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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/35117-8.txt b/35117-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4330fb2 --- /dev/null +++ b/35117-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10846 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lord Tony's Wife, by Baroness Emmuska Orczy + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lord Tony's Wife + An Adventure of the Scarlet Pimpernel + +Author: Baroness Emmuska Orczy + +Release Date: January 30, 2011 [EBook #35117] +[Last updated: October 6, 2011] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORD TONY'S WIFE *** + + + + +Produced by Brenda Lewis, Carla Foust, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + _LORD TONY'S WIFE_ + BARONESS ORCZY + + + + +By BARONESS ORCZY + + LORD TONY'S WIFE + LEATHERFACE + THE BRONZE EAGLE + A BRIDE OF THE PLAINS + THE LAUGHING CAVALIER + "UNTO CÆSAR" + EL DORADO + MEADOWSWEET + THE NOBLE ROGUE + THE HEART OF A WOMAN + PETTICOAT RULE + +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY NEW YORK + + + + + LORD TONY'S WIFE + + AN ADVENTURE OF THE + SCARLET PIMPERNEL + + BY + + BARONESS ORCZY + + AUTHOR OF "THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL," "THE LAUGHING + CAVALIER," ETC. + + + NEW YORK + GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1917, + BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + + To + + DORA COUNTESS OF CHESTERFIELD + + A TOKEN OF FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE. + + EMMUSKA ORCZY. + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + PROLOGUE: NANTES, 1789 11 + + + BOOK ONE: BATH, 1793 + + CHAPTER + + I THE MOOR 43 + + II THE BOTTOM INN 50 + + III THE ASSEMBLY ROOMS 78 + + IV THE FATHER 100 + + V THE NEST 109 + + VI THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL 123 + + VII MARGUERITE 130 + + VIII THE ROAD TO PORTISHEAD 134 + + IX THE COAST OF FRANCE 147 + + + BOOK TWO: NANTES, DECEMBER, 1793 + + I THE TIGER'S LAIR 163 + + II LE BOUFFAY 195 + + III THE FOWLERS 212 + + IV THE NET 234 + + V THE MESSAGE OF HOPE 256 + + VI THE RAT MORT 267 + + VII THE FRACAS IN THE TAVERN 279 + + VIII THE ENGLISH ADVENTURERS 299 + + IX THE PROCONSUL 313 + + X LORD TONY 327 + + + + +PROLOGUE + +NANTES, 1789 + + +I + +"Tyrant! tyrant! tyrant!" + +It was Pierre who spoke, his voice was hardly raised above a murmur, but +there was such an intensity of passion expressed in his face, in the +fingers of his hand which closed slowly and convulsively as if they were +clutching the throat of a struggling viper, there was so much hate in +those muttered words, so much power, such compelling and awesome +determination that an ominous silence fell upon the village lads and the +men who sat with him in the low narrow room of the auberge des Trois +Vertus. + +Even the man in the tattered coat and threadbare breeches, who--perched +upon the centre table--had been haranguing the company on the subject of +the Rights of Man, paused in his peroration and looked down on Pierre +half afraid of that fierce flame of passionate hate which his own words +had helped to kindle. + +The silence, however, had only lasted a few moments, the next Pierre was +on his feet, and a cry like that of a bull in a slaughter-house escaped +his throat. + +"In the name of God!" he shouted, "let us cease all that senseless +talking. Haven't we planned enough and talked enough to satisfy our +puling consciences? The time has come to strike, mes amis, to strike I +say, to strike at those cursed aristocrats, who have made us what we +are--ignorant, wretched, downtrodden--senseless clods to work our +fingers to the bone, our bodies till they break so that they may wallow +in their pleasures and their luxuries! Strike, I say!" he reiterated +while his eyes glowed and his breath came and went through his throat +with a hissing sound. "Strike! as the men and women struck in Paris on +that great day in July. To them the Bastille stood for tyranny, and they +struck at it as they would at the head of a tyrant--and the tyrant +cowered, cringed, made terms--he was frightened at the wrath of the +people! That is what happened in Paris! That is what must happen in +Nantes. The château of the duc de Kernogan is our Bastille! Let us +strike at it to-night, and if the arrogant aristocrat resists, we'll +raze his house to the ground. The hour, the day, the darkness are all +propitious. The arrangements hold good. The neighbours are ready. +Strike, I say!" + +He brought his hard fist crashing down upon the table, so that mugs and +bottles rattled: his enthusiasm had fired all his hearers: his hatred +and his lust of revenge had done more in five minutes than all the +tirades of the agitators sent down from Paris to instil revolutionary +ideas into the slow-moving brains of village lads. + +"Who will give the signal?" queried one of the older men quietly. + +"I will!" came a lusty response from Pierre. + +He strode to the door, and all the men jumped to their feet, ready to +follow him, dragged into this hot-headed venture by the mere force of +one man's towering passion. They followed Pierre like sheep--sheep that +have momentarily become intoxicated--sheep that have become fierce--a +strange sight truly--and yet one that the man in the tattered coat who +had done so much speechifying lately, watched with eager interest and +presently related with great wealth of detail to M. de Mirabeau the +champion of the people. + +"It all came about through the death of a pair of pigeons," he said. + +The death of the pigeons, however, was only the spark which set all +these turbulent passions ablaze. They had been smouldering for half a +century, and had been ready to burst into flames for the past decade. + +Antoine Melun, the wheelwright, who was to have married Louise, Pierre's +sister, had trapped a pair of pigeons in the woods of M. le duc de +Kernogan. He had done it to assert his rights as a man--he did not want +the pigeons. Though he was a poor man, he was no poorer than hundreds of +peasants for miles around: but he paid imposts and taxes until every +particle of profit which he gleaned from his miserable little plot of +land went into the hands of the collectors, whilst M. le duc de Kernogan +paid not one sou towards the costs of the State, and he had to live on +what was left of his own rye and wheat after M. le duc's pigeons had had +their fill of them. + +Antoine Melun did not want to eat the pigeons which he had trapped, but +he desired to let M. le duc de Kernogan know that God and Nature had +never intended all the beasts and birds of the woods to be the exclusive +property of one man, rather than another. So he trapped and killed two +pigeons and M. le duc's head-bailiff caught him in the act of carrying +those pigeons home. + +Whereupon Antoine was arrested for poaching and thieving: he was tried +at Nantes under the presidency of M. le duc de Kernogan, and ten minutes +ago, while the man in the tattered coat was declaiming to a number of +peasant lads in the coffee-room of the auberge des Trois Vertus on the +subject of their rights as men and citizens, some one brought the news +that Antoine Melun had just been condemned to death and would be hanged +on the morrow. + +That was the spark which had fanned Pierre Adet's hatred of the +aristocrats to a veritable conflagration: the news of Antoine Melun's +fate was the bleat which rallied all those human sheep around their +leader. For Pierre had naturally become their leader because his hatred +of M. le duc was more tangible, more powerful than theirs. Pierre had +had more education than they. His father, Jean Adet the miller, had sent +him to a school in Nantes, and when Pierre came home M. le curé of +Vertou took an interest in him and taught him all he knew himself--which +was not much--in the way of philosophy and the classics. But later on +Pierre took to reading the writings of M. Jean-Jacques Rousseau and soon +knew the _Contrat Social_ almost by heart. He had also read the articles +in M. Marat's newspaper _L'ami du Peuple!_ and, like Antoine Melun, the +wheelwright, he had got it into his head that it was not God, nor yet +Nature who had intended one man to starve while another gorged himself +on all the good things of this world. + +He did not, however, speak of these matters, either to his father or to +his sister or to M. le curé, but he brooded over them, and when the +price of bread rose to four sous he muttered curses against M. le duc de +Kernogan, and when famine prices ruled throughout the district those +curses became overt threats; and by the time that the pinch of hunger +was felt in Vertou Pierre's passion of fury against the duc de Kernogan +had turned to a frenzy of hate against the entire noblesse of France. + +Still he said nothing to his father, nothing to his mother and sister. +But his father knew. Old Jean would watch the storm-clouds which +gathered on Pierre's lowering brow; he heard the muttered curses which +escaped from Pierre's lips whilst he worked for the liege-lord whom he +hated. But Jean was a wise man and knew how useless it is to put out a +feeble hand in order to stem the onrush of a torrent. He knew how +useless are the words of wisdom from an old man to quell the rebellious +spirit of the young. + +Jean was on the watch. And evening after evening when the work on the +farm was done, Pierre would sit in the small low room of the auberge +with other lads from the village talking, talking of their wrongs, of +the arrogance of the aristocrats, the sins of M. le duc and his family, +the evil conduct of the King and the immorality of the Queen: and men in +ragged coats and tattered breeches came in from Nantes, and even from +Paris, in order to harangue these village lads and told them yet further +tales of innumerable wrongs suffered by the people at the hands of the +aristos, and stuffed their heads full of schemes for getting even once +and for all with those men and women who fattened on the sweat of the +poor and drew their luxury from the hunger and the toil of the +peasantry. + +Pierre sucked in these harangues through every pore: they were meat and +drink to him. His hate and passions fed upon these effusions till his +whole being was consumed by a maddening desire for reprisals, for +vengeance--for the lust of triumph over those whom he had been taught to +fear. + +And in the low, narrow room of the auberge the fevered heads of village +lads were bent together in conclave, and the ravings and shoutings of a +while ago were changed to whisperings and low murmurings behind barred +doors and shuttered windows. Men exchanged cryptic greetings when they +met in the village street, enigmatical signs passed between them while +they worked: strangers came and went at dead of night to and from the +neighbouring villages. M. le duc's overseers saw nothing, heard nothing, +guessed nothing. M. le curé saw much and old Jean Adet guessed a great +deal, but they said nothing, for nothing then would have availed. + +Then came the catastrophe. + + +II + +Pierre pushed open the outer door of the auberge des Trois Vertus and +stepped out under the porch. A gust of wind caught him in the face. The +night, so the chronicles of the time tell us, was as dark as pitch: on +ahead lay the lights of the city flickering in the gale: to the left the +wide tawny ribbon of the river wound its turbulent course toward the +ocean, the booming of the waters swollen by the recent melting of the +snow sounded like the weird echoes of invisible cannons far away. + +Without hesitation Pierre advanced. His little troop followed him in +silence. They were a little sobered now that they came out into the open +and that the fumes of cider and of hot, perspiring humanity no longer +obscured their vision or inflamed their brain. + +They knew whither Pierre was going. It had all been +pre-arranged--throughout this past summer, in the musty parlour of the +auberge, behind barred doors and shuttered windows--all they had to do +was to follow Pierre, whom they had tacitly chosen as their leader. They +walked on behind him, their hands buried in the pockets of their thin, +tattered breeches, their heads bent forward against the fury of the +gale. + +Pierre made straight for the mill--his home--where his father lived and +where Louise was even now crying her eyes out because Antoine Melun, her +sweetheart, had been condemned to be hanged for killing two pigeons. + +At the back of the mill was the dwelling house and beyond it a small +farmery, for Jean Adet owned a little bit of land and would have been +fairly well off if the taxes had not swallowed up all the money that he +made out of the sale of his rye and his hay. Just here the ground rose +sharply to a little hillock which dominated the flat valley of the Loire +and commanded a fine view over the more distant villages. + +Pierre skirted the mill and without looking round to see if the others +followed him he struck squarely to the right up a narrow lane bordered +by tall poplars, and which led upwards to the summit of the little +hillock around which clustered the tumble-down barns of his father's +farmery. + +The gale lashed the straight, tall stems of the poplars until they bent +nearly double, and each tiny bare twig sighed and whispered as if in +pain. Pierre strode on and the others followed in silence. They were +chilled to the bone under their scanty clothes, but they followed on +with grim determination, set teeth, and anger and hate seething in their +hearts. + +The top of the rising ground was reached. It was pitch dark, and the men +when they halted fell up against one another trying to get a foothold on +the sodden ground. But Pierre seemed to have eyes like a cat. He only +paused one moment to get his bearings, then--still without a word--he +set to work. A large barn and a group of small circular straw ricks +loomed like solid masses out of the darkness--black, silhouetted against +the black of the stormy sky. Pierre turned toward the barn: those of his +comrades who were in the forefront of the small crowd saw him +disappearing inside one of those solid shadowy masses that looked so +ghostlike in the night. + +Anon those who watched and who happened to be facing the interior of the +barn saw sparks from a tinder flying in every direction: the next +moment they could see Pierre himself quite clearly. He was standing in +the middle of the barn and intent on lighting a roughly-fashioned torch +with his tinder: soon the resin caught a spark and Pierre held the torch +inclined toward the ground so that the flames could lick their way up +the shaft. The flickering light cast a weird glow and deep grotesque +shadows upon the face and figure of the young man. His hair, lanky and +dishevelled, fell over his eyes; his mouth and jaw, illumined from below +by the torch, looked unnaturally large, and showed his teeth gleaming +white, like the fangs of a beast of prey. His shirt was torn open at the +neck, and the sleeves of his coat were rolled up to the elbow. He seemed +not to feel either the cold from without or the scorching heat of the +flaming torch in his hand. But he worked deliberately and calmly, +without haste or febrile movements: grim determination held his +excitement in check. + +At last his work was done. The men who had pressed forward, in order to +watch him, fell back as he advanced, torch in hand. They knew exactly +what he was going to do, they had thought it all out, planned it, spoken +of it till even their unimaginative minds had visualised this coming +scene with absolutely realistic perception. And yet, now that the +supreme hour had come, now that they saw Pierre--torch in hand--prepared +to give the signal which would set ablaze the seething revolt of the +countryside, their heart seemed to stop its beating within their body; +they held their breath, their toil-worn hands went up to their throats +as if to repress that awful choking sensation which was so like fear. + +But Pierre had no such hesitations; if his breath seemed to choke him as +it reached his throat, if it escaped through his set teeth with a +strange whistling sound, it was because his excitement was that of a +hungry beast who had sighted his prey and is ready to spring and devour. +His hand did not shake, his step was firm: the gusts of wind caught the +flame of his torch till the sparks flew in every direction and scorched +his hair and his hands, and while the others recoiled he strode on, to +the straw-rick that was nearest. + +For one moment he held the torch aloft. There was triumph now in his +eyes, in his whole attitude. He looked out into the darkness far away +which seemed all the more impenetrable beyond the restricted circle of +flickering torchlight. It seemed as if he would wrest from that inky +blackness all the secrets which it hid--all the enthusiasm, the +excitement, the passions, the hatred which he would have liked to set +ablaze as he would the straw-ricks anon. + +"Are you ready, mes amis?" he called. + +"Aye! aye!" they replied--not gaily, not lustily, but calmly and under +their breath. + +One touch of the torch and the dry straw began to crackle; a gust of +wind caught the flame and whipped it into energy; it crept up the side +of the little rick like a glowing python that wraps its prey in its +embrace. Another gust of wind, and the flame leapt joyously up to the +pinnacle of the rick, and sent forth other tongues to lick and to lick, +to enfold the straw, to devour, to consume. + +But Pierre did not wait to see the consummation of his work of +destruction. Already with a few rapid strides he had reached his +father's second straw-rick, and this too he set alight, and then another +and another, until six blazing furnaces sent their lurid tongues of +flames, twisting and twirling, writhing and hissing through the stormy +night. + +Within the space of two minutes the whole summit of the hillock seemed +to be ablaze, and Pierre, like a god of fire, torch in hand, seemed to +preside over and command a multitude of ever-spreading flames to his +will. Excitement had overmastered him now, the lust to destroy was upon +him, and excitement had seized all the others too. + +There was shouting and cursing, and laughter that sounded mirthless and +forced, and calls to Pierre, and oaths of revenge. Memory, like an +evil-intentioned witch, was riding invisibly in the darkness, and she +touched each seething brain with her fever-giving wand. Every man had an +outrage to remember, an injustice to recall, and strong, brown fists +were shaken aloft in the direction of the château de Kernogan, whose +lights glimmered feebly in the distance beyond the Loire. + +"Death to the tyrant! A la lanterne les aristos! The people's hour has +come at last! No more starvation! No more injustice! Equality! Liberty! +A mort les aristos!" + +The shouts, the curses, the crackling flames, the howling of the wind, +the soughing of the trees, made up a confusion of sounds which seemed +hardly of this earth; the blazing ricks, the flickering, red light of +the flames had finally transformed the little hillock behind the mill +into another Brocken on whose summit witches and devils do of a truth +hold their revels. + +"A moi!" shouted Pierre again, and he threw his torch down upon the +ground and once more made for the barn. The others followed him. In the +barn were such weapons as these wretched, penniless peasants had managed +to collect--scythes, poles, axes, saws, anything that would prove useful +for the destruction of the château de Kernogan and the proposed +brow-beating of M. le duc and his family. All the men trooped in in the +wake of Pierre. The entire hillock was now a blaze of light--lurid and +red and flickering--alternately teased and fanned and subdued by the +gale, so that at times every object stood out clearly cut, every blade +of grass, every stone in bold relief, and in the ruts and fissures, +every tiny pool of muddy water shimmered like strings of fire-opals: +whilst at others, a pall of inky darkness, smoke-laden and impenetrable +would lie over the ground and erase the outline of farm-buildings and +distant mill and of the pushing and struggling mass of humanity inside +the barn. + +But Pierre, heedless of light and darkness, of heat or of cold, +proceeded quietly and methodically to distribute the primitive +implements of warfare to this crowd of ignorant men, who were by now +over ready for mischief: and with every weapon which he placed in +willing hands, he found the right words for willing ears--words which +would kindle passion and lust of vengeance most readily where they lay +dormant, or would fan them into greater vigour where they smouldered. + +"For thee this scythe, Hector Lebrun," he would say to a tall, lanky +youth whose emaciated arms and bony hands were stretched with longing +toward the bright piece of steel; "remember last year's harvest, the +heavy tax thou wert forced to pay, so that not one sou of profit went +into thy pocket, and thy mother starved whilst M. le duc and his brood +feasted and danced, and shiploads of corn were sunk in the Loire lest +abundance made bread too cheap for the poor! + +"For thee this pick-axe, Henri Meunier! Remember the new roof on thy +hut, which thou didst build to keep the wet off thy wife's bed, who was +crippled with ague--and the heavy impost levied on thee by the +tax-collector for this improvement to thy miserable hovel. + +"This pole for thee, Charles Blanc! Remember the beating administered to +thee by the duc's bailiff for daring to keep a tame rabbit to amuse thy +children! + +"Remember! Remember, mes amis!" he added exultantly, "remember every +wrong you have endured, every injustice, every blow! remember your +poverty and his wealth, your crusts of dry bread and his succulent +meals, your rags and his silks and velvets, remember your starving +children and ailing mother, your care-laden wife and toil-worn +daughters! Forget nothing, mes amis, to-night, and at the gates of the +château de Kernogan demand of its arrogant owner wrong for wrong and +outrage for outrage." + +A deafening cry of triumph greeted this peroration, scythes and sickles +and axes and poles were brandished in the air and several scores of +hands were stretched out to Pierre and clasped in this newly-formed bond +of vengeful fraternity. + + +III + +Then it was that with vigorous play of the elbows, Jean Adet, the +miller, forced his way through the crowd till he stood face to face with +his son. + +"Unfortunate!" he cried, "what is all this? What dost thou propose to +do? Whither are ye all going?" + +"To Kernogan!" they all shouted in response. + +"En avant, Pierre! we follow!" cried some of them impatiently. + +But Jean Adet--who was a powerful man despite his years--had seized +Pierre by the arm and dragged him to a distant corner of the barn: + +"Pierre!" he said in tones of command, "I forbid thee in the name of thy +duty and the obedience which thou dost owe to me and to thy mother, to +move another step in this hot-headed adventure. I was on the high-road, +walking homewards, when that conflagration and the senseless cries of +these poor lads warned me that some awful mischief was afoot. Pierre! +my son! I command thee to lay that weapon down." + +But Pierre--who in his normal state was a dutiful son and sincerely fond +of his father--shook himself free from Jean Adet's grasp. + +"Father!" he said loudly and firmly, "this is no time for interference. +We are all of us men here and know our own minds. What we mean to do +to-night we have thought on and planned for weeks and months. I pray +you, father, let me be! I am not a child and I have work to do." + +"Not a child?" exclaimed the old man as he turned appealingly to the +lads who had stood by, silent and sullen during this little scene. "Not +a child? But you are all only children, my lads. You don't know what you +are doing. You don't know what terrible consequences this mad escapade +will bring upon us all, upon the whole village, aye! and the +country-side. Do you suppose for one moment that the château of Kernogan +will fall at the mercy of a few ignorant unarmed lads like yourselves? +Why! four hundred of you would not succeed in forcing your way even as +far as the courtyard of the palace. M. le duc has had wind for some time +of your turbulent meetings at the auberge: he has kept an armed guard +inside his castle yard for weeks past, a company of artillery with two +guns hoisted upon his walls. My poor lads! you are running straight to +ruin! Go home, I beg of you! Forget this night's escapade! Nothing but +misery to you and yours can result from it." + +They listened quietly, if surlily, to Jean Adet's impassioned words. Far +be it from their thoughts to flout or to mock him. Paternal authority +commanded respect even among the most rough; but they all felt that they +had gone too far now to draw back: the savour of anticipated revenge had +been too sweet to be forgone quite so readily, and Pierre with his +vigorous personality, his glowing eloquence, his compelling power had +more influence over them than the sober counsels of prudence and the +wise admonitions of old Jean Adet. Not one word was spoken, but with an +instinctive gesture every man grasped his weapon more firmly and then +turned to Pierre, thus electing him their spokesman. + +Pierre too had listened in silence to all that his father said, striving +to hide the burning anxiety which was gnawing at his heart, lest his +comrades allowed themselves to be persuaded by the old man's counsels +and their ardour be cooled by the wise dictates of prudence. But when +Jean Adet had finished speaking, and Pierre saw each man thus grasping +his weapon all the more firmly and in silence, a cry of triumph escaped +his lips. + +"It is all in vain, father," he cried, "our minds are made up. A host of +angels from heaven would not bar our way now to victory and to +vengeance." + +"Pierre!" admonished the old man. + +"It is too late, my father," said Pierre firmly, "en avant, lads!" + +"Yes! en avant! en avant!" assented some, "we have wasted too much time +as it is." + +"But, unfortunate lads," admonished the old man, "what are you going to +do?--a handful of you--where are you going?" + +"We go straight to the cross-roads now, father," said Pierre, firmly. +"The firing of your ricks--for which I humbly crave your pardon--is the +preconcerted signal which will bring the lads from all the neighbouring +villages--from Goulaine and les Sorinières and Doulon and Tourne-Bride +to our meeting place. Never you fear! There will be more than four +hundred of us and a company of paid soldiers is not like to frighten us. +Eh, lads?" + +"No! no! en avant!" they shouted and murmured impatiently, "there has +been too much talking already and we have wasted precious time." + +"Pierre!" entreated the miller. + +But no one listened to the old man now. A general movement down the +hillock had already begun and Pierre, turning his back on his father, +had pushed his way to the front of the crowd and was now leading the way +down the slope. Up on the summit the fire was already burning low; only +from time to time an imprisoned tongue of flame would dart out of the +dying embers and leap fitfully up into the night. A dull red glow +illumined the small farmery and the mill and the slowly moving mass of +men along the narrow road, whilst clouds of black, dense smoke were +tossed about by the gale. Pierre walked with head erect. He ceased to +think of his father and he never looked back to see if the others +followed him. He knew that they did: like the straw-ricks a while ago, +they had become the prey of a consuming fire: the fire of their own +passion which had caught them and held them and would not leave them now +until their ardour was consumed in victory or defeat. + + +IV + +M. le duc de Kernogan had just finished dinner when Jacques Labrunière, +his head-bailiff, came to him with the news that a rabble crowd, +composed of the peasantry of Goulaine and Vertou and the neighbouring +villages, had assembled at the cross-roads, there held revolutionary +speeches, and was even now marching toward the castle still shouting +and singing and brandishing a miscellaneous collection of weapons +chiefly consisting of scythes and axes. + +"The guard is under arms, I imagine," was M. le duc's comment on this +not altogether unforeseen piece of news. + +"Everything is in perfect order," replied the head-bailiff cooly, "for +the defence of M. le duc and his property--and of Mademoiselle." + +M. le duc, who had been lounging in one of the big armchairs in the +stately hall of Kernogan, jumped to his feet at these words: his cheeks +suddenly pallid, and a look of deadly fear in his eyes. + +"Mademoiselle," he said hurriedly, "by G--d, Labrunière, I had +forgotten--momentarily----" + +"M. le duc?" stammered the bailiff in anxious inquiry. + +"Mademoiselle de Kernogan is on her way home--even now--she spent the +day with Mme. la Marquise d'Herbignac--she was to return at about eight +o'clock.... If those devils meet her carriage on the road...." + +"There is no cause for anxiety, M. le duc," broke in Labrunière +hurriedly. "I will see that half a dozen men get to horse at once and go +and meet Mademoiselle and escort her home...." + +"Yes ... yes ... Labrunière," murmured the duc, who seemed very much +overcome with terror now that his daughter's safety was in jeopardy, +"see to it at once. Quick! quick! I shall wax crazy with anxiety." + +While Labrunière ran to make the necessary arrangements for an efficient +escort for Mademoiselle de Kernogan and gave the sergeant in charge of +the posse the necessary directions, M. le duc remained motionless, +huddled up in the capacious armchair, his head buried in his hand, +shivering in front of the huge fire which burned in the monumental +hearth, himself the prey of nameless, overwhelming terror. + +He knew--none better--the appalling hatred wherewith he and all his +family and belongings were regarded by the local peasantry. Astride upon +his manifold rights--feudal, territorial, seignorial rights--he had all +his life ridden roughshod over the prejudices, the miseries, the +undoubted rights of the poor people, who were little better than serfs +in the possession of the high and mighty duc de Kernogan. He also +knew--none better--that gradually, very gradually it is true, but with +unerring certainty, those same downtrodden, ignorant, miserable and +half-starved peasants were turning against their oppressors, that riots +and outrages had occurred in many rural districts in the North and that +the insidious poison of social revolution was gradually creeping toward +the South and West, and had already infected the villages and small +townships which were situated quite unpleasantly close to Nantes and to +Kernogan. + +For this reason he had kept a company of artillery at his own expense +inside the precincts of his château, and with the aristocrat's open +contempt for this peasantry which it had not yet learned to fear, he had +disdained to take further measures for the repression of local +gatherings, and would not pay the village rabble the compliment of being +afraid of them in any way. + +But with his daughter Yvonne in the open roadway on the very night when +an assembly of that same rabble was obviously bent on mischief, matters +became very serious. Insult, outrage or worse might befall the proud +aristocrat's only child, and knowing that from these people, whom she +had been taught to look upon as little better than beasts, she could +expect neither mercy nor chivalry, the duc de Kernogan within his +unassailable castle felt for his daughter's safety the most abject, the +most deadly fear which hath ever unnerved any man. + +Labrunière a few minutes later did his best to reassure his master. + +"I have ordered the men to take the best horses out of the stables, M. +le duc," he said, "and to cut across the fields toward la Gramoire so as +to intercept Mademoiselle's coach ere it reach the cross-roads. I feel +confident that there is no cause for alarm," he added emphatically. + +"Pray God you are right, Labrunière," murmured the duc feebly. "Do you +know how strong the rabble crowd is?" + +"No, Monseigneur, not exactly. Camille the under-bailiff, who brought me +the news, was riding homewards across the meadows about an hour ago when +he saw a huge conflagration which seemed to come from the back of Adet's +mill: the whole sky has been lit up by a lurid light for the past hour, +and I fancied myself that Adet's straw must be on fire. But Camille +pushed his horse up the rising ground which culminates at Adet's +farmery. It seems that he heard a great deal of shouting which did not +seem to be accompanied by any attempt at putting out the fire. So he +dismounted and led his horse round the hillock skirting Adet's farm +buildings so that he should not be seen. Under cover of darkness he +heard and saw the old miller with his son Pierre engaged in distributing +scythes, poles and axes to a crowd of youngsters and haranguing them +wildly all the time. He also heard Pierre Adet speak of the +conflagration as a preconcerted signal, and say that he and his mates +would meet the lads of the neighbouring villages at the cross-roads ... +and that four hundred of them would then march on Kernogan and pillage +the castle." + +"Bah!" quoth M. le duc in a voice hoarse with execration and contempt, +"a lot of oafs who will give the hangman plenty of trouble to-morrow. +As for that Adet and his son, they shall suffer for this ... I can +promise them that.... If only Mademoiselle were home!" he added with a +heartrending sigh. + + +V + +Indeed, had M. le duc de Kernogan been gifted with second sight, the +agony of mind which he was enduring would have been aggravated an +hundredfold. At the very moment when the head-bailiff was doing his best +to reassure his liege-lord as to the safety of Mlle. de Kernogan, her +coach was speeding along from the château of Herbignac toward those same +cross-roads where a couple of hundred hot-headed peasant lads were +planning as much mischief as their unimaginative minds could conceive. + +The fury of the gale had in no way abated, and now a heavy rain was +falling--a drenching, sopping rain which in the space of half an hour +had added five centimetres to the depth of the mud on the roads, and had +in that same space of time considerably damped the enthusiasm of some of +the poor lads. Three score or so had assembled from Goulaine, two score +from les Sorinières, some three dozen from Doulon: they had rallied to +the signal in hot haste, gathered their scythes and spades, very eager +and excited, and had reached the cross-roads which were much nearer to +their respective villages than to Jean Adet's farm and the mill, even +while the old man was admonishing his son and the lads of Vertou on the +summit of the blazing hillock. Here they had spent half an hour in +cooling their heels and their tempers under the drenching rain--wet to +the skin--fuming and fretting at the delay. + +But even so--damped in ardour and chilled to the marrow--they were +still a dangerous crowd and prudence ought to have dictated to +Mademoiselle de Kernogan the wiser course of ordering her coachman +Jean-Marie to head his horses back toward Herbignac the moment that the +outrider reported that a mob, armed with scythes, spades and axes, held +the cross-roads, and that it would be dangerous for the coach to advance +any further. + +Already for the past few minutes the sound of loud shouting had been +heard even above the tramp of the horses and the clatter of the coach. +Jean-Marie had pulled up and sent one of the outriders on ahead to see +what was amiss: the man returned with very unpleasant tidings--in his +opinion it certainly would be dangerous to go any further. The mob +appeared bent on mischief: he had heard threats and curses all levelled +against M. le duc de Kernogan--the conflagration up at Vertou was +evidently a signal which would bring along a crowd of malcontents from +all the neighbouring villages. He was for turning back forthwith. But +Mademoiselle put her head out of the window just then and asked what was +amiss. On hearing that Jean-Marie and the postilion and outriders were +inclined to be afraid of a mob of peasant lads who had assembled at the +cross-roads, and were apparently threatening to do mischief, she chided +them for their cowardice. + +"Jean-Marie," she called scornfully to the old coachman, who had been in +her father's service for close on half a century, "do you really mean to +tell me that you are afraid of that rabble!" + +"Why no! Mademoiselle, so please you," replied the old man, nettled in +his pride by the taunt, "but the temper of the peasantry round here has +been ugly of late, and 'tis your safety I have got to guard." + +"'Tis my commands you have got to obey," retorted Mademoiselle with a +gay little laugh which mitigated the peremptoriness of her tone. "If my +father should hear that there's trouble on the road he will die of +anxiety if I do not return: so whip up the horses, Jean-Marie. No one +will dare to attack the coach." + +"But Mademoiselle----" remonstrated the old man. + +"Ah çà!" she broke in more impatiently, "am I to be openly disobeyed? +Best join that rabble, Jean-Marie, if you have no respect for my +commands." + +Thus twitted by Mademoiselle's sharp tongue, Jean-Marie could not help +but obey. He tried to peer into the distance through the veil of +blinding rain which beat against his face and stung the horses to +restlessness. But the light from the coach lanthorns prevented his +seeing clearly into the darkness beyond. Still it seemed to him that on +ahead a dense and solid mass was moving toward the coach, also that the +sound of shouting and of excited humanity was considerably nearer than +it had been before. No doubt the mob had perceived the lights of the +coach, and was even now making towards it, with what intent Jean-Marie +divined all too accurately. + +But he had his orders, and, though he was an old and trusted servant, +disobedience these days was not even to be thought of. So he did as he +was bid. He whipped up his horses, which were high-spirited and answered +to the lash with a bound and a plunge forward. Mlle. de Kernogan leaned +back on the cushions of the coach. She was satisfied that Jean-Marie had +done as he was told, and she was not in the least afraid. + +But less than five minutes later she had a rude awakening. The coach +gave a terrific lurch. The horses reared and plunged, there was a +deafening clamour all around: men were shouting and cursing: there was +the clash of wood and iron and the cracking of whips: the tramp of +horses' hoofs in the soft ground, and the dull thud of human bodies +falling in the mud, followed by loud cries of pain. There was the sudden +crash of broken glass, the coach lanthorns had been seized and broken: +it seemed to Yvonne de Kernogan that out of the darkness faces distorted +with fury were peering at her through the window-panes. But through all +the confusion, the coach kept moving on. Jean-Marie stuck to his post, +as did also the postilion and the four outriders, and with whip and +tongue they urged their horses to break through the crowd regardless of +human lives, knocking and trampling down men and lads heedless of curses +and blasphemies which were hurled on them and on the occupants of the +coach, whoever they might be. + +The next moment, however, the coach came to a sudden halt, and a wild +cry of triumph drowned the groans of the injured and the dying. + +"Kernogan! Kernogan!" was shouted from every side. + +"Adet! Adet!" + +"You limbs of Satan," cried Jean-Marie, "you'll rue this night's work +and weep tears of blood for the rest of your lives. Let me tell you +that! Mademoiselle is in the coach. When M. le duc hears of this, there +will be work for the hangman...." + +"Mademoiselle in the coach," broke in a hoarse voice with a rough tone +of command. "Let's look at her...." + +"Aye! Aye! let's have a look at Mademoiselle," came with a volley of +objurgations and curses from the crowd. + +"You devils--you would dare?" protested Jean-Marie. + +Within the coach Yvonne de Kernogan hardly dared to breathe. She sat +bolt upright, her cape held tightly round her shoulders: her eyes +dilated now with excitement, if not with fear, were fixed upon the +darkness beyond the window-panes. She could see nothing, but she _felt_ +the presence of that hostile crowd who had succeeded in over-powering +Jean-Marie and were intent on doing her harm. + +But she belonged to a caste which never reckoned cowardice amongst its +many faults. During these few moments when she knew that her life hung +on the merest thread of chance, she neither screamed nor fainted but sat +rigidly still, her heart beating in unison with the agonising seconds +which went so fatefully by. And even now, when the carriage door was +torn violently open and even through the darkness she discerned vaguely +the forms of these avowed enemies close beside her, and anon felt a +rough hand seize her wrist, she did not move, but said quite calmly, +with hardly a tremor in her voice: + +"Who are you? and what do you want?" + +An outburst of harsh and ironical laughter came in response. + +"Who are we, my fine lady?" said the foremost man in the crowd, he who +had seized her wrist and was half in and half out of the coach at this +moment, "we are the men who throughout our lives have toiled and starved +whilst you and such as you travel in fine coaches and eat your fill. +What we want? Why, just the spectacle of such a fine lady as you are +being knocked down into the mud just as our wives and daughters are if +they happen to be in the way when your coach is passing. Isn't that it, +mes amis?" + +"Aye! aye!" they replied, shouting lustily. "Into the mud with the fine +lady. Out with her, Adet. Let's have a look at Mademoiselle how she will +look with her face in the mud. Out with her, quick!" + +But the man who was still half in and half out of the coach, and who had +hold of Mademoiselle's wrist did not obey his mates immediately. He drew +her nearer to him and suddenly threw his rough, begrimed arms round +her, and with one hand pulled back her hood, then placing two fingers +under her chin, he jerked it up till her face was level with his own. + +Yvonne de Kernogan was certainly no coward, but at the loathsome contact +of this infuriated and vengeful creature, she was overcome with such a +hideous sense of fear that for the moment consciousness almost left her: +not completely alas! for though she could not distinguish his face she +could feel his hot breath upon her cheeks, she could smell the +nauseating odour of his damp clothes, and she could hear his hoarse +mutterings as for the space of a few seconds he held her thus close to +him in an embrace which to her was far more awesome than that of death. + +"And just to punish you, my fine lady," he said in a whisper which sent +a shudder of horror right through her, "to punish you for what you are, +the brood of tyrants, proud, disdainful, a budding tyrant yourself, to +punish you for every misery my mother and sister have had to endure, for +every luxury which you have enjoyed, I will kiss you on the lips and the +cheeks and just between your white throat and chin and never as long as +you live if you die this night or live to be an hundred will you be able +to wash off those kisses showered upon you by one who hates and loathes +you--a miserable peasant whom you despise and who in your sight is lower +far than your dogs." + +Yvonne, with eyes closed, hardly breathed, but through the veil of +semi-consciousness which mercifully wrapped her senses, she could still +hear those awful words, and feel the pollution of those loathsome kisses +with which--true to his threat--this creature--half man, wholly devil, +whom she could not see, but whom she hated and feared as she would Satan +himself--now covered her face and throat. + +After that she remembered nothing more. Consciousness mercifully forsook +her altogether. When she recovered her senses, she was within the +precincts of the castle: a confused murmur of voices reached her ears, +and her father's arms were round her. Gradually she distinguished what +was being said: she gathered the threads of the story which Jean-Marie +and the postilion and outriders were hastily unravelling in response to +M. le duc's commands. + +These men of course knew nothing of the poignant little drama which had +been enacted inside the coach. All they knew was that they had been +surrounded by a rough crowd--a hundred or so strong--who brandished +scythes and spades, that they had made valiant efforts to break through +the crowd by whipping up their horses, but that suddenly some of those +devils more plucky than the others seized the horses by their bits and +rendered poor Jean-Marie quite helpless. He thought then that all would +be up with the lot of them and was thinking of scrambling down from his +box in order to protect Mademoiselle with his body, and the pistols +which he had in the boot, when happily for every one concerned, he heard +in the distance--above the clatter which that abominable rabble was +making, the hurried tramp of horses. At once he jumped to the conclusion +that these could be none other than a company of soldiers sent by M. le +duc. This spurred him to a fresh effort, and gave him a new idea. To +Carmail the postilion who had a pistol in his holster he gave the +peremptory order to fire a shot into the air or into the crowd, +Jean-Marie cared not which. This Carmail did, and at once the horses, +already maddened by the crowd, plunged and reared wildly, shaking +themselves free. Jean-Marie, however, had them well in hand, and from +far away there came the cries of encouragement from the advancing +horsemen who were bearing down on them full tilt. The next moment there +was a general mêlée. Jean-Marie saw nothing save his horses' heads, but +the outriders declared that men were trampled down like flies all +around, while others vanished into the night. + +What happened after that none of the men knew or cared. Jean-Marie +galloped his horses all the way to the castle and never drew rein until +the precincts were reached. + + +VI + +Had M. de Kernogan had his way and a free hand to mete out retributive +justice in the proportion that he desired, there is no doubt that the +hangman of Nantes would have been kept exceedingly busy. As it was a +number of arrests were effected the following day--half the manhood of +the countryside was implicated in the aborted _Jacquerie_ and the city +prison was not large enough to hold it all. + +A court of justice presided over by M. le duc, and composed of half a +dozen men who were directly or indirectly in his employ, pronounced +summary sentences on the rioters which were to have been carried out as +soon as the necessary arrangements for such wholesale executions +could be made. Nantes was turned into a city of wailing; +peasant-women--mothers, sisters, daughters, wives of the condemned, +trooped from their villages into the city, loudly calling on M. le duc +for mercy, besieging the improvised court-house, the prison gates, the +town residence of M. le duc, the palace of the bishop: they pushed their +way into the courtyards and the very corridors of those +buildings--flunkeys could not cope with them--they fought with fists and +elbows for the right to make a direct appeal to the liege-lord who had +power of life and death over their men. + +The municipality of Nantes held aloof from this distressful state of +things, and the town councillors, the city functionaries and their +families shut themselves up in their houses in order to avoid being a +witness to the heartrending scenes which took place uninterruptedly +round the court-house and the prison. The mayor himself was powerless to +interfere, but it is averred that he sent a secret courier to Paris to +M. de Mirabeau, who was known to be a personal friend of his, with a +detailed account of the _Jacquerie_ and of the terrible measures of +reprisal contemplated by M. le duc de Kernogan, together with an earnest +request that pressure from the highest possible quarters be brought to +bear upon His Grace so that he should abate something of his vengeful +rigours. + +Poor King Louis, who in these days was being terrorised by the National +Assembly and swept off his feet by the eloquence of M. de Mirabeau, was +only too ready to make concessions to the democratic spirit of the day. +He also desired his noblesse to be equally ready with such concessions. +He sent a personal letter to M. le duc, not only asking him, but +commanding him, to show grace and mercy to a lot of misguided peasant +lads whose loyalty and adherence--he urged--might be won by a gracious +and unexpected act of clemency. + +The King's commands could not in the nature of things be disobeyed: the +same stroke of the pen which was about to send half a hundred young +countrymen to the gallows granted them M. le duc's gracious pardon and +their liberty: the only exception to this general amnesty being Pierre +Adet, the son of the miller. M. le duc's servants had deposed to seeing +him pull open the door of the coach and stand for some time half in and +half out of the carriage, obviously trying to terrorise Mademoiselle. +Mademoiselle refused either to corroborate or to deny this statement, +but she had arrived fainting at the gate of the château, and she had +been very ill ever since. She had sustained a serious shock to her +nerves, so the doctor hastily summoned from Paris had averred, and it +was supposed that she had lost all recollection of the terrible +incidents of that night. + +But M. le duc was satisfied that it was Pierre Adet's presence inside +the coach which had brought about his daughter's mysterious illness and +that heartrending look of nameless horror which had dwelt in her eyes +ever since. Therefore with regard to that man M. le duc remained +implacable and as a concession to a father's outraged feelings both the +mayor of Nantes and the city functionaries accepted Adet's condemnation +without a murmur of dissent. + +The sentence of death finally passed upon Pierre, the son of Jean Adet, +miller of Vertou, could not, however, be executed, for the simple reason +that Pierre had disappeared and that the most rigorous search instituted +in the neighbourhood and for miles around failed to bring him to +justice. One of the outriders who had been in attendance on Mademoiselle +on that fateful night declared that when Jean-Marie finally whipped up +his horses at the approach of the party of soldiers, Adet fell backwards +from the step of the carriage and was run over by the hind wheels and +instantly killed. But his body was never found among the score or so +which were left lying there in the mud of the road until the women and +old men came to seek their loved ones among the dead. + +Pierre Adet had disappeared. But M. le duc's vengeance had need of a +prey. The outrage which he was quite convinced had been perpetrated +against his daughter must be punished by death--if not by the death of +the chief offender, then by that of the one who stood nearest to him. +Thus was Jean Adet the miller dragged from his home and cast into +prison. Was he not implicated himself in the riots? Camille the bailiff +had seen and heard him among the insurgents on the hillock that night. +At first it was stated that he would be held as hostage for the +reappearance of his son. But Pierre Adet had evidently fled the +countryside: he was obviously ignorant of the terrible fate which his +own folly had brought upon his father. Many thought that he had gone to +seek his fortune in Paris where his talents and erudition would ensure +him a good place in the present mad rush for equality amongst all men. +Certain it is that he did not return and that with merciless hate and +vengeful relentlessness M. le duc de Kernogan had Jean Adet hanged for a +supposed crime said to be committed by his son. + +Jean Adet died protesting his innocence. But the outburst of indignation +and revolt aroused by this crying injustice was swamped by the torrent +of the revolution which, gathering force by these very acts of tyranny +and of injustice, soon swept innocent and guilty alike into a vast +whirlpool of blood and shame and tears. + + + + +BOOK ONE: BATH, 1793 + +CHAPTER I + +THE MOOR + + +I + +Silence. Loneliness. Desolation. + +And the darkness of late afternoon in November, when the fog from the +Bristol Channel has laid its pall upon moor and valley and hill: the +last grey glimmer of a wintry sunset has faded in the west: earth and +sky are wrapped in the gloomy veils of oncoming night. Some little way +ahead a tiny light flickers feebly. + +"Surely we cannot be far now." + +"A little more patience, Mounzeer. Twenty minutes and we be there." + +"Twenty minutes, mordieu. And I have ridden since the morning. And you +tell me it was not far." + +"Not far, Mounzeer. But we be not 'orzemen either of us. We doan't +travel very fast." + +"How can I ride fast on this heavy beast? And in this _satané_ mud. My +horse is up to his knees in it. And I am wet--ah! wet to my skin in this +_sacré_ fog of yours." + +The other made no reply. Indeed he seemed little inclined for +conversation: his whole attention appeared to be riveted on the business +of keeping in his saddle, and holding his horse's head turned in the +direction in which he wished it to go: he was riding a yard or two ahead +of his companion, and it did not need any assurance on his part that he +was no horseman: he sat very loosely in his saddle, his broad shoulders +bent, his head thrust forward, his knees turned out, his hands clinging +alternately to the reins and to the pommel with that ludicrous +inconsequent gesture peculiar to those who are wholly unaccustomed to +horse exercise. + +His attitude, in fact, as well as the promiscuous set of clothes which +he wore--a labourer's smock, a battered high hat, threadbare corduroys +and fisherman's boots--at once suggested the loafer, the do-nothing who +hangs round the yards of half-way houses and posting inns on the chance +of earning a few coppers by an easy job which does not entail too much +exertion on his part and which will not take him too far from his +favourite haunts. When he spoke--which was not often--the soft burr in +the pronunciation of the sibilants betrayed the Westcountryman. + +His companion, on the other hand, was obviously a stranger: high of +stature, and broadly built, his wide shoulders and large hands and feet, +his square head set upon a short thick neck, all bespoke the physique of +a labouring man, whilst his town-made clothes--his heavy caped coat, +admirably tailored, his buckskin breeches and boots of fine +leather--suggested, if not absolutely the gentleman, at any rate one +belonging to the well-to-do classes. Though obviously not quite so +inexperienced in the saddle as the other man appeared to be, he did not +look very much at home in the saddle either: he held himself very rigid +and upright and squared his shoulders with a visible effort at seeming +at ease, like a townsman out for a constitutional on the fashionable +promenade of his own city, or a cavalry subaltern but lately emerged +from a riding school. He spoke English quite fluently, even +colloquially at times, but with a marked Gallic accent. + + +II + +The road along which the two cavaliers were riding was unspeakably +lonely and desolate--an offshoot from the main Bath to Weston road. It +had been quite a good secondary road once. The accounts of the county +administration under date 1725 go to prove that it was completed in that +year at considerable expense and with stone brought over for the purpose +all the way from Draycott quarries, and for twenty years after that a +coach used to ply along it between Chelwood and Redhill as well as two +or three carriers, and of course there was all the traffic in connexion +with the Stanton markets and the Norton Fairs. But that was nigh on +fifty years ago now, and somehow--once the mail-coach was +discontinued--it had never seemed worth while to keep the road in decent +repair. It had gone from bad to worse since then, and travelling on it +these days either ahorse or afoot had become very unpleasant. It was +full of ruts and crevasses and knee-deep in mud, as the stranger had +very appositely remarked, and the stone parapet which bordered it on +either side, and which had once given it such an air of solidity and of +value, was broken down in very many places and threatened soon to +disappear altogether. + +The country round was as lonely and desolate as the road. And that sense +of desolation seemed to pervade the very atmosphere right through the +darkness which had descended on upland and valley and hill. Though +nothing now could be seen through the gloom and the mist, the senses +were conscious that even in broad daylight there would be nothing to +see. Loneliness dwelt in the air as well as upon the moor. There were no +homesteads for miles around, no cattle grazing, no pastures, no hedges, +nothing--just arid wasteland with here and there a group of stunted +trees or an isolated yew, and tracts of rough, coarse grass not nearly +good enough for cattle to eat. + +There are vast stretches of upland equally desolate in many parts of +Europe--notably in Northern Spain--but in England, where they are rare, +they seem to gain an additional air of loneliness through the very life +which pulsates in their vicinity. This bit of Somersetshire was one of +them in this year of grace 1793. Despite the proximity of Bath and its +fashionable life, its gaieties and vitality, distant only a little over +twenty miles, and of Bristol distant less than thirty, it had remained +wild and forlorn, almost savage in its grim isolation, primitive in the +grandeur of its solitude. + + +III + +The road at the point now reached by the travellers begins to slope in a +gentle gradient down to the level of the Chew, a couple of miles further +on: it was midway down this slope that the only sign of living humanity +could be perceived in that tiny light which glimmered persistently. The +air itself under its mantle of fog had become very still, only the water +of some tiny moorland stream murmured feebly in its stony bed ere it +lost its entity in the bosom of the river far away. + +"Five more minutes and we be at th' Bottom Inn," quoth the man who was +ahead in response to another impatient ejaculation from his companion. + +"If we don't break our necks meanwhile in this confounded darkness," +retorted the other, for his horse had just stumbled and the +inexperienced rider had been very nearly pitched over into the mud. + +"I be as anxious to arrive as you are, Mounzeer," observed the +countryman laconically. + +"I thought you knew the way," muttered the stranger. + +"'Ave I not brought you safely through the darkness?" retorted the +other; "you was pretty well ztranded at Chelwood, Mounzeer, or I be much +mistaken. Who else would 'ave brought you out 'ere at this time o' +night, I'd like to know--and in this weather too? You wanted to get to +th' Bottom Inn and didn't know 'ow to zet about it: none o' the gaffers +up to Chelwood 'peared eager to 'elp you when I come along. Well, I've +brought you to th' Bottom Inn and.... Whoa! Whoa! my beauty! Whoa, +confound you! Whoa!" + +And for the next moment or two the whole of his attention had perforce +to be concentrated on the business of sticking to his saddle whilst he +brought his fagged-out, ill-conditioned nag to a standstill. + +The little glimmer of light had suddenly revealed itself in the shape of +a lanthorn hung inside the wooden porch of a small house which had +loomed out of the darkness and the fog. It stood at an angle of the road +where a narrow lane had its beginnings ere it plunged into the moor +beyond and was swallowed up by the all-enveloping gloom. The house was +small and ugly; square like a box and built of grey stone, its front +flush with the road, its rear flanked by several small outbuildings. +Above the porch hung a plain sign-board bearing the legend: "The Bottom +Inn" in white letters upon a black ground: to right and left of the +porch there was a window with closed shutters, and on the floor above +two more windows--also shuttered--completed the architectural features +of the Bottom Inn. + +It was uncompromisingly ugly and uninviting, for beyond the faint +glimmer of the lanthorn only one or two narrow streaks of light +filtrated through the chinks of the shutters. + + +IV + +The travellers, after some difference of opinion with their respective +horses, contrived to pull up and to dismount without any untoward +accident. The stranger looked about him, peering into the darkness. The +place indeed appeared dismal and inhospitable enough: its solitary +aspect suggested footpads and the abode of cut-throats. The silence of +the moor, the pall of mist and gloom that hung over upland and valley +sent a shiver through his spine. + +"You are sure this is the place?" he queried. + +"Can't ye zee the zign?" retorted the other gruffly. + +"Can you hold the horses while I go in?" + +"I doan't know as 'ow I can, Mounzeer. I've never 'eld two 'orzes all at +once. Suppose they was to start kickin' or thought o' runnin' away?" + +"Running away, you fool!" muttered the stranger, whose temper had +evidently suffered grievously during the weary, cold journey from +Chelwood. "I'll break your _satané_ head if anything happens to the +beasts. How can I get back to Bath save the way I came? Do you think I +want to spend the night in this God-forsaken hole?" + +Without waiting to hear any further protests from the lout, he turned +into the porch and with his riding whip gave three consecutive raps +against the door of the inn, followed by two more. The next moment there +was the sound of a rattling of bolts and chains, the door was cautiously +opened and a timid voice queried: + +"Is it Mounzeer?" + +"Pardieu! Who else?" growled the stranger. "Open the door, woman. I am +perished with cold." + +With an unceremonious kick he pushed the door further open and strode +in. A woman was standing in the dimly lighted passage. As the stranger +walked in she bobbed him a respectful curtsey. + +"It is all right, Mounzeer," she said; "the Captain's in the +coffee-room. He came over from Bristol early this afternoon." + +"No one else here, I hope," he queried curtly. + +"No one, zir. It ain't their hour not yet. You'll 'ave the 'ouse to +yourself till after midnight. After that there'll be a bustle, I reckon. +Two shiploads come into Watchet last night--brandy and cloth, Mounzeer, +so the Captain says, and worth a mint o' money. The pack 'orzes will be +through yere in the small hours." + +"That's all right, then. Send me in a bite and a mug of hot ale." + +"I'll see to it, Mounzeer." + +"And stay--have you some sort of stabling where the man can put the two +horses up for an hour's rest?" + +"Aye, aye, zir." + +"Very well then, see to that too: and see that the horses get a feed and +a drink and give the man something to eat." + +"Very good, Mounzeer. This way, zir. I'll see the man presently. +Straight down the passage, zir. The coffee-room is on the right. The +Captain's there, waiting for ye." + +She closed the front door carefully, then followed the stranger to the +door of the coffee-room. Outside an anxious voice was heard muttering a +string of inconsequent and wholly superfluous "Whoa's!" Of a truth the +two wearied nags were only too anxious for a little rest. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE BOTTOM INN + + +I + +A man was sitting, huddled up in the ingle-nook of the small +coffee-room, sipping hot ale from a tankard which he had in his hand. + +Anything less suggestive of a rough sea-faring life than his appearance +it would be difficult to conceive; and how he came by the appellation +"the Captain" must for ever remain a mystery. He was small and spare, +with thin delicate face and slender hands: though dressed in very rough +garments, he was obviously ill at ease in them; his narrow shoulders +scarcely appeared able to bear the weight of the coarsely made coat, and +his thin legs did not begin to fill the big fisherman's boots which +reached midway up his lean thighs. His hair was lank and plentifully +sprinkled with grey: he wore it tied at the nape of the neck with a silk +bow which certainly did not harmonise with the rest of his clothing. A +wide-brimmed felt hat something the shape of a sailor's, but with higher +crown--of the shape worn by the peasantry in Brittany--lay on the bench +beside him. + +When the stranger entered he had greeted him curtly, speaking in French. + +The room was inexpressibly stuffy, and reeked of the fumes of stale +tobacco, stale victuals and stale beer; but it was warm, and the +stranger, stiff to the marrow and wet to the skin, uttered an +exclamation of well-being as he turned to the hearth, wherein a bright +fire burned cheerily. He had put his hat down when first he entered and +had divested himself of his big coat: now he held one foot and then the +other to the blaze and tried to infuse new life into his numbed hands. + +"The Captain" took scant notice of his comings and goings. He did not +attempt to help him off with his coat, nor did he make an effort to add +another log to the fire. He sat silent and practically motionless, save +when from time to time he took a sip out of his mug of ale. But whenever +the new-comer came within his immediate circle of vision he shot a +glance at the latter's elegant attire--the well-cut coat, the striped +waistcoat, the boots of fine leather--the glance was quick and +comprehensive and full of scorn, a flash that lasted only an instant and +was at once veiled again by the droop of the flaccid lids which hid the +pale, keen eyes. + +"When the woman has brought me something to eat and drink," the stranger +said after a while, "we can talk. I have a good hour to spare, as those +miserable nags must have some rest." + +He too spoke in French and with an air of authority, not to say +arrogance, which caused "the Captain's" glance of scorn to light up with +an added gleam of hate and almost of cruelty. But he made no remark and +continued to sip his ale in silence, and for the next half-hour the two +men took no more notice of one another, just as if they had never +travelled all those miles and come to this desolate spot for the sole +purpose of speaking with one another. During the course of that +half-hour the woman brought in a dish of mutton stew, a chunk of bread, +a piece of cheese and a jug of spiced ale, and placed them on the table: +all of these good things the stranger consumed with an obviously keen +appetite. When he had eaten and drunk his fill, he rose from the table, +drew a bench into the ingle-nook and sat down so that his profile only +was visible to his friend "the Captain." + +"Now, citizen Chauvelin," he said with at attempt at ease and +familiarity not unmixed with condescension, "I am ready for your news." + + +II + +Chauvelin had winced perceptibly both at the condescension and the +familiarity. It was such a very little while ago that men had trembled +at a look, a word from him: his silence had been wont to strike terror +in quaking hearts. It was such a very little while ago that he had been +president of the Committee of Public Safety, all powerful, the right +hand of citizen Robespierre, the master sleuth-hound who could track an +unfortunate "suspect" down to his most hidden lair, before whose keen, +pale eyes the innermost secrets of a soul stood revealed, who guessed at +treason ere it was wholly born, who scented treachery ere it was +formulated. A year ago he had with a word sent scores of men, women and +children to the guillotine--he had with a sign brought the whole +machinery of the ruthless Committee to work against innocent or guilty +alike on mere suspicion, or to gratify his own hatred against all those +whom he considered to be the enemies of that bloody revolution which he +had helped to make. Now his presence, his silence, had not even the +power to ruffle the self-assurance of an upstart. + +But in the hard school both of success and of failure through which he +had passed during the last decade, there was one lesson which Armand +once Marquis de Chauvelin had learned to the last letter, and that was +the lesson of self-control. He had winced at the other's familiarity, +but neither by word nor gesture did he betray what he felt. + +"I can tell you," he merely said quite curtly, "all I have to say in far +less time than it has taken you to eat and drink, citizen Adet...." + +But suddenly, at sound of that name, the other had put a warning hand on +Chauvelin's arm, even as he cast a rapid, anxious look all round the +narrow room. + +"Hush, man!" he murmured hurriedly, "you know quite well that that name +must never be pronounced here in England. I am Martin-Roget now," he +added, as he shook off his momentary fright with equal suddenness, and +once more resumed his tone of easy condescension, "and try not to forget +it." + +Chauvelin without any haste quietly freed his arm from the other's +grasp. His pale face was quite expressionless, only the thin lips were +drawn tightly over the teeth now, and a curious hissing sound escaped +faintly from them as he said: + +"I'll try and remember, citizen, that here in England you are an aristo, +the same as all these confounded English whom may the devil sweep into a +bottomless sea." + +Martin-Roget gave a short, complacent laugh. + +"Ah," he said lightly, "no wonder you hate them, citizen Chauvelin. You +too were an aristo here in England once--not so very long ago, I am +thinking--special envoy to His Majesty King George, what?--until failure +to bring one of these _satané_ Britishers to book made you ... er ... +well, made you what you are now." + +He drew up his tall, broad figure as he spoke and squared his massive +shoulders as he looked down with a fatuous smile and no small measure of +scorn on the hunched-up little figure beside him. It had seemed to him +that something in the nature of a threat had crept into Chauvelin's +attitude, and he, still flushed with his own importance, his +immeasurable belief in himself, at once chose to measure his strength +against this man who was the personification of failure and +disgrace--this man whom so many people had feared for so long and whom +it might not be wise to defy even now. + +"No offence meant, citizen Chauvelin," he added with an air of patronage +which once more made the other wince. "I had no wish to wound your +susceptibilities. I only desired to give you timely warning that what I +do here is no one's concern, and that I will brook interference and +criticism from no man." + +And Chauvelin, who in the past had oft with a nod sent a man to the +guillotine, made no reply to this arrogant taunt. His small figure +seemed to shrink still further within itself: and anon he passed his +thin, claw-like hand over his face as if to obliterate from its surface +any expression which might war with the utter humility wherewith he now +spoke. + +"Nor was there any offence meant on my part, citizen Martin-Roget," he +said suavely. "Do we not both labour for the same end? The glory of the +Republic and the destruction of her foes?" + +Martin-Roget gave a sigh of satisfaction. The battle had been won: he +felt himself strong again--stronger than before through that very act of +deference paid to him by the once all-powerful Chauvelin. Now he was +quite prepared to be condescending and jovial once again: + +"Of course, of course," he said pleasantly, as he once more bent his +tall figure to the fire. "We are both servants of the Republic, and I +may yet help you to retrieve your past failures, citizen, by giving you +an active part in the work I have in hand. And now," he added in a calm, +business-like manner, the manner of a master addressing a servant who +has been found at fault and is taken into favour again, "let me hear +your news." + +"I have made all the arrangements about the ship," said Chauvelin +quietly. + +"Ah! that is good news indeed. What is she?" + +"She is a Dutch ship. Her master and crew are all Dutch...." + +"That's a pity. A Danish master and crew would have been safer." + +"I could not come across any Danish ship willing to take the risks," +said Chauvelin dryly. + +"Well! And what about this Dutch ship then?" + +"She is called the _Hollandia_ and is habitually engaged in the sugar +trade: but her master does a lot of contraband--more that than fair +trading, I imagine: anyway, he is willing for the sum you originally +named to take every risk and incidentally to hold his tongue about the +whole business." + +"For two thousand francs?" + +"Yes." + +"And he will run the _Hollandia_ into Le Croisic?" + +"When you command." + +"And there is suitable accommodation on board her for a lady and her +woman?" + +"I don't know what you call suitable," said Chauvelin with a sarcastic +tone, which the other failed or was unwilling to note, "and I don't know +what you call a lady. The accommodation available on board the +_Hollandia_ will be sufficient for two men and two women." + +"And her master's name?" queried Martin-Roget. + +"Some outlandish Dutch name," replied Chauvelin. "It is spelt +K U Y P E R. The devil only knows how it is pronounced." + +"Well! And does Captain K U Y P E R understand exactly what I want?" + +"He says he does. The _Hollandia_ will put into Portishead on the last +day of this month. You and your guests can get aboard her any day after +that you choose. She will be there at your disposal, and can start +within an hour of your getting aboard. Her master will have all his +papers ready. He will have a cargo of West Indian sugar on +board--destination Amsterdam, consignee Mynheer van Smeer--everything +perfectly straight and square. French aristos, _émigrés_ on board on +their way to join the army of the Princes. There will be no difficulty +in England." + +"And none in Le Croisic. The man is running no risks." + +"He thinks he is. France does not make Dutch ships and Dutch crews +exactly welcome just now, does she?" + +"Certainly not. But in Le Croisic and with citizen Adet on board...." + +"I thought that name was not to be mentioned here," retorted Chauvelin +dryly. + +"You are right, citizen," whispered the other, "it escaped me and...." + +Already he had jumped to his feet, his face suddenly pale, his whole +manner changed from easy, arrogant self-assurance to uncertainty and +obvious dread. He moved to the window, trying to subdue the sound of his +footsteps upon the uneven floor. + + +III + +"Are you afraid of eavesdroppers, citizen Roget?" queried Chauvelin with +a shrug of his narrow shoulders. + +"No. There is no one there. Only a lout from Chelwood who brought me +here. The people of the house are safe enough. They have plenty of +secrets of their own to keep." + +He was obviously saying all this in order to reassure himself, for there +was no doubt that his fears were on the alert. With a febrile gesture he +unfastened the shutters, and pushed them open, peering out into the +night. + +"Hallo!" he called. + +But he received no answer. + +"It has started to rain," he said more calmly. "I imagine that lout has +found shelter in an outhouse with the horses." + +"Very likely," commented Chauvelin laconically. + +"Then if you have nothing more to tell me," quoth Martin-Roget, "I may +as well think about getting back. Rain or no rain, I want to be in Bath +before midnight." + +"Ball or supper-party at one of your duchesses?" queried the other with +a sneer. "I know them." + +To this Martin-Roget vouchsafed no reply. + +"How are things at Nantes?" he asked. + +"Splendid! Carrier is like a wild beast let loose. The prisons are +over-full: the surplus of accused, condemned and suspect fills the +cellars and warehouses along the wharf. Priests and suchlike trash are +kept on disused galliots up stream. The guillotine is never idle, and +friend Carrier fearing that she might give out--get tired, what?--or +break down--has invented a wonderful way of getting rid of shoals of +undesirable people at one magnificent swoop. You have heard tell of it +no doubt." + +"Yes. I have heard of it," remarked the other curtly. + +"He began with a load of priests. Requisitioned an old barge. Ordered +Baudet the shipbuilder to construct half a dozen portholes in her +bottom. Baudet demurred: he could not understand what the order could +possibly mean. But Foucaud and Lamberty--Carrier's agents--you know +them--explained that the barge would be towed down the Loire and then +up one of the smaller navigable streams which it was feared the +royalists were preparing to use as a way for making a descent upon +Nantes, and that the idea was to sink the barge in midstream in order to +obstruct the passage of their army. Baudet, satisfied, put five of his +men to the task. Everything was ready on the 16th of last month. I know +the woman Pichot, who keeps a small tavern opposite La Sécherie. She saw +the barge glide up the river toward the galliot where twenty-five +priests of the diocese of Nantes had been living for the past two months +in the company of rats and other vermin as noxious as themselves. Most +lovely moonlight there was that night. The Loire looked like a living +ribbon of silver. Foucaud and Lamberty directed operations, and Carrier +had given them full instructions. They tied the calotins up two and two +and transferred them from the galliot to the barge. It seems they were +quite pleased to go. Had enough of the rats, I presume. The only thing +they didn't like was being searched. Some had managed to secrete silver +ornaments about their person when they were arrested. Crucifixes and +such like. They didn't like to part with these, it seems. But Foucaud +and Lamberty relieved them of everything but the necessary clothing, and +they didn't want much of that, seeing whither they were going. Foucaud +made a good pile, so they say. Self-seeking, avaricious brute! He'll +learn the way to one of Carrier's barges too one day, I'll bet." + +He rose and with quick footsteps moved to the table. There was some ale +left in the jug which the woman had brought for Martin-Roget a while +ago. Chauvelin poured the contents of it down his throat. He had talked +uninterruptedly, in short, jerky sentences, without the slightest +expression of horror at the atrocities which he recounted. His whole +appearance had become transfigured while he spoke. Gone was the urbane +manner which he had learnt at courts long ago, gone was the last +instinct of the gentleman sunk to proletarianism through stress of +circumstances, or financial straits or even political convictions. The +erstwhile Marquis de Chauvelin--envoy of the Republic at the Court of +St. James'--had become citizen Chauvelin in deed and in fact, a part of +that rabble which he had elected to serve, one of that vile crowd of +bloodthirsty revolutionaries who had sullied the pure robes of Liberty +and of Fraternity by spattering them with blood. Now he smacked his +lips, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and burying his hands in the +pockets of his breeches he stood with legs wide apart and a look of +savage satisfaction settled upon his pale face. Martin-Roget had made no +comment upon the narrative. He had resumed his seat by the fire and was +listening attentively. Now while the other drank and paused, he showed +no sign of impatience, but there was something in the look of the bent +shoulders, in the rigidity of the attitude, in the large, square hands +tightly clasped together which suggested the deepest interest and an +intentness that was almost painful. + +"I was at the woman Pichot's tavern that night," resumed Chauvelin after +a while. "I saw the barge--a moving coffin, what?--gliding down stream +towed by the galliot and escorted by a small boat. The floating battery +at La Samaritaine challenged her as she passed, for Carrier had +prohibited all navigation up or down the Loire until further notice. +Foucaud, Lamberty, Fouquet and O'Sullivan the armourer were in the boat: +they rowed up to the pontoon and Vailly the chief gunner of the battery +challenged them once more. However, they had some sort of written +authorisation from Carrier, for they were allowed to pass. Vailly +remained on guard. He saw the barge glide further down stream. It seems +that the moon at that time was hidden by a cloud. But the night was not +dark and Vailly watched the barge till she was out of sight. She was +towed past Trentemoult and Chantenay into the wide reach of the river +just below Cheviré where, as you know, the Loire is nearly two thousand +feet wide." + +Once more he paused, looking down with grim amusement on the bent +shoulders of the other man. + +"Well?" + +Chauvelin laughed. The query sounded choked and hoarse, whether through +horror, excitement or mere impatient curiosity it were impossible to +say. + +"Well!" he retorted with a careless shrug of the shoulders. "I was too +far up stream to see anything and Vailly saw nothing either. But he +heard. So did others who happened to be on the shore close by." + +"What did they hear?" + +"The hammering," replied Chauvelin curtly, "when the portholes were +knocked open to let in the flood of water. And the screams and yells of +five and twenty drowning priests." + +"Not one of them escaped, I suppose?" + +"Not one." + +Once more Chauvelin laughed. He had a way of laughing--just like +that--in a peculiar mirthless, derisive manner, as if with joy at +another man's discomfiture, at another's material or moral downfall. +There is only one language in the world which has a word to express that +type of mirth; the word is _Schadenfreude_. + +It was Chauvelin's turn to triumph now. He had distinctly perceived the +signs of an inward shudder which had gone right through Martin-Roget's +spine: he had also perceived through the man's bent shoulders, his +silence, his rigidity that his soul was filled with horror at the story +of that abominable crime which he--Chauvelin--had so blandly retailed +and that he was afraid to show the horror which he felt. And the man who +is afraid can never climb the ladder of success above the man who is +fearless. + + +IV + +There was silence in the low raftered room for awhile: silence only +broken by the crackling and sizzling of damp logs in the hearth, and the +tap-tapping of a loosely fastened shutter which sounded weird and +ghoulish like the knocking of ghosts against the window-frame. +Martin-Roget bending still closer to the fire knew that Chauvelin was +watching him and that Chauvelin had triumphed, for--despite failure, +despite humiliation and disgrace--that man's heart and will had never +softened: he had remained as merciless, as fanatical, as before and +still looked upon every sign of pity and humanity for a victim of that +bloody revolution--which was his child, the thing of his creation, yet +worshipped by him, its creator--as a crime against patriotism and +against the Republic. + +And Martin-Roget fought within himself lest something he might say or +do, a look, a gesture should give the other man an indication that the +horrible account of a hideous crime perpetrated against twenty-five +defenceless men had roused a feeling of unspeakable horror in his heart. +That was the punishment of these callous makers of a ruthless +revolution--that was their hell upon earth, that they were doomed to +hate and to fear one another; every man feeling that the other's hand +was up against him as it had been against law and order, against the +guilty and the innocent, the rebel and the defenceless; every man +knowing that the other was always there on the alert, ready to pounce +like a beast of prey upon any victim--friend, comrade, brother--who came +within reach of his hand. + +Like many men stronger than himself, Pierre Adet--or Martin-Roget as he +now called himself--had been drawn into the vortex of bloodshed and of +tyranny out of which now he no longer had the power to extricate +himself. Nor had he any wish to extricate himself. He had too many past +wrongs to avenge, too much injustice on the part of Fate and +Circumstance to make good, to wish to draw back now that a newly-found +power had been placed in the hands of men such as he through the revolt +of an entire people. The sickening sense of horror which a moment ago +had caused him to shudder and to turn away in loathing from Chauvelin +was only like the feeble flicker of a light before it wholly dies +down--the light of something purer, early lessons of childhood, former +ideals, earlier aspirations, now smothered beneath the passions of +revenge and of hate. + +And he would not give Chauvelin the satisfaction of seeing him wince. He +was himself ashamed of his own weakness. He had deliberately thrown in +his lot with these men and he was determined not to fall a victim to +their denunciations and to their jealousies. So now he made a great +effort to pull himself together, to bring back before his mind those +memory-pictures of past tyranny and oppression which had effectually +killed all sense of pity in his heart, and it was in a tone of perfect +indifference which gave no loophole to Chauvelin's sneers that he asked +after awhile: + +"And was citizen Carrier altogether pleased with the result of his +patriotic efforts?" + +"Oh, quite!" replied the other. "He has no one's orders to take. He is +proconsul--virtual dictator in Nantes: and he has vowed that he will +purge the city from all save its most deserving citizens. The cargo of +priests was followed by one of malefactors, night-birds, cut-throats and +such like. That is where Carrier's patriotism shines out in all its +glory. It is not only priests and aristos, you see--other miscreants are +treated with equal fairness." + +"Yes! I see he is quite impartial," remarked Martin-Roget coolly. + +"Quite," retorted Chauvelin, as he once more sat down in the ingle-nook. +And, leaning his elbows upon his knees he looked straight and +deliberately into the other man's face, and added slowly: "You will have +no cause to complain of Carrier's want of patriotism when you hand over +your bag of birds to him." + +This time Martin-Roget had obviously winced, and Chauvelin had the +satisfaction of seeing that his thrust had gone home: though +Martin-Roget's face was in shadow, there was something now in his whole +attitude, in the clasping and unclasping of his large, square hands +which indicated that the man was labouring under the stress of a violent +emotion. In spite of this he managed to say quite coolly: "What do you +mean exactly by that, citizen Chauvelin?" + +"Oh!" replied the other, "you know well enough what I mean--I am no +fool, what?... or the Revolution would have no use for me. If after my +many failures she still commands my services and employs me to keep my +eyes and ears open, it is because she knows that she can count on me. I +do keep my eyes and ears open, citizen Adet or Martin-Roget, whatever +you like to call yourself, and also my mind--and I have a way of putting +two and two together to make four. There are few people in Nantes who do +not know that old Jean Adet, the miller, was hanged four years ago, +because his son Pierre had taken part in some kind of open revolt +against the tyranny of the ci-devant duc de Kernogan, and was not there +to take his punishment himself. I knew old Jean Adet.... I was on the +Place du Bouffay at Nantes when he was hanged...." + +But already Martin-Roget had jumped to his feet with a muttered +blasphemy. + +"Have done, man," he said roughly, "have done!" And he started pacing up +and down the narrow room like a caged panther, snarling and showing his +teeth, whilst his rough, toil-worn hands quivered with the desire to +clutch an unseen enemy by the throat and to squeeze the life out of him. +"Think you," he added hoarsely, "that I need reminding of that?" + +"No. I do not think that, citizen," replied Chauvelin calmly, "I only +desired to warn you." + +"Warn me? Of what?" + +Nervous, agitated, restless, Martin-Roget had once more gone back to his +seat: his hands were trembling as he held them up mechanically to the +blaze and his face was the colour of lead. In contrast with his +restlessness Chauvelin appeared the more calm and bland. + +"Why should you wish to warn me?" asked the other querulously, but with +an attempt at his former over-bearing manner. "What are my affairs to +you--what do you know about them?" + +"Oh, nothing, nothing, citizen Martin-Roget," replied Chauvelin +pleasantly, "I was only indulging the fancy I spoke to you about just +now of putting two and two together in order to make four. The +chartering of a smuggler's craft--aristos on board her--her ostensible +destination Holland--her real objective Le Croisic.... Le Croisic is now +the port for Nantes and we don't bring aristos into Nantes these days +for the object of providing them with a feather-bed and a competence, +what?" + +"And," retorted Martin-Roget quietly, "if your surmises are correct, +citizen Chauvelin, what then?" + +"Oh, nothing!" replied the other indifferently. "Only ... take care, +citizen ... that is all." + +"Take care of what?" + +"Of the man who brought me, Chauvelin, to ruin and disgrace." + +"Oh! I have heard of that legend before now," said Martin-Roget with a +contemptuous shrug of the shoulders. "The man they call the Scarlet +Pimpernel you mean?" + +"Why, yes!" + +"What have I to do with him?" + +"I don't know. But remember that I myself have twice been after that man +here in England; that twice he slipped through my fingers when I thought +I held him so tightly that he could not possibly escape and that twice +in consequence I was brought to humiliation and to shame. I am a marked +man now--the guillotine will soon claim me for her future use. Your +affairs, citizen, are no concern of mine, but I have marked that Scarlet +Pimpernel for mine own. I won't have any blunderings on your part give +him yet another triumph over us all." + +Once more Martin-Roget swore one of his favourite oaths. + +"By Satan and all his brood, man," he cried in a passion of fury, "have +done with this interference. Have done, I say. I have nothing to do, I +tell you, with your _satané_ Scarlet Pimpernel. My concern is with...." + +"With the duc de Kernogan," broke in Chauvelin calmly, "and with his +daughter; I know that well enough. You want to be even with them over +the murder of your father. I know that too. All that is your affair. +But beware, I tell you. To begin with, the secrecy of your identity is +absolutely essential to the success of your plan. What?" + +"Of course it is. But...." + +"But nevertheless, your identity is known to the most astute, the +keenest enemy of the Republic." + +"Impossible," asserted Martin-Roget hotly. + +"The duc de Kernogan...." + +"Bah! He had never the slightest suspicion of me. Think you his High and +Mightiness in those far-off days ever looked twice at a village lad so +that he would know him again four years later? I came into this country +as an _émigré_ stowed away in a smuggler's ship like a bundle of +contraband goods. I have papers to prove that my name is Martin-Roget +and that I am a banker from Brest. The worthy bishop of Brest--denounced +to the Committee of Public Safety for treason against the Republic--was +given his life and a safe conduct into Spain on the condition that he +gave me--Martin-Roget--letters of personal introduction to various +high-born _émigrés_ in Holland, in Germany and in England. Armed with +these I am invulnerable. I have been presented to His Royal Highness the +Regent, and to the élite of English society in Bath. I am the friend of +M. le duc de Kernogan now and the accredited suitor for his daughter's +hand." + +"His daughter!" broke in Chauvelin with a sneer, and his pale, keen eyes +had in them a spark of malicious mockery. + +Martin-Roget made no immediate retort to the sneer. A curious hot flush +had spread over his forehead and his ears, leaving his cheeks wan and +livid. + +"What about the daughter?" reiterated Chauvelin. + +"Yvonne de Kernogan has never seen Pierre Adet the miller's son," +replied the other curtly. "She is now the affianced wife of +Martin-Roget the millionaire banker of Brest. To-night I shall persuade +M. le duc to allow my marriage with his daughter to take place within +the week. I shall plead pressing business in Holland and my desire that +my wife shall accompany me thither. The duke will consent and Yvonne de +Kernogan will not be consulted. The day after my wedding I shall be on +board the _Hollandia_ with my wife and father-in-law, and together we +will be on our way to Nantes where Carrier will deal with them both." + +"You are quite satisfied that this plan of yours is known to no one, +that no one at the present moment is aware of the fact that Pierre Adet, +the miller's son, and Martin-Roget, banker of Brest, are one and the +same?" + +"Quite satisfied," replied Martin-Roget emphatically. + +"Very well, then, let me tell you this, citizen," rejoined Chauvelin +slowly and deliberately, "that in spite of what you say I am as +convinced as that I am here, alive, that your real identity will be +known--if it is not known already--to a gentleman who is at this present +moment in Bath, and who is known to you, to me, to the whole of France +as the Scarlet Pimpernel." + +Martin-Roget laughed and shrugged his shoulders. + +"Impossible!" he retorted. "Pierre Adet no longer exists ... he never +existed ... much.... Anyhow, he ceased to be on that stormy day in +September, 1789. Unless your pet enemy is a wizard he cannot know." + +"There is nothing that my pet enemy--as you call him--cannot ferret out +if he has a mind to. Beware of him, citizen Martin-Roget. Beware, I tell +you." + +"How can I," laughed the other contemptuously, "if I don't know who he +is?" + +"If you did," retorted Chauvelin, "it wouldn't help you ... much. But +beware of every man you don't know; beware of every stranger you meet; +trust no one; above all, follow no one. He is there where you least +expect him under a disguise you would scarcely dream of." + +"Tell me who he is then--since you know him--so that I may duly beware +of him." + +"No," rejoined Chauvelin with the same slow deliberation, "I will not +tell you who he is. Knowledge in this case would be a very dangerous +thing." + +"Dangerous? To whom?" + +"To yourself probably. To me and to the Republic most undoubtedly. No! I +will not tell you who the Scarlet Pimpernel is. But take my advice, +citizen Martin-Roget," he added emphatically, "go back to Paris or to +Nantes and strive there to serve your country rather than run your head +into a noose by meddling with things here in England, and running after +your own schemes of revenge." + +"My own schemes of revenge!" exclaimed Martin-Roget with a hoarse cry +that was like a snarl.... It seemed as if he wanted to say something +more, but that the words choked him even before they reached his lips. +The hot flush died down from his forehead and his face was once more the +colour of lead. He took up a log from the corner of the hearth and threw +it with a savage, defiant gesture into the fire. + +Somewhere in the house a clock struck nine. + + +V + +Martin-Roget waited until the last echo of the gong had died away, then +he said very slowly and very quietly: + +"Forgo my own schemes of revenge? Can you even remotely guess, citizen +Chauvelin, what it would mean to a man of my temperament and of my +calibre to give up that for which I have toiled and striven for the past +four years? Think of what I was on that day when a conglomeration of +adverse circumstances turned our proposed expedition against the château +de Kernogan into a disaster for our village lads, and a triumph for the +duc. I was knocked down and crushed all but to death by the wheels of +Mlle. de Kernogan's coach. I managed to crawl in the mud and the cold +and the rain, on my hands and knees, hurt, bleeding, half dead, as far +as the presbytery of Vertou where the _curé_ kept me hidden at risk of +his own life for two days until I was able to crawl farther away out of +sight. The _curé_ did not know, I did not know then of the devilish +revenge which the duc de Kernogan meant to wreak against my father. The +news reached me when it was all over and I had worked my way to Paris +with the few sous in my pocket which that good _curé_ had given me, +earning bed and bread as I went along. I was an ignorant lout when I +arrived in Paris. I had been one of the ci-devant Kernogan's +labourers--his chattel, what?--little better or somewhat worse off than +a slave. There I heard that my father had been foully murdered--hung for +a crime which I was supposed to have committed, for which I had not even +been tried. Then the change in me began. For four years I starved in a +garret, toiling like a galley-slave with my hands and muscles by day and +at my books by night. And what am I now? I have worked at books, at +philosophy, at science: I am a man of education. I can talk and discuss +with the best of those d----d aristos who flaunt their caprices and +their mincing manners in the face of the outraged democracy of two +continents. I speak English--almost like a native--and Danish and German +too. I can quote English poets and criticise M. de Voltaire. I am an +aristo, what? For this I have worked, citizen Chauvelin--day and +night--oh! those nights! how I have slaved to make myself what I now am! +And all for the one object--the sole object without which existence +would have been absolutely unendurable. That object guided me, helped me +to bear and to toil, it cheered and comforted me! To be even one day +with the duc de Kernogan and with his daughter! to be their master! to +hold them at my mercy!... to destroy or pardon as I choose!... to be the +arbiter of their fate!... I have worked for four years: now my goal is +in sight, and you talk glibly of forgoing my own schemes of revenge! +Believe me, citizen Chauvelin," he concluded, "it would be easier for me +to hold my right hand into those flames until it hath burned to a cinder +than to forgo the hope of that vengeance which has eaten into my soul. +It would hurt much less." + +He had spoken thus at great length, but with extraordinary restraint. +Never once did he raise his voice or indulge in gesture. He spoke in +even, monotonous tones, like one who is reciting a lesson; and he sat +straight in front of the fire, his elbow on his knee, his chin resting +in his hand and his eyes fixed upon the flames. + +Chauvelin had listened in perfect silence. The scorn, the resentful +anger, the ill-concealed envy of the fallen man for the successful +upstart had died out of his glance. Martin-Roget's story, the intensity +of feeling betrayed in that absolute, outward calm had caused a chord of +sympathy to vibrate in the other's atrophied heart. How well he +understood that vibrant passion of hate, that longing to exact an eye +for an eye, an outrage for an outrage! Was not his own life given over +now to just such a longing?--a mad aching desire to be even once with +that hated enemy, that maddening, mocking, elusive Scarlet Pimpernel who +had fooled and baffled him so often? + + +VI + +Some few moments had gone by since Martin-Roget's harsh, monotonous +voice had ceased to echo through the low raftered room: silence had +fallen between the two men--there was indeed nothing more to say; the +one had unburthened his over-full heart and the other had understood. +They were of a truth made to understand one another, and the silence +between them betokened sympathy. + +Around them all was still, the stillness of a mist-laden night; in the +house no one stirred: the shutter even had ceased to creak; only the +crackling of the wood fire broke that silence which soon became +oppressive. + +Martin-Roget was the first to rouse himself from this trance-like state +wherein memory was holding such ruthless sway: he brought his hands +sharply down on his knees, turned to look for a moment on his companion, +gave a short laugh and finally rose, saying briskly the while: + +"And now, citizen, I shall have to bid you adieu and make my way back to +Bath. The nags have had the rest they needed and I cannot spend the +night here." + +He went to the door and opening it called a loud "Hallo, there!" + +The same woman who had waited on him on his arrival came slowly down the +stairs in response. + +"The man with the horses," commanded Martin-Roget peremptorily. "Tell +him I'll be ready in two minutes." + +He returned to the room and proceeded to struggle into his heavy coat, +Chauvelin as before making no attempt to help him. He sat once more +huddled up in the ingle-nook hugging his elbows with his thin white +hands. There was a smile half scornful, but not wholly dissatisfied +around his bloodless lips. When Martin-Roget was ready to go he called +out quietly after him: + +"The _Hollandia_ remember! At Portishead on the last day of the month. +Captain K U Y P E R." + +"Quite right," replied Martin-Roget laconically. "I'm not like to +forget." + +He then picked up his hat and riding whip and went out. + + +VII + +Outside in the porch he found the woman bending over the recumbent +figure of his guide. + +"He be azleep, Mounzeer," she said placidly, "fast azleep, I do +believe." + +"Asleep?" cried Martin-Roget roughly, "we'll soon see about waking him +up." + +He gave the man a violent kick with the toe of his boot. The man +groaned, stretched himself, turned over and rubbed his eyes. The light +of the swinging lanthorn showed him the wrathful face of his employer. +He struggled to his feet very quickly after that. + +"Stir yourself, man," cried Martin-Roget savagely, as he gripped the +fellow by the shoulder and gave him a vigorous shaking. "Bring the +horses along now, and don't keep me waiting, or there'll be trouble." + +"All right, Mounzeer, all right," muttered the man placidly, as he shook +himself free from the uncomfortable clutch on his shoulder and leisurely +made his way out of the porch. + +"Haven't you got a boy or a man who can give that lout a hand with those +_sacré_ horses?" queried Martin-Roget impatiently. "He hardly knows a +horse's head from its tail." + +"No, zir, I've no one to-night," replied the woman gently. "My man and +my son they be gone down to Watchet to 'elp with the cargo and the +pack-'orzes. They won't be 'ere neither till after midnight. But," she +added more cheerfully, "I can straighten a saddle if you want it." + +"That's all right then--but...." + +He paused suddenly, for a loud cry of "Hallo! Well! I'm ..." rang +through the night from the direction of the rear of the house. The cry +expressed both surprise and dismay. + +"What the ---- is it?" called Martin-Roget loudly in response. + +"The 'orzes!" + +"What about them?" + +To this there was no reply, and with a savage oath and calling to the +woman to show him the way Martin-Roget ran out in the direction whence +had come the cry of dismay. He fell straight into the arms of his guide, +who promptly set up another cry, more dismal, more expressive of +bewilderment than the first. + +"They be gone," he shouted excitedly. + +"Who have gone?" queried the Frenchman. + +"The 'orzes!" + +"The horses? What in ---- do you mean?" + +"The 'orzes have gone, Mounzeer. There was no door to the ztables and +they be gone." + +"You're a fool," growled Martin-Roget, who of a truth had not taken in +as yet the full significance of the man's jerky sentences. "Horses don't +walk out of the stables like that. They can't have done if you tied them +up properly." + +"I didn't tie them up," protested the man. "I didn't know 'ow to tie the +beastly nags up, and there was no one to 'elp me. I didn't think they'd +walk out like that." + +"Well! if they're gone you'll have to go and get them back somehow, +that's all," said Martin-Roget, whose temper by now was beyond his +control, and who was quite ready to give the lout a furious thrashing. + +"Get them back, Mounzeer," wailed the man, "'ow can I? In the dark, too. +Besides, if I did come nose to nose wi' 'em I shouldn't know 'ow to get +'em. Would you, Mounzeer?" he added with bland impertinence. + +"I shall know how to lay you out, you _satané_ idiot," growled +Martin-Roget, "if I have to spend the night in this hole." + +He strode on in the darkness in the direction where a little glimmer of +light showed the entrance to a wide barn which obviously was used as a +rough stabling. He stumbled through a yard and over a miscellaneous lot +of rubbish. It was hardly possible to see one's hands before one's eyes +in the darkness and the fog. The woman followed him, offering +consolation in the shape of a seat in the coffee-room whereon to pass +the night, for indeed she had no bed to spare, and the man from Chelwood +brought up the rear--still ejaculating cries of astonishment rather than +distress. + +"You are that careless, man!" the woman admonished him placidly, "and I +give you a lanthorn and all for to look after your 'orzes properly." + +"But you didn't give me a 'and for to tie 'em up in their stalls, and +give 'em their feed. Drat 'em! I 'ate 'orzes and all to do with 'em." + +"Didn't you give 'em the feed I give you for 'em then?" + +"No, I didn't. Think you I'd go into one o' them narrow stalls and get +kicked for my pains." + +"Then they was 'ungry, pore things," she concluded, "and went out after +the 'ay what's just outside. I don't know 'ow you'll ever get 'em back +in this fog." + +There was indeed no doubt that the nags had made their way out of the +stables, in that irresponsible fashion peculiar to animals, and that +they had gone astray in the dark. There certainly was no sound in the +night to denote their presence anywhere near. + +"We'll get 'em all right in the morning," remarked the woman with her +exasperating placidity. + +"To-morrow morning!" exclaimed Martin-Roget in a passion of fury. "And +what the d----l am I going to do in the meanwhile?" + +The woman reiterated her offers of a seat by the fire in the +coffee-room. + +"The men won't mind ye, zir," she said, "heaps of 'em are Frenchies like +yourself, and I'll tell 'em you ain't a spying on 'em." + +"It's no more than five mile to Chelwood," said the man blandly, "and +maybe you get a better shakedown there." + +"A five-mile tramp," growled Martin-Roget, whose wrath seemed to have +spent itself before the hopelessness of his situation, "in this fog and +gloom, and knee-deep in mud.... There'll be a sovereign for you, woman," +he added curtly, "if you can give me a clean bed for the night." + +The woman hesitated for a second or two. + +"Well! a zovereign is tempting, zir," she said at last. "You shall 'ave +my son's bed. I know 'e'd rather 'ave the zovereign if 'e was ever zo +tired. This way, zir," she added, as she once more turned toward the +house, "mind them 'urdles there." + +"And where am I goin' to zleep?" called the man from Chelwood after the +two retreating figures. + +"I'll look after the man for you, zir," said the woman; "for a matter of +a shillin' 'e can sleep in the coffee-room, and I'll give 'im 'is +breakfast too." + +"Not one farthing will I pay for the idiot," retorted Martin-Roget +savagely. "Let him look after himself." + +He had once more reached the porch. Without another word, and not +heeding the protests and curses of the unfortunate man whom he had left +standing shelterless in the middle of the yard, he pushed open the front +door of the house and once more found himself in the passage outside the +coffee-room. + +But the woman had turned back a little before she followed her guest +into the house, and she called out to the man in the darkness: + +"You may zleep in any of them outhouses and welcome, and zure there'll +be a bit o' porridge for ye in the mornin'!" + +"Think ye I'll stop," came in a furious growl out of the gloom, "and +conduct that d----d frogeater back to Chelwood? No fear. Five miles +ain't nothin' to me, and 'e can keep the miserable shillin' 'e'd 'ave +give me for my pains. Let 'im get 'is 'orzes back 'izelf and get to +Chelwood as best 'e can. I'm off, and you can tell 'im zo from me. It'll +make 'im sleep all the better, I reckon." + +The woman was obviously not of a disposition that would ever argue a +matter of this sort out. She had done her best, she reckoned, both for +master and man, and if they chose to quarrel between themselves that was +their business and not hers. + +So she quietly went into the house again; barred and bolted the door, +and finding the stranger still waiting for her in the passage she +conducted him to a tiny room on the floor above. + +"My son's room, Mounzeer," she said; "I 'ope as 'ow ye'll be +comfortable." + +"It will do all right," assented Martin-Roget. "Is 'the Captain' +sleeping in the house to-night?" he added as with an afterthought. + +"Only in the coffee-room, Mounzeer. I couldn't give 'im a bed. 