Having passed through the Rue du Mont-Blanc, guided by the instinct which leads thieves always to take the safest path, he found himself at the end of the Rue La Fayette. There he stopped, breathless and panting. He was quite alone; on one side was the vast wilderness of the Saint-Lazare, on the other, Paris enshrouded in darkness.
“Am I to be captured?” he cried; “no, not if I can use more activity than my enemies. My safety is now a mere question of speed.”
At this moment he saw a cab at the top of the Faubourg Poissonnière. The dull driver, smoking his pipe, was plodding along toward the limits of the Faubourg Saint-Denis, where no doubt he ordinarily had his station.
“Ho, friend!” said Benedetto.
“What do you want, sir?” asked the driver.
“Is your horse tired?”
“Tired? oh, yes, tired enough—he has done nothing the whole of this blessed day! Four wretched fares, and twenty sous over, making in all seven francs, are all that I have earned, and I ought to take ten to the owner.”
“Will you add these twenty francs to the seven you have?”
“With pleasure, sir; twenty francs are not to be despised. Tell me what I am to do for this.”
“A very easy thing, if your horse isn’t tired.”
“I tell you he’ll go like the wind—only tell me which way to drive.”
“Towards the Louvres.”
“Ah, I know the way—you get good sweetened rum over there.”