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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of El Dorado, by Baroness Orczy
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: El Dorado
+
+Author: Baroness Orczy
+
+Posting Date: October 15, 2008 [EBook #1752]
+Release Date: May, 1999
+Last Updated: February 15, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EL DORADO ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer
+
+
+
+
+
+EL DORADO
+
+By Baroness Orczy
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+There has of late years crept so much confusion into the mind of the
+student as well as of the general reader as to the identity of the
+Scarlet Pimpernel with that of the Gascon Royalist plotter known to
+history as the Baron de Batz, that the time seems opportune for setting
+all doubts on that subject at rest.
+
+The identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel is in no way whatever connected
+with that of the Baron de Batz, and even superficial reflection will
+soon bring the mind to the conclusion that great fundamental differences
+existed in these two men, in their personality, in their character, and,
+above all, in their aims.
+
+According to one or two enthusiastic historians, the Baron de Batz was
+the chief agent in a vast network of conspiracy, entirely supported by
+foreign money--both English and Austrian--and which had for its object
+the overthrow of the Republican Government and the restoration of the
+monarchy in France.
+
+In order to attain this political goal, it is averred that he set
+himself the task of pitting the members of the revolutionary Government
+one against the other, and bringing hatred and dissensions amongst them,
+until the cry of “Traitor!” resounded from one end of the Assembly of
+the Convention to the other, and the Assembly itself became as one vast
+den of wild beasts wherein wolves and hyenas devoured one another and,
+still unsatiated, licked their streaming jaws hungering for more prey.
+
+Those same enthusiastic historians, who have a firm belief in the
+so-called “Foreign Conspiracy,” ascribe every important event of the
+Great Revolution--be that event the downfall of the Girondins, the
+escape of the Dauphin from the Temple, or the death of Robespierre--to
+the intrigues of Baron de Batz. He it was, so they say, who egged the
+Jacobins on against the Mountain, Robespierre against Danton, Hebert
+against Robespierre. He it was who instigated the massacres of
+September, the atrocities of Nantes, the horrors of Thermidor, the
+sacrileges, the noyades: all with the view of causing every section of
+the National Assembly to vie with the other in excesses and in cruelty,
+until the makers of the Revolution, satiated with their own lust, turned
+on one another, and Sardanapalus-like buried themselves and their orgies
+in the vast hecatomb of a self-consumed anarchy.
+
+Whether the power thus ascribed to Baron de Batz by his historians is
+real or imaginary it is not the purpose of this preface to investigate.
+Its sole object is to point out the difference between the career of
+this plotter and that of the Scarlet Pimpernel.
+
+The Baron de Batz himself was an adventurer without substance, save that
+which he derived from abroad. He was one of those men who have nothing
+to lose and everything to gain by throwing themselves headlong in the
+seething cauldron of internal politics.
+
+Though he made several attempts at rescuing King Louis first, and
+then the Queen and Royal Family from prison and from death, he never
+succeeded, as we know, in any of these undertakings, and he never once
+so much as attempted the rescue of other equally innocent, if not quite
+so distinguished, victims of the most bloodthirsty revolution that has
+ever shaken the foundations of the civilised world.
+
+Nay more; when on the 29th Prairial those unfortunate men and women were
+condemned and executed for alleged complicity in the so-called “Foreign
+Conspiracy,” de Batz, who is universally admitted to have been the
+head and prime-mover of that conspiracy--if, indeed, conspiracy there
+was--never made either the slightest attempt to rescue his confederates
+from the guillotine, or at least the offer to perish by their side if he
+could not succeed in saving them.
+
+And when we remember that the martyrs of the 29th Prairial included
+women like Grandmaison, the devoted friend of de Batz, the beautiful
+Emilie de St. Amaranthe, little Cecile Renault--a mere child not sixteen
+years of age--also men like Michonis and Roussell, faithful servants
+of de Batz, the Baron de Lezardiere, and the Comte de St. Maurice,
+his friends, we no longer can have the slightest doubt that the Gascon
+plotter and the English gentleman are indeed two very different persons.
+
+The latter’s aims were absolutely non-political. He never intrigued
+for the restoration of the monarchy, or even for the overthrow of that
+Republic which he loathed.
+
+His only concern was the rescue of the innocent, the stretching out of a
+saving hand to those unfortunate creatures who had fallen into the nets
+spread out for them by their fellow-men; by those who--godless, lawless,
+penniless themselves--had sworn to exterminate all those who clung to
+their belongings, to their religion, and to their beliefs.
+
+The Scarlet Pimpernel did not take it upon himself to punish the guilty;
+his care was solely of the helpless and of the innocent.
+
+For this aim he risked his life every time that he set foot on French
+soil, for it he sacrificed his fortune, and even his personal happiness,
+and to it he devoted his entire existence.
+
+Moreover, whereas the French plotter is said to have had confederates
+even in the Assembly of the Convention, confederates who were
+sufficiently influential and powerful to secure his own immunity, the
+Englishman when he was bent on his errands of mercy had the whole of
+France against him.
+
+The Baron de Batz was a man who never justified either his own ambitions
+or even his existence; the Scarlet Pimpernel was a personality of whom
+an entire nation might justly be proud.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+     PART I
+     I    IN THE THEATRE NATIONAL
+     II    WIDELY DIVERGENT AIMS
+     III    THE DEMON CHANCE
+     IV    MADEMOISELLE LANGE
+     V    THE TEMPLE PRISON
+     VI    THE COMMITTEE’S AGENT
+     VII    THE MOST PRECIOUS LIFE IN EUROPE
+     VIII    ARCADES AMBO
+     IX    WHAT LOVE CAN DO
+     X    SHADOWS
+     XI    THE LEAGUE OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL
+     XII    WHAT LOVE IS
+     XIII    THEN EVERYTHING WAS DARK
+     XIV    THE CHIEF
+     XV    THE GATE OF LA VILLETTE
+     XVI    THE WEARY SEARCH
+     XVII    CHAUVELIN
+     XVIII    THE REMOVAL
+     XIX    IT IS ABOUT THE DAUPHIN
+     XX    THE CERTIFICATE OF SAFETY
+     XXI    BACK TO PARIS
+     XXII    OF THAT THERE COULD BE NO QUESTION
+     XXIII    THE OVERWHELMING ODDS
+
+     PART II
+     XXIV    THE NEWS
+     XXV    PARIS ONCE MORE
+     XXVI    THE BITTEREST FOE
+     XXVI   IN THE CONCIERGERIE
+     XXVIII    THE CAGED LION
+     XXIX    FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT
+     XXX    AFTERWARDS
+     XXXI    AN INTERLUDE
+     XXXII    SISTERS
+     XXXIII    LITTLE MOTHER
+     XXXIV    THE LETTER
+
+     PART III
+     XXXV    THE LAST PHASE
+     XXXVI    SUBMISSION
+     XXXVII    CHAUVELIN’S ADVICE
+     XXXVIII    CAPITULATION
+     XXXIX    KILL HIM!
+     XL    GOD HELP US ALL
+     XLI    WHEN HOPE WAS DEAD
+     XLII    THE GUARD-HOUSE OF THE RUE STE. ANNE
+     XLIII    THE DREARY JOURNEY
+     XLIV    THE HALT AT CRECY
+     XLV   THE FOREST OF BOULOGNE
+     XLVI    OTHERS IN THE PARK
+     XLVII    THE CHAPEL OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE
+     XLVIII    THE WANING MOON
+     XLIX    THE LAND OF ELDORADO
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. IN THE THEATRE NATIONAL
+
+And yet people found the opportunity to amuse themselves, to dance and
+to go to the theatre, to enjoy music and open-air cafes and promenades
+in the Palais Royal.
+
+New fashions in dress made their appearance, milliners produced fresh
+“creations,” and jewellers were not idle. A grim sense of humour, born
+of the very intensity of ever-present danger, had dubbed the cut of
+certain tunics “tete tranche,” or a favourite ragout was called “a la
+guillotine.”
+
+On three evenings only during the past memorable four and a half years
+did the theatres close their doors, and these evenings were the ones
+immediately following that terrible 2nd of September the day of the
+butchery outside the Abbaye prison, when Paris herself was aghast with
+horror, and the cries of the massacred might have drowned the calls of
+the audience whose hands upraised for plaudits would still be dripping
+with blood.
+
+On all other evenings of these same four and a half years the theatres
+in the Rue de Richelieu, in the Palais Royal, the Luxembourg, and
+others, had raised their curtains and taken money at their doors.
+The same audience that earlier in the day had whiled away the time
+by witnessing the ever-recurrent dramas of the Place de la Revolution
+assembled here in the evenings and filled stalls, boxes, and tiers,
+laughing over the satires of Voltaire or weeping over the sentimental
+tragedies of persecuted Romeos and innocent Juliets.
+
+Death knocked at so many doors these days! He was so constant a guest in
+the houses of relatives and friends that those who had merely shaken him
+by the hand, those on whom he had smiled, and whom he, still smiling,
+had passed indulgently by, looked on him with that subtle contempt born
+of familiarity, shrugged their shoulders at his passage, and envisaged
+his probable visit on the morrow with lighthearted indifference.
+
+Paris--despite the horrors that had stained her walls had remained a
+city of pleasure, and the knife of the guillotine did scarce descend
+more often than did the drop-scenes on the stage.
+
+On this bitterly cold evening of the 27th Nivose, in the second year of
+the Republic--or, as we of the old style still persist in calling it,
+the 16th of January, 1794--the auditorium of the Theatre National was
+filled with a very brilliant company.
+
+The appearance of a favourite actress in the part of one of Moliere’s
+volatile heroines had brought pleasure-loving Paris to witness this
+revival of “Le Misanthrope,” with new scenery, dresses, and the
+aforesaid charming actress to add piquancy to the master’s mordant wit.
+
+The Moniteur, which so impartially chronicles the events of those times,
+tells us under that date that the Assembly of the Convention voted on
+that same day a new law giving fuller power to its spies, enabling them
+to effect domiciliary searches at their discretion without previous
+reference to the Committee of General Security, authorising them to
+proceed against all enemies of public happiness, to send them to prison
+at their own discretion, and assuring them the sum of thirty-five livres
+“for every piece of game thus beaten up for the guillotine.” Under that
+same date the Moniteur also puts it on record that the Theatre National
+was filled to its utmost capacity for the revival of the late citoyen
+Moliere’s comedy.
+
+The Assembly of the Convention having voted the new law which placed the
+lives of thousands at the mercy of a few human bloodhounds, adjourned
+its sitting and proceeded to the Rue de Richelieu.
+
+Already the house was full when the fathers of the people made their way
+to the seats which had been reserved for them. An awed hush descended
+on the throng as one by one the men whose very names inspired horror and
+dread filed in through the narrow gangways of the stalls or took their
+places in the tiny boxes around.
+
+Citizen Robespierre’s neatly bewigged head soon appeared in one of
+these; his bosom friend St. Just was with him, and also his sister
+Charlotte. Danton, like a big, shaggy-coated lion, elbowed his way into
+the stalls, whilst Sauterre, the handsome butcher and idol of the people
+of Paris, was loudly acclaimed as his huge frame, gorgeously clad in the
+uniform of the National Guard, was sighted on one of the tiers above.
+
+The public in the parterre and in the galleries whispered excitedly; the
+awe-inspiring names flew about hither and thither on the wings of the
+overheated air. Women craned their necks to catch sight of heads which
+mayhap on the morrow would roll into the gruesome basket at the foot of
+the guillotine.
+
+In one of the tiny avant-scene boxes two men had taken their seats long
+before the bulk of the audience had begun to assemble in the house. The
+inside of the box was in complete darkness, and the narrow opening which
+allowed but a sorry view of one side of the stage helped to conceal
+rather than display the occupants.
+
+The younger one of these two men appeared to be something of a stranger
+in Paris, for as the public men and the well-known members of the
+Government began to arrive he often turned to his companion for
+information regarding these notorious personalities.
+
+“Tell me, de Batz,” he said, calling the other’s attention to a group
+of men who had just entered the house, “that creature there in the green
+coat--with his hand up to his face now--who is he?”
+
+“Where? Which do you mean?”
+
+“There! He looks this way now, and he has a playbill in his hand. The
+man with the protruding chin and the convex forehead, a face like a
+marmoset, and eyes like a jackal. What?”
+
+The other leaned over the edge of the box, and his small, restless eyes
+wandered over the now closely-packed auditorium.
+
+“Oh!” he said as soon as he recognised the face which his friend had
+pointed out to him, “that is citizen Foucquier-Tinville.”
+
+“The Public Prosecutor?”
+
+“Himself. And Heron is the man next to him.”
+
+“Heron?” said the younger man interrogatively.
+
+“Yes. He is chief agent to the Committee of General Security now.”
+
+“What does that mean?”
+
+Both leaned back in their chairs, and their sombrely-clad figures were
+once more merged in the gloom of the narrow box. Instinctively, since
+the name of the Public Prosecutor had been mentioned between them, they
+had allowed their voices to sink to a whisper.
+
+The older man--a stoutish, florid-looking individual, with small, keen
+eyes, and skin pitted with small-pox--shrugged his shoulders at
+his friend’s question, and then said with an air of contemptuous
+indifference:
+
+“It means, my good St. Just, that these two men whom you see down
+there, calmly conning the programme of this evening’s entertainment, and
+preparing to enjoy themselves to-night in the company of the late M. de
+Moliere, are two hell-hounds as powerful as they are cunning.”
+
+“Yes, yes,” said St. Just, and much against his will a slight shudder
+ran through his slim figure as he spoke. “Foucquier-Tinville I know; I
+know his cunning, and I know his power--but the other?”
+
+“The other?” retorted de Batz lightly. “Heron? Let me tell you, my
+friend, that even the might and lust of that damned Public Prosecutor
+pale before the power of Heron!”
+
+“But how? I do not understand.”
+
+“Ah! you have been in England so long, you lucky dog, and though no
+doubt the main plot of our hideous tragedy has reached your ken, you
+have no cognisance of the actors who play the principal parts on this
+arena flooded with blood and carpeted with hate. They come and go, these
+actors, my good St. Just--they come and go. Marat is already the man
+of yesterday, Robespierre is the man of to-morrow. To-day we still have
+Danton and Foucquier-Tinville; we still have Pere Duchesne, and your
+own good cousin Antoine St. Just, but Heron and his like are with us
+always.”
+
+“Spies, of course?”
+
+“Spies,” assented the other. “And what spies! Were you present at the
+sitting of the Assembly to-day?”
+
+“I was. I heard the new decree which already has passed into law. Ah! I
+tell you, friend, that we do not let the grass grow under our feet these
+days. Robespierre wakes up one morning with a whim; by the afternoon
+that whim has become law, passed by a servile body of men too terrified
+to run counter to his will, fearful lest they be accused of moderation
+or of humanity--the greatest crimes that can be committed nowadays.”
+
+“But Danton?”
+
+“Ah! Danton? He would wish to stem the tide that his own passions
+have let loose; to muzzle the raging beasts whose fangs he himself has
+sharpened. I told you that Danton is still the man of to-day; to-morrow
+he will be accused of moderation. Danton and moderation!--ye gods!
+Eh? Danton, who thought the guillotine too slow in its work, and armed
+thirty soldiers with swords, so that thirty heads might fall at one
+and the same time. Danton, friend, will perish to-morrow accused of
+treachery against the Revolution, of moderation towards her enemies;
+and curs like Heron will feast on the blood of lions like Danton and his
+crowd.”
+
+He paused a moment, for he dared not raise his voice, and his whispers
+were being drowned by the noise in the auditorium. The curtain, timed
+to be raised at eight o’clock, was still down, though it was close on
+half-past, and the public was growing impatient. There was loud stamping
+of feet, and a few shrill whistles of disapproval proceeded from the
+gallery.
+
+“If Heron gets impatient,” said de Batz lightly, when the noise had
+momentarily subsided, “the manager of this theatre and mayhap his leading
+actor and actress will spend an unpleasant day to-morrow.”
+
+“Always Heron!” said St. Just, with a contemptuous smile.
+
+“Yes, my friend,” rejoined the other imperturbably, “always Heron. And
+he has even obtained a longer lease of existence this afternoon.”
+
+“By the new decree?”
+
+“Yes. The new decree. The agents of the Committee of General Security,
+of whom Heron is the chief, have from to-day powers of domiciliary
+search; they have full powers to proceed against all enemies of
+public welfare. Isn’t that beautifully vague? And they have absolute
+discretion; every one may become an enemy of public welfare, either by
+spending too much money or by spending too little, by laughing to-day
+or crying to-morrow, by mourning for one dead relative or rejoicing over
+the execution of another. He may be a bad example to the public by
+the cleanliness of his person or by the filth upon his clothes, he may
+offend by walking to-day and by riding in a carriage next week; the
+agents of the Committee of General Security shall alone decide what
+constitutes enmity against public welfare. All prisons are to be opened
+at their bidding to receive those whom they choose to denounce; they
+have henceforth the right to examine prisoners privately and without
+witnesses, and to send them to trial without further warrants; their
+duty is clear--they must ‘beat up game for the guillotine.’ Thus is the
+decree worded; they must furnish the Public Prosecutor with work to do,
+the tribunals with victims to condemn, the Place de la Revolution
+with death-scenes to amuse the people, and for their work they will
+be rewarded thirty-five livres for every head that falls under the
+guillotine Ah! if Heron and his like and his myrmidons work hard and
+well they can make a comfortable income of four or five thousand livres
+a week. We are getting on, friend St. Just--we are getting on.”
+
+He had not raised his voice while he spoke, nor in the recounting of
+such inhuman monstrosity, such vile and bloodthirsty conspiracy against
+the liberty, the dignity, the very life of an entire nation, did he
+appear to feel the slightest indignation; rather did a tone of amusement
+and even of triumph strike through his speech; and now he laughed
+good-humouredly like an indulgent parent who is watching the naturally
+cruel antics of a spoilt boy.
+
+“Then from this hell let loose upon earth,” exclaimed St. Just hotly,
+“must we rescue those who refuse to ride upon this tide of blood.”
+
+His cheeks were glowing, his eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. He looked
+very young and very eager. Armand St. Just, the brother of Lady
+Blakeney, had something of the refined beauty of his lovely sister, but
+the features though manly--had not the latent strength expressed in
+them which characterised every line of Marguerite’s exquisite face. The
+forehead suggested a dreamer rather than a thinker, the blue-grey eyes
+were those of an idealist rather than of a man of action.
+
+De Batz’s keen piercing eyes had no doubt noted this, even whilst
+he gazed at his young friend with that same look of good-humoured
+indulgence which seemed habitual to him.
+
+“We have to think of the future, my good St. Just,” he said after a
+slight pause, and speaking slowly and decisively, like a father rebuking
+a hot-headed child, “not of the present. What are a few lives worth
+beside the great principles which we have at stake?”
+
+“The restoration of the monarchy--I know,” retorted St. Just, still
+unsobered, “but, in the meanwhile--”
+
+“In the meanwhile,” rejoined de Batz earnestly, “every victim to
+the lust of these men is a step towards the restoration of law and
+order--that is to say, of the monarchy. It is only through these violent
+excesses perpetrated in its name that the nation will realise how it is
+being fooled by a set of men who have only their own power and their own
+advancement in view, and who imagine that the only way to that power is
+over the dead bodies of those who stand in their way. Once the nation is
+sickened by these orgies of ambition and of hate, it will turn against
+these savage brutes, and gladly acclaim the restoration of all that
+they are striving to destroy. This is our only hope for the future, and,
+believe me, friend, that every head snatched from the guillotine by
+your romantic hero, the Scarlet Pimpernel, is a stone laid for the
+consolidation of this infamous Republic.”
+
+“I’ll not believe it,” protested St. Just emphatically.
+
+De Batz, with a gesture of contempt indicative also of complete
+self-satisfaction and unalterable self-belief, shrugged his broad
+shoulders. His short fat fingers, covered with rings, beat a tattoo upon
+the ledge of the box.
+
+Obviously, he was ready with a retort. His young friend’s attitude
+irritated even more than it amused him. But he said nothing for the
+moment, waiting while the traditional three knocks on the floor of the
+stage proclaimed the rise of the curtain. The growing impatience of the
+audience subsided as if by magic at the welcome call; everybody settled
+down again comfortably in their seats, they gave up the contemplation of
+the fathers of the people, and turned their full attention to the actors
+on the boards.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. WIDELY DIVERGENT AIMS
+
+This was Armand S. Just’s first visit to Paris since that memorable day
+when first he decided to sever his connection from the Republican party,
+of which he and his beautiful sister Marguerite had at one time been
+amongst the most noble, most enthusiastic followers. Already a year and
+a half ago the excesses of the party had horrified him, and that was
+long before they had degenerated into the sickening orgies which were
+culminating to-day in wholesale massacres and bloody hecatombs of
+innocent victims.
+
+With the death of Mirabeau the moderate Republicans, whose sole and
+entirely pure aim had been to free the people of France from the
+autocratic tyranny of the Bourbons, saw the power go from their clean
+hands to the grimy ones of lustful demagogues, who knew no law save
+their own passions of bitter hatred against all classes that were not as
+self-seeking, as ferocious as themselves.
+
+It was no longer a question of a fight for political and religious
+liberty only, but one of class against class, man against man, and
+let the weaker look to himself. The weaker had proved himself to
+be, firstly, the man of property and substance, then the law-abiding
+citizen, lastly the man of action who had obtained for the people that
+very same liberty of thought and of belief which soon became so terribly
+misused.
+
+Armand St. Just, one of the apostles of liberty, fraternity, and
+equality, soon found that the most savage excesses of tyranny were being
+perpetrated in the name of those same ideals which he had worshipped.
+
+His sister Marguerite, happily married in England, was the final
+temptation which caused him to quit the country the destinies of which
+he no longer could help to control. The spark of enthusiasm which he
+and the followers of Mirabeau had tried to kindle in the hearts of an
+oppressed people had turned to raging tongues of unquenchable flames.
+The taking of the Bastille had been the prelude to the massacres of
+September, and even the horror of these had since paled beside the
+holocausts of to-day.
+
+Armand, saved from the swift vengeance of the revolutionaries by the
+devotion of the Scarlet Pimpernel, crossed over to England and enrolled
+himself under the banner of the heroic chief. But he had been unable
+hitherto to be an active member of the League. The chief was loath to
+allow him to run foolhardy risks. The St. Justs--both Marguerite and
+Armand--were still very well-known in Paris. Marguerite was not a woman
+easily forgotten, and her marriage with an English “aristo” did not
+please those republican circles who had looked upon her as their queen.
+Armand’s secession from his party into the ranks of the emigres had
+singled him out for special reprisals, if and whenever he could be got
+hold of, and both brother and sister had an unusually bitter enemy in
+their cousin Antoine St. Just--once an aspirant to Marguerite’s hand,
+and now a servile adherent and imitator of Robespierre, whose ferocious
+cruelty he tried to emulate with a view to ingratiating himself with the
+most powerful man of the day.
+
+Nothing would have pleased Antoine St. Just more than the opportunity of
+showing his zeal and his patriotism by denouncing his own kith and kin
+to the Tribunal of the Terror, and the Scarlet Pimpernel, whose own
+slender fingers were held on the pulse of that reckless revolution, had
+no wish to sacrifice Armand’s life deliberately, or even to expose it to
+unnecessary dangers.
+
+Thus it was that more than a year had gone by before Armand St. Just--an
+enthusiastic member of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel--was able
+to do aught for its service. He had chafed under the enforced restraint
+placed upon him by the prudence of his chief, when, indeed, he was
+longing to risk his life with the comrades whom he loved and beside the
+leader whom he revered.
+
+At last, in the beginning of ‘94 he persuaded Blakeney to allow him
+to join the next expedition to France. What the principal aim of that
+expedition was the members of the League did not know as yet, but what
+they did know was that perils--graver even than hitherto--would attend
+them on their way.
+
+The circumstances had become very different of late. At first the
+impenetrable mystery which had surrounded the personality of the chief
+had been a full measure of safety, but now one tiny corner of that
+veil of mystery had been lifted by two rough pairs of hands at least;
+Chauvelin, ex-ambassador at the English Court, was no longer in any
+doubt as to the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel, whilst Collot
+d’Herbois had seen him at Boulogne, and had there been effectually
+foiled by him.
+
+Four months had gone by since that day, and the Scarlet Pimpernel
+was hardly ever out of France now; the massacres in Paris and in the
+provinces had multiplied with appalling rapidity, the necessity for the
+selfless devotion of that small band of heroes had become daily, hourly
+more pressing. They rallied round their chief with unbounded enthusiasm,
+and let it be admitted at once that the sporting instinct--inherent in
+these English gentlemen--made them all the more keen, all the more
+eager now that the dangers which beset their expeditions were increased
+tenfold.
+
+At a word from the beloved leader, these young men--the spoilt darlings
+of society--would leave the gaieties, the pleasures, the luxuries of
+London or of Bath, and, taking their lives in their hands, they placed
+them, together with their fortunes, and even their good names, at the
+service of the innocent and helpless victims of merciless tyranny. The
+married men--Ffoulkes, my Lord Hastings, Sir Jeremiah Wallescourt--left
+wife and children at a call from the chief, at the cry of the wretched.
+Armand--unattached and enthusiastic--had the right to demand that he
+should no longer be left behind.
+
+He had only been away a little over fifteen months, and yet he found
+Paris a different city from the one he had left immediately after the
+terrible massacres of September. An air of grim loneliness seemed to
+hang over her despite the crowds that thronged her streets; the men whom
+he was wont to meet in public places fifteen months ago--friends and
+political allies--were no longer to be seen; strange faces surrounded
+him on every side--sullen, glowering faces, all wearing a certain air of
+horrified surprise and of vague, terrified wonder, as if life had
+become one awful puzzle, the answer to which must be found in the brief
+interval between the swift passages of death.
+
+Armand St. Just, having settled his few simple belongings in the squalid
+lodgings which had been assigned to him, had started out after dark to
+wander somewhat aimlessly through the streets. Instinctively he seemed
+to be searching for a familiar face, some one who would come to him out
+of that merry past which he had spent with Marguerite in their pretty
+apartment in the Rue St. Honore.
+
+For an hour he wandered thus and met no one whom he knew. At times it
+appeared to him as if he did recognise a face or figure that passed him
+swiftly by in the gloom, but even before he could fully make up his mind
+to that, the face or figure had already disappeared, gliding furtively
+down some narrow unlighted by-street, without turning to look to right
+or left, as if dreading fuller recognition. Armand felt a total stranger
+in his own native city.
+
+The terrible hours of the execution on the Place de la Revolution
+were fortunately over, the tumbrils no longer rattled along the uneven
+pavements, nor did the death-cry of the unfortunate victims resound
+through the deserted streets. Armand was, on this first day of his
+arrival, spared the sight of this degradation of the once lovely city;
+but her desolation, her general appearance of shamefaced indigence and
+of cruel aloofness struck a chill in the young man’s heart.
+
+It was no wonder, therefore, when anon he was wending his way slowly
+back to his lodging he was accosted by a pleasant, cheerful voice, that
+he responded to it with alacrity. The voice, of a smooth, oily timbre,
+as if the owner kept it well greased for purposes of amiable speech,
+was like an echo of the past, when jolly, irresponsible Baron de Batz,
+erst-while officer of the Guard in the service of the late King,
+and since then known to be the most inveterate conspirator for the
+restoration of the monarchy, used to amuse Marguerite by his vapid,
+senseless plans for the overthrow of the newly-risen power of the
+people.
+
+Armand was quite glad to meet him, and when de Batz suggested that a
+good talk over old times would be vastly agreeable, the younger man
+gladly acceded. The two men, though certainly not mistrustful of one
+another, did not seem to care to reveal to each other the place where
+they lodged. De Batz at once proposed the avant-scene box of one of the
+theatres as being the safest place where old friends could talk without
+fear of spying eyes or ears.
+
+“There is no place so safe or so private nowadays, believe me, my young
+friend,” he said “I have tried every sort of nook and cranny in this
+accursed town, now riddled with spies, and I have come to the conclusion
+that a small avant-scene box is the most perfect den of privacy there
+is in the entire city. The voices of the actors on the stage and the hum
+among the audience in the house will effectually drown all individual
+conversation to every ear save the one for whom it is intended.”
+
+It is not difficult to persuade a young man who feels lonely and
+somewhat forlorn in a large city to while away an evening in the
+companionship of a cheerful talker, and de Batz was essentially good
+company. His vapourings had always been amusing, but Armand now gave him
+credit for more seriousness of purpose; and though the chief had warned
+him against picking up acquaintances in Paris, the young man felt that
+that restriction would certainly not apply to a man like de Batz, whose
+hot partisanship of the Royalist cause and hare-brained schemes for
+its restoration must make him at one with the League of the Scarlet
+Pimpernel.
+
+Armand accepted the other’s cordial invitation. He, too, felt that he
+would indeed be safer from observation in a crowded theatre than in
+the streets. Among a closely packed throng bent on amusement the
+sombrely-clad figure of a young man, with the appearance of a student or
+of a journalist, would easily pass unperceived.
+
+But somehow, after the first ten minutes spent in de Batz’ company
+within the gloomy shelter of the small avant-scene box, Armand already
+repented of the impulse which had prompted him to come to the theatre
+to-night, and to renew acquaintanceship with the ex-officer of the late
+King’s Guard. Though he knew de Batz to be an ardent Royalist, and even
+an active adherent of the monarchy, he was soon conscious of a vague
+sense of mistrust of this pompous, self-complacent individual, whose
+every utterance breathed selfish aims rather than devotion to a forlorn
+cause.
+
+Therefore, when the curtain rose at last on the first act of Moliere’s
+witty comedy, St. Just turned deliberately towards the stage and tried
+to interest himself in the wordy quarrel between Philinte and Alceste.
+
+But this attitude on the part of the younger man did not seem to suit
+his newly-found friend. It was clear that de Batz did not consider the
+topic of conversation by any means exhausted, and that it had been more
+with a view to a discussion like the present interrupted one that he had
+invited St. Just to come to the theatre with him to-night, rather
+than for the purpose of witnessing Mlle. Lange’s debut in the part of
+Celimene.
+
+The presence of St. Just in Paris had as a matter of fact astonished de
+Batz not a little, and had set his intriguing brain busy on conjectures.
+It was in order to turn these conjectures into certainties that he had
+desired private talk with the young man.
+
+He waited silently now for a moment or two, his keen, small eyes resting
+with evident anxiety on Armand’s averted head, his fingers still beating
+the impatient tattoo upon the velvet-covered cushion of the box. Then at
+the first movement of St. Just towards him he was ready in an instant to
+re-open the subject under discussion.
+
+With a quick nod of his head he called his young friend’s attention back
+to the men in the auditorium.
+
+“Your good cousin Antoine St. Just is hand and glove with Robespierre
+now,” he said. “When you left Paris more than a year ago you could
+afford to despise him as an empty-headed windbag; now, if you desire to
+remain in France, you will have to fear him as a power and a menace.”
+
+“Yes, I knew that he had taken to herding with the wolves,” rejoined
+Armand lightly. “At one time he was in love with my sister. I thank God
+that she never cared for him.”
+
+“They say that he herds with the wolves because of this disappointment,”
+ said de Batz. “The whole pack is made up of men who have been
+disappointed, and who have nothing more to lose. When all these wolves
+will have devoured one another, then and then only can we hope for the
+restoration of the monarchy in France. And they will not turn on one
+another whilst prey for their greed lies ready to their jaws. Your
+friend the Scarlet Pimpernel should feed this bloody revolution of ours
+rather than starve it, if indeed he hates it as he seems to do.”
+
+His restless eyes peered with eager interrogation into those of the
+younger man. He paused as if waiting for a reply; then, as St. Just
+remained silent, he reiterated slowly, almost in the tones of a
+challenge:
+
+“If indeed he hates this bloodthirsty revolution of ours as he seems to
+do.”
+
+The reiteration implied a doubt. In a moment St. Just’s loyalty was up
+in arms.
+
+“The Scarlet Pimpernel,” he said, “cares naught for your political aims.
+The work of mercy that he does, he does for justice and for humanity.”
+
+“And for sport,” said de Batz with a sneer, “so I’ve been told.”
+
+“He is English,” assented St. Just, “and as such will never own to
+sentiment. Whatever be the motive, look at the result!
+
+“Yes! a few lives stolen from the guillotine.”
+
+“Women and children--innocent victims--would have perished but for his
+devotion.”
+
+“The more innocent they were, the more helpless, the more pitiable,
+the louder would their blood have cried for reprisals against the wild
+beasts who sent them to their death.”
+
+St. Just made no reply. It was obviously useless to attempt to argue
+with this man, whose political aims were as far apart from those of the
+Scarlet Pimpernel as was the North Pole from the South.
+
+“If any of you have influence over that hot-headed leader of yours,”
+ continued de Batz, unabashed by the silence of his friend, “I wish to
+God you would exert it now.”
+
+“In what way?” queried St. Just, smiling in spite of himself at the
+thought of his or any one else’s control over Blakeney and his plans.
+
+It was de Batz’ turn to be silent. He paused for a moment or two, then
+he asked abruptly:
+
+“Your Scarlet Pimpernel is in Paris now, is he not?”
+
+“I cannot tell you,” replied Armand.
+
+“Bah! there is no necessity to fence with me, my friend. The moment I
+set eyes on you this afternoon I knew that you had not come to Paris
+alone.”
+
+“You are mistaken, my good de Batz,” rejoined the young man earnestly;
+“I came to Paris alone.”
+
+“Clever parrying, on my word--but wholly wasted on my unbelieving ears.
+Did I not note at once that you did not seem overpleased to-day when I
+accosted you?”
+
+“Again you are mistaken. I was very pleased to meet you, for I had felt
+singularly lonely all day, and was glad to shake a friend by the hand.
+What you took for displeasure was only surprise.”
+
+“Surprise? Ah, yes! I don’t wonder that you were surprised to see me
+walking unmolested and openly in the streets of Paris--whereas you had
+heard of me as a dangerous conspirator, eh?--and as a man who has the
+entire police of his country at his heels--on whose head there is a
+price--what?”
+
+“I knew that you had made several noble efforts to rescue the
+unfortunate King and Queen from the hands of these brutes.”
+
+“All of which efforts were unsuccessful,” assented de Batz
+imperturbably, “every one of them having been either betrayed by some
+d----d confederate or ferreted out by some astute spy eager for gain. Yes,
+my friend, I made several efforts to rescue King Louis and Queen Marie
+Antoinette from the scaffold, and every time I was foiled, and yet here
+I am, you see, unscathed and free. I walk about the streets boldly, and
+talk to my friends as I meet them.”
+
+“You are lucky,” said St. Just, not without a tinge of sarcasm.
+
+“I have been prudent,” retorted de Batz. “I have taken the trouble to
+make friends there where I thought I needed them most--the mammon of
+unrighteousness, you know-what?”
+
+And he laughed a broad, thick laugh of perfect self-satisfaction.
+
+“Yes, I know,” rejoined St. Just, with the tone of sarcasm still more
+apparent in his voice now. “You have Austrian money at your disposal.”
+
+“Any amount,” said the other complacently, “and a great deal of it
+sticks to the grimy fingers of these patriotic makers of revolutions.
+Thus do I ensure my own safety. I buy it with the Emperor’s money, and
+thus am I able to work for the restoration of the monarchy in France.”
+
+Again St. Just was silent. What could he say? Instinctively now, as the
+fleshy personality of the Gascon Royalist seemed to spread itself out
+and to fill the tiny box with his ambitious schemes and his far-reaching
+plans, Armand’s thoughts flew back to that other plotter, the man
+with the pure and simple aims, the man whose slender fingers had never
+handled alien gold, but were ever there ready stretched out to the
+helpless and the weak, whilst his thoughts were only of the help that he
+might give them, but never of his own safety.
+
+De Batz, however, seemed blandly unconscious of any such disparaging
+thoughts in the mind of his young friend, for he continued quite
+amiably, even though a note of anxiety seemed to make itself felt now in
+his smooth voice:
+
+“We advance slowly, but step by step, my good St. Just,” he said. “I
+have not been able to save the monarchy in the person of the King or the
+Queen, but I may yet do it in the person of the Dauphin.”
+
+“The Dauphin,” murmured St. Just involuntarily.
+
+That involuntary murmur, scarcely audible, so soft was it, seemed in
+some way to satisfy de Batz, for the keenness of his gaze relaxed, and
+his fat fingers ceased their nervous, intermittent tattoo on the ledge
+of the box.
+
+“Yes! the Dauphin,” he said, nodding his head as if in answer to his
+own thoughts, “or rather, let me say, the reigning King of France--Louis
+XVII, by the grace of God--the most precious life at present upon the
+whole of this earth.”
+
+“You are right there, friend de Batz,” assented Armand fervently,
+“the most precious life, as you say, and one that must be saved at all
+costs.”
+
+“Yes,” said de Batz calmly, “but not by your friend the Scarlet
+Pimpernel.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+Scarce were those two little words out of St. Just’s mouth than he
+repented of them. He bit his lip, and with a dark frown upon his face he
+turned almost defiantly towards his friend.
+
+But de Batz smiled with easy bonhomie.
+
+“Ah, friend Armand,” he said, “you were not cut out for diplomacy, nor
+yet for intrigue. So then,” he added more seriously, “that gallant hero,
+the Scarlet Pimpernel, has hopes of rescuing our young King from the
+clutches of Simon the cobbler and of the herd of hyenas on the watch for
+his attenuated little corpse, eh?”
+
+“I did not say that,” retorted St. Just sullenly.
+
+“No. But I say it. Nay! nay! do not blame yourself, my over-loyal young
+friend. Could I, or any one else, doubt for a moment that sooner or
+later your romantic hero would turn his attention to the most pathetic
+sight in the whole of Europe--the child-martyr in the Temple prison?
+The wonder were to me if the Scarlet Pimpernel ignored our little King
+altogether for the sake of his subjects. No, no; do not think for a
+moment that you have betrayed your friend’s secret to me. When I met you
+so luckily today I guessed at once that you were here under the banner
+of the enigmatical little red flower, and, thus guessing, I even went a
+step further in my conjecture. The Scarlet Pimpernel is in Paris now in
+the hope of rescuing Louis XVII from the Temple prison.”
+
+“If that is so, you must not only rejoice but should be able to help.”
+
+“And yet, my friend, I do neither the one now nor mean to do the other
+in the future,” said de Batz placidly. “I happen to be a Frenchman, you
+see.”
+
+“What has that to do with such a question?”
+
+“Everything; though you, Armand, despite that you are a Frenchman too,
+do not look through my spectacles. Louis XVII is King of France, my good
+St. Just; he must owe his freedom and his life to us Frenchmen, and to
+no one else.”
+
+“That is sheer madness, man,” retorted Armand. “Would you have the child
+perish for the sake of your own selfish ideas?”
+
+“You may call them selfish if you will; all patriotism is in a measure
+selfish. What does the rest of the world care if we are a republic or a
+monarchy, an oligarchy or hopeless anarchy? We work for ourselves and to
+please ourselves, and I for one will not brook foreign interference.”
+
+“Yet you work with foreign money!”
+
+“That is another matter. I cannot get money in France, so I get it where
+I can; but I can arrange for the escape of Louis XVII from the Temple
+Prison, and to us Royalists of France should belong the honour and glory
+of having saved our King.”
+
+For the third time now St. Just allowed the conversation to drop; he was
+gazing wide-eyed, almost appalled at this impudent display of well-nigh
+ferocious selfishness and vanity. De Batz, smiling and complacent, was
+leaning back in his chair, looking at his young friend with perfect
+contentment expressed in every line of his pock-marked face and in the
+very attitude of his well-fed body. It was easy enough now to understand
+the remarkable immunity which this man was enjoying, despite the many
+foolhardy plots which he hatched, and which had up to now invariably
+come to naught.
+
+A regular braggart and empty windbag, he had taken but one good care,
+and that was of his own skin. Unlike other less fortunate Royalists of
+France, he neither fought in the country nor braved dangers in town. He
+played a safer game--crossed the frontier and constituted himself agent
+of Austria; he succeeded in gaining the Emperor’s money for the good of
+the Royalist cause, and for his own most especial benefit.
+
+Even a less astute man of the world than was Armand St. Just would
+easily have guessed that de Batz’ desire to be the only instrument in
+the rescue of the poor little Dauphin from the Temple was not actuated
+by patriotism, but solely by greed. Obviously there was a rich reward
+waiting for him in Vienna the day that he brought Louis XVII safely into
+Austrian territory; that reward he would miss if a meddlesome Englishman
+interfered in this affair. Whether in this wrangle he risked the life of
+the child-King or not mattered to him not at all. It was de Batz who was
+to get the reward, and whose welfare and prosperity mattered more than
+the most precious life in Europe.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE DEMON CHANCE
+
+St. Just would have given much to be back in his lonely squalid lodgings
+now. Too late did he realise how wise had been the dictum which had
+warned him against making or renewing friendships in France.
+
+Men had changed with the times. How terribly they had changed! Personal
+safety had become a fetish with most--a goal so difficult to attain that
+it had to be fought for and striven for, even at the expense of humanity
+and of self-respect.
+
+Selfishness--the mere, cold-blooded insistence for
+self-advancement--ruled supreme. De Batz, surfeited with foreign money,
+used it firstly to ensure his own immunity, scattering it to right and
+left to still the ambition of the Public Prosecutor or to satisfy the
+greed of innumerable spies.
+
+What was left over he used for the purpose of pitting the bloodthirsty
+demagogues one against the other, making of the National Assembly a
+gigantic bear-den, wherein wild beasts could rend one another limb from
+limb.
+
+In the meanwhile, what cared he--he said it himself--whether hundreds
+of innocent martyrs perished miserably and uselessly? They were the
+necessary food whereby the Revolution was to be satiated and de Batz’
+schemes enabled to mature. The most precious life in Europe even was
+only to be saved if its price went to swell the pockets of de Batz, or
+to further his future ambitions.
+
+Times had indeed changed an entire nation. St. Just felt as sickened
+with this self-seeking Royalist as he did with the savage brutes who
+struck to right or left for their own delectation. He was meditating
+immediate flight back to his lodgings, with a hope of finding there
+a word for him from the chief--a word to remind him that men did live
+nowadays who had other aims besides their own advancement--other ideals
+besides the deification of self.
+
+The curtain had descended on the first act, and traditionally, as the
+works of M. de Moliere demanded it, the three knocks were heard again
+without any interval. St. Just rose ready with a pretext for parting
+with his friend. The curtain was being slowly drawn up on the second
+act, and disclosed Alceste in wrathful conversation with Celimene.
+
+Alceste’s opening speech is short. Whilst the actor spoke it Armand had
+his back to the stage; with hand outstretched, he was murmuring what
+he hoped would prove a polite excuse for thus leaving his amiable host
+while the entertainment had only just begun.
+
+De Batz--vexed and impatient--had not by any means finished with his
+friend yet. He thought that his specious arguments--delivered with
+boundless conviction--had made some impression on the mind of the young
+man. That impression, however, he desired to deepen, and whilst Armand
+was worrying his brain to find a plausible excuse for going away, de
+Batz was racking his to find one for keeping him here.
+
+Then it was that the wayward demon Chance intervened. Had St. Just
+risen but two minutes earlier, had his active mind suggested the
+desired excuse more readily, who knows what unspeakable sorrow, what
+heartrending misery, what terrible shame might have been spared both
+him and those for whom he cared? Those two minutes--did he but know
+it--decided the whole course of his future life. The excuse hovered on
+his lips, de Batz reluctantly was preparing to bid him good-bye,
+when Celimene, speaking common-place words enough in answer to her
+quarrelsome lover, caused him to drop the hand which he was holding out
+to his friend and to turn back towards the stage.
+
+It was an exquisite voice that had spoken--a voice mellow and tender,
+with deep tones in it that betrayed latent power. The voice had caused
+Armand to look, the lips that spoke forged the first tiny link of that
+chain which riveted him forever after to the speaker.
+
+It is difficult to say if such a thing really exists as love at first
+sight. Poets and romancists will have us believe that it does; idealists
+swear by it as being the only true love worthy of the name.
+
+I do not know if I am prepared to admit their theory with regard to
+Armand St. Just. Mlle. Lange’s exquisite voice certainly had charmed
+him to the extent of making him forget his mistrust of de Batz and his
+desire to get away. Mechanically almost he sat down again, and leaning
+both elbows on the edge of the box, he rested his chin in his hand, and
+listened. The words which the late M. de Moliere puts into the mouth
+of Celimene are trite and flippant enough, yet every time that Mlle.
+Lange’s lips moved Armand watched her, entranced.
+
+There, no doubt, the matter would have ended: a young man fascinated
+by a pretty woman on the stage--‘tis a small matter, and one from which
+there doth not often spring a weary trail of tragic circumstances.
+Armand, who had a passion for music, would have worshipped at the shrine
+of Mlle. Lange’s perfect voice until the curtain came down on the last
+act, had not his friend de Batz seen the keen enchantment which the
+actress had produced on the young enthusiast.
+
+Now de Batz was a man who never allowed an opportunity to slip by, if
+that opportunity led towards the furtherance of his own desires. He
+did not want to lose sight of Armand just yet, and here the good demon
+Chance had given him an opportunity for obtaining what he wanted.
+
+He waited quietly until the fall of the curtain at the end of Act II.;
+then, as Armand, with a sigh of delight, leaned back in his chair,
+and closing his eyes appeared to be living the last half-hour all over
+again, de Batz remarked with well-assumed indifference:
+
+“Mlle. Lange is a promising young actress. Do you not think so, my
+friend?”
+
+“She has a perfect voice--it was exquisite melody to the ear,” replied
+Armand. “I was conscious of little else.”
+
+“She is a beautiful woman, nevertheless,” continued de Batz with a
+smile. “During the next act, my good St. Just, I would suggest that you
+open your eyes as well as your ears.”
+
+Armand did as he was bidden. The whole appearance of Mlle. Lange
+seemed in harmony with her voice. She was not very tall, but eminently
+graceful, with a small, oval face and slender, almost childlike figure,
+which appeared still more so above the wide hoops and draped panniers of
+the fashions of Moliere’s time.
+
+Whether she was beautiful or not the young man hardly knew. Measured
+by certain standards, she certainly was not so, for her mouth was not
+small, and her nose anything but classical in outline. But the eyes
+were brown, and they had that half-veiled look in them--shaded with long
+lashes that seemed to make a perpetual tender appeal to the masculine
+heart: the lips, too, were full and moist, and the teeth dazzling white.
+Yes!--on the whole we might easily say that she was exquisite, even
+though we did not admit that she was beautiful.
+
+Painter David has made a sketch of her; we have all seen it at the Musee
+Carnavalet, and all wondered why that charming, if irregular, little
+face made such an impression of sadness.
+
+There are five acts in “Le Misanthrope,” during which Celimene is almost
+constantly on the stage. At the end of the fourth act de Batz said
+casually to his friend:
+
+“I have the honour of personal acquaintanceship with Mlle. Lange. An you
+care for an introduction to her, we can go round to the green-room after
+the play.”
+
+Did prudence then whisper, “Desist”? Did loyalty to the leader murmur,
+“Obey”? It were indeed difficult to say. Armand St. Just was not
+five-and-twenty, and Mlle. Lange’s melodious voice spoke louder than the
+whisperings of prudence or even than the call of duty.
+
+He thanked de Batz warmly, and during the last half-hour, while the
+misanthropical lover spurned repentant Celimene, he was conscious of a
+curious sensation of impatience, a tingling of his nerves, a wild, mad
+longing to hear those full moist lips pronounce his name, and have those
+large brown eyes throw their half-veiled look into his own.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. MADEMOISELLE LANGE
+
+The green-room was crowded when de Batz and St. Just arrived there after
+the performance. The older man cast a hasty glance through the open
+door. The crowd did not suit his purpose, and he dragged his companion
+hurriedly away from the contemplation of Mlle. Lange, sitting in a far
+corner of the room, surrounded by an admiring throng, and by innumerable
+floral tributes offered to her beauty and to her success.
+
+De Batz without a word led the way back towards the stage. Here, by the
+dim light of tallow candles fixed in sconces against the surrounding
+walls, the scene-shifters were busy moving drop-scenes, back cloths and
+wings, and paid no heed to the two men who strolled slowly up and down
+silently, each wrapped in his own thoughts.
+
+Armand walked with his hands buried in his breeches pockets, his head
+bent forward on his chest; but every now and again he threw quick,
+apprehensive glances round him whenever a firm step echoed along the
+empty stage or a voice rang clearly through the now deserted theatre.
+
+“Are we wise to wait here?” he asked, speaking to himself rather than to
+his companion.
+
+He was not anxious about his own safety; but the words of de Batz had
+impressed themselves upon his mind: “Heron and his spies we have always
+with us.”
+
+From the green-room a separate foyer and exit led directly out into
+the street. Gradually the sound of many voices, the loud laughter and
+occasional snatches of song which for the past half-hour had proceeded
+from that part of the house, became more subdued and more rare. One by
+one the friends of the artists were leaving the theatre, after having
+paid the usual banal compliments to those whom they favoured, or
+presented the accustomed offering of flowers to the brightest star of
+the night.
+
+The actors were the first to retire, then the older actresses, the ones
+who could no longer command a court of admirers round them. They all
+filed out of the green-room and crossed the stage to where, at the
+back, a narrow, rickety wooden stairs led to their so-called
+dressing-rooms--tiny, dark cubicles, ill-lighted, unventilated, where
+some half-dozen of the lesser stars tumbled over one another while
+removing wigs and grease-paint.
+
+Armand and de Batz watched this exodus, both with equal impatience.
+Mlle. Lange was the last to leave the green-room. For some time, since
+the crowd had become thinner round her, Armand had contrived to catch
+glimpses of her slight, elegant figure. A short passage led from the
+stage to the green-room door, which was wide open, and at the corner
+of this passage the young man had paused from time to time in his walk,
+gazing with earnest admiration at the dainty outline of the young girl’s
+head, with its wig of powdered curls that seemed scarcely whiter than
+the creamy brilliance of her skin.
+
+De Batz did not watch Mlle. Lange beyond casting impatient looks in the
+direction of the crowd that prevented her leaving the green-room. He
+did watch Armand, however--noted his eager look, his brisk and alert
+movements, the obvious glances of admiration which he cast in the
+direction of the young actress, and this seemed to afford him a
+considerable amount of contentment.
+
+The best part of an hour had gone by since the fall of the curtain
+before Mlle. Lange finally dismissed her many admirers, and de Batz had
+the satisfaction of seeing her running down the passage, turning back
+occasionally in order to bid gay “good-nights” to the loiterers who
+were loath to part from her. She was a child in all her movements, quite
+unconscious of self or of her own charms, but frankly delighted with
+her success. She was still dressed in the ridiculous hoops and panniers
+pertaining to her part, and the powdered peruke hid the charm of her
+own hair; the costume gave a certain stilted air to her unaffected
+personality, which, by this very sense of contrast, was essentially
+fascinating.
+
+In her arms she held a huge sheaf of sweet-scented narcissi, the spoils
+of some favoured spot far away in the South. Armand thought that never
+in his life had he seen anything so winsome or so charming.
+
+Having at last said the positively final adieu, Mlle. Lange with a happy
+little sigh turned to run down the passage.
+
+She came face to face with Armand, and gave a sudden little gasp of
+terror. It was not good these days to come on any loiterer unawares.
+
+But already de Batz had quickly joined his friend, and his smooth,
+pleasant voice, and podgy, beringed hand extended towards Mlle. Lange,
+were sufficient to reassure her.
+
+“You were so surrounded in the green-room, mademoiselle,” he said
+courteously, “I did not venture to press in among the crowd of
+your admirers. Yet I had the great wish to present my respectful
+congratulations in person.”
+
+“Ah! c’est ce cher de Batz!” exclaimed mademoiselle gaily, in that
+exquisitely rippling voice of hers. “And where in the world do you
+spring from, my friend?
+
+“Hush-sh-sh!” he whispered, holding her small bemittened hand in
+his, and putting one finger to his lips with an urgent entreaty for
+discretion; “not my name, I beg of you, fair one.”
+
+“Bah!” she retorted lightly, even though her full lips trembled now as
+she spoke and belied her very words. “You need have no fear whilst
+you are in this part of the house. It is an understood thing that the
+Committee of General Security does not send its spies behind the curtain
+of a theatre. Why, if all of us actors and actresses were sent to
+the guillotine there would be no play on the morrow. Artistes are not
+replaceable in a few hours; those that are in existence must perforce be
+spared, or the citizens who govern us now would not know where to spend
+their evenings.”
+
+But though she spoke so airily and with her accustomed gaiety, it was
+easily perceived that even on this childish mind the dangers which beset
+every one these days had already imprinted their mark of suspicion and
+of caution.
+
+“Come into my dressing-room,” she said. “I must not tarry here any
+longer, for they will be putting out the lights. But I have a room to
+myself, and we can talk there quite agreeably.”
+
+She led the way across the stage towards the wooden stairs. Armand, who
+during this brief colloquy between his friend and the young girl had
+kept discreetly in the background, felt undecided what to do. But at
+a peremptory sign from de Batz he, too, turned in the wake of the gay
+little lady, who ran swiftly up the rickety steps, humming snatches of
+popular songs the while, and not turning to see if indeed the two men
+were following her.
+
+She had the sheaf of narcissi still in her arms, and the door of her
+tiny dressing-room being open, she ran straight in and threw the flowers
+down in a confused, sweet-scented mass upon the small table that
+stood at one end of the room, littered with pots and bottles, letters,
+mirrors, powder-puffs, silk stockings, and cambric handkerchiefs.
+
+Then she turned and faced the two men, a merry look of unalterable
+gaiety dancing in her eyes.
+
+“Shut the door, mon ami,” she said to de Batz, “and after that sit down
+where you can, so long as it is not on my most precious pot of unguent
+or a box of costliest powder.”
+
+While de Batz did as he was told, she turned to Armand and said with a
+pretty tone of interrogation in her melodious voice:
+
+“Monsieur?”
+
+“St. Just, at your service, mademoiselle,” said Armand, bowing very low
+in the most approved style obtaining at the English Court.
+
+“St. Just?” she repeated, a look of puzzlement in her brown eyes.
+“Surely--”
+
+“A kinsman of citizen St. Just, whom no doubt you know, mademoiselle,”
+ he exclaimed.
+
+“My friend Armand St. Just,” interposed de Batz, “is practically a
+new-comer in Paris. He lives in England habitually.”
+
+“In England?” she exclaimed. “Oh! do tell me all about England. I would
+love to go there. Perhaps I may have to go some day. Oh! do sit down, de
+Batz,” she continued, talking rather volubly, even as a delicate blush
+heightened the colour in her cheeks under the look of obvious admiration
+from Armand St. Just’s expressive eyes.
+
+She swept a handful of delicate cambric and silk from off a chair,
+making room for de Batz’ portly figure. Then she sat upon the sofa, and
+with an inviting gesture and a call from the eyes she bade Armand sit
+down next to her. She leaned back against the cushions, and the table
+being close by, she stretched out a hand and once more took up the bunch
+of narcissi, and while she talked to Armand she held the snow-white
+blooms quite close to her face--so close, in fact, that he could not
+see her mouth and chin, only her dark eyes shone across at him over the
+heads of the blossoms.
+
+“Tell me all about England,” she reiterated, settling herself down among
+the cushions like a spoilt child who is about to listen to an oft-told
+favourite story.
+
+Armand was vexed that de Batz was sitting there. He felt he could have
+told this dainty little lady quite a good deal about England if only his
+pompous, fat friend would have had the good sense to go away.
+
+As it was, he felt unusually timid and gauche, not quite knowing what to
+say, a fact which seemed to amuse Mlle. Lange not a little.
+
+“I am very fond of England,” he said lamely; “my sister is married to an
+Englishman, and I myself have taken up my permanent residence there.”
+
+“Among the society of emigres?” she queried.
+
+Then, as Armand made no reply, de Batz interposed quickly:
+
+“Oh! you need not fear to admit it, my good Armand; Mademoiselle Lange,
+has many friends among the emigres--have you not, mademoiselle?”
+
+“Yes, of course,” she replied lightly; “I have friends everywhere. Their
+political views have nothing to do with me. Artistes, I think, should
+have naught to do with politics. You see, citizen St. Just, I never
+inquired of you what were your views. Your name and kinship would
+proclaim you a partisan of citizen Robespierre, yet I find you in the
+company of M. de Batz; and you tell me that you live in England.”
+
+“He is no partisan of citizen Robespierre,” again interposed de Batz;
+“in fact, mademoiselle, I may safely tell you, I think, that my friend
+has but one ideal on this earth, whom he has set up in a shrine, and
+whom he worships with all the ardour of a Christian for his God.”
+
+“How romantic!” she said, and she looked straight at Armand. “Tell me,
+monsieur, is your ideal a woman or a man?”
+
+His look answered her, even before he boldly spoke the two words:
+
+“A woman.”
+
+She took a deep draught of sweet, intoxicating scent from the narcissi,
+and his gaze once more brought blushes to her cheeks. De Batz’
+good-humoured laugh helped her to hide this unwonted access of
+confusion.
+
+“That was well turned, friend Armand,” he said lightly; “but I assure
+you, mademoiselle, that before I brought him here to-night his ideal was
+a man.”
+
+“A man!” she exclaimed, with a contemptuous little pout. “Who was it?”
+
+“I know no other name for him but that of a small, insignificant
+flower--the Scarlet Pimpernel,” replied de Batz.
+
+“The Scarlet Pimpernel!” she ejaculated, dropping the flowers suddenly,
+and gazing on Armand with wide, wondering eyes. “And do you know him,
+monsieur?”
+
+He was frowning despite himself, despite the delight which he felt at
+sitting so close to this charming little lady, and feeling that in a
+measure his presence and his personality interested her. But he felt
+irritated with de Batz, and angered at what he considered the latter’s
+indiscretion. To him the very name of his leader was almost a sacred
+one; he was one of those enthusiastic devotees who only care to name the
+idol of their dreams with bated breath, and only in the ears of those
+who would understand and sympathise.
+
+Again he felt that if only he could have been alone with mademoiselle he
+could have told her all about the Scarlet Pimpernel, knowing that in her
+he would find a ready listener, a helping and a loving heart; but as it
+was he merely replied tamely enough:
+
+“Yes, mademoiselle, I do know him.”
+
+“You have seen him?” she queried eagerly; “spoken to him?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Oh! do tell me all about him. You know quite a number of us in France
+have the greatest possible admiration for your national hero. We know,
+of course, that he is an enemy of our Government--but, oh! we feel that
+he is not an enemy of France because of that. We are a nation of heroes,
+too, monsieur,” she added with a pretty, proud toss of the head; “we can
+appreciate bravery and resource, and we love the mystery that surrounds
+the personality of your Scarlet Pimpernel. But since you know him,
+monsieur, tell me what is he like?”
+
+Armand was smiling again. He was yielding himself up wholly to the charm
+which emanated from this young girl’s entire being, from her gaiety
+and her unaffectedness, her enthusiasm, and that obvious artistic
+temperament which caused her to feel every sensation with superlative
+keenness and thoroughness.
+
+“What is he like?” she insisted.
+
+“That, mademoiselle,” he replied, “I am not at liberty to tell you.”
+
+“Not at liberty to tell me!” she exclaimed; “but monsieur, if I command
+you--”
+
+“At risk of falling forever under the ban of your displeasure,
+mademoiselle, I would still remain silent on that subject.”
+
+She gazed on him with obvious astonishment. It was quite an unusual
+thing for this spoilt darling of an admiring public to be thus openly
+thwarted in her whims.
+
+“How tiresome and pedantic!” she said, with a shrug of her pretty
+shoulders and a moue of discontent. “And, oh! how ungallant! You have
+learnt ugly, English ways, monsieur; for there, I am told, men hold
+their womenkind in very scant esteem. There!” she added, turning with
+a mock air of hopelessness towards de Batz, “am I not a most unlucky
+woman? For the past two years I have used my best endeavours to catch
+sight of that interesting Scarlet Pimpernel; here do I meet monsieur,
+who actually knows him (so he says), and he is so ungallant that he even
+refuses to satisfy the first cravings of my just curiosity.”
+
+“Citizen St. Just will tell you nothing now, mademoiselle,” rejoined
+de Batz with his good-humoured laugh; “it is my presence, I assure you,
+which is setting a seal upon his lips. He is, believe me, aching to
+confide in you, to share in your enthusiasm, and to see your beautiful
+eyes glowing in response to his ardour when he describes to you the
+exploits of that prince of heroes. En tete-a-tete one day, you will, I
+know, worm every secret out of my discreet friend Armand.”
+
+Mademoiselle made no comment on this--that is to say, no audible
+comment--but she buried the whole of her face for a few seconds among
+the flowers, and Armand from amongst those flowers caught sight of a
+pair of very bright brown eyes which shone on him with a puzzled look.
+
+She said nothing more about the Scarlet Pimpernel or about England just
+then, but after awhile she began talking of more indifferent subjects:
+the state of the weather, the price of food, the discomforts of her own
+house, now that the servants had been put on perfect equality with their
+masters.
+
+Armand soon gathered that the burning questions of the day, the horrors
+of massacres, the raging turmoil of politics, had not affected her very
+deeply as yet. She had not troubled her pretty head very much about the
+social and humanitarian aspect of the present seething revolution.
+She did not really wish to think about it at all. An artiste to her
+finger-tips, she was spending her young life in earnest work, striving
+to attain perfection in her art, absorbed in study during the day, and
+in the expression of what she had learnt in the evenings.
+
+The terrors of the guillotine affected her a little, but somewhat
+vaguely still. She had not realised that any dangers could assail her
+whilst she worked for the artistic delectation of the public.
+
+It was not that she did not understand what went on around her, but that
+her artistic temperament and her environment had kept her aloof from
+it all. The horrors of the Place de la Revolution made her shudder, but
+only in the same way as the tragedies of M. Racine or of Sophocles which
+she had studied caused her to shudder, and she had exactly the same
+sympathy for poor Queen Marie Antoinette as she had for Mary Stuart, and
+shed as many tears for King Louis as she did for Polyeucte.
+
+Once de Batz mentioned the Dauphin, but mademoiselle put up her hand
+quickly and said in a trembling voice, whilst the tears gathered in her
+eyes:
+
+“Do not speak of the child to me, de Batz. What can I, a lonely,
+hard-working woman, do to help him? I try not to think of him, for if
+I did, knowing my own helplessness, I feel that I could hate my
+countrymen, and speak my bitter hatred of them across the footlights;
+which would be more than foolish,” she added naively, “for it would not
+help the child, and I should be sent to the guillotine. But oh sometimes
+I feel that I would gladly die if only that poor little child-martyr
+were restored to those who love him and given back once more to joy and
+happiness. But they would not take my life for his, I am afraid,”
+ she concluded, smiling through her tears. “My life is of no value in
+comparison with his.”
+
+Soon after this she dismissed her two visitors. De Batz, well content
+with the result of this evening’s entertainment, wore an urbane, bland
+smile on his rubicund face. Armand, somewhat serious and not a little in
+love, made the hand-kiss with which he took his leave last as long as he
+could.
+
+“You will come and see me again, citizen St. Just?” she asked after that
+preliminary leave-taking.
+
+“At your service, mademoiselle,” he replied with alacrity.
+
+“How long do you stay in Paris?”
+
+“I may be called away at any time.”
+
+“Well, then, come to-morrow. I shall be free towards four o’clock.
+Square du Roule. You cannot miss the house. Any one there will tell you
+where lives citizeness Lange.”
+
+“At your service, mademoiselle,” he replied.
+
+The words sounded empty and meaningless, but his eyes, as they took
+final leave of her, spoke the gratitude and the joy which he felt.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE TEMPLE PRISON
+
+It was close on midnight when the two friends finally parted company
+outside the doors of the theatre. The night air struck with biting
+keenness against them when they emerged from the stuffy, overheated
+building, and both wrapped their caped cloaks tightly round their
+shoulders. Armand--more than ever now--was anxious to rid himself of
+de Batz. The Gascon’s platitudes irritated him beyond the bounds of
+forbearance, and he wanted to be alone, so that he might think over
+the events of this night, the chief event being a little lady with an
+enchanting voice and the most fascinating brown eyes he had ever seen.
+
+Self-reproach, too, was fighting a fairly even fight with the excitement
+that had been called up by that same pair of brown eyes. Armand for the
+past four or five hours had acted in direct opposition to the earnest
+advice given to him by his chief; he had renewed one friendship which
+had been far better left in oblivion, and he had made an acquaintance
+which already was leading him along a path that he felt sure his comrade
+would disapprove. But the path was so profusely strewn with scented
+narcissi that Armand’s sensitive conscience was quickly lulled to rest
+by the intoxicating fragrance.
+
+Looking neither to right nor left, he made his way very quickly up the
+Rue Richelieu towards the Montmartre quarter, where he lodged.
+
+De Batz stood and watched him for as long as the dim lights of the
+street lamps illumined his slim, soberly-clad figure; then he turned on
+his heel and walked off in the opposite direction.
+
+His florid, pock-marked face wore an air of contentment not altogether
+unmixed with a kind of spiteful triumph.
+
+“So, my pretty Scarlet Pimpernel,” he muttered between his closed lips,
+“you wish to meddle in my affairs, to have for yourself and your friends
+the credit and glory of snatching the golden prize from the clutches of
+these murderous brutes. Well, we shall see! We shall see which is the
+wiliest--the French ferret or the English fox.”
+
+He walked deliberately away from the busy part of the town, turning
+his back on the river, stepping out briskly straight before him, and
+swinging his gold-beaded cane as he walked.
+
+The streets which he had to traverse were silent and deserted, save
+occasionally where a drinking or an eating house had its swing-doors
+still invitingly open. From these places, as de Batz strode rapidly by,
+came sounds of loud voices, rendered raucous by outdoor oratory; volleys
+of oaths hurled irreverently in the midst of impassioned speeches;
+interruptions from rowdy audiences that vied with the speaker in
+invectives and blasphemies; wordy war-fares that ended in noisy
+vituperations; accusations hurled through the air heavy with tobacco
+smoke and the fumes of cheap wines and of raw spirits.
+
+De Batz took no heed of these as he passed, anxious only that the crowd
+of eating-house politicians did not, as often was its wont, turn out
+pele-mele into the street, and settle its quarrel by the weight
+of fists. He did not wish to be embroiled in a street fight, which
+invariably ended in denunciations and arrests, and was glad when
+presently he had left the purlieus of the Palais Royal behind him, and
+could strike on his left toward the lonely Faubourg du Temple.
+
+From the dim distance far away came at intervals the mournful sound of a
+roll of muffled drums, half veiled by the intervening hubbub of the
+busy night life of the great city. It proceeded from the Place de la
+Revolution, where a company of the National Guard were on night watch
+round the guillotine. The dull, intermittent notes of the drum came as
+a reminder to the free people of France that the watchdog of a vengeful
+revolution was alert night and day, never sleeping, ever wakeful,
+“beating up game for the guillotine,” as the new decree framed to-day by
+the Government of the people had ordered that it should do.
+
+From time to time now the silence of this lonely street was broken by
+a sudden cry of terror, followed by the clash of arms, the inevitable
+volley of oaths, the call for help, the final moan of anguish. They
+were the ever-recurring brief tragedies which told of denunciations, of
+domiciliary search, of sudden arrests, of an agonising desire for
+life and for freedom--for life under these same horrible conditions of
+brutality and of servitude, for freedom to breathe, if only a day or two
+longer, this air, polluted by filth and by blood.
+
+De Batz, hardened to these scenes, paid no heed to them. He had heard it
+so often, that cry in the night, followed by death-like silence; it
+came from comfortable bourgeois houses, from squalid lodgings, or
+lonely cul-de-sac, wherever some hunted quarry was run to earth by the
+newly-organised spies of the Committee of General Security.
+
+Five and thirty livres for every head that falls trunkless into the
+basket at the foot of the guillotine! Five and thirty pieces of silver,
+now as then, the price of innocent blood. Every cry in the night, every
+call for help, meant game for the guillotine, and five and thirty livres
+in the hands of a Judas.
+
+And de Batz walked on unmoved by what he saw and heard, swinging his
+cane and looking satisfied. Now he struck into the Place de la
+Victoire, and looked on one of the open-air camps that had recently been
+established where men, women, and children were working to provide arms
+and accoutrements for the Republican army that was fighting the whole of
+Europe.
+
+The people of France were up in arms against tyranny; and on the open
+places of their mighty city they were encamped day and night forging
+those arms which were destined to make them free, and in the meantime
+were bending under a yoke of tyranny more complete, more grinding
+and absolute than any that the most despotic kings had ever dared to
+inflict.
+
+Here by the light of resin torches, at this late hour of the night,
+raw lads were being drilled into soldiers, half-naked under the cutting
+blast of the north wind, their knees shaking under them, their arms and
+legs blue with cold, their stomachs empty, and their teeth chattering
+with fear; women were sewing shirts for the great improvised army,
+with eyes straining to see the stitches by the flickering light of
+the torches, their throats parched with the continual inhaling of
+smoke-laden air; even children, with weak, clumsy little fingers, were
+picking rags to be woven into cloth again--all, all these slaves were
+working far into the night, tired, hungry, and cold, but working
+unceasingly, as the country had demanded it: “the people of France in
+arms against tyranny!” The people of France had to set to work to make
+arms, to clothe the soldiers, the defenders of the people’s liberty.
+
+And from this crowd of people--men, women, and children--there came
+scarcely a sound, save raucous whispers, a moan or a sigh quickly
+suppressed. A grim silence reigned in this thickly-peopled camp; only
+the crackling of the torches broke that silence now and then, or the
+flapping of canvas in the wintry gale. They worked on sullen, desperate,
+and starving, with no hope of payment save the miserable rations wrung
+from poor tradespeople or miserable farmers, as wretched, as oppressed
+as themselves; no hope of payment, only fear of punishment, for that was
+ever present.
+
+The people of France in arms against tyranny were not allowed to forget
+that grim taskmaster with the two great hands stretched upwards, holding
+the knife which descended mercilessly, indiscriminately on necks that
+did not bend willingly to the task.
+
+A grim look of gratified desire had spread over de Batz’ face as he
+skirted the open-air camp. Let them toil, let them groan, let them
+starve! The more these clouts suffer, the more brutal the heel that
+grinds them down, the sooner will the Emperor’s money accomplish its
+work, the sooner will these wretches be clamoring for the monarchy,
+which would mean a rich reward in de Batz’ pockets.
+
+To him everything now was for the best: the tyranny, the brutality, the
+massacres. He gloated in the holocausts with as much satisfaction as did
+the most bloodthirsty Jacobin in the Convention. He would with his own
+hands have wielded the guillotine that worked too slowly for his ends.
+Let that end justify the means, was his motto. What matter if the future
+King of France walked up to his throne over steps made of headless
+corpses and rendered slippery with the blood of martyrs?
+
+The ground beneath de Batz’ feet was hard and white with the frost.
+Overhead the pale, wintry moon looked down serene and placid on this
+giant city wallowing in an ocean of misery.
+
+There, had been but little snow as yet this year, and the cold was
+intense. On his right now the Cimetiere des SS. Innocents lay peaceful
+and still beneath the wan light of the moon. A thin covering of snow lay
+evenly alike on grass mounds and smooth stones. Here and there a broken
+cross with chipped arms still held pathetically outstretched, as if in
+a final appeal for human love, bore mute testimony to senseless excesses
+and spiteful desire for destruction.
+
+But here within the precincts of the dwelling of the eternal Master a
+solemn silence reigned; only the cold north wind shook the branches of
+the yew, causing them to send forth a melancholy sigh into the night,
+and to shed a shower of tiny crystals of snow like the frozen tears of
+the dead.
+
+And round the precincts of the lonely graveyard, and down narrow streets
+or open places, the night watchmen went their rounds, lanthorn in hand,
+and every five minutes their monotonous call rang clearly out in the
+night:
+
+“Sleep, citizens! everything is quiet and at peace!”
+
+
+
+We may take it that de Batz did not philosophise over-much on what went
+on around him. He had walked swiftly up the Rue St. Martin, then turning
+sharply to his right he found himself beneath the tall, frowning
+walls of the Temple prison, the grim guardian of so many secrets, such
+terrible despair, such unspeakable tragedies.
+
+Here, too, as in the Place de la Revolution, an intermittent roll of
+muffled drums proclaimed the ever-watchful presence of the National
+Guard. But with that exception not a sound stirred round the grim and
+stately edifice; there were no cries, no calls, no appeals around its
+walls. All the crying and wailing was shut in by the massive stone that
+told no tales.
+
+Dim and flickering lights shone behind several of the small windows in
+the facade of the huge labyrinthine building. Without any hesitation de
+Batz turned down the Rue du Temple, and soon found himself in front
+of the main gates which gave on the courtyard beyond. The sentinel
+challenged him, but he had the pass-word, and explained that he desired
+to have speech with citizen Heron.
+
+With a surly gesture the guard pointed to the heavy bell-pull up against
+the gate, and de Batz pulled it with all his might. The long clang of
+the brazen bell echoed and re-echoed round the solid stone walls. Anon
+a tiny judas in the gate was cautiously pushed open, and a peremptory
+voice once again challenged the midnight intruder.
+
+De Batz, more peremptorily this time, asked for citizen Heron, with whom
+he had immediate and important business, and a glimmer of a piece of
+silver which he held up close to the judas secured him the necessary
+admittance.
+
+The massive gates slowly swung open on their creaking hinges, and as de
+Batz passed beneath the archway they closed again behind him.
+
+The concierge’s lodge was immediately on his left. Again he was
+challenged, and again gave the pass-word. But his face was apparently
+known here, for no serious hindrance to proceed was put in his way.
+
+A man, whose wide, lean frame was but ill-covered by a threadbare coat
+and ragged breeches, and with soleless shoes on his feet, was told off
+to direct the citoyen to citizen Heron’s rooms. The man walked slowly
+along with bent knees and arched spine, and shuffled his feet as he
+walked; the bunch of keys which he carried rattled ominously in his
+long, grimy hands; the passages were badly lighted, and he also carried
+a lanthorn to guide himself on the way.
+
+Closely followed by de Batz, he soon turned into the central corridor,
+which is open to the sky above, and was spectrally alight now with
+flag-stones and walls gleaming beneath the silvery sheen of the moon,
+and throwing back the fantastic elongated shadows of the two men as they
+walked.
+
+On the left, heavily barred windows gave on the corridor, as did here
+and there the massive oaken doors, with their gigantic hinges and bolts,
+on the steps of which squatted groups of soldiers wrapped in their
+cloaks, with wild, suspicious eyes beneath their capotes, peering at the
+midnight visitor as he passed.
+
+There was no thought of silence here. The very walls seemed alive with
+sounds, groans and tears, loud wails and murmured prayers; they exuded
+from the stones and trembled on the frost-laden air.
+
+Occasionally at one of the windows a pair of white hands would appear,
+grasping the heavy iron bar, trying to shake it in its socket, and
+mayhap, above the hands, the dim vision of a haggard face, a man’s or a
+woman’s, trying to get a glimpse of the outside world, a final look at
+the sky, before the last journey to the place of death to-morrow. Then
+one of the soldiers, with a loud, angry oath, would struggle to his
+feet, and with the butt-end of his gun strike at the thin, wan fingers
+till their hold on the iron bar relaxed, and the pallid face beyond
+would sink back into the darkness with a desperate cry of pain.
+
+A quick, impatient sigh escaped de Batz’ lips. He had skirted the wide
+courtyard in the wake of his guide, and from where he was he could see
+the great central tower, with its tiny windows lighted from within, the
+grim walls behind which the descendant of the world’s conquerors, the
+bearer of the proudest name in Europe, and wearer of its most ancient
+crown, had spent the last days of his brilliant life in abject shame,
+sorrow, and degradation. The memory had swiftly surged up before him of
+that night when he all but rescued King Louis and his family from this
+same miserable prison: the guard had been bribed, the keeper corrupted,
+everything had been prepared, save the reckoning with the one
+irresponsible factor--chance!
+
+He had failed then and had tried again, and again had failed; a fortune
+had been his reward if he had succeeded. He had failed, but even now,
+when his footsteps echoed along the flagged courtyard, over which
+an unfortunate King and Queen had walked on their way to their last
+ignominious Calvary, he hugged himself with the satisfying thought that
+where he had failed at least no one else had succeeded.
+
+Whether that meddlesome English adventurer, who called himself the
+Scarlet Pimpernel, had planned the rescue of King Louis or of Queen
+Marie Antoinette at any time or not--that he did not know; but on one
+point at least he was more than ever determined, and that was that
+no power on earth should snatch from him the golden prize offered by
+Austria for the rescue of the little Dauphin.
+
+“I would sooner see the child perish, if I cannot save him myself,” was
+the burning thought in this man’s tortuous brain. “And let that accursed
+Englishman look to himself and to his d----d confederates,” he added,
+muttering a fierce oath beneath his breath.
+
+A winding, narrow stone stair, another length or two of corridor, and
+his guide’s shuffling footsteps paused beside a low iron-studded door
+let into the solid stone. De Batz dismissed his ill-clothed guide and
+pulled the iron bell-handle which hung beside the door.
+
+The bell gave forth a dull and broken clang, which seemed like an echo
+of the wails of sorrow that peopled the huge building with their weird
+and monotonous sounds.
+
+De Batz--a thoroughly unimaginative person--waited patiently beside the
+door until it was opened from within, and he was confronted by a tall
+stooping figure, wearing a greasy coat of snuff-brown cloth, and holding
+high above his head a lanthorn that threw its feeble light on de Batz’
+jovial face and form.