'The +Captain' will be leaving with the pack 'orzes a couple of hours before +dawn. Shall I tell 'im you be 'ere." + +"No, no," he replied promptly. "Don't tell him anything. I don't want to +see him again: and he'll be gone before I'm awake, I reckon." + +"That 'e will, zir, most like. Good-night, zir." + +"Good-night. And--mind--that lout gets the two horses back again for my +use in the morning. I shall have to make my way to Chelwood as early as +may be." + +"Aye, aye, zir," assented the woman placidly. It were no use, she +thought, to upset the Mounzeer's temper once more by telling him that +his guide had decamped. Time enough in the morning, when she would be +less busy. + +"And my John can see 'im as far as Chelwood," she thought to herself as +she finally closed the door on the stranger and made her way slowly down +the creaking stairs. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE ASSEMBLY ROOMS + + +I + +The sigh of satisfaction was quite unmistakable. + +It could be heard from end to end, from corner to corner of the +building. It sounded above the din of the orchestra who had just +attacked with vigour the opening bars of a schottische, above the +brouhaha of moving dancers and the frou-frou of skirts: it travelled +from the small octagon hall, through the central salon to the tea-room, +the ball-room and the card-room: it reverberated from the gallery in the +ball-room to the maids' gallery: it distracted the ladies from their +gossip and the gentlemen from their cards. + +It was a universal, heartfelt "Ah!" of intense and pleasurable +satisfaction. + +Sir Percy Blakeney and his lady had just arrived. It was close on +midnight, and the ball had positively languished. What was a ball +without the presence of Sir Percy? His Royal Highness too had been +expected earlier than this. But it was not thought that he would come at +all, despite his promise, if the spoilt pet of Bath society remained +unaccountably absent; and the Assembly Rooms had worn an air of woe even +in the face of the gaily dressed throng which filled every vast room in +its remotest angle. + +But now Sir Percy Blakeney had arrived, just before the clocks had +struck midnight, and exactly one minute before His Royal Highness drove +up himself from the Royal Apartments. Lady Blakeney was looking more +radiant and beautiful than ever before, so everyone remarked, when a few +moments later she appeared in the crowded ball-room on the arm of His +Royal Highness and closely followed by my lord Anthony Dewhurst and by +Sir Percy himself, who had the young Duchess of Flintshire on his arm. + +"What do you mean, you incorrigible rogue," her Grace was saying with +playful severity to her cavalier, "by coming so late to the ball? +Another two minutes and you would have arrived after His Royal Highness +himself: and how would you have justified such solecism, I would like to +know." + +"By swearing that thoughts of your Grace had completely addled my poor +brain," he retorted gaily, "and that in the mental contemplation of such +charms I forgot time, place, social duties, everything." + +"Even the homage due to truth," she laughed. "Cannot you for once in +your life be serious, Sir Percy?" + +"Impossible, dear lady, whilst your dainty hand rests upon mine arm." + + +II + +It was not often that His Royal Highness graced Bath with his presence, +and the occasion was made the excuse for quite exceptional gaiety and +brilliancy. The new fashions of this memorable year of 1793 had defied +the declaration of war and filtrated through from Paris: London +milliners had not been backward in taking the hint, and though most of +the more starchy dowagers obstinately adhered to the pre-war +fashions--the huge hooped skirts, stiff stomachers, pointed waists, +voluminous panniers and monumental head erections--the young and smart +matrons were everywhere to be seen in the new gracefully flowing skirts +innocent of steel constructions, the high waist line, the pouter +pigeon-like draperies over their pretty bosoms. + +Her Grace of Flintshire looked ravishing with her curly fair hair +entirely free from powder, and Lady Betty Draitune's waist seemed to be +nestling under her arm-pits. Of course Lady Blakeney wore the very +latest thing in striped silks and gossamer-like muslin and lace, and it +was hard to enumerate all the pretty débutantes and young brides who +fluttered about the Assembly Rooms this night. + +And gliding through that motley throng, bright-plumaged like a swarm of +butterflies, there were a few figures dressed in sober blacks and +greys--the _émigrés_ over from France--men, women, young girls and +gilded youth from out that seething cauldron of revolutionary +France--who had shaken the dust of that rampant demagogism from off +their buckled shoes, taking away with them little else but their lives. +Mostly chary of speech, grave in their demeanour, bearing upon their wan +faces traces of that horror which had seized them when they saw all the +traditions of their past tottering around them, the proletariat whom +they had despised turning against them with all the fury of caged beasts +let loose, their kindred and friends massacred, their King and Queen +murdered. The shelter and security which hospitable England had extended +to them, had not altogether removed from their hearts the awful sense of +terror and of gloom. + +Many of them had come to Bath because the more genial climate of the +West of England consoled them for the inclemencies of London's fogs. +Received with open arms and with that lavish hospitality which the +refugees and the oppressed had already learned to look for in England, +they had gradually allowed themselves to be drawn into the fashionable +life of the gay little city. The Comtesse de Tournai was here and her +daughter, Lady Ffoulkes, Sir Andrew's charming and happy bride, and M. +Paul Déroulède and his wife--beautiful Juliette Déroulède with the +strange, haunted look in her large eyes, as of one who has looked +closely on death; and M. le duc de Kernogan with his exquisite daughter, +whose pretty air of seriousness and of repose sat so quaintly upon her +young face. But every one remarked as soon as M. le duc entered the +rooms that M. Martin-Roget was not in attendance upon Mademoiselle, +which was quite against the order of things; also that M. le duc +appeared to keep a more sharp eye than usual upon his daughter in +consequence, and that he asked somewhat anxiously if milor Anthony +Dewhurst was in the room, and looked obviously relieved when the reply +was in the negative. + +At which trifling incident every one who was in the know smiled and +whispered, for M. le duc made it no secret that he favoured his own +compatriot's suit for Mademoiselle Yvonne's hand rather than that of my +lord Tony--which--as old Euclid has it--is absurd. + + +III + +But with the arrival of the royal party M. de Kernogan's troubles began. +To begin with, though M. Martin-Roget had not arrived, my lord Tony +undoubtedly had. He had come in, in the wake of Lady Blakeney, but very +soon he began wandering round the room obviously in search of some one. +Immediately there appeared to be quite a conspiracy among the young folk +in the ball-room to keep both Lord Tony's and Mlle. Yvonne's movements +hidden from the prying eyes of M. le duc: and anon His Royal Highness, +after a comprehensive survey of the ball-room and a few gracious words +to his more intimate circle, wandered away to the card-room, and as luck +would have it he claimed M. le duc de Kernogan for a partner at faro. + +Now M. le duc was a courtier of the old régime: to have disobeyed the +royal summons would in his eyes have been nothing short of a crime. He +followed the royal party to the card-room, and on his way thither had +one gleam of comfort in that he saw Lady Blakeney sitting on a sofa in +the octagon hall engaged in conversation with his daughter, whilst Lord +Anthony Dewhurst was nowhere in sight. + +However, the gleam of comfort was very brief, for less than a quarter of +an hour after he had sat down at His Highness' table, Lady Blakeney came +into the card-room and stood thereafter for some little while close +beside the Prince's chair. The next hour after that was one of special +martyrdom for the anxious father, for he knew that his daughter was in +all probability sitting out in a specially secluded corner in the +company of my lord Tony. + +If only Martin-Roget were here! + + +IV + +Martin-Roget with the eagle eyes and the airs of an accredited suitor +would surely have intervened when my lord Tony in the face of the whole +brilliant assembly in the ball-room, drew Mlle. de Kernogan into the +seclusion of the recess underneath the gallery. + +My lord Tony was never very glib of tongue. That peculiar dignified +shyness which is one of the chief characteristics of well-bred +Englishmen caused him to be tongue-tied when he had most to say. It was +just with gesture and an appealing pressure of his hand upon her arm +that he persuaded Yvonne de Kernogan to sit down beside him on the sofa +in the remotest and darkest corner of the recess, and there she remained +beside him silent and grave for a moment or two, and stole timid glances +from time to time through the veil of her lashes at the +finely-chiselled, expressive face of her young English lover. + +He was pining to put a question to her, and so great was his excitement +that his tongue refused him service, and she, knowing what was hovering +on his lips, would not help him out, but a humorous twinkle in her dark +eyes, and a faint smile round her lips lit up the habitual seriousness +of her young face. + +"Mademoiselle ..." he managed to stammer at last. "Mademoiselle Yvonne +... you have seen Lady Blakeney?" + +"Yes," she replied demurely, "I have seen Lady Blakeney." + +"And ... and ... she told you?" + +"Yes. Lady Blakeney told me many things." + +"She told you that ... that.... In God's name, Mademoiselle Yvonne," he +added desperately, "do help me out--it is cruel to tease me! Can't you +see that I'm nearly crazy with anxiety?" + +Then she looked up at him, her dark eyes glowing and brilliant, her face +shining with the light of a great tenderness. + +"Nay, milor," she said earnestly, "I had no wish to tease you. But you +will own 'tis a grave and serious step which Lady Blakeney suggested +that I should take. I have had no time to think ... as yet." + +"But there is no time for thinking, Mademoiselle Yvonne," he said +naïvely. "If you will consent.... Oh! you will consent, will you not?" +he pleaded. + +She made no immediate reply, but gradually her hand which rested upon +the sofa stole nearer and then nearer to his; and with a quiver of +exquisite happiness his hand closed upon hers. The tips of his fingers +touched the smooth warm palm and poor Lord Tony had to close his eyes +for a moment as his sense of superlative ecstasy threatened to make him +faint. Slowly he lifted that soft white hand to his lips. + +"Upon my word, Yvonne," he said with quiet fervour, "you will never have +cause to regret that you have trusted me." + +"I know that well, milor," she replied demurely. + +She settled down a shade or two closer to him still. + +They were now like two birds in a cosy nest--secluded from the rest of +the assembly, who appeared to them like dream-figures flitting in some +other world that had nothing to do with their happiness. The strains of +the orchestra who had struck the measure of the first figure of a +contredanse sounded like fairy-music, distant, unreal in their ears. +Only their love was real, their joy in one another's company, their +hands clasped closely together! + +"Tell me," she said after awhile, "how it all came about. It is all so +terribly sudden ... so exquisitely sudden. I was prepared of course ... +but not so soon ... and certainly not to-night. Tell me just how it +happened." + +She spoke English quite fluently, with just a charming slight accent, +which he thought the most adorable thing he had ever heard. + +"You see, dear heart," he replied, and there was a quiver of intense +feeling in his voice as he spoke, "there is a man who not only is the +friend whom I love best in all the world, but is also the one whom I +trust absolutely, more than myself. Two hours ago he sent for me and +told me that grave danger threatened you--threatened our love and our +happiness, and he begged me to urge you to consent to a secret marriage +... at once ... to-night." + +"And you think this ... this friend knew?" + +"I know," he replied earnestly, "that he knew, or he would not have +spoken to me as he did. He knows that my whole life is in your exquisite +hands--he knows that our happiness is somehow threatened by that man +Martin-Roget. How he obtained that information I could not guess ... he +had not the time or the inclination to tell me. I flew to make all +arrangements for our marriage to-night and prayed to God--as I have +never prayed in my life before--that you, dear heart, would deign to +consent." + +"How could I refuse when Lady Blakeney advised? She is the kindest and +dearest friend I possess. She and your friend ought to know one another. +Will you not tell me who he is?" + +"I will present him to you, dear heart, as soon as we are married," he +replied with awkward evasiveness. Then suddenly he exclaimed with boyish +enthusiasm: "I can't believe it! I can't believe it! It is the most +extraordinary thing in the world...." + +"What is that, milor?" she asked. + +"That you should have cared for me at all. For of course you must care, +or you wouldn't be sitting here with me now ... you would not have +consented ... would you?" + +"You know that I do care, milor," she said in her grave quiet way. "How +could it be otherwise?" + +"But I am so stupid and so slow," he said naïvely. "Why! look at me now. +My heart is simply bursting with all that I want to say to you, but I +just can't find the words, and I do nothing but talk rubbish and feel +how you must despise me." + +Once more that humorous little smile played for a moment round Yvonne de +Kernogan's serious mouth. She didn't say anything just then, but her +delicate fingers gave his hand an expressive squeeze. + +"You are not frightened?" he asked abruptly. + +"Frightened? Of what?" she rejoined. + +"At the step you are going to take?" + +"Would I take it," she retorted gently, "if I had any misgivings?" + +"Oh! if you had.... Do you know that even now ..." he continued clumsily +and haltingly, "now that I have realised just what it will mean to have +you ... and just what it would mean to me, God help me--if I were to +lose you ... well!... that even now I would rather go through that hell +than that you should feel the least bit doubtful or unhappy about it +all." + +Again she smiled, gently, tenderly up into his eager, boyish face. + +"The only unhappiness," she said gravely, "that could ever overtake me +in the future would be parting from you, milor." + +"Oh! God bless you for that, my dear! God bless you for that! But for +pity's sake turn your dear eyes away from me or I vow I shall go crazy +with joy. Men do go crazy with joy sometimes, you know, and I feel that +in another moment I shall stand up and shout at the top of my voice to +all the people in the room that within the next few hours the loveliest +girl in all the world is going to be my wife." + +"She certainly won't be that, if you do shout it at the top of your +voice, milor, for father would hear you and there would be an end to our +beautiful adventure." + +"It will be a beautiful adventure, won't it?" he sighed with unconcealed +ecstasy. + +"So beautiful, my dear lord," she replied with gentle earnestness, "so +perfect, in fact, that I am almost afraid something must happen +presently to upset it all." + +"Nothing can happen," he assured her. "M. Martin-Roget is not here, and +His Royal Highness is even now monopolising M. le duc de Kernogan so +that he cannot get away." + +"Your friend must be very clever to manipulate so many strings on our +behalf!" + +"It is long past midnight now, sweetheart," he said with sudden +irrelevance. + +"Yes, I know. I have been watching the time: and I have already thought +everything out for the best. I very often go home from balls and routs +in the company of Lady Ffoulkes and sleep in her house those nights. +Father is always quite satisfied, when I do that, and to-night he will +be doubly satisfied feeling that I shall be taken away from your +society. Lady Ffoulkes is in the secret, of course, so Lady Blakeney +told me, and she will be ready for me in a few minutes now: she'll take +me home with her and there I will change my dress and rest for awhile, +waiting for the happy hour. She will come to the church with me and then +... oh then! Oh! my dear milor!" she added suddenly with a deep sigh +whilst her whole face became irradiated with a light of intense +happiness, "as you say it is the most wonderful thing in all the +world--this--our beautiful adventure together." + +"The parson will be ready at half-past six, dear heart, it was the +earliest hour that I could secure ... after that we go at once to your +church and the priest will tie up any loose threads which our English +parson failed to make tight. After those two ceremonies we shall be very +much married, shan't we?... and nothing can come between us, dear heart, +can it?" he queried with a look of intense anxiety on his young face. + +"Nothing," she replied. Then she added with a short sigh: "Poor father!" + +"Dear heart, he will only fret for a little while. I don't believe he +can really want you to marry that man Martin-Roget. It is just obstinacy +on his part. He can't have anything against me really ... save of course +that I am not clever and that I shall never do anything very big in the +world ... except to love you, Yvonne, with my whole heart and soul and +with every fibre and muscle in me.... Oh! I'll do that," he added with +boyish enthusiasm, "better than anyone else in all the world could do! +And your father will, I'll be bound, forgive me for stealing you, when +he sees that you are happy, and contented, and have everything you want +and ... and...." + +As usual Lord Tony's eloquence was not equal to all that it should have +expressed. He blushed furiously and with a quaint, shy gesture, passed +his large, well-shaped hand over his smooth, brown hair. "I am not much, +I know," he continued with a winning air of self-deprecation, "and you +are far above me as the stars--you are so wonderful, so clever, so +accomplished and I am nothing at all ... but ... but I have plenty of +high-born connexions, and I have plenty of money and influential +friends ... and ... and Sir Percy Blakeney, who is the most +accomplished and finest gentleman in England, calls me his friend." + +She smiled at his eagerness. She loved him for his clumsy little ways, +his halting speech, that big loving heart of his which was too full of +fine and noble feelings to find vent in mere words. + +"Have you ever met a finer man in all the world?" he added +enthusiastically. + +Yvonne de Kernogan smiled once more. Her recollections of Sir Percy +Blakeney showed her an elegant man of the world, whose mind seemed +chiefly occupied on the devising and the wearing of exquisite clothes, +in the uttering of lively witticisms for the entertainment of his royal +friend and the ladies of his entourage: it showed her a man of great +wealth and vast possessions who seemed willing to spend both in the mere +pursuit of pleasures. She liked Sir Percy Blakeney well enough, but she +could not understand clever and charming Marguerite Blakeney's adoration +for her inane and foppish husband, nor the whole-hearted admiration +openly lavished upon him by men like Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, my lord +Hastings, and others. She would gladly have seen her own dear milor +choose a more sober and intellectual friend. But then she loved him for +his marvellous power of whole-hearted friendship, for his loyalty to +those he cared for, for everything in fact that made up the sum total of +his winning personality, and she pinned her faith on that other +mysterious friend whose individuality vastly intrigued her. + +"I am more interested in your anonymous friend," she said quaintly, +"than in Sir Percy Blakeney. But he too is kindness itself and Lady +Blakeney is an angel. I like to think that the happiest days of my +life--our honeymoon, my dear lord--will be spent in their house." + +"Blakeney has lent me Combwich Hall for as long as we like to stay +there. We'll drive thither directly after the service, dear heart, and +then we'll send a courier to your father and ask for his blessing and +his forgiveness." + +"Poor father!" sighed Yvonne again. But evidently compassion for the +father whom she had elected to deceive did not weigh over heavily in the +balance of her happiness. Her little hand once more stole like a timid +and confiding bird into the shelter of his firm grasp. + + +V + +In the card-room at His Highness' table Sir Percy Blakeney was holding +the bank and seemingly luck was dead against him. Around the various +tables the ladies stood about, chattering and hindering the players. +Nothing appeared serious to-night, not even the capricious chances of +hazard. + +His Royal Highness was in rare good humour, for he was winning +prodigiously. + +Her Grace of Flintshire placed her perfumed and beringed hand upon Sir +Percy Blakeney's shoulder; she stood behind his chair, chattering +incessantly in a high flutey treble just like a canary. Blakeney vowed +that she was so ravishing that she had put Dame Fortune to flight. + +"You have not yet told us, Sir Percy," she said roguishly, "how you came +to arrive so late at the ball." + +"Alas, madam," he sighed dolefully, "'twas the fault of my cravat." + +"Your cravat?" + +"Aye indeed! You see I spent the whole of to-day in perfecting my new +method for tying a butterfly bow, so as to give the neck an appearance +of utmost elegance with a minimum of discomfort. Lady Blakeney will bear +me out when I say that I set my whole mind to my task. Was I not busy +all day m'dear?" he added, making a formal appeal to Marguerite, who +stood immediately behind His Highness' chair, and with her luminous +eyes, full of merriment and shining with happiness, fixed upon her +husband. + +"You certainly spent a considerable time in front of the looking-glass," +she said gaily, "with two valets in attendance and my lord Tony an +interested spectator in the proceedings." + +"There now!" rejoined Sir Percy triumphantly, "her ladyship's testimony +thoroughly bears me out. And now you shall see what Tony says on the +matter. Tony! Where's Tony!" he added as his lazy grey eyes sought the +brilliant crowd in the card-room. "Tony, where the devil are you?" + +There was no reply, and anon Sir Percy's merry gaze encountered that of +M. le duc de Kernogan who, dressed in sober black, looked strangely +conspicuous in the midst of this throng of bright-coloured butterflies, +and whose grave eyes, as they rested on the gorgeous figure of the +English exquisite, held a world of contempt in their glance. + +"Ah! M. le duc," continued Blakeney, returning that scornful look with +his habitual good-humoured one, "I had not noticed that mademoiselle +Yvonne was not with you, else I had not thought of inquiring so loudly +for my friend Tony." + +"My lord Antoine is dancing with my daughter, Sir Percy," said the other +man gravely, in excellent if somewhat laboured English, "he had my +permission to ask her." + +"And is a thrice happy man in consequence," retorted Blakeney lightly, +"though I fear me M. Martin-Roget's wrath will descend upon my poor +Tony's head with unexampled vigour in consequence." + +"M. Martin-Roget is not here this evening," broke in the Duchess, "and +methought," she added in a discreet whisper, "that my lord Tony was all +the happier for his absence. The two young people have spent a +considerable time together under the shadow of the gallery in the +ball-room, and, if I mistake not, Lord Tony is making the most of his +time." + +She talked very volubly and with a slight North-country brogue which no +doubt made it a little difficult for the stranger to catch her every +word. But evidently M. le duc had understood the drift of what she said, +for now he rejoined with some acerbity: + +"Mlle. de Kernogan is too well educated, I hope, to allow the attentions +of any gentleman, against her father's will." + +"Come, come, M. de Kernogan," here interposed His Royal Highness with +easy familiarity, "Lord Anthony Dewhurst is the son of my old friend the +Marquis of Atiltone: one of our most distinguished families in this +country, who have helped to make English history. He has moreover +inherited a large fortune from his mother, who was a Cruche of Crewkerne +and one of the richest heiresses in the land. He is a splendid fellow--a +fine sportsman, a loyal gentleman. His attentions to any young lady, +however high-born, can be but flattering--and I should say welcome to +those who have her future welfare at heart." + +But in response to this gracious tirade, M. le duc de Kernogan bowed +gravely, and his stern features did not relax as he said coldly: + +"Your Royal Highness is pleased to take an interest in the affairs of my +daughter. I am deeply grateful." + +There was a second's awkward pause, for every one felt that despite his +obvious respect and deference M. le duc de Kernogan had endeavoured to +inflict a snub upon the royal personage, and one or two hot-headed young +fops in the immediate entourage even muttered the word: "Impertinence!" +inaudibly through their teeth. Only His Royal Highness appeared not to +notice anything unusual or disrespectful in M. le duc's attitude. It +seemed as if he was determined to remain good-humoured and pleasant. At +any rate he chose to ignore the remark which had offended the ears of +his entourage. Only those who stood opposite to His Highness, on the +other side of the card table, declared afterwards that the Prince had +frowned and that a haughty rejoinder undoubtedly hovered on his lips. + +Be that as it may, he certainly did not show the slightest sign of +ill-humour: quite gaily and unconcernedly he scooped up his winnings +which Sir Percy Blakeney, who held the Bank, was at this moment pushing +towards him. + +"Don't go yet, M. de Kernogan," he said as the Frenchman made a movement +to work his way out of the crowd, feeling no doubt that the atmosphere +round him had become somewhat frigid if not exactly inimical, "don't go +yet, I beg of you. _Pardi!_ Can't you see that you have been bringing me +luck? As a rule Blakeney, who can so well afford to lose, has the +devil's own good fortune, but to-night I have succeeded in getting some +of my own back from him. Do not, I entreat you, break the run of my luck +by going." + +"Oh, Monseigneur," rejoined the old courtier suavely, "how can my poor +presence influence the gods, who of a surety always preside over your +Highness' fortunes?" + +"Don't attempt to explain it, my dear sir," quoth the Prince gaily. "I +only know that if you go now, my luck may go with you and I shall blame +you for my losses." + +"Oh! in that case, Monseigneur...." + +"And with all that, Blakeney," continued His Highness, once more taking +up the cards and turning to his friend, "remember that we still await +your explanation as to your coming so late to the ball." + +"An omission, your Royal Highness," rejoined Blakeney, "an absence of +mind brought about by your severity, and that of Her Grace. The trouble +was that all my calculations with regard to the exact adjustment of the +butterfly bow were upset when I realised that the set of the present day +waistcoat would not harmonise with it. Less than two hours before I was +due to appear at this ball my mind had to make a complete _volte-face_ +in the matter of cravats. I became bewildered, lost, utterly confused. I +have only just recovered, and one word of criticism on my final efforts +would plunge me now into the depths of despair." + +"Blakeney, you are absolutely incorrigible," retorted His Highness with +a laugh. "M. le duc," he added, once more turning to the grave Frenchman +with his wonted graciousness, "I pray you do not form your judgment on +the gilded youth of England by the example of my friend Blakeney. Some +of us can be serious when occasion demands, you know." + +"Your Highness is pleased to jest," said M. de Kernogan stiffly. "What +greater occasion for seriousness can there be than the present one. +True, England has never suffered as France is suffering now, but she +has engaged in a conflict against the most powerful democracy the world +has ever known, she has thrown down the gauntlet to a set of human +beasts of prey who are as determined as they are ferocious. England will +not emerge victorious from this conflict, Monseigneur, if her sons do +not realise that war is not mere sport and that victory can only be +attained by the sacrifice of levity and of pleasure." + +He had dropped into French in response to His Highness' remark, in order +to express his thoughts more accurately. The Prince--a little bored no +doubt--seemed disinclined to pursue the subject. Nevertheless, it seemed +as if once again he made a decided effort not to show ill-humour. He +even gave a knowing wink--a wink!--in the direction of his friend +Blakeney and of Her Grace as if to beg them to set the ball of +conversation rolling once more along a smoother--a less boring--path. He +was obviously quite determined not to release M. de Kernogan from +attendance near his royal person. + + +VI + +As usual Sir Percy threw himself in the breach, filling the sudden pause +with his infectious laugh: + +"La!" he said gaily, "how beautifully M. le duc does talk. Ffoulkes," he +added, addressing Sir Andrew, who was standing close by, "I'll wager you +ten pounds to a pinch of snuff that you couldn't deliver yourself of +such splendid sentiments, even in your own native lingo." + +"I won't take you, Blakeney," retorted Sir Andrew with a laugh. "I'm no +good at peroration." + +"You should hear our distinguished guest M. Martin-Roget on the same +subject," continued Sir Percy with mock gravity. "By Gad! can't he talk? +I feel a d----d worm when he talks about our national levity, our insane +worship of sport, our ... our ... M. le duc," he added with becoming +seriousness and in atrocious French, "I appeal to you. Does not M. +Martin-Roget talk beautifully?" + +"M. Martin-Roget," replied the duc gravely, "is a man of marvellous +eloquence, fired by overwhelming patriotism. He is a man who must +command respect wherever he goes." + +"You have known him long, M. le duc?" queried His Royal Highness +graciously. + +"Indeed not very long, Monseigneur. He came over as an _émigré_ from +Brest some three months ago, hidden in a smuggler's ship. He had been +denounced as an aristocrat who was furthering the cause of the royalists +in Brittany by helping them plentifully with money, but he succeeded in +escaping, not only with his life, but also with the bulk of his +fortune." + +"Ah! M. Martin-Roget is rich?" + +"He is sole owner of a rich banking business in Brest, Monseigneur, +which has an important branch in America and correspondents all over +Europe. Monseigneur the Bishop of Brest recommended him specially to my +notice in a very warm letter of introduction, wherein he speaks of M. +Martin-Roget as a gentleman of the highest patriotism and integrity. +Were I not quite satisfied as to M. Martin-Roget's antecedents and +present connexions I would not have ventured to present him to your +Highness." + +"Nor would you have accepted him as a suitor for your daughter, M. le +duc, _c'est entendu_!" concluded His Highness urbanely. "M. +Martin-Roget's wealth will no doubt cover his lack of birth." + +"There are plenty of high-born gentlemen devoted to the royalist cause, +Monseigneur," rejoined the duc in his grave, formal manner. "But the +most just and purest of causes must at times be helped with money. The +Vendéens in Brittany, the Princes at Coblentz are all sorely in need of +funds...." + +"And M. Martin-Roget son-in-law of M. le duc de Kernogan is more likely +to feed those funds than M. Martin-Roget the plain business man who has +no aristocratic connexions," concluded His Royal Highness dryly. "But +even so, M. le duc," he added more gravely, "surely you cannot be so +absolutely certain as you would wish that M. Martin-Roget's antecedents +are just as he has told you. Monseigneur the Bishop of Brest may have +acted in perfect good faith...." + +"Monseigneur the Bishop of Brest, your Highness, is a man who has our +cause, the cause of our King and of our Faith, as much at heart as I +have myself. He would know that on his recommendation I would trust any +man absolutely. He was not like to make careless use of such knowledge." + +"And you are quite satisfied that the worthy Bishop did not act under +some dire pressure ...?" + +"Quite satisfied, Monseigneur," replied the duc firmly. "What pressure +could there be that would influence a prelate of such high integrity as +Monseigneur the Bishop of Brest?" + + +VII + +There was silence for a moment or two, during which the heavy bracket +clock over the door struck the first hour after midnight. His Royal +Highness looked round at Lady Blakeney, and she gave him a smile and an +almost imperceptible nod. Sir Andrew Ffoulkes had in the meanwhile +quietly slipped away. + +"I understand," said His Royal Highness quite gravely, turning back to +M. le duc, "and I must crave your pardon, sir, for what must have seemed +to you an indiscretion. You have given me a very clear exposé of the +situation. I confess that until to-night it had seemed to me--and to all +your friends, Monsieur, a trifle obscure. In fact, it had been my +intention to intercede with you in favour of my young friend Lord +Anthony Dewhurst, who of a truth is deeply enamoured of your daughter." + +"Though your Highness' wishes are tantamount to a command, yet would I +humbly assert that my wishes with regard to my daughter are based upon +my loyalty and my duty to my Sovereign King Louis XVII, whom may God +guard and protect, and that therefore it is beyond my power now to +modify them." + +"May God trounce you for an obstinate fool," murmured His Highness in +English, and turning his head away so that the other should not hear +him. But aloud and with studied graciousness he said: + +"M. le duc, will you not take a hand at hazard? My luck is turning, and +I have faith in yours. We must fleece Blakeney to-night. He has had +Satan's own luck these past few weeks. Such good fortune becomes +positively revolting." + +There was no more talk of Mlle. de Kernogan after that. Indeed her +father felt that her future had already been discussed far too freely by +all these well-wishers who of a truth were not a little indiscreet. He +thought that the manners and customs of good society were very peculiar +here in this fog-ridden England. What business was it of all these +high-born ladies and gentlemen--of His Royal Highness himself for that +matter--what plans he had made for Yvonne's future? Martin-Roget was +_bourgeois_ by birth, but he was vastly rich and had promised to pour a +couple of millions into the coffers of the royalist army if Mlle. de +Kernogan became his wife. A couple of millions with more to follow, no +doubt, and a loyal adherence to the royalist cause was worth these days +all the blue blood that flowed in my lord Anthony Dewhurst's veins. + +So at any rate thought M. le duc this night, while His Royal Highness +kept him at cards until the late hours of the morning. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE FATHER + + +I + +It was close on ten o'clock now in the morning on the following day, and +M. le duc de Kernogan was at breakfast in his lodgings in Laura Place, +when a courier was announced who was the bearer of a letter for M. le +duc. + +He thought the man must have been sent by Martin-Roget, who mayhap was +sick, seeing that he had not been present at the Assembly Rooms last +night, and the duc took the letter and opened it without misgivings. He +read the address on the top of the letter: "Combwich Hall"--a place +unknown to him, and the first words of the letter: "Dear father!" And +even then he had no misgivings. + +In fact he had to read the letter through three times before the full +meaning of its contents had penetrated into his brain. Whilst he read, +he sat quite still, and even the hand which held the paper had not the +slightest tremor. When he had finished he spoke quite quietly to his +valet: + +"Give the courier a glass of ale, Frédérick," he said, "and tell him he +can go; there is no answer. And--stay," he added, "I want you to go +round at once to M. Martin-Roget's lodgings and ask him to come and +speak with me as early as possible." + +The valet left the room, and M. le duc deliberately read through the +letter from end to end for the fourth time. There was no doubt, no +possible misapprehension. His daughter Yvonne de Kernogan had eloped +clandestinely with my lord Anthony Dewhurst and had been secretly +married to him in the small hours of the morning in the Protestant +church of St. James, and subsequently before a priest of her own +religion in the Priory Church of St. John the Evangelist. + +She apprised her father of this fact in a few sentences which purported +to be dictated by profound affection and filial respect, but in which M. +de Kernogan failed to detect the slightest trace of contrition. Yvonne! +his Yvonne! the sole representative now of the old race--eloped like a +kitchen-wench! Yvonne! his daughter! his asset for the future! his +thing! his fortune! that which he meant with perfect egoism to sacrifice +on the altar of his own beliefs and his own loyalty to the kingship of +France! Yvonne had taken her future in her own hands! She knew that her +hand, her person, were the purchase price of so many millions to be +poured into the coffers of the royalist cause, and she had disposed of +both, in direct defiance of her father's will and of her duty to her +King and to his cause! + +Yvonne de Kernogan was false to her traditions, false to her father! +false to her King and country! In the years to come when the chroniclers +of the time came to write the histories of the great families that had +rallied round their King in the hour of his deadly peril, the name of +Kernogan would be erased from those glorious pages. The Kernogans will +have failed in their duty, failed in their loyalty! Oh! the shame of it +all! The shame!! + +The duc was far too proud a gentleman to allow his valet to see him +under the stress of violent emotion, but now that he was alone his thin, +hard face--with that air of gravity which he had transmitted to his +daughter--became distorted with the passion of unbridled fury; he tore +the letter up into a thousand little pieces and threw the fragments into +the fire. On the bureau beside him there stood a miniature of Yvonne de +Kernogan painted by Hall three years ago, and framed in a circlet of +brilliants. M. le duc's eyes casually fell upon it; he picked it up and +with a violent gesture of rage threw it on the floor and stamped upon it +with his heel, destroying in this paroxysm of silent fury a work of art +worth many hundred pounds. + +His daughter had deceived him. She had also upset all his plans whereby +the army of M. le Prince de Condé would have been enriched by a couple +of million francs. In addition to the shame upon her father, she had +also brought disgrace upon herself and her good name, for she was a +minor and this clandestine marriage, contracted without her father's +consent, was illegal in France, illegal everywhere: save perhaps in +England--of this M. de Kernogan was not quite sure, but he certainly +didn't care. And in this solemn moment he registered a vow that never as +long as he lived would he be reconciled to that English nincompoop who +had dared to filch his daughter from him, and never--as long as he +lived--would he by his consent render the marriage legal, and the +children born of that wedlock legitimate in the eyes of his country's +laws. + +A calm akin to apathy had followed his first outbreak of fury. He sat +down in front of the fire, and buried his chin in his hand. Something of +course must be done to get his daughter back. If only Martin-Roget were +here, he would know better how to act. Would Martin-Roget stick to his +bargain and accept the girl for wife, now that her fame and honour had +been irretrievably tarnished? There was the question which the next +half-hour would decide. M. de Kernogan cast a feverish, anxious look on +the clock. Half an hour had gone by since Frédérick went to seek +Martin-Roget, and the latter had not yet appeared. + +Until he had seen Martin-Roget and spoken with Martin-Roget M. de +Kernogan could decide nothing. For one brief, mad moment, the project +had formed itself in his disordered brain to rush down to Combwich Hall +and provoke that impudent Englishman who had stolen his daughter: to +kill him or be killed by him; in either case Yvonne would then be parted +from him for ever. But even then, the thought of Martin-Roget brought +more sober reflection. Martin-Roget would see to it. Martin-Roget would +know what to do. After all, the outrage had hit the accredited lover +just as hard as the father. + +But why in the name of ---- did Martin-Roget not come? + + +II + +It was past midday when at last Martin-Roget knocked at the door of M. +le duc's lodgings in Laura Place. The older man had in the meanwhile +gone through every phase of overwhelming emotions. The outbreak of +unreasoning fury--when like a maddened beast that bites and tears he had +broken his daughter's miniature and trampled it under foot--had been +followed by a kind of dull apathy, when for close upon an hour he had +sat staring into the flames, trying to grapple with an awful reality +which seemed to elude him all the time. He could not believe that this +thing had really happened: that Yvonne, his well-bred dutiful daughter, +who had shown such marvellous courage and presence of mind when the +necessity of flight and of exile had first presented itself in the wake +of the awful massacres and wholesale executions of her own friends and +kindred, that she should have eloped--like some flirtatious wench--and +outraged her father in this monstrous fashion, by a clandestine marriage +with a man of alien race and of a heretical religion! M. de Kernogan +could not realise it. It passed the bounds of possibility. The very +flames in the hearth seemed to dance and to mock the bare suggestion of +such an atrocious transgression. + +To this gloomy numbing of the senses had succeeded the inevitable morbid +restlessness: the pacing up and down the narrow room, the furtive +glances at the clock, the frequent orders to Frédérick to go out and see +if M. Martin-Roget was not yet home. For Frédérick had come back after +his first errand with the astounding news that M. Martin-Roget had left +his lodgings the previous day at about four o'clock, and had not been +seen or heard of since. In fact his landlady was very anxious about him +and was sorely tempted to see the town-crier on the subject. + +Four times did Frédérick have to go from Laura Place to the Bear Inn in +Union Street, where M. Martin-Roget lodged, and three times he returned +with the news that nothing had been heard of Mounzeer yet. The fourth +time--it was then close on midday--he came back running--thankful to +bring back the good tidings, since he was tired of that walk from Laura +Place to the Bear Inn. M. Martin-Roget had come home. He appeared very +tired and in rare ill-humour: but Frédérick had delivered the message +from M. le duc, whereupon M. Martin-Roget had become most affable and +promised that he would come round immediately. In fact he was even then +treading hard on Frédérick's heels. + + +III + +"My daughter has gone! She left the ball clandestinely last night, and +was married to Lord Anthony Dewhurst in the small hours of the morning. +She is now at a place called Combwich Hall--with him!" + +M. le duc de Kernogan literally threw these words in Martin-Roget's +face, the moment the latter had entered the room, and Frédérick had +discreetly closed the door. + +"What? What?" stammered the other vaguely. "I don't understand. What do +you mean?" he added, bewildered at the duc's violence, tired after his +night's adventure and the long ride in the early morning, irritable with +want of sleep and decent food. He stared, uncomprehending, at the duc, +who had once more started pacing up and down the room, like a caged +beast, with hands tightly clenched behind his back, his eyes glowering +both at the new-comer and at the imaginary presence of his most bitter +enemy--the man who had dared to come between him and his projects for +his daughter. + +Martin-Roget passed his hand across his brow like a man who is not yet +fully awake. + +"What do you mean?" he reiterated hazily. + +"Just what I say," retorted the other roughly. "Yvonne has eloped with +that nincompoop Lord Anthony Dewhurst. They have gone through some sort +of marriage ceremony together. And she writes me a letter this morning +to tell me that she is quite happy and contented and spending her +honeymoon at a place called Combwich Hall. Honeymoon!" he repeated +savagely, as if to lash his fury up anew, "Tsha!" + +Martin-Roget on the other hand was not the man to allow himself to fall +into a state of frenzy, which would necessarily interfere with calm +consideration. + +He had taken the fact in now. Yvonne's elopement with his English rival, +the clandestine marriage, everything. But he was not going to allow his +inward rage to obscure his vision of the future. He did not spend the +next precious seconds--as men of his race are wont to do--in smashing +things around him, in raving and fuming and gesticulating. No. That was +not the temper M. Martin-Roget was in at this moment when Fate and a +girl's folly were ranging themselves against his plans. His friend, +citizen Chauvelin, would have envied him his calm in the face of this +disaster. + +Whilst M. le duc still stormed and raved, Martin-Roget sat down quietly +in front of the fire, rested his chin in his hand and waited for a lull +in the other man's paroxysm ere he spoke. + +"From your attitude, M. le duc," he then said quietly, hiding obvious +sarcasm behind a veil of studied deference, "from your attitude I gather +that your wishes with regard to Mlle. de Kernogan have undergone no +modification. You would still honour me by desiring that she should +become my wife?" + +"I am not in the habit of changing my mind," said M. le duc gruffly. He +desired the marriage, he coveted Martin-Roget's millions for the +royalist cause, but he had no love for the man. All the pride of the +Kernogans, their long line of ancestry, rebelled against the thought of +a fair descendant of this glorious race being allied to a _roturier_--a +_bourgeois_--a tradesman, what? and the cause of King and country +counted few greater martyrdoms than that of the duc de Kernogan whenever +he met the banker Martin-Roget on an equal social footing. + +"Then there is not much harm done," rejoined the latter coolly; "the +marriage is not a legal one. It need not even be dissolved--Mademoiselle +de Kernogan is still Mademoiselle de Kernogan and I her humble and +faithful adorer." + +M. le duc paused in his restless walk. + +"You would ..." he stammered, then checked himself, turning abruptly +away. He had some difficulty in hiding the scorn wherewith he regarded +the other's coolness. Bourgeois blood was not to be gainsaid. The +tradesman--or banker, whatever he was--who hankered after an alliance +with Mademoiselle de Kernogan, and was ready to lay down a couple of +millions for the privilege--was not to be deterred from his purpose by +any considerations of pride or of honour. M. le duc was satisfied and +re-assured, but he despised the man for his leniency for all that. + +"The marriage is no marriage at all according to the laws of France," +reiterated Martin-Roget calmly. + +"No, it is not," assented the Duke roughly. + +For a while there was silence: Martin-Roget seemed immersed in his own +thoughts and not to notice the febrile comings and goings of the other +man. + +"What we have to do, M. le duc," he said after a while, "is to induce +Mlle. de Kernogan to return here immediately." + +"How are you going to accomplish that?" sneered the Duke. + +"Oh! I was not suggesting that I should appear in the matter at all," +rejoined Martin-Roget with a shrug of the shoulders. + +"Then how can I ...?" + +"Surely ..." argued the younger man tentatively. + +"You mean ...?" + +Martin-Roget nodded. Despite these ambiguous half-spoken sentences the +two men had understood one another. + +"We must get her back, of course," assented the Duke, who had suddenly +become as calm as the other man. + +"There is no harm done," reiterated Martin-Roget with slow and earnest +emphasis. + +Whereupon the Duke, completely pacified, drew a chair close to the +hearth and sat down, leaning his elbows on his knees and holding his +fine, aristocratic hands to the blaze. + +Frédérick came in half an hour later to ask if M. le duc would have his +luncheon. He found the two gentlemen sitting quite close together over +the dying embers of a fire that had not been fed for close upon an hour: +and that prince of valets was glad to note that M. le duc's temper had +quite cooled down and that he was talking calmly and very affably to M. +Martin-Roget. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE NEST + + +I + +There are lovely days in England sometimes in November or December, days +when the departing year strives to make us forget that winter is nigh, +and autumn smiles, gentle and benignant, caressing with a still tender +kiss the last leaves of the scarlet oak which linger on the boughs, and +touching up with a vivid brush the evergreen verdure of bay trees, of +ilex and of yew. The sky is of that pale, translucent blue which +dwellers in the South never see, with the soft transparency of an +aquamarine as it fades into the misty horizon at midday. And at dusk the +thrushes sing: "Kiss me quick! kiss me quick! kiss me quick" in the +naked branches of old acacias and chestnuts, and the robins don their +crimson waistcoats and dart in and out among the coppice and through the +feathery arms of larch and pine. And the sun which tips the prickly +points of holly leaves with gold, joins in this merry make-believe that +winter is still a very, very long way off, and that mayhap he has lost +his way altogether, and is never coming to this balmy beautiful land +again. + +Just such a day was the penultimate one of November, 1793, when Lady +Anthony Dewhurst sat at a desk in the wide bay window of the +drawing-room in Combwich Hall, trying to put into a letter to Lady +Blakeney all that her heart would have wished to express of love and +gratitude and happiness. + +Three whole days had gone by since that exciting night, when before +break of day in the dimly-lighted old church, in the presence of two or +three faithful friends, she had plighted her troth to Lord Anthony: even +whilst other kind friends--including His Royal Highness--formed part of +the little conspiracy which kept her father occupied and, if necessary, +would have kept M. Martin-Roget out of the way. Since then her life had +been one continuous dream of perfect bliss. From the moment when after +the second religious ceremony in the Roman Catholic church she found +herself alone in the carriage with milor, and felt his arms--so strong +and yet so tender--closing round her and his lips pressed to hers in the +first masterful kiss of complete possession, until this hour when she +saw his tall, elegant figure hurrying across the garden toward the gate +and suddenly turning toward the window whence he knew that she was +watching him, every hour and every minute had been nothing but unalloyed +happiness. + +Even there where she had looked for sorrow and difficulty her path had +been made smooth for her. Her father, who she had feared would prove +hard and irreconcilable, had been tender and forgiving to such an extent +that tears almost of shame would gather in her eyes whenever she thought +of him. + +As soon as she arrived at Combwich Hall she had written a long and +deeply affectionate letter to her father, imploring his forgiveness for +the deception and unfilial conduct which on her part must so deeply have +grieved him. She pleaded for her right to happiness in words of +impassioned eloquence, she pleaded for her right to love and to be +loved, for her right to a home, which a husband's devotion would make a +paradise for her. + +This letter she had sent by special courier to her father and the very +next day she had his reply. She had opened the letter with trembling +fingers, fearful lest her father's harshness should mar the perfect +serenity of her life. She was afraid of what he would say, for she knew +her father well: knew his faults as well as his qualities, his pride, +his obstinacy, his unswerving determination and his loyalty to the +King's cause--all of which must have been deeply outraged by his +daughter's high-handed action. But as she began to read, astonishment, +amazement at once filled her soul: she could hardly trust her +comprehension, hardly believe that what she read could indeed be +reality, and not just the continuance of the happy dream wherein she was +dwelling these days. + +Her father--gently reproachful--had not one single harsh word to utter. +He would not, he said, at the close of his life, after so many bitter +disappointments, stand in the way of his daughter's happiness: "You +should have trusted me, my child," he wrote: and indeed Yvonne could not +believe her eyes. "I had no idea that your happiness was at stake in +this marriage, or I should never have pressed the claims of my own +wishes in the matter. I have only you in the world left, now that misery +and exile are to be my portion! Is it likely that I would allow any +personal desires to weigh against my love for you?" + +Happy as she was Yvonne cried--cried bitterly with remorse and shame +when she read that letter. How could she have been so blind, so +senseless as to misjudge her father so? Her young husband found her in +tears, and had much ado to console her: he too read the letter and was +deeply touched by the kind reference to himself contained therein: "My +lord Anthony is a gallant gentleman," wrote M. le duc de Kernogan, "he +will make you happy, my child, and your old father will be more than +satisfied. All that grieves me is that you did not trust me sooner. A +clandestine marriage is not worthy of a daughter of the Kernogans." + +"I did speak most earnestly to M. le duc," said Lord Tony reflectively, +"when I begged him to allow me to pay my addresses to you. But then," he +added cheerfully, "I am such a clumsy lout when I have to talk at any +length--and especially clumsy when I have to plead my own cause. I +suppose I put my case so badly before your father, m'dear, that he +thought me three parts an idiot and would not listen to me." + +"I too begged and entreated him, dear," she said with a smile, "but he +was very determined then and vowed that I should marry M. Martin-Roget +despite my tears and protestations. Dear father! I suppose he didn't +realise that I was in earnest." + +"He has certainly accepted the inevitable very gracefully," was my lord +Tony's final comment. + + +II + +Then they read the letter through once more, sitting close together, he +with one arm round her shoulder, she nestling against his chest, her +hair brushing against his lips and with the letter in her hands which +she could scarcely read for the tears of joy which filled her eyes. + +"I don't feel very well to-day," the letter concluded; "the dampness and +the cold have got into my bones: moreover you two young love birds will +not desire company just yet, but to-morrow if the weather is more genial +I will drive over to Combwich in the afternoon, and perhaps you will +give me supper and a bed for the night. Send me word by the courier who +will forthwith return to Bath if this will be agreeable to you both." + +Could anything be more adorable, more delightful? It was just the last +drop that filled Yvonne's cup of happiness right up to the brim. + + +III + +The next afternoon she sat at her desk in order to tell Lady Blakeney +all about it. She made out a copy of her father's letter and put that in +with her own, and begged dear Lady Blakeney to see Lady Ffoulkes +forthwith and tell her all that had happened. She herself was expecting +her father every minute and milor Tony had gone as far as the gate to +see if the barouche was in sight. + +Half an hour later M. de Kernogan had arrived and his daughter lay in +his arms, happy, beyond the dreams of men. He looked rather tired and +wan and still complained that the cold had got into his bones: evidently +he was not very well and Yvonne after the excitement of the meeting felt +not a little anxious about him. As the evening wore on he became more +and more silent; he hardly would eat anything and soon after eight +o'clock he announced his desire to retire to bed. + +"I am not ill," he said as he kissed his daughter and bade her a fond +"Good-night," "only a little wearied ... with emotion no doubt. I shall +be better after a night's rest." + +He had been quite cordial with my lord Tony, though not effusive, which +was only natural--he was at all times a very reserved man, and--unlike +those of his race--never demonstrative in his manner: but with his +daughter he had been singularly tender, with a wistful affection which +almost suggested remorse, even though it was she who, on his arrival, +had knelt down before him and had begged for his blessing and his +forgiveness. + + +IV + +But the following morning he appeared to be really ill: his cheeks +looked sunken, almost livid, his eyes dim and hollow. Nevertheless he +would not hear of staying on another day or so. + +"No, no," he declared emphatically, "I shall be better in Bath. It is +more sheltered there, here the north winds would drive me to my bed very +quickly. I shall take a course of baths at once. They did me a great +deal of good before, you remember, Yvonne--in September, when I caught a +chill ... they soon put me right. That is all that ails me now.... I've +caught a chill." + +He did his best to reassure his daughter, but she was far from +satisfied: more especially as he hardly would touch the cup of chocolate +which she had prepared for him with her own hands. + +"I shall be quite myself again in Bath," he declared, "and in a day or +two when you can spare the time--or when milor can spare you--perhaps +you will drive over to see how the old father is getting on, eh?" + +"Indeed," she said firmly, "I shall not allow you to go to Bath alone. +If you will go, I shall accompany you." + +"Nay!" he protested, "that is foolishness, my child. The barouche will +take me back quite comfortably. It is less than two hours' drive and I +shall be quite safe and comfortable." + +"You will be quite safe and comfortable in my company," she retorted +with a tender, anxious glance at his pale face and the nervous tremor of +his hands. "I have consulted with my dear husband and he has given his +consent that I should accompany you." + +"But you can't leave milor like that, my child," he protested once more. +"He will be lonely and miserable without you." + +"Yes. I think he will," she said wistfully. "But he will be all the +happier when you are well again, and I can return to Combwich +satisfied." + +Whereupon M. le duc yielded. He kissed and thanked his daughter and +seemed even relieved at the prospect of her company. The barouche was +ordered for eleven o'clock, and a quarter of an hour before that time +Lord Tony had his young wife in his arms, bidding her a sad farewell. + +"I hate your going from me, sweetheart," he said as he kissed her eyes, +her hair, her lips. "I cannot bear you out of my sight even for an hour +... let alone a couple of days." + +"Yet I must go, dear heart," she retorted, looking up with that sweet, +grave smile of hers into his eager young face. "I could not let him +travel alone ... could I?" + +"No, no," he assented somewhat dubiously, "but remember, dear heart, +that you are infinitely precious and that I shall scarce live for sheer +anxiety until I have you here, safe, once more in my arms." + +"I'll send you a courier this evening," she rejoined, as she extricated +herself gently from his embrace, "and if I can come back to-morrow...." + +"I'll ride over to Bath in any case in the morning so that I may escort +you back if you really can come." + +"I will come if I am reassured about father. Oh, my dear lord," she +added with a wistful little sigh, "I knew yesterday morning that I was +too happy, and that something would happen to mar the perfect felicity +of these last few days." + +"You are not seriously anxious about M. le duc's health, dear heart?" + +"No, not seriously anxious. Farewell, milor. It is _au revoir_ ... a few +hours and we'll resume our dream." + + +V + +There was nothing in all that to arouse my lord Tony's suspicions. All +day he was miserable and forlorn because Yvonne was not there--but he +was not suspicious. + +Fate had a blow in store for him, from which he was destined never +wholly to recover, but she gave him no warning, no premonition. He spent +the day in making up arrears of correspondence, for he had a large +private fortune to administer--trust funds on behalf of brothers and +sisters who were minors--and he always did it conscientiously and to the +best of his ability. The last few days he had lived in a dream and there +was an accumulation of business to go through. In the evening he +expected the promised courier, who did not arrive: but his was not the +sort of disposition that would fret and fume because of a contretemps +which might be attributable to the weather--it had rained heavily since +afternoon--or to sundry trifling causes which he at Combwich, ten or a +dozen miles from Bath, could not estimate. He had no suspicions even +then. How could he have? How could he guess? Nevertheless when he +ultimately went to bed, it was with the firm resolve that he would in +any case go over to Bath in the morning and remain there until Yvonne +was able to come back with him. + +Combwich without her was anyhow unendurable. + + +VI + +He started for Bath at nine o'clock in the morning. It was still raining +hard. It had rained all night and the roads were very muddy. He started +out without a groom. A little after half-past ten, he drew rein outside +his house in Chandos Buildings, and having changed his clothes he +started to walk to Laura Place. The rain had momentarily left off, and a +pale wintry sun peeped out through rolling banks of grey clouds. He went +round by way of Saw Close and the Upper Borough Walls, as he wanted to +avoid the fashionable throng that crowded the neighbourhood of the Pump +Room and the Baths. His intention was to seek out the Blakeneys at their +residence in the Circus after he had seen Yvonne and obtained news of M. +le duc. + +He had no suspicions. Why should he have? + +The Abbey clock struck a quarter-past eleven when finally he knocked at +the house in Laura Place. Long afterwards he remembered how just at that +moment a dense grey mist descended into the valley. He had not noticed +it before, now he saw that it had enveloped this part of the city so +that he could not even see clearly across the Place. + +A woman came to open the door. Lord Tony then thought this strange +considering how particular M. le duc always was about everything +pertaining to the management of his household: "The house of a poor +exile," he was wont to say, "but nevertheless that of a gentleman." + +"Can I go straight up?" he asked the woman, who he thought was standing +ostentatiously in the hall as if to bar his way. "I desire to see M. le +duc." + +"Ye can walk upstairs, zir," said the woman, speaking with a broad +Somersetshire accent, "but I doubt me if ye'll see 'is Grace the Duke. +'Es been gone these two days." + +Tony had paid no heed to her at first; he had walked across the narrow +hall to the oak staircase, and was half-way up the first flight when her +last words struck upon his ear ... quite without meaning for the moment +... but nevertheless he paused, one foot on one tread, and the other two +treads below ... and he turned round to look at the woman, a swift frown +across his smooth forehead. + +"Gone these two days," he repeated mechanically; "what do you mean?" + +"Well! 'Is Grace left the day afore yesterday--Thursday it was.... 'Is +man went yesterday afternoon with luggage and sich ... 'e went by coach +'e did.... Leave off," she cried suddenly; "what are ye doin'? Ye're +'urtin' me." + +For Lord Tony had rushed down the stairs again and was across the hall, +gripping the unoffending woman by the wrist and glaring into her +expressionless face until she screamed with fright. + +"I beg your pardon," he said humbly as he released her wrist: all the +instincts of the courteous gentleman arrayed against his loss of +control. "I ... I forgot myself for the moment," he stammered; "would +you mind telling me again ... what ... what you said just now?" + +The woman was prepared to put on the airs of outraged dignity, she even +glanced up at the malapert with scorn expressed in her small beady eyes. +But at sight of his face her anger and her fears both fell away from +her. Lord Tony was white to the lips, his cheeks were the colour of +dead ashes, his mouth trembled, his eyes alone glowed with ill-repressed +anxiety. + +"'Is Grace," she said with slow emphasis, for of a truth she thought +that the young gentleman was either sick or daft, "'Is Grace left +this 'ouse the day afore yesterday in a hired barouche. 'Is +man--Frederick--went yesterday afternoon with the liggage. 'E caught the +Bristol coach at two o'clock. I was 'Is Grace's 'ousekeeper and I am to +look after the 'ouse and the zervants until I 'ear from 'Is Grace again. +Them's my orders. I know no more than I'm tellin' ye." + +"But His Grace returned here yesterday forenoon," argued Lord Tony +calmly, mechanically, as one who would wish to convince an obstinate +child. "And my lady ... Mademoiselle Yvonne, you know ... was with him." + +"Noa! Noa!" said the woman placidly. "'Is Grace 'asn't been near this +'ouse come Thursday afternoon, and 'is man left yesterday wi' th' +liggage. Why!" she added confidentially, "'e ain't gone far. It was all +zettled that zuddint I didn't know nothing about it myzelf till I zeed +Mr. Frederick start off wi' th' liggage. Not much liggage neither it +wasn't. Sure but 'Is Grace'll be 'ome zoon. 'E can't 'ave gone far. Not +wi' that bit o' liggage. Zure." + +"But my lady ... Mademoiselle Yvonne...." + +"Lor, zir, didn't ye know? Why 'twas all over th' town o' Tuesday as 'ow +Mademozell 'ad eloped with my lord Anthony Dew'urst, and...." + +"Yes! yes! But you have seen my lady since?" + +"Not clapped eyes on 'er, zir, since she went to the ball come Monday +evenin'. An' a picture she looked in 'er white gown...." + +"And ... did His Grace leave no message ... for ... for anyone?... no +letter?" + +"Ah, yes, now you come to mention it, zir. Mr. Frederick 'e give me a +letter yesterday. ''Is Grace,' sez 'e, 'left this yere letter on 'is +desk. I just found it,' sez 'e. 'If my lord Anthony Dew'urst calls,' sez +'e, 'give it to 'im.' I've got the letter zomewhere, zir. What may your +name be?" + +"I am Lord Anthony Dewhurst," replied the young man mechanically. + +"Your pardon, my lord, I'll go fetch th' letter." + + +VII + +Lord Tony never moved while the woman shuffled across the passage and +down the back stairs. He was like a man who has received a knock-out +blow and has not yet had time to recover his scattered senses. At first +when the woman spoke, his mind had jumped to fears of some awful +accident ... runaway horses ... a broken barouche ... or a sudden +aggravation of the duc's ill-health. But soon he was forced to reject +what now would have seemed a consoling thought: had there been an +accident, he would have heard--a rumour would have reached him--Yvonne +would have sent a courier. He did not know yet what to think, his mind +was like a slate over which a clumsy hand had passed a wet +sponge--impressions, recollections, above all a hideous, nameless fear, +were all blurred and confused within his brain. + +The woman came back carrying a letter which was crumpled and greasy from +a prolonged sojourn in the pocket of her apron. Lord Tony took the +letter and broke its heavy seal. The woman watched him, curiously, +pityingly now, for he was good to look on, and she scented the +significance of the tragedy which she had been the means of revealing +to him. But he had become quite unconscious of her presence, of +everything in fact save those few sentences, written in French, in a +cramped hand, and which seemed to dance a wild saraband before his eyes: + + "MILOR,-- + + "You tried to steal my daughter from me, but I have taken her from + you now. By the time this reaches you we shall be on the high seas + on our way to Holland, thence to Coblentz, where Mademoiselle de + Kernogan will in accordance with my wishes be united in lawful + marriage to M. Martin-Roget whom I have chosen to be her husband. + She is not and never was your wife. As far as one may look into the + future, I can assure you that you will never in life see her + again." + +And to this monstrous document of appalling callousness and cold-blooded +cruelty there was appended the signature of André Dieudonné Duc de +Kernogan. + +But unlike the writer thereof Lord Anthony Dewhurst neither stormed nor +raged: he did not even tear the execrable letter into an hundred +fragments. His firm hand closed over it with one convulsive clutch, and +that was all. Then he slipped the crumpled paper into his pocket. Quite +deliberately he took out some money and gave a piece of silver to the +woman. + +"I thank you very much," he said somewhat haltingly. "I quite understand +everything now." + +The woman curtseyed and thanked him; tears were in her eyes, for it +seemed to her that never had she seen such grief depicted upon any human +face. She preceded him to the hall door and held it open for him, while +he passed out. After the brief gleam of sunshine it had started to rain +again, but he didn't seem to care. The woman suggested fetching a +hackney coach, but he refused quite politely, quite gently: he even +lifted his hat as he went out. Obviously he did not know what he was +doing. Then he went out into the rain and strode slowly across the +Place. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL + + +I + +Instinct kept him away from the more frequented streets--and instinct +after awhile drew him in the direction of his friend's house at the +comer of The Circus. Sir Percy Blakeney had not gone out fortunately: +the lacquey who opened the door to my lord Tony stared astonished and +almost paralysed for the moment at the extraordinary appearance of his +lordship. Rain dropped down from the brim of his hat on to his +shoulders: his boots were muddy to the knees, his clothes wringing wet. +His eyes were wild and hazy and there was a curious tremor round his +mouth. + +The lacquey declared with a knowing wink afterwards that his lordship +must 'ave been drinkin'! + +But at the moment his sense of duty urged him to show my lord--who was +his master's friend--into the library, whatever condition he was in. He +took his dripping coat and hat from him and marshalled him across the +large, square hall. + +Sir Percy Blakeney was sitting at his desk, writing, when Lord Tony was +shown in. He looked up and at once rose and went to his friend. + +"Sit down, Tony," he said quietly, "while I get you some brandy." + +He forced the young man down gently into a chair in front of the fire +and threw another log into the blaze. Then from a cupboard he fetched a +flask of brandy and a glass, poured some out and held it to Tony's lips. +The latter drank--unresisting--like a child. Then as some warmth +penetrated into his bones, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his +knees and buried his face in his hands. Blakeney waited quietly, sitting +down opposite to him, until his friend should be able to speak. + +"And after all that you told me on Monday night!" were the first words +which came from Tony's quivering lips, "and the letter you sent me over +on Tuesday! Oh! I was prepared to mistrust Martin-Roget. Why! I never +allowed her out of my sight!... But her father!... How could I guess?" + +"Can you tell me exactly what happened?" + +Lord Tony drew himself up, and staring vacantly into the fire told his +friend the events of the past four days. On Wednesday the courier with +M. de Kernogan's letter, breathing kindness and forgiveness. On Thursday +his arrival and seeming ill-health, on Friday his departure with Yvonne. +Tony spoke quite calmly. He had never been anything but calm since +first, in the house in Laura Place, he had received that awful blow. + +"I ought to have known," he concluded dully, "I ought to have guessed. +Especially since you warned me." + +"I warned you that Martin-Roget was not the man he pretended to be," +said Blakeney gently, "I warned you against him. But I too failed to +suspect the duc de Kernogan. We are Britishers, you and I, my dear +Tony," he added with a quaint little laugh, "our minds will never be +quite equal to the tortuous ways of these Latin races. But we are not +going to waste time now talking about the past. We have got to find your +wife before those brutes have time to wreak their devilries against +her." + +"On the high seas ... on the way to Holland ... thence to Coblentz ..." +murmured Tony, "I have not yet shown you the duc's letter to me." + +He drew from his pocket the crumpled, damp piece of paper on which the +ink had run into patches and blotches, and which had become almost +undecipherable now. Sir Percy took it from him and read it through: + +"The duc de Kernogan and Lady Anthony Dewhurst are not on their way to +Holland and to Coblentz," he said quietly as he handed the letter back +to Lord Tony. + +"Not on their way to Holland?" queried the young man with a puzzled +frown. "What do you mean?" + +Blakeney drew his chair closer to his friend: a marvellous and subtle +change had suddenly taken place in his individuality. Only a few moments +ago he was the polished, elegant man of the world, then the kindly and +understanding friend--self-contained, reserved, with a perfect manner +redolent of sympathy and dignity. Suddenly all that was changed. His +manner was still perfect and outwardly calm, his gestures scarce, his +speech deliberate, but the compelling power of the leader--which is the +birth-right of such men--glowed and sparkled now in his deep-set eyes: +the spirit of adventure and reckless daring was awake--insistent and +rampant--and subtle effluvia of enthusiasm and audacity emanated from +his entire personality. + +Sir Percy Blakeney had sunk his individuality in that of the Scarlet +Pimpernel. + +"I mean," he said, returning his friend's anxious look with one that was +inspiring in its unshakable confidence, "I mean that on Monday last, the +night before your wedding--when I urged you to obtain Yvonne de +Kernogan's consent to an immediate marriage--I had followed +Martin-Roget to a place called "The Bottom Inn" on Goblin Combe--a +place well known to every smuggler in the county." + +"You, Percy!" exclaimed Tony in amazement. + +"Yes, I," laughed the other lightly. "Why not? I had had my suspicions +of him for some time. As luck would have it he started off on the Monday +afternoon by hired coach to Chelwood. I followed. From Chelwood he +wanted to go on to Redhill: but the roads were axle deep in mud, and +evening was gathering in very fast. Nobody would take him. He wanted a +horse and a guide. I was on the spot--as disreputable a bar-loafer as +you ever saw in your life. I offered to take him. He had no choice. He +had to take me. No one else had offered. I took him to the Bottom Inn. +There he met our esteemed friend M. Chauvelin...." + +"Chauvelin!" cried Tony, suddenly roused from the dull apathy of his +immeasurable grief, at sound of that name which recalled so many +exciting adventures, such mad, wild, hair-breadth escapes. "Chauvelin! +What in the world is he doing here in England?" + +"Brewing mischief, of course," replied Blakeney dryly. "In disgrace, +discredited, a marked man--what you will--my friend M. Chauvelin has +still an infinite capacity for mischief. Through the interstices of a +badly fastened shutter I heard two blackguards devising infinite +devilry. That is why, Tony," he added, "I urged an immediate marriage as +the only real protection for Yvonne de Kernogan against those +blackguards." + +"Would to God you had been more explicit!" exclaimed Tony with a bitter +sigh. + +"Would to God I had," rejoined the other, "but there was so little time, +with licences and what not all to arrange for, and less than an hour to +do it in. And would you have suspected the Duc himself of such +execrable duplicity even if you had known, as I did then, that the +so-called Martin-Roget hath name Adet, and that he matures thoughts of +deadly revenge against the duc de Kernogan and his daughter?" + +"Martin-Roget? the banker--the exiled royalist who...." + +"He may be a banker now ... but he certainly is no royalist--he is the +son of a peasant who was unjustly put to death four years ago by the duc +de Kernogan." + +"Ye gods!" + +"He came over to England plentifully supplied with money--I could not +gather if the money is his or if it has been entrusted to him by the +revolutionary government for purposes of spying and corruption--but he +came to England in order to ingratiate himself with the duc de Kernogan +and his daughter, and then to lure them back to France, for what purpose +you may well imagine." + +"Good God, man ... you can't mean ...?" + +"He has chartered a smuggler's craft--or rather Chauvelin has done it +for him. Her name is the _Hollandia_, her master hath name Kuyper. She +was to be in Portishead harbour on the last day of November: all her +papers in order. Cargo of West India sugar, destination Amsterdam, +consignee some Mynheer over there. But Martin-Roget, or whatever his +name may be, and no doubt our friend Chauvelin too, were to be aboard +her, and also M. le duc de Kernogan and his daughter. And the +_Hollandia_ is to put into Le Croisic for Nantes, whose revolutionary +proconsul, that infamous Carrier, is of course Chauvelin's bosom +friend." + +Sir Percy Blakeney finished speaking. Lord Tony had listened to him +quietly and in silence: now he rose and turned resolutely to his +friend. There was no longer any trace in him of that stunned apathy +which had been the primary result of the terrible blow. His young face +was still almost unrecognisable from the lines of grief and horror which +marred its habitual fresh, boyish look. He looked twenty years older +than he had done a few hours ago, but there was also in his whole +attitude now the virility of more mature manhood, its determination and +unswerving purpose. + +"And what can I do now?" he asked simply, knowing that he could trust +his friend and leader with what he held dearest in all the world. +"Without you, Blakeney, I am of course impotent and lost. I haven't the +head to think. I haven't sufficient brains to pit against those cunning +devils. But if you will help me...." + +Then he checked himself abruptly, and the look of hopeless despair once +more crept into his eyes. + +"I am mad, Percy," he said with a self-deprecating shrug of the +shoulders, "gone crazy with grief, I suppose, or I shouldn't talk of +asking your help, of risking your life in my cause." + +"Tony, if you talk that rubbish, I shall be forced to punch your head," +retorted Blakeney with his light laugh. "Why man," he added gaily, +"can't you see that I am aching to have at my old friend Chauvelin +again?" + +And indeed the zest of adventure, the zest to fight, never dormant, was +glowing with compelling vigour now in those lazy eyes of his which were +resting with such kindliness upon his stricken friend. "Go home, Tony!" +he added, "go, you rascal, and collect what things you want, while I +send for Hastings and Ffoulkes, and see that four good horses are ready +for us within the hour. To-night we sleep at Portishead, Tony. The +_Day-Dream_ is lying off there, ready to sail at any hour of the day or +night. The _Hollandia_ has twenty-four hours' start of us, alas! and we +cannot overtake her now: but we'll be in Nantes ere those devils can do +much mischief: and once in Nantes!... Why, Tony man! think of the +glorious escapes we've had together, you and I! Think of the gay, mad +rides across the north of France, with half-fainting women and swooning +children across our saddle-bows! Think of the day when we smuggled the +de Tournais out of Calais harbour, the day we snatched Juliette +Déroulède and her Paul out of the tumbril and tore across Paris with +that howling mob at our heels! Think! think, Tony! of all the happiest, +merriest moments of your life and they will seem dull and lifeless +beside what is in store for you, when with your dear wife's arms +clinging round your neck, we'll fly along the quays of Nantes on the +road to liberty! Ah, Tony lad! were it not for the anxiety which I know +is gnawing at your heart, I would count this one of the happiest hours +of my happy life!" + +He was so full of enthusiasm, so full of vitality, that life itself +seemed to emanate from him and to communicate itself to the very +atmosphere around. Hope lit up my lord Tony's wan face: he believed in +his friend as mediæval ascetics believed in the saints whom they adored. +Enthusiasm had crept into his veins, dull despair fell away from him +like a mantle. + +"God bless you, Percy," he exclaimed as his firm and loyal hand grasped +that of the leader whom he revered. + +"Nay!" retorted Blakeney with sudden gravity. "He hath done that +already. Pray for His help to-day, lad, as you have never prayed +before." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MARGUERITE + + +I + +Lord Tony had gone, and for the space of five minutes Sir Percy Blakeney +stood in front of the hearth staring into the fire. Something lay before +him, something had to be done now, which represented the heavy price +that had to be paid for those mad and happy adventures, for that +reckless daring, aye for that selfless supreme sacrifice which was as +the very breath of life to the Scarlet Pimpernel. + +And in the dancing flames he could see Marguerite's blue eyes, her +ardent hair, her tender smile all pleading with him not to go. She had +so much to give him--so much happiness, such an infinity of love, and he +was all that she had in the world! It seemed to him as if he could feel +her arms around him even now, as if he could hear her voice whispering +appealingly: "Do not go! Am I nothing to you that thoughts of others +should triumph over my pleading? that the need of others should outweigh +mine own most pressing need? I want you, Percy! aye! even I! You have +done so much for others--it is my turn now." + +But even as in a kind of trance those words seemed to reach his strained +senses, he knew that he must go, that he must tear himself away once +more from the clinging embrace of her dear arms and shut his eyes to the +tears which anon would fill her own. Destiny demanded that he should go. +He had chosen his path in life himself, at first only in a spirit of +wild recklessness, a mad tossing of his life into the scales of Fate. +But now that same destiny which he had chosen had become his master: he +no longer could draw back. What he had done once, twenty times, an +hundred times, that he must do again, all the while that the weak and +the defenceless called mutely to him from across the seas, all the while +that innocent women suffered and orphaned children cried. + +And to-day it was his friend, his comrade, who had come to him in his +distress: the young wife whom he idolised was in the most dire peril +that could possibly threaten any woman: she was at the mercy of a man +who, driven by the passion of revenge, meant to show her no mercy, and +the devil alone knew these days to what lengths of infamy a man so +driven would go. + +The minutes sped on. Blakeney's eyes grew hot and wearied from staring +into the fire. He closed them for a moment and then quietly turned to +go. + + +II + +All those who knew Marguerite Blakeney these days marvelled if she was +ever unhappy. Lady Ffoulkes, who was her most trusted friend, vowed that +she was not. She had moments--days--sometimes weeks of intense anxiety, +which amounted to acute agony. Whenever she saw her husband start on one +of those expeditions to France wherein every minute, every hour, he +risked his life and more in order to snatch yet another threatened +victim from the awful clutches of those merciless Terrorists, she +endured soul-torture such as few women could have withstood who had not +her splendid courage and her boundless faith. But against such crushing +sorrow she had to set off the happiness of those reunions with the man +whom she loved so passionately--happiness which was so great, that it +overrode and conquered the very memory of past anxieties. + +Marguerite Blakeney suffered terribly at times--at others she was +overwhelmingly happy--the measure of her life was made up of the bitter +dregs of sorrow and the sparkling wine of joy! No! she was not +altogether unhappy: and gradually that enthusiasm which irradiated from +the whole personality of the valiant Scarlet Pimpernel, which dominated +his every action, entered into Marguerite Blakeney's blood too. His +vitality was so compelling, those impulses which carried him headlong +into unknown dangers were so generous and were actuated by such pure +selflessness, that the noble-hearted woman whose very soul was wrapped +up in the idolised husband, allowed herself to ride by his side on the +buoyant waves of his enthusiasm and of his desires: she smothered every +expression of anxiety, she swallowed her tears, she learned to say the +word "Good-bye" and forgot the word "Stay!" + + +III + +It was half an hour after midday when Percy knocked at the door of her +boudoir. She had just come in from a walk in the meadows round the town +and along the bank of the river: the rain had overtaken her and she had +come in very wet, but none the less exhilarated by the movement and the +keen, damp, salt-laden air which came straight over the hills from the +Channel. She had taken off her hat and her mantle and was laughing gaily +with her maid who was shaking the wet out of a feather. She looked round +at her husband when he entered, and with a quick gesture ordered the +maid out of the room. + +She had learned to read every line on Percy's face, every expression of +his lazy, heavy-lidded eyes. She saw that he was dressed with more than +his usual fastidiousness, but in dark clothes and travelling mantle. She +knew, moreover, by that subtle instinct which had become a second nature +and which warned her whenever he meant to go. + +Nor did he announce his departure to her in so many words. As soon as +the maid had gone, he took his beloved in his arms. + +"They have stolen Tony's wife from him," he said with that light, quaint +laugh of his. "I told you that the man Martin-Roget had planned some +devilish mischief--well! he has succeeded so far, thanks to that +unspeakable fool the duc de Kernogan." + +He told her briefly the history of the past few days. + +"Tony did not take my warning seriously enough," he concluded with a +sigh; "he ought never to have allowed his wife out of his sight." + +Marguerite had not interrupted him while he spoke. At first she just lay +in his arms, quiescent and listening, nerving herself by a supreme +effort not to utter one sigh of misery or one word of appeal. Then, as +her knees shook under her, she sank back into a chair by the hearth and +he knelt beside her with his arms clasped tightly round her shoulders, +his cheek pressed against hers. He had no need to tell her that duty and +friendship called, that the call of honour was once again--as it so +often has been in the world--louder than that of love. + +She understood and she knew, and he, with that supersensitive instinct +of his, understood the heroic effort which she made. + +"Your love, dear heart," he whispered, "will draw me back safely home as +it hath so often done before. You believe that, do you not?" + +And she had the supreme courage to murmur: "Yes!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE ROAD TO PORTISHEAD + + +I + +It was not until Bath had very obviously been left behind that Yvonne de +Kernogan--Lady Anthony Dewhurst--realised that she had been trapped. + +During the first half-hour of the journey her father had lain back +against the cushions of the carriage with eyes closed, his face pale and +wan as if with great suffering. Yvonne, her mind a prey to the gravest +anxiety, sat beside him, holding his limp cold hand in hers. Once or +twice she ventured on a timid question as to his health and he +invariably murmured a feeble assurance that he felt well, only very +tired and disinclined to talk. Anon she suggested--diffidently, for she +did not mean to disturb him--that the driver did not appear to know his +way into Bath, he had turned into a side road which she felt sure was +not the right one. M. le duc then roused himself for a moment from his +lethargy. He leaned forward and gazed out of the window. + +"The man is quite right, Yvonne," he said quietly, "he knows his way. He +brought me along this road yesterday. He gets into Bath by a slight +détour but it is pleasanter driving." + +This reply satisfied her. She was a stranger in the land, and knew +little or nothing of the environs of Bath. True, last Monday morning +after the ceremony of her marriage she had driven out to Combwich, but +dawn was only just breaking then, and she had lain for the most +part--wearied and happy--in her young husband's arms. She had taken +scant note of roads and signposts. + +A few minutes later the coach came to a halt and Yvonne, looking through +the window, saw a man who was muffled up to the chin and enveloped in a +huge travelling cape, mount swiftly up beside the driver. + +"Who is that man?" she queried sharply. + +"Some friend of the coachman's, no doubt," murmured her father in reply, +"to whom he is giving a lift as far as Bath." + +The barouche had moved on again. + +Yvonne could not have told you why, but at her father's last words she +had felt a sudden cold grip at her heart--the first since she started. +It was neither fear nor yet suspicion, but a chill seemed to go right +through her. She gazed anxiously through the window, and then looked at +her father with eyes that challenged and that doubted. But M. le duc +would not meet her gaze. He had once more closed his eyes and sat quite +still, pale and haggard, like a man who is suffering acutely. + + +II + +"Father we are going back to Bath, are we not?" + +The query came out trenchant and hard from her throat which now felt +hoarse and choked. Her whole being was suddenly pervaded by a vast and +nameless fear. Time had gone on, and there was no sign in the distance +of the great city. M. de Kernogan made no reply, but he opened his eyes +and a curious glance shot from them at the terror-stricken face of his +daughter. + +Then she knew--knew that she had been tricked and trapped--that her +father had played a hideous and complicated rôle of hypocrisy and +duplicity in order to take her away from the husband whom she idolised. + +Fear and her love for the man of her choice gave her initiative and +strength. Before M. de Kernogan could realise what she was doing, before +he could make a movement to stop her, she had seized the handle of the +carriage door, wrenched the door open and jumped out into the road. She +fell on her face in the mud, but the next moment she picked herself up +again and started to run--down the road which the carriage had just +traversed, on and on as fast as she could go. She ran on blindly, +unreasoningly, impelled by a purely physical instinct to escape, not +thinking how childish, how futile such an attempt was bound to be. + +Already after the first few minutes of this swift career over the muddy +road, she heard quick, heavy footsteps behind her. Her father could not +run like that--the coachman could not have thus left his horses--but +still she could hear those footsteps at a run--a quicker run than +hers--and they were gaining on her--every minute, every second. The +next, she felt two powerful arms suddenly seizing her by the shoulders. +She stumbled and would once more have fallen, but for those same strong +arms which held her close. + +"Let me go! Let me go!" she cried, panting. + +But she was held and could no longer move. She looked up into the face +of Martin-Roget, who without any hesitation or compunction lifted her up +as if she had been a bale of light goods and carried her back toward the +coach. She had forgotten the man who had been picked up on the road +awhile ago, and had been sitting beside the coachman since. + +He deposited her in the barouche beside her father, then quietly closed +the door and once more mounted to his seat on the box. The carriage +moved on again. M. de Kernogan was no longer lethargic, he looked down +on his daughter's inert form beside him, and not one look of tenderness +or compassion softened the hard callousness of his face. + +"Any resistance, my child," he said coldly, "will as you see be useless +as well as undignified. I deplore this necessary violence, but I should +be forced once more to requisition M. Martin-Roget's help if you +attempted such foolish tricks again. When you are a little more calm, we +will talk openly together." + +For the moment she was lying back against the cushions of the carriage; +her nerves having momentarily given way before this appalling +catastrophe which had overtaken her and the hideous outrage to which she +was being subjected by her own father. She was sobbing convulsively. But +in the face of his abominable callousness, she made a great effort to +regain her self-control. Her pride, her dignity came to the rescue. She +had had time in those few seconds to realise that she was indeed more +helpless than any bird in a fowler's net, and that only absolute calm +and presence of mind could possibly save her now. + +If indeed there was the slightest hope of salvation. + +She drew herself up and resolutely dried her eyes and readjusted her +hair and her hood and mantle. + +"We can talk openly at once, sir," she said coldly. "I am ready to hear +what explanation you can offer for this monstrous outrage." + +"I owe you no explanation, my child," he retorted calmly. "Presently +when you are restored to your own sense of dignity and of self-respect +you will remember that a lady of the house of Kernogan does not elope in +the night with a stranger and a heretic like some kitchen-wench. Having +so far forgotten herself my daughter must, alas! take the consequences, +which I deplore, of her own sins and lack of honour." + +"And no doubt, father," she retorted, stung to the quick by his insults, +"that you too will anon be restored to your own sense of self-respect +and remember that hitherto no gentleman of the house of Kernogan has +acted the part of a liar and of a hypocrite!" + +"Silence!" he commanded sternly. + +"Yes!" she reiterated wildly, "it was the rôle of a liar and of a +hypocrite that you played from the moment when you sat down to pen that +letter full of protestations of affection and forgiveness, until like a +veritable Judas you betrayed your own daughter with a kiss. Shame on +you, father!" she cried. "Shame!" + +"Enough!" he said, as he seized her wrist so roughly that the cry of +pain which involuntarily escaped her effectually checked the words in +her mouth. "You are mad, beside yourself, a thoughtless, senseless +creature whom I shall have to coerce more effectually if you do not +cease your ravings. Do not force me to have recourse once again to M. +Martin-Roget's assistance to keep your undignified outburst in check." + +The name of the man whom she had learned to hate and fear more than any +other human being in the world was sufficient to restore to her that +measure of self-control which had again threatened to leave her. + +"Enough indeed," she said more calmly; "the brain that could devise and +carry out such infamy in cold blood is not like to be influenced by a +defenceless woman's tears. Will you at least tell me whither you are +taking me?" + +"We go to a place on the coast now," he replied coldly, "the outlandish +name of which has escaped me. There we embark for Holland, from whence +we shall join their Royal Highnesses at Coblentz. It is at Coblentz +that your marriage with M. Martin-Roget will take place, and...." + +"Stay, father," she broke in, speaking quite as calmly as he did, "ere +you go any further. Understand me clearly, for I mean every word that I +say. In the sight of God--if not in that of the laws of France--I am the +wife of Lord Anthony Dewhurst. By everything that I hold most sacred and +most dear I swear to you that I will never become Martin-Roget's wife. I +would die first," she added with burning but resolutely suppressed +passion. + +He shrugged his shoulders. + +"Pshaw, my child," he said quietly, "many a time since the world began +have women registered such solemn and sacred vows, only to break them +when force of circumstance and their own good sense made them ashamed of +their own folly." + +"How little you know me, father," was all that she said in reply. + + +III + +Indeed, Yvonne de Kernogan--Yvonne Dewhurst as she was now in sight of +God and men--had far too much innate dignity and self-respect to +continue this discussion, seeing that in any case she was physically the +weaker, and that she was absolutely helpless and defenceless in the +hands of two men, one of whom--her own father--who should have been her +protector, was leagued with her bitterest enemy against her. + +That Martin-Roget was her enemy--aye and her father's too--she had +absolutely no doubt. Some obscure yet keen instinct was working in her +heart, urging her to mistrust him even more wholly than she had done +before. Just now, when he laid ruthless hands on her and carried her, +inert and half-swooning, back into the coach, and she lay with closed +eyes, her very soul in revolt against this contact with him, against the +feel of his arms around her, a vague memory surcharged with horror and +with dread stirred within her brain: and over the vista of the past few +years she looked back upon an evening in the autumn--a rough night with +the wind from the Atlantic blowing across the lowlands of Poitou and +soughing in the willow trees that bordered the Loire--she seemed to hear +the tumultuous cries of enraged human creatures dominating the sound of +the gale, she felt the crowd of evil-intentioned men around the closed +carriage wherein she sat, calm and unafraid. Darkness then was all +around her. She could not see. She could only hear and feel. And she +heard the carriage door being wrenched open, and she felt the cold +breath of the wind upon her cheek, and also the hot breath of a man in a +passion of fury and of hate. + +She had seen nothing then, and mercifully semi-unconsciousness had +dulled her aching senses, but even now her soul shrunk with horror at +the vague remembrance of that ghostlike form--the spirit of hate and of +revenge--of its rough arms encircling her shoulders, its fingers under +her chin--and then that awful, loathsome, contaminating kiss which she +thought then would have smirched her for ever. It had taken all the +pure, sweet kisses of a brave and loyal man whom she loved and revered, +to make her forget that hideous, indelible stain: and in the arms of her +dear milor she had forgotten that one terrible moment, when she had felt +that the embrace of death must be more endurable than that of this +unknown and hated man. + +It was the memory of that awful night which had come back to her as in a +flash while she lay passive and broken in Martin-Roget's arms. Of +course for the moment she had no thought of connecting the rich banker +from Brest, the enthusiastic royalist and _émigré_, with one of those +turbulent, uneducated peasant lads who had attacked her carriage that +night: all that she was conscious of was that she was outraged by his +presence, just as she had been outraged then, and that the contact of +his hands, of his arms, was absolutely unendurable. + +To fight against the physical power which held her a helpless prisoner +in the hands of the enemy was sheer impossibility. She knew that, and +was too proud to make feeble and futile efforts which could only end in +defeat and further humiliation. She felt hideously wretched and +lonely--thoughts of her husband, who at this hour was still serenely +unconscious of the terrible catastrophe which had befallen him, brought +tears of acute misery to her eyes. What would he do when--to-morrow, +perhaps--he realised that his bride had been stolen from him, that he +had been fooled and duped as she had been too. What could he do when he +knew? + +She tried to solace her own soul-agony by thinking of his influential +friends who, of course, would help him as soon as they knew. There was +that mysterious and potent friend of whom he spoke so little, who +already had warned him of coming danger and urged on the secret marriage +which should have proved a protection. There was Sir Percy Blakeney, of +whom he spoke much, who was enormously rich, independent, the most +intimate friend of the Regent himself. There was.... + +But what was the use of clinging even for one instant to those feeble +cords of Hope's broken lyre? By the time her dear lord knew that she was +gone, she would be on the high seas, far out of his reach. + +And she had not even the solace of tears--heart-broken sobs rose in her +throat, but she resolutely kept them back. Her father's cold, impassive +face, the callous glitter in his eyes told her that every tear would be +in vain, her most earnest appeal an object for his sneers. + + +IV + +As to how long the journey in the coach lasted after that Yvonne +Dewhurst could not have said. It may have been a few hours, it may have +been a cycle of years. She had been young--a happy bride, a dutiful +daughter--when she left Combwich Hall. She was an old woman now, a +supremely unhappy one, parted from the man she loved without hope of +ever seeing him again in life, and feeling nothing but hatred and +contempt for the father who had planned such infamy against her. + +She offered no resistance whatever to any of her father's commands. +After the first outburst of revolt and indignation she had not even +spoken to him. + +There was a halt somewhere on the way, when in the low-raftered room of +a posting-inn, she had to sit at table with the two men who had +compassed her misery. She was thirsty, feverish and weak: she drank some +milk in silence. She felt ill physically as well as mentally, and the +constant effort not to break down had helped to shatter her nerves. As +she had stepped out of the barouche without a word, so she stepped into +it again when it stood outside, ready with a fresh relay of horses to +take her further, still further, away from the cosy little nest where +even now her young husband was waiting longingly for her return. The +people of the inn--a kindly-looking woman, a portly middle-aged man, one +or two young ostlers and serving-maids were standing about in the yard +when her father led her to the coach. For a moment the wild idea rushed +to her mind to run to these people and demand their protection, to +proclaim at the top of her voice the infamous act which was dragging her +away from her husband and her home, and lead her a helpless prisoner to +a fate that was infinitely worse than death. She even ran to the woman +who looked so benevolent and so kind, she placed her small quivering +hand on the other's rough toil-worn one and in hurried, appealing words +begged for her help and the shelter of a home till she could communicate +with her husband. + +The woman listened with a look of kindly pity upon her homely face, she +patted the small, trembling hand and stroked it gently, tears of +compassion gathered in her eyes: + +"Yes, yes, my dear," she said soothingly, speaking as she would to a +sick woman or to a child, "I quite understand. I wouldna' fret if I was +you. I would jess go quietly with your pore father: 'e knows what's best +for you, that 'e do. You come 'long wi' me," she added as she drew +Yvonne's hands through her arm, "I'll see ye're comfortable in the +coach." + +Yvonne, bewildered, could not at first understand either the woman's +sympathy or her obvious indifference to the pitiable tale, until--Oh! +the shame of it!