The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel - LimpidSoft · Scarlet Pimpernel. by Baroness Orczy Styled...

The League of theScarlet

Pimpernel

by Baroness Orczy

Styled by LimpidSoft

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http://www.limpidsoft.com

Contents

I. SIR PERCY EXPLAINS 1I . . . . . . . . . . . . 2II . . . . . . . . . . . . 10III . . . . . . . . . . . 28IV . . . . . . . . . . . 40V . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

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VI . . . . . . . . . . . 70VII . . . . . . . . . . . 79VIII . . . . . . . . . . 93IX . . . . . . . . . . . 101X . . . . . . . . . . . . 117XI . . . . . . . . . . . 126XII . . . . . . . . . . . 143

II. A QUESTION OFPASSPORTS 153

III. TWO GOOD PA-TRIOTS 191

IV. THE OLD SCARE-CROW 208I . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

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II . . . . . . . . . . . . 227III . . . . . . . . . . . 241IV . . . . . . . . . . . 245

V. A FINE BIT OF WORK271I . . . . . . . . . . . . 272II . . . . . . . . . . . . 293III . . . . . . . . . . . 302IV . . . . . . . . . . . 320

VI. HOW JEANPIERRE METTHE SCARLETPIMPERNEL 334I . . . . . . . . . . . . 336II . . . . . . . . . . . . 367III . . . . . . . . . . . 374

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VII. OUT OF THEJAWS OF DEATH 402

VIII. THE TRAITOR 428I . . . . . . . . . . . . 428II . . . . . . . . . . . . 446III . . . . . . . . . . . 454IV . . . . . . . . . . . 468

IX. THE CABARET DELA LIBERTÉ 479I . . . . . . . . . . . . 479II . . . . . . . . . . . . 488III . . . . . . . . . . . 499IV . . . . . . . . . . . 506V . . . . . . . . . . . . 530VI . . . . . . . . . . . 546

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VII . . . . . . . . . . . 558

X. ”NEEDS MUST–” 566I . . . . . . . . . . . . 566II . . . . . . . . . . . . 581III . . . . . . . . . . . 594IV . . . . . . . . . . . 603V . . . . . . . . . . . . 613VI . . . . . . . . . . . 619

XI. A BATTLE OF WITS 643I . . . . . . . . . . . . 643II . . . . . . . . . . . . 666III . . . . . . . . . . . 683IV . . . . . . . . . . . 691V . . . . . . . . . . . . 703VI . . . . . . . . . . . 717

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VII . . . . . . . . . . . 728

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The present document was derivedfrom text provided by Project Gutenberg(document 5805) which was made avail-able free of charge. This document isalso free of charge.

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I. SIR PERCY EXPLAINS

I. SIR PERCYEXPLAINS

I

It was not, Heaven help us all! a veryuncommon occurrence these days: a

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woman almost unsexed by misery, star-vation, and the abnormal excitement en-gendered by daily spectacles of revengeand of cruelty. They were to be metwith every day, round every street cor-ner, these harridans, more terrible farthan were the men.

This one was still comparativelyyoung, thirty at most; would have beengood-looking too, for the features werereally delicate, the nose chiselled, thebrow straight, the chin round and small.But the mouth! Heavens, what a mouth!Hard and cruel and thin-lipped; andthose eyes! sunken and rimmed withpurple; eyes that told tales of sorrowand, yes! of degradation. The crowd

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stood round her, sullen and apathetic;poor, miserable wretches like herself,staring at her antics with lack-lustre eyesand an ever-recurrent contemptuousshrug of the shoulders.

The woman was dancing, contortingher body in the small circle of lightformed by a flickering lanthorn whichwas hung across the street from houseto house, striking the muddy pavementwith her shoeless feet, all to the soundof a be-ribboned tambourine which shestruck now and again with her small,grimy hand. From time to time shepaused, held out the tambourine atarm’s length, and went the round ofthe spectators, asking for alms. But at

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her approach the crowd at once seemedto disintegrate, to melt into the humidevening air; it was but rarely that agreasy token fell into the outstretchedtambourine. Then as the woman startedagain to dance the crowd gradually re-assembled, and stood, hands in pock-ets, lips still sullen and contemptuous,but eyes watchful of the spectacle. Therewere such few spectacles these days,other than the monotonous processionsof tumbrils with their load of aristocratsfor the guillotine!

So the crowd watched, and the womandanced. The lanthorn overhead threwa weird light on red caps and tricolourcockades, on the sullen faces of the men

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and the shoulders of the women, on thedancer’s weird antics and her flying, tat-tered skirts. She was obviously tired, asa poor, performing cur might be, or abear prodded along to uncongenial buf-foonery. Every time that she pausedand solicited alms with her tambourinethe crowd dispersed, and some of themlaughed because she insisted.

“Voyons,” she said with a weird at-tempt at gaiety, ”a couple of sous for theentertainment, citizen! You have stoodhere half an hour. You can’t have it allfor nothing, what?”

The man–young, square-shouldered,thick-lipped, with the look of a bullyabout his well-clad person–retorted with

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a coarse insult, which the woman re-sented. There were high words; thecrowd for the most part ranged itself onthe side of the bully. The woman backedagainst the wall nearest to her, held fee-ble, emaciated hands up to her ears in avain endeavour to shut out the hideousjeers and ribald jokes which were thenatural weapons of this untamed crowd.

Soon blows began to rain; not a fewfell upon the unfortunate woman. Shescreamed, and the more she screamedthe louder did the crowd jeer, the uglierbecame its temper. Then suddenly it wasall over. How it happened the womancould not tell. She had closed her eyes,feeling sick and dizzy; but she had heard

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a loud call, words spoken in English(a language which she understood), apleasant laugh, and a brief but violentscuffle. After that the hurrying retreatof many feet, the click of sabots on theuneven pavement and patter of shoelessfeet, and then silence.

She had fallen on her knees and wascowering against the wall, had lost con-sciousness probably for a minute or two.Then she heard that pleasant laugh againand the soft drawl of the English tongue.

“I love to see those beggars scuttlingoff, like so many rats to their burrows,don’t you, Ffoulkes?”

“They didn’t put up much fight, the

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cowards!” came from another voice, alsoin English. ”A dozen of them againstthis wretched woman. What had best bedone with her?”

“I’ll see to her,” rejoined the firstspeaker. ”You and Tony had best findthe others. Tell them I shall be round di-rectly.”

It all seemed like a dream. Thewoman dared not open her eyes lestreality–hideous and brutal–once moreconfronted her. Then all at once she feltthat her poor, weak body, encircled bystrong arms, was lifted off the ground,and that she was being carried down thestreet, away from the light projected bythe lanthorn overhead, into the shelter-

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ing darkness of a yawning porte cochere.But she was not then fully conscious.

II

A QUESTION OF PASSPORTS

When she reopened her eyes she wasin what appeared to be the lodge of aconcierge. She was lying on a horsehairsofa. There was a sense of warmth andof security around her. No wonder thatit still seemed like a dream. Before herstood a man, tall and straight, surely abeing from another world–or so he ap-peared to the poor wretch who, since un-

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countable time, had set eyes on none butthe most miserable dregs of strugglinghumanity, who had seen little else butrags, and faces either cruel or wretched.This man was clad in a huge caped coat,which made his powerful figure seempreternaturally large. His hair was fairand slightly curly above his low, squarebrow; the eyes beneath their heavy lidslooked down on her with unmistakablekindness.

The poor woman struggled to her feet.With a quick and pathetically humblegesture she drew her ragged, muddyskirts over her ankles and her tatteredkerchief across her breast.

“I had best go now, Monsieur ... cit-

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izen,” she murmured, while a hot flushrose to the roots of her unkempt hair. ”Imust not stop here.... I–”

“You are not going, Madame,” hebroke in, speaking now in perfect Frenchand with a great air of authority, as onewho is accustomed to being implicitlyobeyed, ”until you have told me how, alady of culture and of refinement, comesto be masquerading as a street-dancer.The game is a dangerous one, as youhave experienced to-night.”

“It is no game, Monsieur ... citizen,”she stammered; ”nor yet a masquerade.I have been a street-dancer all my life,and–”

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By way of an answer he took her hand,always with that air of authority whichshe never thought to resent.

“This is not a street-dancer’s hand;Madame,” he said quietly. ”Nor is yourspeech that of the people.”

She drew her hand away quickly, andthe flush on her haggard face deepened.

“If you will honour me with your con-fidence, Madame,” he insisted.

The kindly words, the courtesy of theman, went to the poor creature’s heart.She fell back upon the sofa and withher face buried in her arms she sobbedout her heart for a minute or two. Theman waited quite patiently. He had

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seen many women weep these days, andhad dried many a tear through deeds ofvalour and of self-sacrifice, which werefor ever recorded in the hearts of thosewhom he had succoured.

When this poor woman had succeededin recovering some semblance of self-control, she turned her wan, tear-stainedface to him and said simply:

“My name is Madeleine Lannoy, Mon-sieur. My husband was killed during theemeutes at Versailles, whilst defendingthe persons of the Queen and of the royalchildren against the fury of the mob.When I was a girl I had the misfortune toattract the attentions of a young doctornamed Jean Paul Marat. You have heard

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of him, Monsieur?”The other nodded.“You know him, perhaps,” she con-

tinued, ”for what he is: the most crueland revengeful of men. A few yearsago he threw up his lucrative appoint-ment as Court physician to Monseigneurle Comte d’Artois, and gave up the pro-fession of medicine for that of journal-ist and politician. Politician! Heavenhelp him! He belongs to the most blood-thirsty section of revolutionary brig-ands. His creed is pillage, murder, andrevenge; and he chooses to declare thatit is I who, by rejecting his love, drovehim to these foul extremities. May Godforgive him that abominable lie! The evil

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we do, Monsieur, is within us; it does notcome from circumstance. I, in the mean-while, was a happy wife. My husband,M. de Lannoy, who was an officer in thearmy, idolised me. We had one child, aboy–”

She paused, with another catch in herthroat. Then she resumed, with calm-ness that, in view of the tale she told,sounded strangely weird:

“In June last year my child was stolenfrom me–stolen by Marat in hideous re-venge for the supposed wrong which Ihad done him. The details of that ex-ecrable outrage are of no importance.I was decoyed from home one daythrough the agency of a forged message

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purporting to come from a very dearfriend whom I knew to be in grave trou-ble at the time. Oh! the whole thing wasthoroughly well thought out, I can as-sure you!” she continued, with a harshlaugh which ended in a heartrendingsob. ”The forged message, the subornedservant, the threats of terrible reprisals ifanyone in the village gave me the slight-est warning or clue. When the wholemiserable business was accomplished, Iwas just like a trapped animal inside acage, held captive by immovable bars ofobstinate silence and cruel indifference.No one would help me. No one osten-sibly knew anything; no one had seenanything, heard anything. The child

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was gone! My servants, the people inthe village–some of whom I could havesworn were true and sympathetic–onlyshrugged their shoulders. ’Que voulez-vous, Madame? Children of bourgeoisas well as of aristos were often taken upby the State to be brought up as true pa-triots and no longer pampered like somany lap-dogs.’

“Three days later I received a letterfrom that inhuman monster, Jean PaulMarat. He told me that he had taken mychild away from me, not from any ideaof revenge for my disdain in the past,but from a spirit of pure patriotism. Myboy, he said, should not be brought upwith the same ideas of bourgeois effete-

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ness and love of luxury which had dis-graced the nation for centuries. No! heshould be reared amongst men who hadrealised the true value of fraternity andequality and the ideal of complete libertyfor the individual to lead his own life,unfettered by senseless prejudices of ed-ucation and refinement. Which means,Monsieur,” the poor woman went onwith passionate misery, ”that my childis to be reared up in the company ofall that is most vile and most degradedin the disease-haunted slums of indigentParis; that, with the connivance of thatexecrable fiend Marat, my only son will,mayhap, come back to me one day a po-tential thief, a criminal probably, a drink-

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sodden reprobate at best. Such thingsare done every day in this glorious Rev-olution of ours–done in the sacred nameof France and of Liberty. And the moralmurder of my child is to be my punish-ment for daring to turn a deaf ear to theindign passion of a brute!”

Once more she paused, and when themelancholy echo of her broken voice haddied away in the narrow room, not an-other murmur broke the stillness of thisfar-away corner of the great city.

The man did not move. He stood look-ing down upon the poor woman beforehim, a world of pity expressed in hisdeep-set eyes. Through the absolute si-lence around there came the sound as

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of a gentle flutter, the current of coldair, mayhap, sighing through the ill-fitting shutters, or the soft, weird sough-ing made by unseen things. The man’sheart was full of pity, and it seemed asif the Angel of Compassion had come athis bidding and enfolded the sorrowingwoman with his wings.

A moment or two later she was able tofinish her pathetic narrative.

“Do you marvel, Monsieur,” she said,”that I am still sane–still alive? But I onlylive to find my child. I try and keep myreason in order to fight the devilish cun-ning of a brute on his own ground. Up tonow all my inquiries have been in vain.At first I squandered money, tried judi-

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cial means, set an army of sleuth-houndson the track. I tried bribery, corrup-tion. I went to the wretch himself andabased myself in the dust before him.He only laughed at me and told me thathis love for me had died long ago; henow was lavishing its treasures upon thefaithful friend and companion–that aw-ful woman, Simonne Evrard–who hadstood by him in the darkest hours of hismisfortunes. Then it was that I decidedto adopt different tactics. Since my childwas to be reared in the midst of mur-derers and thieves, I, too, would haunttheir abodes. I became a street-singer,dancer, what you will. I wear rags nowand solicit alms. I haunt the most dis-

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reputable cabarets in the lowest slums ofParis. I listen and I spy; I question ev-ery man, woman, and child who mightafford some clue, give me some indica-tion. There is hardly a house in theseparts that I have not visited and whenceI have not been kicked out as an im-portunate beggar or worse. GraduallyI am narrowing the circle of my inves-tigations. Presently I shall get a clue. Ishall! I know I shall! God cannot allowthis monstrous thing to go on!”

Again there was silence. The poorwoman had completely broken down.Shame, humiliation, passionate grief,had made of her a mere miserablewreckage of humanity.

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The man waited awhile until she wascomposed, then he said simply:

“You have suffered terribly, Madame;but chiefly, I think, because you havebeen alone in your grief. You havebrooded over it until it has threatenedyour reason. Now, if you will allow meto act as your friend, I will pledge youmy word that I will find your son foryou. Will you trust me sufficiently togive up your present methods and placeyourself entirely in my hands? There aremore than a dozen gallant gentlemen,who are my friends, and who will helpme in my search. But for this I musthave a free hand, and only help from youwhen I require it. I can find you lodg-

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ings where you will be quite safe underthe protection of my wife, who is as likean angel as any man or woman I haveever met on this earth. When your sonis once more in your arms, you will, Ihope, accompany us to England, whereso many of your friends have alreadyfound a refuge. If this meets with yourapproval, Madame, you may commandme, for with your permission I mean tobe your most devoted servant.”

Dante, in his wild imaginations of helland of purgatory and fleeting glimpsesof paradise, never put before us the pic-ture of a soul that was lost and foundheaven, after a cycle of despair. Norcould Madeleine Lannoy ever explain

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her feelings at that moment, even to her-self. To begin with, she could not quitegrasp the reality of this ray of hope,which came to her at the darkest hour ofher misery. She stared at the man beforeher as she would on an ethereal vision;she fell on her knees and buried her facein her hands.

What happened afterwards she hardlyknew; she was in a state of semi-consciousness. When she once morewoke to reality, she was in comfortablelodgings; she moved and talked andate and lived like a human being. Shewas no longer a pariah, an outcast, apoor, half-demented creature, insentientsave for an infinite capacity for suffer-

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ing. She suffered still, but she no longerdespaired. There had been such marvel-lous power and confidence in that man’svoice when he said: ”I pledge you myword.” Madeleine Lannoy lived now inhope and a sweet sense of perfect men-tal and bodily security. Around her therewas an influence, too, a presence whichshe did not often see, but always feltto be there: a woman, tall and gracefuland sympathetic, who was always readyto cheer, to comfort, and to help. Hername was Marguerite. Madame Lan-noy never knew her by any other. Theman had spoken of her as being as likean angel as could be met on this earth,and poor Madeleine Lannoy fully agreed

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with him.

III

TWO GOOD PATRIOTS

Even that bloodthirsty tiger, Jean PaulMarat, has had his apologists. Hisfriends have called him a martyr, a self-less and incorruptible exponent of socialand political ideals. We may take it thatSimonne Evrard loved him, for a moreimpassioned obituary speech was, may-hap, never spoken than the one whichshe delivered before the National As-sembly in honour of that sinister dem-

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agogue, whose writings and activitieswill for ever sully some of the really finepages of that revolutionary era.

But with those apologists we havenaught to do. History has talked its fillof the inhuman monster. With the moreintimate biographists alone has this truechronicle any concern. It is one of thesewho tells us that on or about the eigh-teenth day of Messidor, in the year I ofthe Republic (a date which correspondswith the sixth of July, 1793, of our owncalendar), Jean Paul Marat took an ad-ditional man into his service, at the in-stance of Jeannette Marechal, his cookand maid-of-all-work. Marat was at thistime a martyr to an unpleasant form of

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skin disease, brought on by the terribleprivations which he had endured duringthe few years preceding his associationwith Simonne Evrard, the faithful friendand housekeeper, whose small fortunesubsequently provided him with somedegree of comfort.

The man whom Jeannette Marechal,the cook, introduced into the householdof No. 30, Rue des Cordeliers, that wor-thy woman had literally picked one dayout of the gutter where he was grabbingfor scraps of food like some wretchedstarving cur. He appeared to be knownto the police of the section, his identitybook proclaiming him to be one PaulMole, who had served his time in gaol

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for larceny. He professed himself willingto do any work required of him, for themerest pittance and some kind of roofover his head. Simonne Evrard allowedJeannette to take him in, partly out ofcompassion and partly with a view toeasing the woman’s own burden, theonly other domestic in the house–a mannamed Bas–being more interested in pol-itics and the meetings of the Club des Ja-cobins than he was in his master’s ail-ments. The man Mole, moreover, ap-peared to know something of medicineand of herbs and how to prepare thewarm baths which alone eased the un-fortunate Marat from pain. He was pow-erfully built, too, and though he mut-

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tered and grumbled a great deal, andindulged in prolonged fits of sulkiness,when he would not open his mouth toanyone, he was, on the whole, helpfuland good-tempered.

There must also have been somethingabout his whole wretched personalitywhich made a strong appeal to the”Friend of the People,” for it is quite ev-ident that within a few days Paul Molehad won no small measure of his mas-ter’s confidence.

Marat, sick, fretful, and worried, hadtaken an unreasoning dislike to his ser-vant Bas. He was thankful to have astranger about him, a man who was asmiserable as he himself had been a very

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little while ago; who, like himself, hadlived in cellars and in underground bur-rows, and lived on the scraps of foodwhich even street-curs had disdained.

On the seventh day following Mole’sentry into the household, and whilethe latter was preparing his employer’sbath, Marat said abruptly to him:

“You’ll go as far as the Chemin dePantin to-day for me, citizen. You knowyour way?”

“I can find it, what?” muttered Mole,who appeared to be in one of his surlymoods.

“You will have to go very circum-spectly,” Marat went on, in his cracked

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and feeble voice. ”And see to it thatno one spies upon your movements. Ihave many enemies, citizen ... one es-pecially ... a woman.... She is alwaysprying and spying on me.... So bewareof any woman you see lurking about atyour heels.”

Mole gave a half-audible grunt in re-ply.

“You had best go after dark,” the otherrejoined after awhile. ”Come back tome after nine o’clock. It is not far tothe Chemin de Pantin–just where it in-tersects the Route de Meaux. You canget there and back before midnight. Thepeople will admit you. I will give you aring–the only thing I possess.... It has lit-

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tle or no value,” he added with a harsh,grating laugh. ”It will not be worth yourwhile to steal it. You will have to see abrat and report to me on his condition–his appearance, what?... Talk to him abit.... See what he says and let me know.It is not difficult.”

“No, citizen.”Mole helped the suffering wretch into

his bath. Not a movement, not a quiverof the eyelid betrayed one single emo-tion which he may have felt–neitherloathing nor sympathy, only placid in-difference. He was just a half-starvedmenial, thankful to accomplish any taskfor the sake of satisfying a craving stom-ach. Marat stretched out his shrunken

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limbs in the herbal water with a sigh ofwell-being.

“And the ring, citizen?” Mole sug-gested presently.

The demagogue held up his left hand–it was emaciated and disfigured by dis-ease. A cheap-looking metal ring, setwith a false stone, glistened upon thefourth finger.

“Take it off,” he said curtly.The ring must have all along been too

small for the bony hand of the once fa-mous Court physician. Even now it ap-peared embedded in the flabby skin andrefused to slide over the knuckle.

“The water will loosen it,” remarked

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Mole quietly.

Marat dipped his hand back into thewater, and the other stood beside him,silent and stolid, his broad shouldersbent, his face naught but a mask, voidand expressionless beneath its coating ofgrime.

One or two seconds went by. The airwas heavy with steam and a medley ofevil-smelling fumes, which hung in theclose atmosphere of the narrow room.The sick man appeared to be drowsy, hishead rolled over to one side, his eyesclosed. He had evidently forgotten allabout the ring.

A woman’s voice, shrill and peremp-

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tory, broke the silence which had becomeoppressive:

“Here, citizen Mole, I want you!There’s not a bit of wood chopped up formy fire, and how am I to make the coffeewithout firing, I should like to know?”

“The ring, citizen,” Mole urged gruffly.Marat had been roused by the

woman’s sharp voice. He cursed her fora noisy harridan; then he said fretfully:

“It will do presently–when you areready to start. I said nine o’clock ... itis only four now. I am tired. Tell citi-zeness Evrard to bring me some hot cof-fee in an hour’s time.... You can go andfetch me the Moniteur now, and take

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back these proofs to citizen Dufour. Youwill find him at the ’Cordeliers,’ or elseat the printing works.... Come back atnine o’clock.... I am tired now ... too tiredto tell you where to find the house whichis off the Chemin de Pantin. Presentlywill do....”

Even while he spoke he appeared todrop into a fitful sleep. His two handswere hidden under the sheet which cov-ered the bath. Mole watched him insilence for a moment or two, then heturned on his heel and shuffled offthrough the ante-room into the kitchenbeyond, where presently he sat down,squatting in an angle by the stove, andstarted with his usual stolidness to chop

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wood for the citizeness’ fire.

When this task was done, and he hadreceived a chunk of sour bread for his re-ward from Jeannette Marechal, the cook,he shuffled out of the place and into thestreet, to do his employer’s errands.

IV

Paul Mole had been to the offices of theMoniteur and to the printing works ofL’Ami du Peuple. He had seen the citi-zen Dufour at the Club and, presumably,had spent the rest of his time wanderingidly about the streets of the quartier, for

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he did not return to the rue des Corde-liers until nearly nine o’clock.

As soon as he came to the top ofthe street, he fell in with the crowdwhich had collected outside No. 30.With his habitual slouchy gait and thesteady pressure of his powerful elbows,he pushed his way to the door, whilstgleaning whisperings and rumours onhis way.

“The citizen Marat has been assassi-nated.”

“By a woman.”“A mere girl.”“A wench from Caen. Her name is

Corday.”

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“The people nearly tore her to piecesawhile ago.”

“She is as much as guillotined al-ready.”

The latter remark went off with a loudguffaw and many a ribald joke.

Mole, despite his great height, suc-ceeded in getting through unperceived.He was of no account, and he knew hisway inside the house. It was full ofpeople: journalists, gaffers, women andmen–the usual crowd that come to gape.The citizen Marat was a great person-age. The Friend of the People. An Incor-ruptible, if ever there was one. Just lookat the simplicity, almost the poverty, in

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which he lived! Only the aristos hatedhim, and the fat bourgeois who battenedon the people. Citizen Marat had senthundreds of them to the guillotine with astroke of his pen or a denunciation fromhis fearless tongue.

Mole did not pause to listen to thesecomments. He pushed his way throughthe throng up the stairs, to his late em-ployer’s lodgings on the first floor.

The anteroom was crowded, so werethe other rooms; but the greatest pres-sure was around the door immediatelyfacing him, the one which gave on thebathroom. In the kitchen on his right,where awhile ago he had been chop-ping wood under a flood of abuse from

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Jeannette Marechal, he caught sight ofthis woman, cowering by the hearth,her filthy apron thrown over her head,and crying–yes! crying for the loath-some creature, who had expiated someof his abominable crimes at the hands ofa poor, misguided girl, whom an infuri-ated mob was even now threatening totear to pieces in its rage.

The parlour and even Simonne’s roomwere also filled with people: men, mostof whom Mole knew by sight; friends orenemies of the ranting demagogue wholay murdered in the very bath which hiscasual servant had prepared for him. Ev-ery one was discussing the details of themurder, the punishment of the youth-

44


ful assassin. Simonne Evrard was be-ing loudly blamed for having admittedthe girl into citizen Marat’s room. Butthe wench had looked so simple, so in-nocent, and she said she was the bearerof a message from Caen. She had calledtwice during the day, and in the eveningthe citizen himself said that he would seeher. Simonne had been for sending heraway. But the citizen was peremptory.And he was so helpless ... in his bath ...name of a name, the pitiable affair!

No one paid much attention to Mole.He listened for a while to Simonne’simpassioned voice, giving her versionof the affair; then he worked his waystolidly into the bathroom.

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It was some time before he succeededin reaching the side of that awful bathwherein lay the dead body of Jean PaulMarat. The small room was denselypacked–not with friends, for there wasnot a man or woman living, except Si-monne Evrard and her sisters, whomthe bloodthirsty demagogue would havecalled ”friend”; but his powerful per-sonality had been a menace to many,and now they came in crowds to seethat he was really dead, that a girl’sfeeble hand had actually done the deedwhich they themselves had only con-templated. They stood about whisper-ing, their heads averted from the ghastlyspectacle of this miserable creature, to

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whom even death had failed to lend hisusual attribute of tranquil dignity.

The tiny room was inexpressibly hotand stuffy. Hardly a breath of outsideair came in through the narrow window,which only gave on the bedroom be-yond. An evil-smelling oil-lamp swungfrom the low ceiling and shed its feeblelight on the upturned face of the mur-dered man.

Mole stood for a moment or two,silent and pensive, beside that hideousform. There was the bath, just as hehad prepared it: the board spread overwith a sheet and laid across the bath,above which only the head and shoul-ders emerged, livid and stained. One

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hand, the left, grasped the edge of theboard with the last convulsive clutch ofsupreme agony.

On the fourth finger of that hand glis-tened the shoddy ring which Marat hadsaid was not worth stealing. Yet, appar-ently, it roused the cupidity of the poorwretch who had served him faithfullyfor these last few days, and who nowwould once more be thrown, starvingand friendless, upon the streets of Paris.

Mole threw a quick, furtive glancearound him. The crowd which hadcome to gloat over the murdered Terror-ist stood about whispering, with headsaverted, engrossed in their own affairs.He slid his hand surreptitiously over

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that of the dead man. With dexterousmanipulation he lifted the finger roundwhich glistened the metal ring. Deathappeared to have shrivelled the flesh stillmore upon the bones, to have contractedthe knuckles and shrunk the tendons.The ring slid off quite easily. Mole hadit in his hand, when suddenly a roughblow struck him on the shoulder.

“Trying to rob the dead?” a stern voiceshouted in his ear. ”Are you a disguisedaristo, or what?”

At once the whispering ceased. Awave of excitement went round theroom. Some people shouted, otherspressed forward to gaze on the aban-doned wretch who had been caught in

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the act of committing a gruesome deed.

“Robbing the dead!”

They were experts in evil, most ofthese men here. Their hands were in-delibly stained with some of the foulestcrimes ever recorded in history. Butthere was something ghoulish in thisattempt to plunder that awful thinglying there, helpless, in the water.There was also a great relief to nerve-tension in shouting Horror and Anath-ema with self-righteous indignation; andadditional excitement in the suggested”aristo in disguise.”

Mole struggled vigorously. He waspowerful and his fists were heavy. But

50


he was soon surrounded, held fast byboth arms, whilst half a dozen handstore at his tattered clothes, searched himto his very skin, for the booty whichhe was thought to have taken from thedead.

“Leave me alone, curse you!” heshouted, louder than his aggressors.”My name is Paul Mole, I tell you. Askthe citizeness Evrard. I waited on citi-zen Marat. I prepared his bath. I wasthe only friend who did not turn awayfrom him in his sickness and his poverty.Leave me alone, I say! Why,” he added,with a hoarse laugh, ”Jean Paul in hisbath was as naked as on the day he wasborn!”

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“‘Tis true,” said one of those who hadbeen most active in rummaging throughMole’s grimy rags. “There’s nothing tobe found on him.”

But suspicion once aroused was noteasily allayed. Mole’s protestations be-came more and more vigorous and em-phatic. His papers were all in order,he vowed. He had them on him: hisown identity papers, clear for anyoneto see. Someone had dragged them outof his pocket; they were dank and cov-ered with splashes of mud–hardly legi-ble. They were handed over to a manwho stood in the immediate circle oflight projected by the lamp. He seizedthem and examined them carefully. This

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man was short and slight, was dressedin well-made cloth clothes; his hair washeld in at the nape of the next in a mod-ish manner with a black taffeta bow. Hishands were clean, slender, and claw-like,and he wore the tricolour scarf of officeround his waist which proclaimed himto be a member of one of the numerousCommittees which tyrannised over thepeople.

The papers appeared to be in order,and proclaimed the bearer to be PaulMole, a native of Besancon, a carpen-ter by trade. The identity book had re-cently been signed by Jean Paul Marat,the man’s latest employer, and beencounter-signed by the Commissary of

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the section.

The man in the tricolour scarf turnedwith some acerbity on the crowd whowas still pressing round the prisoner.

“Which of you here,” he queriedroughly, ”levelled an unjust accusationagainst an honest citizen?”

But, as usual in such cases, no onereplied directly to the charge. It was notsafe these days to come into conflict withmen like Mole. The Committees wereall on their side, against the bourgeoisas well as against the aristos. This wasthe reign of the proletariat, and the sans-culotte always emerged triumphant in aconflict against the well-to-do. Nor was

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it good to rouse the ire of citizen Chau-velin, one of the most powerful, as hewas the most pitiless members of theCommittee of Public Safety. Quiet, sar-castic rather than aggressive, somethingof the aristo, too, in his clean linen andwell-cut clothes, he had not even yieldedto the defunct Marat in cruelty and re-lentless persecution of aristocrats.

Evidently his sympathies now were allwith Mole, the out-at-elbows, miserableservant of an equally miserable master.His pale-coloured, deep-set eyes chal-lenged the crowd, which gave way be-fore him, slunk back into the corners,away from his coldly threatening glance.Thus he found himself suddenly face to

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face with Mole, somewhat isolated fromthe rest, and close to the tin bath with itsgrim contents. Chauvelin had the papersin his hand.

“Take these, citizen,” he said curtly tothe other. ”They are all in order.”

He looked up at Mole as he said this,for the latter, though his shoulders werebent, was unusually tall, and Mole tookthe papers from him. Thus for the spaceof a few seconds the two men lookedinto one another’s face, eyes to eyes–andsuddenly Chauvelin felt an icy sweatcoursing down his spine. The eyes intowhich he gazed had a strange, ironi-cal twinkle in them, a kind of good-humoured arrogance, whilst through the

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firm, clear-cut lips, half hidden by adirty and ill-kempt beard, there came thesound–oh! a mere echo–of a quaint andinane laugh.

The whole thing–it seemed like avision–was over in a second. Chauvelin,sick and faint with the sudden rush ofblood to his head, closed his eyes forone brief instant. The next, the crowdhad closed round him; anxious inquiriesreached his re-awakened senses.

But he uttered one quick, hoarse cry:“Hebert! A moi! Are you there?”“Present, citizen!” came in immedi-

ate response. And a tall figure in thetattered uniform affected by the revolu-

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tionary guard stepped briskly out of thecrowd. Chauvelin’s claw-like hand wasshaking visibly.

“The man Mole,” he called in a voicehusky with excitement. ”Seize him atonce! And, name of a dog! do not allowa living soul in or out of the house!”

Hebert turned on his heel. Thenext moment his harsh voice was heardabove the din and the general hubbubaround:

“Quite safe, citizen!” he called tohis chief. ”We have the rogue rightenough!”

There was much shouting and muchcursing, a great deal of bustle and confu-

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sion, as the men of the Surete closed thedoors of the defunct demagogue’s lodg-ings. Some two score men, a dozen or sowomen, were locked in, inside the fewrooms which reeked of dirt and of dis-ease. They jostled and pushed, screamedand protested. For two or three minutesthe din was quite deafening. SimonneEvrard pushed her way up to the fore-front of the crowd.

“What is this I hear?” she queriedperemptorily. ”Who is accusing citizenMole? And of what, I should like toknow? I am responsible for everyone in-side these apartments ... and if citizenMarat were still alive–”

Chauvelin appeared unaware of all the

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confusion and of the woman’s protes-tations. He pushed his way throughthe crowd to the corner of the ante-room where Mole stood, crouching andhunched up, his grimy hands idly finger-ing the papers which Chauvelin had re-turned to him a moment ago. Otherwisehe did not move.

He stood, silent and sullen; and whenChauvelin, who had succeeded in mas-tering his emotion, gave the peremptorycommand: ”Take this man to the depotat once. And do not allow him one in-stant out of your sight!” he made no at-tempt at escape.

He allowed Hebert and the men toseize him, to lead him away. He fol-

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lowed without a word, without a strug-gle. His massive figure was hunchedup like that of an old man; his hands,which still clung to his identity papers,trembled slightly like those of a manwho is very frightened and very help-less. The men of the Surete handled himvery roughly, but he made no protest.The woman Evrard did all the protest-ing, vowing that the people would notlong tolerate such tyranny. She evenforced her way up to Hebert. With a ges-ture of fury she tried to strike him in theface, and continued, with a loud voice,her insults and objurgations, until, witha movement of his bayonet, he pushedher roughly out of the way.

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After that Paul Mole, surrounded bythe guard, was led without ceremonyout of the house. Chauvelin gazed afterhim as if he had been brought face to facewith a ghoul.

V

Chauvelin hurried to the depot. Af-ter those few seconds wherein he hadfelt dazed, incredulous, almost under aspell, he had quickly regained the mas-tery of his nerves, and regained, too, thatintense joy which anticipated triumph iswont to give.

In the out-at-elbows, half-starved ser-

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vant of the murdered Terrorist, citizenChauvelin, of the Committee of PublicSafety, had recognised his arch enemy,that meddlesome and adventurous En-glishman who chose to hide his identityunder the pseudonym of the Scarlet Pim-pernel. He knew that he could reckon onHebert; his orders not to allow the pris-oner one moment out of sight would ofa certainty be strictly obeyed.

Hebert, indeed, a few moments later,greeted his chief outside the doors of thedepot with the welcome news that PaulMole was safely under lock and key.

“You had no trouble with him?” Chau-velin queried, with ill-concealed eager-ness.

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“No, no! citizen, no trouble,” wasHebert’s quick reply. ”He seems to bea well-known rogue in these parts,” hecontinued with a complacent guffaw;”and some of his friends tried to hustleus at the corner of the Rue de Tourraine;no doubt with a view to getting the pris-oner away. But we were too strong forthem, and Paul Mole is now sulking inhis cell and still protesting that his ar-rest is an outrage against the liberty ofthe people.”

Chauvelin made no further remark.He was obviously too excited to speak.Pushing past Hebert and the men of theSurete who stood about the dark andnarrow passages of the depot, he sought

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the Commissary of the Section in the lat-ter’s office.

It was now close upon ten o’clock.The citizen Commissary Cuisinier hadfinished his work for the day and waspreparing to go home and to bed. Hewas a family man, had been a re-spectable bourgeois in his day, andthough he was a rank opportunist andhad sacrificed not only his political con-victions but also his conscience to the ex-igencies of the time, he still nourished inhis innermost heart a secret contempt forthe revolutionary brigands who ruledover France at this hour.

To any other man than citizen Chau-velin, the citizen Commissary would, no

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doubt, have given a curt refusal to a re-quest to see a prisoner at this late hourof the evening. But Chauvelin was not aman to be denied, and whilst mutteringvarious objections in his ill-kempt beard,Cuisinier, nevertheless, gave orders thatthe citizen was to be conducted at onceto the cells.

Paul Mole had in truth turned sulky.The turnkey vowed that the prisonerhad hardly stirred since first he had beenlocked up in the common cell. He satin a corner at the end of the bench, withhis face turned to the wall, and paid noheed either to his fellow-prisoners or tothe facetious remarks of the warder.

Chauvelin went up to him, made some

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curt remark. Mole kept an obstinateshoulder turned towards him–a grimyshoulder, which showed naked througha wide rent in his blouse. This portionof the cell was well-nigh in total dark-ness; the feeble shaft of light which camethrough the open door hardly pene-trated to this remote angle of the squalidburrow. The same sense of mystery andunreality overcame Chauvelin again ashe looked on the miserable creature inwhom, an hour ago, he had recognisedthe super-exquisite Sir Percy Blakeney.Now he could only see a vague outlinein the gloom: the stooping shoulders, thelong limbs, that naked piece of shoulderwhich caught a feeble reflex from the dis-

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tant light. Nor did any amount of nonetoo gentle prodding on the part of thewarder induce him to change his posi-tion.

“Leave him alone,” said Chauvelincurly at last. ”I have seen all that Iwished to see.”

The cell was insufferably hot andstuffy. Chauvelin, finical and queasy,turned away with a shudder of dis-gust. There was nothing to be got nowout of a prolonged interview with hiscaptured foe. He had seen him: thatwas sufficient. He had seen the super-exquisite Sir Percy Blakeney locked upin a common cell with some of themost scrubby and abject rogues which

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the slums of indigent Paris could yield,having apparently failed in some un-dertaking which had demanded for itsfulfilment not only tattered clothes andgrimy hands, but menial service with abeggarly and disease-ridden employer,whose very propinquity must have beenpositive torture to the fastidious dandy.

Of a truth this was sufficient for thegratification of any revenge. Chauvelinfelt that he could now go contentedly torest after an evening’s work excellentlydone.

He gave order that Mole should be putin a separate cell, denied all intercoursewith anyone outside or in the depot, andthat he should be guarded on sight day

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and night. After that he went his way.

VI

The following morning citizen Chau-velin, of the Committee of Public Safety,gave due notice to citizen Fouquier-Tinville, the Public Prosecutor, that thedangerous English spy, known to theworld as the Scarlet Pimpernel, was nowsafely under lock and key, and that hemust be transferred to the Abbaye prisonforthwith and to the guillotine as quicklyas might be. No one was to take anyrisks this time; there must be no questioneither of discrediting his famous League

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or of obtaining other more valuable in-formation out of him. Such methods hadproved disastrous in the past.

There were no safe Englishmen thesedays, except the dead ones, and it wouldnot take citizen Fouquier-Tinville muchthought or time to frame an indictmentagainst the notorious Scarlet Pimpernel,which would do away with the neces-sity of a prolonged trial. The revolution-ary government was at war with Eng-land now, and short work could be madeof all poisonous spies.

By order, therefore, of the Committeeof Public Safety, the prisoner, Paul Mole,was taken out of the cells of the depotand conveyed in a closed carriage to the

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Abbaye prison. Chauvelin had the plea-sure of watching this gratifying spectaclefrom the windows of the Commissariat.When he saw the closed carriage driveaway, with Hebert and two men insideand two others on the box, he turnedto citizen Commissary Cuisinier with asigh of intense satisfaction.

“There goes the most dangerous en-emy our glorious revolution has had,”he said, with an accent of triumph whichhe did not attempt to disguise.

Cuisinier shrugged his shoulders.

“Possibly,” he retorted curtly. ”He didnot seem to me to be very dangerous andhis papers were quite in order.”

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To this assertion Chauvelin made noreply. Indeed, how could he explain tothis stolid official the subtle workingsof an intriguing brain? Had he himselfnot had many a proof of how little theforging of identity papers or of passportstroubled the members of that accursedLeague? Had he not seen the ScarletPimpernel, that exquisite Sir Percy Blak-eney, under disguises that were so grimyand so loathsome that they would haverepelled the most abject, suborned spy?

Indeed, all that was wanted now wasthe assurance that Hebert–who him-self had a deadly and personal grudgeagainst the Scarlet Pimpernel–would notallow him for one moment out of his

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sight.Fortunately as to this, there was no

fear. One hint to Hebert and the manwas as keen, as determined, as Chau-velin himself.

“Set your mind at rest, citizen,” he saidwith a rough oath. ”I guessed how mat-ters stood the moment you gave me theorder. I knew you would not take all thattrouble for a real Paul Mole. But have nofear! That accursed Englishman has notbeen one second out of my sight, fromthe moment I arrested him in the latecitizen Marat’s lodgings, and by Satan!he shall not be either, until I have seenhis impudent head fall under the guillo-tine.”

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He himself, he added, had seen tothe arrangements for the disposal of theprisoner in the Abbaye: an inner cell,partially partitioned off in one of theguard-rooms, with no egress of its own,and only a tiny grated air-hole high upin the wall, which gave on an outsidecorridor, and through which not evena cat could manage to slip. Oh! theprisoner was well guarded! The citi-zen Representative need, of a truth, haveno fear! Three or four men–of the bestand most trustworthy–had not left theguard-room since the morning. He him-self (Hebert) had kept the accursed En-glishman in sight all night, had person-ally conveyed him to the Abbaye, and

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had only left the guard-room a momentago in order to speak with the citizenRepresentative. He was going back nowat once, and would not move until theorder came for the prisoner to be con-veyed to the Court of Justice and thenceto summary execution.

For the nonce, Hebert concluded witha complacent chuckle, the Englishmanwas still crouching dejectedly in a cor-ner of his new cell, with little of him visi-ble save that naked shoulder through historn shirt, which, in the process of trans-ference from one prison to another, hadbecome a shade more grimy than before.

Chauvelin nodded, well satisfied. Hecommended Hebert for his zeal, rejoiced

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with him over the inevitable triumph.It would be well to avenge that aw-ful humiliation at Calais last September.Nevertheless, he felt anxious and nervy;he could not comprehend the apathyassumed by the factitious Mole. Thatthe apathy was assumed Chauvelin waskeen enough to guess. What it por-tended he could not conjecture. But thatthe Englishman would make a desperateattempt at escape was, of course, a fore-gone conclusion. It rested with Hebertand a guard that could neither be bribednor fooled into treachery, to see that suchan attempt remained abortive.

What, however, had puzzled citizenChauvelin all along was the motive

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which had induced Sir Percy Blakeneyto play the role of menial to Jean PaulMarat. Behind it there lay, undoubtedly,one of those subtle intrigues for whichthat insolent Scarlet Pimpernel was fa-mous; and with it was associated an at-tempt at theft upon the murdered bodyof the demagogue ... an attempt whichhad failed, seeing that the supposititiousPaul Mole had been searched and noth-ing suspicious been found upon his per-son.

Nevertheless, thoughts of that at-tempted theft disturbed Chauvelin’sequanimity. The old legend of thecrumpled roseleaf was applicable in hiscase. Something of his intense satisfac-

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tion would pale if this final enterpriseof the audacious adventurer were to bebrought to a triumphant close in the end.

VII

That same forenoon, on his returnfrom the Abbaye and the depot, Chau-velin found that a visitor was waitingfor him. A woman, who gave her nameas Jeannette Marechal, desired to speakwith the citizen Representative. Chau-velin knew the woman as his colleagueMarat’s maid-of-all-work, and he gaveorders that she should be admitted atonce.

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Jeannette Marechal, tearful and not alittle frightened, assured the citizen Rep-resentative that her errand was urgent.Her late employer had so few friends;she did not know to whom to turn un-til she bethought herself of citizen Chau-velin. It took him some little time todisentangle the tangible facts out of thewoman’s voluble narrative. At first thewords: ”Child ... Chemin de Pantin ...Leridan,” were only a medley of soundswhich conveyed no meaning to his ear.But when occasion demanded, citizenChauvelin was capable of infinite pa-tience. Gradually he understood whatthe woman was driving at.

“The child, citizen!” she reiterated ex-

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citedly. ”What’s to be done about him?I know that citizen Marat would havewished–”

“Never mind now what citizen Maratwould have wished,” Chauvelin brokein quietly. ”Tell me first who this childis.”

“I do not know, citizen,” she replied.“How do you mean, you do not know?

Then I pray you, citizeness, what is allthis pother about?”

“About the child, citizen,” reiteratedJeannette obstinately.

“What child?”“The child whom citizen Marat

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adopted last year and kept at that awfulhouse on the Chemin de Pantin.”

“I did not know citizen Marat hadadopted a child,” remarked Chauvelinthoughtfully.

“No one knew,” she rejoined. ”Noteven citizeness Evrard. I was the onlyone who knew. I had to go andsee the child once every month. Itwas a wretched, miserable brat,” thewoman went on, her shrivelled oldbreast vaguely stirred, mayhap, by someatrophied feeling of motherhood. ”Morethan half-starved ... and the look in itseyes, citizen! It was enough to make youcry! I could see by his poor little ema-ciated body and his nice little hands and

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feet that he ought never to have been putin that awful house, where–”

She paused, and that quick look offurtive terror, which was so often to bemet with in the eyes of the timid thesedays, crept into her wrinkled face.

“Well, citizeness,” Chauvelin rejoinedquietly, ”why don’t you proceed? Thatawful house, you were saying. Whereand what is that awful house of whichyou speak?”

“The place kept by citizen Leridan, justby Bassin de l’Ourcq,” the woman mur-mured. ”You know it, citizen.”

Chauvelin nodded. He was beginningto understand.

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“Well, now, tell me,” he said, with thatbland patience which had so oft servedhim in good stead in his unavowableprofession. ”Tell me. Last year citi-zen Marat adopted–we’ll say adopted–achild, whom he placed in the Leridans’house on the Pantin road. Is that cor-rect?”

“That is just how it is, citizen. And I–”“One moment,” he broke in somewhat

more sternly, as the woman’s garrulitywas getting on his nerves. ”As yousay, I know the Leridans’ house. I havehad cause to send children there my-self. Children of aristos or of fat bour-geois, whom it was our duty to turn intogood citizens. They are not pampered

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there, I imagine,” he went on drily; ”andif citizen Marat sent his–er–adopted sonthere, it was not with a view to havinghim brought up as an aristo, what?”

“The child was not to be brought upat all,” the woman said gruffly. ”I haveoften heard citizen Marat say that hehoped the brat would prove a thief whenhe grew up, and would take to alco-holism like a duck takes to water.”

“And you know nothing of the child’sparents?”

“Nothing, citizen. I had to go to Pantinonce a month and have a look at him andreport to citizen Marat. But I always hadthe same tale to tell. The child was look-

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ing more and more like a young repro-bate every time I saw him.”

“Did citizen Marat pay the Leridansfor keeping the child?”

“Oh, no, citizen! The Leridans makea trade of the children by sending themout to beg. But this one was not to beallowed out yet. Citizen Marat’s orderswere very stern, and he was wont to ter-rify the Leridans with awful threats ofthe guillotine if they ever allowed thechild out of their sight.”