+
+“It is even I, citizen Heron,” he said, breaking in swiftly on the
+other’s ejaculation of astonishment, which threatened to send his name
+echoing the whole length of corridors and passages, until round every
+corner of the labyrinthine house of sorrow the murmur would be borne
+on the wings of the cold night breeze: “Citizen Heron is in parley with
+ci-devant Baron de Batz!”
+
+A fact which would have been equally unpleasant for both these worthies.
+
+“Enter!” said Heron curtly.
+
+He banged the heavy door to behind his visitor; and de Batz, who seemed
+to know his way about the place, walked straight across the narrow
+landing to where a smaller door stood invitingly open.
+
+He stepped boldly in, the while citizen Heron put the lanthorn down on
+the floor of the couloir, and then followed his nocturnal visitor into
+the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE COMMITTEE’S AGENT
+
+It was a narrow, ill-ventilated place, with but one barred window that
+gave on the courtyard. An evil-smelling lamp hung by a chain from the
+grimy ceiling, and in a corner of the room a tiny iron stove shed more
+unpleasant vapour than warm glow around.
+
+There was but little furniture: two or three chairs, a table which was
+littered with papers, and a corner-cupboard--the open doors of which
+revealed a miscellaneous collection--bundles of papers, a tin saucepan,
+a piece of cold sausage, and a couple of pistols. The fumes of stale
+tobacco-smoke hovered in the air, and mingled most unpleasantly with
+those of the lamp above, and of the mildew that penetrated through the
+walls just below the roof.
+
+Heron pointed to one of the chairs, and then sat down on the other,
+close to the table, on which he rested his elbow. He picked up a
+short-stemmed pipe, which he had evidently laid aside at the sound of
+the bell, and having taken several deliberate long-drawn puffs from it,
+he said abruptly:
+
+“Well, what is it now?”
+
+In the meanwhile de Batz had made himself as much at home in this
+uncomfortable room as he possibly could. He had deposited his hat and
+cloak on one rickety rush-bottomed chair, and drawn another close to
+the fire. He sat down with one leg crossed over the other, his podgy
+be-ringed hand wandering with loving gentleness down the length of his
+shapely calf.
+
+He was nothing if not complacent, and his complacency seemed highly to
+irritate his friend Heron.
+
+“Well, what is it?” reiterated the latter, drawing his visitor’s
+attention roughly to himself by banging his fist on the table. “Out with
+it! What do you want? Why have you come at this hour of the night to
+compromise me, I suppose--bring your own d--d neck and mine into the
+same noose--what?”
+
+“Easy, easy, my friend,” responded de Batz imperturbably; “waste not
+so much time in idle talk. Why do I usually come to see you? Surely you
+have had no cause to complain hitherto of the unprofitableness of my
+visits to you?”
+
+“They will have to be still more profitable to me in the future,”
+ growled the other across the table. “I have more power now.”
+
+“I know you have,” said de Batz suavely. “The new decree? What? You
+may denounce whom you please, search whom you please, arrest whom you
+please, and send whom you please to the Supreme Tribunal without giving
+them the slightest chance of escape.”
+
+“Is it in order to tell me all this that you have come to see me at this
+hour of the night?” queried Heron with a sneer.
+
+“No; I came at this hour of the night because I surmised that in the
+future you and your hell-hounds would be so busy all day ‘beating
+up game for the guillotine’ that the only time you would have at the
+disposal of your friends would be the late hours of the night. I saw you
+at the theatre a couple of hours ago, friend Heron; I didn’t think to
+find you yet abed.”
+
+“Well, what do you want?”
+
+“Rather,” retorted de Batz blandly, “shall we say, what do YOU want,
+citizen Heron?”
+
+“For what?
+
+“For my continued immunity at the hands of yourself and your pack?”
+
+Heron pushed his chair brusquely aside and strode across the narrow room
+deliberately facing the portly figure of de Batz, who with head slightly
+inclined on one side, his small eyes narrowed till they appeared
+mere slits in his pockmarked face, was steadily and quite placidly
+contemplating this inhuman monster who had this very day been given
+uncontrolled power over hundreds of thousands of human lives.
+
+Heron was one of those tall men who look mean in spite of their height.
+His head was small and narrow, and his hair, which was sparse and lank,
+fell in untidy strands across his forehead. He stooped slightly from the
+neck, and his chest, though wide, was hollow between the shoulders. But
+his legs were big and bony, slightly bent at the knees, like those of an
+ill-conditioned horse.
+
+The face was thin and the cheeks sunken; the eyes, very large and
+prominent, had a look in them of cold and ferocious cruelty, a look
+which contrasted strangely with the weakness and petty greed apparent
+in the mouth, which was flabby, with full, very red lips, and chin that
+sloped away to the long thin neck.
+
+Even at this moment as he gazed on de Batz the greed and the cruelty
+in him were fighting one of those battles the issue of which is always
+uncertain in men of his stamp.
+
+“I don’t know,” he said slowly, “that I am prepared to treat with you
+any longer. You are an intolerable bit of vermin that has annoyed
+the Committee of General Security for over two years now. It would
+be excessively pleasant to crush you once and for all, as one would a
+buzzing fly.”
+
+“Pleasant, perhaps, but immeasurably foolish,” rejoined de Batz coolly;
+“you would only get thirty-five livres for my head, and I offer you ten
+times that amount for the self-same commodity.”
+
+“I know, I know; but the whole thing has become too dangerous.”
+
+“Why? I am very modest. I don’t ask a great deal. Let your hounds keep
+off my scent.”
+
+“You have too many d--d confederates.”
+
+“Oh! Never mind about the others. I am not bargaining about them. Let
+them look after themselves.”
+
+“Every time we get a batch of them, one or the other denounces you.”
+
+“Under torture, I know,” rejoined de Batz placidly, holding his podgy
+hands to the warm glow of the fire. “For you have started torture in
+your house of Justice now, eh, friend Heron? You and your friend the
+Public Prosecutor have gone the whole gamut of devilry--eh?”
+
+“What’s that to you?” retorted the other gruffly.
+
+“Oh, nothing, nothing! I was even proposing to pay you three thousand
+five hundred livres for the privilege of taking no further interest in
+what goes on inside this prison!”
+
+“Three thousand five hundred!” ejaculated Heron involuntarily, and this
+time even his eyes lost their cruelty; they joined issue with the mouth
+in an expression of hungering avarice.
+
+“Two little zeros added to the thirty-five, which is all you would get
+for handing me over to your accursed Tribunal,” said de Batz, and, as if
+thoughtlessly, his hand wandered to the inner pocket of his coat, and
+a slight rustle as of thin crisp paper brought drops of moisture to the
+lips of Heron.
+
+“Leave me alone for three weeks and the money is yours,” concluded de
+Batz pleasantly.
+
+There was silence in the room now. Through the narrow barred window
+the steely rays of the moon fought with the dim yellow light of the oil
+lamp, and lit up the pale face of the Committee’s agent with its lines
+of cruelty in sharp conflict with those of greed.
+
+“Well! is it a bargain?” asked de Batz at last in his usual smooth, oily
+voice, as he half drew from out his pocket that tempting little bundle
+of crisp printed paper. “You have only to give me the usual receipt for
+the money and it is yours.”
+
+Heron gave a vicious snarl.
+
+“It is dangerous, I tell you. That receipt, if it falls into some cursed
+meddler’s hands, would send me straight to the guillotine.”
+
+“The receipt could only fall into alien hands,” rejoined de Batz
+blandly, “if I happened to be arrested, and even in that case they
+could but fall into those of the chief agent of the Committee of General
+Security, and he hath name Heron. You must take some risks, my friend.
+I take them too. We are each in the other’s hands. The bargain is quite
+fair.”
+
+For a moment or two longer Heron appeared to be hesitating whilst de
+Batz watched him with keen intentness. He had no doubt himself as to the
+issue. He had tried most of these patriots in his own golden crucible,
+and had weighed their patriotism against Austrian money, and had never
+found the latter wanting.
+
+He had not been here to-night if he were not quite sure. This inveterate
+conspirator in the Royalist cause never took personal risks. He looked
+on Heron now, smiling to himself the while with perfect satisfaction.
+
+“Very well,” said the Committee’s agent with sudden decision, “I’ll take
+the money. But on one condition.”
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“That you leave little Capet alone.”
+
+“The Dauphin!”
+
+“Call him what you like,” said Heron, taking a step nearer to de Batz,
+and from his great height glowering down in fierce hatred and rage upon
+his accomplice; “call the young devil what you like, but leave us to
+deal with him.”
+
+“To kill him, you mean? Well, how can I prevent it, my friend?”
+
+“You and your like are always plotting to get him out of here. I won’t
+have it. I tell you I won’t have it. If the brat disappears I am a dead
+man. Robespierre and his gang have told me as much. So you leave him
+alone, or I’ll not raise a finger to help you, but will lay my own hands
+on your accursed neck.”
+
+He looked so ferocious and so merciless then, that despite himself, the
+selfish adventurer, the careless self-seeking intriguer, shuddered with
+a quick wave of unreasoning terror. He turned away from Heron’s piercing
+gaze, the gaze of a hyena whose prey is being snatched from beneath its
+nails. For a moment he stared thoughtfully into the fire.
+
+He heard the other man’s heavy footsteps cross and re-cross the narrow
+room, and was conscious of the long curved shadow creeping up the
+mildewed wall or retreating down upon the carpetless floor.
+
+Suddenly, without any warning he felt a grip upon his shoulder. He gave
+a start and almost uttered a cry of alarm which caused Heron to laugh.
+The Committee’s agent was vastly amused at his friend’s obvious access
+of fear. There was nothing that he liked better than that he should
+inspire dread in the hearts of all those with whom he came in contact.
+
+“I am just going on my usual nocturnal round,” he said abruptly. “Come
+with me, citizen de Batz.”
+
+A certain grim humour was apparent in his face as he proffered this
+invitation, which sounded like a rough command. As de Batz seemed to
+hesitate he nodded peremptorily to him to follow. Already he had gone
+into the hall and picked up his lanthorn. From beneath his waistcoat he
+drew forth a bunch of keys, which he rattled impatiently, calling to his
+friend to come.
+
+“Come, citizen,” he said roughly. “I wish to show you the one treasure
+in this house which your d--d fingers must not touch.”
+
+Mechanically de Batz rose at last. He tried to be master of the terror
+which was invading his very bones. He would not own to himself even that
+he was afraid, and almost audibly he kept murmuring to himself that he
+had no cause for fear.
+
+Heron would never touch him. The spy’s avarice, his greed of money were
+a perfect safeguard for any man who had the control of millions, and
+Heron knew, of course, that he could make of this inveterate plotter
+a comfortable source of revenue for himself. Three weeks would soon be
+over, and fresh bargains could be made time and again, while de Batz was
+alive and free.
+
+Heron was still waiting at the door, even whilst de Batz wondered
+what this nocturnal visitation would reveal to him of atrocity and of
+outrage. He made a final effort to master his nervousness, wrapped his
+cloak tightly around him, and followed his host out of the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE MOST PRECIOUS LIFE IN EUROPE
+
+Once more he was being led through the interminable corridors of the
+gigantic building. Once more from the narrow, barred windows close by
+him he heard the heart-breaking sighs, the moans, the curses which spoke
+of tragedies that he could only guess.
+
+Heron was walking on ahead of him, preceding him by some fifty metres or
+so, his long legs covering the distances more rapidly than de Batz could
+follow them. The latter knew his way well about the old prison. Few men
+in Paris possessed that accurate knowledge of its intricate passages and
+its network of cells and halls which de Batz had acquired after close
+and persevering study.
+
+He himself could have led Heron to the doors of the tower where the
+little Dauphin was being kept imprisoned, but unfortunately he did not
+possess the keys that would open all the doors which led to it. There
+were sentinels at every gate, groups of soldiers at each end of every
+corridor, the great--now empty--courtyards, thronged with prisoners in
+the daytime, were alive with soldiery even now. Some walked up and
+down with fixed bayonet on shoulder, others sat in groups on the stone
+copings or squatted on the ground, smoking or playing cards, but all of
+them were alert and watchful.
+
+Heron was recognised everywhere the moment he appeared, and though in
+these days of equality no one presented arms, nevertheless every guard
+stood aside to let him pass, or when necessary opened a gate for the
+powerful chief agent of the Committee of General Security.
+
+Indeed, de Batz had no keys such as these to open the way for him to the
+presence of the martyred little King.
+
+Thus the two men wended their way on in silence, one preceding the
+other. De Batz walked leisurely, thought-fully, taking stock of
+everything he saw--the gates, the barriers, the positions of sentinels
+and warders, of everything in fact that might prove a help or a
+hindrance presently, when the great enterprise would be hazarded. At
+last--still in the wake of Heron--he found himself once more behind the
+main entrance gate, underneath the archway on which gave the guichet of
+the concierge.
+
+Here, too, there seemed to be an unnecessary number of soldiers: two
+were doing sentinel outside the guichet, but there were others in a file
+against the wall.
+
+Heron rapped with his keys against the door of the concierge’s lodge,
+then, as it was not immediately opened from within, he pushed it open
+with his foot.
+
+“The concierge?” he queried peremptorily.
+
+From a corner of the small panelled room there came a grunt and a reply:
+
+“Gone to bed, quoi!”
+
+The man who previously had guided de Batz to Heron’s door slowly
+struggled to his feet. He had been squatting somewhere in the gloom, and
+had been roused by Heron’s rough command. He slouched forward now still
+carrying a boot in one hand and a blacking brush in the other.
+
+“Take this lanthorn, then,” said the chief agent with a snarl directed
+at the sleeping concierge, “and come along. Why are you still here?” he
+added, as if in after-thought.
+
+“The citizen concierge was not satisfied with the way I had done his
+boots,” muttered the man, with an evil leer as he spat contemptuously on
+the floor; “an aristo, quoi? A hell of a place this... twenty cells
+to sweep out every day... and boots to clean for every aristo of a
+concierge or warder who demands it.... Is that work for a free born
+patriot, I ask?”
+
+“Well, if you are not satisfied, citoyen Dupont,” retorted Heron dryly,
+“you may go when you like, you know there are plenty of others ready to
+do your work...”
+
+“Nineteen hours a day, and nineteen sous by way of payment.... I have
+had fourteen days of this convict work...”
+
+He continued to mutter under his breath, whilst Heron, paying no further
+heed to him, turned abruptly towards a group of soldiers stationed
+outside.
+
+“En avant, corporal!” he said; “bring four men with you... we go up to
+the tower.”
+
+The small procession was formed. On ahead the lanthorn-bearer, with
+arched spine and shaking knees, dragging shuffling footsteps along the
+corridor, then the corporal with two of his soldiers, then Heron closely
+followed by de Batz, and finally two more soldiers bringing up the rear.
+
+Heron had given the bunch of keys to the man Dupont. The latter, on
+ahead, holding the lanthorn aloft, opened one gate after another. At
+each gate he waited for the little procession to file through, then he
+re-locked the gate and passed on.
+
+Up two or three flights of winding stairs set in the solid stone, and
+the final heavy door was reached.
+
+De Batz was meditating. Heron’s precautions for the safe-guarding of the
+most precious life in Europe were more complete than he had anticipated.
+What lavish liberality would be required! what superhuman ingenuity and
+boundless courage in order to break down all the barriers that had been
+set up round that young life that flickered inside this grim tower!
+
+Of these three requisites the corpulent, complacent intriguer possessed
+only the first in a considerable degree. He could be exceedingly liberal
+with the foreign money which he had at his disposal. As for courage and
+ingenuity, he believed that he possessed both, but these qualities had
+not served him in very good stead in the attempts which he had made at
+different times to rescue the unfortunate members of the Royal Family
+from prison. His overwhelming egotism would not admit for a moment that
+in ingenuity and pluck the Scarlet Pimpernel and his English followers
+could outdo him, but he did wish to make quite sure that they would
+not interfere with him in the highly remunerative work of saving the
+Dauphin.
+
+Heron’s impatient call roused him from these meditations. The little
+party had come to a halt outside a massive iron-studded door.
+
+At a sign from the chief agent the soldiers stood at attention. He then
+called de Batz and the lanthorn-bearer to him.
+
+He took a key from his breeches pocket, and with his own hand unlocked
+the massive door. He curtly ordered the lanthorn-bearer and de Batz to
+go through, then he himself went in, and finally once more re-locked the
+door behind him, the soldiers remaining on guard on the landing outside.
+
+Now the three men were standing in a square antechamber, dank and dark,
+devoid of furniture save for a large cupboard that filled the whole of
+one wall; the others, mildewed and stained, were covered with a greyish
+paper, which here and there hung away in strips.
+
+Heron crossed this ante-chamber, and with his knuckles rapped against a
+small door opposite.
+
+“Hola!” he shouted, “Simon, mon vieux, tu es la?”
+
+From the inner room came the sound of voices, a man’s and a woman’s,
+and now, as if in response to Heron’s call, the shrill tones of a child.
+There was some shuffling, too, of footsteps, and some pushing about
+of furniture, then the door was opened, and a gruff voice invited the
+belated visitors to enter.
+
+The atmosphere in this further room was so thick that at first de Batz
+was only conscious of the evil smells that pervaded it; smells which
+were made up of the fumes of tobacco, of burning coke, of a smoky lamp,
+and of stale food, and mingling through it all the pungent odour of raw
+spirits.
+
+Heron had stepped briskly in, closely followed by de Batz. The man
+Dupont with a mutter of satisfaction put down his lanthorn and curled
+himself up in a corner of the antechamber. His interest in the spectacle
+so favoured by citizen Heron had apparently been exhausted by constant
+repetition.
+
+De Batz looked round him with keen curiosity with which disgust was
+ready enough to mingle.
+
+The room itself might have been a large one; it was almost impossible to
+judge of its size, so crammed was it with heavy and light furniture of
+every conceivable shape and type. There was a monumental wooden bedstead
+in one corner, a huge sofa covered in black horsehair in another. A
+large table stood in the centre of the room, and there were at least
+four capacious armchairs round it. There were wardrobes and cabinets, a
+diminutive washstand and a huge pier-glass, there were innumerable boxes
+and packing-cases, cane-bottomed chairs and what-nots every-where. The
+place looked like a depot for second-hand furniture.
+
+In the midst of all the litter de Batz at last became conscious of two
+people who stood staring at him and at Heron. He saw a man before him,
+somewhat fleshy of build, with smooth, mouse-coloured hair brushed away
+from a central parting, and ending in a heavy curl above each ear; the
+eyes were wide open and pale in colour, the lips unusually thick and
+with a marked downward droop. Close beside him stood a youngish-looking
+woman, whose unwieldy bulk, however, and pallid skin revealed the
+sedentary life and the ravages of ill-health.
+
+Both appeared to regard Heron with a certain amount of awe, and de Batz
+with a vast measure of curiosity.
+
+Suddenly the woman stood aside, and in the far corner of the room
+there was displayed to the Gascon Royalist’s cold, calculating gaze the
+pathetic figure of the uncrowned King of France.
+
+“How is it Capet is not yet in bed?” queried Heron as soon as he caught
+sight of the child.
+
+“He wouldn’t say his prayers this evening,” replied Simon with a coarse
+laugh, “and wouldn’t drink his medicine. Bah!” he added with a snarl,
+“this is a place for dogs and not for human folk.”
+
+“If you are not satisfied, mon vieux,” retorted Heron curtly, “you can
+send in your resignation when you like. There are plenty who will be
+glad of the place.”
+
+The ex-cobbler gave another surly growl and expectorated on the floor in
+the direction where stood the child.
+
+“Little vermin,” he said, “he is more trouble than man or woman can
+bear.”
+
+The boy in the meanwhile seemed to take but little notice of the vulgar
+insults put upon him by his guardian. He stood, a quaint, impassive
+little figure, more interested apparently in de Batz, who was a stranger
+to him, than in the three others whom he knew. De Batz noted that the
+child looked well nourished, and that he was warmly clad in a rough
+woollen shirt and cloth breeches, with coarse grey stockings and thick
+shoes; but he also saw that the clothes were indescribably filthy, as
+were the child’s hands and face. The golden curls, among which a young
+and queenly mother had once loved to pass her slender perfumed fingers,
+now hung bedraggled, greasy, and lank round the little face, from the
+lines of which every trace of dignity and of simplicity had long since
+been erased.
+
+There was no look of the martyr about this child now, even though,
+mayhap, his small back had often smarted under his vulgar tutor’s
+rough blows; rather did the pale young face wear the air of sullen
+indifference, and an abject desire to please, which would have appeared
+heart-breaking to any spectator less self-seeking and egotistic than was
+this Gascon conspirator.
+
+Madame Simon had called him to her while her man and the citizen Heron
+were talking, and the child went readily enough, without any sign of
+fear. She took the corner of her coarse dirty apron in her hand, and
+wiped the boy’s mouth and face with it.
+
+“I can’t keep him clean,” she said with an apologetic shrug of the
+shoulders and a look at de Batz. “There now,” she added, speaking once
+more to the child, “drink like a good boy, and say your lesson to please
+maman, and then you shall go to bed.”
+
+She took a glass from the table, which was filled with a clear liquid
+that de Batz at first took to be water, and held it to the boy’s lips.
+He turned his head away and began to whimper.
+
+“Is the medicine very nasty?” queried de Batz.
+
+“Mon Dieu! but no, citizen,” exclaimed the woman, “it is good strong eau
+de vie, the best that can be procured. Capet likes it really--don’t you,
+Capet? It makes you happy and cheerful, and sleep well of nights. Why,
+you had a glassful yesterday and enjoyed it. Take it now,” she added in
+a quick whisper, seeing that Simon and Heron were in close conversation
+together; “you know it makes papa angry if you don’t have at least half
+a glass now and then.”
+
+The child wavered for a moment longer, making a quaint little grimace of
+distaste. But at last he seemed to make up his mind that it was wisest
+to yield over so small a matter, and he took the glass from Madame
+Simon.
+
+And thus did de Batz see the descendant of St. Louis quaffing a glass of
+raw spirit at the bidding of a rough cobbler’s wife, whom he called by
+the fond and foolish name sacred to childhood, maman!
+
+Selfish egoist though he was, de Batz turned away in loathing.
+
+Simon had watched the little scene with obvious satisfaction. He
+chuckled audibly when the child drank the spirit, and called Heron’s
+attention to him, whilst a look of triumph lit up his wide, pale eyes.
+
+“And now, mon petit,” he said jovially, “let the citizen hear you say
+your prayers!”
+
+He winked toward de Batz, evidently anticipating a good deal of
+enjoyment for the visitor from what was coming. From a heap of litter in
+a corner of the room he fetched out a greasy red bonnet adorned with a
+tricolour cockade, and a soiled and tattered flag, which had once been
+white, and had golden fleur-de-lys embroidered upon it.
+
+The cap he set on the child’s head, and the flag he threw upon the
+floor.
+
+“Now, Capet--your prayers!” he said with another chuckle of amusement.
+
+All his movements were rough, and his speech almost ostentatiously
+coarse. He banged against the furniture as he moved about the room,
+kicking a footstool out of the way or knocking over a chair. De
+Batz instinctively thought of the perfumed stillness of the rooms at
+Versailles, of the army of elegant high-born ladies who had ministered
+to the wants of this child, who stood there now before him, a cap on his
+yellow hair, and his shoulder held up to his ear with that gesture
+of careless indifference peculiar to children when they are sullen or
+uncared for.
+
+Obediently, quite mechanically it seemed, the boy trod on the flag which
+Henri IV had borne before him at Ivry, and le Roi Soleil had flaunted in
+the face of the armies of Europe. The son of the Bourbons was spitting
+on their flag, and wiping his shoes upon its tattered folds. With shrill
+cracked voice he sang the Carmagnole, “Ca ira! ca ira! les aristos a la
+lanterne!” until de Batz himself felt inclined to stop his ears and to
+rush from the place in horror.
+
+Louis XVII, whom the hearts of many had proclaimed King of France by the
+grace of God, the child of the Bourbons, the eldest son of the Church,
+was stepping a vulgar dance over the flag of St. Louis, which he had
+been taught to defile. His pale cheeks glowed as he danced, his eyes
+shone with the unnatural light kindled in them by the intoxicating
+liquor; with one slender hand he waved the red cap with the tricolour
+cockade, and shouted “Vive la Republique!”
+
+Madame Simon was clapping her hands, looking on the child with obvious
+pride, and a kind of rough maternal affection. Simon was gazing on
+Heron for approval, and the latter nodded his head, murmuring words of
+encouragement and of praise.
+
+“Thy catechism now, Capet--thy catechism,” shouted Simon in a hoarse
+voice.
+
+The boy stood at attention, cap on head, hands on his hips, legs wide
+apart, and feet firmly planted on the fleur-de-lys, the glory of his
+forefathers.
+
+“Thy name?” queried Simon.
+
+“Louis Capet,” replied the child in a clear, high-pitched voice.
+
+“What art thou?”
+
+“A citizen of the Republic of France.”
+
+“What was thy father?”
+
+“Louis Capet, ci-devant king, a tyrant who perished by the will of the
+people!”
+
+“What was thy mother?”
+
+“A ----”
+
+De Batz involuntarily uttered a cry of horror. Whatever the man’s
+private character was, he had been born a gentleman, and his every
+instinct revolted against what he saw and heard. The scene had
+positively sickened him. He turned precipitately towards the door.
+
+“How now, citizen?” queried the Committee’s agent with a sneer. “Are you
+not satisfied with what you see?”
+
+“Mayhap the citizen would like to see Capet sitting in a golden chair,”
+ interposed Simon the cobbler with a sneer, “and me and my wife kneeling
+and kissing his hand--what?”
+
+“‘Tis the heat of the room,” stammered de Batz, who was fumbling with
+the lock of the door; “my head began to swim.”
+
+“Spit on their accursed flag, then, like a good patriot, like Capet,”
+ retorted Simon gruffly. “Here, Capet, my son,” he added, pulling the boy
+by the arm with a rough gesture, “get thee to bed; thou art quite drunk
+enough to satisfy any good Republican.”
+
+By way of a caress he tweaked the boy’s ear and gave him a prod in the
+back with his bent knee. He was not wilfully unkind, for just now he
+was not angry with the lad; rather was he vastly amused with the effect
+Capet’s prayer and Capet’s recital of his catechism had had on the
+visitor.
+
+As to the lad, the intensity of excitement in him was immediately
+followed by an overwhelming desire for sleep. Without any preliminary
+of undressing or of washing, he tumbled, just as he was, on to the sofa.
+Madame Simon, with quite pleasing solicitude, arranged a pillow under
+his head, and the very next moment the child was fast asleep.
+
+“‘Tis well, citoyen Simon,” said Heron in his turn, going towards
+the door. “I’ll report favourably on you to the Committee of Public
+Security. As for the citoyenne, she had best be more careful,” he added,
+turning to the woman Simon with a snarl on his evil face. “There was no
+cause to arrange a pillow under the head of that vermin’s spawn. Many
+good patriots have no pillows to put under their heads. Take that pillow
+away; and I don’t like the shoes on the brat’s feet; sabots are quite
+good enough.”
+
+Citoyenne Simon made no reply. Some sort of retort had apparently
+hovered on her lips, but had been checked, even before it was uttered,
+by a peremptory look from her husband. Simon the cobbler, snarling in
+speech but obsequious in manner, prepared to accompany the citizen agent
+to the door.
+
+De Batz was taking a last look at the sleeping child; the uncrowned King
+of France was wrapped in a drunken sleep, with the last spoken insult
+upon his dead mother still hovering on his childish lips.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. ARCADES AMBO
+
+“That is the way we conduct our affairs, citizen,” said Heron gruffly,
+as he once more led his guest back into his office.
+
+It was his turn to be complacent now. De Batz, for once in his life
+cowed by what he had seen, still wore a look of horror and disgust upon
+his florid face.
+
+“What devils you all are!” he said at last.
+
+“We are good patriots,” retorted Heron, “and the tyrant’s spawn leads
+but the life that hundreds of thousands of children led whilst his
+father oppressed the people. Nay! what am I saying? He leads a far
+better, far happier life. He gets plenty to eat and plenty of warm
+clothes. Thousands of innocent children, who have not the crimes of
+a despot father upon their conscience, have to starve whilst he grows
+fat.”
+
+The leer in his face was so evil that once more de Batz felt that
+eerie feeling of terror creeping into his bones. Here were cruelty and
+bloodthirsty ferocity personified to their utmost extent. At thought of
+the Bourbons, or of all those whom he considered had been in the past
+the oppressors of the people, Heron was nothing but a wild and ravenous
+beast, hungering for revenge, longing to bury his talons and his fangs
+into the body of those whose heels had once pressed on his own neck.
+
+And de Batz knew that even with millions or countless money at his
+command he could not purchase from this carnivorous brute the life and
+liberty of the son of King Louis. No amount of bribery would accomplish
+that; it would have to be ingenuity pitted against animal force, the
+wiliness of the fox against the power of the wolf.
+
+Even now Heron was darting savagely suspicious looks upon him.
+
+“I shall get rid of the Simons,” he said; “there’s something in that
+woman’s face which I don’t trust. They shall go within the next few
+hours, or as soon as I can lay my hands upon a better patriot than that
+mealy-mouthed cobbler. And it will be better not to have a woman about
+the place. Let me see--to-day is Thursday, or else Friday morning.
+By Sunday I’ll get those Simons out of the place. Methought I saw you
+ogling that woman,” he added, bringing his bony fist crashing down on
+the table so that papers, pen, and inkhorn rattled loudly; “and if I
+thought that you--”
+
+De Batz thought it well at this point to finger once more nonchalantly
+the bundle of crisp paper in the pocket of his coat.
+
+“Only on that one condition,” reiterated Heron in a hoarse voice; “if
+you try to get at Capet, I’ll drag you to the Tribunal with my own
+hands.”
+
+“Always presuming that you can get me, my friend,” murmured de Batz, who
+was gradually regaining his accustomed composure.
+
+Already his active mind was busily at work. One or two things which
+he had noted in connection with his visit to the Dauphin’s prison had
+struck him as possibly useful in his schemes. But he was disappointed
+that Heron was getting rid of the Simons. The woman might have been
+very useful and more easily got at than a man. The avarice of the French
+bourgeoise would have proved a promising factor. But this, of course,
+would now be out of the question. At the same time it was not because
+Heron raved and stormed and uttered cries like a hyena that he, de
+Batz, meant to give up an enterprise which, if successful, would place
+millions into his own pocket.
+
+As for that meddling Englishman, the Scarlet Pimpernel, and his
+crack-brained followers, they must be effectually swept out of the way
+first of all. De Batz felt that they were the real, the most likely
+hindrance to his schemes. He himself would have to go very cautiously
+to work, since apparently Heron would not allow him to purchase immunity
+for himself in that one matter, and whilst he was laying his plans with
+necessary deliberation so as to ensure his own safety, that accursed
+Scarlet Pimpernel would mayhap snatch the golden prize from the Temple
+prison right under his very nose.
+
+When he thought of that the Gascon Royalist felt just as vindictive as
+did the chief agent of the Committee of General Security.
+
+While these thoughts were coursing through de Batz’ head, Heron had been
+indulging in a volley of vituperation.
+
+“If that little vermin escapes,” he said, “my life will not be worth
+an hour’s purchase. In twenty-four hours I am a dead man, thrown to the
+guillotine like those dogs of aristocrats! You say I am a night-bird,
+citizen. I tell you that I do not sleep night or day thinking of that
+brat and the means to keep him safely under my hand. I have never
+trusted those Simons--”
+
+“Not trusted them!” exclaimed de Batz; “surely you could not find
+anywhere more inhuman monsters!”
+
+“Inhuman monsters?” snarled Heron. “Bah! they don’t do their business
+thoroughly; we want the tyrant’s spawn to become a true Republican and
+a patriot--aye! to make of him such a one that even if you and your
+cursed confederates got him by some hellish chance, he would be no use
+to you as a king, a tyrant to set above the people, to set up in
+your Versailles, your Louvre, to eat off golden plates and wear satin
+clothes. You have seen the brat! By the time he is a man he should
+forget how to eat save with his fingers, and get roaring drunk every
+night. That’s what we want!--to make him so that he shall be no use to
+you, even if you did get him away; but you shall not! You shall not, not
+if I have to strangle him with my own hands.”
+
+He picked up his short-stemmed pipe and pulled savagely at it for
+awhile. De Batz was meditating.
+
+“My friend,” he said after a little while, “you are agitating yourself
+quite unnecessarily, and gravely jeopardising your prospects of getting
+a comfortable little income through keeping your fingers off my person.
+Who said I wanted to meddle with the child?”
+
+“You had best not,” growled Heron.
+
+“Exactly. You have said that before. But do you not think that you
+would be far wiser, instead of directing your undivided attention to my
+unworthy self, to turn your thoughts a little to one whom, believe me,
+you have far greater cause to fear?”
+
+“Who is that?”
+
+“The Englishman.”
+
+“You mean the man they call the Scarlet Pimpernel?”
+
+“Himself. Have you not suffered from his activity, friend Heron? I fancy
+that citizen Chauvelin and citizen Collot would have quite a tale to
+tell about him.”
+
+“They ought both to have been guillotined for that blunder last autumn
+at Boulogne.”
+
+“Take care that the same accusation be not laid at your door this year,
+my friend,” commented de Batz placidly.
+
+“Bah!”
+
+“The Scarlet Pimpernel is in Paris even now.”
+
+“The devil he is!”
+
+“And on what errand, think you?”
+
+There was a moment’s silence, and then de Batz continued with slow and
+dramatic emphasis:
+
+“That of rescuing your most precious prisoner from the Temple.”
+
+“How do you know?” Heron queried savagely.
+
+“I guessed.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“I saw a man in the Theatre National to-day...”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Who is a member of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel.”
+
+“D---- him! Where can I find him?”
+
+“Will you sign a receipt for the three thousand five hundred livres,
+which I am pining to hand over to you, my friend, and I will tell you?”
+
+“Where’s the money?”
+
+“In my pocket.”
+
+Without further words Heron dragged the inkhorn and a sheet of paper
+towards him, took up a pen, and wrote a few words rapidly in a loose,
+scrawly hand. He strewed sand over the writing, then handed it across
+the table to de Batz.
+
+“Will that do?” he asked briefly.
+
+The other was reading the note through carefully.
+
+“I see you only grant me a fortnight,” he remarked casually.
+
+“For that amount of money it is sufficient. If you want an extension you
+must pay more.”
+
+“So be it,” assented de Batz coolly, as he folded the paper across.
+“On the whole a fortnight’s immunity in France these days is quite a
+pleasant respite. And I prefer to keep in touch with you, friend Heron.
+I’ll call on you again this day fortnight.”
+
+He took out a letter-case from his pocket. Out of this he drew a packet
+of bank-notes, which he laid on the table in front of Heron, then he
+placed the receipt carefully into the letter-case, and this back into
+his pocket.
+
+Heron in the meanwhile was counting over the banknotes. The light
+of ferocity had entirely gone from his eyes; momentarily the whole
+expression of the face was one of satisfied greed.
+
+“Well!” he said at last when he had assured himself that the number
+of notes was quite correct, and he had transferred the bundle of crisp
+papers into an inner pocket of his coat--“well, what about your friend?”
+
+“I knew him years ago,” rejoined de Batz coolly; “he is a kinsman of
+citizen St. Just. I know that he is one of the confederates of the
+Scarlet Pimpernel.”
+
+“Where does he lodge?”
+
+“That is for you to find out. I saw him at the theatre, and afterwards
+in the green-room; he was making himself agreeable to the citizeness
+Lange. I heard him ask for leave to call on her to-morrow at four
+o’clock. You know where she lodges, of course!”
+
+He watched Heron while the latter scribbled a few words on a scrap of
+paper, then he quietly rose to go. He took up his cloak and once again
+wrapped it round his shoulders. There was nothing more to be said, and
+he was anxious to go.
+
+The leave-taking between the two men was neither cordial nor more than
+barely courteous. De Batz nodded to Heron, who escorted him to the
+outside door of his lodging, and there called loudly to a soldier who
+was doing sentinel at the further end of the corridor.
+
+“Show this citizen the way to the guichet,” he said curtly. “Good-night,
+citizen,” he added finally, nodding to de Batz.
+
+Ten minutes later the Gascon once more found himself in the Rue du
+Temple between the great outer walls of the prison and the silent
+little church and convent of St. Elizabeth. He looked up to where in the
+central tower a small grated window lighted from within showed the
+place where the last of the Bourbons was being taught to desecrate the
+traditions of his race, at the bidding of a mender of shoes--a naval
+officer cashiered for misconduct and fraud.
+
+Such is human nature in its self-satisfied complacency that de Batz,
+calmly ignoring the vile part which he himself had played in the last
+quarter of an hour of his interview with the Committee’s agent, found
+it in him to think of Heron with loathing, and even of the cobbler Simon
+with disgust.
+
+Then with a self-righteous sense of duty performed, and an indifferent
+shrug of the shoulders, he dismissed Heron from his mind.
+
+“That meddlesome Scarlet Pimpernel will find his hands over-full
+to-morrow, and mayhap will not interfere in my affairs for some time to
+come,” he mused; “meseems that that will be the first time that a member
+of his precious League has come within the clutches of such unpleasant
+people as the sleuth-hounds of my friend Heron!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. WHAT LOVE CAN DO
+
+“Yesterday you were unkind and ungallant. How could I smile when you
+seemed so stern?”
+
+“Yesterday I was not alone with you. How could I say what lay next my
+heart, when indifferent ears could catch the words that were meant only
+for you?”
+
+“Ah, monsieur, do they teach you in England how to make pretty
+speeches?”
+
+“No, mademoiselle, that is an instinct that comes into birth by the fire
+of a woman’s eyes.”
+
+Mademoiselle Lange was sitting upon a small sofa of antique design, with
+cushions covered in faded silks heaped round her pretty head. Armand
+thought that she looked like that carved cameo which his sister
+Marguerite possessed.
+
+He himself sat on a low chair at some distance from her. He had brought
+her a large bunch of early violets, for he knew that she was fond of
+flowers, and these lay upon her lap, against the opalescent grey of her
+gown.
+
+She seemed a little nervous and agitated, his obvious admiration
+bringing a ready blush to her cheeks.
+
+The room itself appeared to Armand to be a perfect frame for the
+charming picture which she presented. The furniture in it was small and
+old; tiny tables of antique Vernis-Martin, softly faded tapestries, a
+pale-toned Aubusson carpet. Everything mellow and in a measure pathetic.
+Mademoiselle Lange, who was an orphan, lived alone under the duennaship
+of a middle-aged relative, a penniless hanger-on of the successful young
+actress, who acted as her chaperone, housekeeper, and maid, and kept
+unseemly or over-bold gallants at bay.
+
+She told Armand all about her early life, her childhood in the backshop
+of Maitre Meziere, the jeweller, who was a relative of her mother’s; of
+her desire for an artistic career, her struggles with the middle-class
+prejudices of her relations, her bold defiance of them, and final
+independence.
+
+She made no secret of her humble origin, her want of education in those
+days; on the contrary, she was proud of what she had accomplished for
+herself. She was only twenty years of age, and already held a leading
+place in the artistic world of Paris.
+
+Armand listened to her chatter, interested in everything she said,
+questioning her with sympathy and discretion. She asked him a good
+deal about himself, and about his beautiful sister Marguerite, who,
+of course, had been the most brilliant star in that most brilliant
+constellation, the Comedie Francaise. She had never seen Marguerite St.
+Just act, but, of course, Paris still rang with her praises, and all
+art-lovers regretted that she should have married and left them to mourn
+for her.
+
+Thus the conversation drifted naturally back to England. Mademoiselle
+professed a vast interest in the citizen’s country of adoption.
+
+“I had always,” she said, “thought it an ugly country, with the noise
+and bustle of industrial life going on everywhere, and smoke and fog to
+cover the landscape and to stunt the trees.”
+
+“Then, in future, mademoiselle,” he replied, “must you think of it as
+one carpeted with verdure, where in the spring the orchard trees covered
+with delicate blossom would speak to you of fairyland, where the dewy
+grass stretches its velvety surface in the shadow of ancient monumental
+oaks, and ivy-covered towers rear their stately crowns to the sky.”
+
+“And the Scarlet Pimpernel? Tell me about him, monsieur.”
+
+“Ah, mademoiselle, what can I tell you that you do not already know? The
+Scarlet Pimpernel is a man who has devoted his entire existence to the
+benefit of suffering mankind. He has but one thought, and that is for
+those who need him; he hears but one sound the cry of the oppressed.”
+
+“But they do say, monsieur, that philanthropy plays but a sorry part in
+your hero’s schemes. They aver that he looks on his own efforts and the
+adventures through which he goes only in the light of sport.”
+
+“Like all Englishmen, mademoiselle, the Scarlet Pimpernel is a little
+ashamed of sentiment. He would deny its very existence with his lips,
+even whilst his noble heart brimmed over with it. Sport? Well! mayhap
+the sporting instinct is as keen as that of charity--the race for lives,
+the tussle for the rescue of human creatures, the throwing of a life on
+the hazard of a die.”
+
+“They fear him in France, monsieur. He has saved so many whose death had
+been decreed by the Committee of Public Safety.”
+
+“Please God, he will save many yet.”
+
+“Ah, monsieur, the poor little boy in the Temple prison!”
+
+“He has your sympathy, mademoiselle?”
+
+“Of every right-minded woman in France, monsieur. Oh!” she added with a
+pretty gesture of enthusiasm, clasping her hands together, and looking
+at Armand with large eyes filled with tears, “if your noble Scarlet
+Pimpernel will do aught to save that poor innocent lamb, I would indeed
+bless him in my heart, and help him with all my humble might if I
+could.”
+
+“May God’s saints bless you for those words, mademoiselle,” he said,
+whilst, carried away by her beauty, her charm, her perfect femininity,
+he stooped towards her until his knee touched the carpet at her feet. “I
+had begun to lose my belief in my poor misguided country, to think all
+men in France vile, and all women base. I could thank you on my
+knees for your sweet words of sympathy, for the expression of tender
+motherliness that came into your eyes when you spoke of the poor
+forsaken Dauphin in the Temple.”
+
+She did not restrain her tears; with her they came very easily, just as
+with a child, and as they gathered in her eyes and rolled down her fresh
+cheeks they in no way marred the charm of her face. One hand lay in her
+lap fingering a diminutive bit of cambric, which from time to time she
+pressed to her eyes. The other she had almost unconsciously yielded to
+Armand.
+
+The scent of the violets filled the room. It seemed to emanate from her,
+a fitting attribute of her young, wholly unsophisticated girlhood. The
+citizen was goodly to look at; he was kneeling at her feet, and his lips
+were pressed against her hand.
+
+Armand was young and he was an idealist. I do not for a moment imagine
+that just at this moment he was deeply in love. The stronger feeling had
+not yet risen up in him; it came later when tragedy encompassed him
+and brought passion to sudden maturity. Just now he was merely yielding
+himself up to the intoxicating moment, with all the abandonment, all the
+enthusiasm of the Latin race. There was no reason why he should not bend
+the knee before this exquisite little cameo, that by its very presence
+was giving him an hour of perfect pleasure and of aesthetic joy.
+
+Outside the world continued its hideous, relentless way; men butchered
+one another, fought and hated. Here in this small old-world salon, with
+its faded satins and bits of ivory-tinted lace, the outer universe had
+never really penetrated. It was a tiny world--quite apart from the rest
+of mankind, perfectly peaceful and absolutely beautiful.
+
+If Armand had been allowed to depart from here now, without having been
+the cause as well as the chief actor in the events that followed, no
+doubt that Mademoiselle Lange would always have remained a charming
+memory with him, an exquisite bouquet of violets pressed reverently
+between the leaves of a favourite book of poems, and the scent of spring
+flowers would in after years have ever brought her dainty picture to his
+mind.
+
+He was murmuring pretty words of endearment; carried away by emotion,
+his arm stole round her waist; he felt that if another tear came like a
+dewdrop rolling down her cheek he must kiss it away at its very source.
+Passion was not sweeping them off their feet--not yet, for they
+were very young, and life had not as yet presented to them its most
+unsolvable problem.
+
+But they yielded to one another, to the springtime of their life,
+calling for Love, which would come presently hand in hand with his grim
+attendant, Sorrow.
+
+Even as Armand’s glowing face was at last lifted up to hers asking with
+mute lips for that first kiss which she already was prepared to give,
+there came the loud noise of men’s heavy footsteps tramping up the
+old oak stairs, then some shouting, a woman’s cry, and the next moment
+Madame Belhomme, trembling, wide-eyed, and in obvious terror, came
+rushing into the room.
+
+“Jeanne! Jeanne! My child! It is awful! It is awful! Mon Dieu--mon Dieu!
+What is to become of us?”
+
+She was moaning and lamenting even as she ran in, and now she threw her
+apron over her face and sank into a chair, continuing her moaning and
+her lamentations.
+
+Neither Mademoiselle nor Armand had stirred. They remained like graven
+images, he on one knee, she with large eyes fixed upon his face. They
+had neither of them looked on the old woman; they seemed even now
+unconscious of her presence. But their ears had caught the sound of that
+measured tramp of feet up the stairs of the old house, and the halt upon
+the landing; they had heard the brief words of command:
+
+“Open, in the name of the people!”
+
+They knew quite well what it all meant; they had not wandered so far in
+the realms of romance that reality--the grim, horrible reality of the
+moment--had not the power to bring them back to earth.
+
+That peremptory call to open in the name of the people was the prologue
+these days to a drama which had but two concluding acts: arrest, which
+was a certainty; the guillotine, which was more than probable. Jeanne
+and Armand, these two young people who but a moment ago had tentatively
+lifted the veil of life, looked straight into each other’s eyes and saw
+the hand of death interposed between them: they looked straight into
+each other’s eyes and knew that nothing but the hand of death would part
+them now. Love had come with its attendant, Sorrow; but he had come with
+no uncertain footsteps. Jeanne looked on the man before her, and he bent
+his head to imprint a glowing kiss upon her hand.
+
+“Aunt Marie!”
+
+It was Jeanne Lange who spoke, but her voice was no longer that of an
+irresponsible child; it was firm, steady and hard. Though she spoke to
+the old woman, she did not look at her; her luminous brown eyes rested
+on the bowed head of Armand St. Just.
+
+“Aunt Marie!” she repeated more peremptorily, for the old woman, with
+her apron over her head, was still moaning, and unconscious of all save
+an overmastering fear.
+
+“Open, in the name of the people!” came in a loud harsh voice once more
+from the other side of the front door.
+
+“Aunt Marie, as you value your life and mine, pull yourself together,”
+ said Jeanne firmly.
+
+“What shall we do? Oh! what shall we do?” moaned Madame Belhomme. But
+she had dragged the apron away from her face, and was looking with some
+puzzlement at meek, gentle little Jeanne, who had suddenly become so
+strange, so dictatorial, all unlike her habitual somewhat diffident
+self.
+
+“You need not have the slightest fear, Aunt Marie, if you will only do
+as I tell you,” resumed Jeanne quietly; “if you give way to fear, we
+are all of us undone. As you value your life and mine,” she now repeated
+authoritatively, “pull yourself together, and do as I tell you.”
+
+The girl’s firmness, her perfect quietude had the desired effect. Madame
+Belhomme, though still shaken up with sobs of terror, made a great
+effort to master herself; she stood up, smoothed down her apron, passed
+her hand over her ruffled hair, and said in a quaking voice:
+
+“What do you think we had better do?”
+
+“Go quietly to the door and open it.”
+
+“But--the soldiers--”
+
+“If you do not open quietly they will force the door open within the
+next two minutes,” interposed Jeanne calmly. “Go quietly and open the
+door. Try and hide your fears, grumble in an audible voice at being
+interrupted in your cooking, and tell the soldiers at once that they
+will find mademoiselle in the boudoir. Go, for God’s sake!” she added,
+whilst suppressed emotion suddenly made her young voice vibrate; “go,
+before they break open that door!”
+
+Madame Belhomme, impressed and cowed, obeyed like an automaton. She
+turned and marched fairly straight out of the room. It was not a minute
+too soon. From outside had already come the third and final summons:
+
+“Open, in the name of the people!”
+
+After that a crowbar would break open the door.
+
+Madame Belhomme’s heavy footsteps were heard crossing the ante-chamber.
+Armand still knelt at Jeanne’s feet, holding her trembling little hand
+in his.
+
+“A love-scene,” she whispered rapidly, “a love-scene--quick--do you know
+one?”
+
+And even as he had tried to rise she held him back, down on his knees.
+
+He thought that fear was making her distracted.
+
+“Mademoiselle--” he murmured, trying to soothe her.
+
+“Try and understand,” she said with wonderful calm, “and do as I tell
+you. Aunt Marie has obeyed. Will you do likewise?”
+
+“To the death!” he whispered eagerly.
+
+“Then a love-scene,” she entreated. “Surely you know one. Rodrigue and
+Chimene! Surely--surely,” she urged, even as tears of anguish rose into
+her eyes, “you must--you must, or, if not that, something else. Quick!
+The very seconds are precious!”
+
+They were indeed! Madame Belhomme, obedient as a frightened dog, had
+gone to the door and opened it; even her well-feigned grumblings could
+now be heard and the rough interrogations from the soldiery.
+
+“Citizeness Lange!” said a gruff voice.
+
+“In her boudoir, quoi!”
+
+Madame Belhomme, braced up apparently by fear, was playing her part
+remarkably well.
+
+“Bothering good citizens! On baking day, too!” she went on grumbling and
+muttering.
+
+“Oh, think--think!” murmured Jeanne now in an agonised whisper, her hot
+little hand grasping his so tightly that her nails were driven into his
+flesh. “You must know something that will do--anything--for dear life’s
+sake.... Armand!”
+
+His name--in the tense excitement of this terrible moment--had escaped
+her lips.
+
+All in a flash of sudden intuition he understood what she wanted, and
+even as the door of the boudoir was thrown violently open Armand--still
+on his knees, but with one hand pressed to his heart, the other
+stretched upwards to the ceiling in the most approved dramatic style,
+was loudly declaiming:
+
+     “Pour venger son honneur il perdit son amour,
+      Pour venger sa maitresse il a quitte le jour!”
+
+Whereupon Mademoiselle Lange feigned the most perfect impatience.
+
+“No, no, my good cousin,” she said with a pretty moue of disdain, “that
+will never do! You must not thus emphasise the end of every line; the
+verses should flow more evenly, as thus....”
+
+Heron had paused at the door. It was he who had thrown it open--he who,
+followed by a couple of his sleuth-hounds, had thought to find here
+the man denounced by de Batz as being one of the followers of that
+irrepressible Scarlet Pimpernel. The obviously Parisian intonation of
+the man kneeling in front of citizeness Lange in an attitude no ways
+suggestive of personal admiration, and coolly reciting verses out of a
+play, had somewhat taken him aback.
+
+“What does this mean?” he asked gruffly, striding forward into the room
+and glaring first at mademoiselle, then at Armand.
+
+Mademoiselle gave a little cry of surprise.
+
+“Why, if it isn’t citizen Heron!” she cried, jumping up with a dainty
+movement of coquetry and embarrassment. “Why did not Aunt Marie announce
+you?... It is indeed remiss of her, but she is so ill-tempered on baking
+days I dare not even rebuke her. Won’t you sit down, citizen Heron?
+And you, cousin,” she added, looking down airily on Armand, “I pray you
+maintain no longer that foolish attitude.”
+
+The febrileness of her manner, the glow in her cheeks were easily
+attributable to natural shyness in face of this unexpected visit. Heron,
+completely bewildered by this little scene, which was so unlike what he
+expected, and so unlike those to which he was accustomed in the exercise
+of his horrible duties, was practically speechless before the little
+lady who continued to prattle along in a simple, unaffected manner.
+
+“Cousin,” she said to Armand, who in the meanwhile had risen to his
+knees, “this is citizen Heron, of whom you have heard me speak. My
+cousin Belhomme,” she continued, once more turning to Heron, “is fresh
+from the country, citizen. He hails from Orleans, where he has played
+leading parts in the tragedies of the late citizen Corneille. But, ah
+me! I fear that he will find Paris audiences vastly more critical
+than the good Orleanese. Did you hear him, citizen, declaiming those
+beautiful verses just now? He was murdering them, say I--yes, murdering
+them--the gaby!”
+
+Then only did it seem as if she realised that there was something amiss,
+that citizen Heron had come to visit her, not as an admirer of her
+talent who would wish to pay his respects to a successful actress, but
+as a person to be looked on with dread.
+
+She gave a quaint, nervous little laugh, and murmured in the tones of a
+frightened child:
+
+“La, citizen, how glum you look! I thought you had come to compliment
+me on my latest success. I saw you at the theatre last night, though
+you did not afterwards come to see me in the green-room. Why! I had a
+regular ovation! Look at my flowers!” she added more gaily, pointing to
+several bouquets in vases about the room. “Citizen Danton brought me
+the violets himself, and citizen Santerre the narcissi, and that laurel
+wreath--is it not charming?--that was a tribute from citizen Robespierre
+himself.”
+
+She was so artless, so simple, and so natural that Heron was completely
+taken off his usual mental balance. He had expected to find the usual
+setting to the dramatic episodes which he was wont to conduct--screaming
+women, a man either at bay, sword in hand, or hiding in a linen cupboard
+or up a chimney.
+
+Now everything puzzled him. De Batz--he was quite sure--had spoken of an
+Englishman, a follower of the Scarlet Pimpernel; every thinking French
+patriot knew that all the followers of the Scarlet Pimpernel were
+Englishmen with red hair and prominent teeth, whereas this man....
+
+Armand--who deadly danger had primed in his improvised role--was
+striding up and down the room declaiming with ever-varying intonations:
+
+     “Joignez tous vos efforts contre un espoir si doux
+      Pour en venir a bout, c’est trop peu que de vous.”
+
+“No! no!” said mademoiselle impatiently; “you must not make that ugly
+pause midway in the last line: ‘pour en venir a bout, c’est trop peu que
+de vous!’”
+
+She mimicked Armand’s diction so quaintly, imitating his stride, his
+awkward gesture, and his faulty phraseology with such funny exaggeration
+that Heron laughed in spite of himself.
+
+“So that is a cousin from Orleans, is it?” he asked, throwing his lanky
+body into an armchair, which creaked dismally under his weight.
+
+“Yes! a regular gaby--what?” she said archly. “Now, citizen Heron, you
+must stay and take coffee with me. Aunt Marie will be bringing it in
+directly. Hector,” she added, turning to Armand, “come down from the
+clouds and ask Aunt Marie to be quick.”
+
+This certainly was the first time in the whole of his experience that
+Heron had been asked to stay and drink coffee with the quarry he was
+hunting down. Mademoiselle’s innocent little ways, her desire for
+the prolongation of his visit, further addled his brain. De Batz had
+undoubtedly spoken of an Englishman, and the cousin from Orleans was
+certainly a Frenchman every inch of him.
+
+Perhaps had the denunciation come from any one else but de Batz, Heron
+might have acted and thought more circumspectly; but, of course, the
+chief agent of the Committee of General Security was more suspicious of
+the man from whom he took a heavy bribe than of any one else in France.
+The thought had suddenly crossed his mind that mayhap de Batz had sent
+him on a fool’s errand in order to get him safely out of the way of the
+Temple prison at a given hour of the day.
+
+The thought took shape, crystallised, caused him to see a rapid vision
+of de Batz sneaking into his lodgings and stealing his keys, the guard
+being slack, careless, inattentive, allowing the adventurer to pass
+barriers that should have been closed against all comers.
+
+Now Heron was sure of it; it was all a conspiracy invented by de Batz.
+He had forgotten all about his theories that a man under arrest is
+always safer than a man that is free. Had his brain been quite normal,
+and not obsessed, as it always was now by thoughts of the Dauphin’s
+escape from prison, no doubt he would have been more suspicious of
+Armand, but all his worst suspicions were directed against de Batz.
+Armand seemed to him just a fool, an actor quoi? and so obviously not an
+Englishman.
+
+He jumped to his feet, curtly declining mademoiselle’s offers of
+hospitality. He wanted to get away at once. Actors and actresses were
+always, by tacit consent of the authorities, more immune than the rest
+of the community. They provided the only amusement in the intervals
+of the horrible scenes around the scaffolds; they were irresponsible,
+harmless creatures who did not meddle in politics.
+
+Jeanne the while was gaily prattling on, her luminous eyes fixed upon
+the all-powerful enemy, striving to read his thoughts, to understand
+what went on behind those cruel, prominent eyes, the chances that Armand
+had of safety and of life.
+
+She knew, of course, that the visit was directed against Armand--some
+one had betrayed him, that odious de Batz mayhap--and she was fighting
+for Armand’s safety, for his life. Her armoury consisted of her presence
+of mind, her cool courage, her self-control; she used all these weapons
+for his sake, though at times she felt as if the strain on her nerves
+would snap the thread of life in her. The effort seemed more than she
+could bear.
+
+But she kept up her part, rallying Heron for the shortness of his
+visit, begging him to tarry for another five minutes at least, throwing
+out--with subtle feminine intuition--just those very hints anent little
+Capet’s safety that were most calculated to send him flying back towards
+the Temple.
+
+“I felt so honoured last night, citizen,” she said coquettishly, “that
+you even forgot little Capet in order to come and watch my debut as
+Celimene.”
+
+“Forget him!” retorted Heron, smothering a curse, “I never forget the
+vermin. I must go back to him; there are too many cats nosing round my
+mouse. Good day to you, citizeness. I ought to have brought flowers, I
+know; but I am a busy man--a harassed man.”
+
+“Je te crois,” she said with a grave nod of the head; “but do come to
+the theatre to-night. I am playing Camille--such a fine part! one of my
+greatest successes.”
+
+“Yes, yes, I’ll come--mayhap, mayhap--but I’ll go now--glad to have seen
+you, citizeness. Where does your cousin lodge?” he asked abruptly.
+
+“Here,” she replied boldly, on the spur of the moment.
+
+“Good. Let him report himself to-morrow morning at the Conciergerie, and
+get his certificate of safety. It is a new decree, and you should have
+one, too.”
+
+“Very well, then. Hector and I will come together, and perhaps Aunt
+Marie will come too. Don’t send us to maman guillotine yet awhile,
+citizen,” she said lightly; “you will never get such another Camille,
+nor yet so good a Celimene.”
+
+She was gay, artless to the last. She accompanied Heron to the door
+herself, chaffing him about his escort.
+
+“You are an aristo, citizen,” she said, gazing with well-feigned
+admiration on the two sleuth-hounds who stood in wait in the anteroom;
+“it makes me proud to see so many citizens at my door. Come and see me
+play Camille--come to-night, and don’t forget the green-room door--it
+will always be kept invitingly open for you.”
+
+She bobbed him a curtsey, and he walked out, closely followed by his two
+men; then at last she closed the door behind them. She stood there for
+a while, her ear glued against the massive panels, listening for their
+measured tread down the oak staircase. At last it rang more sharply
+against the flagstones of the courtyard below; then she was satisfied
+that they had gone, and went slowly back to the boudoir.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. SHADOWS
+
+The tension on her nerves relaxed; there was the inevitable reaction.
+Her knees were shaking under her, and she literally staggered into the
+room.
+
+But Armand was already near her, down on both his knees this time, his
+arms clasping the delicate form that swayed like the slender stems of
+narcissi in the breeze.
+
+“Oh! you must go out of Paris at once--at once,” she said through sobs
+which no longer would be kept back.
+
+“He’ll return--I know that he will return--and you will not be safe
+until you are back in England.”
+
+But he could not think of himself or of anything in the future. He had
+forgotten Heron, Paris, the world; he could only think of her.
+
+“I owe my life to you!” he murmured. “Oh, how beautiful you are--how
+brave! How I love you!”
+
+It seemed that he had always loved her, from the moment that first
+in his boyish heart he had set up an ideal to worship, and then, last
+night, in the box of the theatre--he had his back turned toward the
+stage, and was ready to go--her voice had called him back; it had held
+him spellbound; her voice, and also her eyes.... He did not know then
+that it was Love which then and there had enchained him. Oh, how foolish
+he had been! for now he knew that he had loved her with all his might,
+with all his soul, from the very instant that his eyes had rested upon
+her.
+
+He babbled along--incoherently--in the intervals of covering her hands
+and the hem of her gown with kisses. He stooped right down to the ground
+and kissed the arch of her instep; he had become a devotee worshipping
+at the shrine of his saint, who had performed a great and a wonderful
+miracle.
+
+Armand the idealist had found his ideal in a woman. That was the great
+miracle which the woman herself had performed for him. He found in her
+all that he had admired most, all that he had admired in the leader
+who hitherto had been the only personification of his ideal. But Jeanne
+possessed all those qualities which had roused his enthusiasm in the
+noble hero whom he revered. Her pluck, her ingenuity, her calm devotion
+which had averted the threatened danger from him!
+
+What had he done that she should have risked her own sweet life for his
+sake?
+
+But Jeanne did not know. She could not tell. Her nerves now were
+somewhat unstrung, and the tears that always came so readily to her eyes
+flowed quite unchecked. She could not very well move, for he held her
+knees imprisoned in his arms, but she was quite content to remain like
+this, and to yield her hands to him so that he might cover them with
+kisses.
+
+Indeed, she did not know at what precise moment love for him had been
+born in her heart. Last night, perhaps... she could not say ... but when
+they parted she felt that she must see him again... and then today...
+perhaps it was the scent of the violets... they were so exquisitely
+sweet... perhaps it was his enthusiasm and his talk about England... but
+when Heron came she knew that she must save Armand’s life at all cost...
+that she would die if they dragged him away to prison.
+
+Thus these two children philosophised, trying to understand the mystery
+of the birth of Love. But they were only children; they did not really
+understand. Passion was sweeping them off their feet, because a common
+danger had bound them irrevocably to one another. The womanly instinct
+to save and to protect had given the young girl strength to bear a
+difficult part, and now she loved him for the dangers from which she had
+rescued him, and he loved her because she had risked her life for him.
+
+The hours sped on; there was so much to say, so much that was exquisite
+to listen to. The shades of evening were gathering fast; the room, with
+its pale-toned hangings and faded tapestries, was sinking into the
+arms of gloom. Aunt Marie was no doubt too terrified to stir out of her
+kitchen; she did not bring the lamps, but the darkness suited Armand’s
+mood, and Jeanne was glad that the gloaming effectually hid the
+perpetual blush in her cheeks.
+
+In the evening air the dying flowers sent their heady fragrance around.
+Armand was intoxicated with the perfume of violets that clung to
+Jeanne’s fingers, with the touch of her satin gown that brushed his
+cheek, with the murmur of her voice that quivered through her tears.
+
+No noise from the ugly outer world reached this secluded spot. In the
+tiny square outside a street lamp had been lighted, and its feeble rays
+came peeping in through the lace curtains at the window. They caught the
+dainty silhouette of the young girl, playing with the loose tendrils of
+her hair around her forehead, and outlining with a thin band of light
+the contour of neck and shoulder, making the satin of her gown shimmer
+with an opalescent glow.
+
+Armand rose from his knees. Her eyes were calling to him, her lips were
+ready to yield.
+
+“Tu m’aimes?” he whispered.
+
+And like a tired child she sank upon his breast.
+
+He kissed her hair, her eyes, her lips; her skin was fragrant as the
+flowers of spring, the tears on her cheeks glistened like morning dew.
+
+
+
+Aunt Marie came in at last, carrying the lamp. She found them sitting
+side by side, like two children, hand in hand, mute with the eloquence
+which comes from boundless love. They were under a spell, forgetting
+even that they lived, knowing nothing except that they loved.
+
+The lamp broke the spell, and Aunt Marie’s still trembling voice:
+
+“Oh, my dear! how did you manage to rid yourself of those brutes?”
+
+But she asked no other question, even when the lamp showed up quite
+clearly the glowing cheeks of Jeanne and the ardent eyes of Armand. In
+her heart, long since atrophied, there were a few memories, carefully
+put away in a secret cell, and those memories caused the old woman to
+understand.
+
+Neither Jeanne nor Armand noticed what she did; the spell had been
+broken, but the dream lingered on; they did not see Aunt Marie putting
+the room tidy, and then quietly tiptoeing out by the door.
+
+But through the dream, reality was struggling for recognition. After
+Armand had asked for the hundredth time: “Tu m’aimes?” and Jeanne for
+the hundredth time had replied mutely with her eyes, her fears for him
+suddenly returned.
+
+Something had awakened her from her trance--a heavy footstep, mayhap, in
+the street below, the distant roll of a drum, or only the clash of steel
+saucepans in Aunt Marie’s kitchen. But suddenly Jeanne was alert, and
+with her alertness came terror for the beloved.
+
+“Your life,” she said--for he had called her his life just then, “your
+life--and I was forgetting that it is still in danger... your dear, your
+precious life!”
+
+“Doubly dear now,” he replied, “since I owe it to you.”
+
+“Then I pray you, I entreat you, guard it well for my sake--make all
+haste to leave Paris... oh, this I beg of you!” she continued more
+earnestly, seeing the look of demur in his eyes; “every hour you spend
+in it brings danger nearer to your door.”
+
+“I could not leave Paris while you are here.”
+
+“But I am safe here,” she urged; “quite, quite safe, I assure you. I am
+only a poor actress, and the Government takes no heed of us mimes.
+Men must be amused, even between the intervals of killing one another.
+Indeed, indeed, I should be far safer here now, waiting quietly for
+awhile, while you make preparations to go... My hasty departure at this
+moment would bring disaster on us both.”
+
+There was logic in what she said. And yet how could he leave her? now
+that he had found this perfect woman--this realisation of his highest
+ideals, how could he go and leave her in this awful Paris, with brutes
+like Heron forcing their hideous personality into her sacred presence,
+threatening that very life he would gladly give his own to keep
+inviolate?
+
+“Listen, sweetheart,” he said after awhile, when presently reason
+struggled back for first place in his mind. “Will you allow me to
+consult with my chief, with the Scarlet Pimpernel, who is in Paris at
+the present moment? I am under his orders; I could not leave France just
+now. My life, my entire person are at his disposal. I and my comrades
+are here under his orders, for a great undertaking which he has not yet
+unfolded to us, but which I firmly believe is framed for the rescue of
+the Dauphin from the Temple.”
+
+She gave an involuntary exclamation of horror.
+
+“No, no!” she said quickly and earnestly; “as far as you are concerned,
+Armand, that has now become an impossibility. Some one has betrayed you,
+and you are henceforth a marked man. I think that odious de Batz had a
+hand in Heron’s visit of this afternoon. We succeeded in putting these
+spies off the scent, but only for a moment... within a few hours--less
+perhaps--Heron will repent him of his carelessness; he’ll come back--I
+know that he will come back. He may leave me, personally, alone; but
+he will be on your track; he’ll drag you to the Conciergerie to report
+yourself, and there your true name and history are bound to come to
+light. If you succeed in evading him, he will still be on your track. If
+the Scarlet Pimpernel keeps you in Paris now, your death will be at his
+door.”
+
+Her voice had become quite hard and trenchant as she said these last
+words; womanlike, she was already prepared to hate the man whose
+mysterious personality she had hitherto admired, now that the life and
+safety of Armand appeared to depend on the will of that elusive hero.
+
+“You must not be afraid for me, Jeanne,” he urged. “The Scarlet
+Pimpernel cares for all his followers; he would never allow me to run
+unnecessary risks.”
+
+She was unconvinced, almost jealous now of his enthusiasm for that
+unknown man. Already she had taken full possession of Armand; she had
+purchased his life, and he had given her his love. She would share
+neither treasure with that nameless leader who held Armand’s allegiance.
+
+“It is only for a little while, sweetheart,” he reiterated again and
+again. “I could not, anyhow, leave Paris whilst I feel that you are
+here, maybe in danger. The thought would be horrible. I should go mad if
+I had to leave you.”
+
+Then he talked again of England, of his life there, of the happiness and
+peace that were in store for them both.
+
+“We will go to England together,” he whispered, “and there we will be
+happy together, you and I. We will have a tiny house among the Kentish
+hills, and its walls will be covered with honeysuckle and roses. At
+the back of the house there will be an orchard, and in May, when the
+fruit-blossom is fading and soft spring breezes blow among the trees,
+showers of sweet-scented petals will envelop us as we walk along,
+falling on us like fragrant snow. You will come, sweetheart, will you
+not?”
+
+“If you still wish it, Armand,” she murmured.
+
+Still wish it! He would gladly go to-morrow if she would come with him.
+But, of course, that could not be arranged. She had her contract to
+fulfil at the theatre, then there would be her house and furniture to
+dispose of, and there was Aunt Marie.... But, of course, Aunt Marie
+would come too.... She thought that she could get away some time before
+the spring; and he swore that he could not leave Paris until she came
+with him.
+
+It seemed a terrible deadlock, for she could not bear to think of him
+alone in those awful Paris streets, where she knew that spies would
+always be tracking him. She had no illusions as to the impression which
+she had made on Heron; she knew that it could only be a momentary one,
+and that Armand would henceforth be in daily, hourly danger.
+
+At last she promised him that she would take the advice of his chief;
+they would both be guided by what he said. Armand would confide in
+him to-night, and if it could be arranged she would hurry on her
+preparations and, mayhap, be ready to join him in a week.
+
+“In the meanwhile, that cruel man must not risk your dear life,” she
+said. “Remember, Armand, your life belongs to me. Oh, I could hate him
+for the love you bear him!”
+
+“Sh--sh--sh!” he said earnestly. “Dear heart, you must not speak like
+that of the man whom, next to your perfect self, I love most upon
+earth.”
+
+“You think of him more than of me. I shall scarce live until I know that
+you are safely out of Paris.”
+
+Though it was horrible to part, yet it was best, perhaps, that he should
+go back to his lodgings now, in case Heron sent his spies back to her
+door, and since he meant to consult with his chief. She had a vague hope
+that if the mysterious hero was indeed the noble-hearted man whom Armand
+represented him to be, surely he would take compassion on the anxiety of
+a sorrowing woman, and release the man she loved from bondage.
+
+This thought pleased her and gave her hope. She even urged Armand now to
+go.
+
+“When may I see you to-morrow?” he asked.
+
+“But it will be so dangerous to meet,” she argued.
+
+“I must see you. I could not live through the day without seeing you.”
+
+“The theatre is the safest place.”
+
+“I could not wait till the evening. May I not come here?”
+
+“No, no. Heron’s spies may be about.”
+
+“Where then?”
+
+She thought it over for a moment.
+
+“At the stage-door of the theatre at one o’clock,” she said at last. “We
+shall have finished rehearsal. Slip into the guichet of the concierge.
+I will tell him to admit you, and send my dresser to meet you there; she
+will bring you along to my room, where we shall be undisturbed for at
+least half an hour.”
+
+He had perforce to be content with that, though he would so much rather
+have seen her here again, where the faded tapestries and soft-toned
+hangings made such a perfect background for her delicate charm. He had
+every intention of confiding in Blakeney, and of asking his help for
+getting Jeanne out of Paris as quickly as may be.
+
+Thus this perfect hour was past; the most pure, the fullest of joy that
+these two young people were ever destined to know. Perhaps they felt
+within themselves the consciousness that their great love would rise
+anon to yet greater, fuller perfection when Fate had crowned it with
+his halo of sorrow. Perhaps, too, it was that consciousness that gave to
+their kisses now the solemnity of a last farewell.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. THE LEAGUE OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL
+
+Armand never could say definitely afterwards whither he went when he
+left the Square du Roule that evening. No doubt he wandered about the
+streets for some time in an absent, mechanical way, paying no heed to
+the passers-by, none to the direction in which he was going.
+
+His mind was full of Jeanne, her beauty, her courage, her attitude in
+face of the hideous bloodhound who had come to pollute that charming
+old-world boudoir by his loathsome presence. He recalled every word she
+uttered, every gesture she made.
+
+He was a man in love for the first time--wholly, irremediably in love.
+
+I suppose that it was the pangs of hunger that first recalled him
+to himself. It was close on eight o’clock now, and he had fed on his
+imaginings--first on anticipation, then on realisation, and lastly on
+memory--during the best part of the day. Now he awoke from his day-dream
+to find himself tired and hungry, but fortunately not very far from that
+quarter of Paris where food is easily obtainable.
+
+He was somewhere near the Madeleine--a quarter he knew well. Soon he
+saw in front of him a small eating-house which looked fairly clean and
+orderly. He pushed open its swing-door, and seeing an empty table in a
+secluded part of the room, he sat down and ordered some supper.
+
+The place made no impression upon his memory. He could not have told
+you an hour later where it was situated, who had served him, what he had
+eaten, or what other persons were present in the dining-room at the time
+that he himself entered it.
+
+Having eaten, however, he felt more like his normal self--more conscious
+of his actions. When he finally left the eating-house, he realised, for
+instance, that it was very cold--a fact of which he had for the past few
+hours been totally unaware. The snow was falling in thin close flakes,
+and a biting north-easterly wind was blowing those flakes into his face
+and down his collar. He wrapped his cloak tightly around him. It was
+a good step yet to Blakeney’s lodgings, where he knew that he was
+expected.
+
+He struck quickly into the Rue St. Honore, avoiding the great open
+places where the grim horrors of this magnificent city in revolt against
+civilisation were displayed in all their grim nakedness--on the Place
+de la Revolution the guillotine, on the Carrousel the open-air camps of
+workers under the lash of slave-drivers more cruel than the uncivilised
+brutes of the Far West.
+
+And Armand had to think of Jeanne in the midst of all these horrors. She
+was still a petted actress to-day, but who could tell if on the morrow
+the terrible law of the “suspect” would not reach her in order to drag
+her before a tribunal that knew no mercy, and whose sole justice was a
+condemnation?
+
+The young man hurried on; he was anxious to be among his own comrades,
+to hear his chief’s pleasant voice, to feel assured that by all the
+sacred laws of friendship Jeanne henceforth would become the special
+care of the Scarlet Pimpernel and his league.
+
+Blakeney lodged in a small house situated on the Quai de l’Ecole, at
+the back of St. Germain l’Auxerrois, from whence he had a clear and
+uninterrupted view across the river, as far as the irregular block of
+buildings of the Chatelet prison and the house of Justice.
+
+The same tower-clock that two centuries ago had tolled the signal for
+the massacre of the Huguenots was even now striking nine. Armand slipped
+through the half-open porte cochere, crossed the narrow dark courtyard,
+and ran up two flights of winding stone stairs. At the top of these, a
+door on his right allowed a thin streak of light to filtrate between its
+two folds. An iron bell handle hung beside it; Armand gave it a pull.
+
+Two minutes later he was amongst his friends. He heaved a great sigh of
+content and relief. The very atmosphere here seemed to be different. As
+far as the lodging itself was concerned, it was as bare, as devoid of
+comfort as those sort of places--so-called chambres garnies--usually
+were in these days. The chairs looked rickety and uninviting, the sofa
+was of black horsehair, the carpet was threadbare, and in places
+in actual holes; but there was a certain something in the air which
+revealed, in the midst of all this squalor, the presence of a man of
+fastidious taste.
+
+To begin with, the place was spotlessly clean; the stove, highly
+polished, gave forth a pleasing warm glow, even whilst the window,
+slightly open, allowed a modicum of fresh air to enter the room. In
+a rough earthenware jug on the table stood a large bunch of Christmas
+roses, and to the educated nostril the slight scent of perfumes that
+hovered in the air was doubly pleasing after the fetid air of the narrow
+streets.
+
+Sir Andrew Ffoulkes was there, also my Lord Tony, and Lord Hastings.
+They greeted Armand with whole-hearted cheeriness.
+
+“Where is Blakeney?” asked the young man as soon as he had shaken his
+friends by the hand.
+
+“Present!” came in loud, pleasant accents from the door of an inner room
+on the right.
+
+And there he stood under the lintel of the door, the man against whom
+was raised the giant hand of an entire nation--the man for whose head
+the revolutionary government of France would gladly pay out all the
+savings of its Treasury--the man whom human bloodhounds were tracking,
+hot on the scent--for whom the nets of a bitter revenge and relentless
+reprisals were constantly being spread.
+
+Was he unconscious of it, or merely careless? His closest friend, Sir
+Andrew Ffoulkes, could not say. Certain it is that, as he now appeared
+before Armand, picturesque as ever in perfectly tailored clothes, with
+priceless lace at throat and wrists, his slender fingers holding an
+enamelled snuff-box and a handkerchief of delicate cambric, his whole
+personality that of a dandy rather than a man of action, it seemed
+impossible to connect him with the foolhardy escapades which had set one
+nation glowing with enthusiasm and another clamouring for revenge.
+
+But it was the magnetism that emanated from him that could not be
+denied; the light that now and then, swift as summer lightning, flashed
+out from the depths of the blue eyes usually veiled by heavy, lazy lids,
+the sudden tightening of firm lips, the setting of the square jaw, which
+in a moment--but only for the space of a second--transformed the entire
+face, and revealed the born leader of men.
+
+Just now there was none of that in the debonnair, easy-going man of the
+world who advanced to meet his friend. Armand went quickly up to him,
+glad to grasp his hand, slightly troubled with remorse, no doubt, at the
+recollection of his adventure of to-day. It almost seemed to him that
+from beneath his half-closed lids Blakeney had shot a quick inquiring
+glance upon him. The quick flash seemed to light up the young man’s soul
+from within, and to reveal it, naked, to his friend.
+
+It was all over in a moment, and Armand thought that mayhap his
+conscience had played him a trick: there was nothing apparent in him--of
+this he was sure--that could possibly divulge his secret just yet.
+
+“I am rather late, I fear,” he said. “I wandered about the streets in
+the late afternoon and lost my way in the dark. I hope I have not kept
+you all waiting.”
+
+They all pulled chairs closely round the fire, except Blakeney, who
+preferred to stand. He waited awhile until they were all comfortably
+settled, and all ready to listen, then:
+
+“It is about the Dauphin,” he said abruptly without further preamble.