--she saw the two young serving-maids looking on her +with equal pity expressed in their round eyes, and heard one of them +whispering to the other: + +"Pore lady! so zad ain't it? I'm that zorry for the pore father!" + +And the girl with a significant gesture indicated her own forehead and +glanced knowingly at her companion. Yvonne felt a hot flush rise to the +very roots of her hair. So her father and Martin-Roget had thought of +everything, and had taken every precaution to cut the ground from under +her feet. Wherever a halt was necessary, wherever the party might come +in contact with the curious or the indifferent, it would be given out +that the poor young lady was crazed, that she talked wildly, and had to +be kept under restraint. + +Yvonne as she turned away from that last faint glimmer of hope, +encountered Martin-Roget's glance of triumph and saw the sneer which +curled his full lips. Her father came up to her just then and took her +over from the kindly hostess, with the ostentatious manner of one who +has charge of a sick person, and must take every precaution for her +welfare. + +"Another loss of dignity, my child," he said to her in French, so that +none but Martin-Roget could catch what he said. "I guessed that you +would commit some indiscretion, you see, so M. Martin-Roget and myself +warned all the people at the inn the moment we arrived. We told them +that I was travelling with a sick daughter who had become crazed through +the death of her lover, and believed herself--like most crazed persons +do--to be persecuted and oppressed. You have seen the result. They +pitied you. Even the serving-maids smiled. It would have been wiser to +remain silent." + +Whereupon he handed her into the barouche with loving care, a crowd of +sympathetic onlookers gazing with obvious compassion on the poor crazed +lady and her sorely tried father. + +After this episode Yvonne gave up the struggle. + +No one but God could help her, if He chose to perform a miracle. + + +V + +The rest of the journey was accomplished in silence. Yvonne gazed, +unseeing, through the carriage window as the barouche rattled on the +cobble-stones of the streets of Bristol. She marvelled at the number of +people who went gaily by along the streets, unheeding, unknowing that +the greatest depths of misery to which any human being could sink had +been probed by the unfortunate young girl who wide-eyed, mute and +broken-hearted gazed out upon the busy world without. + +Portishead was reached just when the grey light of day turned to a +gloomy twilight. Yvonne unresisting, insentient, went whither she was +bidden to go. Better that, than to feel Martin-Roget's coercive grip on +her arm, or to hear her father's curt words of command. + +She walked along the pier and anon stepped into a boat, hardly knowing +what she was doing: the twilight was welcome to her, for it hid much +from her view and her eyes--hot with unshed tears--ached for the restful +gloom. She realised that the boat was being rowed along for some little +way down the stream, that Frédérick, who had come she knew not how or +whence, was in the boat too with some luggage which she recognised as +being familiar: that another woman was there whom she did not know, but +who appeared to look after her comforts, wrapped a shawl closer round +her knees and drew the hood of her mantle closer round her neck. But it +was all like an ugly dream: the voices of her father and of +Martin-Roget, who were talking in monosyllables, the sound of the oars +as they struck the water, or creaked in their rowlocks, came to her as +from an ever-receding distance. + +A couple of hours later she came back to complete consciousness. She +was in a narrow place, which at first appeared to her like a cupboard: +the atmosphere was both cold and stuffy and reeked of tar and of oil. +She was lying on a hard bed with her mantle and a shawl wrapped round +her. It was very dark save where the feeble glimmer of a lamp threw a +circle of light around. Above her head there was a constant and heavy +tramping of feet, and the sound of incessant and varied creakings and +groanings of wood, cordage and metal filled the night air with their +weird and dismal sounds. A slow feeling of movement coupled with a +gentle oscillation confirmed the unfortunate girl's first waking +impression that she was on board a ship. How she had got there she did +not know. She must ultimately have fainted in the small boat and been +carried aboard. She raised herself slightly on her elbow and peered +round her into the dark corners of the cabin: opposite to her upon a +bench, also wrapped up in shawl and mantle, lay the woman who had been +in attendance on her in the boat. + +The woman's heavy breathing indicated that she was fast asleep. + +Loneliness! Misery! Desolation encompassed the happy bride of yesterday. +With a moan of exquisite soul-agony she fell back against the hard +cushions, and for the first time this day a convulsive flow of tears +eased the superacuteness of her misery. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE COAST OF FRANCE + + +I + +The whole of that wretched mournful day Yvonne Dewhurst spent upon the +deck of the ship which was bearing her away every hour, every minute, +further and still further from home and happiness. She seldom spoke: she +ate and drank when food was brought to her: she was conscious neither of +cold nor of wet, of well-being or ill. She sat upon a pile of cordages +in the stern of the ship leaning against the taffrail and in imagination +seeing the coast of England fade into illimitable space. + +Part of the time it rained, and then she sat huddled up in the shawls +and tarpaulins which the woman placed about her: then, when the sun came +out, she still sat huddled up, closing her eyes against the glare. + +When daylight faded into dusk, and then twilight into night she gazed +into nothingness as she had gazed on water and sky before, thinking, +thinking, thinking! This could not be the end--it could not. So much +happiness, such pure love, such perfect companionship as she had had +with the young husband whom she idolised could not all be wrenched from +her like that, without previous foreboding and without some warning from +Fate. This miserable, sordid, wretched journey to an unknown land could +not be the epilogue to the exquisite romance which had suddenly changed +the dreary monotony of her life into one long, glowing dream of joy and +of happiness! This could not be the end! + +And gazing into the immensity of the far horizon she thought and thought +and racked her memory for every word, every look which she had had from +her dear milor. And upon the grey background of sea and sky she seemed +to perceive the vague and dim outline of that mysterious friend--the man +who knew everything--who foresaw everything, even and above all the +dangers that threatened those whom he loved. He had foreseen this awful +danger too! Oh! if only milor and she herself had realised its full +extent! But now surely! surely! he would help, he would know what to do. +Milor was wont to speak of him as being omniscient and having marvellous +powers. + +Once or twice during the day M. le duc de Kernogan came to sit beside +his daughter and tried to speak a few words of comfort and of sympathy. +Of a truth--here on the open sea--far both from home and kindred and +from the new friends he had found in hospitable England--his heart smote +him for all the wrong he had done to his only child. He dared not think +of the gentle and patient wife who lay at rest in the churchyard of +Kernogan, for he feared that with his thoughts he would conjure up her +pale, avenging ghost who would demand an account of what he had done +with her child. + +Cold and exposure--the discomfort of the long sea-journey in this rough +trading ship had somewhat damped M. de Kernogan's pride and obstinacy: +his loyalty to the cause of his King had paled before the demands of a +father's duty toward his helpless daughter. + + +II + +It was close on six o'clock and the night, after the turbulent and +capricious alternations of rain and sunshine, promised to be beautifully +clear, though very cold. The pale crescent of the moon had just emerged +from behind the thick veil of cloud and mist which still hung +threateningly upon the horizon: a fitful sheen of silver danced upon the +waves. + +M. le duc stood beside his daughter. He had inquired after her health +and well-being and received her monosyllabic reply with an impatient +sigh. M. Martin-Roget was pacing up and down the deck with restless and +vigorous strides: he had just gone by and made a loud and cheery comment +on the weather and the beauty of the night. + +Could Yvonne Dewhurst have seen her father's face now, or had she cared +to study it, she would have perceived that he was gazing out to sea in +the direction to which the schooner was heading with an intent look of +puzzlement, and that there was a deep furrow between his brows. Half an +hour went by and he still stood there, silent and absorbed: then +suddenly a curious exclamation escaped his lips: he stooped and seized +his daughter by the wrist. + +"Yvonne!" he said excitedly, "tell me! am I dreaming, or am I crazed?" + +"What is it?" she asked coldly. + +"Out there! Look! Just tell me what you see?" + +He appeared so excited and his pressure on her wrist was so insistent +that she dragged herself to her feet and looked out to sea in the +direction to which he was pointing. + +"Tell me what you see," he reiterated with ever-growing excitement, and +she felt that the hand which held her wrist trembled violently. + +"The light from a lighthouse, I think," she said. + +"And besides that?" + +"Another light--a much smaller one--considerably higher up. It must be +perched up on some cliffs." + +"Anything else?" + +"Yes. There are lights dotted about here and there. Some village on the +coast." + +"On the coast?" he murmured hoarsely, "and we are heading towards it." + +"So it appears," she said indifferently. What cared she to what shore +she was being taken: every land save England was exile to her now. + +Just at this moment M. Martin-Roget in his restless wanderings once more +passed by. + +"M. Martin-Roget!" called the duc. + +And vaguely Yvonne wondered why his voice trembled so. + +"At your service, M. le duc," replied the other as he came to a halt, +and then stood with legs wide apart firmly planted upon the deck, his +hands buried in the pockets of his heavy mantle, his head thrown back, +as if defiantly, his whole attitude that of a master condescending to +talk with slaves. + +"What are those lights over there, ahead of us?" asked M. le duc +quietly. + +"The lighthouse of Le Croisic, M. le duc," replied Martin-Roget dryly, +"and of the guard-house above and the harbour below. All at your +service," he added, with a sneer. + +"Monsieur...." exclaimed the duc. + +"Eh? what?" queried the other blandly. + +"What does this mean?" + +In the vague, dim light of the moon Yvonne could just distinguish the +two men as they stood confronting one another. Martin-Roget, tall, +massive, with arms now folded across his breast, shrugging his broad +shoulders at the duc's impassioned query--and her father who suddenly +appeared to have shrunk within himself, who raised one trembling hand to +his forehead and with the other sought with pathetic entreaty the +support of his daughter's arm. + +"What does this mean?" he murmured again. + +"Only," replied Martin-Roget with a laugh, "that we are close to the +coast of France and that with this unpleasant but useful north-westerly +wind we shall be in Nantes two hours before midnight." + +"In Nantes?" queried the duc vaguely, not understanding, speaking +tonelessly like a somnambulist or a man in a trance. He was leaning +heavily now on his daughter's arm, and she with that motherly instinct +which is ever present in a good woman's heart even in the presence of +her most cruel enemy, drew him tenderly towards her, gave him the +support he needed, not quite understanding herself yet what it was that +had befallen them both. + +"Yes, in Nantes, M. le duc," reiterated Martin-Roget with a sneer. + +"But 'twas to Holland we were going." + +"To Nantes, M. le duc," retorted the other with a ringing note of +triumph in his voice, "to Nantes, from which you fled like a coward when +you realised that the vengeance of an outraged people had at last +overtaken you and your kind." + +"I do not understand," stammered the duc, and mechanically +now--instinctively--father and daughter clung to one another as if each +was striving to protect the other from the raving fury of this madman. +Never for a moment did they believe that he was sane. Excitement, they +thought, had turned his brain: he was acting and speaking like one +possessed. + +"I dare say it would take far longer than the next four hours while we +glide gently along the Loire, to make such as you understand that your +arrogance and your pride are destined to be humbled at last and that you +are now in the power of those men who awhile ago you did not deem worthy +to lick your boots. I dare say," he continued calmly, "you think that I +am crazed. Well! perhaps I am, but sane enough anyhow, M. le duc, to +enjoy the full flavour of revenge." + +"Revenge?... what have we done?... what has my daughter done?..." +stammered the duc incoherently. "You swore you loved her ... desired to +make her your wife ... I consented ... she...." + +Martin-Roget's harsh laugh broke in on his vague murmurings. + +"And like an arrogant fool you fell into the trap," he said with calm +irony, "and you were too blind to see in Martin-Roget, suitor for your +daughter's hand, Pierre Adet, the son of the victim of your execrable +tyranny, the innocent man murdered at your bidding." + +"Pierre Adet ... I don't understand." + +"'Tis but little meseems that you do understand, M. le duc," sneered the +other. "But turn your memory back, I pray you, to the night four years +ago when a few hot-headed peasant lads planned to give you a fright in +your castle of Kernogan ... the plan failed and Pierre Adet, the leader +of that unfortunate band, managed to fly the country, whilst you, like a +crazed and blind tyrant, administered punishment right and left for the +fright which you had had. Just think of it! those boors! those louts! +that swinish herd of human cattle had dared to raise a cry of revolt +against you! To death with them all! to death! Where is Pierre Adet, the +leader of those hogs? to him an exemplary punishment must be meted! a +deterrent against any other attempt at revolt. Well, M. le duc, do you +remember what happened then? Pierre Adet, severely injured in the mêlée, +had managed to crawl away into safety. While he lay betwixt life and +death, first in the presbytery of Vertou, then in various ditches on his +way to Paris, he knew nothing of what happened at Nantes. When he +returned to consciousness and to active life he heard that his father, +Jean Adet the miller, who was innocent of any share in the revolt, had +been hanged by order of M. le duc de Kernogan." + +He paused awhile and a curious laugh--half-convulsive and not unmixed +with sobs--shook his broad shoulders. Neither the duc nor Yvonne made +any comment on what they heard: the duc felt like a fly caught in a +death-dealing web. He was dazed with the horror of his position, dazed +above all with the rush of bitter remorse which had surged up in his +heart and mind, when he realised that it was his own folly, his +obstinacy--aye! and his heartlessness which had brought this awful fate +upon his daughter. And Yvonne felt that whatever she might endure of +misery and hopelessness was nothing in comparison with what her father +must feel with the addition of bitter self-reproach. + +"Are you beginning to understand the position better now, M. le duc?" +queried Martin-Roget after awhile. + +The duc sank back nerveless upon the pile of cordages close by. Yvonne +was leaning with her back against the taffrail, her two arms +outstretched, the north-west wind blowing her soft brown hair about her +face whilst her eyes sought through the gloom to read the lines of +cruelty and hatred which must be distorting Martin-Roget's face now. + +"And," she said quietly after awhile, "you have waited all these years, +Monsieur, nursing thoughts of revenge and of hate against us. Ah! +believe me," she added earnestly, "though God knows my heart is full of +misery at this moment, and though I know that at your bidding death will +so soon claim me and my father as his own, yet would I not change my +wretchedness for yours." + +"And I, citizeness," he said roughly, addressing her for the first time +in the manner prescribed by the revolutionary government, "would not +change places with any king or other tyrant on earth. Yes," he added as +he came a step or two closer to her, "I have waited all these years. For +four years I have thought and striven and planned, planned to be even +with your father and with you one day. You had fled the country--like +cowards, bah!--ready to lend your arms to the foreigner against your own +country in order to re-establish a tyrant upon the throne whom the whole +of the people of France loathed and detested. You had fled, but soon I +learned whither you had gone. Then I set to work to gain access to +you.... I learned English.... I too went to England ... under an assumed +name ... with the necessary introductions so as to gain a footing in the +circles in which you moved. I won your father's condescension--almost +his friendship!... The rich banker from Brest should be fleeced in order +to provide funds for the armies that were to devastate France--and the +rich banker of Brest refused to be fleeced unless he was lured by the +promise of Mlle. de Kernogan's hand in marriage." + +"You need not, Monsieur," rejoined Yvonne coldly, while Martin-Roget +paused in order to draw breath, "you need not, believe me, take the +trouble to recount all the machinations which you carried through in +order to gain your ends. Enough that my father was so foolish as to +trust you, and that we are now completely in your power, but...." + +"There is no 'but,'" he broke in gruffly, "you are in my power and will +be made to learn the law of the talion which demands an eye for an eye, +a life for a life: that is the law which the people are applying to that +herd of aristos who were arrogant tyrants once and are shrinking, +cowering slaves now. Oh! you were very proud that night, Mademoiselle +Yvonne de Kernogan, when a few peasant lads told you some home truths +while you sat disdainful and callous in your carriage, but there is one +fact that you can never efface from your memory, strive how you may, and +that is that for a few minutes I held you in my arms and that I kissed +you, my fine lady, aye! kissed you like I would any pert kitchen wench, +even I, Pierre Adet, the miller's son." + +He drew nearer and nearer to her as he spoke; she, leaning against the +taffrail, could not retreat any further from him. He laughed. + +"If you fall over into the water, I shall not complain," he said, "it +will save our proconsul the trouble, and the guillotine some work. But +you need not fear. I am not trying to kiss you again. You are nothing to +me, you and your father, less than nothing. Your death in misery and +wretchedness is all I want, whether you find a dishonoured grave in the +Loire or by suicide I care less than nothing. But let me tell you this," +he added, and his voice came now like a hissing sound through his set +teeth, "that there is no intention on my part to make glorious martyrs +of you both. I dare say you have heard some pretty stories over in +England of aristos climbing the steps of the guillotine with an ecstatic +look of martyrdom upon their face: and tales of the tumbrils of Paris +laden with men and women going to their death and shouting "God save the +King" all the way. That is not the sort of paltry revenge which would +satisfy me. My father was hanged by yours as a malefactor--hanged, I +say, like a common thief! he, a man who had never wronged a single soul +in the whole course of his life, who had been an example of fine living, +of hard work, of noble courage through many adversities. My mother was +left a widow--not the honoured widow of an honourable man--but a pariah, +the relict of a malefactor who had died of the hangman's rope--my sister +was left an orphan--dishonoured--without hope of gaining the love of a +respectable man. All that I and my family owe to ci-devant M. le duc de +Kernogan, and therefore I tell you, that both he and his +daughter shall not die like martyrs but like malefactors +too--shamed--dishonoured--loathed and execrated even by their own +kindred! Take note of that, M. le duc de Kernogan! You have sown shame, +shame shall you reap! and the name of which you are so proud will be +dragged in the mire until it has become a by-word in the land for all +that is despicable and base." + +Perhaps at no time of his life had Martin-Roget, erstwhile Pierre Adet, +spoken with such an intensity of passion, even though he was at all +times turbulent and a ready prey to his own emotions. But all that he +had kept hidden in the inmost recesses of his heart, ever since as a +young stripling he had chafed at the social conditions of his country, +now welled forth in that wild harangue. For the first time in his life +he felt that he was really master of those who had once despised and +oppressed him. He held them and was the arbiter of their fate. The +sense of possession and of power had gone to his head like wine: he was +intoxicated with his own feeling of triumphant revenge, and this +impassioned rhetoric flowed from his mouth like the insentient babble of +a drunken man. + +The duc de Kernogan, sitting on the coil of cordages with his elbows on +his knees and his head buried in his hands, had no thought of breaking +in on the other man's ravings. The bitterness of remorse paralysed his +thinking faculties. Martin-Roget's savage words struck upon his senses +like blows from a sledge-hammer. He knew that nothing but his own folly +was the cause of Yvonne's and his own misfortune. Yvonne had been safe +from all evil fortune under the protection of her fine young English +husband; he--the father who should have been her chief protector--had +dragged her by brute force away from that husband's care and had landed +her ... where?... A shudder like acute ague went through the unfortunate +man's whole body as he thought of the future. + +Nor did Yvonne Dewhurst attempt to make reply to her enemy's delirious +talk. She would not give him even the paltry satisfaction of feeling +that he had stung her into a retort. She did not fear him--she hated him +too much for that--but like her father she had no illusions as to his +power over them both. While he stormed and raved she kept her eyes +steadily fixed upon him. She could only just barely distinguish him in +the gloom, and he no doubt failed to see the expression of lofty +indifference wherewith she contrived to regard him: but he _felt_ her +contempt, and but for the presence of the sailors on the deck he +probably would have struck her. + +As it was when, from sheer lack of breath, he had to pause, he gave one +last look of hate on the huddled figure of the duc, and the proud, +upstanding one of Yvonne, then with a laugh which sounded like that of a +fiend--so cruel, so callous was it, he turned on his heel, and as he +strode away towards the bow his tall figure was soon absorbed in the +surrounding gloom. + + +III + +The duc de Kernogan and his daughter saw little or nothing of +Martin-Roget after that. For awhile longer they caught sight of him from +time to time as he walked up and down the deck with ceaseless +restlessness and in the company of another man, who was much shorter and +slimmer than himself and whom they had not noticed hitherto. +Martin-Roget talked most of the time in a loud and excited voice, the +other appearing to listen to him with a certain air of deference. +Whether the conversation between these two was actually intended for the +ears of the two unfortunates, or whether it was merely chance which +brought certain phrases to their ears when the two men passed closely +by, it were impossible to say. Certain it is that from such chance +phrases they gathered that the barque would not put into Nantes, as the +navigation of the Loire was suspended for the nonce by order of +Proconsul Carrier. He had need of the river for his awesome and +nefarious deeds. Yvonne's ears were regaled with tales--told with loud +ostentation--of the terrible _noyades_, the wholesale drowning of men, +women and children, malefactors and traitors, so as to ease the burden +of the guillotine. + +After three bells it got so bitterly cold that Yvonne, fearing that her +father would become seriously ill, suggested their going down to their +stuffy cabins together. After all, even the foul and shut-up atmosphere +of these close, airless cupboards was preferable to the propinquity of +those two human fiends up on deck and the tales of horror and brutality +which they loved to tell. + +And for two hours after that, father and daughter sat in the narrow +cell-like place, locked in each other's arms. She had everything to +forgive, and he everything to atone for: but Yvonne suffered so acutely, +her misery was so great that she found it in her heart to pity the +father whose misery must have been even greater than hers. The supreme +solace of bestowing love and forgiveness and of easing the racking +paroxysms of remorse which brought the unfortunate man to the verge of +dementia, warmed her heart towards him and brought surcease to her own +sorrow. + + + + +BOOK TWO: NANTES, DECEMBER, 1793 + +CHAPTER I + +THE TIGER'S LAIR + + +I + +Nantes is in the grip of the tiger. + +Representative Carrier--with powers as of a proconsul--has been sent +down to stamp out the lingering remnants of the counter-revolution. La +Vendée is temporarily subdued; the army of the royalists driven back +across the Loire; but traitors still abound--this the National +Convention in Paris hath decreed--there are traitors everywhere. They +were not _all_ massacred at Cholet and Savenay. Disbanded, yes! but not +exterminated, and wolves must not be allowed to run loose, lest they +band again, and try to devour the flocks. + +Therefore extermination is the order of the day. Every traitor or +would-be traitor--every son and daughter and father and mother of +traitors must be destroyed ere they do more mischief. And +Carrier--Carrier the coward who turned tail and bolted at Cholet--is +sent to Nantes to carry on the work of destruction. Wolves and wolflings +all! Let none survive. Give them fair trial, of course. As traitors they +have deserved death--have they not taken up arms against the Republic +and against the Will and the Reign of the People? But let a court of +justice sit in Nantes town; let the whole nation know how traitors are +dealt with: let the nation see that her rulers are both wise and just. +Let wolves and wolflings be brought up for trial, and set up the +guillotine on Place du Bouffay with four executioners appointed to do +her work. There would be too much work for two, or even three. Let there +be four--and let the work of extermination be complete. + +And Carrier--with powers as of a proconsul--arrives in Nantes town and +sets to work to organise his household. Civil and military--with pomp +and circumstance--for the son of a small farmer, destined originally for +the Church and for obscurity is now virtual autocrat in one of the great +cities of France. He has power of life and death over thousands of +citizens--under the direction of justice, of course! So now he has +citizens of the bedchamber, and citizens of the household, he has a +guard of honour and a company of citizens of the guard. And above all he +has a crowd of spies around him--servants of the Committee of Public +Safety so they are called--they style themselves "La Compagnie Marat" in +honour of the great patriot who was foully murdered by a female +wolfling. + +So la Compagnie Marat is formed--they wear red bonnets on their +heads--no stockings on their feet--short breeches to display their bare +shins: their captain, Fleury, has access at all times to the person of +the proconsul, to make report on the raids which his company effect at +all hours of the day or night. Their powers are supreme too. In and out +of houses--however private--up and down the streets--through shops, +taverns and warehouses, along the quays and the yards--everywhere they +go. Everywhere they have the right to go! to ferret and to spy, to +listen, to search, to interrogate--the red-capped Company is paid for +what it can find. Piece-work, what? Work for the guillotine! + +And they it is who keep the guillotine busy. Too busy in fact. And the +court of justice sitting in the Hôtel du Département is overworked too. +Carrier gets impatient. Why waste the time of patriots by so much +paraphernalia of justice? Wolves and wolflings can be exterminated so +much more quickly, more easily than that. It only needs a stroke of +genius, one stroke, and Carrier has it. + +He invents the _Noyades_! + +The Drownages we may call them! + +They are so simple! An old flat-bottomed barge. The work of two or three +ship's carpenters! Portholes below the water-line and made to open at a +given moment. All so very, very simple. Then a journey downstream as far +as Belle Isle or la Maréchale, and "sentence of deportation" executed +without any trouble on a whole crowd of traitors--"vertical deportation" +Carrier calls it facetiously and is mightily proud of his invention and +of his witticism too. + +The first attempt was highly successful. Ninety priests, and not one +escaped. Think of the work it would have entailed on the guillotine--and +on the friends of Carrier who sit in justice in the Hôtel du +Département! Ninety heads! Bah! That old flat-bottomed barge is the most +wonderful labour-saving machine. + +After that the "Drownages" become the order of the day. The red-capped +Company recruits victims for the hecatomb, and over Nantes Town there +hangs a pall of unspeakable horror. The prisons are not vast enough to +hold all the victims, so the huge entrepôt, the bonded warehouse on the +quay, is converted: instead of chests of coffee it is now encumbered +with human freight: into it pell-mell are thrown all those who are +destined to assuage Carrier's passion for killing: ten thousand of them: +men, women, and young children, counter-revolutionists, innocent +tradesmen, thieves, aristocrats, criminals and women of evil fame--they +are herded together like cattle, without straw whereon to lie, without +water, without fire, with barely food enough to keep up the last +attenuated thread of a miserable existence. + +And when the warehouse gets over full, to the Loire with them!--a +hundred or two at a time! Pestilence, dysentery decimates their numbers. +Under pretence of hygienic requirements two hundred are flung into the +river on the 14th day of December. Two hundred--many of them +women--crowds of children and a batch of parish priests. + +Some there are among Carrier's colleagues--those up in Paris--who +protest! Such wholesale butchery will not redound to the credit of any +revolutionary government--it even savours of treachery--it is +unpatriotic! There are the emissaries of the National Convention, +deputed from Paris to supervise and control--they protest as much as +they dare--but such men are swept off their feet by the torrent of +Carrier's gluttony for blood. Carrier's mission is to "purge the +political body of every evil that infests it." Vague and yet precise! He +reckons that he has full powers and thinks he can flaunt those powers in +the face of those sent to control him. He does it too for three whole +months ere he in his turn meets his doom. But for the moment he is +omnipotent. He has to make report every week to the Committee of Public +Safety, and he sends brief, garbled versions of his doings. "He is +pacifying La Vendée! he is stamping out the remnants of the rebellion! +he is purging the political body of every evil that infests it." Anon he +succeeds in getting the emissaries of the National Convention recalled. +He is impatient of control. "They are weak, pusillanimous, unpatriotic! +He must have freedom to act for the best." + +After that he remains virtual dictator, with none but obsequious, +terrified myrmidons around him: these are too weak to oppose him in any +way. And the municipality dare not protest either--nor the district +council--nor the departmental. They are merely sheep who watch others of +their flock being sent to the slaughter. + +After that from within his lair the man tiger decides that it is a pity +to waste good barges on the cattle: "Fling them out!" he cries. "Fling +them out! Tie two and two together. Man and woman! criminal and aristo! +the thief with the ci-devant duke's daughter! the ci-devant marquis with +the slut from the streets! Fling them all out together into the Loire +and pour a hail of grape shot above them until the last struggler has +disappeared! "Equality!" he cries, "Equality for all! Fraternity! Unity +in death!" + +His friends call this new invention of his: "Marriage Républicain!" and +he is pleased with the _mot_. + +And Republican marriages become the order of the day. + + +II + +Nantes itself now is akin to a desert--a desert wherein the air is +filled with weird sounds of cries and of moans, of furtive footsteps +scurrying away into dark and secluded byways, of musketry and confused +noises, of sorrow and of lamentations. + +Nantes is a city of the dead--a city of sleepers. Only Carrier is +awake--thinking and devising and planning shorter ways and swifter, for +the extermination of traitors. + +In the Hôtel de la Villestreux the tiger has built his lair: at the apex +of the island of Feydeau, with the windows of the hotel facing straight +down the Loire. From here there is a magnificent view downstream upon +the quays which are now deserted and upon the once prosperous port of +Nantes. + +The staircase of the hotel which leads up to the apartments of the +proconsul is crowded every day and all day with suppliants and with +petitioners, with the citizens of the household and the members of the +Compagnie Marat. + +But no one has access to the person of the dictator. He stands aloof, +apart, hidden from the eyes of the world, a mysterious personality whose +word sends hundreds to their death, whose arbitrary will has reduced a +once flourishing city to abject poverty and squalor. No tyrant has ever +surrounded himself with a greater paraphernalia of pomp and +circumstance--no aristo has ever dwelt in greater luxury: the spoils of +churches and chateaux fill the Hôtel de la Villestreux from attic to +cellar, gold and silver plate adorn his table, priceless works of art +hang upon his walls, he lolls on couches and chairs which have been the +resting-place of kings. The wholesale spoliation of the entire +country-side has filled the demagogue's abode with all that is most +sumptuous in the land. + +And he himself is far more inaccessible than was _le Roi Soleil_ in the +days of his most towering arrogance, than were the Popes in the glorious +days of mediæval Rome. Jean Baptiste Carrier, the son of a small farmer, +the obscure deputy for Cantal in the National Convention, dwells in the +Hôtel de la Villestreux as in a stronghold. No one is allowed near him +save a few--a very few--intimates: his valet, two or three women, Fleury +the commander of the Marats, and that strange and abominable youngster, +Jacques Lalouët, about whom the chroniclers of that tragic epoch can +tell us so little--a cynical young braggart, said to be a cousin of +Robespierre and the son of a midwife of Nantes, beardless, handsome and +vicious: the only human being--so we are told--who had any influence +over the sinister proconsul: mere hanger-on of Carrier or spy of the +National Convention, no one can say--a malignant personality which has +remained an enigma and a mystery to this hour. + +None but these few are ever allowed now inside the inner sanctuary +wherein dwells and schemes the dictator. Even Lamberty, Fouquet and the +others of the staff are kept at arm's length. Martin-Roget, Chauvelin +and other strangers are only allowed as far as the ante-room. The door +of the inner chamber is left open and they hear the proconsul's voice +and see his silhouette pass and repass in front of them, but that is +all. + +Fear of assassination--the inevitable destiny of the tyrant--haunts the +man-tiger even within the fastnesses of his lair. Day and night a +carriage with four horses stands in readiness on La Petite Hollande, the +great, open, tree-bordered Place at the extreme end of the Isle Feydeau +and on which give the windows of the Hôtel de la Villestreux. Day and +night the carriage is ready--with coachman on the box and postillion in +the saddle, who are relieved every two hours lest they get sleepy or +slack--with luggage in the boot and provisions always kept fresh inside +the coach; everything always ready lest something--a warning from a +friend or a threat from an enemy, or merely a sudden access of +unreasoning terror, the haunting memory of a bloody act--should decide +the tyrant at a moment's notice to fly from the scenes of his +brutalities. + + +III + +Carrier in the small room which he has fitted up for himself as a +sumptuous boudoir, paces up and down just like a wild beast in its cage: +and he rubs his large bony hands together with the excitement engendered +by his own cruelties, by the success of this wholesale butchery which he +has invented and carried through. + +There never was an uglier man than Carrier, with that long hatchet-face +of his, those abnormally high cheekbones, that stiff, lanky hair, that +drooping, flaccid mouth and protruding underlip. Nature seemed to have +set herself the task of making the face a true mirror of the soul--the +dark and hideous soul on which of a surety Satan had already set his +stamp. But he is dressed with scrupulous care--not to say elegance--and +with a display of jewelry the provenance of which is as unjustifiable as +that of the works of art which fill his private sanctum in every nook +and cranny. + +In front of the tall window, heavy curtains of crimson damask are drawn +closely together, in order to shut out the light of day: the room is in +all but total darkness: for that is the proconsul's latest caprice: that +no one shall see him save in semi-obscurity. + +Captain Fleury has stumbled into the room, swearing lustily as he barks +his shins against the angle of a priceless Louis XV bureau. He has to +make report on the work done by the Compagnie Marat. Fifty-three priests +from the department of Anjou who have refused to take the new oath of +obedience to the government of the Republic. The red-capped Company who +tracked them down and arrested them, vow that all these _calotins_ have +precious objects--money, jewelry, gold plate--concealed about their +persons. What is to be done about these things? Are the _calotins_ to be +allowed to keep them or to dispose of them for their own profit? + +Carrier is highly delighted. What a haul! + +"Confiscate everything," he cries, "then ship the whole crowd of that +pestilential rabble, and don't let me hear another word about them." + +Fleury goes. And that same night fifty-three priests are "shipped" in +accordance with the orders of the proconsul, and Carrier, still rubbing +his large bony hands contentedly together, exclaims with glee: + +"What a torrent, eh! What a torrent! What a revolution!" + +And he sends a letter to Robespierre. And to the Committee of Public +Safety he makes report: + +"Public spirit in Nantes," he writes, "is magnificent: it has risen to +the most sublime heights of revolutionary ideals." + + +IV + +After the departure of Fleury, Carrier suddenly turned to a slender +youth, who was standing close by the window, gazing out through the +folds of the curtain on the fine vista of the Loire and the quays which +stretched out before him. + +"Introduce citizen Martin-Roget into the ante-room now, Lalouët," he +said loftily. "I will hear what he has to say, and citizen Chauvelin may +present himself at the same time." + +Young Lalouët lolled across the room, smothering a yawn. + +"Why should you trouble about all that rabble?" he said roughly, "it is +nearly dinner-time and you know that the chef hates the soup to be kept +waiting." + +"I shall not trouble about them very long," replied Carrier, who had +just started picking his teeth with a tiny gold tool. "Open the door, +boy, and let the two men come." + +Lalouët did as he was told. The door through which he passed he left +wide open, he then crossed the ante-room to a further door, threw it +open and called in a loud voice: + +"Citizen Chauvelin! Citizen Martin-Roget!" + +For all the world like the ceremonious audiences at Versailles in the +days of the great Louis. + +There was sound of eager whisperings, of shuffling of feet, of chairs +dragged across the polished floor. Young Lalouët had already and quite +unconcernedly turned his back on the two men who, at his call, had +entered the room. + +Two chairs were placed in front of the door which led to the private +sanctuary--still wrapped in religious obscurity--where Carrier sat +enthroned. The youth curtly pointed to the two chairs, then went back to +the inner room. The two men advanced. The full light of midday fell upon +them from the tall window on their right--the pale, grey, colourless +light of December. They bowed slightly in the direction of the audience +chamber where the vague silhouette of the proconsul was alone visible. + +The whole thing was a farce. Martin-Roget held his lips tightly closed +together lest a curse or a sneer escaped them. Chauvelin's face was +impenetrable--but it is worthy of note that just one year later when the +half-demented tyrant was in his turn brought before the bar of the +Convention and sentenced to the guillotine, it was citizen Chauvelin's +testimony which weighed most heavily against him. + +There was silence for a time: Martin-Roget and Chauvelin were waiting +for the dictator's word. He sat at his desk with the scanty light, which +filtrated between the curtains, immediately behind him, his ungainly +form with the high shoulders and mop-like, shaggy hair half swallowed up +by the surrounding gloom. He was deliberately keeping the other two men +waiting and busied himself with turning over desultorily the papers and +writing tools upon his desk, in the intervals of picking at his teeth +and muttering to himself all the time as was his wont. Young Lalouët had +resumed his post beside the curtained window and he was giving sundry +signs of his growing impatience. + +At last Carrier spoke: + +"And now, citizen Martin-Roget," he said in tones of that lofty +condescension which he loved to affect, "I am prepared to hear what you +have to tell me with regard to the cattle which you brought into our +city the other day. Where are the aristos now? and why have they not +been handed over to commandant Fleury?" + +"The girl," replied Martin-Roget, who had much ado to keep his vehement +temper in check, and who chose for the moment to ignore the second of +Carrier's peremptory queries, "the girl is in lodgings in the Carrefour +de la Poissonnerie. The house is kept by my sister, whose lover was +hanged four years ago by the ci-devant duc de Kernogan for trapping two +pigeons. A dozen or so lads from our old village--men who worked with my +father and others who were my friends--lodge in my sister's house. They +keep a watchful eye over the wench for the sake of the past, for my sake +and for the sake of my sister Louise. The ci-devant Kernogan woman is +well-guarded. I am satisfied as to that." + +"And where is the ci-devant duc?" + +"In the house next door--a tavern at the sign of the Rat Mort--a place +which is none too reputable, but the landlord--Lemoine--is a good +patriot and he is keeping a close eye on the aristo for me." + +"And now will you tell me, citizen," rejoined Carrier with that unctuous +suavity which always veiled a threat, "will you tell me how it comes +that you are keeping a couple of traitors alive all this while at the +country's expense?" + +"At mine," broke in Martin-Roget curtly. + +"At the country's expense," reiterated the proconsul inflexibly. "Bread +is scarce in Nantes. What traitors eat is stolen from good patriots. If +you can afford to fill two mouths at your expense, I can supply you with +some that have never done aught but proclaim their adherence to the +Republic. You have had those two aristos inside the city nearly a week +and----" + +"Only three days," interposed Martin-Roget, "and you must have patience +with me, citizen Carrier. Remember I have done well by you, by bringing +such high game to your bag----" + +"Your high game will be no use to me," retorted the other with a harsh +laugh, "if I am not to have the cooking of it. You have talked of +disgrace for the rabble and of your own desire for vengeance over them, +but----" + +"Wait, citizen," broke in Martin-Roget firmly, "let us understand one +another. Before I embarked on this business you gave me your promise +that no one--not even you--would interfere between me and my booty." + +"And no one has done so hitherto to my knowledge, citizen," rejoined +Carrier blandly. "The Kernogan rabble has been yours to do with what you +like--er--so far," he added significantly. "I said that I would not +interfere and I have not done so up to now, even though the +pestilential crowd stinks in the nostrils of every good patriot in +Nantes. But I don't deny that it was a bargain that you should have a +free hand with them ... for a time, and Jean Baptiste Carrier has never +yet gone back on a given word." + +Martin-Roget made no comment on this peroration. He shrugged his broad +shoulders and suddenly fell to contemplating the distant landscape. He +had turned his head away in order to hide the sneer which curled his +lips at the recollection of that "bargain" struck with the imperious +proconsul. It was a matter of five thousand francs which had passed from +one pocket to the other and had bound Carrier down to a definite +promise. + +After a brief while Carrier resumed: "At the same time," he said, "my +promise was conditional, remember. I want that cattle out of Nantes--I +want the bread they eat--I want the room they occupy. I can't allow you +to play fast and loose with them indefinitely--a week is quite long +enough----" + +"Three days," corrected Martin-Roget once more. + +"Well! three days or eight," rejoined the other roughly. "Too long in +any case. I must be rid of them out of this city or I shall have all the +spies of the Convention about mine ears. I am beset with spies, citizen +Martin-Roget, yes, even I--Jean Baptiste Carrier--the most selfless the +most devoted patriot the Republic has ever known! Mine enemies up in +Paris send spies to dog my footsteps, to watch mine every action. They +are ready to pounce upon me at the slightest slip, to denounce me, to +drag me to their bar--they have already whetted the knife of the +guillotine which is to lay low the head of the finest patriot in +France----" + +"Hold on! hold on, Jean Baptiste my friend," here broke in young Lalouët +with a sneer, "we don't want protestations of your patriotism just now. +It is nearly dinner time." + +Carrier had been carried away by his own eloquence. At Lalouët's mocking +words he pulled himself together: murmured: "You young viper!" in tones +of tigerish affection, and then turned back to Martin-Roget and resumed +more calmly: + +"They'll be saying that I harbour aristos in Nantes if I keep that +Kernogan rabble here any longer. So I must be rid of them, citizen +Martin-Roget ... say within the next four-and-twenty hours...." He +paused for a moment or two, then added drily: "That is my last word, and +you must see to it. What is it you do want to do with them enfin?" + +"I want their death," replied Martin-Roget with a curse, and he brought +his heavy fist crashing down upon the arm of his chair, "but not a +martyr's death, understand? I don't want the pathetic figure of Yvonne +Kernogan and her father to remain as a picture of patient resignation in +the hearts and minds of every other aristo in the land. I don't want it +to excite pity or admiration. Death is nothing for such as they! they +glory in it! they are proud to die. The guillotine is their final +triumph! What I want for them is shame ... degradation ... a sensational +trial that will cover them with dishonour.... I want their name dragged +in the mire--themselves an object of derision or of loathing. I want +articles in the _Moniteur_ giving account of the trial of the ci-devant +duc de Kernogan and his daughter for something that is ignominious and +base. I want shame and mud slung at them--noise and beating of drums to +proclaim their dishonour. Noise! noise! that will reach every corner of +the land, aye that will reach Coblentz and Germany and England. It is +that which they would resent--the shame of it--the disgrace to their +name!" + +"Tshaw!" exclaimed Carrier. "Why don't you marry the wench, citizen +Martin-Roget? That would be disgrace enough for her, I'll warrant," he +added with a loud laugh, enchanted at his witticism. + +"I would to-morrow," replied the other, who chose to ignore the coarse +insult, "if she would consent. That is why I have kept her at my +sister's house these three days." + +"Bah! you have no need of a traitor's consent. My consent is +sufficient.... I'll give it if you like. The laws of the Republic +permit, nay desire every good patriot to ally himself with an aristo, if +he have a mind. And the Kernogan wench face to face with the +guillotine--or worse--would surely prefer your embraces, citizen, what?" + +A deep frown settled between Martin-Roget's glowering eyes, and gave his +face a sinister expression. + +"I wonder ..." he muttered between his teeth. + +"Then cease wondering, citizen," retorted Carrier cynically, "and try +our Republican marriage on your Kernogans ... thief linked to aristo, +cut-throat to a proud wench ... and then the Loire! Shame? Dishonour? +Fal lal I say! Death, swift and sure and unerring. Nothing better has +yet been invented for traitors." + +Martin-Roget shrugged his shoulders. + +"You have never known," he said quietly, "what it is to hate." + +Carrier uttered an exclamation of impatience. + +"Bah!" he said, "that is all talk and nonsense. Theories, what? Citizen +Chauvelin is a living example of the futility of all that rubbish. He +too has an enemy it seems whom he hates more thoroughly than any good +patriot has ever hated the enemies of the Republic. And hath this +deadly hatred availed him, forsooth? He too wanted the disgrace and +dishonour of that confounded Englishman whom I would simply have tossed +into the Loire long ago, without further process. What is the result? +The Englishman is over in England, safe and sound, making long noses at +citizen Chauvelin, who has much ado to keep his own head out of the +guillotine." + +Martin-Roget once more was silent: a look of sullen obstinacy had +settled upon his face. + +"You may be right, citizen Carrier," he muttered after awhile. + +"I am always right," broke in Carrier curtly. + +"Exactly ... but I have your promise." + +"And I'll keep it, as I have said, for another four and twenty hours. +Curse you for a mulish fool," added the proconsul with a snarl, "what in +the d----l's name do you want to do? You have talked a vast deal of +rubbish but you have told me nothing of your plans. Have you any ... +that are worthy of my attention?" + + +V + +Martin-Roget rose from his seat and began pacing up and down the narrow +room. His nerves were obviously on edge. It was difficult for any +man--let alone one of his temperament and half-tutored disposition--to +remain calm and deferential in face of the overbearance of this brutal +Jack-in-office. Martin-Roget--himself an upstart--loathed the offensive +self-assertion of that uneducated and bestial parvenu, who had become +all-powerful through the sole might of his savagery, and it cost him a +mighty effort to keep a violent retort from escaping his lips--a retort +which probably would have cost him his head. + +Chauvelin, on the other hand, appeared perfectly unconcerned. He +possessed the art of outward placidity to a masterly degree. Throughout +all this while he had taken no part in the discussion. He sat silent and +all but motionless, facing the darkened room in front of him, as if he +had done nothing else in all his life but interview great dictators who +chose to keep their sacred persons in the dark. Only from time to time +did his slender fingers drum a tattoo on the arm of his chair. + +Carrier had resumed his interesting occupation of picking his teeth: his +long, thin legs were stretched out before him; from beneath his flaccid +lids he shot swift glances upwards, whenever Martin-Roget in his +restless pacing crossed and recrossed in front of the open door. But +anon, when the latter came to a halt under the lintel and with his foot +almost across the threshold, young Lalouët was upon him in an instant, +barring the way to the inner sanctum. + +"Keep your distance, citizen," he said drily, "no one is allowed to +enter here." + +Instinctively Martin-Roget had drawn back--suddenly awed despite himself +by the air of mystery which hung over that darkened room, and by the dim +silhouette of the sinister tyrant who at his approach had with equal +suddenness cowered in his lair, drawing his limbs together and thrusting +his head forward, low down over the desk, like a leopard crouching for a +spring. But this spell of awe only lasted a few seconds, during which +Martin-Roget's unsteady gaze encountered the half-mocking, wholly +supercilious glance of young Lalouët. + +The next, he had recovered his presence of mind. But this crowning act +of audacious insolence broke the barrier of his self-restraint. An angry +oath escaped him. + +"Are we," he exclaimed roughly, "back in the days of Capet, the tyrant, +and of Versailles, that patriots and citizens are treated like menials +and obtrusive slaves? Pardieu, citizen Carrier, let me tell you +this...." + +"Pardieu, citizen Martin-Roget," retorted Carrier with a growl like that +of a savage dog, "let _me_ tell _you_ that for less than two pins I'll +throw you into the next barge that will float with open portholes down +the Loire. Get out of my presence, you swine, ere I call Fleury to throw +you out." + +Martin-Roget at the insult and the threat had become as pale as the +linen at his throat: a cold sweat broke out upon his forehead and he +passed his hand two or three times across his brow like a man dazed with +a sudden and violent blow. His nerves, already overstrained and very +much on edge, gave way completely. He staggered and would have measured +his length across the floor, but that his hand encountered the back of +his chair and he just contrived to sink into it, sick and faint, +horror-struck and pallid. + +A low cackle--something like a laugh--broke from Chauvelin's thin lips. +As usual he had witnessed the scene quite unmoved. + +"My friend Martin-Roget forgot himself for the moment, citizen Carrier," +he said suavely, "already he is ready to make amends." + +Jacques Lalouët looked down for a moment with infinite scorn expressed +in his fine eyes, on the presumptuous creature who had dared to defy the +omnipotent representative of the People. Then he turned on his heel, but +he did not go far this time: he remained standing close beside the +door--the terrier guarding his master. + +Carrier laughed loud and long. It was a hideous, strident laugh which +had not a tone of merriment in it. + +"Wake up, friend Martin-Roget," he said harshly, "I bear no malice: I am +a good dog when I am treated the right way. But if anyone pulls my tail +or treads on my paws, why! I snarl and growl of course. If the offence +is repeated ... I bite ... remember that; and now let us resume our +discourse, though I confess I am getting tired of your Kernogan rabble." + +While the great man spoke, Martin-Roget had succeeded in pulling himself +together. His throat felt parched, his hands hot and moist: he was like +a man who had been stumbling along a road in the dark and been suddenly +pulled up on the edge of a yawning abyss into which he had all but +fallen. With a few harsh words, with a monstrous insult Carrier had made +him feel the gigantic power which could hurl any man from the heights of +self-assurance and of ambition to the lowest depths of degradation: he +had shown him the glint of steel upon the guillotine. + +He had been hit as with a sledge-hammer--the blow hurt terribly, for it +had knocked all his self-esteem into nothingness and pulverised his +self-conceit. It had in one moment turned him into a humble and cringing +sycophant. + +"I had no mind," he began tentatively, "to give offence. My thoughts +were bent on the Kernogans. They are a fine haul for us both, citizen +Carrier, and I worked hard and long to obtain their confidence over in +England and to induce them to come with me to Nantes." + +"No one denies that you have done well," retorted Carrier gruffly and +not yet wholly pacified. "If the haul had not been worth having you +would have received no help from me." + +"I have shown my gratitude for your help, citizen Carrier. I would show +it again ... more substantially if you desire...." + +He spoke slowly and quite deferentially but the suggestion was obvious. +Carrier looked up into his face: the light of measureless cupidity--the +cupidity of the coarse-grained, enriched peasant--glittered in his pale +eyes. It was by a great effort of will that he succeeded in concealing +his eagerness beneath his habitual air of lofty condescension: + +"Eh? What?" he queried airily. + +"If another five thousand francs is of any use to you...." + +"You seem passing rich, citizen Martin-Roget," sneered Carrier. + +"I have slaved and saved for four years. What I have amassed I will +sacrifice for the completion of my revenge." + +"Well!" rejoined Carrier with an expressive wave of the hand, "it +certainly is not good for a pure-minded republican to own too much +wealth. Have we not fought," he continued with a grandiloquent gesture, +"for equality of fortune as well as of privileges...." + +A sardonic laugh from young Lalouët broke in on the proconsul's eloquent +effusion. + +Carrier swore as was his wont, but after a second or two he began again +more quietly: + +"I will accept a further six thousand francs from you, citizen +Martin-Roget, in the name of the Republic and all her needs. The +Republic of France is up in arms against the entire world. She hath need +of men, of arms, of...." + +"Oh! cut that," interposed young Lalouët roughly. + +But the over-vain, high and mighty despot who was ready to lash out with +unbridled fury against the slightest show of disrespect on the part of +any other man, only laughed at the boy's impudence. + +"Curse you, you young viper," he said with that rude familiarity which +he seemed to reserve for the boy, "you presume too much on my +forbearance. These children you know, citizen.... Name of a dog!" he +added roughly, "we are wasting time! What was I saying ...?" + +"That you would take six thousand francs," replied Martin-Roget curtly, +"in return for further help in the matter of the Kernogans." + +"Why, yes!" rejoined Carrier blandly, "I was forgetting. But I'll show +you what a good dog I am. I'll help you with those Kernogans ... but you +mistook my words, citizen: 'tis ten thousand francs you must pour into +the coffers of the Republic, for her servants will have to be placed at +the disposal of your private schemes of vengeance." + +"Ten thousand francs is a large sum," said Martin-Roget. "Let me hear +what you will do for me for that." + +He had regained something of his former complacency. The man who +buys--be it goods, consciences or services--is always for the moment +master of the man who sells. Carrier, despite his dictatorial ways, felt +this disadvantage, no doubt, for his tone was more bland, his manner +less curt. Only young Jacques Lalouët stood by--like a snarling +terrier--still arrogant and still disdainful--the master of the +situation--seeing that neither schemes of vengeance nor those of +corruption had ruffled his self-assurance. He remained beside the door, +ready to pounce on either of the two intruders if they showed the +slightest sign of forgetting the majesty of the great proconsul. + + +VI + +"I told you just now, citizen Martin-Roget," resumed Carrier after a +brief pause, "and I suppose you knew it already, that I am surrounded +with spies." + +"Spies, citizen?" murmured Martin-Roget, somewhat taken aback by this +sudden irrelevance. "I didn't know ... I imagine.... Any one in your +position...." + +"That's just it," broke in Carrier roughly. "My position is envied by +those who are less competent, less patriotic than I am. Nantes is +swarming with spies. Mine enemies in Paris are working against me. They +want to undermine the confidence which the National Convention reposes +in her accredited representative." + +"Preposterous," ejaculated young Lalouët solemnly. + +"Well!" rejoined Carrier with a savage oath, "you would have thought +that the Convention would be only too thankful to get a strong man at +the head of affairs in this hotbed of treason and of rebellion. You +would have thought that it was no one's affair to interfere with the +manner in which I administer the powers that have been given me. I +command in Nantes, what? Yet some busybodies up in Paris, some fools, +seem to think that we are going too fast in Nantes. They have become +weaklings over there since Marat has gone. It seems that they have heard +rumours of our flat-bottomed barges and of our fine Republican +marriages: apparently they disapprove of both. They don't realise that +we have to purge an entire city of every kind of rabble--traitors as +well as criminals. They don't understand my aspirations, my ideals," he +added loftily and with a wide, sweeping gesture of his arm, "which is to +make Nantes a model city, to free her from the taint of crime and of +treachery, and...." + +An impatient exclamation from young Lalouët once again broke in on +Carrier's rhetoric, and Martin-Roget was able to slip in the query which +had been hovering on his lips: + +"And is this relevant, citizen Carrier," he asked, "to the subject which +we have been discussing?" + +"It is," replied Carrier drily, "as you will see in a moment. Learn +then, that it has been my purpose for some time to silence mine enemies +by sending to the National Convention a tangible reply to all the +accusations which have been levelled against me. It is my purpose to +explain to the Assembly my reasons for mine actions in Nantes, my +Drownages, my Republican marriages, all the coercive measures which I +have been forced to take in order to purge the city from all that is +undesirable." + +"And think you, citizen Carrier," queried Martin-Roget without the +slightest trace of a sneer, "that up in Paris they will understand your +explanations?" + +"Yes! they will--they must when they realise that everything that I have +done has been necessitated by the exigencies of public safety." + +"They will be slow to realise that," mused the other. "The National +Convention to-day is not what the Constitutional Assembly was in '92. It +has become soft and sentimental. Many there are who will disapprove of +your doings.... Robespierre talks loftily of the dignity of the Republic +... her impartial justice.... The Girondins...." + +Carrier interposed with a coarse imprecation. He suddenly leaned +forward, sprawling right across the desk. A shaft of light from between +the damask curtains caught the end of his nose and the tip of his +protruding chin, distorting his face and making it seem grotesque as +well as hideous in the dim light. He appeared excited and inflated with +vanity. He always gloried in the atrocities which he committed, and +though he professed to look with contempt on every one of his +colleagues, he was always glad of an opportunity to display his +inventive powers before them, and to obtain their fulsome eulogy. + +"I know well enough what they talk about in Paris," he said, "but I have +an answer--a substantial, definite answer for all their rubbish. Dignity +of the Republic? Bah! Impartial justice? 'Tis force, strength, Spartan +vigour that we want ... and I'll show them.... Listen to my plan, +citizen Martin-Roget, and see how it will work in with yours. My idea is +to collect together all the most disreputable and notorious evil-doers +of this city ... there are plenty in the entrepôt at the present moment, +and there are plenty more still at large in the streets of +Nantes--thieves, malefactors, forgers of State bonds, assassins and +women of evil fame ... and to send them in a batch to Paris to appear +before the Committee of Public Safety, whilst I will send to my +colleagues there a letter couched in terms of gentle reproach: 'See!' I +shall say, 'what I have to contend with in Nantes. See! the moral +pestilence that infests the city. These evil-doers are but a few among +the hundreds and thousands of whom I am vainly trying to purge this city +which you have entrusted to my care!' They won't know how to deal with +the rabble," he continued with his harsh strident laugh. "They may send +them to the guillotine wholesale or deport them to Cayenne, and they +will have to give them some semblance of a trial in any case. But they +will have to admit that my severe measures are justified, and in future, +I imagine, they will leave me more severely alone." + +"If as you say," urged Martin-Roget, "the National Convention give your +crowd a trial, you will have to produce some witnesses." + +"So I will," retorted Carrier cynically. "So I will. Have I not said +that I will round up all the most noted evil-doers in the town? There +are plenty of them I assure you. Lately, my Company Marat have not +greatly troubled about them. After Savenay there was such a crowd of +rebels to deal with, there was no room in our prisons for malefactors as +well. But we can easily lay our hands on a couple of hundred or so, and +members of the municipality or of the district council, or tradespeople +of substance in the city will only be too glad to be rid of them, and +will testify against those that were actually caught red-handed. Not one +but has suffered from the pestilential rabble that has infested the +streets at night, and lately I have been pestered with complaints of all +these night-birds--men and women and...." + +Suddenly he paused. He had caught Martin-Roget's feverish gaze fixed +excitedly upon him. Whereupon he leaned back in his chair, threw his +head back and broke into loud and immoderate laughter. + +"By the devil and all his myrmidons, citizen!" he said, as soon as he +had recovered his breath, "meseems you have tumbled to my meaning as a +pig into a heap of garbage. Is not ten thousand francs far too small a +sum to pay for such a perfect realisation of all your dreams? We'll send +the Kernogan girl and her father to Paris with the herd, what?... I +promise you that such filth and mud will be thrown on them and on their +precious name that no one will care to bear it for centuries to come." + +Martin-Roget of a truth had much ado to control his own excitement. As +the proconsul unfolded his infamous plan, he had at once seen as in a +vision the realisation of all his hopes. What more awful humiliation, +what more dire disgrace could be devised for proud Kernogan and his +daughter than being herded together with the vilest scum that could be +gathered together among the flotsam and jetsam of the population of a +seaport town? What more perfect retaliation could there be for the +ignominious death of Jean Adet the miller? + +Martin-Roget leaned forward in his chair. The hideous figure of Carrier +was no longer hideous to him. He saw in that misshapen, gawky form the +very embodiment of the god of vengeance, the wielder of the flail of +retributive justice which was about to strike the guilty at last. + +"You are right, citizen Carrier," he said, and his voice was thick and +hoarse with excitement. He rested his elbow on his knee and his chin in +his hand. He hammered his nails against his teeth. "That was exactly in +my mind while you spoke." + +"I am always right," retorted Carrier loftily. "No one knows better than +I do how to deal with traitors." + +"And how is the whole thing to be accomplished? The wench is in my +sister's house at present ... the father is in the Rat Mort...." + +"And the Rat Mort is an excellent place.... I know of none better. It is +one of the worst-famed houses in the whole of Nantes ... the +meeting-place of all the vagabonds, the thieves and the cut-throats of +the city." + +"Yes! I know that to my cost. My sister's house is next door to it. At +night the street is not safe for decent females to be abroad: and though +there is a platoon of Marats on guard at Le Bouffay close by, they do +nothing to free the neighbourhood of that pest." + +"Bah!" retorted Carrier with cynical indifference, "they have more +important quarry to net. Rebels and traitors swarm in Nantes, what? +Commandant Fleury has had no time hitherto to waste on mere cut-throats, +although I had thoughts before now of razing the place to the ground. +Citizen Lamberty has his lodgings on the other side and he does nothing +but complain of the brawls that go on there o' nights. Sure it is that +while a stone of the Rat Mort remains standing all the night-hawks of +Nantes will congregate around it and brew mischief there which is no +good to me and no good to the Republic." + +"Yes! I know all about the Rat Mort. I found a night's shelter there +four years ago when...." + +"When the ci-devant duc de Kernogan was busy hanging your father--the +miller--for a crime which he never committed. Well then, citizen +Martin-Roget," continued Carrier with one of his hideous leers, "since +you know the Rat Mort so well what say you to your fair and stately +Yvonne de Kernogan and her father being captured there in the company of +the lowest scum of the population of Nantes?" + +"You mean ...?" murmured Martin-Roget, who had become livid with +excitement. + +"I mean that my Marats have orders to raid some of the haunts of our +Nantese cut-throats, and that they may as well begin to-night and with +the Rat Mort. They will make a descent on the house and a thorough +perquisition, and every person--man, woman and child--found on the +premises will be arrested and sent with a batch of malefactors to Paris, +there to be tried as felons and criminals and deported to Cayenne where +they will, I trust, rot as convicts in that pestilential climate. Think +you," concluded the odious creature with a sneer, "that when put face to +face with the alternative, your Kernogan wench will still refuse to +become the wife of a fine patriot like yourself?" + +"I don't know," murmured Martin-Roget. "I ... I...." + +"But I do know," broke in Carrier roughly, "that ten thousand francs is +far too little to pay for so brilliant a realisation of all one's hopes. +Ten thousand francs? 'Tis an hundred thousand you should give to show +your gratitude." + +Martin-Roget rose and stretched his large, heavy figure to its full +height. He was at great pains to conceal the utter contempt which he +felt for the abominable wretch before whom he was forced to cringe. + +"You shall have ten thousand francs, citizen Carrier," he said slowly; +"it is all that I possess in the world now--the last remaining fragment +of a sum of twenty-five thousand francs which I earned and scraped +together for the past four years. You have had five thousand francs +already. And you shall have the other ten. I do not grudge it. If twenty +years of my life were any use to you, I would give you that, in exchange +for the help you are giving me in what means far more than life to me." + +The proconsul laughed and shrugged his shoulders--of a truth he thought +citizen Martin-Roget an awful fool. + +"Very well then," he said, "we will call the matter settled. I confess +that it amuses me, although remember that I have warned you. With all +these aristos, I believe in the potency of my barges rather than in your +elaborate schemes. Still! it shall never be said that Jean Baptiste +Carrier has left a friend in the lurch." + +"I am grateful for your help, citizen Carrier," said Martin-Roget +coldly. Then he added slowly, as if reviewing the situation in his own +mind: "To-night, you say?" + +"Yes. To-night. My Marats under the command of citizen Fleury will make +a descent upon the Rat Mort. Those shall be my orders. The place will be +swept clean of every man, woman and child who is inside. If your two +Kernogans are there ... well!" he said with a cynical laugh and a shrug +of his shoulders, "they can be sent up to Paris with the rest of the +herd." + +"The dinner bell has gone long ago," here interposed young Lalouët +drily, "the soup will be stone-cold and the chef red-hot with anger." + +"You are right, citizen Lalouët," said Carrier as he leaned back in his +chair once more and stretched out his long legs at his ease. "We have +wasted far too much time already over the affairs of a couple of +aristos, who ought to have been at the bottom of the Loire a week ago. +The audience is ended," he added airily, and he made a gesture of +overweening condescension, for all the world like the one wherewith the +_Grand Monarque_ was wont to dismiss his courtiers. + +Chauvelin rose too and quietly turned to the door. He had not spoken a +word for the past half-hour, ever since in fact he had put in a +conciliatory word on behalf of his impetuous colleague. Whether he had +taken an active interest in the conversation or not it were impossible +to say. But now, just as he was ready to go, and young Lalouët prepared +to close the doors of the audience chamber, something seemed suddenly to +occur to him and he called somewhat peremptorily to the young man. + +"One moment, citizen," he said. + +"What is it now?" queried the youth insolently, and from his fine eyes +there shot a glance of contempt on the meagre figure of the once +powerful Terrorist. + +"About the Kernogan wench," continued Chauvelin. "She will have to be +conveyed some time before night to the tavern next door. There may be +agencies at work on her behalf...." + +"Agencies?" broke in the boy gruffly. "What agencies?" + +"Oh!" said Chauvelin vaguely, "we all know that aristos have powerful +friends these days. It will not be over safe to take the girl across +after dark from one house to another ... the alley is badly lighted: the +wench will not go willingly. She might scream and create a disturbance +and draw ... er ... those same unknown agencies to her rescue. I think a +body of Marats should be told off to convey her to the Rat Mort...." + +Young Lalouët shrugged his shoulders. + +"That's your affair," he said curtly. "Eh, Carrier?" And he glanced over +his shoulder at the proconsul, who at once assented. + +Martin-Roget--struck by his colleague's argument--would have interposed, +but Carrier broke in with one of his uncontrolled outbursts of fury. + +"Ah ça," he exclaimed, "enough of this now. Citizen Lalouët is right and +I have done enough for you already. If you want the Kernogan wench to be +at the Rat Mort, you must see to getting her there yourself. She is next +door, what? I won't have anything to do with it and I won't have my +Marats implicated in the affair either. Name of a dog! have I not told +you that I am beset with spies? It would of a truth be a climax if I was +denounced as having dragged aristos to a house of ill-fame and then had +them arrested there as malefactors! Now out with you! I have had enough +of this! If your rabble is at the Rat Mort to-night, they shall be +arrested with all the other cut-throats. That is my last word. The rest +is your affair. Lalouët! the door!" + +And without another word, and without listening to further protests from +Martin-Roget or Chauvelin, Jacques Lalouët closed the doors of the +audience chamber in their face. + + +VII + +Outside on the landing, Martin-Roget swore a violent, all comprehensive +oath. + +"To think that we are under the heel of that skunk!" he said. + +"And that in the pursuit of our own ends we have need of his help!" +added Chauvelin with a sigh. + +"If it were not for that.... And even now," continued Martin-Roget +moodily, "I doubt what I can do. Yvonne de Kernogan will not follow me +willingly either to the Rat Mort or elsewhere, and if I am not to have +her conveyed by the guard...." + +He paused and swore again. His companion's silence appeared to irritate +him. + +"What do you advise me to do, citizen Chauvelin?" he asked. + +"For the moment," replied Chauvelin imperturbably, "I should advise you +to join me in a walk along the quay as far as Le Bouffay. I have work to +see to inside the building and the north-westerly wind is sure to be of +good counsel." + +An angry retort hovered on Martin-Roget's lips, but after a second or +two he succeeded in holding his irascible temper in check. He gave a +quick sigh of impatience. + +"Very well," he said curtly. "Let us to Le Bouffay by all means. I have +much to think on, and as you say the north-westerly wind may blow away +the cobwebs which for the nonce do o'ercloud my brain." + +And the two men wrapped their mantles closely round their shoulders, for +the air was keen. Then they descended the staircase of the hotel and +went out into the street. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +LE BOUFFAY + + +I + +In the centre of the Place the guillotine stood idle--the paint had worn +off her sides--she looked weatherbeaten and forlorn--stern and +forbidding still, but in a kind of sullen loneliness, with the ugly +stains of crimson on her, turned to rust and grime. + +The Place itself was deserted, in strange contrast to the bustle and the +movement which characterised it in the days when the death of men, women +and children was a daily spectacle here for the crowd. Then a constant +stream of traffic, of carts and of tumbrils, of soldiers and gaffers +encumbered it in every corner, now a few tumble-down booths set up +against the frontage of the grim edifice--once the stronghold of the +Dukes of Brittany, now little else but a huge prison--a few vendors and +still fewer purchasers of the scanty wares displayed under their ragged +awnings, one or two idlers loafing against the mud-stained walls, one or +two urchins playing in the gutters were the only signs of life. +Martin-Roget with his colleague Chauvelin turned into the Place from the +quay--they walked rapidly and kept their mantles closely wrapped under +their chin, for the afternoon had turned bitterly cold. It was then +close upon five o'clock--a dark, moonless, starless night had set in +with only a suspicion of frost in the damp air; but a blustering +north-westerly wind blowing down the river and tearing round the narrow +streets and the open Place, caused passers-by to muffle themselves, +shivering, yet tighter in their cloaks. + +Martin-Roget was talking volubly and excitedly, his tall, broad figure +towering above the slender form of his companion. From time to time he +tossed his mantle aside with an impatient, febrile gesture and then +paused in the middle of the Place, with one hand on the other man's +shoulder, marking a point in his discourse or emphasising his argument +with short staccato sentences and brief, emphatic words. +Chauvelin--placid and impenetrable as usual--listened much and talked +little. He was ready to stand still or to walk along just as his +colleague's mood demanded; in the darkness, and with the collar of a +large mantle pulled tightly up to his ears, it was impossible to guess +by any sign in his face what was going on in his mind. + +They were a strange contrast these two men--temperamentally as well as +physically--even though they had so much in common and were both the +direct products of that same social upheaval which was shaking the +archaic dominion of France to its very foundations. Martin-Roget, tall, +broad-shouldered, bull-necked, the typical self-educated peasant, with +square jaw and flat head, with wide bony hands and spatulated fingers: +and Chauvelin--the aristocrat turned demagogue, thin and frail-looking, +bland of manner and suave of speech, with delicate hands and pale, +almost ascetic face. + +The one represented all that was most brutish and sensual in this fight +of one caste against the other, the thirst for the other's blood, the +human beast that has been brought to bay through wrongs perpetrated +against it by others and has turned upon its oppressors, lashing out +right and left with blind and lustful fury at the crowd of tyrants that +had kept him in subjection for so long. Whilst Chauvelin was the +personification of the spiritual side of this bloody Revolution--the +spirit of cool and calculating reprisals that would demand an eye for an +eye and see that it got two. The idealist who dreams of the +righteousness of his own cause and the destruction of its enemies, but +who leaves to others the accomplishment of all the carnage and the +bloodshed which his idealism has demanded, and which his reason has +appraised as necessary for the triumph of which he dreams. Chauvelin was +the man of thought and Martin-Roget the man of action. With the one, +revenge and reprisals were selfish desires, the avenging of wrongs done +to himself or to his caste, hatred for those who had injured him or his +kindred. The other had no personal feelings of hatred: he had no +personal wrongs to avenge: his enemies were the enemies of his party, +the erstwhile tyrants who in the past had oppressed an entire people. +Every man, woman or child who was not satisfied with the present Reign +of Terror, who plotted or planned for its overthrow, who was not ready +to see husband, father, wife or child sacrificed for the ultimate +triumph of the Revolution was in Chauvelin's sight a noxious creature, +fit only to be trodden under heel and ground into subjection or +annihilation as a danger to the State. + +Martin-Roget was the personification of sans-culottism, of rough manners +and foul speech--he chafed against the conventions which forced him to +wear decent clothes and boots on his feet--he would gladly have seen +every one go about the streets half-naked, unwashed, a living sign of +that downward levelling of castes which he and his friends stood for, +and for which they had fought and striven and committed every crime +which human passions let loose could invent. Chauvelin, on the other +hand, was one of those who wore fine linen and buckled shoes and whose +hands were delicately washed and perfumed whilst they signed decrees +which sent hundreds of women and children to a violent and cruel death. + +The one trod in the paths of Danton: the other followed in the footsteps +of Robespierre. + + +II + +Together the two men mounted the outside staircase which leads up past +the lodge of the concierge and through the clerk's office to the +interior of the stronghold. Outside the monumental doors they had to +wait a moment or two while the clerk examined their permits to enter. + +"Will you come into my office with me?" asked Chauvelin of his +companion; "I have a word or two to add to my report for the Paris +courier to-night. I won't be long." + +"You are still in touch with the Committee of Public Safety then?" asked +Martin-Roget. + +"Always," replied the other curtly. + +Martin-Roget threw a quick, suspicious glance on his companion. Darkness +and the broad brim of his sugar-loaf hat effectually concealed even the +outlines of Chauvelin's face, and Martin-Roget fell to musing over one +or two things which Carrier had blurted out awhile ago. The whole of +France was overrun with spies these days--every one was under suspicion, +every one had to be on his guard. Every word was overheard, every glance +seen, every sign noted. + +What was this man Chauvelin doing here in Nantes? What reports did he +send up to Paris by special courier? He, the miserable failure who had +ceased to count was nevertheless in constant touch with that awful +Committee of Public Safety which was wont to strike at all times and +unexpectedly in the dark. Martin-Roget shivered beneath his mantle. For +the first time since his schemes of vengeance had wholly absorbed his +mind he regretted the freedom and safety which he had enjoyed in +England, and he marvelled if the miserable game which he was playing +would be worth the winning in the end. Nevertheless he had followed +Chauvelin without comment. The man appeared to exercise a fascination +over him--a kind of subtle power, which emanated from his small shrunken +figure, from his pale keen eyes and his well-modulated, suave mode of +speech. + + +III + +The clerk had handed the two men their permits back. They were allowed +to pass through the gates. + +In the hall some half-dozen men were nominally on guard--nominally, +because discipline was not over strict these days, and the men sat or +lolled about the place; two of them were intent on a game of dominoes, +another was watching them, whilst the other three were settling some +sort of quarrel among themselves which necessitated vigorous and +emphatic gestures and the copious use of expletives. One man, who +appeared to be in command, divided his time impartially between the +domino-players and those who were quarrelling. + +The vast place was insufficiently lighted by a chandelier which hung +from the ceiling and a couple of small oil-lamps placed in the circular +niches in the wall opposite the front door. + +No one took any notice of Martin-Roget or of Chauvelin as they crossed +the hall, and presently the latter pushed open a door on the left of +the main gates and held it open for his colleague to pass through. + +"You are sure that I shall not be disturbing you?" queried Martin-Roget. + +"Quite sure," replied the other curtly. "And there is something which I +must say to you ... where I know that I shall not be overheard." + +Then he followed Martin-Roget into the room and closed the door behind +him. The room was scantily furnished with a square deal table in the +centre, two or three chairs, a broken-down bureau leaning against one +wall and an iron stove wherein a meagre fire sent a stream of malodorous +smoke through sundry cracks in its chimney-pipe. From the ceiling there +hung an oil-lamp the light of which was thrown down upon the table, by a +large green shade made of cardboard. + +Chauvelin drew a chair to the bureau and sat down; he pointed to another +and Martin-Roget took a seat beside the table. He felt restless and +excited--his nerves all on the jar: his colleague's calm, sardonic +glance acted as a further irritant to his temper. + +"What is it that you wished to say to me, citizen Chauvelin?" he asked +at last. + +"Just a word, citizen," replied the other in his quiet urbane manner. "I +have accompanied you faithfully on your journey to England: I have +placed my feeble powers at your disposal: awhile ago I stood between you +and the proconsul's wrath. This, I think, has earned me the right of +asking what you intend to do." + +"I don't know about the right," retorted Martin-Roget gruffly, "but I +don't mind telling you. As you remarked awhile ago the North-West wind +is wont to be of good counsel. I have thought the matter over whilst I +walked with you along the quay and I have decided to act on Carrier's +suggestion. Our eminent proconsul said just now that it was the duty of +every true patriot to marry an aristo, an he be free and Chance puts a +comely wench in his way. I mean," he added with a cynical laugh, "to act +on that advice and marry Yvonne de Kernogan ... if I can." + +"She has refused you up to now?" + +"Yes ... up to now." + +"You have threatened her--and her father?" + +"Yes--both. Not only with death but with shame." + +"And still she refuses?" + +"Apparently," said Martin-Roget with ever-growing irritation. + +"It is often difficult," rejoined Chauvelin meditatively, "to compel +these aristos. They are obstinate...." + +"Oh! don't forget that I am in a position now to bring additional +pressure on the wench. That lout Carrier has splendid ideas--a brute, +what? but clever and full of resource. That suggestion of his about the +Rat Mort is splendid...." + +"You mean to try and act on it?" + +"Of course I do," said Martin-Roget roughly. "I am going over presently +to my sister's house to see the Kernogan wench again, and to have +another talk with her. Then if she still refuses, if she still chooses +to scorn the honourable position which I offer her, I shall act on +Carrier's suggestion. It will be at the Rat Mort to-night that she and I +will have our final interview, and there when I dangle the prospect of +Cayenne and the convict's brand before her, she may not prove so +obdurate as she has been up to now." + +"H'm! That is as may be," was Chauvelin's dry comment. "Personally I am +inclined to agree with Carrier. Death, swift and sure--the Loire or the +guillotine--is the best that has yet been invented for traitors and +aristos. But we won't discuss that again. I know your feelings in the +matter and in a measure I respect them. But if you will allow me I would +like to be present at your interview with the _soi-disant_ Lady Anthony +Dewhurst. I won't disturb you and I won't say a word ... but there is +something I would like to make sure of...." + +"What is that?" + +"Whether the wench has any hopes ..." said Chauvelin slowly, "whether +she has received a message or has any premonition ... whether in short +she thinks that outside agencies are at work on her behalf." + +"Tshaw!" exclaimed Martin-Roget impatiently, "you are still harping on +that Scarlet Pimpernel idea." + +"I am," retorted the other drily. + +"As you please. But understand, citizen Chauvelin, that I will not allow +you to interfere with my plans, whilst you go off on one of those +wild-goose chases which have already twice brought you into disrepute." + +"I will not interfere with your plans, citizen," rejoined Chauvelin with +unwonted gentleness, "but let me in my turn impress one thing upon you, +and that is that unless you are as wary as the serpent, as cunning as +the fox, all your precious plans will be upset by that interfering +Englishman whom you choose to disregard." + +"What do you mean?" + +"I mean that I know him--to my cost--and you do not. But you will, an I +am not gravely mistaken, make acquaintance with him ere your great +adventure with these Kernogan people is successfully at an end. Believe +me, citizen Martin-Roget," he added impressively, "you would have been +far wiser to accept Carrier's suggestion and let him fling that rabble +into the Loire for you." + +"Pshaw! you are not childish enough to imagine, citizen Chauvelin, that +your Englishman can spirit away that wench from under my sister's eyes? +Do you know what my sister suffered at the hands of the Kernogans? Do +you think that she is like to forget my father's ignominious death any +more than I am? And she mourns a lover as well as a father--she mourns +her youth, her happiness, the mother whom she worshipped. Think you a +better gaoler could be found anywhere? And there are friends of +mine--lads of our own village, men who hate the Kernogans as bitterly as +I do myself--who are only too ready to lend Louise a hand in case of +violence. And after that--suppose your magnificent Scarlet Pimpernel +succeeded in hoodwinking my sister and in evading the vigilance of a +score of determined village lads, who would sooner die one by one than +see the Kernogan escape--suppose all that, I say, there would still be +the guard at every city gate to challenge. No! no! it couldn't be done, +citizen Chauvelin," he added with a complacent laugh. "Your Englishman +would need the help of a legion of angels, what? to get the wench out of +Nantes this time." + +Chauvelin made no comment on his colleague's impassioned harangue. +Memory had taken him back to that one day in September in Boulogne when +he too had set one prisoner to guard a precious hostage: it brought back +to his mind a vision of a strangely picturesque figure as it appeared to +him in the window-embrasure of the old castle-hall:[1] it brought back +to his ears the echo of that quaint, irresponsible laughter, of that +lazy, drawling speech, of all that had acted as an irritant on his +nerves ere he found himself baffled, foiled, eating out his heart with +vain reproach at his own folly. + +"I see you are unconvinced, citizen Martin-Roget," he said quietly, "and +I know that it is the fashion nowadays among young politicians to sneer +at Chauvelin--the living embodiment of failure. But let me just add +this. When you and I talked matters over together at the Bottom Inn, in +the wilds of Somersetshire, I warned you that not only was your identity +known to the man who calls himself the Scarlet Pimpernel, but also that +he knew every one of your plans with regard to the Kernogan wench and +her father. You laughed at me then ... do you remember?... you shrugged +your shoulders and jeered at what you call my far-fetched ideas ... just +as you do now. Well! will you let me remind you of what happened within +four-and-twenty hours of that warning which you chose to disregard? ... +Yvonne de Kernogan was married to Lord Anthony Dewhurst and...." + +"I know all that, man," broke in Martin-Roget impatiently. "It was all a +mere coincidence ... the marriage must have been planned long before +that ... your Scarlet Pimpernel could not possibly have had anything to +do with it." + +"Perhaps not," rejoined Chauvelin drily. "But mark what has happened +since. Just now when we crossed the Place I saw in the distance a figure +flitting past--the gorgeous figure of an exquisite who of a surety is a +stranger in Nantes: and carried upon the wings of the north-westerly +wind there came to me the sound of a voice which, of late, I have only +heard in my dreams. On my soul, citizen Martin-Roget," he added with +earnest emphasis, "I assure you that the Scarlet Pimpernel is in Nantes +at the present moment, that he is scheming, plotting, planning to +rescue the Kernogan wench out of your clutches. He will not leave her in +your power, on this I would stake my life; she is the wife of one of his +dearest friends: he will not abandon her, not while he keeps that +resourceful head of his on his shoulders. Unless you are desperately +careful he will outwit you; of that I am as convinced as that I am +alive." + +"Bah! you have been dreaming, citizen Chauvelin," rejoined Martin-Roget +with a laugh and shrugging his broad shoulders; "your mysterious +Englishman in Nantes? Why man! the navigation of the Loire has been +totally prohibited these last fourteen days--no carriage, van or vehicle +of any kind is allowed to enter the city--no man, woman or child to pass +the barriers without special permit signed either by the proconsul +himself or by Fleury the captain of the Marats. Why! even I, when I +brought the Kernogans in overland from Le Croisic, I was detained two +hours outside Nantes while my papers were sent in to Carrier for +inspection. You know that, you were with me." + +"I know it," replied Chauvelin drily, "and yet...." + +He paused, with one claw-like finger held erect to demand attention. The +door of the small room in which they sat gave on the big hall where the +half-dozen Marats were stationed, the single window at right angles to +the door looked out upon the Place below. It was from there that +suddenly there came the sound of a loud peal of laughter--quaint and +merry--somewhat inane and affected, and at the sound Chauvelin's pale +face took on the hue of ashes and even Martin-Roget felt a strange +sensation of cold creeping down his spine. + +For a few seconds the two men remained quite still, as if a spell had +been cast over them through that light-hearted peal of rippling +laughter. Then equally suddenly the younger man shook himself free of +the spell; with a few long strides he was already at the door and out in +the vast hall; Chauvelin following closely on his heels. + + +IV + +The clock in the tower of the edifice was even then striking five. The +Marats in the hall looked up with lazy indifference at the two men who +had come rushing out in such an abrupt and excited manner. + +"Any stranger been through here?" queried Chauvelin peremptorily of the +sergeant in command. + +"No," replied the latter curtly. "How could they, without a permit?" + +He shrugged his shoulders and the men resumed their game and their +argument. Martin-Roget would have parleyed with them but Chauvelin had +already crossed the hall and was striding past the clerk's office and +the lodge of the concierge out toward the open. Martin-Roget, after a +moment's hesitation, followed him. + +The Place was wrapped in gloom. From the platform of the guillotine an +oil-lamp hoisted on a post threw a small circle of light around. Small +pieces of tallow candle, set in pewter sconces, glimmered feebly under +the awnings of the booths, and there was a street-lamp affixed to the +wall of the old château immediately below the parapet of the staircase, +and others at the angles of the Rue de la Monnaye and the narrow Ruelle +des Jacobins. + +Chauvelin's keen eyes tried to pierce the surrounding darkness. He +leaned over the parapet and peered into the remote angles of the +building and round the booths below him. + +There were a few people on the Place, some walking rapidly across from +one end to the other, intent on business, others pausing in order to +make purchases at the booths. Up and down the steps of the guillotine a +group of street urchins were playing hide-and-seek. Round the angles of +the narrow streets the vague figures of passers-by flitted to and fro, +now easily discernible in the light of the street lanthorns, anon +swallowed up again in the darkness beyond. Whilst immediately below the +parapet two or three men of the Company Marat were lounging against the +walls. Their red bonnets showed up clearly in the flickering light of +the street lamps, as did their bare shins and the polished points of +their sabots. But of an elegant, picturesque figure such as Chauvelin +had described awhile ago there was not a sign. + +Martin-Roget leaned over the parapet and called peremptorily: + +"Hey there! citizens of the Company Marat!" + +One of the red-capped men looked up leisurely. + +"Your desire, citizen?" he queried with insolent deliberation, for they +were mighty men, this bodyguard of the great proconsul, his spies and +tools in the awesome work of frightfulness which he carried on so +ruthlessly. + +"Is that you Paul Friche?" queried Martin-Roget in response. + +"At your service, citizen," came the glib reply, delivered not without +mock deference. + +"Then come up here. I wish to speak with you." + +"I can't leave my post, nor can my mates," retorted the man who had +answered to the name of Paul Friche. "Come down, citizen, an you desire +to speak with us." + +Martin-Roget swore lustily. + +"The insolence of that rabble ..." he murmured. + +"Hush! I'll go," interposed Chauvelin quickly. "Do you know that man +Friche? Is he trustworthy?" + +"Yes, I know him. As for being trustworthy ..." added Martin-Roget with +a shrug of the shoulders. "He is a corporal in the Marats and high in +favour with commandant Fleury." + +Every second was of value, and Chauvelin was not the man to waste time +in useless parleyings. He ran down the stairs at the foot of which one +of the red-capped gentry deigned to speak with him. + +"Have you seen any strangers across the Place just now?" he queried in a +whisper. + +"Yes," replied the man Friche. "Two!" + +Then he spat upon the ground and added spitefully: "Aristos, what? In +fine clothes--like yourself, citizen...." + +"Which way did they go?" + +"Down the Ruelle des Jacobins." + +"When?" + +"Two minutes ago." + +"Why did you not follow them?... Aristos and...." + +"I would have followed," retorted Paul Friche with studied insolence; +"'twas you called me away from my duty." + +"After them then!" urged Chauvelin peremptorily. "They cannot have gone +far. They are English spies, and remember, citizen, that there's a +reward for their apprehension." + +The man grunted an eager assent. The word "reward" had fired his zeal. +In a trice he had called to his mates and the three Marats soon sped +across the Place and down the Ruelle des Jacobins where the surrounding +gloom quickly swallowed them up. + +Chauvelin watched them till they were out of sight, then he rejoined his +colleague on the landing at the top of the stairs. For a second or two +longer the click of the men's sabots upon the stones resounded on the +adjoining streets and across the Place, and suddenly that same quaint, +merry, somewhat inane laugh woke the echoes of the grim buildings around +and caused many a head to turn inquiringly, marvelling who it could be +that had the heart to laugh these days in the streets of Nantes. + + +V + +Five minutes or so later the three Marats could vaguely be seen +recrossing the Place and making their way back to Le Bouffay, where +Martin-Roget and Chauvelin still stood on the top of the stairs excited +and expectant. At sight of the men Chauvelin ran down the steps to meet +them. + +"Well?" he queried in an eager whisper. + +"We never saw them," replied Paul Friche gruffly, "though we could hear +them clearly enough, talking, laughing and walking very rapidly toward +the quay. Then suddenly the earth or the river swallowed them up. We saw +and heard nothing more." + +Chauvelin swore and a curious hissing sound escaped his thin lips. + +"Don't be too disappointed, citizen," added the man with a coarse laugh, +"my mate picked this up at the corner of the Ruelle, when, I fancy, we +were pressing the aristos pretty closely." + +He held out a small bundle of papers tied together with a piece of red +ribbon: the bundle had evidently rolled in the mud, for the papers were +covered with grime. Chauvelin's thin, claw-like fingers had at once +closed over them. + +"You must give me back those papers, citizen," said the man, "they are +my booty. I can only give them up to citizen-captain Fleury." + +"I'll give them to the citizen-captain myself," retorted Chauvelin. "For +the moment you had best not leave your post of duty," he added more +peremptorily, seeing that the man made as he would follow him. + +"I take orders from no one except ..." protested the man gruffly. + +"You will take them from me now," broke in Chauvelin with a sudden +assumption of command and authority which sat with weird strangeness +upon his thin shrunken figure. "Go back to your post at once, ere I +lodge a complaint against you for neglect of duty, with the citizen +proconsul." + +He turned on his heel and, without paying further heed to the man and +his mutterings, he remounted the stone stairs. + +"No success, I suppose?" queried Martin-Roget. + +"None," replied Chauvelin curtly. + +He had the packet of papers tightly clasped in his hand. He was debating +in his mind whether he would speak of them to his colleague or not. + +"What did Friche say?" asked the latter impatiently. + +"Oh! very little. He and his mates caught sight of the strangers and +followed them as far as the quays. But they were walking very fast and +suddenly the Marats lost their trace in the darkness. It seemed, +according to Paul Friche, as if the earth or the night had swallowed +them up." + +"And was that all?" + +"Yes. That was all." + +"I wonder," added Martin-Roget with a light laugh and a careless shrug +of his wide shoulders, "I wonder if you and I, citizen Chauvelin--and +Paul Friche too for that matter--have been the victims of our nerves." + +"I wonder," assented Chauvelin drily. And--quite quietly--he slipped the +packet of papers in the pocket of his coat. + +"Then we may as well adjourn. There is nothing else you wish to say to +me about that enigmatic Scarlet Pimpernel of yours?" + +"No--nothing." + +"And you still would like to hear what the Kernogan wench will say and +see how she will look when I put my final proposal before her?" + +"If you will allow me." + +"Then come," said Martin-Roget. "My sister's house is close by." