The visitor urges. The girl is cloaked and bonneted. Josephine
loses her head. "One moment,"--she rushes for her hat and wrap;
she will go at once, herself.
As she returns, there is a muffled scream at the door of the coupe.
"Mon Dieu!" Josephine screams. "My child! my Louise!" The coupe
door is closing.
A strong voice cries to the driver, "Allez vite!"
As "Jehu" is about to lash his horses, an apparition glues him to
his seat.
A gray-haired man points an ugly revolver at his head.
"Halt!" he says. The street is deserted. Villa Rocca opens the
door. A strong hand hurls him to the gutter. Louise is urged from
the coach. She is in her home again!
Peyton turns to grasp the man, who picks himself from the gutter.
He is ten seconds too late. The carriage is off like a flash; it
turns the corner at a gallop. Too cool to leave the fort unguarded,
Peyton enters the salon. He finds Josephine moaning over Louise,
who has fainted.
In a half-hour, Pere Francois and the young men are a bodyguard on
duty. Peyton drives to the bank, and telegraphs Woods at London:
"Come instantly! Attempt to abduct, prevented by me! Danger!
PEYTON."
The next night, in the rooms of the miner, the padre and Peyton
hold a council of war.
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