+
+They understood. All of them had guessed it, almost before the summons
+came that had brought them to Paris two days ago. Sir Andrew Ffoulkes
+had left his young wife because of that, and Armand had demanded it as a
+right to join hands in this noble work. Blakeney had not left France for
+over three months now. Backwards and forwards between Paris, or Nantes,
+or Orleans to the coast, where his friends would meet him to receive
+those unfortunates whom one man’s whole-hearted devotion had rescued
+from death; backwards and forwards into the very hearts of those cities
+wherein an army of sleuth-hounds were on his track, and the guillotine
+was stretching out her arms to catch the foolhardy adventurer.
+
+Now it was about the Dauphin. They all waited, breathless and eager,
+the fire of a noble enthusiasm burning in their hearts. They waited in
+silence, their eyes fixed on the leader, lest one single word from him
+should fail to reach their ears.
+
+The full magnetism of the man was apparent now. As he held these
+four men at this moment, he could have held a crowd. The man of the
+world--the fastidious dandy--had shed his mask; there stood the leader,
+calm, serene in the very face of the most deadly danger that had ever
+encompassed any man, looking that danger fully in the face, not striving
+to belittle it or to exaggerate it, but weighing it in the balance with
+what there was to accomplish: the rescue of a martyred, innocent child
+from the hands of fiends who were destroying his very soul even more
+completely than his body.
+
+“Everything, I think, is prepared,” resumed Sir Percy after a slight
+pause. “The Simons have been summarily dismissed; I learned that to-day.
+They remove from the Temple on Sunday next, the nineteenth. Obviously
+that is the one day most likely to help us in our operations. As far
+as I am concerned, I cannot make any hard-and-fast plans. Chance at the
+last moment will have to dictate. But from every one of you I must
+have co-operation, and it can only be by your following my directions
+implicitly that we can even remotely hope to succeed.”
+
+He crossed and recrossed the room once or twice before he spoke again,
+pausing now and again in his walk in front of a large map of Paris and
+its environs that hung upon the wall, his tall figure erect, his hands
+behind his back, his eyes fixed before him as if he saw right through
+the walls of this squalid room, and across the darkness that overhung
+the city, through the grim bastions of the mighty building far away,
+where the descendant of an hundred kings lived at the mercy of human
+fiends who worked for his abasement.
+
+The man’s face now was that of a seer and a visionary; the firm lines
+were set and rigid as those of an image carved in stone--the statue of
+heart-whole devotion, with the self-imposed task beckoning sternly to
+follow, there where lurked danger and death.
+
+“The way, I think, in which we could best succeed would be this,” he
+resumed after a while, sitting now on the edge of the table and directly
+facing his four friends. The light from the lamp which stood upon the
+table behind him fell full upon those four glowing faces fixed eagerly
+upon him, but he himself was in shadow, a massive silhouette broadly cut
+out against the light-coloured map on the wall beyond.
+
+“I remain here, of course, until Sunday,” he said, “and will closely
+watch my opportunity, when I can with the greatest amount of safety
+enter the Temple building and take possession of the child. I shall, of
+course choose the moment when the Simons are actually on the move, with
+their successors probably coming in at about the same time. God alone
+knows,” he added earnestly, “how I shall contrive to get possession of
+the child; at the moment I am just as much in the dark about that as you
+are.”
+
+He paused a moment, and suddenly his grave face seemed flooded with
+sunshine, a kind of lazy merriment danced in his eyes, effacing all
+trace of solemnity within them.
+
+“La!” he said lightly, “on one point I am not at all in the dark, and
+that is that His Majesty King Louis XVII will come out of that ugly
+house in my company next Sunday, the nineteenth day of January in this
+year of grace seventeen hundred and ninety-four; and this, too, do I
+know--that those murderous blackguards shall not lay hands on me whilst
+that precious burden is in my keeping. So I pray you, my good Armand, do
+not look so glum,” he added with his pleasant, merry laugh; “you’ll need
+all your wits about you to help us in our undertaking.”
+
+“What do you wish me to do, Percy?” said the young man simply.
+
+“In one moment I will tell you. I want you all to understand the
+situation first. The child will be out of the Temple on Sunday, but at
+what hour I know not. The later it will be the better would it suit
+my purpose, for I cannot get him out of Paris before evening with any
+chance of safety. Here we must risk nothing; the child is far better off
+as he is now than he would be if he were dragged back after an abortive
+attempt at rescue. But at this hour of the night, between nine and ten
+o’clock, I can arrange to get him out of Paris by the Villette gate, and
+that is where I want you, Ffoulkes, and you, Tony, to be, with some kind
+of covered cart, yourselves in any disguise your ingenuity will suggest.
+Here are a few certificates of safety; I have been making a collection
+of them for some time, as they are always useful.”
+
+He dived into the wide pocket of his coat and drew forth a number of
+cards, greasy, much-fingered documents of the usual pattern which the
+Committee of General Security delivered to the free citizens of the
+new republic, and without which no one could enter or leave any town or
+country commune without being detained as “suspect.” He glanced at them
+and handed them over to Ffoulkes.
+
+“Choose your own identity for the occasion, my good friend,” he said
+lightly; “and you too, Tony. You may be stonemasons or coal-carriers,
+chimney-sweeps or farm-labourers, I care not which so long as you look
+sufficiently grimy and wretched to be unrecognisable, and so long as
+you can procure a cart without arousing suspicions, and can wait for me
+punctually at the appointed spot.”
+
+Ffoulkes turned over the cards, and with a laugh handed them over
+to Lord Tony. The two fastidious gentlemen discussed for awhile the
+respective merits of a chimney-sweep’s uniform as against that of a
+coal-carrier.
+
+“You can carry more grime if you are a sweep,” suggested Blakeney; “and
+if the soot gets into your eyes it does not make them smart like coal
+does.”
+
+“But soot adheres more closely,” argued Tony solemnly, “and I know that
+we shan’t get a bath for at least a week afterwards.”
+
+“Certainly you won’t, you sybarite!” asserted Sir Percy with a laugh.
+
+“After a week soot might become permanent,” mused Sir Andrew, wondering
+what, under the circumstance, my lady would say to him.
+
+“If you are both so fastidious,” retorted Blakeney, shrugging his broad
+shoulders, “I’ll turn one of you into a reddleman, and the other into a
+dyer. Then one of you will be bright scarlet to the end of his days, as
+the reddle never comes off the skin at all, and the other will have to
+soak in turpentine before the dye will consent to move.... In either
+case... oh, my dear Tony!... the smell....”
+
+He laughed like a schoolboy in anticipation of a prank, and held his
+scented handkerchief to his nose. My Lord Hastings chuckled audibly, and
+Tony punched him for this unseemly display of mirth.
+
+Armand watched the little scene in utter amazement. He had been in
+England over a year, and yet he could not understand these Englishmen.
+Surely they were the queerest, most inconsequent people in the world.
+Here were these men, who were engaged at this very moment in an
+enterprise which for cool-headed courage and foolhardy daring had
+probably no parallel in history. They were literally taking their lives
+in their hands, in all probability facing certain death; and yet they
+now sat chaffing and fighting like a crowd of third-form schoolboys,
+talking utter, silly nonsense, and making foolish jokes that would have
+shamed a Frenchman in his teens. Vaguely he wondered what fat, pompous
+de Batz would think of this discussion if he could overhear it. His
+contempt, no doubt, for the Scarlet Pimpernel and his followers would be
+increased tenfold.
+
+Then at last the question of the disguise was effectually dismissed. Sir
+Andrew Ffoulkes and Lord Anthony Dewhurst had settled their differences
+of opinion by solemnly agreeing to represent two over-grimy and
+overheated coal-heavers. They chose two certificates of safety that were
+made out in the names of Jean Lepetit and Achille Grospierre, labourers.
+
+“Though you don’t look at all like an Achille, Tony,” was Blakeney’s
+parting shot to his friend.
+
+Then without any transition from this schoolboy nonsense to the serious
+business of the moment, Sir Andrew Ffoulkes said abruptly:
+
+“Tell us exactly, Blakeney, where you will want the cart to stand on
+Sunday.”
+
+Blakeney rose and turned to the map against the wall, Ffoulkes and Tony
+following him. They stood close to his elbow whilst his slender, nervy
+hand wandered along the shiny surface of the varnished paper. At last he
+placed his finger on one spot.
+
+“Here you see,” he said, “is the Villette gate. Just outside it a narrow
+street on the right leads down in the direction of the canal. It is just
+at the bottom of that narrow street at its junction with the tow-path
+there that I want you two and the cart to be. It had better be a
+coal-car by the way; they will be unloading coal close by there
+to-morrow,” he added with one of his sudden irrepressible outbursts of
+merriment. “You and Tony can exercise your muscles coal-heaving, and
+incidentally make yourselves known in the neighbourhood as good if
+somewhat grimy patriots.”
+
+“We had better take up our parts at once then,” said Tony. “I’ll take a
+fond farewell of my clean shirt to-night.”
+
+“Yes, you will not see one again for some time, my good Tony. After
+your hard day’s work to-morrow you will have to sleep either inside your
+cart, if you have already secured one, or under the arches of the canal
+bridge, if you have not.”
+
+“I hope you have an equally pleasant prospect for Hastings,” was my Lord
+Tony’s grim comment.
+
+It was easy to see that he was as happy as a schoolboy about to start
+for a holiday. Lord Tony was a true sportsman. Perhaps there was in him
+less sentiment for the heroic work which he did under the guidance of
+his chief than an inherent passion for dangerous adventures. Sir Andrew
+Ffoulkes, on the other hand, thought perhaps a little less of the
+adventure, but a great deal of the martyred child in the Temple. He was
+just as buoyant, just as keen as his friend, but the leaven of
+sentiment raised his sporting instincts to perhaps a higher plane of
+self-devotion.
+
+“Well, now, to recapitulate,” he said, in turn following with his finger
+the indicated route on the map. “Tony and I and the coal-cart will await
+you on this spot, at the corner of the towpath on Sunday evening at nine
+o’clock.”
+
+“And your signal, Blakeney?” asked Tony.
+
+“The usual one,” replied Sir Percy, “the seamew’s cry thrice repeated at
+brief intervals. But now,” he continued, turning to Armand and Hastings,
+who had taken no part in the discussion hitherto, “I want your help a
+little further afield.”
+
+“I thought so,” nodded Hastings.
+
+“The coal-cart, with its usual miserable nag, will carry us a distance
+of fifteen or sixteen kilometres, but no more. My purpose is to cut
+along the north of the city, and to reach St. Germain, the nearest point
+where we can secure good mounts. There is a farmer just outside the
+commune; his name is Achard. He has excellent horses, which I have
+borrowed before now; we shall want five, of course, and he has one
+powerful beast that will do for me, as I shall have, in addition to
+my own weight, which is considerable, to take the child with me on
+the pillion. Now you, Hastings and Armand, will have to start early
+to-morrow morning, leave Paris by the Neuilly gate, and from there make
+your way to St. Germain by any conveyance you can contrive to obtain. At
+St. Germain you must at once find Achard’s farm; disguised as labourers
+you will not arouse suspicion by so doing. You will find the farmer
+quite amenable to money, and you must secure the best horses you can get
+for our own use, and, if possible, the powerful mount I spoke of just
+now. You are both excellent horse-men, therefore I selected you amongst
+the others for this special errand, for you two, with the five horses,
+will have to come and meet our coal-cart some seventeen kilometres
+out of St. Germain, to where the first sign-post indicates the road to
+Courbevoie. Some two hundred metres down this road on the right there is
+a small spinney, which will afford splendid shelter for yourselves and
+your horses. We hope to be there at about one o’clock after midnight
+of Monday morning. Now, is all that quite clear, and are you both
+satisfied?”
+
+“It is quite clear,” exclaimed Hastings placidly; “but I, for one, am
+not at all satisfied.”
+
+“And why not?”
+
+“Because it is all too easy. We get none of the danger.”
+
+“Oho! I thought that you would bring that argument forward, you
+incorrigible grumbler,” laughed Sir Percy good-humouredly. “Let me tell
+you that if you start to-morrow from Paris in that spirit you will run
+your head and Armand’s into a noose long before you reach the gate of
+Neuilly. I cannot allow either of you to cover your faces with too much
+grime; an honest farm labourer should not look over-dirty, and your
+chances of being discovered and detained are, at the outset, far greater
+than those which Ffoulkes and Tony will run--”
+
+Armand had said nothing during this time. While Blakeney was unfolding
+his plan for him and for Lord Hastings--a plan which practically was a
+command--he had sat with his arms folded across his chest, his head sunk
+upon his breast. When Blakeney had asked if they were satisfied, he
+had taken no part in Hastings’ protest nor responded to his leader’s
+good-humoured banter.
+
+Though he did not look up even now, yet he felt that Percy’s eyes were
+fixed upon him, and they seemed to scorch into his soul. He made a great
+effort to appear eager like the others, and yet from the first a chill
+had struck at his heart. He could not leave Paris before he had seen
+Jeanne.
+
+He looked up suddenly, trying to seem unconcerned; he even looked his
+chief fully in the face.
+
+“When ought we to leave Paris?” he asked calmly.
+
+“You MUST leave at daybreak,” replied Blakeney with a slight, almost
+imperceptible emphasis on the word of command. “When the gates are first
+opened, and the work-people go to and fro at their work, that is the
+safest hour. And you must be at St. Germain as soon as may be, or the
+farmer may not have a sufficiency of horses available at a moment’s
+notice. I want you to be spokesman with Achard, so that Hastings’
+British accent should not betray you both. Also you might not get
+a conveyance for St. Germain immediately. We must think of every
+eventuality, Armand. There is so much at stake.”
+
+Armand made no further comment just then. But the others looked
+astonished. Armand had but asked a simple question, and Blakeney’s reply
+seemed almost like a rebuke--so circumstantial too, and so explanatory.
+He was so used to being obeyed at a word, so accustomed that the merest
+wish, the slightest hint from him was understood by his band of devoted
+followers, that the long explanation of his orders which he gave to
+Armand struck them all with a strange sense of unpleasant surprise.
+
+Hastings was the first to break the spell that seemed to have fallen
+over the party.
+
+“We leave at daybreak, of course,” he said, “as soon as the gates are
+open. We can, I know, get one of the carriers to give us a lift as far
+as St. Germain. There, how do we find Achard?”
+
+“He is a well-known farmer,” replied Blakeney. “You have but to ask.”
+
+“Good. Then we bespeak five horses for the next day, find lodgings in
+the village that night, and make a fresh start back towards Paris in the
+evening of Sunday. Is that right?”
+
+“Yes. One of you will have two horses on the lead, the other one. Pack
+some fodder on the empty saddles and start at about ten o’clock. Ride
+straight along the main road, as if you were making back for Paris,
+until you come to four cross-roads with a sign-post pointing to
+Courbevoie. Turn down there and go along the road until you meet a close
+spinney of fir-trees on your right. Make for the interior of that. It
+gives splendid shelter, and you can dismount there and give the horses a
+feed. We’ll join you one hour after midnight. The night will be dark, I
+hope, and the moon anyhow will be on the wane.”
+
+“I think I understand. Anyhow, it’s not difficult, and we’ll be as
+careful as may be.”
+
+“You will have to keep your heads clear, both of you,” concluded
+Blakeney.
+
+He was looking at Armand as he said this; but the young man had not made
+a movement during this brief colloquy between Hastings and the chief. He
+still sat with arms folded, his head falling on his breast.
+
+Silence had fallen on them all. They all sat round the fire buried in
+thought. Through the open window there came from the quay beyond the hum
+of life in the open-air camp; the tramp of the sentinels around it, the
+words of command from the drill-sergeant, and through it all the moaning
+of the wind and the beating of the sleet against the window-panes.
+
+A whole world of wretchedness was expressed by those sounds! Blakeney
+gave a quick, impatient sigh, and going to the window he pushed it
+further open, and just then there came from afar the muffled roll of
+drums, and from below the watchman’s cry that seemed such dire mockery:
+
+“Sleep, citizens! Everything is safe and peaceful.”
+
+“Sound advice,” said Blakeney lightly. “Shall we also go to sleep? What
+say you all--eh?”
+
+He had with that sudden rapidity characteristic of his every action,
+already thrown off the serious air which he had worn a moment ago when
+giving instructions to Hastings. His usual debonnair manner was on him
+once again, his laziness, his careless insouciance. He was even at
+this moment deeply engaged in flicking off a grain of dust from the
+immaculate Mechlin ruff at his wrist. The heavy lids had fallen over the
+tell-tale eyes as if weighted with fatigue, the mouth appeared ready for
+the laugh which never was absent from it very long.
+
+It was only Ffoulkes’s devoted eyes that were sharp enough to pierce the
+mask of light-hearted gaiety which enveloped the soul of his leader at
+the present moment. He saw--for the first time in all the years that
+he had known Blakeney--a frown across the habitually smooth brow, and
+though the lips were parted for a laugh, the lines round mouth and chin
+were hard and set.
+
+With that intuition born of whole-hearted friendship Sir Andrew guessed
+what troubled Percy. He had caught the look which the latter had thrown
+on Armand, and knew that some explanation would have to pass between the
+two men before they parted to-night. Therefore he gave the signal for
+the breaking up of the meeting.
+
+“There is nothing more to say, is there, Blakeney?” he asked.
+
+“No, my good fellow, nothing,” replied Sir Percy. “I do not know how you
+all feel, but I am demmed fatigued.”
+
+“What about the rags for to-morrow?” queried Hastings.
+
+“You know where to find them. In the room below. Ffoulkes has the key.
+Wigs and all are there. But don’t use false hair if you can help it--it
+is apt to shift in a scrimmage.”
+
+He spoke jerkily, more curtly than was his wont. Hastings and Tony
+thought that he was tired. They rose to say good night. Then the three
+men went away together, Armand remaining behind.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. WHAT LOVE IS
+
+“Well, now, Armand, what is it?” asked Blakeney, the moment the
+footsteps of his friends had died away down the stone stairs, and their
+voices had ceased to echo in the distance.
+
+“You guessed, then, that there was... something?” said the younger man,
+after a slight hesitation.
+
+“Of course.”
+
+Armand rose, pushing the chair away from him with an impatient nervy
+gesture. Burying his hands in the pockets of his breeches, he began
+striding up and down the room, a dark, troubled expression in his face,
+a deep frown between his eyes.
+
+Blakeney had once more taken up his favourite position, sitting on the
+corner of the table, his broad shoulders interposed between the lamp and
+the rest of the room. He was apparently taking no notice of Armand, but
+only intent on the delicate operation of polishing his nails.
+
+Suddenly the young man paused in his restless walk and stood in front of
+his friend--an earnest, solemn, determined figure.
+
+“Blakeney,” he said, “I cannot leave Paris to-morrow.”
+
+Sir Percy made no reply. He was contemplating the polish which he had
+just succeeded in producing on his thumbnail.
+
+“I must stay here for a while longer,” continued Armand firmly. “I may
+not be able to return to England for some weeks. You have the three
+others here to help you in your enterprise outside Paris. I am entirely
+at your service within the compass of its walls.”
+
+Still no comment from Blakeney, not a look from beneath the fallen
+lids. Armand continued, with a slight tone of impatience apparent in his
+voice:
+
+“You must want some one to help you here on Sunday. I am entirely at
+your service... here or anywhere in Paris... but I cannot leave this
+city... at any rate, not just yet....”
+
+Blakeney was apparently satisfied at last with the result of his
+polishing operations. He rose, gave a slight yawn, and turned toward the
+door.
+
+“Good night, my dear fellow,” he said pleasantly; “it is time we were
+all abed. I am so demmed fatigued.”
+
+“Percy!” exclaimed the young man hotly.
+
+“Eh? What is it?” queried the other lazily.
+
+“You are not going to leave me like this--without a word?”
+
+“I have said a great many words, my good fellow. I have said ‘good
+night,’ and remarked that I was demmed fatigued.”
+
+He was standing beside the door which led to his bedroom, and now he
+pushed it open with his hand.
+
+“Percy, you cannot go and leave me like this!” reiterated Armand with
+rapidly growing irritation.
+
+“Like what, my dear fellow?” queried Sir Percy with good-humoured
+impatience.
+
+“Without a word--without a sign. What have I done that you should treat
+me like a child, unworthy even of attention?”
+
+Blakeney had turned back and was now facing him, towering above the
+slight figure of the younger man. His face had lost none of its gracious
+air, and beneath their heavy lids his eyes looked down not unkindly on
+his friend.
+
+“Would you have preferred it, Armand,” he said quietly, “if I had said
+the word that your ears have heard even though my lips have not uttered
+it?”
+
+“I don’t understand,” murmured Armand defiantly.
+
+“What sign would you have had me make?” continued Sir Percy,
+his pleasant voice falling calm and mellow on the younger man’s
+supersensitive consciousness: “That of branding you, Marguerite’s
+brother, as a liar and a cheat?”
+
+“Blakeney!” retorted the other, as with flaming cheeks and wrathful eyes
+he took a menacing step toward his friend; “had any man but you dared to
+speak such words to me--”
+
+“I pray to God, Armand, that no man but I has the right to speak them.”
+
+“You have no right.”
+
+“Every right, my friend. Do I not hold your oath?... Are you not
+prepared to break it?”
+
+“I’ll not break my oath to you. I’ll serve and help you in every way
+you can command... my life I’ll give to the cause... give me the most
+dangerous--the most difficult task to perform.... I’ll do it--I’ll do it
+gladly.”
+
+“I have given you an over-difficult and dangerous task.”
+
+“Bah! To leave Paris in order to engage horses, while you and the others
+do all the work. That is neither difficult nor dangerous.”
+
+“It will be difficult for you, Armand, because your head is not
+sufficiently cool to foresee serious eventualities and to prepare
+against them. It is dangerous, because you are a man in love, and a man
+in love is apt to run his head--and that of his friends--blindly into a
+noose.”
+
+“Who told you that I was in love?”
+
+“You yourself, my good fellow. Had you not told me so at the outset,”
+ he continued, still speaking very quietly and deliberately and never
+raising his voice, “I would even now be standing over you, dog-whip in
+hand, to thrash you as a defaulting coward and a perjurer .... Bah!”
+ he added with a return to his habitual bonhomie, “I would no doubt even
+have lost my temper with you. Which would have been purposeless and
+excessively bad form. Eh?”
+
+A violent retort had sprung to Armand’s lips. But fortunately at that
+very moment his eyes, glowing with anger, caught those of Blakeney fixed
+with lazy good-nature upon his. Something of that irresistible dignity
+which pervaded the whole personality of the man checked Armand’s
+hotheaded words on his lips.
+
+“I cannot leave Paris to-morrow,” he reiterated more calmly.
+
+“Because you have arranged to see her again?”
+
+“Because she saved my life to-day, and is herself in danger.”
+
+“She is in no danger,” said Blakeney simply, “since she saved the life
+of my friend.”
+
+“Percy!”
+
+The cry was wrung from Armand St. Just’s very soul. Despite the tumult
+of passion which was raging in his heart, he was conscious again of the
+magnetic power which bound so many to this man’s service. The words he
+had said--simple though they were--had sent a thrill through Armand’s
+veins. He felt himself disarmed. His resistance fell before the subtle
+strength of an unbendable will; nothing remained in his heart but an
+overwhelming sense of shame and of impotence.
+
+He sank into a chair and rested his elbows on the table, burying his
+face in his hands. Blakeney went up to him and placed a kindly hand upon
+his shoulder.
+
+“The difficult task, Armand,” he said gently.
+
+“Percy, cannot you release me? She saved my life. I have not thanked her
+yet.”
+
+“There will be time for thanks later, Armand. Just now over yonder the
+son of kings is being done to death by savage brutes.”
+
+“I would not hinder you if I stayed.”
+
+“God knows you have hindered us enough already.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“You say she saved your life... then you were in danger... Heron and his
+spies have been on your track; your track leads to mine, and I have sworn
+to save the Dauphin from the hands of thieves.... A man in love, Armand,
+is a deadly danger among us.... Therefore at daybreak you must leave
+Paris with Hastings on your difficult and dangerous task.”
+
+“And if I refuse?” retorted Armand.
+
+“My good fellow,” said Blakeney earnestly, “in that admirable lexicon
+which the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel has compiled for itself there
+is no such word as refuse.”
+
+“But if I do refuse?” persisted the other.
+
+“You would be offering a tainted name and tarnished honour to the woman
+you pretend to love.”
+
+“And you insist upon my obedience?”
+
+“By the oath which I hold from you.”
+
+“But this is cruel--inhuman!”
+
+“Honour, my good Armand, is often cruel and seldom human. He is a
+godlike taskmaster, and we who call ourselves men are all of us his
+slaves.”
+
+“The tyranny comes from you alone. You could release me an you would.”
+
+“And to gratify the selfish desire of immature passion, you would wish
+to see me jeopardise the life of those who place infinite trust in me.”
+
+“God knows how you have gained their allegiance, Blakeney. To me now you
+are selfish and callous.”
+
+“There is the difficult task you craved for, Armand,” was all the answer
+that Blakeney made to the taunt--“to obey a leader whom you no longer
+trust.”
+
+But this Armand could not brook. He had spoken hotly, impetuously,
+smarting under the discipline which thwarted his desire, but his heart
+was loyal to the chief whom he had reverenced for so long.
+
+“Forgive me, Percy,” he said humbly; “I am distracted. I don’t think
+I quite realised what I was saying. I trust you, of course ...
+implicitly... and you need not even fear... I shall not break my oath,
+though your orders now seem to me needlessly callous and selfish.... I
+will obey... you need not be afraid.”
+
+“I was not afraid of that, my good fellow.”
+
+“Of course, you do not understand... you cannot. To you, your honour,
+the task which you have set yourself, has been your only fetish.... Love
+in its true sense does not exist for you.... I see it now... you do not
+know what it is to love.”
+
+Blakeney made no reply for the moment. He stood in the centre of the
+room, with the yellow light of the lamp falling full now upon his tall
+powerful frame, immaculately dressed in perfectly-tailored clothes, upon
+his long, slender hands half hidden by filmy lace, and upon his face,
+across which at this moment a heavy strand of curly hair threw a curious
+shadow. At Armand’s words his lips had imperceptibly tightened, his eyes
+had narrowed as if they tried to see something that was beyond the range
+of their focus.
+
+Across the smooth brow the strange shadow made by the hair seemed to
+find a reflex from within. Perhaps the reckless adventurer, the careless
+gambler with life and liberty, saw through the walls of this squalid
+room, across the wide, ice-bound river, and beyond even the gloomy pile
+of buildings opposite, a cool, shady garden at Richmond, a velvety lawn
+sweeping down to the river’s edge, a bower of clematis and roses, with
+a carved stone seat half covered with moss. There sat an exquisitely
+beautiful woman with great sad eyes fixed on the far-distant horizon.
+The setting sun was throwing a halo of gold all round her hair, her
+white hands were clasped idly on her lap.
+
+She gazed out beyond the river, beyond the sunset, toward an unseen
+bourne of peace and happiness, and her lovely face had in it a look of
+utter hopelessness and of sublime self-abnegation. The air was still.
+It was late autumn, and all around her the russet leaves of beech and
+chestnut fell with a melancholy hush-sh-sh about her feet.
+
+She was alone, and from time to time heavy tears gathered in her eyes
+and rolled slowly down her cheeks.
+
+Suddenly a sigh escaped the man’s tightly-pressed lips. With a strange
+gesture, wholly unusual to him, he passed his hand right across his
+eyes.
+
+“Mayhap you are right, Armand,” he said quietly; “mayhap I do not know
+what it is to love.”
+
+Armand turned to go. There was nothing more to be said. He knew Percy
+well enough by now to realise the finality of his pronouncements. His
+heart felt sore, but he was too proud to show his hurt again to a
+man who did not understand. All thoughts of disobedience he had put
+resolutely aside; he had never meant to break his oath. All that he had
+hoped to do was to persuade Percy to release him from it for awhile.
+
+That by leaving Paris he risked to lose Jeanne he was quite convinced,
+but it is nevertheless a true fact that in spite of this he did not
+withdraw his love and trust from his chief. He was under the influence
+of that same magnetism which enchained all his comrades to the will of
+this man; and though his enthusiasm for the great cause had somewhat
+waned, his allegiance to its leader was no longer tottering.
+
+But he would not trust himself to speak again on the subject.
+
+“I will find the others downstairs,” was all he said, “and will arrange
+with Hastings for to-morrow. Good night, Percy.”
+
+“Good night, my dear fellow. By the way, you have not told me yet who
+she is.”
+
+“Her name is Jeanne Lange,” said St. Just half reluctantly. He had not
+meant to divulge his secret quite so fully as yet.
+
+“The young actress at the Theatre National?”
+
+“Yes. Do you know her?”
+
+“Only by name.”
+
+“She is beautiful, Percy, and she is an angel.... Think of my sister
+Marguerite... she, too, was an actress.... Good night, Percy.”
+
+“Good night.”
+
+The two men grasped one another by the hand. Armand’s eyes proffered
+a last desperate appeal. But Blakeney’s eyes were impassive and
+unrelenting, and Armand with a quick sigh finally took his leave.
+
+For a long while after he had gone Blakeney stood silent and motionless
+in the middle of the room. Armand’s last words lingered in his ear:
+
+“Think of Marguerite!”
+
+The walls had fallen away from around him--the window, the river
+below, the Temple prison had all faded away, merged in the chaos of his
+thoughts.
+
+Now he was no longer in Paris; he heard nothing of the horrors that even
+at this hour of the night were raging around him; he did not hear the
+call of murdered victims, of innocent women and children crying for
+help; he did not see the descendant of St. Louis, with a red cap on
+his baby head, stamping on the fleur-de-lys, and heaping insults on the
+memory of his mother. All that had faded into nothingness.
+
+He was in the garden at Richmond, and Marguerite was sitting on the
+stone seat, with branches of the rambler roses twining themselves in her
+hair.
+
+He was sitting on the ground at her feet, his head pillowed in her lap,
+lazily dreaming whilst at his feet the river wound its graceful curves
+beneath overhanging willows and tall stately elms.
+
+A swan came sailing majestically down the stream, and Marguerite, with
+idle, delicate hands, threw some crumbs of bread into the water. Then
+she laughed, for she was quite happy, and anon she stooped, and he felt
+the fragrance of her lips as she bent over him and savoured the perfect
+sweetness of her caress. She was happy because her husband was by her
+side. He had done with adventures, with risking his life for others’
+sake. He was living only for her.
+
+The man, the dreamer, the idealist that lurked behind the adventurous
+soul, lived an exquisite dream as he gazed upon that vision. He closed
+his eyes so that it might last all the longer, so that through the
+open window opposite he should not see the great gloomy walls of the
+labyrinthine building packed to overflowing with innocent men, women,
+and children waiting patiently and with a smile on their lips for a
+cruel and unmerited death; so that he should not see even through the
+vista of houses and of streets that grim Temple prison far away, and the
+light in one of the tower windows, which illumined the final martyrdom
+of a boy-king.
+
+Thus he stood for fully five minutes, with eyes deliberately closed
+and lips tightly set. Then the neighbouring tower-clock of St. Germain
+l’Auxerrois slowly tolled the hour of midnight. Blakeney woke from his
+dream. The walls of his lodging were once more around him, and through
+the window the ruddy light of some torch in the street below fought with
+that of the lamp.
+
+He went deliberately up to the window and looked out into the night. On
+the quay, a little to the left, the outdoor camp was just breaking up
+for the night. The people of France in arms against tyranny were allowed
+to put away their work for the day and to go to their miserable homes
+to gather rest in sleep for the morrow. A band of soldiers, rough and
+brutal in their movements, were hustling the women and children. The
+little ones, weary, sleepy, and cold, seemed too dazed to move. One
+woman had two little children clinging to her skirts; a soldier suddenly
+seized one of them by the shoulders and pushed it along roughly in front
+of him to get it out of the way. The woman struck at the soldier in a
+stupid, senseless, useless way, and then gathered her trembling chicks
+under her wing, trying to look defiant.
+
+In a moment she was surrounded. Two soldiers seized her, and two more
+dragged the children away from her. She screamed and the children cried,
+the soldiers swore and struck out right and left with their bayonets.
+There was a general melee, calls of agony rent the air, rough oaths
+drowned the shouts of the helpless. Some women, panic-stricken, started
+to run.
+
+And Blakeney from his window looked down upon the scene. He no longer
+saw the garden at Richmond, the lazily-flowing river, the bowers of
+roses; even the sweet face of Marguerite, sad and lonely, appeared dim
+and far away.
+
+He looked across the ice-bound river, past the quay where rough soldiers
+were brutalising a number of wretched defenceless women, to that grim
+Chatelet prison, where tiny lights shining here and there behind barred
+windows told the sad tale of weary vigils, of watches through the night,
+when dawn would bring martyrdom and death.
+
+And it was not Marguerite’s blue eyes that beckoned to him now, it was
+not her lips that called, but the wan face of a child with matted curls
+hanging above a greasy forehead, and small hands covered in grime that
+had once been fondled by a Queen.
+
+The adventurer in him had chased away the dream.
+
+“While there is life in me I’ll cheat those brutes of prey,” he
+murmured.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. THEN EVERYTHING WAS DARK
+
+The night that Armand St. Just spent tossing about on a hard, narrow bed
+was the most miserable, agonising one he had ever passed in his life.
+A kind of fever ran through him, causing his teeth to chatter and the
+veins in his temples to throb until he thought that they must burst.
+
+Physically he certainly was ill; the mental strain caused by two great
+conflicting passions had attacked his bodily strength, and whilst his
+brain and heart fought their battles together, his aching limbs found no
+repose.
+
+His love for Jeanne! His loyalty to the man to whom he owed his life,
+and to whom he had sworn allegiance and implicit obedience!
+
+These superacute feelings seemed to be tearing at his very heartstrings,
+until he felt that he could no longer lie on the miserable palliasse
+which in these squalid lodgings did duty for a bed.
+
+He rose long before daybreak, with tired back and burning eyes, but
+unconscious of any pain save that which tore at his heart.
+
+The weather, fortunately, was not quite so cold--a sudden and very rapid
+thaw had set in; and when after a hurried toilet Armand, carrying a
+bundle under his arm, emerged into the street, the mild south wind
+struck pleasantly on his face.
+
+It was then pitch dark. The street lamps had been extinguished long ago,
+and the feeble January sun had not yet tinged with pale colour the heavy
+clouds that hung over the sky.
+
+The streets of the great city were absolutely deserted at this hour. It
+lay, peaceful and still, wrapped in its mantle of gloom. A thin rain
+was falling, and Armand’s feet, as he began to descend the heights of
+Montmartre, sank ankle deep in the mud of the road. There was but scanty
+attempt at pavements in this outlying quarter of the town, and Armand
+had much ado to keep his footing on the uneven and intermittent stones
+that did duty for roads in these parts. But this discomfort did not
+trouble him just now. One thought--and one alone--was clear in his mind:
+he must see Jeanne before he left Paris.
+
+He did not pause to think how he could accomplish that at this hour of
+the day. All he knew was that he must obey his chief, and that he must
+see Jeanne. He would see her, explain to her that he must leave Paris
+immediately, and beg her to make her preparations quickly, so that she
+might meet him as soon as maybe, and accompany him to England straight
+away.
+
+He did not feel that he was being disloyal by trying to see Jeanne.
+He had thrown prudence to the winds, not realising that his imprudence
+would and did jeopardise, not only the success of his chief’s plans,
+but also his life and that of his friends. He had before parting from
+Hastings last night arranged to meet him in the neighbourhood of the
+Neuilly Gate at seven o’clock; it was only six now. There was plenty of
+time for him to rouse the concierge at the house of the Square du Roule,
+to see Jeanne for a few moments, to slip into Madame Belhomme’s kitchen,
+and there into the labourer’s clothes which he was carrying in the
+bundle under his arm, and to be at the gate at the appointed hour.
+
+The Square du Roule is shut off from the Rue St. Honore, on which it
+abuts, by tall iron gates, which a few years ago, when the secluded
+little square was a fashionable quarter of the city, used to be kept
+closed at night, with a watchman in uniform to intercept midnight
+prowlers. Now these gates had been rudely torn away from their sockets,
+the iron had been sold for the benefit of the ever-empty Treasury,
+and no one cared if the homeless, the starving, or the evil-doer found
+shelter under the porticoes of the houses, from whence wealthy or
+aristocratic owners had long since thought it wise to flee.
+
+No one challenged Armand when he turned into the square, and though
+the darkness was intense, he made his way fairly straight for the house
+where lodged Mademoiselle Lange.
+
+So far he had been wonderfully lucky. The foolhardiness with which he
+had exposed his life and that of his friends by wandering about the
+streets of Paris at this hour without any attempt at disguise, though
+carrying one under his arm, had not met with the untoward fate which it
+undoubtedly deserved. The darkness of the night and the thin sheet of
+rain as it fell had effectually wrapped his progress through the lonely
+streets in their beneficent mantle of gloom; the soft mud below had
+drowned the echo of his footsteps. If spies were on his track, as
+Jeanne had feared and Blakeney prophesied, he had certainly succeeded in
+evading them.
+
+He pulled the concierge’s bell, and the latch of the outer door,
+manipulated from within, duly sprang open in response. He entered, and
+from the lodge the concierge’s voice emerging, muffled from the depths
+of pillows and blankets, challenged him with an oath directed at the
+unseemliness of the hour.
+
+“Mademoiselle Lange,” said Armand boldly, as without hesitation he
+walked quickly past the lodge making straight for the stairs.
+
+It seemed to him that from the concierge’s room loud vituperations
+followed him, but he took no notice of these; only a short flight of
+stairs and one more door separated him from Jeanne.
+
+He did not pause to think that she would in all probability be still in
+bed, that he might have some difficulty in rousing Madame Belhomme, that
+the latter might not even care to admit him; nor did he reflect on the
+glaring imprudence of his actions. He wanted to see Jeanne, and she was
+the other side of that wall.
+
+“He, citizen! Hola! Here! Curse you! Where are you?” came in a gruff
+voice to him from below.
+
+He had mounted the stairs, and was now on the landing just outside
+Jeanne’s door. He pulled the bell-handle, and heard the pleasing echo of
+the bell that would presently wake Madame Belhomme and bring her to the
+door.
+
+“Citizen! Hola! Curse you for an aristo! What are you doing there?”
+
+The concierge, a stout, elderly man, wrapped in a blanket, his feet
+thrust in slippers, and carrying a guttering tallow candle, had appeared
+upon the landing.
+
+He held the candle up so that its feeble flickering rays fell on
+Armand’s pale face, and on the damp cloak which fell away from his
+shoulders.
+
+“What are you doing there?” reiterated the concierge with another oath
+from his prolific vocabulary.
+
+“As you see, citizen,” replied Armand politely, “I am ringing
+Mademoiselle Lange’s front door bell.”
+
+“At this hour of the morning?” queried the man with a sneer.
+
+“I desire to see her.”
+
+“Then you have come to the wrong house, citizen,” said the concierge
+with a rude laugh.
+
+“The wrong house? What do you mean?” stammered Armand, a little
+bewildered.
+
+“She is not here--quoi!” retorted the concierge, who now turned
+deliberately on his heel. “Go and look for her, citizen; it’ll take you
+some time to find her.”
+
+He shuffled off in the direction of the stairs. Armand was vainly trying
+to shake himself free from a sudden, an awful sense of horror.
+
+He gave another vigorous pull at the bell, then with one bound he
+overtook the concierge, who was preparing to descend the stairs, and
+gripped him peremptorily by the arm.
+
+“Where is Mademoiselle Lange?” he asked.
+
+His voice sounded quite strange in his own ear; his throat felt parched,
+and he had to moisten his lips with his tongue before he was able to
+speak.
+
+“Arrested,” replied the man.
+
+“Arrested? When? Where? How?”
+
+“When--late yesterday evening. Where?--here in her room. How?--by the
+agents of the Committee of General Security. She and the old woman!
+Basta! that’s all I know. Now I am going back to bed, and you clear out
+of the house. You are making a disturbance, and I shall be reprimanded.
+I ask you, is this a decent time for rousing honest patriots out of
+their morning sleep?”
+
+He shook his arm free from Armand’s grasp and once more began to
+descend.
+
+Armand stood on the landing like a man who has been stunned by a blow
+on the head. His limbs were paralysed. He could not for the moment have
+moved or spoken if his life had depended on a sign or on a word. His
+brain was reeling, and he had to steady himself with his hand against
+the wall or he would have fallen headlong on the floor. He had lived in
+a whirl of excitement for the past twenty-four hours; his nerves during
+that time had been kept at straining point. Passion, joy, happiness,
+deadly danger, and moral fights had worn his mental endurance
+threadbare; want of proper food and a sleepless night had almost thrown
+his physical balance out of gear. This blow came at a moment when he was
+least able to bear it.
+
+Jeanne had been arrested! Jeanne was in the hands of those brutes, whom
+he, Armand, had regarded yesterday with insurmountable loathing! Jeanne
+was in prison--she was arrested--she would be tried, condemned, and all
+because of him!
+
+The thought was so awful that it brought him to the verge of mania. He
+watched as in a dream the form of the concierge shuffling his way down
+the oak staircase; his portly figure assumed Gargantuan proportions, the
+candle which he carried looked like the dancing flames of hell, through
+which grinning faces, hideous and contortioned, mocked at him and
+leered.
+
+Then suddenly everything was dark. The light had disappeared round the
+bend of the stairs; grinning faces and ghoulish visions vanished; he
+only saw Jeanne, his dainty, exquisite Jeanne, in the hands of those
+brutes. He saw her as he had seen a year and a half ago the victims of
+those bloodthirsty wretches being dragged before a tribunal that was
+but a mockery of justice; he heard the quick interrogatory, and the
+responses from her perfect lips, that exquisite voice of hers veiled by
+tones of anguish. He heard the condemnation, the rattle of the tumbril
+on the ill-paved streets--saw her there with hands clasped together, her
+eyes--
+
+Great God! he was really going mad!
+
+Like a wild creature driven forth he started to run down the stairs,
+past the concierge, who was just entering his lodge, and who now turned
+in surly anger to watch this man running away like a lunatic or a fool,
+out by the front door and into the street. In a moment he was out of
+the little square; then like a hunted hare he still ran down the Rue St.
+Honore, along its narrow, interminable length. His hat had fallen from
+his head, his hair was wild all round his face, the rain weighted the
+cloak upon his shoulders; but still he ran.
+
+His feet made no noise on the muddy pavement. He ran on and on, his
+elbows pressed to his sides, panting, quivering, intent but upon one
+thing--the goal which he had set himself to reach.
+
+Jeanne was arrested. He did not know where to look for her, but he did
+know whither he wanted to go now as swiftly as his legs would carry him.
+
+It was still dark, but Armand St. Just was a born Parisian, and he knew
+every inch of this quarter, where he and Marguerite had years ago lived.
+Down the Rue St. Honore, he had reached the bottom of the interminably
+long street at last. He had kept just a sufficiency of reason--or was it
+merely blind instinct?--to avoid the places where the night patrols
+of the National Guard might be on the watch. He avoided the Place du
+Carrousel, also the quay, and struck sharply to his right until he
+reached the facade of St. Germain l’Auxerrois.
+
+Another effort; round the corner, and there was the house at last.
+He was like the hunted creature now that has run to earth. Up the two
+flights of stone stairs, and then the pull at the bell; a moment of
+tense anxiety, whilst panting, gasping, almost choked with the sustained
+effort and the strain of the past half-hour, he leaned against the wall,
+striving not to fall.
+
+Then the well-known firm step across the rooms beyond, the open door,
+the hand upon his shoulder.
+
+After that he remembered nothing more.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. THE CHIEF
+
+He had not actually fainted, but the exertion of that long run had
+rendered him partially unconscious. He knew now that he was safe, that he
+was sitting in Blakeney’s room, and that something hot and vivifying was
+being poured down his throat.
+
+“Percy, they have arrested her!” he said, panting, as soon as speech
+returned to his paralysed tongue.
+
+“All right. Don’t talk now. Wait till you are better.”
+
+With infinite care and gentleness Blakeney arranged some cushions under
+Armand’s head, turned the sofa towards the fire, and anon brought his
+friend a cup of hot coffee, which the latter drank with avidity.
+
+He was really too exhausted to speak. He had contrived to tell Blakeney,
+and now Blakeney knew, so everything would be all right. The inevitable
+reaction was asserting itself; the muscles had relaxed, the nerves were
+numbed, and Armand lay back on the sofa with eyes half closed, unable to
+move, yet feeling his strength gradually returning to him, his vitality
+asserting itself, all the feverish excitement of the past twenty-four
+hours yielding at last to a calmer mood.
+
+Through his half-closed eyes he could see his brother-in-law moving
+about the room. Blakeney was fully dressed. In a sleepy kind of way
+Armand wondered if he had been to bed at all; certainly his clothes
+set on him with their usual well-tailored perfection, and there was no
+suggestion in his brisk step and alert movements that he had passed a
+sleepless night.
+
+Now he was standing by the open window. Armand, from where he lay, could
+see his broad shoulders sharply outlined against the grey background
+of the hazy winter dawn. A wan light was just creeping up from the
+east over the city; the noises of the streets below came distinctly to
+Armand’s ear.
+
+He roused himself with one vigorous effort from his lethargy, feeling
+quite ashamed of himself and of this breakdown of his nervous system.
+He looked with frank admiration on Sir Percy, who stood immovable and
+silent by the window--a perfect tower of strength, serene and impassive,
+yet kindly in distress.
+
+“Percy,” said the young man, “I ran all the way from the top of the Rue
+St. Honore. I was only breathless. I am quite all right. May I tell you
+all about it?”
+
+Without a word Blakeney closed the window and came across to the sofa;
+he sat down beside Armand, and to all outward appearances he was nothing
+now but a kind and sympathetic listener to a friend’s tale of woe. Not
+a line in his face or a look in his eyes betrayed the thoughts of the
+leader who had been thwarted at the outset of a dangerous enterprise, or
+of the man, accustomed to command, who had been so flagrantly disobeyed.
+
+Armand, unconscious of all save of Jeanne and of her immediate need, put
+an eager hand on Percy’s arm.
+
+“Heron and his hell-hounds went back to her lodgings last night,” he
+said, speaking as if he were still a little out of breath. “They hoped
+to get me, no doubt; not finding me there, they took her. Oh, my God!”
+
+It was the first time that he had put the whole terrible circumstance
+into words, and it seemed to gain in reality by the recounting. The
+agony of mind which he endured was almost unbearable; he hid his face in
+his hands lest Percy should see how terribly he suffered.
+
+“I knew that,” said Blakeney quietly. Armand looked up in surprise.
+
+“How? When did you know it?” he stammered.
+
+“Last night when you left me. I went down to the Square du Roule. I
+arrived there just too late.”
+
+“Percy!” exclaimed Armand, whose pale face had suddenly flushed scarlet,
+“you did that?--last night you--”
+
+“Of course,” interposed the other calmly; “had I not promised you to
+keep watch over her? When I heard the news it was already too late to
+make further inquiries, but when you arrived just now I was on the point
+of starting out, in order to find out in what prison Mademoiselle Lange
+is being detained. I shall have to go soon, Armand, before the guard is
+changed at the Temple and the Tuileries. This is the safest time, and
+God knows we are all of us sufficiently compromised already.”
+
+The flush of shame deepened in St. Just’s cheek. There had not been a
+hint of reproach in the voice of his chief, and the eyes which regarded
+him now from beneath the half-closed lids showed nothing but lazy
+bonhomie.
+
+In a moment now Armand realised all the harm which his recklessness
+had done, was still doing to the work of the League. Every one of his
+actions since his arrival in Paris two days ago had jeopardised a plan
+or endangered a life: his friendship with de Batz, his connection with
+Mademoiselle Lange, his visit to her yesterday afternoon, the repetition
+of it this morning, culminating in that wild run through the streets of
+Paris, when at any moment a spy lurking round a corner might either have
+barred his way, or, worse still, have followed him to Blakeney’s door.
+Armand, without a thought of any one save of his beloved, might easily
+this morning have brought an agent of the Committee of General Security
+face to face with his chief.
+
+“Percy,” he murmured, “can you ever forgive me?”
+
+“Pshaw, man!” retorted Blakeney lightly; “there is naught to forgive,
+only a great deal that should no longer be forgotten; your duty to the
+others, for instance, your obedience, and your honour.”
+
+“I was mad, Percy. Oh! if you only could understand what she means to
+me!”
+
+Blakeney laughed, his own light-hearted careless laugh, which so often
+before now had helped to hide what he really felt from the eyes of the
+indifferent, and even from those of his friends.
+
+“No! no!” he said lightly, “we agreed last night, did we not? that in
+matters of sentiment I am a cold-blooded fish. But will you at any rate
+concede that I am a man of my word? Did I not pledge it last night that
+Mademoiselle Lange would be safe? I foresaw her arrest the moment I
+heard your story. I hoped that I might reach her before that brute
+Heron’s return; unfortunately he forestalled me by less than half an
+hour. Mademoiselle Lange has been arrested, Armand; but why should you
+not trust me on that account? Have we not succeeded, I and the others,
+in worse cases than this one? They mean no harm to Jeanne Lange,” he
+added emphatically; “I give you my word on that. They only want her as
+a decoy. It is you they want. You through her, and me through you. I
+pledge you my honour that she will be safe. You must try and trust me,
+Armand. It is much to ask, I know, for you will have to trust me with
+what is most precious in the world to you; and you will have to obey me
+blindly, or I shall not be able to keep my word.”
+
+“What do you wish me to do?”
+
+“Firstly, you must be outside Paris within the hour. Every minute that
+you spend inside the city now is full of danger--oh, no! not for you,”
+ added Blakeney, checking with a good-humoured gesture Armand’s words of
+protestation, “danger for the others--and for our scheme tomorrow.”
+
+“How can I go to St. Germain, Percy, knowing that she--”
+
+“Is under my charge?” interposed the other calmly. “That should not be
+so very difficult. Come,” he added, placing a kindly hand on the other’s
+shoulder, “you shall not find me such an inhuman monster after all. But
+I must think of the others, you see, and of the child whom I have sworn
+to save. But I won’t send you as far as St. Germain. Go down to the room
+below and find a good bundle of rough clothes that will serve you as a
+disguise, for I imagine that you have lost those which you had on the
+landing or the stairs of the house in the Square du Roule. In a tin box
+with the clothes downstairs you will find the packet of miscellaneous
+certificates of safety. Take an appropriate one, and then start out
+immediately for Villette. You understand?”
+
+“Yes, yes!” said Armand eagerly. “You want me to join Ffoulkes and
+Tony.”
+
+“Yes! You’ll find them probably unloading coal by the canal. Try and get
+private speech with them as early as may be, and tell Tony to set out at
+once for St. Germain, and to join Hastings there, instead of you, whilst
+you take his place with Ffoulkes.”
+
+“Yes, I understand; but how will Tony reach St. Germain?”
+
+“La, my good fellow,” said Blakeney gaily, “you may safely trust Tony to
+go where I send him. Do you but do as I tell you, and leave him to look
+after himself. And now,” he added, speaking more earnestly, “the sooner
+you get out of Paris the better it will be for us all. As you see, I am
+only sending you to La Villette, because it is not so far, but that I
+can keep in personal touch with you. Remain close to the gates for an
+hour after nightfall. I will contrive before they close to bring you
+news of Mademoiselle Lange.”
+
+Armand said no more. The sense of shame in him deepened with every
+word spoken by his chief. He felt how untrustworthy he had been, how
+undeserving of the selfless devotion which Percy was showing him even
+now. The words of gratitude died on his lips; he knew that they would be
+unwelcome. These Englishmen were so devoid of sentiment, he thought,
+and his brother-in-law, with all his unselfish and heroic deeds, was, he
+felt, absolutely callous in matters of the heart.
+
+But Armand was a noble-minded man, and with the true sporting instinct
+in him, despite the fact that he was a creature of nerves, highly strung
+and imaginative. He could give ungrudging admiration to his chief, even
+whilst giving himself up entirely to the sentiment for Jeanne.
+
+He tried to imbue himself with the same spirit that actuated my Lord
+Tony and the other members of the League. How gladly would he have
+chaffed and made senseless schoolboy jokes like those which--in face
+of their hazardous enterprise and the dangers which they all ran--had
+horrified him so much last night.
+
+But somehow he knew that jokes from him would not ring true. How could
+he smile when his heart was brimming over with his love for Jeanne, and
+with solicitude on her account? He felt that Percy was regarding him
+with a kind of indulgent amusement; there was a look of suppressed
+merriment in the depths of those lazy blue eyes.
+
+So he braced up his nerves, trying his best to look cool and
+unconcerned, but he could not altogether hide from his friend the
+burning anxiety which was threatening to break his heart.
+
+“I have given you my word, Armand,” said Blakeney in answer to the
+unspoken prayer; “cannot you try and trust me--as the others do? Then
+with sudden transition he pointed to the map behind him.
+
+“Remember the gate of Villette, and the corner by the towpath. Join
+Ffoulkes as soon as may be and send Tony on his way, and wait for news
+of Mademoiselle Lange some time to-night.”
+
+“God bless you, Percy!” said Armand involuntarily. “Good-bye!”
+
+“Good-bye, my dear fellow. Slip on your disguise as quickly as you can,
+and be out of the house in a quarter of an hour.”
+
+He accompanied Armand through the ante-room, and finally closed the door
+on him. Then he went back to his room and walked up to the window, which
+he threw open to the humid morning air. Now that he was alone the look
+of trouble on his face deepened to a dark, anxious frown, and as
+he looked out across the river a sigh of bitter impatience and
+disappointment escaped his lips.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. THE GATE OF LA VILLETTE
+
+And now the shades of evening had long since yielded to those of night.
+The gate of La Villette, at the northeast corner of the city, was about
+to close. Armand, dressed in the rough clothes of a labouring man, was
+leaning against a low wall at the angle of the narrow street which abuts
+on the canal at its further end; from this point of vantage he could
+command a view of the gate and of the life and bustle around it.
+
+He was dog-tired. After the emotions of the past twenty-four hours, a
+day’s hard manual toil to which he was unaccustomed had caused him to
+ache in every limb. As soon as he had arrived at the canal wharf in the
+early morning he had obtained the kind of casual work that ruled about
+here, and soon was told off to unload a cargo of coal which had arrived
+by barge overnight. He had set-to with a will, half hoping to kill
+his anxiety by dint of heavy bodily exertion. During the course of the
+morning he had suddenly become aware of Sir Andrew Ffoulkes and of Lord
+Anthony Dewhurst working not far away from him, and as fine a pair of
+coalheavers as any shipper could desire.
+
+It was not very difficult in the midst of the noise and activity that
+reigned all about the wharf for the three men to exchange a few words
+together, and Armand soon communicated the chief’s new instructions
+to my Lord Tony, who effectually slipped away from his work some time
+during the day. Armand did not even see him go, it had all been so
+neatly done.
+
+Just before five o’clock in the afternoon the labourers were paid off.
+It was then too dark to continue work. Armand would have liked to talk
+to Sir Andrew, if only for a moment. He felt lonely and desperately
+anxious. He had hoped to tire out his nerves as well as his body, but
+in this he had not succeeded. As soon as he had given up his tools, his
+brain began to work again more busily than ever. It followed Percy in
+his peregrinations through the city, trying to discover where those
+brutes were keeping Jeanne.
+
+That task had suddenly loomed up before Armand’s mind with all its
+terrible difficulties. How could Percy--a marked man if ever there was
+one--go from prison to prison to inquire about Jeanne? The very idea
+seemed preposterous. Armand ought never to have consented to such an
+insensate plan. The more he thought of it, the more impossible did it
+seem that Blakeney could find anything out.
+
+Sir Andrew Ffoulkes was nowhere to be seen. St. Just wandered about in
+the dark, lonely streets of this outlying quarter vainly trying to find
+the friend in whom he could confide, who, no doubt, would reassure
+him as to Blakeney’s probable movements in Paris. Then as the hour
+approached for the closing of the city gates Armand took up his stand
+at an angle of the street from whence he could see both the gate on one
+side of him and the thin line of the canal intersecting the street at
+its further end.
+
+Unless Percy came within the next five minutes the gates would be
+closed and the difficulties of crossing the barrier would be increased a
+hundredfold. The market gardeners with their covered carts filed out
+of the gate one by one; the labourers on foot were returning to their
+homes; there was a group of stonemasons, a few road-makers, also a
+number of beggars, ragged and filthy, who herded somewhere in the
+neighbourhood of the canal.
+
+In every form, under every disguise, Armand hoped to discover Percy.
+He could not stand still for very long, but strode up and down the road
+that skirts the fortifications at this point.
+
+There were a good many idlers about at this hour; some men who had
+finished their work, and meant to spend an hour or so in one of the
+drinking shops that abounded in the neighbourhood of the wharf; others
+who liked to gather a small knot of listeners around them, whilst they
+discoursed on the politics of the day, or rather raged against the
+Convention, which was all made up of traitors to the people’s welfare.
+
+Armand, trying manfully to play his part, joined one of the groups that
+stood gaping round a street orator. He shouted with the best of them,
+waved his cap in the air, and applauded or hissed in unison with the
+majority. But his eyes never wandered for long away from the gate whence
+Percy must come now at any moment--now or not at all.
+
+At what precise moment the awful doubt took birth in his mind the young
+man could not afterwards have said. Perhaps it was when he heard the
+roll of drums proclaiming the closing of the gates, and witnessed the
+changing of the guard.
+
+Percy had not come. He could not come now, and he (Armand) would have
+the night to face without news of Jeanne. Something, of course, had
+detained Percy; perhaps he had been unable to get definite information
+about Jeanne; perhaps the information which he had obtained was too
+terrible to communicate.
+
+If only Sir Andrew Ffoulkes had been there, and Armand had had some one
+to talk to, perhaps then he would have found sufficient strength of mind
+to wait with outward patience, even though his nerves were on the rack.
+
+Darkness closed in around him, and with the darkness came the full
+return of the phantoms that had assailed him in the house of the Square
+du Roule when first he had heard of Jeanne’s arrest. The open place
+facing the gate had transformed itself into the Place de la Revolution,
+the tall rough post that held a flickering oil lamp had become the gaunt
+arm of the guillotine, the feeble light of the lamp was the knife that
+gleamed with the reflection of a crimson light.
+
+And Armand saw himself, as in a vision, one of a vast and noisy
+throng--they were all pressing round him so that he could not move; they
+were brandishing caps and tricolour flags, also pitchforks and scythes.
+He had seen such a crowd four years ago rushing towards the Bastille.
+Now they were all assembled here around him and around the guillotine.
+
+Suddenly a distant rattle caught his subconscious ear: the rattle of
+wheels on rough cobble-stones. Immediately the crowd began to cheer and
+to shout; some sang the “Ca ira!” and others screamed:
+
+“Les aristos! a la lanterne! a mort! a mort! les aristos!”
+
+He saw it all quite plainly, for the darkness had vanished, and the
+vision was more vivid than even reality could have been. The rattle of
+wheels grew louder, and presently the cart debouched on the open place.
+
+Men and women sat huddled up in the cart; but in the midst of them a
+woman stood, and her eyes were fixed upon Armand. She wore her pale-grey
+satin gown, and a white kerchief was folded across her bosom. Her brown
+hair fell in loose soft curls all round her head. She looked exactly
+like the exquisite cameo which Marguerite used to wear. Her hands were
+tied with cords behind her back, but between her fingers she held a
+small bunch of violets.
+
+Armand saw it all. It was, of course, a vision, and he knew that it was
+one, but he believed that the vision was prophetic. No thought of the
+chief whom he had sworn to trust and to obey came to chase away these
+imaginings of his fevered fancy. He saw Jeanne, and only Jeanne,
+standing on the tumbril and being led to the guillotine. Sir Andrew was
+not there, and Percy had not come. Armand believed that a direct message
+had come to him from heaven to save his beloved.
+
+Therefore he forgot his promise--his oath; he forgot those very things
+which the leader had entreated him to remember--his duty to the others,
+his loyalty, his obedience. Jeanne had first claim on him. It were
+the act of a coward to remain in safety whilst she was in such deadly
+danger.
+
+Now he blamed himself severely for having quitted Paris. Even Percy
+must have thought him a coward for obeying quite so readily. Maybe the
+command had been but a test of his courage, of the strength of his love
+for Jeanne.
+
+A hundred conjectures flashed through his brain; a hundred plans
+presented themselves to his mind. It was not for Percy, who did not
+know her, to save Jeanne or to guard her. That task was Armand’s, who
+worshipped her, and who would gladly die beside her if he failed to
+rescue her from threatened death.
+
+Resolution was not slow in coming. A tower clock inside the city struck
+the hour of six, and still no sign of Percy.
+
+Armand, his certificate of safety in his hand, walked boldly up to the
+gate.
+
+The guard challenged him, but he presented the certificate. There was an
+agonising moment when the card was taken from him, and he was detained
+in the guard-room while it was being examined by the sergeant in
+command.
+
+But the certificate was in good order, and Armand, covered in coal-dust,
+with the perspiration streaming down his face, did certainly not look
+like an aristocrat in disguise. It was never very difficult to enter the
+great city; if one wished to put one’s head in the lion’s mouth, one was
+welcome to do so; the difficulty came when the lion thought fit to close
+his jaws.
+
+Armand, after five minutes of tense anxiety, was allowed to cross the
+barrier, but his certificate of safety was detained. He would have to
+get another from the Committee of General Security before he would be
+allowed to leave Paris again.
+
+The lion had thought fit to close his jaws.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. THE WEARY SEARCH
+
+Blakeney was not at his lodgings when Armand arrived there that evening,
+nor did he return, whilst the young man haunted the precincts of St.
+Germain l’Auxerrois and wandered along the quays hours and hours at
+a stretch, until he nearly dropped under the portico of a house,
+and realised that if he loitered longer he might lose consciousness
+completely, and be unable on the morrow to be of service to Jeanne.
+
+He dragged his weary footsteps back to his own lodgings on the heights
+of Montmartre. He had not found Percy, he had no news of Jeanne;
+it seemed as if hell itself could hold no worse tortures than this
+intolerable suspense.
+
+He threw himself down on the narrow palliasse and, tired nature
+asserting herself, at last fell into a heavy, dreamless torpor, like the
+sleep of a drunkard, deep but without the beneficent aid of rest.
+
+It was broad daylight when he awoke. The pale light of a damp, wintry
+morning filtered through the grimy panes of the window. Armand jumped
+out of bed, aching of limb but resolute of mind. There was no doubt that
+Percy had failed in discovering Jeanne’s whereabouts; but where a mere
+friend had failed a lover was more likely to succeed.
+
+The rough clothes which he had worn yesterday were the only ones he had.
+They would, of course, serve his purpose better than his own, which
+he had left at Blakeney’s lodgings yesterday. In half an hour he was
+dressed, looking a fairly good imitation of a labourer out of work.
+
+He went to a humble eating house of which he knew, and there, having
+ordered some hot coffee with a hunk of bread, he set himself to think.
+
+It was quite a usual thing these days for relatives and friends of
+prisoners to go wandering about from prison to prison to find out where
+the loved ones happened to be detained. The prisons were over full
+just now; convents, monasteries, and public institutions had all been
+requisitioned by the Government for the housing of the hundreds of
+so-called traitors who had been arrested on the barest suspicion, or at
+the mere denunciation of an evil-wisher.
+
+There were the Abbaye and the Luxembourg, the erstwhile convents of
+the Visitation and the Sacre-Coeur, the cloister of the Oratorians, the
+Salpetriere, and the St. Lazare hospitals, and there was, of course,
+the Temple, and, lastly, the Conciergerie, to which those prisoners were
+brought whose trial would take place within the next few days, and whose
+condemnation was practically assured.
+
+Persons under arrest at some of the other prisons did sometimes come
+out of them alive, but the Conciergerie was only the ante-chamber of the
+guillotine.
+
+Therefore Armand’s idea was to visit the Conciergerie first. The sooner
+he could reassure himself that Jeanne was not in immediate danger the
+better would he be able to endure the agony of that heart-breaking
+search, that knocking at every door in the hope of finding his beloved.
+
+If Jeanne was not in the Conciergerie, then there might be some hope
+that she was only being temporarily detained, and through Armand’s
+excited brain there had already flashed the thought that mayhap the
+Committee of General Security would release her if he gave himself up.
+
+These thoughts, and the making of plans, fortified him mentally and
+physically; he even made a great effort to eat and drink, knowing that
+his bodily strength must endure if it was going to be of service to
+Jeanne.
+
+He reached the Quai de l’Horloge soon after nine. The grim, irregular
+walls of the Chatelet and the house of Justice loomed from out the
+mantle of mist that lay on the river banks. Armand skirted the square
+clock-tower, and passed through the monumental gateways of the house of
+Justice.
+
+He knew that his best way to the prison would be through the halls and
+corridors of the Tribunal, to which the public had access whenever the
+court was sitting. The sittings began at ten, and already the usual
+crowd of idlers were assembling--men and women who apparently had no
+other occupation save to come day after day to this theatre of horrors
+and watch the different acts of the heartrending dramas that were
+enacted here with a kind of awful monotony.
+
+Armand mingled with the crowd that stood about the courtyard, and anon
+moved slowly up the gigantic flight of stone steps, talking lightly on
+indifferent subjects. There was quite a goodly sprinkling of workingmen
+amongst this crowd, and Armand in his toil-stained clothes attracted no
+attention.
+
+Suddenly a word reached his ear--just a name flippantly spoken by
+spiteful lips--and it changed the whole trend of his thoughts. Since he
+had risen that morning he had thought of nothing but of Jeanne, and--in
+connection with her--of Percy and his vain quest of her. Now that
+name spoken by some one unknown brought his mind back to more definite
+thoughts of his chief.
+
+“Capet!” the name--intended as an insult, but actually merely
+irrelevant--whereby the uncrowned little King of France was designated
+by the revolutionary party.
+
+Armand suddenly recollected that to-day was Sunday, the 19th of January.
+He had lost count of days and of dates lately, but the name, “Capet,”
+ had brought everything back: the child in the Temple; the conference in
+Blakeney’s lodgings; the plans for the rescue of the boy. That was to
+take place to-day--Sunday, the 19th. The Simons would be moving from the
+Temple, at what hour Blakeney did not know, but it would be today, and
+he would be watching his opportunity.
+
+Now Armand understood everything; a great wave of bitterness swept over
+his soul. Percy had forgotten Jeanne! He was busy thinking of the child
+in the Temple, and whilst Armand had been eating out his heart with
+anxiety, the Scarlet Pimpernel, true only to his mission, and impatient
+of all sentiment that interfered with his schemes, had left Jeanne to
+pay with her life for the safety of the uncrowned King.
+
+But the bitterness did not last long; on the contrary, a kind of wild
+exultation took its place. If Percy had forgotten, then Armand could
+stand by Jeanne alone. It was better so! He would save the loved one; it
+was his duty and his right to work for her sake. Never for a moment did
+he doubt that he could save her, that his life would be readily accepted
+in exchange for hers.
+
+The crowd around him was moving up the monumental steps, and Armand went
+with the crowd. It lacked but a few minutes to ten now; soon the court
+would begin to sit. In the olden days, when he was studying for the law,
+Armand had often wandered about at will along the corridors of the house
+of Justice. He knew exactly where the different prisons were situated
+about the buildings, and how to reach the courtyards where the prisoners
+took their daily exercise.
+
+To watch those aristos who were awaiting trial and death taking their
+recreation in these courtyards had become one of the sights of
+Paris. Country cousins on a visit to the city were brought hither
+for entertainment. Tall iron gates stood between the public and the
+prisoners, and a row of sentinels guarded these gates; but if one was
+enterprising and eager to see, one could glue one’s nose against the
+ironwork and watch the ci-devant aristocrats in threadbare
+clothes trying to cheat their horror of death by acting a farce of
+light-heartedness which their wan faces and tear-dimmed eyes effectually
+belied.
+
+All this Armand knew, and on this he counted. For a little while he
+joined the crowd in the Salle des Pas Perdus, and wandered idly up and
+down the majestic colonnaded hall. He even at one time formed part of
+the throng that watched one of those quick tragedies that were enacted
+within the great chamber of the court. A number of prisoners brought
+in, in a batch; hurried interrogations, interrupted answers, a
+quick indictment, monstrous in its flaring injustice, spoken by
+Foucquier-Tinville, the public prosecutor, and listened to in all
+seriousness by men who dared to call themselves judges of their fellows.
+
+The accused had walked down the Champs Elysees without wearing a
+tricolour cockade; the other had invested some savings in an English
+industrial enterprise; yet another had sold public funds, causing them
+to depreciate rather suddenly in the market!
+
+Sometimes from one of these unfortunates led thus wantonly to butchery
+there would come an excited protest, or from a woman screams of agonised
+entreaty. But these were quickly silenced by rough blows from the
+butt-ends of muskets, and condemnations--wholesale sentences of
+death--were quickly passed amidst the cheers of the spectators and the
+howls of derision from infamous jury and judge.
+
+Oh! the mockery of it all--the awful, the hideous ignominy, the blot
+of shame that would forever sully the historic name of France. Armand,
+sickened with horror, could not bear more than a few minutes of this
+monstrous spectacle. The same fate might even now be awaiting Jeanne.
+Among the next batch of victims to this sacrilegious butchery he might
+suddenly spy his beloved with her pale face and cheeks stained with her
+tears.
+
+He fled from the great chamber, keeping just a sufficiency of presence
+of mind to join a knot of idlers who were drifting leisurely towards the
+corridors. He followed in their wake and soon found himself in the long
+Galerie des Prisonniers, along the flagstones of which two days ago de
+Batz had followed his guide towards the lodgings of Heron.
+
+On his left now were the arcades shut off from the courtyard beyond by
+heavy iron gates. Through the ironwork Armand caught sight of a number
+of women walking or sitting in the courtyard. He heard a man next to him
+explaining to his friend that these were the female prisoners who would
+be brought to trial that day, and he felt that his heart must burst at
+the thought that mayhap Jeanne would be among them.
+
+He elbowed his way cautiously to the front rank. Soon he found himself
+beside a sentinel who, with a good-humoured jest, made way for him that
+he might watch the aristos. Armand leaned against the grating, and his
+every sense was concentrated in that of sight.
+
+At first he could scarcely distinguish one woman from another amongst
+the crowd that thronged the courtyard, and the close ironwork hindered
+his view considerably. The women looked almost like phantoms in the grey
+misty air, gliding slowly along with noiseless tread on the flag-stones.
+
+Presently, however, his eyes, which mayhap were somewhat dim with tears,
+became more accustomed to the hazy grey light and the moving figures
+that looked so like shadows. He could distinguish isolated groups now,
+women and girls sitting together under the colonnaded arcades, some
+reading, others busy, with trembling fingers, patching and darning a
+poor, torn gown. Then there were others who were actually chatting and
+laughing together, and--oh, the pity of it! the pity and the shame!--a
+few children, shrieking with delight, were playing hide and seek in and
+out amongst the columns.
+
+And, between them all, in and out like the children at play, unseen, yet
+familiar to all, the spectre of Death, scythe and hour-glass in hand,
+wandered, majestic and sure.
+
+Armand’s very soul was in his eyes. So far he had not yet caught sight
+of his beloved, and slowly--very slowly--a ray of hope was filtering
+through the darkness of his despair.
+
+The sentinel, who had stood aside for him, chaffed him for his
+intentness.
+
+“Have you a sweetheart among these aristos, citizen?” he asked. “You
+seem to be devouring them with your eyes.”
+
+Armand, with his rough clothes soiled with coal-dust, his face grimy and
+streaked with sweat, certainly looked to have but little in common
+with the ci-devant aristos who formed the hulk of the groups in the
+courtyard. He looked up; the soldier was regarding him with obvious
+amusement, and at sight of Armand’s wild, anxious eyes he gave vent to a
+coarse jest.
+
+“Have I made a shrewd guess, citizen?” he said. “Is she among that lot?”
+
+“I do not know where she is,” said Armand almost involuntarily.
+
+“Then why don’t you find out?” queried the soldier.
+
+The man was not speaking altogether unkindly. Armand, devoured with the
+maddening desire to know, threw the last fragment of prudence to the
+wind. He assumed a more careless air, trying to look as like a country
+bumpkin in love as he could.
+
+“I would like to find out,” he said, “but I don’t know where to inquire.
+My sweetheart has certainly left her home,” he added lightly; “some say
+that she has been false to me, but I think that, mayhap, she has been
+arrested.”
+
+“Well, then, you gaby,” said the soldier good-humouredly, “go straight
+to La Tournelle; you know where it is?”
+
+Armand knew well enough, but thought it more prudent to keep up the air
+of the ignorant lout.
+
+“Straight down that first corridor on your right,” explained the other,
+pointing in the direction which he had indicated, “you will find the
+guichet of La Tournelle exactly opposite to you. Ask the concierge for
+the register of female prisoners--every freeborn citizen of the Republic
+has the right to inspect prison registers. It is a new decree framed for
+safeguarding the liberty of the people. But if you do not press half a
+livre in the hand of the concierge,” he added, speaking confidentially,
+“you will find that the register will not be quite ready for your
+inspection.”
+
+“Half a livre!” exclaimed Armand, striving to play his part to the end.
+“How can a poor devil of a labourer have half a livre to give away?”
+
+“Well! a few sous will do in that case; a few sous are always welcome
+these hard times.”
+
+Armand took the hint, and as the crowd had drifted away momentarily to
+a further portion of the corridor, he contrived to press a few copper
+coins into the hand of the obliging soldier.
+
+Of course, he knew his way to La Tournelle, and he would have covered
+the distance that separated him from the guichet there with steps flying
+like the wind, but, commending himself for his own prudence, he walked
+as slowly as he could along the interminable corridor, past the several
+minor courts of justice, and skirting the courtyard where the male
+prisoners took their exercise.
+
+At last, having struck sharply to his left and ascended a short flight
+of stairs, he found himself in front of the guichet--a narrow wooden
+box, wherein the clerk in charge of the prison registers sat nominally
+at the disposal of the citizens of this free republic.
+
+But to Armand’s almost overwhelming chagrin he found the place entirely
+deserted. The guichet was closed down; there was not a soul in sight.
+The disappointment was doubly keen, coming as it did in the wake of
+hope that had refused to be gainsaid. Armand himself did not realise
+how sanguine he had been until he discovered that he must wait and wait
+again--wait for hours, all day mayhap, before he could get definite news
+of Jeanne.
+
+He wandered aimlessly in the vicinity of that silent, deserted, cruel
+spot, where a closed trapdoor seemed to shut off all his hopes of a
+speedy sight of Jeanne. He inquired of the first sentinels whom he came
+across at what hour the clerk of the registers would be back at
+his post; the soldiers shrugged their shoulders and could give no
+information. Then began Armand’s aimless wanderings round La Tournelle,
+his fruitless inquiries, his wild, excited search for the hide-bound
+official who was keeping from him the knowledge of Jeanne.
+
+He went back to his sentinel well-wisher by the women’s courtyard, but
+found neither consolation nor encouragement there.
+
+“It is not the hour--quoi?” the soldier remarked with laconic
+philosophy.
+
+It apparently was not the hour when the prison registers were placed at
+the disposal of the public. After much fruitless inquiry, Armand at last
+was informed by a bon bourgeois, who was wandering about the house of
+Justice and who seemed to know its multifarious rules, that the prison
+registers all over Paris could only be consulted by the public between
+the hours of six and seven in the evening.
+
+There was nothing for it but to wait. Armand, whose temples were
+throbbing, who was footsore, hungry, and wretched, could gain nothing by
+continuing his aimless wanderings through the labyrinthine building.
+For close upon another hour he stood with his face glued against the
+ironwork which separated him from the female prisoners’ courtyard. Once
+it seemed to him as if from its further end he caught the sound of that
+exquisitely melodious voice which had rung forever in his ear since that
+memorable evening when Jeanne’s dainty footsteps had first crossed
+the path of his destiny. He strained his eyes to look in the direction
+whence the voice had come, but the centre of the courtyard was planted
+with a small garden of shrubs, and Armand could not see across it. At
+last, driven forth like a wandering and lost soul, he turned back and
+out into the streets. The air was mild and damp. The sharp thaw had
+persisted through the day, and a thin, misty rain was falling and
+converting the ill-paved roads into seas of mud.
+
+But of this Armand was wholly unconscious. He walked along the quay
+holding his cap in his hand, so that the mild south wind should cool his
+burning forehead.
+
+How he contrived to kill those long, weary hours he could not afterwards
+have said. Once he felt very hungry, and turned almost mechanically
+into an eating-house, and tried to eat and drink. But most of the day he
+wandered through the streets, restlessly, unceasingly, feeling neither
+chill nor fatigue. The hour before six o’clock found him on the Quai
+de l’Horloge in the shadow of the great towers of the Hall of Justice,
+listening for the clang of the clock that would sound the hour of his
+deliverance from this agonising torture of suspense.
+
+He found his way to La Tournelle without any hesitation. There before
+him was the wooden box, with its guichet open at last, and two stands
+upon its ledge, on which were placed two huge leather-bound books.
+
+Though Armand was nearly an hour before the appointed time, he saw when
+he arrived a number of people standing round the guichet. Two soldiers
+were there keeping guard and forcing the patient, long-suffering
+inquirers to stand in a queue, each waiting his or her turn at the
+books.
+
+It was a curious crowd that stood there, in single file, as if waiting
+at the door of the cheaper part of a theatre; men in substantial cloth
+clothes, and others in ragged blouse and breeches; there were a few
+women, too, with black shawls on their shoulders and kerchiefs round
+their wan, tear-stained faces.