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: This adventure is recorded in _The Elusive Pimpernel_.] + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE FOWLERS + + +I + +In order to reach the Carrefour de la Poissonnerie the two men had to +skirt the whole edifice of Le Bouffay, walk a little along the quay and +turn up the narrow alley opposite the bridge. They walked on in silence, +each absorbed in his own thoughts. + +The house occupied by the citizeness Adet lay back a little from the +others in the street. It was one of an irregular row of mean, squalid, +tumble-down houses, some of them little more than lean-to sheds built +into the walls of Le Bouffay. Most of them had overhanging roofs which +stretched out like awnings more than half way across the road, and even +at midday shut out any little ray of sunshine which might have a +tendency to peep into the street below. + +In this year II of the Republic the Carrefour de la Poissonnerie was +unpaved, dark and evil-smelling. For two thirds of the year it was +ankle-deep in mud: the rest of the time the mud was baked into cakes and +emitted clouds of sticky dust under the shuffling feet of the +passers-by. At night it was dimly lighted by one or two broken-down +lanthorns which were hung on transverse chains overhead from house to +house. These lanthorns only made a very small circle of light +immediately below them: the rest of the street was left in darkness, +save for the faint glimmer which filtrated through an occasional +ill-fitting doorway or through the chinks of some insecurely fastened +shutter. + +The Carrefour de la Poissonnerie was practically deserted in the +daytime; only a few children--miserable little atoms of humanity showing +their meagre, emaciated bodies through the scanty rags which failed to +cover their nakedness--played weird, mirthless games in the mud and +filth of the street. But at night it became strangely peopled with vague +and furtive forms that were wont to glide swiftly by, beneath the +hanging lanthorns, in order to lose themselves again in the welcome +obscurity beyond: men and women--ill-clothed and unshod, with hands +buried in pockets or beneath scanty shawls--their feet, oft-times bare, +making no sound as they went squishing through the mud. A perpetual +silence used to reign in this kingdom of squalor and of darkness, where +night-hawks alone fluttered their wings; only from time to time a +joyless greeting of boon-companions, or the hoarse cough of some +wretched consumptive would wake the dormant echoes that lingered in the +gloom. + + +II + +Martin-Roget knew his way about the murky street well enough. He went up +to the house which lay a little back from the others. It appeared even +more squalid than the rest, not a sound came from within--hardly a +light--only a narrow glimmer found its way through the chink of a +shutter on the floor above. To right and left of it the houses were +tall, with walls that reeked of damp and of filth: from one of +these--the one on the left--an iron sign dangled and creaked dismally as +it swung in the wind. Just above the sign there was a window with +partially closed shutters: through it came the sound of two husky voices +raised in heated argument. + +In the open space in front of Louise Adet's house vague forms standing +about or lounging against the walls of the neighbouring houses were +vaguely discernible in the gloom. Martin-Roget and Chauvelin as they +approached were challenged by a raucous voice which came to them out of +the inky blackness around. + +"Halt! who goes there?" + +"Friends!" replied Martin-Roget promptly. "Is citizeness Adet within?" + +"Yes! she is!" retorted the man bluntly; "excuse me, friend Adet--I did +not know you in this confounded darkness." + +"No harm done," said Martin-Roget. "And it is I who am grateful to you +all for your vigilance." + +"Oh!" said the other with a laugh, "there's not much fear of your bird +getting out of its cage. Have no fear, friend Adet! That Kernogan rabble +is well looked after." + +The small group dispersed in the darkness and Martin-Roget rapped +against the door of his sister's house with his knuckles. + +"That is the Rat Mort," he said, indicating the building on his left +with a nod of the head. "A very unpleasant neighbourhood for my sister, +and she has oft complained of it--but name of a dog! won't it prove +useful this night?" + +Chauvelin had as usual followed his colleague in silence, but his keen +eyes had not failed to note the presence of the village lads of whom +Martin-Roget had spoken. There are no eyes so watchful as those of hate, +nor is there aught so incorruptible. Every one of these men here had an +old wrong to avenge, an old score to settle with those ci-devant +Kernogans who had once been their masters and who were so completely in +their power now. Louise Adet had gathered round her a far more +efficient bodyguard than even the proconsul could hope to have. + +A moment or two later the door was opened, softly and cautiously, and +Martin-Roget asked: "Is that you, Louise?" for of a truth the darkness +was almost deeper within than without, and he could not see who it was +that was standing by the door. + +"Yes! it is," replied a weary and querulous voice. "Enter quickly. The +wind is cruel, and I can't keep myself warm. Who is with you, Pierre?" + +"A friend," said Martin-Roget drily. "We want to see the aristo." + +The woman without further comment closed the door behind the new-comers. +The place now was as dark as pitch, but she seemed to know her way about +like a cat, for her shuffling footsteps were heard moving about +unerringly. A moment or two later she opened another door opposite the +front entrance, revealing an inner room--a sort of kitchen--which was +lighted by a small lamp. + +"You can go straight up," she called curtly to the two men. + +The narrow, winding staircase was divided from this kitchen by a wooden +partition. Martin-Roget, closely followed by Chauvelin, went up the +stairs. On the top of these there was a tiny landing with a door on +either side of it. Martin-Roget without any ceremony pushed open the +door on his right with his foot. + +A tallow candle fixed in a bottle and placed in the centre of a table in +the middle of the room flickered in the draught as the door flew open. +It was bare of everything save a table and a chair, and a bundle of +straw in one corner. The tiny window at right angles to the door was +innocent of glass, and the north-westerly wind came in an icy stream +through the aperture. On the table, in addition to the candle, there was +a broken pitcher half-filled with water, and a small chunk of brown +bread blotched with stains of mould. + +On the chair beside the table and immediately facing the door sat Yvonne +Lady Dewhurst. On the wall above her head a hand unused to calligraphy +had traced in clumsy characters the words: "Liberté! Fraternité! +Egalité!" and below that "ou la Mort." + + +III + +The men entered the narrow room and Chauvelin carefully closed the door +behind him. He at once withdrew into a remote comer of the room and +stood there quite still, wrapped in his mantle, a small, silent, +mysterious figure on which Yvonne fixed dark, inquiring eyes. + +Martin-Roget, restless and excited, paced up and down the small space +like a wild animal in a cage. From time to time exclamations of +impatience escaped him and he struck one fist repeatedly against his +open palm. Yvonne followed his movements with a quiet, uninterested +glance, but Chauvelin paid no heed whatever to him. + +He was watching Yvonne ceaselessly, and closely. + +Three days' incarceration in this wind-swept attic, the lack of decent +food and of warmth, the want of sleep and the horror of her present +position all following upon the soul-agony which she had endured when +she was forcibly torn away from her dear milor, had left their mark on +Yvonne Dewhurst's fresh young face. The look of gravity which had always +sat so quaintly on her piquant features had now changed to one of deep +and abiding sorrow; her large dark eyes were circled and sunk; they had +in them the unnatural glow of fever, as well as the settled look of +horror and of pathetic resignation. Her soft brown hair had lost its +lustre; her cheeks were drawn and absolutely colourless. + +Martin-Roget paused in his restless walk. For a moment he stood silent +and absorbed, contemplating by the flickering light of the candle all +the havoc which his brutality had wrought upon Yvonne's dainty face. + +But Yvonne after a while ceased to look at him--she appeared to be +unconscious of the gaze of these two men, each of whom was at this +moment only thinking of the evil which he meant to inflict upon +her--each of whom only thought of her as a helpless bird whom he had at +last ensnared and whom he could crush to death as soon as he felt so +inclined. + +She kept her lips tightly closed and her head averted. She was gazing +across at the unglazed window into the obscurity beyond, marvelling in +what direction lay the sea and the shores of England. + +Martin-Roget crossed his arms over his broad chest and clutched his +elbows with his hands with an obvious effort to keep control over his +movements and his temper in check. The quiet, almost indifferent +attitude of the girl was exasperating to his over-strung nerves. + +"Look here, my girl," he said at last, roughly and peremptorily, "I had +an interview with the proconsul this afternoon. He chides me for my +leniency toward you. Three days he thinks is far too long to keep +traitors eating the bread of honest citizens and taking up valuable +space in our city. Yesterday I made a proposal to you. Have you thought +on it?" + +Yvonne made no reply. She was still gazing out into nothingness and just +at that moment she was very far away from the narrow, squalid room and +the company of these two inhuman brutes. She was thinking of her dear +milor and of that lovely home at Combwich wherein she had spent three +such unforgettable days. She was remembering how beautiful had been the +colour of the bare twigs in the chestnut coppice when the wintry sun +danced through and in between them and drew fantastic patterns of living +gold upon the carpet of dead leaves; and she remembered too how +exquisite were the tints of russet and blue on the distant hills, and +how quaintly the thrushes had called: "Kiss me quick!" She saw again +those trembling leaves of a delicious faintly crimson hue which still +hung upon the branches of the scarlet oak, and the early flowering heath +which clothed the moors with a gorgeous mantle of rosy amethyst. + +Martin-Roget's harsh voice brought her abruptly back to the hideous +reality of the moment. + +"Your obstinacy will avail you nothing," he said, speaking quietly, even +though a note of intense irritation was distinctly perceptible in his +voice. "The proconsul has given me a further delay wherein to deal +leniently with you and with your father if I am so minded. You know what +I have proposed to you: Life with me as my wife--in which case your +father will be free to return to England or to go to the devil as he +pleases--or the death of a malefactor for you both in the company of all +the thieves and evil-doers who are mouldering in the prisons of Nantes +at this moment. Another delay wherein to choose between an honourable +life and a shameful death. The proconsul waits. But to-night he must +have his answer." + +Then Yvonne turned her head slowly and looked calmly on her enemy. + +"The tyrant who murders innocent men, women and children," she said, +"can have his answer now. I choose death which is inevitable in +preference to a life of shame." + +"You seem," he retorted, "to have lost sight of the fact that the law +gives me the right to take by force that which you so obstinately +refuse." + +"Have I not said," she replied, "that death is my choice? Life with you +would be a life of shame." + +"I can get a priest to marry us without your consent: and your religion +forbids you to take your own life," he said with a sneer. + +To this she made no reply, but he knew that he had his answer. +Smothering a curse, he resumed after a while: + +"So you prefer to drag your father to death with you? Yet he has begged +you to consider your decision and to listen to reason. He has given his +consent to our marriage." + +"Let me see my father," she retorted firmly, "and hear him say that with +his own lips. + +"Ah!" she added quickly, for at her words Martin-Roget had turned his +head away and shrugged his shoulders with well-assumed indifference, +"you cannot and dare not let me see him. For three days now you have +kept us apart and no doubt fed us both up with your lies. My father is +duc de Kernogan, Marquis de Trentemoult," she added proudly, "he would +far rather die side by side with his daughter than see her wedded to a +criminal." + +"And you, my girl," rejoined Martin-Roget coldly, "would you see your +father branded as a malefactor, linked to a thief and sent to perish in +the Loire?" + +"My father," she retorted, "will die as he has lived, a brave and +honourable gentleman. The brand of a malefactor cannot cling to his +name. Sorrow we are ready to endure--death is less than nothing to +us--we will but follow in the footsteps of our King and of our Queen +and of many whom we care for and whom you and your proconsul and your +colleagues have brutally murdered. Shame cannot touch us, and our honour +and our pride are so far beyond your reach that your impious and +blood-stained hands can never sully them." + +She had spoken very slowly and very quietly. There were no heroics about +her attitude. Even Martin-Roget--callous brute though he was--felt that +she had only spoken just as she felt, and that nothing that he might +say, no plea that he might urge, would ever shake her determination. + +"Then it seems to me," he said, "that I am only wasting my time by +trying to make you see reason and common-sense. You look upon me as a +brute. Well! perhaps I am. At any rate I am that which your father and +you have made me. Four years ago, when you had power over me and over +mine, you brutalised us. To-day we--the people--are your masters and we +make you suffer, not for all--that were impossible--but for part of what +you made us suffer. That, after all, is only bare justice. By making you +my wife I would have saved you from death--not from humiliation, for +that you must endure, and at my hands in a full measure--but I would +have made you my wife because I still have pleasant recollections of +that kiss which I snatched from you on that never-to-be-forgotten night +and in the darkness--a kiss for which you would gladly have seen me hang +then, if you could have laid hands on me." + +He paused, trying to read what was going on behind those fine eyes of +hers, with their vacant, far-seeing gaze which seemed like another +barrier between her and him. At this rough allusion to that moment of +horror and of shame, she had not moved a muscle, nor did her gaze lose +its fixity. + +He laughed. + +"It is an unpleasant recollection, eh, my proud lady? The first kiss of +passion was not implanted on your exquisite lips by that fine gentleman +whom you deemed worthy of your hand and your love, but by Pierre Adet, +the miller's son, what? a creature not quite so human as your horse or +your pet dog. Neither you nor I are like to forget that methinks...." + +Yvonne vouchsafed no reply to the taunt, and for a moment there was +silence in the room, until Chauvelin's thin, suave voice broke in quite +gently: + +"Do not lose your patience with the wench, citizen Martin-Roget. Your +time is too precious to be wasted in useless recriminations." + +"I have finished with her," retorted the other sullenly. "She shall be +dealt with now as I think best. I agree with citizen Carrier. He is +right after all. To the Loire with the lot of that foul brood!" + +"Nay!" here rejoined Chauvelin with placid urbanity, "are you not a +little harsh, citizen, with our fair Yvonne? Remember! Women have moods +and megrims. What they indignantly refuse to yield to us one day, they +will grant with a smile the next. Our beautiful Yvonne is no exception +to this rule, I'll warrant." + +Even while he spoke he threw a glance of warning on his colleague. There +was something enigmatic in his manner at this moment, in the strange +suavity wherewith he spoke these words of conciliation and of +gentleness. Martin-Roget was as usual ready with an impatient retort. He +was in a mood to bully and to brutalise, to heap threat upon threat, to +win by frightfulness that which he could not gain by persuasion. Perhaps +that at this moment he desired Yvonne de Kernogan for wife, more even +than he desired her death. At any rate his headstrong temper was ready +to chafe against any warning or advice. But once again Chauvelin's +stronger mentality dominated over his less resolute colleague. +Martin-Roget--the fowler--was in his turn caught in the net of a keener +snarer than himself, and whilst--with the obstinacy of the weak--he was +making mental resolutions to rebuke Chauvelin for his interference later +on, he had already fallen in with the latter's attitude. + +"The wench has had three whole days wherein to alter her present mood," +he said more quietly, "and you know yourself, citizen, that the +proconsul will not wait after to-day." + +"The day is young yet," rejoined Chauvelin. "It still hath six hours to +its credit.... Six hours.... Three hundred and sixty minutes!" he +continued with a pleasant little laugh; "time enough for a woman to +change her mind three hundred and sixty times. Let me advise you, +citizen, to leave the wench to her own meditations for the present, and +I trust that she will accept the advice of a man who has a sincere +regard for her beauty and her charms and who is old enough to be her +father, and seriously think the situation over in a conciliatory spirit. +M. le duc de Kernogan will be grateful to her, for of a truth he is not +over happy either at the moment ... and will be still less happy in the +dépôt to-morrow: it is over-crowded, and typhus, I fear me, is rampant +among the prisoners. He has, I am convinced--in spite of what the +citizeness says to the contrary--a rooted objection to being hurled into +the Loire, or to be arraigned before the bar of the Convention, not as +an aristocrat and a traitor but as an unit of an undesirable herd of +criminals sent up to Paris for trial, by an anxious and harried +proconsul. There! there!" he added benignly, "we will not worry our fair +Yvonne any longer, will we, citizen? I think she has grasped the +alternative and will soon realise that marriage with an honourable +patriot is not such an untoward fate after all." + +"And now, citizen Martin-Roget," he concluded, "I pray you allow me to +take my leave of the fair lady and to give you the wise recommendation +to do likewise. She will be far better alone for awhile. Night brings +good counsel, so they say." + +He watched the girl keenly while he spoke. Her impassivity had not +deserted her for a single moment: but whether her calmness was of hope +or of despair he was unable to decide. On the whole he thought it must +be the latter: hope would have kindled a spark in those dark, +purple-rimmed eyes, it would have brought moisture to the lips, a tremor +to the hand. + +The Scarlet Pimpernel was in Nantes--that fact was established beyond a +doubt--but Chauvelin had come to the conclusion that so far as Yvonne +Dewhurst herself was concerned, she knew nothing of the mysterious +agencies that were working on her behalf. + +Chauvelin's hand closed with a nervous contraction over the packet of +papers in his pocket. Something of the secret of that enigmatic English +adventurer lay revealed within its folds. Chauvelin had not yet had the +opportunity of examining them: the interview with Yvonne had been the +most important business for the moment. + +From somewhere in the distance a city clock struck six. The afternoon +was wearing on. The keenest brain in Europe was on the watch to drag one +woman and one man from the deadly trap which had been so successfully +set for them. A few hours more and Chauvelin in his turn would be +pitting his wits against the resources of that intricate brain, and he +felt like a war-horse scenting blood and battle. He was aching to get +to work--aching to form his plans--to lay his snares--to dispose his +trap so that the noble English quarry should not fail to be caught +within its meshes. + +He gave a last look to Yvonne, who was still sitting quite impassive, +gazing through the squalid walls into some beautiful distance, the +reflection of which gave to her pale, wan face an added beauty. + +"Let us go, citizen Martin-Roget," he said peremptorily. "There is +nothing else that we can do here." + +And Martin-Roget, the weaker morally of the two, yielded to the stronger +personality of his colleague. He would have liked to stay on for awhile, +to gloat for a few moments longer over the helplessness of the woman who +to him represented the root of every evil which had ever befallen him +and his family. But Chauvelin commanded and he felt impelled to obey. He +gave one long, last look on Yvonne--a look that was as full of triumph +as of mockery--he looked round the four dank walls, the unglazed window, +the broken pitcher, the mouldy bread. Revenge was of a truth the +sweetest emotion of the human heart. Pierre Adet--son of the miller who +had been hanged by orders of the Duc de Kernogan for a crime which he +had never committed--would not at this moment have changed places with +Fortune's Benjamin. + + +IV + +Downstairs in Louise Adet's kitchen, Martin-Roget seized his colleague +by the arm. + +"Sit down a moment, citizen," he said persuasively, "and tell me what +you think of it all." + +Chauvelin sat down at the other's invitation. All his movements were +slow, deliberate, perfectly calm. + +"I think," he said drily, "as far as your marriage with the wench is +concerned, that you are beaten, my friend." + +"Tshaw!" The exclamation, raucous and surcharged with hate came from +Louise Adet. She, too, like Pierre--more so than Pierre mayhap--had +cause to hate the Kernogans. She, too, like Pierre had lived the last +three days in the full enjoyment of the thought that Fate and Chance +were about to level things at last between herself and those detested +aristos. Silent and sullen she was shuffling about in the room, among +her pots and pans, but she kept an eye upon her brother's movements and +an ear on what he said. Men were apt to lose grit where a pretty wench +was concerned. It takes a woman's rancour and a woman's determination to +carry a scheme of vengeance against another to a successful end. + +Martin-Roget rejoined more calmly: + +"I knew that she would still be obstinate," he said. "If I forced her +into a marriage, which I have the right to do, she might take her own +life and make me look a fool. So I don't want to do that. I believe in +the persuasiveness of the Rat Mort to-night," he added with a cynical +laugh, "and if that fails.... Well! I was never really in love with the +fair Yvonne, and now she has even ceased to be desirable.... If the Rat +Mort fails to act on her sensibilities as I would wish, I can easily +console myself by following Carrier's herd to Paris. Louise shall come +with me--eh, little sister?--and we'll give ourselves the satisfaction +of seeing M. le duc de Kernogan and his exquisite daughter stand in the +felon's dock--tried for malpractices and for evil living. We'll see them +branded as convicts and packed off like so much cattle to Cayenne. That +will be a sight," he concluded with a deep sigh of satisfaction, "which +will bring rest to my soul." + +He paused: his face looked sullen and evil under the domination of that +passion which tortured him. + +Louise Adet had shuffled up close to her brother. In one hand she held +the wooden spoon wherewith she had been stirring the soup: with the +other she brushed away the dark, lank hair which hung in strands over +her high, pale forehead. In appearance she was a woman immeasurably +older than her years. Her face had the colour of yellow parchment, her +skin was stretched tightly over her high cheekbones--her lips were +colourless and her eyes large, wide-open, were pale in hue and circled +with red. Just now a deep frown of puzzlement between her brows added a +sinister expression to her cadaverous face: + +"The Rat Mort?" she queried in that tired voice of hers, "Cayenne? What +is all that about?" + +"A splendid scheme of Carrier's, my Louise," replied Martin-Roget +airily. "We convey the Kernogan woman to the Rat Mort. To-night a +descent will be made on that tavern of ill-fame by a company of Marats +and every man, woman and child within it will be arrested and sent to +Paris as undesirable inhabitants of this most moral city: in Paris they +will be tried as malefactors or evil-doers--cut throats, thieves, what? +and deported as convicts to Cayenne, or else sent to the guillotine. The +Kernogans among that herd! What sayest thou to that, little sister? Thy +father, thy lover, hung as thieves! M. le Duc and Mademoiselle branded +as convicts! 'Tis pleasant to think on, eh?" + +Louise made no reply. She stood looking at her brother, her pale, +red-rimmed eyes seemed to drink in every word that he uttered, while her +bony hand wandered mechanically across and across her forehead as if in +a pathetic endeavour to clear the brain from everything save of the +satisfying thoughts which this prospect of revenge had engendered. + +Chauvelin's gentle voice broke in on her meditations. + +"In the meanwhile," he said placidly, "remember my warning, citizen +Martin-Roget. There are passing clever and mighty agencies at work, even +at this hour, to wrest your prey from you. How will you convey the wench +to the Rat Mort? Carrier has warned you of spies--but I have warned you +against a crowd of English adventurers far more dangerous than an army +of spies. Three pairs of eyes--probably more, and one pair the keenest +in Europe--will be on the watch to seize upon the woman and to carry her +off under your very nose." + +Martin-Roget uttered a savage oath. + +"That brute Carrier has left me in the lurch," he said roughly. "I don't +believe in your nightmares and your English adventurers, still it would +have been better if I could have had the woman conveyed to the tavern +under armed escort." + +"Armed escort has been denied you, and anyway it would not be much use. +You and I, citizen Martin-Roget, must act independently of Carrier. Your +friends down there," he added, indicating the street with a jerk of the +head, "must redouble their watchfulness. The village lads of Vertou are +of a truth no match intellectually with our English adventurers, but +they have vigorous fists in case there is an attack on the wench while +she walks across to the Rat Mort." + +"It would be simpler," here interposed Louise roughly, "if we were to +knock the wench on the head and then let the lads carry her across." + +"It would not be simpler," retorted Chauvelin drily, "for Carrier might +at any moment turn against us. Commandant Fleury with half a company of +Marats will be posted round the Rat Mort, remember. They may interfere +with the lads and arrest them and snatch the wench from us, when all our +plans may fall to the ground ... one never knows what double game +Carrier may be playing. No! no! the girl must not be dragged or carried +to the Rat Mort. She must walk into the trap of her own free will." + +"But name of a dog! how is it to be done?" ejaculated Martin-Roget, and +he brought his clenched fist crashing down upon the table. "The woman +will not follow me--or Louise either--anywhere willingly." + +"She must follow a stranger then--or one whom she thinks a +stranger--some one who will have gained her confidence...." + +"Impossible." + +"Oh! nothing is impossible, citizen," rejoined Chauvelin blandly. + +"Do you know a way then?" queried the other with a sneer. + +"I think I do. If you will trust me that is----" + +"I don't know that I do. Your mind is so intent on those English +adventurers, you are like as not to let the aristos slip through your +fingers." + +"Well, citizen," retorted Chauvelin imperturbably, "will you take the +risk of conveying the fair Yvonne to the Rat Mort by twelve o'clock +to-night? I have very many things to see to, I confess that I should be +glad if you will ease me from that responsibility." + +"I have already told you that I see no way," retorted Martin-Roget with +a snarl. + +"Then why not let me act?" + +"What are you going to do?" + +"For the moment I am going for a walk on the quay and once more will +commune with the North-West wind." + +"Tshaw!" ejaculated Martin-Roget savagely. + +"Nay, citizen," resumed Chauvelin blandly, "the winds of heaven are +excellent counsellors. I told you so just now and you agreed with me. +They blow away the cobwebs of the mind and clear the brain for serious +thinking. You want the Kernogan girl to be arrested inside the Rat Mort +and you see no way of conveying her thither save by the use of violence, +which for obvious reasons is to be deprecated: Carrier, for equally +obvious reasons, will not have her taken to the place by force. On the +other hand you admit that the wench would not follow you +willingly----Well, citizen, we must find a way out of that impasse, for +it is too unimportant an one to stand in the way of our plans: for this +I must hold a consultation with the North-West wind." + +"I won't allow you to do anything without consulting me." + +"Am I likely to do that? To begin with I shall have need of your +co-operation and that of the citizeness." + +"In that case ..." muttered Martin-Roget grudgingly. "But remember," he +added with a return to his usual self-assured manner, "remember that +Yvonne and her father belong to me and not to you. I brought them into +Nantes for mine own purposes--not for yours. I will not have my revenge +jeopardised so that your schemes may be furthered." + +"Who spoke of my schemes, citizen Martin-Roget?" broke in Chauvelin with +perfect urbanity. "Surely not I? What am I but an humble tool in the +service of the Republic?... a tool that has proved useless--a failure, +what? My only desire is to help you to the best of my abilities. Your +enemies are the enemies of the Republic: my ambition is to help you in +destroying them." + +For a moment longer Martin-Roget hesitated: he abominated this +suggestion of becoming a mere instrument in the hands of this man whom +he still would have affected to despise--had he dared. But here came the +difficulty: he no longer dared to despise Chauvelin. He felt the +strength of the man--the clearness of his intellect, and though +he--Martin-Roget--still chose to disregard every warning in connexion +with the English spies, he could not wholly divest his mind from the +possibility of their presence in Nantes. Carrier's scheme was so +magnificent, so satisfying, that the ex-miller's son was ready to humble +his pride and set his arrogance aside in order to see it carried through +successfully. + +So after a moment or two, despite the fact that he positively ached to +shut Chauvelin out of the whole business, Martin-Roget gave a grudging +assent to his proposal. + +"Very well!" he said, "you see to it. So long as it does not interfere +with my plans...." + +"It can but help them," rejoined Chauvelin suavely. "If you will act as +I shall direct I pledge you my word that the wench will walk to the Rat +Mort of her free will and at the hour when you want her. What else is +there to say?" + +"When and where shall we meet again?" + +"Within the hour I will return here and explain to you and to the +citizeness what I want you to do. We will get the aristos inside the Rat +Mort, never fear; and after that I think that we may safely leave +Carrier to do the rest, what?" + +He picked up his hat and wrapped his mantle round him. He took no +further heed of Martin-Roget or of Louise, for suddenly he had felt the +crackling of crisp paper inside the breast-pocket of his coat and in a +moment the spirit of the man had gone a-roaming out of the narrow +confines of this squalid abode. It had crossed the English Channel and +wandered once more into a brilliantly-lighted ball-room where an +exquisitely dressed dandy declaimed inanities and doggrel rhymes for the +delectation of a flippant assembly: it heard once more the lazy, +drawling speech, the inane, affected laugh, it caught the glance of a +pair of lazy, grey eyes fixed mockingly upon him. Chauvelin's thin +claw-like hand went back to his pocket: it felt that packet of papers, +it closed over it like a vulture's talon does upon a prey. He no longer +heard Martin-Roget's obstinate murmurings, he no longer felt himself to +be the disgraced, humiliated servant of the State: rather did he feel +once more the master, the leader, the successful weaver of an hundred +clever intrigues. The enemy who had baffled him so often had chosen once +more to throw down the glove of mocking defiance. So be it! The battle +would be fought this night--a decisive one--and long live the Republic +and the power of the people! + +With a curt nod of the head Chauvelin turned on his heel and without +waiting for Martin-Roget to follow him, or for Louise to light him on +his way, he strode from the room, and out of the house, and had soon +disappeared in the darkness in the direction of the quay. + + +V + +Once more free from the encumbering companionship of Martin-Roget, +Chauvelin felt free to breathe and to think. He, the obscure and +impassive servant of the Republic, the cold-blooded Terrorist who had +gone through every phrase of an exciting career without moving a muscle +of his grave countenance, felt as if every one of his arteries was on +fire. He strode along the quay in the teeth of the north-westerly wind, +grateful for the cold blast which lashed his face and cooled his +throbbing temples. + +The packet of papers inside his coat seemed to sear his breast. + +Before turning to go along the quay he paused, hesitating for a moment +what he would do. His very humble lodgings were at the far end of the +town, and every minute of time was precious. Inside Le Bouffay, where he +had a small room allotted to him as a minor representative in Nantes of +the Committee of Public Safety, there was the ever present danger of +prying eyes. + +On the whole--since time was so precious--he decided on returning to Le +Bouffay. The concierge and the clerk fortunately let him through without +those official delays which he--Chauvelin--was wont to find so galling +ever since his disgrace had put a bar against the opening of every door +at the bare mention of his name or the display of his tricolour scarf. + +He strode rapidly across the hall: the men on guard eyed him with lazy +indifference as he passed. Once inside his own sanctum he looked +carefully around him; he drew the curtain closer across the window and +dragged the table and a chair well away from the range which might be +covered by an eye at the keyhole. It was only when he had thoroughly +assured himself that no searching eye or inquisitive ear could possibly +be watching over him that he at last drew the precious packet of papers +from his pocket. He undid the red ribbon which held it together and +spread the papers out on the table before him. Then he examined them +carefully one by one. + +As he did so an exclamation of wrath or of impatience escaped him from +time to time, once he laughed--involuntarily--aloud. + +The examination of the papers took him some time. When he had finished +he gathered them all together again, retied the bit of ribbon round them +and slipped the packet back into the pocket of his coat. There was a +look of grim determination on his face, even though a bitter sigh +escaped his set lips. + +"Oh! for the power," he muttered to himself, "which I had a year ago! +for the power to deal with mine enemy myself. So you have come to +Nantes, my valiant Sir Percy Blakeney?" he added while a short, sardonic +laugh escaped his thin, set lips: "and you are determined that I shall +know how and why you came! Do you reckon, I wonder, that I have no +longer the power to deal with you? Well!..." + +He sighed again but with more satisfaction this time. + +"Well!..." he reiterated with obvious complacency. "Unless that oaf +Carrier is a bigger fool than I imagine him to be I think I have you +this time, my elusive Scarlet Pimpernel." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE NET + + +I + +It was not an easy thing to obtain an audience of the great proconsul at +this hour of the night, nor was Chauvelin, the disgraced servant of the +Committee of Public Safety, a man to be considered. Carrier, with his +love of ostentation and of tyranny, found great delight in keeping his +colleagues waiting upon his pleasure, and he knew that he could trust +young Jacques Lalouët to be as insolent as any tyrant's flunkey of yore. + +"I must speak with the proconsul at once," had been Chauvelin's urgent +request of Fleury, the commandant of the great man's bodyguard. + +"The proconsul dines at this hour," had been Fleury's curt reply. + +"'Tis a matter which concerns the welfare and the safety of the State!" + +"The proconsul's health is the concern of the State too, and he dines at +this hour and must not be disturbed." + +"Commandant Fleury!" urged Chauvelin, "you risk being implicated in a +disaster. Danger and disgrace threaten the proconsul and all his +adherents. I must speak with citizen Carrier at once." + +Fortunately for Chauvelin there were two keys which, when all else +failed, were apt to open the doors of Carrier's stronghold: the key of +fear and that of cupidity. He tried both and succeeded. He bribed and +he threatened: he endured Fleury's brutality and Lalouët's impertinence +but he got his way. After an hour's weary waiting and ceaseless +parleyings he was once more ushered into the antechamber where he had +sat earlier in the day. The doors leading to the inner sanctuary were +open. Young Jacques Lalouët stood by them on guard. Carrier, fuming and +raging at having been disturbed, vented his spleen and ill-temper on +Chauvelin. + +"If the news that you bring me is not worth my consideration," he cried +savagely, "I'll send you to moulder in Le Bouffay or to drink the waters +of the Loire." + +Chauvelin silent, self-effaced, allowed the flood of the great man's +wrath to spend itself in threats. Then he said quietly: + +"Citizen proconsul I have come to tell you that the English spy, who is +called the Scarlet Pimpernel, is now in Nantes. There is a reward of +twenty thousand francs for his capture and I want your help to lay him +by the heels." + +Carrier suddenly paused in his ravings. He sank into a chair and a livid +hue spread over his face. + +"It's not true!" he murmured hoarsely. + +"I saw him--not an hour ago...." + +"What proof have you?" + +"I'll show them to you--but not across this threshold. Let me enter, +citizen proconsul, and close your sanctuary doors behind me rather than +before. What I have come hither to tell you, can only be said between +four walls." + +"I'll make you tell me," broke in Carrier in a raucous voice, which +excitement and fear caused almost to choke in his throat. "I'll make you +... curse you for the traitor that you are.... Curse you!" he cried more +vigorously, "I'll make you speak. Will you shield a spy by your +silence, you miserable traitor? If you do I'll send you to rot in the +mud of the Loire with other traitors less accursed than yourself." + +"If you only knew," was Chauvelin's calm rejoinder to the other's +ravings, "how little I care for life. I only live to be even one day +with an enemy whom I hate. That enemy is now in Nantes, but I am like a +bird of prey whose wings have been clipped. If you do not help me mine +enemy will again go free--and death in that case matters little or +nothing to me." + +For a moment longer Carrier hesitated. Fear had gripped him by the +throat. Chauvelin's earnestness seemed to vouch for the truth of his +assertion, and if this were so--if those English spies were indeed in +Nantes--then his own life was in deadly danger. He--like every one of +those bloodthirsty tyrants who had misused the sacred names of +Fraternity and of Equality--had learned to dread the machinations of +those mysterious Englishmen and of their unconquerable leader. Popular +superstition had it that they were spies of the English Government and +that they were not only bent on saving traitors from well-merited +punishment but that they were hired assassins paid by Mr. Pitt to murder +every faithful servant of the Republic. The name of the Scarlet +Pimpernel, so significantly uttered by Chauvelin, had turned Carrier's +sallow cheeks to a livid hue. Sick with terror now he called Lalouët to +him. He clung to the boy with both arms as to the one being in this +world whom he trusted. + +"What shall we do, Jacques?" he murmured hoarsely, "shall we let him +in?" + +The boy roughly shook himself free from the embrace of the great +proconsul. + +"If you want twenty thousand francs," he said with a dry laugh, "I +should listen quietly to what citizen Chauvelin has to say." + +Terror and rapacity were ranged on one side against inordinate vanity. +The thought of twenty thousand francs made Carrier's ugly mouth water. +Money was ever scarce these days: also the fear of assassination was a +spectre which haunted him at all hours of the day and night. On the +other hand he positively worshipped the mystery wherewith he surrounded +himself. It had been his boast for some time now that no one save the +chosen few had crossed the threshold of his private chamber: and he was +miserably afraid not only of Chauvelin's possible evil intentions, but +also that this despicable ex-aristo and equally despicable failure would +boast in the future of an ascendancy over him. + +He thought the matter over for fully five minutes, during which there +was dead silence in the two rooms--silence only broken by the stertorous +breathing of that wretched coward, and the measured ticking of the fine +Buhl clock behind him. Chauvelin's pale eyes were fixed upon the +darkness, through which he could vaguely discern the uncouth figure of +the proconsul, sprawling over his desk. Which way would his passions +sway him? Chauvelin as he watched and waited felt that his habitual +self-control was perhaps more severely taxed at this moment than it had +ever been before. Upon the swaying of those passions, the passions of a +man infinitely craven and infinitely base, depended all +his--Chauvelin's--hopes of getting even at last with a daring and +resourceful foe. Terror and rapacity were the counsellors which ranged +themselves on the side of his schemes, but mere vanity and caprice +fought a hard battle too. + +In the end it was rapacity that gained the victory. An impatient +exclamation from young Lalouët roused Carrier from his sombre brooding +and hastened on a decision which was destined to have such momentous +consequences for the future of both these men. + +"Introduce citizen Chauvelin in here, Lalouët," said the proconsul +grudgingly. "I will listen to what he has to say." + + +II + +Chauvelin crossed the threshold of the tyrant's sanctuary, in no way +awed by the majesty of that dreaded presence or confused by the air of +mystery which hung about the room. + +He did not even bestow a glance on the multitudinous objects of art and +the priceless furniture which littered the tiger's lair. His pale face +remained quite expressionless as he bowed solemnly before Carrier and +then took the chair which was indicated to him. Young Lalouët fetched a +candelabra from the ante-room and carried it into the audience chamber: +then he closed the communicating doors. The candelabra he placed on a +console-table immediately behind Carrier's desk and chair, so that the +latter's face remained in complete shadow, whilst the light fell full +upon Chauvelin. + +"Well! what is it?" queried the proconsul roughly. "What is this story +of English spies inside Nantes? How did they get here? Who is +responsible for keeping such rabble out of our city? Name of a dog, but +some one has been careless of duty! and carelessness these days is +closely allied to treason." + +He talked loudly and volubly--his inordinate terror causing the words to +come tumbling, almost incoherently, out of his mouth. Finally he turned +on Chauvelin with a snarl like an angry cat: + +"And how comes it, citizen," he added savagely, "that you alone here in +Nantes are acquainted with the whereabouts of those dangerous spies?" + +"I caught sight of them," rejoined Chauvelin calmly, "this afternoon +after I left you. I knew we should have them here, the moment citizen +Martin-Roget brought the Kernogans into the city. The woman is the wife +of one of them." + +"Curse that blundering fool Martin-Roget for bringing that rabble about +our ears, and those assassins inside our gates." + +"Nay! Why should you complain, citizen proconsul," rejoined Chauvelin in +his blandest manner. "Surely you are not going to let the English spies +escape this time? And if you succeed in laying them by the heels--there +where every one else has failed--you will have earned twenty thousand +francs and the thanks of the entire Committee of Public Safety." + +He paused: and young Lalouët interposed with his impudent laugh: + +"Go on, citizen Chauvelin," he said, "if there is twenty thousand francs +to be made out of this game, I'll warrant that the proconsul will take a +hand in it--eh, Carrier?" + +And with the insolent familiarity of a terrier teasing a grizzly he +tweaked the great man's ear. + +Chauvelin in the meanwhile had drawn the packet of papers from his +pocket and untied the ribbon that held them together. He now spread the +papers out on the desk. + +"What are these?" queried Carrier. + +"A few papers," replied Chauvelin, "which one of your Marats, Paul +Friche by name, picked up in the wake of the Englishmen. I caught sight +of them in the far distance, and sent the Marats after them. For awhile +Paul Friche kept on their track, but after that they disappeared in the +darkness." + +"Who were the senseless louts," growled Carrier, "who allowed a pack of +foreign assassins to escape? I'll soon make them disappear ... in the +Loire." + +"You will do what you like about that, citizen Carrier," retorted +Chauvelin drily; "in the meanwhile you would do well to examine these +papers." + +He sorted these out, examined them one by one, then passed them across +to Carrier. Lalouët, impudent and inquisitive, sat on the corner of the +desk, dangling his legs. With scant ceremony he snatched one paper after +another out of Carrier's hands and examined them curiously. + +"Can you understand all this gibberish?" he asked airily. "Jean +Baptiste, my friend, how much English do you know?" + +"Not much," replied the proconsul, "but enough to recognise that +abominable doggrel rhyme which has gone the round of the Committees of +Public Safety throughout the country." + +"I know it by heart," rejoined young Lalouët. "I was in Paris once, when +citizen Robespierre received a copy of it. Name of a dog!" added the +youngster with a coarse laugh, "how he cursed!" + +It is doubtful however if citizen Robespierre did on that occasion curse +quite so volubly as Carrier did now. + +"If I only knew why that _satané_ Englishman throws so much calligraphy +about," he said, "I would be easier in my mind. Now this senseless rhyme +... I don't see...." + +"Its importance?" broke in Chauvelin quietly. "I dare say not. On the +face of it, it appears foolish and childish: but it is intended as a +taunt and is really a poor attempt at humour. They are a queer people +these English. If you knew them as I do, you would not be surprised to +see a man scribbling off a cheap joke before embarking on an enterprise +which may cost him his head." + +"And this inane rubbish is of that sort," concluded young Lalouët. And +in his thin high treble he began reciting: + + "We seek him here; + We seek him there! + Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. + Is he in heaven? + Is he in h----ll? + That demmed elusive Pimpernel?" + +"Pointless and offensive," he said as he tossed the paper back on the +table. + +"A cursed aristo that Englishman of yours," growled Carrier. "Oh! when I +get him...." + +He made an expressive gesture which made Lalouët laugh. + +"What else have we got in the way of documents, citizen Chauvelin?" he +asked. + +"There is a letter," replied the latter. + +"Read it," commanded Carrier. "Or rather translate it as you read. I +don't understand the whole of the gibberish." + +And Chauvelin, taking up a sheet of paper which was covered with neat, +minute writing, began to read aloud, translating the English into French +as he went along: + + "'Here we are at last, my dear Tony! Didn't I tell you that we can + get in anywhere despite all precautions taken against us!'" + +"The impudent devils!" broke in Carrier. + + --"'Did you really think that they could keep us out of Nantes + while Lady Anthony Dewhurst is a prisoner in their hands?'" + +"Who is that?" + +"The Kernogan woman. As I told you just now, she is married to an +Englishman who is named Dewhurst and who is one of the members of that +thrice cursed League." + +Then he continued to read: + + "'And did you really suppose that they would spot half a dozen + English gentlemen in the guise of peat-gatherers, returning at dusk + and covered with grime from their work? Not like, friend Tony! Not + like! If you happen to meet mine engaging friend M. Chambertin + before I have that privilege myself, tell him I pray you, with my + regards, that I am looking forward to the pleasure of making a long + nose at him once more. Calais, Boulogne, Paris--now Nantes--the + scenes of his triumphs multiply exceedingly.'" + +"What in the devil's name does all this mean?" queried Carrier with an +oath. + +"You don't understand it?" rejoined Chauvelin quietly. + +"No. I do not." + +"Yet I translated quite clearly." + +"It is not the language that puzzles me. The contents seem to me such +drivel. The man wants secrecy, what? He is supposed to be astute, +resourceful, above all mysterious and enigmatic. Yet he writes to his +friend--matter of no importance between them, recollections of the past, +known to them both--and threats for the future, equally futile and +senseless. I cannot reconcile it all. It puzzles me." + +"And it would puzzle me," rejoined Chauvelin, while the ghost of a smile +curled his thin lips, "did I not know the man. Futile? Senseless, you +say? Well, he does futile and senseless things one moment and amazing +deeds of personal bravery and of astuteness the next. He is three parts +a braggart too. He wanted you, me--all of us to know how he and his +followers succeeded in eluding our vigilance and entered our +closely-guarded city in the guise of grimy peat-gatherers. Now I come to +think of it, it was easy enough for them to do that. Those +peat-gatherers who live inside the city boundaries return from their +work as the night falls in. Those cursed English adventurers are passing +clever at disguise--they are born mountebanks the lot of them. Money and +impudence they have in plenty. They could easily borrow or purchase some +filthy rags from the cottages on the dunes, then mix with the crowd on +its return to the city. I dare say it was cleverly done. That Scarlet +Pimpernel is just a clever adventurer and nothing more. So far his +marvellous good luck has carried him through. Now we shall see." + +Carrier had listened in silence. Something of his colleague's calm had +by this time communicated itself to him too. He was no longer raving +like an infuriated bull--his terror no longer made a half-cringing, +wholly savage brute of him. He was sprawling across the desk--his arms +folded, his deep-set eyes studying closely the well-nigh inscrutable +face of Chauvelin. Young Lalouët too had lost something of his +impudence. That mysterious spell which seemed to emanate from the +elusive personality of the bold English adventurer had been cast over +these two callous, bestial natures, humbling their arrogance and making +them feel that here was no ordinary situation to be dealt with by +smashing, senseless hitting and the spilling of innocent blood. Both +felt instinctively too that this man Chauvelin, however wholly he may +have failed in the past, was nevertheless still the only man who might +grapple successfully with the elusive and adventurous foe. + +"Are you assuming, citizen Chauvelin," queried Carrier after awhile, +"that this packet of papers was dropped purposely by the Englishman, so +that it might get into our hands?" + +"There is always such a possibility," replied Chauvelin drily. "With +that type of man one must be prepared to meet the unexpected." + +"Then go on, citizen Chauvelin. What else is there among those _satané_ +papers?" + +"Nothing further of importance. There is a map of Nantes, and one of the +coast and of Le Croisic. There is a cutting from _Le Moniteur_ dated +last September, and one from the _London Gazette_ dated three years ago. +The _Moniteur_ makes reference to the production of _Athalie_ at the +Théâtre Molière, and the _London Gazette_ to the sale of fat cattle at +an Agricultural Show. There is a receipted account from a London tailor +for two hundred pounds' worth of clothes supplied, and one from a Lyons +mercer for an hundred francs worth of silk cravats. Then there is the +one letter which alone amidst all this rubbish appears to be of any +consequence...." + +He took up the last paper; his hand was still quite steady. + +"Read the letter," said Carrier. + +"It is addressed in the English fashion to Lady Anthony Dewhurst," +continued Chauvelin slowly, "the Kernogan woman, you know, citizen. It +says: + + "'Keep up your courage. Your friends are inside the city and on the + watch. Try the door of your prison every evening at one hour before + midnight. Once you will find it yield. Slip out and creep + noiselessly down the stairs. At the bottom a friendly hand will be + stretched out to you. Take it with confidence--it will lead you to + safety and to freedom. Courage and secrecy.'" + +Lalouët had been looking over his shoulder while he read: now he pointed +to the bottom of the letter. + +"And there is the device," he said, "we have heard so much about of +late--a five-petalled flower drawn in red ink ... the Scarlet Pimpernel, +I presume." + +"Aye! the Scarlet Pimpernel," murmured Chauvelin, "as you say! +Braggadocio on his part or accident, his letters are certainly in our +hands now and will prove--must prove, the tool whereby we can be even +with him once and for all." + +"And you, citizen Chauvelin," interposed Carrier with a sneer, "are +mighty lucky to have me to help you this time. I am not going to be +fooled, as Candeille and you were fooled last September, as you were +fooled in Calais and Héron in Paris. I shall be seeing this time to the +capture of those English adventurers." + +"And that capture should not be difficult," added Lalouët with a +complacent laugh. "Your famous adventurer's luck hath deserted him this +time: an all-powerful proconsul is pitted against him and the loss of +his papers hath destroyed the anonymity on which he reckons." + +Chauvelin paid no heed to the fatuous remarks. + +How little did this flippant young braggart and this coarse-grained +bully understand the subtle workings of that same adventurer's brain! He +himself--one of the most astute men of the day--found it difficult. Even +now--the losing of those letters in the open streets of Nantes--it was +part of a plan. Chauvelin could have staked his head on that--a part of +a plan for the liberation of Lady Anthony Dewhurst--but what plan?--what +plan? + +He took up the letter which his colleague had thrown down: he fingered +it, handled it, letting the paper crackle through his fingers, as if he +expected it to yield up the secret which it contained. The time had +come--of that he felt no doubt--when he could at last be even with his +enemy. He had endured more bitter humiliation at the hands of this +elusive Pimpernel than he would have thought himself capable of bearing +a couple of years ago. But the time had come at last--if only he kept +his every faculty on the alert, if Fate helped him and his own nerves +stood the strain. Above all if this blundering, self-satisfied Carrier +could be reckoned on!... + +There lay the one great source of trouble! He--Chauvelin--had no power: +he was disgraced--a failure--a nonentity to be sneered at. He might +protest, entreat, wring his hands, weep tears of blood and not one man +would stir a finger to help him: this brute who sprawled here across his +desk would not lend him half a dozen men to enable him to lay by the +heels the most powerful enemy the Government of the Terror had ever +known. Chauvelin inwardly ground his teeth with rage at his own +impotence, at his own dependence on this clumsy lout, who was at this +moment possessed of powers which he himself would give half his life to +obtain. + +But on the other hand he did possess a power which no one could take +from him--the power to use others for the furtherance of his own +aims--to efface himself while others danced as puppets to his piping. +Carrier had the power: he had spies, Marats, prison-guards at his +disposal. He was greedy for the reward, and cupidity and fear would make +of him a willing instrument. All that Chauvelin need do was to use that +instrument for his own ends. One would be the head to direct, the +other--a mere insentient tool. + +From this moment onwards every minute, every second and every fraction +of a second would be full of portent, full of possibilities. Sir Percy +Blakeney was in Nantes with at least three or four members of his +League: he was at this very moment taxing every fibre of his +resourceful brain in order to devise a means whereby he could rescue +his friend's wife from the fate which was awaiting her: to gain this end +he would dare everything, risk everything--risk and dare a great deal +more than he had ever dared and risked before. + +Chauvelin was finding a grim pleasure in reviewing the situation, in +envisaging the danger of failure which he knew lay in wait for him, +unless he too was able to call to his aid all the astuteness, all the +daring, all the resource of his own fertile brain. He studied his +colleague's face keenly--that sullen, savage expression in it, the +arrogance, the blundering vanity. It was terrible to have to humour and +fawn to a creature of that stamp when all one's hopes, all one's future, +one's ideals and the welfare of one's country were at stake. + +But this additional difficulty only served to whet the man's appetite +for action. He drew in a long breath of delight, like a captive who +first after many days and months of weary anguish scents freedom and +ozone. He straightened out his shoulders. A gleam of triumph and of hope +shot out of his keen pale eyes. He studied Carrier and he studied +Lalouët and he felt that he could master them both--quietly, +diplomatically, with subtle skill that would not alarm the proconsul's +rampant self-esteem: and whilst this coarse-fibred brute gloated in +anticipatory pleasure over the handling of a few thousand francs, and +whilst Martin-Roget dreamed of a clumsy revenge against one woman and +one man who had wronged him four years ago, he--Chauvelin--would pursue +his work of striking at the enemy of the Revolution--of bringing to his +knees the man who spent life and fortune in combating its ideals and in +frustrating its aims. The destruction of such a foe was worthy a +patriot's ambition. + +On the other hand some of Carrier's bullying arrogance had gone. He was +terrified to the very depths of his cowardly heart, and for once he was +turning away from his favourite Jacques Lalouët and inclined to lean on +Chauvelin for advice. Robespierre had been known to tremble at sight of +that small scarlet device, how much more had he--Carrier--cause to be +afraid. He knew his own limitations and he was terrified of the +assassin's dagger. As Marat had perished, so he too might end his days, +and the English spies were credited with murderous intentions and +superhuman power. In his innermost self Carrier knew that despite +countless failures Chauvelin was mentally his superior, and though he +never would own to this and at this moment did not attempt to shed his +over-bearing manner, he was watching the other keenly and anxiously, +ready to follow the guidance of an intellect stronger than his own. + + +III + +At last Carrier elected to speak. + +"And now, citizen Chauvelin," he said, "we know how we stand. We know +that the English assassins are in Nantes. The question is how are we +going to lay them by the heels." + +Chauvelin gave him no direct reply. He was busy collecting his precious +papers together and thrusting them back into the pocket of his coat. +Then he said quietly: + +"It is through the Kernogan woman that we can get hold of him." + +"How?" + +"Where she is, there will the Englishmen be. They are in Nantes for the +sole purpose of getting the woman and her father out of your +clutches...." + +"Then it will be a fine haul inside the Rat Mort," ejaculated Carrier +with a chuckle. "Eh, Jacques, you young scamp? You and I must go and see +that, what? You have been complaining that life was getting monotonous. +Drownages--Republican marriages! They have all palled in their turn on +your jaded appetite.... But the capture of the English assassins, eh?... +of that League of the Scarlet Pimpernel which has even caused citizen +Robespierre much uneasiness--that will stir up your sluggish blood, you +lazy young vermin!... Go on, go on, citizen Chauvelin, I am vastly +interested!" + +He rubbed his dry, bony hands together and cackled with glee. Chauvelin +interposed quietly: + +"Inside the Rat Mort, eh, citizen?" he queried. + +"Why, yes. Citizen Martin-Roget means to convey the Kernogan woman to +the Rat Mort, doesn't he?" + +"He does." + +"And you say that where the Kernogan woman is there the Englishmen will +be...." + +"The inference is obvious." + +"Which means ten thousand francs from that fool Martin-Roget for having +the wench and her father arrested inside the Rat Mort! and twenty +thousand for the capture of the English spies.... Have you forgotten, +citizen Chauvelin," he added with a raucous cry of triumph, "that +commandant Fleury has my orders to make a raid on the Rat Mort this +night with half a company of my Marats, and to arrest every one whom +they find inside?" + +"The Kernogan wench is not at the Rat Mort yet," quoth Chauvelin drily, +"and you have refused to lend a hand in having her conveyed thither." + +"I can't do it, my little Chauvelin," rejoined Carrier, somewhat sobered +by this reminder. "I can't do it ... you understand ... my Marats +taking an aristo to a house of ill-fame where presently I have her +arrested ... it won't do ... it won't do ... you don't know how I am +spied upon just now.... It really would not do.... I can't be mixed up +in that part of the affair. The wench must go to the Rat Mort of her own +free will, or the whole plan falls to the ground.... That fool +Martin-Roget must think of a way ... it's his affair, after all. He must +see to it.... Or you can think of a way," he added, assuming the coaxing +ways of a tiger-cat; "you are so clever, my little Chauvelin." + +"Yes," replied Chauvelin quietly, "I can think of a way. The Kernogan +wench shall leave the house of citizeness Adet and walk into the tavern +of the Rat Mort of her own free will. Your reputation, citizen Carrier," +he added without the slightest apparent trace of a sneer, "your +reputation shall be safeguarded in this matter. But supposing that in +the interval of going from the one house to the other the English +adventurer succeeds in kidnapping her...." + +"Pah! is that likely?" quoth Carrier with a shrug of the shoulders. + +"Exceedingly likely, citizen; and you would not doubt it if you knew +this Scarlet Pimpernel as I do. I have seen him at his nefarious work. I +know what he can do. There is nothing that he would not venture ... +there are few ventures in which he does not succeed. He is as strong as +an ox, as agile as a cat. He can see in the dark and he can always +vanish in a crowd. Here, there and everywhere, you never know where he +will appear. He is a past master in the art of disguise and he is a born +mountebank. Believe me, citizen, we shall want all the resources of our +joint intellects to frustrate the machinations of such a foe." + +Carrier mused for a moment in silence. + +"H'm!" he said after awhile, and with a sardonic laugh. "You may be +right, citizen Chauvelin. You have had experience with the rascal ... +you ought to know him. We won't leave anything to chance--don't be +afraid of that. My Marats will be keen on the capture. We'll promise +commandant Fleury a thousand francs for himself and another thousand to +be distributed among his men if we lay hands on the English assassins +to-night. We'll leave nothing to chance," he reiterated with an oath. + +"In which case, citizen Carrier, you must on your side agree to two +things," rejoined Chauvelin firmly. + +"What are they?" + +"You must order Commandant Fleury to place himself and half a company of +his Marats at my disposal." + +"What else?" + +"You must allow them to lend a hand if there is an attempt to kidnap the +Kernogan wench while she is being conveyed to the Rat Mort...." + +Carrier hesitated for a second or two, but only for form's sake: it was +his nature whenever he was forced to yield to do so grudgingly. + +"Very well!" he said at last. "I'll order Fleury to be on the watch and +to interfere if there is any street-brawling outside or near the Rat +Mort. Will that suit you?" + +"Perfectly. I shall be on the watch too--somewhere close by.... I'll +warn commandant Fleury if I suspect that the English are making ready +for a coup outside the tavern. Personally I think it unlikely--because +the duc de Kernogan will be inside the Rat Mort all the time, and he too +will be the object of the Englishmen's attacks on his behalf. Citizen +Martin-Roget too has about a score or so of his friends posted outside +his sister's house: they are lads from his village who hate the +Kernogans as much as he does himself. Still! I shall feel easier in my +mind now that I am certain of commandant Fleury's co-operation." + +"Then it seems to me that we have arranged everything satisfactorily, +what?" + +"Everything, except the exact moment when Commandant Fleury shall +advance with his men to the door of the tavern and demand admittance in +the name of the Republic." + +"Yes, he will have to make quite sure that the whole of our quarry is +inside the net, eh?... before he draws the strings ... or all our pretty +plans fall to nought." + +"As you say," rejoined Chauvelin, "we must make sure. Supposing +therefore that we get the wench safely into the tavern, that we have her +there with her father, what we shall want will be some one in +observation--some one who can help us to draw our birds into the snare +just when we are ready for them. Now there is a man whom I have in my +mind: he hath name Paul Friche and is one of your Marats--a surly, +ill-conditioned giant ... he was on guard outside Le Bouffay this +afternoon.... I spoke to him ... he would suit our purpose admirably." + +"What do you want him to do?" + +"Only to make himself look as like a Nantese cut-throat as he can...." + +"He looks like one already," broke in Jacques Lalouët with a laugh. + +"So much the better. He'll excite no suspicion in that case in the minds +of the frequenters of the Rat Mort. Then I'll instruct him to start a +brawl--a fracas--soon after the arrival of the Kernogan wench. The row +will inevitably draw the English adventurers hot-haste to the spot, +either in the hope of getting the Kernogans away during the _mêlée_ or +with a view to protecting them. As soon as they have appeared upon the +scene, the half company of the Marats will descend on the house and +arrest every one inside it." + +"It all sounds remarkably simple," rejoined Carrier, and with a leer of +satisfaction he turned to Jacques Lalouët. + +"What think you of it, citizen?" he asked. + +"That it sounds so remarkably simple," replied young Lalouët, "that +personally I should be half afraid...." + +"Of what?" queried Chauvelin blandly. + +"If you fail, citizen Chauvelin...." + +"Impossible!" + +"If the Englishmen do not appear?" + +"Even so the citizen proconsul will have lost nothing. He will merely +have failed to gain the twenty thousand francs. But the Kernogans will +still be in his power and citizen Martin-Roget's ten thousand francs are +in any case assured." + +"Friend Jean-Baptiste," concluded Lalouët with his habitual insolent +familiarity, "you had better do what citizen Chauvelin wants. Ten +thousand francs are good ... and thirty better still. Our privy purse +has been empty far too long, and I for one would like the handling of a +few brisk notes." + +"It will only be twenty-eight, citizen Lalouët," interposed Chauvelin +blandly, "for commandant Fleury will want one thousand francs and his +men another thousand to stimulate their zeal. Still! I imagine that +these hard times twenty-eight thousand francs are worth fighting for." + +"You seem to be fighting and planning and scheming for nothing, citizen +Chauvelin," retorted young Lalouët with a sneer. "What are you going to +gain, I should like to know, by the capture of that dare-devil +Englishman?" + +"Oh!" replied Chauvelin suavely, "I shall gain the citizen proconsul's +regard, I hope--and yours too, citizen Lalouët. I want nothing more +except the success of my plan." + +Young Lalouët jumped down to his feet. He shrugged his shoulders and +through his fine eyes shot a glance of mockery and scorn on the thin, +shrunken figure of the Terrorist. + +"How you do hate that Englishman, citizen Chauvelin," he said with a +light laugh. + + +IV + +Carrier having fully realised that he in any case stood to make a vast +sum of money out of the capture of the band of English spies, gave his +support generously to Chauvelin's scheme. Fleury, summoned into his +presence, was ordered to place himself and half a company of Marats at +the disposal of citizen Chauvelin. He demurred and growled like a bear +with a sore head at being placed under the orders of a civilian, but it +was not easy to run counter to the proconsul's will. A good deal of +swearing, one or two overt threats and the citizen commandant was +reduced to submission. The promise of a thousand francs, when the reward +for the capture of the English spies was paid out by a grateful +Government, overcame his last objections. + +"I think you should rid yourself of that obstinate oaf," was young +Lalouët's cynical comment, when Fleury had finally left the audience +chamber; "he is too argumentative for my taste." + +Chauvelin smiled quietly to himself. He cared little what became of +every one of these Nantese louts once his great object had been +attained. + +"I need not trouble you further, citizen Carrier," he said as he finally +rose to take his leave. "I shall have my hands full until I myself lay +that meddlesome Englishman bound and gagged at your feet." + +The phrase delighted Carrier's insensate vanity. He was overgracious to +Chauvelin now. + +"You shall do that at the Rat Mort, citizen Chauvelin," he said with +marked affability, "and I myself will commend you for your zeal to the +Committee of Public Safety." + +"Always supposing," interposed Jacques Lalouët with his cynical laugh, +"that citizen Chauvelin does not let the whole rabble slip through his +fingers." + +"If I do," concluded Chauvelin drily, "you may drag the Loire for my +body to-morrow." + +"Oh!" laughed Carrier, "we won't trouble to do that. _Au revoir_, +citizen Chauvelin," he added with one of his grandiloquent gestures of +dismissal, "I wish you luck at the Rat Mort to-night." + +Jacques Lalouët ushered Chauvelin out. When he was finally left standing +alone at the head of the stairs and young Lalouët's footsteps had ceased +to resound across the floors of the rooms beyond, he remained quite +still for awhile, his eyes fixed into vacancy, his face set and +expressionless; and through his lips there came a long-drawn-out sigh of +intense satisfaction. + +"And now, my fine Scarlet Pimpernel," he murmured softly, "once more _à +nous deux_." + +Then he ran swiftly down the stairs and a moment later was once more +speeding toward Le Bouffay. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE MESSAGE OF HOPE + + +I + +After Martin-Roget and Chauvelin had left her, Yvonne had sat for a long +time motionless, almost unconscious. It seemed as if gradually, hour by +hour, minute by minute, her every feeling of courage and of hope were +deserting her. Three days now she had been separated from her +father--three days she had been under the constant supervision of a +woman who had not a single thought of compassion or of mercy for the +"aristocrat" whom she hated so bitterly. + +At night, curled up on a small bundle of dank straw Yvonne had made vain +efforts to snatch a little sleep. Ever since the day when she had been +ruthlessly torn away from the protection of her dear milor, she had +persistently clung to the belief that he would find the means to come to +her, to wrest her from the cruel fate which her pitiless enemies had +devised for her. She had clung to that hope throughout that dreary +journey from dear England to this abominable city. She had clung to it +even whilst her father knelt at her feet in an agony of remorse. She had +clung to hope while Martin-Roget alternately coaxed and terrorised her, +while her father was dragged away from her, while she endured untold +misery, starvation, humiliation at the hands of Louise Adet: but +now--quite unaccountably--that hope seemed suddenly to have fled from +her, leaving her lonely and inexpressibly desolate. That small, +shrunken figure which, wrapped in a dark mantle, had stood in the corner +of the room watching her like a serpent watches its prey, had seemed +like the forerunner of the fate with which Martin-Roget, gloating over +her helplessness, had already threatened her. + +She knew, of course, that neither from him, nor from the callous brute +who governed Nantes, could she expect the slightest justice or mercy. +She had been brought here by Martin-Roget not only to die, but to suffer +grievously at his hands in return for a crime for which she personally +was in no way responsible. To hope for mercy from him at the eleventh +hour were worse than futile. Her already overburdened heart ached at +thought of her father: he suffered all that she suffered, and in +addition he must be tortured with anxiety for her and with remorse. +Sometimes she was afraid that under the stress of desperate soul-agony +he might perhaps have been led to suicide. She knew nothing of what had +happened to him, where he was, nor whether privations and lack of food +or sleep, together with Martin-Roget's threats, had by now weakened his +morale and turned his pride into humiliating submission. + + +II + +A distant tower-clock struck the evening hours one after the other. +Yvonne for the past three days had only been vaguely conscious of time. +Martin-Roget had spoken of a few hours' respite only, of the proconsul's +desire to be soon rid of her. Well! this meant no doubt that the morrow +would see the end of it all--the end of her life which such a brief +while ago seemed so full of delight, of love and of happiness. + +The end of her life! She had hardly begun to live and her dear milor had +whispered to her such sweet promises of endless vistas of bliss. + +Yvonne shivered beneath her thin gown. The north-westerly blast came in +cruel gusts through the unglazed window and a vague instinct of +self-preservation caused Yvonne to seek shelter in the one corner of the +room where the icy draught did not penetrate quite so freely. + +Eight, nine and ten struck from the tower-clock far away: she heard +these sounds as in a dream. Tired, cold and hungry her vitality at that +moment was at its lowest ebb--and, with her back resting against the +wall she fell presently into a torpor-like sleep. + +Suddenly something roused her, and in an instant she sat up--wide-awake +and wide-eyed, every one of her senses conscious and on the alert. +Something had roused her--at first she could not say what it was--or +remember. Then presently individual sounds detached themselves from the +buzzing in her ears. Hitherto the house had always been so still; except +on the isolated occasions when Martin-Roget had come to visit her and +his heavy tread had caused every loose board in the tumble-down house to +creak, it was only Louise Adet's shuffling footsteps which had roused +the dormant echoes, when she crept upstairs either to her own room, or +to throw a piece of stale bread to her prisoner. + +But now--it was neither Martin-Roget's heavy footfall nor the shuffling +gait of Louise Adet which had roused Yvonne from her trance-like sleep. +It was a gentle, soft, creeping step which was slowly, cautiously +mounting the stairs. Yvonne crouching against the wall could count every +tread--now and then a board creaked--now and then the footsteps halted. + +Yvonne, wide-eyed, her heart stirred by a nameless terror was watching +the door. + +The piece of tallow-candle flickered in the draught. Its feeble light +just touched the remote corner of the room. And Yvonne heard those soft, +creeping footsteps as they reached the landing and came to a halt +outside the door. + +Every drop of blood in her seemed to be frozen by terror: her knees +shook: her heart almost stopped its beating. + +Under the door something small and white had just been introduced--a +scrap of paper; and there it remained--white against the darkness of the +unwashed boards--a mysterious message left here by an unknown hand, +whilst the unknown footsteps softly crept down the stairs again. + +For awhile longer Yvonne remained as she was--cowering against the +wall--like a timid little animal, fearful lest that innocent-looking +object hid some unthought-of danger. Then at last she gathered courage. +Trembling with excitement she raised herself to her knees and then on +hands and knees--for she was very weak and faint--she crawled up to that +mysterious piece of paper and picked it up. + +Her trembling hand closed over it. With wide staring terror-filled eyes +she looked all round the narrow room, ere she dared cast one more glance +on that mysterious scrap of paper. Then she struggled to her feet and +tottered up to the table. She sat down and with fingers numbed with cold +she smoothed out the paper and held it close to the light, trying to +read what was written on it. + +Her sight was blurred. She had to pull herself resolutely together, for +suddenly she felt ashamed of her weakness and her overwhelming terror +yielded to feverish excitement. + +The scrap of paper contained a message--a message addressed to her in +that name of which she was so proud--the name which she thought she +would never be allowed to bear again: Lady Anthony Dewhurst. She +reiterated the words several times, her lips clinging lovingly to +them--and just below them there was a small device, drawn in red ink ... +a tiny flower with five petals.... + +Yvonne frowned and murmured, vaguely puzzled--no longer frightened now: +"A flower ... drawn in red ... what can it mean?" + +And as a vague memory struggled for expression in her troubled mind she +added half aloud: "Oh! if it should be ...!" + +But now suddenly all her fears fell away from her. Hope was once more +knocking at the gates of her heart--vague memories had taken definite +shape ... the mysterious letter ... the message of hope ... the red +flower ... all were gaining significance. She stooped low to read the +letter by the feeble light of the flickering candle. She read it through +with her eyes first--then with her lips in a soft murmur, while her mind +gradually took in all that it meant for her. + + "Keep up your courage. Your friends are inside the city and on the + watch. Try the door of your prison every evening at one hour before + midnight. Once you will find it yield. Slip out and creep + noiselessly down the stairs. At the bottom a friendly hand will be + stretched out for you. Take it with confidence--it will lead you to + safety and to freedom. Courage and secrecy." + +When she had finished reading, her eyes were swimming in tears. There +was no longer any doubt in her mind about the message now, for her dear +milor had so often spoken to her about the brave Scarlet Pimpernel who +had risked his precious life many a time ere this, in order to render +service to the innocent and the oppressed. And now, of a surety, this +message came from him: from her dear milor and from his gallant chief. +There was the small device--the little red flower which had so often +brought hope to despairing hearts. And it was more than hope that it +brought to Yvonne. It brought certitude and happiness, and a sweet, +tender remorse that she should ever have doubted. She ought to have +known all along that everything would be for the best: she had no right +ever to have given way to despair. In her heart she prayed for +forgiveness from her dear absent milor. + +How could she ever doubt him? Was it likely that he would abandon +her?--he and that brave friend of his whose powers were indeed magical. +Why! she ought to have done her best to keep up her physical as well as +her mental faculties--who knows? But perhaps physical strength might be +of inestimable value both to herself and to her gallant rescuers +presently. + +She took up the stale brown bread and ate it resolutely. She drank some +water and then stamped round the room to get some warmth into her limbs. + +A distant clock had struck ten awhile ago--and if possible she ought to +get an hour's rest before the time came for her to be strong and to act: +so she shook up her meagre straw paillasse and lay down, determined if +possible to get a little sleep--for indeed she felt that that was just +what her dear milor would have wished her to do. + +Thus time went by--waking or dreaming, Yvonne could never afterwards +have said in what state she waited during that one long hour which +separated her from the great, blissful moment. The bit of candle burnt +low and presently died out. After that Yvonne remained quite still upon +the straw, in total darkness: no light came in through the tiny window, +only the cold north-westerly wind blew in in gusts. But of a surety the +prisoner who was within sight of freedom felt neither cold nor fatigue +now. + +The tower-clock in the distance struck the quarters with dreary +monotony. + + +III + +The last stroke of eleven ceased to vibrate through the stillness of the +winter's night. + +Yvonne roused herself from the torpor-like state into which she had +fallen. She tried to struggle to her feet, but intensity of excitement +had caused a strange numbness to invade her limbs. She could hardly +move. A second or two ago it had seemed to her that she heard a gentle +scraping noise at the door--a drawing of bolts--the grating of a key in +the lock--then again, soft, shuffling footsteps that came and went and +that were not those of Louise Adet. + +At last Yvonne contrived to stand on her feet; but she had to close her +eyes and to remain quite still for awhile after that, for her ears were +buzzing and her head swimming: she thought that she must fall if she +moved and mayhap lose consciousness. + +But this state of weakness only lasted a few seconds: the next she had +groped her way to the door and her hand had found the iron latch. It +yielded. Then she waited, calling up all her strength--for the hour had +come wherein she must not only think and act for herself, but think of +every possibility which might occur, and act as she imagined her dear +lord would require it of her. + +She pressed the clumsy iron latch further: it yielded again, and anon +she was able to push open the door. + +Excited yet confident she tip-toed out of the room. The darkness--like +unto pitch--was terribly disconcerting. With the exception of her narrow +prison Yvonne had only once seen the interior of the house and that was +when, half fainting, she had been dragged across its threshold and up +the stairs. She had therefore only a very vague idea as to where the +stairs lay and how she was to get about without stumbling. + +Slowly and cautiously she crept a few paces forward, then she turned and +carefully closed the door behind her. There was not a sound inside the +house: everything was silent around her: neither footfall nor +whisperings reached her straining ears. She felt about her with her +hands, she crouched down on her knees: anon she discovered the head of +the stairs. + +Then suddenly she drew back, like a frightened hare conscious of danger. +All the blood rushed back to her heart, making it beat so violently that +she once more felt sick and faint. A sound--gentle as a breath--had +broken that absolute and dead silence which up to now had given her +confidence. She felt suddenly that she was no longer alone in the +darkness--that somewhere close by there was some one--friend or foe--who +was lying in watch for her--that somewhere in the darkness something +moved and breathed. + +The crackling of the paper inside her kerchief served to remind her that +her dear milor was on the watch and that the blessed message had spoken +of a friendly hand which would be stretched out to her and which she was +enjoined to take with confidence. Reassured she crept on again, and anon +a softly murmured: "Hush--sh!--sh!--" reached her ear. It seemed to +come from down below--not very far--and Yvonne, having once more located +the head of the stairs with her hands, began slowly to creep +downstairs--softly as a mouse--step by step--but every time that a board +creaked she paused, terrified, listening for Louise Adet's heavy +footstep, for a sound that would mean the near approach of danger. + +"Hush--sh--sh" came again as a gentle murmur from below and the +something that moved and breathed in the darkness seemed to draw nearer +to Yvonne. + +A few more seconds of soul-racking suspense, a few more steps down the +creaking stairs and she felt a strong hand laid upon her wrist and heard +a muffled voice whisper in English: + +"All is well! Trust me! Follow me!" + +She did not recognise the voice, even though there was something vaguely +familiar in its intonation. Yvonne did not pause to conjecture: she had +been made happy by the very sound of the language which stood to her for +every word of love she had ever heard: it restored her courage and her +confidence in their fullest measure. + +Obeying the whispered command, Yvonne was content now to follow her +mysterious guide who had hold of her hand. The stairs were steep and +winding--at a turn she perceived a feeble light at their foot down +below. Up against this feeble light the form of her guide was +silhouetted in a broad, dark mass. Yvonne could see nothing of him +beyond the square outline of his shoulders and that of his sugar-loaf +hat. Her mind now was thrilled with excitement and her fingers closed +almost convulsively round his hand. He led her across Louise Adet's back +kitchen. It was from here that the feeble light came--from a small oil +lamp which stood on the centre table. It helped to guide Yvonne and her +mysterious friend to the bottom of the stairs, then across the kitchen +to the front door, where again complete darkness reigned. But soon +Yvonne--who was following blindly whithersoever she was led--heard the +click of a latch and the grating of a door upon its hinges: a cold +current of air caught her straight in the face. She could see nothing, +for it seemed to be as dark out of doors as in: but she had the +sensation of that open door, of a threshold to cross, of freedom and +happiness beckoning to her straight out of the gloom. Within the next +second or two she would be out of this terrible place, its squalid and +dank walls would be behind her. On ahead in that thrice welcome +obscurity her dear milor and his powerful friend were beckoning to her +to come boldly on--their protecting arms were already stretched out for +her; it seemed to her excited fancy as if the cold night-wind brought to +her ears the echo of their endearing words. + +She filled her lungs with the keen winter air: hope, happiness, +excitement thrilled her every nerve. + +"A short walk, my lady," whispered the guide, still speaking in English; +"you are not cold?" + +"No, no, I am not cold," she whispered in reply. "I am conscious of +nothing save that I am free." + +"And you are not afraid?" + +"Indeed, indeed I am not afraid," she murmured fervently. "May God +reward you, sir, for what you do." + +Again there had been that certain something--vaguely familiar--in the +way the man spoke which for the moment piqued Yvonne's curiosity. She +did not, of a truth, know English well enough to detect the very obvious +foreign intonation; she only felt that sometime in the dim and happy +past she had heard this man speak. But even this vague sense of +puzzlement she dismissed very quickly from her mind. Was she not taking +everything on trust? Indeed hope and confidence had a very firm hold on +her at last. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE RAT MORT + + +I + +The guide had stepped out of the house into the street, Yvonne following +closely on his heels. The night was very dark and the narrow little +Carrefour de la Poissonnerie very sparsely lighted. Somewhere overhead +on the right, something groaned and creaked persistently in the wind. A +little further on a street lanthorn was swinging aloft, throwing a small +circle of dim, yellowish light on the unpaved street below. By its +fitful glimmer Yvonne could vaguely perceive the tall figure of her +guide as he stepped out with noiseless yet firm tread, his shoulder +brushing against the side of the nearest house as he kept closely within +the shadow of its high wall. The sight of his broad back thrilled her. +She had fallen to imagining whether this was not perchance that gallant +and all-powerful Scarlet Pimpernel himself: the mysterious friend of +whom her dear milor so often spoke with an admiration that was akin to +worship. He too was probably tall and broad--for English gentlemen were +usually built that way; and Yvonne's over-excited mind went galloping on +the wings of fancy, and in her heart she felt that she was glad that she +had suffered so much, and then lived through such a glorious moment as +this. + +Now from the narrow unpaved yard in front of the house the guide turned +sharply to the right. Yvonne could only distinguish outlines. The +streets of Nantes were familiar to her, and she knew pretty well where +she was. The lanthorn inside the clock tower of Le Bouffay guided +her--it was now on her right--the house wherein she had been kept a +prisoner these past three days was built against the walls of the great +prison house. She knew that she was in the Carrefour de la Poissonnerie. + +She felt neither fatigue nor cold, for she was wildly excited. The keen +north-westerly wind searched all the weak places in her worn clothing +and her thin shoes were wet through. But her courage up to this point +had never once forsaken her. Hope and the feeling of freedom gave her +marvellous strength, and when her guide paused a moment ere he turned +the angle of the high wall and whispered hurriedly: "You have courage, +my lady?" she was able to answer serenely: "In plenty, sir." + +She tried to peer into the darkness in order to realise whither she was +being led. The guide had come to a halt in front of the house which was +next to that of Louise Adet: it projected several feet in front of the +latter: the thing that had creaked so weirdly in the wind turned out to +be a painted sign, which swung out from an iron bracket fixed into the +wall. Yvonne could not read the writing on the sign, but she noticed +that just above it there was a small window dimly lighted from within. + +What sort of a house it was Yvonne could not, of course, see. The +frontage was dark save for narrow streaks of light which peeped through +the interstices of the door and through the chinks of ill-fastened +shutters on either side. Not a sound came from within, but now that the +guide had come to a halt it seemed to Yvonne--whose nerves and senses +had become preternaturally acute--that the whole air around her was +filled with muffled sounds, and when she stood still and strained her +ears to listen she was conscious right through the inky blackness of +vague forms--shapeless and silent--that glided past her in the gloom. + + +II + +"Your friends will meet you here," the guide whispered as he pointed to +the door of the house in front of him. "The door is on the latch. Push +it open and walk in boldly. Then gather up all your courage, for you +will find yourself in the company of poor people, whose manners are +somewhat rougher than those to which you have been accustomed. But +though the people are uncouth, you will find them kind. Above all you +will find that they will pay no heed to you. So I entreat you do not be +afraid. Your friends would have arranged for a more refined place +wherein to come and find you, but as you may well imagine they had no +choice." + +"I quite understand, sir," said Yvonne quietly, "and I am not afraid." + +"Ah! that's brave!" he rejoined. "Then do as I tell you. I give you my +word that inside that house you will be perfectly safe until such time +as your friends are able to get to you. You may have to wait an hour, or +even two; you must have patience. Find a quiet place in one of the +corners of the room and sit there quietly, taking no notice of what goes +on around you. You will be quite safe, and the arrival of your friends +is only a question of time." + +"My friends, sir?" she said earnestly, and her voice shook slightly as +she spoke, "are you not one of the most devoted friends I can ever hope +to have? I cannot find the words now wherewith to thank you, but...." + +"I pray you do not thank me," he broke in gruffly, "and do not waste +time in parleying. The open street is none too safe a place for you just +now. The house is." + +His hand was on the latch and he was about to push open the door, when +Yvonne stopped him with a word. + +"My father?" she whispered with passionate entreaty. "Will you help him +too?" + +"M. le duc de Kernogan is as safe as you are, my lady," he replied. "He +will join you anon. I pray you have no fears for him. Your friends are +caring for him in the same way as they care for you." + +"Then I shall see him ... soon?" + +"Very soon. And in the meanwhile," he added, "I pray you to sit quite +still and to wait events ... despite anything you may see or hear. Your +father's safety and your own--not to speak of that of your +friends--hangs on your quiescence, your silence, your obedience." + +"I will remember, sir," rejoined Yvonne quietly. "I in my turn entreat +you to have no fears for me." + +Even while she said this, the man pushed the door open. + + +III + +Yvonne had meant to be brave. Above all she had meant to be obedient. +But even so, she could not help recoiling at sight of the place where +she had just been told she must wait patiently and silently for an hour, +or even two. + +The room into which her guide now gently urged her forward was large and +low, only dimly lighted by an oil-lamp which hung from the ceiling and +emitted a thin stream of black smoke and evil smell. Such air as there +was, was foul and reeked of the fumes of alcohol and charcoal, of the +smoking lamp and of rancid grease. The walls had no doubt been +whitewashed once, now they were of a dull greyish tint, with here and +there hideous stains of red or the marks of a set of greasy fingers. The +plaster was hanging in strips and lumps from the ceiling; it had fallen +away in patches from the walls where it displayed the skeleton laths +beneath. There were two doors in the wall immediately facing the front +entrance, and on each side of the latter there was a small window, both +insecurely shuttered. To Yvonne the whole place appeared unspeakably +squalid and noisome. Even as she entered her ears caught the sound of +hideous muttered blasphemy, followed by quickly suppressed hoarse and +mirthless laughter and the piteous cry of an infant at the breast. + +There were perhaps sixteen to twenty people in the room--amongst them a +goodly number of women, some of whom had tiny, miserable atoms of +humanity clinging to their ragged skirts. A group of men in tattered +shirts, bare shins and sabots stood in the centre of the room and had +apparently been in conclave when the entrance of Yvonne and her guide +caused them to turn quickly to the door and to scan the new-comers with +a furtive, suspicious look which would have been pathetic had it not +been so full of evil intent. The muttered blasphemy had come from this +group; one or two of the men spat upon the ground in the direction of +the door, where Yvonne instinctively had remained rooted to the spot. + +As for the women, they only betrayed their sex by the ragged clothes +which they wore: there was not a face here which had on it a single line +of softness or of gentleness: they might have been old women or young: +their hair was of a uniform, nondescript colour, lank and unkempt, +hanging in thin strands over their brows; their eyes were sunken, their +cheeks either flaccid or haggard--there was no individuality amongst +them--just one uniform sisterhood of wretchedness which had already +gone hand in hand with crime. + +Across one angle of the room there was a high wooden counter like a bar, +on which stood a number of jugs and bottles, some chunks of bread and +pieces of cheese, and a collection of pewter mugs. An old man and a fat, +coarse-featured, middle-aged woman stood behind it and dispensed various +noxious-looking liquors. Above their heads upon the grimy, tumble-down +wall the Republican device "Liberté! Egalité! Fraternité!" was scrawled +in charcoal in huge characters, and below it was scribbled the hideous +doggrel which an impious mind had fashioned last autumn on the subject +of the martyred Queen. + + +IV + +Yvonne had closed her eyes for a moment as she entered; now she turned +appealingly toward her guide. + +"Must it be in here?" she asked. + +"I am afraid it must," he replied with a sigh. "You told me that you +would be brave." + +She pulled herself together resolutely. "I will be brave," she said +quietly. + +"Ah! that's better," he rejoined. "I give you my word that you will be +absolutely safe in here until such time as your friends can get to you. +I entreat you to gather up your courage. I assure you that these +wretched people are not unkind: misery--not unlike that which you +yourself have endured--has made them what they are. No doubt we should +have arranged for a better place for you wherein to await your friends +if we had the choice. But you will understand that your safety and our +own had to be our paramount consideration, and we had no choice." + +"I quite understand, sir," said Yvonne valiantly, "and am already +ashamed of my fears." + +And without another word of protest she stepped boldly into the room. + +For a moment or two the guide remained standing on the threshold, +watching Yvonne's progress. She had already perceived an empty bench in +the furthest angle of the room, up against the door opposite, where she +hoped or believed that she could remain unmolested while she waited +patiently and in silence as she had been ordered to do. She skirted the +groups of men in the centre of the room as she went, but even so she +felt more than she heard that muttered insults accompanied the furtive +and glowering looks wherewith she was regarded. More than one wretch +spat upon her skirts on the way. + +But now she was in no sense frightened, only wildly excited; even her +feeling of horror she contrived to conquer. The knowledge that her own +attitude, and above all her obedience, would help her gallant rescuers +in their work gave her enduring strength. She felt quite confident that +within an hour or two she would be in the arms of her dear milor who had +risked his life in order to come to her. It was indeed well worth while +to have suffered as she had done, to endure all that she might yet have +to endure, for the sake of the happiness which was in store for her. + +She turned to give a last look at her guide--a look which was intended +to reassure him completely as to her courage and her obedience: but +already he had gone and had closed the door behind him, and quite +against her will the sudden sense of loneliness and helplessness +clutched at her heart with a grip that made it ache. She wished that she +had succeeded in catching sight of the face of so valiant a friend: the +fact that she was safely out of Louise Adet's vengeful clutches was due +to the man who had just disappeared behind that door. It would be thanks +to him presently if she saw her father again. Yvonne felt more convinced +than ever that he was the Scarlet Pimpernel--milor's friend--who kept +his valiant personality a mystery, even to those who owed their lives to +him. She had seen the outline of his broad figure, she had felt the +touch of his hand. Would she recognise these again when she met him in +England in the happy days that were to come? In any case she thought +that she would recognise the voice and the manner of speaking, so unlike +that of any English gentleman she had known. + + +V + +The man who had so mysteriously led Yvonne de Kernogan from the house of +Louise Adet to the Rat Mort, turned away from the door of the tavern as +soon as it had closed on the young girl, and started to go back the way +he came. + +At the angle formed by the high wall of the tavern he paused; a moving +form had detached itself from the surrounding gloom and hailed him with +a cautious whisper. + +"Hist! citizen Martin-Roget, is that you?" + +"Yes." + +"Everything just as we anticipated?" + +"Everything." + +"And the wench safely inside?" + +"Quite safely." + +The other gave a low cackle, which might have been intended for a laugh. + +"The simplest means," he said, "are always the best." + +"She never suspected me. It was all perfectly simple. You are a +magician, citizen Chauvelin," added Martin-Roget grudgingly. "I never +would have thought of such a clever ruse." + +"You see," rejoined Chauvelin drily, "I graduated in the school of a +master of all ruses--a master of daring and a past master in the art of +mimicry. And hope was our great ally--the hope that never forsakes a +prisoner--that of getting free. Your fair Yvonne had boundless faith in +the power of her English friends, therefore she fell into our trap like +a bird." + +"And like a bird she shall struggle in vain after this," said +Martin-Roget slowly. "Oh! that I could hasten the flight of time--the +next few minutes will hang on me like hours. And I wish too it were not +so bitterly cold," he added with a curse; "this north-westerly wind has +got into my bones." + +"On to your nerves, I imagine, citizen," retorted Chauvelin with a +laugh; "for my part I feel as warm and comfortable as on a lovely day in +June." + +"Hark! Who goes there?" broke in the other man abruptly, as a solitary +moving form detached itself from the surrounding inky blackness and the +sound of measured footsteps broke the silence of the night. + +"Quite in order, citizen!" was the prompt reply. + +The shadowy form came a step or two further forward. + +"Is it you, citizen Fleury?" queried Chauvelin. + +"Himself, citizen," replied the other. + +The men had spoken in a whisper. Fleury now placed his hand on +Chauvelin's arm. + +"We had best not stand so close to the tavern," he said, "the night +hawks are already about and we don't want to scare them." + +He led the others up the yard, then into a very narrow passage which lay +between Louise Adet's house and the Rat Mort and was bordered by the +high walls of the houses on either side. + +"This is a blind alley," he whispered. "We have the wall of Le Bouffay +in front of us: the wall of the Rat Mort is on one side and the house of +the citizeness Adet on the other. We can talk here undisturbed." + +Overhead there was a tiny window dimly lighted from within. Chauvelin +pointed up to it. + +"What is that?" he asked. + +"An aperture too small for any human being to pass through," replied +Fleury drily. "It gives on a small landing at the foot of the stairs. I +told Friche to try and manoeuvre so that the wench and her father are +pushed in there out of the way while the worst of the fracas is going +on. That was your suggestion, citizen Chauvelin." + +"It was. I was afraid the two aristos might get spirited away while your +men were tackling the crowd in the tap-room. I wanted them put away in a +safe place." + +"The staircase is safe enough," rejoined Fleury; "it has no egress save +that on the tap-room and only leads to the upper story and the attic. +The house has no back entrance--it is built against the wall of Le +Bouffay." + +"And what about your Marats, citizen commandant?" + +"Oh! I have them all along the street--entirely under cover but closely +on the watch--half a company and all keen after the game. The thousand +francs you promised them has stimulated their zeal most marvellously, +and as soon as Paul Friche in there has whipped up the tempers of the +frequenters of the Rat Mort, we shall be ready to rush the place and I +assure you, citizen Chauvelin, that only a disembodied ghost--if there +be one in the place--will succeed in evading arrest." + +"Is Paul Friche already at his post then?" + +"And at work--or I'm much mistaken," replied Fleury as he suddenly +gripped Chauvelin by the arm. + +For just at this moment the silence of the winter's night was broken by +loud cries which came from the interior of the Rat Mort--voices were +raised to hoarse and raucous cries--men and women all appeared to be +shrieking together, and presently there was a loud crash as of +overturned furniture and broken glass. + +"A few minutes longer, citizen Fleury," said Chauvelin, as the +commandant of the Marats turned on his heel and started to go back to +the Carrefour de la Poissonnerie. + +"Oh yes!" whispered the latter, "we'll wait awhile longer to give the +Englishmen time to arrive on the scene. The coast is clear for them--my +Marats are hidden from sight behind the doorways and shop-fronts of the +houses opposite. In about three minutes from now I'll send them +forward." + +"And good luck to your hunting, citizen," whispered Chauvelin in +response. + +Fleury very quickly disappeared in the darkness and the other two men +followed in his wake. They hugged the wall of the Rat Mort as they went +along and its shadow enveloped them completely: their shoes made no +sound on the unpaved ground. Chauvelin's nostrils quivered as he drew +the keen, cold air into his lungs and faced the north-westerly blast +which at this moment also lashed the face of his enemy. His keen eyes +tried to pierce the gloom, his ears were strained to hear that merry +peal of laughter which in the unforgettable past had been wont to +proclaim the presence of the reckless adventurer. He knew--he felt--as +certainly as he felt the air which he breathed, that the man whom he +hated beyond everything on earth was somewhere close by, wrapped in the +murkiness of the night--thinking, planning, intriguing, pitting his +sharp wits, his indomitable pluck, his impudent dare-devilry against the +sure and patient trap which had been set for him. + +Half a company of Marats in front--the walls of Le Bouffay in the rear! +Chauvelin rubbed his thin hands together! + +"You are not a disembodied ghost, my fine Scarlet Pimpernel," he +murmured, "and this time I really think----" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE FRACAS IN THE TAVERN + + +I + +Yvonne had settled herself in a corner of the tap-room on a bench and +had tried to lose consciousness of her surroundings. + +It was not easy! Glances charged with rancour were levelled at her +dainty appearance--dainty and refined despite the look of starvation and +of weariness on her face and the miserable state of her clothing--and +not a few muttered insults waited on those glances. + +As soon as she was seated Yvonne noticed that the old man and the +coarse, fat woman behind the bar started an animated conversation +together, of which she was very obviously the object, for the two +heads--the lean and the round--were jerked more than once in her +direction. Presently the man--it was George Lemoine, the proprietor of +the Rat Mort--came up to where she was sitting: his lank figure was bent +so that his lean back formed the best part of an arc, and an expression +of mock deference further distorted his ugly face. + +He came up quite close to Yvonne and she found it passing difficult not +to draw away from him, for the leer on his face was appalling: his eyes, +which were set very near to his hooked nose, had a horrible squint, his +lips were thick and moist, and his breath reeked of alcohol. + +"What will the noble lady deign to drink?" he now asked in an oily, +suave voice. + +And Yvonne, remembering the guide's admonitions, contrived to smile +unconcernedly into the hideous face. + +"I would very much like some wine," she said cheerfully, "but I am +afraid that I have no money wherewith to pay you for it." + +The creature with a gesture of abject humility rubbed his greasy hands +together. + +"And may I respectfully ask," he queried blandly, "what are the +intentions of the noble lady in coming to this humble abode, if she hath +no desire to partake of refreshments?" + +"I am expecting friends," replied Yvonne bravely; "they will be here +very soon, and will gladly repay you lavishly for all the kindness which +you may be inclined to show to me the while." + +She was very brave indeed and looked this awful misshapen specimen of a +man quite boldly in the face: she even contrived to smile, though she +was well aware that a number of men and women--perhaps a dozen +altogether--had congregated in front of her in a compact group around +the landlord, that they were nudging one another and pointing +derisively--malevolently--at her. It was impossible, despite all +attempts at valour, to mistake the hostile attitude of these people. +Some of the most obscene words, coined during these last horrible days +of the Revolution, were freely hurled at her, and one woman suddenly +cried out in a shrill treble: + +"Throw her out, citizen Lemoine! We don't want spies in here!" + +"Indeed, indeed," said Yvonne as quietly as she could, "I am no spy. I +am poor and wreched like yourselves! and desperately lonely, save for +the kind friends who will meet me here anon." + +"Aristos like yourself!" growled one of the men. "This is no place for +you or for them." + +"No! No! This is no place for aristos," cried one of the women in a +voice which many excesses and many vices had rendered hoarse and rough. +"Spy or not, we don't want you in here. Do we?" she added as with arms +akimbo she turned to face those of her own sex, who behind the men had +come up in order to see what was going on. + +"Throw her out, Lemoine," reiterated a man who appeared to be an oracle +amongst the others. + +"Please! please let me stop here!" pleaded Yvonne; "if you turn me out I +shall not know what to do: I shall not know where to meet my +friends...." + +"Pretty story about those friends," broke in Lemoine roughly. "How do I +know if you're lying or not?" + +From the opposite angle of the room, the woman behind the bar had been +watching the little scene with eyes that glistened with cupidity. Now +she emerged from behind her stronghold of bottles and mugs and slowly +waddled across the room. She pushed her way unceremoniously past her +customers, elbowing men, women and children vigorously aside with a deft +play of her large, muscular arms. Having reached the forefront of the +little group she came to a standstill immediately in front of Yvonne, +and crossing her mighty arms over her ponderous chest she eyed the +"aristo" with unconcealed malignity. + +"We do know that the slut is lying--that is where you make the mistake, +Lemoine. A slut, that's what she