Chauvelin sat silent for a while. A rayof light had traversed the dark and tor-tuous ways of his subtle brain. Whilehe mused the woman became impatient.

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She continued to talk on with the volu-bility peculiar to her kind. He paid noheed to her, until one phrase struck hisear.

“So now,” Jeannette Marechal was say-ing, ”I don’t know what to do. The ringhas disappeared, and the Leridans aresuspicious.”

“The ring?” queried Chauvelin curtly.”What ring?”

“As I was telling you, citizen,” shereplied querulously, ”when I went to seethe child, the citizen Marat always gaveme this ring to show to the Leridans.Without I brought the ring they wouldnot admit me inside their door. They

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were so terrified with all the citizen’sthreats of the guillotine.”

“And now you say the ring has disap-peared. Since when?”

“Well, citizen,” replied Jeannetteblandly, ”since you took poor Paul Moleinto custody.”

“What do you mean?” Chauvelin ri-posted. ”What had Paul Mole to do withthe child and the ring?”

“Only this, citizen, that he was to havegone to Pantin last night instead of me.And thankful I was not to have to go.Citizen Marat gave the ring to Mole, Isuppose. I know he intended to give itto him. He spoke to me about it just

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before that execrable woman came andmurdered him. Anyway, the ring hasgone and Mole too. So I imagine thatMole has the ring and–”

“That’s enough!” Chauvelin broke inroughly. ”You can go!”

“But, citizen–”“You can go, I said,” he reiterated

sharply. ”The matter of the child and theLeridans and the ring no longer concernsyou. You understand?”

“Y–y–yes, citizen,” murmured Jean-nette, vaguely terrified.

And of a truth the change in citizenChauvelin’s demeanour was enough toscare any timid creature. Not that he

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raved or ranted or screamed. Those werenot his ways. He still sat beside hisdesk as he had done before, and his slen-der hand, so like the talons of a vulture,was clenched upon the arm of his chair.But there was such a look of inwardfury and of triumph in his pale, deep-set eyes, such lines of cruelty around histhin, closed lips, that Jeannette Marechal,even with the picture before her mind ofJean Paul Marat in his maddest moods,fled, with the unreasoning terror of herkind, before the sternly controlled, fiercepassion of this man.

Chauvelin never noticed that shewent. He sat for a long time, silent andimmovable. Now he understood. Thank

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all the Powers of Hate and Revenge, nothought of disappointment was destinedto embitter the overflowing cup of histriumph. He had not only brought hisarch-enemy to his knees, but had foiledone of his audacious ventures. Howclear the whole thing was! The false PaulMole, the newly acquired menial in thehousehold of Marat, had wormed him-self into the confidence of his employerin order to wrest from him the secret ofthe aristo’s child. Bravo! bravo! my gal-lant Scarlet Pimpernel! Chauvelin nowcould see it all. Tragedies such as thatwhich had placed an aristo’s child in thepower of a cunning demon like Maratwere not rare these days, and Chauvelin

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had been fitted by nature and by tem-perament to understand and appreciatean execrable monster of the type of JeanPaul Marat.

And Paul Mole, the grimy, degradedservant of the indigent demagogue, theloathsome mask which hid the fastid-ious personality of Sir Percy Blakeney,had made a final and desperate effortto possess himself of the ring whichwould deliver the child into his power.Now, having failed in his machina-tions, he was safe under lock and key–guarded on sight. The next twenty-four hours would see him unmasked,awaiting his trial and condemnation un-der the scathing indictment prepared by

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Fouquier-Tinville, the unerring PublicProsecutor. The day after that, the tum-bril and the guillotine for that execrableEnglish spy, and the boundless senseof satisfaction that his last intrigue hadaborted in such a signal and miserablemanner.

Of a truth Chauvelin at this hour hadevery cause to be thankful, and it waswith a light heart that he set out to in-terview the Leridans.

VIII

I

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The Leridans, anxious, obsequious,terrified, were only too ready to obey thecitizen Representative in all things.

They explained with much compla-cency that, even though they werepersonally acquainted with JeannetteMarechal, when the citizeness presentedherself this very morning without thering they had refused her permission tosee the brat.

Chauvelin, who in his own mind hadalready reconstructed the whole tragedyof the stolen child, was satisfied thatMarat could not have chosen more effi-cient tools for the execution of his satanicrevenge than these two hideous prod-ucts of revolutionary Paris.

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Grasping, cowardly, and avaricious,the Leridans would lend themselves toany abomination for a sufficiency ofmoney; but no money on earth wouldinduce them to risk their own necksin the process. Marat had obviouslyheld them by threats of the guillotine.They knew the power of the ”Friend ofthe People,” and feared him accordingly.Chauvelin’s scarf of office, his curt, au-thoritative manner, had an equally awe-inspiring effect upon the two miserablecreatures. They became absolutely ab-ject, cringing, maudlin in their protes-tations of good-will and loyalty. Noone, they vowed, should as much assee the child–ring or no ring–save the

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citizen Representative himself. Chau-velin, however, had no wish to see thechild. He was satisfied that its name wasLannoy–for the child had remembered itwhen first he had been brought to theLeridans. Since then he had apparentlyforgotten it, even though he often criedafter his ”Maman!”

Chauvelin listened to all these expla-nations with some impatience. The childwas nothing to him, but the Scarlet Pim-pernel had desired to rescue it fromout of the clutches of the Leridans; hadrisked his all–and lost it–in order to ef-fect that rescue! That in itself was a suf-ficient inducement for Chauvelin to in-terest himself in the execution of Marat’s

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vengeance, whatever its original main-spring may have been.

At any rate, now he felt satisfied thatthe child was safe, and that the Leridanswere impervious to threats or bribeswhich might land them on the guillotine.

All that they would own to was to be-ing afraid.

“Afraid of what?” queried Chauvelinsharply.

That the brat may be kidnapped ...stolen. Oh! he could not be decoyed ...they were too watchful for that! But ap-parently there were mysterious agenciesat work....

“Mysterious agencies!” Chauvelin

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laughed aloud at the suggestion. The”mysterious agency” was even now rot-ting in an obscure cell at the Abbaye.What other powers could be at work onbehalf of the brat?

Well, the Leridans had had a warning!What warning?“A letter,” the man said gruffly. ”But

as neither my wife nor I can read–”“Why did you not speak of this be-

fore?” broke in Chauvelin roughly. ”Letme see the letter.”

The woman produced a soiled anddank scrap of paper from beneath herapron. Of a truth she could not read itscontents, for they were writ in English

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in the form of a doggerel rhyme whichcaused Chauvelin to utter a savage oath.

“When did this come?” he asked.”And how?”

“This morning, citizen,” the womanmumbled in reply. ”I found it outsidethe door, with a stone on it to prevent thewind from blowing it away. What doesit mean, citizen?” she went on, her voiceshaking with terror, for of a truth the cit-izen Representative looked as if he hadseen some weird and unearthly appari-tion.

He gave no reply for a moment or two,and the two catiffs had no conceptionof the tremendous effort at self-control

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which was hidden behind the pale, rigidmask of the redoubtable man.

“It probably means nothing that youneed fear,” Chauvelin said quietly at last.”But I will see the Commissary of theSection myself, and tell him to send adozen men of the Surete along to watchyour house and be at your beck and callif need be. Then you will feel quite safe,I hope.”

“Oh, yes! quite safe, citizen!” thewoman replied with a sigh of genuine re-lief. Then only did Chauvelin turn on hisheel and go his way.

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IX

But that crumpled and soiled scrapof paper given to him by the womanLeridan still lay in his clenched handas he strode back rapidly citywards. Itseemed to scorch his palm. Even be-fore he had glanced at the contents heknew what they were. That atrociousEnglish doggerel, the signature–a five-petalled flower traced in crimson! Howwell he knew them!

“We seek him here, we seek himthere!”

The most humiliating moments inChauvelin’s career were associated with

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that silly rhyme, and now here it was,mocking him even when he knew thathis bitter enemy lay fettered and help-less, caught in a trap, out of which therewas no escape possible; even though heknew for a positive certainty that themocking voice which had spoken thoserhymes on that far-off day last Septem-ber would soon be stilled for ever.

No doubt one of that army of abom-inable English spies had placed thiswarning outside the Leridans’ door. Nodoubt they had done that with a viewto throwing dust in the eyes of the Pub-lic Prosecutor and causing a confusion inhis mind with regard to the identity ofthe prisoner at the Abbaye, all to the ad-

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vantage of their chief.The thought that such a confusion

might exist, that Fouquier-Tinville mightbe deluded into doubting the real per-sonality of Paul Mole, brought an icysweat all down Chauvelin’s spine. Hehurried along the interminably longChemin de Pantin, only paused at theBarriere du Combat in order to interviewthe Commissary of the Section on thematter of sending men to watch over theLeridans’ house. Then, when he felt sat-isfied that this would be effectively andquickly done, an unconquerable feelingof restlessness prompted him to hurryround to the lodgings of the Public Pros-ecutor in the Rue Blanche–just to see

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him, to speak with him, to make quitesure.

Oh! he must be sure that no doubts, nopusillanimity on the part of any officialwould be allowed to stand in the way ofthe consummation of all his most cher-ished dreams. Papers or no papers, tes-timony or no testimony, the incarceratedPaul Mole was the Scarlet Pimpernel–ofthis Chauvelin was as certain as that hewas alive. His every sense had testifiedto it when he stood in the narrow roomof the Rue des Cordeliers, face to face–eyes gazing into eyes–with his sworn en-emy.

Unluckily, however, he found the Pub-lic Prosecutor in a surly and obstinate

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mood, following on an interview whichhe had just had with citizen CommissaryCuisinier on the matter of the prisonerPaul Mole.

“His papers are all in order, I tell you,”he said impatiently, in answer to Chau-velin’s insistence. ”It is as much as myhead is worth to demand a summary ex-ecution.”

“But I tell you that, those papers of hisare forged,” urged Chauvelin forcefully.

“They are not,” retorted the other.”The Commissary swears to his ownsignature on the identity book. Theconcierge at the Abbaye swears that heknows Mole, so do all the men of the

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Surete who have seen him. The Com-missary has known him as an indi-gent, good-for-nothing lubbard who hasbegged his way in the streets of Parisever since he was released from gaolsome months ago, after he had serveda term for larceny. Even your own manHebert admits to feeling doubtful on thepoint. You have had the nightmare, cit-izen,” concluded Fouquier-Tinville witha harsh laugh.

“But, name of a dog!” broke in Chau-velin savagely. ”You are not proposingto let the man go?”

“What else can I do?” the other re-joined fretfully. ”We shall get into terri-ble trouble if we interfere with a man like

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Paul Mole. You know yourself how it isthese days. We should have the wholeof the rabble of Paris clamouring for ourblood. If, after we have guillotined him,he is proved to be a good patriot, it willbe my turn next. No! I thank you!”

“I tell you, man,” retorted Chauvelindesperately, ”that the man is not PaulMole–that he is the English spy whomwe all know as the Scarlet Pimpernel.”

“EH BIEN!” riposted Fouquier-Tinville. ”Bring me more tangible proofthat our prisoner is not Paul Mole andI’ll deal with him quickly enough, neverfear. But if by to-morrow morning youdo not satisfy me on the point ... I mustlet him go his way.”

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A savage oath rose to Chauvelin’s lips.He felt like a man who has been running,panting to reach a goal, who sees thatgoal within easy distance of him, and isthen suddenly captured, caught in invis-ible meshes which hold him tightly, andagainst which he is powerless to strug-gle. For the moment he hated Fouquier-Tinville with a deadly hatred, wouldhave tortured and threatened him untilhe wrung a consent, an admission, outof him.

Name of a name! when that damnableEnglish spy was actually in his power,the man was a pusillanimous fool to al-low the rich prize to slip from his grasp!Chauvelin felt as if he were choking; his

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slender fingers worked nervily aroundhis cravat; beads of perspiration trickledunheeded down his pallid forehead.

Then suddenly he had an inspiration–nothing less! It almost seemed as if Sa-tan, his friend, had whispered insinuat-ing words into his ear. That scrap of pa-per! He had thrust it awhile ago intothe breast pocket of his coat. It was stillthere, and the Public Prosecutor wanteda tangible proof.... Then, why not....?

Slowly, his thoughts still in the pro-cess of gradual coordination, Chauvelindrew that soiled scrap of paper out ofhis pocket. Fouquier-Tinville, surly andill-humoured, had his back half-turnedtowards him, was moodily picking at

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his teeth. Chauvelin had all the leisurewhich he required. He smoothed out thecreases in the paper and spread it outcarefully upon the desk close to the otherman’s elbow. Fouquier-Tinville lookeddown on it, over his shoulder.

“What is that?” he queried.

“As you see, citizen,” was Chauvelin’sbland reply. ”A message, such as youyourself have oft received, methinks,from our mutual enemy, the Scarlet Pim-pernel.”

But already the Public Prosecutorhad seized upon the paper, and of atruth Chauvelin had no longer causeto complain of his colleague’s indiffer-

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ence. That doggerel rhyme, no less thanthe signature, had the power to rouseFouquier-Tinville’s ire, as it had thatof disturbing Chauvelin’s well-studiedcalm.

“What is it?” reiterated the PublicProsecutor, white now to the lips.

“I have told you, citizen,” rejoinedChauvelin imperturbably. ”A messagefrom that English spy. It is also theproof which you have demanded of me–the tangible proof that the prisoner, PaulMole, is none other than the Scarlet Pim-pernel.”

“But,” ejaculated the other hoarsely,”where did you get this?”

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“It was found in the cell which PaulMole occupied in the depot of the Rue deTourraine, where he was first incarcer-ated. I picked it up there after he was re-moved ... the ink was scarcely dry uponit.”

The lie came quite glibly to Chau-velin’s tongue. Was not every methodgood, every device allowable, whichwould lead to so glorious an end?

“Why did you not tell me of this be-fore?” queried Fouquier-Tinville, with asudden gleam of suspicion in his deep-set eyes.

“You had not asked me for a tan-gible proof before,” replied Chauvelin

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blandly. ”I myself was so firmly con-vinced of what I averred that I hadwell-nigh forgotten the existence of thisdamning scrap of paper.”

Damning indeed! Fouquier-Tinvillehad seen such scraps of paper before. Hehad learnt the doggerel rhyme by heart,even though the English tongue wasquite unfamiliar to him. He loathed theEnglish–the entire nation–with all thatdeadly hatred which a divergence of po-litical aims will arouse in times of acutecrises. He hated the English govern-ment, Pitt and Burke and even Fox, thehappy-go-lucky apologist of the youngRevolution. But, above all, he hatedthat League of English spies–as he was

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pleased to call them–whose courage, re-sourcefulness, as well as reckless dar-ing, had more than once baffled his ownhideous schemes of murder, of pillage,and of rape.

Thank Beelzebub and his horde of evilspirits, citizen Chauvelin had been clear-sighted enough to detect that elusivePimpernel under the disguise of PaulMole.

“You have deserved well of your coun-try,” said Tinville with lusty fervour,and gave Chauvelin a vigorous slap onthe shoulder. ”But for you I shouldhave allowed that abominable spy to slipthrough our fingers.”

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“I have succeeded in convincing you,citizen?” Chauvelin retorted dryly.

“Absolutely!” rejoined the other. ”Youmay now leave the matter to me. And’twill be friend Mole who will be sur-prised to-morrow,” he added with aharsh guffaw, ”when he finds himselfface to face with me, before a Court ofJustice.”

He was all eagerness, of course. Sucha triumph for him! The indictment of thenotorious Scarlet Pimpernel on a chargeof espionage would be the crowningglory of his career! Let other men lookto their laurels! Those who brought thatdangerous enemy of revolution to theguillotine would for ever be proclaimed

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as the saviours of France.“A short indictment,” he said, when

Chauvelin, after a lengthy discussion onvarious points, finally rose to take hisleave, ”but a scathing one! I tell you, cit-izen Chauvelin, that to-morrow you willbe the first to congratulate me on an un-precedented triumph.”

He had been arguing in favour of asensational trial and no less sensationalexecution. Chauvelin, with his mem-ory harking back on many mysteriousabductions at the very foot of the guil-lotine, would have liked to see his elu-sive enemy quietly put to death amongsta batch of traitors, who would help tomask his personality until after the guil-

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lotine had fallen, when the whole ofParis should ring with the triumph ofthis final punishment of the hated spy.

In the end, the two friends agreedupon a compromise, and parted wellpleased with the turn of events which akind Fate had ordered for their own spe-cial benefit.

X

Thus satisfied, Chauvelin returned tothe Abbaye. Hebert was safe and trust-worthy, but Hebert, too, had been as-sailed with the same doubts which hadwell-nigh wrecked Chauvelin’s triumph,

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and with such doubts in his mind hemight slacken his vigilance.

Name of a name! every man incharge of that damnable Scarlet Pim-pernel should have three pairs of eyeswherewith to watch his movements. Heshould have the alert brain of a Robe-spierre, the physical strength of a Dan-ton, the relentlessness of a Marat. Heshould be a giant in sheer brute force, atiger in caution, an elephant in weight,and a mouse in stealthiness!

Name of a name! but ’twas only hatethat could give such powers to any man!

Hebert, in the guard-room, owned tohis doubts. His comrades, too, admitted

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that after twenty-four hours spent on thewatch, their minds were in a whirl. TheCitizen Commissary had been so sure–so was the chief concierge of the Abbayeeven now; and the men of the Surete!...they themselves had seen the real Molemore than once ... and this man in thecell.... Well, would the citizen Represen-tative have a final good look at him?

“You seem to forget Calais, citizenHebert,” Chauvelin said sharply, ”andthe deadly humiliation you sufferedthen at the hands of this man who isnow your prisoner. Surely your eyesshould have been, at least, as keen asmine own.”

Anxious, irritable, his nerves well-

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nigh on the rack, he nevertheless crossedthe guard-room with a firm step and en-tered the cell where the prisoner was stilllying upon the palliasse, as he had beenall along, and still presenting that nakedpiece of shoulder through the hole in hisshirt.

“He has been like this the best part ofthe day,” Hebert said with a shrug of theshoulders. ”We put his bread and wa-ter right under his nose. He ate and hedrank, and I suppose he slept. But ex-cept for a good deal of swearing, he hasnot spoken to any of us.”

He had followed his chief into thecell, and now stood beside the palliasse,holding a small dark lantern in his hand.

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At a sign from Chauvelin he flashed thelight upon the prisoner’s averted head.

Mole cursed for awhile, and mutteredsomething about ”good patriots” andabout ”retribution.” Then, worried bythe light, he turned slowly round, andwith fish-like, bleary eyes looked uponhis visitor.

The words of stinging irony and tri-umphant sarcasm, all fully prepared,froze on Chauvelin’s lips. He gazedupon the prisoner, and a weird senseof something unfathomable and myste-rious came over him as he gazed. Hehimself could not have defined that feel-ing: the very next moment he was pre-pared to ridicule his own cowardice–yes,

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cowardice! because for a second or twohe had felt positively afraid.

Afraid of what, forsooth? The manwho crouched here in the cell was hisarch-enemy, the Scarlet Pimpernel–theman whom he hated most bitterly in allthe world, the man whose death he de-sired more than that of any other liv-ing creature. He had been apprehendedby the very side of the murdered manwhose confidence he had all but gained.He himself (Chauvelin) had at that fate-ful moment looked into the factitiousMole’s eyes, had seen the mockery inthem, the lazy insouciance which wasthe chief attribute of Sir Percy Blakeney.He had heard a faint echo of that inane

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laugh which grated upon his nerves.Hebert had then laid hands upon thisvery same man; agents of the Suretehad barred every ingress and egress tothe house, had conducted their pris-oner straightway to the depot and thenceto the Abbaye, had since that momentguarded him on sight, by day and bynight. Hebert and the other men as wellas the chief warder, all swore to that!

No, no! There could be no doubt!There was no doubt! The days of magicwere over! A man could not assume apersonality other than his own; he couldnot fly out of that personality like a birdout of its cage. There on the palliassein the miserable cell were the same long

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limbs, the broad shoulders, the grimyface with the three days’ growth of stub-bly beard–the whole wretched personal-ity of Paul Mole, in fact, which hid theexquisite one of Sir Percy Blakeney, Bart.And yet!...

A cold sweat ran down Chauvelin’sspine as he gazed, mute and immovable,into those fish-like, bleary eyes, whichwere not–no! they were not those of thereal Scarlet Pimpernel.

The whole situation became dream-like, almost absurd. Chauvelin was notthe man for such a mock-heroic, melo-dramatic situation. Commonsense, rea-son, his own cool powers of deliberation,would soon reassert themselves. But

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for the moment he was dazed. He hadworked too hard, no doubt; had yieldedtoo much to excitement, to triumph, andto hate. He turned to Hebert, who wasstanding stolidly by, gave him a few curtorders in a clear and well-pitched voice.Then he walked out of the cell, withoutbestowing another look on the prisoner.

Mole had once more turned over onhis palliasse and, apparently, had goneto sleep. Hebert, with a strange and puz-zled laugh, followed his chief out of thecell.

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XI

At first Chauvelin had the wish togo back and see the Public Prosecutor–to speak with him–to tell him–what?Yes, what? That he, Chauvelin, hadall of a sudden been assailed with thesame doubts which already had worriedHebert and the others?–that he had tolda deliberate lie when he stated that theincriminating doggerel rhyme had beenfound in Mole’s cell? No, no! Such anadmission would not only be foolish, itwould be dangerous now, whilst he him-self was scarce prepared to trust to hisown senses. After all, Fouquier-Tinvillewas in the right frame of mind for the

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moment. Paul Mole, whoever he was,was safely under lock and key.

The only danger lay in the directionof the house on the Chemin de Pantin.At the thought Chauvelin felt giddyand faint. But he would allow him-self no rest. Indeed, he could not haverested until something approaching cer-tainty had once more taken possessionof his soul. He could not–would not–believe that he had been deceived. Hewas still prepared to stake his very lifeon the identity of the prisoner at theAbbaye. Tricks of light, the flash ofthe lantern, the perfection of the dis-guise, had caused a momentary illusion–nothing more.

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Nevertheless, that awful feeling ofrestlessness which had possessed himduring the last twenty-four hours oncemore drove him to activity. And al-though commonsense and reason bothpulled one way, an eerie sense of super-stition whispered in his ear the ominouswords, ”If, after all!”

At any rate, he would see the Leridans,and once more make sure of them; and,late as was the hour, he set out for thelonely house on the Pantin Road.

Just inside the Barriere du Combat wasthe Poste de Section, where CommissaryBurban was under orders to provide adozen men of the Surete, who were to beon the watch round and about the house

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of the Leridans. Chauvelin called in onthe Commissary, who assured him thatthe men were at their post.

Thus satisfied, he crossed the Barriereand started at a brisk walk down thelong stretch of the Chemin de Pantin.The night was dark. The rolling cloudsoverhead hid the face of the moon andpresaged the storm. On the right, the ir-regular heights of the Buttes Chaumontloomed out dense and dark against theheavy sky, whilst to the left, on ahead,a faintly glimmering, greyish streak ofreflected light revealed the proximity ofthe canal.

Close to the spot where the mainRoute de Meux intersects the Chemin

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de Pantin, Chauvelin slackened his pace.The house of the Leridans now lay im-mediately on his left; from it a small, fee-ble ray of light, finding its way no doubtthrough an ill-closed shutter, pierced thesurrounding gloom. Chauvelin, with-out hesitation, turned up a narrow trackwhich led up to the house across a fieldof stubble. The next moment a peremp-tory challenge brought him to a halt.

“Who goes there?”“Public Safety,” replied Chauvelin.

”Who are you?”“Of the Surete,” was the counter reply.

”There are a dozen of us about here.”“When did you arrive?”

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“Some two hours ago. We marchedout directly after you left the orders atthe Commissariat.”

“You are prepared to remain on thewatch all night?”

“Those are our orders, citizen,” repliedthe man.

“You had best close up round thehouse, then. And, name of a dog!” headded, with a threatening ring in hisvoice. ”Let there be no slackening of vig-ilance this night. No one to go in or outof that house, no one to approach it un-der any circumstances whatever. Is thatunderstood?”

“Those were our orders from the first,

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citizen,” said the man simply.“And all has been well up to now?”“We have seen no one, citizen.”The little party closed in around their

chief and together they marched up tothe house. Chauvelin, on tenterhooks,walked quicker than the others. He wasthe first to reach the door. Unable to findthe bell-pull in the dark, he knocked vig-orously.

The house appeared silent andwrapped in sleep. No light showedfrom within save that one tiny speckthrough the cracks of an ill-fitting shut-ter, in a room immediately overhead.

In response to Chauvelin’s repeated

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summons, there came anon the sound ofsomeone moving in one of the upstairsrooms, and presently the light overheaddisappeared, whilst a door above washeard to open and to close and shuf-fling footsteps to come slowly down thecreaking stairs.

A moment or two later the bolts andbars of the front door were unfastened, akey grated in the rusty lock, a chain rat-tled in its socket, and then the door wasopened slowly and cautiously.

The woman Leridan appeared in thedoorway. She held a guttering tallowcandle high above her head. Its flicker-ing light illumined Chauvelin’s slenderfigure.

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“Ah! the citizen Representative!” thewoman ejaculated, as soon as she recog-nised him. ”We did not expect you againto-day, and at this late hour, too. I’ll tellmy man–”

“Never mind your man,” broke inChauvelin impatiently, and pushedwithout ceremony past the womaninside the house. ”The child? Is it safe?”

He could scarcely control his excite-ment. There was a buzzing, as of an an-gry sea, in his ears. The next second, un-til the woman spoke, seemed like a cycleof years.

“Quite safe, citizen,” she said placidly.”Everything is quite safe. We were so

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thankful for those men of the Surete. Wehad been afraid before, as I told the cit-izen Representative, and my man and Icould not rest for anxiety. It was only af-ter they came that we dared go to bed.”

A deep sigh of intense relief came fromthe depths of Chauvelin’s heart. Hehad not realised himself until this mo-ment how desperately anxious he hadbeen. The woman’s reassuring wordsappeared to lift a crushing weight fromhis mind. He turned to the man behindhim.

“You did not tell me,” he said, ”thatsome of you had been here already.”

“We have not been here before,” the

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sergeant in charge of the little platoonsaid in reply. ”I do not know what thewoman means.”

“Some of your men came about threehours ago,” the woman retorted; ”lessthan an hour after the citizen Represen-tative was here. I remember that my manand I marvelled how quickly they didcome, but they said that they had beenon duty at the Barriere du Combat whenthe citizen arrived, and that he had dis-patched them off at once. They said theyhad run all the way. But even so, wethought it was quick work–”

The words were smothered in herthroat in a cry of pain, for, with an almostbrutal gesture, Chauvelin had seized her

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by the shoulders.

“Where are those men?” he queriedhoarsely. ”Answer!”

“In there, and in there,” the womanstammered, well-nigh faint with terroras she pointed to two doors, one on eachside of the passage. ”Three in each room.They are asleep now, I should say, asthey seem so quiet. But they were an im-mense comfort to us, citizen ... we wereso thankful to have them in the house....”

But Chauvelin had snatched the can-dle from her hand. Holding it highabove his head, he strode to the door onthe right of the passage. It was ajar. Hepushed it open with a vicious kick. The

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room beyond was in total darkness.

“Is anyone here?” he queried sharply.

Nothing but silence answered him.For a moment he remained there on thethreshold, silent and immovable as a fig-ure carved in stone. He had just a suf-ficiency of presence of mind and of willpower not to drop the candle, to standthere motionless, with his back turnedto the woman and to the men who hadcrowded in, in his wake. He would notlet them see the despair, the rage andgrave superstitious fear, which distortedevery line of his pallid face.

He did not ask about the child. Hewould not trust himself to speak, for he

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had realised already how completely hehad been baffled. Those abominable En-glish spies had watched their opportu-nity, had worked on the credulity andthe fears of the Leridans and, playing thegame at which they and their audaciouschief were such unconquerable experts,they had made their way into the houseunder a clever ruse.

The men of the Surete, not quite un-derstanding the situation, were ques-tioning the Leridans. The man, too, cor-roborated his wife’s story. Their anxietyhad been worked upon at the momentthat it was most acute. After the citizenRepresentative left them, earlier in theevening, they had received another mys-

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terious message which they had beenunable to read, but which had greatly in-creased their alarm. Then, when the menof the Surete came.... Ah! they had nocause to doubt that they were men of theSurete!... their clothes, their speech, theirappearance ... figure to yourself, eventheir uniforms! They spoke so nicely,so reassuringly. The Leridans were sothankful to see them! Then they madethemselves happy in the two rooms be-low, and for additional safety the Lan-noy child was brought down from its at-tic and put to sleep in the one room withthe men of the Surete.

After that the Leridans went to bed.Name of a dog! how were they to blame?

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Those men and the child had disap-peared, but they (the Leridans) would goto the guillotine swearing that they werenot to blame.

Whether Chauvelin heard all thesejeremiads, he could not afterwards havetold you. But he did not need to be toldhow it had all been done. It had all beenso simple, so ingenious, so like the meth-ods usually adopted by that astute Scar-let Pimpernel! He saw it all so clearlybefore him. Nobody was to blame really,save he himself–he, who alone knew andunderstood the adversary with whom hehad to deal.

But these people here should not havethe gratuitous spectacle of a man endur-

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ing the torments of disappointment andof baffled revenge. Whatever Chauvelinwas suffering now would for ever re-main the secret of his own soul. Anon,when the Leridans’ rasping voices diedaway in one of the more distant portionsof the house and the men of the Suretewere busy accepting refreshment andgratuity from the two terrified wretches,he had put down the candle with asteady hand and then walked with afirm step out of the house.

Soon the slender figure was swal-lowed up in the gloom as he strode backrapidly towards the city.

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XII

Citizen Fouquier-Tinville had re-turned home from the Palais at a verylate hour that same evening. Hishousehold in his simple lodgings in thePlace Dauphine was already abed: hiswife and the twins were asleep. Hehimself had sat down for a moment inthe living-room, in dressing-gown andslippers, and with the late edition of theMoniteur in his hand, too tired to read.

It was half-past ten when there camea ring at the front door bell. Fouquier-Tinville, half expecting citizen Chau-velin to pay him a final visit, shuffled tothe door and opened it.

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A visitor, tall, well-dressed, exceed-ingly polite and urbane, requested afew minutes’ conversation with citizenFouquier-Tinville.

Before the Public Prosecutor had madeup his mind whether to introduce sucha late-comer into his rooms, the latterhad pushed his way through the doorinto the ante-chamber, and with a move-ment as swift as it was unexpected, hadthrown a scarf round Fouquier-Tinville’sneck and wound it round his mouth, sothat the unfortunate man’s call for helpwas smothered in his throat.

So dexterously and so rapidly indeedhad the miscreant acted, that his victimhad hardly realised the assault before

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he found himself securely gagged andbound to a chair in his own ante-room,whilst that dare-devil stood before him,perfectly at his ease, his hands buried inthe capacious pockets of his huge capedcoat, and murmuring a few casual wordsof apology.

“I entreat you to forgive, citizen,” hewas saying in an even and pleasantvoice, ”this necessary violence on mypart towards you. But my errand is ur-gent, and I could not allow your neigh-bours or your household to disturb thefew minutes’ conversation which I amobliged to have with you. My friendPaul Mole,” he went on, after a slightpause, ”is in grave danger of his life ow-

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ing to a hallucination on the part of ourmutual friend citizen Chauvelin; and Ifeel confident that you yourself are toodeeply enamoured of your own neck torisk it wilfully by sending an innocentand honest patriot to the guillotine.”

Once more he paused and lookeddown upon his unwilling interlocutor,who, with muscles straining against thecords that held him, and with eyesnearly starting out of their sockets in anaccess of fear and of rage, was indeedpresenting a pitiful spectacle.

“I dare say that by now, citizen,” thebrigand continued imperturbably, ”youwill have guessed who I am. You andI have oft crossed invisible swords be-

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fore; but this, methinks, is the first timethat we have met face to face. I prayyou, tell my dear friend M. Chauvelinthat you have seen me. Also that therewere two facts which he left entirely outof his calculations, perfect though thesewere. The one fact was that there weretwo Paul Moles–one real and one facti-tious. Tell him that, I pray you. It was thefactitious Paul Mole who stole the ringand who stood for one moment gazinginto clever citizen Chauvelin’s eyes. Butthat same factitious Paul Mole had dis-appeared in the crowd even before yourcolleague had recovered his presence ofmind. Tell him, I pray you, that the elu-sive Pimpernel whom he knows so well

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never assumes a fanciful disguise. Hediscovered the real Paul Mole first, stud-ied him, learned his personality, until hisown became a perfect replica of the mis-erable caitiff. It was the false Paul Molewho induced Jeannette Marechal to in-troduce him originally into the house-hold of citizen Marat. It was he whogained the confidence of his employer;he, for a consideration, borrowed theidentity papers of his real prototype. Heagain who for a few francs induced thereal Paul Mole to follow him into thehouse of the murdered demagogue andto mingle there with the throng. He whothrust the identity papers back into thehands of their rightful owner whilst he

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himself was swallowed up by the crowd.But it was the real Paul Mole who was fi-nally arrested and who is now lingeringin the Abbaye prison, whence you, citi-zen Fouquier-Tinville, must free him onthe instant, on pain of suffering yourselffor the nightmares of your friend.”

“The second fact,” he went on withthe same good-humoured pleasantry,”which our friend citizen Chauvelin hadforgotten was that, though I happen tohave aroused his unconquerable ire, Iam but one man amongst a league of gal-lant English gentlemen. Their chief, I amproud to say; but without them, I shouldbe powerless. Without one of themnear me, by the side of the murdered

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Marat, I could not have rid myself of thering in time, before other rough handssearched me to my skin. Without them,I could not have taken Madeleine Lan-noy’s child from out that terrible hell,to which a miscreant’s lustful revengehad condemned the poor innocent. Butwhile citizen Chauvelin, racked with tri-umph as well as with anxiety, was rush-ing from the Leridans’ house to yours,and thence to the Abbaye prison, to gloatover his captive enemy, the League of theScarlet Pimpernel carefully laid and car-ried out its plans at leisure. Disguisedas men of the Surete, we took advantageof the Leridans’ terror to obtain accessinto the house. Frightened to death by

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our warnings, as well as by citizen Chau-velin’s threats, they not only admittedus into their house, but actually placedMadeleine Lannoy’s child in our charge.Then they went contentedly to bed, andwe, before the real men of the Suretearrived upon the scene, were alreadysafely out of the way. My gallant Englishfriends are some way out of Paris bynow, escorting Madeleine Lannoy andher child into safety. They will returnto Paris, citizen,” continued the auda-cious adventurer, with a laugh full of joyand of unconquerable vitality, ”and bemy henchmen as before in many an ad-venture which will cause you and citi-zen Chauvelin to gnash your teeth with

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rage. But I myself will remain in Paris,”he concluded lightly. ”Yes, in Paris; un-der your very nose, and entirely at yourservice!”

The next second he was gone, andFouquier-Tinville was left to marvel ifthe whole apparition had not been ahideous dream. Only there was nodoubt that he was gagged and tied to achair with cords: and here his wife foundhim, an hour later, when she woke fromher first sleep, anxious because he hadnot yet come to bed.

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II. A QUESTION OFPASSPORTS

Bibot was very sure of himself. Therenever was, never had been, there neverwould be again another such patrioticcitizen of the Republic as was citizen Bi-

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II. A QUESTION OF PASSPORTS

bot of the Town Guard.And because his patriotism was so

well known among the members of theCommittee of Public Safety, and his un-compromising hatred of the aristocratsso highly appreciated, citizen Bibot hadbeen given the most important militarypost within the city of Paris.

He was in command of the PorteMontmartre, which goes to prove howhighly he was esteemed, for, believe me,more treachery had been going on insideand out of the Porte Montmartre thanin any other quarter of Paris. The lastcommandant there, citizen Ferney, wasguillotined for having allowed a wholebatch of aristocrats–traitors to the Re-

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public, all of them–to slip through thePorte Montmartre and to find safety out-side the walls of Paris. Ferney pleaded inhis defence that these traitors had beenspirited away from under his very noseby the devil’s agency, for surely thatmeddlesome Englishman who spent histime in rescuing aristocrats–traitors, allof them–from the clutches of Madame laGuillotine must be either the devil him-self, or at any rate one of his most pow-erful agents.

“Nom de Dieu! just think of hisname! The Scarlet Pimpernel they callhim! No one knows him by any othername! and he is preternaturally talland strong and superhumanly cunning!

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And the power which he has of beingtransmuted into various personalities–rendering himself quite unrecognisableto the eyes of the most sharp-seeing pa-triot of France, must of a surety be a giftof Satan!”

But the Committee of Public Safetyrefused to listen to Ferney’s explana-tions. The Scarlet Pimpernel was onlyan ordinary mortal–an exceedingly cun-ning and meddlesome personage it istrue, and endowed with a superfluity ofwealth which enabled him to break thethin crust of patriotism that overlay thenatural cupidity of many Captains of theTown Guard–but still an ordinary manfor all that! and no true lover of the Re-

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public should allow either superstitiousterror or greed to interfere with the dis-charge of his duties which at the PorteMontmartre consisted in detaining anyand every person–aristocrat, foreigner,or otherwise traitor to the Republic–whocould not give a satisfactory reason fordesiring to leave Paris. Having detainedsuch persons, the patriot’s next duty wasto hand them over to the Committee ofPublic Safety, who would then decidewhether Madame la Guillotine wouldhave the last word over them or not.

And the guillotine did nearly alwayshave the last word to say, unless the Scar-let Pimpernel interfered.

The trouble was, that that same ac-

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cursed Englishman interfered at times ina manner which was positively terrify-ing. His impudence, certes, passed allbelief. Stories of his daring and of hisimpudence were abroad which literallymade the lank and greasy hair of everypatriot curl with wonder. ’Twas evenwhispered–not too loudly, forsooth–thatcertain members of the Committee ofPublic Safety had measured their skilland valour against that of the En-glishman and emerged from the con-flict beaten and humiliated, vowingvengeance which, of a truth, was stillslow in coming.

Citizen Chauvelin, one of the most im-placable and unyielding members of the

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Committee, was known to have sufferedoverwhelming shame at the hands ofthat daring gang, of whom the so-calledScarlet Pimpernel was the accreditedchief. Some there were who said that cit-izen Chauvelin had for ever forfeited hisprestige, and even endangered his headby measuring his well-known astutenessagainst that mysterious League of spies.

But then Bibot was different!He feared neither the devil, nor any

Englishman. Had the latter the strengthof giants and the protection of everypower of evil, Bibot was ready for him.Nay! he was aching for a tussle, andhaunted the purlieus of the Committeesto obtain some post which would enable

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him to come to grips with the ScarletPimpernel and his League.

Bibot’s zeal and perseverance wereduly rewarded, and anon he was ap-pointed to the command of the guard atthe Porte Montmartre.

A post of vast importance as aforesaid;so much so, in fact, that no less a per-son than citizen Jean Paul Marat himselfcame to speak with Bibot on that thirdday of Nivose in the year I of the Repub-lic, with a view to impressing upon himthe necessity of keeping his eyes open,and of suspecting every man, woman,and child indiscriminately until they hadproved themselves to be true patriots.

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“Let no one slip through your fin-gers, citizen Bibot,” Marat admonishedwith grim earnestness. ”That accursedEnglishman is cunning and resourceful,and his impudence surpasses that of thedevil himself.”

“He’d better try some of his impu-dence on me!” commented Bibot witha sneer, ”he’ll soon find out that he nolonger has a Ferney to deal with. Takeit from me, citizen Marat, that if a batchof aristocrats escape out of Paris withinthe next few days, under the guidanceof the d–d Englishman, they will haveto find some other way than the PorteMontmartre.”

“Well said, citizen!” commented

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Marat. ”But be watchful to-night ... to-night especially. The Scarlet Pimpernelis rampant in Paris just now.”

“How so?”“The ci-devant Duc and Duchesse

de Montreux and the whole of theirbrood–sisters, brothers, two or threechildren, a priest, and several servants–a round dozen in all, have been con-demned to death. The guillotine forthem to-morrow at daybreak! Would itcould have been to-night,” added Marat,whilst a demoniacal leer contorted hisface which already exuded lust for bloodfrom every pore. ”Would it could havebeen to-night. But the guillotine hasbeen busy; over four hundred executions

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to-day ... and the tumbrils are full–theseats bespoken in advance–and still theycome.... But to-morrow morning at day-break Madame la Guillotine will have aword to say to the whole of the Mon-treux crowd!”

“But they are in the Conciergerieprison surely, citizen! out of the reach ofthat accursed Englishman?”

“They are on their way, an I mistakenot, to the prison at this moment. I camestraight on here after the condemnation,to which I listened with true joy. Ah, cit-izen Bibot! the blood of these hated aris-tocrats is good to behold when it dripsfrom the blade of the guillotine. Have acare, citizen Bibot, do not let the Mon-

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treux crowd escape!”

“Have no fear, citizen Marat! Butsurely there is no danger! They havebeen tried and condemned! They are,as you say, even now on their way–wellguarded, I presume–to the Conciergerieprison!–to-morrow at daybreak, the guil-lotine! What is there to fear?”

“Well! well!” said Marat, with a slighttone of hesitation, ”it is best, citizen Bi-bot, to be over-careful these times.”

Even whilst Marat spoke his face, usu-ally so cunning and so vengeful, hadsuddenly lost its look of devilish crueltywhich was almost superhuman in the ex-cess of its infamy, and a greyish hue–

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suggestive of terror–had spread over thesunken cheeks. He clutched Bibot’s arm,and leaning over the table he whisperedin his ear:

“The Public Prosecutor had scarce fin-ished his speech to-day, judgment wasbeing pronounced, the spectators wereexpectant and still, only the Montreuxwoman and some of the females andchildren were blubbering and moan-ing, when suddenly, it seemed fromnowhere, a small piece of paper flutteredfrom out the assembly and alighted onthe desk in front of the Public Prosecu-tor. He took the paper up and glancedat its contents. I saw that his cheeks hadpaled, and that his hand trembled as he

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handed the paper over to me.”

“And what did that paper contain, cit-izen Marat?” asked Bibot, also speak-ing in a whisper, for an access of super-stitious terror was gripping him by thethroat.

“Just the well-known accursed device,citizen, the small scarlet flower, drawnin red ink, and the few words: ’To-nightthe innocent men and women now con-demned by this infamous tribunal willbe beyond your reach!”’

“And no sign of a messenger?”

“None.”

“And when did—-”

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“Hush!” said Marat peremptorily, ”nomore of that now. To your post, citizen,and remember–all are suspect! let noneescape!”

The two men had been sitting outsidea small tavern, opposite the Porte Mont-martre, with a bottle of wine betweenthem, their elbows resting on the grimytop of a rough wooden table. They hadtalked in whispers, for even the wallsof the tumble-down cabaret might havehad ears.

Opposite them the city wall–brokenhere by the great gate of Montmartre–loomed threateningly in the fast-gathering dusk of this winter’s after-noon. Men in ragged red shirts, their

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unkempt heads crowned with Phrygiancaps adorned with a tricolour cockade,lounged against the wall, or sat ingroups on the top of piles of refuse thatlittered the street, with a rough dealplank between them and a greasy packof cards in their grimy fingers. Gunsand bayonets were propped against thewall. The gate itself had three means ofegress; each of these was guarded bytwo men with fixed bayonets at theirshoulders, but otherwise dressed likethe others, in rags–with bare legs thatlooked blue and numb in the cold–thesans-culottes of revolutionary Paris.

Bibot rose from his seat, nodding toMarat, and joined his men.

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From afar, but gradually drawingnearer, came the sound of a ribald song,with chorus accompaniment sung bythroats obviously surfeited with liquor.

For a moment–as the soundapproached–Bibot turned back oncemore to the Friend of the People.

“Am I to understand, citizen,” he said,”that my orders are not to let anyonepass through these gates to-night?”

“No, no, citizen,” replied Marat, ”wedare not do that. There are a number ofgood patriots in the city still. We cannotinterfere with their liberty or–”

And the look of fear of thedemagogue–himself afraid of the

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human whirlpool which he has letloose–stole into Marat’s cruel, piercingeyes.

“No, no,” he reiterated more emphat-ically, ”we cannot disregard the pass-ports issued by the Committee of PublicSafety. But examine each passport care-fully, citizen Bibot! If you have any rea-sonable ground for suspicion, detain theholder, and if you have not—-”

The sound of singing was quite nearnow. With another wink and a final leer,Marat drew back under the shadow ofthe cabaret, and Bibot swaggered up tothe main entrance of the gate.

“Qui va la?” he thundered in stento-

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rian tones as a group of some half-dozenpeople lurched towards him out of thegloom, still shouting hoarsely their rib-ald drinking song.

The foremost man in the group pausedopposite citizen Bibot, and with armsakimbo, and legs planted well aparttried to assume a rigidity of attitudewhich apparently was somewhat foreignto him at this moment.

“Good patriots, citizen,” he said in athick voice which he vainly tried to ren-der steady.

“What do you want?” queried Bibot.“To be allowed to go on our way un-

molested.”

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“What is your way?”“Through the Porte Montmartre to the

village of Barency.”“What is your business there?”This query delivered in Bibot’s most

pompous manner seemed vastly toamuse the rowdy crowd. He who wasthe spokesman turned to his friends andshouted hilariously:

“Hark at him, citizens! He asks mewhat is our business. Oh, citizen Bibot,since when have you become blind? Adolt you’ve always been, else you hadnot asked the question.”

But Bibot, undeterred by the man’sdrunken insolence, retorted gruffly:

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“Your business, I want to know.”“Bibot! my little Bibot!” cooed the

bibulous orator now in dulcet tones,”dost not know us, my good Bibot? Yetwe all know thee, citizen–Captain Bibotof the Town Guard, eh, citizens! Threecheers for the citizen captain!”

When the noisy shouts and cheersfrom half a dozen hoarse throats haddied down, Bibot, without more ado,turned to his own men at the gate.

“Drive these drunken louts away!” hecommanded; ”no one is allowed to loiterhere.”

Loud protest on the part of the hi-larious crowd followed, then a slight

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scuffle with the bayonets of the TownGuard. Finally the spokesman, some-what sobered, once more appealed to Bi-bot.

“Citizen Bibot! you must be blind notto know me and my mates! And letme tell you that you are doing yourselfa deal of harm by interfering with thecitizens of the Republic in the properdischarge of their duties, and by disre-garding their rights of egress throughthis gate, a right confirmed by passportssigned by two members of the Commit-tee of Public Safety.”

He had spoken now fairly clearly andvery pompously. Bibot, somewhat im-pressed and remembering Marat’s ad-

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monitions, said very civilly:“Tell me your business then, citizen,

and show me your passports. If every-thing is in order you may go your way.”

“But you know me, citizen Bibot?”queried the other.

“Yes, I know you–unofficially, citizenDurand.”

“You know that I and the citizens hereare the carriers for citizen Legrand, themarket gardener of Barency?”

“Yes, I know that,” said Bibot guard-edly, ”unofficially.”

“Then, unofficially, let me tell you, cit-izen, that unless we get to Barency this

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evening, Paris will have to do withoutcabbages and potatoes to-morrow. Sonow you know that you are acting atyour own risk and peril, citizen, by de-taining us.”