+
+They were all silent and absorbed, submissive under the rough handling
+of the soldiery, humble and deferential when anon the clerk of the
+registers entered his box, and prepared to place those fateful books at
+the disposal of those who had lost a loved one--father, brother, mother,
+or wife--and had come to search through those cruel pages.
+
+From inside his box the clerk disputed every inquirer’s right to consult
+the books; he made as many difficulties as he could, demanding the
+production of certificates of safety, or permits from the section. He
+was as insolent as he dared, and Armand from where he stood could see
+that a continuous if somewhat thin stream of coppers flowed from the
+hands of the inquirers into those of the official.
+
+It was quite dark in the passage where the long queue continued to swell
+with amazing rapidity. Only on the ledge in front of the guichet there
+was a guttering tallow candle at the disposal of the inquirers.
+
+Now it was Armand’s turn at last. By this time his heart was beating so
+strongly and so rapidly that he could not have trusted himself to speak.
+He fumbled in his pocket, and without unnecessary preliminaries he
+produced a small piece of silver, and pushed it towards the clerk, then
+he seized on the register marked “Femmes” with voracious avidity.
+
+The clerk had with stolid indifference pocketed the half-livre; he
+looked on Armand over a pair of large bone-rimmed spectacles, with the
+air of an old hawk that sees a helpless bird and yet is too satiated to
+eat. He was apparently vastly amused at Armand’s trembling hands, and
+the clumsy, aimless way with which he fingered the book and held up the
+tallow candle.
+
+“What date?” he asked curtly in a piping voice.
+
+“What date?” reiterated Armand vaguely.
+
+“What day and hour was she arrested?” said the man, thrusting his
+beak-like nose closer to Armand’s face. Evidently the piece of silver
+had done its work well; he meant to be helpful to this country lout.
+
+“On Friday evening,” murmured the young man.
+
+The clerk’s hands did not in character gainsay the rest of his
+appearance; they were long and thin, with nails that resembled the
+talons of a hawk. Armand watched them fascinated as from above they
+turned over rapidly the pages of the book; then one long, grimy finger
+pointed to a row of names down a column.
+
+“If she is here,” said the man curtly, “her name should be amongst
+these.”
+
+Armand’s vision was blurred. He could scarcely see. The row of names was
+dancing a wild dance in front of his eyes; perspiration stood out on his
+forehead, and his breath came in quick, stertorous gasps.
+
+He never knew afterwards whether he actually saw Jeanne’s name there in
+the book, or whether his fevered brain was playing his aching senses a
+cruel and mocking trick. Certain it is that suddenly amongst a row of
+indifferent names hers suddenly stood clearly on the page, and to him it
+seemed as if the letters were writ out in blood.
+
+     582.  Belhomme, Louise, aged sixty.  Discharged.
+
+And just below, the other entry:
+
+     583. Lange, Jeanne, aged twenty, actress. Square du Roule
+     No.5.  Suspected of harbouring traitors and ci-devants.
+     Transferred 29th Nivose to the Temple, cell 29.
+
+He saw nothing more, for suddenly it seemed to him as if some one held
+a vivid scarlet veil in front of his eyes, whilst a hundred claw-like
+hands were tearing at his heart and at his throat.
+
+“Clear out now! it is my turn--what? Are you going to stand there all
+night?”
+
+A rough voice seemed to be speaking these words; rough hands apparently
+were pushing him out of the way, and some one snatched the candle out
+of his hand; but nothing was real. He stumbled over a corner of a loose
+flagstone, and would have fallen, but something seemed to catch hold of
+him and to lead him away for a little distance, until a breath of cold
+air blew upon his face.
+
+This brought him back to his senses.
+
+Jeanne was a prisoner in the Temple; then his place was in the prison of
+the Temple, too. It could not be very difficult to run one’s head into
+the noose that caught so many necks these days. A few cries of “Vive le
+roi!” or “A bas la republique!” and more than one prison door would gape
+invitingly to receive another guest.
+
+The hot blood had rushed into Armand’s head. He did not see clearly
+before him, nor did he hear distinctly. There was a buzzing in his ears
+as of myriads of mocking birds’ wings, and there was a veil in front
+of his eyes--a veil through which he saw faces and forms flitting
+ghost-like in the gloom, men and women jostling or being jostled,
+soldiers, sentinels; then long, interminable corridors, more crowd and
+more soldiers, winding stairs, courtyards and gates; finally the open
+street, the quay, and the river beyond.
+
+An incessant hammering went on in his temples, and that veil never
+lifted from before his eyes. Now it was lurid and red, as if stained
+with blood; anon it was white like a shroud but it was always there.
+
+Through it he saw the Pont-au-Change, which he crossed, then far down
+on the Quai de l’Ecole to the left the corner house behind St. Germain
+l’Auxerrois, where Blakeney lodged--Blakeney, who for the sake of a
+stranger had forgotten all about his comrade and Jeanne.
+
+Through it he saw the network of streets which separated him from the
+neighbourhood of the Temple, the gardens of ruined habitations, the
+closely-shuttered and barred windows of ducal houses, then the mean
+streets, the crowded drinking bars, the tumble-down shops with their
+dilapidated awnings.
+
+He saw with eyes that did not see, heard the tumult of daily life round
+him with ears that did not hear. Jeanne was in the Temple prison,
+and when its grim gates closed finally for the night, he--Armand, her
+chevalier, her lover, her defender--would be within its walls as near to
+cell No. 29 as bribery, entreaty, promises would help him to attain.
+
+Ah! there at last loomed the great building, the pointed bastions cut
+through the surrounding gloom as with a sable knife.
+
+Armand reached the gate; the sentinels challenged him; he replied:
+
+“Vive le roi!” shouting wildly like one who is drunk.
+
+He was hatless, and his clothes were saturated with moisture. He tried
+to pass, but crossed bayonets barred the way. Still he shouted:
+
+“Vive le roi!” and “A bas la republique!”
+
+“Allons! the fellow is drunk!” said one of the soldiers.
+
+Armand fought like a madman; he wanted to reach that gate. He shouted,
+he laughed, and he cried, until one of the soldiers in a fit of rage
+struck him heavily on the head.
+
+Armand fell backwards, stunned by the blow; his foot slipped on the wet
+pavement. Was he indeed drunk, or was he dreaming? He put his hand up to
+his forehead; it was wet, but whether with the rain or with blood he
+did not know; but for the space of one second he tried to collect his
+scattered wits.
+
+“Citizen St. Just!” said a quiet voice at his elbow.
+
+Then, as he looked round dazed, feeling a firm, pleasant grip on his
+arm, the same quiet voice continued calmly:
+
+“Perhaps you do not remember me, citizen St. Just. I had not the honour
+of the same close friendship with you as I had with your charming
+sister. My name is Chauvelin. Can I be of any service to you?”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. CHAUVELIN
+
+Chauvelin! The presence of this man here at this moment made the events
+of the past few days seem more absolutely like a dream. Chauvelin!--the
+most deadly enemy he, Armand, and his sister Marguerite had in the
+world. Chauvelin!--the evil genius that presided over the Secret Service
+of the Republic. Chauvelin--the aristocrat turned revolutionary, the
+diplomat turned spy, the baffled enemy of the Scarlet Pimpernel.
+
+He stood there vaguely outlined in the gloom by the feeble rays of
+an oil lamp fixed into the wall just above. The moisture on his sable
+clothes glistened in the flickering light like a thin veil of crystal;
+it clung to the rim of his hat, to the folds of his cloak; the ruffles
+at his throat and wrist hung limp and soiled.
+
+He had released Armand’s arm, and held his hands now underneath his
+cloak; his pale, deep-set eyes rested gravely on the younger man’s face.
+
+“I had an idea, somehow,” continued Chauvelin calmly, “that you and I
+would meet during your sojourn in Paris. I heard from my friend Heron
+that you had been in the city; he, unfortunately, lost your track almost
+as soon as he had found it, and I, too, had begun to fear that our
+mutual and ever enigmatical friend, the Scarlet Pimpernel, had spirited
+you away, which would have been a great disappointment to me.”
+
+Now he once more took hold of Armand by the elbow, but quite gently,
+more like a comrade who is glad to have met another, and is preparing
+to enjoy a pleasant conversation for a while. He led the way back to the
+gate, the sentinel saluting at sight of the tricolour scarf which was
+visible underneath his cloak. Under the stone rampart Chauvelin paused.
+
+It was quiet and private here. The group of soldiers stood at the
+further end of the archway, but they were out of hearing, and their
+forms were only vaguely discernible in the surrounding darkness.
+
+Armand had followed his enemy mechanically like one bewitched and
+irresponsible for his actions. When Chauvelin paused he too stood still,
+not because of the grip on his arm, but because of that curious numbing
+of his will.
+
+Vague, confused thoughts were floating through his brain, the most
+dominant one among them being that Fate had effectually ordained
+everything for the best. Here was Chauvelin, a man who hated him, who,
+of course, would wish to see him dead. Well, surely it must be an easier
+matter now to barter his own life for that of Jeanne; she had only been
+arrested on suspicion of harbouring him, who was a known traitor to the
+Republic; then, with his capture and speedy death, her supposed guilt
+would, he hoped, be forgiven. These people could have no ill-will
+against her, and actors and actresses were always leniently dealt with
+when possible. Then surely, surely, he could serve Jeanne best by his
+own arrest and condemnation, than by working to rescue her from prison.
+
+In the meanwhile Chauvelin shook the damp from off his cloak, talking
+all the time in his own peculiar, gently ironical manner.
+
+“Lady Blakeney?” he was saying--“I hope that she is well!”
+
+“I thank you, sir,” murmured Armand mechanically.
+
+“And my dear friend, Sir Percy Blakeney? I had hoped to meet him in
+Paris. Ah! but no doubt he has been busy very busy; but I live in
+hopes--I live in hopes. See how kindly Chance has treated me,” he
+continued in the same bland and mocking tones. “I was taking a stroll
+in these parts, scarce hoping to meet a friend, when, passing the
+postern-gate of this charming hostelry, whom should I see but my amiable
+friend St. Just striving to gain admission. But, la! here am I talking
+of myself, and I am not re-assured as to your state of health. You felt
+faint just now, did you not? The air about this building is very dank
+and close. I hope you feel better now. Command me, pray, if I can be of
+service to you in any way.”
+
+Whilst Chauvelin talked he had drawn Armand after him into the lodge
+of the concierge. The young man now made a great effort to pull himself
+vigorously together and to steady his nerves.
+
+He had his wish. He was inside the Temple prison now, not far from
+Jeanne, and though his enemy was older and less vigorous than himself,
+and the door of the concierge’s lodge stood wide open, he knew that he
+was in-deed as effectually a prisoner already as if the door of one of
+the numerous cells in this gigantic building had been bolted and barred
+upon him.
+
+This knowledge helped him to recover his complete presence of mind. No
+thought of fighting or trying to escape his fate entered his head for a
+moment. It had been useless probably, and undoubtedly it was better so.
+If he only could see Jeanne, and assure himself that she would be safe
+in consequence of his own arrest, then, indeed, life could hold no
+greater happiness for him.
+
+Above all now he wanted to be cool and calculating, to curb the
+excitement which the Latin blood in him called forth at every mention of
+the loved one’s name. He tried to think of Percy, of his calmness, his
+easy banter with an enemy; he resolved to act as Percy would act under
+these circumstances.
+
+Firstly, he steadied his voice, and drew his well-knit, slim figure
+upright. He called to mind all his friends in England, with their rigid
+manners, their impassiveness in the face of trying situations. There was
+Lord Tony, for instance, always ready with some boyish joke, with boyish
+impertinence always hovering on his tongue. Armand tried to emulate Lord
+Tony’s manner, and to borrow something of Percy’s calm impudence.
+
+“Citizen Chauvelin,” he said, as soon as he felt quite sure of the
+steadiness of his voice and the calmness of his manner, “I wonder if
+you are quite certain that that light grip which you have on my arm
+is sufficient to keep me here walking quietly by your side instead
+of knocking you down, as I certainly feel inclined to do, for I am a
+younger, more vigorous man than you.”
+
+“H’m!” said Chauvelin, who made pretence to ponder over this difficult
+problem; “like you, citizen St. Just, I wonder--”
+
+“It could easily be done, you know.”
+
+“Fairly easily,” rejoined the other; “but there is the guard; it is
+numerous and strong in this building, and--”
+
+“The gloom would help me; it is dark in the corridors, and a desperate
+man takes risks, remember--”
+
+“Quite so! And you, citizen St. Just, are a desperate man just now.”
+
+“My sister Marguerite is not here, citizen Chauvelin. You cannot barter
+my life for that of your enemy.”
+
+“No! no! no!” rejoined Chauvelin blandly; “not for that of my enemy, I
+know, but--”
+
+Armand caught at his words like a drowning man at a reed.
+
+“For hers!” he exclaimed.
+
+“For hers?” queried the other with obvious puzzlement.
+
+“Mademoiselle Lange,” continued Armand with all the egoistic ardour
+of the lover who believes that the attention of the entire world is
+concentrated upon his beloved.
+
+“Mademoiselle Lange! You will set her free now that I am in your power.”
+
+Chauvelin smiled, his usual suave, enigmatical smile.
+
+“Ah, yes!” he said. “Mademoiselle Lange. I had forgotten.”
+
+“Forgotten, man?--forgotten that those murderous dogs have arrested
+her?--the best, the purest, this vile, degraded country has ever
+produced. She sheltered me one day just for an hour. I am a traitor to
+the Republic--I own it. I’ll make full confession; but she knew nothing
+of this. I deceived her; she is quite innocent, you understand? I’ll
+make full confession, but you must set her free.”
+
+He had gradually worked himself up again to a state of feverish
+excitement. Through the darkness which hung about in this small room he
+tried to peer in Chauvelin’s impassive face.
+
+“Easy, easy, my young friend,” said the other placidly; “you seem to
+imagine that I have something to do with the arrest of the lady in whom
+you take so deep an interest. You forget that now I am but a discredited
+servant of the Republic whom I failed to serve in her need. My life is
+only granted me out of pity for my efforts, which were genuine if not
+successful. I have no power to set any one free.”
+
+“Nor to arrest me now, in that case!” retorted Armand.
+
+Chauvelin paused a moment before he replied with a deprecating smile:
+
+“Only to denounce you, perhaps. I am still an agent of the Committee of
+General Security.”
+
+“Then all is for the best!” exclaimed St. Just eagerly. “You shall
+denounce me to the Committee. They will be glad of my arrest, I assure
+you. I have been a marked man for some time. I had intended to evade
+arrest and to work for the rescue of Mademoiselle Lange; but I will
+give up all thought of that--I will deliver myself into your hands
+absolutely; nay, more, I will give you my most solemn word of honour
+that not only will I make no attempt at escape, but that I will not
+allow any one to help me to do so. I will be a passive and willing
+prisoner if you, on the other hand, will effect Mademoiselle Lange’s
+release.”
+
+“H’m!” mused Chauvelin again, “it sounds feasible.”
+
+“It does! it does!” rejoined Armand, whose excitement was at
+fever-pitch. “My arrest, my condemnation, my death, will be of vast deal
+more importance to you than that of a young and innocent girl against
+whom unlikely charges would have to be tricked up, and whose acquittal
+mayhap public feeling might demand. As for me, I shall be an easy prey;
+my known counter-revolutionary principles, my sister’s marriage with a
+foreigner--”
+
+“Your connection with the Scarlet Pimpernel,” suggested Chauvelin
+blandly.
+
+“Quite so. I should not defend myself--”
+
+“And your enigmatical friend would not attempt your rescue. C’est
+entendu,” said Chauvelin with his wonted blandness. “Then, my dear,
+enthusiastic young friend, shall we adjourn to the office of my
+colleague, citizen Heron, who is chief agent of the Committee of General
+Security, and will receive your--did you say confession?--and note the
+conditions under which you place yourself absolutely in the hands of the
+Public Prosecutor and subsequently of the executioner. Is that it?”
+
+Armand was too full of schemes, too full of thoughts of Jeanne to note
+the tone of quiet irony with which Chauvelin had been speaking all
+along. With the unreasoning egoism of youth he was quite convinced that
+his own arrest, his own affairs were as important to this entire nation
+in revolution as they were to himself. At moments like these it is
+difficult to envisage a desperate situation clearly, and to a young man
+in love the fate of the beloved never seems desperate whilst he himself
+is alive and ready for every sacrifice for her sake. “My life for hers”
+ is the sublime if often foolish battle-cry that has so often resulted in
+whole-sale destruction. Armand at this moment, when he fondly believed
+that he was making a bargain with the most astute, most unscrupulous
+spy this revolutionary Government had in its pay--Armand just then had
+absolutely forgotten his chief, his friends, the league of mercy and
+help to which he belonged.
+
+Enthusiasm and the spirit of self-sacrifice were carrying him away. He
+watched his enemy with glowing eyes as one who looks on the arbiter of
+his fate.
+
+Chauvelin, without another word, beckoned to him to follow. He led the
+way out of the lodge, then, turning sharply to his left, he reached the
+wide quadrangle with the covered passage running right round it, the
+same which de Batz had traversed two evenings ago when he went to visit
+Heron.
+
+Armand, with a light heart and springy step, followed him as if he were
+going to a feast where he would meet Jeanne, where he would kneel at
+her feet, kiss her hands, and lead her triumphantly to freedom and to
+happiness.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. THE REMOVAL
+
+Chauvelin no longer made any pretence to hold Armand by the arm. By
+temperament as well as by profession a spy, there was one subject at
+least which he had mastered thoroughly: that was the study of human
+nature. Though occasionally an exceptionally complex mental organisation
+baffled him--as in the case of Sir Percy Blakeney--he prided himself,
+and justly, too, on reading natures like that of Armand St. Just as he
+would an open book.
+
+The excitable disposition of the Latin races he knew out and out;
+he knew exactly how far a sentimental situation would lead a young
+Frenchman like Armand, who was by disposition chivalrous, and by
+temperament essentially passionate. Above all things, he knew when
+and how far he could trust a man to do either a sublime action or an
+essentially foolish one.
+
+Therefore he walked along contentedly now, not even looking back to see
+whether St. Just was following him. He knew that he did.
+
+His thoughts only dwelt on the young enthusiast--in his mind he
+called him the young fool--in order to weigh in the balance the mighty
+possibilities that would accrue from the present sequence of events.
+The fixed idea ever working in the man’s scheming brain had already
+transformed a vague belief into a certainty. That the Scarlet Pimpernel
+was in Paris at the present moment Chauvelin had now become convinced.
+How far he could turn the capture of Armand St. Just to the triumph of
+his own ends remained to be seen.
+
+But this he did know: the Scarlet Pimpernel--the man whom he had learned
+to know, to dread, and even in a grudging manner to admire--was not like
+to leave one of his followers in the lurch. Marguerite’s brother in the
+Temple would be the surest decoy for the elusive meddler who still, and
+in spite of all care and precaution, continued to baffle the army of
+spies set upon his track.
+
+Chauvelin could hear Armand’s light, elastic footsteps resounding behind
+him on the flagstones. A world of intoxicating possibilities surged up
+before him. Ambition, which two successive dire failures had atrophied
+in his breast, once more rose up buoyant and hopeful. Once he had sworn
+to lay the Scarlet Pimpernel by the heels, and that oath was not yet
+wholly forgotten; it had lain dormant after the catastrophe of Boulogne,
+but with the sight of Armand St. Just it had re-awakened and confronted
+him again with the strength of a likely fulfilment.
+
+The courtyard looked gloomy and deserted. The thin drizzle which still
+fell from a persistently leaden sky effectually held every outline of
+masonry, of column, or of gate hidden as beneath a shroud. The corridor
+which skirted it all round was ill-lighted save by an occasional
+oil-lamp fixed in the wall.
+
+But Chauvelin knew his way well. Heron’s lodgings gave on the second
+courtyard, the Square du Nazaret, and the way thither led past the main
+square tower, in the top floor of which the uncrowned King of France
+eked out his miserable existence as the plaything of a rough cobbler and
+his wife.
+
+Just beneath its frowning bastions Chauvelin turned back towards Armand.
+He pointed with a careless hand up-wards to the central tower.
+
+“We have got little Capet in there,” he said dryly. “Your chivalrous
+Scarlet Pimpernel has not ventured in these precincts yet, you see.”
+
+Armand was silent. He had no difficulty in looking unconcerned; his
+thoughts were so full of Jeanne that he cared but little at this moment
+for any Bourbon king or for the destinies of France.
+
+Now the two men reached the postern gate. A couple of sentinels were
+standing by, but the gate itself was open, and from within there came
+the sound of bustle and of noise, of a good deal of swearing, and also
+of loud laughter.
+
+The guard-room gave on the left of the gate, and the laughter came from
+there. It was brilliantly lighted, and Armand, peering in, in the wake
+of Chauvelin, could see groups of soldiers sitting and standing about.
+There was a table in the centre of the room, and on it a number of jugs
+and pewter mugs, packets of cards, and overturned boxes of dice.
+
+But the bustle did not come from the guard-room; it came from the
+landing and the stone stairs beyond.
+
+Chauvelin, apparently curious, had passed through the gate, and Armand
+followed him. The light from the open door of the guard-room cut sharply
+across the landing, making the gloom beyond appear more dense and
+almost solid. From out the darkness, fitfully intersected by a lanthorn
+apparently carried to and fro, moving figures loomed out ghost-like and
+weirdly gigantic. Soon Armand distinguished a number of large objects
+that encumbered the landing, and as he and Chauvelin left the sharp
+light of the guard-room behind them, he could see that the large
+objects were pieces of furniture of every shape and size; a wooden
+bedstead--dismantled--leaned against the wall, a black horsehair sofa
+blocked the way to the tower stairs, and there were numberless chairs
+and several tables piled one on the top of the other.
+
+In the midst of this litter a stout, flabby-cheeked man stood,
+apparently giving directions as to its removal to persons at present
+unseen.
+
+“Hola, Papa Simon!” exclaimed Chauvelin jovially; “moving out to-day?
+What?”
+
+“Yes, thank the Lord!--if there be a Lord!” retorted the other curtly.
+“Is that you, citizen Chauvelin?”
+
+“In person, citizen. I did not know you were leaving quite so soon. Is
+citizen Heron anywhere about?”
+
+“Just left,” replied Simon. “He had a last look at Capet just before
+my wife locked the brat up in the inner room. Now he’s gone back to his
+lodgings.”
+
+A man carrying a chest, empty of its drawers, on his back now came
+stumbling down the tower staircase. Madame Simon followed close on his
+heels, steadying the chest with one hand.
+
+“We had better begin to load up the cart,” she called to her husband
+in a high-pitched querulous voice; “the corridor is getting too much
+encumbered.”
+
+She looked suspiciously at Chauvelin and at Armand, and when she
+encountered the former’s bland, unconcerned gaze she suddenly shivered
+and drew her black shawl closer round her shoulders.
+
+“Bah!” she said, “I shall be glad to get out of this God-forsaken hole.
+I hate the very sight of these walls.”
+
+“Indeed, the citizeness does not look over robust in health,” said
+Chauvelin with studied politeness. “The stay in the tower did not,
+mayhap, bring forth all the fruits of prosperity which she had
+anticipated.”
+
+The woman eyed him with dark suspicion lurking in her hollow eyes.
+
+“I don’t know what you mean, citizen,” she said with a shrug of her wide
+shoulders.
+
+“Oh! I meant nothing,” rejoined Chauvelin, smiling. “I am so interested
+in your removal; busy man as I am, it has amused me to watch you. Whom
+have you got to help you with the furniture?”
+
+“Dupont, the man-of-all-work, from the concierge,” said Simon curtly.
+“Citizen Heron would not allow any one to come in from the outside.”
+
+“Rightly too. Have the new commissaries come yet?
+
+“Only citizen Cochefer. He is waiting upstairs for the others.”
+
+“And Capet?”
+
+“He is all safe. Citizen Heron came to see him, and then he told me to
+lock the little vermin up in the inner room. Citizen Cochefer had just
+arrived by that time, and he has remained in charge.”
+
+During all this while the man with the chest on his back was waiting
+for orders. Bent nearly double, he was grumbling audibly at his
+uncomfortable position.
+
+“Does the citizen want to break my back?” he muttered.
+
+“We had best get along--quoi?”
+
+He asked if he should begin to carry the furniture out into the street.
+
+“Two sous have I got to pay every ten minutes to the lad who holds my
+nag,” he said, muttering under his breath; “we shall be all night at
+this rate.”
+
+“Begin to load then,” commanded Simon gruffly. “Here!--begin with this
+sofa.”
+
+“You’ll have to give me a hand with that,” said the man. “Wait a bit;
+I’ll just see that everything is all right in the cart. I’ll be back
+directly.”
+
+“Take something with you then as you are going down,” said Madame Simon
+in her querulous voice.
+
+The man picked up a basket of linen that stood in the angle by the door.
+He hoisted it on his back and shuffled away with it across the landing
+and out through the gate.
+
+“How did Capet like parting from his papa and maman?” asked Chauvelin
+with a laugh.
+
+“H’m!” growled Simon laconically. “He will find out soon enough how well
+off he was under our care.”
+
+“Have the other commissaries come yet?”
+
+“No. But they will be here directly. Citizen Cochefer is upstairs
+mounting guard over Capet.”
+
+“Well, good-bye, Papa Simon,” concluded Chauvelin jovially. “Citizeness,
+your servant!”
+
+He bowed with unconcealed irony to the cobbler’s wife, and nodded to
+Simon, who expressed by a volley of motley oaths his exact feelings with
+regard to all the agents of the Committee of General Security.
+
+“Six months of this penal servitude have we had,” he said roughly, “and
+no thanks or pension. I would as soon serve a ci-devant aristo as your
+accursed Committee.”
+
+The man Dupont had returned. Stolidly, after the fashion of his kind,
+he commenced the removal of citizen Simon’s goods. He seemed a clumsy
+enough creature, and Simon and his wife had to do most of the work
+themselves.
+
+Chauvelin watched the moving forms for a while, then he shrugged his
+shoulders with a laugh of indifference, and turned on his heel.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. IT IS ABOUT THE DAUPHIN
+
+Heron was not at his lodgings when, at last, after vigorous pulls at
+the bell, a great deal of waiting and much cursing, Chauvelin, closely
+followed by Armand, was introduced in the chief agent’s office.
+
+The soldier who acted as servant said that citizen Heron had gone out
+to sup, but would surely be home again by eight o’clock. Armand by this
+time was so dazed with fatigue that he sank on a chair like a log, and
+remained there staring into the fire, unconscious of the flight of time.
+
+Anon Heron came home. He nodded to Chauvelin, and threw but a cursory
+glance on Armand.
+
+“Five minutes, citizen,” he said, with a rough attempt at an apology. “I
+am sorry to keep you waiting, but the new commissaries have arrived who
+are to take charge of Capet. The Simons have just gone, and I want to
+assure myself that everything is all right in the Tower. Cochefer
+has been in charge, but I like to cast an eye over the brat every day
+myself.”
+
+He went out again, slamming the door behind him. His heavy footsteps
+were heard treading the flagstones of the corridor, and gradually dying
+away in the distance. Armand had paid no heed either to his entrance or
+to his exit. He was only conscious of an intense weariness, and would at
+this moment gladly have laid his head on the scaffold if on it he could
+find rest.
+
+A white-faced clock on the wall ticked off the seconds one by one. From
+the street below came the muffled sounds of wheeled traffic on the soft
+mud of the road; it was raining more heavily now, and from time to time
+a gust of wind rattled the small windows in their dilapidated frames, or
+hurled a shower of heavy drops against the panes.
+
+The heat from the stove had made Armand drowsy; his head fell forward
+on his chest. Chauvelin, with his hands held behind his back, paced
+ceaselessly up and down the narrow room.
+
+Suddenly Armand started--wide awake now. Hurried footsteps on the
+flagstones outside, a hoarse shout, a banging of heavy doors, and the
+next moment Heron stood once more on the threshold of the room. Armand,
+with wide-opened eyes, gazed on him in wonder. The whole appearance of
+the man had changed. He looked ten years older, with lank, dishevelled
+hair hanging matted over a moist forehead, the cheeks ashen-white, the
+full lips bloodless and hanging, flabby and parted, displaying both rows
+of yellow teeth that shook against each other. The whole figure looked
+bowed, as if shrunk within itself.
+
+Chauvelin had paused in his restless walk. He gazed on his colleague, a
+frown of puzzlement on his pale, set face.
+
+“Capet!” he exclaimed, as soon as he had taken in every detail of
+Heron’s altered appearance, and seen the look of wild terror that
+literally distorted his face.
+
+Heron could not speak; his teeth were chattering in his mouth, and his
+tongue seemed paralysed. Chauvelin went up to him. He was several inches
+shorter than his colleague, but at this moment he seemed to be towering
+over him like an avenging spirit. He placed a firm hand on the other’s
+bowed shoulders.
+
+“Capet has gone--is that it?” he queried peremptorily.
+
+The look of terror increased in Heron’s eyes, giving its mute reply.
+
+“How? When?”
+
+But for the moment the man was speechless. An almost maniacal fear
+seemed to hold him in its grip. With an impatient oath Chauvelin turned
+away from him.
+
+“Brandy!” he said curtly, speaking to Armand.
+
+A bottle and glass were found in the cupboard. It was St. Just who
+poured out the brandy and held it to Heron’s lips. Chauvelin was once
+more pacing up and down the room in angry impatience.
+
+“Pull yourself together, man,” he said roughly after a while, “and try
+and tell me what has occurred.”
+
+Heron had sunk into a chair. He passed a trembling hand once or twice
+over his forehead.
+
+“Capet has disappeared,” he murmured; “he must have been spirited away
+while the Simons were moving their furniture. That accursed Cochefer was
+completely taken in.”
+
+Heron spoke in a toneless voice, hardly above a whisper, and like one
+whose throat is dry and mouth parched. But the brandy had revived him
+somewhat, and his eyes lost their former glassy look.
+
+“How?” asked Chauvelin curtly.
+
+“I was just leaving the Tower when he arrived. I spoke to him at the
+door. I had seen Capet safely installed in the room, and gave orders
+to the woman Simon to let citizen Cochefer have a look at him, too, and
+then to lock up the brat in the inner room and install Cochefer in the
+antechamber on guard. I stood talking to Cochefer for a few moments in
+the antechamber. The woman Simon and the man-of-all-work, Dupont--whom
+I know well--were busy with the furniture. There could not have been any
+one else concealed about the place--that I’ll swear. Cochefer, after he
+took leave of me, went straight into the room; he found the woman Simon
+in the act of turning the key in the door of the inner chamber. I have
+locked Capet in there,’ she said, giving the key to Cochefer; ‘he will
+be quite safe until to-night; when the other commissaries come.’”
+
+“Didn’t Cochefer go into the room and ascertain whether the woman was
+lying?”
+
+“Yes, he did! He made the woman re-open the door and peeped in over her
+shoulder. She said the child was asleep. He vows that he saw the child
+lying fully dressed on a rug in the further corner of the room. The
+room, of course, was quite empty of furniture and only lighted by one
+candle, but there was the rug and the child asleep on it. Cochefer
+swears he saw him, and now--when I went up--”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“The commissaries were all there--Cochefer and Lasniere, Lorinet and
+Legrand. We went into the inner room, and I had a candle in my hand. We
+saw the child lying on the rug, just as Cochefer had seen him, and for
+a while we took no notice of it. Then some one--I think it was
+Lorinet--went to have a closer look at the brat. He took up the candle
+and went up to the rug. Then he gave a cry, and we all gathered round
+him. The sleeping child was only a bundle of hair and of clothes, a
+dummy--what?”
+
+There was silence now in the narrow room, while the white-faced clock
+continued to tick off each succeeding second of time. Heron had once
+more buried his head in his hands; a trembling--like an attack of
+ague--shook his wide, bony shoulders. Armand had listened to the
+narrative with glowing eyes and a beating heart. The details which the
+two Terrorists here could not probably understand he had already added
+to the picture which his mind had conjured up.
+
+He was back in thought now in the small lodging in the rear of St.
+Germain l’Auxerrois; Sir Andrew Ffoulkes was there, and my Lord Tony and
+Hastings, and a man was striding up and down the room, looking out into
+the great space beyond the river with the eyes of a seer, and a firm
+voice said abruptly:
+
+“It is about the Dauphin!”
+
+“Have you any suspicions?” asked Chauvelin now, pausing in his walk
+beside Heron, and once more placing a firm, peremptory hand on his
+colleague’s shoulder.
+
+“Suspicions!” exclaimed the chief agent with a loud oath. “Suspicions!
+Certainties, you mean. The man sat here but two days ago, in that very
+chair, and bragged of what he would do. I told him then that if he
+interfered with Capet I would wring his neck with my own hands.”
+
+And his long, talon-like fingers, with their sharp, grimy nails, closed
+and unclosed like those of feline creatures when they hold the coveted
+prey.
+
+“Of whom do you speak?” queried Chauvelin curtly.
+
+“Of whom? Of whom but that accursed de Batz? His pockets are bulging
+with Austrian money, with which, no doubt, he has bribed the Simons and
+Cochefer and the sentinels--”
+
+“And Lorinet and Lasniere and you,” interposed Chauvelin dryly.
+
+“It is false!” roared Heron, who already at the suggestion was foaming
+at the mouth, and had jumped up from his chair, standing at bay as if
+prepared to fight for his life.
+
+“False, is it?” retorted Chauvelin calmly; “then be not so quick, friend
+Heron, in slashing out with senseless denunciations right and left.
+You’ll gain nothing by denouncing any one just now. This is too
+intricate a matter to be dealt with a sledge-hammer. Is any one up in
+the Tower at this moment?” he asked in quiet, business-like tones.
+
+“Yes. Cochefer and the others are still there. They are making wild
+schemes to cover their treachery. Cochefer is aware of his own danger,
+and Lasniere and the others know that they arrived at the Tower several
+hours too late. They are all at fault, and they know it. As for that de
+Batz,” he continued with a voice rendered raucous with bitter passion,
+“I swore to him two days ago that he should not escape me if he meddled
+with Capet. I’m on his track already. I’ll have him before the hour
+of midnight, and I’ll torture him--yes! I’ll torture him--the Tribunal
+shall give me leave. We have a dark cell down below here where my men
+know how to apply tortures worse than the rack--where they know just how
+to prolong life long enough to make it unendurable. I’ll torture him!
+I’ll torture him!”
+
+But Chauvelin abruptly silenced the wretch with a curt command; then,
+without another word, he walked straight out of the room.
+
+In thought Armand followed him. The wild desire was suddenly born in him
+to run away at this moment, while Heron, wrapped in his own meditations,
+was paying no heed to him. Chauvelin’s footsteps had long ago died away
+in the distance; it was a long way to the upper floor of the Tower, and
+some time would be spent, too, in interrogating the commissaries. This
+was Armand’s opportunity. After all, if he were free himself he might
+more effectually help to rescue Jeanne. He knew, too, now where to join
+his leader. The corner of the street by the canal, where Sir Andrew
+Ffoulkes would be waiting with the coal-cart; then there was the spinney
+on the road to St. Germain. Armand hoped that, with good luck, he might
+yet overtake his comrades, tell them of Jeanne’s plight, and entreat
+them to work for her rescue.
+
+He had forgotten that now he had no certificate of safety, that
+undoubtedly he would be stopped at the gates at this hour of the
+night; that his conduct proving suspect he would in all probability he
+detained, and, mayhap, be brought back to this self-same place within an
+hour. He had forgotten all that, for the primeval instinct for freedom
+had suddenly been aroused. He rose softly from his chair and crossed
+the room. Heron paid no attention to him. Now he had traversed the
+antechamber and unlatched the outer door.
+
+Immediately a couple of bayonets were crossed in front of him, two more
+further on ahead scintillated feebly in the flickering light. Chauvelin
+had taken his precautions. There was no doubt that Armand St. Just was
+effectually a prisoner now.
+
+With a sigh of disappointment he went back to his place beside the
+fire. Heron had not even moved whilst he had made this futile attempt at
+escape. Five minutes later Chauvelin re-entered the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. THE CERTIFICATE OF SAFETY
+
+“You can leave de Batz and his gang alone, citizen Heron,” said
+Chauvelin, as soon as he had closed the door behind him; “he had nothing
+to do with the escape of the Dauphin.”
+
+Heron growled out a few words of incredulity. But Chauvelin shrugged his
+shoulders and looked with unutterable contempt on his colleague. Armand,
+who was watching him closely, saw that in his hand he held a small piece
+of paper, which he had crushed into a shapeless mass.
+
+“Do not waste your time, citizen,” he said, “in raging against an
+empty wind-bag. Arrest de Batz if you like, or leave him alone an you
+please--we have nothing to fear from that braggart.”
+
+With nervous, slightly shaking fingers he set to work to smooth out the
+scrap of paper which he held. His hot hands had soiled it and pounded it
+until it was a mere rag and the writing on it illegible. But, such as
+it was, he threw it down with a blasphemous oath on the desk in front of
+Heron’s eyes.
+
+“It is that accursed Englishman who has been at work again,” he said
+more calmly; “I guessed it the moment I heard your story. Set your whole
+army of sleuth-hounds on his track, citizen; you’ll need them all.”
+
+Heron picked up the scrap of torn paper and tried to decipher the
+writing on it by the light from the lamp. He seemed almost dazed now
+with the awful catastrophe that had befallen him, and the fear that his
+own wretched life would have to pay the penalty for the disappearance of
+the child.
+
+As for Armand--even in the midst of his own troubles, and of his own
+anxiety for Jeanne, he felt a proud exultation in his heart. The Scarlet
+Pimpernel had succeeded; Percy had not failed in his self-imposed
+undertaking. Chauvelin, whose piercing eyes were fixed on him at that
+moment, smiled with contemptuous irony.
+
+“As you will find your hands overfull for the next few hours, citizen
+Heron,” he said, speaking to his colleague and nodding in the direction
+of Armand, “I’ll not trouble you with the voluntary confession this
+young citizen desired to make to you. All I need tell you is that he
+is an adherent of the Scarlet Pimpernel--I believe one of his most
+faithful, most trusted officers.”
+
+Heron roused himself from the maze of gloomy thoughts that were again
+paralysing his tongue. He turned bleary, wild eyes on Armand.
+
+“We have got one of them, then?” he murmured incoherently, babbling like
+a drunken man.
+
+“M’yes!” replied Chauvelin lightly; “but it is too late now for a formal
+denunciation and arrest. He cannot leave Paris anyhow, and all that your
+men need to do is to keep a close look-out on him. But I should send him
+home to-night if I were you.”
+
+Heron muttered something more, which, however, Armand did not
+understand. Chauvelin’s words were still ringing in his ear. Was he,
+then, to be set free to-night? Free in a measure, of course, since
+spies were to be set to watch him--but free, nevertheless? He could not
+understand Chauvelin’s attitude, and his own self-love was not a little
+wounded at the thought that he was of such little account that these men
+could afford to give him even this provisional freedom. And, of course,
+there was still Jeanne.
+
+“I must, therefore, bid you good-night, citizen,” Chauvelin was saying
+in his bland, gently ironical manner. “You will be glad to return to
+your lodgings. As you see, the chief agent of the Committee of General
+Security is too much occupied just now to accept the sacrifice of your
+life which you were prepared so generously to offer him.”
+
+“I do not understand you, citizen,” retorted Armand coldly, “nor do I
+desire indulgence at your hands. You have arrested an innocent woman on
+the trumped-up charge that she was harbouring me. I came here to-night
+to give myself up to justice so that she might be set free.”
+
+“But the hour is somewhat late, citizen,” rejoined Chauvelin urbanely.
+“The lady in whom you take so fervent an interest is no doubt asleep in
+her cell at this hour. It would not be fitting to disturb her now.
+She might not find shelter before morning, and the weather is quite
+exceptionally unpropitious.”
+
+“Then, sir,” said Armand, a little bewildered, “am I to understand that
+if I hold myself at your disposition Mademoiselle Lange will be set free
+as early to-morrow morning as may be?”
+
+“No doubt, sir--no doubt,” replied Chauvelin with more than his
+accustomed blandness; “if you will hold yourself entirely at our
+disposition, Mademoiselle Lange will be set free to-morrow. I think
+that we can safely promise that, citizen Heron, can we not?” he added,
+turning to his colleague.
+
+But Heron, overcome with the stress of emotions, could only murmur
+vague, unintelligible words.
+
+“Your word on that, citizen Chauvelin?” asked Armand.
+
+“My word on it an you will accept it.”
+
+“No, I will not do that. Give me an unconditional certificate of safety
+and I will believe you.”
+
+“Of what use were that to you?” asked Chauvelin.
+
+“I believe my capture to be of more importance to you than that of
+Mademoiselle Lange,” said Armand quietly.
+
+“I will use the certificate of safety for myself or one of my friends if
+you break your word to me anent Mademoiselle Lange.”
+
+“H’m! the reasoning is not illogical, citizen,” said Chauvelin, whilst a
+curious smile played round the corners of his thin lips. “You are quite
+right. You are a more valuable asset to us than the charming lady who, I
+hope, will for many a day and year to come delight pleasure-loving Paris
+with her talent and her grace.”
+
+“Amen to that, citizen,” said Armand fervently.
+
+“Well, it will all depend on you, sir! Here,” he added, coolly running
+over some papers on Heron’s desk until he found what he wanted, “is an
+absolutely unconditional certificate of safety. The Committee of General
+Security issue very few of these. It is worth the cost of a human life.
+At no barrier or gate of any city can such a certificate be disregarded,
+nor even can it be detained. Allow me to hand it to you, citizen, as a
+pledge of my own good faith.”
+
+Smiling, urbane, with a curious look that almost expressed amusement
+lurking in his shrewd, pale eyes, Chauvelin handed the momentous
+document to Armand.
+
+The young man studied it very carefully before he slipped it into the
+inner pocket of his coat.
+
+“How soon shall I have news of Mademoiselle Lange?” he asked finally.
+
+“In the course of to-morrow. I myself will call on you and redeem that
+precious document in person. You, on the other hand, will hold yourself
+at my disposition. That’s understood, is it not?”
+
+“I shall not fail you. My lodgings are--”
+
+“Oh! do not trouble,” interposed Chauvelin, with a polite bow; “we can
+find that out for ourselves.”
+
+Heron had taken no part in this colloquy. Now that Armand prepared to
+go he made no attempt to detain him, or to question his colleague’s
+actions. He sat by the table like a log; his mind was obviously a blank
+to all else save to his own terrors engendered by the events of this
+night.
+
+With bleary, half-veiled eyes he followed Armand’s progress through
+the room, and seemed unaware of the loud slamming of the outside door.
+Chauvelin had escorted the young man past the first line of sentry, then
+he took cordial leave of him.
+
+“Your certificate will, you will find, open every gate to you.
+Good-night, citizen. A demain.”
+
+“Good-night.”
+
+Armand’s slim figure disappeared in the gloom. Chauvelin watched him for
+a few moments until even his footsteps had died away in the distance;
+then he turned back towards Heron’s lodgings.
+
+“A nous deux,” he muttered between tightly clenched teeth; “a nous deux
+once more, my enigmatical Scarlet Pimpernel.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. BACK TO PARIS
+
+It was an exceptionally dark night, and the rain was falling in
+torrents. Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, wrapped in a piece of sacking, had taken
+shelter right underneath the coal-cart; even then he was getting wet
+through to the skin.
+
+He had worked hard for two days coal-heaving, and the night before he
+had found a cheap, squalid lodging where at any rate he was protected
+from the inclemencies of the weather; but to-night he was expecting
+Blakeney at the appointed hour and place. He had secured a cart of the
+ordinary ramshackle pattern used for carrying coal. Unfortunately there
+were no covered ones to be obtained in the neighbourhood, and equally
+unfortunately the thaw had set in with a blustering wind and driving
+rain, which made waiting in the open air for hours at a stretch and in
+complete darkness excessively unpleasant.
+
+But for all these discomforts Sir Andrew Ffoulkes cared not one jot. In
+England, in his magnificent Suffolk home, he was a confirmed sybarite,
+in whose service every description of comfort and luxury had to
+be enrolled. Here tonight in the rough and tattered clothes of a
+coal-heaver, drenched to the skin, and crouching under the body of
+a cart that hardly sheltered him from the rain, he was as happy as a
+schoolboy out for a holiday.
+
+Happy, but vaguely anxious.
+
+He had no means of ascertaining the time. So many of the church-bells
+and clock towers had been silenced recently that not one of those
+welcome sounds penetrated to the dreary desolation of this canal wharf,
+with its abandoned carts standing ghostlike in a row. Darkness had set
+in very early in the afternoon, and the heavers had given up work soon
+after four o’clock.
+
+For about an hour after that a certain animation had still reigned round
+the wharf, men crossing and going, one or two of the barges moving in or
+out alongside the quay. But for some time now darkness and silence had
+been the masters in this desolate spot, and that time had seemed to Sir
+Andrew an eternity. He had hobbled and tethered his horse, and stretched
+himself out at full length under the cart. Now and again he had crawled
+out from under this uncomfortable shelter and walked up and down in
+ankle-deep mud, trying to restore circulation in his stiffened limbs;
+now and again a kind of torpor had come over him, and he had fallen into
+a brief and restless sleep. He would at this moment have given half his
+fortune for knowledge of the exact time.
+
+But through all this weary waiting he was never for a moment in doubt.
+Unlike Armand St. Just, he had the simplest, most perfect faith in his
+chief. He had been Blakeney’s constant companion in all these adventures
+for close upon four years now; the thought of failure, however vague,
+never once entered his mind.
+
+He was only anxious for his chief’s welfare. He knew that he would
+succeed, but he would have liked to have spared him much of the physical
+fatigue and the nerve-racking strain of these hours that lay between
+the daring deed and the hope of safety. Therefore he was conscious of
+an acute tingling of his nerves, which went on even during the brief
+patches of fitful sleep, and through the numbness that invaded his whole
+body while the hours dragged wearily and slowly along.
+
+Then, quite suddenly, he felt wakeful and alert; quite a while--even
+before he heard the welcome signal--he knew, with a curious, subtle
+sense of magnetism, that the hour had come, and that his chief was
+somewhere near by, not very far.
+
+Then he heard the cry--a seamew’s call--repeated thrice at intervals,
+and five minutes later something loomed out of the darkness quite close
+to the hind wheels of the cart.
+
+“Hist! Ffoulkes!” came in a soft whisper, scarce louder than the wind.
+
+“Present!” came in quick response.
+
+“Here, help me to lift the child into the cart. He is asleep, and has
+been a dead weight on my arm for close on an hour now. Have you a dry
+bit of sacking or something to lay him on?”
+
+“Not very dry, I am afraid.”
+
+With tender care the two men lifted the sleeping little King of France
+into the rickety cart. Blakeney laid his cloak over him, and listened
+for awhile to the slow regular breathing of the child.
+
+“St. Just is not here--you know that?” said Sir Andrew after a while.
+
+“Yes, I knew it,” replied Blakeney curtly.
+
+It was characteristic of these two men that not a word about the
+adventure itself, about the terrible risks and dangers of the past few
+hours, was exchanged between them. The child was here and was safe,
+and Blakeney knew the whereabouts of St. Just--that was enough for Sir
+Andrew Ffoulkes, the most devoted follower, the most perfect friend the
+Scarlet Pimpernel would ever know.
+
+Ffoulkes now went to the horse, detached the nose-bag, and undid the
+nooses of the hobble and of the tether.
+
+“Will you get in now, Blakeney?” he said; “we are ready.”
+
+And in unbroken silence they both got into the cart; Blakeney sitting
+on its floor beside the child, and Ffoulkes gathering the reins in his
+hands.
+
+The wheels of the cart and the slow jog-trot of the horse made scarcely
+any noise in the mud of the roads, what noise they did make was
+effectually drowned by the soughing of the wind in the bare branches of
+the stunted acacia trees that edged the towpath along the line of the
+canal.
+
+Sir Andrew had studied the topography of this desolate neighbourhood
+well during the past twenty-four hours; he knew of a detour that would
+enable him to avoid the La Villette gate and the neighbourhood of the
+fortifications, and yet bring him out soon on the road leading to St.
+Germain.
+
+Once he turned to ask Blakeney the time.
+
+“It must be close on ten now,” replied Sir Percy. “Push your nag along,
+old man. Tony and Hastings will be waiting for us.”
+
+It was very difficult to see clearly even a metre or two ahead, but the
+road was a straight one, and the old nag seemed to know it almost as
+well and better than her driver. She shambled along at her own pace,
+covering the ground very slowly for Ffoulkes’s burning impatience. Once
+or twice he had to get down and lead her over a rough piece of ground.
+They passed several groups of dismal, squalid houses, in some of which
+a dim light still burned, and as they skirted St. Ouen the church clock
+slowly tolled the hour of midnight.
+
+But for the greater part of the way derelict, uncultivated spaces of
+terrains vagues, and a few isolated houses lay between the road and the
+fortifications of the city. The darkness of the night, the late hour,
+the soughing of the wind, were all in favour of the adventurers; and
+a coal-cart slowly trudging along in this neighbourhood, with two
+labourers sitting in it, was the least likely of any vehicle to attract
+attention.
+
+Past Clichy, they had to cross the river by the rickety wooden bridge
+that was unsafe even in broad daylight. They were not far from their
+destination now. Half a dozen kilometres further on they would be
+leaving Courbevoie on their left, and then the sign-post would come
+in sight. After that the spinney just off the road, and the welcome
+presence of Tony, Hastings, and the horses. Ffoulkes got down in order
+to make sure of the way. He walked at the horse’s head now, fearful lest
+he missed the cross-roads and the sign-post.
+
+The horse was getting over-tired; it had covered fifteen kilometres, and
+it was close on three o’clock of Monday morning.
+
+Another hour went by in absolute silence. Ffoulkes and Blakeney took
+turns at the horse’s head. Then at last they reached the cross-roads;
+even through the darkness the sign-post showed white against the
+surrounding gloom.
+
+“This looks like it,” murmured Sir Andrew. He turned the horse’s
+head sharply towards the left, down a narrower road, and leaving the
+sign-post behind him. He walked slowly along for another quarter of an
+hour, then Blakeney called a halt.
+
+“The spinney must be sharp on our right now,” he said.
+
+He got down from the cart, and while Ffoulkes remained beside the horse,
+he plunged into the gloom. A moment later the cry of the seamew rang out
+three times into the air. It was answered almost immediately.
+
+The spinney lay on the right of the road. Soon the soft sounds that to a
+trained ear invariably betray the presence of a number of horses reached
+Ffoulkes’ straining senses. He took his old nag out of the shafts, and
+the shabby harness from off her, then he turned her out on the piece
+of waste land that faced the spinney. Some one would find her in the
+morning, her and the cart with the shabby harness laid in it, and,
+having wondered if all these things had perchance dropped down from
+heaven, would quietly appropriate them, and mayhap thank much-maligned
+heaven for its gift.
+
+Blakeney in the meanwhile had lifted the sleeping child out of the cart.
+Then he called to Sir Andrew and led the way across the road and into
+the spinney.
+
+Five minutes later Hastings received the uncrowned King of France in his
+arms.
+
+Unlike Ffoulkes, my Lord Tony wanted to hear all about the adventure
+of this afternoon. A thorough sportsman, he loved a good story of
+hairbreadth escapes, of dangers cleverly avoided, risks taken and
+conquered.
+
+“Just in ten words, Blakeney,” he urged entreatingly; “how did you
+actually get the boy away?”
+
+Sir Percy laughed--despite himself--at the young man’s eagerness.
+
+“Next time we meet, Tony,” he begged; “I am so demmed fatigued, and
+there’s this beastly rain--”
+
+“No, no--now! while Hastings sees to the horses. I could not exist long
+without knowing, and we are well sheltered from the rain under this
+tree.”
+
+“Well, then, since you will have it,” he began with a laugh, which
+despite the weariness and anxiety of the past twenty-four hours had
+forced itself to his lips, “I have been sweeper and man-of-all-work at
+the Temple for the past few weeks, you must know--”
+
+“No!” ejaculated my Lord Tony lustily. “By gum!”
+
+“Indeed, you old sybarite, whilst you were enjoying yourself heaving
+coal on the canal wharf, I was scrubbing floors, lighting fires, and
+doing a number of odd jobs for a lot of demmed murdering villains,
+and”--he added under his breath--“incidentally, too, for our league.
+Whenever I had an hour or two off duty I spent them in my lodgings, and
+asked you all to come and meet me there.”
+
+“By Gad, Blakeney! Then the day before yesterday?--when we all met--”
+
+“I had just had a bath--sorely needed, I can tell you. I had been
+cleaning boots half the day, but I had heard that the Simons were
+removing from the Temple on the Sunday, and had obtained an order from
+them to help them shift their furniture.”
+
+“Cleaning boots!” murmured my Lord Tony with a chuckle. “Well! and
+then?”
+
+“Well, then everything worked out splendidly. You see by that time I was
+a well-known figure in the Temple. Heron knew me well. I used to be his
+lanthorn-bearer when at nights he visited that poor mite in his prison.
+It was ‘Dupont, here! Dupont there!’ all day long. ‘Light the fire in
+the office, Dupont! Dupont, brush my coat! Dupont, fetch me a light!’
+When the Simons wanted to move their household goods they called loudly
+for Dupont. I got a covered laundry cart, and I brought a dummy with
+me to substitute for the child. Simon himself knew nothing of this, but
+Madame was in my pay. The dummy was just splendid, with real hair on its
+head; Madame helped me to substitute it for the child; we laid it on the
+sofa and covered it over with a rug, even while those brutes Heron and
+Cochefer were on the landing outside, and we stuffed His Majesty the
+King of France into a linen basket. The room was badly lighted, and
+any one would have been deceived. No one was suspicious of that type of
+trickery, so it went off splendidly. I moved the furniture of the Simons
+out of the Tower. His Majesty King Louis XVII was still concealed in the
+linen basket. I drove the Simons to their new lodgings--the man still
+suspects nothing--and there I helped them to unload the furniture--with
+the exception of the linen basket, of course. After that I drove my
+laundry cart to a house I knew of and collected a number of linen
+baskets, which I had arranged should be in readiness for me. Thus loaded
+up I left Paris by the Vincennes gate, and drove as far as Bagnolet,
+where there is no road except past the octroi, where the officials might
+have proved unpleasant. So I lifted His Majesty out of the basket and
+we walked on hand in hand in the darkness and the rain until the poor
+little feet gave out. Then the little fellow--who has been wonderfully
+plucky throughout, indeed, more a Capet than a Bourbon--snuggled up in
+my arms and went fast asleep, and--and--well, I think that’s all, for
+here we are, you see.”
+
+“But if Madame Simon had not been amenable to bribery?” suggested Lord
+Tony after a moment’s silence.
+
+“Then I should have had to think of something else.”
+
+“If during the removal of the furniture Heron had remained resolutely in
+the room?”
+
+“Then, again, I should have had to think of something else; but remember
+that in life there is always one supreme moment when Chance--who is
+credited to have but one hair on her head--stands by you for a brief
+space of time; sometimes that space is infinitesimal--one minute, a few
+seconds--just the time to seize Chance by that one hair. So I pray you
+all give me no credit in this or any other matter in which we all work
+together, but the quickness of seizing Chance by the hair during the
+brief moment when she stands by my side. If Madame Simon had been
+un-amenable, if Heron had remained in the room all the time, if Cochefer
+had had two looks at the dummy instead of one--well, then, something
+else would have helped me, something would have occurred; something--I
+know not what--but surely something which Chance meant to be on our
+side, if only we were quick enough to seize it--and so you see how
+simple it all is.”
+
+So simple, in fact, that it was sublime. The daring, the pluck, the
+ingenuity and, above all, the super-human heroism and endurance which
+rendered the hearers of this simple narrative, simply told, dumb with
+admiration.
+
+Their thoughts now were beyond verbal expression.
+
+“How soon was the hue and cry for the child about the streets?” asked
+Tony, after a moment’s silence.
+
+“It was not out when I left the gates of Paris,” said Blakeney
+meditatively; “so quietly has the news of the escape been kept, that I
+am wondering what devilry that brute Heron can be after. And now no more
+chattering,” he continued lightly; “all to horse, and you, Hastings,
+have a care. The destinies of France, mayhap, will be lying asleep in
+your arms.”
+
+“But you, Blakeney?” exclaimed the three men almost simultaneously.
+
+“I am not going with you. I entrust the child to you. For God’s sake
+guard him well! Ride with him to Mantes. You should arrive there at
+about ten o’clock. One of you then go straight to No.9 Rue la Tour. Ring
+the bell; an old man will answer it. Say the one word to him, ‘Enfant’;
+he will reply, ‘De roi!’ Give him the child, and may Heaven bless you
+all for the help you have given me this night!”
+
+“But you, Blakeney?” reiterated Tony with a note of deep anxiety in his
+fresh young voice.
+
+“I am straight for Paris,” he said quietly.
+
+“Impossible!”
+
+“Therefore feasible.”
+
+“But why? Percy, in the name of Heaven, do you realise what you are
+doing?”
+
+“Perfectly.”
+
+“They’ll not leave a stone unturned to find you--they know by now,
+believe me, that your hand did this trick.”
+
+“I know that.”
+
+“And yet you mean to go back?”
+
+“And yet I am going back.”
+
+“Blakeney!”
+
+“It’s no use, Tony. Armand is in Paris. I saw him in the corridor of the
+Temple prison in the company of Chauvelin.”
+
+“Great God!” exclaimed Lord Hastings.
+
+The others were silent. What was the use of arguing? One of themselves
+was in danger. Armand St. Just, the brother of Marguerite Blakeney! Was
+it likely that Percy would leave him in the lurch.
+
+“One of us will stay with you, of course?” asked Sir Andrew after
+awhile.
+
+“Yes! I want Hastings and Tony to take the child to Mantes, then to make
+all possible haste for Calais, and there to keep in close touch with the
+Day-Dream; the skipper will contrive to open communication. Tell him to
+remain in Calais waters. I hope I may have need of him soon.
+
+“And now to horse, both of you,” he added gaily. “Hastings, when you
+are ready, I will hand up the child to you. He will be quite safe on the
+pillion with a strap round him and you.”
+
+Nothing more was said after that. The orders were given, there was
+nothing to do but to obey; and the uncrowned King of France was not
+yet out of danger. Hastings and Tony led two of the horses out of the
+spinney; at the roadside they mounted, and then the little lad for whose
+sake so much heroism, such selfless devotion had been expended, was
+hoisted up, still half asleep, on the pillion in front of my Lord
+Hastings.
+
+“Keep your arm round him,” admonished Blakeney; “your horse looks quiet
+enough. But put on speed as far as Mantes, and may Heaven guard you
+both!”
+
+The two men pressed their heels to their horses’ flanks, the beasts
+snorted and pawed the ground anxious to start. There were a few
+whispered farewells, two loyal hands were stretched out at the last,
+eager to grasp the leader’s hand.
+
+Then horses and riders disappeared in the utter darkness which comes
+before the dawn.
+
+Blakeney and Ffoulkes stood side by side in silence for as long as the
+pawing of hoofs in the mud could reach their ears, then Ffoulkes asked
+abruptly:
+
+“What do you want me to do, Blakeney?”
+
+“Well, for the present, my dear fellow, I want you to take one of the
+three horses we have left in the spinney, and put him into the shafts of
+our old friend the coal-cart; then I am afraid that you must go back the
+way we came.”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“Continue to heave coal on the canal wharf by La Villette; it is the
+best way to avoid attention. After your day’s work keep your cart and
+horse in readiness against my arrival, at the same spot where you
+were last night. If after having waited for me like this for three
+consecutive nights you neither see nor hear anything from me, go back
+to England and tell Marguerite that in giving my life for her brother I
+gave it for her!”
+
+“Blakeney--!”
+
+“I spoke differently to what I usually do, is that it?” he interposed,
+placing his firm hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I am degenerating,
+Ffoulkes--that’s what it is. Pay no heed to it. I suppose that carrying
+that sleeping child in my arms last night softened some nerves in my
+body. I was so infinitely sorry for the poor mite, and vaguely wondered
+if I had not saved it from one misery only to plunge it in another.
+There was such a fateful look on that wan little face, as if destiny had
+already writ its veto there against happiness. It came on me then how
+futile were our actions, if God chooses to interpose His will between us
+and our desires.”
+
+Almost as he left off speaking the rain ceased to patter down against
+the puddles in the road. Overhead the clouds flew by at terrific speed,
+driven along by the blustering wind. It was less dark now, and Sir
+Andrew, peering through the gloom, could see his leader’s face. It was
+singularly pale and hard, and the deep-set lazy eyes had in them just
+that fateful look which he himself had spoken of just now.
+
+“You are anxious about Armand, Percy?” asked Ffoulkes softly.
+
+“Yes. He should have trusted me, as I had trusted him. He missed me at
+the Villette gate on Friday, and without a thought left me--left us all
+in the lurch; he threw himself into the lion’s jaws, thinking that he
+could help the girl he loved. I knew that I could save her. She is in
+comparative safety even now. The old woman, Madame Belhomme, had been
+freely released the day after her arrest, but Jeanne Lange is still in
+the house in the Rue de Charonne. You know it, Ffoulkes. I got her there
+early this morning. It was easy for me, of course: ‘Hola, Dupont!
+my boots, Dupont!’ ‘One moment, citizen, my daughter--’ ‘Curse thy
+daughter, bring me my boots!’ and Jeanne Lange walked out of the Temple
+prison her hand in that of that lout Dupont.”
+
+“But Armand does not know that she is in the Rue de Charonne?”
+
+“No. I have not seen him since that early morning on Saturday when he
+came to tell me that she had been arrested. Having sworn that he would
+obey me, he went to meet you and Tony at La Villette, but returned to
+Paris a few hours later, and drew the undivided attention of all the
+committees on Jeanne Lange by his senseless, foolish inquiries. But
+for his action throughout the whole of yesterday I could have smuggled
+Jeanne out of Paris, got her to join you at Villette, or Hastings in St.
+Germain. But the barriers were being closely watched for her, and I had
+the Dauphin to think of. She is in comparative safety; the people in
+the Rue de Charonne are friendly for the moment; but for how long? Who
+knows? I must look after her of course. And Armand! Poor old Armand! The
+lion’s jaws have snapped over him, and they hold him tight. Chauvelin
+and his gang are using him as a decoy to trap me, of course. All that
+had not happened if Armand had trusted me.”
+
+He sighed a quick sigh of impatience, almost of regret. Ffoulkes was the
+one man who could guess the bitter disappointment that this had meant.
+Percy had longed to be back in England soon, back to Marguerite, to a
+few days of unalloyed happiness and a few days of peace.
+
+Now Armand’s actions had retarded all that; they were a deliberate bar
+to the future as it had been mapped out by a man who foresaw everything,
+who was prepared for every eventuality.
+
+In this case, too, he had been prepared, but not for the want of trust
+which had brought on disobedience akin to disloyalty. That absolutely
+unforeseen eventuality had changed Blakeney’s usual irresponsible gaiety
+into a consciousness of the inevitable, of the inexorable decrees of
+Fate.
+
+With an anxious sigh, Sir Andrew turned away from his chief and went
+back to the spinney to select for his own purpose one of the three
+horses which Hastings and Tony had unavoidably left behind.
+
+“And you, Blakeney--how will you go back to that awful Paris?” he said,
+when he had made his choice and was once more back beside Percy.
+
+“I don’t know yet,” replied Blakeney, “but it would not be safe to ride.
+I’ll reach one of the gates on this side of the city and contrive to
+slip in somehow. I have a certificate of safety in my pocket in case I
+need it.
+
+“We’ll leave the horses here,” he said presently, whilst he was helping
+Sir Andrew to put the horse in the shafts of the coal-cart; “they cannot
+come to much harm. Some poor devil might steal them, in order to escape
+from those vile brutes in the city. If so, God speed him, say I. I’ll
+compensate my friend the farmer of St. Germain for their loss at
+an early opportunity. And now, good-bye, my dear fellow! Some time
+to-night, if possible, you shall hear direct news of me--if not, then
+to-morrow or the day after that. Good-bye, and Heaven guard you!”
+
+“God guard you, Blakeney!” said Sir Andrew fervently.
+
+He jumped into the cart and gathered up the reins. His heart was heavy
+as lead, and a strange mist had gathered in his eyes, blurring the last
+dim vision which he had of his chief standing all alone in the gloom,
+his broad, magnificent figure looking almost weirdly erect and defiant,
+his head thrown back, and his kind, lazy eyes watching the final
+departure of his most faithful comrade and friend.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. OF THAT THERE COULD BE NO QUESTION
+
+Blakeney had more than one pied-a-terre in Paris, and never stayed
+longer than two or three days in any of these. It was not difficult for
+a single man, be he labourer or bourgeois, to obtain a night’s lodging,
+even in these most troublous times, and in any quarter of Paris,
+provided the rent--out of all proportion to the comfort and
+accommodation given--was paid ungrudgingly and in advance.
+
+Emigration and, above all, the enormous death-roll of the past eighteen
+months, had emptied the apartment houses of the great city, and those
+who had rooms to let were only too glad of a lodger, always providing
+they were not in danger of being worried by the committees of their
+section.
+
+The laws framed by these same committees now demanded that all keepers
+of lodging or apartment houses should within twenty-four hours give
+notice at the bureau of their individual sections of the advent of new
+lodgers, together with a description of the personal appearance of
+such lodgers, and an indication of their presumed civil status and
+occupation. But there was a margin of twenty-four hours, which could
+on pressure be extended to forty-eight, and, therefore, any one could
+obtain shelter for forty-eight hours, and have no questions asked,
+provided he or she was willing to pay the exorbitant sum usually asked
+under the circumstances.
+
+Thus Blakeney had no difficulty in securing what lodgings he wanted when
+he once more found himself inside Paris at somewhere about noon of that
+same Monday.
+
+The thought of Hastings and Tony speeding on towards Mantes with the
+royal child safely held in Hastings’ arms had kept his spirits buoyant
+and caused him for a while to forget the terrible peril in which Armand
+St. Just’s thoughtless egoism had placed them both.
+
+Blakeney was a man of abnormal physique and iron nerve, else he could
+never have endured the fatigues of the past twenty-four hours, from
+the moment when on the Sunday afternoon he began to play his part of
+furniture-remover at the Temple, to that when at last on Monday at noon
+he succeeded in persuading the sergeant at the Maillot gate that he
+was an honest stonemason residing at Neuilly, who was come to Paris in
+search of work.
+
+After that matters became more simple. Terribly foot-sore, though
+he would never have admitted it, hungry and weary, he turned into an
+unpretentious eating-house and ordered some dinner. The place when he
+entered was occupied mostly by labourers and workmen, dressed very much
+as he was himself, and quite as grimy as he had become after having
+driven about for hours in a laundry-cart and in a coal-cart, and having
+walked twelve kilometres, some of which he had covered whilst carrying a
+sleeping child in his arms.
+
+Thus, Sir Percy Blakeney, Bart., the friend and companion of the Prince
+of Wales, the most fastidious fop the salons of London and Bath had
+ever seen, was in no way distinguishable outwardly from the tattered,
+half-starved, dirty, and out-at-elbows products of this fraternising and
+equalising Republic.
+
+He was so hungry that the ill-cooked, badly-served meal tempted him to
+eat; and he ate on in silence, seemingly more interested in boiled beef
+than in the conversation that went on around him. But he would not have
+been the keen and daring adventurer that he was if he did not all the
+while keep his ears open for any fragment of news that the desultory
+talk of his fellow-diners was likely to yield to him.
+
+Politics were, of course, discussed; the tyranny of the sections, the
+slavery that this free Republic had brought on its citizens. The
+names of the chief personages of the day were all mentioned in turns
+Focquier-Tinville, Santerre, Danton, Robespierre. Heron and his
+sleuth-hounds were spoken of with execrations quickly suppressed, but of
+little Capet not one word.
+
+Blakeney could not help but infer that Chauvelin, Heron and the
+commissaries in charge were keeping the escape of the child a secret for
+as long as they could.
+
+He could hear nothing of Armand’s fate, of course. The arrest--if arrest
+there had been--was not like to be bruited abroad just now. Blakeney
+having last seen Armand in Chauvelin’s company, whilst he himself was
+moving the Simons’ furniture, could not for a moment doubt that the
+young man was imprisoned,--unless, indeed, he was being allowed a
+certain measure of freedom, whilst his every step was being spied on, so
+that he might act as a decoy for his chief.
+
+At thought of that all weariness seemed to vanish from Blakeney’s
+powerful frame. He set his lips firmly together, and once again the
+light of irresponsible gaiety danced in his eyes.
+
+He had been in as tight a corner as this before now; at Boulogne his
+beautiful Marguerite had been used as a decoy, and twenty-four hours
+later he had held her in his arms on board his yacht the Day-Dream. As
+he would have put it in his own forcible language:
+
+“Those d--d murderers have not got me yet.”
+
+The battle mayhap would this time be against greater odds than before,
+but Blakeney had no fear that they would prove overwhelming.
+
+There was in life but one odd that was overwhelming, and that was
+treachery.
+
+But of that there could be no question.
+
+In the afternoon Blakeney started off in search of lodgings for the
+night. He found what would suit him in the Rue de l’Arcade, which
+was equally far from the House of Justice as it was from his former
+lodgings. Here he would be safe for at least twenty-four hours, after
+which he might have to shift again. But for the moment the landlord
+of the miserable apartment was over-willing to make no fuss and ask
+no questions, for the sake of the money which this aristo in disguise
+dispensed with a lavish hand.
+
+Having taken possession of his new quarters and snatched a few hours of
+sound, well-deserved rest, until the time when the shades of evening
+and the darkness of the streets would make progress through the city
+somewhat more safe, Blakeney sallied forth at about six o’clock having a
+threefold object in view.
+
+Primarily, of course, the threefold object was concentrated on Armand.
+There was the possibility of finding out at the young man’s lodgings in
+Montmartre what had become of him; then there were the usual inquiries
+that could be made from the registers of the various prisons; and,
+thirdly, there was the chance that Armand had succeeded in sending some
+kind of message to Blakeney’s former lodgings in the Rue St. Germain
+l’Auxerrois.
+
+On the whole, Sir Percy decided to leave the prison registers alone
+for the present. If Armand had been actually arrested, he would almost
+certainly be confined in the Chatelet prison, where he would be closer
+to hand for all the interrogatories to which, no doubt, he would be
+subjected.
+
+Blakeney set his teeth and murmured a good, sound, British oath when
+he thought of those interrogatories. Armand St. Just, highly strung,
+a dreamer and a bundle of nerves--how he would suffer under the mental
+rack of questions and cross-questions, cleverly-laid traps to catch
+information from him unawares!
+
+His next objective, then, was Armand’s former lodging, and from
+six o’clock until close upon eight Sir Percy haunted the slopes of
+Montmartre, and more especially the neighbourhood of the Rue de la Croix
+Blanche, where Armand had lodged these former days. At the house itself
+he could not inquire as yet; obviously it would not have been safe;
+tomorrow, perhaps, when he knew more, but not tonight. His keen eyes had
+already spied at least two figures clothed in the rags of out-of-work
+labourers like himself, who had hung with suspicious persistence in this
+same neighbourhood, and who during the two hours that he had been in
+observation had never strayed out of sight of the house in the Rue de la
+Croix Blanche.
+
+That these were two spies on the watch was, of course, obvious;
+but whether they were on the watch for St. Just or for some other
+unfortunate wretch it was at this stage impossible to conjecture.
+
+Then, as from the Tour des Dames close by the clock solemnly struck the
+hour of eight, and Blakeney prepared to wend his way back to another
+part of the city, he suddenly saw Armand walking slowly up the street.
+
+The young man did not look either to right or left; he held his head
+forward on his chest, and his hands were hidden underneath his cloak.
+When he passed immediately under one of the street lamps Blakeney caught
+sight of his face; it was pale and drawn. Then he turned his head,
+and for the space of two seconds his eyes across the narrow street
+encountered those of his chief. He had the presence of mind not to make
+a sign or to utter a sound; he was obviously being followed, but in
+that brief moment Sir Percy had seen in the young man’s eyes a look that
+reminded him of a hunted creature.
+
+“What have those brutes been up to with him, I wonder?” he muttered
+between clenched teeth.
+
+Armand soon disappeared under the doorway of the same house where he
+had been lodging all along. Even as he did so Blakeney saw the two spies
+gather together like a pair of slimy lizards, and whisper excitedly
+one to another. A third man, who obviously had been dogging Armand’s
+footsteps, came up and joined them after a while.
+
+Blakeney could have sworn loudly and lustily, had it been possible to
+do so without attracting attention. The whole of Armand’s history in
+the past twenty-four hours was perfectly clear to him. The young man had
+been made free that he might prove a decoy for more important game.
+
+His every step was being watched, and he still thought Jeanne Lange in
+immediate danger of death. The look of despair in his face proclaimed
+these two facts, and Blakeney’s heart ached for the mental torture which
+his friend was enduring. He longed to let Armand know that the woman he
+loved was in comparative safety.
+
+Jeanne Lange first, and then Armand himself; and the odds would be very
+heavy against the Scarlet Pimpernel! But that Marguerite should not have
+to mourn an only brother, of that Sir Percy made oath.
+
+He now turned his steps towards his own former lodgings by St. Germain
+l’Auxerrois. It was just possible that Armand had succeeded in leaving a
+message there for him. It was, of course, equally possible that when he
+did so Heron’s men had watched his movements, and that spies would be
+stationed there, too, on the watch.
+
+But that risk must, of course, be run. Blakeney’s former lodging was the
+one place that Armand would know of to which he could send a message to
+his chief, if he wanted to do so. Of course, the unfortunate young man
+could not have known until just now that Percy would come back to Paris,
+but he might guess it, or wish it, or only vaguely hope for it; he
+might want to send a message, he might long to communicate with his
+brother-in-law, and, perhaps, feel sure that the latter would not leave
+him in the lurch.
+
+With that thought in his mind, Sir Percy was not likely to give up the
+attempt to ascertain for himself whether Armand had tried to communicate
+with him or not. As for spies--well, he had dodged some of them often
+enough in his time--the risks that he ran to-night were no worse than
+the ones to which he had so successfully run counter in the Temple
+yesterday.
+
+Still keeping up the slouchy gait peculiar to the out-at-elbows working
+man of the day, hugging the houses as he walked along the streets,
+Blakeney made slow progress across the city. But at last he reached the
+facade of St. Germain l’Auxerrois, and turning sharply to his right he
+soon came in sight of the house which he had only quitted twenty-four
+hours ago.
+
+We all know that house--all of us who are familiar with the Paris of
+those terrible days. It stands quite detached--a vast quadrangle,
+facing the Quai de l’Ecole and the river, backing on the Rue St.
+Germain l’Auxerrois, and shouldering the Carrefour des Trois Manes.
+The porte-cochere, so-called, is but a narrow doorway, and is actually
+situated in the Rue St. Germain l’Auxerrois.
+
+Blakeney made his way cautiously right round the house; he peered up and
+down the quay, and his keen eyes tried to pierce the dense gloom that
+hung at the corners of the Pont Neuf immediately opposite. Soon he
+assured himself that for the present, at any rate, the house was not
+being watched.
+
+Armand presumably had not yet left a message for him here; but he might
+do so at any time now that he knew that his chief was in Paris and on
+the look-out for him.
+
+Blakeney made up his mind to keep this house in sight. This art of
+watching he had acquired to a masterly extent, and could have taught
+Heron’s watch-dogs a remarkable lesson in it. At night, of course, it
+was a comparatively easy task. There were a good many unlighted doorways
+along the quay, whilst a street lamp was fixed on a bracket in the wall
+of the very house which he kept in observation.
+
+Finding temporary shelter under various doorways, or against the dank
+walls of the houses, Blakeney set himself resolutely to a few hours’
+weary waiting. A thin, drizzly rain fell with unpleasant persistence,
+like a damp mist, and the thin blouse which he wore soon became wet
+through and clung hard and chilly to his shoulders.
+
+It was close on midnight when at last he thought it best to give up
+his watch and to go back to his lodgings for a few hours’ sleep; but at
+seven o’clock the next morning he was back again at his post.
+
+The porte-cochere of his former lodging-house was not yet open; he
+took up his stand close beside it. His woollen cap pulled well over his
+forehead, the grime cleverly plastered on his hair and face, his lower
+jaw thrust forward, his eyes looking lifeless and bleary, all gave him
+an expression of sly villainy, whilst the short clay pipe struck at
+a sharp angle in his mouth, his hands thrust into the pockets of his
+ragged breeches, and his bare feet in the mud of the road, gave the
+final touch to his representation of an out-of-work, ill-conditioned,
+and supremely discontented loafer.
+
+He had not very long to wait. Soon the porte-cochere of the house was
+opened, and the concierge came out with his broom, making a show of
+cleaning the pavement in front of the door. Five minutes later a lad,
+whose clothes consisted entirely of rags, and whose feet and head were
+bare, came rapidly up the street from the quay, and walked along looking
+at the houses as he went, as if trying to decipher their number. The
+cold grey dawn was just breaking, dreary and damp, as all the past days
+had been. Blakeney watched the lad as he approached, the small, naked
+feet falling noiselessly on the cobblestones of the road. When the boy
+was quite close to him and to the house, Blakeney shifted his position
+and took the pipe out of his mouth.
+
+“Up early, my son!” he said gruffly.
+
+“Yes,” said the pale-faced little creature; “I have a message to deliver
+at No. 9 Rue St. Germain l’Auxerrois. It must be somewhere near here.”
+
+“It is. You can give me the message.”
+
+“Oh, no, citizen!” said the lad, into whose pale, circled eyes a look of
+terror had quickly appeared. “It is for one of the lodgers in No. 9. I
+must give it to him.”