is--and the friend whom she's going to +meet ...? Well!" she added, turning with an ugly leer toward the other +women, "we all know what sort of friend that one is likely to be, eh, +mesdames? Bringing evil fame on this house, that's what the wench is +after ... so as to bring the police about our ears ... I wouldn't trust +her, not another minute. Out with you and at once--do you hear?... this +instant ... Lemoine has parleyed quite long enough with you already!" + +Despite all her resolutions Yvonne was terribly frightened. While the +hideous old hag talked and screamed and waved her coarse, red arms +about, the unfortunate young girl with a great effort of will, kept +repeating to herself: "I am not frightened--I must not be frightened. He +assured me that these people would do me no harm...." But now when the +woman had ceased speaking there was a general murmur of: + +"Throw her out! Spy or aristo we don't want her here!" whilst some of +the men added significantly: "I am sure that she is one of Carrier's +spies and in league with his Marats! We shall have those devils in here +in a moment if we don't look out! Throw her out before she can signal to +the Marats!" + +Ugly faces charged with hatred and virulence were thrust threateningly +forward--one or two of the women were obviously looking forward to +joining in the scramble, when this "stuck-up wench" would presently be +hurled out into the street. + +"Now then, my girl, out you get," concluded the woman Lemoine, as with +an expressive gesture she proceeded to roll her sleeves higher up her +arm. She was about to lay her dirty hands on Yvonne, and the poor girl +was nearly sick with horror, when one of the men--a huge, coarse giant, +whose muscular torso, covered with grease and grime showed almost naked +through a ragged shirt which hung from his shoulders in strips--seized +the woman Lemoine by the arm and dragged her back a step or two away +from Yvonne. + +"Don't be a fool, _petite mère_," he said, accompanying this admonition +with a blasphemous oath. "Slut or no, the wench may as well pay you +something for the privilege of staying here. Look at that cloak she's +wearing--the shoe-leather on her feet. Aren't they worth a bottle of +your sour wine?" + +"What's that to you, Paul Friche?" retorted the woman roughly, as with a +vigorous gesture she freed her arm from the man's grasp. "Is this my +house or yours?" + +"Yours, of course," replied the man with a coarse laugh and a still +coarser jest, "but this won't be the first time that I have saved you +from impulsive folly. Yesterday you were for harbouring a couple of +rogues who were Marats in disguise: if I hadn't given you warning, you +would now have swallowed more water from the Loire than you would care +to hold. But for me two days ago you would have received the goods +pinched by Ferté out of Balaze's shop, and been thrown to the fishes in +consequence for the entertainment of the proconsul and his friends. You +must admit that I've been a good friend to you before now." + +"And if you have, Paul Friche," retorted the hag obstinately, "I paid +you well for your friendship, both yesterday and the day before, didn't +I?" + +"You did," assented Friche imperturbably. "That's why I want to serve +you again to-night." + +"Don't listen to him, _petite mère_," interposed one of two out of the +crowd. "He is a white-livered skunk to talk to you like that." + +"Very well! Very well!" quoth Paul Friche, and he spat vigorously on the +ground in token that henceforth he divested himself from any +responsibility in this matter, "don't listen to me. Lose a benefit of +twenty, perhaps forty francs for the sake of a bit of fun. Very well! +Very well!" he continued as he turned and slouched out of the group to +the further end of the room, where he sat down on a barrel. He drew the +stump of a clay pipe out of the pocket of his breeches, stuffed it into +his mouth, stretched his long legs out before him and sucked away at his +pipe with complacent detachment. "I didn't know," he added with biting +sarcasm by way of a parting shot, "that you and Lemoine had come into a +fortune recently and that forty or fifty francs are nothing to you now." + +"Forty or fifty? Come! come!" protested Lemoine feebly. + + +II + +Yvonne's fate was hanging in the balance. The attitude of the small +crowd was no less threatening than before, but immediate action was +withheld while the Lemoines obviously debated in their minds what was +best to be done. The instinct to "have at" an aristo with all the +accumulated hatred of many generations was warring with the innate +rapacity of the Breton peasant. + +"Forty or fifty?" reiterated Paul Friche emphatically. "Can't you see +that the wench is an aristo escaped out of Le Bouffay or the entrepôt?" +he added contemptuously. + +"I know that she is an aristo," said the woman, "that's why I want to +throw her out." + +"And get nothing for your pains," retorted Friche roughly. "If you wait +for her friends we may all of us get as much as twenty francs each to +hold our tongues." + +"Twenty francs each...." The murmur was repeated with many a sigh of +savage gluttony, by every one in the room--and repeated again and +again--especially by the women. + +"You are a fool, Paul Friche ..." commented Lemoine. + +"A fool am I?" retorted the giant. "Then let me tell you, that 'tis you +who are a fool and worse. I happen to know," he added, as he once more +rose and rejoined the group in the centre of the room, "I happen to know +that you and every one here is heading straight for a trap arranged by +the Committee of Public Safety, whose chief emissary came into Nantes +awhile ago and is named Chauvelin. It is a trap which will land you all +in the criminal dock first and on the way to Cayenne or the guillotine +afterwards. This place is surrounded with Marats, and orders have been +issued to them to make a descent on this place, as soon as papa +Lemoine's customers are assembled. There are two members of the accursed +company amongst us at the present moment...." + +He was standing right in the middle of the room, immediately beneath the +hanging lamp. At his words--spoken with such firm confidence, as one who +knows and is therefore empowered to speak--a sudden change came over the +spirit of the whole assembly. Everything was forgotten in the face of +this new danger--two Marats, the sleuth-hounds of the proconsul--here +present, as spies and as informants! Every face became more +haggard--every cheek more livid. There was a quick and furtive scurrying +toward the front door. + +"Two Marats here?" shouted one man, who was bolder than the rest. "Where +are they?" + +Paul Friche, who towered above his friends, stood at this moment quite +close to a small man, dressed like the others in ragged breeches and +shirt, and wearing the broad-brimmed hat usually affected by the Breton +peasantry. + +"Two Marats? Two spies?" screeched a woman. "Where are they?" + +"Here is one," replied Paul Friche with a loud laugh: and with his large +grimy hand he lifted the hat from his neighbour's head and threw it on +the ground; "and there," he added as with long, bony finger he pointed +to the front door, where another man--a square-built youngster with +tow-coloured hair somewhat resembling a shaggy dog--was endeavouring to +effect a surreptitious exit, "there is the other; and he is on the point +of slipping quietly away in order to report to his captain what he has +seen and heard at the Rat Mort. One moment, citizen," he added, and with +a couple of giant strides he too had reached the door; his large rough +hand had come down heavily on the shoulder of the youth with the +tow-coloured hair, and had forced him to veer round and to face the +angry, gesticulating crowd. + +"Two Marats! Two spies!" shouted the men. "Now we'll soon settle their +little business for them!" + +"Marat yourself," cried the small man who had first been denounced by +Friche. "I am no Marat, as a good many of you here know. Maman Lemoine," +he added pleading, "you know me. Am I a Marat?" + +But the Lemoines--man and wife--at the first suggestion of police had +turned a deaf ear to all their customers. Their own safety being in +jeopardy they cared little what happened to anybody else. They had +retired behind their counter and were in close consultation together, no +doubt as to the best means of escape if indeed the man Paul Friche spoke +the truth. + +"I know nothing about him," the woman was saying, "but he certainly was +right last night about those two men who came ferreting in here--and +last week too...." + +"Am I a Marat, maman Lemoine?" shouted the small man as he hammered his +fists upon the counter. "For ten years and more I have been a customer +in this place and...." + +"Am I a Marat?" shouted the youth with the tow-coloured hair addressing +the assembly indiscriminately. "Some of you here know me well enough. +Jean Paul, you know--Ledouble, you too...." + +"Of course! Of course I know you well enough, Jacques Leroux," came with +a loud laugh from one of the crowd. "Who said you were a Marat?" + +"Am I a Marat, maman Lemoine?" reiterated the small man at the counter. + +"Oh! leave me alone with your quarrels," shouted the woman Lemoine in +reply. "Settle them among yourselves." + +"Then if Jacques Leroux is not a Marat," now came in a bibulous voice +from a distant comer of the room, "and this compeer here is known to +maman Lemoine, where are the real Marats who according to this fellow +Friche, whom we none of us know, are spying upon us?" + +"Yes! where are they?" suggested another. "Show 'em to us, Paul Friche, +or whatever your accursed name happens to be." + +"Tell us where you come from yourself," screamed the woman with the +shrill treble, "it seems to me quite possible that you're a Marat +yourself." + +This suggestion was at once taken up. + +"Marat yourself!" shouted the crowd, and the two men who a moment ago +had been accused of being spies in disguise shouted louder than the +rest: "Marat yourself!" + + +III + +After that, pandemonium reigned. + +The words "police" and "Marats" had aroused the terror of all these +night-hawks, who were wont to think themselves immune inside their lair: +and terror is at all times an evil counsellor. In the space of a few +seconds confusion held undisputed sway. Every one screamed, waved arms, +stamped feet, struck out with heavy bare fists at his nearest neighbour. +Every one's hand was against every one else. + +"Spy! Marat! Informer!" were the three words that detached themselves +most clearly from out the babel of vituperations freely hurled from end +to end of the room. + +The children screamed, the women's shrill or hoarse treble mingled with +the cries and imprecations of the men. + +Paul Friche had noted that the turn of the tide was against him, long +before the first naked fist had been brandished in his face. Agile as a +monkey he had pushed his way through to the bar, and placing his two +hands upon it, with a swift leap he had taken up a sitting position in +the very middle of the table amongst the jugs and bottles, which he +promptly seized and used as missiles and weapons, whilst with his +dangling feet encased in heavy sabots he kicked out vigorously and +unceasingly against the shins of his foremost assailants. + +He had the advantage of position and used it cleverly. In his right hand +he held a pewter mug by the handle and used it as a swivel against his +aggressors with great effect. + +"The Loire for you--you blackmailer! liar! traitor!" shouted some of the +women who, bolder than the men, thrust shaking fists at Paul Friche as +closely as that pewter mug would allow. + +"Break his jaw before he can yell for the police," admonished one of the +men from the rear, "before he can save his own skin." + +But those who shouted loudest had only their fists by way of weapon and +Paul Friche had mugs and bottles, and those sabots of his kicked out +with uncomfortable agility. + +"Break my jaw, will you," he shouted every time that a blow from the mug +went home, "a spy am I? Very well then, here's for you, Jacques Leroux; +go and nurse your cracked skull at home. You want a row," he added +hitting at a youth who brandished a heavy fist in his face, "well! you +shall have it and as much of it as you like! as much of it as will bring +the patrols of police comfortably about your ears." + +Bang! went the pewter mug crashing against a man's hard skull! Bang went +Paul Friche's naked fist against the chest of another. He was a hard +hitter and swift. + +The Lemoines from behind their bar shouted louder than the rest, doing +as much as their lungs would allow them in the way of admonishing, +entreating, protesting--cursing every one for a set of fools who were +playing straight into the hands of the police. + +"Now then! Now then, children, stop that bellowing, will you? There are +no spies here. Paul Friche was only having his little joke! We all know +one another, what?" + +"Camels!" added Lemoine more forcibly. "They'll bring the patrols about +our ears for sure." + +Paul Friche was not by any means the only man who was being vigorously +attacked. After the first two or three minutes of this kingdom of +pandemonium, it was difficult to say who was quarrelling with whom. Old +grudges were revived, old feuds taken up there, where they had +previously been interrupted. Accusations of spying were followed by +abuse for some past wrong of black-legging or cheating a confrère. The +temperature of the room became suffocating. All these violent passions +seething within these four walls seemed to become tangible and to mingle +with the atmosphere already surcharged with the fumes of alcohol, of +tobacco and of perspiring humanity. There was many a black-eye already, +many a contusion: more than one knife--surreptitiously drawn--was +already stained with red. + + +IV + +There was also a stampede for the door. One man gave the signal. Seeing +that his mates were wasting precious time by venting their wrath against +Paul Friche and then quarrelling among themselves, he hoped to effect an +escape ere the police came to stop the noise. No one believed in the +place being surrounded. Why should it be? The Marats were far too busy +hunting up rebels and aristos to trouble much about the Rat Mort and its +customers, but it was quite possible that a brawl would bring a patrol +along, and then 'ware the _police correctionnelle_ and the possibility +of deportation or worse. Retreat was undoubtedly safer while there was +time. One man first: then one or two more on his heels, and those among +the women who had children in their arms or clinging to their skirts: +they turned stealthily to the door--almost ashamed of their cowardice, +ashamed lest they were seen abandoning the field of combat. + +It was while confusion reigned unchecked that Yvonne--who was cowering, +frankly terrified at last, in the corner of the room, became aware that +the door close beside her--the door situated immediately opposite the +front entrance--was surreptitiously opened. She turned quickly to +look--for she was like a terror-stricken little animal now--one that +scents and feels and fears danger from every quarter round. The door was +being pushed open very slowly by what was still to Yvonne an unseen +hand. Somehow that opening door fascinated her: for the moment she +forgot the noise and the confusion around her. + +Then suddenly with a great effort of will she checked the scream which +had forced itself up to her throat. + +"Father!" was all that she contrived to say in a hoarse and passionate +murmur. + +Fortunately as he peered cautiously round the room, M. le duc caught +sight of his daughter. She was staring at him--wide-eyed, her lips +bloodless, her cheeks the colour of ashes. He looked but the ghost now +of that proud aristocrat who little more than a week ago was the centre +of a group of courtiers round the person of the heir to the English +throne. Starved, emaciated, livid, he was the shadow of his former self, +and there was a haunted look in his purple-rimmed eyes which spoke with +pathetic eloquence of sleepless nights and of a soul tortured with +remorse. + +Just for the moment no one took any notice of him--every one was +shrieking, every one was quarrelling, and M. le duc, placing a finger to +his lips, stole cautiously round to his daughter. The next instant they +were clinging to one another, these two, who had endured so much +together--he the father who had wrought such an unspeakable wrong, and +she the child who was so lonely, so forlorn and almost happy in finding +some one who belonged to her, some one to whom she could cling. + +"Father, dear! what shall we do?" Yvonne murmured, for she felt the last +shred of her fictitious courage oozing out of her, in face of this awful +lawlessness which literally paralysed her thinking faculties. + +"Sh! dear!" whispered M. le duc in reply. "We must get out of this +loathsome place while this hideous row is going on. I heard it all from +the filthy garret up above, where those devils have kept me these three +days. The door was not locked.... I crept downstairs.... No one is +paying heed to us.... We can creep out. Come." + +But at the suggestion, Yvonne's spirits, which had been stunned by the +events of the past few moments, revived with truly mercurial rapidity. + +"No! no! dear," she urged. "We must stay here.... You don't know.... I +have had a message--from my own dear milor--my husband ... he sent a +friend to take me out of the hideous prison where that awful Pierre Adet +was keeping me--a friend who assured me that my dear milor was watching +over me ... he brought me to this place--and begged me not to be +frightened ... but to wait patiently ... and I must wait, dear ... I +must wait!" + +She spoke rapidly in whispers and in short jerky sentences. M. le duc +listened to her wide-eyed, a deep line of puzzlement between his brows. +Sorrow, remorse, starvation, misery had in a measure numbed his mind. +The thought of help, of hope, of friends could not penetrate into his +brain. + +"A message," he murmured inanely, "a message. No! no! my girl, you must +trust no one.... Pierre Adet.... Pierre Adet is full of evil tricks--he +will trap you ... he means to destroy us both ... he has brought you +here so that you should be murdered by these ferocious devils." + +"Impossible, father dear," she said, still striving to speak bravely. +"We have both of us been all this while in the power of Pierre Adet; he +could have had no object in bringing me here to-night." + +But the father who had been an insentient tool in the schemes of that +miserable intriguer, who had been the means of bringing his only child +to this terrible and deadly pass--the man who had listened to the lying +counsels and proposals of his own most bitter enemy, could only groan +now in terror and in doubt. + +"Who can probe the depths of that abominable villain's plans?" he +murmured vaguely. + +In the meanwhile the little group who had thought prudence the better +part of valour had reached the door. The foremost man amongst them +opened it and peered cautiously out into the darkness. He turned back to +those behind him, put a finger to his lip and beckoned to them to follow +him in silence. + +"Yvonne, let us go!" whispered the duc, who had seized his daughter by +the hand. + +"But father...." + +"Let us go!" he reiterated pitiably. "I shall die if we stay here!" + +"It won't be for long, father dear," she entreated; "if milor should +come with his friend, and find us gone, we should be endangering his +life as well as our own." + +"I don't believe it," he rejoined with the obstinacy of weakness. "I +don't believe in your message ... how could milor or anyone come to your +rescue, my child?... No one knows that you are here, in this hell in +Nantes." + +Yvonne clung to him with the strength of despair. She too was as +terrified as any human creature could be and live, but terror had not +altogether swept away her belief in that mysterious message, in that +tall guide who had led her hither, in that scarlet device--the +five-petalled flower which stood for everything that was most gallant +and most brave. + +She desired with all her might to remain here--despite everything, +despite the awful brawl that was raging round her and which sickened +her, despite the horror of the whole thing--to remain here and to wait. +She put her arms round her father: she dragged him back every time that +he tried to move. But a sort of unnatural strength seemed to have +conquered his former debility. His attempts to get away became more and +more determined and more and more febrile. + +"Come, Yvonne! we must go!" he continued to murmur intermittently and +with ever-growing obstinacy. "No one will notice us.... I heard the +noise from my garret upstairs.... I crept down.... I knew no one would +notice me.... Come--we must go ... now is our time." + +"Father, dear, whither could we go? Once in the streets of Nantes what +would happen to us?" + +"We can find our way to the Loire!" he retorted almost brutally. He +shook himself free from her restraining arms and gripped her firmly by +the hand. He tried to drag her toward the door, whilst she still +struggled to keep him back. He had just caught sight of the group of men +and women at the front door: their leader was standing upon the +threshold and was still peering out into the darkness. + +But the next moment they all came to a halt: what their leader had +perceived through the darkness did not evidently quite satisfy him: he +turned and held a whispered consultation with the others. M. le duc +strove with all his might to join in with that group. He felt that in +its wake would lie the road to freedom. He would have struck Yvonne for +standing in the way of her own safety. + +"Father dear," she contrived finally to say to him, "if you go hence, +you will go alone. Nothing will move me from here, because I know that +milor will come." + +"Curse you for your obstinacy," retorted the duc, "you jeopardise my +life and yours." + +Then suddenly from the angle of the room where wrangling and fighting +were at their fiercest, there came a loud call: + +"Look out, père Lemoine, your aristos are running away. You are losing +your last chance of those fifty francs." + +It was Paul Friche who had shouted. His position on the table was giving +him a commanding view over the heads of the threatening, shouting, +perspiring crowd, and he had just caught sight of M. le duc dragging his +daughter by force toward the door. + +"The authors of all this pother," he added with an oath, "and they will +get away whilst we have the police about our ears." + +"Name of a name of a dog," swore Lemoine from behind his bar, "that +shall not be. Come along, maman, let us bring those aristos along here. +Quick now." + +It was all done in a second. Lemoine and his wife, with the weight and +authority of the masters of the establishment, contrived to elbow their +way through the crowd. The next moment Yvonne felt herself forcibly +dragged away from her father. + +"This way, my girl, and no screaming," a bibulous voice said in her ear, +"no screaming, or I'll smash some of those front teeth of yours. You +said some rich friends were coming along for you presently. Well then! +come and wait for them out of the crowd!" + +Indeed Yvonne had no desire to struggle or to scream. Salvation she +thought had come to her and to her father in this rough guise. In +another moment mayhap he would have forced her to follow him, to leave +milor in the lurch, to jeopardise for ever every chance of safety. + +"It is all for the best, father dear," she managed to cry out over her +shoulder, for she had just caught sight of him being seized round the +shoulders by Lemoine and heard him protesting loudly: + +"I'll not go! I'll not go! Let me go!" he shouted hoarsely. "My +daughter! Yvonne! Let me go! You devil!" + +But Lemoine had twice the vigour of the duc de Kernogan, nor did he care +one jot about the other's protests. He hated all this row inside his +house, but there had been rows in it before and he was beginning to hope +that nothing serious would come of it. On the other hand, Paul Friche +might be right about these aristos; there might be forty or fifty francs +to be made out of them, and in any case they had one or two things upon +their persons which might be worth a few francs--and who knows? they +might even have something in their pockets worth taking. + +This hope and thought gave Lemoine additional strength, and seeing that +the aristo struggled so desperately, he thought to silence him by +bringing his heavy fist with a crash upon the old man's head. + +"Yvonne! _A moi!_" shouted M. le duc ere he fell back senseless. + +That awful cry, Yvonne heard it as she was being dragged through the +noisome crowd. It mingled in her ear with the other awful sounds--the +oaths and blasphemies which filled the air with their hideousness. It +died away just as a formidable crash against the entrance door suddenly +silenced every cry within. + +"All hands up!" came with a peremptory word of command from the doorway. + +"Mercy on us!" murmured the woman Lemoine, who still had Yvonne by the +hand, "we are undone this time." + +There was a clatter and grounding of arms--a scurrying of bare feet and +sabots upon the floor, the mingled sounds of men trying to fly and being +caught in the act and hurled back: screams of terror from the women, one +or two pitiable calls, a few shrill cries from frightened children, a +few dull thuds as of human bodies falling.... It was all so confused, so +unspeakably horrible. Yvonne was hardly conscious. Near her some one +whispered hurriedly: + +"Put the aristos away somewhere, maman Lemoine ... the whole thing may +only be a scare ... the Marats may only be here about the aristos ... +they will probably leave you alone if you give them up ... perhaps +you'll get a reward.... Put them away till some of this row subsides ... +I'll talk to commandant Fleury if I can." + +Yvonne felt her knees giving way under her. There was nothing more to +hope for now--nothing. She felt herself lifted from the ground--she was +too sick and faint to realise what was happening: through the din which +filled her ears she vainly tried to distinguish her father's voice +again. + + +V + +A moment or two later she found herself squatting somewhere on the +ground. How she got here she did not know--where she was she knew still +less. She was in total darkness. A fusty, close smell of food and wine +gave her a wretched feeling of nausea--her head ached intolerably, her +eyes were hot, her throat dry: there was a constant buzzing in her +ears. + +The terrible sounds of fighting and screaming and cursing, the crash of +broken glass and overturned benches came to her as through a +partition--close by but muffled. + +In the immediate nearness all was silence and darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE ENGLISH ADVENTURERS + + +I + +It was with that muffled din still ringing in her ear and with the +conception of all that was going on, on the other side of the partition, +standing like an awesome spectre of evil before her mind, that Yvonne +woke to the consciousness that her father was dead. + +He lay along the last half-dozen steps of a narrow wooden staircase +which had its base in the narrow, cupboard-like landing on to which the +Lemoines had just thrust them both. Through a small heart-shaped hole +cut in the door of the partition-wall, a shaft of feeble light struck +straight across to the foot of the stairs: it lit up the recumbent +figure of the last of the ducs de Kernogan, killed in a brawl in a house +of evil fame. + +Weakened by starvation, by the hardships of the past few days, his +constitution undermined by privations and mayhap too by gnawing remorse, +he had succumbed to the stunning blow dealt to him by a half drunken +brute. His cry: "Yvonne! _A moi!_" was the last despairing call of a +soul racked with remorse to the daughter whom he had so cruelly wronged. + +When first that feeble shaft of light had revealed to her the presence +of that inert form upon the steps, she had struggled to her feet +and--dazed--had tottered up to it. Even before she had touched the face, +the hands, before she had bent her ear to the half-closed mouth and +failed to catch the slightest breath, she knew the full extent of her +misery. The look in the wide-open eyes did not terrify her, but they +told her the truth, and since then she had cowered beside her dead +father on the bottom step of the narrow stairs, her fingers tightly +closed over that one hand which never would be raised against her. + +An unspeakable sense of horror filled her soul. The thought that he--the +proud father, the haughty aristocrat, should lie like this and in such a +spot, dragged in and thrown down--no doubt by Lemoine--like a parcel of +rubbish and left here to be dragged away again and thrown again like a +dog into some unhallowed ground--that thought was so horrible, so +monstrous, that at first it dominated even sorrow. Then came the +heartrending sense of loneliness. Yvonne Dewhurst had endured so much +these past few days that awhile ago she would have affirmed that nothing +could appal her in the future. But this was indeed the awful and +overwhelming climax to what had already been a surfeit of misery. + +This! she, Yvonne, cowering beside her dead father, with no one to stand +between her and any insult, any outrage which might be put upon her, +with nothing now but a few laths between her and that yelling, +screeching mob outside. + +Oh! the loneliness! the utter, utter loneliness! + +She kissed the inert hand, the pale forehead: with gentle, reverent +fingers she tried to smooth out those lines of horror and of fear which +gave such a pitiful expression to the face. Of all the wrongs which her +father had done her she never thought for a moment. It was he who had +brought her to this terrible pass: he who had betrayed her into the +hands of her deadliest enemy: he who had torn her from the protecting +arms of her dear milor and flung her and himself at the mercy of a set +of inhuman wretches who knew neither compunction nor pity. + +But all this she forgot, as she knelt beside the lifeless form--the last +thing on earth that belonged to her--the last protection to which she +might have clung. + + +II + +Out of the confusion of sounds which came--deadened by the intervening +partition--to her ear, it was impossible to distinguish anything very +clearly. All that Yvonne could do, as soon as she had in a measure +collected her scattered senses, was to try and piece together the events +of the last few minutes--minutes which indeed seemed like days and even +years to her. + +Instinctively she gave to the inert hand which she held an additional +tender touch. At any rate her father was out of it all. He was at rest +and at peace. As for the rest, it was in God's hands. Having only +herself to think of now, she ceased to care what became of her. He was +out of it all: and those wretches after all could not do more than kill +her. A complete numbness of senses and of mind had succeeded the +feverish excitement of the past few hours: whether hope still survived +at this moment in Yvonne Dewhurst's mind it were impossible to say. +Certain it is that it lay dormant--buried beneath the overwhelming +misery of her loneliness. + +She took the fichu from her shoulders and laid it reverently over the +dead man's face: she folded the hands across the breast. She could not +cry: she could only pray, and that quite mechanically. + +The thought of her dear milor, of his clever friend, of the message +which she had received in prison, of the guide who had led her to this +awful place, was relegated--almost as a memory--in the furthermost cell +of her brain. + + +III + +But after awhile outraged nature, still full of vitality and of youth, +re-asserted itself. She felt numb and cold and struggled to her feet. +From somewhere close to her a continuous current of air indicated the +presence of some sort of window. Yvonne, faint with the close and sickly +smell, which even that current failed to disperse, felt her way all +round the walls of the narrow landing. + +The window was in the wall between the partition and the staircase, it +was small and quite low down. It was crossed with heavy iron bars. +Yvonne leaned up against it, grateful for the breath of pure air. + +For awhile yet she remained unconscious of everything save the confused +din which still went on inside the tavern, and at first the sounds which +came through the grated window mingled with those on the other side of +the partition. But gradually as she contrived to fill her lungs with the +cold breath of heaven, it seemed as if a curtain was being slowly drawn +away from her atrophied senses. + +Just below the window two men were speaking. She could hear them quite +distinctly now--and soon one of the voices--clearer than the +other--struck her ear with unmistakable familiarity. + +"I told Paul Friche to come out here and speak to me," Yvonne heard that +same voice say. + +"Then he should be here," replied the other, "and if I am not +mistaken...." + +There was a pause, and then the first voice was raised again. + +"Halt! Is that Paul Friche?" + +"At your service, citizen," came in reply. + +"Well! Is everything working smoothly inside?" + +"Quite smoothly; but your Englishmen are not there." + +"How do you know?" + +"Bah! I know most of the faces that are to be found inside the Rat Mort +at this hour: there are no strangers among them." + +The voice that had sounded so familiar to Yvonne was raised now in loud +and coarse laughter. + +"Name of a dog! I never for a moment thought that there were any +Englishmen about. Citizen Chauvelin was suffering from nightmare." + +"It is early yet," came in response from a gentle bland voice, "you must +have patience, citizen." + +"Patience? Bah!" ejaculated the other roughly. "As I told you before +'tis but little I care about your English spies. 'Tis the Kernogans I am +interested in. What have you done with them, citizen?" + +"I got that blundering fool Lemoine to lock them up on the landing at +the bottom of the stairs." + +"Is that safe?" + +"Absolutely. It has no egress save into the tap-room and up the stairs, +to the rooms above. Your English spies if they came now would have to +fly in and out of those top windows ere they could get to the aristos." + +"Then in Satan's name keep them there awhile," urged the more gentle, +insinuating voice, "until we can make sure of the English spies." + +"Tshaw! What foolery!" interjected the other, who appeared to be in a +towering passion. "Bring them out at once, citizen Friche ... bring +them out ... right into the middle of the rabble in the tap-room.... +Commandant Fleury is directing the perquisition--he is taking down the +names of all that cattle which he is arresting inside the premises--let +the ci-devant duc de Kernogan and his exquisite daughter figure among +the vilest cut-throats of Nantes." + +"Citizen, let me urge on you once more ..." came in earnest persuasive +accents from that gentle voice. + +"Nothing!" broke in the other savagely. "To h----ll with your English +spies. It is the Kernogans that I want." + +Yvonne, half-crazed with horror, had heard the whole of this abominable +conversation wherein she had not failed to recognise the voice of +Martin-Roget or Pierre-Adet, as she now knew him to be. Who the other +two men were she could easily conjecture. The soft bland voice she had +heard twice during these past few days, which had been so full of +misery, of terror and of surprise: once she had heard it on board the +ship which had taken her away from England and once again a few hours +since, inside the narrow room which had been her prison. The third man +who had subsequently arrived on the scene was that coarse and grimy +creature who had seemed to be the moving evil spirit of that awful brawl +in the tavern. + +What the conversation meant to her she could not fail to guess. Pierre +Adet had by what he said made the whole of his abominable intrigue +against her palpably clear. Her father had been right, after all. It was +Pierre Adet who through some clever trickery had lured her to this place +of evil. How it was all done she could not guess. The message ... the +device ... her walk across the street ... the silence ... the mysterious +guide ... which of these had been the trickery?... which had been +concocted by her enemy?... which devised by her dear milor? + +Enough that the whole thing was a trap, a trap all the more hideous as +she, Yvonne, who would have given her heart's blood for her beloved, was +obviously the bait wherewith these friends meant to capture him and his +noble chief. They knew evidently of the presence of the gallant Scarlet +Pimpernel and his band of heroes here in Nantes--they seemed to expect +their appearance at this abominable place to-night. She, Yvonne, was to +be the decoy which was to lure to this hideous lair those noble eagles +who were still out of reach. + +And if that was so--if indeed her beloved and his valiant friends had +followed her hither, then some part of the message of hope must have +come from them or from their chief ... and milor and his friend must +even now be somewhere close by, watching their opportunity to come to +her rescue ... heedless of the awful danger which lay in wait for them +... ignorant mayhap of the abominable trap which had been so cunningly +set for them by these astute and ferocious brutes. + +Yvonne a prisoner in this narrow space, clinging to the bars of what was +perhaps the most cruel prison in which she had yet been confined, +bruised her hands and arms against those bars in a wild desire to get +out. She longed with all her might to utter one long, loud and piercing +cry of warning to her dear milor not to come nigh her now, to fly, to +run while there was yet time; and all the while she knew that if she did +utter such a cry he would hurry hot-haste to her side. One moment she +would have had him near--another she wished him an hundred miles away. + + +IV + +In the tap-room a more ordered medley of sounds had followed on the wild +pandemonium of awhile ago. Brief, peremptory words of command, steady +tramping of feet, loud harsh questions and subdued answers, occasionally +a moan or a few words of protest quickly suppressed, came through the +partition to Yvonne's straining ears. + +"Your name?" + +"Where do you live?" + +"Your occupation?" + +"That's enough. Silence. The next." + +"Your name?" + +"Where do you live?" + +Men, women and even children were being questioned, classified, packed +off, God knew whither. Sometimes a child would cry, a man utter an oath, +a woman shriek: then would come harsh orders delivered in a gruff voice, +more swearing, the grounding of arms and more often than not a dull, +flat sound like a blow struck against human flesh, followed by a volley +of curses, or a cry of pain. + +"Your name?" + +"George Amédé Lemoine." + +"Where do you live?" + +"In this house." + +"Your occupation?" + +"I am the proprietor of the tavern, citizen. I am an honest man and a +patriot. The Republic...." + +"That's enough." + +"But I protest." + +"Silence. The next." + +All with dreary, ceaseless monotony: and Yvonne like a trapped bird was +bruising her wings against the bars of her cage. Outside the window +Chauvelin and Martin-Roget were still speaking in whispers: the fowlers +were still watching for their prey. The third man had apparently gone +away. What went on beyond the range of her prison window--out in the +darkness of the night which Yvonne's aching eyes could not pierce--she, +the miserable watcher, the bait set here to catch the noble game, could +not even conjecture. The window was small and her vision was further +obstructed by heavy bars. She could see nothing--hear nothing save those +two men talking in whispers. Now and again she caught a few words: + +"A little while longer, citizen ... you lose nothing by waiting. Your +Kernogans are safe enough. Paul Friche has assured you that the landing +where they are now has no egress save through the tap-room, and to the +floor above. Wait at least until commandant Fleury has got the crowd +together, after which he will send his Marats to search the house. It +won't be too late then to lay hands on your aristos, if in the +meanwhile...." + +"'Tis futile to wait," here interrupted Martin-Roget roughly, "and you +are a fool, citizen, if you think that those Englishmen exist elsewhere +than in your imagination." + +"Hark!" broke in the gentle voice abruptly and with forceful command. + +And as Yvonne too in instinctive response to that peremptory call was +further straining her every sense in order to listen, there came from +somewhere, not very far away, right through the stillness of the night, +a sound which caused her pulses to still their beating and her throat to +choke with the cry which rose from her breast. + +It was only the sound of a quaint and drawly voice saying loudly and in +English: + +"Egad, Tony! ain't you getting demmed sleepy?" + +Just for the space of two or three seconds Yvonne had remained quite +still while this unexpected sound sent its dulcet echo on the wings of +the north-westerly blast. The next--stumbling in the dark--she had run +to the stairs even while she heard Martin-Roget calling loudly and +excitedly to Paul Friche. + +One reverent pause beside her dead father, one mute prayer commending +his soul to the mercy of his Maker, one agonised entreaty to God to +protect her beloved and his friend, and then she ran swiftly up the +winding steps. + +At the top of the stairs, immediately in front of her, a door--slightly +ajar--showed a feeble light through its aperture. Yvonne pushed the door +further open and slipped into the room beyond. She did not pause to look +round but went straight to the window and throwing open the rickety sash +she peeped out. For the moment she felt that she would gladly have +bartered away twenty years of her life to know exactly whence had come +that quaint and drawling voice. She leaned far out of the window trying +to see. It gave on the side of the Rat Mort over against Louise Adet's +house--the space below seemed to her to be swarming with men: there were +hurried and whispered calls--orders were given to stand at close +attention, whilst Martin-Roget had apparently been questioning Paul +Friche, for Yvonne heard the latter declare emphatically: + +"I am certain that it came either from inside the house or from the +roof. And with your permission, citizen, I would like to make assurance +doubly sure." + +Then one of the men must suddenly have caught sight of the vague +silhouette leaning out of the window, for Martin-Roget and Friche +uttered a simultaneous cry, whilst Chauvelin said hurriedly: + +"You are right, citizen, something is going on inside the house." + +"What can we do?" queried Martin-Roget excitedly. + +"Nothing for the moment but wait. The Englishmen are caught sure enough +like rats in their holes." + +"Wait!" ejaculated Martin-Roget with a savage oath, "wait! always wait! +while the quarry slips through one's fingers." + +"It shall not slip through mine," retorted Paul Friche. "I was a +steeple-jack by trade in my day: it won't be the first time that I have +climbed the side of a house by the gutter-pipe. _A moi_ Jean-Pierre," he +added, "and may I be drowned in the Loire if between us two we do not +lay those cursed English spies low." + +"An hundred francs for each of you," called Chauvelin lustily, "if you +succeed." + +Yvonne did not think to close the window again. Vigorous shouting and +laughter from below testified that that hideous creature Friche and his +mate had put their project in immediate execution; she turned and ran +down the stairs--feeling now like an animal at bay; by the time that she +had reached the bottom, she heard a prolonged, hoarse cry of triumph +from below and guessed that Paul Friche and his mate had reached the +window-sill: the next moment there was a crash overhead of broken +window-glass and of furniture kicked from one end of the room to the +other, immediately followed by the sound of heavy footsteps running +helter-skelter down the stairs. + +Yvonne, half-crazed with terror, faint and sick, fell unconscious over +the body of her father. + + +V + +Inside the tap-room commandant Fleury was still at work. + +"Your name?" + +"Where do you live?" + +"Your occupation?" + +The low room was filled to suffocation: the walls lined with Marats, the +doors and windows which were wide open were closely guarded, whilst in +the corner of the room, huddled together like bales of rubbish, was the +human cattle that had been driven together, preparatory to being sent +for a trial to Paris in vindication of Carrier's brutalities against the +city. + +Fleury for form's sake made entries in a notebook--the whole thing was a +mere farce--these wretched people were not likely to get a fair +trial--what did the whole thing matter? Still! the commandant of the +Marats went solemnly through the farce which Carrier had invented with a +view to his own justification. + +Lemoine and his wife had protested and been silenced: men had struggled +and women had fought--some of them like wild cats--in trying to get +away. Now there were only half a dozen or so more to docket. Fleury +swore, for he was tired and hot. + +"This place is like a pest-house," he said. + +Just then came the sound of that lusty cry of triumph from outside, +followed by all the clatter and the breaking of window glass. + +"What's that?" queried Fleury. + +The heavy footsteps running down the stairs caused him to look up from +his work and to call briefly to a sergeant of the Marats who stood +beside his chair: + +"Go and see what that _sacré_ row is about," he commanded. "In there," +he added as he indicated the door of the landing with a jerk of the +head. + +But before the man could reach the door, it was thrown open from within +with a vigorous kick from the point of a sabot, and Paul Friche appeared +under the lintel with the aristo wench thrown over his shoulder like a +sack of potatoes, his thick, muscular arms encircling her knees. His +scarlet bonnet was cocked over one eye, his face was smeared with dirt, +his breeches were torn at the knees, his shirt hung in strips from his +powerful shoulders. Behind him his mate--who had climbed up the +gutter-pipe into the house in his wake--was tottering under the load of +the ci-devant duc de Kernogan's body which he had slung across his back +and was holding on to by the wrists. + +Fleury jumped to his feet--the appearance of these two men, each with +his burden, caused him to frown with anger and to demand peremptorily: +"What is the meaning of this?" + +"The aristos," said Paul Friche curtly; "they were trying to escape." + +He strode into the room, carrying the unconscious form of the girl as if +it were a load of feathers. He was a huge, massive-looking giant: the +girl's shoulders nearly touched the low ceiling as he swung forward +facing the angry commandant. + +"How did you get into the house? and by whose orders?" demanded Fleury +roughly. + +"Climbed in by the window, _pardi_," retorted the man, "and by the +orders of citizen Martin-Roget." + +"A corporal of the Company Marat takes orders only from me; you should +know that, citizen Friche." + +"Nay!" interposed the sergeant quickly, "this man is not a corporal of +the Company Marat, citizen commandant. As for Corporal Friche, why! he +was taken to the infirmary some hours ago with a cracked skull, he...." + +"Not Corporal Friche," exclaimed Fleury with an oath, "then who in the +devil's name is this man?" + +"The Scarlet Pimpernel, at your service, citizen commandant," came +loudly and with a merry laugh from the pseudo Friche. + +And before either Fleury or the sergeant or any of the Marats could even +begin to realise what was happening, he had literally bounded across the +room, and as he did so he knocked against the hanging lamp which fell +with a crash to the floor, scattering oil and broken glass in every +direction and by its fall plunging the place into total darkness. At +once there arose a confusion and medley of terrified screams, of +piercing shrieks from the women and the children, and of loud +imprecations from the men. These mingled with the hasty words of +command, with quick orders from Fleury and the sergeant, with the +grounding of arms and the tramping of many feet, and with the fall of +human bodies that happened to be in the way of the reckless adventurer +and his flight. + +"He is through the door," cried the men who had been there on guard. + +"After him then!" shouted Fleury. "Curse you all for cowards and for +fools." + +The order had no need to be repeated. The confusion, though great, had +only been momentary. Within a second or less, Fleury and his sergeant +had fought their way through to the door, urging the men to follow. + +"After him ... quick!... he is heavily loaded ... he cannot have got far +..." commanded Fleury as soon as he had crossed the threshold. +"Sergeant, keep order within, and on your life see that no one else +escapes." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE PROCONSUL + + +I + +From round the angle of the house Martin-Roget and Chauvelin were +already speeding along at a rapid pace. + +"What does it all mean?" queried the latter hastily. + +"The Englishman--with the wench on his back? have you seen him?" + +"Malediction! what do you mean?" + +"Have you seen him?" reiterated Fleury hoarsely. + +"No." + +"He couldn't have passed you?" + +"Impossible." + +"Then unless some of us here have eyes like cats that limb of Satan will +get away. On to him, my men," he called once more. "Can you see him?" + +The darkness outside was intense. The north-westerly wind was whistling +down the narrow street, drowning the sound of every distant footfall: it +tore mercilessly round the men's heads, snatching the bonnets from off +their heads, dragging at their loose shirts and breeches, adding to the +confusion which already reigned. + +"He went this way ..." shouted one. + +"No! that!" cried another. + +"There he is!" came finally in chorus from several lusty throats. "Just +crossing the bridge." + +"After him," cried Fleury, "an hundred francs to the man who first lays +hands on that devil." + +Then the chase began. The Englishman on ahead was unmistakable with that +burden on his shoulder. He had just reached the foot of the bridge where +a street lanthorn fixed on a tall bracket on the corner stone had +suddenly thrown him into bold relief. He had less than an hundred metres +start of his pursuers and with a wild cry of excitement they started in +his wake. + +He was now in the middle of the bridge--an unmistakable figure of a +giant vaguely silhouetted against the light from the lanthorns on the +further end of the bridge--seeming preternaturally tall and misshapen +with that hump upon his back. + +From right and left, from under the doorways of the houses in the +Carrefour de la Poissonnerie the Marats who had been left on guard in +the street now joined in the chase. Overhead windows were thrown +open--the good burghers of Nantes, awakened from their sleep, forgetful +for the nonce of all their anxieties, their squalor and their miseries, +leaned out to see what this new kind of din might mean. From +everywhere--it almost seemed as if some sprang out of the earth--men, +either of the town-guard or Marats on patrol duty, or merely idlers and +night hawks who happened to be about, yielded to that primeval instinct +of brutality which causes men as well as beasts to join in a pursuit +against a fellow creature. + +Fleury was in the rear of his posse. Martin-Roget and Chauvelin, walking +as rapidly as they could by his side, tried to glean some information +out of the commandant's breathless and scrappy narrative: + +"What happened exactly?" + +"It was the man Paul Friche ... with the aristo wench on his back ... +and another man carrying the ci-devant aristo ... they were the English +spies ... in disguise ... they knocked over the lamp ... and got +away...." + +"Name of a...." + +"No use swearing, citizen Martin-Roget," retorted Fleury as hotly as his +agitated movements would allow. "You and citizen Chauvelin are +responsible for the affair. It was you, citizen Chauvelin, who placed +Paul Friche inside that tavern in observation--you told him what to +do...." + +"Well?" + +"Paul Friche--the real Paul Friche--was taken to the infirmary some +hours ago ... with a cracked skull, dealt him by your Englishman, I've +no doubt...." + +"Impossible," reiterated Chauvelin with a curse. + +"Impossible? why impossible?" + +"The man I spoke to outside Le Bouffay...." + +"Was not Paul Friche." + +"He was on guard in the Place with two other Marats." + +"He was not Paul Friche--the others were not Marats." + +"Then the man who was inside the tavern?..." + +"Was not Paul Friche." + +" ... who climbed the gutter pipe ...?" + +"Malediction!" + +And the chase continued--waxing hotter every minute. The hare had gained +slightly on the hounds--there were more than a hundred hot on the trail +by now--having crossed the bridge he was on the Isle Feydeau, and +without hesitating a moment he plunged at once into the network of +narrow streets which cover the island in the rear of La Petite Hollande +and the Hôtel de le Villestreux, where lodged Carrier, the +representative of the people. The hounds after him had lost some ground +by halting--if only for a second or two--first at the head of the +bridge, then at the corners of the various streets, while they peered +into the darkness to see which way had gone that fleet-footed hare. + +"Down this way!" + +"No! That!" + +"There he goes!" + +It always took a few seconds to decide, during which the man on ahead +with his burden on his shoulder had time mayhap to reach the end of a +street and to turn a corner and once again to plunge into darkness and +out of sight. The street lanthorns were few in this squalid corner of +the city, and it was only when perforce the running hare had to cross a +circle of light that the hounds were able to keep hot on the trail. + +"To the bridges for your lives!" now shouted Fleury to the men nearest +to him. "Leave him to wander on the island. He cannot come off it, +unless he jumps into the Loire." + +The Marats--intelligent and ferociously keen on the chase--had already +grasped the importance of this order: with the bridges guarded that +fleet-footed Englishman might run as much as he liked, he was bound to +be run to earth like a fox in his burrow. In a moment they had dispersed +along the quays, some to one bridge-head, some to another--the +Englishman could not double back now, and if he had already crossed to +the Isle Gloriette, which was not joined to the left bank of the river +by any bridge, he would be equally caught like a rat in a trap. + +"Unless he jumps into the Loire," reiterated Fleury triumphantly. + +"The proconsul will have more excitement than he hoped for," he added +with a laugh. "He was looking forward to the capture of the English spy, +and in deadly terror lest he escaped. But now meseems that we shall +run our fox down in sight of the very gates of la Villestreux." + +Martin-Roget's thoughts ran on Yvonne and the duc. + +"You will remember, citizen commandant," he contrived to say to Fleury, +"that the ci-devant Kernogans were found inside the Rat Mort." + +Fleury uttered an exclamation of rough impatience. What did he, what did +anyone care at this moment for a couple of aristos more or less when the +noblest game that had ever fallen to the bag of any Terrorist was so +near being run to earth? But Chauvelin said nothing. He walked on at a +brisk pace, keeping close to commandant Fleury's side, in the immediate +wake of the pursuit. His lips were pressed tightly together and a +hissing breath came through his wide-open nostrils. His pale eyes were +fixed into the darkness and beyond it, where the most bitter enemy of +the cause which he loved was fighting his last battle against Fate. + + +II + +"He cannot get off the island!" Fleury had said awhile ago. Well! there +was of a truth little or nothing now between the hunted hare and +capture. The bridges were well guarded: the island swarming with hounds, +the Marats at their posts and the Loire an impassable barrier all round. + +And Chauvelin, the most tenacious enemy man ever had, Fleury keen on a +reward and Martin-Roget with a private grudge to pay off, all within two +hundred yards behind him. + +True for the moment the Englishman had disappeared. Burden and all, the +gloom appeared to have swallowed him up. But there was nowhere he could +go; mayhap he had taken refuge under a doorway in one of the narrow +streets and hoped perhaps under cover of the darkness to allow his +pursuers to slip past him and then to double back. + +Fleury was laughing in the best of humours. He was gradually collecting +all the Marats together and sending them to the bridge-heads under the +command of their various sergeants. Let the Englishman spend the night +on the islands if he had a mind. There was a full company of Marats here +to account for him as soon as he attempted to come out in the open. + +The idlers and night hawks as well as the municipal town guard continued +to run excitedly up and down the streets--sometimes there would come a +lusty cry from a knot of pursuers who thought they spied the Englishman +through the darkness, at others there would be a call of halt, and +feverish consultation held at a street corner as to the best policy to +adopt. + +The town guard, jealous of the Marats, were pining to lay hands on the +English spy for the sake of the reward. Fleury, coming across their +provost, called him a fool for his pains. + +"My Marats will deal with the English spies, citizen," he said roughly, +"he is no concern of yours." + +The provost demurred: an altercation might have ensued when Chauvelin's +suave voice poured oil on the troubled waters. + +"Why not," he said, "let the town guard continue their search on the +island, citizen commandant? The men may succeed in digging our rat out +of his hole and forcing him out into the open all the sooner. Your +Marats will have him quickly enough after that." + +To this suggestion the provost gave a grudging assent. The reward when +the English spy was caught could be fought for later on. For the nonce +he turned unceremoniously on his heel, and left Fleury cursing him for +a meddlesome busybody. + +"So long as he and his rabble does not interfere with my Marats," +growled the commandant. + +"Will you see your sergeants, citizen?" queried Chauvelin tentatively. +"They will have to keep very much on the alert, and will require +constant prodding to their vigilance. If I can be of any service...." + +"No," retorted Fleury curtly, "you and citizen Martin-Roget had best try +and see the proconsul and tell him what we have done." + +"He'll be half wild with terror when he hears that the English spy is at +large upon the island." + +"You must pacify him as best you can. Tell him I have a score of Marats +at every bridge head and that I am looking personally to every +arrangement. There is no escape for the devil possible save by drowning +himself and the wench in the Loire." + + +III + +Chauvelin and Martin-Roget turned from the quay on to the Petite +Hollande--the great open ground with its converging row of trees which +ends at the very apex of the Isle of Feydeau. Opposite to them at the +further corner of the Place was the Hôtel de la Villestreux. One or two +of the windows in the hotel were lighted from within. No doubt the +proconsul was awake, trembling in the remotest angle of his lair, with +the spectre of assassination rampant before him--aroused by the +continued disturbance of the night, by the feverishness of this man-hunt +carried on almost at his gates. + +Even through the darkness it was easy to perceive groups of people +either rushing backwards and forwards on the Place or congregating in +groups under the trees. Excitement was in the air. It could be felt and +heard right through the soughing of the north-westerly wind which caused +the bare branches of the trees to groan and to crackle, and the dead +leaves, which still hung on the twigs, to fly wildly through the night. + +In the centre of the Place, two small lights, gleaming like eyes in the +midst of the gloom, betrayed the presence of the proconsul's coach, +which stood there as always, ready to take him away to a place of +safety--away from this city where he was mortally hated and +dreaded--whenever the spectre of terror became more insistent than +usual, and drove him hence out of his stronghold. The horses were pawing +the frozen ground and champing their bits--the steam from their nostrils +caught the rays of the carriage lamps, which also lit up with a feeble +flicker the vague outline of the coachman on his box and of the +postilion rigid in his saddle. + +The citizens of Nantes were never tired of gaping at the carriage--a +huge C-springed barouche--at the coachman's fine caped coat of +bottle-green cloth and at the horses with their handsome harness set off +with heavy brass bosses: they never tired of bandying words with the +successive coachmen as they mounted their box and gathered up the reins, +or with the postilions who loved to crack their whips and to appear +smart and well-groomed, in the midst of the squalor which reigned in the +terror-stricken city. They were the guardians of the mighty proconsul: +on their skill, quickness and presence of mind might depend his precious +life. + +Even when the shadow of death hangs over an entire community, there will +be some who will stand and gape and crack jokes at an uncommon sight. + +And now when the pall of night hung over the abode of the man-tiger and +his lair, and wrapped in its embrace the hunted and the hunters, there +still was a knot of people standing round the carriage--between it and +the hotel--gazing with lack-lustre eyes on the costly appurtenances +wherewith the representative of a wretched people loved to surround +himself. They could only see the solid mass of the carriage and of the +horses, but they could hear the coachman clicking with his tongue and +the postilion cracking his whip, and these sights broke the absolute +dreary monotony of their lives. + +It was from behind this knot of gaffers that there rose gradually a +tumult as of a man calling out in wrath and lashing himself into a fury. +Chauvelin and Martin-Roget were just then crossing La Petite Hollande +from one bank of the river to the other: they were walking rapidly +towards the hotel, when they heard the tumult which presently culminated +in a hoarse cry and a volley of oaths. + +"My coach! my coach at once.... Lalouët, don't leave me.... Curse you +all for a set of cowardly oafs.... My coach I say...." + +"The proconsul," murmured Chauvelin as he hastened forward, Martin-Roget +following closely on his heels. + +By the time that they had come near enough to the coach to distinguish +vaguely in the gloom what was going on, people came rushing to the same +spot from end to end of the Place. In a moment there was quite a crowd +round the carriage, and the two men had much ado to push their way +through by a vigorous play of their elbows. + +"Citizen Carrier!" cried Chauvelin at the top of his voice, trying to +dominate the hubbub, "one minute ... I have excellent news for you.... +The English spy...." + +"Curse you for a set of blundering fools," came with a husky cry from +out the darkness, "you have let that English devil escape ... I knew it +... I knew it ... the assassin is at large ... the murderer ... my coach +at once ... my coach.... Lalouët--do not leave me." + +Chauvelin had by this time succeeded in pushing his way to the forefront +of the crowd: Martin-Roget, tall and powerful, had effectually made a +way for him. Through the dense gloom he could see the misshapen form of +the proconsul, wildly gesticulating with one arm and with the other +clinging convulsively to young Lalouët who already had his hand on the +handle of the carriage door. + +With a quick, resolute gesture Chauvelin stepped between the door and +the advancing proconsul. + +"Citizen Carrier," he said with calm determination, "on my oath there is +no cause for alarm. Your life is absolutely safe.... I entreat you to +return to your lodgings...." + +To emphasise his words he had stretched out a hand and firmly grasped +the proconsul's coat sleeve. This gesture, however, instead of pacifying +the apparently terror-stricken maniac, seemed to have the effect of +further exasperating his insensate fear. With a loud oath he tore +himself free from Chauvelin's grasp. + +"Ten thousand devils," he cried hoarsely, "who is this fool who dares to +interfere with me? Stand aside man ... stand aside or...." + +And before Chauvelin could utter another word or Martin-Roget come to +his colleague's rescue, there came the sudden sharp report of a pistol; +the horses reared, the crowd was scattered in every direction, Chauvelin +was knocked over by a smart blow on the head whilst a vigorous drag on +his shoulder alone saved him from falling under the wheels of the coach. + +Whilst confusion was at its highest, the carriage door was closed to +with a bang and there was a loud, commanding cry hurled through the +window at the coachman on his box. + +"_En avant_, citizen coachman! Drive for your life! through the Savenay +gate. The English assassins are on our heels." + +The postilion cracked his whip. The horses, maddened by the report, by +the pushing, jostling crowd and the confused cries and screams around, +plunged forward, wild with excitement. Their hoofs clattered on the hard +road. Some of the crowd ran after the coach across the Place, shouting +lustily: "The proconsul! the proconsul!" + +Chauvelin--dazed and bruised--was picked up by Martin-Roget. + +"The cowardly brute!" was all that he said between his teeth, "he shall +rue this outrage as soon as I can give my mind to his affairs. In the +meanwhile...." + +The clatter of the horses' hoofs was already dying away in the distance. +For a few seconds longer the rattle of the coach was still accompanied +by cries of "The proconsul! the proconsul!" Fleury at the bridge head, +seeing and hearing its approach, had only just time to order his Marats +to stand at attention. A salvo should have been fired when the +representative of the people, the high and mighty proconsul, was abroad, +but there was no time for that, and the coach clattered over the bridge +at breakneck speed, whilst Carrier with his head out of the window was +hurling anathemas and insults at Fleury for having allowed the paid +spies of that cursed British Government to threaten the life of a +representative of the people. + +"I go to Savenay," he shouted just at the last, "until that assassin has +been thrown in the Loire. But when I return ... look to yourself +commandant Fleury." + +Then the carriage turned down the Quai de la Fosse and a few minutes +later was swallowed up by the gloom. + + +IV + +Chauvelin, supported by Martin-Roget, was hobbling back across the +Place. The crowd was still standing about, vaguely wondering why it had +got so excited over the departure of the proconsul and the rattle of a +coach and pair across the bridge, when on the island there was still an +assassin at large--an English spy, the capture of whom would be one of +the great events in the chronicles of the city of Nantes. + +"I think," said Martin-Roget, "that we may as well go to bed now, and +leave the rest to commandant Fleury. The Englishman may not be captured +for some hours, and I for one am over-fatigued." + +"Then go to bed an you desire, citizen Martin-Roget," retorted Chauvelin +drily, "I for one will stay here until I see the Englishman in the hands +of commandant Fleury." + +"Hark," interposed Martin-Roget abruptly. "What was that?" + +Chauvelin had paused even before Martin-Roget's restraining hand had +rested on his arm. He stood still in the middle of the Place and his +knees shook under him so that he nearly fell prone to the ground. + +"What is it?" reiterated Martin-Roget with vague puzzlement. "It sounds +like young Lalouët's voice." + +Chauvelin said nothing. He had forgotten his bruises: he no longer +hobbled--he ran across the Place to the front of the hotel whence the +voice had come which was so like that of young Lalouët. + +The youngster--it was undoubtedly he--was standing at the angle of the +hotel: above him a lanthorn threw a dim circle of light on his bare head +with its mass of dark curls, and on a small knot of idlers with two or +three of the town guard amongst them. The first words spoken by him +which Chauvelin distinguished quite clearly were: + +"You are all mad ... or else drunk.... The citizen proconsul is upstairs +in his room.... He has just sent me down to hear what news there is of +the English spies...." + + +V + +No one made reply. It seemed as if some giant and spectral hand had +passed over this mass of people and with its magic touch had stilled +their turbulent passions, silenced their imprecations and cooled their +ardour--and left naught but a vague fear, a subtle sense of awe as when +something unexplainable and supernatural has manifested itself before +the eyes of men. + +From far away the roll of coach wheels rapidly disappearing in the +distance alone broke the silence of the night. + +"Is there no one here who will explain what all this means?" queried +young Lalouët, who alone had remained self-assured and calm, for he +alone knew nothing of what had happened. "Citizen Fleury, are you +there?" + +Then as once again he received no reply, he added peremptorily: + +"Hey! some one there! Are you all louts and oafs that not one of you can +speak?" + +A timid voice from the rear ventured on explanation. + +"The citizen proconsul was here a moment ago.... We all saw him, and you +citizen Lalouët were with him...." + +An imprecation from young Lalouët silenced the timid voice for the +nonce ... and then another resumed the halting narrative. + +"We all could have sworn that we saw you, citizen Lalouët, also the +citizen proconsul.... He got into his coach with you ... you ... that is +... they have driven off...." + +"This is some awful and treacherous hoax," cried the youngster now in a +towering passion; "the citizen proconsul is upstairs in bed, I tell you +... and I have only just come out of the hotel ...! Name of a name of a +dog! am I standing here or am I not?" + +Then suddenly he bethought himself of the many events of the day which +had culminated in this gigantic feat of leger-de-main. + +"Chauvelin!" he exclaimed. "Where in the name of h----ll is citizen +Chauvelin?" + +But Chauvelin for the moment could nowhere be found. Dazed, +half-unconscious, wholly distraught, he had fled from the scene of his +discomfiture as fast as his trembling knees would allow. Carrier +searched the city for him high and low, and for days afterwards the +soldiers of the Compagnie Marat gave aristos and rebels a rest: they +were on the look-out for a small, wizened figure of a man--the man with +the pale, keen eyes who had failed to recognise in the pseudo-Paul +Friche, in the dirty, out-at-elbows _sans-culotte_--the most exquisite +dandy that had ever graced the salons of Bath and of London: they were +searching for the man with the acute and sensitive brain who had failed +to scent in the pseudo-Carrier and the pseudo-Lalouët his old and arch +enemy Sir Percy Blakeney and the charming wife of my lord Anthony +Dewhurst. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +LORD TONY + + +I + +A quarter of an hour later citizen-commandant Fleury was at last ushered +into the presence of the proconsul and received upon his truly innocent +head the full torrent of the despot's wrath. But Martin-Roget had +listened to the counsels of prudence: for obvious reasons he desired to +avoid any personal contact for the moment with Carrier, whom fear of the +English spies had made into a more abject and more craven tyrant than +ever before. At the same time he thought it wisest to try and pacify the +brute by sending him the ten thousand francs--the bribe agreed upon for +his help in the undertaking which had culminated in such a disastrous +failure. + +At the self-same hour whilst Carrier--fuming and swearing--was for the +hundredth time uttering that furious "How?" which for the hundredth time +had remained unanswered, two men were taking leave of one another at the +small postern gate which gives on the cemetery of St. Anne. The taller +and younger one of the two had just dropped a heavy purse into the hand +of the other. The latter stooped and kissed the kindly hand. + +"Milor," he said, "I swear to you most solemnly that M. le duc de +Kernogan will rest in peace in hallowed ground. M. le curé de +Vertou--ah! he is a saint and a brave man, milor--comes over whenever he +can prudently do so and reads the offices for the dead--over those who +have died as Christians, and there is a piece of consecrated ground out +here in the open which those fiends of Terrorists have not discovered +yet." + +"And you will bury M. le duc immediately," admonished the younger man, +"and apprise M. le curé of what has happened." + +"Aye! aye! I'll do that, milor, within the hour. Though M. le duc was +never a very kind master to me in the past, I cannot forget that I +served him and his family for over thirty years as coachman. I drove +Mlle. Yvonne in the first pony-cart she ever possessed. I drove her--ah! +that was a bitter day!--her and M. le duc when they left Kernogan never +to return. I drove Mlle. Yvonne on that memorable night when a crowd of +miserable peasants attacked her coach, and that brute Pierre Adet +started to lead a rabble against the château. That was the beginning of +things, milor. God alone knows what has happened to Pierre Adet. His +father Jean was hanged by order of M. le duc. Now M. le duc is destined +to lie in a forgotten grave. I serve this abominable Republic by digging +graves for her victims. I would be happier, I think, if I knew what had +become of Mlle. Yvonne." + +"Mlle. Yvonne is my wife, old friend," said the younger man softly. +"Please God she has years of happiness before her, if I succeed in +making her forget all that she has suffered." + +"Amen to that, milor!" rejoined the man fervently. "Then I pray you tell +the noble lady to rest assured. Jean-Marie--her old coachman whom she +used to trust implicitly in the past--will see that M. le duc de +Kernogan is buried as a gentleman and a Christian should be." + +"You are not running too great a risk by this, I hope, my good +Jean-Marie," quoth Lord Tony gently. + +"No greater risk, milor," replied Jean-Marie earnestly, "than the one +which you ran by carrying my old master's dead body on your shoulders +through the streets of Nantes." + +"Bah! that was simple enough," said the younger man, "the hue and cry is +after higher quarry to-night. Pray God the hounds have not run the noble +game to earth." + +Even as he spoke there came from far away through the darkness the sound +of a fast trotting pair of horses and the rumble of coach-wheels on the +unpaved road. + +"There they are, thank God!" exclaimed Lord Tony, and the tremor in his +voice alone betrayed the torturing anxiety which he had been enduring, +ever since he had seen the last both of his adored young wife and of his +gallant chief in the squalid tap-room of the Rat Mort. + +With the dead body of Yvonne's father on his back he had quietly worked +his way out of the tavern in the wake of his chief. He had his orders, +and for the members of that gallant League of the Scarlet Pimpernel +there was no such word as "disobedience" and no such word as "fail." +Through the darkness and through the tortuous streets of Nantes Lord +Anthony Dewhurst--the young and wealthy exquisite, the hero of an +hundred fêtes and galas in Bath, in London--staggered under the weight +of a burden imposed upon him only by his loyalty and a noble sense of +self-prescribed discipline--and that burden the dead body of the man who +had done him an unforgivable wrong. Without a thought of revolt he had +obeyed--and risked his life and worse in the obedience. + +The darkness of the night was his faithful handmaiden, and the +excitement of the chase after the other quarry had fortunately drawn +every possible enemy from his track. He had set his teeth and +accomplished his task, and even the deathly anxiety for the wife whom he +idolised had been crushed, under the iron heel of a grim resolve. Now +his work was done, and from far away he heard the rattle of the coach +wheels which were bringing his beloved nearer and nearer to him. + +Five minutes longer and the coach came to a halt. A cheery voice called +out gaily: + +"Tony! are you there?" + +"Percy!" exclaimed the young man. + +Already he knew that all was well. The gallant leader, the loyal and +loving friend, had taxed every resource of a boundlessly fertile brain +in order to win yet another wreath of immortal laurels for the League +which he commanded, and the very tone of his merry voice proclaimed the +triumph which had crowned his daring scheme. + +The next moment Yvonne lay in the arms of her dear milor. He had stepped +into the carriage, even while Sir Percy climbed nimbly on the box and +took the reins from the bewildered coachman's hands. + +"Citizen proconsul ..." murmured the latter, who of a truth thought that +he was dreaming. + +"Get off the box, you old noodle," quoth the pseudo-proconsul +peremptorily. "Thou and thy friend the postilion will remain here in the +road, and on the morrow you'll explain to whomsoever it may concern that +the English spy made a murderous attack on you both and left you half +dead outside the postern gate of the cemetery of Ste. Anne. Here," he +added as he threw a purse down to the two men--who half-dazed and +overcome by superstitious fear had indeed scrambled down, one from his +box, the other from his horse--"there's a hundred francs for each of +you in there, and mind you drink to the health of the English spy and +the confusion of your brutish proconsul." + +There was no time to lose: the horses--still very fresh--were fretting +to start. + +"Where do we pick up Hastings and Ffoulkes?" asked Sir Percy Blakeney +finally as he turned toward the interior of the barouche, the hood of +which hid its occupants from view. + +"At the corner of the rue de Gigan," came the quick answer. "It is only +two hundred metres from the city gate. They are on the look out for +you." + +"Ffoulkes shall be postilion," rejoined Sir Percy with a laugh, "and +Hastings sit beside me on the box. And you will see how at the city gate +and all along the route soldiers of the guard will salute the equipage +of the all-powerful proconsul of Nantes. By Gad!" he added under his +breath, "I've never had a merrier time in all my life--not even +when...." + +He clicked his tongue and gave the horses their heads--and soon the +coachman and the postilion and Jean-Marie the gravedigger of the +cemetery of Ste. Anne were left gaping out into the night in the +direction where the barouche had so quickly disappeared. + +"Now for Le Croisic and the _Day-Dream_," sighed the daring adventurer +contentedly, "... and for Marguerite!" he added wistfully. + + +II + +Under the hood of the barouche Yvonne, wearied but immeasurably happy, +was doing her best to answer all her dear milor's impassioned questions +and to give him a fairly clear account of that terrible chase and +flight through the streets of the Isle Feydeau. + +"Ah, milor, how can I tell you what I felt when I realised that I was +being carried along in the arms of the valiant Scarlet Pimpernel? A word +from him and I understood. After that I tried to be both resourceful and +brave. When the chase after us was at its hottest we slipped into a +ruined and deserted house. In a room at the back there were several +bundles of what looked like old clothes. 'This is my store-house,' milor +said to me; 'now that we have reached it we can just make long noses at +the whole pack of bloodhounds.' He made me slip into some boy's clothes +which he gave me, and whilst I donned these he disappeared. When he +returned I truly did not recognise him. He looked horrible, and his +voice ...! After a moment or two he laughed, and then I knew him. He +explained to me the rôle which I was to play, and I did my best to obey +him in everything. But oh! I hardly lived while we once more emerged +into the open street and then turned into the great Place which was +full--oh full!--of people. I felt that at every moment we might be +suspected. Figure to yourself, my dear milor...." + +What Yvonne Dewhurst was about to say next will never be recorded. My +lord Tony had closed her lips with a kiss. + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's note + +Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printer +errors have been changed and are listed below. All other +inconsistencies are as in the original. + +Characters that could not be displayed directly in Latin-1 are +transcribed as follows: + + _ - Italics + +The following changes have been made to the text: + +Page vii. "Bouffaye" changed to "Bouffay". + +Page 27: "down-trodden" changed to "downtrodden". + +Page 46: "waste land" changed to "wasteland". + +Page 54: "interfence" changed to "interference". + +Page 57: "such like" changed to suchlike". + +Page 71: "overfull" changed to "over-full'. + +Page 80: "were hard to enumerate" changed to "was hard to enumerate". + +Page 109: "aqua-marine" changed to "aquamarine". + +Page 147: "taff-rail" changed to "taffrail". + +Page 163: "Nante's" changed to Nantes". + +Page 198: "what reports" changed to "What reports". + +Page 204: "plans wth" changed to "plans with". + +Page 205: "clawlike" changed to claw-like". + +Page 207: "passersby" changed to "passers-by". + +Page 228: "fish crashing" change to "fist crashing". + +Page 238: "anteroom" changed to "ante-room". + +Page 239: "hs pocket" changed to "his pocket". + +Page 240: "our of Carrier's" changed to "out of Carrier's". + +Page 240: "abominal doggrel" changed to "abominable doggrel". + +Page 248: "overbearing" changed to "over-bearing". + +Page 252: "cutthroat" changed to "cut-throat". + +Page 254: "good dead of" changed to "good deal of". + +Page 300: "tried to smoothe" changed to "tried to smooth". + +Page 308: "ricketty" changed to "rickety". + +Page 315: "Hotel de le Villestreux" changed to "Hôtel de la +Villestreux". + +Page 318: "nighthawks" changed to "night hawks". + +Page 318: "lustry" changed to "lusty". + +Page 319: "Hotel de le Villestreux" changed to "Hôtel de la +Villestreux". + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Lord Tony's Wife, by Baroness Emmuska Orczy + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORD TONY'S WIFE *** + +***** This file should be named 35117-8.txt or 35117-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/1/1/35117/ + +Produced by Brenda Lewis, Carla Foust, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lord Tony's Wife + An Adventure of the Scarlet Pimpernel + +Author: Baroness Emmuska Orczy + +Release Date: January 30, 2011 [EBook #35117] +[Last updated: October 6, 2011] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORD TONY'S WIFE *** + + + + +Produced by Brenda Lewis, Carla Foust, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<p class="fm3">By BARONESS ORCZY<br /><br /></p> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 24.5em;"><span class="smcap">Lord Tony's Wife</span></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 24.5em;"><span class="smcap">Leatherface</span></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 24.5em;"><span class="smcap">The Bronze Eagle</span></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 24.5em;"><span class="smcap">A Bride of the Plains</span></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 24.5em;"><span class="smcap">The Laughing Cavalier</span></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 24.5em;">"<span class="smcap">Unto Cæsar</span>"</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 24.5em;"><span class="smcap">El Dorado</span></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 24.5em;"><span class="smcap">Meadowsweet</span></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 24.5em;"><span class="smcap">The Noble Rogue</span></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 24.5em;"><span class="smcap">The Heart of a Woman</span></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 24.5em;"><span class="smcap">Petticoat Rule</span></span><br /><br /><br /> +</p> + + +<p class="fm3">GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY NEW YORK</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1>LORD TONY'S WIFE<br /> +<br /> +AN ADVENTURE OF THE<br /> +SCARLET PIMPERNEL</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>BARONESS ORCZY</h2> + +<h4>AUTHOR OF "THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL," "THE LAUGHING<br /> +CAVALIER," ETC.</h4> + + +<h2>NEW YORK<br /> +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</h2> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>COPYRIGHT, 1917,<br /> +BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</h3> + +<h3>PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>To</h3> + +<h2>DORA COUNTESS OF CHESTERFIELD</h2> + +<h3>A TOKEN OF FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE.</h3> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Emmuska Orczy.</span></h3> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table summary="CONTENTS"> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"> </td> +<td class="tdl"> </td> +<td class="tdr">PAGE</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Prologue: Nantes, 1789</span></td> +<td class="tdl"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<table summary="CONTENTS"> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> </td> +<td class="tdc"><span class="smcap">BOOK ONE: BATH, 1793</span></td> +<td class="tdr"> </td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> </td> +<td class="tdl"> </td> +<td class="tdr"> </td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">CHAPTER</td> +<td class="tdl"> </td> +<td class="tdr"> </td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">I.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Moor</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_43">43</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">II.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Bottom Inn</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">III.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Assembly Rooms</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">IV.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Father</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_100">100</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">V.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Nest</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">VI.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Scarlet Pimpernel</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">VII.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Marguerite</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_130">130</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">VIII.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Road to Portishead</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">IX.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Coast of France</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_147">147</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> </td> +<td class="tdl"> </td> +<td class="tdr"> </td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> </td> +<td class="tdc"><span class="smcap">BOOK TWO: NANTES, DECEMBER, 1793</span></td> +<td class="tdr"> </td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> </td> +<td class="tdl"> </td> +<td class="tdr"> </td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">I.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Tiger's Lair</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_163">163</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">II.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Le Bouffay</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_195">195</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">III.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Fowlers</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_212">212</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">IV.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Net</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_234">234</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">V.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Message of Hope</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_256">256</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">VI.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Rat Mort</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">VII.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Fracas in the Tavern</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_279">279</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">VIII.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The English Adventurers</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_299">299</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">IX.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Proconsul</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_313">313</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">X.</td> +<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Lord Tony</span></td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_327">327</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span><br /></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span><br /></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="PROLOGUE" id="PROLOGUE"></a>PROLOGUE</h2> + +<h3>NANTES, 1789</h3> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>"Tyrant! tyrant! tyrant!"</p> + +<p>It was Pierre who spoke, his voice was hardly raised above a murmur, but +there was such an intensity of passion expressed in his face, in the +fingers of his hand which closed slowly and convulsively as if they were +clutching the throat of a struggling viper, there was so much hate in +those muttered words, so much power, such compelling and awesome +determination that an ominous silence fell upon the village lads and the +men who sat with him in the low narrow room of the auberge des Trois +Vertus.</p> + +<p>Even the man in the tattered coat and threadbare breeches, who—perched +upon the centre table—had been haranguing the company on the subject of +the Rights of Man, paused in his peroration and looked down on Pierre +half afraid of that fierce flame of passionate hate which his own words +had helped to kindle.</p> + +<p>The silence, however, had only lasted a few moments, the next Pierre was +on his feet, and a cry like that of a bull in a slaughter-house escaped +his throat.</p> + +<p>"In the name of God!" he shouted, "let us cease all that senseless +talking. Haven't we planned enough and talked enough to satisfy our +puling consciences? The time has come to strike, mes amis, to strike I +say, to strike at those cursed aristocrats, who have made us what we +are—igno<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>rant, wretched, downtrodden—senseless clods to work our +fingers to the bone, our bodies till they break so that they may wallow +in their pleasures and their luxuries! Strike, I say!" he reiterated +while his eyes glowed and his breath came and went through his throat +with a hissing sound. "Strike! as the men and women struck in Paris on +that great day in July. To them the Bastille stood for tyranny, and they +struck at it as they would at the head of a tyrant—and the tyrant +cowered, cringed, made terms—he was frightened at the wrath of the +people! That is what happened in Paris! That is what must happen in +Nantes. The château of the duc de Kernogan is our Bastille! Let us +strike at it to-night, and if the arrogant aristocrat resists, we'll +raze his house to the ground. The hour, the day, the darkness are all +propitious. The arrangements hold good. The neighbours are ready. +Strike, I say!"</p> + +<p>He brought his hard fist crashing down upon the table, so that mugs and +bottles rattled: his enthusiasm had fired all his hearers: his hatred +and his lust of revenge had done more in five minutes than all the +tirades of the agitators sent down from Paris to instil revolutionary +ideas into the slow-moving brains of village lads.</p> + +<p>"Who will give the signal?" queried one of the older men quietly.</p> + +<p>"I will!" came a lusty response from Pierre.</p> + +<p>He strode to the door, and all the men jumped to their feet, ready to +follow him, dragged into this hot-headed venture by the mere force of +one man's towering passion. They followed Pierre like sheep—sheep that +have momentarily become intoxicated—sheep that have become fierce—a +strange sight truly—and yet one that the man in the tattered coat who +had done so much speechifying lately, watched<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> with eager interest and +presently related with great wealth of detail to M. de Mirabeau the +champion of the people.</p> + +<p>"It all came about through the death of a pair of pigeons," he said.</p> + +<p>The death of the pigeons, however, was only the spark which set all +these turbulent passions ablaze. They had been smouldering for half a +century, and had been ready to burst into flames for the past decade.</p> + +<p>Antoine Melun, the wheelwright, who was to have married Louise, Pierre's +sister, had trapped a pair of pigeons in the woods of M. le duc de +Kernogan. He had done it to assert his rights as a man—he did not want +the pigeons. Though he was a poor man, he was no poorer than hundreds of +peasants for miles around: but he paid imposts and taxes until every +particle of profit which he gleaned from his miserable little plot of +land went into the hands of the collectors, whilst M. le duc de Kernogan +paid not one sou towards the costs of the State, and he had to live on +what was left of his own rye and wheat after M. le duc's pigeons had had +their fill of them.</p> + +<p>Antoine Melun did not want to eat the pigeons which he had trapped, but +he desired to let M. le duc de Kernogan know that God and Nature had +never intended all the beasts and birds of the woods to be the exclusive +property of one man, rather than another. So he trapped and killed two +pigeons and M. le duc's head-bailiff caught him in the act of carrying +those pigeons home.</p> + +<p>Whereupon Antoine was arrested for poaching and thieving: he was tried +at Nantes under the presidency of M. le duc de Kernogan, and ten minutes +ago, while the man in the tattered coat was declaiming to a number of +peasant lads in the coffee-room of the auberge des Trois Vertus on the +subject of their rights as men and citizens, some one brought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> the news +that Antoine Melun had just been condemned to death and would be hanged +on the morrow.</p> + +<p>That was the spark which had fanned Pierre Adet's hatred of the +aristocrats to a veritable conflagration: the news of Antoine Melun's +fate was the bleat which rallied all those human sheep around their +leader. For Pierre had naturally become their leader because his hatred +of M. le duc was more tangible, more powerful than theirs. Pierre had +had more education than they. His father, Jean Adet the miller, had sent +him to a school in Nantes, and when Pierre came home M. le curé of +Vertou took an interest in him and taught him all he knew himself—which +was not much—in the way of philosophy and the classics. But later on +Pierre took to reading the writings of M. Jean-Jacques Rousseau and soon +knew the <i>Contrat Social</i> almost by heart. He had also read the articles +in M. Marat's newspaper <i>L'ami du Peuple!</i> and, like Antoine Melun, the +wheelwright, he had got it into his head that it was not God, nor yet +Nature who had intended one man to starve while another gorged himself +on all the good things of this world.</p> + +<p>He did not, however, speak of these matters, either to his father or to +his sister or to M. le curé, but he brooded over them, and when the +price of bread rose to four sous he muttered curses against M. le duc de +Kernogan, and when famine prices ruled throughout the district those +curses became overt threats; and by the time that the pinch of hunger +was felt in Vertou Pierre's passion of fury against the duc de Kernogan +had turned to a frenzy of hate against the entire noblesse of France.</p> + +<p>Still he said nothing to his father, nothing to his mother and sister. +But his father knew. Old Jean would watch the storm-clouds which +gathered on Pierre's lowering brow; he heard the muttered curses which +escaped from Pierre's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> lips whilst he worked for the liege-lord whom he +hated. But Jean was a wise man and knew how useless it is to put out a +feeble hand in order to stem the onrush of a torrent. He knew how +useless are the words of wisdom from an old man to quell the rebellious +spirit of the young.</p> + +<p>Jean was on the watch. And evening after evening when the work on the +farm was done, Pierre would sit in the small low room of the auberge +with other lads from the village talking, talking of their wrongs, of +the arrogance of the aristocrats, the sins of M. le duc and his family, +the evil conduct of the King and the immorality of the Queen: and men in +ragged coats and tattered breeches came in from Nantes, and even from +Paris, in order to harangue these village lads and told them yet further +tales of innumerable wrongs suffered by the people at the hands of the +aristos, and stuffed their heads full of schemes for getting even once +and for all with those men and women who fattened on the sweat of the +poor and drew their luxury from the hunger and the toil of the +peasantry.</p> + +<p>Pierre sucked in these harangues through every pore: they were meat and +drink to him. His hate and passions fed upon these effusions till his +whole being was consumed by a maddening desire for reprisals, for +vengeance—for the lust of triumph over those whom he had been taught to +fear.</p> + +<p>And in the low, narrow room of the auberge the fevered heads of village +lads were bent together in conclave, and the ravings and shoutings of a +while ago were changed to whisperings and low murmurings behind barred +doors and shuttered windows. Men exchanged cryptic greetings when they +met in the village street, enigmatical signs passed between them while +they worked: strangers came and went at dead of night to and from the +neighbouring villages. M. le duc's overseers saw nothing, heard nothing, +guessed noth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>ing. M. le curé saw much and old Jean Adet guessed a great +deal, but they said nothing, for nothing then would have availed.</p> + +<p>Then came the catastrophe.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Pierre pushed open the outer door of the auberge des Trois Vertus and +stepped out under the porch. A gust of wind caught him in the face. The +night, so the chronicles of the time tell us, was as dark as pitch: on +ahead lay the lights of the city flickering in the gale: to the left the +wide tawny ribbon of the river wound its turbulent course toward the +ocean, the booming of the waters swollen by the recent melting of the +snow sounded like the weird echoes of invisible cannons far away.</p> + +<p>Without hesitation Pierre advanced. His little troop followed him in +silence. They were a little sobered now that they came out into the open +and that the fumes of cider and of hot, perspiring humanity no longer +obscured their vision or inflamed their brain.</p> + +<p>They knew whither Pierre was going. It had all been +pre-arranged—throughout this past summer, in the musty parlour of the +auberge, behind barred doors and shuttered windows—all they had to do +was to follow Pierre, whom they had tacitly chosen as their leader. They +walked on behind him, their hands buried in the pockets of their thin, +tattered breeches, their heads bent forward against the fury of the +gale.</p> + +<p>Pierre made straight for the mill—his home—where his father lived and +where Louise was even now crying her eyes out because Antoine Melun, her +sweetheart, had been condemned to be hanged for killing two pigeons.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p> + +<p>At the back of the mill was the dwelling house and beyond it a small +farmery, for Jean Adet owned a little bit of land and would have been +fairly well off if the taxes had not swallowed up all the money that he +made out of the sale of his rye and his hay. Just here the ground rose +sharply to a little hillock which dominated the flat valley of the Loire +and commanded a fine view over the more distant villages.</p> + +<p>Pierre skirted the mill and without looking round to see if the others +followed him he struck squarely to the right up a narrow lane bordered +by tall poplars, and which led upwards to the summit of the little +hillock around which clustered the tumble-down barns of his father's +farmery.</p> + +<p>The gale lashed the straight, tall stems of the poplars until they bent +nearly double, and each tiny bare twig sighed and whispered as if in +pain. Pierre strode on and the others followed in silence. They were +chilled to the bone under their scanty clothes, but they followed on +with grim determination, set teeth, and anger and hate seething in their +hearts.</p> + +<p>The top of the rising ground was reached. It was pitch dark, and the men +when they halted fell up against one another trying to get a foothold on +the sodden ground. But Pierre seemed to have eyes like a cat. He only +paused one moment to get his bearings, then—still without a word—he +set to work. A large barn and a group of small circular straw ricks +loomed like solid masses out of the darkness—black, silhouetted against +the black of the stormy sky. Pierre turned toward the barn: those of his +comrades who were in the forefront of the small crowd saw him +disappearing inside one of those solid shadowy masses that looked so +ghostlike in the night.</p> + +<p>Anon those who watched and who happened to be facing the interior of the +barn saw sparks from a tinder flying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> in every direction: the next +moment they could see Pierre himself quite clearly. He was standing in +the middle of the barn and intent on lighting a roughly-fashioned torch +with his tinder: soon the resin caught a spark and Pierre held the torch +inclined toward the ground so that the flames could lick their way up +the shaft. The flickering light cast a weird glow and deep grotesque +shadows upon the face and figure of the young man. His hair, lanky and +dishevelled, fell over his eyes; his mouth and jaw, illumined from below +by the torch, looked unnaturally large, and showed his teeth gleaming +white, like the fangs of a beast of prey. His shirt was torn open at the +neck, and the sleeves of his coat were rolled up to the elbow. He seemed +not to feel either the cold from without or the scorching heat of the +flaming torch in his hand. But he worked deliberately and calmly, +without haste or febrile movements: grim determination held his +excitement in check.</p> + +<p>At last his work was done. The men who had pressed forward, in order to +watch him, fell back as he advanced, torch in hand. They knew exactly +what he was going to do, they had thought it all out, planned it, spoken +of it till even their unimaginative minds had visualised this coming +scene with absolutely realistic perception. And yet, now that the +supreme hour had come, now that they saw Pierre—torch in hand—prepared +to give the signal which would set ablaze the seething revolt of the +countryside, their heart seemed to stop its beating within their body; +they held their breath, their toil-worn hands went up to their throats +as if to repress that awful choking sensation which was so like fear.</p> + +<p>But Pierre had no such hesitations; if his breath seemed to choke him as +it reached his throat, if it escaped through his set teeth with a +strange whistling sound, it was because<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> his excitement was that of a +hungry beast who had sighted his prey and is ready to spring and devour. +His hand did not shake, his step was firm: the gusts of wind caught the +flame of his torch till the sparks flew in every direction and scorched +his hair and his hands, and while the others recoiled he strode on, to +the straw-rick that was nearest.</p> + +<p>For one moment he held the torch aloft. There was triumph now in his +eyes, in his whole attitude. He looked out into the darkness far away +which seemed all the more impenetrable beyond the restricted circle of +flickering torchlight. It seemed as if he would wrest from that inky +blackness all the secrets which it hid—all the enthusiasm, the +excitement, the passions, the hatred which he would have liked to set +ablaze as he would the straw-ricks anon.</p> + +<p>"Are you ready, mes amis?" he called.</p> + +<p>"Aye! aye!" they replied—not gaily, not lustily, but calmly and under +their breath.</p> + +<p>One touch of the torch and the dry straw began to crackle; a gust of +wind caught the flame and whipped it into energy; it crept up the side +of the little rick like a glowing python that wraps its prey in its +embrace. Another gust of wind, and the flame leapt joyously up to the +pinnacle of the rick, and sent forth other tongues to lick and to lick, +to enfold the straw, to devour, to consume.</p> + +<p>But Pierre did not wait to see the consummation of his work of +destruction. Already with a few rapid strides he had reached his +father's second straw-rick, and this too he set alight, and then another +and another, until six blazing furnaces sent their lurid tongues of +flames, twisting and twirling, writhing and hissing through the stormy +night.</p> + +<p>Within the space of two minutes the whole summit of the hillock seemed +to be ablaze, and Pierre, like a god of fire, torch in hand, seemed to +preside over and command a multi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>tude of ever-spreading flames to his +will. Excitement had overmastered him now, the lust to destroy was upon +him, and excitement had seized all the others too.</p> + +<p>There was shouting and cursing, and laughter that sounded mirthless and +forced, and calls to Pierre, and oaths of revenge. Memory, like an +evil-intentioned witch, was riding invisibly in the darkness, and she +touched each seething brain with her fever-giving wand. Every man had an +outrage to remember, an injustice to recall, and strong, brown fists +were shaken aloft in the direction of the château de Kernogan, whose +lights glimmered feebly in the distance beyond the Loire.</p> + +<p>"Death to the tyrant! A la lanterne les aristos! The people's hour has +come at last! No more starvation! No more injustice! Equality! Liberty! +A mort les aristos!"</p> + +<p>The shouts, the curses, the crackling flames, the howling of the wind, +the soughing of the trees, made up a confusion of sounds which seemed +hardly of this earth; the blazing ricks, the flickering, red light of +the flames had finally transformed the little hillock behind the mill +into another Brocken on whose summit witches and devils do of a truth +hold their revels.