“Your passports, all of you,” com-manded Bibot.

He had just caught sight of Marat stillsitting outside the tavern opposite, andwas glad enough, in this instance, toshelve his responsibility on the shoul-ders of the popular ”Friend of the Peo-ple.” There was general searching inragged pockets for grimy papers with of-ficial seals thereon, and whilst Bibot or-dered one of his men to take the six pass-ports across the road to citizen Marat

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for his inspection, he himself, by thelast rays of the setting winter sun, madeclose examination of the six men whodesired to pass through the Porte Mont-martre.

As the spokesman had averred,he–Bibot–knew every one of thesemen. They were the carriers to citizenLegrand, the Barency market gardener.Bibot knew every face. They passedwith a load of fruit and vegetablesin and out of Paris every day. Therewas really and absolutely no causefor suspicion, and when citizen Maratreturned the six passports, pronouncingthem to be genuine, and recognising hisown signature at the bottom of each,

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Bibot was at last satisfied, and the sixbibulous carriers were allowed to passthrough the gate, which they did, armin arm, singing a wild curmagnole, andvociferously cheering as they emergedout into the open.

But Bibot passed an unsteady handover his brow. It was cold, yet he wasin a perspiration. That sort of thing tellson a man’s nerves. He rejoined Marat, atthe table outside the drinking booth, andordered a fresh bottle of wine.

The sun had set now, and with thegathering dusk a damp mist descendedon Montmartre. From the wall oppo-site, where the men sat playing cards,came occasional volleys of blasphemous

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oaths. Bibot was feeling much more likehimself. He had half forgotten the in-cident of the six carriers, which had oc-curred nearly half an hour ago.

Two or three other people had, in themeanwhile, tried to pass through thegates, but Bibot had been suspicious andhad detained them all.

Marat having commended him for hiszeal took final leave of him. Just as thedemagogue’s slouchy, grimy figure wasdisappearing down a side street therewas the loud clatter of hoofs from thatsame direction, and the next momenta detachment of the mounted TownGuard, headed by an officer in uniform,galloped down the ill-paved street.

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Even before the troopers had drawnrein the officer had hailed Bibot.

“Citizen,” he shouted, and his voicewas breathless, for he had evidently rid-den hard and fast, ”this message to youfrom the citizen Chief Commissary ofthe Section. Six men are wanted by theCommittee of Public Safety. They aredisguised as carriers in the employ ofa market gardener, and have passportsfor Barency!... The passports are stolen:the men are traitors–escaped aristocrats–and their spokesman is that d–d English-man, the Scarlet Pimpernel.”

Bibot tried to speak; he tugged at thecollar of his ragged shirt; an awful curseescaped him.

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“Ten thousand devils!” he roared.“On no account allow these people

to go through,” continued the officer.”Keep their passports. Detain them!...Understand?”

Bibot was still gasping for breatheven whilst the officer, ordering a quick”Turn!” reeled his horse round, ready togallop away as far as he had come.

“I am for the St. Denis Gate–Grosjeanis on guard there!” he shouted. ”Sameorders all round the city. No one to leavethe gates!... Understand?”

His troopers fell in. The next momenthe would be gone, and those cursed aris-tocrats well in safety’s way.

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“Citizen Captain!”The hoarse shout at last contrived to

escape Bibot’s parched throat. As if in-voluntarily, the officer drew rein oncemore.

“What is it? Quick!–I’ve no time. Thatconfounded Englishman may be at theSt. Denis Gate even now!”

“Citizen Captain,” gasped Bibot, hisbreath coming and going like that of aman fighting for his life. ”Here!... at thisgate!... not half an hour ago ... six men ...carriers ... market gardeners ... I seemedto know their faces....”

“Yes! yes! market gardener’s carriers,”exclaimed the officer gleefully, ”aristo-

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crats all of them ... and that d–d ScarletPimpernel. You’ve got them? You’ve de-tained them?... Where are they?... Speak,man, in the name of hell!...”

“Gone!” gasped Bibot. His legs wouldno longer bear him. He fell backwardson to a heap of street debris and refuse,from which lowly vantage ground hecontrived to give away the whole miser-able tale.

“Gone! half an hour ago. Their pass-ports were in order!... I seemed to knowtheir faces! Citizen Marat was here....He, too–”

In a moment the officer had once moreswung his horse round, so that the an-

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imal reared, with wild forefeet pawingthe air, with champing of bit, and whitefoam scattered around.

“A thousand million curses!” he ex-claimed. ”Citizen Bibot, your head willpay for this treachery. Which way didthey go?”

A dozen hands were ready to pointin the direction where the merry partyof carriers had disappeared half an hourago; a dozen tongues gave rapid, con-fused explanations.

“Into it, my men!” shouted the offi-cer; ”they were on foot! They can’t havegone far. Remember the Republic has of-fered ten thousand francs for the capture

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of the Scarlet Pimpernel.”Already the heavy gates had been

swung open, and the officer’s voice oncemore rang out clear through a perfectthunder-clap of fast galloping hoofs:

“Ventre a terre! Remember!–ten thou-sand francs to him who first sights theScarlet Pimpernel!”

The thunder-clap died away in the dis-tance, the dust of four score hoofs wasmerged in the fog and in the darkness;the voice of the captain was raised againthrough the mist-laden air. One shout ...a shout of triumph ... then silence onceagain.

Bibot had fainted on the heap of de-

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bris.

His comrades brought him wine todrink. He gradually revived. Hope cameback to his heart; his nerves soon stead-ied themselves as the heavy beverage fil-trated through into his blood.

“Bah!” he ejaculated as he pulled him-self together, ”the troopers were well-mounted ... the officer was enthusias-tic; those carriers could not have walkedvery far. And, in any case, I am free fromblame. Citoyen Marat himself was hereand let them pass!”

A shudder of superstitious terror ranthrough him as he recollected the wholescene: for surely he knew all the faces of

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the six men who had gone through thegate. The devil indeed must have giventhe mysterious Englishman power totransmute himself and his gang whollyinto the bodies of other people.

More than an hour went by. Bibot wasquite himself again, bullying, command-ing, detaining everybody now.

At that time there appeared to be aslight altercation going on, on the fartherside of the gate. Bibot thought it his dutyto go and see what the noise was about.Someone wanting to get into Paris in-stead of out of it at this hour of the nightwas a strange occurrence.

Bibot heard his name spoken by a rau-

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cous voice. Accompanied by two of hismen he crossed the wide gates in or-der to see what was happening. Oneof the men held a lanthorn, which hewas swinging high above his head. Bibotsaw standing there before him, arguingwith the guard by the gate, the bibulousspokesman of the band of carriers.

He was explaining to the sentry that hehad a message to deliver to the citizencommanding at the Porte Montmartre.

“It is a note,” he said, ”which an of-ficer of the mounted guard gave me.He and twenty troopers were gallopingdown the great North Road not far fromBarency. When they overtook the six ofus they drew rein, and the officer gave

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me this note for citizen Bibot and fiftyfrancs if I would deliver it tonight.”

“Give me the note!” said Bibot calmly.But his hand shook as he took the pa-

per; his face was livid with fear and rage.The paper had no writing on it, only

the outline of a small scarlet flower donein red–the device of the cursed English-man, the Scarlet Pimpernel.

“Which way did the officer and thetwenty troopers go,” he stammered, ”af-ter they gave you this note?”

“On the way to Calais,” replied theother, ”but they had magnificent horses,and didn’t spare them either. They are aleague and more away by now!”

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All the blood in Bibot’s body seemedto rush up to his head, a wild buzzingwas in his ears....

And that was how the Duc andDuchesse de Montreux, with their ser-vants and family, escaped from Paris onthat third day of Nivose in the year I ofthe Republic.

190

III. TWO GOODPATRIOTS

Being the deposition of citizenessFanny Roussell, who was brought up, to-gether with her husband, before the Tri-bunal of the Revolution on a charge of

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III. TWO GOOD PATRIOTS

treason–both being subsequently acquit-ted.

My name is Fanny Roussell, and I ama respectable married woman, and asgood a patriot as any of you sitting there.

Aye, and I’ll say it with my dyingbreath, though you may send me to theguillotine ... as you probably will, foryou are all thieves and murderers, everyone of you, and you have already madeup your minds that I and my man areguilty of having sheltered that accursedEnglishman whom they call the ScarletPimpernel ... and of having helped himto escape.

But I’ll tell you how it all happened,

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because, though you call me a traitor tothe people of France, yet am I a true pa-triot and will prove it to you by tellingyou exactly how everything occurred, sothat you may be on your guard againstthe cleverness of that man, who, I do be-lieve, is a friend and confederate of thedevil ... else how could he have escapedthat time?

Well! it was three days ago, and asbitterly cold as anything that my manand I can remember. We had no trav-ellers staying in the house, for we are agood three leagues out of Calais, and toofar for the folk who have business in orabout the harbour. Only at midday thecoffee-room would get full sometimes

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with people on their way to or from theport.

But in the evenings the place was quitedeserted, and so lonely that at times wefancied that we could hear the wolveshowling in the forest of St. Pierre.

It was close on eight o’clock, and myman was putting up the shutters, whensuddenly we heard the tramp of feeton the road outside, and then the quickword, ”Halt!”

The next moment there was a peremp-tory knock at the door. My man openedit, and there stood four men in the uni-form of the 9th Regiment of the Line ...the same that is quartered at Calais. The

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uniform, of course, I knew well, thoughI did not know the men by sight.

“In the name of the People and bythe order of the Committee of PublicSafety!” said one of the men, who stoodin the forefront, and who, I noticed, hada corporal’s stripe on his left sleeve.

He held out a paper, which was cov-ered with seals and with writing, but asneither my man nor I can read, it was nouse our looking at it.

Hercule–that is my husband’s name,citizens–asked the corporal what theCommittee of Public Safety wanted withus poor hoteliers of a wayside inn.

“Only food and shelter for to-night for

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me and my men,” replied the corporal,quite civilly.

“You can rest here,” said Hercule, andhe pointed to the benches in the coffee-room, ”and if there is any soup left in thestockpot, you are welcome to it.”

Hercule, you see, is a good patriot, andhe had been a soldier in his day.... No!no ... do not interrupt me, any of you ...you would only be saying that I ought tohave known ... but listen to the end.

“The soup we’ll gladly eat,” said thecorporal very pleasantly. ”As for shel-ter ... well! I am afraid that this nicewarm coffee-room will not exactly serveour purpose. We want a place where we

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can lie hidden, and at the same time keepa watch on the road. I noticed an out-house as we came. By your leave we willsleep in there.”

“As you please,” said my man curtly.He frowned as he said this, and it sud-

denly seemed as if some vague suspicionhad crept into Hercule’s mind.

The corporal, however, appeared un-aware of this, for he went on quite cheer-fully:

“Ah! that is excellent! Entre nous,citizen, my men and I have a desper-ate customer to deal with. I’ll not men-tion his name, for I see you have guessedit already. A small red flower, what?...

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Well, we know that he must be mak-ing straight for the port of Calais, forhe has been traced through St. Omerand Ardres. But he cannot possibly en-ter Calais city to-night, for we are onthe watch for him. He must seek shel-ter somewhere for himself and any otheraristocrat he may have with him, and,bar this house, there is no other place be-tween Ardres and Calais where he canget it. The night is bitterly cold, with asnow blizzard raging round. I and mymen have been detailed to watch thisroad, other patrols are guarding thosethat lead toward Boulogne and to Grave-lines; but I have an idea, citizen, that ourfox is making for Calais, and that to me

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will fall the honour of handing that tire-some scarlet flower to the Public Pros-ecutor en route for Madame la Guillo-tine.”

Now I could not really tell you, citi-zens, what suspicions had by this timeentered Hercule’s head or mine; cer-tainly what suspicions we did have werestill very vague.

I prepared the soup for the men andthey ate it heartily, after which my hus-band led the way to the outhouse wherewe sometimes stabled a traveller’s horsewhen the need arose.

It is nice and dry, and always filledwith warm, fresh straw. The entrance

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into it immediately faces the road; thecorporal declared that nothing wouldsuit him and his men better.

They retired to rest apparently, but wenoticed that two men remained on thewatch just inside the entrance, whilst thetwo others curled up in the straw.

Hercule put out the lights in the coffee-room, and then he and I went upstairs–not to bed, mind you–but to have a quiettalk together over the events of the pasthalf-hour.

The result of our talk was that ten min-utes later my man quietly stole down-stairs and out of the house. He didnot, however, go out by the front door,

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but through a back way which, leadingthrough a cabbage-patch and then acrossa field, cuts into the main road some twohundred metres higher up.

Hercule and I had decided that hewould walk the three leagues intoCalais, despite the cold, which wasintense, and the blizzard, which wasnearly blinding, and that he would callat the post of gendarmerie at the citygates, and there see the officer in com-mand and tell him the exact state of thecase. It would then be for that officer todecide what was to be done; our respon-sibility as loyal citizens would be com-pletely covered.

Hercule, you must know, had just

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emerged from our cabbage-patch on tothe field when he was suddenly chal-lenged:

“Qui va la?”He gave his name. His certificate of

citizenship was in his pocket; he hadnothing to fear. Through the darknessand the veil of snow he had discerned asmall group of men wearing the uniformof the 9th Regiment of the Line.

“Four men,” said the foremost ofthese, speaking quickly and command-ingly, ”wearing the same uniform that Iand my men are wearing ... have youseen them?”

“Yes,” said Hercule hurriedly.

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“Where are they?”“In the outhouse close by.”The other suppressed a cry of triumph.“At them, my men!” he said in a whis-

per, ”and you, citizen, thank your starsthat we have not come too late.”

“These men ...” whispered Hercule. ”Ihad my suspicions.”

“Aristocrats, citizen,” rejoined thecommander of the little party, ”and oneof them is that cursed Englishman–theScarlet Pimpernel.”

Already the soldiers, closely followedby Hercule, had made their way throughour cabbage-patch back to the house.

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The next moment they had made abold dash for the barn. There was a greatdeal of shouting, a great deal of swear-ing and some firing, whilst Hercule andI, not a little frightened, remained in thecoffee-room, anxiously awaiting events.

Presently the group of soldiers re-turned, not the ones who had first come,but the others. I noticed their leader,who seemed to be exceptionally tall.

He looked very cheerful, and laughedloudly as he entered the coffee-room.From the moment that I looked at hisface I knew, somehow, that Hercule andI had been fooled, and that now, indeed,we stood eye to eye with that mysteriouspersonage who is called the Scarlet Pim-

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pernel.

I screamed, and Hercule made a dashfor the door; but what could two hum-ble and peaceful citizens do against thisband of desperate men, who held theirlives in their own hands? They werefour and we were two, and I do be-lieve that their leader has supernaturalstrength and power.

He treated us quite kindly, eventhough he ordered his followers to bindus down to our bed upstairs, and to tie acloth round our mouths so that our criescould not be distinctly heard.

Neither my man nor I closed an eye allnight, of course, but we heard the mis-

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creants moving about in the coffee-roombelow. But they did no mischief, nor didthey steal any of the food or wines.

At daybreak we heard them goingout by the front door, and their foot-steps disappearing toward Calais. Wefound their discarded uniforms lying inthe coffee-room. They must have en-tered Calais by daylight, when the gateswere opened–just like other peaceablecitizens. No doubt they had forged pass-ports, just as they had stolen uniforms.

Our maid-of-all-work released us fromour terrible position in the course of themorning, and we released the soldiers ofthe 9th Regiment of the Line, whom wefound bound and gagged, some of them

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wounded, in the outhouse.That same afternoon we were arrested,

and here we are, ready to die if we must,but I swear that I have told you the truth,and I ask you, in the name of justice, ifwe have done anything wrong, and if wedid not act like loyal and true citizens,even though we were pitted against anemissary of the devil?

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208

IV. THE OLD SCARECROW

IV. THE OLDSCARECROW

I

Nobody in the quartier could quiterecollect when it was that the new Pub-

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lic Letter-Writer first set up in businessat the angle formed by the Quai des Au-gustins and the Rue Dauphine, imme-diately facing the Pont Neuf; but therehe certainly was on the 28th day ofFebruary, 1793, when Agnes, with eyesswollen with tears, a market basket onher arm, and a look of dreary despair onher young face, turned that selfsame an-gle on her way to the Pont Neuf, andnearly fell over the rickety constructionwhich sheltered him and his stock-in-trade.

“Oh, mon Dieu! citizen Lepine, I hadno idea you were here,” she exclaimed assoon as she had recovered her balance.

“Nor I, citizeness, that I should have

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the pleasure of seeing you this morn-ing,” he retorted.

“But you were always at the other cor-ner of the Pont Neuf,” she argued.

“So I was,” he replied, ”so I was. ButI thought I would like a change. TheFaubourg St. Michel appealed to me;most of my clients came to me from thisside of the river–all those on the otherside seem to know how to read andwrite.”

“I was just going over to see you,” sheremarked.

“You, citizeness,” he exclaimed in un-feigned surprise, ”what should procurea poor public writer the honour of–”

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“Hush, in God’s name!” broke in theyoung girl quickly as she cast a rapid,furtive glance up and down the quai andthe narrow streets which converged atthis angle.

She was dressed in the humblest andpoorest of clothes, her skimpy shawlround her shoulders could scarce protecther against the cold of this cruel winter’smorning; her hair was entirely hiddenbeneath a frilled and starched cap, andher feet were encased in coarse worstedstockings and sabots, but her hands weredelicate and fine, and her face had thatnobility of feature and look of patientresignation in the midst of overwhelm-ing sorrow which proclaimed a lofty re-

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finement both of soul and of mind.The old Letter-Writer was surveying

the pathetic young figure before himthrough his huge horn-rimmed specta-cles, and she smiled on him through herfast-gathering tears. He used to havehis pitch at the angle of the Pont Neuf,and whenever Agnes had walked pastit, she had nodded to him and biddenhim ”Good morrow!” He had at timesdone little commissions for her and goneon errands when she needed a messen-ger; to-day, in the midst of her despair,she had suddenly thought of him andthat rumour credited him with certainknowledge which she would give her allto possess.

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She had sallied forth this morningwith the express purpose of speakingwith him; but now suddenly she feltafraid, and stood looking at him for amoment or two, hesitating, wonderingif she dared tell him–one never knewthese days into what terrible pitfall an ill-considered word might lead one.

A scarecrow he was, that old PublicLetter-Writer, more like a great, gauntbird than a human being, with thosespectacles of his, and his long, verysparse and very lanky fringe of a beardwhich fell from his cheeks and chin anddown his chest for all the world like acrumpled grey bib. He was wrappedfrom head to foot in a caped coat which

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had once been green in colour, but wasnow of many hues not usually seen inrainbows. He wore his coat all buttoneddown the front, like a dressing-gown,and below the hem there peeped out apair of very large feet encased in bootswhich had never been a pair. He satupon a rickety, straw-bottomed chair un-der an improvised awning which wasmade up of four poles and a bit ofsacking. He had a table in front ofhim–a table partially and very insecurelypropped up by a bundle of old papersand books, since no two of its four legswere completely whole–and on the ta-ble there was a neckless bottle half-filledwith ink, a few sheets of paper and a

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couple of quill pens.

The young girl’s hesitation had indeednot lasted more than a few seconds.

Furtively, like a young creature terri-fied of lurking enemies, she once moreglanced to right and left of her and downthe two streets and the river bank, forParis was full of spies these days–humanbloodhounds ready for a few sous to selltheir fellow-creatures’ lives. It was mid-dle morning now, and a few passers-by were hurrying along wrapped to thenose in mufflers, for the weather was bit-terly cold.

Agnes waited until there was no one insight, then she leaned forward over the

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table and whispered under her breath:“They say, citizen, that you alone in

Paris know the whereabouts of the En-glish milor’–of him who is called theScarlet Pimpernel....”

“Hush-sh-sh!” said the old manquickly, for just at that moment two menhad gone by, in ragged coats and tornbreeches, who had leered at Agnes andher neat cap and skirt as they passed.Now they had turned the angle of thestreet and the old man, too, sank hisvoice to a whisper.

“I know nothing of any Englishman,”he muttered.

“Yes, you do,” she rejoined insistently.

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”When poor Antoine Carre was some-where in hiding and threatened with ar-rest, and his mother dared not write tohim lest her letter be intercepted, shespoke to you about the English milor’,and the English milor’ found AntoineCarre and took him and his mothersafely out of France. Mme. Carre ismy godmother.... I saw her the verynight when she went to meet the Englishmilor’ at his commands. I know all thathappened then.... I know that you werethe intermediary.”

“And if I was,” he muttered sullenlyas he fiddled with his pen and paper,”maybe I’ve had cause to regret it. Fora week after that Carre episode I dared

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not show my face in the streets of Paris;for nigh on a fortnight I dared not ply mytrade ... I have only just ventured againto set up in business. I am not going torisk my old neck again in a hurry....”

“It is a matter of life and death,” urgedAgnes, as once more the tears rushed toher pleading eyes and the look of miserysettled again upon her face.

“Your life, citizeness?” queried the oldman, ”or that of citizen-deputy Fabrice?”

“Hush!” she broke in again, as a lookof real terror now overspread her face.Then she added under her breath: ”Youknow?”

“I know that Mademoiselle Agnes de

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Lucines is fiancee to the citizen-deputyArnould Fabrice,” rejoined the old manquietly, ”and that it is MademoiselleAgnes de Lucines who is speaking withme now.”

“You have known that all along?”

“Ever since mademoiselle first trippedpast me at the angle of the Pont Neufdressed in winsey kirtle and wearingsabots on her feet....”

“But how?” she murmured, puzzled,not a little frightened, for his knowledgemight prove dangerous to her. She wasof gentle birth, and as such an objectof suspicion to the Government of theRepublic and of the Terror; her mother

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was a hopeless cripple, unable to move:this together with her love for ArnouldFabrice had kept Agnes de Lucines inFrance these days, even though she wasin hourly peril of arrest.

“Tell me what has happened,” the oldman said, unheeding her last anxiousquery. ”Perhaps I can help ...”

“Oh! you cannot–the English milor’can and will if only we could knowwhere he is. I thought of him the mo-ment I received that awful man’s letter–and then I thought of you....”

“Tell me about the letter–quickly,” heinterrupted her with some impatience.”I’ll be writing something–but talk away,

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I shall hear every word. But for God’ssake be as brief as you can.”

He drew some paper nearer to himand dipped his pen in the ink. He ap-peared to be writing under her dictation.Thin, flaky snow had begun to fall andsettled in a smooth white carpet uponthe frozen ground, and the footsteps ofthe passers-by sounded muffled as theyhurried along. Only the lapping of thewater of the sluggish river close by brokethe absolute stillness of the air.

Agnes de Lucines’ pale face lookedethereal in this framework of whitewhich covered her shoulders and theshawl crossed over her bosom: onlyher eyes, dark, appealing, filled with a

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glow of immeasurable despair, appearedtensely human and alive.

“I had a letter this morning,” she whis-pered, speaking very rapidly, ”from cit-izen Heriot–that awful man–you knowhim?”

“Yes, yes!”“He used to be valet in the service of

deputy Fabrice. Now he, too, is a mem-ber of the National Assembly ... he isarrogant and cruel and vile. He hatesArnould Fabrice and he professes him-self passionately in love with me.”

“Yes, yes!” murmured the old man,”but the letter?”

“It came this morning. In it he says

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that he has in his possession a number ofold letters, documents and manuscriptswhich are quite enough to send deputyFabrice to the guillotine. He threatens toplace all those papers before the Com-mittee of Public Safety unless ... unlessI....”

She paused, and a deep blush, partlyof shame, partly of wrath, suffused herpale cheeks.

“Unless you accept his grimy hand inmarriage,” concluded the man dryly.

Her eyes gave him answer. With pa-thetic insistence she tried now to glean aray of hope from the old scarecrow’s in-scrutable face. But he was bending over

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his writing: his fingers were blue withcold, his great shoulders were stoopingto his task.

“Citizen,” she pleaded.“Hush!” he muttered, ”no more now.

The very snowflakes are made up ofwhispers that may reach those blood-hounds yet. The English milor’ shallknow of this. He will send you a mes-sage if he thinks fit.”

“Citizen–”“Not another word, in God’s name!

Pay me five sous for this letter andpray Heaven that you have not beenwatched.”

She shivered and drew her shawl

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closer round her shoulders, then shecounted out five sous with elaborate careand laid them out upon the table. Theold man took up the coins. He blewinto his fingers, which looked paralysedwith the cold. The snow lay over ev-erything now; the rough awning had notprotected him or his wares.

Agnes turned to go. The last she sawof him, as she went up the rue Dauphine,was one broad shoulder still bendingover the table, and clad in the shabby,caped coat all covered with snow like anold Santa Claus.

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II

It was half-an-hour before noon, andcitizen-deputy Heriot was preparing togo out to the small tavern round thecorner where he habitually took his de-jeuner. Citizen Rondeau, who for theconsideration of ten sous a day lookedafter Heriot’s paltry creature-comforts,was busy tidying up the squalid apart-ment which the latter occupied on thetop floor of a lodging-house in the RueCocatrice. This apartment consisted ofthree rooms leading out of one another;firstly there was a dark and narrow an-tichambre wherein slept the aforesaidcitizen-servant; then came a sitting-room

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sparsely furnished with a few chairs, acentre table and an iron stove, and fi-nally there was the bedroom whereinthe most conspicuous object was a largeoak chest clamped with wide iron hingesand a massive writing-desk; the bed anda very primitive washstand were in analcove at the farther end of the room andpartially hidden by a tapestry curtain.

At exactly half-past seven that morn-ing there came a peremptory knock atthe door of the antichambre, and asRondeau was busy in the bedroom,Heriot went himself to see who his unex-pected visitor might be. On the landingoutside stood an extraordinary-lookingindividual–more like a tall and animated

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scarecrow than a man–who in a tremu-lous voice asked if he might speak withthe citizen Heriot.

“That is my name,” said the deputygruffly, ”what do you want?”

He would have liked to slam the doorin the old scarecrow’s face, but the lat-ter, with the boldness which sometimesbesets the timid, had already steppedinto the anti-chambre and was now qui-etly sauntering through to the next roominto the one beyond. Heriot, being arepresentative of the people and a so-cial democrat of the most advanced type,was supposed to be accessible to ev-ery one who desired speech with him.Though muttering sundry curses, he

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thought it best not to go against his usualpractice, and after a moment’s hesitationhe followed his unwelcome visitor.

The latter was in the sitting-room bythis time; he had drawn a chair close tothe table and sat down with the air ofone who has a perfect right to be wherehe is; as soon as Heriot entered he saidplacidly:

“I would desire to speak alone withthe citizen-deputy.”

And Heriot, after another slight hesita-tion, ordered Rondeau to close the bed-room door.

“Keep your ears open in case I call,” headded significantly.

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“You are cautious, citizen,” merely re-marked the visitor with a smile.

To this Heriot vouchsafed no reply.He, too, drew a chair forward and sat op-posite his visitor, then he asked abruptly:”Your name and quality?”

“My name is Lepine at your service,”said the old man, ”and by profession Iwrite letters at the rate of five sous orso, according to length, for those who arenot able to do it for themselves.”

“Your business with me?” queriedHeriot curtly.

“To offer you two thousand francsfor the letters which you stole fromdeputy Fabrice when you were his

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valet,” replied Lepine with perfect calm.

In a moment Heriot was on his feet,jumping up as if he had been stung;his pale, short-sighted eyes narrowed tillthey were mere slits, and through themhe darted a quick, suspicious glance atthe extraordinary out-at-elbows figurebefore him. Then he threw back his headand laughed till the tears streamed downhis cheeks and his sides began to ache.

“This is a farce, I presume, citizen,” hesaid when he had recovered somethingof his composure.

“No farce, citizen,” replied Lepinecalmly. ”The money is at your disposalwhenever you care to bring the letters

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to my pitch at the angle of the RueDauphine and the Quai des Augustins,where I carry on my business.”

“Whose money is it? Agnes de Lu-cines’ or did that fool Fabrice send you?”

“No one sent me, citizen. The moneyis mine–a few savings I possess–I hon-our citizen Fabrice–I would wish to dohim service by purchasing certain lettersfrom you.”

Then as Heriot, moody and sullen, re-mained silent and began pacing up anddown the long, bare floor of the room,Lepine added persuasively, ”Well! whatdo you say? Two thousand francs for apacket of letters–not a bad bargain these

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hard times.”“Get out of this room,” was Heriot’s

fierce and sudden reply.“You refuse?”“Get out of this room!”“As you please,” said Lepine as he,

too, rose from his chair. ”But before Igo, citizen Heriot,” he added, speakingvery quietly, ”let me tell you one thing.Mademoiselle Agnes de Lucines wouldfar sooner cut off her right hand than letyours touch it even for one instant. Nei-ther she nor deputy Fabrice would everpurchase their lives at such a price.”

“And who are you–you mangy oldscarecrow?” retorted Heriot, who was

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getting beside himself with rage, ”thatyou should assert these things? What arethose people to you, or you to them, thatyou should interfere in their affairs?”

“Your question is beside the point, cit-izen,” said Lepine blandly; ”I am here topropose a bargain. Had you not betteragree to it?”

“Never!” reiterated Heriot emphati-cally.

“Two thousand francs,” reiterated theold man imperturbably.

“Not if you offered me two hundredthousand,” retorted the other fiercely.”Go and tell that, to those who sentyou. Tell them that I–Heriot–would look

235


upon a fortune as mere dross againstthe delight of seeing that man Fabrice,whom I hate beyond everything in earthor hell, mount up the steps to the guil-lotine. Tell them that I know that Agnesde Lucines loathes me, that I know thatshe loves him. I know that I cannot winher save by threatening him. But you arewrong, citizen Lepine,” he continued,speaking more and more calmly as hispassions of hatred and of love seemedmore and more to hold him in their grip;”you are wrong if you think that shewill not strike a bargain with me in or-der to save the life of Fabrice, whom sheloves. Agnes de Lucines will be my wifewithin the month, or Arnould Fabrice’s

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head will fall under the guillotine, andyou, my interfering friend, may go to thedevil, if you please.”

“That would be but a tame proceed-ing, citizen, after my visit to you,” saidthe old man, with unruffled sang-froid.”But let me, in my turn, assure youof this, citizen Heriot,” he added, ”thatMlle. de Lucines will never be yourwife, that Arnould Fabrice will not endhis valuable life under the guillotine–and that you will never be allowed touse against him the cowardly and stolenweapon which you possess.”

Heriot laughed–a low, cynical laughand shrugged his thin shoulders:

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“And who will prevent me, I prayyou?” he asked sarcastically.

The old man made no immediate re-ply, but he came just a step or twocloser to the citizen-deputy and, sud-denly drawing himself up to his fullheight, he looked for one brief momentdown upon the mean and sordid figureof the ex-valet. To Heriot it seemed as ifthe whole man had become transfigured;the shabby old scarecrow looked all ofa sudden like a brilliant and powerfulpersonality; from his eyes there flasheddown a look of supreme contempt andof supreme pride, and Heriot–unable tounderstand this metamorphosis whichwas more apparent to his inner con-

238


sciousness than to his outward sight, felthis knees shake under him and all theblood rush back to his heart in an agonyof superstitious terror.

From somewhere there came to his earthe sound of two words: ”I will!” inreply to his own defiant query. Surelythose words uttered by a man consciousof power and of strength could neverhave been spoken by the dilapidated oldscarecrow who earned a precarious liv-ing by writing letters for ignorant folk.

But before he could recover some sem-blance of presence of mind citizen Lep-ine had gone, and only a loud andmerry laugh seemed to echo through thesqualid room.

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Heriot shook off the remnant of hisown senseless terror; he tore open thedoor of the bedroom and shouted toRondeau, who truly was thinking thatthe citizen-deputy had gone mad:

“After him!–after him! Quick! curseyou!” he cried.

“After whom?” gasped the man.

“The man who was here just now–anaristo.”

“I saw no one–but the Public Letter-Writer, old Lepine–I know him well—”

“Curse you for a fool!” shouted Heriotsavagely, ”the man who was here wasthat cursed Englishman–the one whom

240


they call the Scarlet Pimpernel. Run af-ter him–stop him, I say!”

“Too late, citizen,” said the otherplacidly; ”whoever was here before iscertainly half-way down the street bynow.”

III

“No use, Ffoulkes,” said Sir PercyBlakeney to his friend half-an-hour later,”the man’s passions of hatred and desireare greater than his greed.”

The two men were sitting togetherin one of Sir Percy Blakeney’s many

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lodgings–the one in the Rue des PetitsPeres–and Sir Percy had just put Sir An-drew Ffoulkes au fait with the whole sadstory of Arnould Fabrice’s danger andAgnes de Lucines’ despair.

“You could do nothing with the brute,then?” queried Sir Andrew.

“Nothing,” replied Blakeney. ”He re-fused all bribes, and violence would nothave helped me, for what I wanted wasnot to knock him down, but to get holdof the letters.”

“Well, after all, he might have sold youthe letters and then denounced Fabricejust the same.”

“No, without actual proofs he could

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not do that. Arnould Fabrice is not aman against whom a mere denunciationwould suffice. He has the grudging re-spect of every faction in the National As-sembly. Nothing but irrefutable proofwould prevail against him–and bringhim to the guillotine.”

“Why not get Fabrice and Mlle. de Lu-cines safely over to England?”

“Fabrice would not come. He is not ofthe stuff that emigres are made of. Heis not an aristocrat; he is a republican byconviction, and a demmed honest one atthat. He would scorn to run away, andAgnes de Lucines would not go withouthim.”

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“Then what can we do?”“Filch those letters from that brute

Heriot,” said Blakeney calmly.“House-breaking, you mean!” com-

mented Sir Andrew Ffoulkes dryly.“Petty theft, shall we say?” retorted

Sir Percy. ”I can bribe the lout who hascharge of Heriot’s rooms to introduce usinto his master’s sanctum this eveningwhen the National Assembly is sittingand the citizen-deputy safely out of theway.”

And the two men–one of whom wasthe most intimate friend of the Princeof Wales and the acknowledged dar-ling of London society–thereupon fell to

244


discussing plans for surreptitiously en-tering a man’s room and committinglarceny, which in normal times wouldentail, if discovered, a long term of im-prisonment, but which, in these days, inParis, and perpetrated against a mem-ber of the National Assembly, would cer-tainly be punished by death.

IV

Citizen Rondeau, whose business itwas to look after the creature comforts ofdeputy Heriot, was standing in the an-tichambre facing the two visitors whomhe had just introduced into his master’s

245


apartments, and idly turning a coupleof gold coins over and over between hisgrimy fingers.

“And mind, you are to see nothingand hear nothing of what goes on in thenext room,” said the taller of the twostrangers; ”and when we go there’ll beanother couple of louis for you. Is thatunderstood?”

“Yes! it’s understood,” grunted Ron-deau sullenly; ”but I am running greatrisks. The citizen-deputy sometimes re-turns at ten o’clock, but sometimes atnine.... I never know.”

“It is now seven,” rejoined the other;”we’ll be gone long before nine.”

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“Well,” said Rondeau surlily, ”I go outnow for my supper. I’ll return in halfan hour, but at half-past eight you mustclear out.”

Then he added with a sneer:

“Citizens Legros and Desgas usuallycome back with deputy Heriot of nights,and citizens Jeanniot and Bompard comein from next door for a game of cards.You wouldn’t stand much chance if youwere caught here.”

“Not with you to back up soformidable a quintette of stalwarts,”assented the tall visitor gaily. ”But wewon’t trouble about that just now. Wehave a couple of hours before us in

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which to do all that we want. So aurevoir, friend Rondeau ... two more louisfor your complaisance, remember, whenwe have accomplished our purpose.”

Rondeau muttered something more,but the two strangers paid no furtherheed to him; they had already walkedto the next room, leaving Rondeau in theantichambre.

Sir Percy Blakeney did not pause inthe sitting-room where an oil lamp sus-pended from the ceiling threw a fee-ble circle of light above the centre ta-ble. He went straight through to the bed-room. Here, too, a small lamp was burn-ing which only lit up a small portion ofthe room–the writing-desk and the oak

248


chest–leaving the corners and the alcove,with its partially drawn curtains, in com-plete shadow.

Blakeney pointed to the oak chest andto the desk.

“You tackle the chest, Ffoulkes, and Iwill go for the desk,” he said quietly, assoon as he had taken a rapid survey ofthe room. ”You have your tools?”

Ffoulkes nodded, and anon in thissqualid room, ill-lit, ill-ventilated, barelyfurnished, was presented one of themost curious spectacles of these strangeand troublous times: two English gen-tlemen, the acknowledged dandies ofLondon drawing-rooms, busy picking

249


locks and filing hinges like any commonhouse-thieves.

Neither of them spoke, and a strangehush fell over the room–a hush onlybroken by the click of metal againstmetal, and the deep breathing of the twomen bending to their task. Sir AndrewFfoulkes was working with a file on thepadlocks of the oak chest, and Sir PercyBlakeney, with a bunch of skeleton keys,was opening the drawers of the writing-desk. These, when finally opened, re-vealed nothing of any importance; butwhen anon Sir Andrew was able to liftthe lid of the oak chest, he disclosed aninnumerable quantity of papers and doc-uments tied up in neat bundles, dock-

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eted and piled up in rows and tiers to thevery top of the chest.

“Quick to work, Ffoulkes,” said Blak-eney, as in response to his friend’s call hedrew a chair forward and, seating him-self beside the chest, started on the taskof looking through the hundreds of bun-dles which lay before him. ”It will takeus all our time to look through these.”

Together now the two men set towork–methodically and quietly–pilingup on the floor beside them the bundlesof papers which they had already ex-amined, and delving into the oak chestfor others. No sound was heard savethe crackling of crisp paper and an oc-casional ejaculation from either of them

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when they came upon some proof orother of Heriot’s propensity for black-mail.

“Agnes de Lucines is not the only onewhom this brute is terrorising,” mur-mured Blakeney once between his teeth;”I marvel that the man ever feels safe,alone in these lodgings, with no onebut that weak-kneed Rondeau to protecthim. He must have scores of enemies inthis city who would gladly put a daggerin his heart or a bullet through his back.”

They had been at work for close onhalf an hour when an exclamation of tri-umph, quickly smothered, escaped SirPercy’s lips.

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“By Gad, Ffoulkes!” he said, ”I believeI have got what we want!”

With quick, capable hands he turnedover a bundle which he had just ex-tracted from the chest. Rapidly heglanced through them. ”I have them,Ffoulkes,” he reiterated more emphat-ically as he put the bundle into hispocket; ”now everything back in itsplace and–”

Suddenly he paused, his slender handup to his lips, his head turned toward thedoor, an expression of tense expectancyin every line of his face.

“Quick, Ffoulkes,” he whispered, ”ev-erything back into the chest, and the lid

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down.”“What ears you have,” murmured

Ffoulkes as he obeyed rapidly and with-out question. ”I heard nothing.”

Blakeney went to the door and bent hishead to listen.

“Three men coming up the stairs,” hesaid; ”they are on the landing now.”

“Have we time to rush them?”“No chance! They are at the door. Two

more men have joined them, and I candistinguish Rondeau’s voice, too.”

“The quintette,” murmured Sir An-drew. ”We are caught like two rats in atrap.”

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Even as he spoke the opening of theoutside door could be distinctly heard,then the confused murmur of manyvoices. Already Blakeney and Ffoulkeshad with perfect presence of mind putthe finishing touches to the tidying of theroom–put the chairs straight, shut downthe lid of the oak chest, closed all thedrawers of the desk.

“Nothing but good luck can save usnow,” whispered Blakeney as he low-ered the wick of the lamp. ”Quick now,”he added, ”behind that tapestry in the al-cove and trust to our stars.”

Securely hidden for the moment be-hind the curtains in the dark recess ofthe alcove the two men waited. The

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door leading into the sitting-room wasajar, and they could hear Heriot and hisfriends making merry irruption into theplace. From out the confusion of generalconversation they soon gathered that thedebates in the Chamber had been so dulland uninteresting that, at a given sig-nal, the little party had decided to ad-journ to Heriot’s rooms for their habit-ual game of cards. They could also hearHeriot calling to Rondeau to bring bot-tles and glasses, and vaguely they mar-velled what Rondeau’s attitude might belike at this moment. Was he brazeningout the situation, or was he sick with ter-ror?

Suddenly Heriot’s voice came out

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more distinctly.

“Make yourselves at home, friends,”he was saying; ”here are cards, domi-noes, and wine. I must leave you toyourselves for ten minutes whilst I writean important letter.”

“All right, but don’t be long,” came inmerry response.

“Not longer than I can help,” rejoinedHeriot. ”I want my revenge againstBompard, remember. He did fleece melast night.”

“Hurry on, then,” said one of the men.”I’ll play Desgas that return game ofdominoes until then.”

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“Ten minutes and I’ll be back,” con-cluded Heriot.

He pushed open the bedroom door.The light within was very dim. The twomen hidden behind the tapestry couldhear him moving about the room mut-tering curses to himself. Presently thelight of the lamp was shifted from oneend of the room to the other. Throughthe opening between the two curtainsBlakeney could just see Heriot’s back ashe placed the lamp at a convenient an-gle upon his desk, divested himself ofhis overcoat and muffler, then sat downand drew pen and paper closer to him.He was leaning forward, his elbow rest-ing upon the table, his fingers fidgeting

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with his long, lank hair. He had closedthe door when he entered, and from theother room now the voices of his friendssounded confused and muffled. Nowand then an exclamation: ”Double!” ”Je... tiens!” ”Cinq-deux!” an oath, alaugh, the click of glasses and bottlescame out more clearly; but the rest ofthe time these sounds were more like adroning accompaniment to the scrapingof Heriot’s pen upon the paper when hefinally began to write his letter.

Two minutes went by and then twomore. The scratching of Heriot’s pen be-came more rapid as he appeared to bemore completely immersed in his work.Behind the curtain the two men had been

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waiting: Blakeney ready to act, Ffoulkesequally ready to interpret the slightestsignal from his chief.

The next minute Blakeney had stolenout of the alcove, and his two hands–so slender and elegant looking, and yetwith a grip of steel–had fastened them-selves upon Heriot’s mouth, smother-ing within the space of a second thecry that had been half-uttered. Ffoulkeswas ready to complete the work of ren-dering the man helpless: one handker-chief made an efficient gag, another tiedthe ankles securely. Heriot’s own coat-sleeves supplied the handcuffs, and theblankets off the bed tied around his legsrendered him powerless to move. Then

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the two men lifted this inert mass onto the bed and Ffoulkes whispered anx-iously: ”Now, what next?”

Heriot’s overcoat, hat, and muffler layupon a chair. Sir Percy, placing a warn-ing finger upon his lips, quickly divestedhimself of his own coat, slipped that ofHeriot on, twisted the muffler round hisneck, hunched up his shoulders, andmurmuring: ”Now for a bit of luck!”once more lowered the light of the lampand then went to the door.

“Rondeau!” he called. ”Hey, Ron-deau!” And Sir Percy himself was sur-prised at the marvellous way in whichhe had caught the very inflection ofHeriot’s voice.

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“Hey, Rondeau!” came from one of theplayers at the table, ”the citizen-deputyis calling you!”

They were all sitting round the ta-ble: two men intent upon their game ofdominoes, the other two watching withequal intentness. Rondeau came shuf-fling out of the antichambre. His face,by the dim light of the oil lamp, lookedjaundiced with fear.

“Rondeau, you fool, where are you?”called Blakeney once again.

The next moment Rondeau had en-tered the room. No need for a sig-nal or an order this time. Ffoulkesknew by instinct what his chief’s bold

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scheme would mean to them both if itsucceeded. He retired into the darkestcorner of the room as Rondeau shuffledacross to the writing-desk. It was alldone in a moment. In less time than ithad taken to bind and gag Heriot, hishenchman was laid out on the floor, hiscoat had been taken off him, and he wastied into a mummy-like bundle with SirAndrew Ffoulkes’ elegant coat fastenedsecurely round his arms and chest. Ithad all been done in silence. The menin the next room were noisy and in-tent on their game; the slight scuffle, thequickly smothered cries had remainedunheeded.

“Now, what next?” queried Sir An-

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drew Ffoulkes once more.“The impudence of the d— l, my good

Ffoulkes,” replied Blakeney in a whis-per, ”and may our stars not play usfalse. Now let me make you look as likeRondeau as possible–there! Slip on hiscoat–now your hair over your forehead–your coat-collar up–your knees bent–that’s better!” he added as he sur-veyed the transformation which a fewdeft strokes had made in Sir AndrewFfoulkes’ appearance. ”Now all youhave to do is to shuffle across the room–here’s your prototype’s handkerchief–ofdubious cleanliness, it is true, but it willserve–blow your nose as you cross theroom, it will hide your face. They’ll not

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heed you–keep in the shadows and Godguard you–I’ll follow in a moment ortwo ... but don’t wait for me.”

He opened the door, and before SirAndrew could protest his chief hadpushed him out into the room wherethe four men were still intent on theirgame. Through the open door Sir Percynow watched his friend who, keepingwell within the shadows, shuffled qui-etly across the room. The next momentSir Andrew was through and in the an-tichambre. Blakeney’s acutely sensitiveears caught the sound of the opening ofthe outer door. He waited for a while,then he drew out of his pocket the bun-dle of letters which he had risked so

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much to obtain. There they were neatlydocketed and marked: ”The affairs ofArnould Fabrice.”

Well! if he got away to-night Agnes deLucines would be happy and free fromthe importunities of that brute Heriot; af-ter that he must persuade her and Fab-rice to go to England and to freedom.

For the moment his own safety wasterribly in jeopardy; one false move–onelook from those players round the ta-ble.... Bah! even then–!

With an inward laugh he pushed openthe door once more and stepped into theroom. For the moment no one noticedhim; the game was at its most palpitating

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stage; four shaggy heads met beneaththe lamp and four pairs of eyes were gaz-ing with rapt attention upon the intricatemaze of the dominoes.

Blakeney walked quietly across theroom; he was just midway and on a levelwith the centre table when a voice wassuddenly raised from that tense groupbeneath the lamp: ”Is it thou, friendHeriot?”

Then one of the men looked up andstared, and another did likewise and ex-claimed: ”It is not Heriot!”

In a moment all was confusion, butconfusion was the very essence of thosehair-breadth escapes and desperate ad-

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ventures which were as the breath of hisnostrils to the Scarlet Pimpernel. Beforethose four men had had time to jumpto their feet, or to realise that somethingwas wrong with their friend Heriot, hehad run across the room, his hand wason the knob of the door–the door that ledto the antichambre and to freedom.

Bompard, Desgas, Jeanniot, Legroswere at his heels, but he tore open thedoor, bounded across the threshold, andslammed it to with such a vigorous bangthat those on the other side were broughtto a momentary halt. That momentmeant life and liberty to Blakeney; al-ready he had crossed the antichambre.Quite coolly and quietly now he took

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out the key from the inner side of themain door and slipped it to the outside.The next second–even as the four menrushed helter-skelter into the anticham-bre he was out on the landing and hadturned the key in the door.

His prisoners were safely locked in–inHeriot’s apartments–and Sir Percy Blak-eney, calmly and without haste, was de-scending the stairs of the house in theRue Cocatrice.