+
+With an instinct which he somehow felt could not err at this moment,
+Blakeney knew that the message was one from Armand to himself; a written
+message, too, since--instinctively when he spoke--the boy clutched at
+his thin shirt, as if trying to guard something precious that had been
+entrusted to him.
+
+“I will deliver the message myself, sonny,” said Blakeney gruffly.
+“I know the citizen for whom it is intended. He would not like the
+concierge to see it.”
+
+“Oh! I would not give it to the concierge,” said the boy. “I would take
+it upstairs myself.”
+
+“My son,” retorted Blakeney, “let me tell you this. You are going to
+give that message up to me and I will put five whole livres into your
+hand.”
+
+Blakeney, with all his sympathy aroused for this poor pale-faced lad,
+put on the airs of a ruffianly bully. He did not wish that message to
+be taken indoors by the lad, for the concierge might get hold of it,
+despite the boy’s protests and tears, and after that Blakeney would
+perforce have to disclose himself before it would be given up to him.
+During the past week the concierge had been very amenable to bribery.
+Whatever suspicions he had had about his lodger he had kept to himself
+for the sake of the money which he received; but it was impossible to
+gauge any man’s trend of thought these days from one hour to the next.
+Something--for aught Blakeney knew--might have occurred in the past
+twenty-four hours to change an amiable and accommodating lodging-house
+keeper into a surly or dangerous spy.
+
+Fortunately, the concierge had once more gone within; there was no one
+abroad, and if there were, no one probably would take any notice of a
+burly ruffian brow-beating a child.
+
+“Allons!” he said gruffly, “give me the letter, or that five livres goes
+back into my pocket.”
+
+“Five livres!” exclaimed the child with pathetic eagerness. “Oh,
+citizen!”
+
+The thin little hand fumbled under the rags, but it reappeared again
+empty, whilst a faint blush spread over the hollow cheeks.
+
+“The other citizen also gave me five livres,” he said humbly. “He lodges
+in the house where my mother is concierge. It is in the Rue de la Croix
+Blanche. He has been very kind to my mother. I would rather do as he
+bade me.”
+
+“Bless the lad,” murmured Blakeney under his breath; “his loyalty
+redeems many a crime of this God-forsaken city. Now I suppose I shall
+have to bully him, after all.”
+
+He took his hand out of his breeches pocket; between two very dirty
+fingers he held a piece of gold. The other hand he placed quite roughly
+on the lad’s chest.
+
+“Give me the letter,” he said harshly, “or--”
+
+He pulled at the ragged blouse, and a scrap of soiled paper soon fell
+into his hand. The lad began to cry.
+
+“Here,” said Blakeney, thrusting the piece of gold into the thin small
+palm, “take this home to your mother, and tell your lodger that a big,
+rough man took the letter away from you by force. Now run, before I kick
+you out of the way.”
+
+The lad, terrified out of his poor wits, did not wait for further
+commands; he took to his heels and ran, his small hand clutching the
+piece of gold. Soon he had disappeared round the corner of the street.
+
+Blakeney did not at once read the paper; he thrust it quickly into his
+breeches pocket and slouched away slowly down the street, and thence
+across the Place du Carrousel, in the direction of his new lodgings in
+the Rue de l’Arcade.
+
+It was only when he found himself alone in the narrow, squalid room
+which he was occupying that he took the scrap of paper from his pocket
+and read it slowly through. It said:
+
+
+
+Percy, you cannot forgive me, nor can I ever forgive myself, but if you
+only knew what I have suffered for the past two days you would, I think,
+try and forgive. I am free and yet a prisoner; my every footstep is
+dogged. What they ultimately mean to do with me I do not know. And
+when I think of Jeanne I long for the power to end mine own miserable
+existence. Percy! she is still in the hands of those fiends.... I saw
+the prison register; her name written there has been like a burning
+brand on my heart ever since. She was still in prison the day that you
+left Paris; to-morrow, to-night mayhap, they will try her, condemn her,
+torture her, and I dare not go to see you, for I would only be bringing
+spies to your door. But will you come to me, Percy? It should be safe in
+the hours of the night, and the concierge is devoted to me. To-night at
+ten o’clock she will leave the porte-cochere unlatched. If you find it
+so, and if on the ledge of the window immediately on your left as you
+enter you find a candle alight, and beside it a scrap of paper with your
+initials S. P. traced on it, then it will be quite safe for you to come
+up to my room. It is on the second landing--a door on your right--that
+too I will leave on the latch. But in the name of the woman you love
+best in all the world come at once to me then, and bear in mind, Percy,
+that the woman I love is threatened with immediate death, and that I am
+powerless to save her. Indeed, believe me, I would gladly die even now
+but for the thought of Jeanne, whom I should be leaving in the hands
+of those fiends. For God’s sake, Percy, remember that Jeanne is all the
+world to me.
+
+
+
+“Poor old Armand,” murmured Blakeney with a kindly smile directed at the
+absent friend, “he won’t trust me even now. He won’t trust his Jeanne in
+my hands. Well,” he added after a while, “after all, I would not entrust
+Marguerite to anybody else either.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. THE OVERWHELMING ODDS
+
+At half-past ten that same evening, Blakeney, still clad in a workman’s
+tattered clothes, his feet bare so that he could tread the streets
+unheard, turned into the Rue de la Croix Blanche.
+
+The porte-cochere of the house where Armand lodged had been left on the
+latch; not a soul was in sight. Peering cautiously round, he slipped
+into the house. On the ledge of the window, immediately on his left when
+he entered, a candle was left burning, and beside it there was a scrap
+of paper with the initials S. P. roughly traced in pencil. No one
+challenged him as he noiselessly glided past it, and up the narrow
+stairs that led to the upper floor. Here, too, on the second landing
+the door on the right had been left on the latch. He pushed it open and
+entered.
+
+As is usual even in the meanest lodgings in Paris houses, a small
+antechamber gave between the front door and the main room. When Percy
+entered the antechamber was unlighted, but the door into the inner room
+beyond was ajar. Blakeney approached it with noiseless tread, and gently
+pushed it open.
+
+That very instant he knew that the game was up; he heard the footsteps
+closing up behind him, saw Armand, deathly pale, leaning against the
+wall in the room in front of him, and Chauvelin and Heron standing guard
+over him.
+
+The next moment the room and the antechamber were literally alive with
+soldiers--twenty of them to arrest one man.
+
+It was characteristic of that man that when hands were laid on him
+from every side he threw back his head and laughed--laughed mirthfully,
+light-heartedly, and the first words that escaped his lips were:
+
+“Well, I am d--d!”
+
+“The odds are against you, Sir Percy,” said Chauvelin to him in
+English, whilst Heron at the further end of the room was growling like a
+contented beast.
+
+“By the Lord, sir,” said Percy with perfect sang-froid, “I do believe
+that for the moment they are.”
+
+“Have done, my men--have done!” he added, turning good-humouredly to the
+soldiers round him. “I never fight against overwhelming odds. Twenty to
+one, eh? I could lay four of you out easily enough, perhaps even six,
+but what then?”
+
+But a kind of savage lust seemed to have rendered these men temporarily
+mad, and they were being egged on by Heron. The mysterious Englishman,
+about whom so many eerie tales were told! Well, he had supernatural
+powers, and twenty to one might be nothing to him if the devil was on
+his side. Therefore a blow on his forearm with the butt-end of a bayonet
+was useful for disabling his right hand, and soon the left arm with a
+dislocated shoulder hung limp by his side. Then he was bound with cords.
+
+The vein of luck had given out. The gambler had staked more than usual
+and had lost; but he knew how to lose, just as he had always known how
+to win.
+
+“Those d--d brutes are trussing me like a fowl,” he murmured with
+irrepressible gaiety at the last.
+
+Then the wrench on his bruised arms as they were pulled roughly back by
+the cords caused the veil of unconsciousness to gather over his eyes.
+
+“And Jeanne was safe, Armand,” he shouted with a last desperate effort;
+“those devils have lied to you and tricked you into this ... Since
+yesterday she is out of prison... in the house... you know....”
+
+After that he lost consciousness.
+
+
+
+And this occurred on Tuesday, January 21st, in the year 1794, or, in
+accordance with the new calendar, on the 2nd Pluviose, year II of the
+Republic.
+
+It is chronicled in the Moniteur of the 3rd Pluviose that, “on the
+previous evening, at half-past ten of the clock, the Englishman known
+as the Scarlet Pimpernel, who for three years has conspired against the
+safety of the Republic, was arrested through the patriotic exertions
+of citizen Chauvelin, and conveyed to the Conciergerie, where he now
+lies--sick, but closely guarded. Long live the Republic!”
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. THE NEWS
+
+The grey January day was falling, drowsy, and dull into the arms of
+night.
+
+Marguerite, sitting in the dusk beside the fire in her small boudoir,
+shivered a little as she drew her scarf closer round her shoulders.
+
+Edwards, the butler, entered with the lamp. The room looked peculiarly
+cheery now, with the delicate white panelling of the wall glowing under
+the soft kiss of the flickering firelight and the steadier glow of the
+rose-shaded lamp.
+
+“Has the courier not arrived yet, Edwards?” asked Marguerite, fixing the
+impassive face of the well-drilled servant with her large purple-rimmed
+eyes.
+
+“Not yet, m’lady,” he replied placidly.
+
+“It is his day, is it not?”
+
+“Yes, m’lady. And the forenoon is his time. But there have been heavy
+rains, and the roads must be rare muddy. He must have been delayed,
+m’lady.”
+
+“Yes, I suppose so,” she said listlessly. “That will do, Edwards. No,
+don’t close the shutters. I’ll ring presently.”
+
+The man went out of the room as automatically as he had come. He closed
+the door behind him, and Marguerite was once more alone.
+
+She picked up the book which she had fingered idly before the light gave
+out. She tried once more to fix her attention on this tale of love and
+adventure written by Mr. Fielding; but she had lost the thread of the
+story, and there was a mist between her eyes and the printed pages.
+
+With an impatient gesture she threw down the book and passed her hand
+across her eyes, then seemed astonished to find that her hand was wet.
+
+She rose and went to the window. The air outside had been singularly
+mild all day; the thaw was persisting, and a south wind came across the
+Channel--from France.
+
+Marguerite threw open the casement and sat down on the wide sill,
+leaning her head against the window-frame, and gazing out into the fast
+gathering gloom. From far away, at the foot of the gently sloping lawns,
+the river murmured softly in the night; in the borders to the right and
+left a few snowdrops still showed like tiny white specks through the
+surrounding darkness. Winter had begun the process of slowly shedding
+its mantle, coquetting with Spring, who still lingered in the land of
+Infinity. Gradually the shadows drew closer and closer; the reeds and
+rushes on the river bank were the first to sink into their embrace, then
+the big cedars on the lawn, majestic and defiant, but yielding still
+unconquered to the power of night.
+
+The tiny stars of snowdrop blossoms vanished one by one, and at last the
+cool, grey ribbon of the river surface was wrapped under the mantle of
+evening.
+
+Only the south wind lingered on, soughing gently in the drowsy reeds,
+whispering among the branches of the cedars, and gently stirring the
+tender corollas of the sleeping snowdrops.
+
+Marguerite seemed to open out her lungs to its breath. It had come all
+the way from France, and on its wings had brought something of Percy--a
+murmur as if he had spoken--a memory that was as intangible as a dream.
+
+She shivered again, though of a truth it was not cold. The courier’s
+delay had completely unsettled her nerves. Twice a week he came
+especially from Dover, and always he brought some message, some token
+which Percy had contrived to send from Paris. They were like tiny scraps
+of dry bread thrown to a starving woman, but they did just help to keep
+her heart alive--that poor, aching, disappointed heart that so longed
+for enduring happiness which it could never get.
+
+The man whom she loved with all her soul, her mind and her body, did
+not belong to her; he belonged to suffering humanity over there in
+terror-stricken France, where the cries of the innocent, the persecuted,
+the wretched called louder to him than she in her love could do.
+
+He had been away three months now, during which time her starving heart
+had fed on its memories, and the happiness of a brief visit from him six
+weeks ago, when--quite unexpectedly--he had appeared before her... home
+between two desperate adventures that had given life and freedom to a
+number of innocent people, and nearly cost him his--and she had lain in
+his arms in a swoon of perfect happiness.
+
+But he had gone away again as suddenly as he had come, and for six weeks
+now she had lived partly in anticipation of the courier with messages
+from him, and partly on the fitful joy engendered by these messages.
+To-day she had not even that, and the disappointment seemed just now
+more than she could bear.
+
+She felt unaccountably restless, and could she but have analysed her
+feelings--had she dared so to do--she would have realised that the
+weight which oppressed her heart so that she could hardly breathe, was
+one of vague yet dark foreboding.
+
+She closed the window and returned to her seat by the fire, taking up
+her hook with the strong resolution not to allow her nerves to get the
+better of her. But it was difficult to pin one’s attention down to the
+adventures of Master Tom Jones when one’s mind was fully engrossed with
+those of Sir Percy Blakeney.
+
+The sound of carriage wheels on the gravelled forecourt in the front of
+the house suddenly awakened her drowsy senses. She threw down the book,
+and with trembling hands clutched the arms of her chair, straining
+her ears to listen. A carriage at this hour--and on this damp winter’s
+evening! She racked her mind wondering who it could be.
+
+Lady Ffoulkes was in London, she knew. Sir Andrew, of course, was in
+Paris. His Royal Highness, ever a faithful visitor, would surely not
+venture out to Richmond in this inclement weather--and the courier
+always came on horseback.
+
+There was a murmur of voices; that of Edwards, mechanical and placid,
+could be heard quite distinctly saying:
+
+“I’m sure that her ladyship will be at home for you, m’lady. But I’ll go
+and ascertain.”
+
+Marguerite ran to the door and with joyful eagerness tore it open.
+
+“Suzanne!” she called “my little Suzanne! I thought you were in London.
+Come up quickly! In the boudoir--yes. Oh! what good fortune hath brought
+you?”
+
+Suzanne flew into her arms, holding the friend whom she loved so well
+close and closer to her heart, trying to hide her face, which was wet
+with tears, in the folds of Marguerite’s kerchief.
+
+“Come inside, my darling,” said Marguerite. “Why, how cold your little
+hands are!”
+
+She was on the point of turning back to her boudoir, drawing Lady
+Ffoulkes by the hand, when suddenly she caught sight of Sir Andrew, who
+stood at a little distance from her, at the top of the stairs.
+
+“Sir Andrew!” she exclaimed with unstinted gladness.
+
+Then she paused. The cry of welcome died on her lips, leaving them dry
+and parted. She suddenly felt as if some fearful talons had gripped her
+heart and were tearing at it with sharp, long nails; the blood flew from
+her cheeks and from her limbs, leaving her with a sense of icy numbness.
+
+She backed into the room, still holding Suzanne’s hand, and drawing her
+in with her. Sir Andrew followed them, then closed the door behind him.
+At last the word escaped Marguerite’s parched lips:
+
+“Percy! Something has happened to him! He is dead?”
+
+“No, no!” exclaimed Sir Andrew quickly.
+
+Suzanne put her loving arms round her friend and drew her down into the
+chair by the fire. She knelt at her feet on the hearthrug, and pressed
+her own burning lips on Marguerite’s icy-cold hands. Sir Andrew stood
+silently by, a world of loving friendship, of heart-broken sorrow, in
+his eyes.
+
+There was silence in the pretty white-panelled room for a while.
+Marguerite sat with her eyes closed, bringing the whole armoury of her
+will power to bear her up outwardly now.
+
+“Tell me!” she said at last, and her voice was toneless and dull, like
+one that came from the depths of a grave--“tell me--exactly--everything.
+Don’t be afraid. I can bear it. Don’t be afraid.”
+
+Sir Andrew remained standing, with bowed head and one hand resting on
+the table. In a firm, clear voice he told her the events of the past few
+days as they were known to him. All that he tried to hide was Armand’s
+disobedience, which, in his heart, he felt was the primary cause of the
+catastrophe. He told of the rescue of the Dauphin from the Temple, the
+midnight drive in the coal-cart, the meeting with Hastings and Tony in
+the spinney. He only gave vague explanations of Armand’s stay in Paris
+which caused Percy to go back to the city, even at the moment when his
+most daring plan had been so successfully carried through.
+
+“Armand, I understand, has fallen in love with a beautiful woman in
+Paris, Lady Blakeney,” he said, seeing that a strange, puzzled look had
+appeared in Marguerite’s pale face. “She was arrested the day before the
+rescue of the Dauphin from the Temple. Armand could not join us. He felt
+that he could not leave her. I am sure that you will understand.”
+
+Then as she made no comment, he resumed his narrative:
+
+“I had been ordered to go back to La Villette, and there to resume my
+duties as a labourer in the day-time, and to wait for Percy during the
+night. The fact that I had received no message from him for two days had
+made me somewhat worried, but I have such faith in him, such belief in
+his good luck and his ingenuity, that I would not allow myself to be
+really anxious. Then on the third day I heard the news.”
+
+“What news?” asked Marguerite mechanically.
+
+“That the Englishman who was known as the Scarlet Pimpernel had been
+captured in a house in the Rue de la Croix Blanche, and had been
+imprisoned in the Conciergerie.”
+
+“The Rue de la Croix Blanche? Where is that?”
+
+“In the Montmartre quarter. Armand lodged there. Percy, I imagine, was
+working to get him away; and those brutes captured him.”
+
+“Having heard the news, Sir Andrew, what did you do?”
+
+“I went into Paris and ascertained its truth.”
+
+“And there is no doubt of it?”
+
+“Alas, none! I went to the house in the Rue de la Croix Blanche. Armand
+had disappeared. I succeeded in inducing the concierge to talk. She
+seems to have been devoted to her lodger. Amidst tears she told me
+some of the details of the capture. Can you bear to hear them, Lady
+Blakeney?”
+
+“Yes--tell me everything--don’t be afraid,” she reiterated with the same
+dull monotony.
+
+“It appears that early on the Tuesday morning the son of the
+concierge--a lad about fifteen--was sent off by her lodger with a
+message to No. 9 Rue St. Germain l’Auxerrois. That was the house where
+Percy was staying all last week, where he kept disguises and so on
+for us all, and where some of our meetings were held. Percy evidently
+expected that Armand would try and communicate with him at that address,
+for when the lad arrived in front of the house he was accosted--so
+he says--by a big, rough workman, who browbeat him into giving up the
+lodger’s letter, and finally pressed a piece of gold into his hand. The
+workman was Blakeney, of course. I imagine that Armand, at the time that
+he wrote the letter, must have been under the belief that Mademoiselle
+Lange was still in prison; he could not know then that Blakeney had
+already got her into comparative safety. In the letter he must have
+spoken of the terrible plight in which he stood, and also of his fears
+for the woman whom he loved. Percy was not the man to leave a comrade
+in the lurch! He would not be the man whom we all love and admire, whose
+word we all obey, for whose sake we would gladly all of us give our
+life--he would not be that man if he did not brave even certain dangers
+in order to be of help to those who call on him. Armand called and Percy
+went to him. He must have known that Armand was being spied upon, for
+Armand, alas! was already a marked man, and the watch-dogs of
+those infernal committees were already on his heels. Whether these
+sleuth-hounds had followed the son of the concierge and seen him give
+the letter to the workman in the Rue St. Germain l’Auxerrois, or whether
+the concierge in the Rue de la Croix Blanche was nothing but a spy of
+Heron’s, or, again whether the Committee of General Security kept
+a company of soldiers in constant alert in that house, we shall, of
+course, never know. All that I do know is that Percy entered that
+fatal house at half-past ten, and that a quarter of an hour later the
+concierge saw some of the soldiers descending the stairs, carrying
+a heavy burden. She peeped out of her lodge, and by the light in the
+corridor she saw that the heavy burden was the body of a man bound
+closely with ropes: his eyes were closed, his clothes were stained with
+blood. He was seemingly unconscious. The next day the official organ
+of the Government proclaimed the capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel, and
+there was a public holiday in honour of the event.”
+
+Marguerite had listened to this terrible narrative dry-eyed and silent.
+Now she still sat there, hardly conscious of what went on around her--of
+Suzanne’s tears, that fell unceasingly upon her fingers--of Sir Andrew,
+who had sunk into a chair, and buried his head in his hands. She was
+hardly conscious that she lived; the universe seemed to have stood still
+before this awful, monstrous cataclysm.
+
+But, nevertheless, she was the first to return to the active realities
+of the present.
+
+“Sir Andrew,” she said after a while, “tell me, where are my Lords Tony
+and Hastings?”
+
+“At Calais, madam,” he replied. “I saw them there on my way hither.
+They had delivered the Dauphin safely into the hands of his adherents at
+Mantes, and were awaiting Blakeney’s further orders, as he had commanded
+them to do.”
+
+“Will they wait for us there, think you?”
+
+“For us, Lady Blakeney?” he exclaimed in puzzlement.
+
+“Yes, for us, Sir Andrew,” she replied, whilst the ghost of a smile
+flitted across her drawn face; “you had thought of accompanying me to
+Paris, had you not?”
+
+“But Lady Blakeney--”
+
+“Ah! I know what you would say, Sir Andrew. You will speak of dangers,
+of risks, of death, mayhap; you will tell me that I as a woman can do
+nothing to help my husband--that I could be but a hindrance to him, just
+as I was in Boulogne. But everything is so different now. Whilst those
+brutes planned his capture he was clever enough to outwit them, but now
+they have actually got him, think you they’ll let him escape? They’ll
+watch him night and day, my friend, just as they watched the unfortunate
+Queen; but they’ll not keep him months, weeks, or even days in
+prison--even Chauvelin now will no longer attempt to play with the
+Scarlet Pimpernel. They have him, and they will hold him until such time
+as they take him to the guillotine.”
+
+Her voice broke in a sob; her self-control was threatening to leave her.
+She was but a woman, young and passionately in love with the man who
+was about to die an ignominious death, far away from his country, his
+kindred, his friends.
+
+“I cannot let him die alone, Sir Andrew; he will be longing for me,
+and--and, after all, there is you, and my Lord Tony, and Lord Hastings
+and the others; surely--surely we are not going to let him die, not like
+that, and not alone.”
+
+“You are right, Lady Blakeney,” said Sir Andrew earnestly; “we are not
+going to let him die, if human agency can do aught to save him. Already
+Tony, Hastings and I have agreed to return to Paris. There are one or
+two hidden places in and around the city known only to Percy and to
+the members of the League where he must find one or more of us if he
+succeeds in getting away. All the way between Paris and Calais we have
+places of refuge, places where any of us can hide at a given moment;
+where we can find disguises when we want them, or horses in an
+emergency. No! no! we are not going to despair, Lady Blakeney; there are
+nineteen of us prepared to lay down our lives for the Scarlet Pimpernel.
+Already I, as his lieutenant, have been selected as the leader of as
+determined a gang as has ever entered on a work of rescue before. We
+leave for Paris to-morrow, and if human pluck and devotion can destroy
+mountains then we’ll destroy them. Our watchword is: ‘God save the
+Scarlet Pimpernel.’”
+
+He knelt beside her chair and kissed the cold fingers which, with a sad
+little smile, she held out to him.
+
+“And God bless you all!” she murmured.
+
+Suzanne had risen to her feet when her husband knelt; now he stood up
+beside her. The dainty young woman hardly more than a child--was doing
+her best to restrain her tears.
+
+“See how selfish I am,” said Marguerite. “I talk calmly of taking your
+husband from you, when I myself know the bitterness of such partings.”
+
+“My husband will go where his duty calls him,” said Suzanne with
+charming and simple dignity. “I love him with all my heart, because
+he is brave and good. He could not leave his comrade, who is also his
+chief, in the lurch. God will protect him, I know. I would not ask him
+to play the part of a coward.”
+
+Her brown eyes glowed with pride. She was the true wife of a soldier,
+and with all her dainty ways and childlike manners she was a splendid
+woman and a staunch friend. Sir Percy Blakeney had saved her entire
+family from death, the Comte and Comtesse de Tournai, the Vicomte, her
+brother, and she herself all owed their lives to the Scarlet Pimpernel.
+
+This she was not like to forget.
+
+“There is but little danger for us, I fear me,” said Sir Andrew lightly;
+“the revolutionary Government only wants to strike at a head, it cares
+nothing for the limbs. Perhaps it feels that without our leader we are
+enemies not worthy of persecution. If there are any dangers, so much
+the better,” he added; “but I don’t anticipate any, unless we succeed in
+freeing our chief; and having freed him, we fear nothing more.”
+
+“The same applies to me, Sir Andrew,” rejoined Marguerite earnestly.
+“Now that they have captured Percy, those human fiends will care naught
+for me. If you succeed in freeing Percy I, like you, will have nothing
+more to fear, and if you fail--”
+
+She paused and put her small, white hand on Sir Andrew’s arm.
+
+“Take me with you, Sir Andrew,” she entreated; “do not condemn me to
+the awful torture of weary waiting, day after day, wondering, guessing,
+never daring to hope, lest hope deferred be more hard to bear than
+dreary hopelessness.”
+
+Then as Sir Andrew, very undecided, yet half inclined to yield,
+stood silent and irresolute, she pressed her point, gently but firmly
+insistent.
+
+“I would not be in the way, Sir Andrew; I would know how to efface
+myself so as not to interfere with your plans. But, oh!” she added,
+while a quivering note of passion trembled in her voice, “can’t you
+see that I must breathe the air that he breathes else I shall stifle or
+mayhap go mad?”
+
+Sir Andrew turned to his wife, a mute query in his eyes.
+
+“You would do an inhuman and a cruel act,” said Suzanne with seriousness
+that sat quaintly on her baby face, “if you did not afford your
+protection to Marguerite, for I do believe that if you did not take her
+with you to-morrow she would go to Paris alone.”
+
+Marguerite thanked her friend with her eyes. Suzanne was a child
+in nature, but she had a woman’s heart. She loved her husband, and,
+therefore, knew and understood what Marguerite must be suffering now.
+
+Sir Andrew no longer could resist the unfortunate woman’s earnest
+pleading. Frankly, he thought that if she remained in England while
+Percy was in such deadly peril she ran the grave risk of losing her
+reason before the terrible strain of suspense. He knew her to be a woman
+of courage, and one capable of great physical endurance; and really he
+was quite honest when he said that he did not believe there would be
+much danger for the headless League of the Scarlet Pimpernel unless they
+succeeded in freeing their chief. And if they did succeed, then indeed
+there would be nothing to fear, for the brave and loving wife who, like
+every true woman does, and has done in like circumstances since the
+beginning of time, was only demanding with passionate insistence the
+right to share the fate, good or ill, of the man whom she loved.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV. PARIS ONCE MORE
+
+Sir Andrew had just come in. He was trying to get a little warmth into
+his half-frozen limbs, for the cold had set in again, and this time with
+renewed vigour, and Marguerite was pouring out a cup of hot coffee which
+she had been brewing for him. She had not asked for news. She knew that
+he had none to give her, else he had not worn that wearied, despondent
+look in his kind face.
+
+“I’ll just try one more place this evening,” he said as soon as he had
+swallowed some of the hot coffee--“a restaurant in the Rue de la Harpe;
+the members of the Cordeliers’ Club often go there for supper, and they
+are usually well informed. I might glean something definite there.”
+
+“It seems very strange that they are so slow in bringing him to trial,”
+ said Marguerite in that dull, toneless voice which had become habitual
+to her. “When you first brought me the awful news that... I made sure
+that they would bring him to trial at once, and was in terror lest we
+arrived here too late to--to see him.”
+
+She checked herself quickly, bravely trying to still the quiver of her
+voice.
+
+“And of Armand?” she asked.
+
+He shook his head sadly.
+
+“With regard to him I am at a still greater loss,” he said: “I cannot
+find his name on any of the prison registers, and I know that he is not
+in the Conciergerie. They have cleared out all the prisoners from there;
+there is only Percy--”
+
+“Poor Armand!” she sighed; “it must be almost worse for him than for
+any of us; it was his first act of thoughtless disobedience that brought
+all this misery upon our heads.”
+
+She spoke sadly but quietly. Sir Andrew noted that there was no
+bitterness in her tone. But her very quietude was heart-breaking; there
+was such an infinity of despair in the calm of her eyes.
+
+“Well! though we cannot understand it all, Lady Blakeney,” he said with
+forced cheerfulness, “we must remember one thing--that whilst there is
+life there is hope.”
+
+“Hope!” she exclaimed with a world of pathos in her sigh, her large eyes
+dry and circled, fixed with indescribable sorrow on her friend’s face.
+
+Ffoulkes turned his head away, pretending to busy himself with
+the coffee-making utensils. He could not bear to see that look of
+hopelessness in her face, for in his heart he could not find the
+wherewithal to cheer her. Despair was beginning to seize on him too, and
+this he would not let her see.
+
+They had been in Paris three days now, and it was six days since
+Blakeney had been arrested. Sir Andrew and Marguerite had found
+temporary lodgings inside Paris, Tony and Hastings were just outside the
+gates, and all along the route between Paris and Calais, at St. Germain,
+at Mantes, in the villages between Beauvais and Amiens, wherever money
+could obtain friendly help, members of the devoted League of the Scarlet
+Pimpernel lay in hiding, waiting to aid their chief.
+
+Ffoulkes had ascertained that Percy was kept a close prisoner in the
+Conciergerie, in the very rooms occupied by Marie Antoinette during the
+last months of her life. He left poor Marguerite to guess how closely
+that elusive Scarlet Pimpernel was being guarded, the precautions
+surrounding him being even more minute than those which had made the
+unfortunate Queen’s closing days a martyrdom for her.
+
+But of Armand he could glean no satisfactory news, only the negative
+probability that he was not detained in any of the larger prisons of
+Paris, as no register which he, Ffoulkes, so laboriously consulted bore
+record of the name of St. Just.
+
+Haunting the restaurants and drinking booths where the most advanced
+Jacobins and Terrorists were wont to meet, he had learned one or two
+details of Blakeney’s incarceration which he could not possibly impart
+to Marguerite. The capture of the mysterious Englishman known as the
+Scarlet Pimpernel had created a great deal of popular satisfaction;
+but it was obvious that not only was the public mind not allowed to
+associate that capture with the escape of little Capet from the Temple,
+but it soon became clear to Ffoulkes that the news of that escape was
+still being kept a profound secret.
+
+On one occasion he had succeeded in spying on the Chief Agent of the
+Committee of General Security, whom he knew by sight, while the latter
+was sitting at dinner in the company of a stout, florid man with
+pock-marked face and podgy hands covered with rings.
+
+Sir Andrew marvelled who this man might be. Heron spoke to him in
+ambiguous phrases that would have been unintelligible to any one who did
+not know the circumstances of the Dauphin’s escape and the part that
+the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel had played in it. But to Sir Andrew
+Ffoulkes, who--cleverly disguised as a farrier, grimy after his day’s
+work--was straining his ears to listen whilst apparently consuming huge
+slabs of boiled beef, it soon became clear that the chief agent and his
+fat friend were talking of the Dauphin and of Blakeney.
+
+“He won’t hold out much longer, citizen,” the chief agent was saying in
+a confident voice; “our men are absolutely unremitting in their task.
+Two of them watch him night and day; they look after him well, and
+practically never lose sight of him, but the moment he tries to get any
+sleep one of them rushes into the cell with a loud banging of bayonet
+and sabre, and noisy tread on the flagstones, and shouts at the top of
+his voice: ‘Now then, aristo, where’s the brat? Tell us now, and you
+shall be down and go to sleep.’ I have done it myself all through one
+day just for the pleasure of it. It’s a little tiring for you to have to
+shout a good deal now, and sometimes give the cursed Englishman a good
+shake-up. He has had five days of it, and not one wink of sleep during
+that time--not one single minute of rest--and he only gets enough food
+to keep him alive. I tell you he can’t last. Citizen Chauvelin had a
+splendid idea there. It will all come right in a day or two.”
+
+“H’m!” grunted the other sulkily; “those Englishmen are tough.”
+
+“Yes!” retorted Heron with a grim laugh and a leer of savagery that made
+his gaunt face look positively hideous--“you would have given out after
+three days, friend de Batz, would you not? And I warned you, didn’t I? I
+told you if you tampered with the brat I would make you cry in mercy to
+me for death.”
+
+“And I warned you,” said the other imperturbably, “not to worry so much
+about me, but to keep your eyes open for those cursed Englishmen.”
+
+“I am keeping my eyes open for you, nevertheless, my friend. If I
+thought you knew where the vermin’s spawn was at this moment I would--”
+
+“You would put me on the same rack that you or your precious friend,
+Chauvelin, have devised for the Englishman. But I don’t know where the
+lad is. If I did I would not be in Paris.”
+
+“I know that,” assented Heron with a sneer; “you would soon be after the
+reward--over in Austria, what?--but I have your movements tracked day
+and night, my friend. I dare say you are as anxious as we are as to the
+whereabouts of the child. Had he been taken over the frontier you would
+have been the first to hear of it, eh? No,” he added confidently, and
+as if anxious to reassure himself, “my firm belief is that the original
+idea of these confounded Englishmen was to try and get the child over
+to England, and that they alone know where he is. I tell you it won’t
+be many days before that very withered Scarlet Pimpernel will order
+his followers to give little Capet up to us. Oh! they are hanging about
+Paris some of them, I know that; citizen Chauvelin is convinced that the
+wife isn’t very far away. Give her a sight of her husband now, say I,
+and she’ll make the others give the child up soon enough.”
+
+The man laughed like some hyena gloating over its prey. Sir Andrew
+nearly betrayed himself then. He had to dig his nails into his own flesh
+to prevent himself from springing then and there at the throat of that
+wretch whose monstrous ingenuity had invented torture for the fallen
+enemy far worse than any that the cruelties of medieval Inquisitions had
+devised.
+
+So they would not let him sleep! A simple idea born in the brain of a
+fiend. Heron had spoken of Chauvelin as the originator of the devilry;
+a man weakened deliberately day by day by insufficient food, and the
+horrible process of denying him rest. It seemed inconceivable that
+human, sentient beings should have thought of such a thing. Perspiration
+stood up in beads on Sir Andrew’s brow when he thought of his friend,
+brought down by want of sleep to--what? His physique was splendidly
+powerful, but could it stand against such racking torment for long? And
+the clear, the alert mind, the scheming brain, the reckless daring--how
+soon would these become enfeebled by the slow, steady torture of an
+utter want of rest?
+
+Ffoulkes had to smother a cry of horror, which surely must have drawn
+the attention of that fiend on himself had he not been so engrossed in
+the enjoyment of his own devilry. As it is, he ran out of the stuffy
+eating-house, for he felt as if its fetid air must choke him.
+
+For an hour after that he wandered about the streets, not daring to face
+Marguerite, lest his eyes betrayed some of the horror which was shaking
+his very soul.
+
+That was twenty-four hours ago. To-day he had learnt little else. It was
+generally known that the Englishman was in the Conciergerie prison, that
+he was being closely watched, and that his trial would come on within
+the next few days; but no one seemed to know exactly when. The public
+was getting restive, demanding that trial and execution to which every
+one seemed to look forward as to a holiday. In the meanwhile the escape
+of the Dauphin had been kept from the knowledge of the public; Heron and
+his gang, fearing for their lives, had still hopes of extracting from
+the Englishman the secret of the lad’s hiding-place, and the means they
+employed for arriving at this end was worthy of Lucifer and his host of
+devils in hell.
+
+From other fragments of conversation which Sir Andrew Ffoulkes had
+gleaned that same evening, it seemed to him that in order to hide their
+defalcations Heron and the four commissaries in charge of little Capet
+had substituted a deaf and dumb child for the escaped little prisoner.
+This miserable small wreck of humanity was reputed to be sick and kept
+in a darkened room, in bed, and was in that condition exhibited to any
+member of the Convention who had the right to see him. A partition had
+been very hastily erected in the inner room once occupied by the Simons,
+and the child was kept behind that partition, and no one was allowed to
+come too near to him. Thus the fraud was succeeding fairly well. Heron
+and his accomplices only cared to save their skins, and the wretched
+little substitute being really ill, they firmly hoped that he would
+soon die, when no doubt they would bruit abroad the news of the death of
+Capet, which would relieve them of further responsibility.
+
+That such ideas, such thoughts, such schemes should have engendered in
+human minds it is almost impossible to conceive, and yet we know from
+no less important a witness than Madame Simon herself that the child who
+died in the Temple a few weeks later was a poor little imbecile, a deaf
+and dumb child brought hither from one of the asylums and left to die in
+peace. There was nobody but kindly Death to take him out of his misery,
+for the giant intellect that had planned and carried out the rescue of
+the uncrowned King of France, and which alone might have had the power
+to save him too, was being broken on the rack of enforced sleeplessness.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI. THE BITTEREST FOE
+
+That same evening Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, having announced his intention
+of gleaning further news of Armand, if possible, went out shortly after
+seven o’clock, promising to be home again about nine.
+
+Marguerite, on the other hand, had to make her friend a solemn promise
+that she would try and eat some supper which the landlady of these
+miserable apartments had agreed to prepare for her. So far they had been
+left in peaceful occupation of these squalid lodgings in a tumble-down
+house on the Quai de la Ferraille, facing the house of Justice, the grim
+walls of which Marguerite would watch with wide-open dry eyes for as
+long as the grey wintry light lingered over them.
+
+Even now, though the darkness had set in, and snow, falling in close,
+small flakes, threw a thick white veil over the landscape, she sat at
+the open window long after Sir Andrew had gone out, watching the few
+small flicks of light that blinked across from the other side of the
+river, and which came from the windows of the Chatelet towers. The
+windows of the Conciergerie she could not see, for these gave on one of
+the inner courtyards; but there was a melancholy consolation even in the
+gazing on those walls that held in their cruel, grim embrace all that
+she loved in the world.
+
+It seemed so impossible to think of Percy--the laughter-loving,
+irresponsible, light-hearted adventurer--as the prey of those fiends who
+would revel in their triumph, who would crush him, humiliate him, insult
+him--ye gods alive! even torture him, perhaps--that they might break the
+indomitable spirit that would mock them even on the threshold of death.
+
+Surely, surely God would never allow such monstrous infamy as the
+deliverance of the noble soaring eagle into the hands of those preying
+jackals! Marguerite--though her heart ached beyond what human nature
+could endure, though her anguish on her husband’s account was doubled by
+that which she felt for her brother--could not bring herself to give
+up all hope. Sir Andrew said it rightly; while there was life there
+was hope. While there was life in those vigorous limbs, spirit in that
+daring mind, how could puny, rampant beasts gain the better of the
+immortal soul? As for Armand--why, if Percy were free she would have no
+cause to fear for Armand.
+
+She sighed a sigh of deep, of passionate regret and longing. If she
+could only see her husband; if she could only look for one second into
+those laughing, lazy eyes, wherein she alone knew how to fathom the
+infinity of passion that lay within their depths; if she could but once
+feel his--ardent kiss on her lips, she could more easily endure this
+agonising suspense, and wait confidently and courageously for the issue.
+
+She turned away from the window, for the night was getting bitterly
+cold. From the tower of St. Germain l’Auxerrois the clock slowly struck
+eight. Even as the last sound of the historic bell died away in the
+distance she heard a timid knocking at the door.
+
+“Enter!” she called unthinkingly.
+
+She thought it was her landlady, come up with more wood, mayhap, for
+the fire, so she did not turn to the door when she heard it being slowly
+opened, then closed again, and presently a soft tread on the threadbare
+carpet.
+
+“May I crave your kind attention, Lady Blakeney?” said a harsh voice,
+subdued to tones of ordinary courtesy.
+
+She quickly repressed a cry of terror. How well she knew that voice!
+When last she heard it it was at Boulogne, dictating that infamous
+letter--the weapon wherewith Percy had so effectually foiled his enemy.
+She turned and faced the man who was her bitterest foe--hers in the
+person of the man she loved.
+
+“Chauvelin!” she gasped.
+
+“Himself at your service, dear lady,” he said simply.
+
+He stood in the full light of the lamp, his trim, small figure boldly
+cut out against the dark wall beyond. He wore the usual sable-coloured
+clothes which he affected, with the primly-folded jabot and cuffs edged
+with narrow lace.
+
+Without waiting for permission from her he quietly and deliberately
+placed his hat and cloak on a chair. Then he turned once more
+toward her, and made a movement as if to advance into the room; but
+instinctively she put up a hand as if to ward off the calamity of his
+approach.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders, and the shadow of a smile, that had neither
+mirth nor kindliness in it, hovered round the corners of his thin lips.
+
+“Have I your permission to sit?” he asked.
+
+“As you will,” she replied slowly, keeping her wide-open eyes fixed
+upon him as does a frightened bird upon the serpent whom it loathes and
+fears.
+
+“And may I crave a few moments of your undivided attention, Lady
+Blakeney?” he continued, taking a chair, and so placing it beside the
+table that the light of the lamp when he sat remained behind him and his
+face was left in shadow.
+
+“Is it necessary?” asked Marguerite.
+
+“It is,” he replied curtly, “if you desire to see and speak with your
+husband--to be of use to him before it is too late.”
+
+“Then, I pray you, speak, citizen, and I will listen.”
+
+She sank into a chair, not heeding whether the light of the lamp fell
+on her face or not, whether the lines in her haggard cheeks, or her
+tear-dimmed eyes showed plainly the sorrow and despair that had traced
+them. She had nothing to hide from this man, the cause of all the
+tortures which she endured. She knew that neither courage nor sorrow
+would move him, and that hatred for Percy--personal deadly hatred for
+the man who had twice foiled him--had long crushed the last spark of
+humanity in his heart.
+
+“Perhaps, Lady Blakeney,” he began after a slight pause and in his
+smooth, even voice, “it would interest you to hear how I succeeded in
+procuring for myself this pleasure of an interview with you?”
+
+“Your spies did their usual work, I suppose,” she said coldly.
+
+“Exactly. We have been on your track for three days, and yesterday
+evening an unguarded movement on the part of Sir Andrew Ffoulkes gave us
+the final clue to your whereabouts.”
+
+“Of Sir Andrew Ffoulkes?” she asked, greatly puzzled.
+
+“He was in an eating-house, cleverly disguised, I own, trying to glean
+information, no doubt as to the probable fate of Sir Percy Blakeney.
+As chance would have it, my friend Heron, of the Committee of
+General Security, chanced to be discussing with reprehensible
+openness--er--certain--what shall I say?--certain measures which, at my
+advice, the Committee of Public Safety have been forced to adopt with a
+view to--”
+
+“A truce on your smooth-tongued speeches, citizen Chauvelin,” she
+interposed firmly. “Sir Andrew Ffoulkes has told me naught of this--so I
+pray you speak plainly and to the point, if you can.”
+
+He bowed with marked irony.
+
+“As you please,” he said. “Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, hearing certain matters
+of which I will tell you anon, made a movement which betrayed him to
+one of our spies. At a word from citizen Heron this man followed on
+the heels of the young farrier who had shown such interest in the
+conversation of the Chief Agent. Sir Andrew, I imagine, burning with
+indignation at what he had heard, was perhaps not quite so cautious as
+he usually is. Anyway, the man on his track followed him to this door.
+It was quite simple, as you see. As for me, I had guessed a week ago
+that we would see the beautiful Lady Blakeney in Paris before long. When
+I knew where Sir Andrew Ffoulkes lodged, I had no difficulty in guessing
+that Lady Blakeney would not be far off.”
+
+“And what was there in citizen Heron’s conversation last night,” she
+asked quietly, “that so aroused Sir Andrew’s indignation?”
+
+“He has not told you?” “Oh! it is very simple. Let me tell you, Lady
+Blakeney, exactly how matters stand. Sir Percy Blakeney--before lucky
+chance at last delivered him into our hands--thought fit, as no doubt
+you know, to meddle with our most important prisoner of State.”
+
+“A child. I know it, sir--the son of a murdered father whom you and your
+friends were slowly doing to death.”
+
+“That is as it may be, Lady Blakeney,” rejoined Chauvelin calmly; “but
+it was none of Sir Percy Blakeney’s business. This, however, he chose
+to disregard. He succeeded in carrying little Capet from the Temple, and
+two days later we had him under lock, and key.”
+
+“Through some infamous and treacherous trick, sir,” she retorted.
+
+Chauvelin made no immediate reply; his pale, inscrutable eyes were fixed
+upon her face, and the smile of irony round his mouth appeared more
+strongly marked than before.
+
+“That, again, is as it may be,” he said suavely; “but anyhow for the
+moment we have the upper hand. Sir Percy is in the Conciergerie, guarded
+day and night, more closely than Marie Antoinette even was guarded.”
+
+“And he laughs at your bolts and bars, sir,” she rejoined proudly.
+“Remember Calais, remember Boulogne. His laugh at your discomfiture,
+then, must resound in your ear even to-day.”
+
+“Yes; but for the moment laughter is on our side. Still we are willing
+to forego even that pleasure, if Sir Percy will but move a finger
+towards his own freedom.”
+
+“Again some infamous letter?” she asked with bitter contempt; “some
+attempt against his honour?”
+
+“No, no, Lady Blakeney,” he interposed with perfect blandness. “Matters
+are so much simpler now, you see. We hold Sir Percy at our mercy.
+We could send him to the guillotine to-morrow, but we might be
+willing--remember, I only say we might--to exercise our prerogative of
+mercy if Sir Percy Blakeney will on his side accede to a request from
+us.”
+
+“And that request?”
+
+“Is a very natural one. He took Capet away from us, and it is but
+credible that he knows at the present moment exactly where the child is.
+Let him instruct his followers--and I mistake not, Lady Blakeney, there
+are several of them not very far from Paris just now--let him, I say,
+instruct these followers of his to return the person of young Capet to
+us, and not only will we undertake to give these same gentlemen a safe
+conduct back to England, but we even might be inclined to deal somewhat
+less harshly with the gallant Scarlet Pimpernel himself.”
+
+She laughed a harsh, mirthless, contemptuous laugh.
+
+“I don’t think that I quite understand,” she said after a moment or
+two, whilst he waited calmly until her out-break of hysterical mirth
+had subsided. “You want my husband--the Scarlet Pimpernel, citizen--to
+deliver the little King of France to you after he has risked his life
+to save the child out of your clutches? Is that what you are trying to
+say?”
+
+“It is,” rejoined Chauvelin complacently, “just what we have been saying
+to Sir Percy Blakeney for the past six days, madame.”
+
+“Well! then you have had your answer, have you not?”
+
+“Yes,” he replied slowly; “but the answer has become weaker day by day.”
+
+“Weaker? I don’t understand.”
+
+“Let me explain, Lady Blakeney,” said Chauvelin, now with measured
+emphasis. He put both elbows on the table and leaned well forward,
+peering into her face, lest one of its varied expressions escaped
+him. “Just now you taunted me with my failure in Calais, and again
+at Boulogne, with a proud toss of the head, which I own is excessive
+becoming; you threw the name of the Scarlet Pimpernel in my face like a
+challenge which I no longer dare to accept. ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel,’ you
+would say to me, ‘stands for loyalty, for honour, and for indomitable
+courage. Think you he would sacrifice his honour to obtain your mercy?
+Remember Boulogne and your discomfiture!’ All of which, dear lady, is
+perfectly charming and womanly and enthusiastic, and I, bowing my humble
+head, must own that I was fooled in Calais and baffled in Boulogne.
+But in Boulogne I made a grave mistake, and one from which I learned a
+lesson, which I am putting into practice now.”
+
+He paused a while as if waiting for her reply. His pale, keen eyes
+had already noted that with every phrase he uttered the lines in her
+beautiful face became more hard and set. A look of horror was gradually
+spreading over it, as if the icy-cold hand of death had passed over her
+eyes and cheeks, leaving them rigid like stone.
+
+“In Boulogne,” resumed Chauvelin quietly, satisfied that his words were
+hitting steadily at her heart--“in Boulogne Sir Percy and I did
+not fight an equal fight. Fresh from a pleasant sojourn in his own
+magnificent home, full of the spirit of adventure which puts the essence
+of life into a man’s veins, Sir Percy Blakeney’s splendid physique was
+pitted against my feeble powers. Of course I lost the battle. I made the
+mistake of trying to subdue a man who was in the zenith of his strength,
+whereas now--”
+
+“Yes, citizen Chauvelin,” she said, “whereas now--”
+
+“Sir Percy Blakeney has been in the prison of the Conciergerie for
+exactly one week, Lady Blakeney,” he replied, speaking very slowly, and
+letting every one of his words sink individually into her mind. “Even
+before he had time to take the bearings of his cell or to plan on his
+own behalf one of those remarkable escapes for which he is so justly
+famous, our men began to work on a scheme which I am proud to say
+originated with myself. A week has gone by since then, Lady Blakeney,
+and during that time a special company of prison guard, acting under the
+orders of the Committee of General Security and of Public Safety, have
+questioned the prisoner unremittingly--unremittingly, remember--day and
+night. Two by two these men take it in turns to enter the prisoner’s
+cell every quarter of an hour--lately it has had to be more often--and
+ask him the one question, ‘Where is little Capet?’ Up to now we have
+received no satisfactory reply, although we have explained to Sir Percy
+that many of his followers are honouring the neighbourhood of Paris with
+their visit, and that all we ask for from him are instructions to
+those gallant gentlemen to bring young Capet back to us. It is all very
+simple, unfortunately the prisoner is somewhat obstinate. At first,
+even, the idea seemed to amuse him; he used to laugh and say that he
+always had the faculty of sleeping with his eyes open. But our soldiers
+are untiring in their efforts, and the want of sleep as well as of a
+sufficiency of food and of fresh air is certainly beginning to tell on
+Sir Percy Blakeney’s magnificent physique. I don’t think that it will be
+very long before he gives way to our gentle persuasions; and in any case
+now, I assure you, dear lady, that we need not fear any attempt on
+his part to escape. I doubt if he could walk very steadily across this
+room--”
+
+Marguerite had sat quite silent and apparently impassive all the while
+that Chauvelin had been speaking; even now she scarcely stirred. Her
+face expressed absolutely nothing but deep puzzlement. There was a frown
+between her brows, and her eyes, which were always of such liquid
+blue, now looked almost black. She was trying to visualise that which
+Chauvelin had put before her: a man harassed day and night, unceasingly,
+unremittingly, with one question allowed neither respite nor sleep--his
+brain, soul, and body fagged out at every hour, every moment of the day
+and night, until mind and body and soul must inevitably give way under
+anguish ten thousand times more unendurable than any physical torment
+invented by monsters in barbaric times.
+
+That man thus harassed, thus fagged out, thus martyrised at all hours of
+the day and night, was her husband, whom she loved with every fibre of
+her being, with every throb of her heart.
+
+Torture? Oh, no! these were advanced and civilised times that could
+afford to look with horror on the excesses of medieval days. This was
+a revolution that made for progress, and challenged the opinion of the
+world. The cells of the Temple of La Force or the Conciergerie held no
+secret inquisition with iron maidens and racks and thumbscrews; but
+a few men had put their tortuous brains together, and had said one to
+another: “We want to find out from that man where we can lay our hands
+on little Capet, so we won’t let him sleep until he has told us. It
+is not torture--oh, no! Who would dare to say that we torture our
+prisoners? It is only a little horseplay, worrying to the prisoner, no
+doubt; but, after all, he can end the unpleasantness at any moment. He
+need but to answer our question, and he can go to sleep as comfortably
+as a little child. The want of sleep is very trying, the want of proper
+food and of fresh air is very weakening; the prisoner must give way
+sooner or later--”
+
+So these fiends had decided it between them, and they had put their idea
+into execution for one whole week. Marguerite looked at Chauvelin as she
+would on some monstrous, inscrutable Sphinx, marveling if God--even in
+His anger--could really have created such a fiendish brain, or, having
+created it, could allow it to wreak such devilry unpunished.
+
+Even now she felt that he was enjoying the mental anguish which he had
+put upon her, and she saw his thin, evil lips curled into a smile.
+
+“So you came to-night to tell me all this?” she asked as soon as
+she could trust herself to speak. Her impulse was to shriek out her
+indignation, her horror of him, into his face. She longed to call down
+God’s eternal curse upon this fiend; but instinctively she held herself
+in check. Her indignation, her words of loathing would only have added
+to his delight.
+
+“You have had your wish,” she added coldly; “now, I pray you, go.”
+
+“Your pardon, Lady Blakeney,” he said with all his habitual blandness;
+“my object in coming to see you tonight was twofold. Methought that I
+was acting as your friend in giving you authentic news of Sir Percy, and
+in suggesting the possibility of your adding your persuasion to ours.”
+
+“My persuasion? You mean that I--”
+
+“You would wish to see your husband, would you not, Lady Blakeney?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then I pray you command me. I will grant you the permission whenever
+you wish to go.”
+
+“You are in the hope, citizen,” she said, “that I will do my best to
+break my husband’s spirit by my tears or my prayers--is that it?”
+
+“Not necessarily,” he replied pleasantly. “I assure you that we can
+manage to do that ourselves, in time.”
+
+“You devil!” The cry of pain and of horror was involuntarily wrung from
+the depths of her soul. “Are you not afraid that God’s hand will strike
+you where you stand?”
+
+“No,” he said lightly; “I am not afraid, Lady Blakeney. You see, I do
+not happen to believe in God. Come!” he added more seriously, “have I
+not proved to you that my offer is disinterested? Yet I repeat it even
+now. If you desire to see Sir Percy in prison, command me, and the doors
+shall be open to you.”
+
+She waited a moment, looking him straight and quite dispassionately in
+the face; then she said coldly:
+
+“Very well! I will go.”
+
+“When?” he asked.
+
+“This evening.”
+
+“Just as you wish. I would have to go and see my friend Heron first, and
+arrange with him for your visit.”
+
+“Then go. I will follow in half an hour.”
+
+“C’est entendu. Will you be at the main entrance of the Conciergerie
+at half-past nine? You know it, perhaps--no? It is in the Rue de la
+Barillerie, immediately on the right at the foot of the great staircase
+of the house of Justice.”
+
+“Of the house of Justice!” she exclaimed involuntarily, a world of
+bitter contempt in her cry. Then she added in her former matter-of-fact
+tones:
+
+“Very good, citizen. At half-past nine I will be at the entrance you
+name.”
+
+“And I will be at the door prepared to escort you.”
+
+He took up his hat and coat and bowed ceremoniously to her. Then he
+turned to go. At the door a cry from her--involuntarily enough, God
+knows!--made him pause.
+
+“My interview with the prisoner,” she said, vainly trying, poor soul! to
+repress that quiver of anxiety in her voice, “it will be private?”
+
+“Oh, yes! Of course,” he replied with a reassuring smile. “Au revoir,
+Lady Blakeney! Half-past nine, remember--”
+
+She could no longer trust herself to look on him as he finally took his
+departure. She was afraid--yes, absolutely afraid that her fortitude
+would give way--meanly, despicably, uselessly give way; that she would
+suddenly fling herself at the feet of that sneering, inhuman wretch,
+that she would pray, implore--Heaven above! what might she not do in
+the face of this awful reality, if the last lingering shred of vanishing
+reason, of pride, and of courage did not hold her in check?
+
+Therefore she forced herself not to look on that departing, sable-clad
+figure, on that evil face, and those hands that held Percy’s fate
+in their cruel grip; but her ears caught the welcome sound of his
+departure--the opening and shutting of the door, his light footstep
+echoing down the stone stairs.
+
+When at last she felt that she was really alone she uttered a loud cry
+like a wounded doe, and falling on her knees she buried her face in
+her hands in a passionate fit of weeping. Violent sobs shook her entire
+frame; it seemed as if an overwhelming anguish was tearing at her
+heart--the physical pain of it was almost unendurable. And yet even
+through this paroxysm of tears her mind clung to one root idea: when she
+saw Percy she must be brave and calm, be able to help him if he wanted
+her, to do his bidding if there was anything that she could do, or any
+message that she could take to the others. Of hope she had none. The
+last lingering ray of it had been extinguished by that fiend when he
+said, “We need not fear that he will escape. I doubt if he could walk
+very steadily across this room now.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII. IN THE CONCIERGERIE
+
+Marguerite, accompanied by Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, walked rapidly along
+the quay. It lacked ten minutes to the half hour; the night was dark and
+bitterly cold. Snow was still falling in sparse, thin flakes, and lay
+like a crisp and glittering mantle over the parapets of the bridges and
+the grim towers of the Chatelet prison.
+
+They walked on silently now. All that they had wanted to say to one
+another had been said inside the squalid room of their lodgings when Sir
+Andrew Ffoulkes had come home and learned that Chauvelin had been.
+
+“They are killing him by inches, Sir Andrew,” had been the heartrending
+cry which burst from Marguerite’s oppressed heart as soon as her hands
+rested in the kindly ones of her best friend. “Is there aught that we
+can do?”
+
+There was, of course, very little that could be done. One or two fine
+steel files which Sir Andrew gave her to conceal beneath the folds of
+her kerchief; also a tiny dagger with sharp, poisoned blade, which for a
+moment she held in her hand hesitating, her eyes filling with tears, her
+heart throbbing with unspeakable sorrow.
+
+Then slowly--very slowly--she raised the small, death-dealing instrument
+to her lips, and reverently kissed the narrow blade.
+
+“If it must be!” she murmured, “God in His mercy will forgive!”
+
+She sheathed the dagger, and this, too, she hid in the folds of her
+gown.
+
+“Can you think of anything else, Sir Andrew, that he might want?” she
+asked. “I have money in plenty, in case those soldiers--”
+
+Sir Andrew sighed, and turned away from her so as to hide the
+hopelessness which he felt. Since three days now he had been exhausting
+every conceivable means of getting at the prison guard with bribery
+and corruption. But Chauvelin and his friends had taken excellent
+precautions. The prison of the Conciergerie, situated as it was in the
+very heart of the labyrinthine and complicated structure of the Chatelet
+and the house of Justice, and isolated from every other group of cells
+in the building, was inaccessible save from one narrow doorway which
+gave on the guard-room first, and thence on the inner cell beyond. Just
+as all attempts to rescue the late unfortunate Queen from that prison
+had failed, so now every attempt to reach the imprisoned Scarlet
+Pimpernel was equally doomed to bitter disappointment.
+
+The guard-room was filled with soldiers day and night; the windows of
+the inner cell, heavily barred, were too small to admit of the passage
+of a human body, and they were raised twenty feet from the corridor
+below. Sir Andrew had stood in the corridor two days ago, he had looked
+on the window behind which he knew that his friend must be eating out
+his noble heart in a longing for liberty, and he had realised then that
+every effort at help from the outside was foredoomed to failure.
+
+“Courage, Lady Blakeney,” he said to Marguerite, when anon they had
+crossed the Pont au Change, and were wending their way slowly along the
+Rue de la Barillerie; “remember our proud dictum: the Scarlet Pimpernel
+never fails! and also this, that whatever messages Blakeney gives you
+for us, whatever he wishes us to do, we are to a man ready to do it, and
+to give our lives for our chief. Courage! Something tells me that a man
+like Percy is not going to die at the hands of such vermin as Chauvelin
+and his friends.”
+
+They had reached the great iron gates of the house of Justice.
+Marguerite, trying to smile, extended her trembling hand to this
+faithful, loyal comrade.
+
+“I’ll not be far,” he said. “When you come out do not look to the right
+or left, but make straight for home; I’ll not lose sight of you for a
+moment, and as soon as possible will overtake you. God bless you both.”
+
+He pressed his lips on her cold little hand, and watched her tall,
+elegant figure as she passed through the great gates until the veil
+of falling snow hid her from his gaze. Then with a deep sigh of bitter
+anguish and sorrow he turned away and was soon lost in the gloom.
+
+Marguerite found the gate at the bottom of the monumental stairs open
+when she arrived. Chauvelin was standing immediately inside the building
+waiting for her.
+
+“We are prepared for your visit, Lady Blakeney,” he said, “and the
+prisoner knows that you are coming.”
+
+He led the way down one of the numerous and interminable corridors of
+the building, and she followed briskly, pressing her hand against her
+bosom there where the folds of her kerchief hid the steel files and the
+precious dagger.
+
+Even in the gloom of these ill-lighted passages she realised that she
+was surrounded by guards. There were soldiers everywhere; two had stood
+behind the door when first she entered, and had immediately closed
+it with a loud clang behind her; and all the way down the corridors,
+through the half-light engendered by feebly flickering lamps, she caught
+glimpses of the white facings on the uniforms of the town guard, or
+occasionally the glint of steel of a bayonet. Presently Chauvelin paused
+beside a door, which he had just reached. His hand was on the latch, for
+it did not appear to be locked, and he turned toward Marguerite.
+
+“I am very sorry, Lady Blakeney,” he said in simple, deferential tones,
+“that the prison authorities, who at my request are granting you this
+interview at such an unusual hour, have made a slight condition to your
+visit.”
+
+“A condition?” she asked. “What is it?”
+
+“You must forgive me,” he said, as if purposely evading her question,
+“for I give you my word that I had nothing to do with a regulation that
+you might justly feel was derogatory to your dignity. If you will kindly
+step in here a wardress in charge will explain to you what is required.”
+
+He pushed open the door, and stood aside ceremoniously in order to allow
+her to pass in. She looked on him with deep puzzlement and a look of
+dark suspicion in her eyes. But her mind was too much engrossed with
+the thought of her meeting with Percy to worry over any trifle that
+might--as her enemy had inferred--offend her womanly dignity.
+
+She walked into the room, past Chauvelin, who whispered as she went by:
+
+“I will wait for you here. And, I pray you, if you have aught to
+complain of summon me at once.”
+
+Then he closed the door behind her. The room in which Marguerite now
+found herself was a small unventilated quadrangle, dimly lighted by a
+hanging lamp. A woman in a soiled cotton gown and lank grey hair brushed
+away from a parchment-like forehead rose from the chair in which she
+had been sitting when Marguerite entered, and put away some knitting on
+which she had apparently been engaged.
+
+“I was to tell you, citizeness,” she said the moment the door had been
+closed and she was alone with Marguerite, “that the prison authorities
+have given orders that I should search you before you visit the
+prisoner.”
+
+She repeated this phrase mechanically like a child who has been taught
+to say a lesson by heart. She was a stoutish middle-aged woman, with
+that pasty, flabby skin peculiar to those who live in want of fresh
+air; but her small, dark eyes were not unkindly, although they shifted
+restlessly from one object to another as if she were trying to avoid
+looking the other woman straight in the face.
+
+“That you should search me!” reiterated Marguerite slowly, trying to
+understand.
+
+“Yes,” replied the woman. “I was to tell you to take off your clothes,
+so that I might look them through and through. I have often had to do
+this before when visitors have been allowed inside the prison, so it is
+no use your trying to deceive me in any way. I am very sharp at
+finding out if any one has papers, or files or ropes concealed in an
+underpetticoat. Come,” she added more roughly, seeing that Marguerite
+had remained motionless in the middle of the room; “the quicker you are
+about it the sooner you will be taken to see the prisoner.”
+
+These words had their desired effect. The proud Lady Blakeney, inwardly
+revolting at the outrage, knew that resistance would be worse than
+useless. Chauvelin was the other side of the door. A call from the woman
+would bring him to her assistance, and Marguerite was only longing to
+hasten the moment when she could be with her husband.
+
+She took off her kerchief and her gown and calmly submitted to the
+woman’s rough hands as they wandered with sureness and accuracy to the
+various pockets and folds that might conceal prohibited articles. The
+woman did her work with peculiar stolidity; she did not utter a word
+when she found the tiny steel files and placed them on a table beside
+her. In equal silence she laid the little dagger beside them, and the
+purse which contained twenty gold pieces. These she counted in front
+of Marguerite and then replaced them in the purse. Her face expressed
+neither surprise, nor greed nor pity. She was obviously beyond the reach
+of bribery--just a machine paid by the prison authorities to do this
+unpleasant work, and no doubt terrorised into doing it conscientiously.
+
+When she had satisfied herself that Marguerite had nothing further
+concealed about her person, she allowed her to put her dress on once
+more. She even offered to help her on with it. When Marguerite was
+fully dressed she opened the door for her. Chauvelin was standing in the
+passage waiting patiently. At sight of Marguerite, whose pale, set face
+betrayed nothing of the indignation which she felt, he turned quick,
+inquiring eyes on the woman.
+
+“Two files, a dagger and a purse with twenty louis,” said the latter
+curtly.
+
+Chauvelin made no comment. He received the information quite placidly,
+as if it had no special interest for him. Then he said quietly:
+
+“This way, citizeness!”
+
+Marguerite followed him, and two minutes later he stood beside a heavy
+nail-studded door that had a small square grating let into one of the
+panels, and said simply:
+
+“This is it.”
+
+Two soldiers of the National Guard were on sentry at the door, two
+more were pacing up and down outside it, and had halted when citizen
+Chauvelin gave his name and showed his tricolour scarf of office.
+From behind the small grating in the door a pair of eyes peered at the
+newcomers.
+
+“Qui va la?” came the quick challenge from the guard-room within.
+
+“Citizen Chauvelin of the Committee of Public Safety,” was the prompt
+reply.
+
+There was the sound of grounding of arms, of the drawing of bolts and
+the turning of a key in a complicated lock. The prison was kept locked
+from within, and very heavy bars had to be moved ere the ponderous door
+slowly swung open on its hinges.
+
+Two steps led up into the guard-room. Marguerite mounted them with the
+same feeling of awe and almost of reverence as she would have mounted
+the steps of a sacrificial altar.
+
+The guard-room itself was more brilliantly lighted than the corridor
+outside. The sudden glare of two or three lamps placed about the room
+caused her momentarily to close her eyes that were aching with many shed
+and unshed tears. The air was rank and heavy with the fumes of tobacco,
+of wine and stale food. A large barred window gave on the corridor
+immediately above the door.
+
+When Marguerite felt strong enough to look around her, she saw that
+the room was filled with soldiers. Some were sitting, others standing,
+others lay on rugs against the wall, apparently asleep. There was one
+who appeared to be in command, for with a word he checked the noise that
+was going on in the room when she entered, and then he said curtly:
+
+“This way, citizeness!”
+
+He turned to an opening in the wall on the left, the stone-lintel of
+a door, from which the door itself had been removed; an iron bar
+ran across the opening, and this the sergeant now lifted, nodding to
+Marguerite to go within.
+
+Instinctively she looked round for Chauvelin.
+
+But he was nowhere to be seen.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII. THE CAGED LION
+
+Was there some instinct of humanity left in the soldier who allowed
+Marguerite through the barrier into the prisoner’s cell? Had the wan
+face of this beautiful woman stirred within his heart the last chord of
+gentleness that was not wholly atrophied by the constant cruelties, the
+excesses, the mercilessness which his service under this fraternising
+republic constantly demanded of him?
+
+Perhaps some recollection of former years, when first he served his King
+and country, recollection of wife or sister or mother pleaded within
+him in favour of this sorely-stricken woman with the look of unspeakable
+sorrow in her large blue eyes.
+
+Certain it is that as soon as Marguerite passed the barrier he put
+himself on guard against it with his back to the interior of the cell
+and to her.
+
+Marguerite had paused on the threshold.
+
+After the glaring light of the guard-room the cell seemed dark, and at
+first she could hardly see. The whole length of the long, narrow cubicle
+lay to her left, with a slight recess at its further end, so that from
+the threshold of the doorway she could not see into the distant corner.
+Swift as a lightning flash the remembrance came back to her of proud
+Marie Antoinette narrowing her life to that dark corner where the
+insolent eyes of the rabble soldiery could not spy her every movement.
+
+Marguerite stepped further into the room. Gradually by the dim light of
+an oil lamp placed upon a table in the recess she began to distinguish
+various objects: one or two chairs, another table, and a small but very
+comfortable-looking camp bedstead.
+
+Just for a few seconds she only saw these inanimate things, then she
+became conscious of Percy’s presence.
+
+He sat on a chair, with his left arm half-stretched out upon the table,
+his head hidden in the bend of the elbow.
+
+Marguerite did not utter a cry; she did not even tremble. Just for one
+brief instant she closed her eyes, so as to gather up all her courage
+before she dared to look again. Then with a steady and noiseless step
+she came quite close to him. She knelt on the flagstones at his feet and
+raised reverently to her lips the hand that hung nerveless and limp by
+his side.
+
+He gave a start; a shiver seemed to go right through him; he half raised
+his head and murmured in a hoarse whisper:
+
+“I tell you that I do not know, and if I did--”
+
+She put her arms round him and pillowed her head upon his breast. He
+turned his head slowly toward her, and now his eyes--hollowed and rimmed
+with purple--looked straight into hers.
+
+“My beloved,” he said, “I knew that you would come.” His arms closed
+round her. There was nothing of lifelessness or of weariness in the
+passion of that embrace; and when she looked up again it seemed to her
+as if that first vision which she had had of him with weary head bent,
+and wan, haggard face was not reality, only a dream born of her own
+anxiety for him, for now the hot, ardent blood coursed just as swiftly
+as ever through his veins, as if life--strong, tenacious, pulsating
+life--throbbed with unabated vigour in those massive limbs, and behind
+that square, clear brow as though the body, but half subdued, had
+transferred its vanishing strength to the kind and noble heart that was
+beating with the fervour of self-sacrifice.
+
+“Percy,” she said gently, “they will only give us a few moments
+together. They thought that my tears would break your spirit where their
+devilry had failed.”
+
+He held her glance with his own, with that close, intent look which
+binds soul to soul, and in his deep blue eyes there danced the restless
+flames of his own undying mirth:
+
+“La! little woman,” he said with enforced lightness, even whilst his
+voice quivered with the intensity of passion engendered by her presence,
+her nearness, the perfume of her hair, “how little they know you, eh?
+Your brave, beautiful, exquisite soul, shining now through your glorious
+eyes, would defy the machinations of Satan himself and his horde. Close
+your dear eyes, my love. I shall go mad with joy if I drink their beauty
+in any longer.”
+
+He held her face between his two hands, and indeed it seemed as if he
+could not satiate his soul with looking into her eyes. In the midst of
+so much sorrow, such misery and such deadly fear, never had Marguerite
+felt quite so happy, never had she felt him so completely her own. The
+inevitable bodily weakness, which of necessity had invaded even his
+splendid physique after a whole week’s privations, had made a severe
+breach in the invincible barrier of self-control with which the soul of
+the inner man was kept perpetually hidden behind a mask of indifference
+and of irresponsibility.
+
+And yet the agony of seeing the lines of sorrow so plainly writ on the
+beautiful face of the woman he worshipped must have been the keenest
+that the bold adventurer had ever experienced in the whole course of his
+reckless life. It was he--and he alone--who was making her suffer;
+her for whose sake he would gladly have shed every drop of his blood,
+endured every torment, every misery and every humiliation; her whom he
+worshipped only one degree less than he worshipped his honour and the
+cause which he had made his own.
+
+Yet, in spite of that agony, in spite of the heartrending pathos of her
+pale wan face, and through the anguish of seeing her tears, the ruling
+passion--strong in death--the spirit of adventure, the mad, wild,
+devil-may-care irresponsibility was never wholly absent.
+
+“Dear heart,” he said with a quaint sigh, whilst he buried his face in
+the soft masses of her hair, “until you came I was so d--d fatigued.”
+
+He was laughing, and the old look of boyish love of mischief illumined
+his haggard face.
+
+“Is it not lucky, dear heart,” he said a moment or two later, “that
+those brutes do not leave me unshaved? I could not have faced you with a
+week’s growth of beard round my chin. By dint of promises and bribery
+I have persuaded one of that rabble to come and shave me every morning.
+They will not allow me to handle a razor my-self. They are afraid I
+should cut my throat--or one of theirs. But mostly I am too d--d sleepy
+to think of such a thing.”
+
+“Percy!” she exclaimed with tender and passionate reproach.
+
+“I know--I know, dear,” he murmured, “what a brute I am! Ah, God did
+a cruel thing the day that He threw me in your path. To think that
+once--not so very long ago--we were drifting apart, you and I. You would
+have suffered less, dear heart, if we had continued to drift.”
+
+Then as he saw that his bantering tone pained her, he covered her hands
+with kisses, entreating her forgiveness.
+
+“Dear heart,” he said merrily, “I deserve that you should leave me to
+rot in this abominable cage. They haven’t got me yet, little woman, you
+know; I am not yet dead--only d--d sleepy at times. But I’ll cheat them
+even now, never fear.”
+
+“How, Percy--how?” she moaned, for her heart was aching with intolerable
+pain; she knew better than he did the precautions which were being taken
+against his escape, and she saw more clearly than he realised it himself
+the terrible barrier set up against that escape by ever encroaching
+physical weakness.
+
+“Well, dear,” he said simply, “to tell you the truth I have not yet
+thought of that all-important ‘how.’ I had to wait, you see, until you
+came. I was so sure that you would come! I have succeeded in putting on
+paper all my instructions for Ffoulkes and the others. I will give them
+to you anon. I knew that you would come, and that I could give them to
+you; until then I had but to think of one thing, and that was of keeping
+body and soul together. My chance of seeing you was to let them have
+their will with me. Those brutes were sure, sooner or later, to bring
+you to me, that you might see the caged fox worn down to imbecility,
+eh? That you might add your tears to their persuasion, and succeed where
+they have failed.”
+
+He laughed lightly with an unstrained note of gaiety, only Marguerite’s
+sensitive ears caught the faint tone of bitterness which rang through
+the laugh.
+
+“Once I know that the little King of France is safe,” he said, “I can
+think of how best to rob those d--d murderers of my skin.”
+
+Then suddenly his manner changed. He still held her with one arm closely
+to, him, but the other now lay across the table, and the slender,
+emaciated hand was tightly clutched. He did not look at her, but
+straight ahead; the eyes, unnaturally large now, with their deep purple
+rims, looked far ahead beyond the stone walls of this grim, cruel
+prison.
+
+The passionate lover, hungering for his beloved, had vanished; there
+sat the man with a purpose, the man whose firm hand had snatched men and
+women and children from death, the reckless enthusiast who tossed his
+life against an ideal.
+
+For a while he sat thus, while in his drawn and haggard face she could
+trace every line formed by his thoughts--the frown of anxiety, the
+resolute setting of the lips, the obstinate look of will around the firm
+jaw. Then he turned again to her.
+
+“My beautiful one,” he said softly, “the moments are very precious. God
+knows I could spend eternity thus with your dear form nestling against
+my heart. But those d--d murderers will only give us half an hour, and I
+want your help, my beloved, now that I am a helpless cur caught in their
+trap. Will you listen attentively, dear heart, to what I am going to
+say?
+
+“Yes, Percy, I will listen,” she replied.
+
+“And have you the courage to do just what I tell you, dear?”
+
+“I would not have courage to do aught else,” she said simply.
+
+“It means going from hence to-day, dear heart, and perhaps not meeting
+again. Hush-sh-sh, my beloved,” he said, tenderly placing his thin hand
+over her mouth, from which a sharp cry of pain had well-nigh escaped;
+“your exquisite soul will be with me always. Try--try not to give way to
+despair. Why! your love alone, which I see shining from your dear eyes,
+is enough to make a man cling to life with all his might. Tell me! will
+you do as I ask you?”
+
+And she replied firmly and courageously:
+
+“I will do just what you ask, Percy.”
+
+“God bless you for your courage, dear. You will have need of it.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX. FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT
+
+The next instant he was kneeling on the floor and his hands were
+wandering over the small, irregular flagstones immediately underneath
+the table. Marguerite had risen to her feet; she watched her husband
+with intent and puzzled eyes; she saw him suddenly pass his slender
+fingers along a crevice between two flagstones, then raise one of these
+slightly and from beneath it extract a small bundle of papers, each
+carefully folded and sealed. Then he replaced the stone and once more
+rose to his knees.
+
+He gave a quick glance toward the doorway. That corner of his cell, the
+recess wherein stood the table, was invisible to any one who had not
+actually crossed the threshold. Reassured that his movements could not
+have been and were not watched, he drew Marguerite closer to him.
+
+“Dear heart,” he whispered, “I want to place these papers in your care.
+Look upon them as my last will and testament. I succeeded in fooling
+those brutes one day by pretending to be willing to accede to their
+will. They gave me pen and ink and paper and wax, and I was to write out
+an order to my followers to bring the Dauphin hither. They left me in
+peace for one quarter of an hour, which gave me time to write three
+letters--one for Armand and the other two for Ffoulkes, and to hide them
+under the flooring of my cell. You see, dear, I knew that you would come
+and that I could give them to you then.”
+
+He paused, and that ghost of a smile once more hovered round his lips.
+He was thinking of that day when he had fooled Heron and Chauvelin into
+the belief that their devilry had succeeded, and that they had brought
+the reckless adventurer to his knees. He smiled at the recollection
+of their wrath when they knew that they had been tricked, and after
+a quarter of an hour’s anxious waiting found a few sheets of paper
+scribbled over with incoherent words or satirical verse, and the
+prisoner having apparently snatched ten minutes’ sleep, which seemingly
+had restored to him quite a modicum of his strength.
+
+But of this he told Marguerite nothing, nor of the insults and the
+humiliation which he had had to bear in consequence of that trick. He
+did not tell her that directly afterwards the order went forth that
+the prisoner was to be kept on bread and water in the future, nor that
+Chauvelin had stood by laughing and jeering while...
+
+No! he did not tell her all that; the recollection of it all had still
+the power to make him laugh; was it not all a part and parcel of that
+great gamble for human lives wherein he had held the winning cards
+himself for so long?
+
+“It is your turn now,” he had said even then to his bitter enemy.
+
+“Yes!” Chauvelin had replied, “our turn at last. And you will not bend
+my fine English gentleman, we’ll break you yet, never fear.”
+
+It was the thought of it all, of that hand to hand, will to will, spirit
+to spirit struggle that lighted up his haggard face even now, gave him a
+fresh zest for life, a desire to combat and to conquer in spite of all,
+in spite of the odds that had martyred his body but left the mind, the
+will, the power still unconquered.