</p> + +<p>"A moi!" shouted Pierre again, and he threw his torch down upon the +ground and once more made for the barn. The others followed him. In the +barn were such weapons as these wretched, penniless peasants had managed +to collect—scythes, poles, axes, saws, anything that would prove useful +for the destruction of the château de Kernogan and the proposed +brow-beating of M. le duc and his family. All the men trooped in in the +wake of Pierre. The entire hillock was now a blaze of light—lurid and +red and flickering—alternately teased and fanned and subdued by the +gale, so that at times every object stood out clearly cut, every blade +of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> grass, every stone in bold relief, and in the ruts and fissures, +every tiny pool of muddy water shimmered like strings of fire-opals: +whilst at others, a pall of inky darkness, smoke-laden and impenetrable +would lie over the ground and erase the outline of farm-buildings and +distant mill and of the pushing and struggling mass of humanity inside +the barn.</p> + +<p>But Pierre, heedless of light and darkness, of heat or of cold, +proceeded quietly and methodically to distribute the primitive +implements of warfare to this crowd of ignorant men, who were by now +over ready for mischief: and with every weapon which he placed in +willing hands, he found the right words for willing ears—words which +would kindle passion and lust of vengeance most readily where they lay +dormant, or would fan them into greater vigour where they smouldered.</p> + +<p>"For thee this scythe, Hector Lebrun," he would say to a tall, lanky +youth whose emaciated arms and bony hands were stretched with longing +toward the bright piece of steel; "remember last year's harvest, the +heavy tax thou wert forced to pay, so that not one sou of profit went +into thy pocket, and thy mother starved whilst M. le duc and his brood +feasted and danced, and shiploads of corn were sunk in the Loire lest +abundance made bread too cheap for the poor!</p> + +<p>"For thee this pick-axe, Henri Meunier! Remember the new roof on thy +hut, which thou didst build to keep the wet off thy wife's bed, who was +crippled with ague—and the heavy impost levied on thee by the +tax-collector for this improvement to thy miserable hovel.</p> + +<p>"This pole for thee, Charles Blanc! Remember the beating administered to +thee by the duc's bailiff for daring to keep a tame rabbit to amuse thy +children!</p> + +<p>"Remember! Remember, mes amis!" he added exultantly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> "remember every +wrong you have endured, every injustice, every blow! remember your +poverty and his wealth, your crusts of dry bread and his succulent +meals, your rags and his silks and velvets, remember your starving +children and ailing mother, your care-laden wife and toil-worn +daughters! Forget nothing, mes amis, to-night, and at the gates of the +château de Kernogan demand of its arrogant owner wrong for wrong and +outrage for outrage."</p> + +<p>A deafening cry of triumph greeted this peroration, scythes and sickles +and axes and poles were brandished in the air and several scores of +hands were stretched out to Pierre and clasped in this newly-formed bond +of vengeful fraternity.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Then it was that with vigorous play of the elbows, Jean Adet, the +miller, forced his way through the crowd till he stood face to face with +his son.</p> + +<p>"Unfortunate!" he cried, "what is all this? What dost thou propose to +do? Whither are ye all going?"</p> + +<p>"To Kernogan!" they all shouted in response.</p> + +<p>"En avant, Pierre! we follow!" cried some of them impatiently.</p> + +<p>But Jean Adet—who was a powerful man despite his years—had seized +Pierre by the arm and dragged him to a distant corner of the barn:</p> + +<p>"Pierre!" he said in tones of command, "I forbid thee in the name of thy +duty and the obedience which thou dost owe to me and to thy mother, to +move another step in this hot-headed adventure. I was on the high-road, +walking homewards, when that conflagration and the senseless cries of +these poor lads warned me that some awful mischief was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> afoot. Pierre! +my son! I command thee to lay that weapon down."</p> + +<p>But Pierre—who in his normal state was a dutiful son and sincerely fond +of his father—shook himself free from Jean Adet's grasp.</p> + +<p>"Father!" he said loudly and firmly, "this is no time for interference. +We are all of us men here and know our own minds. What we mean to do +to-night we have thought on and planned for weeks and months. I pray +you, father, let me be! I am not a child and I have work to do."</p> + +<p>"Not a child?" exclaimed the old man as he turned appealingly to the +lads who had stood by, silent and sullen during this little scene. "Not +a child? But you are all only children, my lads. You don't know what you +are doing. You don't know what terrible consequences this mad escapade +will bring upon us all, upon the whole village, aye! and the +country-side. Do you suppose for one moment that the château of Kernogan +will fall at the mercy of a few ignorant unarmed lads like yourselves? +Why! four hundred of you would not succeed in forcing your way even as +far as the courtyard of the palace. M. le duc has had wind for some time +of your turbulent meetings at the auberge: he has kept an armed guard +inside his castle yard for weeks past, a company of artillery with two +guns hoisted upon his walls. My poor lads! you are running straight to +ruin! Go home, I beg of you! Forget this night's escapade! Nothing but +misery to you and yours can result from it."</p> + +<p>They listened quietly, if surlily, to Jean Adet's impassioned words. Far +be it from their thoughts to flout or to mock him. Paternal authority +commanded respect even among the most rough; but they all felt that they +had gone too far now to draw back: the savour of anticipated revenge had +been too sweet to be forgone quite so readily, and Pierre<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> with his +vigorous personality, his glowing eloquence, his compelling power had +more influence over them than the sober counsels of prudence and the +wise admonitions of old Jean Adet. Not one word was spoken, but with an +instinctive gesture every man grasped his weapon more firmly and then +turned to Pierre, thus electing him their spokesman.</p> + +<p>Pierre too had listened in silence to all that his father said, striving +to hide the burning anxiety which was gnawing at his heart, lest his +comrades allowed themselves to be persuaded by the old man's counsels +and their ardour be cooled by the wise dictates of prudence. But when +Jean Adet had finished speaking, and Pierre saw each man thus grasping +his weapon all the more firmly and in silence, a cry of triumph escaped +his lips.</p> + +<p>"It is all in vain, father," he cried, "our minds are made up. A host of +angels from heaven would not bar our way now to victory and to +vengeance."</p> + +<p>"Pierre!" admonished the old man.</p> + +<p>"It is too late, my father," said Pierre firmly, "en avant, lads!"</p> + +<p>"Yes! en avant! en avant!" assented some, "we have wasted too much time +as it is."</p> + +<p>"But, unfortunate lads," admonished the old man, "what are you going to +do?—a handful of you—where are you going?"</p> + +<p>"We go straight to the cross-roads now, father," said Pierre, firmly. +"The firing of your ricks—for which I humbly crave your pardon—is the +preconcerted signal which will bring the lads from all the neighbouring +villages—from Goulaine and les Sorinières and Doulon and Tourne-Bride +to our meeting place. Never you fear! There will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> be more than four +hundred of us and a company of paid soldiers is not like to frighten us. +Eh, lads?"</p> + +<p>"No! no! en avant!" they shouted and murmured impatiently, "there has +been too much talking already and we have wasted precious time."</p> + +<p>"Pierre!" entreated the miller.</p> + +<p>But no one listened to the old man now. A general movement down the +hillock had already begun and Pierre, turning his back on his father, +had pushed his way to the front of the crowd and was now leading the way +down the slope. Up on the summit the fire was already burning low; only +from time to time an imprisoned tongue of flame would dart out of the +dying embers and leap fitfully up into the night. A dull red glow +illumined the small farmery and the mill and the slowly moving mass of +men along the narrow road, whilst clouds of black, dense smoke were +tossed about by the gale. Pierre walked with head erect. He ceased to +think of his father and he never looked back to see if the others +followed him. He knew that they did: like the straw-ricks a while ago, +they had become the prey of a consuming fire: the fire of their own +passion which had caught them and held them and would not leave them now +until their ardour was consumed in victory or defeat.</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>M. le duc de Kernogan had just finished dinner when Jacques Labrunière, +his head-bailiff, came to him with the news that a rabble crowd, +composed of the peasantry of Goulaine and Vertou and the neighbouring +villages, had assembled at the cross-roads, there held revolutionary +speeches, and was even now marching toward the castle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> still shouting +and singing and brandishing a miscellaneous collection of weapons +chiefly consisting of scythes and axes.</p> + +<p>"The guard is under arms, I imagine," was M. le duc's comment on this +not altogether unforeseen piece of news.</p> + +<p>"Everything is in perfect order," replied the head-bailiff cooly, "for +the defence of M. le duc and his property—and of Mademoiselle."</p> + +<p>M. le duc, who had been lounging in one of the big armchairs in the +stately hall of Kernogan, jumped to his feet at these words: his cheeks +suddenly pallid, and a look of deadly fear in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Mademoiselle," he said hurriedly, "by G—d, Labrunière, I had +forgotten—momentarily——"</p> + +<p>"M. le duc?" stammered the bailiff in anxious inquiry.</p> + +<p>"Mademoiselle de Kernogan is on her way home—even now—she spent the +day with Mme. la Marquise d'Herbignac—she was to return at about eight +o'clock.... If those devils meet her carriage on the road...."</p> + +<p>"There is no cause for anxiety, M. le duc," broke in Labrunière +hurriedly. "I will see that half a dozen men get to horse at once and go +and meet Mademoiselle and escort her home...."</p> + +<p>"Yes ... yes ... Labrunière," murmured the duc, who seemed very much +overcome with terror now that his daughter's safety was in jeopardy, +"see to it at once. Quick! quick! I shall wax crazy with anxiety."</p> + +<p>While Labrunière ran to make the necessary arrangements for an efficient +escort for Mademoiselle de Kernogan and gave the sergeant in charge of +the posse the necessary directions, M. le duc remained motionless, +huddled up in the capacious armchair, his head buried in his hand, +shivering in front of the huge fire which burned in the monu<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>mental +hearth, himself the prey of nameless, overwhelming terror.</p> + +<p>He knew—none better—the appalling hatred wherewith he and all his +family and belongings were regarded by the local peasantry. Astride upon +his manifold rights—feudal, territorial, seignorial rights—he had all +his life ridden roughshod over the prejudices, the miseries, the +undoubted rights of the poor people, who were little better than serfs +in the possession of the high and mighty duc de Kernogan. He also +knew—none better—that gradually, very gradually it is true, but with +unerring certainty, those same downtrodden, ignorant, miserable and +half-starved peasants were turning against their oppressors, that riots +and outrages had occurred in many rural districts in the North and that +the insidious poison of social revolution was gradually creeping toward +the South and West, and had already infected the villages and small +townships which were situated quite unpleasantly close to Nantes and to +Kernogan.</p> + +<p>For this reason he had kept a company of artillery at his own expense +inside the precincts of his château, and with the aristocrat's open +contempt for this peasantry which it had not yet learned to fear, he had +disdained to take further measures for the repression of local +gatherings, and would not pay the village rabble the compliment of being +afraid of them in any way.</p> + +<p>But with his daughter Yvonne in the open roadway on the very night when +an assembly of that same rabble was obviously bent on mischief, matters +became very serious. Insult, outrage or worse might befall the proud +aristocrat's only child, and knowing that from these people, whom she +had been taught to look upon as little better than beasts, she could +expect neither mercy nor chivalry, the duc de Kernogan within his +unassailable castle felt for his daughter's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> safety the most abject, the +most deadly fear which hath ever unnerved any man.</p> + +<p>Labrunière a few minutes later did his best to reassure his master.</p> + +<p>"I have ordered the men to take the best horses out of the stables, M. +le duc," he said, "and to cut across the fields toward la Gramoire so as +to intercept Mademoiselle's coach ere it reach the cross-roads. I feel +confident that there is no cause for alarm," he added emphatically.</p> + +<p>"Pray God you are right, Labrunière," murmured the duc feebly. "Do you +know how strong the rabble crowd is?"</p> + +<p>"No, Monseigneur, not exactly. Camille the under-bailiff, who brought me +the news, was riding homewards across the meadows about an hour ago when +he saw a huge conflagration which seemed to come from the back of Adet's +mill: the whole sky has been lit up by a lurid light for the past hour, +and I fancied myself that Adet's straw must be on fire. But Camille +pushed his horse up the rising ground which culminates at Adet's +farmery. It seems that he heard a great deal of shouting which did not +seem to be accompanied by any attempt at putting out the fire. So he +dismounted and led his horse round the hillock skirting Adet's farm +buildings so that he should not be seen. Under cover of darkness he +heard and saw the old miller with his son Pierre engaged in distributing +scythes, poles and axes to a crowd of youngsters and haranguing them +wildly all the time. He also heard Pierre Adet speak of the +conflagration as a preconcerted signal, and say that he and his mates +would meet the lads of the neighbouring villages at the cross-roads ... +and that four hundred of them would then march on Kernogan and pillage +the castle."</p> + +<p>"Bah!" quoth M. le duc in a voice hoarse with execration and contempt, +"a lot of oafs who will give the hangman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> plenty of trouble to-morrow. +As for that Adet and his son, they shall suffer for this ... I can +promise them that.... If only Mademoiselle were home!" he added with a +heartrending sigh.</p> + + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>Indeed, had M. le duc de Kernogan been gifted with second sight, the +agony of mind which he was enduring would have been aggravated an +hundredfold. At the very moment when the head-bailiff was doing his best +to reassure his liege-lord as to the safety of Mlle. de Kernogan, her +coach was speeding along from the château of Herbignac toward those same +cross-roads where a couple of hundred hot-headed peasant lads were +planning as much mischief as their unimaginative minds could conceive.</p> + +<p>The fury of the gale had in no way abated, and now a heavy rain was +falling—a drenching, sopping rain which in the space of half an hour +had added five centimetres to the depth of the mud on the roads, and had +in that same space of time considerably damped the enthusiasm of some of +the poor lads. Three score or so had assembled from Goulaine, two score +from les Sorinières, some three dozen from Doulon: they had rallied to +the signal in hot haste, gathered their scythes and spades, very eager +and excited, and had reached the cross-roads which were much nearer to +their respective villages than to Jean Adet's farm and the mill, even +while the old man was admonishing his son and the lads of Vertou on the +summit of the blazing hillock. Here they had spent half an hour in +cooling their heels and their tempers under the drenching rain—wet to +the skin—fuming and fretting at the delay.</p> + +<p>But even so—damped in ardour and chilled to the mar<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>row—they were +still a dangerous crowd and prudence ought to have dictated to +Mademoiselle de Kernogan the wiser course of ordering her coachman +Jean-Marie to head his horses back toward Herbignac the moment that the +outrider reported that a mob, armed with scythes, spades and axes, held +the cross-roads, and that it would be dangerous for the coach to advance +any further.</p> + +<p>Already for the past few minutes the sound of loud shouting had been +heard even above the tramp of the horses and the clatter of the coach. +Jean-Marie had pulled up and sent one of the outriders on ahead to see +what was amiss: the man returned with very unpleasant tidings—in his +opinion it certainly would be dangerous to go any further. The mob +appeared bent on mischief: he had heard threats and curses all levelled +against M. le duc de Kernogan—the conflagration up at Vertou was +evidently a signal which would bring along a crowd of malcontents from +all the neighbouring villages. He was for turning back forthwith. But +Mademoiselle put her head out of the window just then and asked what was +amiss. On hearing that Jean-Marie and the postilion and outriders were +inclined to be afraid of a mob of peasant lads who had assembled at the +cross-roads, and were apparently threatening to do mischief, she chided +them for their cowardice.</p> + +<p>"Jean-Marie," she called scornfully to the old coachman, who had been in +her father's service for close on half a century, "do you really mean to +tell me that you are afraid of that rabble!"</p> + +<p>"Why no! Mademoiselle, so please you," replied the old man, nettled in +his pride by the taunt, "but the temper of the peasantry round here has +been ugly of late, and 'tis your safety I have got to guard."</p> + +<p>"'Tis my commands you have got to obey," retorted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> Mademoiselle with a +gay little laugh which mitigated the peremptoriness of her tone. "If my +father should hear that there's trouble on the road he will die of +anxiety if I do not return: so whip up the horses, Jean-Marie. No one +will dare to attack the coach."</p> + +<p>"But Mademoiselle——" remonstrated the old man.</p> + +<p>"Ah çà!" she broke in more impatiently, "am I to be openly disobeyed? +Best join that rabble, Jean-Marie, if you have no respect for my +commands."</p> + +<p>Thus twitted by Mademoiselle's sharp tongue, Jean-Marie could not help +but obey. He tried to peer into the distance through the veil of +blinding rain which beat against his face and stung the horses to +restlessness. But the light from the coach lanthorns prevented his +seeing clearly into the darkness beyond. Still it seemed to him that on +ahead a dense and solid mass was moving toward the coach, also that the +sound of shouting and of excited humanity was considerably nearer than +it had been before. No doubt the mob had perceived the lights of the +coach, and was even now making towards it, with what intent Jean-Marie +divined all too accurately.</p> + +<p>But he had his orders, and, though he was an old and trusted servant, +disobedience these days was not even to be thought of. So he did as he +was bid. He whipped up his horses, which were high-spirited and answered +to the lash with a bound and a plunge forward. Mlle. de Kernogan leaned +back on the cushions of the coach. She was satisfied that Jean-Marie had +done as he was told, and she was not in the least afraid.</p> + +<p>But less than five minutes later she had a rude awakening. The coach +gave a terrific lurch. The horses reared and plunged, there was a +deafening clamour all around: men were shouting and cursing: there was +the clash of wood<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> and iron and the cracking of whips: the tramp of +horses' hoofs in the soft ground, and the dull thud of human bodies +falling in the mud, followed by loud cries of pain. There was the sudden +crash of broken glass, the coach lanthorns had been seized and broken: +it seemed to Yvonne de Kernogan that out of the darkness faces distorted +with fury were peering at her through the window-panes. But through all +the confusion, the coach kept moving on. Jean-Marie stuck to his post, +as did also the postilion and the four outriders, and with whip and +tongue they urged their horses to break through the crowd regardless of +human lives, knocking and trampling down men and lads heedless of curses +and blasphemies which were hurled on them and on the occupants of the +coach, whoever they might be.</p> + +<p>The next moment, however, the coach came to a sudden halt, and a wild +cry of triumph drowned the groans of the injured and the dying.</p> + +<p>"Kernogan! Kernogan!" was shouted from every side.</p> + +<p>"Adet! Adet!"</p> + +<p>"You limbs of Satan," cried Jean-Marie, "you'll rue this night's work +and weep tears of blood for the rest of your lives. Let me tell you +that! Mademoiselle is in the coach. When M. le duc hears of this, there +will be work for the hangman...."</p> + +<p>"Mademoiselle in the coach," broke in a hoarse voice with a rough tone +of command. "Let's look at her...."</p> + +<p>"Aye! Aye! let's have a look at Mademoiselle," came with a volley of +objurgations and curses from the crowd.</p> + +<p>"You devils—you would dare?" protested Jean-Marie.</p> + +<p>Within the coach Yvonne de Kernogan hardly dared to breathe. She sat +bolt upright, her cape held tightly round her shoulders: her eyes +dilated now with excitement, if not with fear, were fixed upon the +darkness beyond the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> window-panes. She could see nothing, but she <i>felt</i> +the presence of that hostile crowd who had succeeded in over-powering +Jean-Marie and were intent on doing her harm.</p> + +<p>But she belonged to a caste which never reckoned cowardice amongst its +many faults. During these few moments when she knew that her life hung +on the merest thread of chance, she neither screamed nor fainted but sat +rigidly still, her heart beating in unison with the agonising seconds +which went so fatefully by. And even now, when the carriage door was +torn violently open and even through the darkness she discerned vaguely +the forms of these avowed enemies close beside her, and anon felt a +rough hand seize her wrist, she did not move, but said quite calmly, +with hardly a tremor in her voice:</p> + +<p>"Who are you? and what do you want?"</p> + +<p>An outburst of harsh and ironical laughter came in response.</p> + +<p>"Who are we, my fine lady?" said the foremost man in the crowd, he who +had seized her wrist and was half in and half out of the coach at this +moment, "we are the men who throughout our lives have toiled and starved +whilst you and such as you travel in fine coaches and eat your fill. +What we want? Why, just the spectacle of such a fine lady as you are +being knocked down into the mud just as our wives and daughters are if +they happen to be in the way when your coach is passing. Isn't that it, +mes amis?"</p> + +<p>"Aye! aye!" they replied, shouting lustily. "Into the mud with the fine +lady. Out with her, Adet. Let's have a look at Mademoiselle how she will +look with her face in the mud. Out with her, quick!"</p> + +<p>But the man who was still half in and half out of the coach, and who had +hold of Mademoiselle's wrist did not obey his mates immediately. He drew +her nearer to him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> and suddenly threw his rough, begrimed arms round +her, and with one hand pulled back her hood, then placing two fingers +under her chin, he jerked it up till her face was level with his own.</p> + +<p>Yvonne de Kernogan was certainly no coward, but at the loathsome contact +of this infuriated and vengeful creature, she was overcome with such a +hideous sense of fear that for the moment consciousness almost left her: +not completely alas! for though she could not distinguish his face she +could feel his hot breath upon her cheeks, she could smell the +nauseating odour of his damp clothes, and she could hear his hoarse +mutterings as for the space of a few seconds he held her thus close to +him in an embrace which to her was far more awesome than that of death.</p> + +<p>"And just to punish you, my fine lady," he said in a whisper which sent +a shudder of horror right through her, "to punish you for what you are, +the brood of tyrants, proud, disdainful, a budding tyrant yourself, to +punish you for every misery my mother and sister have had to endure, for +every luxury which you have enjoyed, I will kiss you on the lips and the +cheeks and just between your white throat and chin and never as long as +you live if you die this night or live to be an hundred will you be able +to wash off those kisses showered upon you by one who hates and loathes +you—a miserable peasant whom you despise and who in your sight is lower +far than your dogs."</p> + +<p>Yvonne, with eyes closed, hardly breathed, but through the veil of +semi-consciousness which mercifully wrapped her senses, she could still +hear those awful words, and feel the pollution of those loathsome kisses +with which—true to his threat—this creature—half man, wholly devil, +whom she could not see, but whom she hated and feared as she would Satan +himself—now covered her face and throat.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p> + +<p>After that she remembered nothing more. Consciousness mercifully forsook +her altogether. When she recovered her senses, she was within the +precincts of the castle: a confused murmur of voices reached her ears, +and her father's arms were round her. Gradually she distinguished what +was being said: she gathered the threads of the story which Jean-Marie +and the postilion and outriders were hastily unravelling in response to +M. le duc's commands.</p> + +<p>These men of course knew nothing of the poignant little drama which had +been enacted inside the coach. All they knew was that they had been +surrounded by a rough crowd—a hundred or so strong—who brandished +scythes and spades, that they had made valiant efforts to break through +the crowd by whipping up their horses, but that suddenly some of those +devils more plucky than the others seized the horses by their bits and +rendered poor Jean-Marie quite helpless. He thought then that all would +be up with the lot of them and was thinking of scrambling down from his +box in order to protect Mademoiselle with his body, and the pistols +which he had in the boot, when happily for every one concerned, he heard +in the distance—above the clatter which that abominable rabble was +making, the hurried tramp of horses. At once he jumped to the conclusion +that these could be none other than a company of soldiers sent by M. le +duc. This spurred him to a fresh effort, and gave him a new idea. To +Carmail the postilion who had a pistol in his holster he gave the +peremptory order to fire a shot into the air or into the crowd, +Jean-Marie cared not which. This Carmail did, and at once the horses, +already maddened by the crowd, plunged and reared wildly, shaking +themselves free. Jean-Marie, however, had them well in hand, and from +far away there came the cries of encouragement from the advancing +horsemen who were bearing down on them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> full tilt. The next moment there +was a general mêlée. Jean-Marie saw nothing save his horses' heads, but +the outriders declared that men were trampled down like flies all +around, while others vanished into the night.</p> + +<p>What happened after that none of the men knew or cared. Jean-Marie +galloped his horses all the way to the castle and never drew rein until +the precincts were reached.</p> + + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p>Had M. de Kernogan had his way and a free hand to mete out retributive +justice in the proportion that he desired, there is no doubt that the +hangman of Nantes would have been kept exceedingly busy. As it was a +number of arrests were effected the following day—half the manhood of +the countryside was implicated in the aborted <i>Jacquerie</i> and the city +prison was not large enough to hold it all.</p> + +<p>A court of justice presided over by M. le duc, and composed of half a +dozen men who were directly or indirectly in his employ, pronounced +summary sentences on the rioters which were to have been carried out as +soon as the necessary arrangements for such wholesale executions +could be made. Nantes was turned into a city of wailing; +peasant-women—mothers, sisters, daughters, wives of the condemned, +trooped from their villages into the city, loudly calling on M. le duc +for mercy, besieging the improvised court-house, the prison gates, the +town residence of M. le duc, the palace of the bishop: they pushed their +way into the courtyards and the very corridors of those +buildings—flunkeys could not cope with them—they fought with fists and +elbows for the right to make a direct appeal to the liege-lord who had +power of life and death over their men.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p> + +<p>The municipality of Nantes held aloof from this distressful state of +things, and the town councillors, the city functionaries and their +families shut themselves up in their houses in order to avoid being a +witness to the heartrending scenes which took place uninterruptedly +round the court-house and the prison. The mayor himself was powerless to +interfere, but it is averred that he sent a secret courier to Paris to +M. de Mirabeau, who was known to be a personal friend of his, with a +detailed account of the <i>Jacquerie</i> and of the terrible measures of +reprisal contemplated by M. le duc de Kernogan, together with an earnest +request that pressure from the highest possible quarters be brought to +bear upon His Grace so that he should abate something of his vengeful +rigours.</p> + +<p>Poor King Louis, who in these days was being terrorised by the National +Assembly and swept off his feet by the eloquence of M. de Mirabeau, was +only too ready to make concessions to the democratic spirit of the day. +He also desired his noblesse to be equally ready with such concessions. +He sent a personal letter to M. le duc, not only asking him, but +commanding him, to show grace and mercy to a lot of misguided peasant +lads whose loyalty and adherence—he urged—might be won by a gracious +and unexpected act of clemency.</p> + +<p>The King's commands could not in the nature of things be disobeyed: the +same stroke of the pen which was about to send half a hundred young +countrymen to the gallows granted them M. le duc's gracious pardon and +their liberty: the only exception to this general amnesty being Pierre +Adet, the son of the miller. M. le duc's servants had deposed to seeing +him pull open the door of the coach and stand for some time half in and +half out of the carriage, obviously trying to terrorise Mademoiselle. +Mademoiselle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> refused either to corroborate or to deny this statement, +but she had arrived fainting at the gate of the château, and she had +been very ill ever since. She had sustained a serious shock to her +nerves, so the doctor hastily summoned from Paris had averred, and it +was supposed that she had lost all recollection of the terrible +incidents of that night.</p> + +<p>But M. le duc was satisfied that it was Pierre Adet's presence inside +the coach which had brought about his daughter's mysterious illness and +that heartrending look of nameless horror which had dwelt in her eyes +ever since. Therefore with regard to that man M. le duc remained +implacable and as a concession to a father's outraged feelings both the +mayor of Nantes and the city functionaries accepted Adet's condemnation +without a murmur of dissent.</p> + +<p>The sentence of death finally passed upon Pierre, the son of Jean Adet, +miller of Vertou, could not, however, be executed, for the simple reason +that Pierre had disappeared and that the most rigorous search instituted +in the neighbourhood and for miles around failed to bring him to +justice. One of the outriders who had been in attendance on Mademoiselle +on that fateful night declared that when Jean-Marie finally whipped up +his horses at the approach of the party of soldiers, Adet fell backwards +from the step of the carriage and was run over by the hind wheels and +instantly killed. But his body was never found among the score or so +which were left lying there in the mud of the road until the women and +old men came to seek their loved ones among the dead.</p> + +<p>Pierre Adet had disappeared. But M. le duc's vengeance had need of a +prey. The outrage which he was quite convinced had been perpetrated +against his daughter must be punished by death—if not by the death of +the chief offender, then by that of the one who stood nearest to him. +Thus was Jean Adet the miller dragged from his home and cast into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> +prison. Was he not implicated himself in the riots? Camille the bailiff +had seen and heard him among the insurgents on the hillock that night. +At first it was stated that he would be held as hostage for the +reappearance of his son. But Pierre Adet had evidently fled the +countryside: he was obviously ignorant of the terrible fate which his +own folly had brought upon his father. Many thought that he had gone to +seek his fortune in Paris where his talents and erudition would ensure +him a good place in the present mad rush for equality amongst all men. +Certain it is that he did not return and that with merciless hate and +vengeful relentlessness M. le duc de Kernogan had Jean Adet hanged for a +supposed crime said to be committed by his son.</p> + +<p>Jean Adet died protesting his innocence. But the outburst of indignation +and revolt aroused by this crying injustice was swamped by the torrent +of the revolution which, gathering force by these very acts of tyranny +and of injustice, soon swept innocent and guilty alike into a vast +whirlpool of blood and shame and tears.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span><br /></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span><br /></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span><br /></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="BOOK_ONE_BATH_1793" id="BOOK_ONE_BATH_1793"></a>BOOK ONE: BATH, 1793</h2> + +<h3>CHAPTER I</h3> + +<h4>THE MOOR</h4> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Silence. Loneliness. Desolation.</p> + +<p>And the darkness of late afternoon in November, when the fog from the +Bristol Channel has laid its pall upon moor and valley and hill: the +last grey glimmer of a wintry sunset has faded in the west: earth and +sky are wrapped in the gloomy veils of oncoming night. Some little way +ahead a tiny light flickers feebly.</p> + +<p>"Surely we cannot be far now."</p> + +<p>"A little more patience, Mounzeer. Twenty minutes and we be there."</p> + +<p>"Twenty minutes, mordieu. And I have ridden since the morning. And you +tell me it was not far."</p> + +<p>"Not far, Mounzeer. But we be not 'orzemen either of us. We doan't +travel very fast."</p> + +<p>"How can I ride fast on this heavy beast? And in this <i>satané</i> mud. My +horse is up to his knees in it. And I am wet—ah! wet to my skin in this +<i>sacré</i> fog of yours."</p> + +<p>The other made no reply. Indeed he seemed little inclined for +conversation: his whole attention appeared to be riveted on the business +of keeping in his saddle, and holding his horse's head turned in the +direction in which he wished it to go: he was riding a yard or two ahead +of his com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>panion, and it did not need any assurance on his part that he +was no horseman: he sat very loosely in his saddle, his broad shoulders +bent, his head thrust forward, his knees turned out, his hands clinging +alternately to the reins and to the pommel with that ludicrous +inconsequent gesture peculiar to those who are wholly unaccustomed to +horse exercise.</p> + +<p>His attitude, in fact, as well as the promiscuous set of clothes which +he wore—a labourer's smock, a battered high hat, threadbare corduroys +and fisherman's boots—at once suggested the loafer, the do-nothing who +hangs round the yards of half-way houses and posting inns on the chance +of earning a few coppers by an easy job which does not entail too much +exertion on his part and which will not take him too far from his +favourite haunts. When he spoke—which was not often—the soft burr in +the pronunciation of the sibilants betrayed the Westcountryman.</p> + +<p>His companion, on the other hand, was obviously a stranger: high of +stature, and broadly built, his wide shoulders and large hands and feet, +his square head set upon a short thick neck, all bespoke the physique of +a labouring man, whilst his town-made clothes—his heavy caped coat, +admirably tailored, his buckskin breeches and boots of fine +leather—suggested, if not absolutely the gentleman, at any rate one +belonging to the well-to-do classes. Though obviously not quite so +inexperienced in the saddle as the other man appeared to be, he did not +look very much at home in the saddle either: he held himself very rigid +and upright and squared his shoulders with a visible effort at seeming +at ease, like a townsman out for a constitutional on the fashionable +promenade of his own city, or a cavalry subaltern but lately emerged +from a riding school. He spoke<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> English quite fluently, even +colloquially at times, but with a marked Gallic accent.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>The road along which the two cavaliers were riding was unspeakably +lonely and desolate—an offshoot from the main Bath to Weston road. It +had been quite a good secondary road once. The accounts of the county +administration under date 1725 go to prove that it was completed in that +year at considerable expense and with stone brought over for the purpose +all the way from Draycott quarries, and for twenty years after that a +coach used to ply along it between Chelwood and Redhill as well as two +or three carriers, and of course there was all the traffic in connexion +with the Stanton markets and the Norton Fairs. But that was nigh on +fifty years ago now, and somehow—once the mail-coach was +discontinued—it had never seemed worth while to keep the road in decent +repair. It had gone from bad to worse since then, and travelling on it +these days either ahorse or afoot had become very unpleasant. It was +full of ruts and crevasses and knee-deep in mud, as the stranger had +very appositely remarked, and the stone parapet which bordered it on +either side, and which had once given it such an air of solidity and of +value, was broken down in very many places and threatened soon to +disappear altogether.</p> + +<p>The country round was as lonely and desolate as the road. And that sense +of desolation seemed to pervade the very atmosphere right through the +darkness which had descended on upland and valley and hill. Though +nothing now could be seen through the gloom and the mist, the senses +were conscious that even in broad daylight there would be nothing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> to +see. Loneliness dwelt in the air as well as upon the moor. There were no +homesteads for miles around, no cattle grazing, no pastures, no hedges, +nothing—just arid wasteland with here and there a group of stunted +trees or an isolated yew, and tracts of rough, coarse grass not nearly +good enough for cattle to eat.</p> + +<p>There are vast stretches of upland equally desolate in many parts of +Europe—notably in Northern Spain—but in England, where they are rare, +they seem to gain an additional air of loneliness through the very life +which pulsates in their vicinity. This bit of Somersetshire was one of +them in this year of grace 1793. Despite the proximity of Bath and its +fashionable life, its gaieties and vitality, distant only a little over +twenty miles, and of Bristol distant less than thirty, it had remained +wild and forlorn, almost savage in its grim isolation, primitive in the +grandeur of its solitude.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>The road at the point now reached by the travellers begins to slope in a +gentle gradient down to the level of the Chew, a couple of miles further +on: it was midway down this slope that the only sign of living humanity +could be perceived in that tiny light which glimmered persistently. The +air itself under its mantle of fog had become very still, only the water +of some tiny moorland stream murmured feebly in its stony bed ere it +lost its entity in the bosom of the river far away.</p> + +<p>"Five more minutes and we be at th' Bottom Inn," quoth the man who was +ahead in response to another impatient ejaculation from his companion.</p> + +<p>"If we don't break our necks meanwhile in this confounded darkness," +retorted the other, for his horse had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> just stumbled and the +inexperienced rider had been very nearly pitched over into the mud.</p> + +<p>"I be as anxious to arrive as you are, Mounzeer," observed the +countryman laconically.</p> + +<p>"I thought you knew the way," muttered the stranger.</p> + +<p>"'Ave I not brought you safely through the darkness?" retorted the +other; "you was pretty well ztranded at Chelwood, Mounzeer, or I be much +mistaken. Who else would 'ave brought you out 'ere at this time o' +night, I'd like to know—and in this weather too? You wanted to get to +th' Bottom Inn and didn't know 'ow to zet about it: none o' the gaffers +up to Chelwood 'peared eager to 'elp you when I come along. Well, I've +brought you to th' Bottom Inn and.... Whoa! Whoa! my beauty! Whoa, +confound you! Whoa!"</p> + +<p>And for the next moment or two the whole of his attention had perforce +to be concentrated on the business of sticking to his saddle whilst he +brought his fagged-out, ill-conditioned nag to a standstill.</p> + +<p>The little glimmer of light had suddenly revealed itself in the shape of +a lanthorn hung inside the wooden porch of a small house which had +loomed out of the darkness and the fog. It stood at an angle of the road +where a narrow lane had its beginnings ere it plunged into the moor +beyond and was swallowed up by the all-enveloping gloom. The house was +small and ugly; square like a box and built of grey stone, its front +flush with the road, its rear flanked by several small outbuildings. +Above the porch hung a plain sign-board bearing the legend: "The Bottom +Inn" in white letters upon a black ground: to right and left of the +porch there was a window with closed shutters, and on the floor above +two more windows—also shuttered—completed the architectural features +of the Bottom Inn.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was uncompromisingly ugly and uninviting, for beyond the faint +glimmer of the lanthorn only one or two narrow streaks of light +filtrated through the chinks of the shutters.</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>The travellers, after some difference of opinion with their respective +horses, contrived to pull up and to dismount without any untoward +accident. The stranger looked about him, peering into the darkness. The +place indeed appeared dismal and inhospitable enough: its solitary +aspect suggested footpads and the abode of cut-throats. The silence of +the moor, the pall of mist and gloom that hung over upland and valley +sent a shiver through his spine.</p> + +<p>"You are sure this is the place?" he queried.</p> + +<p>"Can't ye zee the zign?" retorted the other gruffly.</p> + +<p>"Can you hold the horses while I go in?"</p> + +<p>"I doan't know as 'ow I can, Mounzeer. I've never 'eld two 'orzes all at +once. Suppose they was to start kickin' or thought o' runnin' away?"</p> + +<p>"Running away, you fool!" muttered the stranger, whose temper had +evidently suffered grievously during the weary, cold journey from +Chelwood. "I'll break your <i>satané</i> head if anything happens to the +beasts. How can I get back to Bath save the way I came? Do you think I +want to spend the night in this God-forsaken hole?"</p> + +<p>Without waiting to hear any further protests from the lout, he turned +into the porch and with his riding whip gave three consecutive raps +against the door of the inn, followed by two more. The next moment there +was the sound of a rattling of bolts and chains, the door was cautiously +opened and a timid voice queried:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Is it Mounzeer?"</p> + +<p>"Pardieu! Who else?" growled the stranger. "Open the door, woman. I am +perished with cold."</p> + +<p>With an unceremonious kick he pushed the door further open and strode +in. A woman was standing in the dimly lighted passage. As the stranger +walked in she bobbed him a respectful curtsey.</p> + +<p>"It is all right, Mounzeer," she said; "the Captain's in the +coffee-room. He came over from Bristol early this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"No one else here, I hope," he queried curtly.</p> + +<p>"No one, zir. It ain't their hour not yet. You'll 'ave the 'ouse to +yourself till after midnight. After that there'll be a bustle, I reckon. +Two shiploads come into Watchet last night—brandy and cloth, Mounzeer, +so the Captain says, and worth a mint o' money. The pack 'orzes will be +through yere in the small hours."</p> + +<p>"That's all right, then. Send me in a bite and a mug of hot ale."</p> + +<p>"I'll see to it, Mounzeer."</p> + +<p>"And stay—have you some sort of stabling where the man can put the two +horses up for an hour's rest?"</p> + +<p>"Aye, aye, zir."</p> + +<p>"Very well then, see to that too: and see that the horses get a feed and +a drink and give the man something to eat."</p> + +<p>"Very good, Mounzeer. This way, zir. I'll see the man presently. +Straight down the passage, zir. The coffee-room is on the right. The +Captain's there, waiting for ye."</p> + +<p>She closed the front door carefully, then followed the stranger to the +door of the coffee-room. Outside an anxious voice was heard muttering a +string of inconsequent and wholly superfluous "Whoa's!" Of a truth the +two wearied nags were only too anxious for a little rest.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_II_a" id="CHAPTER_II_a"></a>CHAPTER II</h3> + +<h4>THE BOTTOM INN</h4> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>A man was sitting, huddled up in the ingle-nook of the small +coffee-room, sipping hot ale from a tankard which he had in his hand.</p> + +<p>Anything less suggestive of a rough sea-faring life than his appearance +it would be difficult to conceive; and how he came by the appellation +"the Captain" must for ever remain a mystery. He was small and spare, +with thin delicate face and slender hands: though dressed in very rough +garments, he was obviously ill at ease in them; his narrow shoulders +scarcely appeared able to bear the weight of the coarsely made coat, and +his thin legs did not begin to fill the big fisherman's boots which +reached midway up his lean thighs. His hair was lank and plentifully +sprinkled with grey: he wore it tied at the nape of the neck with a silk +bow which certainly did not harmonise with the rest of his clothing. A +wide-brimmed felt hat something the shape of a sailor's, but with higher +crown—of the shape worn by the peasantry in Brittany—lay on the bench +beside him.</p> + +<p>When the stranger entered he had greeted him curtly, speaking in French.</p> + +<p>The room was inexpressibly stuffy, and reeked of the fumes of stale +tobacco, stale victuals and stale beer; but it was warm, and the +stranger, stiff to the marrow and wet to the skin, uttered an +exclamation of well-being as he turned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> to the hearth, wherein a bright +fire burned cheerily. He had put his hat down when first he entered and +had divested himself of his big coat: now he held one foot and then the +other to the blaze and tried to infuse new life into his numbed hands.</p> + +<p>"The Captain" took scant notice of his comings and goings. He did not +attempt to help him off with his coat, nor did he make an effort to add +another log to the fire. He sat silent and practically motionless, save +when from time to time he took a sip out of his mug of ale. But whenever +the new-comer came within his immediate circle of vision he shot a +glance at the latter's elegant attire—the well-cut coat, the striped +waistcoat, the boots of fine leather—the glance was quick and +comprehensive and full of scorn, a flash that lasted only an instant and +was at once veiled again by the droop of the flaccid lids which hid the +pale, keen eyes.</p> + +<p>"When the woman has brought me something to eat and drink," the stranger +said after a while, "we can talk. I have a good hour to spare, as those +miserable nags must have some rest."</p> + +<p>He too spoke in French and with an air of authority, not to say +arrogance, which caused "the Captain's" glance of scorn to light up with +an added gleam of hate and almost of cruelty. But he made no remark and +continued to sip his ale in silence, and for the next half-hour the two +men took no more notice of one another, just as if they had never +travelled all those miles and come to this desolate spot for the sole +purpose of speaking with one another. During the course of that +half-hour the woman brought in a dish of mutton stew, a chunk of bread, +a piece of cheese and a jug of spiced ale, and placed them on the table: +all of these good things the stranger consumed with an obviously keen +appetite. When he had eaten and drunk his fill, he rose from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> the table, +drew a bench into the ingle-nook and sat down so that his profile only +was visible to his friend "the Captain."</p> + +<p>"Now, citizen Chauvelin," he said with at attempt at ease and +familiarity not unmixed with condescension, "I am ready for your news."</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Chauvelin had winced perceptibly both at the condescension and the +familiarity. It was such a very little while ago that men had trembled +at a look, a word from him: his silence had been wont to strike terror +in quaking hearts. It was such a very little while ago that he had been +president of the Committee of Public Safety, all powerful, the right +hand of citizen Robespierre, the master sleuth-hound who could track an +unfortunate "suspect" down to his most hidden lair, before whose keen, +pale eyes the innermost secrets of a soul stood revealed, who guessed at +treason ere it was wholly born, who scented treachery ere it was +formulated. A year ago he had with a word sent scores of men, women and +children to the guillotine—he had with a sign brought the whole +machinery of the ruthless Committee to work against innocent or guilty +alike on mere suspicion, or to gratify his own hatred against all those +whom he considered to be the enemies of that bloody revolution which he +had helped to make. Now his presence, his silence, had not even the +power to ruffle the self-assurance of an upstart.</p> + +<p>But in the hard school both of success and of failure through which he +had passed during the last decade, there was one lesson which Armand +once Marquis de Chauvelin had learned to the last letter, and that was +the lesson of self-control. He had winced at the other's familiarity, +but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> neither by word nor gesture did he betray what he felt.</p> + +<p>"I can tell you," he merely said quite curtly, "all I have to say in far +less time than it has taken you to eat and drink, citizen Adet...."</p> + +<p>But suddenly, at sound of that name, the other had put a warning hand on +Chauvelin's arm, even as he cast a rapid, anxious look all round the +narrow room.</p> + +<p>"Hush, man!" he murmured hurriedly, "you know quite well that that name +must never be pronounced here in England. I am Martin-Roget now," he +added, as he shook off his momentary fright with equal suddenness, and +once more resumed his tone of easy condescension, "and try not to forget +it."</p> + +<p>Chauvelin without any haste quietly freed his arm from the other's +grasp. His pale face was quite expressionless, only the thin lips were +drawn tightly over the teeth now, and a curious hissing sound escaped +faintly from them as he said:</p> + +<p>"I'll try and remember, citizen, that here in England you are an aristo, +the same as all these confounded English whom may the devil sweep into a +bottomless sea."</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget gave a short, complacent laugh.</p> + +<p>"Ah," he said lightly, "no wonder you hate them, citizen Chauvelin. You +too were an aristo here in England once—not so very long ago, I am +thinking—special envoy to His Majesty King George, what?—until failure +to bring one of these <i>satané</i> Britishers to book made you ... er ... +well, made you what you are now."</p> + +<p>He drew up his tall, broad figure as he spoke and squared his massive +shoulders as he looked down with a fatuous smile and no small measure of +scorn on the hunched-up little figure beside him. It had seemed to him +that something in the nature of a threat had crept into Chauvelin's +attitude,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> and he, still flushed with his own importance, his +immeasurable belief in himself, at once chose to measure his strength +against this man who was the personification of failure and +disgrace—this man whom so many people had feared for so long and whom +it might not be wise to defy even now.</p> + +<p>"No offence meant, citizen Chauvelin," he added with an air of patronage +which once more made the other wince. "I had no wish to wound your +susceptibilities. I only desired to give you timely warning that what I +do here is no one's concern, and that I will brook interference and +criticism from no man."</p> + +<p>And Chauvelin, who in the past had oft with a nod sent a man to the +guillotine, made no reply to this arrogant taunt. His small figure +seemed to shrink still further within itself: and anon he passed his +thin, claw-like hand over his face as if to obliterate from its surface +any expression which might war with the utter humility wherewith he now +spoke.</p> + +<p>"Nor was there any offence meant on my part, citizen Martin-Roget," he +said suavely. "Do we not both labour for the same end? The glory of the +Republic and the destruction of her foes?"</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget gave a sigh of satisfaction. The battle had been won: he +felt himself strong again—stronger than before through that very act of +deference paid to him by the once all-powerful Chauvelin. Now he was +quite prepared to be condescending and jovial once again:</p> + +<p>"Of course, of course," he said pleasantly, as he once more bent his +tall figure to the fire. "We are both servants of the Republic, and I +may yet help you to retrieve your past failures, citizen, by giving you +an active part in the work I have in hand. And now," he added in a calm, +business-like manner, the manner of a master addressing a ser<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>vant who +has been found at fault and is taken into favour again, "let me hear +your news."</p> + +<p>"I have made all the arrangements about the ship," said Chauvelin +quietly.</p> + +<p>"Ah! that is good news indeed. What is she?"</p> + +<p>"She is a Dutch ship. Her master and crew are all Dutch...."</p> + +<p>"That's a pity. A Danish master and crew would have been safer."</p> + +<p>"I could not come across any Danish ship willing to take the risks," +said Chauvelin dryly.</p> + +<p>"Well! And what about this Dutch ship then?"</p> + +<p>"She is called the <i>Hollandia</i> and is habitually engaged in the sugar +trade: but her master does a lot of contraband—more that than fair +trading, I imagine: anyway, he is willing for the sum you originally +named to take every risk and incidentally to hold his tongue about the +whole business."</p> + +<p>"For two thousand francs?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And he will run the <i>Hollandia</i> into Le Croisic?"</p> + +<p>"When you command."</p> + +<p>"And there is suitable accommodation on board her for a lady and her +woman?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you call suitable," said Chauvelin with a sarcastic +tone, which the other failed or was unwilling to note, "and I don't know +what you call a lady. The accommodation available on board the +<i>Hollandia</i> will be sufficient for two men and two women."</p> + +<p>"And her master's name?" queried Martin-Roget.</p> + +<p>"Some outlandish Dutch name," replied Chauvelin. "It is spelt K U Y P E +R. The devil only knows how it is pronounced."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well! And does Captain K U Y P E R understand exactly what I want?"</p> + +<p>"He says he does. The <i>Hollandia</i> will put into Portishead on the last +day of this month. You and your guests can get aboard her any day after +that you choose. She will be there at your disposal, and can start +within an hour of your getting aboard. Her master will have all his +papers ready. He will have a cargo of West Indian sugar on +board—destination Amsterdam, consignee Mynheer van Smeer—everything +perfectly straight and square. French aristos, <i>émigrés</i> on board on +their way to join the army of the Princes. There will be no difficulty +in England."</p> + +<p>"And none in Le Croisic. The man is running no risks."</p> + +<p>"He thinks he is. France does not make Dutch ships and Dutch crews +exactly welcome just now, does she?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not. But in Le Croisic and with citizen Adet on board...."</p> + +<p>"I thought that name was not to be mentioned here," retorted Chauvelin +dryly.</p> + +<p>"You are right, citizen," whispered the other, "it escaped me and...."</p> + +<p>Already he had jumped to his feet, his face suddenly pale, his whole +manner changed from easy, arrogant self-assurance to uncertainty and +obvious dread. He moved to the window, trying to subdue the sound of his +footsteps upon the uneven floor.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>"Are you afraid of eavesdroppers, citizen Roget?" queried Chauvelin with +a shrug of his narrow shoulders.</p> + +<p>"No. There is no one there. Only a lout from Chelwood who brought me +here. The people of the house are safe<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> enough. They have plenty of +secrets of their own to keep."</p> + +<p>He was obviously saying all this in order to reassure himself, for there +was no doubt that his fears were on the alert. With a febrile gesture he +unfastened the shutters, and pushed them open, peering out into the +night.</p> + +<p>"Hallo!" he called.</p> + +<p>But he received no answer.</p> + +<p>"It has started to rain," he said more calmly. "I imagine that lout has +found shelter in an outhouse with the horses."</p> + +<p>"Very likely," commented Chauvelin laconically.</p> + +<p>"Then if you have nothing more to tell me," quoth Martin-Roget, "I may +as well think about getting back. Rain or no rain, I want to be in Bath +before midnight."</p> + +<p>"Ball or supper-party at one of your duchesses?" queried the other with +a sneer. "I know them."</p> + +<p>To this Martin-Roget vouchsafed no reply.</p> + +<p>"How are things at Nantes?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Splendid! Carrier is like a wild beast let loose. The prisons are +over-full: the surplus of accused, condemned and suspect fills the +cellars and warehouses along the wharf. Priests and suchlike trash are +kept on disused galliots up stream. The guillotine is never idle, and +friend Carrier fearing that she might give out—get tired, what?—or +break down—has invented a wonderful way of getting rid of shoals of +undesirable people at one magnificent swoop. You have heard tell of it +no doubt."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I have heard of it," remarked the other curtly.</p> + +<p>"He began with a load of priests. Requisitioned an old barge. Ordered +Baudet the shipbuilder to construct half a dozen portholes in her +bottom. Baudet demurred: he could not understand what the order could +possibly mean. But Foucaud and Lamberty—Carrier's agents—you know +them—explained that the barge would be towed down the Loire<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> and then +up one of the smaller navigable streams which it was feared the +royalists were preparing to use as a way for making a descent upon +Nantes, and that the idea was to sink the barge in midstream in order to +obstruct the passage of their army. Baudet, satisfied, put five of his +men to the task. Everything was ready on the 16th of last month. I know +the woman Pichot, who keeps a small tavern opposite La Sécherie. She saw +the barge glide up the river toward the galliot where twenty-five +priests of the diocese of Nantes had been living for the past two months +in the company of rats and other vermin as noxious as themselves. Most +lovely moonlight there was that night. The Loire looked like a living +ribbon of silver. Foucaud and Lamberty directed operations, and Carrier +had given them full instructions. They tied the calotins up two and two +and transferred them from the galliot to the barge. It seems they were +quite pleased to go. Had enough of the rats, I presume. The only thing +they didn't like was being searched. Some had managed to secrete silver +ornaments about their person when they were arrested. Crucifixes and +such like. They didn't like to part with these, it seems. But Foucaud +and Lamberty relieved them of everything but the necessary clothing, and +they didn't want much of that, seeing whither they were going. Foucaud +made a good pile, so they say. Self-seeking, avaricious brute! He'll +learn the way to one of Carrier's barges too one day, I'll bet."</p> + +<p>He rose and with quick footsteps moved to the table. There was some ale +left in the jug which the woman had brought for Martin-Roget a while +ago. Chauvelin poured the contents of it down his throat. He had talked +uninterruptedly, in short, jerky sentences, without the slightest +expression of horror at the atrocities which he recounted. His whole +appearance had become transfigured while he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> spoke. Gone was the urbane +manner which he had learnt at courts long ago, gone was the last +instinct of the gentleman sunk to proletarianism through stress of +circumstances, or financial straits or even political convictions. The +erstwhile Marquis de Chauvelin—envoy of the Republic at the Court of +St. James'—had become citizen Chauvelin in deed and in fact, a part of +that rabble which he had elected to serve, one of that vile crowd of +bloodthirsty revolutionaries who had sullied the pure robes of Liberty +and of Fraternity by spattering them with blood. Now he smacked his +lips, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and burying his hands in the +pockets of his breeches he stood with legs wide apart and a look of +savage satisfaction settled upon his pale face. Martin-Roget had made no +comment upon the narrative. He had resumed his seat by the fire and was +listening attentively. Now while the other drank and paused, he showed +no sign of impatience, but there was something in the look of the bent +shoulders, in the rigidity of the attitude, in the large, square hands +tightly clasped together which suggested the deepest interest and an +intentness that was almost painful.</p> + +<p>"I was at the woman Pichot's tavern that night," resumed Chauvelin after +a while. "I saw the barge—a moving coffin, what?—gliding down stream +towed by the galliot and escorted by a small boat. The floating battery +at La Samaritaine challenged her as she passed, for Carrier had +prohibited all navigation up or down the Loire until further notice. +Foucaud, Lamberty, Fouquet and O'Sullivan the armourer were in the boat: +they rowed up to the pontoon and Vailly the chief gunner of the battery +challenged them once more. However, they had some sort of written +authorisation from Carrier, for they were allowed to pass. Vailly +remained on guard. He saw the barge glide<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> further down stream. It seems +that the moon at that time was hidden by a cloud. But the night was not +dark and Vailly watched the barge till she was out of sight. She was +towed past Trentemoult and Chantenay into the wide reach of the river +just below Cheviré where, as you know, the Loire is nearly two thousand +feet wide."</p> + +<p>Once more he paused, looking down with grim amusement on the bent +shoulders of the other man.</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>Chauvelin laughed. The query sounded choked and hoarse, whether through +horror, excitement or mere impatient curiosity it were impossible to +say.</p> + +<p>"Well!" he retorted with a careless shrug of the shoulders. "I was too +far up stream to see anything and Vailly saw nothing either. But he +heard. So did others who happened to be on the shore close by."</p> + +<p>"What did they hear?"</p> + +<p>"The hammering," replied Chauvelin curtly, "when the portholes were +knocked open to let in the flood of water. And the screams and yells of +five and twenty drowning priests."</p> + +<p>"Not one of them escaped, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Not one."</p> + +<p>Once more Chauvelin laughed. He had a way of laughing—just like +that—in a peculiar mirthless, derisive manner, as if with joy at +another man's discomfiture, at another's material or moral downfall. +There is only one language in the world which has a word to express that +type of mirth; the word is <i>Schadenfreude</i>.</p> + +<p>It was Chauvelin's turn to triumph now. He had distinctly perceived the +signs of an inward shudder which had gone right through Martin-Roget's +spine: he had also perceived through the man's bent shoulders, his +silence, his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> rigidity that his soul was filled with horror at the story +of that abominable crime which he—Chauvelin—had so blandly retailed +and that he was afraid to show the horror which he felt. And the man who +is afraid can never climb the ladder of success above the man who is +fearless.</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>There was silence in the low raftered room for awhile: silence only +broken by the crackling and sizzling of damp logs in the hearth, and the +tap-tapping of a loosely fastened shutter which sounded weird and +ghoulish like the knocking of ghosts against the window-frame. +Martin-Roget bending still closer to the fire knew that Chauvelin was +watching him and that Chauvelin had triumphed, for—despite failure, +despite humiliation and disgrace—that man's heart and will had never +softened: he had remained as merciless, as fanatical, as before and +still looked upon every sign of pity and humanity for a victim of that +bloody revolution—which was his child, the thing of his creation, yet +worshipped by him, its creator—as a crime against patriotism and +against the Republic.</p> + +<p>And Martin-Roget fought within himself lest something he might say or +do, a look, a gesture should give the other man an indication that the +horrible account of a hideous crime perpetrated against twenty-five +defenceless men had roused a feeling of unspeakable horror in his heart. +That was the punishment of these callous makers of a ruthless +revolution—that was their hell upon earth, that they were doomed to +hate and to fear one another; every man feeling that the other's hand +was up against him as it had been against law and order, against the +guilty and the innocent,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> the rebel and the defenceless; every man +knowing that the other was always there on the alert, ready to pounce +like a beast of prey upon any victim—friend, comrade, brother—who came +within reach of his hand.</p> + +<p>Like many men stronger than himself, Pierre Adet—or Martin-Roget as he +now called himself—had been drawn into the vortex of bloodshed and of +tyranny out of which now he no longer had the power to extricate +himself. Nor had he any wish to extricate himself. He had too many past +wrongs to avenge, too much injustice on the part of Fate and +Circumstance to make good, to wish to draw back now that a newly-found +power had been placed in the hands of men such as he through the revolt +of an entire people. The sickening sense of horror which a moment ago +had caused him to shudder and to turn away in loathing from Chauvelin +was only like the feeble flicker of a light before it wholly dies +down—the light of something purer, early lessons of childhood, former +ideals, earlier aspirations, now smothered beneath the passions of +revenge and of hate.</p> + +<p>And he would not give Chauvelin the satisfaction of seeing him wince. He +was himself ashamed of his own weakness. He had deliberately thrown in +his lot with these men and he was determined not to fall a victim to +their denunciations and to their jealousies. So now he made a great +effort to pull himself together, to bring back before his mind those +memory-pictures of past tyranny and oppression which had effectually +killed all sense of pity in his heart, and it was in a tone of perfect +indifference which gave no loophole to Chauvelin's sneers that he asked +after awhile:</p> + +<p>"And was citizen Carrier altogether pleased with the result of his +patriotic efforts?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, quite!" replied the other. "He has no one's orders to take. He is +proconsul—virtual dictator in Nantes: and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> he has vowed that he will +purge the city from all save its most deserving citizens. The cargo of +priests was followed by one of malefactors, night-birds, cut-throats and +such like. That is where Carrier's patriotism shines out in all its +glory. It is not only priests and aristos, you see—other miscreants are +treated with equal fairness."</p> + +<p>"Yes! I see he is quite impartial," remarked Martin-Roget coolly.</p> + +<p>"Quite," retorted Chauvelin, as he once more sat down in the ingle-nook. +And, leaning his elbows upon his knees he looked straight and +deliberately into the other man's face, and added slowly: "You will have +no cause to complain of Carrier's want of patriotism when you hand over +your bag of birds to him."</p> + +<p>This time Martin-Roget had obviously winced, and Chauvelin had the +satisfaction of seeing that his thrust had gone home: though +Martin-Roget's face was in shadow, there was something now in his whole +attitude, in the clasping and unclasping of his large, square hands +which indicated that the man was labouring under the stress of a violent +emotion. In spite of this he managed to say quite coolly: "What do you +mean exactly by that, citizen Chauvelin?"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" replied the other, "you know well enough what I mean—I am no +fool, what?... or the Revolution would have no use for me. If after my +many failures she still commands my services and employs me to keep my +eyes and ears open, it is because she knows that she can count on me. I +do keep my eyes and ears open, citizen Adet or Martin-Roget, whatever +you like to call yourself, and also my mind—and I have a way of putting +two and two together to make four. There are few people in Nantes who do +not know that old Jean Adet, the miller, was hanged four years<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> ago, +because his son Pierre had taken part in some kind of open revolt +against the tyranny of the ci-devant duc de Kernogan, and was not there +to take his punishment himself. I knew old Jean Adet.... I was on the +Place du Bouffay at Nantes when he was hanged...."</p> + +<p>But already Martin-Roget had jumped to his feet with a muttered +blasphemy.</p> + +<p>"Have done, man," he said roughly, "have done!" And he started pacing up +and down the narrow room like a caged panther, snarling and showing his +teeth, whilst his rough, toil-worn hands quivered with the desire to +clutch an unseen enemy by the throat and to squeeze the life out of him. +"Think you," he added hoarsely, "that I need reminding of that?"</p> + +<p>"No. I do not think that, citizen," replied Chauvelin calmly, "I only +desired to warn you."</p> + +<p>"Warn me? Of what?"</p> + +<p>Nervous, agitated, restless, Martin-Roget had once more gone back to his +seat: his hands were trembling as he held them up mechanically to the +blaze and his face was the colour of lead. In contrast with his +restlessness Chauvelin appeared the more calm and bland.</p> + +<p>"Why should you wish to warn me?" asked the other querulously, but with +an attempt at his former over-bearing manner. "What are my affairs to +you—what do you know about them?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing, nothing, citizen Martin-Roget," replied Chauvelin +pleasantly, "I was only indulging the fancy I spoke to you about just +now of putting two and two together in order to make four. The +chartering of a smuggler's craft—aristos on board her—her ostensible +destination Holland—her real objective Le Croisic.... Le Croisic is now +the port for Nantes and we don't bring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> aristos into Nantes these days +for the object of providing them with a feather-bed and a competence, +what?"</p> + +<p>"And," retorted Martin-Roget quietly, "if your surmises are correct, +citizen Chauvelin, what then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing!" replied the other indifferently. "Only ... take care, +citizen ... that is all."</p> + +<p>"Take care of what?"</p> + +<p>"Of the man who brought me, Chauvelin, to ruin and disgrace."</p> + +<p>"Oh! I have heard of that legend before now," said Martin-Roget with a +contemptuous shrug of the shoulders. "The man they call the Scarlet +Pimpernel you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes!"</p> + +<p>"What have I to do with him?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. But remember that I myself have twice been after that man +here in England; that twice he slipped through my fingers when I thought +I held him so tightly that he could not possibly escape and that twice +in consequence I was brought to humiliation and to shame. I am a marked +man now—the guillotine will soon claim me for her future use. Your +affairs, citizen, are no concern of mine, but I have marked that Scarlet +Pimpernel for mine own. I won't have any blunderings on your part give +him yet another triumph over us all."</p> + +<p>Once more Martin-Roget swore one of his favourite oaths.</p> + +<p>"By Satan and all his brood, man," he cried in a passion of fury, "have +done with this interference. Have done, I say. I have nothing to do, I +tell you, with your <i>satané</i> Scarlet Pimpernel. My concern is with...."</p> + +<p>"With the duc de Kernogan," broke in Chauvelin calmly, "and with his +daughter; I know that well enough. You want to be even with them over +the murder of your father.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> I know that too. All that is your affair. +But beware, I tell you. To begin with, the secrecy of your identity is +absolutely essential to the success of your plan. What?"</p> + +<p>"Of course it is. But...."</p> + +<p>"But nevertheless, your identity is known to the most astute, the +keenest enemy of the Republic."</p> + +<p>"Impossible," asserted Martin-Roget hotly.</p> + +<p>"The duc de Kernogan...."</p> + +<p>"Bah! He had never the slightest suspicion of me. Think you his High and +Mightiness in those far-off days ever looked twice at a village lad so +that he would know him again four years later? I came into this country +as an <i>émigré</i> stowed away in a smuggler's ship like a bundle of +contraband goods. I have papers to prove that my name is Martin-Roget +and that I am a banker from Brest. The worthy bishop of Brest—denounced +to the Committee of Public Safety for treason against the Republic—was +given his life and a safe conduct into Spain on the condition that he +gave me—Martin-Roget—letters of personal introduction to various +high-born <i>émigrés</i> in Holland, in Germany and in England. Armed with +these I am invulnerable. I have been presented to His Royal Highness the +Regent, and to the élite of English society in Bath. I am the friend of +M. le duc de Kernogan now and the accredited suitor for his daughter's +hand."</p> + +<p>"His daughter!" broke in Chauvelin with a sneer, and his pale, keen eyes +had in them a spark of malicious mockery.</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget made no immediate retort to the sneer. A curious hot flush +had spread over his forehead and his ears, leaving his cheeks wan and +livid.</p> + +<p>"What about the daughter?" reiterated Chauvelin.</p> + +<p>"Yvonne de Kernogan has never seen Pierre Adet the miller's son," +replied the other curtly. "She is now the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> affianced wife of +Martin-Roget the millionaire banker of Brest. To-night I shall persuade +M. le duc to allow my marriage with his daughter to take place within +the week. I shall plead pressing business in Holland and my desire that +my wife shall accompany me thither. The duke will consent and Yvonne de +Kernogan will not be consulted. The day after my wedding I shall be on +board the <i>Hollandia</i> with my wife and father-in-law, and together we +will be on our way to Nantes where Carrier will deal with them both."</p> + +<p>"You are quite satisfied that this plan of yours is known to no one, +that no one at the present moment is aware of the fact that Pierre Adet, +the miller's son, and Martin-Roget, banker of Brest, are one and the +same?"</p> + +<p>"Quite satisfied," replied Martin-Roget emphatically.</p> + +<p>"Very well, then, let me tell you this, citizen," rejoined Chauvelin +slowly and deliberately, "that in spite of what you say I am as +convinced as that I am here, alive, that your real identity will be +known—if it is not known already—to a gentleman who is at this present +moment in Bath, and who is known to you, to me, to the whole of France +as the Scarlet Pimpernel."</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget laughed and shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Impossible!" he retorted. "Pierre Adet no longer exists ... he never +existed ... much.... Anyhow, he ceased to be on that stormy day in +September, 1789. Unless your pet enemy is a wizard he cannot know."</p> + +<p>"There is nothing that my pet enemy—as you call him—cannot ferret out +if he has a mind to. Beware of him, citizen Martin-Roget. Beware, I tell +you."</p> + +<p>"How can I," laughed the other contemptuously, "if I don't know who he +is?"</p> + +<p>"If you did," retorted Chauvelin, "it wouldn't help you ... much. But +beware of every man you don't know; be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>ware of every stranger you meet; +trust no one; above all, follow no one. He is there where you least +expect him under a disguise you would scarcely dream of."</p> + +<p>"Tell me who he is then—since you know him—so that I may duly beware +of him."</p> + +<p>"No," rejoined Chauvelin with the same slow deliberation, "I will not +tell you who he is. Knowledge in this case would be a very dangerous +thing."</p> + +<p>"Dangerous? To whom?"</p> + +<p>"To yourself probably. To me and to the Republic most undoubtedly. No! I +will not tell you who the Scarlet Pimpernel is. But take my advice, +citizen Martin-Roget," he added emphatically, "go back to Paris or to +Nantes and strive there to serve your country rather than run your head +into a noose by meddling with things here in England, and running after +your own schemes of revenge."</p> + +<p>"My own schemes of revenge!" exclaimed Martin-Roget with a hoarse cry +that was like a snarl.... It seemed as if he wanted to say something +more, but that the words choked him even before they reached his lips. +The hot flush died down from his forehead and his face was once more the +colour of lead. He took up a log from the corner of the hearth and threw +it with a savage, defiant gesture into the fire.</p> + +<p>Somewhere in the house a clock struck nine.</p> + + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>Martin-Roget waited until the last echo of the gong had died away, then +he said very slowly and very quietly:</p> + +<p>"Forgo my own schemes of revenge? Can you even remotely guess, citizen +Chauvelin, what it would mean to a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> man of my temperament and of my +calibre to give up that for which I have toiled and striven for the past +four years? Think of what I was on that day when a conglomeration of +adverse circumstances turned our proposed expedition against the château +de Kernogan into a disaster for our village lads, and a triumph for the +duc. I was knocked down and crushed all but to death by the wheels of +Mlle. de Kernogan's coach. I managed to crawl in the mud and the cold +and the rain, on my hands and knees, hurt, bleeding, half dead, as far +as the presbytery of Vertou where the <i>curé</i> kept me hidden at risk of +his own life for two days until I was able to crawl farther away out of +sight. The <i>curé</i> did not know, I did not know then of the devilish +revenge which the duc de Kernogan meant to wreak against my father. The +news reached me when it was all over and I had worked my way to Paris +with the few sous in my pocket which that good <i>curé</i> had given me, +earning bed and bread as I went along. I was an ignorant lout when I +arrived in Paris. I had been one of the ci-devant Kernogan's +labourers—his chattel, what?—little better or somewhat worse off than +a slave. There I heard that my father had been foully murdered—hung for +a crime which I was supposed to have committed, for which I had not even +been tried. Then the change in me began. For four years I starved in a +garret, toiling like a galley-slave with my hands and muscles by day and +at my books by night. And what am I now? I have worked at books, at +philosophy, at science: I am a man of education. I can talk and discuss +with the best of those d——d aristos who flaunt their caprices and +their mincing manners in the face of the outraged democracy of two +continents. I speak English—almost like a native—and Danish and German +too. I can quote English poets and criticise M. de Voltaire. I am an +aristo, what? For this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> I have worked, citizen Chauvelin—day and +night—oh! those nights! how I have slaved to make myself what I now am! +And all for the one object—the sole object without which existence +would have been absolutely unendurable. That object guided me, helped me +to bear and to toil, it cheered and comforted me! To be even one day +with the duc de Kernogan and with his daughter! to be their master! to +hold them at my mercy!... to destroy or pardon as I choose!... to be the +arbiter of their fate!... I have worked for four years: now my goal is +in sight, and you talk glibly of forgoing my own schemes of revenge! +Believe me, citizen Chauvelin," he concluded, "it would be easier for me +to hold my right hand into those flames until it hath burned to a cinder +than to forgo the hope of that vengeance which has eaten into my soul. +It would hurt much less."</p> + +<p>He had spoken thus at great length, but with extraordinary restraint. +Never once did he raise his voice or indulge in gesture. He spoke in +even, monotonous tones, like one who is reciting a lesson; and he sat +straight in front of the fire, his elbow on his knee, his chin resting +in his hand and his eyes fixed upon the flames.</p> + +<p>Chauvelin had listened in perfect silence. The scorn, the resentful +anger, the ill-concealed envy of the fallen man for the successful +upstart had died out of his glance. Martin-Roget's story, the intensity +of feeling betrayed in that absolute, outward calm had caused a chord of +sympathy to vibrate in the other's atrophied heart. How well he +understood that vibrant passion of hate, that longing to exact an eye +for an eye, an outrage for an outrage! Was not his own life given over +now to just such a longing?—a mad aching desire to be even once with +that hated enemy, that maddening, mocking, elusive Scarlet Pimpernel who +had fooled and baffled him so often?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p> +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p>Some few moments had gone by since Martin-Roget's harsh, monotonous +voice had ceased to echo through the low raftered room: silence had +fallen between the two men—there was indeed nothing more to say; the +one had unburthened his over-full heart and the other had understood. +They were of a truth made to understand one another, and the silence +between them betokened sympathy.</p> + +<p>Around them all was still, the stillness of a mist-laden night; in the +house no one stirred: the shutter even had ceased to creak; only the +crackling of the wood fire broke that silence which soon became +oppressive.</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget was the first to rouse himself from this trance-like state +wherein memory was holding such ruthless sway: he brought his hands +sharply down on his knees, turned to look for a moment on his companion, +gave a short laugh and finally rose, saying briskly the while:</p> + +<p>"And now, citizen, I shall have to bid you adieu and make my way back to +Bath. The nags have had the rest they needed and I cannot spend the +night here."</p> + +<p>He went to the door and opening it called a loud "Hallo, there!"</p> + +<p>The same woman who had waited on him on his arrival came slowly down the +stairs in response.</p> + +<p>"The man with the horses," commanded Martin-Roget peremptorily. "Tell +him I'll be ready in two minutes."</p> + +<p>He returned to the room and proceeded to struggle into his heavy coat, +Chauvelin as before making no attempt to help him. He sat once more +huddled up in the ingle-nook hugging his elbows with his thin white +hands. There was a smile half scornful, but not wholly dissatisfied +around<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> his bloodless lips. When Martin-Roget was ready to go he called +out quietly after him:</p> + +<p>"The <i>Hollandia</i> remember! At Portishead on the last day of the month. +Captain K U Y P E R."</p> + +<p>"Quite right," replied Martin-Roget laconically. "I'm not like to +forget."</p> + +<p>He then picked up his hat and riding whip and went out.</p> + + +<h3>VII</h3> + +<p>Outside in the porch he found the woman bending over the recumbent +figure of his guide.</p> + +<p>"He be azleep, Mounzeer," she said placidly, "fast azleep, I do +believe."</p> + +<p>"Asleep?" cried Martin-Roget roughly, "we'll soon see about waking him +up."</p> + +<p>He gave the man a violent kick with the toe of his boot. The man +groaned, stretched himself, turned over and rubbed his eyes. The light +of the swinging lanthorn showed him the wrathful face of his employer. +He struggled to his feet very quickly after that.</p> + +<p>"Stir yourself, man," cried Martin-Roget savagely, as he gripped the +fellow by the shoulder and gave him a vigorous shaking. "Bring the +horses along now, and don't keep me waiting, or there'll be trouble."</p> + +<p>"All right, Mounzeer, all right," muttered the man placidly, as he shook +himself free from the uncomfortable clutch on his shoulder and leisurely +made his way out of the porch.</p> + +<p>"Haven't you got a boy or a man who can give that lout a hand with those +<i>sacré</i> horses?" queried Martin-Roget impatiently. "He hardly knows a +horse's head from its tail."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, zir, I've no one to-night," replied the woman gently. "My man and +my son they be gone down to Watchet to 'elp with the cargo and the +pack-'orzes. They won't be 'ere neither till after midnight. But," she +added more cheerfully, "I can straighten a saddle if you want it."</p> + +<p>"That's all right then—but...."</p> + +<p>He paused suddenly, for a loud cry of "Hallo! Well! I'm ..." rang +through the night from the direction of the rear of the house. The cry +expressed both surprise and dismay.</p> + +<p>"What the —— is it?" called Martin-Roget loudly in response.</p> + +<p>"The 'orzes!"</p> + +<p>"What about them?"</p> + +<p>To this there was no reply, and with a savage oath and calling to the +woman to show him the way Martin-Roget ran out in the direction whence +had come the cry of dismay. He fell straight into the arms of his guide, +who promptly set up another cry, more dismal, more expressive of +bewilderment than the first.</p> + +<p>"They be gone," he shouted excitedly.</p> + +<p>"Who have gone?" queried the Frenchman.</p> + +<p>"The 'orzes!"</p> + +<p>"The horses? What in —— do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"The 'orzes have gone, Mounzeer. There was no door to the ztables and +they be gone."</p> + +<p>"You're a fool," growled Martin-Roget, who of a truth had not taken in +as yet the full significance of the man's jerky sentences. "Horses don't +walk out of the stables like that. They can't have done if you tied them +up properly."</p> + +<p>"I didn't tie them up," protested the man. "I didn't know 'ow to tie the +beastly nags up, and there was no one to 'elp me. I didn't think they'd +walk out like that."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well! if they're gone you'll have to go and get them back somehow, +that's all," said Martin-Roget, whose temper by now was beyond his +control, and who was quite ready to give the lout a furious thrashing.</p> + +<p>"Get them back, Mounzeer," wailed the man, "'ow can I? In the dark, too. +Besides, if I did come nose to nose wi' 'em I shouldn't know 'ow to get +'em. Would you, Mounzeer?" he added with bland impertinence.</p> + +<p>"I shall know how to lay you out, you <i>satané</i> idiot," growled +Martin-Roget, "if I have to spend the night in this hole."</p> + +<p>He strode on in the darkness in the direction where a little glimmer of +light showed the entrance to a wide barn which obviously was used as a +rough stabling. He stumbled through a yard and over a miscellaneous lot +of rubbish. It was hardly possible to see one's hands before one's eyes +in the darkness and the fog. The woman followed him, offering +consolation in the shape of a seat in the coffee-room whereon to pass +the night, for indeed she had no bed to spare, and the man from Chelwood +brought up the rear—still ejaculating cries of astonishment rather than +distress.</p> + +<p>"You are that careless, man!" the woman admonished him placidly, "and I +give you a lanthorn and all for to look after your 'orzes properly."</p> + +<p>"But you didn't give me a 'and for to tie 'em up in their stalls, and +give 'em their feed. Drat 'em! I 'ate 'orzes and all to do with 'em."</p> + +<p>"Didn't you give 'em the feed I give you for 'em then?"</p> + +<p>"No, I didn't. Think you I'd go into one o' them narrow stalls and get +kicked for my pains."</p> + +<p>"Then they was 'ungry, pore things," she concluded, "and went out after +the 'ay what's just outside. I don't know 'ow you'll ever get 'em back +in this fog."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p> + +<p>There was indeed no doubt that the nags had made their way out of the +stables, in that irresponsible fashion peculiar to animals, and that +they had gone astray in the dark. There certainly was no sound in the +night to denote their presence anywhere near.</p> + +<p>"We'll get 'em all right in the morning," remarked the woman with her +exasperating placidity.</p> + +<p>"To-morrow morning!" exclaimed Martin-Roget in a passion of fury. "And +what the d——l am I going to do in the meanwhile?"</p> + +<p>The woman reiterated her offers of a seat by the fire in the +coffee-room.</p> + +<p>"The men won't mind ye, zir," she said, "heaps of 'em are Frenchies like +yourself, and I'll tell 'em you ain't a spying on 'em."</p> + +<p>"It's no more than five mile to Chelwood," said the man blandly, "and +maybe you get a better shakedown there."</p> + +<p>"A five-mile tramp," growled Martin-Roget, whose wrath seemed to have +spent itself before the hopelessness of his situation, "in this fog and +gloom, and knee-deep in mud.... There'll be a sovereign for you, woman," +he added curtly, "if you can give me a clean bed for the night."</p> + +<p>The woman hesitated for a second or two.</p> + +<p>"Well! a zovereign is tempting, zir," she said at last. "You shall 'ave +my son's bed. I know 'e'd rather 'ave the zovereign if 'e was ever zo +tired. This way, zir," she added, as she once more turned toward the +house, "mind them 'urdles there."</p> + +<p>"And where am I goin' to zleep?" called the man from Chelwood after the +two retreating figures.</p> + +<p>"I'll look after the man for you, zir," said the woman; "for a matter of +a shillin' 'e can sleep in the coffee-room, and I'll give 'im 'is +breakfast too."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Not one farthing will I pay for the idiot," retorted Martin-Roget +savagely. "Let him look after himself."</p> + +<p>He had once more reached the porch. Without another word, and not +heeding the protests and curses of the unfortunate man whom he had left +standing shelterless in the middle of the yard, he pushed open the front +door of the house and once more found himself in the passage outside the +coffee-room.</p> + +<p>But the woman had turned back a little before she followed her guest +into the house, and she called out to the man in the darkness:</p> + +<p>"You may zleep in any of them outhouses and welcome, and zure there'll +be a bit o' porridge for ye in the mornin'!"</p> + +<p>"Think ye I'll stop," came in a furious growl out of the gloom, "and +conduct that d——d frogeater back to Chelwood? No fear. Five miles +ain't nothin' to me, and 'e can keep the miserable shillin' 'e'd 'ave +give me for my pains. Let 'im get 'is 'orzes back 'izelf and get to +Chelwood as best 'e can. I'm off, and you can tell 'im zo from me. It'll +make 'im sleep all the better, I reckon."</p> + +<p>The woman was obviously not of a disposition that would ever argue a +matter of this sort out. She had done her best, she reckoned, both for +master and man, and if they chose to quarrel between themselves that was +their business and not hers.</p> + +<p>So she quietly went into the house again; barred and bolted the door, +and finding the stranger still waiting for her in the passage she +conducted him to a tiny room on the floor above.</p> + +<p>"My son's room, Mounzeer," she said; "I 'ope as 'ow ye'll be +comfortable."</p> + +<p>"It will do all right," assented Martin-Roget. "Is 'the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> Captain' +sleeping in the house to-night?" he added as with an afterthought.</p> + +<p>"Only in the coffee-room, Mounzeer. I couldn't give 'im a bed. 'The +Captain' will be leaving with the pack 'orzes a couple of hours before +dawn. Shall I tell 'im you be 'ere."</p> + +<p>"No, no," he replied promptly. "Don't tell him anything. I don't want to +see him again: and he'll be gone before I'm awake, I reckon."</p> + +<p>"That 'e will, zir, most like. Good-night, zir."</p> + +<p>"Good-night. And—mind—that lout gets the two horses back again for my +use in the morning. I shall have to make my way to Chelwood as early as +may be."</p> + +<p>"Aye, aye, zir," assented the woman placidly. It were no use, she +thought, to upset the Mounzeer's temper once more by telling him that +his guide had decamped. Time enough in the morning, when she would be +less busy.</p> + +<p>"And my John can see 'im as far as Chelwood," she thought to herself as +she finally closed the door on the stranger and made her way slowly down +the creaking stairs.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h3> + +<h4>THE ASSEMBLY ROOMS</h4> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>The sigh of satisfaction was quite unmistakable.</p> + +<p>It could be heard from end to end, from corner to corner of the +building. It sounded above the din of the orchestra who had just +attacked with vigour the opening bars of a schottische, above the +brouhaha of moving dancers and the frou-frou of skirts: it travelled +from the small octagon hall, through the central salon to the tea-room, +the ball-room and the card-room: it reverberated from the gallery in the +ball-room to the maids' gallery: it distracted the ladies from their +gossip and the gentlemen from their cards.</p> + +<p>It was a universal, heartfelt "Ah!" of intense and pleasurable +satisfaction.</p> + +<p>Sir Percy Blakeney and his lady had just arrived. It was close on +midnight, and the ball had positively languished. What was a ball +without the presence of Sir Percy? His Royal Highness too had been +expected earlier than this. But it was not thought that he would come at +all, despite his promise, if the spoilt pet of Bath society remained +unaccountably absent; and the Assembly Rooms had worn an air of woe even +in the face of the gaily dressed throng which filled every vast room in +its remotest angle.</p> + +<p>But now Sir Percy Blakeney had arrived, just before the clocks had +struck midnight, and exactly one minute<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> before His Royal Highness drove +up himself from the Royal Apartments. Lady Blakeney was looking more +radiant and beautiful than ever before, so everyone remarked, when a few +moments later she appeared in the crowded ball-room on the arm of His +Royal Highness and closely followed by my lord Anthony Dewhurst and by +Sir Percy himself, who had the young Duchess of Flintshire on his arm.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, you incorrigible rogue," her Grace was saying with +playful severity to her cavalier, "by coming so late to the ball? +Another two minutes and you would have arrived after His Royal Highness +himself: and how would you have justified such solecism, I would like to +know."</p> + +<p>"By swearing that thoughts of your Grace had completely addled my poor +brain," he retorted gaily, "and that in the mental contemplation of such +charms I forgot time, place, social duties, everything."</p> + +<p>"Even the homage due to truth," she laughed. "Cannot you for once in +your life be serious, Sir Percy?"</p> + +<p>"Impossible, dear lady, whilst your dainty hand rests upon mine arm."</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>It was not often that His Royal Highness graced Bath with his presence, +and the occasion was made the excuse for quite exceptional gaiety and +brilliancy. The new fashions of this memorable year of 1793 had defied +the declaration of war and filtrated through from Paris: London +milliners had not been backward in taking the hint, and though most of +the more starchy dowagers obstinately adhered to the pre-war +fashions—the huge hooped skirts,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> stiff stomachers, pointed waists, +voluminous panniers and monumental head erections—the young and smart +matrons were everywhere to be seen in the new gracefully flowing skirts +innocent of steel constructions, the high waist line, the pouter +pigeon-like draperies over their pretty bosoms.</p> + +<p>Her Grace of Flintshire looked ravishing with her curly fair hair +entirely free from powder, and Lady Betty Draitune's waist seemed to be +nestling under her arm-pits. Of course Lady Blakeney wore the very +latest thing in striped silks and gossamer-like muslin and lace, and it +was hard to enumerate all the pretty débutantes and young brides who +fluttered about the Assembly Rooms this night.</p> + +<p>And gliding through that motley throng, bright-plumaged like a swarm of +butterflies, there were a few figures dressed in sober blacks and +greys—the <i>émigrés</i> over from France—men, women, young girls and +gilded youth from out that seething cauldron of revolutionary +France—who had shaken the dust of that rampant demagogism from off +their buckled shoes, taking away with them little else but their lives. +Mostly chary of speech, grave in their demeanour, bearing upon their wan +faces traces of that horror which had seized them when they saw all the +traditions of their past tottering around them, the proletariat whom +they had despised turning against them with all the fury of caged beasts +let loose, their kindred and friends massacred, their King and Queen +murdered. The shelter and security which hospitable England had extended +to them, had not altogether removed from their hearts the awful sense of +terror and of gloom.</p> + +<p>Many of them had come to Bath because the more genial climate of the +West of England consoled them for the inclemencies of London's fogs. +Received with open<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> arms and with that lavish hospitality which the +refugees and the oppressed had already learned to look for in England, +they had gradually allowed themselves to be drawn into the fashionable +life of the gay little city. The Comtesse de Tournai was here and her +daughter, Lady Ffoulkes, Sir Andrew's charming and happy bride, and M. +Paul Déroulède and his wife—beautiful Juliette Déroulède with the +strange, haunted look in her large eyes, as of one who has looked +closely on death; and M. le duc de Kernogan with his exquisite daughter, +whose pretty air of seriousness and of repose sat so quaintly upon her +young face. But every one remarked as soon as M. le duc entered the +rooms that M. Martin-Roget was not in attendance upon Mademoiselle, +which was quite against the order of things; also that M. le duc +appeared to keep a more sharp eye than usual upon his daughter in +consequence, and that he asked somewhat anxiously if milor Anthony +Dewhurst was in the room, and looked obviously relieved when the reply +was in the negative.</p> + +<p>At which trifling incident every one who was in the know smiled and +whispered, for M. le duc made it no secret that he favoured his own +compatriot's suit for Mademoiselle Yvonne's hand rather than that of my +lord Tony—which—as old Euclid has it—is absurd.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>But with the arrival of the royal party M. de Kernogan's troubles began. +To begin with, though M. Martin-Roget had not arrived, my lord Tony +undoubtedly had. He had come in, in the wake of Lady Blakeney, but very +soon he began wandering round the room obviously in search of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> some one. +Immediately there appeared to be quite a conspiracy among the young folk +in the ball-room to keep both Lord Tony's and Mlle. Yvonne's movements +hidden from the prying eyes of M. le duc: and anon His Royal Highness, +after a comprehensive survey of the ball-room and a few gracious words +to his more intimate circle, wandered away to the card-room, and as luck +would have it he claimed M. le duc de Kernogan for a partner at faro.</p> + +<p>Now M. le duc was a courtier of the old régime: to have disobeyed the +royal summons would in his eyes have been nothing short of a crime. He +followed the royal party to the card-room, and on his way thither had +one gleam of comfort in that he saw Lady Blakeney sitting on a sofa in +the octagon hall engaged in conversation with his daughter, whilst Lord +Anthony Dewhurst was nowhere in sight.</p> + +<p>However, the gleam of comfort was very brief, for less than a quarter of +an hour after he had sat down at His Highness' table, Lady Blakeney came +into the card-room and stood thereafter for some little while close +beside the Prince's chair. The next hour after that was one of special +martyrdom for the anxious father, for he knew that his daughter was in +all probability sitting out in a specially secluded corner in the +company of my lord Tony.</p> + +<p>If only Martin-Roget were here!</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>Martin-Roget with the eagle eyes and the airs of an accredited suitor +would surely have intervened when my lord Tony in the face of the whole +brilliant assembly in the ball-room, drew Mlle. de Kernogan into the +seclusion of the recess underneath the gallery.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p> + +<p>My lord Tony was never very glib of tongue. That peculiar dignified +shyness which is one of the chief characteristics of well-bred +Englishmen caused him to be tongue-tied when he had most to say. It was +just with gesture and an appealing pressure of his hand upon her arm +that he persuaded Yvonne de Kernogan to sit down beside him on the sofa +in the remotest and darkest corner of the recess, and there she remained +beside him silent and grave for a moment or two, and stole timid glances +from time to time through the veil of her lashes at the +finely-chiselled, expressive face of her young English lover.</p> + +<p>He was pining to put a question to her, and so great was his excitement +that his tongue refused him service, and she, knowing what was hovering +on his lips, would not help him out, but a humorous twinkle in her dark +eyes, and a faint smile round her lips lit up the habitual seriousness +of her young face.</p> + +<p>"Mademoiselle ..." he managed to stammer at last. "Mademoiselle Yvonne +... you have seen Lady Blakeney?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she replied demurely, "I have seen Lady Blakeney."</p> + +<p>"And ... and ... she told you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Lady Blakeney told me many things."</p> + +<p>"She told you that ... that.... In God's name, Mademoiselle Yvonne," he +added desperately, "do help me out—it is cruel to tease me! Can't you +see that I'm nearly crazy with anxiety?"</p> + +<p>Then she looked up at him, her dark eyes glowing and brilliant, her face +shining with the light of a great tenderness.</p> + +<p>"Nay, milor," she said earnestly, "I had no wish to tease you. But you +will own 'tis a grave and serious step<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> which Lady Blakeney suggested +that I should take. I have had no time to think ... as yet."</p> + +<p>"But there is no time for thinking, Mademoiselle Yvonne," he said +naïvely. "If you will consent.... Oh! you will consent, will you not?" +he pleaded.