The next morning Agnes de Lucinesreceived, through an anonymous mes-senger, the packet of letters which wouldso gravely have compromised ArnouldFabrice. Though the weather was moreinclement than ever, she ran out into

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the streets, determined to seek out theold Public Letter-Writer and thank himfor his mediation with the English milor,who surely had done this noble action.

But the old scarecrow had disap-peared.

270

271

V. A FINE BIT OF WORK

V. A FINE BIT OFWORK

I

“Sh!... sh!... It’s the Englishman. I’dknow his footstep anywhere–”

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“God bless him!” murmured petitemaman fervently.

Pere Lenegre went to the door;he stepped cautiously and with thatstealthy foot-tread which speaks ineloquent silence of daily, hourly danger,of anguish and anxiety for lives that aredear.

The door was low and narrow–up onthe fifth floor of one of the huge ten-ement houses in the Rue Jolivet in theMontmartre quarter of Paris. A narrowstone passage led to it–pitch-dark at alltimes, but dirty, and evil-smelling whenthe concierge–a free citizen of the newdemocracy–took a week’s holiday fromhis work in order to spend whole after-

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noons either at the wineshop round thecorner, or on the Place du Carrousel towatch the guillotine getting rid of sometwenty aristocrats an hour for the glori-fication of the will of the people.

But inside the small apartment every-thing was scrupulously neat and clean.Petite maman was such an excellentmanager, and Rosette was busy all theday tidying and cleaning the poor littlehome, which Pere Lenegre contrived tokeep up for wife and daughter by work-ing fourteen hours a day in the govern-ment saddlery.

When Pere Lenegre opened the nar-row door, the entire framework of it wasfilled by the broad, magnificent figure

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of a man in heavy caped coat and highleather boots, with dainty frills of lace atthroat and wrist, and elegant chapeau-bras held in the hand.

Pere Lenegre at sight of him, put aquick finger to his own quivering lips.

“Anything wrong, vieux papa?”asked the newcomer lightly.

The other closed the door cautiouslybefore he made reply. But petite mamancould not restrain her anxiety.

“My little Pierre, milor?” she askedas she clasped her wrinkled hands to-gether, and turned on the stranger hertear-dimmed restless eyes.

“Pierre is safe and well, little mother,”

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he replied cheerily. ”We got him outof Paris early this morning in a coalcart, carefully hidden among the sacks.When he emerged he was black butsafe. I drove the cart myself as far asCourbevoie, and there handed over yourPierre and those whom we got out ofParis with him to those of my friendswho were going straight to England.There’s nothing more to be afraid of, pe-tite maman,” he added as he took theold woman’s wrinkled hands in both hisown; ”your son is now under the care ofmen who would die rather than see himcaptured. So make your mind at ease,Pierre will be in England, safe and well,within a week.”

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Petite maman couldn’t say anythingjust then because tears were chokingher, but in her turn she clasped thosetwo strong and slender hands–the handsof the brave Englishman who had justrisked his life in order to save Pierrefrom the guillotine–and she kissed themas fervently as she kissed the feet ofthe Madonna when she knelt before hershrine in prayer.

Pierre had been a footman in thehousehold of unhappy Marie An-toinette. His crime had been that heremained loyal to her in words as wellas in thought. A hot-headed but noblyoutspoken harangue on behalf of theunfortunate queen, delivered in a public

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place, had at once marked him out tothe spies of the Terrorists as suspectof intrigue against the safety of theRepublic. He was denounced to theCommittee of Public Safety, and his ar-rest and condemnation to the guillotinewould have inevitably followed had notthe gallant band of Englishmen, knownas the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel,succeeded in effecting his escape.

What wonder that petite maman couldnot speak for tears when she clasped thehands of the noble leader of that splen-did little band of heroes? What won-der that Pere Lenegre, when he heardthat his son was safe murmured a fer-vent: ”God bless you, milor, and your

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friends!” and that Rosette surrepti-tiously raised the fine caped coat to herlips, for Pierre was her twin-brother, andshe loved him very dearly.

But already Sir Percy Blakeney had,with one of his characteristic cheerywords, dissipated the atmosphere oftearful emotion which oppressed thesekindly folk.

“Now, Papa Lenegre,” he said lightly,”tell me why you wore such a solemn airwhen you let me in just now.”

“Because, milor,” replied the old manquietly, ”that d—-d concierge, Jean Bap-tiste, is a black-hearted traitor.”

Sir Percy laughed, his merry, infec-

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tious laugh.

“You mean that while he has beenpocketing bribes from me, he has de-nounced me to the Committee.”

Pere Lenegre nodded: ”I only heardit this morning,” he said, ”from oneor two threatening words the treacher-ous brute let fall. He knows that youlodge in the Place des Trois Maries, andthat you come here frequently. I wouldhave given my life to warn you thenand there,” continued the old man withtouching earnestness, ”but I didn’t knowwhere to find you. All I knew was thatyou were looking after Pierre.”

Even while the man spoke there

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darted from beneath the Englishman’sheavy lids a quick look like a flash ofsudden and brilliant light out of the lazydepths of his merry blue eyes; it was oneof those glances of pure delight and exul-tation which light up the eyes of the truesoldier when there is serious fighting tobe done.

“La, man,” he said gaily, ”there wasno cause to worry. Pierre is safe, re-member that! As for me,” he addedwith that wonderful insouciance whichcaused him to risk his life a hundredtimes a day with a shrug of his broadshoulders and a smile upon his lips; ”asfor me, I’ll look after myself, never fear.”

He paused awhile, then added

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gravely: ”So long as you are safe, mygood Lenegre, and petite maman, andRosette.”

Whereupon the old man was silent,petite maman murmured a short prayer,and Rosette began to cry. The hero ofa thousand gallant rescues had receivedhis answer.

“You, too, are on the black list, PereLenegre?” he asked quietly.

The old man nodded.“How do you know?” queried the En-

glishman.“Through Jean Baptiste, milor.”“Still that demmed concierge,” mut-

tered Sir Percy.

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“He frightened petite maman with itall this morning, saying that he knew myname was down on the Sectional Com-mittee’s list as a ’suspect.’ That’s whenhe let fall a word or two about you,milor. He said it is known that Pierrehas escaped from justice, and that youhelped him to it.

“I am sure that we shall get a domi-ciliary visit presently,” continued PereLenegre, after a slight pause. ”The gen-darmes have not yet been, but I fancythat already this morning early I saw oneor two of the Committee’s spies hangingabout the house, and when I went to theworkshop I was followed all the time.”

The Englishman looked grave: ”And

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tell me,” he said, ”have you got anythingin this place that may prove compromis-ing to any of you?”

“No, milor. But, as Jean Baptiste said,the Sectional Committee know aboutPierre. It is because of my son that I amsuspect.”

The old man spoke quite quietly, verysimply, like a philosopher who has longago learned to put behind him the fearof death. Nor did petite maman cry orlament. Her thoughts were for the bravemilor who had saved her boy; but herfears for her old man left her dry-eyedand dumb with grief.

There was silence in the little room for

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one moment while the angel of sorrowand anguish hovered round these faith-ful and brave souls, then the English-man’s cheery voice, so full of spirit andmerriment, rang out once more–he hadrisen to his full, towering height, andnow placed a kindly hand on the oldman’s shoulder:

“It seems to me, my good Lenegre,” hesaid, ”that you and I haven’t many mo-ments to spare if we mean to cheat thosedevils by saving your neck. Now, petitemaman,” he added, turning to the oldwoman, ”are you going to be brave?”

“I will do anything, milor,” she repliedquietly, ”to help my old man.”

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“Well, then,” said Sir Percy Blak-eney in that optimistic, light-hearted yetsupremely authoritative tone of whichhe held the secret, ”you and Rosette re-main here and wait for the gendarmes.When they come, say nothing; behavewith absolute meekness, and let themsearch your place from end to end. Ifthey ask you about your husband saythat you believe him to be at his work-shop. Is that clear?”

“Quite clear, milor,” replied petite ma-man.

“And you, Pere Lenegre,” continuedthe Englishman, speaking now withslow and careful deliberation, ”listenvery attentively to the instructions I am

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going to give you, for on your implicitobedience to them depends not onlyyour own life but that of these two dearwomen. Go at once, now, to the RueSte. Anne, round the corner, the sec-ond house on your right, which is num-bered thirty-seven. The porte cocherestands open, go boldly through, pastthe concierge’s box, and up the stairsto apartment number twelve, secondfloor. Here is the key of the apartment,”he added, producing one from his coatpocket and handing it over to the oldman. ”The rooms are nominally occu-pied by a certain Maitre Turandot, makerof violins, and not even the concierge ofthe place knows that the hunchbacked

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and snuffy violin-maker and the med-dlesome Scarlet Pimpernel, whom theCommittee of Public Safety would solove to lay by the heels, are one and thesame person. The apartment, then, ismine; one of the many which I occupyin Paris at different times,” he went on.”Let yourself in quietly with this key,walk straight across the first room to awardrobe, which you will see in front ofyou. Open it. It is hung full of shabbyclothes; put these aside, and you will no-tice that the panels at the back do not fitvery closely, as if the wardrobe was oldor had been badly put together. Insertyour fingers in the tiny aperture betweenthe two middle panels. These slide back

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easily: there is a recess immediately be-hind them. Get in there; pull the doorsof the wardrobe together first, then slidethe back panels into their place. You willbe perfectly safe there, as the house isnot under suspicion at present, and evenif the revolutionary guard, under somemeddle-some sergeant or other, choosesto pay it a surprise visit, your hiding-place will be perfectly secure. Now is allthat quite understood?”

“Absolutely, milor,” replied Lenegre,even as he made ready to obey SirPercy’s orders, ”but what about you?You cannot get out of this house, milor,”he urged; ”it is watched, I tell you.”

“La!” broke in Blakeney, in his light-

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hearted way, ”and do you think I didn’tknow that? I had to come and tellyou about Pierre, and now I must givethose worthy gendarmes the slip some-how. I have my rooms downstairs on theground floor, as you know, and I mustmake certain arrangements so that wecan all get out of Paris comfortably thisevening. The demmed place is no longersafe either for you, my good Lenegre, orfor petite maman and Rosette. But wher-ever I may be, meanwhile, don’t worryabout me. As soon as the gendarmeshave been and gone, I’ll go over to theRue Ste. Anne and let you know whatarrangements I’ve been able to make. Sodo as I tell you now, and in Heaven’s

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name let me look after myself.”

Whereupon, with scant ceremony, hehustled the old man out of the room.

Pere Lenegre had contrived to kiss pe-tite maman and Rosette before he went.It was touching to see the perfect confi-dence with which these simple-heartedfolk obeyed the commands of milor.Had he not saved Pierre in his won-derful, brave, resourceful way? Of atruth he would know how to save PereLenegre also. But, nevertheless, anguishgripped the women’s hearts; anguishdoubly keen since the saviour of Pierrewas also in danger now.

When Pere Lenegre’s shuffling foot-

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steps had died away along the flaggedcorridor, the stranger once more turnedto the two women.

“And now, petite maman,” he saidcheerily, as he kissed the old woman onboth her furrowed cheeks, ”keep up agood heart, and say your prayers withRosette. Your old man and I will bothhave need of them.”

He did not wait to say good-bye, andanon it was his firm footstep that echoeddown the corridor. He went off singinga song, at the top of his voice, for thewhole house to hear, and for that traitor,Jean Baptiste, to come rushing out of hisroom marvelling at the impudence of theman, and cursing the Committee of Pub-

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lic Safety who were so slow in sendingthe soldiers of the Republic to lay thisimpertinent Englishman by the heels.

II

A quarter of an hour later half dozenmen of the Republican Guard, with cor-poral and sergeant in command, werein the small apartment on the fifth floorof the tenement house in the Rue Jo-livet. They had demanded an entry inthe name of the Republic, had roughlyhustled petite maman and Rosette, ques-tioned them to Lenegre’s whereabouts,and not satisfied with the reply which

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they received, had turned the tidy littlehome topsy-turvy, ransacked every cup-board, dislocated every bed, table or sofawhich might presumably have affordeda hiding place for a man.

Satisfied now that the ”suspect”whom they were searching for wasnot on the premises, the sergeant sta-tioned four of his men with the corporaloutside the door, and two within, andhimself sitting down in the centre of theroom ordered the two women to standbefore him and to answer his questionsclearly on pain of being dragged awayforthwith to the St. Lazare house ofdetention.

Petite maman smoothed out her

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apron, crossed her arms before her, andlooked the sergeant quite straight in theface. Rosette’s eyes were full of tears,but she showed no signs of fear either,although her shoulder–where one of thegendarmes had seized it so roughly–wasterribly painful.

“Your husband, citizeness,” asked thesergeant peremptorily, ”where is he?”

“I am not sure, citizen,” replied petitemaman. ”At this hour he is generally atthe government works in the Quai desMessageries.”

“He is not there now,” asserted thesergeant. ”We have knowledge that hedid not go back to his work since dinner-

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time.”Petite maman was silent.“Answer,” ordered the sergeant.“I cannot tell you more, citizen

sergeant,” she said firmly. ”I do notknow.”

“You do yourself no good, woman,by this obstinacy,” he continued roughly.”My belief is that your husband is insidethis house, hidden away somewhere. Ifnecessary I can get orders to have everyapartment searched until he is found:but in that case it will go much harderwith you and with your daughter, andmuch harder too with your husbandthan if he gave us no trouble and fol-

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lowed us quietly.”But with sublime confidence in the

man who had saved Pierre and whohad given her explicit orders as to whatshe should do, petite maman, backed byRosette, reiterated quietly:

“I cannot tell you more, citizensergeant, I do not know.”

“And what about the Englishman?”queried the sergeant more roughly, ”theman they call the Scarlet Pimpernel,what do you know of him?”

“Nothing, citizen,” replied petite ma-man, ”what should we poor folk knowof an English milor?”

“You know at any rate this much, cit-

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izeness, that the English milor helpedyour son Pierre to escape from justice.”

“If that is so,” said petite maman qui-etly, ”it cannot be wrong for a mother topray to God to bless her son’s preserver.”

“It behooves every good citizen,” re-torted the sergeant firmly, ”to denounceall traitors to the Republic.”

“But since I know nothing about theEnglishman, citizen sergeant–?”

And petite maman shrugged her thinshoulders as if the matter had ceased tointerest her.

“Think again, citizeness,” admonishedthe sergeant, ”it is your husband’s neckas well as your daughter’s and your own

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that you are risking by so much obsti-nacy.”

He waited a moment or two as if will-ing to give the old woman time to speak:then, when he saw that she kept her thin,quivering lips resolutely glued togetherhe called his corporal to him.

“Go to the citizen Commissary of theSection,” he commanded, ”and ask for ageneral order to search every apartmentin No. 24 Rue Jolivet. Leave two of ourmen posted on the first and third land-ings of this house and leave two outsidethis door. Be as quick as you can. Youcan be back here with the order in halfan hour, or perhaps the committee willsend me an extra squad; tell the citizen

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Commissary that this is a big house, withmany corridors. You can go.”

The corporal saluted and went.

Petite maman and Rosette the whilewere still standing quietly in the mid-dle of the room, their arms folded under-neath their aprons, their wide-open, anx-ious eyes fixed into space. Rosette’s tearswere falling slowly, one by one down hercheeks, but petite maman was dry-eyed.She was thinking, and thinking as shehad never had occasion to think before.

She was thinking of the brave and gal-lant Englishman who had saved Pierre’slife only yesterday. The sergeant, whosat there before her, had asked for orders

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from the citizen Commissary to searchthis big house from attic to cellar. Thatis what made petite maman think andthink.

The brave Englishman was in thishouse at the present moment: the housewould be searched from attic to cel-lar and he would be found, taken, andbrought to the guillotine.

The man who yesterday had risked hislife to save her boy was in imminent anddeadly danger, and she–petite maman–could do nothing to save him.

Every moment now she thought tohear milor’s firm tread resounding onstairs or corridor, every moment she

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thought to hear snatches of an Englishsong, sung by a fresh and powerfulvoice, never after to-day to be heard ingaiety again.

The old clock upon the shelf tickedaway these seconds and minutes whilepetite maman thought and thought,while men set traps to catch a fellow-being in a deathly snare, and humancarnivorous beasts lay lurking for theirprey.

III

Another quarter of an hour went by.Petite maman and Rosette had hardly

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moved. The shadows of evening werecreeping into the narrow room, blurringthe outlines of the pieces of furniture andwrapping all the corners in gloom.

The sergeant had ordered Rosette tobring in a lamp. This she had done, plac-ing it upon the table so that the feeblelight glinted upon the belt and buckles ofthe sergeant and upon the tricolour cock-ade which was pinned to his hat. Petitemaman had thought and thought untilshe could think no more.

Anon there was much commotion onthe stairs; heavy footsteps were heard as-cending from below, then crossing thecorridors on the various landings. Thesilence which reigned otherwise in the

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house, and which had fallen as usual onthe squalid little street, void of traffic atthis hour, caused those footsteps to echowith ominous power.

Petite maman felt her heart beatingso vigorously that she could hardlybreathe. She pressed her wrinkled handstightly against her bosom.

There were the quick words of com-mand, alas! so familiar in France justnow, the cruel, peremptory wordsthat invariably preceded an arrest,preliminaries to the dragging of somewretched–often wholly harmless–creature before a tribunal that knewneither pardon nor mercy.

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The sergeant, who had becomedrowsy in the close atmosphere of thetiny room, roused himself at the soundand jumped to his feet. The door wasthrown open by the men stationedoutside even before the authoritativewords, ”Open! in the name of theRepublic!” had echoed along the narrowcorridor.

The sergeant stood at attention andquickly lifted his hand to his forehead insalute. A fresh squad of some half-dozenmen of the Republican Guard stood inthe doorway; they were under the com-mand of an officer of high rank, a rough,uncouth, almost bestial-looking crea-ture, with lank hair worn the fashion-

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able length under his greasy chapeau-bras, and unkempt beard round an ill-washed and bloated face. But he worethe tricolour sash and badge which pro-claimed him one of the military mem-bers of the Sectional Committee of Pub-lic Safety, and the sergeant, who hadbeen so overbearing with the womenjust now, had assumed a very humbleand even obsequious manner.

“You sent for a general order to thesectional Committee,” said the new-comer, turning abruptly to the sergeantafter he had cast a quick, searchingglance round the room, hardly conde-scending to look on petite maman andRosette, whose very souls were now gaz-

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ing out of their anguish-filled eyes.

“I did, citizen commandant,” repliedthe sergeant.

“I am not a commandant,” said theother curtly. ”My name is Rouget, mem-ber of the Convention and of the Com-mittee of Public Safety. The sectionalCommittee to whom you sent for a gen-eral order of search thought that you hadblundered somehow, so they sent me toput things right.”

“I am not aware that I committedany blunder, citizen,” stammered thesergeant dolefully. ”I could not take theresponsibility of making a domiciliarysearch all through the house. So I begged

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for fuller orders.”

“And wasted the Committee’s timeand mine by such nonsense,” retortedRouget harshly. ”Every citizen of the Re-public worthy of the name should knowhow to act on his own initiative when thesafety of the nation demands it.”

“I did not know–I did not dare–” mur-mured the sergeant, obviously cowed bythis reproof, which had been deliveredin the rough, overbearing tones pecu-liar to these men who, one and all, hadrisen from the gutter to places of impor-tance and responsibility in the newly-modelled State.

“Silence!” commanded the other

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peremptorily. ”Don’t waste any more ofmy time with your lame excuses. Youhave failed in zeal and initiative. That’senough. What else have you done?Have you got the man Lenegre?”

“No, citizen. He is not in hiding here,and his wife and daughter will not giveus any information about him.”

“That is their look-out,” retortedRouget with a harsh laugh. ”If they giveup Lenegre of their own free will the lawwill deal leniently with them, and evenperhaps with him. But if we have tosearch the house for him, then it meansthe guillotine for the lot of them.”

He had spoken these callous words

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without even looking on the two unfor-tunate women; nor did he ask them anyfurther questions just then, but contin-ued speaking to the sergeant:

“And what about the Englishman?The sectional Committee sent downsome spies this morning to be on thelook-out for him on or about this house.Have you got him?”

“Not yet, citizen. But–”

“Ah ca, citizen sergeant,” broke inthe other brusquely, ”meseems that yourzeal has been even more at fault than Ihad supposed. Have you done anythingat all, then, in the matter of Lenegre orthe Englishman?”

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“I have told you, citizen,” retorted thesergeant sullenly, ”that I believe Lene-gre to be still in this house. At any rate,he had not gone out of it an hour ago–that’s all I know. And I wanted to searchthe whole of this house, as I am surewe should have found him in one of theother apartments. These people are allfriends together, and will always helpeach other to evade justice. But the En-glishman was no concern of mine. Thespies of the Committee were ordered towatch for him, and when they reportedto me I was to proceed with the arrest. Iwas not set to do any of the spying work.I am a soldier, and obey my orders whenI get them.”

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“Very well, then, you’d better obeythem now, citizen sergeant,” wasRouget’s dry comment on the otherman’s surly explanation, ”for you seemto have properly blundered from first tolast, and will be hard put to it to redeemyour character. The Republic, remember,has no use for fools.”

The sergeant, after this covert threat,thought it best, apparently, to keep histongue, whilst Rouget continued, in thesame aggressive, peremptory tone:

“Get on with your domiciliary visits atonce. Take your own men with you, andleave me the others. Begin on this floor,and leave your sentry at the front dooroutside. Now let me see your zeal aton-

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ing for your past slackness. Right turn!Quick march!”

Then it was that petite maman spokeout. She had thought and thought, andnow she knew what she ought to do; sheknew that that cruel, inhuman wretchwould presently begin his tramp up anddown corridors and stairs, demandingadmittance at every door, entering everyapartment. She knew that the man whohad saved her Pierre’s life was in hidingsomewhere in the house–that he wouldbe found and dragged to the guillotine,for she knew that the whole governingbody of this abominable Revolution wasdetermined not to allow that hated En-glishman to escape again.

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She was old and feeble, small andthin–that’s why everyone called her pe-tite maman–but once she knew what sheought to do, then her spirit overpoweredthe weakness of her wizened body.

Now she knew, and even while that ar-rogant member of an execrated murder-ing Committee was giving final instruc-tions to the sergeant, petite maman said,in a calm, piping voice:

“No need, citizen sergeant, to go anddisturb all my friends and neighbours.I’ll tell you where my husband is.”

In a moment Rouget had swung roundon his heel, a hideous gleam of satisfac-tion spread over his grimy face, and he

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said, with an ugly sneer:

“So! you have thought better of it,have you? Well, out with it! You’d betterbe quick about it if you want to do your-selves any good.”

“I have my daughter to think of,” saidpetite maman in a feeble, querulous way,”and I won’t have all my neighboursin this house made unhappy because ofme. They have all been kind neighbours.Will you promise not to molest them andto clear the house of soldiers if I tell youwhere Lenegre is?”

“The Republic makes no promises,”replied Rouget gruffly. ”Her citizensmust do their duty without hope of a

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reward. If they fail in it, they are pun-ished. But privately I will tell you,woman, that if you save us the trou-blesome and probably unprofitable taskof searching this rabbit-warren throughand through, it shall go very lenientlywith you and with your daughter, andperhaps–I won’t promise, remember–perhaps with your husband also.”

“Very good, citizen,” said petite ma-man calmly. ”I am ready.”

“Ready for what?” he demanded.“To take you to where my husband is

in hiding.”“Oho! He is not in the house, then?”“No.”

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“Where is he, then?”

“In the Rue Ste. Anne. I will take youthere.”

Rouget cast a quick, suspicious glanceon the old woman, and exchanged oneof understanding with the sergeant.

“Very well,” he said after a slightpause. ”But your daughter must comealong too. Sergeant,” he added, ”I’lltake three of your men with me; I havehalf a dozen, but it’s better to be on thesafe side. Post your fellows round theouter door, and on my way to the rueSte. Anne I will leave word at the gen-darmerie that a small reinforcement besent on to you at once. These can be here

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in five minutes; until then you are quitesafe.”

Then he added under his breath, sothat the women should not hear: ”TheEnglishman may still be in the house. Inwhich case, hearing us depart, he maythink us all gone and try to give us theslip. You’ll know what to do?” hequeried significantly.

“Of course, citizen,” replied thesergeant.

“Now, then, citizeness–hurry up.”Once more there was tramping of

heavy feet on stone stairs and corridors.A squad of soldiers of the RepublicanGuard, with two women in their midst,

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and followed by a member of the Com-mittee of Public Safety, a sergeant, cor-poral and two or three more men, ex-cited much anxious curiosity as they de-scended the steep flights of steps fromthe fifth floor.

Pale, frightened faces peeped shylythrough the doorways at sound of thenoisy tramp from above, but quickly dis-appeared again at sight of the grimyscarlet facings and tricolour cockades.

The sergeant and three soldiers re-mained stationed at the foot of the stairsinside the house. Then citizen Rougetroughly gave the order to proceed. Itseemed strange that it should requireclose on a dozen men to guard two

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women and to apprehend one old man,but as the member of the Committee ofPublic Safety whispered to the sergeantbefore he finally went out of the house:”The whole thing may be a trap, and onecan’t be too careful. The Englishman issaid to be very powerful; I’ll get the gen-darmerie to send you another half-dozenmen, and mind you guard the house un-til my return.”

IV

Five minutes later the soldiers, di-rected by petite maman, had reachedNo. 37 Rue Ste. Anne. The big out-

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side door stood wide open, and thewhole party turned immediately into thehouse.

The concierge, terrified and obse-quious, rushed–trembling–out of hisbox.

“What was the pleasure of the citizensoldiers?” he asked.

“Tell him, citizeness,” commandedRouget curtly.

“We are going to apartment No. 12 onthe second floor,” said petite maman tothe concierge.

“Have you a key of the apartment?”queried Rouget.

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“No, citizen,” stammered theconcierge, ”but–”

“Well, what is it?” queried the otherperemptorily.

“Papa Turandot is a poor, harmlessmaker of volins,” said the concierge. ”Iknow him well, though he is not of-ten at home. He lives with a daugh-ter somewhere Passy way, and only usesthis place as a workshop. I am sure he isno traitor.”

“We’ll soon see about that,” remarkedRouget dryly.

Petite maman held her shawl tightlycrossed over her bosom: her hands feltclammy and cold as ice. She was looking

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straight out before her, quite dry-eyedand calm, and never once glanced onRosette, who was not allowed to comeanywhere near her mother.

As there was no duplicate key to apart-ment No. 12, citizen Rouget ordered hismen to break in the door. It did nottake very long: the house was old andramshackle and the doors rickety. Thenext moment the party stood in the roomwhich a while ago the Englishman hadso accurately described to pere Lenegrein petite maman’s hearing.

There was the wardrobe. Petite ma-man, closely surrounded by the soldiers,went boldly up to it; she opened it just asmilor had directed, and pushed aside the

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row of shabby clothes that hung there.Then she pointed to the panels that didnot fit quite tightly together at the back.Petite maman passed her tongue overher dry lips before she spoke.

“There’s a recess behind those panels,”she said at last. ”They slide back quiteeasily. My old man is there.”

“And God bless you for a brave, loyalsoul,” came in merry, ringing accentfrom the other end of the room. ”AndGod save the Scarlet Pimpernel!”

These last words, spoken in English,completed the blank amazement whichliterally paralysed the only three gen-uine Republican soldiers there–those,

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namely, whom Rouget had borrowedfrom the sergeant. As for the others, theyknew what to do. In less than a minutethey had overpowered and gagged thethree bewildered soldiers.

Rosette had screamed, terror-stricken,from sheer astonishment, but petite ma-man stood quite still, her pale, tear-dimmed eyes fixed upon the man whosegay ”God bless you!” had so suddenlyturned her despair into hope.

How was it that in the hideous, un-kempt and grimy Rouget she had not atonce recognised the handsome and gal-lant milor who had saved her Pierre’slife? Well, of a truth he had beenunrecognisable, but now that he tore

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the ugly wig and beard from his face,stretched out his fine figure to its fullheight, and presently turned his lazy,merry eyes on her, she could havescreamed for very joy.

The next moment he had her bythe shoulders and had imprinted twosounding kisses upon her cheeks.

“Now, petite maman,” he said gaily,”let us liberate the old man.”

Pere Lenegre, from his hiding-place,had heard all that had been going on inthe room for the last few moments. True,he had known exactly what to expect, forno sooner had he taken possession of therecess behind the wardrobe than milor

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also entered the apartment and then andthere told him of his plans not only forpere’s own safety, but for that of petitemaman and Rosette who would be ingrave danger if the old man followed inthe wake of Pierre.

Milor told him in his usual light-hearted way that he had given the Com-mittee’s spies the slip.

“I do that very easily, you know,” heexplained. ”I just slip into my roomsin the Rue Jolivet, change myself into asnuffy and hunchback violin-maker, andwalk out of the house under the noses ofthe spies. In the nearest wine-shop myEnglish friends, in various disguises, areall ready to my hand: half a dozen of

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them are never far from where I am incase they may be wanted.”

These half-dozen brave Englishmensoon arrived one by one: one looked likea coal-heaver, another like a seedy mu-sician, a third like a coach-driver. Butthey all walked boldly into the houseand were soon all congregated in apart-ment No. 12. Here fresh disguises wereassumed, and soon a squad of Republi-can Guards looked as like the real thingas possible.

Pere Lenegre admitted himself thatthough he actually saw milor transform-ing himself into citizen Rouget, he couldhardly believe his eyes, so complete wasthe change.

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“I am deeply grieved to have fright-ened and upset you so, petite maman,”now concluded milor kindly, ”but I sawno other way of getting you and Rosetteout of the house and leaving that stupidsergeant and some of his men behind.I did not want to arouse in him eventhe faintest breath of suspicion, and ofcourse if he had asked me for the writ-ten orders which he was actually wait-ing for, or if his corporal had returnedsooner than I anticipated, there mighthave been trouble. But even then,”he added with his usual careless insou-ciance, ”I should have thought of someway of baffling those brutes.”

“And now,” he concluded more au-

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thoritatively, ”it is a case of getting outof Paris before the gates close. PereLenegre, take your wife and daughterwith you and walk boldly out of thishouse. The sergeant and his men havenot vacated their post in the Rue Jolivet,and no one else can molest you. Gostraight to the Porte de Neuilly, and onthe other side wait quietly in the littlecafe at the corner of the Avenue until Icome. Your old passes for the barriersstill hold good; you were only placed onthe ’suspect’ list this morning, and therehas not been a hue and cry yet aboutyou. In any case some of us will be closeby to help you if needs be.”

“But you, milor,” stammered pere

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Lenegre, ”and your friends–?”“La, man,” retorted Blakeney lightly,

”have I not told you before never toworry about me and my friends? Wehave more ways than one of givingthe slip to this demmed government ofyours. All you’ve got to think of is yourwife and your daughter. I am afraid thatpetite maman cannot take more with herthan she has on, but we’ll do all we canfor her comfort until we have you all inperfect safety–in England–with Pierre.”

Neither pere Lenegre, nor petite ma-man, nor Rosette could speak just then,for tears were choking them, but anonwhen milor stood nearer, petite mamanknelt down, and, imprisoning his slen-

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der hand in her brown, wrinkled ones,she kissed it reverently.

He laughed and chided her for this.“‘Tis I should kneel to you in grati-

tude, petite maman,” he said earnestly,”you were ready to sacrifice your oldman for me.”

“You have saved Pierre, milor,” saidthe mother simply.

A minute later pere Lenegre and thetwo women were ready to go. Al-ready milor and his gallant Englishfriends were busy once more transform-ing themselves into grimy workmen orseedy middle-class professionals.

As soon as the door of apartment No.

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12 finally closed behind the three goodfolk, my lord Tony asked of his chief:

“What about these three wretched sol-diers, Blakeney?”

“Oh! they’ll be all right for twenty-four hours. They can’t starve till then,and by that time the concierge will haverealised that there’s something wrongwith the door of No. 12 and will comein to investigate the matter. Are they se-curely bound, though?”

“And gagged! Rather!” ejaculated oneof the others. ”Odds life, Blakeney!” headded enthusiastically, ”that was a finebit of work!”

333

334

VI. HOW JEAN PIERRE MET THESCARLET PIMPERNEL

VI. HOW JEANPIERRE MET THE

SCARLETPIMPERNEL

As told by Himself

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I

Ah, monsieur! the pity of it, the pity!Surely there are sins which le bon DieuHimself will condone. And if not–well,I had to risk His displeasure anyhow.Could I see them both starve, monsieur?I ask you! and M. le Vicomte had becomeso thin, so thin, his tiny, delicate boneswere almost through his skin. AndMme. la Marquise! an angel, monsieur!Why, in the happy olden days, beforeall these traitors and assassins ruled inFrance, M. and Mme. la Marquise livedonly for the child, and then to see himdying–yes, dying, there was no shuttingone’s eyes to that awful fact–M. le Vi-

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comte de Mortain was dying of starva-tion and of disease.

There we were all herded together in acouple of attics–one of which little morethan a cupboard–at the top of a dilapi-dated half-ruined house in the Rue desPipots–Mme. la Marquise, M. le Vicomteand I–just think of that, monsieur! M.le Marquis had his chateau, as no doubtyou know, on the outskirts of Lyons. Aloyal high-born gentleman; was it likely,I ask you, that he would submit pas-sively to the rule of those execrable rev-olutionaries who had murdered theirKing, outraged their Queen and Royalfamily, and, God help them! had al-ready perpetrated every crime and every

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abomination for which of a truth therecould be no pardon either on earth or inHeaven? He joined that plucky but, alas!small and ill-equipped army of royalistswho, unable to save their King, were atleast determined to avenge him.

Well, you know well enough whathappened. The counter-revolutionfailed; the revolutionary army broughtLyons down to her knees after a siegeof two months. She was then markeddown as a rebel city, and after theabominable decree of October 9th haddeprived her of her very name, andCouthon had exacted bloody reprisalsfrom the entire population for its loyaltyto the King, the infamous Laporte was

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sent down in order finally to stamp outthe lingering remnants of the rebellion.By that time, monsieur, half the city hadbeen burned down, and one-tenth andmore of the inhabitants–men, women,and children–had been massacred incold blood, whilst most of the others hadfled in terror from the appalling scene ofruin and desolation. Laporte completedthe execrable work so ably begun byCouthon. He was a very celebrated andskilful doctor at the Faculty of Medicine,now turned into a human hyena in thename of Liberty and Fraternity.

M. le Marquis contrived to escape withthe scattered remnant of the Royalistarmy into Switzerland. But Mme la

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Marquise throughout all these strenu-ous times had stuck to her post at thechateau like the valiant creature that shewas. When Couthon entered Lyons atthe head of the revolutionary army, thewhole of her household fled, and I wasleft alone to look after her and M. le Vi-comte.

Then one day when I had goneinto Lyons for provisions, I suddenlychanced to hear outside an eating-housethat which nearly froze the marrow inmy old bones. A captain belonging tothe Revolutionary Guard was transmit-ting to his sergeant certain orders, whichhe had apparently just received.

The orders were to make a perqui-

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sition at ten o’clock this same eveningin the chateau of Mortaine as the Mar-quis was supposed to be in hidingthere, and in any event to arrest everyman, woman, and child who was foundwithin its walls.

“Citizen Laporte,” the captain con-cluded, ”knows for a certainty that theci-devant Marquise and her brat are stillthere, even if the Marquis has fled likethe traitor that he is. Those cursedEnglish spies who call themselves theLeague of the Scarlet Pimpernel havebeen very active in Lyons of late, andcitizen Laporte is afraid that they mightcheat the guillotine of the carcase ofthose aristos, as they have already suc-

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ceeded in doing in the case of a largenumber of traitors.”

I did not, of course, wait to hear anymore of that abominable talk. I spedhome as fast as my old legs would carryme. That self-same evening, as soon asit was dark, Mme. la Marquise, carry-ing M. le Vicomte in her arms and I car-rying a pack with a few necessaries onmy back, left the ancestral home of theMortaines never to return to it again: forwithin an hour of our flight a detach-ment of the revolutionary army madea descent upon the chateau; they ran-sacked it from attic to cellar, and findingnothing there to satisfy their lust of hate,they burned the stately mansion down

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to the ground.We were obliged to take refuge in

Lyons, at any rate for a time. Great aswas the danger inside the city, it was in-finitely greater on the high roads, un-less we could arrange for some vehicle totake us a considerable part of the way tothe frontier, and above all for some sortof passports–forged or otherwise–to en-able us to pass the various toll-gates onthe road, where vigilance was very strict.So we wandered through the ruined anddeserted streets of the city in search ofshelter, but found every charred andderelict house full of miserable trampsand destitutes like ourselves. Half deadwith fatigue, Mme. la Marquise was

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at last obliged to take refuge in one ofthese houses which was situated in theRue des Pipots. Every room was full tooverflowing with a miserable wreckageof humanity thrown hither by the tide ofanarchy and of bloodshed. But at the topof the house we found an attic. It wasempty save for a couple of chairs, a tableand a broken-down bedstead on whichwere a ragged mattress and pillow.

Here, monsieur, we spent over threeweeks, at the end of which time M. leVicomte fell ill, and then there followeddays, monsieur, through which I wouldnot like my worst enemy to pass.

Mme. la Marquise had only been ableto carry away in her flight what ready

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money she happened to have in thehouse at the time. Securities, property,money belonging to aristocrats had beenruthlessly confiscated by the revolution-ary government in Lyons. Our scanty re-sources rapidly became exhausted, andwhat was left had to be kept for milk anddelicacies for M. le Vicomte. I trampedthrough the streets in search of a doc-tor, but most of them had been arrestedon some paltry charge or other of rebel-lion, whilst others had fled from the city.There was only that infamous Laporte–avastly clever doctor, I knew–but as soontake a lamb to a hungry lion as the Vi-comte de Mortaine to that bloodthirstycut-throat.

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Then one day our last franc went andwe had nothing left. Mme. la Marquisehad not touched food for two days. I hadstood at the corner of the street, beggingall the day until I was driven off by thegendarmes. I had only obtained threesous from the passers-by. I bought somemilk and took it home for M. le Vicomte.The following morning when I enteredthe larger attic I found that Mme. la Mar-quise had fainted from inanition.

I spent the whole of the day beggingin the streets and dodging the guard,and even so I only collected four sous.I could have got more perhaps, onlythat at about midday the smell of foodfrom an eating-house turned me sick and

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faint, and when I regained conscious-ness I found myself huddled up undera doorway and evening gathering in fastaround me. If Mme. la Marquise couldgo two days without food I ought to gofour. I struggled to my feet; fortunately Ihad retained possession of my four sous,else of a truth I would not have had thecourage to go back to the miserable atticwhich was the only home I knew.

I was wending my way along asfast as I could–for I knew that Mme.la Marquise would be getting terri-bly anxious–when, just as I turnedinto the Rue Blanche, I spied twogentlemen–obviously strangers, for theywere dressed with a luxury and care

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with which we had long ceased to befamiliar in Lyons–walking rapidly to-wards me. A moment or two later theycame to a halt, not far from where I wasstanding, and I heard the taller one ofthe two say to the other in English–a lan-guage with which I am vaguely conver-sant: ”All right again this time, what,Tony?”

Both laughed merrily like a couple ofschoolboys playing truant, and then theydisappeared under the doorway of a di-lapidated house, whilst I was left won-dering how two such elegant gentlemendared be abroad in Lyons these days,seeing that every man, woman and childwho was dressed in anything but thread-

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bare clothes was sure to be insulted inthe streets for an aristocrat, and as oftenas not summarily arrested as a traitor.

However, I had other things to thinkabout, and had already dismissed the lit-tle incident from my mind, when at thebottom of the Rue Blanche I came upona knot of gaffers, men and women, whowere talking and gesticulating very ex-citedly outside the door of a cook-shop.At first I did not take much notice ofwhat was said: my eyes were glued tothe front of the shop, on which weredisplayed sundry delicacies of the kindwhich makes a wretched, starved beg-gar’s mouth water as he goes by; a roastcapon especially attracted my attention,

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together with a bottle of red wine; theselooked just the sort of luscious foodwhich Mme. la Marquise would relish.

Well, sir, the law of God says: ”Thoushalt not covet!” and no doubt thatI committed a grievous sin when myhungry eyes fastened upon that roastcapon and that bottle of Burgundy. Wealso know the stories of Judas Iscariotand of Jacob’s children who sold theirown brother Joseph into slavery–such acrime, monsieur, I took upon my con-science then; for just as the vision ofMme. la Marquise eating that roastcapon and drinking that Burgundy rosebefore my eyes, my ears caught somefragments of the excited conversation

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which was going on all around me.“He went this way!” someone said.“No; that!” protested another.“There’s no sign of him now, anyway.”The owner of the shop was standing

on his own doorstep, his legs wide apart,one arm on his wide hip, the other stillbrandishing the knife wherewith he hadbeen carving for his customers.

“He can’t have gone far,” he said, as hesmacked his thick lips.

“The impudent rascal, flaunting suchfine clothes–like the aristo that he is.”

“Bah! these cursed English! They arearistos all of them! And this one with hisfollowers is no better than a spy!”

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“Paid by that damned English Gov-ernment to murder all our patriots andto rob the guillotine of her just dues.”

“They say he had a hand in the escapeof the ci-devant Duc de Sermeuse andall his brats from the very tumbril whichwas taking them to execution.”

A cry of loathing and execration fol-lowed this statement. There was vigor-ous shaking of clenched fists and then agroan of baffled rage.

“We almost had him this time. If ithad not been for these confounded, ill-lighted streets–”

“I would give something,” concludedthe shopkeeper, ”if we could lay him by

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the heels.”

“What would you give, citizen Dom-pierre?” queried a woman in the crowd,with a ribald laugh, ”one of your roastcapons?”

“Aye, little mother,” he repliedjovially, ”and a bottle of my best Bur-gundy to boot, to drink confusion to thatmeddlesome Englishman and his crowdand a speedy promenade up the steps ofthe guillotine.”

Monsieur, I assure you that at thatmoment my heart absolutely stood still.The tempter stood at my elbow andwhispered, and I deliberately smotheredthe call of my conscience. I did what

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Joseph’s brethren did, what brought Ju-das Iscariot to hopeless remorse. Therewas no doubt that the hue and cry wasafter the two elegantly dressed gentle-men whom I had seen enter the dilap-idated house in the Rue Blanche. Fora second or two I closed my eyes anddeliberately conjured up the vision ofMme. la Marquise fainting for lack offood, and of M. le Vicomte dying forwant of sustenance; then I worked myway to the door of the shop and accostedthe burly proprietor with as much bold-ness as I could muster.

“The two Englishmen passed by me atthe top of the Rue Blanche,” I said tohim. ”They went into a house ... I can

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show you which it is—”

In a moment I was surrounded by ascreeching, gesticulating crowd. I toldmy story as best I could; there was noturning back now from the path of cow-ardice and of crime. I saw that bruteDompierre pick up the largest roastcapon from the front of his shop, to-gether with a bottle of that wine whichI had coveted; then he thrust both thesetreasures into my trembling hands andsaid:

“En avant!”

And we all started to run up the street,shouting: ”Death to the English spies!”I was the hero of the expedition. Dom-

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pierre and another man carried me, forI was too weak to go as fast as theywished. I was hugging the capon andthe bottle of wine to my heart; I had needto do that, so as to still the insistent callof my conscience, for I felt a coward–amean, treacherous, abominable coward!

When we reached the house and Ipointed it out to Dompierre, the crowdbehind us gave a cry of triumph. In thetopmost storey a window was thrownopen, two heads appeared silhouettedagainst the light within, and the cryof triumph below was answered by amerry, prolonged laugh from above.

I was too dazed to realise very clearlywhat happened after that. Dompierre, I

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know, kicked open the door of the house,and the crowd rushed in, in his wake. Imanaged to keep my feet and to workmy way gradually out of the crowd. Imust have gone on mechanically, almostunconsciously, for the next thing thatI remember with any distinctness wasthat I found myself once more speed-ing down the Rue Blanche, with all theyelling and shouting some little way be-hind me.

With blind instinct, too, I had clung tothe capon and the wine, the price of myinfamy. I was terribly weak and felt sickand faint, but I struggled on for a while,until my knees refused me service and Icame down on my two hands, whilst the

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capon rolled away into the gutter, andthe bottle of Burgundy fell with a crashagainst the pavement, scattering its pre-cious contents in every direction.

There I lay, wretched, despairing,hardly able to move, when suddenly Iheard rapid and firm footsteps immedi-ately behind me, and the next momenttwo firm hands had me under the arms,and I heard a voice saying:

“Steady, old friend. Can you get up?There! Is that better?”

The same firm hands raised me tomy feet. At first I was too dazed tosee anything, but after a moment ortwo I was able to look around me, and,

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by the light of a street lanthorn imme-diately overhead, I recognised the tall,elegantly dressed Englishman and hisfriend, whom I had just betrayed to thefury of Dompierre and a savage mob.

I thought that I was dreaming, and Isuppose that my eyes betrayed the hor-ror which I felt, for the stranger looked atme scrutinisingly for a moment or two,then he gave the quaintest laugh I hadever heard in all my life, and said some-thing to his friend in English, which thistime I failed to understand.

Then he turned to me:

“By my faith,” he said in perfectFrench–so that I began to doubt if he was

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an English spy after all–”I verily believethat you are the clever rogue, eh? whoobtained a roast capon and a bottle ofwine from that fool Dompierre. He andhis boon companions are venting theirwrath on you, old compeer; they are call-ing you liar and traitor and cheat, inthe intervals of wrecking what is left ofthe house, out of which my friend andI have long since escaped by climbingup the neighbouring gutter-pipes andscrambling over the adjoining roofs.”

Monsieur, will you believe me when Isay that he was actually saying all this inorder to comfort me? I could have swornto that because of the wonderful kindli-ness which shone out of his eyes, even

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through the good-humoured mockerywherewith he obviously regarded me.Do you know what I did then, mon-sieur? I just fell on my knees and loudlythanked God that he was safe; at whichboth he and his friend once again be-gan to laugh, for all the world like twoschoolboys who had escaped a whip-ping, rather than two men who were stillthreatened with death.

“Then it WAS you!” said the tallerstranger, who was still laughing soheartily that he had to wipe his eyes withhis exquisite lace handkerchief.

“May God forgive me,” I replied.

The next moment his arm was again

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round me. I clung to him as to a rock,for of a truth I had never felt a grasp sosteady and withal so gentle and kindly,as was his around my shoulders. I triedto murmur words of thanks, but againthat wretched feeling of sickness andfaintness overcame me, and for a secondor two it seemed to me as if I were slip-ping into another world. The stranger’svoice came to my ear, as it were throughcotton-wool.

“The man is starving,” he said. ”Shallwe take him over to your lodgings,Tony? They are safer than mine. He maybe able to walk in a minute or two, if notI can carry him.”

My senses at this partly returned to

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me, and I was able to protest feebly:“No, no! I must go back–I must–kind

sirs,” I murmured. ”Mme. la Marquisewill be getting so anxious.”

No sooner were these foolish wordsout of my mouth than I could have bittenmy tongue out for having uttered them;and yet, somehow, it seemed as if it wasthe stranger’s magnetic personality, hismagic voice and kindly act towards me,who had so basely sold him to his ene-mies, which had drawn them out of me.He gave a low, prolonged whistle.