+
+He was pressing one of the papers into her hand, holding her fingers
+tightly in his, and compelling her gaze with the ardent excitement of
+his own.
+
+“This first letter is for Ffoulkes,” he said. “It relates to the final
+measures for the safety of the Dauphin. They are my instructions to
+those members of the League who are in or near Paris at the present
+moment. Ffoulkes, I know, must be with you--he was not likely, God bless
+his loyalty, to let you come to Paris alone. Then give this letter to
+him, dear heart, at once, to-night, and tell him that it is my express
+command that he and the others shall act in minute accordance with my
+instructions.”
+
+“But the Dauphin surely is safe now,” she urged. “Ffoulkes and the
+others are here in order to help you.”
+
+“To help me, dear heart?” he interposed earnestly. “God alone can do
+that now, and such of my poor wits as these devils do not succeed in
+crushing out of me within the next ten days.”
+
+Ten days!
+
+“I have waited a week, until this hour when I could place this packet in
+your hands; another ten days should see the Dauphin out of France--after
+that, we shall see.”
+
+“Percy,” she exclaimed in an agony of horror, “you cannot endure this
+another day--and live!”
+
+“Nay!” he said in a tone that was almost insolent in its proud defiance,
+“there is but little that a man cannot do an he sets his mind to it. For
+the rest, ‘tis in God’s hands!” he added more gently. “Dear heart! you
+swore that you would be brave. The Dauphin is still in France, and until
+he is out of it he will not really be safe; his friends wanted to keep
+him inside the country. God only knows what they still hope; had I been
+free I should not have allowed him to remain so long; now those good
+people at Mantes will yield to my letter and to Ffoulkes’ earnest
+appeal--they will allow one of our League to convey the child safely out
+of France, and I’ll wait here until I know that he is safe. If I tried
+to get away now, and succeeded--why, Heaven help us! the hue and cry
+might turn against the child, and he might be captured before I could
+get to him. Dear heart! dear, dear heart! try to understand. The safety
+of that child is bound with mine honour, but I swear to you, my sweet
+love, that the day on which I feel that that safety is assured I will
+save mine own skin--what there is left of it--if I can!”
+
+“Percy!” she cried with a sudden outburst of passionate revolt, “you
+speak as if the safety of that child were of more moment than your own.
+Ten days!--but, God in Heaven! have you thought how I shall live these
+ten days, whilst slowly, inch by inch, you give your dear, your precious
+life for a forlorn cause?
+
+“I am very tough, m’dear,” he said lightly; “‘tis not a question of
+life. I shall only be spending a few more very uncomfortable days in
+this d--d hole; but what of that?”
+
+Her eyes spoke the reply; her eyes veiled with tears, that wandered
+with heart-breaking anxiety from the hollow circles round his own to
+the lines of weariness about the firm lips and jaw. He laughed at her
+solicitude.
+
+“I can last out longer than these brutes have any idea of,” he said
+gaily.
+
+“You cheat yourself, Percy,” she rejoined with quiet earnestness. “Every
+day that you spend immured between these walls, with that ceaseless
+nerve-racking torment of sleeplessness which these devils have devised
+for the breaking of your will--every day thus spent diminishes
+your power of ultimately saving yourself. You see, I speak
+calmly--dispassionately--I do not even urge my claims upon your life.
+But what you must weigh in the balance is the claim of all those for
+whom in the past you have already staked your life, whose lives you have
+purchased by risking your own. What, in comparison with your noble life,
+is that of the puny descendant of a line of decadent kings? Why should
+it be sacrificed--ruthlessly, hopelessly sacrificed that a boy might
+live who is as nothing to the world, to his country--even to his own
+people?”
+
+She had tried to speak calmly, never raising her voice beyond a whisper.
+Her hands still clutched that paper, which seemed to sear her fingers,
+the paper which she felt held writ upon its smooth surface the
+death-sentence of the man she loved.
+
+But his look did not answer her firm appeal; it was fixed far away
+beyond the prison walls, on a lonely country road outside Paris, with
+the rain falling in a thin drizzle, and leaden clouds overhead chasing
+one another, driven by the gale.
+
+“Poor mite,” he murmured softly; “he walked so bravely by my side, until
+the little feet grew weary; then he nestled in my arms and slept until
+we met Ffoulkes waiting with the cart. He was no King of France just
+then, only a helpless innocent whom Heaven aided me to save.”
+
+Marguerite bowed her head in silence. There was nothing more that she
+could say, no plea that she could urge. Indeed, she had understood, as
+he had begged her to understand. She understood that long ago he had
+mapped out the course of his life, and now that that course happened to
+lead up a Calvary of humiliation and of suffering he was not likely to
+turn back, even though, on the summit, death already was waiting and
+beckoning with no uncertain hand; not until he could murmur, in the wake
+of the great and divine sacrifice itself, the sublime words:
+
+“It is accomplished.”
+
+“But the Dauphin is safe enough now,” was all that she said, after that
+one moment’s silence when her heart, too, had offered up to God the
+supreme abnegation of self, and calmly faced a sorrow which threatened
+to break it at last.
+
+“Yes!” he rejoined quietly, “safe enough for the moment. But he would
+be safer still if he were out of France. I had hoped to take him one day
+with me to England. But in this plan damnable Fate has interfered.
+His adherents wanted to get him to Vienna, and their wish had best be
+fulfilled now. In my instructions to Ffoulkes I have mapped out a simple
+way for accomplishing the journey. Tony will be the one best suited to
+lead the expedition, and I want him to make straight for Holland; the
+Northern frontiers are not so closely watched as are the Austrian ones.
+There is a faithful adherent of the Bourbon cause who lives at Delft,
+and who will give the shelter of his name and home to the fugitive King
+of France until he can be conveyed to Vienna. He is named Nauudorff.
+Once I feel that the child is safe in his hands I will look after
+myself, never fear.”
+
+He paused, for his strength, which was only factitious, born of the
+excitement that Marguerite’s presence had called forth, was threatening
+to give way. His voice, though he had spoken in a whisper all along, was
+very hoarse, and his temples were throbbing with the sustained effort to
+speak.
+
+“If those friends had only thought of denying me food instead of sleep,”
+ he murmured involuntarily, “I could have held out until--”
+
+Then with characteristic swiftness his mood changed in a moment. His
+arms closed round Marguerite once more with a passion of self-reproach.
+
+“Heaven forgive me for a selfish brute,” he said, whilst the ghost of
+a smile once more lit up the whole of his face. “Dear soul, I must
+have forgotten your sweet presence, thus brooding over my own troubles,
+whilst your loving heart has a graver burden--God help me!--than it can
+possibly bear. Listen, my beloved, for I don’t know how many minutes
+longer they intend to give us, and I have not yet spoken to you about
+Armand--”
+
+“Armand!” she cried.
+
+A twinge of remorse had gripped her. For fully ten minutes now she had
+relegated all thoughts of her brother to a distant cell of her memory.
+
+“We have no news of Armand,” she said. “Sir Andrew has searched all the
+prison registers. Oh! were not my heart atrophied by all that it has
+endured this past sennight it would feel a final throb of agonising pain
+at every thought of Armand.”
+
+A curious look, which even her loving eyes failed to interpret, passed
+like a shadow over her husband’s face. But the shadow lifted in a
+moment, and it was with a reassuring smile that he said to her:
+
+“Dear heart! Armand is comparatively safe for the moment. Tell
+Ffoulkes not to search the prison registers for him, rather to seek out
+Mademoiselle Lange. She will know where to find Armand.”
+
+“Jeanne Lange!” she exclaimed with a world of bitterness in the tone of
+her voice, “the girl whom Armand loved, it seems, with a passion greater
+than his loyalty. Oh! Sir Andrew tried to disguise my brother’s
+folly, but I guessed what he did not choose to tell me. It was his
+disobedience, his want of trust, that brought this unspeakable misery on
+us all.”
+
+“Do not blame him overmuch, dear heart. Armand was in love, and love
+excuses every sin committed in its name. Jeanne Lange was arrested and
+Armand lost his reason temporarily. The very day on which I rescued the
+Dauphin from the Temple I had the good fortune to drag the little lady
+out of prison. I had given my promise to Armand that she should be safe,
+and I kept my word. But this Armand did not know--or else--”
+
+He checked himself abruptly, and once more that strange, enigmatical
+look crept into his eyes.
+
+“I took Jeanne Lange to a place of comparative safety,” he said after a
+slight pause, “but since then she has been set entirely free.”
+
+“Free?”
+
+“Yes. Chauvelin himself brought me the news,” he replied with a quick,
+mirthless laugh, wholly unlike his usual light-hearted gaiety. “He had
+to ask me where to find Jeanne, for I alone knew where she was. As for
+Armand, they’ll not worry about him whilst I am here. Another reason why
+I must bide a while longer. But in the meanwhile, dear, I pray you find
+Mademoiselle Lange; she lives at No. 5 Square du Roule. Through her
+I know that you can get to see Armand. This second letter,” he added,
+pressing a smaller packet into her hand, “is for him. Give it to him,
+dear heart; it will, I hope, tend to cheer him. I fear me the poor lad
+frets; yet he only sinned because he loved, and to me he will always be
+your brother--the man who held your affection for all the years before
+I came into your life. Give him this letter, dear; they are my
+instructions to him, as the others are for Ffoulkes; but tell him to
+read them when he is all alone. You will do that, dear heart, will you
+not?”
+
+“Yes, Percy,” she said simply. “I promise.”
+
+Great joy, and the expression of intense relief, lit up his face, whilst
+his eyes spoke the gratitude which he felt.
+
+“Then there is one thing more,” he said. “There are others in this cruel
+city, dear heart, who have trusted me, and whom I must not fail--Marie
+de Marmontel and her brother, faithful servants of the late queen; they
+were on the eve of arrest when I succeeded in getting them to a place
+of comparative safety; and there are others there, too all of these
+poor victims have trusted me implicitly. They are waiting for me there,
+trusting in my promise to convey them safely to England. Sweetheart, you
+must redeem my promise to them. You will?--you will? Promise me that you
+will--”
+
+“I promise, Percy,” she said once more.
+
+“Then go, dear, to-morrow, in the late afternoon, to No. 98, Rue de
+Charonne. It is a narrow house at the extreme end of that long street
+which abuts on the fortifications. The lower part of the house is
+occupied by a dealer in rags and old clothes. He and his wife and
+family are wretchedly poor, but they are kind, good souls, and for
+a consideration and a minimum of risk to themselves they will always
+render service to the English milors, whom they believe to be a band of
+inveterate smugglers. Ffoulkes and all the others know these people
+and know the house; Armand by the same token knows it too. Marie de
+Marmontel and her brother are there, and several others; the old
+Comte de Lezardiere, the Abbe de Firmont; their names spell suffering,
+loyalty, and hopelessness. I was lucky enough to convey them safely
+to that hidden shelter. They trust me implicitly, dear heart. They are
+waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to them. Dear heart, you
+will go, will you not?”
+
+“Yes, Percy,” she replied. “I will go; I have promised.”
+
+“Ffoulkes has some certificates of safety by him, and the old clothes
+dealer will supply the necessary disguises; he has a covered cart which
+he uses for his business, and which you can borrow from him. Ffoulkes
+will drive the little party to Achard’s farm in St. Germain, where other
+members of the League should be in waiting for the final journey to
+England. Ffoulkes will know how to arrange for everything; he was always
+my most able lieutenant. Once everything is organised he can appoint
+Hastings to lead the party. But you, dear heart, must do as you wish.
+Achard’s farm would be a safe retreat for you and for Ffoulkes: if...
+I know--I know, dear,” he added with infinite tenderness. “See I do not
+even suggest that you should leave me. Ffoulkes will be with you, and
+I know that neither he nor you would go even if I commanded. Either
+Achard’s farm, or even the house in the Rue de Charonne, would be quite
+safe for you, dear, under Ffoulkes’s protection, until the time when I
+myself can carry you back--you, my precious burden--to England in mine
+own arms, or until... Hush-sh-sh, dear heart,” he entreated, smothering
+with a passionate kiss the low moan of pain which had escaped her lips;
+“it is all in God’s hands now; I am in a tight corner--tighter than ever
+I have been before; but I am not dead yet, and those brutes have not
+yet paid the full price for my life. Tell me, dear heart, that you have
+understood--that you will do all that I asked. Tell me again, my dear,
+dear love; it is the very essence of life to hear your sweet lips murmur
+this promise now.”
+
+And for the third time she reiterated firmly:
+
+“I have understood every word that you said to me, Percy, and I promise
+on your precious life to do what you ask.”
+
+He sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and even at that moment there
+came from the guard-room beyond the sound of a harsh voice, saying
+peremptorily:
+
+“That half-hour is nearly over, sergeant; ‘tis time you interfered.”
+
+“Three minutes more, citizen,” was the curt reply.
+
+“Three minutes, you devils,” murmured Blakeney between set teeth, whilst
+a sudden light which even Marguerite’s keen gaze failed to interpret
+leapt into his eyes. Then he pressed the third letter into her hand.
+
+Once more his close, intent gaze compelled hers; their faces were close
+one to the other, so near to him did he draw her, so tightly did he
+hold her to him. The paper was in her hand and his fingers were pressed
+firmly on hers.
+
+“Put this in your kerchief, my beloved,” he whispered. “Let it rest on
+your exquisite bosom where I so love to pillow my head. Keep it there
+until the last hour when it seems to you that nothing more can come
+between me and shame.... Hush-sh-sh, dear,” he added with passionate
+tenderness, checking the hot protest that at the word “shame” had sprung
+to her lips, “I cannot explain more fully now. I do not know what may
+happen. I am only a man, and who knows what subtle devilry those brutes
+might not devise for bringing the untamed adventurer to his knees. For
+the next ten days the Dauphin will be on the high roads of France, on
+his way to safety. Every stage of his journey will be known to me. I can
+from between these four walls follow him and his escort step by step.
+Well, dear, I am but a man, already brought to shameful weakness by mere
+physical discomfort--the want of sleep--such a trifle after all; but
+in case my reason tottered--God knows what I might do--then give this
+packet to Ffoulkes--it contains my final instructions--and he will know
+how to act. Promise me, dear heart, that you will not open the packet
+unless--unless mine own dishonour seems to you imminent--unless I have
+yielded to these brutes in this prison, and sent Ffoulkes or one of the
+others orders to exchange the Dauphin’s life for mine; then, when mine
+own handwriting hath proclaimed me a coward, then and then only, give
+this packet to Ffoulkes. Promise me that, and also that when you and
+he have mastered its contents you will act exactly as I have commanded.
+Promise me that, dear, in your own sweet name, which may God bless, and
+in that of Ffoulkes, our loyal friend.”
+
+Through the sobs that well-nigh choked her she murmured the promise he
+desired.
+
+His voice had grown hoarser and more spent with the inevitable reaction
+after the long and sustained effort, but the vigour of the spirit was
+untouched, the fervour, the enthusiasm.
+
+“Dear heart,” he murmured, “do not look on me with those dear, scared
+eyes of yours. If there is aught that puzzles you in what I said, try
+and trust me a while longer. Remember, I must save the Dauphin at all
+costs; mine honour is bound with his safety. What happens to me after
+that matters but little, yet I wish to live for your dear sake.”
+
+He drew a long breath which had naught of weariness in it. The haggard
+look had completely vanished from his face, the eyes were lighted
+up from within, the very soul of reckless daring and immortal gaiety
+illumined his whole personality.
+
+“Do not look so sad, little woman,” he said with a strange and sudden
+recrudescence of power; “those d--d murderers have not got me yet--even
+now.”
+
+Then he went down like a log.
+
+The effort had been too prolonged--weakened nature reasserted her rights
+and he lost consciousness. Marguerite, helpless and almost distraught
+with grief, had yet the strength of mind not to call for assistance.
+She pillowed the loved one’s head upon her breast, she kissed the dear,
+tired eyes, the poor throbbing temples. The unutterable pathos of
+seeing this man, who was always the personification of extreme vitality,
+energy, and boundless endurance and pluck, lying thus helpless, like a
+tired child, in her arms, was perhaps the saddest moment of this day of
+sorrow. But in her trust she never wavered for one instant. Much that he
+had said had puzzled her; but the word “shame” coming from his own lips
+as a comment on himself never caused her the slightest pang of fear. She
+had quickly hidden the tiny packet in her kerchief. She would act point
+by point exactly as he had ordered her to do, and she knew that Ffoulkes
+would never waver either.
+
+Her heart ached well-nigh to breaking point. That which she could not
+understand had increased her anguish tenfold. If she could only have
+given way to tears she could have borne this final agony more easily.
+But the solace of tears was not for her; when those loved eyes once more
+opened to consciousness they should see hers glowing with courage and
+determination.
+
+There had been silence for a few minutes in the little cell. The
+soldiery outside, inured to their hideous duty, thought no doubt that
+the time had come for them to interfere. The iron bar was raised and
+thrown back with a loud crash, the butt-ends of muskets were grounded
+against the floor, and two soldiers made noisy irruption into the cell.
+
+“Hola, citizen! Wake up,” shouted one of the men; “you have not told us
+yet what you have done with Capet!”
+
+Marguerite uttered a cry of horror. Instinctively her arms were
+interposed between the unconscious man and these inhuman creatures, with
+a beautiful gesture of protecting motherhood.
+
+“He has fainted,” she said, her voice quivering with indignation. “My
+God! are you devils that you have not one spark of manhood in you?”
+
+The men shrugged their shoulders, and both laughed brutally. They had
+seen worse sights than these, since they served a Republic that ruled
+by bloodshed and by terror. They were own brothers in callousness and
+cruelty to those men who on this self-same spot a few months ago had
+watched the daily agony of a martyred Queen, or to those who had rushed
+into the Abbaye prison on that awful day in September, and at a word
+from their infamous leaders had put eighty defenceless prisoners--men,
+women, and children--to the sword.
+
+“Tell him to say what he has done with Capet,” said one of the soldiers
+now, and this rough command was accompanied with a coarse jest that sent
+the blood flaring up into Marguerite’s pale cheeks.
+
+The brutal laugh, the coarse words which accompanied it, the insult
+flung at Marguerite, had penetrated to Blakeney’s slowly returning
+consciousness. With sudden strength, that appeared almost supernatural,
+he jumped to his feet, and before any of the others could interfere he
+had with clenched fist struck the soldier a full blow on the mouth.
+
+The man staggered back with a curse, the other shouted for help; in a
+moment the narrow place swarmed with soldiers; Marguerite was roughly
+torn away from the prisoner’s side, and thrust into the far corner of
+the cell, from where she only saw a confused mass of blue coats and
+white belts, and--towering for one brief moment above what seemed to
+her fevered fancy like a veritable sea of heads--the pale face of her
+husband, with wide dilated eyes searching the gloom for hers.
+
+“Remember!” he shouted, and his voice for that brief moment rang out
+clear and sharp above the din.
+
+Then he disappeared behind the wall of glistening bayonets, of blue
+coats and uplifted arms; mercifully for her she remembered nothing more
+very clearly. She felt herself being dragged out of the cell, the iron
+bar being thrust down behind her with a loud clang. Then in a vague,
+dreamy state of semi-unconsciousness she saw the heavy bolts being drawn
+back from the outer door, heard the grating of the key in the monumental
+lock, and the next moment a breath of fresh air brought the sensation of
+renewed life into her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX. AFTERWARDS
+
+“I am sorry, Lady Blakeney,” said a harsh, dry voice close to her; “the
+incident at the end of your visit was none of our making, remember.”
+
+She turned away, sickened with horror at thought of contact with this
+wretch. She had heard the heavy oaken door swing to behind her on its
+ponderous hinges, and the key once again turn in the lock. She felt as
+if she had suddenly been thrust into a coffin, and that clods of earth
+were being thrown upon her breast, oppressing her heart so that she
+could not breathe.
+
+Had she looked for the last time on the man whom she loved beyond
+everything else on earth, whom she worshipped more ardently day by day?
+Was she even now carrying within the folds of her kerchief a message
+from a dying man to his comrades?
+
+Mechanically she followed Chauvelin down the corridor and along the
+passages which she had traversed a brief half-hour ago. From some
+distant church tower a clock tolled the hour of ten. It had then really
+only been little more than thirty brief minutes since first she had
+entered this grim building, which seemed less stony than the monsters
+who held authority within it; to her it seemed that centuries had gone
+over her head during that time. She felt like an old woman, unable to
+straighten her back or to steady her limbs; she could only dimly see
+some few paces ahead the trim figure of Chauvelin walking with measured
+steps, his hands held behind his back, his head thrown up with what
+looked like triumphant defiance.
+
+At the door of the cubicle where she had been forced to submit to the
+indignity of being searched by a wardress, the latter was now standing,
+waiting with characteristic stolidity. In her hand she held the steel
+files, the dagger and the purse which, as Marguerite passed, she held
+out to her.
+
+“Your property, citizeness,” she said placidly.
+
+She emptied the purse into her own hand, and solemnly counted out the
+twenty pieces of gold. She was about to replace them all into the purse,
+when Marguerite pressed one of them back into her wrinkled hand.
+
+“Nineteen will be enough, citizeness,” she said; “keep one for yourself,
+not only for me, but for all the poor women who come here with their
+heart full of hope, and go hence with it full of despair.”
+
+The woman turned calm, lack-lustre eyes on her, and silently pocketed
+the gold piece with a grudgingly muttered word of thanks.
+
+Chauvelin during this brief interlude, had walked thoughtlessly on
+ahead. Marguerite, peering down the length of the narrow corridor, spied
+his sable-clad figure some hundred metres further on as it crossed the
+dim circle of light thrown by one of the lamps.
+
+She was about to follow, when it seemed to her as if some one was moving
+in the darkness close beside her. The wardress was even now in the act
+of closing the door of her cubicle, and there were a couple of soldiers
+who were disappearing from view round one end of the passage, whilst
+Chauvelin’s retreating form was lost in the gloom at the other.
+
+There was no light close to where she herself was standing, and the
+blackness around her was as impenetrable as a veil; the sound of a human
+creature moving and breathing close to her in this intense darkness
+acted weirdly on her overwrought nerves.
+
+“Qui va la?” she called.
+
+There was a more distinct movement among the shadows this time, as of
+a swift tread on the flagstones of the corridor. All else was silent
+round, and now she could plainly hear those footsteps running rapidly
+down the passage away from her. She strained her eyes to see more
+clearly, and anon in one of the dim circles of light on ahead she spied
+a man’s figure--slender and darkly clad--walking quickly yet furtively
+like one pursued. As he crossed the light the man turned to look back.
+It was her brother Armand.
+
+Her first instinct was to call to him; the second checked that call upon
+her lips.
+
+Percy had said that Armand was in no danger; then why should he be
+sneaking along the dark corridors of this awful house of Justice if he
+was free and safe?
+
+Certainly, even at a distance, her brother’s movements suggested to
+Marguerite that he was in danger of being seen. He cowered in the
+darkness, tried to avoid the circles of light thrown by the lamps in the
+passage. At all costs Marguerite felt that she must warn him that the
+way he was going now would lead him straight into Chauvelin’s arms, and
+she longed to let him know that she was close by.
+
+Feeling sure that he would recognise her voice, she made pretence to
+turn back to the cubicle through the door of which the wardress had
+already disappeared, and called out as loudly as she dared:
+
+“Good-night, citizeness!”
+
+But Armand--who surely must have heard--did not pause at the sound.
+Rather was he walking on now more rapidly than before. In less than a
+minute he would be reaching the spot where Chauvelin stood waiting for
+Marguerite. That end of the corridor, however, received no light from
+any of the lamps; strive how she might, Marguerite could see nothing now
+either of Chauvelin or of Armand.
+
+Blindly, instinctively, she ran forward, thinking only to reach Armand,
+and to warn him to turn back before it was too late; before he found
+himself face to face with the most bitter enemy he and his nearest and
+dearest had ever had. But as she at last came to a halt at the end of
+the corridor, panting with the exertion of running and the fear for
+Armand, she almost fell up against Chauvelin, who was standing there
+alone and imperturbable, seemingly having waited patiently for her. She
+could only dimly distinguish his face, the sharp features and thin cruel
+mouth, but she felt--more than she actually saw--his cold steely eyes
+fixed with a strange expression of mockery upon her.
+
+But of Armand there was no sign, and she--poor soul!--had difficulty
+in not betraying the anxiety which she felt for her brother. Had the
+flagstones swallowed him up? A door on the right was the only one that
+gave on the corridor at this point; it led to the concierge’s lodge,
+and thence out into the courtyard. Had Chauvelin been dreaming, sleeping
+with his eyes open, whilst he stood waiting for her, and had Armand
+succeeded in slipping past him under cover of the darkness and through
+that door to safety that lay beyond these prison walls?
+
+Marguerite, miserably agitated, not knowing what to think, looked
+somewhat wild-eyed on Chauvelin; he smiled, that inscrutable, mirthless
+smile of his, and said blandly:
+
+“Is there aught else that I can do for you, citizeness? This is your
+nearest way out. No doubt Sir Andrew will be waiting to escort you
+home.”
+
+Then as she--not daring either to reply or to question--walked straight
+up to the door, he hurried forward, prepared to open it for her. But
+before he did so he turned to her once again:
+
+“I trust that your visit has pleased you, Lady Blakeney,” he said
+suavely. “At what hour do you desire to repeat it to-morrow?”
+
+“To-morrow?” she reiterated in a vague, absent manner, for she was still
+dazed with the strange incident of Armand’s appearance and his flight.
+
+“Yes. You would like to see Sir Percy again to-morrow, would you not? I
+myself would gladly pay him a visit from time to time, but he does not
+care for my company. My colleague, citizen Heron, on the other hand,
+calls on him four times in every twenty-four hours; he does so a few
+moments before the changing of the guard, and stays chatting with Sir
+Percy until after the guard is changed, when he inspects the men and
+satisfies himself that no traitor has crept in among them. All the men
+are personally known to him, you see. These hours are at five in the
+morning and again at eleven, and then again at five and eleven in the
+evening. My friend Heron, as you see, is zealous and assiduous, and,
+strangely enough, Sir Percy does not seem to view his visit with any
+displeasure. Now at any other hour of the day, Lady Blakeney, I pray
+you command me and I will arrange that citizen Heron grant you a second
+interview with the prisoner.”
+
+Marguerite had only listened to Chauvelin’s lengthy speech with half an
+ear; her thoughts still dwelt on the past half-hour with its bitter joy
+and its agonising pain; and fighting through her thoughts of Percy there
+was the recollection of Armand which so disquieted her. But though she
+had only vaguely listened to what Chauvelin was saying, she caught the
+drift of it.
+
+Madly she longed to accept his suggestion. The very thought of seeing
+Percy on the morrow was solace to her aching heart; it could feed on
+hope to-night instead of on its own bitter pain. But even during this
+brief moment of hesitancy, and while her whole being cried out for this
+joy that her enemy was holding out to her, even then in the gloom ahead
+of her she seemed to see a vision of a pale face raised above a crowd
+of swaying heads, and of the eyes of the dreamer searching for her own,
+whilst the last sublime cry of perfect self-devotion once more echoed in
+her ear:
+
+“Remember!”
+
+The promise which she had given him, that would she fulfil. The burden
+which he had laid on her shoulders she would try to bear as heroically
+as he was bearing his own. Aye, even at the cost of the supreme sorrow
+of never resting again in the haven of his arms.
+
+But in spite of sorrow, in spite of anguish so terrible that she could
+not imagine Death itself to have a more cruel sting, she wished above
+all to safeguard that final, attenuated thread of hope which was wound
+round the packet that lay hidden on her breast.
+
+She wanted, above all, not to arouse Chauvelin’s suspicions by markedly
+refusing to visit the prisoner again--suspicions that might lead to
+her being searched once more and the precious packet filched from her.
+Therefore she said to him earnestly now:
+
+“I thank you, citizen, for your solicitude on my behalf, but you will
+understand, I think, that my visit to the prisoner has been almost more
+than I could bear. I cannot tell you at this moment whether to-morrow I
+should be in a fit state to repeat it.”
+
+“As you please,” he replied urbanely. “But I pray you to remember one
+thing, and that is--”
+
+He paused a moment while his restless eyes wandered rapidly over her
+face, trying, as it were, to get at the soul of this woman, at her
+innermost thoughts, which he felt were hidden from him.
+
+“Yes, citizen,” she said quietly; “what is it that I am to remember?”
+
+“That it rests with you, Lady Blakeney, to put an end to the present
+situation.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“Surely you can persuade Sir Percy’s friends not to leave their chief
+in durance vile. They themselves could put an end to his troubles
+to-morrow.”
+
+“By giving up the Dauphin to you, you mean?” she retorted coldly.
+
+“Precisely.”
+
+“And you hoped--you still hope that by placing before me the picture of
+your own fiendish cruelty against my husband you will induce me to act
+the part of a traitor towards him and a coward before his followers?”
+
+“Oh!” he said deprecatingly, “the cruelty now is no longer mine.
+Sir Percy’s release is in your hands, Lady Blakeney--in that of his
+followers. I should only be too willing to end the present intolerable
+situation. You and your friends are applying the last turn of the
+thumbscrew, not I--”
+
+She smothered the cry of horror that had risen to her lips. The man’s
+cold-blooded sophistry was threatening to make a breach in her armour of
+self-control.
+
+She would no longer trust herself to speak, but made a quick movement
+towards the door.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders as if the matter were now entirely out of his
+control. Then he opened the door for her to pass out, and as her skirts
+brushed against him he bowed with studied deference, murmuring a cordial
+“Good-night!”
+
+“And remember, Lady Blakeney,” he added politely, “that should you at
+any time desire to communicate with me at my rooms, 19, Rue Dupuy, I
+hold myself entirely at your service.”
+
+Then as her tall, graceful figure disappeared in the outside gloom
+he passed his thin hand over his mouth as if to wipe away the last
+lingering signs of triumphant irony:
+
+“The second visit will work wonders, I think, my fine lady,” he murmured
+under his breath.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI. AN INTERLUDE
+
+It was close on midnight now, and still they sat opposite one another,
+he the friend and she the wife, talking over that brief half-hour that
+had meant an eternity to her.
+
+Marguerite had tried to tell Sir Andrew everything; bitter as it was to
+put into actual words the pathos and misery which she had witnessed,
+yet she would hide nothing from the devoted comrade whom she knew Percy
+would trust absolutely. To him she repeated every word that Percy had
+uttered, described every inflection of his voice, those enigmatical
+phrases which she had not understood, and together they cheated one
+another into the belief that hope lingered somewhere hidden in those
+words.
+
+“I am not going to despair, Lady Blakeney,” said Sir Andrew firmly;
+“and, moreover, we are not going to disobey. I would stake my life that
+even now Blakeney has some scheme in his mind which is embodied in the
+various letters which he has given you, and which--Heaven help us
+in that case!--we might thwart by disobedience. Tomorrow in the late
+afternoon I will escort you to the Rue de Charonne. It is a house that
+we all know well, and which Armand, of course, knows too. I had already
+inquired there two days ago to ascertain whether by chance St. Just was
+not in hiding there, but Lucas, the landlord and old-clothes dealer,
+knew nothing about him.”
+
+Marguerite told him about her swift vision of Armand in the dark
+corridor of the house of Justice.
+
+“Can you understand it, Sir Andrew?” she asked, fixing her deep,
+luminous eyes inquiringly upon him.
+
+“No, I cannot,” he said, after an almost imperceptible moment of
+hesitancy; “but we shall see him to-morrow. I have no doubt that
+Mademoiselle Lange will know where to find him; and now that we know
+where she is, all our anxiety about him, at any rate, should soon be at
+an end.”
+
+He rose and made some allusion to the lateness of the hour. Somehow it
+seemed to her that her devoted friend was trying to hide his innermost
+thoughts from her. She watched him with an anxious, intent gaze.
+
+“Can you understand it all, Sir Andrew?” she reiterated with a pathetic
+note of appeal.
+
+“No, no!” he said firmly. “On my soul, Lady Blakeney, I know no more of
+Armand than you do yourself. But I am sure that Percy is right. The boy
+frets because remorse must have assailed him by now. Had he but obeyed
+implicitly that day, as we all did--”
+
+But he could not frame the whole terrible proposition in words. Bitterly
+as he himself felt on the subject of Armand, he would not add yet
+another burden to this devoted woman’s heavy load of misery.
+
+“It was Fate, Lady Blakeney,” he said after a while. “Fate! a damnable
+fate which did it all. Great God! to think of Blakeney in the hands
+of those brutes seems so horrible that at times I feel as if the whole
+thing were a nightmare, and that the next moment we shall both wake
+hearing his merry voice echoing through this room.”
+
+He tried to cheer her with words of hope that he knew were but chimeras.
+A heavy weight of despondency lay on his heart. The letter from his
+chief was hidden against his breast; he would study it anon in the
+privacy of his own apartment so as to commit every word to memory that
+related to the measures for the ultimate safety of the child-King. After
+that it would have to be destroyed, lest it fell into inimical hands.
+
+Soon he bade Marguerite good-night. She was tired out, body and soul,
+and he--her faithful friend--vaguely wondered how long she would be able
+to withstand the strain of so much sorrow, such unspeakable misery.
+
+When at last she was alone Marguerite made brave efforts to compose
+her nerves so as to obtain a certain modicum of sleep this night. But,
+strive how she might, sleep would not come. How could it, when before
+her wearied brain there rose constantly that awful vision of Percy in
+the long, narrow cell, with weary head bent over his arm, and those
+friends shouting persistently in his ear:
+
+“Wake up, citizen! Tell us, where is Capet?”
+
+The fear obsessed her that his mind might give way; for the mental agony
+of such intense weariness must be well-nigh impossible to bear. In the
+dark, as she sat hour after hour at the open window, looking out in the
+direction where through the veil of snow the grey walls of the Chatelet
+prison towered silent and grim, she seemed to see his pale, drawn face
+with almost appalling reality; she could see every line of it, and could
+study it with the intensity born of a terrible fear.
+
+How long would the ghostly glimmer of merriment still linger in the
+eyes? When would the hoarse, mirthless laugh rise to the lips, that
+awful laugh that proclaims madness? Oh! she could have screamed now with
+the awfulness of this haunting terror. Ghouls seemed to be mocking
+her out of the darkness, every flake of snow that fell silently on the
+window-sill became a grinning face that taunted and derided; every cry
+in the silence of the night, every footstep on the quay below turned to
+hideous jeers hurled at her by tormenting fiends.
+
+She closed the window quickly, for she feared that she would go mad.
+For an hour after that she walked up and down the room making violent
+efforts to control her nerves, to find a glimmer of that courage which
+she promised Percy that she would have.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII. SISTERS
+
+The morning found her fagged out, but more calm. Later on she managed
+to drink some coffee, and having washed and dressed, she prepared to go
+out.
+
+Sir Andrew appeared in time to ascertain her wishes.
+
+“I promised Percy to go to the Rue de Charonne in the late afternoon,”
+ she said. “I have some hours to spare, and mean to employ them in trying
+to find speech with Mademoiselle Lange.”
+
+“Blakeney has told you where she lives?”
+
+“Yes. In the Square du Roule. I know it well. I can be there in half an
+hour.”
+
+He, of course, begged to be allowed to accompany her, and anon they were
+walking together quickly up toward the Faubourg St. Honore. The snow had
+ceased falling, but it was still very cold, but neither Marguerite nor
+Sir Andrew were conscious of the temperature or of any outward signs
+around them. They walked on silently until they reached the torn-down
+gates of the Square du Roule; there Sir Andrew parted from Marguerite
+after having appointed to meet her an hour later at a small eating-house
+he knew of where they could have some food together, before starting on
+their long expedition to the Rue de Charonne.
+
+Five minutes later Marguerite Blakeney was shown in by worthy Madame
+Belhomme, into the quaint and pretty drawing-room with its soft-toned
+hangings and old-world air of faded grace. Mademoiselle Lange was
+sitting there, in a capacious armchair, which encircled her delicate
+figure with its frame-work of dull old gold.
+
+She was ostensibly reading when Marguerite was announced, for an open
+book lay on a table beside her; but it seemed to the visitor that mayhap
+the young girl’s thoughts had played truant from her work, for her pose
+was listless and apathetic, and there was a look of grave trouble upon
+the childlike face.
+
+She rose when Marguerite entered, obviously puzzled at the unexpected
+visit, and somewhat awed at the appearance of this beautiful woman with
+the sad look in her eyes.
+
+“I must crave your pardon, mademoiselle,” said Lady Blakeney as soon as
+the door had once more closed on Madame Belhomme, and she found herself
+alone with the young girl. “This visit at such an early hour must seem
+to you an intrusion. But I am Marguerite St. Just, and--”
+
+Her smile and outstretched hand completed the sentence.
+
+“St. Just!” exclaimed Jeanne.
+
+“Yes. Armand’s sister!”
+
+A swift blush rushed to the girl’s pale cheeks; her brown eyes expressed
+unadulterated joy. Marguerite, who was studying her closely, was
+conscious that her poor aching heart went out to this exquisite child,
+the far-off innocent cause of so much misery.
+
+Jeanne, a little shy, a little confused and nervous in her movements,
+was pulling a chair close to the fire, begging Marguerite to sit. Her
+words came out all the while in short jerky sentences, and from time to
+time she stole swift shy glances at Armand’s sister.
+
+“You will forgive me, mademoiselle,” said Marguerite, whose simple and
+calm manner quickly tended to soothe Jeanne Lange’s confusion; “but I
+was so anxious about my brother--I do not know where to find him.”
+
+“And so you came to me, madame?”
+
+“Was I wrong?”
+
+“Oh, no! But what made you think that--that I would know?”
+
+“I guessed,” said Marguerite with a smile. “You had heard about me
+then?”
+
+“Oh, yes!”
+
+“Through whom? Did Armand tell you about me?”
+
+“No, alas! I have not seen him this past fortnight, since you,
+mademoiselle, came into his life; but many of Armand’s friends are in
+Paris just now; one of them knew, and he told me.”
+
+The soft blush had now overspread the whole of the girl’s face, even
+down to her graceful neck. She waited to see Marguerite comfortably
+installed in an armchair, then she resumed shyly:
+
+“And it was Armand who told me all about you. He loves you so dearly.”
+
+“Armand and I were very young children when we lost our parents,” said
+Marguerite softly, “and we were all in all to each other then. And until
+I married he was the man I loved best in all the world.”
+
+“He told me you were married--to an Englishman.”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“He loves England too. At first he always talked of my going there with
+him as his wife, and of the happiness we should find there together.”
+
+“Why do you say ‘at first’?”
+
+“He talks less about England now.”
+
+“Perhaps he feels that now you know all about it, and that you
+understand each other with regard to the future.”
+
+“Perhaps.”
+
+Jeanne sat opposite to Marguerite on a low stool by the fire. Her elbows
+were resting on her knees, and her face just now was half-hidden by the
+wealth of her brown curls. She looked exquisitely pretty sitting
+like this, with just the suggestion of sadness in the listless pose.
+Marguerite had come here to-day prepared to hate this young girl, who in
+a few brief days had stolen not only Armand’s heart, but his allegiance
+to his chief, and his trust in him. Since last night, when she had seen
+her brother sneak silently past her like a thief in the night, she had
+nurtured thoughts of ill-will and anger against Jeanne.
+
+But hatred and anger had melted at the sight of this child. Marguerite,
+with the perfect understanding born of love itself, had soon realised
+the charm which a woman like Mademoiselle Lange must of necessity
+exercise over a chivalrous, enthusiastic nature like Armand’s. The
+sense of protection--the strongest perhaps that exists in a good man’s
+heart--would draw him irresistibly to this beautiful child, with the
+great, appealing eyes, and the look of pathos that pervaded the entire
+face. Marguerite, looking in silence on the dainty picture before her,
+found it in her heart to forgive Armand for disobeying his chief when
+those eyes beckoned to him in a contrary direction.
+
+How could he, how could any chivalrous man endure the thought of this
+delicate, fresh flower lying crushed and drooping in the hands of
+monsters who respected neither courage nor purity? And Armand had been
+more than human, or mayhap less, if he had indeed consented to leave the
+fate of the girl whom he had sworn to love and protect in other hands
+than his own.
+
+It seemed almost as if Jeanne was conscious of the fixity of
+Marguerite’s gaze, for though she did not turn to look at her, the flush
+gradually deepened in her cheeks.
+
+“Mademoiselle Lange,” said Marguerite gently, “do you not feel that you
+can trust me?”
+
+She held out her two hands to the girl, and Jeanne slowly turned to her.
+The next moment she was kneeling at Marguerite’s feet, and kissing
+the beautiful kind hands that had been stretched out to her with such
+sisterly love.
+
+“Indeed, indeed, I do trust you,” she said, and looked with tear-dimmed
+eyes in the pale face above her. “I have longed for some one in whom I
+could confide. I have been so lonely lately, and Armand--”
+
+With an impatient little gesture she brushed away the tears which had
+gathered in her eyes.
+
+“What has Armand been doing?” asked Marguerite with an encouraging
+smile.
+
+“Oh, nothing to grieve me!” replied the young girl eagerly, “for he
+is kind and good, and chivalrous and noble. Oh, I love him with all my
+heart! I loved him from the moment that I set eyes on him, and then
+he came to see me--perhaps you know! And he talked so beautiful about
+England, and so nobly about his leader the Scarlet Pimpernel--have you
+heard of him?”
+
+“Yes,” said Marguerite, smiling. “I have heard of him.”
+
+“It was that day that citizen Heron came with his soldiers! Oh! you do
+not know citizen Heron. He is the most cruel man in France. In Paris
+he is hated by every one, and no one is safe from his spies. He came to
+arrest Armand, but I was able to fool him and to save Armand. And after
+that,” she added with charming naivete, “I felt as if, having saved
+Armand’s life, he belonged to me--and his love for me had made me his.”
+
+“Then I was arrested,” she continued after a slight pause, and at the
+recollection of what she had endured then her fresh voice still trembled
+with horror.
+
+“They dragged me to prison, and I spent two days in a dark cell,
+where--”
+
+She hid her face in her hands, whilst a few sobs shook her whole frame;
+then she resumed more calmly:
+
+“I had seen nothing of Armand. I wondered where he was, and I knew
+that he would be eating out his heart with anxiety for me. But God was
+watching over me. At first I was transferred to the Temple prison, and
+there a kind creature--a sort of man-of-all work in the prison took
+compassion on me. I do not know how he contrived it, but one morning
+very early he brought me some filthy old rags which he told me to put
+on quickly, and when I had done that he bade me follow him. Oh! he was a
+very dirty, wretched man himself, but he must have had a kind heart. He
+took me by the hand and made me carry his broom and brushes. Nobody took
+much notice of us, the dawn was only just breaking, and the passages
+were very dark and deserted; only once some soldiers began to chaff him
+about me: ‘C’est ma fille--quoi?’ he said roughly. I very nearly laughed
+then, only I had the good sense to restrain myself, for I knew that my
+freedom, and perhaps my life, depended on my not betraying myself. My
+grimy, tattered guide took me with him right through the interminable
+corridors of that awful building, whilst I prayed fervently to God for
+him and for myself. We got out by one of the service stairs and exit,
+and then he dragged me through some narrow streets until we came to a
+corner where a covered cart stood waiting. My kind friend told me to get
+into the cart, and then he bade the driver on the box take me straight
+to a house in the Rue St. Germain l’Auxerrois. Oh! I was infinitely
+grateful to the poor creature who had helped me to get out of that awful
+prison, and I would gladly have given him some money, for I am sure he
+was very poor; but I had none by me. He told me that I should be quite
+safe in the house in the Rue St. Germain l’Auxerrois, and begged me to
+wait there patiently for a few days until I heard from one who had my
+welfare at heart, and who would further arrange for my safety.”
+
+Marguerite had listened silently to this narrative so naively told by
+this child, who obviously had no idea to whom she owed her freedom and
+her life. While the girl talked, her mind could follow with unspeakable
+pride and happiness every phase of that scene in the early dawn, when
+that mysterious, ragged man-of-all-work, unbeknown even to the woman
+whom he was saving, risked his own noble life for the sake of her whom
+his friend and comrade loved.
+
+“And did you never see again the kind man to whom you owe your life?”
+ she asked.
+
+“No!” replied Jeanne. “I never saw him since; but when I arrived at
+the Rue St. Germain l’Auxerrois I was told by the good people who took
+charge of me that the ragged man-of-all-work had been none other than
+the mysterious Englishman whom Armand reveres, he whom they call the
+Scarlet Pimpernel.”
+
+“But you did not stay very long in the Rue St. Germain l’Auxerrois, did
+you?”
+
+“No. Only three days. The third day I received a communique from
+the Committee of General Security, together with an unconditional
+certificate of safety. It meant that I was free--quite free. Oh! I could
+scarcely believe it. I laughed and I cried until the people in the house
+thought that I had gone mad. The past few days had been such a horrible
+nightmare.”
+
+“And then you saw Armand again?”
+
+“Yes. They told him that I was free. And he came here to see me. He
+often comes; he will be here anon.”
+
+“But are you not afraid on his account and your own? He is--he must be
+still--‘suspect’; a well-known adherent of the Scarlet Pimpernel, he
+would be safer out of Paris.”
+
+“No! oh, no! Armand is in no danger. He, too, has an unconditional
+certificate of safety.”
+
+“An unconditional certificate of safety?” asked Marguerite, whilst a
+deep frown of grave puzzlement appeared between her brows. “What does
+that mean?”
+
+“It means that he is free to come and go as he likes; that neither he
+nor I have anything to fear from Heron and his awful spies. Oh! but for
+that sad and careworn look on Armand’s face we could be so happy; but
+he is so unlike himself. He is Armand and yet another; his look at times
+quite frightens me.”
+
+“Yet you know why he is so sad,” said Marguerite in a strange, toneless
+voice which she seemed quite unable to control, for that tonelessness
+came from a terrible sense of suffocation, of a feeling as if her
+heart-strings were being gripped by huge, hard hands.
+
+“Yes, I know,” said Jeanne half hesitatingly, as if knowing, she was
+still unconvinced.
+
+“His chief, his comrade, the friend of whom you speak, the Scarlet
+Pimpernel, who risked his life in order to save yours, mademoiselle, is
+a prisoner in the hands of those that hate him.”
+
+Marguerite had spoken with sudden vehemence. There was almost an appeal
+in her voice now, as if she were trying not to convince Jeanne only, but
+also herself, of something that was quite simple, quite straightforward,
+and yet which appeared to be receding from her, an intangible something,
+a spirit that was gradually yielding to a force as yet unborn, to a
+phantom that had not yet emerged from out chaos.
+
+But Jeanne seemed unconscious of all this. Her mind was absorbed in
+Armand, the man whom she loved in her simple, whole-hearted way, and who
+had seemed so different of late.
+
+“Oh, yes!” she said with a deep, sad sigh, whilst the ever-ready tears
+once more gathered in her eyes, “Armand is very unhappy because of him.
+The Scarlet Pimpernel was his friend; Armand loved and revered him.
+Did you know,” added the girl, turning large, horror-filled eyes on
+Marguerite, “that they want some information from him about the Dauphin,
+and to force him to give it they--they--”
+
+“Yes, I know,” said Marguerite.
+
+“Can you wonder, then, that Armand is unhappy. Oh! last night, after he
+went from me, I cried for hours, just because he had looked so sad. He
+no longer talks of happy England, of the cottage we were to have, and of
+the Kentish orchards in May. He has not ceased to love me, for at times
+his love seems so great that I tremble with a delicious sense of fear.
+But oh! his love for me no longer makes him happy.”
+
+Her head had gradually sunk lower and lower on her breast, her voice
+died down in a murmur broken by heartrending sighs. Every generous
+impulse in Marguerite’s noble nature prompted her to take that sorrowing
+child in her arms, to comfort her if she could, to reassure her if
+she had the power. But a strange icy feeling had gradually invaded her
+heart, even whilst she listened to the simple unsophisticated talk of
+Jeanne Lange. Her hands felt numb and clammy, and instinctively she
+withdrew away from the near vicinity of the girl. She felt as if the
+room, the furniture in it, even the window before her were dancing
+a wild and curious dance, and that from everywhere around strange
+whistling sounds reached her ears, which caused her head to whirl and
+her brain to reel.
+
+Jeanne had buried her head in her hands. She was crying--softly, almost
+humbly at first, as if half ashamed of her grief; then, suddenly it
+seemed, as if she could not contain herself any longer, a heavy sob
+escaped her throat and shook her whole delicate frame with its
+violence. Sorrow no longer would be gainsaid, it insisted on physical
+expression--that awful tearing of the heart-strings which leaves the
+body numb and panting with pain.
+
+In a moment Marguerite had forgotten; the dark and shapeless phantom
+that had knocked at the gate of her soul was relegated back into
+chaos. It ceased to be, it was made to shrivel and to burn in the great
+seething cauldron of womanly sympathy. What part this child had played
+in the vast cataclysm of misery which had dragged a noble-hearted
+enthusiast into the dark torture-chamber, whence the only outlet led
+to the guillotine, she--Marguerite Blakeney--did not know; what part
+Armand, her brother, had played in it, that she would not dare to guess;
+all that she knew was that here was a loving heart that was filled with
+pain--a young, inexperienced soul that was having its first tussle with
+the grim realities of life--and every motherly instinct in Marguerite
+was aroused.
+
+She rose and gently drew the young girl up from her knees, and then
+closer to her; she pillowed the grief-stricken head against her
+shoulder, and murmured gentle, comforting words into the tiny ear.
+
+“I have news for Armand,” she whispered, “that will comfort him, a
+message--a letter from his friend. You will see, dear, that when Armand
+reads it he will become a changed man; you see, Armand acted a little
+foolishly a few days ago. His chief had given him orders which he
+disregarded--he was so anxious about you--he should have obeyed; and
+now, mayhap, he feels that his disobedience may have been the--the
+innocent cause of much misery to others; that is, no doubt, the reason
+why he is so sad. The letter from his friend will cheer him, you will
+see.”
+
+“Do you really think so, madame?” murmured Jeanne, in whose tear-stained
+eyes the indomitable hopefulness of youth was already striving to shine.
+
+“I am sure of it,” assented Marguerite.
+
+And for the moment she was absolutely sincere. The phantom had entirely
+vanished. She would even, had he dared to re-appear, have mocked and
+derided him for his futile attempt at turning the sorrow in her heart to
+a veritable hell of bitterness.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII. LITTLE MOTHER
+
+The two women, both so young still, but each of them with a mark of
+sorrow already indelibly graven in her heart, were clinging to one
+another, bound together by the strong bond of sympathy. And but for
+the sadness of it all it were difficult to conjure up a more beautiful
+picture than that which they presented as they stood side by side;
+Marguerite, tall and stately as an exquisite lily, with the crown of
+her ardent hair and the glory of her deep blue eyes, and Jeanne Lange,
+dainty and delicate, with the brown curls and the child-like droop of
+the soft, moist lips.
+
+Thus Armand saw them when, a moment or two later, he entered unannounced.
+He had pushed open the door and looked on the two women silently for a
+second or two; on the girl whom he loved so dearly, for whose sake
+he had committed the great, the unpardonable sin which would send him
+forever henceforth, Cain-like, a wanderer on the face of the earth;
+and the other, his sister, her whom a Judas act would condemn to lonely
+sorrow and widowhood.
+
+He could have cried out in an agony of remorse, and it was the groan
+of acute soul anguish which escaped his lips that drew Marguerite’s
+attention to his presence.
+
+Even though many things that Jeanne Lange had said had prepared her for
+a change in her brother, she was immeasurably shocked by his appearance.
+He had always been slim and rather below the average in height, but
+now his usually upright and trim figure seemed to have shrunken within
+itself; his clothes hung baggy on his shoulders, his hands appeared
+waxen and emaciated, but the greatest change was in his face, in the
+wide circles round the eyes, that spoke of wakeful nights, in the hollow
+cheeks, and the mouth that had wholly forgotten how to smile.
+
+Percy after a week’s misery immured in a dark and miserable prison,
+deprived of food and rest, did not look such a physical wreck as did
+Armand St. Just, who was free.
+
+Marguerite’s heart reproached her for what she felt had been neglect,
+callousness on her part. Mutely, within herself, she craved his
+forgiveness for the appearance of that phantom which should never have
+come forth from out that chaotic hell which had engendered it.
+
+“Armand!” she cried.
+
+And the loving arms that had guided his baby footsteps long ago, the
+tender hands that had wiped his boyish tears, were stretched out with
+unalterable love toward him.
+
+“I have a message for you, dear,” she said gently--“a letter from him.
+Mademoiselle Jeanne allowed me to wait here for you until you came.”
+
+Silently, like a little shy mouse, Jeanne had slipped out of the room.
+Her pure love for Armand had ennobled every one of her thoughts, and her
+innate kindliness and refinement had already suggested that brother
+and sister would wish to be alone. At the door she had turned and met
+Armand’s look. That look had satisfied her; she felt that in it she
+had read the expression of his love, and to it she had responded with a
+glance that spoke of hope for a future meeting.
+
+As soon as the door had closed on Jeanne Lange, Armand, with an impulse
+that refused to be checked, threw himself into his sister’s arms. The
+present, with all its sorrows, its remorse and its shame, had sunk away;
+only the past remained--the unforgettable past, when Marguerite
+was “little mother”--the soother, the comforter, the healer, the
+ever-willing receptacle wherein he had been wont to pour the burden of
+his childish griefs, of his boyish escapades.
+
+Conscious that she could not know everything--not yet, at any rate--he
+gave himself over to the rapture of this pure embrace, the last
+time, mayhap, that those fond arms would close round him in unmixed
+tenderness, the last time that those fond lips would murmur words of
+affection and of comfort.
+
+To-morrow those same lips would, perhaps, curse the traitor, and the
+small hand be raised in wrath, pointing an avenging finger on the Judas.
+
+“Little mother,” he whispered, babbling like a child, “it is good to see
+you again.”
+
+“And I have brought you a message from Percy,” she said, “a letter which
+he begged me to give you as soon as may be.”
+
+“You have seen him?” he asked.
+
+She nodded silently, unable to speak. Not now, not when her nerves were
+strung to breaking pitch, would she trust herself to speak of that awful
+yesterday. She groped in the folds of her gown and took the packet which
+Percy had given her for Armand. It felt quite bulky in her hand.
+
+“There is quite a good deal there for you to read, dear,” she said.
+“Percy begged me to give you this, and then to let you read it when you
+were alone.”
+
+She pressed the packet into his hand. Armand’s face was ashen pale. He
+clung to her with strange, nervous tenacity; the paper which he held in
+one hand seemed to sear his fingers as with a branding-iron.
+
+“I will slip away now,” she said, for strangely enough since Percy’s
+message had been in Armand’s hands she was once again conscious of
+that awful feeling of iciness round her heart, a sense of numbness that
+paralysed her very thoughts.
+
+“You will make my excuses to Mademoiselle Lange,” she said, trying to
+smile. “When you have read, you will wish to see her alone.”
+
+Gently she disengaged herself from Armand’s grasp and made for the door.
+He appeared dazed, staring down at that paper which was scorching his
+fingers. Only when her hand was on the latch did he seem to realise that
+she was going.
+
+“Little mother,” came involuntarily to his lips.
+
+She came straight back to him and took both his wrists in her small
+hands. She was taller than he, and his head was slightly bent forward.
+Thus she towered over him, loving but strong, her great, earnest eyes
+searching his soul.
+
+“When shall I see you again, little mother?” he asked.
+
+“Read your letter, dear,” she replied, “and when you have read it, if
+you care to impart its contents to me, come to-night to my lodgings,
+Quai de la Ferraille, above the saddler’s shop. But if there is aught
+in it that you do not wish me to know, then do not come; I shall
+understand. Good-bye, dear.”
+
+She took his head between her two cold hands, and as it was still bowed
+she placed a tender kiss, as of a long farewell, upon his hair.
+
+Then she went out of the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV. THE LETTER
+
+Armand sat in the armchair in front of the fire. His head rested against
+one hand; in the other he held the letter written by the friend whom he
+had betrayed.
+
+Twice he had read it now, and already was every word of that minute,
+clear writing graven upon the innermost fibres of his body, upon the
+most secret cells of his brain.
+
+
+
+Armand, I know. I knew even before Chauvelin came to me, and stood there
+hoping to gloat over the soul-agony a man who finds that he has been
+betrayed by his dearest friend. But that d--d reprobate did not get
+that satisfaction, for I was prepared. Not only do I know, Armand, but
+I UNDERSTAND. I, who do not know what love is, have realised how small a
+thing is honour, loyalty, or friendship when weighed in the balance of a
+loved one’s need.
+
+To save Jeanne you sold me to Heron and his crowd. We are men, Armand,
+and the word forgiveness has only been spoken once these past two
+thousand years, and then it was spoken by Divine lips. But Marguerite
+loves you, and mayhap soon you will be all that is left her to love
+on this earth. Because of this she must never know.... As for you,
+Armand--well, God help you! But meseems that the hell which you are
+enduring now is ten thousand times worse than mine. I have heard your
+furtive footsteps in the corridor outside the grated window of this
+cell, and would not then have exchanged my hell for yours. Therefore,
+Armand, and because Marguerite loves you, I would wish to turn to you in
+the hour that I need help. I am in a tight corner, but the hour may
+come when a comrade’s hand might mean life to me. I have thought of you,
+Armand partly because having taken more than my life, your own belongs
+to me, and partly because the plan which I have in my mind will carry
+with it grave risks for the man who stands by me.
+
+I swore once that never would I risk a comrade’s life to save mine own;
+but matters are so different now... we are both in hell, Armand, and I
+in striving to get out of mine will be showing you a way out of yours.
+
+Will you retake possession of your lodgings in the Rue de la Croix
+Blanche? I should always know then where to find you in an emergency.
+But if at any time you receive another letter from me, be its contents
+what they may, act in accordance with the letter, and send a copy of
+it at once to Ffoulkes or to Marguerite. Keep in close touch with them
+both. Tell her I so far forgave your disobedience (there was nothing
+more) that I may yet trust my life and mine honour in your hands.
+
+I shall have no means of ascertaining definitely whether you will do all
+that I ask; but somehow, Armand, I know that you will.
+
+
+
+For the third time Armand read the letter through.
+
+“But, Armand,” he repeated, murmuring the words softly under his
+breath, “I know that you will.”
+
+Prompted by some indefinable instinct, moved by a force that compelled,
+he allowed himself to glide from the chair on to the floor, on to his
+knees.
+
+All the pent-up bitterness, the humiliation, the shame of the past few
+days, surged up from his heart to his lips in one great cry of pain.
+
+“My God!” he whispered, “give me the chance of giving my life for him.”
+
+Alone and unwatched, he gave himself over for a few moments to the
+almost voluptuous delight of giving free rein to his grief. The hot
+Latin blood in him, tempestuous in all its passions, was firing his
+heart and brain now with the glow of devotion and of self-sacrifice.
+
+The calm, self-centred Anglo-Saxon temperament--the almost fatalistic
+acceptance of failure without reproach yet without despair, which
+Percy’s letter to him had evidenced in so marked a manner--was, mayhap,
+somewhat beyond the comprehension of this young enthusiast, with pure
+Gallic blood in his veins, who was ever wont to allow his most
+elemental passions to sway his actions. But though he did not altogether
+understand, Armand St. Just could fully appreciate. All that was noble
+and loyal in him rose triumphant from beneath the devastating ashes of
+his own shame.
+
+Soon his mood calmed down, his look grew less wan and haggard. Hearing
+Jeanne’s discreet and mouselike steps in the next room, he rose quickly
+and hid the letter in the pocket of his coat.
+
+She came in and inquired anxiously about Marguerite; a hurriedly
+expressed excuse from him, however, satisfied her easily enough. She
+wanted to be alone with Armand, happy to see that he held his head more
+erect to-day, and that the look as of a hunted creature had entirely
+gone from his eyes.
+
+She ascribed this happy change to Marguerite, finding it in her heart to
+be grateful to the sister for having accomplished what the fiancee had
+failed to do.
+
+For awhile they remained together, sitting side by side, speaking
+at times, but mostly silent, seeming to savour the return of truant
+happiness. Armand felt like a sick man who has obtained a sudden
+surcease from pain. He looked round him with a kind of melancholy
+delight on this room which he had entered for the first time less than a
+fortnight ago, and which already was so full of memories.
+
+Those first hours spent at the feet of Jeanne Lange, how exquisite they
+had been, how fleeting in the perfection of their happiness! Now they
+seemed to belong to a far distant past, evanescent like the perfume
+of violets, swift in their flight like the winged steps of youth.
+Blakeney’s letter had effectually taken the bitter sting from out
+his remorse, but it had increased his already over-heavy load of
+inconsolable sorrow.
+
+Later in the day he turned his footsteps in the direction of the river,
+to the house in the Quai de la Ferraille above the saddler’s shop.
+Marguerite had returned alone from the expedition to the Rue de
+Charonne. Whilst Sir Andrew took charge of the little party of fugitives
+and escorted them out of Paris, she came back to her lodgings in order
+to collect her belongings, preparatory to taking up her quarters in the
+house of Lucas, the old-clothes dealer. She returned also because she
+hoped to see Armand.
+
+“If you care to impart the contents of the letter to me, come to my
+lodgings to-night,” she had said.
+
+All day a phantom had haunted her, the phantom of an agonising
+suspicion.
+
+But now the phantom had vanished never to return. Armand was sitting
+close beside her, and he told her that the chief had selected him
+amongst all the others to stand by him inside the walls of Paris until
+the last.
+
+“I shall mayhap,” thus closed that precious document, “have no means
+of ascertaining definitely whether you will act in accordance with this
+letter. But somehow, Armand, I know that you will.”
+
+“I know that you will, Armand,” reiterated Marguerite fervently.
+
+She had only been too eager to be convinced; the dread and dark
+suspicion which had been like a hideous poisoned sting had only vaguely
+touched her soul; it had not gone in very deeply. How could it, when in
+its death-dealing passage it encountered the rampart of tender, almost
+motherly love?
+
+Armand, trying to read his sister’s thoughts in the depths of her blue
+eyes, found the look in them limpid and clear. Percy’s message to Armand
+had reassured her just as he had intended that it should do. Fate had
+dealt over harshly with her as it was, and Blakeney’s remorse for the
+sorrow which he had already caused her, was scarcely less keen than
+Armand’s. He did not wish her to bear the intolerable burden of hatred
+against her brother; and by binding St. Just close to him at the
+supreme hour of danger he hoped to prove to the woman whom he loved so
+passionately that Armand was worthy of trust.
+
+
+
+PART III.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV. THE LAST PHASE
+
+“Well? How is it now?”
+
+“The last phase, I think.”
+
+“He will yield?”
+
+“He must.”
+
+“Bah! you have said it yourself often enough; those English are tough.”
+
+“It takes time to hack them to pieces, perhaps. In this case even you,
+citizen Chauvelin, said that it would take time. Well, it has taken just
+seventeen days, and now the end is in sight.”
+
+It was close on midnight in the guard-room which gave on the innermost
+cell of the Conciergerie. Heron had just visited the prisoner as was
+his wont at this hour of the night. He had watched the changing of the
+guard, inspected the night-watch, questioned the sergeant in charge, and
+finally he had been on the point of retiring to his own new quarters
+in the house of Justice, in the near vicinity of the Conciergerie, when
+citizen Chauvelin entered the guard-room unexpectedly and detained his
+colleague with the peremptory question:
+
+“How is it now?”
+
+“If you are so near the end, citizen Heron,” he now said, sinking his
+voice to a whisper, “why not make a final effort and end it to-night?”
+
+“I wish I could; the anxiety is wearing me out more’n him,” he added with a
+jerky movement of the head in direction of the inner cell.
+
+“Shall I try?” rejoined Chauvelin grimly.
+
+“Yes, an you wish.”
+
+Citizen Heron’s long limbs were sprawling on a guard-room chair. In this
+low narrow room he looked like some giant whose body had been carelessly
+and loosely put together by a ‘prentice hand in the art of manufacture.
+His broad shoulders were bent, probably under the weight of anxiety
+to which he had referred, and his head, with the lank, shaggy hair
+overshadowing the brow, was sunk deep down on his chest.
+
+Chauvelin looked on his friend and associate with no small measure
+of contempt. He would no doubt have preferred to conclude the present
+difficult transaction entirely in his own way and alone; but equally
+there was no doubt that the Committee of Public Safety did not trust
+him quite so fully as it used to do before the fiasco at Calais and the
+blunders of Boulogne. Heron, on the other hand, enjoyed to its outermost
+the confidence of his colleagues; his ferocious cruelty and his
+callousness were well known, whilst physically, owing to his great
+height and bulky if loosely knit frame, he had a decided advantage over
+his trim and slender friend.
+
+As far as the bringing of prisoners to trial was concerned, the chief
+agent of the Committee of General Security had been given a perfectly
+free hand by the decree of the 27th Nivose. At first, therefore, he
+had experienced no difficulty when he desired to keep the Englishman in
+close confinement for a time without hurrying on that summary trial and
+condemnation which the populace had loudly demanded, and to which they
+felt that they were entitled to as a public holiday. The death of the
+Scarlet Pimpernel on the guillotine had been a spectacle promised by
+every demagogue who desired to purchase a few votes by holding out
+visions of pleasant doings to come; and during the first few days the
+mob of Paris was content to enjoy the delights of expectation.
+
+But now seventeen days had gone by and still the Englishman was not
+being brought to trial. The pleasure-loving public was waxing impatient,
+and earlier this evening, when citizen Heron had shown himself in the
+stalls of the national theatre, he was greeted by a crowded audience
+with decided expressions of disapproval and open mutterings of:
+
+“What of the Scarlet Pimpernel?”
+
+It almost looked as if he would have to bring that accursed Englishman
+to the guillotine without having wrested from him the secret which he
+would have given a fortune to possess. Chauvelin, who had also been
+present at the theatre, had heard the expressions of discontent; hence
+his visit to his colleague at this late hour of the night.
+
+“Shall I try?” he had queried with some impatience, and a deep sigh of
+satisfaction escaped his thin lips when the chief agent, wearied and
+discouraged, had reluctantly agreed.
+
+“Let the men make as much noise as they like,” he added with an
+enigmatical smile. “The Englishman and I will want an accompaniment to
+our pleasant conversation.”
+
+Heron growled a surly assent, and without another word Chauvelin turned
+towards the inner cell. As he stepped in he allowed the iron bar to fall
+into its socket behind him. Then he went farther into the room until the
+distant recess was fully revealed to him. His tread had been furtive and
+almost noiseless. Now he paused, for he had caught sight of the prisoner.
+For a moment he stood quite still, with hands clasped behind his back in
+his wonted attitude--still save for a strange, involuntary twitching
+of his mouth, and the nervous clasping and interlocking of his fingers
+behind his back. He was savouring to its utmost fulsomeness the
+supremest joy which animal man can ever know--the joy of looking on a
+fallen enemy.
+
+Blakeney sat at the table with one arm resting on it, the emaciated
+hand tightly clutched, the body leaning forward, the eyes looking into
+nothingness.
+
+For the moment he was unconscious of Chauvelin’s presence, and the
+latter could gaze on him to the full content of his heart.
+
+Indeed, to all outward appearances there sat a man whom privations of
+every sort and kind, the want of fresh air, of proper food, above all,
+of rest, had worn down physically to a shadow. There was not a particle
+of colour in cheeks or lips, the skin was grey in hue, the eyes looked
+like deep caverns, wherein the glow of fever was all that was left of
+life.
+
+Chauvelin looked on in silence, vaguely stirred by something that
+he could not define, something that right through his triumphant
+satisfaction, his hatred and final certainty of revenge, had roused in
+him a sense almost of admiration.
+
+He gazed on the noiseless figure of the man who had endured so much for
+an ideal, and as he gazed it seemed to him as if the spirit no longer
+dwelt in the body, but hovered round in the dank, stuffy air of the
+narrow cell above the head of the lonely prisoner, crowning it with
+glory that was no longer of this earth.
+
+Of this the looker-on was conscious despite himself, of that and of the
+fact that stare as he might, and with perception rendered doubly keen
+by hate, he could not, in spite of all, find the least trace of mental
+weakness in that far-seeing gaze which seemed to pierce the prison
+walls, nor could he see that bodily weakness had tended to subdue the
+ruling passions.
+
+Sir Percy Blakeney--a prisoner since seventeen days in close, solitary
+confinement, half-starved, deprived of rest, and of that mental and
+physical activity which had been the very essence of life to him
+hitherto--might be outwardly but a shadow of his former brilliant self,
+but nevertheless he was still that same elegant English gentleman, that
+prince of dandies whom Chauvelin had first met eighteen months ago at
+the most courtly Court in Europe. His clothes, despite constant wear
+and the want of attention from a scrupulous valet, still betrayed the
+perfection of London tailoring; he had put them on with meticulous care,
+they were free from the slightest particle of dust, and the filmy folds
+of priceless Mechlin still half-veiled the delicate whiteness of his
+shapely hands.
+
+And in the pale, haggard face, in the whole pose of body and of arm,
+there was still the expression of that indomitable strength of will,
+that reckless daring, that almost insolent challenge to Fate; it was
+there untamed, uncrushed. Chauvelin himself could not deny to himself
+its presence or its force. He felt that behind that smooth brow, which
+looked waxlike now, the mind was still alert, scheming, plotting,
+striving for freedom, for conquest and for power, and rendered even
+doubly keen and virile by the ardour of supreme self-sacrifice.
+
+Chauvelin now made a slight movement and suddenly Blakeney became
+conscious of his presence, and swift as a flash a smile lit up his wan
+face.
+
+“Why! if it is not my engaging friend Monsieur Chambertin,” he said
+gaily.
+
+He rose and stepped forward in the most approved fashion prescribed by
+the elaborate etiquette of the time. But Chauvelin smiled grimly and a
+look of almost animal lust gleamed in his pale eyes, for he had noted
+that as he rose Sir Percy had to seek the support of the table, even
+whilst a dull film appeared to gather over his eyes.
+
+The gesture had been quick and cleverly disguised, but it had been there
+nevertheless--that and the livid hue that overspread the face as if
+consciousness was threatening to go. All of which was sufficient still
+further to assure the looker-on that that mighty physical strength was
+giving way at last, that strength which he had hated in his enemy almost
+as much as he had hated the thinly veiled insolence of his manner.
+
+“And what procures me, sir, the honour of your visit?” continued
+Blakeney, who had--at any rate, outwardly soon recovered himself, and
+whose voice, though distinctly hoarse and spent, rang quite cheerfully
+across the dank narrow cell.
+
+“My desire for your welfare, Sir Percy,” replied Chauvelin with equal
+pleasantry.
+
+“La, sir; but have you not gratified that desire already, to an extent
+which leaves no room for further solicitude? But I pray you, will you
+not sit down?” he continued, turning back toward the table. “I was about
+to partake of the lavish supper which your friends have provided for me.
+Will you not share it, sir? You are most royally welcome, and it will
+mayhap remind you of that supper we shared together in Calais, eh? when
+you, Monsieur Chambertin, were temporarily in holy orders.”
+
+He laughed, offering his enemy a chair, and pointed with inviting
+gesture to the hunk of brown bread and the mug of water which stood on
+the table.
+
+“Such as it is, sir,” he said with a pleasant smile, “it is yours to
+command.”
+
+Chauvelin sat down. He held his lower lip tightly between his teeth, so
+tightly that a few drops of blood appeared upon its narrow surface. He
+was making vigorous efforts to keep his temper under control, for he
+would not give his enemy the satisfaction of seeing him resent his
+insolence. He could afford to keep calm now that victory was at last
+in sight, now that he knew that he had but to raise a finger, and those
+smiling, impudent lips would be closed forever at last.
+
+“Sir Percy,” he resumed quietly, “no doubt it affords you a certain
+amount of pleasure to aim your sarcastic shafts at me. I will not
+begrudge you that pleasure; in your present position, sir, your shafts
+have little or no sting.”
+
+“And I shall have but few chances left to aim them at your charming
+self,” interposed Blakeney, who had drawn another chair close to the
+table and was now sitting opposite his enemy, with the light of the lamp
+falling full on his own face, as if he wished his enemy to know that he
+had nothing to hide, no thought, no hope, no fear.
+
+“Exactly,” said Chauvelin dryly. “That being the case, Sir Percy, what
+say you to no longer wasting the few chances which are left to you for
+safety? The time is getting on. You are not, I imagine, quite as hopeful
+as you were even a week ago,... you have never been over-comfortable in
+this cell, why not end this unpleasant state of affairs now--once and
+for all? You’ll not have cause to regret it. My word on it.”
+
+Sir Percy leaned back in his chair. He yawned loudly and ostentatiously.
+
+“I pray you, sir, forgive me,” he said. “Never have I been so d--d
+fatigued. I have not slept for more than a fortnight.”
+
+“Exactly, Sir Percy. A night’s rest would do you a world of good.”
+
+“A night, sir?” exclaimed Blakeney with what seemed like an echo of his
+former inimitable laugh. “La! I should want a week.”
+
+“I am afraid we could not arrange for that, but one night would greatly
+refresh you.”
+
+“You are right, sir, you are right; but those d--d fellows in the next
+room make so much noise.”
+
+“I would give strict orders that perfect quietude reigned in the
+guard-room this night,” said Chauvelin, murmuring softly, and there
+was a gentle purr in his voice, “and that you were left undisturbed for
+several hours. I would give orders that a comforting supper be served to
+you at once, and that everything be done to minister to your wants.”
+
+“That sounds d--d alluring, sir. Why did you not suggest this before?”
+
+“You were so--what shall I say--so obstinate, Sir Percy?”
+
+“Call it pig-headed, my dear Monsieur Chambertin,” retorted Blakeney
+gaily, “truly you would oblige me.”
+
+“In any case you, sir, were acting in direct opposition to your own
+interests.”
+
+“Therefore you came,” concluded Blakeney airily, “like the good
+Samaritan to take compassion on me and my troubles, and to lead me
+straight away to comfort, a good supper and a downy bed.”
+
+“Admirably put, Sir Percy,” said Chauvelin blandly; “that is exactly my
+mission.”
+
+“How will you set to work, Monsieur Chambertin?”
+
+“Quite easily, if you, Sir Percy, will yield to the persuasion of my
+friend citizen Heron.”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“Why, yes! He is anxious to know where little Capet is. A reasonable
+whim, you will own, considering that the disappearance of the child is
+causing him grave anxiety.”
+
+“And you, Monsieur Chambertin?” queried Sir Percy with that suspicion of
+insolence in his manner which had the power to irritate his enemy even
+now. “And yourself, sir; what are your wishes in the matter?”
+
+“Mine, Sir Percy?” retorted Chauvelin. “Mine? Why, to tell you the
+truth, the fate of little Capet interests me but little. Let him rot in
+Austria or in our prisons, I care not which. He’ll never trouble France
+overmuch, I imagine. The teachings of old Simon will not tend to make a
+leader or a king out of the puny brat whom you chose to drag out of our
+keeping. My wishes, sir, are the annihilation of your accursed League,
+and the lasting disgrace, if not the death, of its chief.”
+
+He had spoken more hotly than he had intended, but all the pent-up
+rage of the past eighteen months, the recollections of Calais and of
+Boulogne, had all surged up again in his mind, because despite the
+closeness of these prison walls, despite the grim shadow of starvation
+and of death that beckoned so close at hand, he still encountered a pair
+of mocking eyes, fixed with relentless insolence upon him.
+
+Whilst he spoke Blakeney had once more leaned forward, resting his
+elbows upon the table. Now he drew nearer to him the wooden platter
+on which reposed that very uninviting piece of dry bread. With solemn
+intentness he proceeded to break the bread into pieces; then he offered
+the platter to Chauvelin.
+
+“I am sorry,” he said pleasantly, “that I cannot offer you more dainty fare,
+sir, but this is all that your friends have supplied me with to-day.”
+
+He crumbled some of the dry bread in his slender fingers, then started
+munching the crumbs with apparent relish. He poured out some water into
+the mug and drank it. Then he said with a light laugh:
+
+“Even the vinegar which that ruffian Brogard served us at Calais was
+preferable to this, do you not imagine so, my good Monsieur Chambertin?”
+
+Chauvelin made no reply. Like a feline creature on the prowl, he was
+watching the prey that had so nearly succumbed to his talons. Blakeney’s
+face now was positively ghastly. The effort to speak, to laugh, to
+appear unconcerned, was apparently beyond his strength. His cheeks and
+lips were livid in hue, the skin clung like a thin layer of wax to the
+bones of cheek and jaw, and the heavy lids that fell over the eyes had
+purple patches on them like lead.
+
+To a system in such an advanced state of exhaustion the stale water and
+dusty bread must have been terribly nauseating, and Chauvelin himself
+callous and thirsting for vengeance though he was, could hardly bear to
+look calmly on the martyrdom of this man whom he and his colleagues were
+torturing in order to gain their own ends.
+
+An ashen hue, which seemed like the shadow of the hand of death, passed
+over the prisoner’s face. Chauvelin felt compelled to avert his gaze. A
+feeling that was almost akin to remorse had stirred a hidden chord in his
+heart. The feeling did not last--the heart had been too long atrophied
+by the constantly recurring spectacles of cruelties, massacres, and
+wholesale hecatombs perpetrated in the past eighteen months in the name
+of liberty and fraternity to be capable of a sustained effort in
+the direction of gentleness or of pity. Any noble instinct in these
+revolutionaries had long ago been drowned in a whirlpool of exploits
+that would forever sully the records of humanity; and this keeping of
+a fellow-creature on the rack in order to wring from him a Judas-like
+betrayal was but a complement to a record of infamy that had ceased by
+its very magnitude to weigh upon their souls.
+
+Chauvelin was in no way different from his colleagues; the crimes in
+which he had had no hand he had condoned by continuing to serve the
+Government that had committed them, and his ferocity in the present case
+was increased a thousandfold by his personal hatred for the man who had
+so often fooled and baffled him.