</p> + +<p>She made no immediate reply, but gradually her hand which rested upon +the sofa stole nearer and then nearer to his; and with a quiver of +exquisite happiness his hand closed upon hers. The tips of his fingers +touched the smooth warm palm and poor Lord Tony had to close his eyes +for a moment as his sense of superlative ecstasy threatened to make him +faint. Slowly he lifted that soft white hand to his lips.</p> + +<p>"Upon my word, Yvonne," he said with quiet fervour, "you will never have +cause to regret that you have trusted me."</p> + +<p>"I know that well, milor," she replied demurely.</p> + +<p>She settled down a shade or two closer to him still.</p> + +<p>They were now like two birds in a cosy nest—secluded from the rest of +the assembly, who appeared to them like dream-figures flitting in some +other world that had nothing to do with their happiness. The strains of +the orchestra who had struck the measure of the first figure of a +contredanse sounded like fairy-music, distant, unreal in their ears. +Only their love was real, their joy in one another's company, their +hands clasped closely together!</p> + +<p>"Tell me," she said after awhile, "how it all came about. It is all so +terribly sudden ... so exquisitely sudden. I was prepared of course ... +but not so soon ... and certainly not to-night. Tell me just how it +happened."</p> + +<p>She spoke English quite fluently, with just a charming slight accent, +which he thought the most adorable thing he had ever heard.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You see, dear heart," he replied, and there was a quiver of intense +feeling in his voice as he spoke, "there is a man who not only is the +friend whom I love best in all the world, but is also the one whom I +trust absolutely, more than myself. Two hours ago he sent for me and +told me that grave danger threatened you—threatened our love and our +happiness, and he begged me to urge you to consent to a secret marriage +... at once ... to-night."</p> + +<p>"And you think this ... this friend knew?"</p> + +<p>"I know," he replied earnestly, "that he knew, or he would not have +spoken to me as he did. He knows that my whole life is in your exquisite +hands—he knows that our happiness is somehow threatened by that man +Martin-Roget. How he obtained that information I could not guess ... he +had not the time or the inclination to tell me. I flew to make all +arrangements for our marriage to-night and prayed to God—as I have +never prayed in my life before—that you, dear heart, would deign to +consent."</p> + +<p>"How could I refuse when Lady Blakeney advised? She is the kindest and +dearest friend I possess. She and your friend ought to know one another. +Will you not tell me who he is?"</p> + +<p>"I will present him to you, dear heart, as soon as we are married," he +replied with awkward evasiveness. Then suddenly he exclaimed with boyish +enthusiasm: "I can't believe it! I can't believe it! It is the most +extraordinary thing in the world...."</p> + +<p>"What is that, milor?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"That you should have cared for me at all. For of course you must care, +or you wouldn't be sitting here with me now ... you would not have +consented ... would you?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You know that I do care, milor," she said in her grave quiet way. "How +could it be otherwise?"</p> + +<p>"But I am so stupid and so slow," he said naïvely. "Why! look at me now. +My heart is simply bursting with all that I want to say to you, but I +just can't find the words, and I do nothing but talk rubbish and feel +how you must despise me."</p> + +<p>Once more that humorous little smile played for a moment round Yvonne de +Kernogan's serious mouth. She didn't say anything just then, but her +delicate fingers gave his hand an expressive squeeze.</p> + +<p>"You are not frightened?" he asked abruptly.</p> + +<p>"Frightened? Of what?" she rejoined.</p> + +<p>"At the step you are going to take?"</p> + +<p>"Would I take it," she retorted gently, "if I had any misgivings?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! if you had.... Do you know that even now ..." he continued clumsily +and haltingly, "now that I have realised just what it will mean to have +you ... and just what it would mean to me, God help me—if I were to +lose you ... well!... that even now I would rather go through that hell +than that you should feel the least bit doubtful or unhappy about it +all."</p> + +<p>Again she smiled, gently, tenderly up into his eager, boyish face.</p> + +<p>"The only unhappiness," she said gravely, "that could ever overtake me +in the future would be parting from you, milor."</p> + +<p>"Oh! God bless you for that, my dear! God bless you for that! But for +pity's sake turn your dear eyes away from me or I vow I shall go crazy +with joy. Men do go crazy with joy sometimes, you know, and I feel that +in another moment I shall stand up and shout at the top of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> my voice to +all the people in the room that within the next few hours the loveliest +girl in all the world is going to be my wife."</p> + +<p>"She certainly won't be that, if you do shout it at the top of your +voice, milor, for father would hear you and there would be an end to our +beautiful adventure."</p> + +<p>"It will be a beautiful adventure, won't it?" he sighed with unconcealed +ecstasy.</p> + +<p>"So beautiful, my dear lord," she replied with gentle earnestness, "so +perfect, in fact, that I am almost afraid something must happen +presently to upset it all."</p> + +<p>"Nothing can happen," he assured her. "M. Martin-Roget is not here, and +His Royal Highness is even now monopolising M. le duc de Kernogan so +that he cannot get away."</p> + +<p>"Your friend must be very clever to manipulate so many strings on our +behalf!"</p> + +<p>"It is long past midnight now, sweetheart," he said with sudden +irrelevance.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know. I have been watching the time: and I have already thought +everything out for the best. I very often go home from balls and routs +in the company of Lady Ffoulkes and sleep in her house those nights. +Father is always quite satisfied, when I do that, and to-night he will +be doubly satisfied feeling that I shall be taken away from your +society. Lady Ffoulkes is in the secret, of course, so Lady Blakeney +told me, and she will be ready for me in a few minutes now: she'll take +me home with her and there I will change my dress and rest for awhile, +waiting for the happy hour. She will come to the church with me and then +... oh then! Oh! my dear milor!" she added suddenly with a deep sigh +whilst her whole face became irradiated with a light of intense +happiness, "as you say<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> it is the most wonderful thing in all the +world—this—our beautiful adventure together."</p> + +<p>"The parson will be ready at half-past six, dear heart, it was the +earliest hour that I could secure ... after that we go at once to your +church and the priest will tie up any loose threads which our English +parson failed to make tight. After those two ceremonies we shall be very +much married, shan't we?... and nothing can come between us, dear heart, +can it?" he queried with a look of intense anxiety on his young face.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," she replied. Then she added with a short sigh: "Poor father!"</p> + +<p>"Dear heart, he will only fret for a little while. I don't believe he +can really want you to marry that man Martin-Roget. It is just obstinacy +on his part. He can't have anything against me really ... save of course +that I am not clever and that I shall never do anything very big in the +world ... except to love you, Yvonne, with my whole heart and soul and +with every fibre and muscle in me.... Oh! I'll do that," he added with +boyish enthusiasm, "better than anyone else in all the world could do! +And your father will, I'll be bound, forgive me for stealing you, when +he sees that you are happy, and contented, and have everything you want +and ... and...."</p> + +<p>As usual Lord Tony's eloquence was not equal to all that it should have +expressed. He blushed furiously and with a quaint, shy gesture, passed +his large, well-shaped hand over his smooth, brown hair. "I am not much, +I know," he continued with a winning air of self-deprecation, "and you +are far above me as the stars—you are so wonderful, so clever, so +accomplished and I am nothing at all ... but ... but I have plenty of +high-born connexions, and I have plenty of money and influential +friends<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> ... and ... and Sir Percy Blakeney, who is the most +accomplished and finest gentleman in England, calls me his friend."</p> + +<p>She smiled at his eagerness. She loved him for his clumsy little ways, +his halting speech, that big loving heart of his which was too full of +fine and noble feelings to find vent in mere words.</p> + +<p>"Have you ever met a finer man in all the world?" he added +enthusiastically.</p> + +<p>Yvonne de Kernogan smiled once more. Her recollections of Sir Percy +Blakeney showed her an elegant man of the world, whose mind seemed +chiefly occupied on the devising and the wearing of exquisite clothes, +in the uttering of lively witticisms for the entertainment of his royal +friend and the ladies of his entourage: it showed her a man of great +wealth and vast possessions who seemed willing to spend both in the mere +pursuit of pleasures. She liked Sir Percy Blakeney well enough, but she +could not understand clever and charming Marguerite Blakeney's adoration +for her inane and foppish husband, nor the whole-hearted admiration +openly lavished upon him by men like Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, my lord +Hastings, and others. She would gladly have seen her own dear milor +choose a more sober and intellectual friend. But then she loved him for +his marvellous power of whole-hearted friendship, for his loyalty to +those he cared for, for everything in fact that made up the sum total of +his winning personality, and she pinned her faith on that other +mysterious friend whose individuality vastly intrigued her.</p> + +<p>"I am more interested in your anonymous friend," she said quaintly, +"than in Sir Percy Blakeney. But he too is kindness itself and Lady +Blakeney is an angel. I like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> to think that the happiest days of my +life—our honeymoon, my dear lord—will be spent in their house."</p> + +<p>"Blakeney has lent me Combwich Hall for as long as we like to stay +there. We'll drive thither directly after the service, dear heart, and +then we'll send a courier to your father and ask for his blessing and +his forgiveness."</p> + +<p>"Poor father!" sighed Yvonne again. But evidently compassion for the +father whom she had elected to deceive did not weigh over heavily in the +balance of her happiness. Her little hand once more stole like a timid +and confiding bird into the shelter of his firm grasp.</p> + + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>In the card-room at His Highness' table Sir Percy Blakeney was holding +the bank and seemingly luck was dead against him. Around the various +tables the ladies stood about, chattering and hindering the players. +Nothing appeared serious to-night, not even the capricious chances of +hazard.</p> + +<p>His Royal Highness was in rare good humour, for he was winning +prodigiously.</p> + +<p>Her Grace of Flintshire placed her perfumed and beringed hand upon Sir +Percy Blakeney's shoulder; she stood behind his chair, chattering +incessantly in a high flutey treble just like a canary. Blakeney vowed +that she was so ravishing that she had put Dame Fortune to flight.</p> + +<p>"You have not yet told us, Sir Percy," she said roguishly, "how you came +to arrive so late at the ball."</p> + +<p>"Alas, madam," he sighed dolefully, "'twas the fault of my cravat."</p> + +<p>"Your cravat?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Aye indeed! You see I spent the whole of to-day in perfecting my new +method for tying a butterfly bow, so as to give the neck an appearance +of utmost elegance with a minimum of discomfort. Lady Blakeney will bear +me out when I say that I set my whole mind to my task. Was I not busy +all day m'dear?" he added, making a formal appeal to Marguerite, who +stood immediately behind His Highness' chair, and with her luminous +eyes, full of merriment and shining with happiness, fixed upon her +husband.</p> + +<p>"You certainly spent a considerable time in front of the looking-glass," +she said gaily, "with two valets in attendance and my lord Tony an +interested spectator in the proceedings."</p> + +<p>"There now!" rejoined Sir Percy triumphantly, "her ladyship's testimony +thoroughly bears me out. And now you shall see what Tony says on the +matter. Tony! Where's Tony!" he added as his lazy grey eyes sought the +brilliant crowd in the card-room. "Tony, where the devil are you?"</p> + +<p>There was no reply, and anon Sir Percy's merry gaze encountered that of +M. le duc de Kernogan who, dressed in sober black, looked strangely +conspicuous in the midst of this throng of bright-coloured butterflies, +and whose grave eyes, as they rested on the gorgeous figure of the +English exquisite, held a world of contempt in their glance.</p> + +<p>"Ah! M. le duc," continued Blakeney, returning that scornful look with +his habitual good-humoured one, "I had not noticed that mademoiselle +Yvonne was not with you, else I had not thought of inquiring so loudly +for my friend Tony."</p> + +<p>"My lord Antoine is dancing with my daughter, Sir Percy," said the other +man gravely, in excellent if some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>what laboured English, "he had my +permission to ask her."</p> + +<p>"And is a thrice happy man in consequence," retorted Blakeney lightly, +"though I fear me M. Martin-Roget's wrath will descend upon my poor +Tony's head with unexampled vigour in consequence."</p> + +<p>"M. Martin-Roget is not here this evening," broke in the Duchess, "and +methought," she added in a discreet whisper, "that my lord Tony was all +the happier for his absence. The two young people have spent a +considerable time together under the shadow of the gallery in the +ball-room, and, if I mistake not, Lord Tony is making the most of his +time."</p> + +<p>She talked very volubly and with a slight North-country brogue which no +doubt made it a little difficult for the stranger to catch her every +word. But evidently M. le duc had understood the drift of what she said, +for now he rejoined with some acerbity:</p> + +<p>"Mlle. de Kernogan is too well educated, I hope, to allow the attentions +of any gentleman, against her father's will."</p> + +<p>"Come, come, M. de Kernogan," here interposed His Royal Highness with +easy familiarity, "Lord Anthony Dewhurst is the son of my old friend the +Marquis of Atiltone: one of our most distinguished families in this +country, who have helped to make English history. He has moreover +inherited a large fortune from his mother, who was a Cruche of Crewkerne +and one of the richest heiresses in the land. He is a splendid fellow—a +fine sportsman, a loyal gentleman. His attentions to any young lady, +however high-born, can be but flattering—and I should say welcome to +those who have her future welfare at heart."</p> + +<p>But in response to this gracious tirade, M. le duc de<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> Kernogan bowed +gravely, and his stern features did not relax as he said coldly:</p> + +<p>"Your Royal Highness is pleased to take an interest in the affairs of my +daughter. I am deeply grateful."</p> + +<p>There was a second's awkward pause, for every one felt that despite his +obvious respect and deference M. le duc de Kernogan had endeavoured to +inflict a snub upon the royal personage, and one or two hot-headed young +fops in the immediate entourage even muttered the word: "Impertinence!" +inaudibly through their teeth. Only His Royal Highness appeared not to +notice anything unusual or disrespectful in M. le duc's attitude. It +seemed as if he was determined to remain good-humoured and pleasant. At +any rate he chose to ignore the remark which had offended the ears of +his entourage. Only those who stood opposite to His Highness, on the +other side of the card table, declared afterwards that the Prince had +frowned and that a haughty rejoinder undoubtedly hovered on his lips.</p> + +<p>Be that as it may, he certainly did not show the slightest sign of +ill-humour: quite gaily and unconcernedly he scooped up his winnings +which Sir Percy Blakeney, who held the Bank, was at this moment pushing +towards him.</p> + +<p>"Don't go yet, M. de Kernogan," he said as the Frenchman made a movement +to work his way out of the crowd, feeling no doubt that the atmosphere +round him had become somewhat frigid if not exactly inimical, "don't go +yet, I beg of you. <i>Pardi!</i> Can't you see that you have been bringing me +luck? As a rule Blakeney, who can so well afford to lose, has the +devil's own good fortune, but to-night I have succeeded in getting some +of my own back from him. Do not, I entreat you, break the run of my luck +by going."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, Monseigneur," rejoined the old courtier suavely, "how can my poor +presence influence the gods, who of a surety always preside over your +Highness' fortunes?"</p> + +<p>"Don't attempt to explain it, my dear sir," quoth the Prince gaily. "I +only know that if you go now, my luck may go with you and I shall blame +you for my losses."</p> + +<p>"Oh! in that case, Monseigneur...."</p> + +<p>"And with all that, Blakeney," continued His Highness, once more taking +up the cards and turning to his friend, "remember that we still await +your explanation as to your coming so late to the ball."</p> + +<p>"An omission, your Royal Highness," rejoined Blakeney, "an absence of +mind brought about by your severity, and that of Her Grace. The trouble +was that all my calculations with regard to the exact adjustment of the +butterfly bow were upset when I realised that the set of the present day +waistcoat would not harmonise with it. Less than two hours before I was +due to appear at this ball my mind had to make a complete <i>volte-face</i> +in the matter of cravats. I became bewildered, lost, utterly confused. I +have only just recovered, and one word of criticism on my final efforts +would plunge me now into the depths of despair."</p> + +<p>"Blakeney, you are absolutely incorrigible," retorted His Highness with +a laugh. "M. le duc," he added, once more turning to the grave Frenchman +with his wonted graciousness, "I pray you do not form your judgment on +the gilded youth of England by the example of my friend Blakeney. Some +of us can be serious when occasion demands, you know."</p> + +<p>"Your Highness is pleased to jest," said M. de Kernogan stiffly. "What +greater occasion for seriousness can there be than the present one. +True, England has never suffered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> as France is suffering now, but she +has engaged in a conflict against the most powerful democracy the world +has ever known, she has thrown down the gauntlet to a set of human +beasts of prey who are as determined as they are ferocious. England will +not emerge victorious from this conflict, Monseigneur, if her sons do +not realise that war is not mere sport and that victory can only be +attained by the sacrifice of levity and of pleasure."</p> + +<p>He had dropped into French in response to His Highness' remark, in order +to express his thoughts more accurately. The Prince—a little bored no +doubt—seemed disinclined to pursue the subject. Nevertheless, it seemed +as if once again he made a decided effort not to show ill-humour. He +even gave a knowing wink—a wink!—in the direction of his friend +Blakeney and of Her Grace as if to beg them to set the ball of +conversation rolling once more along a smoother—a less boring—path. He +was obviously quite determined not to release M. de Kernogan from +attendance near his royal person.</p> + + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p>As usual Sir Percy threw himself in the breach, filling the sudden pause +with his infectious laugh:</p> + +<p>"La!" he said gaily, "how beautifully M. le duc does talk. Ffoulkes," he +added, addressing Sir Andrew, who was standing close by, "I'll wager you +ten pounds to a pinch of snuff that you couldn't deliver yourself of +such splendid sentiments, even in your own native lingo."</p> + +<p>"I won't take you, Blakeney," retorted Sir Andrew with a laugh. "I'm no +good at peroration."</p> + +<p>"You should hear our distinguished guest M. Martin-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>Roget on the same +subject," continued Sir Percy with mock gravity. "By Gad! can't he talk? +I feel a d——d worm when he talks about our national levity, our insane +worship of sport, our ... our ... M. le duc," he added with becoming +seriousness and in atrocious French, "I appeal to you. Does not M. +Martin-Roget talk beautifully?"</p> + +<p>"M. Martin-Roget," replied the duc gravely, "is a man of marvellous +eloquence, fired by overwhelming patriotism. He is a man who must +command respect wherever he goes."</p> + +<p>"You have known him long, M. le duc?" queried His Royal Highness +graciously.</p> + +<p>"Indeed not very long, Monseigneur. He came over as an <i>émigré</i> from +Brest some three months ago, hidden in a smuggler's ship. He had been +denounced as an aristocrat who was furthering the cause of the royalists +in Brittany by helping them plentifully with money, but he succeeded in +escaping, not only with his life, but also with the bulk of his +fortune."</p> + +<p>"Ah! M. Martin-Roget is rich?"</p> + +<p>"He is sole owner of a rich banking business in Brest, Monseigneur, +which has an important branch in America and correspondents all over +Europe. Monseigneur the Bishop of Brest recommended him specially to my +notice in a very warm letter of introduction, wherein he speaks of M. +Martin-Roget as a gentleman of the highest patriotism and integrity. +Were I not quite satisfied as to M. Martin-Roget's antecedents and +present connexions I would not have ventured to present him to your +Highness."</p> + +<p>"Nor would you have accepted him as a suitor for your daughter, M. le +duc, <i>c'est entendu</i>!" concluded His Highness urbanely. "M. +Martin-Roget's wealth will no doubt cover his lack of birth."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p> + +<p>"There are plenty of high-born gentlemen devoted to the royalist cause, +Monseigneur," rejoined the duc in his grave, formal manner. "But the +most just and purest of causes must at times be helped with money. The +Vendéens in Brittany, the Princes at Coblentz are all sorely in need of +funds...."</p> + +<p>"And M. Martin-Roget son-in-law of M. le duc de Kernogan is more likely +to feed those funds than M. Martin-Roget the plain business man who has +no aristocratic connexions," concluded His Royal Highness dryly. "But +even so, M. le duc," he added more gravely, "surely you cannot be so +absolutely certain as you would wish that M. Martin-Roget's antecedents +are just as he has told you. Monseigneur the Bishop of Brest may have +acted in perfect good faith...."</p> + +<p>"Monseigneur the Bishop of Brest, your Highness, is a man who has our +cause, the cause of our King and of our Faith, as much at heart as I +have myself. He would know that on his recommendation I would trust any +man absolutely. He was not like to make careless use of such knowledge."</p> + +<p>"And you are quite satisfied that the worthy Bishop did not act under +some dire pressure ...?"</p> + +<p>"Quite satisfied, Monseigneur," replied the duc firmly. "What pressure +could there be that would influence a prelate of such high integrity as +Monseigneur the Bishop of Brest?"</p> + + +<h3>VII</h3> + +<p>There was silence for a moment or two, during which the heavy bracket +clock over the door struck the first hour after midnight. His Royal +Highness looked round at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> Lady Blakeney, and she gave him a smile and an +almost imperceptible nod. Sir Andrew Ffoulkes had in the meanwhile +quietly slipped away.</p> + +<p>"I understand," said His Royal Highness quite gravely, turning back to +M. le duc, "and I must crave your pardon, sir, for what must have seemed +to you an indiscretion. You have given me a very clear exposé of the +situation. I confess that until to-night it had seemed to me—and to all +your friends, Monsieur, a trifle obscure. In fact, it had been my +intention to intercede with you in favour of my young friend Lord +Anthony Dewhurst, who of a truth is deeply enamoured of your daughter."</p> + +<p>"Though your Highness' wishes are tantamount to a command, yet would I +humbly assert that my wishes with regard to my daughter are based upon +my loyalty and my duty to my Sovereign King Louis XVII, whom may God +guard and protect, and that therefore it is beyond my power now to +modify them."</p> + +<p>"May God trounce you for an obstinate fool," murmured His Highness in +English, and turning his head away so that the other should not hear +him. But aloud and with studied graciousness he said:</p> + +<p>"M. le duc, will you not take a hand at hazard? My luck is turning, and +I have faith in yours. We must fleece Blakeney to-night. He has had +Satan's own luck these past few weeks. Such good fortune becomes +positively revolting."</p> + +<p>There was no more talk of Mlle. de Kernogan after that. Indeed her +father felt that her future had already been discussed far too freely by +all these well-wishers who of a truth were not a little indiscreet. He +thought that the manners and customs of good society were very peculiar +here in this fog-ridden England. What business was it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> of all these +high-born ladies and gentlemen—of His Royal Highness himself for that +matter—what plans he had made for Yvonne's future? Martin-Roget was +<i>bourgeois</i> by birth, but he was vastly rich and had promised to pour a +couple of millions into the coffers of the royalist army if Mlle. de +Kernogan became his wife. A couple of millions with more to follow, no +doubt, and a loyal adherence to the royalist cause was worth these days +all the blue blood that flowed in my lord Anthony Dewhurst's veins.</p> + +<p>So at any rate thought M. le duc this night, while His Royal Highness +kept him at cards until the late hours of the morning</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h3> + +<h4>THE FATHER</h4> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>It was close on ten o'clock now in the morning on the following day, and +M. le duc de Kernogan was at breakfast in his lodgings in Laura Place, +when a courier was announced who was the bearer of a letter for M. le +duc.</p> + +<p>He thought the man must have been sent by Martin-Roget, who mayhap was +sick, seeing that he had not been present at the Assembly Rooms last +night, and the duc took the letter and opened it without misgivings. He +read the address on the top of the letter: "Combwich Hall"—a place +unknown to him, and the first words of the letter: "Dear father!" And +even then he had no misgivings.</p> + +<p>In fact he had to read the letter through three times before the full +meaning of its contents had penetrated into his brain. Whilst he read, +he sat quite still, and even the hand which held the paper had not the +slightest tremor. When he had finished he spoke quite quietly to his +valet:</p> + +<p>"Give the courier a glass of ale, Frédérick," he said, "and tell him he +can go; there is no answer. And—stay," he added, "I want you to go +round at once to M. Martin-Roget's lodgings and ask him to come and +speak with me as early as possible."</p> + +<p>The valet left the room, and M. le duc deliberately read through the +letter from end to end for the fourth time.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> There was no doubt, no +possible misapprehension. His daughter Yvonne de Kernogan had eloped +clandestinely with my lord Anthony Dewhurst and had been secretly +married to him in the small hours of the morning in the Protestant +church of St. James, and subsequently before a priest of her own +religion in the Priory Church of St. John the Evangelist.</p> + +<p>She apprised her father of this fact in a few sentences which purported +to be dictated by profound affection and filial respect, but in which M. +de Kernogan failed to detect the slightest trace of contrition. Yvonne! +his Yvonne! the sole representative now of the old race—eloped like a +kitchen-wench! Yvonne! his daughter! his asset for the future! his +thing! his fortune! that which he meant with perfect egoism to sacrifice +on the altar of his own beliefs and his own loyalty to the kingship of +France! Yvonne had taken her future in her own hands! She knew that her +hand, her person, were the purchase price of so many millions to be +poured into the coffers of the royalist cause, and she had disposed of +both, in direct defiance of her father's will and of her duty to her +King and to his cause!</p> + +<p>Yvonne de Kernogan was false to her traditions, false to her father! +false to her King and country! In the years to come when the chroniclers +of the time came to write the histories of the great families that had +rallied round their King in the hour of his deadly peril, the name of +Kernogan would be erased from those glorious pages. The Kernogans will +have failed in their duty, failed in their loyalty! Oh! the shame of it +all! The shame!!</p> + +<p>The duc was far too proud a gentleman to allow his valet to see him +under the stress of violent emotion, but now that he was alone his thin, +hard face—with that air of gravity which he had transmitted to his +daughter—became<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> distorted with the passion of unbridled fury; he tore +the letter up into a thousand little pieces and threw the fragments into +the fire. On the bureau beside him there stood a miniature of Yvonne de +Kernogan painted by Hall three years ago, and framed in a circlet of +brilliants. M. le duc's eyes casually fell upon it; he picked it up and +with a violent gesture of rage threw it on the floor and stamped upon it +with his heel, destroying in this paroxysm of silent fury a work of art +worth many hundred pounds.</p> + +<p>His daughter had deceived him. She had also upset all his plans whereby +the army of M. le Prince de Condé would have been enriched by a couple +of million francs. In addition to the shame upon her father, she had +also brought disgrace upon herself and her good name, for she was a +minor and this clandestine marriage, contracted without her father's +consent, was illegal in France, illegal everywhere: save perhaps in +England—of this M. de Kernogan was not quite sure, but he certainly +didn't care. And in this solemn moment he registered a vow that never as +long as he lived would he be reconciled to that English nincompoop who +had dared to filch his daughter from him, and never—as long as he +lived—would he by his consent render the marriage legal, and the +children born of that wedlock legitimate in the eyes of his country's +laws.</p> + +<p>A calm akin to apathy had followed his first outbreak of fury. He sat +down in front of the fire, and buried his chin in his hand. Something of +course must be done to get his daughter back. If only Martin-Roget were +here, he would know better how to act. Would Martin-Roget stick to his +bargain and accept the girl for wife, now that her fame and honour had +been irretrievably tarnished? There was the question which the next +half-hour would decide. M. de Kernogan cast a feverish, anxious look on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> +the clock. Half an hour had gone by since Frédérick went to seek +Martin-Roget, and the latter had not yet appeared.</p> + +<p>Until he had seen Martin-Roget and spoken with Martin-Roget M. de +Kernogan could decide nothing. For one brief, mad moment, the project +had formed itself in his disordered brain to rush down to Combwich Hall +and provoke that impudent Englishman who had stolen his daughter: to +kill him or be killed by him; in either case Yvonne would then be parted +from him for ever. But even then, the thought of Martin-Roget brought +more sober reflection. Martin-Roget would see to it. Martin-Roget would +know what to do. After all, the outrage had hit the accredited lover +just as hard as the father.</p> + +<p>But why in the name of —— did Martin-Roget not come?</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>It was past midday when at last Martin-Roget knocked at the door of M. +le duc's lodgings in Laura Place. The older man had in the meanwhile +gone through every phase of overwhelming emotions. The outbreak of +unreasoning fury—when like a maddened beast that bites and tears he had +broken his daughter's miniature and trampled it under foot—had been +followed by a kind of dull apathy, when for close upon an hour he had +sat staring into the flames, trying to grapple with an awful reality +which seemed to elude him all the time. He could not believe that this +thing had really happened: that Yvonne, his well-bred dutiful daughter, +who had shown such marvellous courage and presence of mind when the +necessity of flight and of exile had first presented itself in the wake +of the awful massacres and wholesale executions of her own friends and +kindred, that she should have eloped—like some flirtatious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> wench—and +outraged her father in this monstrous fashion, by a clandestine marriage +with a man of alien race and of a heretical religion! M. de Kernogan +could not realise it. It passed the bounds of possibility. The very +flames in the hearth seemed to dance and to mock the bare suggestion of +such an atrocious transgression.</p> + +<p>To this gloomy numbing of the senses had succeeded the inevitable morbid +restlessness: the pacing up and down the narrow room, the furtive +glances at the clock, the frequent orders to Frédérick to go out and see +if M. Martin-Roget was not yet home. For Frédérick had come back after +his first errand with the astounding news that M. Martin-Roget had left +his lodgings the previous day at about four o'clock, and had not been +seen or heard of since. In fact his landlady was very anxious about him +and was sorely tempted to see the town-crier on the subject.</p> + +<p>Four times did Frédérick have to go from Laura Place to the Bear Inn in +Union Street, where M. Martin-Roget lodged, and three times he returned +with the news that nothing had been heard of Mounzeer yet. The fourth +time—it was then close on midday—he came back running—thankful to +bring back the good tidings, since he was tired of that walk from Laura +Place to the Bear Inn. M. Martin-Roget had come home. He appeared very +tired and in rare ill-humour: but Frédérick had delivered the message +from M. le duc, whereupon M. Martin-Roget had become most affable and +promised that he would come round immediately. In fact he was even then +treading hard on Frédérick's heels.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>"My daughter has gone! She left the ball clandestinely last night, and +was married to Lord Anthony Dewhurst<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> in the small hours of the morning. +She is now at a place called Combwich Hall—with him!"</p> + +<p>M. le duc de Kernogan literally threw these words in Martin-Roget's +face, the moment the latter had entered the room, and Frédérick had +discreetly closed the door.</p> + +<p>"What? What?" stammered the other vaguely. "I don't understand. What do +you mean?" he added, bewildered at the duc's violence, tired after his +night's adventure and the long ride in the early morning, irritable with +want of sleep and decent food. He stared, uncomprehending, at the duc, +who had once more started pacing up and down the room, like a caged +beast, with hands tightly clenched behind his back, his eyes glowering +both at the new-comer and at the imaginary presence of his most bitter +enemy—the man who had dared to come between him and his projects for +his daughter.</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget passed his hand across his brow like a man who is not yet +fully awake.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" he reiterated hazily.</p> + +<p>"Just what I say," retorted the other roughly. "Yvonne has eloped with +that nincompoop Lord Anthony Dewhurst. They have gone through some sort +of marriage ceremony together. And she writes me a letter this morning +to tell me that she is quite happy and contented and spending her +honeymoon at a place called Combwich Hall. Honeymoon!" he repeated +savagely, as if to lash his fury up anew, "Tsha!"</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget on the other hand was not the man to allow himself to fall +into a state of frenzy, which would necessarily interfere with calm +consideration.</p> + +<p>He had taken the fact in now. Yvonne's elopement with his English rival, +the clandestine marriage, everything. But he was not going to allow his +inward rage to obscure his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> vision of the future. He did not spend the +next precious seconds—as men of his race are wont to do—in smashing +things around him, in raving and fuming and gesticulating. No. That was +not the temper M. Martin-Roget was in at this moment when Fate and a +girl's folly were ranging themselves against his plans. His friend, +citizen Chauvelin, would have envied him his calm in the face of this +disaster.</p> + +<p>Whilst M. le duc still stormed and raved, Martin-Roget sat down quietly +in front of the fire, rested his chin in his hand and waited for a lull +in the other man's paroxysm ere he spoke.</p> + +<p>"From your attitude, M. le duc," he then said quietly, hiding obvious +sarcasm behind a veil of studied deference, "from your attitude I gather +that your wishes with regard to Mlle. de Kernogan have undergone no +modification. You would still honour me by desiring that she should +become my wife?"</p> + +<p>"I am not in the habit of changing my mind," said M. le duc gruffly. He +desired the marriage, he coveted Martin-Roget's millions for the +royalist cause, but he had no love for the man. All the pride of the +Kernogans, their long line of ancestry, rebelled against the thought of +a fair descendant of this glorious race being allied to a <i>roturier</i>—a +<i>bourgeois</i>—a tradesman, what? and the cause of King and country +counted few greater martyrdoms than that of the duc de Kernogan whenever +he met the banker Martin-Roget on an equal social footing.</p> + +<p>"Then there is not much harm done," rejoined the latter coolly; "the +marriage is not a legal one. It need not even be dissolved—Mademoiselle +de Kernogan is still Mademoiselle de Kernogan and I her humble and +faithful adorer."</p> + +<p>M. le duc paused in his restless walk.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You would ..." he stammered, then checked himself, turning abruptly +away. He had some difficulty in hiding the scorn wherewith he regarded +the other's coolness. Bourgeois blood was not to be gainsaid. The +tradesman—or banker, whatever he was—who hankered after an alliance +with Mademoiselle de Kernogan, and was ready to lay down a couple of +millions for the privilege—was not to be deterred from his purpose by +any considerations of pride or of honour. M. le duc was satisfied and +re-assured, but he despised the man for his leniency for all that.</p> + +<p>"The marriage is no marriage at all according to the laws of France," +reiterated Martin-Roget calmly.</p> + +<p>"No, it is not," assented the Duke roughly.</p> + +<p>For a while there was silence: Martin-Roget seemed immersed in his own +thoughts and not to notice the febrile comings and goings of the other +man.</p> + +<p>"What we have to do, M. le duc," he said after a while, "is to induce +Mlle. de Kernogan to return here immediately."</p> + +<p>"How are you going to accomplish that?" sneered the Duke.</p> + +<p>"Oh! I was not suggesting that I should appear in the matter at all," +rejoined Martin-Roget with a shrug of the shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Then how can I ...?"</p> + +<p>"Surely ..." argued the younger man tentatively.</p> + +<p>"You mean ...?"</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget nodded. Despite these ambiguous half-spoken sentences the +two men had understood one another.</p> + +<p>"We must get her back, of course," assented the Duke, who had suddenly +become as calm as the other man.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p> + +<p>"There is no harm done," reiterated Martin-Roget with slow and earnest +emphasis.</p> + +<p>Whereupon the Duke, completely pacified, drew a chair close to the +hearth and sat down, leaning his elbows on his knees and holding his +fine, aristocratic hands to the blaze.</p> + +<p>Frédérick came in half an hour later to ask if M. le duc would have his +luncheon. He found the two gentlemen sitting quite close together over +the dying embers of a fire that had not been fed for close upon an hour: +and that prince of valets was glad to note that M. le duc's temper had +quite cooled down and that he was talking calmly and very affably to M. +Martin-Roget.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h3> + +<h4>THE NEST</h4> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>There are lovely days in England sometimes in November or December, days +when the departing year strives to make us forget that winter is nigh, +and autumn smiles, gentle and benignant, caressing with a still tender +kiss the last leaves of the scarlet oak which linger on the boughs, and +touching up with a vivid brush the evergreen verdure of bay trees, of +ilex and of yew. The sky is of that pale, translucent blue which +dwellers in the South never see, with the soft transparency of an +aquamarine as it fades into the misty horizon at midday. And at dusk +the thrushes sing: "Kiss me quick! kiss me quick! kiss me quick" in the +naked branches of old acacias and chestnuts, and the robins don their +crimson waistcoats and dart in and out among the coppice and through the +feathery arms of larch and pine. And the sun which tips the prickly +points of holly leaves with gold, joins in this merry make-believe that +winter is still a very, very long way off, and that mayhap he has lost +his way altogether, and is never coming to this balmy beautiful land +again.</p> + +<p>Just such a day was the penultimate one of November, 1793, when Lady +Anthony Dewhurst sat at a desk in the wide bay window of the +drawing-room in Combwich Hall, trying to put into a letter to Lady +Blakeney all that her heart would have wished to express of love and +gratitude and happiness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span></p> + +<p>Three whole days had gone by since that exciting night, when before +break of day in the dimly-lighted old church, in the presence of two or +three faithful friends, she had plighted her troth to Lord Anthony: even +whilst other kind friends—including His Royal Highness—formed part of +the little conspiracy which kept her father occupied and, if necessary, +would have kept M. Martin-Roget out of the way. Since then her life had +been one continuous dream of perfect bliss. From the moment when after +the second religious ceremony in the Roman Catholic church she found +herself alone in the carriage with milor, and felt his arms—so strong +and yet so tender—closing round her and his lips pressed to hers in the +first masterful kiss of complete possession, until this hour when she +saw his tall, elegant figure hurrying across the garden toward the gate +and suddenly turning toward the window whence he knew that she was +watching him, every hour and every minute had been nothing but unalloyed +happiness.</p> + +<p>Even there where she had looked for sorrow and difficulty her path had +been made smooth for her. Her father, who she had feared would prove +hard and irreconcilable, had been tender and forgiving to such an extent +that tears almost of shame would gather in her eyes whenever she thought +of him.</p> + +<p>As soon as she arrived at Combwich Hall she had written a long and +deeply affectionate letter to her father, imploring his forgiveness for +the deception and unfilial conduct which on her part must so deeply have +grieved him. She pleaded for her right to happiness in words of +impassioned eloquence, she pleaded for her right to love and to be +loved, for her right to a home, which a husband's devotion would make a +paradise for her.</p> + +<p>This letter she had sent by special courier to her father<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> and the very +next day she had his reply. She had opened the letter with trembling +fingers, fearful lest her father's harshness should mar the perfect +serenity of her life. She was afraid of what he would say, for she knew +her father well: knew his faults as well as his qualities, his pride, +his obstinacy, his unswerving determination and his loyalty to the +King's cause—all of which must have been deeply outraged by his +daughter's high-handed action. But as she began to read, astonishment, +amazement at once filled her soul: she could hardly trust her +comprehension, hardly believe that what she read could indeed be +reality, and not just the continuance of the happy dream wherein she was +dwelling these days.</p> + +<p>Her father—gently reproachful—had not one single harsh word to utter. +He would not, he said, at the close of his life, after so many bitter +disappointments, stand in the way of his daughter's happiness: "You +should have trusted me, my child," he wrote: and indeed Yvonne could not +believe her eyes. "I had no idea that your happiness was at stake in +this marriage, or I should never have pressed the claims of my own +wishes in the matter. I have only you in the world left, now that misery +and exile are to be my portion! Is it likely that I would allow any +personal desires to weigh against my love for you?"</p> + +<p>Happy as she was Yvonne cried—cried bitterly with remorse and shame +when she read that letter. How could she have been so blind, so +senseless as to misjudge her father so? Her young husband found her in +tears, and had much ado to console her: he too read the letter and was +deeply touched by the kind reference to himself contained therein: "My +lord Anthony is a gallant gentleman," wrote M. le duc de Kernogan, "he +will make you happy, my child, and your old father will be more than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> +satisfied. All that grieves me is that you did not trust me sooner. A +clandestine marriage is not worthy of a daughter of the Kernogans."</p> + +<p>"I did speak most earnestly to M. le duc," said Lord Tony reflectively, +"when I begged him to allow me to pay my addresses to you. But then," he +added cheerfully, "I am such a clumsy lout when I have to talk at any +length—and especially clumsy when I have to plead my own cause. I +suppose I put my case so badly before your father, m'dear, that he +thought me three parts an idiot and would not listen to me."</p> + +<p>"I too begged and entreated him, dear," she said with a smile, "but he +was very determined then and vowed that I should marry M. Martin-Roget +despite my tears and protestations. Dear father! I suppose he didn't +realise that I was in earnest."</p> + +<p>"He has certainly accepted the inevitable very gracefully," was my lord +Tony's final comment.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Then they read the letter through once more, sitting close together, he +with one arm round her shoulder, she nestling against his chest, her +hair brushing against his lips and with the letter in her hands which +she could scarcely read for the tears of joy which filled her eyes.</p> + +<p>"I don't feel very well to-day," the letter concluded; "the dampness and +the cold have got into my bones: moreover you two young love birds will +not desire company just yet, but to-morrow if the weather is more genial +I will drive over to Combwich in the afternoon, and perhaps you will +give me supper and a bed for the night. Send<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> me word by the courier who +will forthwith return to Bath if this will be agreeable to you both."</p> + +<p>Could anything be more adorable, more delightful? It was just the last +drop that filled Yvonne's cup of happiness right up to the brim.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>The next afternoon she sat at her desk in order to tell Lady Blakeney +all about it. She made out a copy of her father's letter and put that in +with her own, and begged dear Lady Blakeney to see Lady Ffoulkes +forthwith and tell her all that had happened. She herself was expecting +her father every minute and milor Tony had gone as far as the gate to +see if the barouche was in sight.</p> + +<p>Half an hour later M. de Kernogan had arrived and his daughter lay in +his arms, happy, beyond the dreams of men. He looked rather tired and +wan and still complained that the cold had got into his bones: evidently +he was not very well and Yvonne after the excitement of the meeting felt +not a little anxious about him. As the evening wore on he became more +and more silent; he hardly would eat anything and soon after eight +o'clock he announced his desire to retire to bed.</p> + +<p>"I am not ill," he said as he kissed his daughter and bade her a fond +"Good-night," "only a little wearied ... with emotion no doubt. I shall +be better after a night's rest."</p> + +<p>He had been quite cordial with my lord Tony, though not effusive, which +was only natural—he was at all times a very reserved man, and—unlike +those of his race—never demonstrative in his manner: but with his +daughter he had been singularly tender, with a wistful affection which +al<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>most suggested remorse, even though it was she who, on his arrival, +had knelt down before him and had begged for his blessing and his +forgiveness.</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>But the following morning he appeared to be really ill: his cheeks +looked sunken, almost livid, his eyes dim and hollow. Nevertheless he +would not hear of staying on another day or so.</p> + +<p>"No, no," he declared emphatically, "I shall be better in Bath. It is +more sheltered there, here the north winds would drive me to my bed very +quickly. I shall take a course of baths at once. They did me a great +deal of good before, you remember, Yvonne—in September, when I caught a +chill ... they soon put me right. That is all that ails me now.... I've +caught a chill."</p> + +<p>He did his best to reassure his daughter, but she was far from +satisfied: more especially as he hardly would touch the cup of chocolate +which she had prepared for him with her own hands.</p> + +<p>"I shall be quite myself again in Bath," he declared, "and in a day or +two when you can spare the time—or when milor can spare you—perhaps +you will drive over to see how the old father is getting on, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Indeed," she said firmly, "I shall not allow you to go to Bath alone. +If you will go, I shall accompany you."</p> + +<p>"Nay!" he protested, "that is foolishness, my child. The barouche will +take me back quite comfortably. It is less than two hours' drive and I +shall be quite safe and comfortable."</p> + +<p>"You will be quite safe and comfortable in my com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>pany," she retorted +with a tender, anxious glance at his pale face and the nervous tremor of +his hands. "I have consulted with my dear husband and he has given his +consent that I should accompany you."</p> + +<p>"But you can't leave milor like that, my child," he protested once more. +"He will be lonely and miserable without you."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I think he will," she said wistfully. "But he will be all the +happier when you are well again, and I can return to Combwich +satisfied."</p> + +<p>Whereupon M. le duc yielded. He kissed and thanked his daughter and +seemed even relieved at the prospect of her company. The barouche was +ordered for eleven o'clock, and a quarter of an hour before that time +Lord Tony had his young wife in his arms, bidding her a sad farewell.</p> + +<p>"I hate your going from me, sweetheart," he said as he kissed her eyes, +her hair, her lips. "I cannot bear you out of my sight even for an hour +... let alone a couple of days."</p> + +<p>"Yet I must go, dear heart," she retorted, looking up with that sweet, +grave smile of hers into his eager young face. "I could not let him +travel alone ... could I?"</p> + +<p>"No, no," he assented somewhat dubiously, "but remember, dear heart, +that you are infinitely precious and that I shall scarce live for sheer +anxiety until I have you here, safe, once more in my arms."</p> + +<p>"I'll send you a courier this evening," she rejoined, as she extricated +herself gently from his embrace, "and if I can come back to-morrow...."</p> + +<p>"I'll ride over to Bath in any case in the morning so that I may escort +you back if you really can come."</p> + +<p>"I will come if I am reassured about father. Oh, my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> dear lord," she +added with a wistful little sigh, "I knew yesterday morning that I was +too happy, and that something would happen to mar the perfect felicity +of these last few days."</p> + +<p>"You are not seriously anxious about M. le duc's health, dear heart?"</p> + +<p>"No, not seriously anxious. Farewell, milor. It is <i>au revoir</i> ... a few +hours and we'll resume our dream."</p> + + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>There was nothing in all that to arouse my lord Tony's suspicions. All +day he was miserable and forlorn because Yvonne was not there—but he +was not suspicious.</p> + +<p>Fate had a blow in store for him, from which he was destined never +wholly to recover, but she gave him no warning, no premonition. He spent +the day in making up arrears of correspondence, for he had a large +private fortune to administer—trust funds on behalf of brothers and +sisters who were minors—and he always did it conscientiously and to the +best of his ability. The last few days he had lived in a dream and there +was an accumulation of business to go through. In the evening he +expected the promised courier, who did not arrive: but his was not the +sort of disposition that would fret and fume because of a contretemps +which might be attributable to the weather—it had rained heavily since +afternoon—or to sundry trifling causes which he at Combwich, ten or a +dozen miles from Bath, could not estimate. He had no suspicions even +then. How could he have? How could he guess? Nevertheless when he +ultimately went to bed, it was with the firm resolve that he would in +any case go over to Bath in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> morning and remain there until Yvonne +was able to come back with him.</p> + +<p>Combwich without her was anyhow unendurable.</p> + + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p>He started for Bath at nine o'clock in the morning. It was still raining +hard. It had rained all night and the roads were very muddy. He started +out without a groom. A little after half-past ten, he drew rein outside +his house in Chandos Buildings, and having changed his clothes he +started to walk to Laura Place. The rain had momentarily left off, and a +pale wintry sun peeped out through rolling banks of grey clouds. He went +round by way of Saw Close and the Upper Borough Walls, as he wanted to +avoid the fashionable throng that crowded the neighbourhood of the Pump +Room and the Baths. His intention was to seek out the Blakeneys at their +residence in the Circus after he had seen Yvonne and obtained news of M. +le duc.</p> + +<p>He had no suspicions. Why should he have?</p> + +<p>The Abbey clock struck a quarter-past eleven when finally he knocked at +the house in Laura Place. Long afterwards he remembered how just at that +moment a dense grey mist descended into the valley. He had not noticed +it before, now he saw that it had enveloped this part of the city so +that he could not even see clearly across the Place.</p> + +<p>A woman came to open the door. Lord Tony then thought this strange +considering how particular M. le duc always was about everything +pertaining to the management of his household: "The house of a poor +exile," he was wont to say, "but nevertheless that of a gentleman."</p> + +<p>"Can I go straight up?" he asked the woman, who he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> thought was standing +ostentatiously in the hall as if to bar his way. "I desire to see M. le +duc."</p> + +<p>"Ye can walk upstairs, zir," said the woman, speaking with a broad +Somersetshire accent, "but I doubt me if ye'll see 'is Grace the Duke. +'Es been gone these two days."</p> + +<p>Tony had paid no heed to her at first; he had walked across the narrow +hall to the oak staircase, and was half-way up the first flight when her +last words struck upon his ear ... quite without meaning for the moment +... but nevertheless he paused, one foot on one tread, and the other two +treads below ... and he turned round to look at the woman, a swift frown +across his smooth forehead.</p> + +<p>"Gone these two days," he repeated mechanically; "what do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Well! 'Is Grace left the day afore yesterday—Thursday it was.... 'Is +man went yesterday afternoon with luggage and sich ... 'e went by coach +'e did.... Leave off," she cried suddenly; "what are ye doin'? Ye're +'urtin' me."</p> + +<p>For Lord Tony had rushed down the stairs again and was across the hall, +gripping the unoffending woman by the wrist and glaring into her +expressionless face until she screamed with fright.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," he said humbly as he released her wrist: all the +instincts of the courteous gentleman arrayed against his loss of +control. "I ... I forgot myself for the moment," he stammered; "would +you mind telling me again ... what ... what you said just now?"</p> + +<p>The woman was prepared to put on the airs of outraged dignity, she even +glanced up at the malapert with scorn expressed in her small beady eyes. +But at sight of his face her anger and her fears both fell away from +her. Lord Tony was white to the lips, his cheeks were the colour<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> of +dead ashes, his mouth trembled, his eyes alone glowed with ill-repressed +anxiety.</p> + +<p>"'Is Grace," she said with slow emphasis, for of a truth she thought +that the young gentleman was either sick or daft, "'Is Grace left +this 'ouse the day afore yesterday in a hired barouche. 'Is +man—Frederick—went yesterday afternoon with the liggage. 'E caught the +Bristol coach at two o'clock. I was 'Is Grace's 'ousekeeper and I am to +look after the 'ouse and the zervants until I 'ear from 'Is Grace again. +Them's my orders. I know no more than I'm tellin' ye."</p> + +<p>"But His Grace returned here yesterday forenoon," argued Lord Tony +calmly, mechanically, as one who would wish to convince an obstinate +child. "And my lady ... Mademoiselle Yvonne, you know ... was with him."</p> + +<p>"Noa! Noa!" said the woman placidly. "'Is Grace 'asn't been near this +'ouse come Thursday afternoon, and 'is man left yesterday wi' th' +liggage. Why!" she added confidentially, "'e ain't gone far. It was all +zettled that zuddint I didn't know nothing about it myzelf till I zeed +Mr. Frederick start off wi' th' liggage. Not much liggage neither it +wasn't. Sure but 'Is Grace'll be 'ome zoon. 'E can't 'ave gone far. Not +wi' that bit o' liggage. Zure."</p> + +<p>"But my lady ... Mademoiselle Yvonne...."</p> + +<p>"Lor, zir, didn't ye know? Why 'twas all over th' town o' Tuesday as 'ow +Mademozell 'ad eloped with my lord Anthony Dew'urst, and...."</p> + +<p>"Yes! yes! But you have seen my lady since?"</p> + +<p>"Not clapped eyes on 'er, zir, since she went to the ball come Monday +evenin'. An' a picture she looked in 'er white gown...."</p> + +<p>"And ... did His Grace leave no message ... for ... for anyone?... no +letter?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ah, yes, now you come to mention it, zir. Mr. Frederick 'e give me a +letter yesterday. ''Is Grace,' sez 'e, 'left this yere letter on 'is +desk. I just found it,' sez 'e. 'If my lord Anthony Dew'urst calls,' sez +'e, 'give it to 'im.' I've got the letter zomewhere, zir. What may your +name be?"</p> + +<p>"I am Lord Anthony Dewhurst," replied the young man mechanically.</p> + +<p>"Your pardon, my lord, I'll go fetch th' letter."</p> + + +<h3>VII</h3> + +<p>Lord Tony never moved while the woman shuffled across the passage and +down the back stairs. He was like a man who has received a knock-out +blow and has not yet had time to recover his scattered senses. At first +when the woman spoke, his mind had jumped to fears of some awful +accident ... runaway horses ... a broken barouche ... or a sudden +aggravation of the duc's ill-health. But soon he was forced to reject +what now would have seemed a consoling thought: had there been an +accident, he would have heard—a rumour would have reached him—Yvonne +would have sent a courier. He did not know yet what to think, his mind +was like a slate over which a clumsy hand had passed a wet +sponge—impressions, recollections, above all a hideous, nameless fear, +were all blurred and confused within his brain.</p> + +<p>The woman came back carrying a letter which was crumpled and greasy from +a prolonged sojourn in the pocket of her apron. Lord Tony took the +letter and broke its heavy seal. The woman watched him, curiously, +pityingly now, for he was good to look on, and she scented the +significance of the tragedy which she had been the means<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> of revealing +to him. But he had become quite unconscious of her presence, of +everything in fact save those few sentences, written in French, in a +cramped hand, and which seemed to dance a wild saraband before his eyes:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Milor</span>,—</p> + +<p>"You tried to steal my daughter from me, but I have taken her from +you now. By the time this reaches you we shall be on the high seas +on our way to Holland, thence to Coblentz, where Mademoiselle de +Kernogan will in accordance with my wishes be united in lawful +marriage to M. Martin-Roget whom I have chosen to be her husband. +She is not and never was your wife. As far as one may look into the +future, I can assure you that you will never in life see her +again."</p></blockquote> + +<p>And to this monstrous document of appalling callousness and cold-blooded +cruelty there was appended the signature of André Dieudonné Duc de +Kernogan.</p> + +<p>But unlike the writer thereof Lord Anthony Dewhurst neither stormed nor +raged: he did not even tear the execrable letter into an hundred +fragments. His firm hand closed over it with one convulsive clutch, and +that was all. Then he slipped the crumpled paper into his pocket. Quite +deliberately he took out some money and gave a piece of silver to the +woman.</p> + +<p>"I thank you very much," he said somewhat haltingly. "I quite understand +everything now."</p> + +<p>The woman curtseyed and thanked him; tears were in her eyes, for it +seemed to her that never had she seen such grief depicted upon any human +face. She preceded him to the hall door and held it open for him, while +he passed out. After the brief gleam of sunshine it had started to rain +again, but he didn't seem to care. The woman suggested fetching a +hackney coach, but he refused quite po<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>litely, quite gently: he even +lifted his hat as he went out. Obviously he did not know what he was +doing. Then he went out into the rain and strode slowly across the +Place.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h3> + +<h4>THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL</h4> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Instinct kept him away from the more frequented streets—and instinct +after awhile drew him in the direction of his friend's house at the +comer of The Circus. Sir Percy Blakeney had not gone out fortunately: +the lacquey who opened the door to my lord Tony stared astonished and +almost paralysed for the moment at the extraordinary appearance of his +lordship. Rain dropped down from the brim of his hat on to his +shoulders: his boots were muddy to the knees, his clothes wringing wet. +His eyes were wild and hazy and there was a curious tremor round his +mouth.</p> + +<p>The lacquey declared with a knowing wink afterwards that his lordship +must 'ave been drinkin'!</p> + +<p>But at the moment his sense of duty urged him to show my lord—who was +his master's friend—into the library, whatever condition he was in. He +took his dripping coat and hat from him and marshalled him across the +large, square hall.</p> + +<p>Sir Percy Blakeney was sitting at his desk, writing, when Lord Tony was +shown in. He looked up and at once rose and went to his friend.</p> + +<p>"Sit down, Tony," he said quietly, "while I get you some brandy."</p> + +<p>He forced the young man down gently into a chair in front of the fire +and threw another log into the blaze. Then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> from a cupboard he fetched a +flask of brandy and a glass, poured some out and held it to Tony's lips. +The latter drank—unresisting—like a child. Then as some warmth +penetrated into his bones, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his +knees and buried his face in his hands. Blakeney waited quietly, sitting +down opposite to him, until his friend should be able to speak.</p> + +<p>"And after all that you told me on Monday night!" were the first words +which came from Tony's quivering lips, "and the letter you sent me over +on Tuesday! Oh! I was prepared to mistrust Martin-Roget. Why! I never +allowed her out of my sight!... But her father!... How could I guess?"</p> + +<p>"Can you tell me exactly what happened?"</p> + +<p>Lord Tony drew himself up, and staring vacantly into the fire told his +friend the events of the past four days. On Wednesday the courier with +M. de Kernogan's letter, breathing kindness and forgiveness. On Thursday +his arrival and seeming ill-health, on Friday his departure with Yvonne. +Tony spoke quite calmly. He had never been anything but calm since +first, in the house in Laura Place, he had received that awful blow.</p> + +<p>"I ought to have known," he concluded dully, "I ought to have guessed. +Especially since you warned me."</p> + +<p>"I warned you that Martin-Roget was not the man he pretended to be," +said Blakeney gently, "I warned you against him. But I too failed to +suspect the duc de Kernogan. We are Britishers, you and I, my dear +Tony," he added with a quaint little laugh, "our minds will never be +quite equal to the tortuous ways of these Latin races. But we are not +going to waste time now talking about the past. We have got to find your +wife before those brutes have time to wreak their devilries against +her."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p> + +<p>"On the high seas ... on the way to Holland ... thence to Coblentz ..." +murmured Tony, "I have not yet shown you the duc's letter to me."</p> + +<p>He drew from his pocket the crumpled, damp piece of paper on which the +ink had run into patches and blotches, and which had become almost +undecipherable now. Sir Percy took it from him and read it through:</p> + +<p>"The duc de Kernogan and Lady Anthony Dewhurst are not on their way to +Holland and to Coblentz," he said quietly as he handed the letter back +to Lord Tony.</p> + +<p>"Not on their way to Holland?" queried the young man with a puzzled +frown. "What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>Blakeney drew his chair closer to his friend: a marvellous and subtle +change had suddenly taken place in his individuality. Only a few moments +ago he was the polished, elegant man of the world, then the kindly and +understanding friend—self-contained, reserved, with a perfect manner +redolent of sympathy and dignity. Suddenly all that was changed. His +manner was still perfect and outwardly calm, his gestures scarce, his +speech deliberate, but the compelling power of the leader—which is the +birth-right of such men—glowed and sparkled now in his deep-set eyes: +the spirit of adventure and reckless daring was awake—insistent and +rampant—and subtle effluvia of enthusiasm and audacity emanated from +his entire personality.</p> + +<p>Sir Percy Blakeney had sunk his individuality in that of the Scarlet +Pimpernel.</p> + +<p>"I mean," he said, returning his friend's anxious look with one that was +inspiring in its unshakable confidence, "I mean that on Monday last, the +night before your wedding—when I urged you to obtain Yvonne de +Kernogan's consent to an immediate marriage—I had followed +Martin-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>Roget to a place called "The Bottom Inn" on Goblin Combe—a +place well known to every smuggler in the county."</p> + +<p>"You, Percy!" exclaimed Tony in amazement.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I," laughed the other lightly. "Why not? I had had my suspicions +of him for some time. As luck would have it he started off on the Monday +afternoon by hired coach to Chelwood. I followed. From Chelwood he +wanted to go on to Redhill: but the roads were axle deep in mud, and +evening was gathering in very fast. Nobody would take him. He wanted a +horse and a guide. I was on the spot—as disreputable a bar-loafer as +you ever saw in your life. I offered to take him. He had no choice. He +had to take me. No one else had offered. I took him to the Bottom Inn. +There he met our esteemed friend M. Chauvelin...."</p> + +<p>"Chauvelin!" cried Tony, suddenly roused from the dull apathy of his +immeasurable grief, at sound of that name which recalled so many +exciting adventures, such mad, wild, hair-breadth escapes. "Chauvelin! +What in the world is he doing here in England?"</p> + +<p>"Brewing mischief, of course," replied Blakeney dryly. "In disgrace, +discredited, a marked man—what you will—my friend M. Chauvelin has +still an infinite capacity for mischief. Through the interstices of a +badly fastened shutter I heard two blackguards devising infinite +devilry. That is why, Tony," he added, "I urged an immediate marriage as +the only real protection for Yvonne de Kernogan against those +blackguards."</p> + +<p>"Would to God you had been more explicit!" exclaimed Tony with a bitter +sigh.</p> + +<p>"Would to God I had," rejoined the other, "but there was so little time, +with licences and what not all to arrange for, and less than an hour to +do it in. And would you have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> suspected the Duc himself of such +execrable duplicity even if you had known, as I did then, that the +so-called Martin-Roget hath name Adet, and that he matures thoughts of +deadly revenge against the duc de Kernogan and his daughter?"</p> + +<p>"Martin-Roget? the banker—the exiled royalist who...."</p> + +<p>"He may be a banker now ... but he certainly is no royalist—he is the +son of a peasant who was unjustly put to death four years ago by the duc +de Kernogan."</p> + +<p>"Ye gods!"</p> + +<p>"He came over to England plentifully supplied with money—I could not +gather if the money is his or if it has been entrusted to him by the +revolutionary government for purposes of spying and corruption—but he +came to England in order to ingratiate himself with the duc de Kernogan +and his daughter, and then to lure them back to France, for what purpose +you may well imagine."</p> + +<p>"Good God, man ... you can't mean ...?"</p> + +<p>"He has chartered a smuggler's craft—or rather Chauvelin has done it +for him. Her name is the <i>Hollandia</i>, her master hath name Kuyper. She +was to be in Portishead harbour on the last day of November: all her +papers in order. Cargo of West India sugar, destination Amsterdam, +consignee some Mynheer over there. But Martin-Roget, or whatever his +name may be, and no doubt our friend Chauvelin too, were to be aboard +her, and also M. le duc de Kernogan and his daughter. And the +<i>Hollandia</i> is to put into Le Croisic for Nantes, whose revolutionary +proconsul, that infamous Carrier, is of course Chauvelin's bosom +friend."</p> + +<p>Sir Percy Blakeney finished speaking. Lord Tony had listened to him +quietly and in silence: now he rose and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> turned resolutely to his +friend. There was no longer any trace in him of that stunned apathy +which had been the primary result of the terrible blow. His young face +was still almost unrecognisable from the lines of grief and horror which +marred its habitual fresh, boyish look. He looked twenty years older +than he had done a few hours ago, but there was also in his whole +attitude now the virility of more mature manhood, its determination and +unswerving purpose.</p> + +<p>"And what can I do now?" he asked simply, knowing that he could trust +his friend and leader with what he held dearest in all the world. +"Without you, Blakeney, I am of course impotent and lost. I haven't the +head to think. I haven't sufficient brains to pit against those cunning +devils. But if you will help me...."</p> + +<p>Then he checked himself abruptly, and the look of hopeless despair once +more crept into his eyes.</p> + +<p>"I am mad, Percy," he said with a self-deprecating shrug of the +shoulders, "gone crazy with grief, I suppose, or I shouldn't talk of +asking your help, of risking your life in my cause."</p> + +<p>"Tony, if you talk that rubbish, I shall be forced to punch your head," +retorted Blakeney with his light laugh. "Why man," he added gaily, +"can't you see that I am aching to have at my old friend Chauvelin +again?"</p> + +<p>And indeed the zest of adventure, the zest to fight, never dormant, was +glowing with compelling vigour now in those lazy eyes of his which were +resting with such kindliness upon his stricken friend. "Go home, Tony!" +he added, "go, you rascal, and collect what things you want, while I +send for Hastings and Ffoulkes, and see that four good horses are ready +for us within the hour. To-night we sleep at Portishead, Tony. The +<i>Day-Dream</i> is lying off there, ready<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> to sail at any hour of the day or +night. The <i>Hollandia</i> has twenty-four hours' start of us, alas! and we +cannot overtake her now: but we'll be in Nantes ere those devils can do +much mischief: and once in Nantes!... Why, Tony man! think of the +glorious escapes we've had together, you and I! Think of the gay, mad +rides across the north of France, with half-fainting women and swooning +children across our saddle-bows! Think of the day when we smuggled the +de Tournais out of Calais harbour, the day we snatched Juliette +Déroulède and her Paul out of the tumbril and tore across Paris with +that howling mob at our heels! Think! think, Tony! of all the happiest, +merriest moments of your life and they will seem dull and lifeless +beside what is in store for you, when with your dear wife's arms +clinging round your neck, we'll fly along the quays of Nantes on the +road to liberty! Ah, Tony lad! were it not for the anxiety which I know +is gnawing at your heart, I would count this one of the happiest hours +of my happy life!"</p> + +<p>He was so full of enthusiasm, so full of vitality, that life itself +seemed to emanate from him and to communicate itself to the very +atmosphere around. Hope lit up my lord Tony's wan face: he believed in +his friend as mediæval ascetics believed in the saints whom they adored. +Enthusiasm had crept into his veins, dull despair fell away from him +like a mantle.</p> + +<p>"God bless you, Percy," he exclaimed as his firm and loyal hand grasped +that of the leader whom he revered.</p> + +<p>"Nay!" retorted Blakeney with sudden gravity. "He hath done that +already. Pray for His help to-day, lad, as you have never prayed +before."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h3> + +<h4>MARGUERITE</h4> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Lord Tony had gone, and for the space of five minutes Sir Percy Blakeney +stood in front of the hearth staring into the fire. Something lay before +him, something had to be done now, which represented the heavy price +that had to be paid for those mad and happy adventures, for that +reckless daring, aye for that selfless supreme sacrifice which was as +the very breath of life to the Scarlet Pimpernel.</p> + +<p>And in the dancing flames he could see Marguerite's blue eyes, her +ardent hair, her tender smile all pleading with him not to go. She had +so much to give him—so much happiness, such an infinity of love, and he +was all that she had in the world! It seemed to him as if he could feel +her arms around him even now, as if he could hear her voice whispering +appealingly: "Do not go! Am I nothing to you that thoughts of others +should triumph over my pleading? that the need of others should outweigh +mine own most pressing need? I want you, Percy! aye! even I! You have +done so much for others—it is my turn now."</p> + +<p>But even as in a kind of trance those words seemed to reach his strained +senses, he knew that he must go, that he must tear himself away once +more from the clinging embrace of her dear arms and shut his eyes to the +tears which anon would fill her own. Destiny demanded that he should go. +He had chosen his path in life himself, at first only in a spirit of +wild recklessness, a mad tossing of his life into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> the scales of Fate. +But now that same destiny which he had chosen had become his master: he +no longer could draw back. What he had done once, twenty times, an +hundred times, that he must do again, all the while that the weak and +the defenceless called mutely to him from across the seas, all the while +that innocent women suffered and orphaned children cried.</p> + +<p>And to-day it was his friend, his comrade, who had come to him in his +distress: the young wife whom he idolised was in the most dire peril +that could possibly threaten any woman: she was at the mercy of a man +who, driven by the passion of revenge, meant to show her no mercy, and +the devil alone knew these days to what lengths of infamy a man so +driven would go.</p> + +<p>The minutes sped on. Blakeney's eyes grew hot and wearied from staring +into the fire. He closed them for a moment and then quietly turned to +go.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>All those who knew Marguerite Blakeney these days marvelled if she was +ever unhappy. Lady Ffoulkes, who was her most trusted friend, vowed that +she was not. She had moments—days—sometimes weeks of intense anxiety, +which amounted to acute agony. Whenever she saw her husband start on one +of those expeditions to France wherein every minute, every hour, he +risked his life and more in order to snatch yet another threatened +victim from the awful clutches of those merciless Terrorists, she +endured soul-torture such as few women could have withstood who had not +her splendid courage and her boundless faith. But against such crushing +sorrow she had to set off the happiness of those reunions with the man +whom she loved so pas<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>sionately—happiness which was so great, that it +overrode and conquered the very memory of past anxieties.</p> + +<p>Marguerite Blakeney suffered terribly at times—at others she was +overwhelmingly happy—the measure of her life was made up of the bitter +dregs of sorrow and the sparkling wine of joy! No! she was not +altogether unhappy: and gradually that enthusiasm which irradiated from +the whole personality of the valiant Scarlet Pimpernel, which dominated +his every action, entered into Marguerite Blakeney's blood too. His +vitality was so compelling, those impulses which carried him headlong +into unknown dangers were so generous and were actuated by such pure +selflessness, that the noble-hearted woman whose very soul was wrapped +up in the idolised husband, allowed herself to ride by his side on the +buoyant waves of his enthusiasm and of his desires: she smothered every +expression of anxiety, she swallowed her tears, she learned to say the +word "Good-bye" and forgot the word "Stay!"</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>It was half an hour after midday when Percy knocked at the door of her +boudoir. She had just come in from a walk in the meadows round the town +and along the bank of the river: the rain had overtaken her and she had +come in very wet, but none the less exhilarated by the movement and the +keen, damp, salt-laden air which came straight over the hills from the +Channel. She had taken off her hat and her mantle and was laughing gaily +with her maid who was shaking the wet out of a feather. She looked round +at her husband when he entered, and with a quick gesture ordered the +maid out of the room.</p> + +<p>She had learned to read every line on Percy's face, every expression of +his lazy, heavy-lidded eyes. She saw that he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> was dressed with more than +his usual fastidiousness, but in dark clothes and travelling mantle. She +knew, moreover, by that subtle instinct which had become a second nature +and which warned her whenever he meant to go.</p> + +<p>Nor did he announce his departure to her in so many words. As soon as +the maid had gone, he took his beloved in his arms.</p> + +<p>"They have stolen Tony's wife from him," he said with that light, quaint +laugh of his. "I told you that the man Martin-Roget had planned some +devilish mischief—well! he has succeeded so far, thanks to that +unspeakable fool the duc de Kernogan."</p> + +<p>He told her briefly the history of the past few days.</p> + +<p>"Tony did not take my warning seriously enough," he concluded with a +sigh; "he ought never to have allowed his wife out of his sight."</p> + +<p>Marguerite had not interrupted him while he spoke. At first she just lay +in his arms, quiescent and listening, nerving herself by a supreme +effort not to utter one sigh of misery or one word of appeal. Then, as +her knees shook under her, she sank back into a chair by the hearth and +he knelt beside her with his arms clasped tightly round her shoulders, +his cheek pressed against hers. He had no need to tell her that duty and +friendship called, that the call of honour was once again—as it so +often has been in the world—louder than that of love.</p> + +<p>She understood and she knew, and he, with that supersensitive instinct +of his, understood the heroic effort which she made.</p> + +<p>"Your love, dear heart," he whispered, "will draw me back safely home as +it hath so often done before. You believe that, do you not?"</p> + +<p>And she had the supreme courage to murmur: "Yes!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h3> + +<h4>THE ROAD TO PORTISHEAD</h4> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>It was not until Bath had very obviously been left behind that Yvonne de +Kernogan—Lady Anthony Dewhurst—realised that she had been trapped.</p> + +<p>During the first half-hour of the journey her father had lain back +against the cushions of the carriage with eyes closed, his face pale and +wan as if with great suffering. Yvonne, her mind a prey to the gravest +anxiety, sat beside him, holding his limp cold hand in hers. Once or +twice she ventured on a timid question as to his health and he +invariably murmured a feeble assurance that he felt well, only very +tired and disinclined to talk. Anon she suggested—diffidently, for she +did not mean to disturb him—that the driver did not appear to know his +way into Bath, he had turned into a side road which she felt sure was +not the right one. M. le duc then roused himself for a moment from his +lethargy. He leaned forward and gazed out of the window.</p> + +<p>"The man is quite right, Yvonne," he said quietly, "he knows his way. He +brought me along this road yesterday. He gets into Bath by a slight +détour but it is pleasanter driving."</p> + +<p>This reply satisfied her. She was a stranger in the land, and knew +little or nothing of the environs of Bath. True, last Monday morning +after the ceremony of her marriage she had driven out to Combwich, but +dawn was only just<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> breaking then, and she had lain for the most +part—wearied and happy—in her young husband's arms. She had taken +scant note of roads and signposts.</p> + +<p>A few minutes later the coach came to a halt and Yvonne, looking through +the window, saw a man who was muffled up to the chin and enveloped in a +huge travelling cape, mount swiftly up beside the driver.</p> + +<p>"Who is that man?" she queried sharply.</p> + +<p>"Some friend of the coachman's, no doubt," murmured her father in reply, +"to whom he is giving a lift as far as Bath."</p> + +<p>The barouche had moved on again.</p> + +<p>Yvonne could not have told you why, but at her father's last words she +had felt a sudden cold grip at her heart—the first since she started. +It was neither fear nor yet suspicion, but a chill seemed to go right +through her. She gazed anxiously through the window, and then looked at +her father with eyes that challenged and that doubted. But M. le duc +would not meet her gaze. He had once more closed his eyes and sat quite +still, pale and haggard, like a man who is suffering acutely.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>"Father we are going back to Bath, are we not?"</p> + +<p>The query came out trenchant and hard from her throat which now felt +hoarse and choked. Her whole being was suddenly pervaded by a vast and +nameless fear. Time had gone on, and there was no sign in the distance +of the great city. M. de Kernogan made no reply, but he opened his eyes +and a curious glance shot from them at the terror-stricken face of his +daughter.</p> + +<p>Then she knew—knew that she had been tricked and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> trapped—that her +father had played a hideous and complicated rôle of hypocrisy and +duplicity in order to take her away from the husband whom she idolised.</p> + +<p>Fear and her love for the man of her choice gave her initiative and +strength. Before M. de Kernogan could realise what she was doing, before +he could make a movement to stop her, she had seized the handle of the +carriage door, wrenched the door open and jumped out into the road. She +fell on her face in the mud, but the next moment she picked herself up +again and started to run—down the road which the carriage had just +traversed, on and on as fast as she could go. She ran on blindly, +unreasoningly, impelled by a purely physical instinct to escape, not +thinking how childish, how futile such an attempt was bound to be.</p> + +<p>Already after the first few minutes of this swift career over the muddy +road, she heard quick, heavy footsteps behind her. Her father could not +run like that—the coachman could not have thus left his horses—but +still she could hear those footsteps at a run—a quicker run than +hers—and they were gaining on her—every minute, every second. The +next, she felt two powerful arms suddenly seizing her by the shoulders. +She stumbled and would once more have fallen, but for those same strong +arms which held her close.</p> + +<p>"Let me go! Let me go!" she cried, panting.</p> + +<p>But she was held and could no longer move. She looked up into the face +of Martin-Roget, who without any hesitation or compunction lifted her up +as if she had been a bale of light goods and carried her back toward the +coach. She had forgotten the man who had been picked up on the road +awhile ago, and had been sitting beside the coachman since.</p> + +<p>He deposited her in the barouche beside her father, then quietly closed +the door and once more mounted to his seat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> on the box. The carriage +moved on again. M. de Kernogan was no longer lethargic, he looked down +on his daughter's inert form beside him, and not one look of tenderness +or compassion softened the hard callousness of his face.</p> + +<p>"Any resistance, my child," he said coldly, "will as you see be useless +as well as undignified. I deplore this necessary violence, but I should +be forced once more to requisition M. Martin-Roget's help if you +attempted such foolish tricks again. When you are a little more calm, we +will talk openly together."</p> + +<p>For the moment she was lying back against the cushions of the carriage; +her nerves having momentarily given way before this appalling +catastrophe which had overtaken her and the hideous outrage to which she +was being subjected by her own father. She was sobbing convulsively. But +in the face of his abominable callousness, she made a great effort to +regain her self-control. Her pride, her dignity came to the rescue. She +had had time in those few seconds to realise that she was indeed more +helpless than any bird in a fowler's net, and that only absolute calm +and presence of mind could possibly save her now.</p> + +<p>If indeed there was the slightest hope of salvation.</p> + +<p>She drew herself up and resolutely dried her eyes and readjusted her +hair and her hood and mantle.</p> + +<p>"We can talk openly at once, sir," she said coldly. "I am ready to hear +what explanation you can offer for this monstrous outrage."</p> + +<p>"I owe you no explanation, my child," he retorted calmly. "Presently +when you are restored to your own sense of dignity and of self-respect +you will remember that a lady of the house of Kernogan does not elope in +the night with a stranger and a heretic like some kitchen-wench. Having +so far forgotten herself my daughter must, alas! take the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> consequences, +which I deplore, of her own sins and lack of honour."</p> + +<p>"And no doubt, father," she retorted, stung to the quick by his insults, +"that you too will anon be restored to your own sense of self-respect +and remember that hitherto no gentleman of the house of Kernogan has +acted the part of a liar and of a hypocrite!"</p> + +<p>"Silence!" he commanded sternly.</p> + +<p>"Yes!" she reiterated wildly, "it was the rôle of a liar and of a +hypocrite that you played from the moment when you sat down to pen that +letter full of protestations of affection and forgiveness, until like a +veritable Judas you betrayed your own daughter with a kiss. Shame on +you, father!" she cried. "Shame!"</p> + +<p>"Enough!" he said, as he seized her wrist so roughly that the cry of +pain which involuntarily escaped her effectually checked the words in +her mouth. "You are mad, beside yourself, a thoughtless, senseless +creature whom I shall have to coerce more effectually if you do not +cease your ravings. Do not force me to have recourse once again to M. +Martin-Roget's assistance to keep your undignified outburst in check."</p> + +<p>The name of the man whom she had learned to hate and fear more than any +other human being in the world was sufficient to restore to her that +measure of self-control which had again threatened to leave her.</p> + +<p>"Enough indeed," she said more calmly; "the brain that could devise and +carry out such infamy in cold blood is not like to be influenced by a +defenceless woman's tears. Will you at least tell me whither you are +taking me?"</p> + +<p>"We go to a place on the coast now," he replied coldly, "the outlandish +name of which has escaped me. There we embark for Holland, from whence +we shall join their Royal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> Highnesses at Coblentz. It is at Coblentz +that your marriage with M. Martin-Roget will take place, and...."</p> + +<p>"Stay, father," she broke in, speaking quite as calmly as he did, "ere +you go any further. Understand me clearly, for I mean every word that I +say. In the sight of God—if not in that of the laws of France—I am the +wife of Lord Anthony Dewhurst. By everything that I hold most sacred and +most dear I swear to you that I will never become Martin-Roget's wife. I +would die first," she added with burning but resolutely suppressed +passion.</p> + +<p>He shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Pshaw, my child," he said quietly, "many a time since the world began +have women registered such solemn and sacred vows, only to break them +when force of circumstance and their own good sense made them ashamed of +their own folly."</p> + +<p>"How little you know me, father," was all that she said in reply.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Indeed, Yvonne de Kernogan—Yvonne Dewhurst as she was now in sight of +God and men—had far too much innate dignity and self-respect to +continue this discussion, seeing that in any case she was physically the +weaker, and that she was absolutely helpless and defenceless in the +hands of two men, one of whom—her own father—who should have been her +protector, was leagued with her bitterest enemy against her.</p> + +<p>That Martin-Roget was her enemy—aye and her father's too—she had +absolutely no doubt. Some obscure yet keen instinct was working in her +heart, urging her to mistrust him even more wholly than she had done +before. Just now,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> when he laid ruthless hands on her and carried her, +inert and half-swooning, back into the coach, and she lay with closed +eyes, her very soul in revolt against this contact with him, against the +feel of his arms around her, a vague memory surcharged with horror and +with dread stirred within her brain: and over the vista of the past few +years she looked back upon an evening in the autumn—a rough night with +the wind from the Atlantic blowing across the lowlands of Poitou and +soughing in the willow trees that bordered the Loire—she seemed to hear +the tumultuous cries of enraged human creatures dominating the sound of +the gale, she felt the crowd of evil-intentioned men around the closed +carriage wherein she sat, calm and unafraid. Darkness then was all +around her. She could not see. She could only hear and feel. And she +heard the carriage door being wrenched open, and she felt the cold +breath of the wind upon her cheek, and also the hot breath of a man in a +passion of fury and of hate.</p> + +<p>She had seen nothing then, and mercifully semi-unconsciousness had +dulled her aching senses, but even now her soul shrunk with horror at +the vague remembrance of that ghostlike form—the spirit of hate and of +revenge—of its rough arms encircling her shoulders, its fingers under +her chin—and then that awful, loathsome, contaminating kiss which she +thought then would have smirched her for ever. It had taken all the +pure, sweet kisses of a brave and loyal man whom she loved and revered, +to make her forget that hideous, indelible stain: and in the arms of her +dear milor she had forgotten that one terrible moment, when she had felt +that the embrace of death must be more endurable than that of this +unknown and hated man.</p> + +<p>It was the memory of that awful night which had come back to her as in a +flash while she lay passive and broken<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> in Martin-Roget's arms. Of +course for the moment she had no thought of connecting the rich banker +from Brest, the enthusiastic royalist and <i>émigré</i>, with one of those +turbulent, uneducated peasant lads who had attacked her carriage that +night: all that she was conscious of was that she was outraged by his +presence, just as she had been outraged then, and that the contact of +his hands, of his arms, was absolutely unendurable.</p> + +<p>To fight against the physical power which held her a helpless prisoner +in the hands of the enemy was sheer impossibility. She knew that, and +was too proud to make feeble and futile efforts which could only end in +defeat and further humiliation. She felt hideously wretched and +lonely—thoughts of her husband, who at this hour was still serenely +unconscious of the terrible catastrophe which had befallen him, brought +tears of acute misery to her eyes. What would he do when—to-morrow, +perhaps—he realised that his bride had been stolen from him, that he +had been fooled and duped as she had been too. What could he do when he +knew?</p> + +<p>She tried to solace her own soul-agony by thinking of his influential +friends who, of course, would help him as soon as they knew. There was +that mysterious and potent friend of whom he spoke so little, who +already had warned him of coming danger and urged on the secret marriage +which should have proved a protection. There was Sir Percy Blakeney, of +whom he spoke much, who was enormously rich, independent, the most +intimate friend of the Regent himself. There was....</p> + +<p>But what was the use of clinging even for one instant to those feeble +cords of Hope's broken lyre? By the time her dear lord knew that she was +gone, she would be on the high seas, far out of his reach.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span></p> + +<p>And she had not even the solace of tears—heart-broken sobs rose in her +throat, but she resolutely kept them back. Her father's cold, impassive +face, the callous glitter in his eyes told her that every tear would be +in vain, her most earnest appeal an object for his sneers.</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>As to how long the journey in the coach lasted after that Yvonne +Dewhurst could not have said. It may have been a few hours, it may have +been a cycle of years. She had been young—a happy bride, a dutiful +daughter—when she left Combwich Hall. She was an old woman now, a +supremely unhappy one, parted from the man she loved without hope of +ever seeing him again in life, and feeling nothing but hatred and +contempt for the father who had planned such infamy against her.</p> + +<p>She offered no resistance whatever to any of her father's commands. +After the first outburst of revolt and indignation she had not even +spoken to him.</p> + +<p>There was a halt somewhere on the way, when in the low-raftered room of +a posting-inn, she had to sit at table with the two men who had +compassed her misery. She was thirsty, feverish and weak: she drank some +milk in silence. She felt ill physically as well as mentally, and the +constant effort not to break down had helped to shatter her nerves. As +she had stepped out of the barouche without a word, so she stepped into +it again when it stood outside, ready with a fresh relay of horses to +take her further, still further, away from the cosy little nest where +even now her young husband was waiting longingly for her return. The +people of the inn—a kindly-looking woman, a portly middle-aged man, one +or two young ostlers and serving-maids were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> standing about in the yard +when her father led her to the coach. For a moment the wild idea rushed +to her mind to run to these people and demand their protection, to +proclaim at the top of her voice the infamous act which was dragging her +away from her husband and her home, and lead her a helpless prisoner to +a fate that was infinitely worse than death. She even ran to the woman +who looked so benevolent and so kind, she placed her small quivering +hand on the other's rough toil-worn one and in hurried, appealing words +begged for her help and the shelter of a home till she could communicate +with her husband.</p> + +<p>The woman listened with a look of kindly pity upon her homely face, she +patted the small, trembling hand and stroked it gently, tears of +compassion gathered in her eyes:</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, my dear," she said soothingly, speaking as she would to a +sick woman or to a child, "I quite understand. I wouldna' fret if I was +you. I would jess go quietly with your pore father: 'e knows what's best +for you, that 'e do. You come 'long wi' me," she added as she drew +Yvonne's hands through her arm, "I'll see ye're comfortable in the +coach."</p> + +<p>Yvonne, bewildered, could not at first understand either the woman's +sympathy or her obvious indifference to the pitiable tale, until—Oh! +the shame of it!—she saw the two young serving-maids looking on her +with equal pity expressed in their round eyes, and heard one of them +whispering to the other:</p> + +<p>"Pore lady! so zad ain't it? I'm that zorry for the pore father!"</p> + +<p>And the girl with a significant gesture indicated her own forehead and +glanced knowingly at her companion. Yvonne felt a hot flush rise to the +very roots of her hair. So her father and Martin-Roget had thought of +everything, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> had taken every precaution to cut the ground from under +her feet. Wherever a halt was necessary, wherever the party might come +in contact with the curious or the indifferent, it would be given out +that the poor young lady was crazed, that she talked wildly, and had to +be kept under restraint.</p> + +<p>Yvonne as she turned away from that last faint glimmer of hope, +encountered Martin-Roget's glance of triumph and saw the sneer which +curled his full lips. Her father came up to her just then and took her +over from the kindly hostess, with the ostentatious manner of one who +has charge of a sick person, and must take every precaution for her +welfare.</p> + +<p>"Another loss of dignity, my child," he said to her in French, so that +none but Martin-Roget could catch what he said. "I guessed that you +would commit some indiscretion, you see, so M. Martin-Roget and myself +warned all the people at the inn the moment we arrived. We told them +that I was travelling with a sick daughter who had become crazed through +the death of her lover, and believed herself—like most crazed persons +do—to be persecuted and oppressed. You have seen the result. They +pitied you. Even the serving-maids smiled. It would have been wiser to +remain silent."</p> + +<p>Whereupon he handed her into the barouche with loving care, a crowd of +sympathetic onlookers gazing with obvious compassion on the poor crazed +lady and her sorely tried father.</p> + +<p>After this episode Yvonne gave up the struggle.</p> + +<p>No one but God could help her, if He chose to perform a miracle.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span></p> +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>The rest of the journey was accomplished in silence. Yvonne gazed, +unseeing, through the carriage window as the barouche rattled on the +cobble-stones of the streets of Bristol. She marvelled at the number of +people who went gaily by along the streets, unheeding, unknowing that +the greatest depths of misery to which any human being could sink had +been probed by the unfortunate young girl who wide-eyed, mute and +broken-hearted gazed out upon the busy world without.</p> + +<p>Portishead was reached just when the grey light of day turned to a +gloomy twilight. Yvonne unresisting, insentient, went whither she was +bidden to go. Better that, than to feel Martin-Roget's coercive grip on +her arm, or to hear her father's curt words of command.</p> + +<p>She walked along the pier and anon stepped into a boat, hardly knowing +what she was doing: the twilight was welcome to her, for it hid much +from her view and her eyes—hot with unshed tears—ached for the restful +gloom. She realised that the boat was being rowed along for some little +way down the stream, that Frédérick, who had come she knew not how or +whence, was in the boat too with some luggage which she recognised as +being familiar: that another woman was there whom she did not know, but +who appeared to look after her comforts, wrapped a shawl closer round +her knees and drew the hood of her mantle closer round her neck. But it +was all like an ugly dream: the voices of her father and of +Martin-Roget, who were talking in monosyllables, the sound of the oars +as they struck the water, or creaked in their rowlocks, came to her as +from an ever-receding distance.</p> + +<p>A couple of hours later she came back to complete con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>sciousness. She +was in a narrow place, which at first appeared to her like a cupboard: +the atmosphere was both cold and stuffy and reeked of tar and of oil. +She was lying on a hard bed with her mantle and a shawl wrapped round +her. It was very dark save where the feeble glimmer of a lamp threw a +circle of light around. Above her head there was a constant and heavy +tramping of feet, and the sound of incessant and varied creakings and +groanings of wood, cordage and metal filled the night air with their +weird and dismal sounds. A slow feeling of movement coupled with a +gentle oscillation confirmed the unfortunate girl's first waking +impression that she was on board a ship. How she had got there she did +not know. She must ultimately have fainted in the small boat and been +carried aboard. She raised herself slightly on her elbow and peered +round her into the dark corners of the cabin: opposite to her upon a +bench, also wrapped up in shawl and mantle, lay the woman who had been +in attendance on her in the boat.</p> + +<p>The woman's heavy breathing indicated that she was fast asleep.</p> + +<p>Loneliness! Misery! Desolation encompassed the happy bride of yesterday. +With a moan of exquisite soul-agony she fell back against the hard +cushions, and for the first time this day a convulsive flow of tears +eased the superacuteness of her misery.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h3> + +<h4>THE COAST OF FRANCE</h4> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>The whole of that wretched mournful day Yvonne Dewhurst spent upon the +deck of the ship which was bearing her away every hour, every minute, +further and still further from home and happiness. She seldom spoke: she +ate and drank when food was brought to her: she was conscious neither of +cold nor of wet, of well-being or ill. She sat upon a pile of cordages +in the stern of the ship leaning against the taffrail and in imagination +seeing the coast of England fade into illimitable space.</p> + +<p>Part of the time it rained, and then she sat huddled up in the shawls +and tarpaulins which the woman placed about her: then, when the sun came +out, she still sat huddled up, closing her eyes against the glare.</p> + +<p>When daylight faded into dusk, and then twilight into night she gazed +into nothingness as she had gazed on water and sky before, thinking, +thinking, thinking! This could not be the end—it could not. So much +happiness, such pure love, such perfect companionship as she had had +with the young husband whom she idolised could not all be wrenched from +her like that, without previous foreboding and without some warning from +Fate. This miserable, sordid, wretched journey to an unknown land could +not be the epilogue to the exquisite romance which had suddenly changed +the dreary monotony of her life into one long,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> glowing dream of joy and +of happiness! This could not be the end!