“Mme. la Marquise?” he queried,dropping his voice to a whisper.

Now to have uttered Mme. la Mar-

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quise de Mortaine’s name here in Lyons,where every aristocrat was termed atraitor and sent without trial to the guil-lotine, was in itself an act of crimi-nal folly, and yet–you may believe me,monsieur, or not–there was somethingwithin me just at that moment that liter-ally compelled me to open my heart outto this stranger, whom I had so baselybetrayed, and who requited my abom-inable crime with such gentleness andmercy. Before I fully realised what I wasdoing, monsieur, I had blurted out thewhole history of Mme. la Marquise’sflight and of M. le Vicomte’s sickness tohim. He drew me under the cover ofan open doorway, and he and his friend

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listened to me without speaking a worduntil I had told them my pitiable tale tothe end.

When I had finished he said quietly:“Take me to see Mme. la Marquise, old

friend. Who knows? perhaps I may beable to help.”

Then he turned to his friend.“Will you wait for me at my lodgings,

Tony,” he said, ”and let Ffoulkes andHastings know that I may wish to speakwith them on my return?”

He spoke like one who had been ac-customed all his life to give command,and I marvelled how his friend immedi-ately obeyed him. Then when the latter

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had disappeared down the dark street,the stranger once more turned to me.

“Lean on my arm, good old friend,”he said, ”and we must try and walk asquickly as we can. The sooner we allaythe anxieties of Mme. la Marquise thebetter.”

I was still hugging the roast caponwith one arm, with the other I clung tohim as together we walked in the di-rection of the Rue des Pipots. On theway we halted at a respectable eating-house, where my protector gave mesome money wherewith to buy a bottleof good wine and sundry provisions anddelicacies which we carried home withus.

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II

Never shall I forget the look of horrorwhich came in Mme. la Marquise’s eyeswhen she saw me entering our miserableattic in the company of a stranger. Thelast of the little bit of tallow candle flick-ered in its socket. Madame threw heremaciated arms over her child, just likesome poor hunted animal defending itsyoung. I could almost hear the cry ofterror which died down in her throat ereit reached her lips. But then, monsieur,to see the light of hope gradually illumi-nating her pale, wan face as the strangertook her hand and spoke to her–oh! sogently and so kindly–was a sight which

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filled my poor, half-broken heart withjoy.

“The little invalid must be seen by adoctor at once,” he said, ”after that onlycan we think of your ultimate safety.”

Mme. la Marquise, who herself wasterribly weak and ill, burst out crying.”Would I not have taken him to a doctorere now?” she murmured through hertears. ”But there is no doctor in Lyons.Those who have not been arrested astraitors have fled from this stricken city.And my little Jose is dying for want ofmedical care.”

“Your pardon, madame,” he rejoinedgently, ”one of the ablest doctors in

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France is at present in Lyons—”

“That infamous Laporte,” she brokein, horrified. ”He would snatch my sickchild from my arms and throw him tothe guillotine.”

“He would save your boy from dis-ease,” said the stranger earnestly, ”hisown professional pride or professionalhonour, whatever he might choose tocall it, would compel him to do that.But the moment the doctor’s work wasdone, that of the executioner wouldcommence.”

“You see, milor,” moaned Madame inpitiable agony, ”that there is no hope forus.”

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“Indeed there is,” he replied. ”Wemust get M. le Vicomte well first–afterthat we shall see.”

“But you are not proposing to bringthat infamous Laporte to my child’s bed-side!” she cried in horror.

“Would you have your child die herebefore your eyes,” retorted the stranger,”as he undoubtedly will this night?”

This sounded horribly cruel, and thetone in which it was said was command-ing. There was no denying its truth. M.le Vicomte was dying. I could see that.For a moment or two madame remainedquite still, with her great eyes, circledwith pain and sorrow, fixed upon the

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stranger. He returned her gaze steadilyand kindly, and gradually that frozenlook of horror in her pale face gave placeto one of deep puzzlement, and throughher bloodless lips there came the words,faintly murmured: ”Who are you?”

He gave no direct reply, but from hislittle finger he detached a ring and heldit out for her to see. I saw it too, forI was standing close by Mme. la Mar-quise, and the flickering light of the tal-low candle fell full upon the ring. Itwas of gold, and upon it there was anexquisitely modelled, five-petalled littleflower in vivid red enamel.

Madame la Marquise looked at thering, then once again up into his face.

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He nodded assent, and my heart seemedeven then to stop its beating as I gazedupon his face. Had we not–all of us–heard of the gallant Scarlet Pimpernel?And did I not know–far better thanMme. la Marquise herself–the full extentof his gallantry and his self-sacrifice?The hue and cry was after him. Hu-man bloodhounds were even now onhis track, and he spoke calmly of walk-ing out again in the streets of Lyonsand of affronting that infamous Laporte,who would find glory in sending him todeath. I think he guessed what was pass-ing in my mind, for he put a finger up tohis lip and pointed significantly to M. leVicomte.

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But it was beautiful to see how com-pletely Mme. la Marquise now trustedhim. At his bidding she even ate a lit-tle of the food and drank some wine–andI was forced to do likewise. And evenwhen anon he declared his intention offetching Laporte immediately, she didnot flinch. She kissed M. le Vicomtewith passionate fervour, and then gavethe stranger her solemn promise thatthe moment he returned she would takerefuge in the next room and never moveout of it until after Laporte had departed.

When he went I followed him to thetop of the stairs. I was speechless withgratitude and also with fears for him.But he took my hand and said, with

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that same quaint, somewhat inane laughwhich was so characteristic of him:

“Be of good cheer, old fellow! Thoseconfounded murderers will not get methis time.”

III

Less than half an hour later, monsieur,citizen Laporte, one of the most skilfuldoctors in France and one of the mostbloodthirsty tyrants this execrable Revo-lution has known, was sitting at the bed-side of M. le Vicomte de Mortaine, usingall the skill, all the knowledge he pos-sessed in order to combat the dread dis-

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ease of which the child was dying, erehe came to save him–as he cynically re-marked in my hearing–for the guillotine.

I heard afterwards how it all cameabout.

Laporte, it seems, was in the habitof seeing patients in his own house ev-ery evening after he had settled all hisbusiness for the day. What a strangecontradiction in the human heart, eh,monsieur? The tiger turned lamb forthe space of one hour in every twenty-four–the butcher turned healer. Howwell the English milor had gauged thestrange personality of that redoubtableman! Professional pride–interest in in-tricate cases–call it what you will–was

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the only redeeming feature in Laporte’sabominable character. Everything else inhim, every thought, every action was ig-noble, cruel and vengeful.

Milor that night mingled with thecrowd who waited on the humanhyena to be cured of their hurts.It was a motley crowd that filledthe dreaded pro-consul’s ante-chamber–men, women and children–all of themtoo much preoccupied with their owntroubles to bestow more than a cursoryglance on the stranger who, wrapped ina dark mantle, quietly awaited his turn.One or two muttered curses were flungat the aristo, one or two spat in his di-rection to express hatred and contempt,

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then the door which gave on the innerchamber would be flung open–a numbercalled–one patient would walk out, an-other walk in–and in the ever-recurringincident the stranger for the nonce wasforgotten.

His turn came–his number beingcalled–it was the last on the list, and theante-chamber was now quite empty savefor him. He walked into the presence ofthe pro-consul. Claude Lemoine, whowas on guard in the room at the time,told me that just for the space of two sec-onds the two men looked at one another.Then the stranger threw back his headand said quietly:

“There’s a child dying of pleurisy, or

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worse, in an attic in the Rue des Pipots.There’s not a doctor left in Lyons to at-tend on him, and the child will die forwant of medical skill. Will you come tohim, citizen doctor?”

It seems that for a moment or two La-porte hesitated.

“You look to me uncommonly like anaristo, and therefore a traitor,” he said,”and I’ve half a mind–”

“To call your guard and order my im-mediate arrest,” broke in milor with awhimsical smile, ”but in that case a cit-izen of France will die for want of a doc-tor’s care. Let me take you to the child’sbedside, citizen doctor, you can always

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have me arrested afterwards.”But Laporte still hesitated.“How do I know that you are not one

of those English spies?” he began.“Take it that I am,” rejoined milor im-

perturbably, ”and come and see the pa-tient.”

Never had a situation been carried offwith so bold a hand. Claude Lemoinedeclared that Laporte’s mouth literallyopened for the call which would havesummoned the sergeant of the guardinto the room and ordered the summaryarrest of this impudent stranger. Dur-ing the veriest fraction of a second lifeand death hung in the balance for the

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gallant English milor. In the heart ofLaporte every evil passion fought theone noble fibre within him. But the in-stinct of the skilful healer won the bat-tle, and the next moment he had hastilycollected what medicaments and appli-ances he might require, and the two menwere soon speeding along the streets inthe direction of the Rue des Pipots.

During the whole of that night, milorand Laporte sat together by the bedsideof M. le Vicomte. Laporte only wentout once in order to fetch what furthermedicaments he required. Mme. la Mar-quise took the opportunity of runningout of her hiding-place in order to catcha glimpse of her child. I saw her take

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milor’s hand and press it against herheart in silent gratitude. On her kneesshe begged him to go away and leave herand the boy to their fate. Was it likelythat he would go? But she was so insis-tent that at last he said:

“Madame, let me assure you that evenif I were prepared to play the coward’spart which you would assign to me, it isnot in my power to do so at this moment.Citizen Laporte came to this house un-der the escort of six picked men of hisguard. He has left these men stationedon the landing outside this door.”

Madame la Marquise gave a cry of ter-ror, and once more that pathetic look ofhorror came into her face. Milor took her

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hand and then pointed to the sick child.

“Madame,” he said, ”M. le Vicomte isalready slightly better. Thanks to med-ical skill and a child’s vigorous hold onlife, he will live. The rest is in the handsof God.”

Already the heavy footsteps of La-porte were heard upon the creakingstairs. Mme. la Marquise was forced toreturn to her hiding-place.

Soon after dawn he went. M. le Vi-comte was then visibly easier. Laportehad all along paid no heed to me, butI noticed that once or twice during hislong vigil by the sick-bed his dark eyesbeneath their overhanging brows shot a

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quick suspicious look at the door behindwhich cowered Mme. la Marquise. I hadabsolutely no doubt in my mind thenthat he knew quite well who his patientwas.

He gave certain directions to milor–there were certain fresh medicaments tobe got during the day. While he spokethere was a sinister glint in his eyes–halfcynical, wholly menacing–as he lookedup into the calm, impassive face of milor.

“It is essential for the welfare of thepatient that these medicaments be gotfor him during the day,” he said dryly,”and the guard have orders to allow youto pass in and out. But you need haveno fear,” he added significantly, ”I will

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leave an escort outside the house to ac-company you on your way.”

He gave a mocking, cruel laugh, themeaning of which was unmistakable.His well-drilled human bloodhoundswould be on the track of the English spy,whenever the latter dared to venture outinto the streets.

Mme. la Marquise and I were prison-ers for the day. We spent it in watch-ing alternately beside M. le Vicomte. Butmilor came and went as freely as if hehad not been carrying his precious lifein his hands every time that he venturedoutside the house.

In the evening Laporte returned to

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see his patient, and again the followingmorning, and the next evening. M. leVicomte was making rapid progress to-wards recovery.

The third day in the morning Laportepronounced his patient to be out of dan-ger, but said that he would neverthelesscome again to see him at the usual hourin the evening. Directly he had gone,milor went out in order to bring in cer-tain delicacies of which the invalid wasnow allowed to partake. I persuadedMadame to lie down and have a coupleof hours’ good sleep in the inner attic,while I stayed to watch over the child.

To my horror, hardly had I taken upmy stand at the foot of the bed when La-

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porte returned; he muttered somethingas he entered about having left someimportant appliance behind, but I wasquite convinced that he had been on thewatch until milor was out of sight, andthen slipped back in order to find me andMadame here alone.

He gave a glance at the child and an-other at the door of the inner attic, thenhe said in a loud voice:

“Yes, another twenty-four hours andmy duties as doctor will cease and thoseof patriot will re-commence. But Mme.la Marquise de Mortaine need no longerbe in any anxiety about her son’s health,nor will Mme. la Guillotine be cheatedof a pack of rebels.”

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He laughed, and was on the point ofturning on his heel when the door whichgave on the smaller attic was opened andMme. la Marquise appeared upon thethreshold.

Monsieur, I had never seen her lookmore beautiful than she did now in heroverwhelming grief. Her face was aspale as death, her eyes, large and di-lated, were fixed upon the human mon-ster who had found it in his heart tospeak such cruel words. Clad in a mis-erable, threadbare gown, her rich brownhair brought to the top of her head likea crown, she looked more regal than anyqueen.

But proud as she was, monsieur, she

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yet knelt at the feet of that wretch.Yes, knelt, and embraced his kneesand pleaded in such pitiable accents aswould have melted the heart of a stone.She pleaded, monsieur–ah, not for her-self. She pleaded for her child andfor me, her faithful servant, and shepleaded for the gallant gentleman whohad risked his life for the sake of thechild, who was nothing to him.

“Take me!” she said. ”I come of a racethat have always known how to die! Butwhat harm has that innocent child donein this world? What harm has poor oldJean-Pierre done, and, oh ... is the worldso full of brave and noble men that thebravest of them all be so unjustly sent to

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death?”Ah, monsieur, any man, save one of

those abject products of that hideousRevolution, would have listened to suchheartrending accents. But this man onlylaughed and turned on his heel withouta word.

Shall I ever forget the day that wentby? Mme. la Marquise was well-nigh prostrate with terror, and it washeartrending to watch the noble effortswhich she made to amuse M. le Vicomte.The only gleams of sunshine which came

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to us out of our darkness were the briefappearances of milor. Outside we couldhear the measured tramp of the guardthat had been set there to keep us closeprisoners. They were relieved every sixhours, and, in fact, we were as much un-der arrest as if we were already incarcer-ated in one of the prisons of Lyons.

At about four o’clock in the afternoonmilor came back to us after a brief ab-sence. He stayed for a little while play-ing with M. le Vicomte. Just before leav-ing he took Madame’s hand in his andsaid very earnestly, and sinking his voiceto the merest whisper:

“To-night! Fear nothing! Be ready foranything! Remember that the League of

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the Scarlet Pimpernel have never failedto succour, and that I hereby pledge youmine honour that you and those you carefor will be out of Lyons this night.”

He was gone, leaving us to marvel athis strange words. Mme. la Marquise af-ter that was just like a person in a dream.She hardly spoke to me, and the onlysound that passed her lips was a quaintlittle lullaby which she sang to M. le Vi-comte ere he dropped off to sleep.

The hours went by leaden-footed.At every sound on the stairs Madamestarted like a frightened bird. That in-famous Laporte usually paid his visits atabout eight o’clock in the evening, andafter it became quite dark, Madame sat

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at the tiny window, and I felt that shewas counting the minutes which still laybetween her and the dreaded presence ofthat awful man.

At a quarter before eight o’clock weheard the usual heavy footfall on thestairs. Madame started up as if she hadbeen struck. She ran to the bed–almostlike one demented, and wrapping theone poor blanket round M. le Vicomte,she seized him in her arms. Outsidewe could hear Laporte’s raucous voicespeaking to the guard. His usual query:”Is all well?” was answered by the brief:”All well, citizen.” Then he asked if theEnglish spy were within, and the sen-tinel replied: ”No, citizen, he went out at

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about five o’clock and has not come backsince.”

“Not come back since five o’clock?”said Laporte with a loud curse. ”Pardi!I trust that that fool Caudy has not al-lowed him to escape.”

“I saw Caudy about an hour ago, citi-zen,” said the man.

“Did he say anything about the En-glishman then?”

It seemed to us, who were listeningto this conversation with bated breath,that the man hesitated a moment ere hereplied; then he spoke with obvious ner-vousness.

“As a matter of fact, citizen,” he said,

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”Caudy thought then that the English-man was inside the house, whilst I wasequally sure that I had seen him godownstairs an hour before.”

“A thousand devils!” cried Laportewith a savage oath, ”if I find that you, cit-izen sergeant, or Caudy have blunderedthere will be trouble for you.”

To the accompaniment of a great dealmore swearing he suddenly kicked openthe door of our attic with his boot, andthen came to a standstill on the thresh-old with his hands in the pockets ofhis breeches and his legs planted wideapart, face to face with Mme. la Mar-quise, who confronted him now, herselflike a veritable tigress who is defending

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her young.He gave a loud, mocking laugh.“Ah, the aristos!” he cried, ”wait-

ing for that cursed Englishman, what?to drag you and your brat out of theclaws of the human tiger.... Not so, myfine ci-devant Marquise. The brat is nolonger sick–he is well enough, anyhow,to breathe the air of the prisons of Lyonsfor a few days pending a final rest inthe arms of Mme. la Guillotine. Citi-zen sergeant,” he called over his shoul-der, ”escort these aristos to my carriagedownstairs. When the Englishman re-turns, tell him he will find his friendsunder the tender care of Doctor Laporte.En avant, little mother,” he added, as he

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gripped Mme. la Marquise tightly by thearm, ”and you, old scarecrow,” he con-cluded, speaking to me over his shoul-der, ”follow the citizen sergeant, or—-”

Mme. la Marquise made no resistance.As I told you, she had been, since dusk,like a person in a dream; so what couldI do but follow her noble example? In-deed, I was too dazed to do otherwise.

We all went stumbling down the dark,rickety staircase, Laporte leading theway with Mme. la Marquise, who hadM. le Vicomte tightly clasped in herarms. I followed with the sergeant,whose hand was on my shoulder; I be-lieve that two soldiers walked behind,but of that I cannot be sure.

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At the bottom of the stairs through theopen door of the house I caught sight ofthe vague outline of a large barouche,the lanthorns of which threw a feeblelight upon the cruppers of two horsesand of a couple of men sitting on the box.

Mme. la Marquise stepped quietlyinto the carriage. Laporte followed her,and I was bundled in in his wake by therough hands of the soldiery. Just beforethe order was given to start, Laporte puthis head out of the window and shoutedto the sergeant:

“When you see Caudy tell him to re-port himself to me at once. I will be backhere in half an hour; keep strict guard asbefore until then, citizen sergeant.”

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The next moment the coachmancracked his whip, Laporte called loudly,”En avant!” and the heavy barouchewent rattling along the ill-paved streets.

Inside the carriage all was silence. Icould hear Mme. la Marquise softlywhispering to M. le Vicomte, and Imarvelled how wondrously calm–nay,cheerful, she could be. Then suddenlyI heard a sound which of a truth didmake my heart stop its beating. It wasa quaint and prolonged laugh which Ionce thought I would never hear againon this earth. It came from the cor-ner of the barouche next to where Mme.la Marquise was so tenderly and gailycrooning to her child. And a kindly voice

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said merrily:“In half an hour we shall be outside

Lyons. To-morrow we’ll be across theSwiss frontier. We’ve cheated that oldtiger after all. What say you, Mme. laMarquise?”

It was milor’s voice, and he was asmerry as a school-boy.

“I told you, old Jean-Pierre,” he added,as he placed that firm hand which Iloved so well upon my knee, ”I told youthat those confounded murderers wouldnot get me this time.”

And to think that I did not know him,as he stood less than a quarter of an hourago upon the threshold of our attic in

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the hideous guise of that abominable La-porte. He had spent two days in collect-ing old clothes that resembled those ofthat infamous wretch, and in taking pos-session of one of the derelict rooms in thehouse in the Rue des Pipots. Then whilewe were expecting every moment thatLaporte would order our arrest, milorassumed the personality of the monster,hoodwinked the sergeant on the darkstaircase, and by that wonderfully auda-cious coup saved Mme. la Marquise, M.le Vicomte and my humble self from theguillotine.

Money, of which he had plenty, se-cured us immunity on the way, and wewere in safety over the Swiss frontier,

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leaving Laporte to eat out his tigerishheart with baffled rage.

401

VII. OUT OF THEJAWS OF DEATH

Being a fragment from the diary ofValentine Lemercier, in the possession ofher great-granddaughter.

402

VII. OUT OF THE JAWS OF DEATH

We were such a happy family beforethis terrible Revolution broke out; welived rather simply, but very comfort-ably, in our dear old home just on theborders of the forest of Compiegne. Jeanand Andre were the twins; just fifteenyears old they were when King Louiswas deposed from the throne of Francewhich God had given him, and sent toprison like a common criminal, with ourbeautiful Queen Marie Antoinette andthe Royal children, and Madame Eliza-beth, who was so beloved by the poor!

Ah! that seems very, very long agonow. No doubt you know better thanI do all that happened in our beautifulland of France and in lovely Paris about

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that time: goods and property confis-cated, innocent men, women, and chil-dren condemned to death for acts of trea-son which they had never committed.

It was in August last year that theycame to ”Mon Repos” and arrested papa,and maman, and us four young ones anddragged us to Paris, where we were im-prisoned in a narrow and horribly dankvault in the Abbaye, where all day andnight through the humid stone walls weheard cries and sobs and moans frompoor people, who no doubt were suffer-ing the same sorrows and the same in-dignities as we were.

I had just passed my nineteenth birth-day, and Marguerite was only thirteen.

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Maman was a perfect angel during thatterrible time; she kept up our courageand our faith in God in a way that no oneelse could have done. Every night andmorning we knelt round her knee andpapa sat close beside her, and we prayedto God for deliverance from our own af-flictions, and for the poor people whowere crying and moaning all the day.

But of what went on outside ourprison walls we had not an idea, thoughsometimes poor papa would brave thewarder’s brutalities and ask him ques-tions of what was happening in Paris ev-ery day.

“They are hanging all the aristos to thestreet-lamps of the city,” the man would

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reply with a cruel laugh, ”and it will beyour turn next.”

We had been in prison for about afortnight, when one day–oh! shall Iever forget it?–we heard in the distancea noise like the rumbling of thunder;nearer and nearer it came, and soon thesound became less confused, cries andshrieks could be heard above that rum-bling din; but so weird and menacingdid those cries seem that instinctively–though none of us knew what theymeant–we all felt a nameless terror gripour hearts.

Oh! I am not going to attempt the aw-ful task of describing to you all the hor-rors of that never-to-be-forgotten day.

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People, who to-day cannot speak with-out a shudder of the September mas-sacres, have not the remotest conceptionof what really happened on that awfulsecond day of that month.

We are all at peace and happy now, butwhenever my thoughts fly back to thatmorning, whenever the ears of memoryrecall those hideous yells of fury andof hate, coupled with the equally horri-ble cries for pity, which pierced throughthe walls behind which the six of uswere crouching, trembling, and praying,whenever I think of it all my heart stillbeats violently with that same namelessdread which held it in its deathly gripthen.

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Hundreds of men, women, and chil-dren were massacred in the prisons ofthat day–it was a St. Bartholomew evenmore hideous than the last.

Maman was trying in vain to keep ourthoughts fixed upon God–papa sat onthe stone bench, his elbows resting onhis knees, his head buried in his hands;but maman was kneeling on the floor,with her dear arms encircling us all andher trembling lips moving in continuousprayer.

We felt that we were facing death–andwhat a death, O my God!

Suddenly the small grated window–high up in the dank wall–became ob-

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scured. I was the first to look up, but thecry of terror which rose from my heartwas choked ere it reached my throat.

Jean and Andre looked up, too, andthey shrieked, and so did Marguerite,and papa jumped up and ran to us andstood suddenly between us and the win-dow like a tiger defending its young.

But we were all of us quite silentnow. The children did not even cry; theystared, wide-eyed, paralysed with fear.

Only maman continued to pray, andwe could hear papa’s rapid and ster-torous breathing as he watched whatwas going on at that window above.

Heavy blows were falling against the

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masonry round the grating, and wecould hear the nerve-racking sound of afile working on the iron bars; and far-ther away, below the window, those aw-ful yells of human beings transformedby hate and fury into savage beasts.

How long this horrible suspenselasted I cannot now tell you; the nextthing I remember clearly is a number ofmen in horrible ragged clothing pour-ing into our vault-like prison from thewindow above; the next moment theyrushed at us simultaneously–or so itseemed to me, for I was just then recom-mending my soul to God, so certain wasI that in that same second I would ceaseto live.

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It was all like a dream, for insteadof the horrible shriek of satisfied hatewhich we were all expecting to hear, awhispering voice, commanding and low,struck our ears and dragged us, as itwere, from out the abyss of despair intothe sudden light of hope.

“If you will trust us,” the voice whis-pered, ”and not be afraid, you will besafely out of Paris within an hour.”

Papa was the first to realise what washappening; he had never lost his pres-ence of mind even during the darkestmoment of this terrible time, and he saidquite calmly and steadily now:

“What must we do?”

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“Persuade the little ones not to beafraid, not to cry, to be as still and silentas may be,” continued the voice, whichI felt must be that of one of God’s ownangels, so exquisitely kind did it soundto my ear.

“They will be quiet and still withoutpersuasion,” said papa; ”eh, children?”

And Jean, Andre, and Margueritemurmured: ”Yes!” whilst maman and Idrew them closer to us and said every-thing we could think of to make themstill more brave.

And the whispering, commandingvoice went on after awhile:

“Now will you allow yourselves to be

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muffled and bound, and, after that, willyou swear that whatever happens, what-ever you may see or hear, you will nei-ther move nor speak? Not only yourown lives, but those of many brave menwill depend upon your fulfilment of thisoath.”

Papa made no reply save to raise hishand and eyes up to where God surelywas watching over us all. Maman saidin her gentle, even voice:

“For myself and my children, I swearto do all that you tell us.”

A great feeling of confidence had en-tered into her heart, just as it had doneinto mine. We looked at one another

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and knew that we were both thinkingof the same thing: we were thinking ofthe brave Englishman and his gallant lit-tle band of heroes, about whom we hadheard many wonderful tales–how theyhad rescued a number of innocent peo-ple who were unjustly threatened withthe guillotine; and we all knew that thetall figure, disguised in horrible rags,who spoke to us with such a gentle yetcommanding voice, was the man whomrumour credited with supernatural pow-ers, and who was known by the mysteri-ous name of ”The Scarlet Pimpernel.”

Hardly had we sworn to do his bid-ding than his friends most unceremoni-ously threw great pieces of sacking over

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our heads, and then proceeded to tieropes round our bodies. At least, I knowthat that is what one of them was doingto me, and from one or two whisperedwords of command which reached myear I concluded that papa and mamanand the children were being dealt within the same summary way.

I felt hot and stifled under thatrough bit of sacking, but I would nothave moved or even sighed for worlds.Strangely enough, as soon as my eyesand ears were shut off from the soundsand sights immediately round me, I oncemore became conscious of the horribleand awful din which was going on, notonly on the other side of our prison

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walls, but inside the whole of the Ab-baye building and in the street beyond.

Once more I heard those terrible howlsof rage and of satisfied hatred, uttered bythe assassins who were being paid by thegovernment of our beautiful country tobutcher helpless prisoners in their hun-dreds.

Suddenly I felt myself hoisted up offmy feet and slung up on to a pairof shoulders that must have been verypowerful indeed, for I am no lightweight, and once more I heard the voice,the very sound of which was delight,quite close to my ear this time, giving abrief and comprehensive command:

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“All ready!–remember your part–enavant!”

Then it added in English. ”Here, Tony,you start kicking against the door whilstwe begin to shout!”

I loved those few words of English,and hoped that maman had heard themtoo, for it would confirm her–as it didme–in the happy knowledge that Godand a brave man had taken our rescuein hand.

But from that moment we might haveall been in the very ante-chamber of hell.I could hear the violent kicks against theheavy door of our prison, and our braverescuers seemed suddenly to be trans-

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formed into a cageful of wild beasts.Their shouts and yells were as horribleas any that came to us from the outside,and I must say that the gentle, firm voicewhich I had learnt to love was as exe-crable as any I could hear.

Apparently the door would not yield,as the blows against it became moreand more violent, and presently fromsomewhere above my head–the windowpresumably–there came a rough call,and a raucous laugh:

“Why? what in the name of—- is hap-pening here?”

And the voice near me answered backequally roughly: ”A quarry of six–but

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we are caught in this confounded trap–get the door open for us, citizen–wewant to get rid of this booty and go insearch for more.”

A horrible laugh was the reply fromabove, and the next instant I heard a ter-rific crash; the door had at last been burstopen, either from within or without, Icould not tell which, and suddenly allthe din, the cries, the groans, the hideouslaughter and bibulous songs which hadsounded muffled up to now burst uponus with all their hideousness.

That was, I think, the most awful mo-ment of that truly fearful hour. I couldnot have moved then, even had I wishedor been able to do so; but I knew that

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between us all and a horrible, yelling,murdering mob there was now nothing–except the hand of God and the heroismof a band of English gentlemen.

Together they gave a cry–as loud, asterrifying as any that were uttered by thebutchering crowd in the building, andwith a wild rush they seemed to plungewith us right into the thick of the awfulmelee.

At least, that is what it all felt like tome, and afterwards I heard from our gal-lant rescuer himself that that is exactlywhat he and his friends did. There wereeight of them altogether, and we fouryoung ones had each been hoisted ona pair of devoted shoulders, whilst ma-

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man and papa were each carried by twomen.

I was lying across the finest pair ofshoulders in the world, and close to mewas beating the bravest heart on God’searth.

Thus burdened, these eight noble En-glish gentlemen charged right throughan army of butchering, howling brutes,they themselves howling with thefiercest of them.

All around me I heard weird and ter-rific cries: ”What ho! citizens–what haveyou there?”

“Six aristos!” shouted my hero boldlyas he rushed on, forging his way through

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the crowd.

“What are you doing with them?”yelled a raucous voice.

“Food for the starving fish in theriver,” was the ready response. ”Standaside, citizen,” he added, with a roundcurse; ”I have my orders from citizenDanton himself about these six aristos.You hinder me at your peril.”

He was challenged over and overagain in the same way, and so were hisfriends who were carrying papa and ma-man and the children; but they werealways ready with a reply, ready withan invective or a curse; with eyes thatcould not see, one could imagine them

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as hideous, as vengeful, as cruel as therest of the crowd.

I think that soon I must have faintedfrom sheer excitement and terror, for Iremember nothing more till I felt my-self deposited on a hard floor, proppedagainst the wall, and the stifling piece ofsacking taken off my head and face.

I looked around me, dazed and bewil-dered; gradually the horrors of the pasthour came back to me, and I had to closemy eyes again, for I felt sick and giddywith the sheer memory of it all.

But presently I felt stronger andlooked around me again. Jean and An-dre were squatting in a corner close by,

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gazing wide-eyed at the group of menin filthy, ragged clothing, who sat rounda deal table in the centre of a small, ill-furnished room.

Maman was lying on a horsehair sofaat the other end of the room, with Mar-guerite beside her, and papa sat in a lowchair by her side, holding her hand.

The voice I loved was speaking in itsquaint, somewhat drawly cadence:

“You are quite safe now, my dear Mon-sieur Lemercier,” it said; ”after Madameand the young people have had a rest,some of my friends will find you suitabledisguises, and they will escort you out ofParis, as they have some really genuine

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passports in their possessions, which weobtain from time to time through theagency of a personage highly placed inthis murdering government, and withthe help of English banknotes. Thosepassports are not always unchallenged,I must confess,” added my hero with aquaint laugh; ”but to-night everyone isbusy murdering in one part of Paris, sothe other parts are comparatively safe.”

Then he turned to one of his friendsand spoke to him in English:

“You had better see this through,Tony,” he said, ”with Hastings andMackenzie. Three of you will be enough;I shall have need of the others.”

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No one seemed to question his orders.He had spoken, and the others madeready to obey. Just then papa spoke up:

“How are we going to thank you, sir?”he asked, speaking broken English, butwith his habitual dignity of manner.

“By leaving your welfare in our hands,Monsieur,” replied our gallant rescuerquietly.

Papa tried to speak again, but the En-glishman put up his hand to stop anyfurther talk.

“There is no time now, Monsieur,” hesaid with gentle courtesy. ”I must leaveyou, as I have much work yet to do.”

“Where are you going, Blakeney?”

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asked one of the others.“Back to the Abbaye prison,” he said;

”there are other women and children tobe rescued there!”

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I

Not one of them had really trusted himfor some time now. Heaven and his con-science alone knew what had changed

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my Lord Kulmsted from a loyal friendand keen sportsman into a surly anddissatisfied adherent–adherent only inname.

Some say that lack of money had em-bittered him. He was a confirmed gam-bler, and had been losing over-heavily oflate; and the League of the Scarlet Pim-pernel demanded sacrifices of money attimes from its members, as well as oflife if the need arose. Others averredthat jealousy against the chief had out-weighed Kulmsted’s honesty. Certain itis that his oath of fealty to the Leaguehad long ago been broken in the spirit.Treachery hovered in the air.

But the Scarlet Pimpernel himself,

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with that indomitable optimism of his,and almost maddening insouciance, ei-ther did not believe in Kulmsted’s dis-loyalty or chose not to heed it.

He even asked him to join the presentexpedition–one of the most dangerousundertaken by the League for some time,and which had for its object the res-cue of some women of the late un-fortunate Marie Antoinette’s household:maids and faithful servants, ruthlesslycondemned to die for their tender adher-ence to a martyred queen. And yet eigh-teen pairs of faithful lips had murmuredwords of warning.

It was towards the end of Novem-ber, 1793. The rain was beating down

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in a monotonous drip, drip, drip on tothe roof of a derelict house in the RueBerthier. The wan light of a cold winter’smorning peeped in through the curtain-less window and touched with its weirdgrey brush the pallid face of a younggirl–a mere child–who sat in a dejectedattitude on a rickety chair, with elbowsleaning on the rough deal table beforeher, and thin, grimy fingers wanderingwith pathetic futility to her tearful eyes.

In the farther angle of the room a tallfigure in dark clothes was made one, bythe still lingering gloom, with the denseshadows beyond.

“We have starved,” said the girl, withrebellious tears. ”Father and I and the

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boys are miserable enough, God knows;but we have always been honest.”

From out the shadows in that dark cor-ner of the room there came the sound ofan oath quickly suppressed.

“Honest!” exclaimed the man, with aharsh, mocking laugh, which made thegirl wince as if with physical pain. ”Isit honest to harbour the enemies of yourcountry? Is it honest—”

But quickly he checked himself, bitinghis lips with vexation, feeling that hispresent tactics were not like to gain theday.

He came out of the gloom and ap-proached the girl with every outward

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sign of eagerness. He knelt on the dustyfloor beside her, his arms stole round hermeagre shoulders, and his harsh voicewas subdued to tones of gentleness.

“I was only thinking of your hap-piness, Yvonne,” he said tenderly; ”ofpoor blind papa and the two boys towhom you have been such a devotedlittle mother. My only desire is thatyou should earn the gratitude of yourcountry by denouncing her most bitterenemy–an act of patriotism which willplace you and those for whom you carefor ever beyond the reach of sorrow or ofwant.”

The voice, the appeal, the look of love,was more than the poor, simple girl

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could resist. Milor was so handsome, sokind, so good.

It had all been so strange: these En-glish aristocrats coming here, she knewnot whence, and who seemed fugitiveseven though they had plenty of moneyto spend. Two days ago they hadsought shelter like malefactors escapedfrom justice–in this same tumbledown,derelict house where she, Yvonne, withher blind father and two little brothers,crept in of nights, or when the weatherwas too rough for them all to stand andbeg in the streets of Paris.

There were five of them altogether,and one seemed to be the chief. He wasvery tall, and had deep blue eyes, and

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a merry voice that went echoing alongthe worm-eaten old rafters. But milor–the one whose arms were encircling hereven now–was the handsomest amongthem all. He had sought Yvonne outon the very first night when she hadcrawled shivering to that corner of theroom where she usually slept.

The English aristocrats had frightenedher at first, and she was for flying fromthe derelict house with her family andseeking shelter elsewhere; but he whoappeared to be the chief had quickly re-assured her. He seemed so kind andgood, and talked so gently to blind papa,and made such merry jests with Francoisand Clovis that she herself could scarce

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refrain from laughing through her tears.But later on in the night, milor–her

milor, as she soon got to call him–cameand talked so beautifully that she, poorgirl, felt as if no music could ever soundquite so sweetly in her ear.

That was two days ago, and sincethen milor had often talked to her in thelonely, abandoned house, and Yvonnehad felt as if she dwelt in Heaven. Shestill took blind papa and the boys outto beg in the streets, but in the morningshe prepared some hot coffee for the En-glish aristocrats, and in the evening shecooked them some broth. Oh! they gaveher money lavishly; but she quite under-stood that they were in hiding, though

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what they had to fear, being English, shecould not understand.

And now milor–her milor–was tellingher that these Englishmen, her friends,were spies and traitors, and that it washer duty to tell citizen Robespierre andthe Committee of Public Safety all aboutthem and their mysterious doings. Andpoor Yvonne was greatly puzzled anddeeply distressed, because, of course,whatever milor said, that was the truth;and yet her conscience cried out withinher poor little bosom, and the thoughtof betraying those kind Englishmen washorrible to her.

“Yvonne,” whispered milor in that en-dearing voice of his, which was like

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the loveliest music in her ear, ”my littleYvonne, you do trust me, do you not?”

“With all my heart, milor,” she mur-mured fervently.

“Then, would you believe it of me thatI would betray a real friend?”

“I believe, milor, that whatever you dois right and good.”

A sigh of infinite relief escaped his lips.“Come, that’s better!” he said, patting

her cheek kindly with his hand. ”Now,listen to me, little one. He who is thechief among us here is the most un-scrupulous and daring rascal whom theworld has ever known. He it is who iscalled the ’Scarlet Pimpernel!”’

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“The Scarlet Pimpernel!” murmuredYvonne, her eyes dilated with super-stitious awe, for she too had heard ofthe mysterious Englishman and of hisfollowers, who rescued aristocrats andtraitors from the death to which thetribunal of the people had justly con-demned them, and on whom the mightyhand of the Committee of Public Safetyhad never yet been able to fall.

“This Scarlet Pimpernel,” said milorearnestly after a while, ”is also mine ownmost relentless enemy. With lies andpromises he induced me to join him inhis work of spying and of treachery, forc-ing me to do this work against which mywhole soul rebels. You can save me from

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this hated bondage, little one. You canmake me free to live again, make me freeto love and place my love at your feet.”

His voice had become exquisitely ten-der, and his lips, as he whispered theheavenly words, were quite close to herear. He, a great gentleman, loved themiserable little waif whose kindred con-sisted of a blind father and two half-starved little brothers, and whose onlyhome was this miserable hovel, whencemilor’s graciousness and bounty wouldsoon take her.

Do you think that Yvonne’s sense ofright and wrong, of honesty and treach-ery, should have been keener than thatprimeval instinct of a simple-hearted

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woman to throw herself trustingly intothe arms of the man who has succeededin winning her love?

Yvonne, subdued, enchanted, mur-mured still through her tears:

“What would milor have me do?”Lord Kulmsted rose from his knees

satisfied.“Listen to me, Yvonne,” he said. ”You

are acquainted with the Englishman’splans, are you not?”

“Of course,” she replied simply. ”Hehas had to trust me.”

“Then you know that at sundown thisafternoon I and the three others are to

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leave for Courbevoie on foot, where weare to obtain what horses we can whilstawaiting the chief.”

“I did not know whither you andthe other three gentlemen were going,milor,” she replied; ”but I did know thatsome of you were to make a start at fouro’clock, whilst I was to wait here for yourleader and prepare some supper againsthis coming.”

“At what time did he tell you that hewould come?”

“He did not say; but he did tell methat when he returns he will have friendswith him–a lady and two little children.They will be hungry and cold. I believe

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that they are in great danger now, andthat the brave English gentleman meansto take them away from this awful Paristo a place of safety.”

“The brave English gentleman, mydear,” retorted milor, with a sneer, ”isbent on some horrible work of spying.The lady and the two children are, nodoubt, innocent tools in his hands, just asI am, and when he no longer needs themhe will deliver them over to the Commit-tee of Public Safety, who will, of a surety,condemn them to death. That will alsobe my fate, Yvonne, unless you help menow.”

“Oh, no, no!” she exclaimed fervently.”Tell me what to do, milor, and I will do

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it.”“At sundown,” he said, sinking his

voice so low that even she could scarcelyhear, ”when I and the three others havestarted on our way, go straight to thehouse I spoke to you about in the RueDauphine–you know where it is?”

“Oh, yes, milor.”“You will know the house by its tum-

bledown portico and the tattered red flagthat surmounts it. Once there, push thedoor open and walk in boldly. Then askto speak with citizen Robespierre.”

“Robespierre?” exclaimed the child interror.

“You must not be afraid, Yvonne,” he

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said earnestly; ”you must think of meand of what you are doing for me. Myword on it–Robespierre will listen to youmost kindly.”

“What shall I tell him?” she mur-mured.

“That a mysterious party of English-men are in hiding in this house–thattheir chief is known among them as theScarlet Pimpernel. The rest leave toRobespierre’s discretion. You see howsimple it is?”

It was indeed very simple! Nor did thechild recoil any longer from the ugly taskwhich milor, with suave speech and ten-der voice, was so ardently seeking to im-

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pose on her.A few more words of love, which cost

him nothing, a few kisses which costhim still less, since the wench loved him,and since she was young and pretty, andYvonne was as wax in the hands of thetraitor.

II

Silence reigned in the low-rafteredroom on the ground floor of the housein the Rue Dauphine.

Citizen Robespierre, chairman of theCordeliers Club, the most bloodthirsty,

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most Evolutionary club of France, hadjust re-entered the room.

He walked up to the centre table, andthrough the close atmosphere, thick withtobacco smoke, he looked round on hisassembled friends.

“We have got him,” he said at lastcurtly.

“Got him! Whom?” came in hoarsecries from every corner of the room.

“That Englishman,” replied the dema-gogue, ”the Scarlet Pimpernel!”

A prolonged shout rose in response–a shout not unlike that of a caged herdof hungry wild beasts to whom a suc-culent morsel of flesh has unexpectedly

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been thrown.“Where is he?” ”Where did you get

him?” ”Alive or dead?” And many morequestions such as these were hurled atthe speaker from every side.

Robespierre, calm, impassive, immac-ulately neat in his tightly fitting coat,his smart breeches, and his lace cravat,waited awhile until the din had some-what subsided. Then he said calmly:

“The Scarlet Pimpernel is in hiding inone of the derelict houses in the RueBerthier.”

Snarls of derision as vigorous as theformer shouts of triumph drowned therest of his speech.

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“Bah! How often has that cursed Scar-let Pimpernel been said to be alone ina lonely house? Citizen Chauvelin hashad him at his mercy several times inlonely houses.”

And the speaker, a short, thick-set manwith sparse black hair plastered over agreasy forehead, his shirt open at theneck, revealing a powerful chest andrough, hairy skin, spat in ostentatiouscontempt upon the floor.

“Therefore will we not boast of hiscapture yet, citizen Roger,” resumedRobespierre imperturbably. ”I tell youwhere the Englishman is. Do you lookto it that he does not escape.”

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The heat in the room had become in-tolerable. From the grimy ceiling an oil-lamp, flickering low, threw lurid, ruddylights on tricolour cockades, on handsthat seemed red with the blood of in-nocent victims of lust and hate, and onfaces glowing with desire and with an-ticipated savage triumph.

“Who is the informer?” asked Roger atlast.

“A girl,” replied Robespierre curtly.”Yvonne Lebeau, by name; she and herfamily live by begging. There are a blindfather and two boys; they herd togetherat night in the derelict house in the RueBerthier. Five Englishmen have been inhiding there these past few days. One

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of them is their leader. The girl believeshim to be the Scarlet Pimpernel.”

“Why has she not spoken of this be-fore?” muttered one of the crowd, withsome scepticism.

“Frightened, I suppose. Or the En-glishman paid her to hold her tongue.”

“Where is the girl now?”“I am sending her straight home, a lit-

tle ahead of us. Her presence should re-assure the Englishman whilst we makeready to surround the house. In themeanwhile, I have sent special messen-gers to every gate of Paris with strict or-ders to the guard not to allow anyone outof the city until further orders from the

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Committee of Public Safety. And now,”he added, throwing back his head witha gesture of proud challenge, ”citizens,which of you will go man-hunting to-night?”

This time the strident roar of savageexultation was loud and deep enough toshake the flickering lamp upon its chain.

A brief discussion of plans followed,and Roger–he with the broad, hairychest and that gleam of hatred for everlurking in his deep-set, shifty eyes–waschosen the leader of the party.

Thirty determined and well-armed pa-triots set out against one man, who may-hap had supernatural powers. There

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would, no doubt, be some aristocrats,too, in hiding in the derelict house–thegirl Lebeau, it seems, had spoken of awoman and two children. Bah! Thesewould not count. It would be thirty toone, so let the Scarlet Pimpernel look tohimself.

From the towers of Notre Dame thebig bell struck the hour of six, as thirtymen in ragged shirts and torn breeches,shivering beneath a cold Novemberdrizzle, began slowly to wend their waytowards the Rue Berthier.

They walked on in silence, not heedingthe cold or the rain, but with eyes fixedin the direction of their goal, and nostrilsquivering in the evening air with the dis-

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tant scent of blood.

III

At the top of the Rue Berthier theparty halted. On ahead–some two hun-dred metres farther–Yvonne Lebeau’s lit-tle figure, with her ragged skirt pulledover her head and her bare feet pat-tering in the mud, was seen crossingone of those intermittent patches of lightformed by occasional flickering streetlamps, and then was swallowed up oncemore by the inky blackness beyond.

The Rue Berthier is a long, narrow, ill-paved and ill-lighted street, composed of

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low and irregular houses, which abut onthe line of fortifications at the back, andare therefore absolutely inaccessible savefrom the front.

Midway down the street a derelicthouse rears ghostly debris of roofs andchimney-stacks upward to the sky. Atiny square of yellow light, blinkinglike a giant eye through a curtainlesswindow, pierced the wall of the house.Roger pointed to that light.

“That,” he said, ”is the quarry whereour fox has run to earth.”

No one said anything; but the danknight air seemed suddenly alive with allthe passions of hate let loose by thirty

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beating hearts.

The Scarlet Pimpernel, who hadtricked them, mocked them, fooledthem so often, was there, not twohundred metres away; and they werethirty to one, and all determined anddesperate.

The darkness was intense.

Silently now the party approached thehouse, then again they halted, withinsixty metres of it.

“Hist!”

The whisper could scarce be heard, solow was it, like the sighing of the windthrough a misty veil.

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“Who is it?” came in quick challengefrom Roger.

“I–Yvonne Lebeau!”“Is he there?” was the eager whis-

pered query.“Not yet. But he may come at any

moment. If he saw a crowd round thehouse, mayhap he would not come.”

“He cannot see a crowd. The night isas dark as pitch.”

“He can see in the darkest night,” andthe girl’s voice sank to an awed whisper,”and he can hear through a stone wall.”

Instinctively, Roger shuddered. Thesuperstitious fear which the mysteri-ous personality of the Scarlet Pimpernel

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evoked in the heart of every Terroristhad suddenly seized this man in its grip.

Try as he would, he did not feel asvaliant as he had done when first heemerged at the head of his party fromunder the portico of the Cordeliers Club,and it was with none too steady a voicethat he ordered the girl roughly back tothe house. Then he turned once more tohis men.