+
+When he looked round a second or two later that ephemeral fit of remorse
+did its final vanishing; he had once more encountered the pleasant
+smile, the laughing if ashen-pale face of his unconquered foe.
+
+“Only a passing giddiness, my dear sir,” said Sir Percy lightly. “As you
+were saying--”
+
+At the airily-spoken words, at the smile that accompanied them,
+Chauvelin had jumped to his feet. There was something almost
+supernatural, weird, and impish about the present situation, about this
+dying man who, like an impudent schoolboy, seemed to be mocking Death
+with his tongue in his cheek, about his laugh that appeared to find its
+echo in a widely yawning grave.
+
+“In the name of God, Sir Percy,” he said roughly, as he brought
+his clenched fist crashing down upon the table, “this situation is
+intolerable. Bring it to an end to-night!”
+
+“Why, sir?” retorted Blakeney, “methought you and your kind did not
+believe in God.”
+
+“No. But you English do.”
+
+“We do. But we do not care to hear His name on your lips.”
+
+“Then in the name of the wife whom you love--”
+
+But even before the words had died upon his lips, Sir Percy, too, had
+risen to his feet.
+
+“Have done, man--have done,” he broke in hoarsely, and despite weakness,
+despite exhaustion and weariness, there was such a dangerous look in
+his hollow eyes as he leaned across the table that Chauvelin drew back a
+step or two, and--vaguely fearful--looked furtively towards the opening
+into the guard-room. “Have done,” he reiterated for the third time; “do
+not name her, or by the living God whom you dared to invoke I’ll find
+strength yet to smite you in the face.”
+
+But Chauvelin, after that first moment of almost superstitious fear, had
+quickly recovered his sang-froid.
+
+“Little Capet, Sir Percy,” he said, meeting the other’s threatening
+glance with an imperturbable smile, “tell me where to find him, and
+you may yet live to savour the caresses of the most beautiful woman in
+England.”
+
+He had meant it as a taunt, the final turn of the thumb-screw applied to
+a dying man, and he had in that watchful, keen mind of his well weighed
+the full consequences of the taunt.
+
+The next moment he had paid to the full the anticipated price. Sir Percy
+had picked up the pewter mug from the table--it was half-filled with
+brackish water--and with a hand that trembled but slightly he hurled it
+straight at his opponent’s face.
+
+The heavy mug did not hit citizen Chauvelin; it went crashing against
+the stone wall opposite. But the water was trickling from the top of his
+head all down his eyes and cheeks. He shrugged his shoulders with a look
+of benign indulgence directed at his enemy, who had fallen back into his
+chair exhausted with the effort.
+
+Then he took out his handkerchief and calmly wiped the water from his
+face.
+
+“Not quite so straight a shot as you used to be, Sir Percy,” he said
+mockingly.
+
+“No, sir--apparently--not.”
+
+The words came out in gasps. He was like a man only partly conscious.
+The lips were parted, the eyes closed, the head leaning against the high
+back of the chair. For the space of one second Chauvelin feared that his
+zeal had outrun his prudence, that he had dealt a death-blow to a man
+in the last stage of exhaustion, where he had only wished to fan the
+flickering flame of life. Hastily--for the seconds seemed precious--he
+ran to the opening that led into the guard-room.
+
+“Brandy--quick!” he cried.
+
+Heron looked up, roused from the semi-somnolence in which he had lain
+for the past half-hour. He disentangled his long limbs from out the
+guard-room chair.
+
+“Eh?” he queried. “What is it?”
+
+“Brandy,” reiterated Chauvelin impatiently; “the prisoner has fainted.”
+
+“Bah!” retorted the other with a callous shrug of the shoulders, “you
+are not going to revive him with brandy, I imagine.”
+
+“No. But you will, citizen Heron,” rejoined the other dryly, “for if you
+do not he’ll be dead in an hour!”
+
+“Devils in hell!” exclaimed Heron, “you have not killed him? You--you
+d--d fool!”
+
+He was wide awake enough now; wide awake and shaking with fury. Almost
+foaming at the mouth and uttering volleys of the choicest oaths, he
+elbowed his way roughly through the groups of soldiers who were crowding
+round the centre table of the guard-room, smoking and throwing dice or
+playing cards. They made way for him as hurriedly as they could, for it
+was not safe to thwart the citizen agent when he was in a rage.
+
+Heron walked across to the opening and lifted the iron bar. With scant
+ceremony he pushed his colleague aside and strode into the cell, whilst
+Chauvelin, seemingly not resenting the other’s ruffianly manners and
+violent language, followed close upon his heel.
+
+In the centre of the room both men paused, and Heron turned with a surly
+growl to his friend.
+
+“You vowed he would be dead in an hour,” he said reproachfully.
+
+The other shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“It does not look like it now certainly,” he said dryly.
+
+Blakeney was sitting--as was his wont--close to the table, with one arm
+leaning on it, the other, tightly clenched, resting upon his knee. A
+ghost of a smile hovered round his lips.
+
+“Not in an hour, citizen Heron,” he said, and his voice flow was scarce
+above a whisper, “nor yet in two.”
+
+“You are a fool, man,” said Heron roughly. “You have had seventeen days
+of this. Are you not sick of it?”
+
+“Heartily, my dear friend,” replied Blakeney a little more firmly.
+
+“Seventeen days,” reiterated the other, nodding his shaggy head; “you
+came here on the 2nd of Pluviose, today is the 19th.”
+
+“The 19th Pluviose?” interposed Sir Percy, and a strange gleam suddenly
+flashed in his eyes. “Demn it, sir, and in Christian parlance what may
+that day be?”
+
+“The 7th of February at your service, Sir Percy,” replied Chauvelin
+quietly.
+
+“I thank you, sir. In this d--d hole I had lost count of time.”
+
+Chauvelin, unlike his rough and blundering colleague, had been watching
+the prisoner very closely for the last moment or two, conscious of a
+subtle, undefinable change that had come over the man during those
+few seconds while he, Chauvelin, had thought him dying. The pose was
+certainly the old familiar one, the head erect, the hand clenched, the
+eyes looking through and beyond the stone walls; but there was an air
+of listlessness in the stoop of the shoulders, and--except for that one
+brief gleam just now--a look of more complete weariness round the hollow
+eyes! To the keen watcher it appeared as if that sense of living power,
+of unconquered will and defiant mind was no longer there, and as if he
+himself need no longer fear that almost supersensual thrill which had a
+while ago kindled in him a vague sense of admiration--almost of remorse.
+
+Even as he gazed, Blakeney slowly turned his eyes full upon him.
+Chauvelin’s heart gave a triumphant bound.
+
+With a mocking smile he met the wearied look, the pitiable appeal. His
+turn had come at last--his turn to mock and to exult. He knew that what
+he was watching now was no longer the last phase of a long and noble
+martyrdom; it was the end--the inevitable end--that for which he had
+schemed and striven, for which he had schooled his heart to ferocity
+and callousness that were devilish in their intensity. It was the end
+indeed, the slow descent of a soul from the giddy heights of attempted
+self-sacrifice, where it had striven to soar for a time, until the body
+and the will both succumbed together and dragged it down with them into
+the abyss of submission and of irreparable shame.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI. SUBMISSION
+
+Silence reigned in the narrow cell for a few moments, whilst two human
+jackals stood motionless over their captured prey.
+
+A savage triumph gleamed in Chauvelin’s eyes, and even Heron, dull and
+brutal though he was, had become vaguely conscious of the great change
+that had come over the prisoner.
+
+Blakeney, with a gesture and a sigh of hopeless exhaustion had once
+more rested both his elbows on the table; his head fell heavy and almost
+lifeless downward in his arms.
+
+“Curse you, man!” cried Heron almost involuntarily. “Why in the name of
+hell did you wait so long?”
+
+Then, as the prisoner made no reply, but only raised his head slightly,
+and looked on the other two men with dulled, wearied eyes, Chauvelin
+interposed calmly:
+
+“More than a fortnight has been wasted in useless obstinacy, Sir Percy.
+Fortunately it is not too late.”
+
+“Capet?” said Heron hoarsely, “tell us, where is Capet?”
+
+He leaned across the table, his eyes were bloodshot with the keenness
+of his excitement, his voice shook with the passionate desire for the
+crowning triumph.
+
+“If you’ll only not worry me,” murmured the prisoner; and the whisper
+came so laboriously and so low that both men were forced to bend their
+ears close to the scarcely moving lips; “if you will let me sleep and
+rest, and leave me in peace--”
+
+“The peace of the grave, man,” retorted Chauvelin roughly; “if you will
+only speak. Where is Capet?”
+
+“I cannot tell you; the way is long, the road--intricate.”
+
+“Bah!”
+
+“I’ll lead you to him, if you will give me rest.”
+
+“We don’t want you to lead us anywhere,” growled Heron with a smothered
+curse; “tell us where Capet is; we’ll find him right enough.”
+
+“I cannot explain; the way is intricate; the place off the beaten track,
+unknown except to me and my friends.”
+
+Once more that shadow, which was so like the passing of the hand of
+Death, overspread the prisoner’s face; his head rolled back against the
+chair.
+
+“He’ll die before he can speak,” muttered Chauvelin under his breath.
+“You usually are well provided with brandy, citizen Heron.”
+
+The latter no longer demurred. He saw the danger as clearly as did his
+colleague. It had been hell’s own luck if the prisoner were to die now
+when he seemed ready to give in. He produced a flask from the pocket of
+his coat, and this he held to Blakeney’s lips.
+
+“Beastly stuff,” murmured the latter feebly. “I think I’d sooner
+faint--than drink.”
+
+“Capet? where is Capet?” reiterated Heron impatiently.
+
+“One--two--three hundred leagues from here. I must let one of my friends
+know; he’ll communicate with the others; they must be prepared,” replied
+the prisoner slowly.
+
+Heron uttered a blasphemous oath.
+
+“Where is Capet? Tell us where Capet is, or--”
+
+He was like a raging tiger that had thought to hold its prey and
+suddenly realised that it was being snatched from him. He raised his
+fist, and without doubt the next moment he would have silenced forever
+the lips that held the precious secret, but Chauvelin fortunately was
+quick enough to seize his wrist.
+
+“Have a care, citizen,” he said peremptorily; “have a care! You called
+me a fool just now when you thought I had killed the prisoner. It is his
+secret we want first; his death can follow afterwards.”
+
+“Yes, but not in this d--d hole,” murmured Blakeney.
+
+“On the guillotine if you’ll speak,” cried Heron, whose exasperation was
+getting the better of his self-interest, “but if you’ll not speak then
+it shall be starvation in this hole--yes, starvation,” he growled,
+showing a row of large and uneven teeth like those of some mongrel cur,
+“for I’ll have that door walled in to-night, and not another living soul
+shall cross this threshold again until your flesh has rotted on your
+bones and the rats have had their fill of you.”
+
+The prisoner raised his head slowly, a shiver shook him as if caused by
+ague, and his eyes, that appeared almost sightless, now looked with a
+strange glance of horror on his enemy.
+
+“I’ll die in the open,” he whispered, “not in this d--d hole.”
+
+“Then tell us where Capet is.”
+
+“I cannot; I wish to God I could. But I’ll take you to him, I swear I
+will. I’ll make my friends give him up to you. Do you think that I would
+not tell you now, if I could.”
+
+Heron, whose every instinct of tyranny revolted against this thwarting
+of his will, would have continued to heckle the prisoner even now, had
+not Chauvelin suddenly interposed with an authoritative gesture.
+
+“You’ll gain nothing this way, citizen,” he said quietly; “the man’s
+mind is wandering; he is probably quite unable to give you clear
+directions at this moment.”
+
+“What am I to do, then?” muttered the other roughly.
+
+“He cannot live another twenty-four hours now, and would only grow more
+and more helpless as time went on.”
+
+“Unless you relax your strict regime with him.”
+
+“And if I do we’ll only prolong this situation indefinitely; and in the
+meanwhile how do we know that the brat is not being spirited away out of
+the country?”
+
+The prisoner, with his head once more buried in his arms, had fallen
+into a kind of torpor, the only kind of sleep that the exhausted system
+would allow. With a brutal gesture Heron shook him by the shoulder.
+
+“He,” he shouted, “none of that, you know. We have not settled the
+matter of young Capet yet.”
+
+Then, as the prisoner made no movement, and the chief agent indulged
+in one of his favourite volleys of oaths, Chauvelin placed a peremptory
+hand on his colleague’s shoulder.
+
+“I tell you, citizen, that this is no use,” he said firmly. “Unless you
+are prepared to give up all thoughts of finding Capet, you must try and
+curb your temper, and try diplomacy where force is sure to fail.”
+
+“Diplomacy?” retorted the other with a sneer. “Bah! it served you well
+at Boulogne last autumn, did it not, citizen Chauvelin?”
+
+“It has served me better now,” rejoined the other imperturbably. “You
+will own, citizen, that it is my diplomacy which has placed within your
+reach the ultimate hope of finding Capet.”
+
+“H’m!” muttered the other, “you advised us to starve the prisoner. Are
+we any nearer to knowing his secret?”
+
+“Yes. By a fortnight of weariness, of exhaustion and of starvation, you
+are nearer to it by the weakness of the man whom in his full strength
+you could never hope to conquer.”
+
+“But if the cursed Englishman won’t speak, and in the meanwhile dies on
+my hands--”
+
+“He won’t do that if you will accede to his wish. Give him some good
+food now, and let him sleep till dawn.”
+
+“And at dawn he’ll defy me again. I believe now that he has some scheme
+in his mind, and means to play us a trick.”
+
+“That, I imagine, is more than likely,” retorted Chauvelin dryly;
+“though,” he added with a contemptuous nod of the head directed at the
+huddled-up figure of his once brilliant enemy, “neither mind nor body
+seem to me to be in a sufficiently active state just now for hatching
+plot or intrigue; but even if--vaguely floating through his clouded
+mind--there has sprung some little scheme for evasion, I give you my
+word, citizen Heron, that you can thwart him completely, and gain all
+that you desire, if you will only follow my advice.”
+
+There had always been a great amount of persuasive power in citizen
+Chauvelin, ex-envoy of the revolutionary Government of France at the
+Court of St. James, and that same persuasive eloquence did not fail now
+in its effect on the chief agent of the Committee of General Security.
+The latter was made of coarser stuff than his more brilliant colleague.
+Chauvelin was like a wily and sleek panther that is furtive in its
+movements, that will lure its prey, watch it, follow it with stealthy
+footsteps, and only pounce on it when it is least wary, whilst Heron was
+more like a raging bull that tosses its head in a blind, irresponsible
+fashion, rushes at an obstacle without gauging its resisting powers,
+and allows its victim to slip from beneath its weight through the very
+clumsiness and brutality of its assault.
+
+Still Chauvelin had two heavy black marks against him--those of his
+failures at Calais and Boulogne. Heron, rendered cautious both by the
+deadly danger in which he stood and the sense of his own incompetence to
+deal with the present situation, tried to resist the other’s authority
+as well as his persuasion.
+
+“Your advice was not of great use to citizen Collot last autumn at
+Boulogne,” he said, and spat on the ground by way of expressing both his
+independence and his contempt.
+
+“Still, citizen Heron,” retorted Chauvelin with unruffled patience, “it
+is the best advice that you are likely to get in the present emergency.
+You have eyes to see, have you not? Look on your prisoner at this
+moment. Unless something is done, and at once, too, he will be past
+negotiating with in the next twenty-four hours; then what will follow?”
+
+He put his thin hand once more on his colleague’s grubby coat-sleeve,
+he drew him closer to himself away from the vicinity of that huddled
+figure, that captive lion, wrapped in a torpid somnolence that looked
+already so like the last long sleep.
+
+“What will follow, citizen Heron?” he reiterated, sinking his voice to
+a whisper; “sooner or later some meddlesome busybody who sits in the
+Assembly of the Convention will get wind that little Capet is no longer
+in the Temple prison, that a pauper child was substituted for him, and
+that you, citizen Heron, together with the commissaries in charge,
+have thus been fooling the nation and its representatives for over a
+fortnight. What will follow then, think you?”
+
+And he made an expressive gesture with his outstretched fingers across
+his throat.
+
+Heron found no other answer but blasphemy.
+
+“I’ll make that cursed Englishman speak yet,” he said with a fierce
+oath.
+
+“You cannot,” retorted Chauvelin decisively. “In his present state he is
+incapable of it, even if he would, which also is doubtful.”
+
+“Ah! then you do think that he still means to cheat us?”
+
+“Yes, I do. But I also know that he is no longer in a physical state
+to do it. No doubt he thinks that he is. A man of that type is sure to
+overvalue his own strength; but look at him, citizen Heron. Surely you
+must see that we have nothing to fear from him now.”
+
+Heron now was like a voracious creature that has two victims lying ready
+for his gluttonous jaws. He was loath to let either of them go. He hated
+the very thought of seeing the Englishman being led out of this narrow
+cell, where he had kept a watchful eye over him night and day for a
+fortnight, satisfied that with every day, every hour, the chances of
+escape became more improbable and more rare; at the same time there was
+the possibility of the recapture of little Capet, a possibility which
+made Heron’s brain reel with the delightful vista of it, and which might
+never come about if the prisoner remained silent to the end.
+
+“I wish I were quite sure,” he said sullenly, “that you were body and
+soul in accord with me.”
+
+“I am in accord with you, citizen Heron,” rejoined the other
+earnestly--“body and soul in accord with you. Do you not believe that
+I hate this man--aye! hate him with a hatred ten thousand times more
+strong than yours? I want his death--Heaven or hell alone know how I
+long for that--but what I long for most is his lasting disgrace. For
+that I have worked, citizen Heron--for that I advised and helped you.
+When first you captured this man you wanted summarily to try him, to
+send him to the guillotine amidst the joy of the populace of Paris,
+and crowned with a splendid halo of martyrdom. That man, citizen Heron,
+would have baffled you, mocked you, and fooled you even on the steps of
+the scaffold. In the zenith of his strength and of insurmountable good
+luck you and all your myrmidons and all the assembled guard of Paris
+would have had no power over him. The day that you led him out of this
+cell in order to take him to trial or to the guillotine would have been
+that of your hopeless discomfiture. Having once walked out of this cell
+hale, hearty and alert, be the escort round him ever so strong, he never
+would have re-entered it again. Of that I am as convinced as that I am
+alive. I know the man; you don’t. Mine are not the only fingers through
+which he has slipped. Ask citizen Collot d’Herbois, ask Sergeant Bibot
+at the barrier of Menilmontant, ask General Santerre and his guards.
+They all have a tale to tell. Did I believe in God or the devil, I
+should also believe that this man has supernatural powers and a host of
+demons at his beck and call.”
+
+“Yet you talk now of letting him walk out of this cell to-morrow?”
+
+“He is a different man now, citizen Heron. On my advice you placed
+him on a regime that has counteracted the supernatural power by simple
+physical exhaustion, and driven to the four winds the host of demons who
+no doubt fled in the face of starvation.”
+
+“If only I thought that the recapture of Capet was as vital to you as it
+is to me,” said Heron, still unconvinced.
+
+“The capture of Capet is just as vital to me as it is to you,” rejoined
+Chauvelin earnestly, “if it is brought about through the instrumentality
+of the Englishman.”
+
+He paused, looking intently on his colleague, whose shifty eyes
+encountered his own. Thus eye to eye the two men at last understood one
+another.
+
+“Ah!” said Heron with a snort, “I think I understand.”
+
+“I am sure that you do,” responded Chauvelin dryly. “The disgrace of
+this cursed Scarlet Pimpernel and his League is as vital to me, and
+more, as the capture of Capet is to you. That is why I showed you the
+way how to bring that meddlesome adventurer to his knees; that is why I
+will help you now both to find Capet and with his aid and to wreak what
+reprisals you like on him in the end.”
+
+Heron before he spoke again cast one more look on the prisoner. The
+latter had not stirred; his face was hidden, but the hands, emaciated,
+nerveless and waxen, like those of the dead, told a more eloquent tale,
+mayhap, then than the eyes could do. The chief agent of the Committee of
+General Security walked deliberately round the table until he stood once
+more close beside the man from whom he longed with passionate ardour
+to wrest an all-important secret. With brutal, grimy hand he raised the
+head that lay, sunken and inert, against the table; with callous eyes he
+gazed attentively on the face that was then revealed to him, he looked
+on the waxen flesh, the hollow eyes, the bloodless lips; then he
+shrugged his wide shoulders, and with a laugh that surely must have
+caused joy in hell, he allowed the wearied head to fall back against the
+outstretched arms, and turned once again to his colleague.
+
+“I think you are right, citizen Chauvelin,” he said; “there is not much
+supernatural power here. Let me hear your advice.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII. CHAUVELIN’S ADVICE
+
+Citizen Chauvelin had drawn his colleague with him to the end of the
+cell that was farthest away from the recess, and the table at which the
+prisoner was sitting.
+
+Here the noise and hubbub that went on constantly in the guard room
+would effectually drown a whispered conversation. Chauvelin called to
+the sergeant to hand him a couple of chairs over the barrier. These he
+placed against the wall opposite the opening, and beckoning Heron to sit
+down, he did likewise, placing himself close to his colleague.
+
+From where the two men now sat they could see both into the guard-room
+opposite them and into the recess at the furthermost end of the cell.
+
+“First of all,” began Chauvelin after a while, and sinking his voice to
+a whisper, “let me understand you thoroughly, citizen Heron. Do you want
+the death of the Englishman, either to-day or to-morrow, either in this
+prison or on the guillotine? For that now is easy of accomplishment; or
+do you want, above all, to get hold of little Capet?”
+
+“It is Capet I want,” growled Heron savagely under his breath. “Capet!
+Capet! My own neck is dependent on my finding Capet. Curse you, have I
+not told you that clearly enough?”
+
+“You have told it me very clearly, citizen Heron; but I wished to make
+assurance doubly sure, and also make you understand that I, too, want
+the Englishman to betray little Capet into your hands. I want that more
+even than I do his death.”
+
+“Then in the name of hell, citizen, give me your advice.”
+
+“My advice to you, citizen Heron, is this: Give your prisoner now just
+a sufficiency of food to revive him--he will have had a few moments’
+sleep--and when he has eaten, and, mayhap, drunk a glass of wine, he
+will, no doubt, feel a recrudescence of strength, then give him pen and
+ink and paper. He must, as he says, write to one of his followers, who,
+in his turn, I suppose, will communicate with the others, bidding them
+to be prepared to deliver up little Capet to us; the letter must make
+it clear to that crowd of English gentlemen that their beloved chief
+is giving up the uncrowned King of France to us in exchange for his own
+safety. But I think you will agree with me, citizen Heron, that it would
+not be over-prudent on our part to allow that same gallant crowd to be
+forewarned too soon of the proposed doings of their chief. Therefore,
+I think, we’ll explain to the prisoner that his follower, whom he will
+first apprise of his intentions, shall start with us to-morrow on our
+expedition, and accompany us until its last stage, when, if it is found
+necessary, he may be sent on ahead, strongly escorted of course, and
+with personal messages from the gallant Scarlet Pimpernel to the members
+of his League.”
+
+“What will be the good of that?” broke in Heron viciously. “Do you want
+one of his accursed followers to be ready to give him a helping hand on
+the way if he tries to slip through our fingers?”
+
+“Patience, patience, my good Heron!” rejoined Chauvelin with a placid
+smile. “Hear me out to the end. Time is precious. You shall offer what
+criticism you will when I have finished, but not before.”
+
+“Go on, then. I listen.”
+
+“I am not only proposing that one member of the Scarlet Pimpernel League
+shall accompany us to-morrow,” continued Chauvelin, “but I would also
+force the prisoner’s wife--Marguerite Blakeney--to follow in our train.”
+
+“A woman? Bah! What for?”
+
+“I will tell you the reason of this presently. In her case I should not
+let the prisoner know beforehand that she too will form a part of our
+expedition. Let this come as a pleasing surprise for him. She could join
+us on our way out of Paris.”
+
+“How will you get hold of her?”
+
+“Easily enough. I know where to find her. I traced her myself a few days
+ago to a house in the Rue de Charonne, and she is not likely to have
+gone away from Paris while her husband was at the Conciergerie. But this
+is a digression, let me proceed more consecutively. The letter, as
+I have said, being written to-night by the prisoner to one of his
+followers, I will myself see that it is delivered into the right hands.
+You, citizen Heron, will in the meanwhile make all arrangements for
+the journey. We ought to start at dawn, and we ought to be prepared,
+especially during the first fifty leagues of the way, against organised
+attack in case the Englishman leads us into an ambush.”
+
+“Yes. He might even do that, curse him!” muttered Heron.
+
+“He might, but it is unlikely. Still it is best to be prepared. Take
+a strong escort, citizen, say twenty or thirty men, picked and trained
+soldiers who would make short work of civilians, however well-armed they
+might be. There are twenty members--including the chief--in that Scarlet
+Pimpernel League, and I do not quite see how from this cell the prisoner
+could organise an ambuscade against us at a given time. Anyhow, that is
+a matter for you to decide. I have still to place before you a scheme
+which is a measure of safety for ourselves and our men against ambush as
+well as against trickery, and which I feel sure you will pronounce quite
+adequate.”
+
+“Let me hear it, then!”
+
+“The prisoner will have to travel by coach, of course. You can travel
+with him, if you like, and put him in irons, and thus avert all chances
+of his escaping on the road. But”--and here Chauvelin made a long pause,
+which had the effect of holding his colleague’s attention still more
+closely--“remember that we shall have his wife and one of his friends
+with us. Before we finally leave Paris tomorrow we will explain to
+the prisoner that at the first attempt to escape on his part, at the
+slightest suspicion that he has tricked us for his own ends or is
+leading us into an ambush--at the slightest suspicion, I say--you,
+citizen Heron, will order his friend first, and then Marguerite Blakeney
+herself, to be summarily shot before his eyes.”
+
+Heron gave a long, low whistle. Instinctively he threw a furtive,
+backward glance at the prisoner, then he raised his shifty eyes to his
+colleague.
+
+There was unbounded admiration expressed in them. One blackguard had met
+another--a greater one than himself--and was proud to acknowledge him as
+his master.
+
+“By Lucifer, citizen Chauvelin,” he said at last, “I should never have
+thought of such a thing myself.”
+
+Chauvelin put up his hand with a gesture of self-deprecation.
+
+“I certainly think that measure ought to be adequate,” he said with a
+gentle air of assumed modesty, “unless you would prefer to arrest the
+woman and lodge her here, keeping her here as an hostage.”
+
+“No, no!” said Heron with a gruff laugh; “that idea does not appeal
+to me nearly so much as the other. I should not feel so secure on the
+way.... I should always be thinking that that cursed woman had been
+allowed to escape.... No! no! I would rather keep her under my own
+eye--just as you suggest, citizen Chauvelin... and under the prisoner’s,
+too,” he added with a coarse jest. “If he did not actually see her,
+he might be more ready to try and save himself at her expense. But, of
+course, he could not see her shot before his eyes. It is a perfect plan,
+citizen, and does you infinite credit; and if the Englishman tricked
+us,” he concluded with a fierce and savage oath, “and we did not find
+Capet at the end of the journey, I would gladly strangle his wife and
+his friend with my own hands.”
+
+“A satisfaction which I would not begrudge you, citizen,” said Chauvelin
+dryly. “Perhaps you are right... the woman had best be kept under your
+own eye... the prisoner will never risk her safety on that, I would
+stake my life. We’ll deliver our final ‘either--or’ the moment that
+she has joined our party, and before we start further on our way. Now,
+citizen Heron, you have heard my advice; are you prepared to follow it?”
+
+“To the last letter,” replied the other.
+
+And their two hands met in a grasp of mutual understanding--two hands
+already indelibly stained with much innocent blood, more deeply stained
+now with seventeen past days of inhumanity and miserable treachery to
+come.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII. CAPITULATION
+
+What occurred within the inner cell of the Conciergerie prison within
+the next half-hour of that 16th day of Pluviose in the year II of the
+Republic is, perhaps, too well known to history to need or bear overfull
+repetition.
+
+Chroniclers intimate with the inner history of those infamous days have
+told us how the chief agent of the Committee of General Security gave
+orders one hour after midnight that hot soup, white bread and wine be
+served to the prisoner, who for close on fourteen days previously had
+been kept on short rations of black bread and water; the sergeant in
+charge of the guard-room watch for the night also received strict orders
+that that same prisoner was on no account to be disturbed until the hour
+of six in the morning, when he was to be served with anything in the way
+of breakfast that he might fancy.
+
+All this we know, and also that citizen Heron, having given all
+necessary orders for the morning’s expedition, returned to the
+Conciergerie, and found his colleague Chauvelin waiting for him in the
+guard-room.
+
+“Well?” he asked with febrile impatience--“the prisoner?”
+
+“He seems better and stronger,” replied Chauvelin.
+
+“Not too well, I hope?”
+
+“No, no, only just well enough.”
+
+“You have seen him--since his supper?”
+
+“Only from the doorway. It seems he ate and drank hardly at all, and the
+sergeant had some difficulty in keeping him awake until you came.”
+
+“Well, now for the letter,” concluded Heron with the same marked
+feverishness of manner which sat so curiously on his uncouth
+personality. “Pen, ink and paper, sergeant!” he commanded.
+
+“On the table, in the prisoner’s cell, citizen,” replied the sergeant.
+
+He preceded the two citizens across the guard-room to the doorway, and
+raised for them the iron bar, lowering it back after them.
+
+The next moment Heron and Chauvelin were once more face to face with
+their prisoner.
+
+Whether by accident or design the lamp had been so placed that as the
+two men approached its light fell full upon their faces, while that of
+the prisoner remained in shadow. He was leaning forward with both
+elbows on the table, his thin, tapering fingers toying with the pen and
+ink-horn which had been placed close to his hand.
+
+“I trust that everything has been arranged for your comfort, Sir Percy?”
+ Chauvelin asked with a sarcastic little smile.
+
+“I thank you, sir,” replied Blakeney politely.
+
+“You feel refreshed, I hope?”
+
+“Greatly so, I assure you. But I am still demmed sleepy; and if you
+would kindly be brief--”
+
+“You have not changed your mind, sir?” queried Chauvelin, and a note of
+anxiety, which he vainly tried to conceal, quivered in his voice.
+
+“No, my good M. Chambertin,” replied Blakeney with the same urbane
+courtesy, “I have not changed my mind.”
+
+A sigh of relief escaped the lips of both the men. The prisoner
+certainly had spoken in a clearer and firmer voice; but whatever renewed
+strength wine and food had imparted to him he apparently did not mean to
+employ in renewed obstinacy. Chauvelin, after a moment’s pause, resumed
+more calmly:
+
+“You are prepared to direct us to the place where little Capet lies
+hidden?”
+
+“I am prepared to do anything, sir, to get out of this d--d hole.”
+
+“Very well. My colleague, citizen Heron, has arranged for an escort
+of twenty men picked from the best regiment of the Garde de Paris to
+accompany us--yourself, him and me--to wherever you will direct us. Is
+that clear?”
+
+“Perfectly, sir.”
+
+“You must not imagine for a moment that we, on the other hand, guarantee
+to give you your life and freedom even if this expedition prove
+unsuccessful.”
+
+“I would not venture on suggesting such a wild proposition, sir,” said
+Blakeney placidly.
+
+Chauvelin looked keenly on him. There was something in the tone of that
+voice that he did not altogether like--something that reminded him of an
+evening at Calais, and yet again of a day at Boulogne. He could not read
+the expression in the eyes, so with a quick gesture he pulled the lamp
+forward so that its light now fell full on the face of the prisoner.
+
+“Ah! that is certainly better, is it not, my dear M. Chambertin?” said
+Sir Percy, beaming on his adversary with a pleasant smile.
+
+His face, though still of the same ashen hue, looked serene if
+hopelessly wearied; the eyes seemed to mock. But this Chauvelin decided
+in himself must have been a trick of his own overwrought fancy. After a
+brief moment’s pause he resumed dryly:
+
+“If, however, the expedition turns out successful in every way--if
+little Capet, without much trouble to our escort, falls safe and sound
+into our hands--if certain contingencies which I am about to tell
+you all fall out as we wish--then, Sir Percy, I see no reason why the
+Government of this country should not exercise its prerogative of mercy
+towards you after all.”
+
+“An exercise, my dear M. Chambertin, which must have wearied through
+frequent repetition,” retorted Blakeney with the same imperturbable
+smile.
+
+“The contingency at present is somewhat remote; when the time comes
+we’ll talk this matter over.... I will make no promise... and, anyhow,
+we can discuss it later.”
+
+“At present we are but wasting our valuable time over so trifling a
+matter.... If you’ll excuse me, sir... I am so demmed fatigued--”
+
+“Then you will be glad to have everything settled quickly, I am sure.”
+
+“Exactly, sir.”
+
+Heron was taking no part in the present conversation. He knew that his
+temper was not likely to remain within bounds, and though he had nothing
+but contempt for his colleague’s courtly manners, yet vaguely in his
+stupid, blundering way he grudgingly admitted that mayhap it was better
+to allow citizen Chauvelin to deal with the Englishman. There was always
+the danger that if his own violent temper got the better of him, he
+might even at this eleventh hour order this insolent prisoner to summary
+trial and the guillotine, and thus lose the final chance of the more
+important capture.
+
+He was sprawling on a chair in his usual slouching manner with his
+big head sunk between his broad shoulders, his shifty, prominent eyes
+wandering restlessly from the face of his colleague to that of the other
+man.
+
+But now he gave a grunt of impatience.
+
+“We are wasting time, citizen Chauvelin,” he muttered. “I have still
+a great deal to see to if we are to start at dawn. Get the d--d letter
+written, and--”
+
+The rest of the phrase was lost in an indistinct and surly murmur.
+Chauvelin, after a shrug of the shoulders, paid no further heed to him;
+he turned, bland and urbane, once more to the prisoner.
+
+“I see with pleasure, Sir Percy,” he said, “that we thoroughly
+understand one another. Having had a few hours’ rest you will, I know,
+feel quite ready for the expedition. Will you kindly indicate to me the
+direction in which we will have to travel?”
+
+“Northwards all the way.”
+
+“Towards the coast?”
+
+“The place to which we must go is about seven leagues from the sea.”
+
+“Our first objective then will be Beauvais, Amiens, Abbeville, Crecy,
+and so on?”
+
+“Precisely.”
+
+“As far as the forest of Boulogne, shall we say?”
+
+“Where we shall come off the beaten track, and you will have to trust to
+my guidance.”
+
+“We might go there now, Sir Percy, and leave you here.”
+
+“You might. But you would not then find the child. Seven leagues is not
+far from the coast. He might slip through your fingers.”
+
+“And my colleague Heron, being disappointed, would inevitably send you
+to the guillotine.”
+
+“Quite so,” rejoined the prisoner placidly. “Methought, sir, that we
+had decided that I should lead this little expedition? Surely,” he
+added, “it is not so much the Dauphin whom you want as my share in this
+betrayal.”
+
+“You are right as usual, Sir Percy. Therefore let us take that as
+settled. We go as far as Crecy, and thence place ourselves entirely in
+your hands.”
+
+“The journey should not take more than three days, sir.”
+
+“During which you will travel in a coach in the company of my friend
+Heron.”
+
+“I could have chosen pleasanter company, sir; still, it will serve.”
+
+“This being settled, Sir Percy. I understand that you desire to
+communicate with one of your followers.”
+
+“Some one must let the others know... those who have the Dauphin in
+their charge.”
+
+“Quite so. Therefore I pray you write to one of your friends that you
+have decided to deliver the Dauphin into our hands in exchange for your
+own safety.”
+
+“You said just now that this you would not guarantee,” interposed
+Blakeney quietly.
+
+“If all turns out well,” retorted Chauvelin with a show of contempt,
+“and if you will write the exact letter which I shall dictate, we might
+even give you that guarantee.”
+
+“The quality of your mercy, sir, passes belief.”
+
+“Then I pray you write. Which of your followers will have the honour of
+the communication?”
+
+“My brother-in-law, Armand St. Just; he is still in Paris, I believe. He
+can let the others know.”
+
+Chauvelin made no immediate reply. He paused awhile, hesitating. Would
+Sir Percy Blakeney be ready--if his own safety demanded it--to sacrifice
+the man who had betrayed him? In the momentous “either--or” that was to
+be put to him, by-and-by, would he choose his own life and leave
+Armand St. Just to perish? It was not for Chauvelin--or any man of his
+stamp--to judge of what Blakeney would do under such circumstances, and
+had it been a question of St. Just alone, mayhap Chauvelin would have
+hesitated still more at the present juncture.
+
+But the friend as hostage was only destined to be a minor leverage for
+the final breaking-up of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel through the
+disgrace of its chief. There was the wife--Marguerite Blakeney--sister
+of St. Just, joint and far more important hostage, whose very close
+affection for her brother might prove an additional trump card in that
+handful which Chauvelin already held.
+
+Blakeney paid no heed seemingly to the other’s hesitation. He did not
+even look up at him, but quietly drew pen and paper towards him, and
+made ready to write.
+
+“What do you wish me to say?” he asked simply.
+
+“Will that young blackguard answer your purpose, citizen Chauvelin?”
+ queried Heron roughly.
+
+Obviously the same doubt had crossed his mind. Chauvelin quickly
+re-assured him.
+
+“Better than any one else,” he said firmly. “Will you write at my
+dictation, Sir Percy?
+
+“I am waiting to do so, my dear sir.”
+
+“Begin your letter as you wish, then; now continue.”
+
+And he began to dictate slowly, watching every word as it left
+Blakeney’s pen.
+
+“‘I cannot stand my present position any longer. Citizen Heron, and also
+M. Chauvelin--’ Yes, Sir Percy, Chauvelin, not Chambertin ... C, H,
+A, U, V, E, L, I, N.... That is quite right-- ‘have made this prison a
+perfect hell for me.’”
+
+Sir Percy looked up from his writing, smiling.
+
+“You wrong yourself, my dear M. Chambertin!” he said; “I have really
+been most comfortable.”
+
+“I wish to place the matter before your friends in as indulgent a manner
+as I can,” retorted Chauvelin dryly.
+
+“I thank you, sir. Pray proceed.”
+
+“...‘a perfect hell for me,’” resumed the other. “Have you that? ...
+‘and I have been forced to give way. To-morrow we start from here at
+dawn; and I will guide citizen Heron to the place where he can find the
+Dauphin. But the authorities demand that one of my followers, one who
+has once been a member of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, shall
+accompany me on this expedition. I therefore ask you’--or ‘desire you’
+or ‘beg you’--whichever you prefer, Sir Percy...”
+
+“‘Ask you’ will do quite nicely. This is really very interesting, you
+know.”
+
+“... ‘to be prepared to join the expedition. We start at dawn, and you
+would be required to be at the main gate of the house of Justice at six
+o’clock precisely. I have an assurance from the authorities that your
+life should be in-violate, but if you refuse to accompany me, the
+guillotine will await me on the morrow.’”
+
+“‘The guillotine will await me on the morrow.’ That sounds quite
+cheerful, does it not, M. Chambertin?” said the prisoner, who had not
+evinced the slightest surprise at the wording of the letter whilst he
+wrote at the other’s dictation. “Do you know, I quite enjoyed writing
+this letter; it so reminded me of happy days in Boulogne.”
+
+Chauvelin pressed his lips together. Truly now he felt that a retort
+from him would have been undignified, more especially as just at this
+moment there came from the guard room the sound of men’s voices talking
+and laughing, the occasional clang of steel, or of a heavy boot
+against the tiled floor, the rattling of dice, or a sudden burst of
+laughter--sounds, in fact, that betokened the presence of a number of
+soldiers close by.
+
+Chauvelin contented himself with a nod in the direction of the
+guard-room.
+
+“The conditions are somewhat different now,” he said placidly, “from
+those that reigned in Boulogne. But will you not sign your letter, Sir
+Percy?”
+
+“With pleasure, sir,” responded Blakeney, as with an elaborate flourish
+of the pen he appended his name to the missive.
+
+Chauvelin was watching him with eyes that would have shamed a lynx by
+their keenness. He took up the completed letter, read it through very
+carefully, as if to find some hidden meaning behind the very words which
+he himself had dictated; he studied the signature, and looked vainly for
+a mark or a sign that might convey a different sense to that which he
+had intended. Finally, finding none, he folded the letter up with his
+own hand, and at once slipped it in the pocket of his coat.
+
+“Take care, M. Chambertin,” said Blakeney lightly; “it will burn a hole
+in that elegant vest of yours.”
+
+“It will have no time to do that, Sir Percy,” retorted Chauvelin
+blandly; “an you will furnish me with citizen St. Just’s present
+address, I will myself convey the letter to him at once.”
+
+“At this hour of the night? Poor old Armand, he’ll be abed. But his
+address, sir, is No. 32, Rue de la Croix Blanche, on the first floor,
+the door on your right as you mount the stairs; you know the room well,
+citizen Chauvelin; you have been in it before. And now,” he added with a
+loud and ostentatious yawn, “shall we all to bed? We start at dawn, you
+said, and I am so d--d fatigued.”
+
+Frankly, he did not look it now. Chauvelin himself, despite his matured
+plans, despite all the precautions that he meant to take for the success
+of this gigantic scheme, felt a sudden strange sense of fear creeping
+into his bones. Half an hour ago he had seen a man in what looked
+like the last stage of utter physical exhaustion, a hunched up figure,
+listless and limp, hands that twitched nervously, the face as of a dying
+man. Now those outward symptoms were still there certainly; the face by
+the light of the lamp still looked livid, the lips bloodless, the hands
+emaciated and waxen, but the eyes!--they were still hollow, with heavy
+lids still purple, but in their depths there was a curious, mysterious
+light, a look that seemed to see something that was hidden to natural
+sight.
+
+Citizen Chauvelin thought that Heron, too, must be conscious of
+this, but the Committee’s agent was sprawling on a chair, sucking a
+short-stemmed pipe, and gazing with entire animal satisfaction on the
+prisoner.
+
+“The most perfect piece of work we have ever accomplished, you and I,
+citizen Chauvelin,” he said complacently.
+
+“You think that everything is quite satisfactory?” asked the other with
+anxious stress on his words.
+
+“Everything, of course. Now you see to the letter. I will give final
+orders for to-morrow, but I shall sleep in the guard-room.”
+
+“And I on that inviting bed,” interposed the prisoner lightly, as he
+rose to his feet. “Your servant, citizens!”
+
+He bowed his head slightly, and stood by the table whilst the two men
+prepared to go. Chauvelin took a final long look at the man whom he
+firmly believed he had at last brought down to abject disgrace.
+
+Blakeney was standing erect, watching the two retreating figures--one
+slender hand was on the table. Chauvelin saw that it was leaning rather
+heavily, as if for support, and that even whilst a final mocking
+laugh sped him and his colleague on their way, the tall figure of the
+conquered lion swayed like a stalwart oak that is forced to bend to the
+mighty fury of an all-compelling wind.
+
+With a sigh of content Chauvelin took his colleague by the arm, and
+together the two men walked out of the cell.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX. KILL HIM!
+
+Two hours after midnight Armand St. Just was wakened from sleep by a
+peremptory pull at his bell. In these days in Paris but one meaning
+could as a rule be attached to such a summons at this hour of the night,
+and Armand, though possessed of an unconditional certificate of
+safety, sat up in bed, quite convinced that for some reason which would
+presently be explained to him he had once more been placed on the list
+of the “suspect,” and that his trial and condemnation on a trumped-up
+charge would follow in due course.
+
+Truth to tell, he felt no fear at the prospect, and only a very little
+sorrow. The sorrow was not for himself; he regretted neither life nor
+happiness. Life had become hateful to him since happiness had fled with
+it on the dark wings of dishonour; sorrow such as he felt was only for
+Jeanne! She was very young, and would weep bitter tears. She would be
+unhappy, because she truly loved him, and because this would be the
+first cup of bitterness which life was holding out to her. But she
+was very young, and sorrow would not be eternal. It was better so. He,
+Armand St. Just, though he loved her with an intensity of passion that
+had been magnified and strengthened by his own overwhelming shame,
+had never really brought his beloved one single moment of unalloyed
+happiness.
+
+From the very first day when he sat beside her in the tiny boudoir
+of the Square du Roule, and the heavy foot fall of Heron and his
+bloodhounds broke in on their first kiss, down to this hour which he
+believed struck his own death-knell, his love for her had brought more
+tears to her dear eyes than smiles to her exquisite mouth.
+
+Her he had loved so dearly, that for her sweet sake he had sacrificed
+honour, friendship and truth; to free her, as he believed, from the
+hands of impious brutes he had done a deed that cried Cain-like for
+vengeance to the very throne of God. For her he had sinned, and because
+of that sin, even before it was committed, their love had been blighted,
+and happiness had never been theirs.
+
+Now it was all over. He would pass out of her life, up the steps of the
+scaffold, tasting as he mounted them the most entire happiness that he
+had known since that awful day when he became a Judas.
+
+The peremptory summons, once more repeated, roused him from his
+meditations. He lit a candle, and without troubling to slip any of his
+clothes on, he crossed the narrow ante-chamber, and opened the door that
+gave on the landing.
+
+“In the name of the people!”
+
+He had expected to hear not only those words, but also the grounding of
+arms and the brief command to halt. He had expected to see before him
+the white facings of the uniform of the Garde de Paris, and to feel
+himself roughly pushed back into his lodging preparatory to the search
+being made of all his effects and the placing of irons on his wrists.
+
+Instead of this, it was a quiet, dry voice that said without undue
+harshness:
+
+“In the name of the people!”
+
+And instead of the uniforms, the bayonets and the scarlet caps with
+tricolour cockades, he was confronted by a slight, sable-clad figure,
+whose face, lit by the flickering light of the tallow candle, looked
+strangely pale and earnest.
+
+“Citizen Chauvelin!” gasped Armand, more surprised than frightened at
+this unexpected apparition.
+
+“Himself, citizen, at your service,” replied Chauvelin with his quiet,
+ironical manner. “I am the bearer of a letter for you from Sir Percy
+Blakeney. Have I your permission to enter?”
+
+Mechanically Armand stood aside, allowing the other man to pass in. He
+closed the door behind his nocturnal visitor, then, taper in hand, he
+preceded him into the inner room.
+
+It was the same one in which a fortnight ago a fighting lion had been
+brought to his knees. Now it lay wrapped in gloom, the feeble light of
+the candle only lighting Armand’s face and the white frill of his shirt.
+The young man put the taper down on the table and turned to his visitor.
+
+“Shall I light the lamp?” he asked.
+
+“Quite unnecessary,” replied Chauvelin curtly. “I have only a letter to
+deliver, and after that to ask you one brief question.”
+
+From the pocket of his coat he drew the letter which Blakeney had
+written an hour ago.
+
+“The prisoner wrote this in my presence,” he said as he handed the
+letter over to Armand. “Will you read it?”
+
+Armand took it from him, and sat down close to the table; leaning
+forward he held the paper near the light, and began to read. He read
+the letter through very slowly to the end, then once again from the
+beginning. He was trying to do that which Chauvelin had wished to do
+an hour ago; he was trying to find the inner meaning which he felt must
+inevitably lie behind these words which Percy had written with his own
+hand.
+
+That these bare words were but a blind to deceive the enemy Armand never
+doubted for a moment. In this he was as loyal as Marguerite would have
+been herself. Never for a moment did the suspicion cross his mind that
+Blakeney was about to play the part of a coward, but he, Armand, felt
+that as a faithful friend and follower he ought by instinct to know
+exactly what his chief intended, what he meant him to do.
+
+Swiftly his thoughts flew back to that other letter, the one which
+Marguerite had given him--the letter full of pity and of friendship
+which had brought him hope and a joy and peace which he had thought at
+one time that he would never know again. And suddenly one sentence in
+that letter stood out so clearly before his eyes that it blurred the
+actual, tangible ones on the paper which even now rustled in his hand.
+
+
+
+But if at any time you receive another letter from me--be its contents
+what they may--act in accordance with the letter, but send a copy of it
+at once to Ffoulkes or to Marguerite.
+
+
+
+Now everything seemed at once quite clear; his duty, his next actions,
+every word that he would speak to Chauvelin. Those that Percy had
+written to him were already indelibly graven on his memory.
+
+Chauvelin had waited with his usual patience, silent and imperturbable,
+while the young man read. Now when he saw that Armand had finished, he
+said quietly:
+
+“Just one question, citizen, and I need not detain you longer. But first
+will you kindly give me back that letter? It is a precious document
+which will for ever remain in the archives of the nation.”
+
+But even while he spoke Armand, with one of those quick intuitions
+that come in moments of acute crisis, had done just that which he felt
+Blakeney would wish him to do. He had held the letter close to the
+candle. A corner of the thin crisp paper immediately caught fire, and
+before Chauvelin could utter a word of anger, or make a movement to
+prevent the conflagration, the flames had licked up fully one half of
+the letter, and Armand had only just time to throw the remainder on the
+floor and to stamp out the blaze with his foot.
+
+“I am sorry, citizen,” he said calmly; “an accident.”
+
+“A useless act of devotion,” interposed Chauvelin, who already had
+smothered the oath that had risen to his lips. “The Scarlet Pimpernel’s
+actions in the present matter will not lose their merited publicity
+through the foolish destruction of this document.”
+
+“I had no thought, citizen,” retorted the young man, “of commenting on
+the actions of my chief, or of trying to deny them that publicity which
+you seem to desire for them almost as much as I do.”
+
+“More, citizen, a great deal more! The impeccable Scarlet Pimpernel,
+the noble and gallant English gentleman, has agreed to deliver into our
+hands the uncrowned King of France--in exchange for his own life and
+freedom. Methinks that even his worst enemy would not wish for a better
+ending to a career of adventure, and a reputation for bravery unequalled
+in Europe. But no more of this, time is pressing, I must help citizen
+Heron with his final preparations for his journey. You, of course,
+citizen St. Just, will act in accordance with Sir Percy Blakeney’s
+wishes?”
+
+“Of course,” replied Armand.
+
+“You will present yourself at the main entrance of the house of Justice
+at six o’clock this morning.”
+
+“I will not fail you.”
+
+“A coach will be provided for you. You will follow the expedition as
+hostage for the good faith of your chief.”
+
+“I quite understand.”
+
+“H’m! That’s brave! You have no fear, citizen St. Just?”
+
+“Fear of what, sir?”
+
+“You will be a hostage in our hands, citizen; your life a guarantee that
+your chief has no thought of playing us false. Now I was thinking of--of
+certain events--which led to the arrest of Sir Percy Blakeney.”
+
+“Of my treachery, you mean,” rejoined the young man calmly, even
+though his face had suddenly become pale as death. “Of the damnable
+lie wherewith you cheated me into selling my honour, and made me what I
+am--a creature scarce fit to walk upon this earth.”
+
+“Oh!” protested Chauvelin blandly.
+
+“The damnable lie,” continued Armand more vehemently, “that hath made me
+one with Cain and the Iscariot. When you goaded me into the hellish act,
+Jeanne Lange was already free.”
+
+“Free--but not safe.”
+
+“A lie, man! A lie! For which you are thrice accursed. Great God, is it
+not you that should have cause for fear? Methinks were I to strangle you
+now I should suffer less of remorse.”
+
+“And would be rendering your ex-chief but a sorry service,” interposed
+Chauvelin with quiet irony. “Sir Percy Blakeney is a dying man, citizen
+St. Just; he’ll be a dead man at dawn if I do not put in an appearance
+by six o’clock this morning. This is a private understanding between
+citizen Heron and myself. We agreed to it before I came to see you.”
+
+“Oh, you take care of your own miserable skin well enough! But you need
+not be afraid of me--I take my orders from my chief, and he has not
+ordered me to kill you.”
+
+“That was kind of him. Then we may count on you? You are not afraid?”
+
+“Afraid that the Scarlet Pimpernel would leave me in the lurch because
+of the immeasurable wrong I have done to him?” retorted Armand, proud
+and defiant in the name of his chief. “No, sir, I am not afraid of that;
+I have spent the last fortnight in praying to God that my life might yet
+be given for his.”
+
+“H’m! I think it most unlikely that your prayers will be granted,
+citizen; prayers, I imagine, so very seldom are; but I don’t know, I
+never pray myself. In your case, now, I should say that you have not the
+slightest chance of the Deity interfering in so pleasant a manner. Even
+were Sir Percy Blakeney prepared to wreak personal revenge on you, he
+would scarcely be so foolish as to risk the other life which we shall
+also hold as hostage for his good faith.”
+
+“The other life?”
+
+“Yes. Your sister, Lady Blakeney, will also join the expedition
+to-morrow. This Sir Percy does not yet know; but it will come as a
+pleasant surprise for him. At the slightest suspicion of false play on
+Sir Percy’s part, at his slightest attempt at escape, your life and that
+of your sister are forfeit; you will both be summarily shot before his
+eyes. I do not think that I need be more precise, eh, citizen St. Just?”
+
+The young man was quivering with passion. A terrible loathing for
+himself, for his crime which had been the precursor of this terrible
+situation, filled his soul to the verge of sheer physical nausea. A red
+film gathered before his eyes, and through it he saw the grinning face
+of the inhuman monster who had planned this hideous, abominable thing.
+It seemed to him as if in the silence and the hush of the night, above
+the feeble, flickering flame that threw weird shadows around, a group of
+devils were surrounding him, and were shouting, “Kill him! Kill him now!
+Rid the earth of this hellish brute!”
+
+No doubt if Chauvelin had exhibited the slightest sign of fear, if he
+had moved an inch towards the door, Armand, blind with passion, driven
+to madness by agonising remorse more even than by rage, would have
+sprung at his enemy’s throat and crushed the life out of him as he would
+out of a venomous beast. But the man’s calm, his immobility, recalled
+St. Just to himself. Reason, that had almost yielded to passion again,
+found strength to drive the enemy back this time, to whisper a warning,
+an admonition, even a reminder. Enough harm, God knows, had been done
+by tempestuous passion already. And God alone knew what terrible
+consequences its triumph now might bring in its trial, and striking on
+Armand’s buzzing ears Chauvelin’s words came back as a triumphant and
+mocking echo:
+
+“He’ll be a dead man at dawn if I do not put in an appearance by six
+o’clock.”
+
+The red film lifted, the candle flickered low, the devils vanished, only
+the pale face of the Terrorist gazed with gentle irony out of the gloom.
+
+“I think that I need not detain you any longer, citizen, St. Just,” he
+said quietly; “you can get three or four hours’ rest yet before you need
+make a start, and I still have a great many things to see to. I wish you
+good-night, citizen.”
+
+“Good-night,” murmured Armand mechanically.
+
+He took the candle and escorted his visitor back to the door. He waited
+on the landing, taper in hand, while Chauvelin descended the narrow,
+winding stairs.
+
+There was a light in the concierge’s lodge. No doubt the woman had
+struck it when the nocturnal visitor had first demanded admittance. His
+name and tricolour scarf of office had ensured him the full measure of
+her attention, and now she was evidently sitting up waiting to let him
+out.
+
+St. Just, satisfied that Chauvelin had finally gone, now turned back to
+his own rooms.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL. GOD HELP US ALL
+
+He carefully locked the outer door. Then he lit the lamp, for the candle
+gave but a flickering light, and he had some important work to do.
+
+Firstly, he picked up the charred fragment of the letter, and smoothed
+it out carefully and reverently as he would a relic. Tears had gathered
+in his eyes, but he was not ashamed of them, for no one saw them; but
+they eased his heart, and helped to strengthen his resolve. It was a
+mere fragment that had been spared by the flame, but Armand knew every
+word of the letter by heart.
+
+He had pen, ink and paper ready to his hand, and from memory wrote out
+a copy of it. To this he added a covering letter from himself to
+Marguerite:
+
+
+
+This--which I had from Percy through the hands of Chauvelin--I neither
+question nor understand.... He wrote the letter, and I have no thought
+but to obey. In his previous letter to me he enjoined me, if ever he
+wrote to me again, to obey him implicitly, and to communicate with you.
+To both these commands do I submit with a glad heart. But of this must I
+give you warning, little mother--Chauvelin desires you also to accompany
+us to-morrow.... Percy does not know this yet, else he would never
+start. But those fiends fear that his readiness is a blind... and that
+he has some plan in his head for his own escape and the continued safety
+of the Dauphin.... This plan they hope to frustrate through holding you
+and me as hostages for his good faith. God only knows how gladly I would
+give my life for my chief... but your life, dear little mother... is
+sacred above all.... I think that I do right in warning you. God help us
+all.
+
+
+
+Having written the letter, he sealed it, together with the copy of
+Percy’s letter which he had made. Then he took up the candle and went
+downstairs.
+
+There was no longer any light in the concierge’s lodge, and Armand had
+some difficulty in making himself heard. At last the woman came to the
+door. She was tired and cross after two interruptions of her night’s
+rest, but she had a partiality for her young lodger, whose pleasant ways
+and easy liberality had been like a pale ray of sunshine through the
+squalor of every-day misery.
+
+“It is a letter, citoyenne,” said Armand, with earnest entreaty, “for my
+sister. She lives in the Rue de Charonne, near the fortifications, and
+must have it within an hour; it is a matter of life and death to her, to
+me, and to another who is very dear to us both.”
+
+The concierge threw up her hands in horror.
+
+“Rue de Charonne, near the fortifications,” she exclaimed, “and within
+an hour! By the Holy Virgin, citizen, that is impossible. Who will take
+it? There is no way.”
+
+“A way must be found, citoyenne,” said Armand firmly, “and at once; it
+is not far, and there are five golden louis waiting for the messenger!”
+
+Five golden louis! The poor, hardworking woman’s eyes gleamed at the
+thought. Five louis meant food for at least two months if one was
+careful, and--
+
+“Give me the letter, citizen,” she said, “time to slip on a warm
+petticoat and a shawl, and I’ll go myself. It’s not fit for the boy to
+go at this hour.”
+
+“You will bring me back a line from my sister in reply to this,” said
+Armand, whom circumstances had at last rendered cautious. “Bring it up
+to my rooms that I may give you the five louis in exchange.”
+
+He waited while the woman slipped back into her room. She heard him
+speaking to her boy; the same lad who a fortnight ago had taken the
+treacherous letter which had lured Blakeney to the house into the fatal
+ambuscade that had been prepared for him. Everything reminded Armand of
+that awful night, every hour that he had since spent in the house had
+been racking torture to him. Now at last he was to leave it, and on an
+errand which might help to ease the load of remorse from his heart.
+
+The woman was soon ready. Armand gave her final directions as to how to
+find the house; then she took the letter and promised to be very quick,
+and to bring back a reply from the lady.
+
+Armand accompanied her to the door. The night was dark, a thin drizzle
+was falling; he stood and watched until the woman’s rapidly walking
+figure was lost in the misty gloom.
+
+Then with a heavy sigh he once more went within.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI. WHEN HOPE WAS DEAD
+
+In a small upstairs room in the Rue de Charonne, above the shop of
+Lucas the old-clothes dealer, Marguerite sat with Sir Andrew Ffoulkes.
+Armand’s letter, with its message and its warning, lay open on the table
+between them, and she had in her hand the sealed packet which Percy had
+given her just ten days ago, and which she was only to open if all hope
+seemed to be dead, if nothing appeared to stand any longer between that
+one dear life and irretrievable shame.
+
+A small lamp placed on the table threw a feeble yellow light on the
+squalid, ill-furnished room, for it lacked still an hour or so before
+dawn. Armand’s concierge had brought her lodger’s letter, and Marguerite
+had quickly despatched a brief reply to him, a reply that held love and
+also encouragement.
+
+Then she had summoned Sir Andrew. He never had a thought of leaving her
+during these days of dire trouble, and he had lodged all this while in a
+tiny room on the top-most floor of this house in the Rue de Charonne.
+
+At her call he had come down very quickly, and now they sat together at
+the table, with the oil-lamp illumining their pale, anxious faces; she
+the wife and he the friend holding a consultation together in this most
+miserable hour that preceded the cold wintry dawn.
+
+Outside a thin, persistent rain mixed with snow pattered against the
+small window panes, and an icy wind found out all the crevices in
+the worm-eaten woodwork that would afford it ingress to the room. But
+neither Marguerite nor Ffoulkes was conscious of the cold. They had
+wrapped their cloaks round their shoulders, and did not feel the chill
+currents of air that caused the lamp to flicker and to smoke.
+
+“I can see now,” said Marguerite in that calm voice which comes so
+naturally in moments of infinite despair--“I can see now exactly what
+Percy meant when he made me promise not to open this packet until it
+seemed to me--to me and to you, Sir Andrew--that he was about to play
+the part of a coward. A coward! Great God!” She checked the sob that had
+risen to her throat, and continued in the same calm manner and quiet,
+even voice:
+
+“You do think with me, do you not, that the time has come, and that we
+must open this packet?”
+
+“Without a doubt, Lady Blakeney,” replied Ffoulkes with equal
+earnestness. “I would stake my life that already a fortnight ago
+Blakeney had that same plan in his mind which he has now matured.
+Escape from that awful Conciergerie prison with all the precautions so
+carefully taken against it was impossible. I knew that alas! from the
+first. But in the open all might yet be different. I’ll not believe it
+that a man like Blakeney is destined to perish at the hands of those
+curs.”
+
+She looked on her loyal friend with tear-dimmed eyes through which shone
+boundless gratitude and heart-broken sorrow.
+
+He had spoken of a fortnight! It was ten days since she had seen Percy.
+It had then seemed as if death had already marked him with its grim
+sign. Since then she had tried to shut away from her mind the terrible
+visions which her anguish constantly conjured up before her of his
+growing weakness, of the gradual impairing of that brilliant intellect,
+the gradual exhaustion of that mighty physical strength.
+
+“God bless you, Sir Andrew, for your enthusiasm and for your trust,” she
+said with a sad little smile; “but for you I should long ago have
+lost all courage, and these last ten days--what a cycle of misery they
+represent--would have been maddening but for your help and your loyalty.
+God knows I would have courage for everything in life, for everything
+save one, but just that, his death; that would be beyond my
+strength--neither reason nor body could stand it. Therefore, I am so
+afraid, Sir Andrew,” she added piteously.
+
+“Of what, Lady Blakeney?”
+
+“That when he knows that I too am to go as hostage, as Armand says in
+his letter, that my life is to be guarantee for his, I am afraid that he
+will draw back--that he will--my God!” she cried with sudden fervour,
+“tell me what to do!”
+
+“Shall we open the packet?” asked Ffoulkes gently, “and then just make
+up our minds to act exactly as Blakeney has enjoined us to do, neither
+more nor less, but just word for word, deed for deed, and I believe that
+that will be right--whatever may betide--in the end.”
+
+Once more his quiet strength, his earnestness and his faith comforted
+her. She dried her eyes and broke open the seal. There were two separate
+letters in the packet, one unaddressed, obviously intended for her and
+Ffoulkes, the other was addressed to M. le baron Jean de Batz, 15, Rue
+St. Jean de Latran a Paris.
+
+“A letter addressed to that awful Baron de Batz,” said Marguerite,
+looking with puzzled eyes on the paper as she turned it over and over in
+her hand, “to that bombastic windbag! I know him and his ways well! What
+can Percy have to say to him?”
+
+Sir Andrew too looked puzzled. But neither of them had the mind to waste
+time in useless speculations. Marguerite unfolded the letter which was
+intended for her, and after a final look on her friend, whose kind face
+was quivering with excitement, she began slowly to read aloud:
+
+
+
+I need not ask either of you two to trust me, knowing that you will. But
+I could not die inside this hole like a rat in a trap--I had to try and
+free myself, at the worst to die in the open beneath God’s sky. You two
+will understand, and understanding you will trust me to the end. Send
+the enclosed letter at once to its address. And you, Ffoulkes, my most
+sincere and most loyal friend, I beg with all my soul to see to the
+safety of Marguerite. Armand will stay by me--but you, Ffoulkes, do not
+leave her, stand by her. As soon as you read this letter--and you will
+not read it until both she and you have felt that hope has fled and I
+myself am about to throw up the sponge--try and persuade her to make
+for the coast as quickly as may be.... At Calais you can open up
+communications with the Day-Dream in the usual way, and embark on her at
+once. Let no member of the League remain on French soil one hour longer
+after that. Then tell the skipper to make for Le Portel--the place which
+he knows--and there to keep a sharp outlook for another three nights.
+After that make straight for home, for it will be no use waiting any
+longer. I shall not come. These measures are for Marguerite’s safety,
+and for you all who are in France at this moment. Comrade, I entreat you
+to look on these measures as on my dying wish. To de Batz I have given
+rendezvous at the Chapelle of the Holy Sepulchre, just outside the park
+of the Chateau d’Ourde. He will help me to save the Dauphin, and if
+by good luck he also helps me to save myself I shall be within seven
+leagues of Le Portel, and with the Liane frozen as she is I could reach
+the coast.
+
+But Marguerite’s safety I leave in your hands, Ffoulkes. Would that I
+could look more clearly into the future, and know that those devils
+will not drag her into danger. Beg her to start at once for Calais
+immediately you have both read this. I only beg, I do not command. I
+know that you, Ffoulkes, will stand by her whatever she may wish to do.
+God’s blessing be for ever on you both.
+
+
+
+Marguerite’s voice died away in the silence that still lay over this
+deserted part of the great city and in this squalid house where she and
+Sir Andrew Ffoulkes had found shelter these last ten days. The agony
+of mind which they had here endured, never doubting, but scarcely ever
+hoping, had found its culmination at last in this final message, which
+almost seemed to come to them from the grave.
+
+It had been written ten days ago. A plan had then apparently formed in
+Percy’s mind which he had set forth during the brief half-hour’s respite
+which those fiends had once given him. Since then they had never given
+him ten consecutive minutes’ peace; since then ten days had gone by; how
+much power, how much vitality had gone by too on the leaden wings of all
+those terrible hours spent in solitude and in misery?
+
+“We can but hope, Lady Blakeney,” said Sir Andrew Ffoulkes after a
+while, “that you will be allowed out of Paris; but from what Armand
+says--”
+
+“And Percy does not actually send me away,” she rejoined with a pathetic
+little smile.
+
+“No. He cannot compel you, Lady Blakeney. You are not a member of the
+League.”
+
+“Oh, yes, I am!” she retorted firmly; “and I have sworn obedience, just
+as all of you have done. I will go, just as he bids me, and you, Sir
+Andrew, you will obey him too?”
+
+“My orders are to stand by you. That is an easy task.”
+
+“You know where this place is?” she asked--“the Chateau d’Ourde?”
+
+“Oh, yes, we all know it! It is empty, and the park is a wreck; the
+owner fled from it at the very outbreak of the revolution; he left some
+kind of steward nominally in charge, a curious creature, half imbecile;
+the chateau and the chapel in the forest just outside the grounds have
+oft served Blakeney and all of us as a place of refuge on our way to the
+coast.”
+
+“But the Dauphin is not there?” she said.
+
+“No. According to the first letter which you brought me from Blakeney
+ten days ago, and on which I acted, Tony, who has charge of the Dauphin,
+must have crossed into Holland with his little Majesty to-day.”
+
+“I understand,” she said simply. “But then--this letter to de Batz?”
+
+“Ah, there I am completely at sea! But I’ll deliver it, and at once too,
+only I don’t like to leave you. Will you let me get you out of Paris
+first? I think just before dawn it could be done. We can get the cart
+from Lucas, and if we could reach St. Germain before noon, I could come
+straight back then and deliver the letter to de Batz. This, I feel, I
+ought to do myself; but at Achard’s farm I would know that you were safe
+for a few hours.”
+
+“I will do whatever you think right, Sir Andrew,” she said simply;
+“my will is bound up with Percy’s dying wish. God knows I would rather
+follow him now, step by step,--as hostage, as prisoner--any way so long
+as I can see him, but--”
+
+She rose and turned to go, almost impassive now in that great calm born
+of despair.
+
+A stranger seeing her now had thought her indifferent. She was very
+pale, and deep circles round her eyes told of sleepless nights and
+days of mental misery, but otherwise there was not the faintest outward
+symptom of that terrible anguish which was rending her heartstrings. Her
+lips did not quiver, and the source of her tears had been dried up ten
+days ago.
+
+“Ten minutes and I’ll be ready, Sir Andrew,” she said. “I have but few
+belongings. Will you the while see Lucas about the cart?”
+
+He did as she desired. Her calm in no way deceived him; he knew that she
+must be suffering keenly, and would suffer more keenly still while she
+would be trying to efface her own personal feelings all through that
+coming dreary journey to Calais.
+
+He went to see the landlord about the horse and cart, and a quarter of
+an hour later Marguerite came downstairs ready to start. She found Sir
+Andrew in close converse with an officer of the Garde de Paris, whilst
+two soldiers of the same regiment were standing at the horse’s head.
+
+When she appeared in the doorway Sir Andrew came at once up to her.
+
+“It is just as I feared, Lady Blakeney,” he said; “this man has been
+sent here to take charge of you. Of course, he knows nothing beyond the
+fact that his orders are to convey you at once to the guard-house of the
+Rue Ste. Anne, where he is to hand you over to citizen Chauvelin of the
+Committee of Public Safety.”
+
+Sir Andrew could not fail to see the look of intense relief which, in
+the midst of all her sorrow, seemed suddenly to have lighted up the
+whole of Marguerite’s wan face. The thought of wending her own way to
+safety whilst Percy, mayhap, was fighting an uneven fight with death
+had been well-nigh intolerable; but she had been ready to obey without
+a murmur. Now Fate and the enemy himself had decided otherwise. She felt
+as if a load had been lifted from her heart.
+
+“I will at once go and find de Batz,” Sir Andrew contrived to whisper
+hurriedly. “As soon as Percy’s letter is safely in his hands I will make
+my way northwards and communicate with all the members of the League, on
+whom the chief has so strictly enjoined to quit French soil immediately.
+We will proceed to Calais first and open up communication with the
+Day-Dream in the usual way. The others had best embark on board her, and
+the skipper shall then make for the known spot of Le Portel, of which
+Percy speaks in his letter. I myself will go by land to Le Portel, and
+thence, if I have no news of you or of the expedition, I will slowly
+work southwards in the direction of the Chateau d’Ourde. That is all
+that I can do. If you can contrive to let Percy or even Armand know my
+movements, do so by all means. I know that I shall be doing right, for,
+in a way, I shall be watching over you and arranging for your safety, as
+Blakeney begged me to do. God bless you, Lady Blakeney, and God save the
+Scarlet Pimpernel!”
+
+He stooped and kissed her hand, and she intimated to the officer that
+she was ready. He had a hackney coach waiting for her lower down the
+street. To it she walked with a firm step, and as she entered it she
+waved a last farewell to Sir Andrew Ffoulkes.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII. THE GUARD-HOUSE OF THE RUE STE. ANNE
+
+The little cortege was turning out of the great gates of the house of
+Justice. It was intensely cold; a bitter north-easterly gale was blowing
+from across the heights of Montmartre, driving sleet and snow and
+half-frozen rain into the faces of the men, and finding its way up their
+sleeves, down their collars and round the knees of their threadbare
+breeches.
+
+Armand, whose fingers were numb with the cold, could scarcely feel the
+reins in his hands. Chauvelin was riding close beside him, but the two
+men had not exchanged one word since the moment when the small troop
+of some twenty mounted soldiers had filed up inside the courtyard, and
+Chauvelin, with a curt word of command, had ordered one of the troopers
+to take Armand’s horse on the lead.
+
+A hackney coach brought up the rear of the cortege, with a man riding
+at either door and two more following at a distance of twenty paces.
+Heron’s gaunt, ugly face, crowned with a battered, sugar-loaf hat,
+appeared from time to time at the window of the coach. He was no
+horseman, and, moreover, preferred to keep the prisoner closely under
+his own eye. The corporal had told Armand that the prisoner was with
+citizen Heron inside the coach--in irons. Beyond that the soldiers could
+tell him nothing; they knew nothing of the object of this expedition.
+Vaguely they might have wondered in their dull minds why this particular
+prisoner was thus being escorted out of the Conciergerie prison with so
+much paraphernalia and such an air of mystery, when there were thousands
+of prisoners in the city and the provinces at the present moment who
+anon would be bundled up wholesale into carts to be dragged to the
+guillotine like a flock of sheep to the butchers.
+
+But even if they wondered they made no remarks among themselves.
+Their faces, blue with the cold, were the perfect mirrors of their own
+unconquerable stolidity.
+
+The tower clock of Notre Dame struck seven when the small cavalcade
+finally moved slowly out of the monumental gates. In the east the wan
+light of a February morning slowly struggled out of the surrounding
+gloom. Now the towers of many churches loomed ghostlike against the dull
+grey sky, and down below, on the right, the frozen river, like a smooth
+sheet of steel, wound its graceful curves round the islands and past the
+facade of the Louvres palace, whose walls looked grim and silent, like
+the mausoleum of the dead giants of the past.
+
+All around the great city gave signs of awakening; the business of the
+day renewed its course every twenty-four hours, despite the tragedies of
+death and of dishonour that walked with it hand in hand. From the Place
+de La Revolution the intermittent roll of drums came from time to time
+with its muffled sound striking the ear of the passer-by. Along the quay
+opposite an open-air camp was already astir; men, women, and children
+engaged in the great task of clothing and feeding the people of France,
+armed against tyranny, were bending to their task, even before the
+wintry dawn had spread its pale grey tints over the narrower streets of
+the city.
+
+Armand shivered under his cloak. This silent ride beneath the leaden sky,
+through the veil of half-frozen rain and snow, seemed like a dream to
+him. And now, as the outriders of the little cavalcade turned to cross
+the Pont au Change, he saw spread out on his left what appeared like the
+living panorama of these three weeks that had just gone by. He could
+see the house of the Rue St. Germain l’Auxerrois where Percy had lodged
+before he carried through the rescue of the little Dauphin. Armand could
+even see the window at which the dreamer had stood, weaving noble dreams
+that his brilliant daring had turned into realities, until the hand of a
+traitor had brought him down to--to what? Armand would not have dared at
+this moment to look back at that hideous, vulgar hackney coach wherein
+that proud, reckless adventurer, who had defied Fate and mocked Death,
+sat, in chains, beside a loathsome creature whose very propinquity was
+an outrage.
+
+Now they were passing under the very house on the Quai de La Ferraille,
+above the saddler’s shop, the house where Marguerite had lodged ten days
+ago, whither Armand had come, trying to fool himself into the belief
+that the love of “little mother” could be deceived into blindness
+against his own crime. He had tried to draw a veil before those eyes
+which he had scarcely dared encounter, but he knew that that veil
+must lift one day, and then a curse would send him forth, outlawed and
+homeless, a wanderer on the face of the earth.
+
+Soon as the little cortege wended its way northwards it filed out
+beneath the walls of the Temple prison; there was the main gate with its
+sentry standing at attention, there the archway with the guichet of the
+concierge, and beyond it the paved courtyard. Armand closed his eyes
+deliberately; he could not bear to look.
+
+No wonder that he shivered and tried to draw his cloak closer around
+him. Every stone, every street corner was full of memories. The chill
+that struck to the very marrow of his bones came from no outward cause;
+it was the very hand of remorse that, as it passed over him, froze the
+blood in his veins and made the rattle of those wheels behind him sound
+like a hellish knell.
+
+At last the more closely populated quarters of the city were left
+behind. On ahead the first section of the guard had turned into the Rue
+St. Anne. The houses became more sparse, intersected by narrow pieces of
+terrains vagues, or small weed-covered bits of kitchen garden.
+
+Then a halt was called.
+
+It was quite light now. As light as it would ever be beneath this leaden
+sky. Rain and snow still fell in gusts, driven by the blast.
+
+Some one ordered Armand to dismount. It was probably Chauvelin. He did
+as he was told, and a trooper led him to the door of an irregular brick
+building that stood isolated on the right, extended on either side by
+a low wall, and surrounded by a patch of uncultivated land, which now
+looked like a sea of mud.
+
+On ahead was the line of fortifications dimly outlined against the grey
+of the sky, and in between brown, sodden earth, with here and there
+a detached house, a cabbage patch, a couple of windmills deserted and
+desolate.
+
+The loneliness of an unpopulated outlying quarter of the great mother
+city, a useless limb of her active body, an ostracised member of her
+vast family.
+
+Mechanically Armand had followed the soldier to the door of the
+building. Here Chauvelin was standing, and bade him follow. A smell of
+hot coffee hung in the dark narrow passage in front. Chauvelin led the
+way to a room on the left.
+
+Still that smell of hot coffee. Ever after it was associated in Armand’s
+mind with this awful morning in the guard-house of the Rue Ste. Anne,
+when the rain and snow beat against the windows, and he stood there in
+the low guard-room shivering and half-numbed with cold.
+
+There was a table in the middle of the room, and on it stood cups of
+hot coffee. Chauvelin bade him drink, suggesting, not unkindly, that the
+warm beverage would do him good. Armand advanced further into the room,
+and saw that there were wooden benches all round against the wall. On
+one of these sat his sister Marguerite.
+
+When she saw him she made a sudden, instinctive movement to go to him,
+but Chauvelin interposed in his usual bland, quiet manner.
+
+“Not just now, citizeness,” he said.
+
+She sat down again, and Armand noted how cold and stony seemed her eyes,
+as if life within her was at a stand-still, and a shadow that was almost
+like death had atrophied every emotion in her.
+
+“I trust you have not suffered too much from the cold, Lady Blakeney,”
+ resumed Chauvelin politely; “we ought not to have kept you waiting here
+for so long, but delay at departure is sometimes inevitable.”
+
+She made no reply, only acknowledging his reiterated inquiry as to her
+comfort with an inclination of the head.
+
+Armand had forced himself to swallow some coffee, and for the moment he
+felt less chilled. He held the cup between his two hands, and gradually
+some warmth crept into his bones.
