A FRENCHMAN AND A MATTRESS
He gathered his legs up behind his knees, took a long breath—and fell. As luck would have it, though he landed on the very edge of the mattress, yet he did land on it, and tumbled forward on his face, shaken, but with bones intact. There was a numb feeling above his knees—nothing worse than that.
He drew another long breath. Heavy bodies— and even mattresses—fall quickly; he must have seven or eight minutes yet!
But no! Heavy bodies, even mattresses, falling quickly, make a noise. Lepage, too, had come down with a thud, squashing hidden air out of the interstices of the mattress. The silence of night will give resonance to gentler sounds than that, which was as though a giant had squeezed his mighty sponge. Lepage, on his numb knees, listened. The steps came, not measured now, but running. The dark figure came running round the corner. What next? Next the challenge—then the spurt of light and the report! What of Lepage then? Nothing—so far as Lepage and the rest of humanity for certainty knew.
Of that nothing—actual or possible—Lepage did not approve. He hitched the mattress onto his back, bent himself nearly double, and, thus both burdened and protected, made for the river. He must have looked like a turtle scurrying to the sea, lest he should be turned over—and so left for soup in due season.
"Who goes there? Halt! Halt!"
The turtle scurried on; it was no moment to stop and discuss matters.
The spurt of light, the report! There was a hole in the mattress, but well above Lepage's head. Indeed, if hit at all, he was not most likely to be hit in the head; that vital portion of him was tucked away
241