The plan of action had been decidedon in the Club, under the presidency ofRobespierre; it only remained to carrythe plans through with success.

From the side of the fortifications therewas, of course, nothing to fear. In ac-

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cordance with military regulations, thewalls of the houses there rose sheer fromthe ground without doors or windows,whilst the broken-down parapets and di-lapidated roofs towered forty feet abovethe ground.

The derelict itself was one of a rowof houses, some inhabited, others quiteabandoned. It was the front of that rowof houses, therefore, that had to be keptin view. Marshalled by Roger, the menflattened their meagre bodies against thewalls of the houses opposite, and afterthat there was nothing to do but wait.

To wait in the darkness of the night,with a thin, icy rain soaking throughragged shirts and tattered breeches, with

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bare feet frozen by the mud of the road–to wait in silence while turbulent heartsbeat well-nigh to bursting–to wait forfood whilst hunger gnaws the bowels–towait for drink whilst the parched tonguecleaves to the roof of the mouth–to waitfor revenge whilst the hours roll slowlyby and the cries of the darkened city arestilled one by one!

Once–when a distant bell tolled thehour of ten–a loud prolonged laugh,almost impudent in its suggestion ofmerry insouciance, echoed through theweird silence of the night.

Roger felt that the man nearest to himshivered at that sound, and he heard avolley or two of muttered oaths.

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“The fox seems somewhere near,” hewhispered. ”Come within. We’ll wait forhim inside his hole.”

He led the way across the street, someof the men following him.

The door of the derelict house hadbeen left on the latch. Roger pushed itopen.

Silence and gloom here reignedsupreme; utter darkness, too, save fora narrow streak of light which edgedthe framework of a door on the right.Not a sound stirred the quietude of thismiserable hovel, only the creaking ofboards beneath the men’s feet as theyentered.

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Roger crossed the passage and openedthe door on the right. His friendspressed closely round to him andpeeped over his shoulder into the roombeyond.

A guttering piece of tallow candle,fixed to an old tin pot, stood in the mid-dle of the floor, and its feeble, flickeringlight only served to accentuate the dark-ness that lay beyond its range. One ortwo rickety chairs and a rough deal tableshowed vaguely in the gloom, and in thefar corner of the room there lay a bun-dle of what looked like heaped-up rags,but from which there now emerged thesound of heavy breathing and also a lit-tle cry of fear.

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“Yvonne,” came in feeble, queru-lous accents from that same bundle ofwretchedness, ”are these the Englishmilors come back at last?”

“No, no, father,” was the quick whis-pered reply.

Roger swore a loud oath, andtwo puny voices began to whimperpiteously.

“It strikes me the wench has been fool-ing us,” muttered one of the men sav-agely.

The girl had struggled to her feet. Shecrouched in the darkness, and two lit-tle boys, half-naked and shivering, wereclinging to her skirts. The rest of the hu-

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man bundle seemed to consist of an old-ish man, with long, gaunt legs and armsblue with the cold. He turned vague,wide-open eyes in the direction whencehad come the harsh voices.

“Are they friends, Yvonne?” he askedanxiously.

The girl did her best to reassure him.“Yes, yes, father,” she whispered close

to his ear, her voice scarce above herbreath; ”they are good citizens whohoped to find the English milor here.They are disappointed that he has notyet come.”

“Ah! but he will come, of a surety,”said the old man in that querulous voice

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of his. ”He left his beautiful clothes herethis morning, and surely he will cometo fetch them.” And his long, thin handpointed towards a distant corner of theroom.

Roger and his friends, looking towhere he was pointing, saw a parcel ofclothes, neatly folded, lying on one of thechairs. Like so many wild cats snarlingat sight of prey, they threw themselvesupon those clothes, tearing them outfrom one another’s hands, turning themover and over as if to force the clothand satin to yield up the secret that laywithin their folds.

In the skirmish a scrap of paper flut-tered to the ground. Roger seized it

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VIII. THE TRAITOR

with avidity, and, crouching on the floor,smoothed the paper out against his knee.

It contained a few hastily scrawledwords, and by the feeble light of the fast-dying candle Roger spelt them out labo-riously:

“If the finder of these clothes willtake them to the cross-roads oppositethe foot-bridge which leads straight toCourbevoie, and will do so before theclock of Courbevoie Church has struckthe hour of midnight, he will be re-warded with the sum of five hundredfrancs.”

“There is something more, citizenRoger,” said a raucous voice close to his

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VIII. THE TRAITOR

ear.

“Look! Look, citizen–in the bottomcorner of the paper!”

“The signature.”

“A scrawl done in red,” said Roger,trying to decipher it.

“It looks like a small flower.”

“That accursed Scarlet Pimpernel!”

And even as he spoke the gutteringtallow candle, swaying in its socket, sud-denly went out with a loud splutter anda sizzle that echoed through the desolateroom like the mocking laugh of ghouls.

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VIII. THE TRAITOR

IV

Once more the tramp through the darkand deserted streets, with the drizzle–turned now to sleet–beating on thinlyclad shoulders. Fifteen men only onthis tramp. The others remained behindto watch the house. Fifteen men, ledby Roger, and with a blind old man, ayoung girl carrying a bundle of clothes,and two half-naked children dragged ascamp-followers in the rear.

Their destination now was thesign-post which stands at the cross-roads, past the footbridge that leads toCourbevoie.

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VIII. THE TRAITOR

The guard at the Maillot Gate wouldhave stopped the party, but Roger, mem-ber of the Committee of Public Safety,armed with his papers and his tricolourscarf, overruled Robespierre’s former or-ders, and the party mached out of thegate.

They pressed on in silence, instinc-tively walking shoulder to shoulder,vaguely longing for the touch of anotherhuman hand, the sound of a voice thatwould not ring weirdly in the mysteri-ous night.

There was something terrifying in thisabsolute silence, in such intense dark-ness, in this constant wandering towardsa goal that seemed for ever distant, and

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VIII. THE TRAITOR

in all this weary, weary fruitless wait-ing; and these men, who lived their lifethrough, drunken with blood, deafenedby the cries of their victims, satiated withthe moans of the helpless and the inno-cent, hardly dared to look around them,lest they should see ghoulish forms flit-ting through the gloom.

Soon they reached the cross-roads, andin the dense blackness of the night thegaunt arms of the sign-post pointedghostlike towards the north.

The men hung back, wrapped in thedarkness as in a pall, while Roger ad-vanced alone.

“Hola! Is anyone there?” he called

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VIII. THE TRAITOR

softly.Then, as no reply came, he added more

loudly:“Hola! A friend–with some clothes

found in the Rue Berthier. Is anyonehere? Hola! A friend!”

But only from the gently murmuringriver far away the melancholy call of awaterfowl seemed to echo mockingly:

“A friend!”Just then the clock of Courbevoie

Church struck the midnight hour.“It is too late,” whispered the men.They did not swear, nor did they curse

their leader. Somehow it seemed as if

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VIII. THE TRAITOR

they had expected all along that the En-glishman would evade their vengeanceyet again, that he would lure them outinto the cold and into the darkness, andthen that he would mock them, foolthem, and finally disappear into thenight.

It seemed futile to wait any longer.They were so sure that they had failedagain.

“Who goes there?”The sound of naked feet and of

wooden sabots pattering on the distantfootbridge had caused Roger to utter thequick challenge.

“Hola! Hola! Are you there?” was the

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VIII. THE TRAITOR

loud, breathless response.The next moment the darkness became

alive with men moving quickly forward,and raucous shouts of ”Where are they?””Have you got them?” ”Don’t let themgo!” filled the air.

“Got whom?” ”Who are they?” ”Whatis it?” were the wild counter-cries.

“The man! The girl! The children!Where are they?”

“What? Which? The Lebeau family?They are here with us.”

“Where?”Where, indeed? To a call to them from

Roger there came no answer, nor did a

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VIII. THE TRAITOR

hasty search result in finding them–theold man, the two boys, and the girl car-rying the bundle of clothes had vanishedinto the night.

“In the name of—, what does thismean?” cried hoarse voices in the crowd.

The new-comers, breathless, terrified,shaking with superstitious fear, tried toexplain.

“The Lebeau family–the old man, thegirl, the two boys–we discovered afteryour departure, locked up in the cellarof the house–prisoners.”

“But, then–the others?” they gasped.“The girl and the children whom you

saw must have been some aristocrats in

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disguise. The old man who spoke to youwas that cursed Englishman–the ScarletPimpernel!”

And as if in mocking confirmation ofthese words there suddenly rang, echo-ing from afar, a long and merry laugh.

“The Scarlet Pimpernel!” cried Roger.”In rags and barefooted! At him, citi-zens; he cannot have got far!”

“Hush! Listen!” whispered one of themen, suddenly gripping him by the arm.

And from the distance–thoughHeaven only knew from what direction–came the sound of horses’ hoofs pawingthe soft ground; the next moment theywere heard galloping away at breakneck

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VIII. THE TRAITOR

speed.The men turned to run in every direc-

tion, blindly, aimlessly, in the dark, likebloodhounds that have lost the trail.

One man, as he ran, stumbled againsta dark mass prone upon the ground.With a curse on his lips, he recovered hisbalance.

“Hold! What is this?” he cried.Some of his comrades gathered round

him. No one could see anything, butthe dark mass appeared to have hu-man shape, and it was bound roundand round with cords. And now feeblemoans escaped from obviously humanlips.

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VIII. THE TRAITOR

“What is it? Who is it?” asked themen.

“An Englishman,” came in weak ac-cents from the ground.

“Your name?”“I am called Kulmsted.”“Bah! An aristocrat!”“No! An enemy of the Scarlet Pimper-

nel, like yourselves. I would have deliv-ered him into your hands. But you lethim escape you. As for me, he wouldhave been wiser if he had killed me.”

They picked him up and undid thecords from round his body, and later ontook him with them back into Paris.

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VIII. THE TRAITOR

But there, in the darkness of the night,in the mud of the road, and beneath theicy rain, knees were shaking that hadlong ago forgotten how to bend, andhasty prayers were muttered by lips thatwere far more accustomed to blaspheme.

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IX. THE CABARETDE LA LIBERTÉ

I

“Eight!”

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IX. THE CABARET DE LA LIBERTE

“Twelve!”“Four!”A loud curse accompanied this last

throw, and shouts of ribald laughtergreeted it.

“No luck, Guidal!”“Always at the tail end of the cart, eh,

citizen?”“Do not despair yet, good old Guidal!

Bad beginnings oft make splendidends!”

Then once again the dice rattled in theboxes; those who stood around pressedcloser round the gamesters; hot, avidfaces, covered with sweat and grime,peered eagerly down upon the table.

480


“Eight and eleven–nineteen!”“Twelve and zero! By Satan! Curse

him! Just my luck!”“Four and nine–thirteen! Unlucky

number!”“Now then–once more! I’ll back Merri!

Ten assignats of the most worthlesskind! Who’ll take me that Merri gets thewench in the end?”

This from one of the lookers-on, atall, cadaverous-looking creature, withsunken eyes and broad, hunched-upshoulders, which were perpetuallyshaken by a dry, rasping cough thatproclaimed the ravages of some mortaldisease, left him trembling as with ague

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and brought beads of perspiration to theroots of his lank hair. A recrudescenceof excitement went the round of thespectators. The gamblers sitting rounda narrow deal table, on which pastlibations had left marks of sticky rings,had scarce room to move their elbows.

“Nineteen and four–twenty-three!”“You are out of it, Desmonts!”“Not yet!”“Twelve and twelve!”“There! What did I tell you?”“Wait! wait! Now, Merri! Now! Re-

member I have backed you for ten assig-nats, which I propose to steal from thenearest Jew this very night.”

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“Thirteen and twelve! Twenty-five, byall the demons and the ghouls!” camewith a triumphant shout from the lastthrower.

“Merri has it! Vive Merri!” was theunanimous and clamorous response.

Merri was evidently the most popu-lar amongst the three gamblers. Nowhe sprawled upon the bench, leaning hisback against the table, and surveyed theassembled company with the air of anAchilles having vanquished his Hector.

“Good luck to you and to youraristo!” began his backer lustily–would,no doubt, have continued his song ofpraise had not a violent fit of coughing

483


smothered the words in his throat. Thehand which he had raised in order toslap his friend genially on the back nowwent with a convulsive clutch to his ownchest.

But his obvious distress did not appar-ently disturb the equanimity of Merri,or arouse even passing interest in thelookers-on.

“May she have as much money as ru-mour avers,” said one of the men senten-tiously.

Merri gave a careless wave of hisgrubby hand.

“More, citizen; more!” he said loftily.Only the two losers appeared inclined

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to scepticism.“Bah!” one of them said–it was

Desmonts. ”The whole matter of thewoman’s money may be a tissue of lies!”

“And England is a far cry!” addedGuidal.

But Merri was not likely to be de-pressed by these dismal croakings.

“‘Tis simple enough,” he said philo-sophically, ”to disparage the goods ifyou are not able to buy.”

Then a lusty voice broke in from thefar corner of the room:

“And now, citizen Merri, ’tis time youremembered that the evening is hot andyour friends thirsty!”

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The man who spoke was a short,broad-shouldered creature, with crim-son face surrounded by a shock of whitehair, like a ripe tomato wrapped in cot-ton wool.

“And let me tell you,” he added com-placently, ”that I have a cask of rumdown below, which came straight fromthat accursed country, England, and issaid to be the nectar whereon feeds thatconfounded Scarlet Pimpernel. It giveshim the strength, so ’tis said, to intriguesuccessfully against the representativesof the people.”

“Then by all means, citizen,” con-cluded Merri’s backer, still hoarse andspent after his fit of coughing, ”let us

486


have some of your nectar. My friend, cit-izen Merri, will need strength and witstoo, I’ll warrant, for, after he has mar-ried the aristo, he will have to journey toEngland to pluck the rich dowry whichis said to lie hidden there.”

“Cast no doubt upon that dowry, cit-izen Rateau, curse you!” broke inMerri, with a spiteful glance directedagainst his former rivals, ”or Guidal andDesmonts will cease to look glum, andhalf my joy in the aristo will have gone.”

After which, the conversation driftedto general subjects, became hilarious andribald, while the celebrated rum fromEngland filled the close atmosphere ofthe narrow room with its heady fumes.

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II

Open to the street in front, the local-ity known under the pretentious title of”Cabaret de la Liberté” was a favouredone among the flotsam and jetsam of thepopulation of this corner of old Paris;men and sometimes women, with noth-ing particular to do, no special means of

livelihood save the battening on thecountless miseries and sorrows whichthis Revolution, which was to have beenso glorious, was bringing in its train;idlers and loafers, who would crawldesultorily down the few worn andgrimy steps which led into the cabaretfrom the level of the street. There was

488


always good brandy or eau de vie tobe had there, and no questions asked,no scares from the revolutionary guardsor the secret agents of the Committee ofPublic Safety, who knew better than tointerfere with the citizen host and hisdubious clientele. There was also goodRhine wine or rum to be had, smuggledacross from England or Germany, andno interference from the spies of some ofthose countless Committees, more auto-cratic than any ci-devant despot. It was,in fact, an ideal place wherein to con-duct those shady transactions which areunavoidable corollaries of an unfettereddemocracy. Projects of burglary, pil-lage, rapine, even murder, were hatched

489


within this underground burrow, where,as soon as evening drew in, a solitary,smoky oil-lamp alone cast a dim lightupon faces that liked to court the dark-ness, and whence no sound that wasnot meant for prying ears found its wayto the street above. The walls werethick with grime and smoke, the floormildewed and cracked; dirt vied withsqualor to make the place a fitting abodefor thieves and cut-throats, for some ofthose sinister night-birds, more vile eventhan those who shrieked with satisfiedlust at sight of the tumbril, with its dailyload of unfortunates for the guillotine.

On this occasion the project that wasbeing hatched was one of the most ab-

490


ject. A young girl, known by some tobe possessed of a fortune, was the stakefor which these workers of iniquity gam-bled across one of mine host’s greasytables. The latest decree of the Con-vention, encouraging, nay, command-ing, the union of aristocrats with so-called patriots, had fired the imaginationof this nest of jail-birds with thoughts ofglorious possibilities. Some of them hadcollected the necessary information; andthe report had been encouraging.

That self-indulgent aristo, the ci-devant banker Amede Vincent, who hadexpiated his villainies upon the guillo-tine, was known to have been successfulin abstracting the bulk of his ill-gotten

491


wealth and concealing it somewhere–it was not exactly known where, butthought to be in England–out of thereach, at any rate, of deserving patriots.

Some three or four years ago, beforethe glorious principles of Liberty, Equal-ity, and Fraternity had made short shriftof all such pestilential aristocrats, the ci-devant banker, then a widower with anonly daughter, Esther, had journeyed toEngland. He soon returned to Paris,however, and went on living there withhis little girl in comparative retirement,until his many crimes found him outat last and he was made to suffer thepunishment which he so justly deserved.Those crimes consisted for the most part

492


in humiliating the aforesaid deservingpatriots with his benevolence, shamingthem with many kindnesses, and thesimplicity of his home-life, and, aboveall, in flouting the decrees of the Revolu-tionary Government, which made everyconnection with ci-devant churches andpriests a penal offence against the secu-rity of the State.

Amede Vincent was sent to the guillo-tine, and the representatives of the peo-ple confiscated his house and all hisproperty on which they could lay theirhands; but they never found the millionswhich he was supposed to have con-cealed. Certainly his daughter Esther–a young girl, not yet nineteen–had not

493


found them either, for after her father’sdeath she went to live in one of thepoorer quarters of Paris, alone with anold and faithful servant named Luci-enne. And while the Committee of Pub-lic Safety was deliberating whether itwould be worth while to send Esther tothe guillotine, to follow in her father’sfootsteps, a certain number of astute jail-birds plotted to obtain possession of herwealth.

The wealth existed, over in England;of that they were ready to take theiroath, and the project which they hadformed was as ingenious as it was di-abolic: to feign a denunciation, to en-act a pretended arrest, to place before

494


the unfortunate girl the alternative ofdeath or marriage with one of the gang,were the chief incidents of this inquitousproject, and it was in the Cabaret de laLiberté that lots were thrown as to whichamong the herd of miscreants should bethe favoured one to play the chief role inthe sinister drama.

The lot fell to Merri; but the wholegang was to have a share in the puta-tive fortune–even Rateau, the wretchedcreature with the hacking cough, wholooked as if he had one foot in the grave,and shivered as if he were stricken withague, put in a word now and again to re-mind his good friend Merri that he, too,was looking forward to his share of the

495


spoils. Merri, however, was inclined torepudiate him altogether.

“Why should I share with you?” hesaid roughly, when, a few hours later, heand Rateau parted in the street outsidethe Cabaret de la Liberté. ”Who are you,I would like to know, to try and pokeyour ugly nose into my affairs? Howdo I know where you come from, andwhether you are not some crapulent spyof one of those pestilential committees?”

From which eloquent flow of languagewe may infer that the friendship be-tween these two worthies was not ofvery old duration. Rateau would, nodoubt, have protested loudly, but thefresh outer air had evidently caught his

496


wheezy lungs, and for a minute or twohe could do nothing but cough andsplutter and groan, and cling to his un-responsive comrade for support. Thenat last, when he had succeeded in recov-ering his breath, he said dolefully andwith a ludicrous attempt at dignified re-proach:

“Do not force me to remind you, citi-zen Merri, that if it had not been for mysuggestion that we should all draw lots,and then play hazard as to who shall bethe chosen one to woo the ci-devant mil-lionairess, there would soon have been afree fight inside the cabaret, a number ofbroken heads, and no decision whateverarrived at; whilst you, who were never

497


much of a fighter, would probably be ly-ing now helpless, with a broken nose,and deprived of some of your teeth, andwith no chance of entering the lists forthe heiress. Instead of which, here youare, the victor by a stroke of good for-tune, which you should at least have thegood grace to ascribe to me.”

Whether the poor wretch’s argumenthad any weight with citizen Merri,or whether that worthy patriot merelythought that procrastination would, forthe nonce, prove the best policy, it wereimpossible to say. Certain it is that in re-sponse to his companion’s tirade he con-tented himself with a dubious grunt, andwithout another word turned on his heel

498


and went slouching down the street.

III

For the persistent and optimistic ro-manticist, there were still one or twoidylls to be discovered flourishing underthe shadow of the grim and relentlessRevolution. One such was that whichhad Esther Vincent and Jack Kennardfor hero and heroine. Esther, the or-phaned daughter of one of the richestbankers of pre-Revolution days, now adaily governess and household drudgeat ten francs a week in the house of a re-tired butcher in the Rue Richelieu, and

499


Jack Kennard, formerly the representa-tive of a big English firm of woollenmanufacturers, who had thrown up hisemployment and prospects in Englandin order to watch over the girl whom heloved. He, himself an alien enemy, anEnglishman, in deadly danger of his lifeevery hour that he remained in France;and she, unwilling at the time to leavethe horrors of revolutionary Paris whileher father was lingering at the Concierg-erie awaiting condemnation, as such for-bidden to leave the city. So Kennardstayed on, unable to tear himself awayfrom her, and obtained an unlucrativepost as accountant in a small wine shopover by Montmartre. His life, like hers,

500


was hanging by a thread; any day, anyhour now, some malevolent denuncia-tion might, in the sight of the Committeeof Public Safety, turn the eighteen yearsold ”suspect” into a living peril to theState, or the alien enemy into a danger-ous spy.

Some of the happiest hours these twospent in one another’s company wereembittered by that ever-present dread ofthe peremptory knock at the door, theportentous: ”Open, in the name of theLaw!” the perquisition, the arrest, towhich the only issue, these days, was theguillotine.

But the girl was only just eighteen, andhe not many years older, and at that age,

501


in spite of misery, sorrow, and dread,life always has its compensations. Youthcries out to happiness so insistently thathappiness is forced to hear, and for a fewmoments, at the least, drives care andeven the bitterest anxiety away.

For Esther Vincent and her Englishlover there were moments when they be-lieved themselves to be almost happy. Itwas in the evenings mostly, when shecame home from her work and he wasfree to spend an hour or two with her.Then old Lucienne, who had been Es-ther’s nurse in the happy, olden days,and was an unpaid maid-of-all-workand a loved and trusted friend now,would bring in the lamp and pull the

502


well-darned curtains over the windows.She would spread a clean cloth upon thetable and bring in a meagre supper ofcoffee and black bread, perhaps a littlebutter or a tiny square of cheese. Andthe two young people would talk of thefuture, of the time when they would set-tle down in Kennard’s old home, overin England, where his mother and sis-ter even now were eating out their heartswith anxiety for him.

“Tell me all about the South Downs,”Esther was very fond of saying; ”andyour village, and your house, and therambler roses and the clematis arbour.”

She never tired of hearing, or he oftelling. The old Manor House, bought

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with his father’s savings; the gardenwhich was his mother’s hobby; thecricket pitch on the village green. Oh,the cricket! She thought that so funny–the men in high, sugar-loaf hats, grown-up men, spending hours and hours, dayafter day, in banging at a ball with awooden bat!

“Oh, Jack! The English are a funny,nice, dear, kind lot of people. Iremember–”

She remembered so well that happysummer which she had spent with herfather in England four years ago. It wasafter the Bastille had been stormed andtaken, and the banker had journeyed toEngland with his daughter in something

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of a hurry. Then her father had talked ofreturning to France and leaving her be-hind with friends in England. But Estherwould not be left. Oh, no! Even nowshe glowed with pride at the thought ofher firmness in the matter. If she hadremained in England she would neverhave seen her dear father again. Hereremembrances grew bitter and sad, untilJack’s hand reached soothingly, consol-ingly out to her, and she brushed awayher tears, so as not to sadden him stillmore.

Then she would ask more questionsabout his home and his garden, abouthis mother and the dogs and the flowers;and once more they would forget that

505


hatred and envy and death were alreadystalking their door.

IV

“Open, in the name of the Law!”

It had come at last. A bolt from outthe serene blue of their happiness. Arough, dirty, angry, cursing crowd, whoburst through the heavy door even be-fore they had time to open it. Luci-enne collapsed into a chair, weeping andlamenting, with her apron thrown overher head. But Esther and Kennard stoodquite still and calm, holding one another

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by the hand, just to give one anothercourage.

Some half dozen men stalked intothe little room. Men? They lookedlike ravenous beasts, and were unspeak-ably dirty, wore soiled tricolour scarvesabove their tattered breeches in token oftheir official status. Two of them fell onthe remnants of the meagre supper anddevoured everything that remained onthe table–bread, cheese, a piece of home-made sausage. The others ransacked thetwo attic-rooms which had been homefor Esther and Lucienne: the little living-room under the sloping roof, with thesmall hearth on which very scanty mealswere wont to be cooked, and the bare,

507


narrow room beyond, with the iron bed-stead, and the palliasse on the floor forLucienne.

The men poked about everywhere,struck great, spiked sticks through thepoor bits of bedding, and ripped up thepalliasse. They tore open the drawers ofthe rickety chest and of the broken-downwardrobe, and did not spare the unfortu-nate young girl a single humiliation or asingle indignity.

Kennard, burning with wrath, tried toprotest.

“Hold that cub!” commanded theleader of the party, almost as soon asthe young Englishman’s hot, indignant

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words had resounded above the din ofoverturned furniture. ”And if he openshis mouth again throw him into thestreet!” And Kennard, terrified lest heshould be parted from Esther, thought itwiser to hold his peace.

They looked at one another, like twoyoung trapped beasts–not despairing,but trying to infuse courage one into theother by a look of confidence and of love.Esther, in fact, kept her eyes fixed on hergood-looking English lover, firmly keep-ing down the shudder of loathing whichwent right through her when she sawthose awful men coming nigh her. Therewas one especially whom she abomi-nated worse than the others, a bandy-

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legged ruffian, who regarded her witha leer that caused her an almost physi-cal nausea. He did not take part in theperquisition, but sat down in the centreof the room and sprawled over the tablewith the air of one who was in author-ity. The others addressed him as ”citizenMerri,” and alternately ridiculed and de-ferred to him. And there was another,equally hateful, a horrible, cadaverouscreature, with huge bare feet thrust intosabots, and lank hair, thick with grime.He did most of the talking, even thoughhis loquacity occasionally broke down ina racking cough, which literally seemedto tear at his chest, and left him panting,hoarse, and with beads of moisture upon

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his low, pallid forehead.Of course, the men found nothing that

could even remotely be termed compro-mising. Esther had been very prudent indeference to Kennard’s advice; she alsohad very few possessions. Nevertheless,when the wretches had turned every ar-ticle of furniture inside out, one of themasked curtly:

“What do we do next, citizen Merri?”“Do?” broke in the cadaverous crea-

ture, even before Merri had time to reply.”Do? Why, take the wench to–to–”

He got no further, became helplesswith coughing. Esther, quite instinc-tively, pushed the carafe of water to-

511


wards him.

“Nothing of the sort!” riposted Merrisententiously. ”The wench stays here!”

Both Esther and Jack had much adoto suppress an involuntary cry of relief,which at this unexpected pronounce-ment had risen to their lips.

The man with the cough tried toprotest.

“But–” he began hoarsely.

“I said, the wench stays here!” brokein Merri peremptorily. ”Ah ca!” headded, with a savage imprecation. ”Doyou command here, citizen Rateau, or doI?”

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The other at once became humble,even cringing.

“You, of course, citizen,” he rejoined inhis hollow voice. ”I would only remark–”

“Remark nothing,” retorted the othercurtly. ”See to it that the cub is out of thehouse. And after that put a sentry out-side the wench’s door. No one to go inand out of here under any pretext what-ever. Understand?”

Kennard this time uttered a cry ofprotest. The helplessness of his posi-tion exasperated him almost to madness.Two men were holding him tightly byhis sinewy arms. With an Englishman’s

513


instinct for a fight, he would not onlyhave tried, but also succeeded in knock-ing these two down, and taken the otherfour on after that, with quite a reason-able chance of success. That tuberculouscreature, now! And that bandy-leggedruffian! Jack Kennard had been an ama-teur middle-weight champion in his day,and these brutes had no more sciencethan an enraged bull! But even as hefought against that instinct he realisedthe futility of a struggle. The danger ofit, too–not for himself, but for her. Af-ter all, they were not going to take heraway to one of those awful places fromwhich the only egress was the way to theguillotine; and if there was that amount

514


of freedom there was bound to be somehope. At twenty there is always hope!

So when, in obedience to Merri’s or-ders, the two ruffians began to drag himtowards the door, he said firmly:

“Leave me alone. I’ll go without thisunnecessary struggling.”

Then, before the wretches realised hisintention, he had jerked himself freefrom them and run to Esther.

“Have no fear,” he said to her in En-glish, and in a rapid whisper. ”I’ll watchover you. The house opposite. I knowthe people. I’ll manage it somehow. Beon the look-out.”

They would not let him say more, and

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she only had the chance of respondingfirmly: ”I am not afraid, and I’ll be onthe look-out.” The next moment Merri’scompeers seized him from behind–fourof them this time.

Then, of course, prudence went to thewinds. He hit out to the right and left.Knocked two of those recreants down,and already was prepared to seize Es-ther in his arms, make a wild dash forthe door, and run with her, whitheronly God knew, when Rateau, that aw-ful consumptive reprobate, crept slylyup behind him and dealt him a swiftand heavy blow on the skull with hisweighted stick. Kennard staggered, andthe bandits closed upon him. Those on

516


the floor had time to regain their feet.To make assurance doubly sure, one ofthem emulated Rateau’s tactics, and hitthe Englishman once more on the headfrom behind. After that, Kennard be-came inert; he had partly lost conscious-ness. His head ached furiously. Es-ther, numb with horror, saw him bun-dled out of the room. Rateau, coughingand spluttering, finally closed the doorupon the unfortunate and the four brig-ands who had hold of him.

Only Merri and that awful Rateau hadremained in the room. The latter, gasp-ing for breath now, poured himself outa mugful of water and drank it down atone draught. Then he swore, because he

517


wanted rum, or brandy, or even wine.Esther watched him and Merri, fasci-nated. Poor old Lucienne was quietlyweeping behind her apron.

“Now then, my wench,” Merri beganabruptly, ”suppose you sit down hereand listen to what I have to say.”

He pulled a chair close to him and,with one of those hideous leers whichhad already caused her to shudder, hebeckoned her to sit. Esther obeyed asif in a dream. Her eyes were dilatedlike those of one in a waking trance.She moved mechanically, like a bird at-tracted by a serpent, terrified, yet unre-sisting. She felt utterly helpless betweenthese two villainous brutes, and anxiety

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for her English lover seemed further tonumb her senses. When she was sittingshe turned her gaze, with an involuntaryappeal for pity, upon the bandy-leggedruffian beside her. He laughed.

“No! I am not going to hurt you,” hesaid with smooth condescension, whichwas far more loathsome to Esther’s earsthan his comrades’ savage oaths hadbeen. ”You are pretty and you havepleased me. ’Tis no small matter, for-sooth!” he added, with loud-voicedbombast, ”to have earned the good-willof citizen Merri. You, my wench, arein luck’s way. You realise what has oc-curred just now. You are amenable tothe law which has decreed you to be

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suspect. I hold an order for your ar-rest. I can have you seized at once bymy men, dragged to the Conciergerie,and from thence nothing can save you–neither your good looks nor the protec-tion of citizen Merri. It means the guillo-tine. You understand that, don’t you?”

She sat quite still; only her hands wereclutched convulsively together. But shecontrived to say quite firmly:

“I do, and I am not afraid.”Merri waved a huge and very dirty

hand with a careless gesture.“I know,” he said with a harsh laugh.

”They all say that, don’t they, citizenRateau?”

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“Until the time comes,” assented thatworthy dryly.

“Until the time comes,” reiterated theother. ”Now, my wench,” he added,once more turning to Esther, ”I don’twant that time to come. I don’t wantyour pretty head to go rolling down intothe basket, and to receive the slap on theface which the citizen executioner has oflate taken to bestowing on those aristo-cratic cheeks which Mme. la Guillotinehas finally blanched for ever. Like this,you see.”

And the inhuman wretch took up oneof the round cushions from the nearestchair, held it up at arm’s length, as if itwere a head which he held by the hair,

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and then slapped it twice with the palmof his left hand. The gesture was so hor-rible and withal so grotesque, that Estherclosed her eyes with a shudder, and herpale cheeks took on a leaden hue. Merrilaughed aloud and threw the cushiondown again.

“Unpleasant, what? my pretty wench!Well, you know what to expect ... un-less,” he added significantly, ”you arereasonable and will listen to what I amabout to tell you.”

Esther was no fool, nor was she unso-phisticated. These were not times whenit was possible for any girl, howevercarefully nurtured and tenderly broughtup, to remain ignorant of the realities

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and the brutalities of life. Even beforeMerri had put his abominable proposi-tion before her, she knew what he wasdriving at. Marriage–marriage to him!that ignoble wretch, more vile than anydumb creature! In exchange for her life!

It was her turn now to laugh. The verythought of it was farcical in its very odi-ousness. Merri, who had embarked onhis proposal with grandiloquent phrase-ology, suddenly paused, almost awed bythat strange, hysterical laughter.

“By Satan and all his ghouls!” he cried,and jumped to his feet, his cheeks palingbeneath the grime.

Then rage seized him at his own cow-

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ardice. His egregious vanity, woundedby that laughter, egged him on. He triedto seize Esther by the waist. But she,quick as some panther on the defence,had jumped up, too, and pounced upona knife–the very one she had been us-ing for that happy little supper with herlover a brief half hour ago. Unguarded,unthinking, acting just with a blind in-stinct, she raised it and cried hoarsely:

“If you dare touch me, I’ll kill you!”

It was ludicrous, of course. A mousethreatening a tiger. The very next mo-ment Rateau had seized her hand andquietly taken away the knife. Merrishook himself like a frowsy dog.

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“Whew!” he ejaculated. ”What avixen! But,” he added lightly, ”I like herall the better for that–eh, Rateau? Giveme a wench with a temperament, I say!”

But Esther, too, had recovered herself.She realised her helplessness, and gath-ered courage from the consciousness ofit! Now she faced the infamous villainmore calmly.

“I will never marry you,” she saidloudly and firmly. ”Never! I am notafraid to die. I am not afraid of theguillotine. There is no shame attachedto death. So now you may do as youplease–denounce me, and send me tofollow in the footsteps of my dear father,if you wish. But whilst I am alive you

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will never come nigh me. If you ever dobut lay a finger upon me, it will be be-cause I am dead and beyond the reach ofyour polluting touch. And now I havesaid all that I will ever say to you in thislife. If you have a spark of humanity leftin you, you will, at least, let me preparefor death in peace.”

She went round to where poor old Lu-cienne still sat, like an insentient log,panic-stricken. She knelt down on thefloor and rested her arm on the oldwoman’s knees. The light of the lampfell full upon her, her pale face, and massof chestnut-brown hair. There was noth-ing about her at this moment to inflame aman’s desire. She looked pathetic in her

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helplessness, and nearly lifeless throughthe intensity of her pallor, whilst the lookin her eyes was almost maniacal.

Merri cursed and swore, tried tohearten himself by turning on his friend.But Rateau had collapsed–whether withexcitement or the ravages of disease, itwere impossible to say. He sat upon alow chair, his long legs, his violet-circledeyes staring out with a look of hebe-tude and overwhelming fatigue. Merrilooked around him and shuddered. Theatmosphere of the place had becomestrangely weird and uncanny; even thetablecloth, dragged half across the table,looked somehow like a shroud.

“What shall we do, Rateau?” he asked

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tremulously at last.“Get out of this infernal place,” replied

the other huskily. ”I feel as if I were inmy grave-clothes already.”

“Hold your tongue, you miserablecoward! You’ll make the aristo think thatwe are afraid.”

“Well?” queried Rateau blandly.”Aren’t you?”

“No!” replied Merri fiercely. ”I’ll gonow because ... because ... well! be-cause I have had enough to-day. Andthe wench sickens me. I wish to servethe Republic by marrying her, but justnow I feel as if I should never really wanther. So I’ll go! But, understand!” he

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added, and turned once more to Esther,even though he could not bring himselfto go nigh her again. ”Understand thatto-morrow I’ll come again for my an-swer. In the meanwhile, you may thinkmatters over, and, maybe, you’ll arriveat a more reasonable frame of mind. Youwill not leave these rooms until I set youfree. My men will remain as sentinels atyour door.”

He beckoned to Rateau, and the twomen went out of the room without an-other word.

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V

The whole of that night Esther re-mained shut up in her apartment in thePetite Rue Taranne. All night she heardthe measured tramp, the movements,the laughter and loud talking of menoutside her door. Once or twice she triedto listen to what they said. But the doorsand walls in these houses of old Pariswere too stout to allow voices to filterthrough, save in the guise of a confusedmurmur. She would have felt horriblylonely and frightened but for the factthat in one window on the third floor inthe house opposite the light of a lampappeared like a glimmer of hope. Jack

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Kennard was there, on the watch. Hehad the window open and sat beside ituntil a very late hour; and after that hekept the light in, as a beacon, to bid herbe of good cheer.

In the middle of the night he madean attempt to see her, hoping to catchthe sentinels asleep or absent. But,having climbed the five stories of thehouse wherein she dwelt, he arrivedon the landing outside her door andfound there half a dozen ruffians squat-ting on the stone floor and engaged inplaying hazard with a pack of greasycards. That wretched consumptive,Rateau, was with them, and made a face-tious remark as Kennard, pale and hag-

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gard, almost ghostlike, with a white ban-dage round his head, appeared upon thelanding.

“Go back to bed, citizen,” the odiouscreature said, with a raucous laugh. ”Weare taking care of your sweetheart foryou.”

Never in all his life had Jack Kennardfelt so abjectly wretched as he did then,so miserably helpless. There was noth-ing that he could do, save to return tothe lodging, which a kind friend had lenthim for the occasion, and from whencehe could, at any rate, see the windowsbehind which his beloved was watchingand suffering.

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When he went a few moments ago,he had left the porte cochere ajar. Nowhe pushed it open and stepped into thedark passage beyond. A tiny streakof light filtrated through a small cur-tained window in the concierge’s lodge;it served to guide Kennard to the foot ofthe narrow stone staircase which led tothe floors above. Just at the foot of thestairs, on the mat, a white paper glim-mered in the dim shaft of light. Hepaused, puzzled, quite certain that thepaper was not there five minutes agowhen he went out. Oh! it may have flut-tered in from the courtyard beyond, orfrom anywhere, driven by the draught.But, even so, with that mechanical action

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peculiar to most people under like cir-cumstances, he stooped and picked upthe paper, turned it over between his fin-gers, and saw that a few words werescribbled on it in pencil. The light wastoo dim to read by, so Kennard, still quitemechanically, kept the paper in his handand went up to his room. There, by thelight of the lamp, he read the few wordsscribbled in pencil:

“Wait in the street outside.”Nothing more. The message was ob-

viously not intended for him, and yet....A strange excitement possessed him. Ifit should be! If...! He had heard–everyone had–of the mysterious agen-cies that were at work, under cover of

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darkness, to aid the unfortunate, the in-nocent, the helpless. He had heard ofthat legendary English gentleman whohad before now defied the closest vigi-lance of the Committees, and snatchedtheir intended victims out of their mur-derous clutches, at times under theirvery eyes.

If this should be...! He scarce daredput his hope into words. He could notbring himself really to believe. But hewent. He ran downstairs and out intothe street, took his stand under a project-ing doorway nearly opposite the housewhich held the woman he loved, andleaning against the wall, he waited.

After many hours–it was then past

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three o’clock in the morning, and thesky of an inky blackness–he felt so numbthat despite his will a kind of trance-like drowsiness overcame him. He couldno longer stand on his feet; his kneeswere shaking; his head felt so heavythat he could not keep it up. It rolledround from shoulder to shoulder, as ifhis will no longer controlled it. And itached furiously. Everything around himwas very still. Even ”Paris-by-Night,”that grim and lurid giant, was for themoment at rest. A warm summer rainwas falling; its gentle, pattering mur-mur into the gutter helped to lull Ken-nard’s senses into somnolence. He wason the point of dropping off to sleep

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when something suddenly roused him.A noise of men shouting and laughing–familiar sounds enough in these squalidParis streets.

But Kennard was wide awake now;numbness had given place to intensequivering of all his muscles, and super-keenness of his every sense. He peeredinto the darkness and strained his earsto hear. The sound certainly appearedto come from the house opposite, andthere, too, it seemed as if something orthings were moving. Men! More thanone or two, surely! Kennard thoughtthat he could distinguish at least threedistinct voices; and there was that weird,racking cough which proclaimed the

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presence of Rateau.Now the men were quite close to

where he–Kennard–still stood cowering.A minute or two later they had passeddown the street. Their hoarse voicessoon died away in the distance. Kennardcrept cautiously out of his hiding-place.Message or mere coincidence, he nowblessed that mysterious scrap of paper.Had he remained in his room, he mightreally have dropped off to sleep and notheard these men going away. There werethree of them at least–Kennard thoughtfour. But, anyway, the number of watch-dogs outside the door of his beloved hadconsiderably diminished. He felt that hehad the strength to grapple with them,

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even if there were still three of them left.He, an athlete, English, and master ofthe art of self-defence; and they, a merepack of drink-sodden brutes! Yes! Hewas quite sure he could do it. Quite surethat he could force his way into Esther’srooms and carry her off in his arms–whither? God alone knew. And Godalone would provide.

Just for a moment he wondered if,while he was in that state of somno-lence, other bandits had come to take theplace of those that were going. But thisthought he quickly dismissed. In anycase, he felt a giant’s strength in him-self, and could not rest now till he hadtried once more to see her. He crept very

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cautiously along; was satisfied that thestreet was deserted.

Already he had reached the houseopposite, had pushed open the portecochere, which was on the latch–when,without the slightest warning, he wassuddenly attacked from behind, his armsseized and held behind his back witha vice-like grip, whilst a vigorous kickagainst the calves of his legs caused himto lose his footing and suddenly broughthim down, sprawling and helpless, inthe gutter, while in his ear there rang thehideous sound of the consumptive ruf-fian’s racking cough.

“What shall we do with the cub now?”a raucous voice came out of the dark-

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ness.

“Let him lie there,” was the quick re-sponse. ”It’ll teach him to interfere withthe work of honest patriots.”

Kennard, lying somewhat bruised andstunned, heard this decree with thank-fulness. The bandits obviously thoughthim more hurt than he was, and if onlythey would leave him lying here, hewould soon pick himself up and re-new his attempt to go to Esther. Hedid not move, feigning unconscious-ness, even though he felt rather thansaw that hideous Rateau stooping overhim, heard his stertorous breathing, thewheezing in his throat.

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“Run and fetch a bit of cord, citizenDesmonts,” the wretch said presently.”A trussed cub is safer than a loose one.”

This dashed Kennard’s hopes to agreat extent. He felt that he must actquickly, before those brigands returnedand rendered him completely helpless.He made a movement to rise–a move-ment so swift and sudden as only atrained athlete can make. But, quickas he was, that odious, wheezing crea-ture was quicker still, and now, whenKennard had turned on his back, Rateaupromptly sat on his chest, a dead weight,with long legs stretched out before him,coughing and spluttering, yet wholly athis ease.

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Oh! the humiliating position foran amateur middle-weight champion tofind himself in, with that drink-sodden–Kennard was sure that he was drink-sodden–consumptive sprawling on thetop of him!

“Don’t trouble, citizen Desmonts,” thewretch cried out after his retreating com-panions. ”I have what I want by me.”

Very leisurely he pulled a coil of ropeout of the capacious pocket of his tat-tered coat. Kennard could not see whathe was doing, but felt it with super-sensitive instinct all the time. He layquite still beneath the weight of thatmiscreant, feigning unconsciousness, yethardly able to breathe. That tuberculous

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caitiff was such a towering weight. Buthe tried to keep his faculties on the alert,ready for that surprise spring whichwould turn the tables, at the slightestfalse move on the part of Rateau.

But, as luck would have it, Rateau didnot make a single false move. It wasamazing with what dexterity he keptKennard down, even while he contrivedto pinion him with cords. An old sailor,probably, he seemed so dexterous withknots.

My God! the humiliation of it all. AndEsther a helpless prisoner, inside thathouse not five paces away! Kennard’sheavy, wearied eyes could perceive thelight in her window, five stories above

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where he lay, in the gutter, a helplesslog. Even now he gave a last desperateshriek:

“Esther!”

But in a second the abominable brig-and’s hand came down heavily upon hismouth, whilst a raucous voice splutteredrather than said, right through an awfulfit of coughing:

“Another sound, and I’ll gag as well asbind you, you young fool!”

After which, Kennard remained quitestill.

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VI

Esther, up in her little attic, knew noth-ing of what her English lover was eventhen suffering for her sake. She herselfhad passed, during the night, throughevery stage of horror and of fear. Soonafter midnight that execrable brigandRateau had poked his ugly, cadaverousface in at the door and peremptorilycalled for Lucienne. The woman, moredead than alive now with terror, had an-swered with mechanical obedience.

“I and my friends are thirsty,” the manhad commanded. ”Go and fetch us alitre of eau-de-vie.”

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Poor Lucienne stammered a pitiable:”Where shall I go?”

“To the house at the sign of ’Le fortSamson,’ in the Rue de Seine,” repliedRateau curtly. ”They’ll serve you well ifyou mention my name.”

Of course Lucienne protested. She wasa decent woman, who had never been in-side a cabaret in her life.

“Then it’s time you began,” wasRateau’s dry comment, which wasgreeted with much laughter from hisabominable companions.

Lucienne was forced to go. It would,of course, have been futile and madnessto resist. This had occurred three hours

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since. The Rue de Seine was not far, butthe poor woman had not returned. Es-ther was left with this additional horrorweighing upon her soul. What had hap-pened to her unfortunate servant? Vi-sions of outrage and murder floated be-fore the poor girl’s tortured brain. Atbest, Lucienne was being kept out ofthe way in order to make her–Esther–feel more lonely and desperate! She re-mained at the window after that, watch-ing that light in the house opposite andfingering her prayer-book, the only so-lace which she had. Her attic was sohigh up and the street so narrow, thatshe could not see what went on in thestreet below. At one time she heard a

548


great to-do outside her door. It seemedas if some of the bloodhounds who wereset to watch her had gone, or that otherscame. She really hardly cared which itwas. Then she heard a great commotioncoming from the street immediately be-neath her: men shouting and laughing,and that awful creature’s rasping cough.

At one moment she felt sure that Ken-nard had called to her by name. Sheheard his voice distinctly, raised as if in adespairing cry.

After that, all was still.

So still that she could hear her heartbeating furiously, and then a tear fallingfrom her eyes upon her open book. So

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still that the gentle patter of the rainsounded like a soothing lullaby. She wasvery young, and was very tired. Out,above the line of sloping roofs and chim-ney pots, the darkness of the sky wasyielding to the first touch of dawn. Therain ceased. Everything became deathlystill. Esther’s head fell, wearied, uponher folded arms.

Then, suddenly, she was wide awake.Something had roused her. A noise.At first she could not tell what it was,but now she knew. It was the openingand shutting of the door behind her, andthen a quick, stealthy footstep across theroom. The horror of it all was unspeak-able. Esther remained as she had been,

550


on her knees, mechanically fingering herprayer-book, unable to move, unable toutter a sound, as if paralysed. She knewthat one of those abominable creatureshad entered her room, was coming nearher even now. She did not know who itwas, only guessed it was Rateau, for sheheard a raucous, stertorous wheeze. Yetshe could not have then turned to lookif her life had depended upon her doingso.