+
+“Little mother,” he said in English, “try and drink some of this, it
+will do you good.”
+
+“Thank you, dear,” she replied. “I have had some. I am not cold.”
+
+Then a door at the end of the room was pushed open, and Heron stalked
+in.
+
+“Are we going to be all day in this confounded hole?” he queried
+roughly.
+
+Armand, who was watching his sister very closely, saw that she started
+at the sight of the wretch, and seemed immediately to shrink still
+further within herself, whilst her eyes, suddenly luminous and dilated,
+rested on him like those of a captive bird upon an approaching cobra.
+
+But Chauvelin was not to be shaken out of his suave manner.
+
+“One moment, citizen Heron,” he said; “this coffee is very comforting.
+Is the prisoner with you?” he added lightly.
+
+Heron nodded in the direction of the other room.
+
+“In there,” he said curtly.
+
+“Then, perhaps, if you will be so good, citizen, to invite him thither,
+I could explain to him his future position and our own.”
+
+Heron muttered something between his fleshy lips, then he turned back
+towards the open door, solemnly spat twice on the threshold, and nodded
+his gaunt head once or twice in a manner which apparently was understood
+from within.
+
+“No, sergeant, I don’t want you,” he said gruffly; “only the prisoner.”
+
+A second or two later Sir Percy Blakeney stood in the doorway; his hands
+were behind his back, obviously hand-cuffed, but he held himself very
+erect, though it was clear that this caused him a mighty effort. As soon
+as he had crossed the threshold his quick glance had swept right round
+the room.
+
+He saw Armand, and his eyes lit up almost imperceptibly.
+
+Then he caught sight of Marguerite, and his pale face took on suddenly a
+more ashen hue.
+
+Chauvelin was watching him with those keen, light-coloured eyes of his.
+Blakeney, conscious of this, made no movement, only his lips tightened,
+and the heavy lids fell over the hollow eyes, completely hiding their
+glance.
+
+But what even the most astute, most deadly enemy could not see was that
+subtle message of understanding that passed at once between Marguerite
+and the man she loved; it was a magnetic current, intangible, invisible
+to all save to her and to him. She was prepared to see him, prepared to
+see in him all that she had feared; the weakness, the mental exhaustion,
+the submission to the inevitable. Therefore she had also schooled her
+glance to express to him all that she knew she would not be allowed to
+say--the reassurance that she had read his last letter, that she had
+obeyed it to the last word, save where Fate and her enemy had interfered
+with regard to herself.
+
+With a slight, imperceptible movement--imperceptible to every one save
+to him, she had seemed to handle a piece of paper in her kerchief, then
+she had nodded slowly, with her eyes--steadfast, reassuring--fixed upon
+him, and his glance gave answer that he had understood.
+
+But Chauvelin and Heron had seen nothing of this. They were satisfied
+that there had been no communication between the prisoner and his wife
+and friend.
+
+“You are no doubt surprised, Sir Percy,” said Chauvelin after a while,
+“to see Lady Blakeney here. She, as well as citizen St. Just, will
+accompany our expedition to the place where you will lead us. We none
+of us know where that place is--citizen Heron and myself are entirely in
+your hands--you might be leading us to certain death, or again to a spot
+where your own escape would be an easy matter to yourself. You will
+not be surprised, therefore, that we have thought fit to take certain
+precautions both against any little ambuscade which you may have
+prepared for us, or against your making one of those daring attempts at
+escape for which the noted Scarlet Pimpernel is so justly famous.”
+
+He paused, and only Heron’s low chuckle of satisfaction broke the
+momentary silence that followed. Blakeney made no reply. Obviously he
+knew exactly what was coming. He knew Chauvelin and his ways, knew the
+kind of tortuous conception that would find origin in his brain; the
+moment that he saw Marguerite sitting there he must have guessed that
+Chauvelin once more desired to put her precious life in the balance of
+his intrigues.
+
+“Citizen Heron is impatient, Sir Percy,” resumed Chauvelin after a
+while, “so I must be brief. Lady Blakeney, as well as citizen St. Just,
+will accompany us on this expedition to whithersoever you may lead
+us. They will be the hostages which we will hold against your own good
+faith. At the slightest suspicion--a mere suspicion perhaps--that you
+have played us false, at a hint that you have led us into an ambush, or
+that the whole of this expedition has been but a trick on your part to
+effect your own escape, or if merely our hope of finding Capet at the
+end of our journey is frustrated, the lives of our two hostages belong
+to us, and your friend and your wife will be summarily shot before your
+eyes.”
+
+Outside the rain pattered against the window-panes, the gale whistled
+mournfully among the stunted trees, but within this room not a sound
+stirred the deadly stillness of the air, and yet at this moment hatred
+and love, savage lust and sublime self-abnegation--the most power full
+passions the heart of man can know--held three men here enchained; each
+a slave to his dominant passion, each ready to stake his all for the
+satisfaction of his master. Heron was the first to speak.
+
+“Well!” he said with a fierce oath, “what are we waiting for? The
+prisoner knows how he stands. Now we can go.”
+
+“One moment, citizen,” interposed Chauvelin, his quiet manner
+contrasting strangely with his colleague’s savage mood. “You have quite
+understood, Sir Percy,” he continued, directly addressing the prisoner,
+“the conditions under which we are all of us about to proceed on this
+journey?”
+
+“All of us?” said Blakeney slowly. “Are you taking it for granted then
+that I accept your conditions and that I am prepared to proceed on the
+journey?”
+
+“If you do not proceed on the journey,” cried Heron with savage fury,
+“I’ll strangle that woman with my own hands--now!”
+
+Blakeney looked at him for a moment or two through half-closed lids, and
+it seemed then to those who knew him well, to those who loved him and
+to the man who hated him, that the mighty sinews almost cracked with
+the passionate desire to kill. Then the sunken eyes turned slowly to
+Marguerite, and she alone caught the look--it was a mere flash, of a
+humble appeal for pardon.
+
+It was all over in a second; almost immediately the tension on the
+pale face relaxed, and into the eyes there came that look of
+acceptance--nearly akin to fatalism--an acceptance of which the strong
+alone are capable, for with them it only comes in the face of the
+inevitable.
+
+Now he shrugged his broad shoulders, and once more turning to Heron he
+said quietly:
+
+“You leave me no option in that case. As you have remarked before,
+citizen Heron, why should we wait any longer? Surely we can now go.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII. THE DREARY JOURNEY
+
+Rain! Rain! Rain! Incessant, monotonous and dreary! The wind had changed
+round to the southwest. It blew now in great gusts that sent weird,
+sighing sounds through the trees, and drove the heavy showers into the
+faces of the men as they rode on, with heads bent forward against the
+gale.
+
+The rain-sodden bridles slipped through their hands, bringing out sores
+and blisters on their palms; the horses were fidgety, tossing their
+heads with wearying persistence as the wet trickled into their ears, or
+the sharp, intermittent hailstones struck their sensitive noses.
+
+Three days of this awful monotony, varied only by the halts at wayside
+inns, the changing of troops at one of the guard-houses on the way, the
+reiterated commands given to the fresh squad before starting on the next
+lap of this strange, momentous way; and all the while, audible above
+the clatter of horses’ hoofs, the rumbling of coach-wheels--two closed
+carriages, each drawn by a pair of sturdy horses; which were changed at
+every halt. A soldier on each box urged them to a good pace to keep up
+with the troopers, who were allowed to go at an easy canter or light
+jog-trot, whatever might prove easiest and least fatiguing. And from
+time to time Heron’s shaggy, gaunt head would appear at the window of
+one of the coaches, asking the way, the distance to the next city or
+to the nearest wayside inn; cursing the troopers, the coachman, his
+colleague and every one concerned, blaspheming against the interminable
+length of the road, against the cold and against the wet.
+
+Early in the evening on the second day of the journey he had met with an
+accident. The prisoner, who presumably was weak and weary, and not over
+steady on his feet, had fallen up against him as they were both about to
+re-enter the coach after a halt just outside Amiens, and citizen Heron
+had lost his footing in the slippery mud of the road. His head came in
+violent contact with the step, and his right temple was severely cut.
+Since then he had been forced to wear a bandage across the top of his
+face, under his sugar-loaf hat, which had added nothing to his beauty,
+but a great deal to the violence of his temper. He wanted to push the
+men on, to force the pace, to shorten the halts; but Chauvelin knew
+better than to allow slackness and discontent to follow in the wake of
+over-fatigue.
+
+The soldiers were always well rested and well fed, and though the delay
+caused by long and frequent halts must have been just as irksome to him
+as it was to Heron, yet he bore it imperturbably, for he would have had
+no use on this momentous journey for a handful of men whose enthusiasm
+and spirit had been blown away by the roughness of the gale, or drowned
+in the fury of the constant downpour of rain.
+
+Of all this Marguerite had been conscious in a vague, dreamy kind of
+way. She seemed to herself like the spectator in a moving panoramic
+drama, unable to raise a finger or to do aught to stop that final,
+inevitable ending, the cataclysm of sorrow and misery that awaited her,
+when the dreary curtain would fall on the last act, and she and all the
+other spectators--Armand, Chauvelin, Heron, the soldiers--would slowly
+wend their way home, leaving the principal actor behind the fallen
+curtain, which never would be lifted again.
+
+After that first halt in the guard-room of the Rue Ste. Anne she had
+been bidden to enter a second hackney coach, which, followed the other
+at a distance of fifty metres or so, and was, like that other, closely
+surrounded by a squad of mounted men.
+
+Armand and Chauvelin rode in this carriage with her; all day she sat
+looking out on the endless monotony of the road, on the drops of rain
+that pattered against the window-glass, and ran down from it like a
+perpetual stream of tears.
+
+There were two halts called during the day--one for dinner and one
+midway through the afternoon--when she and Armand would step out of
+the coach and be led--always with soldiers close around them--to some
+wayside inn, where some sort of a meal was served, where the atmosphere
+was close and stuffy and smelt of onion soup and of stale cheese.
+
+Armand and Marguerite would in most cases have a room to themselves,
+with sentinels posted outside the door, and they would try and eat
+enough to keep body and soul together, for they would not allow their
+strength to fall away before the end of the journey was reached.
+
+For the night halt--once at Beauvais and the second night at
+Abbeville--they were escorted to a house in the interior of the city,
+where they were accommodated with moderately clean lodgings. Sentinels,
+however, were always at their doors; they were prisoners in all but
+name, and had little or no privacy; for at night they were both so tired
+that they were glad to retire immediately, and to lie down on the hard
+beds that had been provided for them, even if sleep fled from their
+eyes, and their hearts and souls were flying through the city in search
+of him who filled their every thought.
+
+Of Percy they saw little or nothing. In the daytime food was evidently
+brought to him in the carriage, for they did not see him get down, and
+on those two nights at Beauvais and Abbeville, when they caught sight of
+him stepping out of the coach outside the gates of the barracks, he was
+so surrounded by soldiers that they only saw the top of his head and his
+broad shoulders towering above those of the men.
+
+Once Marguerite had put all her pride, all her dignity by, and asked
+citizen Chauvelin for news of her husband.
+
+“He is well and cheerful, Lady Blakeney,” he had replied with his
+sarcastic smile. “Ah!” he added pleasantly, “those English are
+remarkable people. We, of Gallic breed, will never really understand
+them. Their fatalism is quite Oriental in its quiet resignation to the
+decree of Fate. Did you know, Lady Blakeney, that when Sir Percy was
+arrested he did not raise a hand. I thought, and so did my colleague,
+that he would have fought like a lion. And now, that he has no doubt
+realised that quiet submission will serve him best in the end, he is
+as calm on this journey as I am myself. In fact,” he concluded
+complacently, “whenever I have succeeded in peeping into the coach I
+have invariably found Sir Percy Blakeney fast asleep.”
+
+“He--” she murmured, for it was so difficult to speak to this callous
+wretch, who was obviously mocking her in her misery--“he--you--you are
+not keeping him in irons?”
+
+“No! Oh no!” replied Chauvelin with perfect urbanity. “You see, now
+that we have you, Lady Blakeney, and citizen St. Just with us we have no
+reason to fear that that elusive Pimpernel will spirit himself away.”
+
+A hot retort had risen to Armand’s lips. The warm Latin blood in him
+rebelled against this intolerable situation, the man’s sneers in the
+face of Marguerite’s anguish. But her restraining, gentle hand had
+already pressed his. What was the use of protesting, of insulting this
+brute, who cared nothing for the misery which he had caused so long as
+he gained his own ends?
+
+And Armand held his tongue and tried to curb his temper, tried to
+cultivate a little of that fatalism which Chauvelin had said was
+characteristic of the English. He sat beside his sister, longing to
+comfort her, yet feeling that his very presence near her was an outrage
+and a sacrilege. She spoke so seldom to him, even when they were alone,
+that at times the awful thought which had more than once found birth in
+his weary brain became crystallised and more real. Did Marguerite guess?
+Had she the slightest suspicion that the awful cataclysm to which they
+were tending with every revolution of the creaking coach-wheels had been
+brought about by her brother’s treacherous hand?
+
+And when that thought had lodged itself quite snugly in his mind he
+began to wonder whether it would not be far more simple, far more easy,
+to end his miserable life in some manner that might suggest itself on
+the way. When the coach crossed one of those dilapidated, parapetless
+bridges, over abysses fifty metres deep, it might be so easy to throw
+open the carriage door and to take one final jump into eternity.
+
+So easy--but so damnably cowardly.
+
+Marguerite’s near presence quickly brought him back to himself. His life
+was no longer his own to do with as he pleased; it belonged to the chief
+whom he had betrayed, to the sister whom he must endeavour to protect.
+
+Of Jeanne now he thought but little. He had put even the memory of her
+by--tenderly, like a sprig of lavender pressed between the faded leaves
+of his own happiness. His hand was no longer fit to hold that of any
+pure woman--his hand had on it a deep stain, immutable, like the brand
+of Cain.
+
+Yet Marguerite beside him held his hand and together they looked out on
+that dreary, dreary road and listened to of the patter of the rain and
+the rumbling of the wheels of that other coach on ahead--and it was all
+so dismal and so horrible, the rain, the soughing of the wind in the
+stunted trees, this landscape of mud and desolation, this eternally grey
+sky.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV. THE HALT AT CRECY
+
+“Now, then, citizen, don’t go to sleep; this is Crecy, our last halt!”
+
+Armand woke up from his last dream. They had been moving steadily on
+since they left Abbeville soon after dawn; the rumble of the wheels, the
+swaying and rocking of the carriage, the interminable patter of the rain
+had lulled him into a kind of wakeful sleep.
+
+Chauvelin had already alighted from the coach. He was helping Marguerite
+to descend. Armand shook the stiffness from his limbs and followed in
+the wake of his sister. Always those miserable soldiers round them, with
+their dank coats of rough blue cloth, and the red caps on their heads!
+Armand pulled Marguerite’s hand through his arm, and dragged her with
+him into the house.
+
+The small city lay damp and grey before them; the rough pavement of the
+narrow street glistened with the wet, reflecting the dull, leaden sky
+overhead; the rain beat into the puddles; the slate-roofs shone in the
+cold wintry light.
+
+This was Crecy! The last halt of the journey, so Chauvelin had said. The
+party had drawn rein in front of a small one-storied building that had a
+wooden verandah running the whole length of its front.
+
+The usual low narrow room greeted Armand and Marguerite as they entered;
+the usual mildewed walls, with the colour wash flowing away in streaks
+from the unsympathetic beam above; the same device, “Liberte, Egalite,
+Fraternite!” scribbled in charcoal above the black iron stove; the usual
+musty, close atmosphere, the usual smell of onion and stale cheese,
+the usual hard straight benches and central table with its soiled and
+tattered cloth.
+
+Marguerite seemed dazed and giddy; she had been five hours in
+that stuffy coach with nothing to distract her thoughts except the
+rain-sodden landscape, on which she had ceaselessly gazed since the
+early dawn.
+
+Armand led her to the bench, and she sank down on it, numb and inert,
+resting her elbows on the table and her head in her hands.
+
+“If it were only all over!” she sighed involuntarily. “Armand, at times
+now I feel as if I were not really sane--as if my reason had already
+given way! Tell me, do I seem mad to you at times?”
+
+He sat down beside her and tried to chafe her little cold hands.
+
+There was a knock at the door, and without waiting for permission
+Chauvelin entered the room.
+
+“My humble apologies to you, Lady Blakeney,” he said in his usual suave
+manner, “but our worthy host informs me that this is the only room in
+which he can serve a meal. Therefore I am forced to intrude my presence
+upon you.”
+
+Though he spoke with outward politeness, his tone had become more
+peremptory, less bland, and he did not await Marguerite’s reply before
+he sat down opposite to her and continued to talk airily.
+
+“An ill-conditioned fellow, our host,” he said--“quite reminds me of
+our friend Brogard at the Chat Gris in Calais. You remember him, Lady
+Blakeney?”
+
+“My sister is giddy and over-tired,” interposed Armand firmly. “I pray
+you, citizen, to have some regard for her.”
+
+“All regard in the world, citizen St. Just,” protested Chauvelin
+jovially. “Methought that those pleasant reminiscences would cheer
+her. Ah! here comes the soup,” he added, as a man in blue blouse and
+breeches, with sabots on his feet, slouched into the room, carrying a
+tureen which he incontinently placed upon the table. “I feel sure that
+in England Lady Blakeney misses our excellent croutes-au-pot, the glory
+of our bourgeois cookery--Lady Blakeney, a little soup?”
+
+“I thank you, sir,” she murmured.
+
+“Do try and eat something, little mother,” Armand whispered in her ear;
+“try and keep up your strength for his sake, if not for mine.”
+
+She turned a wan, pale face to him, and tried to smile.
+
+“I’ll try, dear,” she said.
+
+“You have taken bread and meat to the citizens in the coach?” Chauvelin
+called out to the retreating figure of mine host.
+
+“H’m!” grunted the latter in assent.
+
+“And see that the citizen soldiers are well fed, or there will be
+trouble.”
+
+“H’m!” grunted the man again. After which he banged the door to behind
+him.
+
+“Citizen Heron is loath to let the prisoner out of his sight,” explained
+Chauvelin lightly, “now that we have reached the last, most important
+stage of our journey, so he is sharing Sir Percy’s mid-day meal in the
+interior of the coach.”
+
+He ate his soup with a relish, ostentatiously paying many small
+attentions to Marguerite all the time. He ordered meat for her--bread,
+butter--asked if any dainties could be got. He was apparently in the
+best of tempers.
+
+After he had eaten and drunk he rose and bowed ceremoniously to her.
+
+“Your pardon, Lady Blakeney,” he said, “but I must confer with the
+prisoner now, and take from him full directions for the continuance of
+our journey. After that I go to the guard-house, which is some distance
+from here, right at the other end of the city. We pick up a fresh squad
+here, twenty hardened troopers from a cavalry regiment usually stationed
+at Abbeville. They have had work to do in this town, which is a hot-bed
+of treachery. I must go inspect the men and the sergeant who will be in
+command. Citizen Heron leaves all these inspections to me; he likes to
+stay by his prisoner. In the meanwhile you will be escorted back to your
+coach, where I pray you to await my arrival, when we change guard first,
+then proceed on our way.”
+
+Marguerite was longing to ask him many questions; once again she
+would have smothered her pride and begged for news of her husband,
+but Chauvelin did not wait. He hurried out of the room, and Armand and
+Marguerite could hear him ordering the soldiers to take them forthwith
+back to the coach.
+
+As they came out of the inn they saw the other coach some fifty metres
+further up the street. The horses that had done duty since leaving
+Abbeville had been taken out, and two soldiers in ragged shirts, and
+with crimson caps set jauntily over their left ear, were leading the two
+fresh horses along. The troopers were still mounting guard round both
+the coaches; they would be relieved presently.
+
+Marguerite would have given ten years of her life at this moment for the
+privilege of speaking to her husband, or even of seeing him--of seeing
+that he was well. A quick, wild plan sprang up in her mind that she
+would bribe the sergeant in command to grant her wish while citizen
+Chauvelin was absent. The man had not an unkind face, and he must be
+very poor--people in France were very poor these days, though the rich
+had been robbed and luxurious homes devastated ostensibly to help the
+poor.
+
+She was about to put this sudden thought into execution when Heron’s
+hideous face, doubly hideous now with that bandage of doubtful
+cleanliness cutting across his brow, appeared at the carriage window.
+
+He cursed violently and at the top of his voice.
+
+“What are those d--d aristos doing out there?” he shouted.
+
+“Just getting into the coach, citizen,” replied the sergeant promptly.
+
+And Armand and Marguerite were immediately ordered back into the coach.
+
+Heron remained at the window for a few moments longer; he had a
+toothpick in his hand which he was using very freely.
+
+“How much longer are we going to wait in this cursed hole?” he called
+out to the sergeant.
+
+“Only a few moments longer, citizen. Citizen Chauvelin will be back soon
+with the guard.”
+
+A quarter of an hour later the clatter of cavalry horses on the rough,
+uneven pavement drew Marguerite’s attention. She lowered the carriage
+window and looked out. Chauvelin had just returned with the new escort.
+He was on horseback; his horse’s bridle, since he was but an indifferent
+horseman, was held by one of the troopers.
+
+Outside the inn he dismounted; evidently he had taken full command of
+the expedition, and scarcely referred to Heron, who spent most of his
+time cursing at the men or the weather when he was not lying half-asleep
+and partially drunk in the inside of the carriage.
+
+The changing of the guard was now accomplished quietly and in perfect
+order. The new escort consisted of twenty mounted men, including a
+sergeant and a corporal, and of two drivers, one for each coach. The
+cortege now was filed up in marching order; ahead a small party of
+scouts, then the coach with Marguerite and Armand closely surrounded by
+mounted men, and at a short distance the second coach with citizen Heron
+and the prisoner equally well guarded.
+
+Chauvelin superintended all the arrangements himself. He spoke for some
+few moments with the sergeant, also with the driver of his own coach. He
+went to the window of the other carriage, probably in order to consult
+with citizen Heron, or to take final directions from the prisoner,
+for Marguerite, who was watching him, saw him standing on the step and
+leaning well forward into the interior, whilst apparently he was taking
+notes on a small tablet which he had in his hand.
+
+A small knot of idlers had congregated in the narrow street; men in
+blouses and boys in ragged breeches lounged against the verandah of
+the inn and gazed with inexpressive, stolid eyes on the soldiers, the
+coaches, the citizen who wore the tricolour scarf. They had seen this
+sort of thing before now--aristos being conveyed to Paris under arrest,
+prisoners on their way to or from Amiens. They saw Marguerite’s pale
+face at the carriage window. It was not the first woman’s face they had
+seen under like circumstances, and there was no special interest about
+this aristo. They were smoking or spitting, or just lounging idly
+against the balustrade. Marguerite wondered if none of them had wife,
+sister, or mother, or child; if every sympathy, every kind of feeling in
+these poor wretches had been atrophied by misery or by fear.
+
+At last everything was in order and the small party ready to start.
+
+“Does any one here know the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, close by the
+park of the Chateau d’Ourde?” asked Chauvelin, vaguely addressing the
+knot of gaffers that stood closest to him.
+
+The men shook their heads. Some had dimly heard of the Chateau d’Ourde;
+it was some way in the interior of the forest of Boulogne, but no one
+knew about a chapel; people did not trouble about chapels nowadays. With
+the indifference so peculiar to local peasantry, these men knew no more
+of the surrounding country than the twelve or fifteen league circle that
+was within a walk of their sleepy little town.
+
+One of the scouts on ahead turned in his saddle and spoke to citizen
+Chauvelin:
+
+“I think I know the way pretty well; citizen Chauvelin,” he said; “at
+any rate, I know it as far as the forest of Boulogne.”
+
+Chauvelin referred to his tablets.
+
+“That’s good,” he said; “then when you reach the mile-stone that stands
+on this road at the confine of the forest, bear sharply to your
+right and skirt the wood until you see the hamlet of--Le--something.
+Le--Le--yes--Le Crocq--that’s it in the valley below.”
+
+“I know Le Crocq, I think,” said the trooper.
+
+“Very well, then; at that point it seems that a wide road strikes at
+right angles into the interior of the forest; you follow that until a
+stone chapel with a colonnaded porch stands before you on your left, and
+the walls and gates of a park on your right. That is so, is it not, Sir
+Percy?” he added, once more turning towards the interior of the coach.
+
+Apparently the answer satisfied him, for he gave the quick word of
+command, “En avant!” then turned back towards his own coach and finally
+entered it.
+
+“Do you know the Chateau d’Ourde, citizen St. Just?” he asked abruptly
+as soon as the carriage began to move.
+
+Armand woke--as was habitual with him these days--from some gloomy
+reverie.
+
+“Yes, citizen,” he replied. “I know it.”
+
+“And the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre?”
+
+“Yes. I know it too.”
+
+Indeed, he knew the chateau well, and the little chapel in the forest,
+whither the fisher-folk from Portel and Boulogne came on a pilgrimage
+once a year to lay their nets on the miracle-working relic. The chapel
+was disused now. Since the owner of the chateau had fled no one had
+tended it, and the fisher-folk were afraid to wander out, lest their
+superstitious faith be counted against them by the authorities, who had
+abolished le bon Dieu.
+
+But Armand had found refuge there eighteen months ago, on his way to
+Calais, when Percy had risked his life in order to save him--Armand--from
+death. He could have groaned aloud with the anguish of this
+recollection. But Marguerite’s aching nerves had thrilled at the name.
+
+The Chateau d’Ourde! The Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre! That was the
+place which Percy had mentioned in his letter, the place where he had
+given rendezvous to de Batz. Sir Andrew had said that the Dauphin could
+not possibly be there, yet Percy was leading his enemies thither,
+and had given the rendezvous there to de Batz. And this despite that
+whatever plans, whatever hopes, had been born in his mind when he was
+still immured in the Conciergerie prison must have been set at naught by
+the clever counter plot of Chauvelin and Heron.
+
+“At the merest suspicion that you have played us false, at a hint that
+you have led us into an ambush, or if merely our hopes of finding Capet
+at the end of the journey are frustrated, the lives of your wife and of
+your friend are forfeit to us, and they will both be shot before your
+eyes.”
+
+With these words, with this precaution, those cunning fiends had
+effectually not only tied the schemer’s hands, but forced him either to
+deliver the child to them or to sacrifice his wife and his friend.
+
+The impasse was so horrible that she could not face it even in her
+thoughts. A strange, fever-like heat coursed through her veins, yet
+left her hands icy-cold; she longed for, yet dreaded, the end of the
+journey--that awful grappling with the certainty of coming death.
+Perhaps, after all, Percy, too, had given up all hope. Long ago he had
+consecrated his life to the attainment of his own ideals; and there
+was a vein of fatalism in him; perhaps he had resigned himself to the
+inevitable, and his only desire now was to give up his life, as he had
+said, in the open, beneath God’s sky, to draw his last breath with the
+storm-clouds tossed through infinity above him, and the murmur of the
+wind in the trees to sing him to rest.
+
+Crecy was gradually fading into the distance, wrapped in a mantle of
+damp and mist. For a long while Marguerite could see the sloping slate
+roofs glimmering like steel in the grey afternoon light, and the quaint
+church tower with its beautiful lantern, through the pierced stonework
+of which shone patches of the leaden sky.
+
+Then a sudden twist of the road hid the city from view; only the
+outlying churchyard remained in sight, with its white monuments and
+granite crosses, over which the dark yews, wet with the rain and shaken
+by the gale, sent showers of diamond-like sprays.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV. THE FOREST OF BOULOGNE
+
+Progress was not easy, and very slow along the muddy road; the two
+coaches moved along laboriously, with wheels creaking and sinking deeply
+from time to time in the quagmire.
+
+When the small party finally reached the edge of the wood the greyish
+light of this dismal day had changed in the west to a dull reddish
+glow--a glow that had neither brilliance nor incandescence in it; only a
+weird tint that hung over the horizon and turned the distance into lines
+of purple.
+
+The nearness of the sea made itself already felt; there was a briny
+taste in the damp atmosphere, and the trees all turned their branches
+away in the same direction against the onslaught of the prevailing
+winds.
+
+The road at this point formed a sharp fork, skirting the wood on either
+side, the forest lying like a black close mass of spruce and firs on the
+left, while the open expanse of country stretched out on the right. The
+south-westerly gale struck with full violence against the barrier of
+forest trees, bending the tall crests of the pines and causing their
+small dead branches to break and fall with a sharp, crisp sound like a
+cry of pain.
+
+The squad had been fresh at starting; now the men had been four hours
+in the saddle under persistent rain and gusty wind; they were tired, and
+the atmosphere of the close, black forest so near the road was weighing
+upon their spirits.
+
+Strange sounds came to them from out the dense network of trees--the
+screeching of night-birds, the weird call of the owls, the swift and
+furtive tread of wild beasts on the prowl. The cold winter and lack of
+food had lured the wolves from their fastnesses--hunger had emboldened
+them, and now, as gradually the grey light fled from the sky, dismal
+howls could be heard in the distance, and now and then a pair of eyes,
+bright with the reflection of the lurid western glow, would shine
+momentarily out of the darkness like tiny glow-worms, and as quickly
+vanish away.
+
+The men shivered--more with vague superstitious fear than with cold.
+They would have urged their horses on, but the wheels of the coaches
+stuck persistently in the mud, and now and again a halt had to be called
+so that the spokes and axles might be cleared.
+
+They rode on in silence. No one had a mind to speak, and the mournful
+soughing of the wind in the pine-trees seemed to check the words on
+every lip. The dull thud of hoofs in the soft road, the clang of steel
+bits and buckles, the snorting of the horses alone answered the wind,
+and also the monotonous creaking of the wheels ploughing through the
+ruts.
+
+Soon the ruddy glow in the west faded into soft-toned purple and then
+into grey; finally that too vanished. Darkness was drawing in on
+every side like a wide, black mantle pulled together closer and closer
+overhead by invisible giant hands.
+
+The rain still fell in a thin drizzle that soaked through caps and
+coats, made the bridles slimy and the saddles slippery and damp. A veil
+of vapour hung over the horses’ cruppers, and was rendered fuller and
+thicker every moment with the breath that came from their nostrils. The
+wind no longer blew with gusty fury--its strength seemed to have been
+spent with the grey light of day--but now and then it would still come
+sweeping across the open country, and dash itself upon the wall of
+forest trees, lashing against the horses’ ears, catching the corner of
+a mantle here, an ill-adjusted cap there, and wreaking its mischievous
+freak for a while, then with a sigh of satisfaction die, murmuring among
+the pines.
+
+Suddenly there was a halt, much shouting, a volley of oaths from the
+drivers, and citizen Chauvelin thrust his head out of the carriage
+window.
+
+“What is it?” he asked.
+
+“The scouts, citizen,” replied the sergeant, who had been riding close
+to the coach door all this while; “they have returned.”
+
+“Tell one man to come straight to me and report.”
+
+Marguerite sat quite still. Indeed, she had almost ceased to live
+momentarily, for her spirit was absent from her body, which felt neither
+fatigue, nor cold, nor pain. But she heard the snorting of the horse
+close by as its rider pulled him up sharply beside the carriage door.
+
+“Well?” said Chauvelin curtly.
+
+“This is the cross-road, citizen,” replied the man; “it strikes straight
+into the wood, and the hamlet of Le Crocq lies down in the valley on the
+right.”
+
+“Did you follow the road in the wood?”
+
+“Yes, citizen. About two leagues from here there is a clearing with a
+small stone chapel, more like a large shrine, nestling among the trees.
+Opposite to it the angle of a high wall with large wrought-iron gates at
+the corner, and from these a wide drive leads through a park.”
+
+“Did you turn into the drive?”
+
+“Only a little way, citizen. We thought we had best report first that
+all is safe.”
+
+“You saw no one?”
+
+“No one.”
+
+“The chateau, then, lies some distance from the gates?”
+
+“A league or more, citizen. Close to the gates there are outhouses and
+stabling, the disused buildings of the home farm, I should say.”
+
+“Good! We are on the right road, that is clear. Keep ahead with your men
+now, but only some two hundred metres or so. Stay!” he added, as if on
+second thoughts. “Ride down to the other coach and ask the prisoner if
+we are on the right track.”
+
+The rider turned his horse sharply round. Marguerite heard-the clang of
+metal and the sound of retreating hoofs.
+
+A few moments later the man returned.
+
+“Yes, citizen,” he reported, “the prisoner says it is quite right. The
+Chateau d’Ourde lies a full league from its gates. This is the nearest
+road to the chapel and the chateau. He says we should reach the former
+in half an hour. It will be very dark in there,” he added with a
+significant nod in the direction of the wood.
+
+Chauvelin made no reply, but quietly stepped out of the coach.
+Marguerite watched him, leaning out of the window, following his
+small trim figure as he pushed his way past the groups of mounted men,
+catching at a horse’s bit now and then, or at a bridle, making a way for
+himself amongst the restless, champing animals, without the slightest
+hesitation or fear.
+
+Soon his retreating figure lost its sharp outline silhouetted against
+the evening sky. It was enfolded in the veil of vapour which was blown
+out of the horses’ nostrils or rising from their damp cruppers;
+it became more vague, almost ghost-like, through the mist and the
+fast-gathering gloom.
+
+Presently a group of troopers hid him entirely from her view, but she
+could hear his thin, smooth voice quite clearly as he called to citizen
+Heron.
+
+“We are close to the end of our journey now, citizen,” she heard him
+say. “If the prisoner has not played us false little Capet should be in
+our charge within the hour.”
+
+A growl not unlike those that came from out the mysterious depths of the
+forest answered him.
+
+“If he is not,” and Marguerite recognised the harsh tones of citizen
+Heron--“if he is not, then two corpses will be rotting in this wood
+tomorrow for the wolves to feed on, and the prisoner will be on his way
+back to Paris with me.”
+
+Some one laughed. It might have been one of the troopers, more callous
+than his comrades, but to Marguerite the laugh had a strange, familiar
+ring in it, the echo of something long since past and gone.
+
+Then Chauvelin’s voice once more came clearly to her ear:
+
+“My suggestion, citizen,” he was saying, “is that the prisoner shall now
+give me an order--couched in whatever terms he may think necessary--but
+a distinct order to his friends to give up Capet to me without any
+resistance. I could then take some of the men with me, and ride as
+quickly as the light will allow up to the chateau, and take possession
+of it, of Capet, and of those who are with him. We could get along
+faster thus. One man can give up his horse to me and continue the
+journey on the box of your coach. The two carriages could then follow at
+foot pace. But I fear that if we stick together complete darkness
+will overtake us and we might find ourselves obliged to pass a very
+uncomfortable night in this wood.”
+
+“I won’t spend another night in this suspense--it would kill me,”
+ growled Heron to the accompaniment of one of his choicest oaths. “You
+must do as you think right--you planned the whole of this affair--see to
+it that it works out well in the end.”
+
+“How many men shall I take with me? Our advance guard is here, of
+course.”
+
+“I couldn’t spare you more than four more men--I shall want the others
+to guard the prisoners.”
+
+“Four men will be quite sufficient, with the four of the advance guard.
+That will leave you twelve men for guarding your prisoners, and you
+really only need to guard the woman--her life will answer for the
+others.”
+
+He had raised his voice when he said this, obviously intending that
+Marguerite and Armand should hear.
+
+“Then I’ll ahead,” he continued, apparently in answer to an assent
+from his colleague. “Sir Percy, will you be so kind as to scribble the
+necessary words on these tablets?”
+
+There was a long pause, during which Marguerite heard plainly the long
+and dismal cry of a night bird that, mayhap, was seeking its mate. Then
+Chauvelin’s voice was raised again.
+
+“I thank you,” he said; “this certainly should be quite effectual. And
+now, citizen Heron, I do not think that under the circumstances we need
+fear an ambuscade or any kind of trickery--you hold the hostages. And
+if by any chance I and my men are attacked, or if we encounter armed
+resistance at the chateau, I will despatch a rider back straightway to
+you, and--well, you will know what to do.”
+
+His voice died away, merged in the soughing of the wind, drowned by
+the clang of metal, of horses snorting, of men living and breathing.
+Marguerite felt that beside her Armand had shuddered, and that in the
+darkness his trembling hand had sought and found hers.
+
+She leaned well out of the window, trying to see. The gloom had gathered
+more closely in, and round her the veil of vapour from the horses’
+steaming cruppers hung heavily in the misty air. In front of her the
+straight lines of a few fir trees stood out dense and black against the
+greyness beyond, and between these lines purple tints of various tones
+and shades mingled one with the other, merging the horizon line with the
+sky. Here and there a more solid black patch indicated the tiny houses
+of the hamlet of Le Crocq far down in the valley below; from some of
+these houses small lights began to glimmer like blinking yellow eyes.
+Marguerite’s gaze, however, did not rest on the distant landscape--it
+tried to pierce the gloom that hid her immediate surroundings; the
+mounted men were all round the coach--more closely round her than the
+trees in the forest. But the horses were restless, moving all the
+time, and as they moved she caught glimpses of that other coach and of
+Chauvelin’s ghostlike figure, walking rapidly through the mist. Just for
+one brief moment she saw the other coach, and Heron’s head and shoulders
+leaning out of the window. His sugar-loaf hat was on his head, and the
+bandage across his brow looked like a sharp, pale streak below it.
+
+“Do not doubt it, citizen Chauvelin,” he called out loudly in his harsh,
+raucous voice, “I shall know what to do; the wolves will have their meal
+to-night, and the guillotine will not be cheated either.”
+
+Armand put his arm round his sister’s shoulders and gently drew her back
+into the carriage.
+
+“Little mother,” he said, “if you can think of a way whereby my life
+would redeem Percy’s and yours, show me that way now.”
+
+But she replied quietly and firmly:
+
+“There is no way, Armand. If there is, it is in the hands of God.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI. OTHERS IN THE PARK
+
+Chauvelin and his picked escort had in the meanwhile detached themselves
+from the main body of the squad. Soon the dull thud of their horses’
+hoofs treading the soft ground came more softly--then more softly still
+as they turned into the wood, and the purple shadows seemed to enfold
+every sound and finally to swallow them completely.
+
+Armand and Marguerite from the depth of the carriage heard Heron’s voice
+ordering his own driver now to take the lead. They sat quite still and
+watched, and presently the other coach passed them slowly on the road,
+its silhouette standing out ghostly and grim for a moment against the
+indigo tones of the distant country.
+
+Heron’s head, with its battered sugar-loaf hat, and the soiled bandage
+round the brow, was as usual out of the carriage window. He leered
+across at Marguerite when he saw the outline of her face framed by the
+window of the carriage.
+
+“Say all the prayers you have ever known, citizeness,” he said with a
+loud laugh, “that my friend Chauvelin may find Capet at the chateau, or
+else you may take a last look at the open country, for you will not see
+the sun rise on it to-morrow. It is one or the other, you know.”
+
+She tried not to look at him; the very sight of him filled her with
+horror--that blotched, gaunt face of his, the fleshy lips, that hideous
+bandage across his face that hid one of his eyes! She tried not to see
+him and not to hear him laugh.
+
+Obviously he too laboured under the stress of great excitement. So far
+everything had gone well; the prisoner had made no attempt at escape,
+and apparently did not mean to play a double game. But the crucial hour
+had come, and with it darkness and the mysterious depths of the forest
+with their weird sounds and sudden flashes of ghostly lights. They
+naturally wrought on the nerves of men like Heron, whose conscience
+might have been dormant, but whose ears were nevertheless filled with
+the cries of innocent victims sacrificed to their own lustful ambitions
+and their blind, unreasoning hates.
+
+He gave sharp orders to the men to close up round the carriages, and
+then gave the curt word of command:
+
+“En avant!”
+
+Marguerite could but strain her ears to listen. All her senses, all her
+faculties had merged into that of hearing, rendering it doubly keen. It
+seemed to her that she could distinguish the faint sound--that even as
+she listened grew fainter and fainter yet--of Chauvelin and his squad
+moving away rapidly into the thickness of the wood some distance already
+ahead.
+
+Close to her there was the snorting of horses, the clanging and noise of
+moving mounted men. Heron’s coach had taken the lead; she could hear the
+creaking of its wheels, the calls of the driver urging his beasts.
+
+The diminished party was moving at foot-pace in the darkness that seemed
+to grow denser at every step, and through that silence which was so full
+of mysterious sounds.
+
+The carriage rolled and rocked on its springs; Marguerite, giddy and
+overtired, lay back with closed eyes, her hand resting in that of
+Armand. Time, space and distance had ceased to be; only Death, the
+great Lord of all, had remained; he walked on ahead, scythe on skeleton
+shoulder, and beckoned patiently, but with a sure, grim hand.
+
+There was another halt, the coach-wheels groaned and creaked on their
+axles, one or two horses reared with the sudden drawing up of the curb.
+
+“What is it now?” came Heron’s hoarse voice through the darkness.
+
+“It is pitch-dark, citizen,” was the response from ahead. “The drivers
+cannot see their horses’ ears. They wait to know if they may light their
+lanthorns and then lead their horses.”
+
+“They can lead their horses,” replied Heron roughly, “but I’ll have no
+lanthorns lighted. We don’t know what fools may be lurking behind trees,
+hoping to put a bullet through my head--or yours, sergeant--we don’t
+want to make a lighted target of ourselves--what? But let the drivers
+lead their horses, and one or two of you who are riding greys might
+dismount too and lead the way--the greys would show up perhaps in this
+cursed blackness.”
+
+While his orders were being carried out, he called out once more:
+
+“Are we far now from that confounded chapel?”
+
+“We can’t be far, citizen; the whole forest is not more than six leagues
+wide at any point, and we have gone two since we turned into it.”
+
+“Hush!” Heron’s voice suddenly broke in hoarsely. “What was that?
+Silence, I say. Damn you--can’t you hear?”
+
+There was a hush--every ear straining to listen; but the horses were
+not still--they continued to champ their bits, to paw the ground, and
+to toss their heads, impatient to get on. Only now and again there
+would come a lull even through these sounds--a second or two, mayhap,
+of perfect, unbroken silence--and then it seemed as if right through the
+darkness a mysterious echo sent back those same sounds--the champing of
+bits, the pawing of soft ground, the tossing and snorting of animals,
+human life that breathed far out there among the trees.
+
+“It is citizen Chauvelin and his men,” said the sergeant after a while,
+and speaking in a whisper.
+
+“Silence--I want to hear,” came the curt, hoarsely-whispered command.
+
+Once more every one listened, the men hardly daring to breathe, clinging
+to their bridles and pulling on their horses’ mouths, trying to keep
+them still, and again through the night there came like a faint echo
+which seemed to throw back those sounds that indicated the presence of
+men and of horses not very far away.
+
+“Yes, it must be citizen Chauvelin,” said Heron at last; but the tone of
+his voice sounded as if he were anxious and only half convinced; “but I
+thought he would be at the chateau by now.”
+
+“He may have had to go at foot-pace; it is very dark, citizen Heron,”
+ remarked the sergeant.
+
+“En avant, then,” quoth the other; “the sooner we come up with him the
+better.”
+
+And the squad of mounted men, the two coaches, the drivers and the
+advance section who were leading their horses slowly restarted on the
+way. The horses snorted, the bits and stirrups clanged, and the springs
+and wheels of the coaches creaked and groaned dismally as the ramshackle
+vehicles began once more to plough the carpet of pine-needles that lay
+thick upon the road.
+
+But inside the carriage Armand and Marguerite held one another tightly
+by the hand.
+
+“It is de Batz--with his friends,” she whispered scarce above her
+breath.
+
+“De Batz?” he asked vaguely and fearfully, for in the dark he could not
+see her face, and as he did not understand why she should suddenly be
+talking of de Batz he thought with horror that mayhap her prophecy anent
+herself had come true, and that her mind wearied and over-wrought--had
+become suddenly unhinged.
+
+“Yes, de Batz,” she replied. “Percy sent him a message, through me,
+to meet him--here. I am not mad, Armand,” she added more calmly. “Sir
+Andrew took Percy’s letter to de Batz the day that we started from
+Paris.”
+
+“Great God!” exclaimed Armand, and instinctively, with a sense of
+protection, he put his arms round his sister. “Then, if Chauvelin or the
+squad is attacked--if--”
+
+“Yes,” she said calmly; “if de Batz makes an attack on Chauvelin, or
+if he reaches the chateau first and tries to defend it, they will shoot
+us... Armand, and Percy.”
+
+“But is the Dauphin at the Chateau d’Ourde?”
+
+“No, no! I think not.”
+
+“Then why should Percy have invoked the aid of de Batz? Now, when--”
+
+“I don’t know,” she murmured helplessly. “Of course, when he wrote the
+letter he could not guess that they would hold us as hostages. He may
+have thought that under cover of darkness and of an unexpected attack he
+might have saved himself had he been alone; but now--now that you and I
+are here--Oh! it is all so horrible, and I cannot understand it all.”
+
+“Hark!” broke in Armand, suddenly gripping her arm more tightly.
+
+“Halt!” rang the sergeant’s voice through the night.
+
+This time there was no mistaking the sound; already it came from no far
+distance. It was the sound of a man running and panting, and now and
+again calling out as he ran.
+
+For a moment there was stillness in the very air, the wind itself
+was hushed between two gusts, even the rain had ceased its incessant
+pattering. Heron’s harsh voice was raised in the stillness.
+
+“What is it now?” he demanded.
+
+“A runner, citizen,” replied the sergeant, “coming through the wood from
+the right.”
+
+“From the right?” and the exclamation was accompanied by a volley of
+oaths; “the direction of the chateau? Chauvelin has been attacked; he is
+sending a messenger back to me. Sergeant--sergeant, close up round that
+coach; guard your prisoners as you value your life, and--”
+
+The rest of his words were drowned in a yell of such violent fury that
+the horses, already over-nervous and fidgety, reared in mad terror,
+and the men had the greatest difficulty in holding them in. For a few
+minutes noisy confusion prevailed, until the men could quieten their
+quivering animals with soft words and gentle pattings.
+
+Then the troopers obeyed, closing up round the coach wherein brother and
+sister sat huddled against one another.
+
+One of the men said under his breath:
+
+“Ah! but the citizen agent knows how to curse! One day he will break his
+gullet with the fury of his oaths.”
+
+In the meanwhile the runner had come nearer, always at the same
+breathless speed.
+
+The next moment he was challenged:
+
+“Qui va la?”
+
+“A friend!” he replied, panting and exhausted. “Where is citizen Heron?”
+
+“Here!” came the reply in a voice hoarse with passionate excitement.
+“Come up, damn you. Be quick!”
+
+“A lanthorn, citizen,” suggested one of the drivers.
+
+“No--no--not now. Here! Where the devil are we?”
+
+“We are close to the chapel on our left, citizen,” said the sergeant.
+
+The runner, whose eyes were no doubt accustomed to the gloom, had drawn
+nearer to the carriage.
+
+“The gates of the chateau,” he said, still somewhat breathlessly, “are
+just opposite here on the right, citizen. I have just come through
+them.”
+
+“Speak up, man!” and Heron’s voice now sounded as if choked with
+passion. “Citizen Chauvelin sent you?”
+
+“Yes. He bade me tell you that he has gained access to the chateau, and
+that Capet is not there.”
+
+A series of citizen Heron’s choicest oaths interrupted the man’s speech.
+Then he was curtly ordered to proceed, and he resumed his report.
+
+“Citizen Chauvelin rang at the door of the chateau; after a while he was
+admitted by an old servant, who appeared to be in charge, but the place
+seemed otherwise absolutely deserted--only--”
+
+“Only what? Go on; what is it?”
+
+“As we rode through the park it seemed to us as if we were being
+watched, and followed. We heard distinctly the sound of horses behind
+and around us, but we could see nothing; and now, when I ran back, again
+I heard. There are others in the park to-night besides us, citizen.”
+
+There was silence after that. It seemed as if the flood of Heron’s
+blasphemous eloquence had spent itself at last.
+
+“Others in the park!” And now his voice was scarcely above a whisper,
+hoarse and trembling. “How many? Could you see?”
+
+“No, citizen, we could not see; but there are horsemen lurking round the
+chateau now. Citizen Chauvelin took four men into the house with him and
+left the others on guard outside. He bade me tell you that it might be
+safer to send him a few more men if you could spare them. There are
+a number of disused farm buildings quite close to the gates, and he
+suggested that all the horses be put up there for the night, and that
+the men come up to the chateau on foot; it would be quicker and safer,
+for the darkness is intense.”
+
+Even while the man spoke the forest in the distance seemed to wake from
+its solemn silence, the wind on its wings brought sounds of life and
+movement different from the prowling of beasts or the screeching of
+night-birds. It was the furtive advance of men, the quick whispers of
+command, of encouragement, of the human animal preparing to attack his
+kind. But all in the distance still, all muffled, all furtive as yet.
+
+“Sergeant!” It was Heron’s voice, but it too was subdued, and almost
+calm now; “can you see the chapel?”
+
+“More clearly, citizen,” replied the sergeant. “It is on our left; quite
+a small building, I think.”
+
+“Then dismount, and walk all round it. See that there are no windows or
+door in the rear.”
+
+There was a prolonged silence, during which those distant sounds of men
+moving, of furtive preparations for attack, struck distinctly through
+the night.
+
+Marguerite and Armand, clinging to one another, not knowing what to
+think, nor yet what to fear, heard the sounds mingling with those
+immediately round them, and Marguerite murmured under her breath:
+
+“It is de Batz and some of his friends; but what can they do? What can
+Percy hope for now?”
+
+But of Percy she could hear and see nothing. The darkness and the
+silence had drawn their impenetrable veil between his unseen presence
+and her own consciousness. She could see the coach in which he was, but
+Heron’s hideous personality, his head with its battered hat and soiled
+bandage, had seemed to obtrude itself always before her gaze, blotting
+out from her mind even the knowledge that Percy was there not fifty
+yards away from her.
+
+So strong did this feeling grow in her that presently the awful dread
+seized upon her that he was no longer there; that he was dead, worn out
+with fatigue and illness brought on by terrible privations, or if not
+dead that he had swooned, that he was unconscious--his spirit absent
+from his body. She remembered that frightful yell of rage and hate which
+Heron had uttered a few minutes ago. Had the brute vented his fury on
+his helpless, weakened prisoner, and stilled forever those lips that,
+mayhap, had mocked him to the last?
+
+Marguerite could not guess. She hardly knew what to hope. Vaguely, when
+the thought of Percy lying dead beside his enemy floated through her
+aching brain, she was almost conscious of a sense of relief at the
+thought that at least he would be spared the pain of the final,
+inevitable cataclysm.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII. THE CHAPEL OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE
+
+The sergeant’s voice broke in upon her misery.
+
+The man had apparently done as the citizen agent had ordered, and had
+closely examined the little building that stood on the left--a vague,
+black mass more dense than the surrounding gloom.
+
+“It is all solid stone, citizen,” he said; “iron gates in front, closed
+but not locked, rusty key in the lock, which turns quite easily; no
+windows or door in the rear.”
+
+“You are quite sure?”
+
+“Quite certain, citizen; it is plain, solid stone at the back, and the
+only possible access to the interior is through the iron gate in front.”
+
+“Good.”
+
+Marguerite could only just hear Heron speaking to the sergeant. Darkness
+enveloped every form and deadened every sound. Even the harsh voice
+which she had learned to loathe and to dread sounded curiously subdued
+and unfamiliar. Heron no longer seemed inclined to storm, to rage, or
+to curse. The momentary danger, the thought of failure, the hope
+of revenge, had apparently cooled his temper, strengthened his
+determination, and forced his voice down to a little above a whisper. He
+gave his orders clearly and firmly, and the words came to Marguerite on
+the wings of the wind with strange distinctness, borne to her ears by
+the darkness itself, and the hush that lay over the wood.
+
+“Take half a dozen men with you, sergeant,” she heard him say, “and join
+citizen Chauvelin at the chateau. You can stable your horses in the farm
+buildings close by, as he suggests and run to him on foot. You and your
+men should quickly get the best of a handful of midnight prowlers; you
+are well armed and they only civilians. Tell citizen Chauvelin that I
+in the meanwhile will take care of our prisoners. The Englishman I shall
+put in irons and lock up inside the chapel, with five men under the
+command of your corporal to guard him, the other two I will drive myself
+straight to Crecy with what is left of the escort. You understand?”
+
+“Yes, citizen.”
+
+“We may not reach Crecy until two hours after midnight, but directly
+I arrive I will send citizen Chauvelin further reinforcements, which,
+however, I hope may not necessary, but which will reach him in the early
+morning. Even if he is seriously attacked, he can, with fourteen men he
+will have with him, hold out inside the castle through the night. Tell
+him also that at dawn two prisoners who will be with me will be shot in
+the courtyard of the guard-house at Crecy, but that whether he has got
+hold of Capet or not he had best pick up the Englishman in the chapel in
+the morning and bring him straight to Crecy, where I shall be awaiting
+him ready to return to Paris. You understand?”
+
+“Yes, citizen.”
+
+“Then repeat what I said.”
+
+“I am to take six men with me to reinforce citizen Chauvelin now.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And you, citizen, will drive straight back to Crecy, and will send
+us further reinforcements from there, which will reach us in the early
+morning.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“We are to hold the chateau against those unknown marauders if necessary
+until the reinforcements come from Crecy. Having routed them, we return
+here, pick up the Englishman whom you will have locked up in the
+chapel under a strong guard commanded by Corporal Cassard, and join you
+forthwith at Crecy.”
+
+“This, whether citizen Chauvelin has got hold of Capet or not.”
+
+“Yes, citizen, I understand,” concluded the sergeant imperturbably; “and
+I am also to tell citizen Chauvelin that the two prisoners will be shot
+at dawn in the courtyard of the guard-house at Crecy.”
+
+“Yes. That is all. Try to find the leader of the attacking party, and
+bring him along to Crecy with the Englishman; but unless they are
+in very small numbers do not trouble about the others. Now en avant;
+citizen Chauvelin might be glad of your help. And--stay--order all the
+men to dismount, and take the horses out of one of the coaches, then
+let the men you are taking with you each lead a horse, or even two, and
+stable them all in the farm buildings. I shall not need them, and could
+not spare any of my men for the work later on. Remember that, above
+all, silence is the order. When you are ready to start, come back to me
+here.”
+
+The sergeant moved away, and Marguerite heard him transmitting the
+citizen agent’s orders to the soldiers. The dismounting was carried
+on in wonderful silence--for silence had been one of the principal
+commands--only one or two words reached her ears.
+
+“First section and first half of second section fall in, right wheel.
+First section each take two horses on the lead. Quietly now there; don’t
+tug at his bridle--let him go.”
+
+And after that a simple report:
+
+“All ready, citizen!”
+
+“Good!” was the response. “Now detail your corporal and two men to come
+here to me, so that we may put the Englishman in irons, and take him
+at once to the chapel, and four men to stand guard at the doors of the
+other coach.”
+
+The necessary orders were given, and after that there came the curt
+command:
+
+“En avant!”
+
+The sergeant, with his squad and all the horses, was slowly moving away
+in the night. The horses’ hoofs hardly made a noise on the soft carpet
+of pine-needles and of dead fallen leaves, but the champing of the bits
+was of course audible, and now and then the snorting of some poor, tired
+horse longing for its stable.
+
+Somehow in Marguerite’s fevered mind this departure of a squad of men
+seemed like the final flitting of her last hope; the slow agony of the
+familiar sounds, the retreating horses and soldiers moving away amongst
+the shadows, took on a weird significance. Heron had given his last
+orders. Percy, helpless and probably unconscious, would spend the night
+in that dank chapel, while she and Armand would be taken back to Crecy,
+driven to death like some insentient animals to the slaughter.
+
+When the grey dawn would first begin to peep through the branches of the
+pines Percy would be led back to Paris and the guillotine, and she and
+Armand will have been sacrificed to the hatred and revenge of brutes.
+
+The end had come, and there was nothing more to be done. Struggling,
+fighting, scheming, could be of no avail now; but she wanted to get to
+her husband; she wanted to be near him now that death was so imminent
+both for him and for her.
+
+She tried to envisage it all, quite calmly, just as she knew that Percy
+would wish her to do. The inevitable end was there, and she would
+not give to these callous wretches here the gratuitous spectacle of a
+despairing woman fighting blindly against adverse Fate.
+
+But she wanted to go to her husband. She felt that she could face death
+more easily on the morrow if she could but see him once, if she could
+but look once more into the eyes that had mirrored so much enthusiasm,
+such absolute vitality and whole-hearted self-sacrifice, and such an
+intensity of love and passion; if she could but kiss once more those
+lips that had smiled through life, and would smile, she knew, even in
+the face of death.
+
+She tried to open the carriage door, but it was held from without, and a
+harsh voice cursed her, ordering her to sit still.
+
+But she could lean out of the window and strain her eyes to see. They
+were by now accustomed to the gloom, the dilated pupils taking in
+pictures of vague forms moving like ghouls in the shadows. The other
+coach was not far, and she could hear Heron’s voice, still subdued and
+calm, and the curses of the men. But not a sound from Percy.
+
+“I think the prisoner is unconscious,” she heard one of the men say.
+
+“Lift him out of the carriage, then,” was Heron’s curt command; “and you
+go and throw open the chapel gates.”
+
+Marguerite saw it all. The movement, the crowd of men, two vague, black
+forms lifting another one, which appeared heavy and inert, out of the
+coach, and carrying it staggering up towards the chapel.
+
+Then the forms disappeared, swallowed up by the more dense mass of the
+little building, merged in with it, immovable as the stone itself.
+
+Only a few words reached her now.
+
+“He is unconscious.”
+
+“Leave him there, then; he’ll not move!”
+
+“Now close the gates!”
+
+There was a loud clang, and Marguerite gave a piercing scream. She tore
+at the handle of the carriage door.
+
+“Armand, Armand, go to him!” she cried; and all her self-control, all
+her enforced calm, vanished in an outburst of wild, agonising passion.
+“Let me get to him, Armand! This is the end; get me to him, in the name
+of God!”
+
+“Stop that woman screaming,” came Heron’s voice clearly through the
+night. “Put her and the other prisoner in irons--quick!”
+
+But while Marguerite expended her feeble strength in a mad, pathetic
+effort to reach her husband, even now at this last hour, when all hope
+was dead and Death was so nigh, Armand had already wrenched the carriage
+door from the grasp of the soldier who was guarding it. He was of the
+South, and knew the trick of charging an unsuspecting adversary with
+head thrust forward like a bull inside a ring. Thus he knocked one of
+the soldiers down and made a quick rush for the chapel gates.
+
+The men, attacked so suddenly and in such complete darkness, did not
+wait for orders. They closed in round Armand; one man drew his sabre and
+hacked away with it in aimless rage.
+
+But for the moment he evaded them all, pushing his way through them,
+not heeding the blows that came on him from out the darkness. At last he
+reached the chapel. With one bound he was at the gate, his numb fingers
+fumbling for the lock, which he could not see.
+
+It was a vigorous blow from Heron’s fist that brought him at last to his
+knees, and even then his hands did not relax their hold; they gripped
+the ornamental scroll of the gate, shook the gate itself in its rusty
+hinges, pushed and pulled with the unreasoning strength of despair.
+He had a sabre cut across his brow, and the blood flowed in a warm,
+trickling stream down his face. But of this he was unconscious; all that
+he wanted, all that he was striving for with agonising heart-beats
+and cracking sinews, was to get to his friend, who was lying in there
+unconscious, abandoned--dead, perhaps.
+
+“Curse you,” struck Heron’s voice close to his ear. “Cannot some of you
+stop this raving maniac?”
+
+Then it was that the heavy blow on his head caused him a sensation of
+sickness, and he fell on his knees, still gripping the ironwork.
+
+Stronger hands than his were forcing him to loosen his hold; blows that
+hurt terribly rained on his numbed fingers; he felt himself dragged
+away, carried like an inert mass further and further from that gate
+which he would have given his lifeblood to force open.
+
+And Marguerite heard all this from the inside of the coach where she was
+imprisoned as effectually as was Percy’s unconscious body inside that
+dark chapel. She could hear the noise and scramble, and Heron’s hoarse
+commands, the swift sabre strokes as they cut through the air.
+
+Already a trooper had clapped irons on her wrists, two others held the
+carriage doors. Now Armand was lifted back into the coach, and she could
+not even help to make him comfortable, though as he was lifted in she
+heard him feebly moaning. Then the carriage doors were banged to again.
+
+“Do not allow either of the prisoners out again, on peril of your
+lives!” came with a vigorous curse from Heron.
+
+After which there was a moment’s silence; whispered commands came
+spasmodically in deadened sound to her ear.
+
+“Will the key turn?”
+
+“Yes, citizen.”
+
+“All secure?”
+
+“Yes, citizen. The prisoner is groaning.”
+
+“Let him groan.”
+
+“The empty coach, citizen? The horses have been taken out.”
+
+“Leave it standing where it is, then; citizen Chauvelin will need it in
+the morning.”
+
+“Armand,” whispered Marguerite inside the coach, “did you see Percy?”
+
+“It was so dark,” murmured Armand feebly; “but I saw him, just inside
+the gates, where they had laid him down. I heard him groaning. Oh, my
+God!”
+
+“Hush, dear!” she said. “We can do nothing more, only die, as he lived,
+bravely and with a smile on our lips, in memory of him.”
+
+“Number 35 is wounded, citizen,” said one of the men.
+
+“Curse the fool who did the mischief,” was the placid response. “Leave
+him here with the guard.”
+
+“How many of you are there left, then?” asked the same voice a moment
+later.
+
+“Only two, citizen; if one whole section remains with me at the chapel
+door, and also the wounded man.”
+
+“Two are enough for me, and five are not too many at the chapel door.”
+ And Heron’s coarse, cruel laugh echoed against the stone walls of the
+little chapel. “Now then, one of you get into the coach, and the other
+go to the horses’ heads; and remember, Corporal Cassard, that you and
+your men who stay here to guard that chapel door are answerable to the
+whole nation with your lives for the safety of the Englishman.”
+
+The carriage door was thrown open, and a soldier stepped in and sat down
+opposite Marguerite and Armand. Heron in the meanwhile was apparently
+scrambling up the box. Marguerite could hear him muttering curses as he
+groped for the reins, and finally gathered them into his hand.
+
+The springs of the coach creaked and groaned as the vehicle slowly
+swung round; the wheels ploughed deeply through the soft carpet of dead
+leaves.
+
+Marguerite felt Armand’s inert body leaning heavily against her
+shoulder.
+
+“Are you in pain, dear?” she asked softly.
+
+He made no reply, and she thought that he had fainted. It was better
+so; at least the next dreary hours would flit by for him in the blissful
+state of unconsciousness. Now at last the heavy carriage began to move
+more evenly. The soldier at the horses’ heads was stepping along at a
+rapid pace.
+
+Marguerite would have given much even now to look back once more at
+the dense black mass, blacker and denser than any shadow that had ever
+descended before on God’s earth, which held between its cold, cruel
+walls all that she loved in the world.
+
+But her wrists were fettered by the irons, which cut into her flesh when
+she moved. She could no longer lean out of the window, and she could
+not even hear. The whole forest was hushed, the wind was lulled to rest;
+wild beasts and night-birds were silent and still. And the wheels of the
+coach creaked in the ruts, bearing Marguerite with every turn further
+and further away from the man who lay helpless in the chapel of the Holy
+Sepulchre.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII. THE WANING MOON
+
+Armand had wakened from his attack of faintness, and brother and sister
+sat close to one another, shoulder touching shoulder. That sense of
+nearness was the one tiny spark of comfort to both of them on this
+dreary, dreary way.
+
+The coach had lumbered on unceasingly since all eternity--so it seemed
+to them both. Once there had been a brief halt, when Heron’s rough voice
+had ordered the soldier at the horses’ heads to climb on the box beside
+him, and once--it had been a very little while ago--a terrible cry of
+pain and terror had rung through the stillness of the night. Immediately
+after that the horses had been put at a more rapid pace, but it had
+seemed to Marguerite as if that one cry of pain had been repeated by
+several others which sounded more feeble and soon appeared to be dying
+away in the distance behind.
+
+The soldier who sat opposite to them must have heard the cry too, for he
+jumped up, as if wakened from sleep, and put his head out of the window.
+
+“Did you hear that cry, citizen?” he asked.
+
+But only a curse answered him, and a peremptory command not to lose
+sight of the prisoners by poking his head out of the window.
+
+“Did you hear the cry?” asked the soldier of Marguerite as he made haste
+to obey.
+
+“Yes! What could it be?” she murmured.
+
+“It seems dangerous to drive so fast in this darkness,” muttered the
+soldier.
+
+After which remark he, with the stolidity peculiar to his kind,
+figuratively shrugged his shoulders, detaching himself, as it were, of
+the whole affair.
+
+“We should be out of the forest by now,” he remarked in an undertone a
+little while later; “the way seemed shorter before.”
+
+Just then the coach gave an unexpected lurch to one side, and after much
+groaning and creaking of axles and springs it came to a standstill, and
+the citizen agent was heard cursing loudly and then scrambling down from
+the box.
+
+The next moment the carriage-door was pulled open from without, and the
+harsh voice called out peremptorily:
+
+“Citizen soldier, here--quick!--quick!--curse you!--we’ll have one of
+the horses down if you don’t hurry!”
+
+The soldier struggled to his feet; it was never good to be slow in
+obeying the citizen agent’s commands. He was half-asleep and no doubt
+numb with cold and long sitting still; to accelerate his movements he
+was suddenly gripped by the arm and dragged incontinently out of the
+coach.
+
+Then the door was slammed to again, either by a rough hand or a sudden
+gust of wind, Marguerite could not tell; she heard a cry of rage and one
+of terror, and Heron’s raucous curses. She cowered in the corner of the
+carriage with Armand’s head against her shoulder, and tried to close her
+ears to all those hideous sounds.
+
+Then suddenly all the sounds were hushed and all around everything
+became perfectly calm and still--so still that at first the silence
+oppressed her with a vague, nameless dread. It was as if Nature herself
+had paused, that she might listen; and the silence became more and more
+absolute, until Marguerite could hear Armand’s soft, regular breathing
+close to her ear.
+
+The window nearest to her was open, and as she leaned forward with that
+paralysing sense of oppression a breath of pure air struck full upon her
+nostrils and brought with it a briny taste as if from the sea.
+
+It was not quite so dark; and there was a sense as of open country
+stretching out to the limits of the horizon. Overhead a vague greyish
+light suffused the sky, and the wind swept the clouds in great rolling
+banks right across that light.
+
+Marguerite gazed upward with a more calm feeling that was akin to
+gratitude. That pale light, though so wan and feeble, was thrice welcome
+after that inky blackness wherein shadows were less dark than the
+lights. She watched eagerly the bank of clouds driven by the dying gale.
+
+The light grew brighter and faintly golden, now the banks of
+clouds--storm-tossed and fleecy--raced past one another, parted
+and reunited like veils of unseen giant dancers waved by hands that
+controlled infinite space--advanced and rushed and slackened speed
+again--united and finally torn asunder to reveal the waning moon,
+honey-coloured and mysterious, rising as if from an invisible ocean far
+away.
+
+The wan pale light spread over the wide stretch of country, throwing
+over it as it spread dull tones of indigo and of blue. Here and there
+sparse, stunted trees with fringed gaunt arms bending to prevailing
+winds proclaimed the neighbourhood of the sea.
+
+Marguerite gazed on the picture which the waning moon had so suddenly
+revealed; but she gazed with eyes that knew not what they saw. The moon
+had risen on her right--there lay the east--and the coach must have been
+travelling due north, whereas Crecy...
+
+In the absolute silence that reigned she could perceive from far, very
+far away, the sound of a church clock striking the midnight hour; and
+now it seemed to her supersensitive senses that a firm footstep was
+treading the soft earth, a footstep that drew nearer--and then nearer
+still.
+
+Nature did pause to listen. The wind was hushed, the night-birds in
+the forest had gone to rest. Marguerite’s heart beat so fast that its
+throbbings choked her, and a dizziness clouded her consciousness.
+
+But through this state of torpor she heard the opening of the carriage
+door, she felt the onrush of that pure, briny air, and she felt a long,
+burning kiss upon her hands.
+
+She thought then that she was really dead, and that God in His infinite
+love had opened to her the outer gates of Paradise.
+
+“My love!” she murmured.
+
+She was leaning back in the carriage and her eyes were closed, but she
+felt that firm fingers removed the irons from her wrists, and that a
+pair of warm lips were pressed there in their stead.
+
+“There, little woman, that’s better so--is it not? Now let me get hold
+of poor old Armand!”
+
+It was Heaven, of course, else how could earth hold such heavenly joy?
+
+“Percy!” exclaimed Armand in an awed voice.
+
+“Hush, dear!” murmured Marguerite feebly; “we are in Heaven you and I--”
+
+Whereupon a ringing laugh woke the echoes of the silent night.
+
+“In Heaven, dear heart!” And the voice had a delicious earthly ring in
+its whole-hearted merriment. “Please God, you’ll both be at Portel with
+me before dawn.”
+
+Then she was indeed forced to believe. She put out her hands and groped
+for him, for it was dark inside the carriage; she groped, and felt
+his massive shoulders leaning across the body of the coach, while his
+fingers busied themselves with the irons on Armand’s wrist.
+
+“Don’t touch that brute’s filthy coat with your dainty fingers, dear
+heart,” he said gaily. “Great Lord! I have worn that wretch’s clothes
+for over two hours; I feel as if the dirt had penetrated to my bones.”
+
+Then with that gesture so habitual to him he took her head between his
+two hands, and drawing her to him until the wan light from without lit
+up the face that he worshipped, he gazed his fill into her eyes.
+
+She could only see the outline of his head silhouetted against the
+wind-tossed sky; she could not see his eyes, nor his lips, but she felt
+his nearness, and the happiness of that almost caused her to swoon.
+
+“Come out into the open, my lady fair,” he murmured, and though she
+could not see, she could feel that he smiled; “let God’s pure air blow
+through your hair and round your dear head. Then, if you can walk so
+far, there’s a small half-way house close by here. I have knocked up
+the none too amiable host. You and Armand could have half an hour’s rest
+there before we go further on our way.”
+
+“But you, Percy?--are you safe?”
+
+“Yes, m’dear, we are all of us safe until morning-time enough to reach
+Le Portel, and to be aboard the Day-Dream before mine amiable friend M.
+Chambertin has discovered his worthy colleague lying gagged and bound
+inside the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre. By Gad! how old Heron will
+curse--the moment he can open his mouth!”
+
+He half helped, half lifted her out of the carriage. The strong pure air
+suddenly rushing right through to her lungs made her feel faint, and she
+almost fell. But it was good to feel herself falling, when one pair of
+arms amongst the millions on the earth were there to receive her.
+
+“Can you walk, dear heart?” he asked. “Lean well on me--it is not far,
+and the rest will do you good.”
+
+“But you, Percy--”
+
+He laughed, and the most complete joy of living seemed to resound
+through that laugh. Her arm was in his, and for one moment he stood
+still while his eyes swept the far reaches of the country, the mellow
+distance still wrapped in its mantle of indigo, still untouched by the
+mysterious light of the waning moon.
+
+He pressed her arm against his heart, but his right hand was stretched
+out towards the black wall of the forest behind him, towards the dark
+crests of the pines in which the dying wind sent its last mournful
+sighs.
+
+“Dear heart,” he said, and his voice quivered with the intensity of his
+excitement, “beyond the stretch of that wood, from far away over there,
+there are cries and moans of anguish that come to my ear even now.
+But for you, dear, I would cross that wood to-night and re-enter Paris
+to-morrow. But for you, dear--but for you,” he reiterated earnestly as
+he pressed her closer to him, for a bitter cry had risen to her lips.
+
+She went on in silence. Her happiness was great--as great as was her
+pain. She had found him again, the man whom she worshipped, the husband
+whom she thought never to see again on earth. She had found him, and
+not even now--not after those terrible weeks of misery and suffering
+unspeakable--could she feel that love had triumphed over the
+wild, adventurous spirit, the reckless enthusiasm, the ardour of
+self-sacrifice.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX. THE LAND OF ELDORADO
+
+It seems that in the pocket of Heron’s coat there was a letter-case with
+some few hundred francs. It was amusing to think that the brute’s money
+helped to bribe the ill-tempered keeper of the half-way house to receive
+guests at midnight, and to ply them well with food, drink, and the
+shelter of a stuffy coffee-room.
+
+Marguerite sat silently beside her husband, her hand in his. Armand,
+opposite to them, had both elbows on the table. He looked pale and wan,
+with a bandage across his forehead, and his glowing eyes were resting on
+his chief.
+
+“Yes! you demmed young idiot,” said Blakeney merrily, “you nearly upset
+my plan in the end, with your yelling and screaming outside the chapel
+gates.”
+
+“I wanted to get to you, Percy. I thought those brutes had got you there
+inside that building.”
+
+“Not they!” he exclaimed. “It was my friend Heron whom they had trussed
+and gagged, and whom my amiable friend M. Chambertin will find in there
+to-morrow morning. By Gad! I would go back if only for the pleasure of
+hearing Heron curse when first the gag is taken from his mouth.”
+
+“But how was it all done, Percy? And there was de Batz--”
+
+“De Batz was part of the scheme I had planned for mine own escape before
+I knew that those brutes meant to take Marguerite and you as hostages
+for my good behaviour. What I hoped then was that under cover of a
+tussle or a fight I could somehow or other contrive to slip through
+their fingers. It was a chance, and you know my belief in bald-headed
+Fortune, with the one solitary hair. Well, I meant to grab that hair;
+and at the worst I could but die in the open and not caged in that awful
+hole like some noxious vermin. I knew that de Batz would rise to the
+bait. I told him in my letter that the Dauphin would be at the Chateau
+d’Ourde this night, but that I feared the revolutionary Government had
+got wind of this fact, and were sending an armed escort to bring the
+lad away. This letter Ffoulkes took to him; I knew that he would make a
+vigorous effort to get the Dauphin into his hands, and that during
+the scuffle that one hair on Fortune’s head would for one second only,
+mayhap, come within my reach. I had so planned the expedition that we
+were bound to arrive at the forest of Boulogne by nightfall, and night
+is always a useful ally. But at the guard-house of the Rue Ste. Anne
+I realised for the first time that those brutes had pressed me into a
+tighter corner than I had pre-conceived.”
+
+He paused, and once again that look of recklessness swept over his face,
+and his eyes--still hollow and circled--shone with the excitement of
+past memories.
+
+“I was such a weak, miserable wretch, then,” he said, in answer
+to Marguerite’s appeal. “I had to try and build up some strength,
+when--Heaven forgive me for the sacrilege--I had unwittingly risked your
+precious life, dear heart, in that blind endeavour to save mine own.
+By Gad! it was no easy task in that jolting vehicle with that noisome
+wretch beside me for sole company; yet I ate and I drank and I slept for
+three days and two nights, until the hour when in the darkness I struck
+Heron from behind, half-strangled him first, then gagged him, and
+finally slipped into his filthy coat and put that loathsome bandage
+across my head, and his battered hat above it all. The yell he gave when
+first I attacked him made every horse rear--you must remember it--the
+noise effectually drowned our last scuffle in the coach. Chauvelin was
+the only man who might have suspected what had occurred, but he had gone
+on ahead, and bald-headed Fortune had passed by me, and I had managed
+to grab its one hair. After that it was all quite easy. The sergeant and
+the soldiers had seen very little of Heron and nothing of me; it did not
+take a great effort to deceive them, and the darkness of the night was
+my most faithful friend. His raucous voice was not difficult to imitate,
+and darkness always muffles and changes every tone. Anyway, it was not
+likely that those loutish soldiers would even remotely suspect the trick
+that was being played on them. The citizen agent’s orders were promptly
+and implicitly obeyed. The men never even thought to wonder that after
+insisting on an escort of twenty he should drive off with two prisoners
+and only two men to guard them. If they did wonder, it was not theirs
+to question. Those two troopers are spending an uncomfortable night
+somewhere in the forest of Boulogne, each tied to a tree, and some two
+leagues apart one from the other. And now,” he added gaily, “en voiture,
+my fair lady; and you, too, Armand. ‘Tis seven leagues to Le Portel, and
+we must be there before dawn.”
+
+“Sir Andrew’s intention was to make for Calais first, there to
+open communication with the Day-Dream and then for Le Portel,” said
+Marguerite; “after that he meant to strike back for the Chateau d’Ourde
+in search of me.”
+
+“Then we’ll still find him at Le Portel--I shall know how to lay hands
+on him; but you two must get aboard the Day-Dream at once, for Ffoulkes
+and I can always look after ourselves.”
+
+It was one hour after midnight when--refreshed with food and
+rest--Marguerite, Armand and Sir Percy left the half-way house.
+Marguerite was standing in the doorway ready to go. Percy and Armand had
+gone ahead to bring the coach along.
+
+“Percy,” whispered Armand, “Marguerite does not know?”
+
+“Of course she does not, you young fool,” retorted Percy lightly. “If
+you try and tell her I think I would smash your head.”
+
+“But you--” said the young man with sudden vehemence; “can you bear the
+sight of me? My God! when I think--”
+
+“Don’t think, my good Armand--not of that anyway. Only think of the
+woman for whose sake you committed a crime--if she is pure and good, woo
+her and win her--not just now, for it were foolish to go back to Paris
+after her, but anon, when she comes to England and all these past days
+are forgotten--then love her as much as you can, Armand. Learn your
+lesson of love better than I have learnt mine; do not cause Jeanne Lange
+those tears of anguish which my mad spirit brings to your sister’s eyes.
+You were right, Armand, when you said that I do not know how to love!”
+
+But on board the Day-Dream, when all danger was past, Marguerite felt
+that he did.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of El Dorado, by Baroness Orczy
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