbed the knotty trunk; seizing a large branch, he raised himself from bough to bough. A few birds, aroused from their slumbers, arose from the foliage and flitted away. Jean Debry followed them with his eyes, and whispered, "You will not betray me!"
On the highest bough, in the densest foliage, he sat down, gasping with exhaustion, and groaning with pain. In his utter prostration after the extraordinary effort he had just made, he leaned his head against the trunk of the tree, the dense branches of which closely enveloped him, and gave a roof to his head and a resting-place to his feet.
"Here I am safe--here no one will look for me!" he muttered, and he fell asleep, prostrated by his sufferings and loss of blood.
Night with its dark mantle covered him up and fanned his feverish brow with its cooling air: the foliage of the tree laid itself soft and fresh around his burning cheeks, and delightful dreams descended from heaven to comfort this poor, tormented human soul.
After several hours of invigorating sleep, Jean Debry was awakened, not, however, by the rude hands of men, but heaven itself aroused him by the torrents of a heavy shower.
Oh, how refreshing were these cold drops for his parched lips! How gently did this soft and tepid water wash the blood and dust from his wounds! How delightfully did it bathe his poor benumbed limbs!
He felt greatly invigorated, and courageously determined to make further efforts for the preservation of his life. He slowly glided down from the tree and stood once more on the ground.
The shower was constantly on the increase, and the rain became now, at daybreak, Jean Debry's protector. When men forsake their poor, tormented fellow-beings, Nature takes pity on them and encircles them with her saving and protecting maternal arms.
The rain protected Jean Debry; it washed the dust and blood from his garments, and made him resemble the other men who had gathered in a large crowd on the road, not far from where he emerged from the forest. All of them were looking with pale faces and expressions of unbounded horror at some objects lying in their midst. What was it that rendered this crowd, generally so noisy and turbulent, to-day so silent and grave?
Jean Debry penetrated further into their midst, and he discovered now with a shudder what riveted the attention of the vast gathering on the road.
He beheld the bloody and mutilated corpses of his two friends--the dead bodies of Roberjot and Bonnier.
Jean Debry closely compressed his lips in order to keep back the cry that forced itself from his breast; with the whole energy of his will he suppressed the tears that started from his eyes, and he turned away in order to return to Rastadt.
The rain protected Jean Debry. The rain had driven the soldiers at the gate into the guard-room, and the sentinel into the sentry-box.
No one took any notice of this wet and dripping man when he entered the gate.
He quietly walked up the street, directly toward the house inhabited by Count Goertz, the Prussian ambassador. He entered the house with firm steps, and hastened into the anteroom which, as he formerly used to do, he wanted to cross in order to walk to the count's room without sending in his name.
But the footmen kept him back; they refused to admit this pale man with the lacerated face and tattered clothes to their master's private room.
"Don't you know me any longer, my friends?" he asked, sadly. "Am I so disfigured that no one of you is able to recognize Jean Debry?"
The footmen now recognized his voice, and the valet de chambre hastened to open the door of the count's study, and to shout, in a loud voice, "His excellency, the French ambassador Debry!"
Count Goertz uttered a joyful cry, and hastily rose from the sofa on which, exhausted by the efforts of the terrible night, he had sought a little rest.