The whole thing had occurred in lessthan half a dozen heart-beats. The nextmoment the wretch was close to her.Mercifully she felt that her senses wereleaving her. Even so, she felt that ahandkerchief was being bound over her

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mouth to prevent her screaming. Whollyunnecessary this, for she could not haveuttered a sound. Then she was liftedoff the ground and carried across theroom, then over the threshold. A vague,subconscious effort of will helped her tokeep her head averted from that wheez-ing wretch who was carrying her. Thusshe could see the landing, and two ofthose abominable watchdogs who hadbeen set to guard her.

The ghostly grey light of dawncame peeping in through the narrowdormer window in the sloping roof,and faintly illumined their sprawlingforms, stretched out at full length, withtheir heads buried in their folded arms

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and their naked legs looking pallid andweird in the dim light. Their stertorousbreathing woke the echoes of the bare,stone walls. Esther shuddered andclosed her eyes. She was now likean insentient log, without power, orthought, or will–almost without feeling.

Then, all at once, the coolness of themorning air caught her full in the face.She opened her eyes and tried to move,but those powerful arms held her moreclosely than before. Now she could haveshrieked with horror. With returningconsciousness the sense of her desperateposition came on her with its full andghastly significance, its awe-inspiringdetails. The grey dawn, the abandoned

553


wretch who held her, and the stillness ofthis early morning hour, when not onepitying soul would be astir to lend hera helping hand or give her the solace ofmute sympathy. So great, indeed, wasthis stillness that the click of the man’ssabots upon the uneven pavement rever-berated, ghoul-like and weird.

And it was through that awesome still-ness that a sound suddenly struck herear, which, in the instant, made her feelthat she was not really alive, or, if alive,was sleeping and dreaming strange andimpossible dreams. It was the soundof a voice, clear and firm, and with awonderful ring of merriment in its tones,calling out just above a whisper, and in

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English, if you please:“Look out, Ffoulkes! That young cub

is as strong as a horse. He will give us allaway if you are not careful.”

A dream? Of course it was a dream,for the voice had sounded very close toher ear; so close, in fact, that ... well!Esther was quite sure that her face stillrested against the hideous, tattered, andgrimy coat which that repulsive Rateauhad been wearing all along. And therewas the click of his sabots upon the pave-ment all the time. So, then, the voice andthe merry, suppressed laughter whichaccompanied it, must all have been apart of her dream. How long this lastedshe could not have told you. An hour

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and more, she thought, while the greydawn yielded to the roseate hue of morn-ing. Somehow, she no longer sufferedeither terror or foreboding. A subtleatmosphere of strength and of securityseemed to encompass her. At one timeshe felt as if she were driven along ina car that jolted horribly, and when shemoved her face and hands they came incontact with things that were fresh andgreen and smelt of the country. She wasin darkness then, and more than threeparts unconscious, but the handkerchiefhad been removed from her mouth. Itseemed to her as if she could hear thevoice of her Jack, but far away and in-distinct; also the tramp of horses’ hoofs

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and the creaking of cart-wheels, and attimes that awful, rasping cough, whichreminded her of the presence of a loath-some wretch, who should not have hada part in her soothing dream.

Thus many hours must have gone by.

Then, all at once, she was inside ahouse–a room, and she felt that she wasbeing lowered very gently to the ground.She was on her feet, but she could notsee where she was. There was furniture;a carpet; a ceiling; the man Rateau withthe sabots and the dirty coat, and themerry English voice, and a pair of deep-set blue eyes, thoughtful and lazy andinfinitely kind.

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But before she could properly focuswhat she saw, everything began to whirland to spin around her, to dance a wildand idiotic saraband, which caused herto laugh, and to laugh, until her throatfelt choked and her eyes hot; after whichshe remembered nothing more.

VII

The first thing of which Esther Vincentwas conscious, when she returned to hersenses, was of her English lover kneel-ing beside her. She was lying on somekind of couch, and she could see his facein profile, for he had turned and was

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speaking to someone at the far end of theroom.

“And was it you who knocked medown?” he was saying, ”and sat on mychest, and trussed me like a fowl?”

“La! my dear sir,” a lazy, pleasantvoice riposted, ”what else could I do?There was no time for explanations. Youwere half-crazed, and would not haveunderstood. And you were ready tobring all the nightwatchmen about ourears.”

“I am sorry!” Kennard said simply.”But how could I guess?”

“You couldn’t,” rejoined the other.”That is why I had to deal so summar-

559


ily with you and with Mademoiselle Es-ther, not to speak of good old Lucienne,who had never, in her life, been insidea cabaret. You must all forgive me ereyou start upon your journey. You are notout of the wood yet, remember. ThoughParis is a long way behind, France itselfis no longer a healthy place for any ofyou.”

“But how did we ever get out of Paris?I was smothered under a pile of cab-bages, with Lucienne on one side of meand Esther, unconscious, on the other.I could see nothing. I know we haltedat the barrier. I thought we would berecognised, turned back! My God! howI trembled!”

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“Bah!” broke in the other, with acareless laugh. ”It is not so difficult asit seems. We have done it before–eh,Ffoulkes? A market-gardener’s cart, avillainous wretch like myself to drive it,another hideous object like Sir AndrewFfoulkes, Bart., to lead the scraggy nag,a couple of forged or stolen passports,plenty of English gold, and the deed isdone!”

Esther’s eyes were fixed upon thespeaker. She marvelled now how shecould have been so blind. The cadaver-ous face was nothing but a splendid useof grease paint! The rags! the dirt! thewhole assumption of a hideous characterwas masterly! But there were the eyes,

561


deep-set, and thoughtful and kind. Howdid she fail to guess?

“You are known as the Scarlet Pimper-nel,” she said suddenly. ”Suzanne deTournai was my friend. She told me. Yousaved her and her family, and now ... oh,my God!” she exclaimed, ”how shall weever repay you?”

“By placing yourselves unreservedlyin my friend Ffoulkes’ hands,” hereplied gently. ”He will lead you tosafety and, if you wish it, to England.”

“If we wish it!” Kennard sighed fer-vently.

“You are not coming with us, Blak-eney?” queried Sir Andrew Ffoulkes,

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and it seemed to Esther’s sensitive earsas if a tone of real anxiety and also of en-treaty rang in the young man’s voice.

“No, not this time,” replied Sir Percylightly. ”I like my character of Rateau,and I don’t want to give it up just yet.I have done nothing to arouse suspicionin the minds of my savoury compeers upat the Cabaret de la Liberté. I can eas-ily keep this up for some time to come,and frankly I admire myself as citizenRateau. I don’t know when I have en-joyed a character so much!”

“You mean to return to the Cabaret dela Liberté!” exclaimed Sir Andrew.

“Why not?”

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“You will be recognised!”“Not before I have been of service to a

good many unfortunates, I hope.”“But that awful cough of yours! Percy,

you’ll do yourself an injury with it oneday.”

“Not I! I like that cough. I practisedit for a long time before I did it to per-fection. Such a splendid wheeze! I mustteach Tony to do it some day. Would youlike to hear it now?”

He laughed, that perfect, delightful,lazy laugh of his, which carried everyhearer with it along the path of light-hearted merriment. Then he broke intothe awful cough of the consumptive

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Rateau. And Esther Vincent instinctivelyclosed her eyes and shuddered.

565

X. ”NEEDS MUST–”

I

The children were all huddled up to-gether in one corner of the room. Eti-enne and Valentine, the two eldest, had

566


their arms round the little one. As forLucile, she would have told you herselfthat she felt just like a bird between twosnakes–terrified and fascinated–oh! es-pecially by that little man with the paleface and the light grey eyes and the slen-der white hands unstained by toil, oneof which rested lightly upon the desk,and was only clenched now and then ata word or a look from the other man orfrom Lucile herself.

But Commissary Lebel just tried tobrowbeat her. It was not difficult, for intruth she felt frightened enough already,with all this talk of ”traitors” and thatawful threat of the guillotine.

Lucile Clamette, however, would have

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remained splendidly loyal in spite of allthese threats, if it had not been for thechildren. She was little mother to them;for father was a cripple, with speechand mind already impaired by creepingparalysis, and maman had died when lit-tle Josephine was born. And now thosefiends threatened not only her, but Eti-enne who was not fourteen, and Valen-tine who was not much more than ten,with death, unless she–Lucile–broke thesolemn word which she had given to M.le Marquis. At first she had tried to denyall knowledge of M. le Marquis’ where-abouts.

“I can assure M. le Commissaire thatI do not know,” she had persisted qui-

568


etly, even though her heart was beatingso rapidly in her bosom that she felt as ifshe must choke.

“Call me citizen Commissary,” Lebelhad riposted curtly. ”I should take it asa proof that your aristocratic sentimentsare not so deep-rooted as they appear tobe.”

“Yes, citizen!” murmured Lucile, un-der her breath.

Then the other one, he with the paleeyes and the slender white hands, leanedforward over the desk, and the poor girlfelt as if a mighty and unseen force washolding her tight, so tight that she couldneither move, nor breathe, nor turn

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her gaze away from those pale, com-pelling eyes. In the remote corner lit-tle Josephine was whimpering, and Eti-enne’s big, dark eyes were fixed bravelyupon his eldest sister.

“There, there! little citizeness,” the aw-ful man said, in a voice that soundedlow and almost caressing, ”there is noth-ing to be frightened of. No one is go-ing to hurt you or your little family. Weonly want you to be reasonable. Youhave promised to your former employerthat you would never tell anyone of hiswhereabouts. Well! we don’t ask you totell us anything.

“All that we want you to do is to writea letter to M. le Marquis–one that I my-

570


self will dictate to you. You have writtento M. le Marquis before now, on businessmatters, have you not?”

“Yes, monsieur–yes, citizen,” stam-mered Lucile through her tears. ”Fatherwas bailiff to M. le Marquis until he be-came a cripple and now I—”

“Do not write any letter, Lucile,” Eti-enne suddenly broke in with forceful ve-hemence. ”It is a trap set by these mis-creants to entrap M. le Marquis.”

There was a second’s silence in theroom after this sudden outburst on thepart of the lad. Then the man with thepale face said quietly:

“Citizen Lebel, order the removal of

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that boy. Let him be kept in custody tillhe has learned to hold his tongue.”

But before Lebel could speak to thetwo soldiers who were standing onguard at the door, Lucile had uttered aloud cry of agonised protest.

“No! no! monsieur!–that is citizen!”she implored. ”Do not take Etienneaway. He will be silent.... I promiseyou that he will be silent ... only do nottake him away! Etienne, my little one!”she added, turning her tear-filled eyes toher brother, ”I entreat thee to hold thytongue!”

The others, too, clung to Etienne, andthe lad, awed and subdued, relapsed

572


into silence.

“Now then,” resumed Lebel roughly,after a while, ”let us get on with thisbusiness. I am sick to death of it. It haslasted far too long already.”

He fixed his blood-shot eyes upon Lu-cile and continued gruffly:

“Now listen to me, my wench, for thisis going to be my last word. CitizenChauvelin here has already been verylenient with you by allowing this letterbusiness. If I had my way I’d make youspeak here and now. As it is, you ei-ther sit down and write the letter at cit-izen Chauvelin’s dictation at once, or Isend you with that impudent brother of

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yours and your imbecile father to jail, ona charge of treason against the State, foraiding and abetting the enemies of theRepublic; and you know what the con-sequences of such a charge usually are.The other two brats will go to a House ofCorrection, there to be detained duringthe pleasure of the Committee of PublicSafety. That is my last word,” he reiter-ated fiercely. ”Now, which is it to be?”

He paused, the girl’s wan cheeksturned the colour of lead. She moist-ened her lips once or twice with hertongue; beads of perspiration appearedat the roots of her hair. She gazed help-lessly at her tormentors, not daring tolook on those three huddled-up little fig-

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ures there in the corner. A few secondssped away in silence. The man withthe pale eyes rose and pushed his chairaway. He went to the window, stoodthere with his back to the room, thoseslender white hands of his clasped be-hind him. Neither the commissary northe girl appeared to interest him further.He was just gazing out of the window.

The other was still sprawling besidethe desk, his large, coarse hand–howdifferent his hands were!–was beating adevil’s tatoo upon the arm of his chair.

After a few minutes, Lucile made a vi-olent effort to compose herself, wipedthe moisture from her pallid foreheadand dried the tears which still hung

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upon her lashes. Then she rose from herchair and walked resolutely up to thedesk.

“I will write the letter,” she said sim-ply.

Lebel gave a snort of satisfaction; butthe other did not move from his positionnear the window. The boy, Etienne, haduttered a cry of passionate protest.

“Do not give M. le Marquis away, Lu-cile!” he said hotly. ”I am not afraid todie.”

But Lucile had made up her mind.How could she do otherwise, with theseawful threats hanging over them all? Sheand Etienne and poor father gone, and

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the two young ones in one of those aw-ful Houses of Correction, where childrenwere taught to hate the Church, to shunthe Sacraments, and to blaspheme God!

“What am I to write?” she asked dully,resolutely closing her ears against herbrother’s protest.

Lebel pushed pen, ink and paper to-wards her and she sat down, ready to be-gin.

“Write!” now came in a curt commandfrom the man at the window. And Lucilewrote at his dictation:

The pen dropped from the unfortu-nate girl’s fingers. She buried her facein her hands and sobbed convulsively.

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The children were silent, awed andsubdued–tired out, too. Only Etienne’sdark eyes were fixed upon his sister witha look of mute reproach.

Lebel had made no attempt to inter-rupt the flow of his colleague’s dicta-tion. Only once or twice did a hastilysmothered ”What the—!” of astonish-ment escape his lips. Now, when theletter was finished and duly signed, hedrew it to him and strewed the sand overit. Chauvelin, more impassive than ever,was once more gazing out of the win-dow.

“How are the ci-devant aristos to getthis letter?” the commissary asked.

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“It must be put in the hollow treewhich stands by the side of the stablegate at Montorgueil,” whispered Lucile.

“And the aristos will find it there?”“Yes. M. le Vicomte goes there once or

twice a week to see if there is anythingthere from one of us.”

“They are in hiding somewhere closeby, then?”

But to this the girl gave no reply. In-deed, she felt as if any word now mightchoke her.

“Well, no matter where they are!” theinhuman wretch resumed, with brutalcynicism. ”We’ve got them now–both ofthem. Marquis! Vicomte!” he added,

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and spat on the ground to express hiscontempt of such titles. ”Citizens Mon-torgueil, father and son–that’s all theyare! And as such they’ll walk up in stateto make their bow to Mme. la Guillo-tine!”

“May we go now?” stammered Lucilethrough her tears.

Lebel nodded in assent, and the girlrose and turned to walk towards thedoor. She called to the children, andthe little ones clustered round her skirtslike chicks around the mother-hen. OnlyEtienne remained aloof, wrathful againsthis sister for what he deemed her treach-ery. ”Women have no sense of honour!”he muttered to himself, with all the pride

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of conscious manhood. But Lucile feltmore than ever like a bird who is vainlytrying to evade the clutches of a fowler.She gathered the two little ones aroundher. Then, with a cry like a wounded doeshe ran quickly out of the room.

II

As soon as the sound of the children’sfootsteps had died away down the corri-dor, Lebel turned with a grunt to his stillsilent companion.

“And now, citizen Chauvelin,” he saidroughly, ”perhaps you will be good

581


enough to explain what is the meaningof all this tomfoolery.”

“Tomfoolery, citizen?” queried theother blandly. ”What tomfoolery, pray?”

“Why, about those papers!” growledLebel savagely. ”Curse you for an inter-fering busybody! It was I who got infor-mation that those pestilential aristos, theMontorgueils, far from having fled thecountry are in hiding somewhere in mydistrict. I could have made the girl giveup their hiding-place pretty soon, with-out any help from you. What right hadyou to interfere, I should like to know?”

“You know quite well what right I had,citizen Lebel,” replied Chauvelin with

582


perfect composure. ”The right conferredupon me by the Committee of PublicSafety, of whom I am still an unwor-thy member. They sent me down hereto lend you a hand in an investigationwhich is of grave importance to them.”

“I know that!” retorted Lebel sulkily.”But why have invented the story of thepapers?”

“It is no invention, citizen,” rejoinedChauvelin with slow emphasis. ”Thepapers do exist. They are actually inthe possession of the Montorgueils, fa-ther and son. To capture the two aristoswould be not only a blunder, but crimi-nal folly, unless we can lay hands on thepapers at the same time.”

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“But what in Satan’s name are thosepapers?” ejaculated Lebel with a fierceoath.

“Think, citizen Lebel! Think!” wasChauvelin’s cool rejoinder. ”Methinksyou might arrive at a pretty shrewdguess.” Then, as the other’s bluster andbounce suddenly collapsed upon his col-league’s calm, accusing gaze, the lattercontinued with impressive deliberation:

“The papers which the two aristoshave in their possession, citizen, are re-ceipts for money, for bribes paid to var-ious members of the Committee of Pub-lic Safety by Royalist agents for the over-throw of our glorious Republic. Youknow all about them, do you not?”

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While Chauvelin spoke, a look offurtive terror had crept into Lebel’s eyes;his cheeks became the colour of lead. Buteven so, he tried to keep up an air of in-credulity and of amazement.

“I?” he exclaimed. ”What do youmean, citizen Chauvelin? What shouldI know about it?”

“Some of those receipts are signedwith your name, citizen Lebel,” retortedChauvelin forcefully. ”Bah!” he added,and a tone of savage contempt crept intohis even, calm voice now. ”Heriot, Fouc-quier, Ducros and the whole gang of youare in it up to the neck: trafficking withour enemies, trading with England, tak-ing bribes from every quarter for work-

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ing against the safety of the Republic.Ah! if I had my way, I would let thehatred of those aristos take its course.I would let the Montorgueils and thewhole pack of Royalist agents publishthose infamous proofs of your treacheryand of your baseness to the entire world,and send the whole lot of you to the guil-lotine!”

He had spoken with so much concen-trated fury, and the hatred and contemptexpressed in his pale eyes were so fiercethat an involuntary ice-cold shiver randown the length of Lebel’s spine. But,even so, he would not give in; he triedto sneer and to keep up something of hisformer surly defiance.

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“Bah!” he exclaimed, and with a low-ering glance gave hatred for hatred, andcontempt for contempt. ”What can youdo? An I am not mistaken, there is nomore discredited man in France to-daythan the unsuccessful tracker of the Scar-let Pimpernel.”

The taunt went home. It was Chau-velin’s turn now to lose countenance, topale to the lips. The glow of virtuous in-dignation died out of his eyes, his lookbecame furtive and shamed.

“You are right, citizen Lebel,” he saidcalmly after a while. ”Recriminations be-tween us are out of place. I am a dis-credited man, as you say. Perhaps itwould have been better if the Committee

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had sent me long ago to expiate my fail-ures on the guillotine. I should at leastnot have suffered, as I am suffering now,daily, hourly humiliation at thought ofthe triumph of an enemy, whom I hatewith a passion which consumes my verysoul. But do not let us speak of me,” hewent on quietly. ”There are graver af-fairs at stake just now than mine own.”

Lebel said nothing more for the mo-ment. Perhaps he was satisfied at thesuccess of his taunt, even though the ter-ror within his craven soul still caused thecold shiver to course up and down hisspine. Chauvelin had once more turnedto the window; his gaze was fixed uponthe distance far away. The window gave

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on the North. That way, in a straight line,lay Calais, Boulogne, England–where hehad been made to suffer such bitter hu-miliation at the hands of his elusive en-emy. And immediately before him wasParis, where the very walls seemed toecho that mocking laugh of the dar-ing Englishman which would haunt himeven to his grave.

Lebel, unnerved by his colleague’s si-lence, broke in gruffly at last:

“Well then, citizen,” he said, with afeeble attempt at another sneer, ”if youare not thinking of sending us all to theguillotine just yet, perhaps you will begood enough to explain just how thematter stands?”

589


“Fairly simply, alas!” replied Chau-velin dryly. ”The two Montorgueils, fa-ther and son, under assumed names,were the Royalist agents who succeededin suborning men such as you, citizen–the whole gang of you. We have trackedthem down, to this district, have confis-cated their lands and ransacked the oldchateau for valuables and so on. Twodays later, the first of a series of pestilen-tial anonymous letters reached the Com-mittee of Public Safety, threatening thepublication of a whole series of compro-mising documents if the Marquis andthe Vicomte de Montorgueil were in anyway molested, and if all the Montorgueilproperty is not immediately restored.”

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“I suppose it is quite certain that thosereceipts and documents do exist?” sug-gested Lebel.

“Perfectly certain. One of the receipts,signed by Heriot, was sent as a speci-men.”

“My God!” ejaculated Lebel, andwiped the cold sweat from his brow.

“Yes, you’ll all want help from some-where,” retorted Chauvelin coolly.”From above or from below, what? ifthe people get to know what miscreantsyou are. I do believe,” he added, with avicious snap of his thin lips, ”that theywould cheat the guillotine of you and,in the end, drag you out of the tumbrils

591


and tear you to pieces limb from limb!”

Once more that look of furtive terrorcrept into the commissary’s bloodshoteyes.

“Thank the Lord,” he muttered, ”thatwe were able to get hold of the wenchClamette!”

“At my suggestion,” retorted Chau-velin curtly. ”I always believe in threat-ening the weak if you want to coerce thestrong. The Montorgueils cannot resistthe wench’s appeal. Even if they do atfirst, we can apply the screw by clappingone of the young ones in gaol. Withina week we shall have those papers, citi-zen Lebel; and if, in the meanwhile, no

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one commits a further blunder, we canclose the trap on the Montorgueils with-out further trouble.”

Lebel said nothing more, and after awhile Chauvelin went back to the desk,picked up the letter which poor Lucilehad written and watered with her tears,folded it deliberately and slipped it intothe inner pocket of his coat.

“What are you going to do?” queriedLebel anxiously.

“Drop this letter into the hollow treeby the side of the stable gate at Mon-torgueil,” replied Chauvelin simply.

“What?” exclaimed the other. ”Your-self?”

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“Why, of course! Think you I wouldentrust such an errand to another livingsoul?”

III

A couple of hours later, when the twochildren had had their dinner and hadsettled down to play in the garden, andfather been cosily tucked up for his af-ternoon sleep, Lucile called her brotherEtienne to her. The boy had not spo-ken to her since that terrible time spentin the presence of those two awful men.He had eaten no dinner, only sat glower-ing, staring straight out before him, from

594


time to time throwing a look of burningreproach upon his sister. Now, when shecalled to him, he tried to run away, washalfway up the stairs before she couldseize hold of him.

“Etienne, mon petit!” she implored,as her arms closed around his shrinkingfigure.

“Let me go, Lucile!” the boy pleadedobstinately.

“Mon petit, listen to me!” she pleaded.”All is not lost, if you will stand by me.”

“All is lost, Lucile!” Etienne cried,striving to keep back a flood of passion-ate tears. ”Honour is lost. Your treach-ery has disgraced us all. If M. le Mar-

595


quis and M. le Vicomte are brought tothe guillotine, their blood will be uponour heads.”

“Upon mine alone, my little Etienne,”she said sadly. ”But God alone can judgeme. It was a terrible alternative: M. leMarquis, or you and Valentine and lit-tle Josephine and poor father, who is sohelpless! But don’t let us talk of it. Allis not lost, I am sure. The last time thatI spoke with M. le Marquis–it was inFebruary, do you remember?–he was fullof hope, and oh! so kind. Well, he toldme then that if ever I or any of us herewere in such grave trouble that we didnot know where to turn, one of us wasto put on our very oldest clothes, look

596


as like a bare-footed beggar as we could,and then go to Paris to a place called theCabaret de la Liberté in the Rue Chris-tine. There we were to ask for the citizenRateau, and we were to tell him all ourtroubles, whatever they might be. Well!we are in such trouble now, mon petit,that we don’t know where to turn. Puton thy very oldest clothes, little one, andrun bare-footed into Paris, find the cit-izen Rateau and tell him just what hashappened: the letter which they haveforced me to write, the threats whichthey held over me if I did not write it–everything. Dost hear?”

Already the boy’s eyes were glow-ing. The thought that he individually

597


could do something to retrieve the awfulshame of his sister’s treachery spurredhim to activity. It needed no persuasionon Lucile’s part to induce him to go. Shemade him put on some old clothes andstuffed a piece of bread and cheese intohis breeches pocket.

It was close upon a couple of leaguesto Paris, but that run was one of thehappiest which Etienne had ever made.And he did it bare-footed, too, feelingneither fatigue nor soreness, despite thehardness of the road after a two weeks’drought, which had turned mud intohard cakes and ruts into fissures whichtore the lad’s feet till they bled.

He did not reach the Cabaret de la

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Liberté till nightfall, and when he gotthere he hardly dared to enter. The filth,the squalor, the hoarse voices whichrose from that cellar-like place below thelevel of the street, repelled the country-bred lad. Were it not for the desperateurgency of his errand he never wouldhave dared to enter. As it was, the fumesof alcohol and steaming, dirty clothesnearly choked him, and he could scarcestammer the name of ”citizen Rateau”when a gruff voice presently demandedhis purpose.

He realised now how tired he was andhow hungry. He had not thought topause in order to consume the small pro-vision of bread and cheese wherewith

599


thoughtful Lucile had provided him.Now he was ready to faint when a loudguffaw, which echoed from one end ofthe horrible place to the other, greetedhis timid request.

“Citizen Rateau!” the same gruff voicecalled out hilariously. ”Why, there he is!Here, citizen! there’s a blooming aristoto see you.”

Etienne turned his weary eyes tothe corner which was being indicatedto him. There he saw a huge crea-ture sprawling across a bench, withlong, powerful limbs stretched out be-fore him. Citizen Rateau was clothed,rather than dressed, in a soiled shirt,ragged breeches and tattered stockings,

600


with shoes down at heel and faded crim-son cap. His face looked congested andsunken about the eyes; he appeared tobe asleep, for stertorous breathing cameat intervals from between his parted lips,whilst every now and then a rackingcough seemed to tear at his broad chest.

Etienne gave him one look, shudder-ing with horror, despite himself, at theaspect of this bloated wretch from whomsalvation was to come. The whole placeseemed to him hideous and loathsome inthe extreme. What it all meant he couldnot understand; all that he knew wasthat this seemed like another hideoustrap into which he and Lucile had fallen,and that he must fly from it–fly at all

601


costs, before he betrayed M. le Mar-quis still further to these drink-soddenbrutes. Another moment, and he fearedthat he might faint. The din of a bibu-lous song rang in his ears, the reek ofalcohol turned him giddy and sick. Hehad only just enough strength to turnand totter back into the open. There hissenses reeled, the lights in the houses op-posite began to dance wildly before hiseyes, after which he remembered noth-ing more.

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IV

There is nothing now in the wholecountryside quite so desolate and for-lorn as the chateau of Montorgueil, withits once magnificent park, now over-grown with weeds, its encircling wallsbroken down, its terraces devastated,and its stately gates rusty and torn.

Just by the side of what was knownin happier times as the stable gate therestands a hollow tree. It is not inside thepark, but just outside, and shelters thenarrow lane, which skirts the park walls,against the blaze of the afternoon sun.

Its beneficent shade is a favourite spot

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for an afternoon siesta, for there is a bitof green sward under the tree, and allalong the side of the road. But as theshades of evening gather in, the lane isusually deserted, shunned by the neigh-bouring peasantry on account of its eerieloneliness, so different to the former bus-tle which used to reign around the parkgates when M. le Marquis and his fam-ily were still in residence. Nor does thelane lead anywhere, for it is a mere loopwhich gives on the main road at eitherend.

Henri de Montorgueil chose a pecu-liarly dark night in mid-September forone of his periodical visits to the hollow-tree. It was close on nine o’clock when

604


he passed stealthily down the lane, keep-ing close to the park wall. A soft rainwas falling, the first since the prolongeddrought, and though it made the roadheavy and slippery in places, it helpedto deaden the sound of the young man’sfurtive footsteps. The air, except forthe patter of the rain, was absolutelystill. Henri de Montorgueil paused fromtime to time, with neck craned forward,every sense on the alert, listening, likeany poor, hunted beast, for the slightestsound which might betray the approachof danger.

As many a time before, he reached thehollow tree in safety, felt for and foundin the usual place the letter which the un-

605


fortunate girl Lucile had written to him.Then, with it in his hand, he turned tothe stable gate. It had long since ceasedto be kept locked and barred. Pillagedand ransacked by order of the Commit-tee of Public Safety, there was nothingleft inside the park walls worth keepingunder lock and key.

Henri slipped stealthily through thegates and made his way along the drive.Every stone, every nook and cranny ofhis former home was familiar to him,and anon he turned into a shed wherein former times wheelbarrows and gar-den tools were wont to be kept. Now itwas full of debris, lumber of every sort.A more safe or secluded spot could not

606


be imagined. Henri crouched in the fur-thermost corner of the shed. Then fromhis belt he detached a small dark lan-thorn, opened its shutter, and with theaid of the tiny, dim light read the con-tents of the letter. For a long while af-ter that he remained quite still, as stillas a man who has received a stunningblow on the head and has partly lost con-sciousness. The blow was indeed a stag-gering one. Lucile Clamette, with theinvincible power of her own helpless-ness, was demanding the surrender ofa weapon which had been a safeguardfor the Montorgueils all this while. Thepapers which compromised a number ofinfluential members of the Committee of

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Public Safety had been the most perfectarms of defence against persecution andspoliation.

And now these were to be given up:Oh! there could be no question of that.Even before consulting with his father,Henri knew that the papers would haveto be given up. They were clever, thoserevolutionaries. The thought of holdinginnocent children as hostages could onlyhave originated in minds attuned to thevillainies of devils. But it was unthink-able that the children should suffer.

After a while the young man rousedhimself from the torpor into which thesuddenness of this awful blow hadplunged him. By the light of the lanthorn

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he began to write upon a sheet of paperwhich he had torn from his pocket-book.

“MY DEAR LUCILE,” he wrote, ”Asyou say, our debt to your father and toyou all never could be adequately re-paid. You and the children shall neversuffer whilst we have the power to saveyou. You will find the papers in the re-ceptacle you know of inside the chim-ney of what used to be my mother’sboudoir. You will find the receptacle un-locked. One day before the term youname I myself will place the papers therefor you. With them, my father and I dogive up our lives to save you and thelittle ones from the persecution of thosefiends. May the good God guard you

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all.”

He signed the letter with his initials, H.de M. Then he crept back to the gate anddropped the message into the hollow ofthe tree.

A quarter of an hour later Henri deMontorgueil was wending his way backto the hiding place which had shel-tered him and his father for so long.Silence and darkness then held undis-puted sway once more around the hol-low tree. Even the rain had ceased itsgentle pattering. Anon from far awaycame the sound of a church bell strikingthe hour of ten. Then nothing more.

A few more minutes of absolute si-

610


lence, then something dark and furtivebegan to move out of the long grasswhich bordered the roadside–somethingthat in movement was almost like asnake. It dragged itself along close to theground, making no sound as it moved.Soon it reached the hollow tree, rose tothe height of a man and flattened itselfagainst the tree-trunk. Then it put outa hand, felt for the hollow receptacleand groped for the missive which Henride Montorgueil had dropped in there awhile ago.

The next moment a tiny ray of lightgleamed through the darkness like a star.A small, almost fragile, figure of a man,dressed in the mud-stained clothes of a

611


country yokel, had turned up the shut-ter of a small lanthorn. By its flicker-ing light he deciphered the letter whichHenri de Montorgueil had written to Lu-cile Clamette.

“One day before the term you nameI myself will place the papers there foryou.”

A sigh of satisfaction, quickly sup-pressed, came through his thin, colour-less lips, and the light of the lanthorncaught the flash of triumph in his pale,inscrutable eyes.

Then the light was extinguished. Im-penetrable darkness swallowed up thatslender, mysterious figure again.

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V

Six days had gone by since Chauvelinhad delivered his cruel ”either–or” topoor little Lucile Clamette; three since hehad found Henri de Montorgueil’s replyto the girl’s appeal in the hollow of thetree. Since then he had made a careful in-vestigation of the chateau, and soon wasable to settle it in his own mind as towhich room had been Madame la Mar-quise’s boudoir in the past. It was asmall apartment, having direct access onthe first landing of the staircase, and theone window gave on the rose garden atthe back of the house. Inside the mon-umental hearth, at an arm’s length up

613


the wide chimney, a receptacle had beencontrived in the brickwork, with a smalliron door which opened and closed witha secret spring. Chauvelin, whom hisnefarious calling had rendered proficientin such matters, had soon mastered theworkings of that spring. He could nowopen and close the iron door at will.

Up to a late hour on the sixth night ofthis weary waiting, the receptacle insidethe chimney was still empty. That nightChauvelin had determined to spend atthe chateau. He could not have restedelsewhere.

Even his colleague Lebel could notknow what the possession of those pa-pers would mean to the discredited

614


agent of the Committee of Public Safety.With them in his hands, he could de-mand rehabilitation, and could purchaseimmunity from those sneers which hadbeen so galling to his arrogant soul–sneers which had become more andmore marked, more and more unen-durable, and more and more menacing,as he piled up failure on failure with ev-ery encounter with the Scarlet Pimper-nel.

Immunity and rehabilitation! Thiswould mean that he could once moremeasure his wits and his power withthat audacious enemy who had broughtabout his downfall.

“In the name of Satan, bring us those

615


papers!” Robespierre himself had criedwith unwonted passion, ere he sent himout on this important mission. ”We noneof us could stand the scandal of such dis-closures. It would mean absolute ruinfor us all.”

And Chauvelin that night, as soon asthe shades of evening had drawn in,took up his stand in the chateau, in thesmall inner room which was contiguousto the boudoir.

Here he sat, beside the open win-dow, for hour upon hour, his everysense on the alert, listening for thefirst footfall upon the gravel path be-low. Though the hours went by leaden-footed, he was neither excited nor anx-

616


ious. The Clamette family was such aprecious hostage that the Montorgueilswere bound to comply with Lucile’s de-mand for the papers by every dictate ofhonour and of humanity.

“While we have those people in ourpower,” Chauvelin had reiterated tohimself more than once during thecourse of his long vigil, ”even that med-dlesome Scarlet Pimpernel can do noth-ing to save those cursed Montorgueils.”

The night was dark and still. Nota breath of air stirred the branches ofthe trees or the shrubberies in the park;any footsteps, however wary, must echothrough that perfect and absolute si-lence. Chauvelin’s keen, pale eyes

617


tried to pierce the gloom in the direc-tion whence in all probability the aristowould come. Vaguely he wondered if itwould be Henri de Montorgueil or theold Marquis himself who would bringthe papers.

“Bah! whichever one it is,” he mut-tered, ”we can easily get the other,once those abominable papers are in ourhands. And even if both the aristos es-cape,” he added mentally, ”’tis no mat-ter, once we have the papers.”

Anon, far away a distant church bellstruck the midnight hour. The stillnessof the air had become oppressive. A kindof torpor born of intense fatigue lulledthe Terrorist’s senses to somnolence. His

618


head fell forward on his breast....

VI

Then suddenly a shiver of excitementwent right through him. He was fullyawake now, with glowing eyes wideopen and the icy calm of perfect confi-dence ruling every nerve. The sound ofstealthy footsteps had reached his ear.

He could see nothing, either outside orin; but his fingers felt for the pistol whichhe carried in his belt. The aristo was ev-idently alone; only one solitary footstepwas approaching the chateau.

619


Chauvelin had left the door ajar whichgave on the boudoir. The staircase wason the other side of that fateful room,and the door leading to that was closed.A few minutes of tense expectancy wentby. Then through the silence there camethe sound of furtive foot-steps on thestairs, the creaking of a loose board andfinally the stealthy opening of the door.

In all his adventurous career Chau-velin had never felt so calm. His heartbeat quite evenly, his senses were undis-turbed by the slightest tingling of hisnerves. The stealthy sounds in the nextroom brought the movements of thearisto perfectly clear before his mentalvision. The latter was carrying a small

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dark lanthorn. As soon as he entered heflashed its light about the room. Then hedeposited the lanthorn on the

floor, close beside the hearth, andstarted to feel up the chimney for thehidden receptacle.

Chauvelin watched him now like a catwatches a mouse, savouring these fewmoments of anticipated triumph. Hepushed open the door noiselessly whichgave on the boudoir. By the feeble lightof the lanthorn on the ground he couldonly see the vague outline of the aristo’sback, bending forward to his task; but athrill went through him as he saw a bun-dle of papers lying on the ground closeby.

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Everything was ready; the trap wasset. Here was a complete victory atlast. It was obviously the young Vi-comte de Montorgueil who had come todo the deed. His head was up the chim-ney even now. The old Marquis’s backwould have looked narrower and morefragile. Chauvelin held his breath; thenhe gave a sharp little cough, and took thepistol from his belt.

The sound caused the aristo to turn,and the next moment a loud and merrylaugh roused the dormant echoes of theold chateau, whilst a pleasant, drawlyvoice said in English:

“I am demmed if this is not my dearold friend M. Chambertin! Zounds,

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sir! who’d have thought of meeting youhere?”

Had a cannon suddenly exploded atChauvelin’s feet he would, I think, havefelt less unnerved. For the space of twoheart-beats he stood there, rooted to thespot, his eyes glued on his arch-enemy,that execrated Scarlet Pimpernel, whosemocking glance, even through the inter-vening gloom, seemed to have deprivedhim of consciousness. But that phase ofhelplessness only lasted for a moment;the next, all the marvellous possibili-ties of this encounter flashed through theTerrorist’s keen mind.

Everything was ready; the trap wasset! The unfortunate Clamettes were still

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the bait which now would bring a farmore noble quarry into the mesh thaneven he–Chauvelin–had dared to hope.

He raised his pistol, ready to fire.But already Sir Percy Blakeney was onhim, and with a swift movement, whichthe other was too weak to resist, hewrenched the weapon from his enemy’sgrasp.

“Why, how hasty you are, my dear M.Chambertin,” he said lightly. ”Surelyyou are not in such a hurry to put ademmed bullet into me!”

The position now was one whichwould have made even a braver manthan Chauvelin quake. He stood alone

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and unarmed in face of an enemy fromwhom he could expect no mercy. But,even so, his first thought was not of es-cape. He had not only apprised his owndanger, but also the immense powerwhich he held whilst the Clamettes re-mained as hostages in the hands of hiscolleague Lebel.

“You have me at a disadvantage, SirPercy,” he said, speaking every whit ascoolly as his foe. ”But only momentar-ily. You can kill me, of course; but if Ido not return from this expedition notonly safe and sound, but with a certainpacket of papers in my hands, my col-league Lebel has instructions to proceedat once against the girl Clamette and the

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whole family.”“I know that well enough,” rejoined

Sir Percy with a quaint laugh. ”I knowwhat venomous reptiles you and thoseof your kidney are. You certainly do oweyour life at the present moment to theunfortunate girl whom you are persecut-ing with such infamous callousness.”

Chauvelin drew a sigh of relief. Thesituation was shaping itself more tohis satisfaction already. Through thegloom he could vaguely discern the En-glishman’s massive form standing a fewpaces away, one hand buried in hisbreeches pockets, the other still hold-ing the pistol. On the ground close bythe hearth was the small lanthorn, and

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in its dim light the packet of papersgleamed white and tempting in the dark-ness. Chauvelin’s keen eyes had fas-tened on it, saw the form of receipt formoney with Heriot’s signature, which herecognised, on the top.

He himself had never felt so calm.The only thing he could regret was thathe was alone. Half a dozen men now,and this impudent foe could indeed bebrought to his knees. And this time therewould be no risks taken, no chances forescape. Somehow it seemed to Chau-velin as if something of the Scarlet Pim-pernel’s audacity and foresight had gonefrom him. As he stood there, look-ing broad and physically powerful, there

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was something wavering and undecidedin his attitude, as if the edge had beentaken off his former recklessness and en-thusiasm. He had brought the com-promising papers here, had no doubthelped the Montorgueils to escape; butwhile Lucile Clamette and her familywere under the eye of Lebel no amountof impudence could force a successfulbargaining.

It was Chauvelin now who appearedthe more keen and the more alert; theEnglishman seemed undecided what todo next, remained silent, toying withthe pistol. He even smothered a yawn.Chauvelin saw his opportunity. Withthe quick movement of a cat pouncing

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upon a mouse he stooped and seizedthat packet of papers, would then andthere have made a dash for the door withthem, only that, as he seized the packet,the string which held it together gaveway and the papers were scattered allover the floor.

Receipts for money? Compromisingletters? No! Blank sheets of paper, allof them–all except the one which hadlain tantalisingly on the top: the one re-ceipt signed by citizen Heriot. Sir Percylaughed lightly:

“Did you really think, my goodfriend,” he said, ”that I would be sucha demmed fool as to place my bestweapon so readily to your hand?”

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“Your best weapon, Sir Percy!” re-torted Chauvelin, with a sneer. ”Whatuse is it to you while we hold LucileClamette?”

“While I hold Lucile Clamette, youmean, my dear Monsieur Chambertin,”riposted Blakeney with elaborate bland-ness.

“You hold Lucile Clamette? Bah! Idefy you to drag a whole family like thatout of our clutches. The man a cripple,the children helpless! And you thinkthey can escape our vigilance when allour men are warned! How do you thinkthey are going to get across the river,Sir Percy, when every bridge is closelywatched? How will they get across

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Paris, when at every gate our men are onthe look-out for them?”

“They can’t do it, my dear MonsieurChambertin,” rejoined Sir Percy blandly,”else I were not here.”

Then, as Chauvelin, fuming, irritateddespite himself, as he always was whenhe encountered that impudent English-man, shrugged his shoulders in tokenof contempt, Blakeney’s powerful graspsuddenly clutched his arm.

“Let us understand one another, mygood M. Chambertin,” he said coolly.”Those unfortunate Clamettes, as yousay, are too helpless and too numerous tosmuggle across Paris with any chance of

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success. Therefore I look to you to takethem under your protection. They areall stowed away comfortably at this mo-ment in a conveyance which I have pro-vided for them. That conveyance is wait-ing at the bridgehead now. We couldnot cross without your help; we couldnot get across Paris without your au-gust presence and your tricolour scarfof office. So you are coming with us,my dear M. Chambertin,” he continued,and, with force which was quite irre-sistible, he began to drag his enemy af-ter him towards the door. ”You are go-ing to sit in that conveyance with theClamettes, and I myself will have thehonour to drive you. And at every

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bridgehead you will show your pleasingcountenance and your scarf of office tothe guard and demand free passage foryourself and your family, as a represen-tative member of the Committee of Pub-lic Safety. And then we’ll enter Paris bythe Porte d’Ivry and leave it by the Batig-nolles; and everywhere your charmingpresence will lull the guards’ suspicionsto rest. I pray you, come! There is notime to consider! At noon to-morrow,without a moment’s grace, my friend SirAndrew Ffoulkes, who has the papers inhis possession, will dispose of them ashe thinks best unless I myself do claimthem from him.”

While he spoke he continued to drag

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his enemy along with him, with an as-surance and an impudence which werepast belief. Chauvelin was trying to col-lect his thoughts; a whirl of conflictingplans were running riot in his mind. TheScarlet Pimpernel in his power! At anypoint on the road he could deliver himup to the nearest guard ... then still holdthe Clamettes and demand the papers....

“Too late, my dear Monsieur Cham-bertin!” Sir Percy’s mocking voice brokein, as if divining his thoughts. ”Youdo not know where to find my friendFfoulkes, and at noon to-morrow, if I donot arrive to claim those papers, therewill not be a single ragamuffin in Pariswho will not be crying your shame and

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that of your precious colleagues uponthe housetops.”

Chauvelin’s whole nervous systemwas writhing with the feeling of impo-tence. Mechanically, unresisting now, hefollowed his enemy down the main stair-case of the chateau and out through thewide open gates. He could not bringhimself to believe that he had been socompletely foiled, that this impudent ad-venturer had him once more in the hol-low of his hand.

“In the name of Satan, bring us backthose papers!” Robespierre had com-manded. And now he–Chauvelin–wasleft in a maze of doubt; and the vi-tal alternative was hammering in his

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brain: ”The Scarlet Pimpernel–or thosepapers—” Which, in Satan’s name, wasthe more important? Passion whispered”The Scarlet Pimpernel!” but commonsense and the future of his party, thewhole future of the Revolution mayhap,demanded those compromising papers.And all the while he followed that relent-less enemy through the avenues of thepark and down the lonely lane. Over-head the trees of the forest of Sucy, nod-ding in a gentle breeze, seemed to mockhis perplexity.

He had not arrived at a definite deci-sion when the river came in sight, andwhen anon a carriage lanthorn threwa shaft of dim light through the mist-

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laden air. Now he felt as if he were ina dream. He was thrust unresisting intoa closed chaise, wherein he felt the pres-ence of several other people–children, anold man who was muttering ceaselessly.As in a dream he answered questions atthe bridge to a guard whom he knewwell.

“You know me–Armand Chauvelin, ofthe Committee of Public Safety!”

As in a dream, he heard the curt wordsof command:

“Pass on, in the name of the Republic!”And all the while the thought ham-

mered in his brain: ”Something must bedone! This is impossible! This cannot

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be! It is not I–Chauvelin–who am sittinghere, helpless, unresisting. It is not thatimpudent Scarlet Pimpernel who is sit-ting there before me on the box, drivingme to utter humiliation!”

And yet it was all true. All real. TheClamette children were sitting in front ofhim, clinging to Lucile, terrified of himeven now. The old man was beside him–imbecile and not understanding. Theboy Etienne was up on the box next tothat audacious adventurer, whose broadback appeared to Chauvelin like a rockon which all his hopes and dreams mustfor ever be shattered.

The chaise rattled triumphantlythrough the Batignolles. It was then

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broad daylight. A brilliant early autumnday after the rains. The sun, the keen air,all mocked Chauvelin’s helplessness,his humiliation. Long before noon theypassed St. Denis. Here the baroucheturned off the main road, halted at asmall wayside house–nothing morethan a cottage. After which everythingseemed more dreamlike than ever. Allthat Chauvelin remembered of it after-wards was that he was once more alonein a room with his enemy, who haddemanded his signature to a numberof safe-conducts, ere he finally handedover the packet of papers to him.

“How do I know that they are allhere?” he heard himself vaguely mutter-

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ing, while his trembling fingers handledthat precious packet.

“That’s just it!” his tormentor retortedairily. ”You don’t know. I don’t knowmyself,” he added, with a light laugh.”And, personally, I don’t see how ei-ther of us can possibly ascertain. In themeanwhile, I must bid you au revoir, mydear M. Chambertin. I am sorry that Icannot provide you with a conveyance,and you will have to walk a league ormore ere you meet one, I fear me. We,in the meanwhile, will be well on ourway to Dieppe, where my yacht, the DayDream, lies at anchor, and I do not thinkthat it will be worth your while to tryand overtake us. I thank you for the safe-

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conducts. They will make our journeyexceedingly pleasant. Shall I give yourregards to M. le Marquis de Montorgueilor to M. le Vicomte? They are on boardthe Day Dream, you know. Oh! and Iwas forgetting! Lady Blakeney desiredto be remembered to you.”

The next moment he was gone. Chau-velin, standing at the window of thewayside house, saw Sir Percy Blak-eney once more mount the box of thechaise. This time he had Sir AndrewFfoulkes beside him. The Clamette fam-ily were huddled together–happy andfree–inside the vehicle. After whichthere was the usual clatter of horses’hoofs, the creaking of wheels, the rat-

641


tle of chains. Chauvelin saw and heardnothing of that. All that he saw at thelast was Sir Percy’s slender hand, wav-ing him a last adieu.

After which he was left alone with histhoughts. The packet of papers was inhis hand. He fingered it, felt its crisp-ness, clutched it with a fierce gesture,which was followed by a long-drawn-out sigh of intense bitterness.

No one would ever know what it hadcost him to obtain these papers. Noone would ever know how much he hadsacrificed of pride, revenge and hate inorder to save a few shreds of his ownparty’s honour.

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XI. A BATTLE OFWITS

I

What had happened was this:

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XI. A BATTLE OF WITS

Tournefort, one of the ablest of themany sleuth-hounds employed by theCommittee of Public Safety, was out dur-ing that awful storm on the night of thetwenty-fifth. The rain came down as ifit had been poured out of buckets, andTournefort took shelter under the por-tico of a tall, dilapidated-looking housesomewhere at the back of St. Lazare.The night was, of course, pitch dark, andthe howling of the wind and beating ofthe rain effectually drowned every othersound.

Tournefort, chilled to the marrow, hadat first cowered in the angle of the door,as far away from the draught as hecould. But presently he spied the glim-

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mer of a tiny light some little way up onhis left, and taking this to come from theconcierge’s lodge, he went cautiouslyalong the passage intending to ask forbetter shelter against the fury of the el-ements than the rickety front door af-forded.

Tournefort, you must remember, wasalways on the best terms with everyconcierge in Paris. They were, as itwere, his subordinates; without theirhelp he never could have carried on hisunavowable profession quite so success-fully. And they, in their turn, found itto their advantage to earn the good-willof that army of spies, which the Revolu-tionary Government kept in its service,

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for the tracking down of all those un-fortunates who had not given completeadhesion to their tyrannical and murder-ous policy.

Therefore, in this instance, Tournefortfelt no hesitation in claiming the hos-pitality of the concierge of the squalidhouse wherein he found himself. Hewent boldly up to the lodge. His handwas already on the latch, when certainsounds which proceeded from the inte-rior of the lodge caused him to pauseand to bend his ear in order to listen. Itwas Tournefort’s metier to listen. Whathad arrested his attention was the soundof a man’s voice, saying in a tone of deeprespect:

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“Bien, Madame la Comtesse, we’ll doour best.”

No wonder that the servant of theCommittee of Public Safety remained atattention, no longer thought of the stormor felt the cold blast chilling him tothe marrow. Here was a wholly unex-pected piece of good luck. ”Madame laComtesse!” Peste! There were not manysuch left in Paris these days. Unfortu-nately, the tempest of the wind and therain made such a din that it was difficultto catch every sound which came fromthe interior of the lodge. All that Tourne-fort caught definitely were a few frag-ments of conversation.

“My good M. Bertin ...” came at one

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time from a woman’s voice. ”Truly I donot know why you should do all this forme.”

And then again: ”All I possess in theworld now are my diamonds. Theyalone stand between my children and ut-ter destitution.”

The man’s voice seemed all the time tobe saying something that sounded cheer-ful and encouraging. But his voice cameonly as a vague murmur to the listener’sears. Presently, however, there camea word which set his pulses tingling.Madame said something about ”Gen-tilly,” and directly afterwards: ”You willhave to be very careful, my dear M.Bertin. The chateau, I feel sure, is being

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watched.”Tournefort could scarce repress a cry

of joy. ”Gentilly? Madame la Comtesse?The chateau?” Why, of course, he heldall the necessary threads already. Theci-devant Comte de Sucy–a pestilentialaristo if ever there was one!–had beensent to the guillotine less than a fort-night ago. His chateau, situated justoutside Gentilly, stood empty, it havingbeen given out that the widow Sucy andher two children had escaped to Eng-land. Well! she had not gone appar-ently, for here she was, in the lodge ofthe concierge of a mean house in oneof the desolate quarters of Paris, beg-ging some traitor to find her diamonds

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for her, which she had obviously leftconcealed inside the chateau. What ahaul for Tournefort! What commenda-tion from his superiors! The chances ofa speedy promotion were indeed glori-ous now! He blessed the storm and therain which had driven him for shelter tothis house, where a poisonous plot wasbeing hatched to rob the people of valu-able property, and to aid a few more ofthose abominable aristos in cheating theguillotine of their traitorous heads.

He listened for a while longer, in orderto get all the information that he couldon the subject of the diamonds, becausehe knew by experience that those perfid-ious aristos, once they were under arrest,

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would sooner bite out their tongues thanreveal anything that might be of serviceto the Government of the people. But helearned little else. Nothing was revealedof where Madame la Comtesse was inhiding, or how the diamonds were tobe disposed of once they were found.Tournefort would have given much tohave at least one of his colleagues withhim. As it was, he would be forced toact single-handed and on his own initia-tive. In his own mind he had already de-cided that he would wait until Madamela Comtesse came out of the concierge’slodge, and that he would follow her andapprehend her somewhere out in theopen streets, rather than here where her

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friend Bertin might prove to be a stal-wart as well as a desperate man, readywith a pistol, whilst he–Tournefort–wasunarmed. Bertin, who had, it seemed,been entrusted with the task of findingthe diamonds, could then be shadowedand arrested in the very act of filchingproperty which by decree of the State be-longed to the people.

So he waited patiently for a while. Nodoubt the aristo would remain here un-der shelter until the storm had abated.Soon the sound of voices died down, andan extraordinary silence descended onthis miserable, abandoned corner of oldParis. The silence became all the moremarked after a while, because the rain

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ceased its monotonous pattering and thesoughing of the wind was stilled. It was,in fact, this amazing stillness which setcitizen Tournefort thinking. Evidentlythe aristo did not intend to come out ofthe lodge to-night. Well! Tournefort hadnot meant to make himself unpleasantinside the house, or to have a quarrel justyet with the traitor Bertin, whoever hewas; but his hand was forced and he hadno option.

The door of the lodge was locked.He tugged vigorously at the bell againand again, for at first he got no an-swer. A few minutes later he heard thesound of shuffling footsteps upon creak-ing boards. The door was opened, and

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a man in night attire, with bare, thinlegs and tattered carpet slippers on hisfeet, confronted an exceedingly aston-ished servant of the Committee of PublicSafety. Indeed, Tournefort thought thathe must have been dreaming, or that hewas dreaming now. For the man whoopened the door to him was well knownto every agent of the Committee. Hewas an ex-soldier who had been crip-pled years ago by the loss of one arm,and had held the post of concierge ina house in the Ruelle du Paradis eversince. His name was Grosjean. He wasvery old, and nearly doubled up withrheumatism, had scarcely any hair on hishead or flesh on his bones. At this mo-

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ment he appeared to be suffering froma cold in the head, for his eyes werestreaming and his narrow, hooked nosewas adorned by a drop of moisture atits tip. In fact, poor old Grosjean lookedmore like a dilapidated scarecrow thana dangerous conspirator. Tournefort lit-erally gasped at sight of him, and Gros-jean uttered a kind of croak, intended, nodoubt, for complete surprise.

“Citizen Tournefort!” he exclaimed.”Name of a dog! What are you do-ing here at this hour and in this abom-inable weather? Come in! Come in!” headded, and, turning on his heel, he shuf-fled back into the inner room, and thenreturned carrying a lighted lamp, which

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he set upon the table. ”Amelie left a supof hot coffee on the hob in the kitchen be-fore she went to bed. You must have adrop of that.”

He was about to shuffle off again whenTournefort broke in roughly:

“None of that nonsense, Grosjean!Where are the aristos?”

“The aristos, citizen?” queried Gros-jean, and nothing could have lookedmore utterly, more ludicrously bewil-dered than did the old concierge at thismoment. ”What aristos?”

“Bertin and Madame la Comtesse,” re-torted Tournefort gruffly. ”I heard themtalking.”

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“You have been dreaming, citizenTournefort,” the old man said, with ahusky little laugh. ”Sit down, and let meget you some coffee–”

“Don’t try and hoodwink me, Gros-jean!” Tournefort cried now in a suddenaccess of rage. ”I tell you that I saw thelight. I heard the aristos talking. Therewas a man named Bertin, and a womanhe called ’Madame la Comtesse,’ and Isay that some devilish royalist plot is be-ing hatched here, and that you, Grosjean,will suffer for it if you try and shieldthose aristos.”

“But, citizen Tournefort,” replied theconcierge meekly, ”I assure you that Ihave seen no aristos. The door of my

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bedroom was open, and the lamp wasby my bedside. Amelie, too, has onlybeen in bed a few minutes. You ask her!There has been no one, I tell you–no one!I should have seen and heard them–thedoor was open,” he reiterated patheti-cally.

“We’ll soon see about that!” wasTournefort’s curt comment.

But it was his turn indeed to be ut-terly bewildered. He searched–none toogently–the squalid little lodge throughand through, turned the paltry sticksof furniture over, hauled little Amelie,Grosjean’s granddaughter, out of bed,searched under the mattresses, and evenpoked his head up the chimney.

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Grosjean watched him wholly unper-turbed. These were strange times, andfriend Tournefort had obviously gonea little off his head. The worthy oldconcierge calmly went on getting the cof-fee ready. Only when presently Tourne-fort, worn out with anger and futileexertion, threw himself, with many anoath, into the one armchair, Grosjean re-marked coolly:

“I tell you what I think it is, citizen. Ifyou were standing just by the door of thelodge you had the back staircase of thehouse immediately behind you. The par-tition wall is very thin, and there is a dis-used door just there also. No doubt thevoices came from there. You see, if there

659


had been any aristos here,” he addednaively, ”they could not have flown upthe chimney, could they?”

That argument was certainly unan-swerable. But Tournefort was out oftemper. He roughly ordered Grosjeanto bring the lamp and show him theback staircase and the disused door. Theconcierge obeyed without a murmur. Hewas not in the least disturbed or fright-ened by all this blustering. He was onlyafraid that getting out of bed had madehis cold worse. But he knew Tournefortof old. A good fellow, but inclined tobe noisy and arrogant since he was inthe employ of the Government. Gros-jean took the precaution of putting on

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his trousers and wrapping an old shawlround his shoulders. Then he had a finalsip of hot coffee; after which he pickedup the lamp and guided Tournefort outof the lodge.

The wind had quite gone down bynow. The lamp scarcely flickered asGrosjean held it above his head.

“Just here, citizen Tournefort,” he said,and turned sharply to his left. But thenext sound which he uttered was a loudcroak of astonishment.

“That door has been out of use eversince I’ve been here,” he muttered.

“And it certainly was closed when Istood up against it,” rejoined Tourne-

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fort, with a savage oath, ”or, of course,I should have noticed it.”

Close to the lodge, at right angles toit, a door stood partially open. Tourne-fort went through it, closely followed byGrosjean. He found himself in a passagewhich ended in a cul de sac on his right;on the left was the foot of the stairs. Thewhole place was pitch dark save for thefeeble light of the lamp. The cul de sacitself reeked of dirt and fustiness, as ifit had not been cleaned or ventilated foryears.

“When did you last notice that thisdoor was closed?” queried Tournefort,furious with the sense of discomfiture,which he would have liked to vent on

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the unfortunate concierge.“I have not noticed it for some days,

citizen,” replied Grosjean meekly. ”Ihave had a severe cold, and have notbeen outside my lodge since Mondaylast. But we’ll ask Amelie!” he addedmore hopefully.

Amelie, however, could throw no lightupon the subject. She certainly keptthe back stairs cleaned and swept, butit was not part of her duties to extendher sweeping operations as far as the culde sac. She had quite enough to do asit was, with grandfather now practicallyhelpless. This morning, when she wentout to do her shopping, she had not no-ticed whether the disused door did or

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did not look the same as usual.Grosjean was very sorry for his friend

Tournefort, who appeared vastly upset,but still more sorry for himself, for heknew what endless trouble this wouldentail upon him.

Nor was the trouble slow in com-ing, not only on Grosjean, but on ev-ery lodger inside the house; for beforehalf an hour had gone by Tournefort hadgone and come back, this time with thelocal commissary of police and a coupleof agents, who had every man, womanand child in that house out of bed andexamined at great length, their iden-tity books searchingly overhauled, theirrooms turned topsy-turvy and their fur-

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niture knocked about.It was past midnight before all these

perquisitions were completed. No onedared to complain at these indignitiesput upon peaceable citizens on the meredenunciation of an obscure police agent.These were times when every regula-tion, every command, had to be acceptedwithout a murmur. At one o’clock in themorning, Grosjean himself was thankfulto get back to bed, having satisfied thecommissary that he was not a dangerousconspirator.

But of anyone even remotely ap-proaching the description of the ci-devant Comtesse de Sucy, or of any mancalled Bertin, there was not the faintest

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trace.

II

But no feeling of discomfort everlasted very long with citizen Tournefort.He was a person of vast resource andgreat buoyancy of temperament.

True, he had not apprehended twoexceedingly noxious aristos, as he hadhoped to do; but he held the threads ofan abominable conspiracy in his hands,and the question of catching both Bertinand Madame la Comtesse red-handedwas only a question of time. But littletime had been lost. There was always

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someone to be found at the offices of theCommittee of Public Safety, which wereopen all night. It was possible that cit-izen Chauvelin would be still there, forhe often took on the night shift, or elsecitizen Gourdon.

It was Gourdon who greeted his sub-ordinate, somewhat ill-humouredly, forhe was indulging in a little sleep, withhis toes turned to the fire, as the nightwas so damp and cold. But when heheard Tournefort’s story, he was all ea-gerness and zeal.

“It is, of course, too late to do anythingnow,” he said finally, after he had mas-tered every detail of the man’s adven-tures in the Ruelle du Paradis; ”but get

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together half a dozen men upon whomyou can rely, and by six o’clock in themorning, or even five, we’ll be on ourway to Gentilly. Citizen Chauvelin wasonly saying to-day that he strongly sus-pected the ci-devant Comtesse de Sucyof having left the bulk of her valuablejewellery at the chateau, and that shewould make some effort to get posses-sion of it. It would be rather fine, citizenTournefort,” he added with a chuckle, ”ifyou and I could steal a march on citizenChauvelin over this affair, what? He hasbeen extraordinarily arrogant of late andmarvellously in favour, not only with theCommittee, but with citizen Robespierrehimself.”

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“They say,” commented Tournefort,”that he succeeded in getting hold ofsome papers which were of great valueto the members of the Committee.”

“He never succeeded in getting holdof that meddlesome Englishman whomthey call the Scarlet Pimpernel,” wasGourdon’s final dry comment.

Thus was the matter decided on.And the following morning at daybreak,Gourdon, who was only a subordi-nate officer on the Committee of PublicSafety, took it upon himself to institutea perquisition in the chateau of Gentilly,which is situated close to the communeof that name. He was accompanied byhis friend Tournefort and a gang of half

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a dozen ruffians recruited from the mostdisreputable cabarets of Paris.

The intention had been to steal amarch on citizen Chauvelin, who hadbeen over arrogant of late; but the re-sult did not come up to expectations. Bymidday the chateau had been ransackedfrom attic to cellar; every kind of valu-able property had been destroyed, price-less works of art irretrievably damaged.But priceless works of art had no marketin Paris these days; and the property ofreal value–the Sucy diamonds namely–which had excited the cupidity or thepatriotic wrath of citizens Gourdon andTournefort could nowhere be found.

To make the situation more deplorable

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still, the Committee of Public Safety hadin some unexplainable way got wind ofthe affair, and the two worthies had themortification of seeing citizen Chauvelinpresently appear upon the scene.

It was then two o’clock in the after-noon. Gourdon, after he had snatched ahasty dinner at a neighbouring cabaret,had returned to the task of pulling thechateau of Gentilly about his own ears ifneed be, with a view to finding the con-cealed treasure.

For the nonce he was standing in thecentre of the finely proportioned hall.The rich ormolu and crystal chande-lier lay in a tangled, broken heap ofscraps at his feet, and all around there

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was a confused medley of pictures, stat-uettes, silver ornaments, tapestry andbrocade hangings, all piled up in dis-order, smashed, tattered, kicked at nowand again by Gourdon, to the accompa-niment of a savage oath.

The house itself was full of noises;heavy footsteps tramping up and downthe stairs, furniture turned over, curtainstorn from their poles, doors and win-dows battered in. And through it allthe ceaseless hammering of pick and axe,attacking these stately walls which hadwithstood the wars and sieges of cen-turies.

Every now and then Tournefort, hisface perspiring and crimson with exer-

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tion, would present himself at the doorof the hall. Gourdon would querygruffly: ”Well?”

And the answer was invariably thesame: ”Nothing!”

Then Gourdon would swear again andsend curt orders to continue the search,relentlessly, ceaselessly.

“Leave no stone upon stone,” he com-manded. ”Those diamonds must befound. We know they are here, and,name of a dog! I mean to have them.”

When Chauvelin arrived at thechateau he made no attempt at first tointerfere with Gourdon’s commands.Only on one occasion he remarked

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curtly:“I suppose, citizen Gourdon, that you

can trust your search party?”“Absolutely,” retorted Gourdon. ”A

finer patriot than Tournefort does not ex-ist.”

“Probably,” rejoined the other dryly.”But what about the men?”

“Oh! they are only a set of bare-footed, ignorant louts. They do as theyare told, and Tournefort has his eye onthem. I dare say they’ll contrive to steala few things, but they would never darelay hands on valuable jewellery. To be-gin with, they could never dispose of it.Imagine a va-nu-pieds peddling a dia-

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mond tiara!”“There are always receivers prepared

to take risks.”“Very few,” Gourdon assured him,

”since we decreed that trafficking witharisto property was a crime punishableby death.”

Chauvelin said nothing for the mo-ment. He appeared wrapped in his ownthoughts, listened for a while to the con-fused hubbub about the house, then heresumed abruptly:

“Who are these men whom you areemploying, citizen Gourdon?”

“A well-known gang,” replied theother. ”I can give you their names.”

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“If you please.”Gourdon searched his pockets for a

paper which he found presently andhanded to his colleague. The latter pe-rused it thoughtfully.

“Where did Tournefort find thesemen?” he asked.

“For the most part at the Cabaret de laLiberté–a place of very evil repute downin the Rue Christine.”

“I know it,” rejoined the other. He wasstill studying the list of names whichGourdon had given him. ”And,” headded, ”I know most of these men. Asthorough a set of ruffians as we needfor some of our work. Merri, Guidal,

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Rateau, Desmonds. TIENS!” he ex-claimed. ”Rateau! Is Rateau here now?”

“Why, of course! He was recruited,like the rest of them, for the day. Hewon’t leave till he has been paid, youmay be sure of that. Why do you ask?”

“I will tell you presently. But I wouldwish to speak with citizen Rateau first.”

Just at this moment Tournefort paidhis periodical visit to the hall. The usualwords, ”Still nothing,” were on his lips,when Gourdon curtly ordered him to goand fetch the citizen Rateau.

A minute or two later Tournefort re-turned with the news that Rateau couldnowhere be found. Chauvelin received

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the news without any comment; he onlyordered Tournefort, somewhat roughly,back to his work. Then, as soon as thelatter had gone, Gourdon turned uponhis colleague.

“Will you explain–” he began with ashow of bluster.

“With pleasure,” replied Chauvelinblandly. ”On my way hither, less thanan hour ago, I met your man Rateau, aleague or so from here.”

“You met Rateau!” exclaimed Gour-don impatiently. ”Impossible! He washere then, I feel sure. You must havebeen mistaken.”

“I think not. I have only seen the man

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once, when I, too, went to recruit a bandof ruffians at the Cabaret de la Liberté,in connection with some work I wanteddoing. I did not employ him then, forhe appeared to me both drink-soddenand nothing but a miserable, consump-tive creature, with a churchyard coughyou can hear half a league away. ButI would know him anywhere. Besideswhich, he stopped and wished me goodmorning. Now I come to think of it,”added Chauvelin thoughtfully, ”he wascarrying what looked like a heavy bun-dle under his arm.”

“A heavy bundle!” cried Gourdon,with a forceful oath. ”And you did notstop him!”

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“I had no reason for suspecting him.I did not know until I arrived here whatthe whole affair was about, or whom youwere employing. All that the Commit-tee knew for certain was that you andTournefort and a number of men had ar-rived at Gentilly before daybreak, and Iwas then instructed to follow you hitherto see what mischief you were up to. Youacted in complete secrecy, remember, cit-izen Gourdon, and without first ascer-taining the wishes of the Committee ofPublic Safety, whose servant you are. Ifthe Sucy diamonds are not found, youalone will be held responsible for theirloss to the Government of the People.”

Chauvelin’s voice had now assumed

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a threatening tone, and Gourdon felt allhis audacity and self-assurance fall awayfrom him, leaving him a prey to name-less terror.

“We must round up Rateau,” he mur-mured hastily. ”He cannot have gonefar.”

“No, he cannot,” rejoined Chauvelindryly. ”Though I was not speciallythinking of Rateau or of diamonds whenI started to come hither. I did send a gen-eral order forbidding any person on footor horseback to enter or leave Paris byany of the southern gates. That orderwill serve us well now. Are you riding?”

“Yes. I left my horse at the tavern

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just outside Gentilly. I can get to horsewithin ten minutes.”

“To horse, then, as quickly as you can.Pay off your men and dismiss them–all but Tournefort, who had best accom-pany us. Do not lose a single moment.I’ll be ahead of you and may come upwith Rateau before you overtake me.And if I were you, citizen Gourdon,” heconcluded, with ominous emphasis, ”Iwould burn one or two candles to yourcompeer the devil. You’ll have need ofhis help if Rateau gives us the slip.”

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III

The first part of the road from Gentillyto Paris runs through the valley of theBiere, and is densely wooded on eitherside. It winds in and out for the mostpart, ribbon-like, through thick coppiceof chestnut and birch. Thus it was im-possible for Chauvelin to spy his quarryfrom afar; nor did he expect to do so thisside of the Hopital de la Sante. Oncepast that point, he would find the roadquite open and running almost straight,in the midst of arid and only partiallycultivated land.

He rode at a sharp trot, with his capedcoat wrapped tightly round his shoul-

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ders, for it was raining fast. At inter-vals, when he met an occasional way-farer, he would ask questions about a tallman who had a consumptive cough, andwho was carrying a cumbersome burdenunder his arm.

Almost everyone whom he thus askedremembered seeing a personage whovaguely answered to the description: talland with a decided stoop–yes, and car-rying a cumbersome-looking bundle un-der his arm. Chauvelin was undoubt-edly on the track of the thief.

Just beyond Meuves he was overtakenby Gourdon and Tournefort. Here, too,the man Rateau’s track became moreand more certain. At one place he had

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stopped and had a glass of wine and arest, at another he had asked how closehe was to the gates of Paris.

The road was now quite open andlevel; the irregular buildings of the hos-pital appeared vague in the rain-soddendistance. Twenty minutes later Tourne-fort, who was riding ahead of his com-panions, spied a tall, stooping figureat the spot where the Chemin de Gen-tilly forks, and where stands a groupof isolated houses and bits of garden,which belong to la Sante. Here, beforethe days when the glorious Revolutionswept aside all such outward signs ofsuperstition, there had stood a Calvary.It was now used as a signpost. The

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man stood before it, scanning the half-obliterated indications.

At the moment that Tournefort firstcaught sight of him he appeared uncer-tain of his way. Then for a while hewatched Tournefort, who was comingat a sharp trot towards him. Finally,he seemed to make up his mind verysuddenly and, giving a last, quick lookround, he walked rapidly along the up-per road. Tournefort drew rein, waitedfor his colleagues to come up with him.Then he told them what he had seen.

“It is Rateau, sure enough,” he said. ”Isaw his face quite distinctly and heardhis abominable cough. He is trying toget into Paris. That road leads nowhere

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but to the barrier. There, of course, hewill be stopped, and–”

The other two had also brought theirhorses to a halt. The situation had be-come tense, and a plan for future actionhad at once to be decided on. AlreadyChauvelin, masterful and sure of him-self, had assumed command of the lit-tle party. Now he broke in abruptly onTournefort’s vapid reflections.

“We don’t want him stopped at thebarrier,” he said in his usual curt, author-itative manner. ”You, citizen Tourne-fort,” he continued, ”will ride as fast asyou can to the gate, making a detour bythe lower road. You will immediatelydemand to speak with the sergeant who

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is in command, and you will give him adetailed description of the man Rateau.Then you will tell him in my name that,should such a man present himself at thegate, he must be allowed to enter the cityunmolested.”

Gourdon gave a quick cry of protest.

“Let the man go unmolested? CitizenChauvelin, think what you are doing!”

“I always think of what I am doing,”retorted Chauvelin curtly, ”and have noneed of outside guidance in the process.”Then he turned once more to Tournefort.”You yourself, citizen,” he continued, insharp, decisive tones which admitted ofno argument, ”will dismount as soon as

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you are inside the city. You will keepthe gate under observation. The mo-ment you see the man Rateau, you willshadow him, and on no account losesight of him. Understand?”

“You may trust me, citizen Chau-velin,” Tournefort replied, elated at theprospect of work which was so entirelycongenial to him. ”But will you tell me–”

“I will tell you this much, citizenTournefort,” broke in Chauvelin withsome acerbity, ”that though we havetraced the diamonds and the thief sofar, we have, through your folly lastnight, lost complete track of the ci-devant Comtesse de Sucy and of the man

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Bertin. We want Rateau to show uswhere they are.”

“I understand,” murmured the othermeekly.

“That’s a mercy!” riposted Chauvelindryly. ”Then quickly man. Lose no time!Try to get a few minutes’ advance onRateau; then slip in to the guard-roomto change into less conspicuous clothes.Citizen Gourdon and I will continue onthe upper road and keep the man in sightin case he should think of altering hiscourse. In any event, we’ll meet you justinside the barrier. But if, in the mean-while, you have to get on Rateau’s trackbefore we have arrived on the scene,leave the usual indications as to the di-

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rection which you have taken.”Having given his orders and satisfied

himself that they were fully understood,he gave a curt command, ”En avant,”and once more the three of them rode ata sharp trot down the road towards thecity.

IV

Citizen Rateau, if he thought aboutthe matter at all, must indeed have beenvastly surprised at the unwonted amia-bility or indifference of sergeant Ribot,who was in command at the gate of Gen-tilly. Ribot only threw a very perfunc-

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tory glance at the greasy permit whichRateau presented to him, and when heput the usual query, ”What’s in that par-cel?” and Rateau gave the reply: ”Twoheads of cabbage and a bunch of car-rots,” Ribot merely poked one of his fin-gers into the bundle, felt that a cabbageleaf did effectually lie on the top, andthereupon gave the formal order: ”Passon, citizen, in the name of the Republic!”without any hesitation.

Tournefort, who had watched the brieflittle incident from behind the windowof a neighbouring cabaret, could nothelp but chuckle to himself. Never hadhe seen game walk more readily into atrap. Rateau, after he had passed the

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barrier, appeared undecided which wayhe would go. He looked with obvi-ous longing towards the cabaret, behindwhich the keenest agent on the staff ofthe Committee of Public Safety was evennow ensconced. But seemingly a haltwithin those hospitable doors did notform part of his programme, and a mo-ment or two later he turned sharply onhis heel and strode rapidly down theRue de l’Oursine.

Tournefort allowed him a fair start,and then made ready to follow.

Just as he was stepping out of thecabaret he spied Chauvelin and Gour-don coming through the gates. They,too, had apparently made a brief halt in-

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side the guard-room, where–as at mostof the gates–a store of various disguiseswas always kept ready for the use ofthe numerous sleuth-hounds employedby the Committee of Public Safety. Herethe two men had exchanged their offi-cial garments for suits of sombre cloth,which gave them the appearance of acouple of humble bourgeois going qui-etly about their business. Tournefort haddonned an old blouse, tattered stock-ings, and shoes down at heel. With hishands buried in his breeches’ pockets,he, too, turned into the long narrow Ruede l’Oursine, which, after a sharp curve,abuts on the Rue Mouffetard.

Rateau was walking rapidly, taking

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big strides with his long legs. Tourne-fort, now sauntering in the gutter in themiddle of the road, now darting in andout of open doorways, kept his quarrywell in sight. Chauvelin and Gourdonlagged some little way behind. It wasstill raining, but not heavily–a thin driz-zle, which penetrated almost to the mar-row. Not many passers-by haunted thisforlorn quarter of old Paris. To right andleft tall houses almost obscured the last,quickly-fading light of the grey Septem-ber day.

At the bottom of the Rue Mouffetard,Rateau came once more to a halt. Anetwork of narrow streets radiated fromthis centre. He looked all round him

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and also behind. It was difficult to knowwhether he had a sudden suspicion thathe was being followed; certain it is that,after a very brief moment of hesitation,he plunged suddenly into the narrowRue Contrescarpe and disappeared fromview.

Tournefort was after him in a trice.When he reached the corner of the streethe saw Rateau, at the further end of it,take a sudden sharp turn to the right.But not before he had very obviouslyspied his pursuer, for at that momenthis entire demeanour changed. An airof furtive anxiety was expressed in hiswhole attitude. Even at that distanceTournefort could see him clutching his

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bulky parcel close to his chest.After that the pursuit became closer

and hotter. Rateau was in and out ofthat tight network of streets which clus-ter around the Place de Fourci, intent,apparently, on throwing his pursuers offthe scent, for after a while he was run-ning round and round in a circle. Nowup the Rue des Poules, then to the rightand to the right again; back in the Placede Fourci. Then straight across it oncemore to the Rue Contrescarpe, wherehe presently disappeared so completelyfrom view that Tournefort thought thatthe earth must have swallowed him up.

Tournefort was a man capable of greatphysical exertion. His calling often made

697


heavy demands upon his powers of en-durance; but never before had he grap-pled with so strenuous a task. Puffingand panting, now running at top speed,anon brought to a halt by the doubling-up tactics of his quarry, his great diffi-culty was the fact that citizen Chauvelindid not wish the man Rateau to be ap-prehended; did not wish him to knowthat he was being pursued. And Tourne-fort had need of all his wits to keep wellunder the shadow of any projecting wallor under cover of open doorways whichwere conveniently in the way, and allthe while not to lose sight of that con-sumptive giant, who seemed to be play-ing some intricate game which well-nigh

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exhausted the strength of citizen Tourne-fort.

What he could not make out waswhat had happened to Chauvelin andto Gourdon. They had been less thanthree hundred metres behind him whenfirst this wild chase in and out of theRue Contrescarpe had begun. Now,when their presence was most needed,they seemed to have lost track both ofhim–Tournefort–and of the very elusivequarry. To make matters more com-plicated, the shades of evening weredrawing in very fast, and these nar-row streets of the Faubourg were verysparsely lighted.

Just at this moment Tournefort had

699


once more caught sight of Rateau, strid-ing leisurely this time up the street. Theworthy agent quickly took refuge un-der a doorway and was mopping hisstreaming forehead, glad of this briefrespite in the mad chase, when that aw-ful churchyard cough suddenly soundedso close to him that he gave a greatjump and well-nigh betrayed his pres-ence then and there. He had only justtime to withdraw further still into the an-gle of the doorway, when Rateau passedby.

Tournefort peeped out of his hiding-place, and for the space of a dozen heartbeats or so, remained there quite still,watching that broad back and those long

700


limbs slowly moving through the gath-ering gloom. The next instant he per-ceived Chauvelin standing at the end ofthe street.

Rateau saw him too–came face to facewith him, in fact, and must have knownwho he was for, without an instant’s hes-itation and just like a hunted creature atbay, he turned sharply on his heel andthen ran back down the street as hard ashe could tear. He passed close to withinhalf a metre of Tournefort, and as he flewpast he hit out with his left fist so vigor-ously that the worthy agent of the Com-mittee of Public Safety, caught on thenose by the blow, staggered and mea-sured his length upon the flagged floor

701


below.The next moment Chauvelin had come

by. Tournefort, struggling to his feet,called to him, panting:

“Did you see him? Which way did hego?”

“Up the Rue Bordet. After him, citi-zen!” replied Chauvelin grimly, betweenhis teeth.

Together the two men continued thechase, guided through the intricatemazes of the streets by their fleeingquarry. They had Rateau well in sight,and the latter could no longer continuehis former tactics with success now thattwo experienced sleuth-hounds were on

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his track.

At a given moment he was caught be-tween the two of them. Tournefort wasadvancing cautiously up the Rue Bordet;Chauvelin, equally stealthily, was com-ing down the same street, and Rateau,once more walking quite leisurely, wasat equal distance between the two.

V

There are no side turnings out of theRue Bordet, the total length of which isless than fifty metres; so Tournefort, feel-ing more at his ease, ensconced himself

703


at one end of the street, behind a door-way, whilst Chauvelin did the same atthe other. Rateau, standing in the gut-ter, appeared once more in a state ofhesitation. Immediately in front of himthe door of a small cabaret stood invit-ingly open; its signboard, ”Le Bon Co-pain,” promised rest and refreshment.He peered up and down the road, sat-isfied himself presumably that, for themoment, his pursuers were out of sight,hugged his parcel to his chest, and thensuddenly made a dart for the cabaret anddisappeared within its doors.

Nothing could have been better. Thequarry, for the moment, was safe, andif the sleuth-hounds could not get re-

704


freshment, they could at least get a rest.Tournefort and Chauvelin crept out oftheir hiding-places. They met in the mid-dle of the road, at the spot where Rateauhad stood a while ago. It was then grow-ing dark and the street was innocent oflanterns, but the lights inside the cabaretgave a full view of the interior. Thelower half of the wide shop-window wascurtained off, but above the curtain theheads of the customers of ”Le Bon Co-pain,” and the general comings and go-ings, could very clearly be seen.

Tournefort, never at a loss, had al-ready climbed upon a low projectionin the wall of one of the houses oppo-site. From this point of vantage he could

705


more easily observe what went on insidethe cabaret, and in short, jerky sentenceshe gave a description of what he saw tohis chief.

“Rateau is sitting down ... he has hisback to the window ... he has put hisbundle down close beside him on thebench ... he can’t speak for a minute,for he is coughing and spluttering likean old walrus.... A wench is bringinghim a bottle of wine and a hunk of breadand cheese.... He has started talking ... istalking volubly ... the people are laugh-ing ... some are applauding.... And herecomes Jean Victor, the landlord ... youknow him, citizen ... a big, hulking fel-low, and as good a patriot as I ever wish

706


to see.... He, too, is laughing and talk-ing to Rateau, who is doubled up withanother fit of coughing–”

Chauvelin uttered an exclamation ofimpatience:

“Enough of this, citizen Tournefort.Keep your eye on the man and hold yourtongue. I am spent with fatigue.”

“No wonder,” murmured Tournefort.Then he added insinuatingly: ”Why notlet me go in there and apprehend Rateaunow? We should have the diamondsand–”

“And lose the ci-devant Comtessede Sucy and the man Bertin,” re-torted Chauvelin with sudden fierce-

707


ness. ”Bertin, who can be none otherthan that cursed Englishman, the–”

He checked himself, seeing Tourne-fort was gazing down on him, with aweand bewilderment expressed in his lean,hatchet face.

“You are losing sight of Rateau,citizen,” Chauvelin continued calmly.”What is he doing now?”

But Tournefort felt that this calmnesswas only on the surface; somethingstrange had stirred the depths of hischief’s keen, masterful mind. He wouldhave liked to ask a question or two, butknew from experience that it was neitherwise nor profitable to try and probe citi-

708


zen Chauvelin’s thoughts. So after a mo-ment or two he turned back obedientlyto his task.

“I can’t see Rateau for the moment,”he said, ”but there is much talking andmerriment in there. Ah! there he is, Ithink. Yes, I see him!... He is behindthe counter, talking to Jean Victor ... andhe has just thrown some money downupon the counter.... gold too! name ofa dog....”

Then suddenly, without any warning,Tournefort jumped down from his postof observation. Chauvelin uttered abrief:

“What the—– are you doing, citizen?”

709


“Rateau is going,” replied Tournefortexcitedly. ”He drank a mug of wine ata draught and has picked up his bundle,ready to go.”

Once more cowering in the dark angleof a doorway, the two men waited, theirnerves on edge, for the reappearance oftheir quarry.

“I wish citizen Gourdon were here,”whispered Tournefort. ”In the darknessit is better to be three than two.”

“I sent him back to the Station in theRue Mouffetard,” was Chauvelin’s curtretort; ”there to give notice that I mightrequire a few armed men presently. Buthe should be somewhere about here by

710


now, looking for us. Anyway, I have mywhistle, and if–”

He said no more, for at that momentthe door of the cabaret was opened fromwithin and Rateau stepped out into thestreet, to the accompaniment of loudlaughter and clapping of hands whichcame from the customers of the ”Bon Co-pain.”

This time he appeared neither in ahurry nor yet anxious. He did not pausein order to glance to right or left, butstarted to walk quite leisurely up thestreet. The two sleuth-hounds quietlyfollowed him. Through the darknessthey could only vaguely see his silhou-ette, with the great bundle under his

711


arm. Whatever may have been Rateau’sfears of being shadowed awhile ago, hecertainly seemed free of them now. Hesauntered along, whistling a tune, downthe Montagne Ste. Genevieve to thePlace Maubert, and thence straight to-wards the river.

Having reached the bank, he turnedoff to his left, sauntered past the Ecole deMedecine and went across the Petit Pont,then through the New Market, along theQuai des Orfevres. Here he made a halt,and for awhile looked over the embank-ment at the river and then round abouthim, as if in search of something. Butpresently he appeared to make up hismind, and continued his leisurely walk

712


as far as the Pont Neuf, where he turnedsharply off to his right, still whistling,Tournefort and Chauvelin hard upon hisheels.

“That whistling is getting on mynerves,” muttered Tournefort irritably;”and I haven’t heard the ruffian’schurchyard cough since he walked outof the ’Bon Copain.”’

Strangely enough, it was this re-mark of Tournefort’s which gave Chau-velin the first inkling of somethingstrange and, to him, positively awe-some. Tournefort, who walked close be-side him, heard him suddenly mutter afierce exclamation.

713


“Name of a dog!”“What is it, citizen?” queried Tourne-

fort, awed by this sudden outburst onthe part of a man whose icy calmnesshad become proverbial throughout theCommittee.

“Sound the alarm, citizen!” criedChauvelin in response. ”Or, by Satan,he’ll escape us again!”

“But–” stammered Tournefort in utterbewilderment, while, with fingers thattrembled somewhat, he fumbled for hiswhistle.

“We shall want all the help we can,”retorted Chauvelin roughly. ”For, unlessI am much mistaken, there’s more no-

714


ble quarry here than even I could dareto hope!”

Rateau in the meanwhile had quietlylolled up to the parapet on the right-hand side of the bridge, and Tourne-fort, who was watching him with in-tense keenness, still marvelled why cit-izen Chauvelin had suddenly

become so strangely excited. Rateauwas merely lolling against the parapet,like a man who has not a care in theworld. He had placed his bundle on thestone ledge beside him. Here he waiteda moment or two, until one of the smallcraft upon the river loomed out of thedarkness immediately below the bridge.Then he picked up the bundle and threw

715


it straight into the boat. At that samemoment Tournefort had the whistle tohis lips. A shrill, sharp sound rang outthrough the gloom.

“The boat, citizen Tournefort, theboat!” cried Chauvelin. ”There areplenty of us here to deal with the man.”

Immediately, from the quays, thestreets, the bridges, dark figuresemerged out of the darkness andhurried to the spot. Some reached thebridgehead even as Rateau made adart forward, and two men were uponhim before he succeeded in runningvery far. Others had scrambled downthe embankment and were shouting tosome unseen boatman to ”halt, in the

716


name of the people!”

But Rateau gave in without a struggle.He appeared more dazed than fright-ened, and quietly allowed the agents ofthe Committee to lead him back to thebridge, where Chauvelin had paused,waiting for him.

VI

A minute or two later Tournefort wasonce more beside his chief. He was car-rying the precious bundle, which, he ex-plained, the boatman had given up with-out question.

717


“The man knew nothing about it,” theagent said. ”No one, he says, could havebeen more surprised than he was whenthis bundle was suddenly flung at himover the parapet of the bridge.”

Just then the small group, composedof two or three agents of the Committee,holding their prisoner by the arms, cameinto view. One man was walking aheadand was the first to approach Chauvelin.He had a small screw of paper in hishand, which he gave to his chief.

“Found inside the lining of the pris-oner’s hat, citizen,” he reported curtly,and opened the shutter of a small, darklantern which he wore at his belt.

718


Chauvelin took the paper from hissubordinate. A weird, unexplainableforeknowledge of what was to comecaused his hand to shake and beads ofperspiration to moisten his forehead. Helooked up and saw the prisoner standingbefore him. Crushing the paper in hishand he snatched the lantern from theagent’s belt and flashed it in the face ofthe quarry who, at the last, had been soeasily captured.

Immediately a hoarse cry of disap-pointment and of rage escaped histhroat.

“Who is this man?” he cried.

One of the agents gave reply:

719


“It is old Victor, the landlord of the’Bon Copain.’ He is just a fool, who hasbeen playing a practical joke.”

Tournefort, too, at sight of the prisonerhad uttered a cry of dismay and of aston-ishment.

“Victor!” he exclaimed. ”Name of adog, citizen, what are you doing here?”

But Chauvelin had gripped the manby the arm so fiercely that the latterswore with the pain.

“What is the meaning of this?” hequeried roughly.

“Only a bet, citizen,” retorted Victorreproachfully. ”No reason to fall on an

720


honest patriot for a bet, just as if he werea mad dog.”

“A joke? A bet?” murmured Chau-velin hoarsely, for his throat now felt hotand parched. ”What do you mean? Whoare you, man? Speak, or I’ll–”

“My name is Jean Victor,” replied theother. ”I am the landlord of the ’BonCopain.’ An hour ago a man came intomy cabaret. He was a queer, consump-tive creature, with a churchyard coughthat made you shiver. Some of my cus-tomers knew him by sight, told me thatthe man’s name was Rateau, and that hewas an habitue of the ’Liberté,’ in theRue Christine. Well; he soon fell intoconversation, first with me, then with

721


some of my customers–talked all sortsof silly nonsense, made absurd bets witheverybody. Some of these he won, andothers he lost; but I must say that whenhe lost he always paid up most liberally.Then we all got excited, and soon betsflew all over the place. I don’t rightlyknow how it happened at the last, butall at once he bet me that I would notdare to walk out then and there in thedark, as far as the Pont Neuf, wearing hisblouse and hat and carrying a bundle thesame as his under my arm. I not dare?...I, Jean Victor, who was a fine fighter inmy day! I bet him a gold piece that Iwould and he said that he would makeit five if I came back without my bundle,

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having thrown it over the parapet intoany passing boat. Well, citizen!” con-tinued Jean Victor with a laugh, ”I askyou, what would you have done? Fivegold pieces means a fortune these hardtimes, and I tell you the man was quitehonest and always paid liberally whenhe lost. He slipped behind the counterand took off his blouse and hat, which Iput on. Then we made up a bundle withsome cabbage heads and a few carrots,and out I came. I didn’t think there couldbe anything wrong in the whole affair–just the tomfoolery of a man who has gotthe betting mania and in whose pocketmoney is just burning a hole. And I havewon my bet,” concluded Jean Victor, still

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unabashed, ”and I want to go back andget my money. If you don’t believe me,come with me to my CABARET. You willfind the citizen Rateau there, for sure;and I know that I shall find my five goldpieces.”

Chauvelin had listened to the man ashe would to some weird dream-story,wherein ghouls and devils had playeda part. Tournefort, who was watch-ing him, was awed by the look offierce rage and grim hopelessness whichshone from his chief’s pale eyes. Theother agents laughed. They were highlyamused at the tale, but they would notlet the prisoner go.

“If Jean Victor’s story is true, citizen,”

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their sergeant said, speaking to Chau-velin, ”there will be witnesses to it overat ’Le Bon Copain.’ Shall we take theprisoner straightway there and awaitfurther orders?”

Chauvelin gave a curt acquiescence,nodding his head like some insentientwooden automaton. The screw of paperwas still in his hand; it seemed to sear hispalm. Tournefort even now broke into agrim laugh. He had just undone the bun-dle which Jean Victor had thrown overthe parapet of the bridge. It containedtwo heads of cabbage and a bunch ofcarrots. Then he ordered the agents tomarch on with their prisoner, and they,laughing and joking with Jean Victor,

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gave a quick turn, and soon their heavyfootsteps were echoing down the flag-stones of the bridge.

Chauvelin waited, motionless andsilent, the dark lantern still held in hisshaking hand, until he was quite surethat he was alone. Then only did he un-fold the screw of paper.

It contained a few lines scribbled inpencil–just that foolish rhyme which tohis fevered nerves was like a strong ir-ritant, a poison which gave him an un-

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endurable sensation of humiliation andimpotence:

”We seek him here, weseek him there!Chauvelin seeks him ev-erywhere!Is he in heaven? Is he inhell?That demmed, elusivePimpernel!”

He crushed the paper in his hand and,with a loud groan, of misery, fled overthe bridge like one possessed.

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VII

Madame la Comtesse de Sucy neverwent to England. She was one of thoseFrench women who would sooner en-dure misery in their own beloved coun-try than comfort anywhere else. Sheoutlived the horrors of the Revolutionand speaks in her memoirs of the manBertin. She never knew who he was norwhence he came. All that she knew wasthat he came to her like some mysteriousagent of God, bringing help, counsel, asemblance of happiness, at the momentwhen she was at the end of all her re-sources and saw grim starvation staringher and her children in the face. He ap-

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pointed all sorts of strange places in out-of-the-way Paris where she was wont tomeet him, and one night she confidedto him the history of her diamonds, andhardly dared to trust his promise that hewould get them for her.

Less than twenty-four hours later hebrought them to her, at the poor lodgingsin the Rue Blanche which she occupiedwith her children under an assumedname. That same night she begged himto dispose of them. This also he did,bringing her the money the next day.

She never saw him again after that.

But citizen Tournefort never quite gotover his disappointment of that night.

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Had he dared, he would have blamedcitizen Chauvelin for the discomfiture. Itwould have been better to have appre-hended the man Rateau while there wasa chance of doing so with success.

As it was, the impudent ruffianslipped clean away, and was never heardof again either at the ”Bon Copain” orat the ”Liberté.” The customers at thecabaret certainly corroborated the storyof Jean Victor. The man Rateau, theysaid, had been honest to the last. Whentime went on and Jean Victor did notreturn, he said that he could no longerwait, had work to do for the Govern-ment over the other side of the waterand was afraid he would get punished

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if he dallied. But, before leaving, he laidthe five gold pieces on the table. Everyone wondered that so humble a work-man had so much money in his pocket,and was withal so lavish with it. Butthese were not the times when one in-quired too closely into the presence ofmoney in the pocket of a good patriot.

And citizen Rateau was a good patriot,for sure.

And a good fellow to boot!They all drank his health in Jean Vic-

tor’s sour wine; then each went his way.

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