</p> + +<p>And gazing into the immensity of the far horizon she thought and thought +and racked her memory for every word, every look which she had had from +her dear milor. And upon the grey background of sea and sky she seemed +to perceive the vague and dim outline of that mysterious friend—the man +who knew everything—who foresaw everything, even and above all the +dangers that threatened those whom he loved. He had foreseen this awful +danger too! Oh! if only milor and she herself had realised its full +extent! But now surely! surely! he would help, he would know what to do. +Milor was wont to speak of him as being omniscient and having marvellous +powers.</p> + +<p>Once or twice during the day M. le duc de Kernogan came to sit beside +his daughter and tried to speak a few words of comfort and of sympathy. +Of a truth—here on the open sea—far both from home and kindred and +from the new friends he had found in hospitable England—his heart smote +him for all the wrong he had done to his only child. He dared not think +of the gentle and patient wife who lay at rest in the churchyard of +Kernogan, for he feared that with his thoughts he would conjure up her +pale, avenging ghost who would demand an account of what he had done +with her child.</p> + +<p>Cold and exposure—the discomfort of the long sea-journey in this rough +trading ship had somewhat damped M. de Kernogan's pride and obstinacy: +his loyalty to the cause of his King had paled before the demands of a +father's duty toward his helpless daughter.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p> +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>It was close on six o'clock and the night, after the turbulent and +capricious alternations of rain and sunshine, promised to be beautifully +clear, though very cold. The pale crescent of the moon had just emerged +from behind the thick veil of cloud and mist which still hung +threateningly upon the horizon: a fitful sheen of silver danced upon the +waves.</p> + +<p>M. le duc stood beside his daughter. He had inquired after her health +and well-being and received her monosyllabic reply with an impatient +sigh. M. Martin-Roget was pacing up and down the deck with restless and +vigorous strides: he had just gone by and made a loud and cheery comment +on the weather and the beauty of the night.</p> + +<p>Could Yvonne Dewhurst have seen her father's face now, or had she cared +to study it, she would have perceived that he was gazing out to sea in +the direction to which the schooner was heading with an intent look of +puzzlement, and that there was a deep furrow between his brows. Half an +hour went by and he still stood there, silent and absorbed: then +suddenly a curious exclamation escaped his lips: he stooped and seized +his daughter by the wrist.</p> + +<p>"Yvonne!" he said excitedly, "tell me! am I dreaming, or am I crazed?"</p> + +<p>"What is it?" she asked coldly.</p> + +<p>"Out there! Look! Just tell me what you see?"</p> + +<p>He appeared so excited and his pressure on her wrist was so insistent +that she dragged herself to her feet and looked out to sea in the +direction to which he was pointing.</p> + +<p>"Tell me what you see," he reiterated with ever-grow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>ing excitement, and +she felt that the hand which held her wrist trembled violently.</p> + +<p>"The light from a lighthouse, I think," she said.</p> + +<p>"And besides that?"</p> + +<p>"Another light—a much smaller one—considerably higher up. It must be +perched up on some cliffs."</p> + +<p>"Anything else?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. There are lights dotted about here and there. Some village on the +coast."</p> + +<p>"On the coast?" he murmured hoarsely, "and we are heading towards it."</p> + +<p>"So it appears," she said indifferently. What cared she to what shore +she was being taken: every land save England was exile to her now.</p> + +<p>Just at this moment M. Martin-Roget in his restless wanderings once more +passed by.</p> + +<p>"M. Martin-Roget!" called the duc.</p> + +<p>And vaguely Yvonne wondered why his voice trembled so.</p> + +<p>"At your service, M. le duc," replied the other as he came to a halt, +and then stood with legs wide apart firmly planted upon the deck, his +hands buried in the pockets of his heavy mantle, his head thrown back, +as if defiantly, his whole attitude that of a master condescending to +talk with slaves.</p> + +<p>"What are those lights over there, ahead of us?" asked M. le duc +quietly.</p> + +<p>"The lighthouse of Le Croisic, M. le duc," replied Martin-Roget dryly, +"and of the guard-house above and the harbour below. All at your +service," he added, with a sneer.</p> + +<p>"Monsieur...." exclaimed the duc.</p> + +<p>"Eh? what?" queried the other blandly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What does this mean?"</p> + +<p>In the vague, dim light of the moon Yvonne could just distinguish the +two men as they stood confronting one another. Martin-Roget, tall, +massive, with arms now folded across his breast, shrugging his broad +shoulders at the duc's impassioned query—and her father who suddenly +appeared to have shrunk within himself, who raised one trembling hand to +his forehead and with the other sought with pathetic entreaty the +support of his daughter's arm.</p> + +<p>"What does this mean?" he murmured again.</p> + +<p>"Only," replied Martin-Roget with a laugh, "that we are close to the +coast of France and that with this unpleasant but useful north-westerly +wind we shall be in Nantes two hours before midnight."</p> + +<p>"In Nantes?" queried the duc vaguely, not understanding, speaking +tonelessly like a somnambulist or a man in a trance. He was leaning +heavily now on his daughter's arm, and she with that motherly instinct +which is ever present in a good woman's heart even in the presence of +her most cruel enemy, drew him tenderly towards her, gave him the +support he needed, not quite understanding herself yet what it was that +had befallen them both.</p> + +<p>"Yes, in Nantes, M. le duc," reiterated Martin-Roget with a sneer.</p> + +<p>"But 'twas to Holland we were going."</p> + +<p>"To Nantes, M. le duc," retorted the other with a ringing note of +triumph in his voice, "to Nantes, from which you fled like a coward when +you realised that the vengeance of an outraged people had at last +overtaken you and your kind."</p> + +<p>"I do not understand," stammered the duc, and mechanically +now—instinctively—father and daughter clung to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> one another as if each +was striving to protect the other from the raving fury of this madman. +Never for a moment did they believe that he was sane. Excitement, they +thought, had turned his brain: he was acting and speaking like one +possessed.</p> + +<p>"I dare say it would take far longer than the next four hours while we +glide gently along the Loire, to make such as you understand that your +arrogance and your pride are destined to be humbled at last and that you +are now in the power of those men who awhile ago you did not deem worthy +to lick your boots. I dare say," he continued calmly, "you think that I +am crazed. Well! perhaps I am, but sane enough anyhow, M. le duc, to +enjoy the full flavour of revenge."</p> + +<p>"Revenge?... what have we done?... what has my daughter done?..." +stammered the duc incoherently. "You swore you loved her ... desired to +make her your wife ... I consented ... she...."</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget's harsh laugh broke in on his vague murmurings.</p> + +<p>"And like an arrogant fool you fell into the trap," he said with calm +irony, "and you were too blind to see in Martin-Roget, suitor for your +daughter's hand, Pierre Adet, the son of the victim of your execrable +tyranny, the innocent man murdered at your bidding."</p> + +<p>"Pierre Adet ... I don't understand."</p> + +<p>"'Tis but little meseems that you do understand, M. le duc," sneered the +other. "But turn your memory back, I pray you, to the night four years +ago when a few hot-headed peasant lads planned to give you a fright in +your castle of Kernogan ... the plan failed and Pierre Adet, the leader +of that unfortunate band, managed to fly the country, whilst you, like a +crazed and blind tyrant, ad<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>ministered punishment right and left for the +fright which you had had. Just think of it! those boors! those louts! +that swinish herd of human cattle had dared to raise a cry of revolt +against you! To death with them all! to death! Where is Pierre Adet, the +leader of those hogs? to him an exemplary punishment must be meted! a +deterrent against any other attempt at revolt. Well, M. le duc, do you +remember what happened then? Pierre Adet, severely injured in the mêlée, +had managed to crawl away into safety. While he lay betwixt life and +death, first in the presbytery of Vertou, then in various ditches on his +way to Paris, he knew nothing of what happened at Nantes. When he +returned to consciousness and to active life he heard that his father, +Jean Adet the miller, who was innocent of any share in the revolt, had +been hanged by order of M. le duc de Kernogan."</p> + +<p>He paused awhile and a curious laugh—half-convulsive and not unmixed +with sobs—shook his broad shoulders. Neither the duc nor Yvonne made +any comment on what they heard: the duc felt like a fly caught in a +death-dealing web. He was dazed with the horror of his position, dazed +above all with the rush of bitter remorse which had surged up in his +heart and mind, when he realised that it was his own folly, his +obstinacy—aye! and his heartlessness which had brought this awful fate +upon his daughter. And Yvonne felt that whatever she might endure of +misery and hopelessness was nothing in comparison with what her father +must feel with the addition of bitter self-reproach.</p> + +<p>"Are you beginning to understand the position better now, M. le duc?" +queried Martin-Roget after awhile.</p> + +<p>The duc sank back nerveless upon the pile of cordages close by. Yvonne +was leaning with her back against the taffrail, her two arms +outstretched, the north-west wind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> blowing her soft brown hair about her +face whilst her eyes sought through the gloom to read the lines of +cruelty and hatred which must be distorting Martin-Roget's face now.</p> + +<p>"And," she said quietly after awhile, "you have waited all these years, +Monsieur, nursing thoughts of revenge and of hate against us. Ah! +believe me," she added earnestly, "though God knows my heart is full of +misery at this moment, and though I know that at your bidding death will +so soon claim me and my father as his own, yet would I not change my +wretchedness for yours."</p> + +<p>"And I, citizeness," he said roughly, addressing her for the first time +in the manner prescribed by the revolutionary government, "would not +change places with any king or other tyrant on earth. Yes," he added as +he came a step or two closer to her, "I have waited all these years. For +four years I have thought and striven and planned, planned to be even +with your father and with you one day. You had fled the country—like +cowards, bah!—ready to lend your arms to the foreigner against your own +country in order to re-establish a tyrant upon the throne whom the whole +of the people of France loathed and detested. You had fled, but soon I +learned whither you had gone. Then I set to work to gain access to +you.... I learned English.... I too went to England ... under an assumed +name ... with the necessary introductions so as to gain a footing in the +circles in which you moved. I won your father's condescension—almost +his friendship!... The rich banker from Brest should be fleeced in order +to provide funds for the armies that were to devastate France—and the +rich banker of Brest refused to be fleeced unless he was lured by the +promise of Mlle. de Kernogan's hand in marriage."</p> + +<p>"You need not, Monsieur," rejoined Yvonne coldly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> while Martin-Roget +paused in order to draw breath, "you need not, believe me, take the +trouble to recount all the machinations which you carried through in +order to gain your ends. Enough that my father was so foolish as to +trust you, and that we are now completely in your power, but...."</p> + +<p>"There is no 'but,'" he broke in gruffly, "you are in my power and will +be made to learn the law of the talion which demands an eye for an eye, +a life for a life: that is the law which the people are applying to that +herd of aristos who were arrogant tyrants once and are shrinking, +cowering slaves now. Oh! you were very proud that night, Mademoiselle +Yvonne de Kernogan, when a few peasant lads told you some home truths +while you sat disdainful and callous in your carriage, but there is one +fact that you can never efface from your memory, strive how you may, and +that is that for a few minutes I held you in my arms and that I kissed +you, my fine lady, aye! kissed you like I would any pert kitchen wench, +even I, Pierre Adet, the miller's son."</p> + +<p>He drew nearer and nearer to her as he spoke; she, leaning against the +taffrail, could not retreat any further from him. He laughed.</p> + +<p>"If you fall over into the water, I shall not complain," he said, "it +will save our proconsul the trouble, and the guillotine some work. But +you need not fear. I am not trying to kiss you again. You are nothing to +me, you and your father, less than nothing. Your death in misery and +wretchedness is all I want, whether you find a dishonoured grave in the +Loire or by suicide I care less than nothing. But let me tell you this," +he added, and his voice came now like a hissing sound through his set +teeth, "that there is no intention on my part to make glorious martyrs +of you both.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> I dare say you have heard some pretty stories over in +England of aristos climbing the steps of the guillotine with an ecstatic +look of martyrdom upon their face: and tales of the tumbrils of Paris +laden with men and women going to their death and shouting "God save the +King" all the way. That is not the sort of paltry revenge which would +satisfy me. My father was hanged by yours as a malefactor—hanged, I +say, like a common thief! he, a man who had never wronged a single soul +in the whole course of his life, who had been an example of fine living, +of hard work, of noble courage through many adversities. My mother was +left a widow—not the honoured widow of an honourable man—but a pariah, +the relict of a malefactor who had died of the hangman's rope—my sister +was left an orphan—dishonoured—without hope of gaining the love of a +respectable man. All that I and my family owe to ci-devant M. le duc de +Kernogan, and therefore I tell you, that both he and his daughter +shall not die like martyrs but like malefactors +too—shamed—dishonoured—loathed and execrated even by their own +kindred! Take note of that, M. le duc de Kernogan! You have sown shame, +shame shall you reap! and the name of which you are so proud will be +dragged in the mire until it has become a by-word in the land for all +that is despicable and base."</p> + +<p>Perhaps at no time of his life had Martin-Roget, erstwhile Pierre Adet, +spoken with such an intensity of passion, even though he was at all +times turbulent and a ready prey to his own emotions. But all that he +had kept hidden in the inmost recesses of his heart, ever since as a +young stripling he had chafed at the social conditions of his country, +now welled forth in that wild harangue. For the first time in his life +he felt that he was really master of those who had once despised and +oppressed him. He held<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> them and was the arbiter of their fate. The +sense of possession and of power had gone to his head like wine: he was +intoxicated with his own feeling of triumphant revenge, and this +impassioned rhetoric flowed from his mouth like the insentient babble of +a drunken man.</p> + +<p>The duc de Kernogan, sitting on the coil of cordages with his elbows on +his knees and his head buried in his hands, had no thought of breaking +in on the other man's ravings. The bitterness of remorse paralysed his +thinking faculties. Martin-Roget's savage words struck upon his senses +like blows from a sledge-hammer. He knew that nothing but his own folly +was the cause of Yvonne's and his own misfortune. Yvonne had been safe +from all evil fortune under the protection of her fine young English +husband; he—the father who should have been her chief protector—had +dragged her by brute force away from that husband's care and had landed +her ... where?... A shudder like acute ague went through the unfortunate +man's whole body as he thought of the future.</p> + +<p>Nor did Yvonne Dewhurst attempt to make reply to her enemy's delirious +talk. She would not give him even the paltry satisfaction of feeling +that he had stung her into a retort. She did not fear him—she hated him +too much for that—but like her father she had no illusions as to his +power over them both. While he stormed and raved she kept her eyes +steadily fixed upon him. She could only just barely distinguish him in +the gloom, and he no doubt failed to see the expression of lofty +indifference wherewith she contrived to regard him: but he <i>felt</i> her +contempt, and but for the presence of the sailors on the deck he +probably would have struck her.</p> + +<p>As it was when, from sheer lack of breath, he had to pause, he gave one +last look of hate on the huddled figure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> of the duc, and the proud, +upstanding one of Yvonne, then with a laugh which sounded like that of a +fiend—so cruel, so callous was it, he turned on his heel, and as he +strode away towards the bow his tall figure was soon absorbed in the +surrounding gloom.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>The duc de Kernogan and his daughter saw little or nothing of +Martin-Roget after that. For awhile longer they caught sight of him from +time to time as he walked up and down the deck with ceaseless +restlessness and in the company of another man, who was much shorter and +slimmer than himself and whom they had not noticed hitherto. +Martin-Roget talked most of the time in a loud and excited voice, the +other appearing to listen to him with a certain air of deference. +Whether the conversation between these two was actually intended for the +ears of the two unfortunates, or whether it was merely chance which +brought certain phrases to their ears when the two men passed closely +by, it were impossible to say. Certain it is that from such chance +phrases they gathered that the barque would not put into Nantes, as the +navigation of the Loire was suspended for the nonce by order of +Proconsul Carrier. He had need of the river for his awesome and +nefarious deeds. Yvonne's ears were regaled with tales—told with loud +ostentation—of the terrible <i>noyades</i>, the wholesale drowning of men, +women and children, malefactors and traitors, so as to ease the burden +of the guillotine.</p> + +<p>After three bells it got so bitterly cold that Yvonne, fearing that her +father would become seriously ill, suggested their going down to their +stuffy cabins together. After all, even the foul and shut-up atmosphere +of these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> close, airless cupboards was preferable to the propinquity of +those two human fiends up on deck and the tales of horror and brutality +which they loved to tell.</p> + +<p>And for two hours after that, father and daughter sat in the narrow +cell-like place, locked in each other's arms. She had everything to +forgive, and he everything to atone for: but Yvonne suffered so acutely, +her misery was so great that she found it in her heart to pity the +father whose misery must have been even greater than hers. The supreme +solace of bestowing love and forgiveness and of easing the racking +paroxysms of remorse which brought the unfortunate man to the verge of +dementia, warmed her heart towards him and brought surcease to her own +sorrow.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span><br /></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span><br /></p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span><br /></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="BOOK_TWO_NANTES_DECEMBER_1793" id="BOOK_TWO_NANTES_DECEMBER_1793"></a>BOOK TWO: NANTES, DECEMBER, 1793</h2> + +<h3>CHAPTER I</h3> + +<h4>THE TIGER'S LAIR</h4> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Nantes is in the grip of the tiger.</p> + +<p>Representative Carrier—with powers as of a proconsul—has been sent +down to stamp out the lingering remnants of the counter-revolution. La +Vendée is temporarily subdued; the army of the royalists driven back +across the Loire; but traitors still abound—this the National +Convention in Paris hath decreed—there are traitors everywhere. They +were not <i>all</i> massacred at Cholet and Savenay. Disbanded, yes! but not +exterminated, and wolves must not be allowed to run loose, lest they +band again, and try to devour the flocks.</p> + +<p>Therefore extermination is the order of the day. Every traitor or +would-be traitor—every son and daughter and father and mother of +traitors must be destroyed ere they do more mischief. And +Carrier—Carrier the coward who turned tail and bolted at Cholet—is +sent to Nantes to carry on the work of destruction. Wolves and wolflings +all! Let none survive. Give them fair trial, of course. As traitors they +have deserved death—have they not taken up arms against the Republic +and against the Will and the Reign of the People? But let a court of +justice sit in Nantes town; let the whole nation know how traitors are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> +dealt with: let the nation see that her rulers are both wise and just. +Let wolves and wolflings be brought up for trial, and set up the +guillotine on Place du Bouffay with four executioners appointed to do +her work. There would be too much work for two, or even three. Let there +be four—and let the work of extermination be complete.</p> + +<p>And Carrier—with powers as of a proconsul—arrives in Nantes town and +sets to work to organise his household. Civil and military—with pomp +and circumstance—for the son of a small farmer, destined originally for +the Church and for obscurity is now virtual autocrat in one of the great +cities of France. He has power of life and death over thousands of +citizens—under the direction of justice, of course! So now he has +citizens of the bedchamber, and citizens of the household, he has a +guard of honour and a company of citizens of the guard. And above all he +has a crowd of spies around him—servants of the Committee of Public +Safety so they are called—they style themselves "La Compagnie Marat" in +honour of the great patriot who was foully murdered by a female +wolfling.</p> + +<p>So la Compagnie Marat is formed—they wear red bonnets on their +heads—no stockings on their feet—short breeches to display their bare +shins: their captain, Fleury, has access at all times to the person of +the proconsul, to make report on the raids which his company effect at +all hours of the day or night. Their powers are supreme too. In and out +of houses—however private—up and down the streets—through shops, +taverns and warehouses, along the quays and the yards—everywhere they +go. Everywhere they have the right to go! to ferret and to spy, to +listen, to search, to interrogate—the red-capped Company is paid for +what it can find. Piece-work, what? Work for the guillotine!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span></p> + +<p>And they it is who keep the guillotine busy. Too busy in fact. And the +court of justice sitting in the Hôtel du Département is overworked too. +Carrier gets impatient. Why waste the time of patriots by so much +paraphernalia of justice? Wolves and wolflings can be exterminated so +much more quickly, more easily than that. It only needs a stroke of +genius, one stroke, and Carrier has it.</p> + +<p>He invents the <i>Noyades</i>!</p> + +<p>The Drownages we may call them!</p> + +<p>They are so simple! An old flat-bottomed barge. The work of two or three +ship's carpenters! Portholes below the water-line and made to open at a +given moment. All so very, very simple. Then a journey downstream as far +as Belle Isle or la Maréchale, and "sentence of deportation" executed +without any trouble on a whole crowd of traitors—"vertical deportation" +Carrier calls it facetiously and is mightily proud of his invention and +of his witticism too.</p> + +<p>The first attempt was highly successful. Ninety priests, and not one +escaped. Think of the work it would have entailed on the guillotine—and +on the friends of Carrier who sit in justice in the Hôtel du +Département! Ninety heads! Bah! That old flat-bottomed barge is the most +wonderful labour-saving machine.</p> + +<p>After that the "Drownages" become the order of the day. The red-capped +Company recruits victims for the hecatomb, and over Nantes Town there +hangs a pall of unspeakable horror. The prisons are not vast enough to +hold all the victims, so the huge entrepôt, the bonded warehouse on the +quay, is converted: instead of chests of coffee it is now encumbered +with human freight: into it pell-mell are thrown all those who are +destined to assuage Carrier's passion for killing: ten thousand of them: +men,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> women, and young children, counter-revolutionists, innocent +tradesmen, thieves, aristocrats, criminals and women of evil fame—they +are herded together like cattle, without straw whereon to lie, without +water, without fire, with barely food enough to keep up the last +attenuated thread of a miserable existence.</p> + +<p>And when the warehouse gets over full, to the Loire with them!—a +hundred or two at a time! Pestilence, dysentery decimates their numbers. +Under pretence of hygienic requirements two hundred are flung into the +river on the 14th day of December. Two hundred—many of them +women—crowds of children and a batch of parish priests.</p> + +<p>Some there are among Carrier's colleagues—those up in Paris—who +protest! Such wholesale butchery will not redound to the credit of any +revolutionary government—it even savours of treachery—it is +unpatriotic! There are the emissaries of the National Convention, +deputed from Paris to supervise and control—they protest as much as +they dare—but such men are swept off their feet by the torrent of +Carrier's gluttony for blood. Carrier's mission is to "purge the +political body of every evil that infests it." Vague and yet precise! He +reckons that he has full powers and thinks he can flaunt those powers in +the face of those sent to control him. He does it too for three whole +months ere he in his turn meets his doom. But for the moment he is +omnipotent. He has to make report every week to the Committee of Public +Safety, and he sends brief, garbled versions of his doings. "He is +pacifying La Vendée! he is stamping out the remnants of the rebellion! +he is purging the political body of every evil that infests it." Anon he +succeeds in getting the emissaries of the National Convention recalled. +He is impatient of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> control. "They are weak, pusillanimous, unpatriotic! +He must have freedom to act for the best."</p> + +<p>After that he remains virtual dictator, with none but obsequious, +terrified myrmidons around him: these are too weak to oppose him in any +way. And the municipality dare not protest either—nor the district +council—nor the departmental. They are merely sheep who watch others of +their flock being sent to the slaughter.</p> + +<p>After that from within his lair the man tiger decides that it is a pity +to waste good barges on the cattle: "Fling them out!" he cries. "Fling +them out! Tie two and two together. Man and woman! criminal and aristo! +the thief with the ci-devant duke's daughter! the ci-devant marquis with +the slut from the streets! Fling them all out together into the Loire +and pour a hail of grape shot above them until the last struggler has +disappeared! "Equality!" he cries, "Equality for all! Fraternity! Unity +in death!"</p> + +<p>His friends call this new invention of his: "Marriage Républicain!" and +he is pleased with the <i>mot</i>.</p> + +<p>And Republican marriages become the order of the day.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Nantes itself now is akin to a desert—a desert wherein the air is +filled with weird sounds of cries and of moans, of furtive footsteps +scurrying away into dark and secluded byways, of musketry and confused +noises, of sorrow and of lamentations.</p> + +<p>Nantes is a city of the dead—a city of sleepers. Only Carrier is +awake—thinking and devising and planning shorter ways and swifter, for +the extermination of traitors.</p> + +<p>In the Hôtel de la Villestreux the tiger has built his lair: at the apex +of the island of Feydeau, with the windows of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> the hotel facing straight +down the Loire. From here there is a magnificent view downstream upon +the quays which are now deserted and upon the once prosperous port of +Nantes.</p> + +<p>The staircase of the hotel which leads up to the apartments of the +proconsul is crowded every day and all day with suppliants and with +petitioners, with the citizens of the household and the members of the +Compagnie Marat.</p> + +<p>But no one has access to the person of the dictator. He stands aloof, +apart, hidden from the eyes of the world, a mysterious personality whose +word sends hundreds to their death, whose arbitrary will has reduced a +once flourishing city to abject poverty and squalor. No tyrant has ever +surrounded himself with a greater paraphernalia of pomp and +circumstance—no aristo has ever dwelt in greater luxury: the spoils of +churches and chateaux fill the Hôtel de la Villestreux from attic to +cellar, gold and silver plate adorn his table, priceless works of art +hang upon his walls, he lolls on couches and chairs which have been the +resting-place of kings. The wholesale spoliation of the entire +country-side has filled the demagogue's abode with all that is most +sumptuous in the land.</p> + +<p>And he himself is far more inaccessible than was <i>le Roi Soleil</i> in the +days of his most towering arrogance, than were the Popes in the glorious +days of mediæval Rome. Jean Baptiste Carrier, the son of a small farmer, +the obscure deputy for Cantal in the National Convention, dwells in the +Hôtel de la Villestreux as in a stronghold. No one is allowed near him +save a few—a very few—intimates: his valet, two or three women, Fleury +the commander of the Marats, and that strange and abominable youngster, +Jacques Lalouët, about whom the chroniclers of that tragic epoch can +tell us so little—a cynical young braggart, said<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> to be a cousin of +Robespierre and the son of a midwife of Nantes, beardless, handsome and +vicious: the only human being—so we are told—who had any influence +over the sinister proconsul: mere hanger-on of Carrier or spy of the +National Convention, no one can say—a malignant personality which has +remained an enigma and a mystery to this hour.</p> + +<p>None but these few are ever allowed now inside the inner sanctuary +wherein dwells and schemes the dictator. Even Lamberty, Fouquet and the +others of the staff are kept at arm's length. Martin-Roget, Chauvelin +and other strangers are only allowed as far as the ante-room. The door +of the inner chamber is left open and they hear the proconsul's voice +and see his silhouette pass and repass in front of them, but that is +all.</p> + +<p>Fear of assassination—the inevitable destiny of the tyrant—haunts the +man-tiger even within the fastnesses of his lair. Day and night a +carriage with four horses stands in readiness on La Petite Hollande, the +great, open, tree-bordered Place at the extreme end of the Isle Feydeau +and on which give the windows of the Hôtel de la Villestreux. Day and +night the carriage is ready—with coachman on the box and postillion in +the saddle, who are relieved every two hours lest they get sleepy or +slack—with luggage in the boot and provisions always kept fresh inside +the coach; everything always ready lest something—a warning from a +friend or a threat from an enemy, or merely a sudden access of +unreasoning terror, the haunting memory of a bloody act—should decide +the tyrant at a moment's notice to fly from the scenes of his +brutalities.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span></p> +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Carrier in the small room which he has fitted up for himself as a +sumptuous boudoir, paces up and down just like a wild beast in its cage: +and he rubs his large bony hands together with the excitement engendered +by his own cruelties, by the success of this wholesale butchery which he +has invented and carried through.</p> + +<p>There never was an uglier man than Carrier, with that long hatchet-face +of his, those abnormally high cheekbones, that stiff, lanky hair, that +drooping, flaccid mouth and protruding underlip. Nature seemed to have +set herself the task of making the face a true mirror of the soul—the +dark and hideous soul on which of a surety Satan had already set his +stamp. But he is dressed with scrupulous care—not to say elegance—and +with a display of jewelry the provenance of which is as unjustifiable as +that of the works of art which fill his private sanctum in every nook +and cranny.</p> + +<p>In front of the tall window, heavy curtains of crimson damask are drawn +closely together, in order to shut out the light of day: the room is in +all but total darkness: for that is the proconsul's latest caprice: that +no one shall see him save in semi-obscurity.</p> + +<p>Captain Fleury has stumbled into the room, swearing lustily as he barks +his shins against the angle of a priceless Louis XV bureau. He has to +make report on the work done by the Compagnie Marat. Fifty-three priests +from the department of Anjou who have refused to take the new oath of +obedience to the government of the Republic. The red-capped Company who +tracked them down and arrested them, vow that all these <i>calotins</i> have +precious objects—money, jewelry, gold plate—concealed about their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> +persons. What is to be done about these things? Are the <i>calotins</i> to be +allowed to keep them or to dispose of them for their own profit?</p> + +<p>Carrier is highly delighted. What a haul!</p> + +<p>"Confiscate everything," he cries, "then ship the whole crowd of that +pestilential rabble, and don't let me hear another word about them."</p> + +<p>Fleury goes. And that same night fifty-three priests are "shipped" in +accordance with the orders of the proconsul, and Carrier, still rubbing +his large bony hands contentedly together, exclaims with glee:</p> + +<p>"What a torrent, eh! What a torrent! What a revolution!"</p> + +<p>And he sends a letter to Robespierre. And to the Committee of Public +Safety he makes report:</p> + +<p>"Public spirit in Nantes," he writes, "is magnificent: it has risen to +the most sublime heights of revolutionary ideals."</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>After the departure of Fleury, Carrier suddenly turned to a slender +youth, who was standing close by the window, gazing out through the +folds of the curtain on the fine vista of the Loire and the quays which +stretched out before him.</p> + +<p>"Introduce citizen Martin-Roget into the ante-room now, Lalouët," he +said loftily. "I will hear what he has to say, and citizen Chauvelin may +present himself at the same time."</p> + +<p>Young Lalouët lolled across the room, smothering a yawn.</p> + +<p>"Why should you trouble about all that rabble?" he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> said roughly, "it is +nearly dinner-time and you know that the chef hates the soup to be kept +waiting."</p> + +<p>"I shall not trouble about them very long," replied Carrier, who had +just started picking his teeth with a tiny gold tool. "Open the door, +boy, and let the two men come."</p> + +<p>Lalouët did as he was told. The door through which he passed he left +wide open, he then crossed the ante-room to a further door, threw it +open and called in a loud voice:</p> + +<p>"Citizen Chauvelin! Citizen Martin-Roget!"</p> + +<p>For all the world like the ceremonious audiences at Versailles in the +days of the great Louis.</p> + +<p>There was sound of eager whisperings, of shuffling of feet, of chairs +dragged across the polished floor. Young Lalouët had already and quite +unconcernedly turned his back on the two men who, at his call, had +entered the room.</p> + +<p>Two chairs were placed in front of the door which led to the private +sanctuary—still wrapped in religious obscurity—where Carrier sat +enthroned. The youth curtly pointed to the two chairs, then went back to +the inner room. The two men advanced. The full light of midday fell upon +them from the tall window on their right—the pale, grey, colourless +light of December. They bowed slightly in the direction of the audience +chamber where the vague silhouette of the proconsul was alone visible.</p> + +<p>The whole thing was a farce. Martin-Roget held his lips tightly closed +together lest a curse or a sneer escaped them. Chauvelin's face was +impenetrable—but it is worthy of note that just one year later when the +half-demented tyrant was in his turn brought before the bar of the +Convention and sentenced to the guillotine, it was citizen Chauvelin's +testimony which weighed most heavily against him.</p> + +<p>There was silence for a time: Martin-Roget and Chau<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>velin were waiting +for the dictator's word. He sat at his desk with the scanty light, which +filtrated between the curtains, immediately behind him, his ungainly +form with the high shoulders and mop-like, shaggy hair half swallowed up +by the surrounding gloom. He was deliberately keeping the other two men +waiting and busied himself with turning over desultorily the papers and +writing tools upon his desk, in the intervals of picking at his teeth +and muttering to himself all the time as was his wont. Young Lalouët had +resumed his post beside the curtained window and he was giving sundry +signs of his growing impatience.</p> + +<p>At last Carrier spoke:</p> + +<p>"And now, citizen Martin-Roget," he said in tones of that lofty +condescension which he loved to affect, "I am prepared to hear what you +have to tell me with regard to the cattle which you brought into our +city the other day. Where are the aristos now? and why have they not +been handed over to commandant Fleury?"</p> + +<p>"The girl," replied Martin-Roget, who had much ado to keep his vehement +temper in check, and who chose for the moment to ignore the second of +Carrier's peremptory queries, "the girl is in lodgings in the Carrefour +de la Poissonnerie. The house is kept by my sister, whose lover was +hanged four years ago by the ci-devant duc de Kernogan for trapping two +pigeons. A dozen or so lads from our old village—men who worked with my +father and others who were my friends—lodge in my sister's house. They +keep a watchful eye over the wench for the sake of the past, for my sake +and for the sake of my sister Louise. The ci-devant Kernogan woman is +well-guarded. I am satisfied as to that."</p> + +<p>"And where is the ci-devant duc?"</p> + +<p>"In the house next door—a tavern at the sign of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> Rat Mort—a place +which is none too reputable, but the landlord—Lemoine—is a good +patriot and he is keeping a close eye on the aristo for me."</p> + +<p>"And now will you tell me, citizen," rejoined Carrier with that unctuous +suavity which always veiled a threat, "will you tell me how it comes +that you are keeping a couple of traitors alive all this while at the +country's expense?"</p> + +<p>"At mine," broke in Martin-Roget curtly.</p> + +<p>"At the country's expense," reiterated the proconsul inflexibly. "Bread +is scarce in Nantes. What traitors eat is stolen from good patriots. If +you can afford to fill two mouths at your expense, I can supply you with +some that have never done aught but proclaim their adherence to the +Republic. You have had those two aristos inside the city nearly a week +and——"</p> + +<p>"Only three days," interposed Martin-Roget, "and you must have patience +with me, citizen Carrier. Remember I have done well by you, by bringing +such high game to your bag——"</p> + +<p>"Your high game will be no use to me," retorted the other with a harsh +laugh, "if I am not to have the cooking of it. You have talked of +disgrace for the rabble and of your own desire for vengeance over them, +but——"</p> + +<p>"Wait, citizen," broke in Martin-Roget firmly, "let us understand one +another. Before I embarked on this business you gave me your promise +that no one—not even you—would interfere between me and my booty."</p> + +<p>"And no one has done so hitherto to my knowledge, citizen," rejoined +Carrier blandly. "The Kernogan rabble has been yours to do with what you +like—er—so far," he added significantly. "I said that I would not +interfere and I have not done so up to now, even though the +pestilential<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> crowd stinks in the nostrils of every good patriot in +Nantes. But I don't deny that it was a bargain that you should have a +free hand with them ... for a time, and Jean Baptiste Carrier has never +yet gone back on a given word."</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget made no comment on this peroration. He shrugged his broad +shoulders and suddenly fell to contemplating the distant landscape. He +had turned his head away in order to hide the sneer which curled his +lips at the recollection of that "bargain" struck with the imperious +proconsul. It was a matter of five thousand francs which had passed from +one pocket to the other and had bound Carrier down to a definite +promise.</p> + +<p>After a brief while Carrier resumed: "At the same time," he said, "my +promise was conditional, remember. I want that cattle out of Nantes—I +want the bread they eat—I want the room they occupy. I can't allow you +to play fast and loose with them indefinitely—a week is quite long +enough——"</p> + +<p>"Three days," corrected Martin-Roget once more.</p> + +<p>"Well! three days or eight," rejoined the other roughly. "Too long in +any case. I must be rid of them out of this city or I shall have all the +spies of the Convention about mine ears. I am beset with spies, citizen +Martin-Roget, yes, even I—Jean Baptiste Carrier—the most selfless the +most devoted patriot the Republic has ever known! Mine enemies up in +Paris send spies to dog my footsteps, to watch mine every action. They +are ready to pounce upon me at the slightest slip, to denounce me, to +drag me to their bar—they have already whetted the knife of the +guillotine which is to lay low the head of the finest patriot in +France——"</p> + +<p>"Hold on! hold on, Jean Baptiste my friend," here broke in young Lalouët +with a sneer, "we don't want protesta<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>tions of your patriotism just now. +It is nearly dinner time."</p> + +<p>Carrier had been carried away by his own eloquence. At Lalouët's mocking +words he pulled himself together: murmured: "You young viper!" in tones +of tigerish affection, and then turned back to Martin-Roget and resumed +more calmly:</p> + +<p>"They'll be saying that I harbour aristos in Nantes if I keep that +Kernogan rabble here any longer. So I must be rid of them, citizen +Martin-Roget ... say within the next four-and-twenty hours...." He +paused for a moment or two, then added drily: "That is my last word, and +you must see to it. What is it you do want to do with them enfin?"</p> + +<p>"I want their death," replied Martin-Roget with a curse, and he brought +his heavy fist crashing down upon the arm of his chair, "but not a +martyr's death, understand? I don't want the pathetic figure of Yvonne +Kernogan and her father to remain as a picture of patient resignation in +the hearts and minds of every other aristo in the land. I don't want it +to excite pity or admiration. Death is nothing for such as they! they +glory in it! they are proud to die. The guillotine is their final +triumph! What I want for them is shame ... degradation ... a sensational +trial that will cover them with dishonour.... I want their name dragged +in the mire—themselves an object of derision or of loathing. I want +articles in the <i>Moniteur</i> giving account of the trial of the ci-devant +duc de Kernogan and his daughter for something that is ignominious and +base. I want shame and mud slung at them—noise and beating of drums to +proclaim their dishonour. Noise! noise! that will reach every corner of +the land, aye that will reach Coblentz and Germany and England. It is +that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> which they would resent—the shame of it—the disgrace to their +name!"</p> + +<p>"Tshaw!" exclaimed Carrier. "Why don't you marry the wench, citizen +Martin-Roget? That would be disgrace enough for her, I'll warrant," he +added with a loud laugh, enchanted at his witticism.</p> + +<p>"I would to-morrow," replied the other, who chose to ignore the coarse +insult, "if she would consent. That is why I have kept her at my +sister's house these three days."</p> + +<p>"Bah! you have no need of a traitor's consent. My consent is +sufficient.... I'll give it if you like. The laws of the Republic +permit, nay desire every good patriot to ally himself with an aristo, if +he have a mind. And the Kernogan wench face to face with the +guillotine—or worse—would surely prefer your embraces, citizen, what?"</p> + +<p>A deep frown settled between Martin-Roget's glowering eyes, and gave his +face a sinister expression.</p> + +<p>"I wonder ..." he muttered between his teeth.</p> + +<p>"Then cease wondering, citizen," retorted Carrier cynically, "and try +our Republican marriage on your Kernogans ... thief linked to aristo, +cut-throat to a proud wench ... and then the Loire! Shame? Dishonour? +Fal lal I say! Death, swift and sure and unerring. Nothing better has +yet been invented for traitors."</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"You have never known," he said quietly, "what it is to hate."</p> + +<p>Carrier uttered an exclamation of impatience.</p> + +<p>"Bah!" he said, "that is all talk and nonsense. Theories, what? Citizen +Chauvelin is a living example of the futility of all that rubbish. He +too has an enemy it seems whom he hates more thoroughly than any good +patriot has ever hated the enemies of the Republic. And hath<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> this +deadly hatred availed him, forsooth? He too wanted the disgrace and +dishonour of that confounded Englishman whom I would simply have tossed +into the Loire long ago, without further process. What is the result? +The Englishman is over in England, safe and sound, making long noses at +citizen Chauvelin, who has much ado to keep his own head out of the +guillotine."</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget once more was silent: a look of sullen obstinacy had +settled upon his face.</p> + +<p>"You may be right, citizen Carrier," he muttered after awhile.</p> + +<p>"I am always right," broke in Carrier curtly.</p> + +<p>"Exactly ... but I have your promise."</p> + +<p>"And I'll keep it, as I have said, for another four and twenty hours. +Curse you for a mulish fool," added the proconsul with a snarl, "what in +the d——l's name do you want to do? You have talked a vast deal of +rubbish but you have told me nothing of your plans. Have you any ... +that are worthy of my attention?"</p> + + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>Martin-Roget rose from his seat and began pacing up and down the narrow +room. His nerves were obviously on edge. It was difficult for any +man—let alone one of his temperament and half-tutored disposition—to +remain calm and deferential in face of the overbearance of this brutal +Jack-in-office. Martin-Roget—himself an upstart—loathed the offensive +self-assertion of that uneducated and bestial parvenu, who had become +all-powerful through the sole might of his savagery, and it cost him a +mighty effort to keep a violent retort from escaping his lips—a retort +which probably would have cost him his head.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></p> + +<p>Chauvelin, on the other hand, appeared perfectly unconcerned. He +possessed the art of outward placidity to a masterly degree. Throughout +all this while he had taken no part in the discussion. He sat silent and +all but motionless, facing the darkened room in front of him, as if he +had done nothing else in all his life but interview great dictators who +chose to keep their sacred persons in the dark. Only from time to time +did his slender fingers drum a tattoo on the arm of his chair.</p> + +<p>Carrier had resumed his interesting occupation of picking his teeth: his +long, thin legs were stretched out before him; from beneath his flaccid +lids he shot swift glances upwards, whenever Martin-Roget in his +restless pacing crossed and recrossed in front of the open door. But +anon, when the latter came to a halt under the lintel and with his foot +almost across the threshold, young Lalouët was upon him in an instant, +barring the way to the inner sanctum.</p> + +<p>"Keep your distance, citizen," he said drily, "no one is allowed to +enter here."</p> + +<p>Instinctively Martin-Roget had drawn back—suddenly awed despite himself +by the air of mystery which hung over that darkened room, and by the dim +silhouette of the sinister tyrant who at his approach had with equal +suddenness cowered in his lair, drawing his limbs together and thrusting +his head forward, low down over the desk, like a leopard crouching for a +spring. But this spell of awe only lasted a few seconds, during which +Martin-Roget's unsteady gaze encountered the half-mocking, wholly +supercilious glance of young Lalouët.</p> + +<p>The next, he had recovered his presence of mind. But this crowning act +of audacious insolence broke the barrier of his self-restraint. An angry +oath escaped him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Are we," he exclaimed roughly, "back in the days of Capet, the tyrant, +and of Versailles, that patriots and citizens are treated like menials +and obtrusive slaves? Pardieu, citizen Carrier, let me tell you +this...."</p> + +<p>"Pardieu, citizen Martin-Roget," retorted Carrier with a growl like that +of a savage dog, "let <i>me</i> tell <i>you</i> that for less than two pins I'll +throw you into the next barge that will float with open portholes down +the Loire. Get out of my presence, you swine, ere I call Fleury to throw +you out."</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget at the insult and the threat had become as pale as the +linen at his throat: a cold sweat broke out upon his forehead and he +passed his hand two or three times across his brow like a man dazed with +a sudden and violent blow. His nerves, already overstrained and very +much on edge, gave way completely. He staggered and would have measured +his length across the floor, but that his hand encountered the back of +his chair and he just contrived to sink into it, sick and faint, +horror-struck and pallid.</p> + +<p>A low cackle—something like a laugh—broke from Chauvelin's thin lips. +As usual he had witnessed the scene quite unmoved.</p> + +<p>"My friend Martin-Roget forgot himself for the moment, citizen Carrier," +he said suavely, "already he is ready to make amends."</p> + +<p>Jacques Lalouët looked down for a moment with infinite scorn expressed +in his fine eyes, on the presumptuous creature who had dared to defy the +omnipotent representative of the People. Then he turned on his heel, but +he did not go far this time: he remained standing close beside the +door—the terrier guarding his master.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p> + +<p>Carrier laughed loud and long. It was a hideous, strident laugh which +had not a tone of merriment in it.</p> + +<p>"Wake up, friend Martin-Roget," he said harshly, "I bear no malice: I am +a good dog when I am treated the right way. But if anyone pulls my tail +or treads on my paws, why! I snarl and growl of course. If the offence +is repeated ... I bite ... remember that; and now let us resume our +discourse, though I confess I am getting tired of your Kernogan rabble."</p> + +<p>While the great man spoke, Martin-Roget had succeeded in pulling himself +together. His throat felt parched, his hands hot and moist: he was like +a man who had been stumbling along a road in the dark and been suddenly +pulled up on the edge of a yawning abyss into which he had all but +fallen. With a few harsh words, with a monstrous insult Carrier had made +him feel the gigantic power which could hurl any man from the heights of +self-assurance and of ambition to the lowest depths of degradation: he +had shown him the glint of steel upon the guillotine.</p> + +<p>He had been hit as with a sledge-hammer—the blow hurt terribly, for it +had knocked all his self-esteem into nothingness and pulverised his +self-conceit. It had in one moment turned him into a humble and cringing +sycophant.</p> + +<p>"I had no mind," he began tentatively, "to give offence. My thoughts +were bent on the Kernogans. They are a fine haul for us both, citizen +Carrier, and I worked hard and long to obtain their confidence over in +England and to induce them to come with me to Nantes."</p> + +<p>"No one denies that you have done well," retorted Carrier gruffly and +not yet wholly pacified. "If the haul had not been worth having you +would have received no help from me."</p> + +<p>"I have shown my gratitude for your help, citizen Car<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>rier. I would show +it again ... more substantially if you desire...."</p> + +<p>He spoke slowly and quite deferentially but the suggestion was obvious. +Carrier looked up into his face: the light of measureless cupidity—the +cupidity of the coarse-grained, enriched peasant—glittered in his pale +eyes. It was by a great effort of will that he succeeded in concealing +his eagerness beneath his habitual air of lofty condescension:</p> + +<p>"Eh? What?" he queried airily.</p> + +<p>"If another five thousand francs is of any use to you...."</p> + +<p>"You seem passing rich, citizen Martin-Roget," sneered Carrier.</p> + +<p>"I have slaved and saved for four years. What I have amassed I will +sacrifice for the completion of my revenge."</p> + +<p>"Well!" rejoined Carrier with an expressive wave of the hand, "it +certainly is not good for a pure-minded republican to own too much +wealth. Have we not fought," he continued with a grandiloquent gesture, +"for equality of fortune as well as of privileges...."</p> + +<p>A sardonic laugh from young Lalouët broke in on the proconsul's eloquent +effusion.</p> + +<p>Carrier swore as was his wont, but after a second or two he began again +more quietly:</p> + +<p>"I will accept a further six thousand francs from you, citizen +Martin-Roget, in the name of the Republic and all her needs. The +Republic of France is up in arms against the entire world. She hath need +of men, of arms, of...."</p> + +<p>"Oh! cut that," interposed young Lalouët roughly.</p> + +<p>But the over-vain, high and mighty despot who was ready to lash out with +unbridled fury against the slightest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> show of disrespect on the part of +any other man, only laughed at the boy's impudence.</p> + +<p>"Curse you, you young viper," he said with that rude familiarity which +he seemed to reserve for the boy, "you presume too much on my +forbearance. These children you know, citizen.... Name of a dog!" he +added roughly, "we are wasting time! What was I saying ...?"</p> + +<p>"That you would take six thousand francs," replied Martin-Roget curtly, +"in return for further help in the matter of the Kernogans."</p> + +<p>"Why, yes!" rejoined Carrier blandly, "I was forgetting. But I'll show +you what a good dog I am. I'll help you with those Kernogans ... but you +mistook my words, citizen: 'tis ten thousand francs you must pour into +the coffers of the Republic, for her servants will have to be placed at +the disposal of your private schemes of vengeance."</p> + +<p>"Ten thousand francs is a large sum," said Martin-Roget. "Let me hear +what you will do for me for that."</p> + +<p>He had regained something of his former complacency. The man who +buys—be it goods, consciences or services—is always for the moment +master of the man who sells. Carrier, despite his dictatorial ways, felt +this disadvantage, no doubt, for his tone was more bland, his manner +less curt. Only young Jacques Lalouët stood by—like a snarling +terrier—still arrogant and still disdainful—the master of the +situation—seeing that neither schemes of vengeance nor those of +corruption had ruffled his self-assurance. He remained beside the door, +ready to pounce on either of the two intruders if they showed the +slightest sign of forgetting the majesty of the great proconsul.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span></p> +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p>"I told you just now, citizen Martin-Roget," resumed Carrier after a +brief pause, "and I suppose you knew it already, that I am surrounded +with spies."</p> + +<p>"Spies, citizen?" murmured Martin-Roget, somewhat taken aback by this +sudden irrelevance. "I didn't know ... I imagine.... Any one in your +position...."</p> + +<p>"That's just it," broke in Carrier roughly. "My position is envied by +those who are less competent, less patriotic than I am. Nantes is +swarming with spies. Mine enemies in Paris are working against me. They +want to undermine the confidence which the National Convention reposes +in her accredited representative."</p> + +<p>"Preposterous," ejaculated young Lalouët solemnly.</p> + +<p>"Well!" rejoined Carrier with a savage oath, "you would have thought +that the Convention would be only too thankful to get a strong man at +the head of affairs in this hotbed of treason and of rebellion. You +would have thought that it was no one's affair to interfere with the +manner in which I administer the powers that have been given me. I +command in Nantes, what? Yet some busybodies up in Paris, some fools, +seem to think that we are going too fast in Nantes. They have become +weaklings over there since Marat has gone. It seems that they have heard +rumours of our flat-bottomed barges and of our fine Republican +marriages: apparently they disapprove of both. They don't realise that +we have to purge an entire city of every kind of rabble—traitors as +well as criminals. They don't understand my aspirations, my ideals," he +added loftily and with a wide, sweeping gesture of his arm, "which is to +make Nantes a model city, to free her from the taint of crime and of +treachery, and...."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span></p> + +<p>An impatient exclamation from young Lalouët once again broke in on +Carrier's rhetoric, and Martin-Roget was able to slip in the query which +had been hovering on his lips:</p> + +<p>"And is this relevant, citizen Carrier," he asked, "to the subject which +we have been discussing?"</p> + +<p>"It is," replied Carrier drily, "as you will see in a moment. Learn +then, that it has been my purpose for some time to silence mine enemies +by sending to the National Convention a tangible reply to all the +accusations which have been levelled against me. It is my purpose to +explain to the Assembly my reasons for mine actions in Nantes, my +Drownages, my Republican marriages, all the coercive measures which I +have been forced to take in order to purge the city from all that is +undesirable."</p> + +<p>"And think you, citizen Carrier," queried Martin-Roget without the +slightest trace of a sneer, "that up in Paris they will understand your +explanations?"</p> + +<p>"Yes! they will—they must when they realise that everything that I have +done has been necessitated by the exigencies of public safety."</p> + +<p>"They will be slow to realise that," mused the other. "The National +Convention to-day is not what the Constitutional Assembly was in '92. It +has become soft and sentimental. Many there are who will disapprove of +your doings.... Robespierre talks loftily of the dignity of the Republic +... her impartial justice.... The Girondins...."</p> + +<p>Carrier interposed with a coarse imprecation. He suddenly leaned +forward, sprawling right across the desk. A shaft of light from between +the damask curtains caught the end of his nose and the tip of his +protruding chin, distorting his face and making it seem grotesque as +well as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> hideous in the dim light. He appeared excited and inflated with +vanity. He always gloried in the atrocities which he committed, and +though he professed to look with contempt on every one of his +colleagues, he was always glad of an opportunity to display his +inventive powers before them, and to obtain their fulsome eulogy.</p> + +<p>"I know well enough what they talk about in Paris," he said, "but I have +an answer—a substantial, definite answer for all their rubbish. Dignity +of the Republic? Bah! Impartial justice? 'Tis force, strength, Spartan +vigour that we want ... and I'll show them.... Listen to my plan, +citizen Martin-Roget, and see how it will work in with yours. My idea is +to collect together all the most disreputable and notorious evil-doers +of this city ... there are plenty in the entrepôt at the present moment, +and there are plenty more still at large in the streets of +Nantes—thieves, malefactors, forgers of State bonds, assassins and +women of evil fame ... and to send them in a batch to Paris to appear +before the Committee of Public Safety, whilst I will send to my +colleagues there a letter couched in terms of gentle reproach: 'See!' I +shall say, 'what I have to contend with in Nantes. See! the moral +pestilence that infests the city. These evil-doers are but a few among +the hundreds and thousands of whom I am vainly trying to purge this city +which you have entrusted to my care!' They won't know how to deal with +the rabble," he continued with his harsh strident laugh. "They may send +them to the guillotine wholesale or deport them to Cayenne, and they +will have to give them some semblance of a trial in any case. But they +will have to admit that my severe measures are justified, and in future, +I imagine, they will leave me more severely alone."</p> + +<p>"If as you say," urged Martin-Roget, "the National<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> Convention give your +crowd a trial, you will have to produce some witnesses."</p> + +<p>"So I will," retorted Carrier cynically. "So I will. Have I not said +that I will round up all the most noted evil-doers in the town? There +are plenty of them I assure you. Lately, my Company Marat have not +greatly troubled about them. After Savenay there was such a crowd of +rebels to deal with, there was no room in our prisons for malefactors as +well. But we can easily lay our hands on a couple of hundred or so, and +members of the municipality or of the district council, or tradespeople +of substance in the city will only be too glad to be rid of them, and +will testify against those that were actually caught red-handed. Not one +but has suffered from the pestilential rabble that has infested the +streets at night, and lately I have been pestered with complaints of all +these night-birds—men and women and...."</p> + +<p>Suddenly he paused. He had caught Martin-Roget's feverish gaze fixed +excitedly upon him. Whereupon he leaned back in his chair, threw his +head back and broke into loud and immoderate laughter.</p> + +<p>"By the devil and all his myrmidons, citizen!" he said, as soon as he +had recovered his breath, "meseems you have tumbled to my meaning as a +pig into a heap of garbage. Is not ten thousand francs far too small a +sum to pay for such a perfect realisation of all your dreams? We'll send +the Kernogan girl and her father to Paris with the herd, what?... I +promise you that such filth and mud will be thrown on them and on their +precious name that no one will care to bear it for centuries to come."</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget of a truth had much ado to control his own excitement. As +the proconsul unfolded his infamous plan, he had at once seen as in a +vision the realisation of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> all his hopes. What more awful humiliation, +what more dire disgrace could be devised for proud Kernogan and his +daughter than being herded together with the vilest scum that could be +gathered together among the flotsam and jetsam of the population of a +seaport town? What more perfect retaliation could there be for the +ignominious death of Jean Adet the miller?</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget leaned forward in his chair. The hideous figure of Carrier +was no longer hideous to him. He saw in that misshapen, gawky form the +very embodiment of the god of vengeance, the wielder of the flail of +retributive justice which was about to strike the guilty at last.</p> + +<p>"You are right, citizen Carrier," he said, and his voice was thick and +hoarse with excitement. He rested his elbow on his knee and his chin in +his hand. He hammered his nails against his teeth. "That was exactly in +my mind while you spoke."</p> + +<p>"I am always right," retorted Carrier loftily. "No one knows better than +I do how to deal with traitors."</p> + +<p>"And how is the whole thing to be accomplished? The wench is in my +sister's house at present ... the father is in the Rat Mort...."</p> + +<p>"And the Rat Mort is an excellent place.... I know of none better. It is +one of the worst-famed houses in the whole of Nantes ... the +meeting-place of all the vagabonds, the thieves and the cut-throats of +the city."</p> + +<p>"Yes! I know that to my cost. My sister's house is next door to it. At +night the street is not safe for decent females to be abroad: and though +there is a platoon of Marats on guard at Le Bouffay close by, they do +nothing to free the neighbourhood of that pest."</p> + +<p>"Bah!" retorted Carrier with cynical indifference, "they have more +important quarry to net. Rebels and traitors<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> swarm in Nantes, what? +Commandant Fleury has had no time hitherto to waste on mere cut-throats, +although I had thoughts before now of razing the place to the ground. +Citizen Lamberty has his lodgings on the other side and he does nothing +but complain of the brawls that go on there o' nights. Sure it is that +while a stone of the Rat Mort remains standing all the night-hawks of +Nantes will congregate around it and brew mischief there which is no +good to me and no good to the Republic."</p> + +<p>"Yes! I know all about the Rat Mort. I found a night's shelter there +four years ago when...."</p> + +<p>"When the ci-devant duc de Kernogan was busy hanging your father—the +miller—for a crime which he never committed. Well then, citizen +Martin-Roget," continued Carrier with one of his hideous leers, "since +you know the Rat Mort so well what say you to your fair and stately +Yvonne de Kernogan and her father being captured there in the company of +the lowest scum of the population of Nantes?"</p> + +<p>"You mean ...?" murmured Martin-Roget, who had become livid with +excitement.</p> + +<p>"I mean that my Marats have orders to raid some of the haunts of our +Nantese cut-throats, and that they may as well begin to-night and with +the Rat Mort. They will make a descent on the house and a thorough +perquisition, and every person—man, woman and child—found on the +premises will be arrested and sent with a batch of malefactors to Paris, +there to be tried as felons and criminals and deported to Cayenne where +they will, I trust, rot as convicts in that pestilential climate. Think +you," concluded the odious creature with a sneer, "that when put face to +face with the alternative, your Kernogan wench will still<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> refuse to +become the wife of a fine patriot like yourself?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," murmured Martin-Roget. "I ... I...."</p> + +<p>"But I do know," broke in Carrier roughly, "that ten thousand francs is +far too little to pay for so brilliant a realisation of all one's hopes. +Ten thousand francs? 'Tis an hundred thousand you should give to show +your gratitude."</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget rose and stretched his large, heavy figure to its full +height. He was at great pains to conceal the utter contempt which he +felt for the abominable wretch before whom he was forced to cringe.</p> + +<p>"You shall have ten thousand francs, citizen Carrier," he said slowly; +"it is all that I possess in the world now—the last remaining fragment +of a sum of twenty-five thousand francs which I earned and scraped +together for the past four years. You have had five thousand francs +already. And you shall have the other ten. I do not grudge it. If twenty +years of my life were any use to you, I would give you that, in exchange +for the help you are giving me in what means far more than life to me."</p> + +<p>The proconsul laughed and shrugged his shoulders—of a truth he thought +citizen Martin-Roget an awful fool.</p> + +<p>"Very well then," he said, "we will call the matter settled. I confess +that it amuses me, although remember that I have warned you. With all +these aristos, I believe in the potency of my barges rather than in your +elaborate schemes. Still! it shall never be said that Jean Baptiste +Carrier has left a friend in the lurch."</p> + +<p>"I am grateful for your help, citizen Carrier," said Martin-Roget +coldly. Then he added slowly, as if reviewing the situation in his own +mind: "To-night, you say?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes. To-night. My Marats under the command of citizen Fleury will make +a descent upon the Rat Mort. Those shall be my orders. The place will be +swept clean of every man, woman and child who is inside. If your two +Kernogans are there ... well!" he said with a cynical laugh and a shrug +of his shoulders, "they can be sent up to Paris with the rest of the +herd."</p> + +<p>"The dinner bell has gone long ago," here interposed young Lalouët +drily, "the soup will be stone-cold and the chef red-hot with anger."</p> + +<p>"You are right, citizen Lalouët," said Carrier as he leaned back in his +chair once more and stretched out his long legs at his ease. "We have +wasted far too much time already over the affairs of a couple of +aristos, who ought to have been at the bottom of the Loire a week ago. +The audience is ended," he added airily, and he made a gesture of +overweening condescension, for all the world like the one wherewith the +<i>Grand Monarque</i> was wont to dismiss his courtiers.</p> + +<p>Chauvelin rose too and quietly turned to the door. He had not spoken a +word for the past half-hour, ever since in fact he had put in a +conciliatory word on behalf of his impetuous colleague. Whether he had +taken an active interest in the conversation or not it were impossible +to say. But now, just as he was ready to go, and young Lalouët prepared +to close the doors of the audience chamber, something seemed suddenly to +occur to him and he called somewhat peremptorily to the young man.</p> + +<p>"One moment, citizen," he said.</p> + +<p>"What is it now?" queried the youth insolently, and from his fine eyes +there shot a glance of contempt on the meagre figure of the once +powerful Terrorist.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p> + +<p>"About the Kernogan wench," continued Chauvelin. "She will have to be +conveyed some time before night to the tavern next door. There may be +agencies at work on her behalf...."</p> + +<p>"Agencies?" broke in the boy gruffly. "What agencies?"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Chauvelin vaguely, "we all know that aristos have powerful +friends these days. It will not be over safe to take the girl across +after dark from one house to another ... the alley is badly lighted: the +wench will not go willingly. She might scream and create a disturbance +and draw ... er ... those same unknown agencies to her rescue. I think a +body of Marats should be told off to convey her to the Rat Mort...."</p> + +<p>Young Lalouët shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"That's your affair," he said curtly. "Eh, Carrier?" And he glanced over +his shoulder at the proconsul, who at once assented.</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget—struck by his colleague's argument—would have interposed, +but Carrier broke in with one of his uncontrolled outbursts of fury.</p> + +<p>"Ah ça," he exclaimed, "enough of this now. Citizen Lalouët is right and +I have done enough for you already. If you want the Kernogan wench to be +at the Rat Mort, you must see to getting her there yourself. She is next +door, what? I won't have anything to do with it and I won't have my +Marats implicated in the affair either. Name of a dog! have I not told +you that I am beset with spies? It would of a truth be a climax if I was +denounced as having dragged aristos to a house of ill-fame and then had +them arrested there as malefactors! Now out with you! I have had enough +of this! If your rabble is at the Rat Mort to-night, they shall be +arrested with all the other cu<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>t-throats. That is my last word. The rest +is your affair. Lalouët! the door!"</p> + +<p>And without another word, and without listening to further protests from +Martin-Roget or Chauvelin, Jacques Lalouët closed the doors of the +audience chamber in their face.</p> + + +<h3>VII</h3> + +<p>Outside on the landing, Martin-Roget swore a violent, all comprehensive +oath.</p> + +<p>"To think that we are under the heel of that skunk!" he said.</p> + +<p>"And that in the pursuit of our own ends we have need of his help!" +added Chauvelin with a sigh.</p> + +<p>"If it were not for that.... And even now," continued Martin-Roget +moodily, "I doubt what I can do. Yvonne de Kernogan will not follow me +willingly either to the Rat Mort or elsewhere, and if I am not to have +her conveyed by the guard...."</p> + +<p>He paused and swore again. His companion's silence appeared to irritate +him.</p> + +<p>"What do you advise me to do, citizen Chauvelin?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"For the moment," replied Chauvelin imperturbably, "I should advise you +to join me in a walk along the quay as far as Le Bouffay. I have work to +see to inside the building and the north-westerly wind is sure to be of +good counsel."</p> + +<p>An angry retort hovered on Martin-Roget's lips, but after a second or +two he succeeded in holding his irascible temper in check. He gave a +quick sigh of impatience.</p> + +<p>"Very well," he said curtly. "Let us to Le Bouffay by all means. I have +much to think on, and as you say the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> north-westerly wind may blow away +the cobwebs which for the nonce do o'ercloud my brain."</p> + +<p>And the two men wrapped their mantles closely round their shoulders, for +the air was keen. Then they descended the staircase of the hotel and +went out into the street.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h3> + +<h4>LE BOUFFAY</h4> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>In the centre of the Place the guillotine stood idle—the paint had worn +off her sides—she looked weatherbeaten and forlorn—stern and +forbidding still, but in a kind of sullen loneliness, with the ugly +stains of crimson on her, turned to rust and grime.</p> + +<p>The Place itself was deserted, in strange contrast to the bustle and the +movement which characterised it in the days when the death of men, women +and children was a daily spectacle here for the crowd. Then a constant +stream of traffic, of carts and of tumbrils, of soldiers and gaffers +encumbered it in every corner, now a few tumble-down booths set up +against the frontage of the grim edifice—once the stronghold of the +Dukes of Brittany, now little else but a huge prison—a few vendors and +still fewer purchasers of the scanty wares displayed under their ragged +awnings, one or two idlers loafing against the mud-stained walls, one or +two urchins playing in the gutters were the only signs of life. +Martin-Roget with his colleague Chauvelin turned into the Place from the +quay—they walked rapidly and kept their mantles closely wrapped under +their chin, for the afternoon had turned bitterly cold. It was then +close upon five o'clock—a dark, moonless, starless night had set in +with only a suspicion of frost in the damp air; but a blustering +north-westerly wind blowing down the river<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> and tearing round the narrow +streets and the open Place, caused passers-by to muffle themselves, +shivering, yet tighter in their cloaks.</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget was talking volubly and excitedly, his tall, broad figure +towering above the slender form of his companion. From time to time he +tossed his mantle aside with an impatient, febrile gesture and then +paused in the middle of the Place, with one hand on the other man's +shoulder, marking a point in his discourse or emphasising his argument +with short staccato sentences and brief, emphatic words. +Chauvelin—placid and impenetrable as usual—listened much and talked +little. He was ready to stand still or to walk along just as his +colleague's mood demanded; in the darkness, and with the collar of a +large mantle pulled tightly up to his ears, it was impossible to guess +by any sign in his face what was going on in his mind.</p> + +<p>They were a strange contrast these two men—temperamentally as well as +physically—even though they had so much in common and were both the +direct products of that same social upheaval which was shaking the +archaic dominion of France to its very foundations. Martin-Roget, tall, +broad-shouldered, bull-necked, the typical self-educated peasant, with +square jaw and flat head, with wide bony hands and spatulated fingers: +and Chauvelin—the aristocrat turned demagogue, thin and frail-looking, +bland of manner and suave of speech, with delicate hands and pale, +almost ascetic face.</p> + +<p>The one represented all that was most brutish and sensual in this fight +of one caste against the other, the thirst for the other's blood, the +human beast that has been brought to bay through wrongs perpetrated +against it by others and has turned upon its oppressors, lashing out +right and left with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> blind and lustful fury at the crowd of tyrants that +had kept him in subjection for so long. Whilst Chauvelin was the +personification of the spiritual side of this bloody Revolution—the +spirit of cool and calculating reprisals that would demand an eye for an +eye and see that it got two. The idealist who dreams of the +righteousness of his own cause and the destruction of its enemies, but +who leaves to others the accomplishment of all the carnage and the +bloodshed which his idealism has demanded, and which his reason has +appraised as necessary for the triumph of which he dreams. Chauvelin was +the man of thought and Martin-Roget the man of action. With the one, +revenge and reprisals were selfish desires, the avenging of wrongs done +to himself or to his caste, hatred for those who had injured him or his +kindred. The other had no personal feelings of hatred: he had no +personal wrongs to avenge: his enemies were the enemies of his party, +the erstwhile tyrants who in the past had oppressed an entire people. +Every man, woman or child who was not satisfied with the present Reign +of Terror, who plotted or planned for its overthrow, who was not ready +to see husband, father, wife or child sacrificed for the ultimate +triumph of the Revolution was in Chauvelin's sight a noxious creature, +fit only to be trodden under heel and ground into subjection or +annihilation as a danger to the State.</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget was the personification of sans-culottism, of rough manners +and foul speech—he chafed against the conventions which forced him to +wear decent clothes and boots on his feet—he would gladly have seen +every one go about the streets half-naked, unwashed, a living sign of +that downward levelling of castes which he and his friends stood for, +and for which they had fought and striven and committed every crime +which human passions let loose could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> invent. Chauvelin, on the other +hand, was one of those who wore fine linen and buckled shoes and whose +hands were delicately washed and perfumed whilst they signed decrees +which sent hundreds of women and children to a violent and cruel death.</p> + +<p>The one trod in the paths of Danton: the other followed in the footsteps +of Robespierre.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Together the two men mounted the outside staircase which leads up past +the lodge of the concierge and through the clerk's office to the +interior of the stronghold. Outside the monumental doors they had to +wait a moment or two while the clerk examined their permits to enter.</p> + +<p>"Will you come into my office with me?" asked Chauvelin of his +companion; "I have a word or two to add to my report for the Paris +courier to-night. I won't be long."</p> + +<p>"You are still in touch with the Committee of Public Safety then?" asked +Martin-Roget.</p> + +<p>"Always," replied the other curtly.</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget threw a quick, suspicious glance on his companion. Darkness +and the broad brim of his sugar-loaf hat effectually concealed even the +outlines of Chauvelin's face, and Martin-Roget fell to musing over one +or two things which Carrier had blurted out awhile ago. The whole of +France was overrun with spies these days—every one was under suspicion, +every one had to be on his guard. Every word was overheard, every glance +seen, every sign noted.</p> + +<p>What was this man Chauvelin doing here in Nantes? What reports did he +send up to Paris by special courier? He, the miserable failure who had +ceased to count was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> nevertheless in constant touch with that awful +Committee of Public Safety which was wont to strike at all times and +unexpectedly in the dark. Martin-Roget shivered beneath his mantle. For +the first time since his schemes of vengeance had wholly absorbed his +mind he regretted the freedom and safety which he had enjoyed in +England, and he marvelled if the miserable game which he was playing +would be worth the winning in the end. Nevertheless he had followed +Chauvelin without comment. The man appeared to exercise a fascination +over him—a kind of subtle power, which emanated from his small shrunken +figure, from his pale keen eyes and his well-modulated, suave mode of +speech.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>The clerk had handed the two men their permits back. They were allowed +to pass through the gates.</p> + +<p>In the hall some half-dozen men were nominally on guard—nominally, +because discipline was not over strict these days, and the men sat or +lolled about the place; two of them were intent on a game of dominoes, +another was watching them, whilst the other three were settling some +sort of quarrel among themselves which necessitated vigorous and +emphatic gestures and the copious use of expletives. One man, who +appeared to be in command, divided his time impartially between the +domino-players and those who were quarrelling.</p> + +<p>The vast place was insufficiently lighted by a chandelier which hung +from the ceiling and a couple of small oil-lamps placed in the circular +niches in the wall opposite the front door.</p> + +<p>No one took any notice of Martin-Roget or of Chauvelin as they crossed +the hall, and presently the latter pushed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> open a door on the left of +the main gates and held it open for his colleague to pass through.</p> + +<p>"You are sure that I shall not be disturbing you?" queried Martin-Roget.</p> + +<p>"Quite sure," replied the other curtly. "And there is something which I +must say to you ... where I know that I shall not be overheard."</p> + +<p>Then he followed Martin-Roget into the room and closed the door behind +him. The room was scantily furnished with a square deal table in the +centre, two or three chairs, a broken-down bureau leaning against one +wall and an iron stove wherein a meagre fire sent a stream of malodorous +smoke through sundry cracks in its chimney-pipe. From the ceiling there +hung an oil-lamp the light of which was thrown down upon the table, by a +large green shade made of cardboard.</p> + +<p>Chauvelin drew a chair to the bureau and sat down; he pointed to another +and Martin-Roget took a seat beside the table. He felt restless and +excited—his nerves all on the jar: his colleague's calm, sardonic +glance acted as a further irritant to his temper.</p> + +<p>"What is it that you wished to say to me, citizen Chauvelin?" he asked +at last.</p> + +<p>"Just a word, citizen," replied the other in his quiet urbane manner. "I +have accompanied you faithfully on your journey to England: I have +placed my feeble powers at your disposal: awhile ago I stood between you +and the proconsul's wrath. This, I think, has earned me the right of +asking what you intend to do."</p> + +<p>"I don't know about the right," retorted Martin-Roget gruffly, "but I +don't mind telling you. As you remarked awhile ago the North-West wind +is wont to be of good counsel. I have thought the matter over whilst I +walked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> with you along the quay and I have decided to act on Carrier's +suggestion. Our eminent proconsul said just now that it was the duty of +every true patriot to marry an aristo, an he be free and Chance puts a +comely wench in his way. I mean," he added with a cynical laugh, "to act +on that advice and marry Yvonne de Kernogan ... if I can."</p> + +<p>"She has refused you up to now?"</p> + +<p>"Yes ... up to now."</p> + +<p>"You have threatened her—and her father?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—both. Not only with death but with shame."</p> + +<p>"And still she refuses?"</p> + +<p>"Apparently," said Martin-Roget with ever-growing irritation.</p> + +<p>"It is often difficult," rejoined Chauvelin meditatively, "to compel +these aristos. They are obstinate...."</p> + +<p>"Oh! don't forget that I am in a position now to bring additional +pressure on the wench. That lout Carrier has splendid ideas—a brute, +what? but clever and full of resource. That suggestion of his about the +Rat Mort is splendid...."</p> + +<p>"You mean to try and act on it?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I do," said Martin-Roget roughly. "I am going over presently +to my sister's house to see the Kernogan wench again, and to have +another talk with her. Then if she still refuses, if she still chooses +to scorn the honourable position which I offer her, I shall act on +Carrier's suggestion. It will be at the Rat Mort to-night that she and I +will have our final interview, and there when I dangle the prospect of +Cayenne and the convict's brand before her, she may not prove so +obdurate as she has been up to now."</p> + +<p>"H'm! That is as may be," was Chauvelin's dry comment. "Personally I am +inclined to agree with Carrier.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> Death, swift and sure—the Loire or the +guillotine—is the best that has yet been invented for traitors and +aristos. But we won't discuss that again. I know your feelings in the +matter and in a measure I respect them. But if you will allow me I would +like to be present at your interview with the <i>soi-disant</i> Lady Anthony +Dewhurst. I won't disturb you and I won't say a word ... but there is +something I would like to make sure of...."</p> + +<p>"What is that?"</p> + +<p>"Whether the wench has any hopes ..." said Chauvelin slowly, "whether +she has received a message or has any premonition ... whether in short +she thinks that outside agencies are at work on her behalf."</p> + +<p>"Tshaw!" exclaimed Martin-Roget impatiently, "you are still harping on +that Scarlet Pimpernel idea."</p> + +<p>"I am," retorted the other drily.</p> + +<p>"As you please. But understand, citizen Chauvelin, that I will not allow +you to interfere with my plans, whilst you go off on one of those +wild-goose chases which have already twice brought you into disrepute."</p> + +<p>"I will not interfere with your plans, citizen," rejoined Chauvelin with +unwonted gentleness, "but let me in my turn impress one thing upon you, +and that is that unless you are as wary as the serpent, as cunning as +the fox, all your precious plans will be upset by that interfering +Englishman whom you choose to disregard."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"I mean that I know him—to my cost—and you do not. But you will, an I +am not gravely mistaken, make acquaintance with him ere your great +adventure with these Kernogan people is successfully at an end. Believe +me, citizen Martin-Roget," he added impressively, "you would have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> been +far wiser to accept Carrier's suggestion and let him fling that rabble +into the Loire for you."</p> + +<p>"Pshaw! you are not childish enough to imagine, citizen Chauvelin, that +your Englishman can spirit away that wench from under my sister's eyes? +Do you know what my sister suffered at the hands of the Kernogans? Do +you think that she is like to forget my father's ignominious death any +more than I am? And she mourns a lover as well as a father—she mourns +her youth, her happiness, the mother whom she worshipped. Think you a +better gaoler could be found anywhere? And there are friends of +mine—lads of our own village, men who hate the Kernogans as bitterly as +I do myself—who are only too ready to lend Louise a hand in case of +violence. And after that—suppose your magnificent Scarlet Pimpernel +succeeded in hoodwinking my sister and in evading the vigilance of a +score of determined village lads, who would sooner die one by one than +see the Kernogan escape—suppose all that, I say, there would still be +the guard at every city gate to challenge. No! no! it couldn't be done, +citizen Chauvelin," he added with a complacent laugh. "Your Englishman +would need the help of a legion of angels, what? to get the wench out of +Nantes this time."</p> + +<p>Chauvelin made no comment on his colleague's impassioned harangue. +Memory had taken him back to that one day in September in Boulogne when +he too had set one prisoner to guard a precious hostage: it brought back +to his mind a vision of a strangely picturesque figure as it appeared to +him in the window-embrasure of the old castle-hall:<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> it brought back +to his ears the echo of that quaint, irresponsible laughter, of that +lazy, drawling speech, of all that had acted as an irritant on his +nerves ere he found<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> himself baffled, foiled, eating out his heart with +vain reproach at his own folly.</p> + +<p>"I see you are unconvinced, citizen Martin-Roget," he said quietly, "and +I know that it is the fashion nowadays among young politicians to sneer +at Chauvelin—the living embodiment of failure. But let me just add +this. When you and I talked matters over together at the Bottom Inn, in +the wilds of Somersetshire, I warned you that not only was your identity +known to the man who calls himself the Scarlet Pimpernel, but also that +he knew every one of your plans with regard to the Kernogan wench and +her father. You laughed at me then ... do you remember?... you shrugged +your shoulders and jeered at what you call my far-fetched ideas ... just +as you do now. Well! will you let me remind you of what happened within +four-and-twenty hours of that warning which you chose to disregard? ... +Yvonne de Kernogan was married to Lord Anthony Dewhurst and...."</p> + +<p>"I know all that, man," broke in Martin-Roget impatiently. "It was all a +mere coincidence ... the marriage must have been planned long before +that ... your Scarlet Pimpernel could not possibly have had anything to +do with it."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps not," rejoined Chauvelin drily. "But mark what has happened +since. Just now when we crossed the Place I saw in the distance a figure +flitting past—the gorgeous figure of an exquisite who of a surety is a +stranger in Nantes: and carried upon the wings of the north-westerly +wind there came to me the sound of a voice which, of late, I have only +heard in my dreams. On my soul, citizen Martin-Roget," he added with +earnest emphasis, "I assure you that the Scarlet Pimpernel is in Nantes +at the present moment, that he is scheming, plotting, planning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> to +rescue the Kernogan wench out of your clutches. He will not leave her in +your power, on this I would stake my life; she is the wife of one of his +dearest friends: he will not abandon her, not while he keeps that +resourceful head of his on his shoulders. Unless you are desperately +careful he will outwit you; of that I am as convinced as that I am +alive."</p> + +<p>"Bah! you have been dreaming, citizen Chauvelin," rejoined Martin-Roget +with a laugh and shrugging his broad shoulders; "your mysterious +Englishman in Nantes? Why man! the navigation of the Loire has been +totally prohibited these last fourteen days—no carriage, van or vehicle +of any kind is allowed to enter the city—no man, woman or child to pass +the barriers without special permit signed either by the proconsul +himself or by Fleury the captain of the Marats. Why! even I, when I +brought the Kernogans in overland from Le Croisic, I was detained two +hours outside Nantes while my papers were sent in to Carrier for +inspection. You know that, you were with me."</p> + +<p>"I know it," replied Chauvelin drily, "and yet...."</p> + +<p>He paused, with one claw-like finger held erect to demand attention. The +door of the small room in which they sat gave on the big hall where the +half-dozen Marats were stationed, the single window at right angles to +the door looked out upon the Place below. It was from there that +suddenly there came the sound of a loud peal of laughter—quaint and +merry—somewhat inane and affected, and at the sound Chauvelin's pale +face took on the hue of ashes and even Martin-Roget felt a strange +sensation of cold creeping down his spine.</p> + +<p>For a few seconds the two men remained quite still, as if a spell had +been cast over them through that light-hearted peal of rippling +laughter. Then equally suddenly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> the younger man shook himself free of +the spell; with a few long strides he was already at the door and out in +the vast hall; Chauvelin following closely on his heels.</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>The clock in the tower of the edifice was even then striking five. The +Marats in the hall looked up with lazy indifference at the two men who +had come rushing out in such an abrupt and excited manner.</p> + +<p>"Any stranger been through here?" queried Chauvelin peremptorily of the +sergeant in command.</p> + +<p>"No," replied the latter curtly. "How could they, without a permit?"</p> + +<p>He shrugged his shoulders and the men resumed their game and their +argument. Martin-Roget would have parleyed with them but Chauvelin had +already crossed the hall and was striding past the clerk's office and +the lodge of the concierge out toward the open. Martin-Roget, after a +moment's hesitation, followed him.</p> + +<p>The Place was wrapped in gloom. From the platform of the guillotine an +oil-lamp hoisted on a post threw a small circle of light around. Small +pieces of tallow candle, set in pewter sconces, glimmered feebly under +the awnings of the booths, and there was a street-lamp affixed to the +wall of the old château immediately below the parapet of the staircase, +and others at the angles of the Rue de la Monnaye and the narrow Ruelle +des Jacobins.</p> + +<p>Chauvelin's keen eyes tried to pierce the surrounding darkness. He +leaned over the parapet and peered into the remote angles of the +building and round the booths below him.</p> + +<p>There were a few people on the Place, some walking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> rapidly across from +one end to the other, intent on business, others pausing in order to +make purchases at the booths. Up and down the steps of the guillotine a +group of street urchins were playing hide-and-seek. Round the angles of +the narrow streets the vague figures of passers-by flitted to and fro, +now easily discernible in the light of the street lanthorns, anon +swallowed up again in the darkness beyond. Whilst immediately below the +parapet two or three men of the Company Marat were lounging against the +walls. Their red bonnets showed up clearly in the flickering light of +the street lamps, as did their bare shins and the polished points of +their sabots. But of an elegant, picturesque figure such as Chauvelin +had described awhile ago there was not a sign.</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget leaned over the parapet and called peremptorily:</p> + +<p>"Hey there! citizens of the Company Marat!"</p> + +<p>One of the red-capped men looked up leisurely.</p> + +<p>"Your desire, citizen?" he queried with insolent deliberation, for they +were mighty men, this bodyguard of the great proconsul, his spies and +tools in the awesome work of frightfulness which he carried on so +ruthlessly.</p> + +<p>"Is that you Paul Friche?" queried Martin-Roget in response.</p> + +<p>"At your service, citizen," came the glib reply, delivered not without +mock deference.</p> + +<p>"Then come up here. I wish to speak with you."</p> + +<p>"I can't leave my post, nor can my mates," retorted the man who had +answered to the name of Paul Friche. "Come down, citizen, an you desire +to speak with us."</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget swore lustily.</p> + +<p>"The insolence of that rabble ..." he murmured.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Hush! I'll go," interposed Chauvelin quickly. "Do you know that man +Friche? Is he trustworthy?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know him. As for being trustworthy ..." added Martin-Roget with +a shrug of the shoulders. "He is a corporal in the Marats and high in +favour with commandant Fleury."</p> + +<p>Every second was of value, and Chauvelin was not the man to waste time +in useless parleyings. He ran down the stairs at the foot of which one +of the red-capped gentry deigned to speak with him.</p> + +<p>"Have you seen any strangers across the Place just now?" he queried in a +whisper.</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied the man Friche. "Two!"</p> + +<p>Then he spat upon the ground and added spitefully: "Aristos, what? In +fine clothes—like yourself, citizen...."</p> + +<p>"Which way did they go?"</p> + +<p>"Down the Ruelle des Jacobins."</p> + +<p>"When?"</p> + +<p>"Two minutes ago."</p> + +<p>"Why did you not follow them?... Aristos and...."</p> + +<p>"I would have followed," retorted Paul Friche with studied insolence; +"'twas you called me away from my duty."</p> + +<p>"After them then!" urged Chauvelin peremptorily. "They cannot have gone +far. They are English spies, and remember, citizen, that there's a +reward for their apprehension."</p> + +<p>The man grunted an eager assent. The word "reward" had fired his zeal. +In a trice he had called to his mates and the three Marats soon sped +across the Place and down the Ruelle des Jacobins where the surrounding +gloom quickly swallowed them up.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span></p> + +<p>Chauvelin watched them till they were out of sight, then he rejoined his +colleague on the landing at the top of the stairs. For a second or two +longer the click of the men's sabots upon the stones resounded on the +adjoining streets and across the Place, and suddenly that same quaint, +merry, somewhat inane laugh woke the echoes of the grim buildings around +and caused many a head to turn inquiringly, marvelling who it could be +that had the heart to laugh these days in the streets of Nantes.</p> + + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>Five minutes or so later the three Marats could vaguely be seen +recrossing the Place and making their way back to Le Bouffay, where +Martin-Roget and Chauvelin still stood on the top of the stairs excited +and expectant. At sight of the men Chauvelin ran down the steps to meet +them.</p> + +<p>"Well?" he queried in an eager whisper.</p> + +<p>"We never saw them," replied Paul Friche gruffly, "though we could hear +them clearly enough, talking, laughing and walking very rapidly toward +the quay. Then suddenly the earth or the river swallowed them up. We saw +and heard nothing more."</p> + +<p>Chauvelin swore and a curious hissing sound escaped his thin lips.</p> + +<p>"Don't be too disappointed, citizen," added the man with a coarse laugh, +"my mate picked this up at the corner of the Ruelle, when, I fancy, we +were pressing the aristos pretty closely."</p> + +<p>He held out a small bundle of papers tied together with a piece of red +ribbon: the bundle had evidently rolled in the mud, for the papers were +covered with grime. Chauvelin's thin, claw-like fingers had at once +closed over them.</p> + +<p>"You must give me back those papers, citizen," said the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> man, "they are +my booty. I can only give them up to citizen-captain Fleury."</p> + +<p>"I'll give them to the citizen-captain myself," retorted Chauvelin. "For +the moment you had best not leave your post of duty," he added more +peremptorily, seeing that the man made as he would follow him.</p> + +<p>"I take orders from no one except ..." protested the man gruffly.</p> + +<p>"You will take them from me now," broke in Chauvelin with a sudden +assumption of command and authority which sat with weird strangeness +upon his thin shrunken figure. "Go back to your post at once, ere I +lodge a complaint against you for neglect of duty, with the citizen +proconsul."</p> + +<p>He turned on his heel and, without paying further heed to the man and +his mutterings, he remounted the stone stairs.</p> + +<p>"No success, I suppose?" queried Martin-Roget.</p> + +<p>"None," replied Chauvelin curtly.</p> + +<p>He had the packet of papers tightly clasped in his hand. He was debating +in his mind whether he would speak of them to his colleague or not.</p> + +<p>"What did Friche say?" asked the latter impatiently.</p> + +<p>"Oh! very little. He and his mates caught sight of the strangers and +followed them as far as the quays. But they were walking very fast and +suddenly the Marats lost their trace in the darkness. It seemed, +according to Paul Friche, as if the earth or the night had swallowed +them up."</p> + +<p>"And was that all?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. That was all."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," added Martin-Roget with a light laugh and a careless shrug +of his wide shoulders, "I wonder if you and I, citizen Chauvelin—and +Paul Friche too for that matter—have been the victims of our nerves."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I wonder," assented Chauvelin drily. And—quite quietly—he slipped the +packet of papers in the pocket of his coat.</p> + +<p>"Then we may as well adjourn. There is nothing else you wish to say to +me about that enigmatic Scarlet Pimpernel of yours?"</p> + +<p>"No—nothing."</p> + +<p>"And you still would like to hear what the Kernogan wench will say and +see how she will look when I put my final proposal before her?"</p> + +<p>"If you will allow me."</p> + +<p>"Then come," said Martin-Roget. "My sister's house is close by."</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> This adventure is recorded in <i>The Elusive Pimpernel</i>.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_III_a" id="CHAPTER_III_a"></a>CHAPTER III</h3> + +<h4>THE FOWLERS</h4> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>In order to reach the Carrefour de la Poissonnerie the two men had to +skirt the whole edifice of Le Bouffay, walk a little along the quay and +turn up the narrow alley opposite the bridge. They walked on in silence, +each absorbed in his own thoughts.</p> + +<p>The house occupied by the citizeness Adet lay back a little from the +others in the street. It was one of an irregular row of mean, squalid, +tumble-down houses, some of them little more than lean-to sheds built +into the walls of Le Bouffay. Most of them had overhanging roofs which +stretched out like awnings more than half way across the road, and even +at midday shut out any little ray of sunshine which might have a +tendency to peep into the street below.</p> + +<p>In this year II of the Republic the Carrefour de la Poissonnerie was +unpaved, dark and evil-smelling. For two thirds of the year it was +ankle-deep in mud: the rest of the time the mud was baked into cakes and +emitted clouds of sticky dust under the shuffling feet of the +passers-by. At night it was dimly lighted by one or two broken-down +lanthorns which were hung on transverse chains overhead from house to +house. These lanthorns only made a very small circle of light +immediately below them: the rest of the street was left in darkness, +save for the faint glimmer which filtrated through an occasional +ill-fitting doorway or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> through the chinks of some insecurely fastened +shutter.</p> + +<p>The Carrefour de la Poissonnerie was practically deserted in the +daytime; only a few children—miserable little atoms of humanity showing +their meagre, emaciated bodies through the scanty rags which failed to +cover their nakedness—played weird, mirthless games in the mud and +filth of the street. But at night it became strangely peopled with vague +and furtive forms that were wont to glide swiftly by, beneath the +hanging lanthorns, in order to lose themselves again in the welcome +obscurity beyond: men and women—ill-clothed and unshod, with hands +buried in pockets or beneath scanty shawls—their feet, oft-times bare, +making no sound as they went squishing through the mud. A perpetual +silence used to reign in this kingdom of squalor and of darkness, where +night-hawks alone fluttered their wings; only from time to time a +joyless greeting of boon-companions, or the hoarse cough of some +wretched consumptive would wake the dormant echoes that lingered in the +gloom.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Martin-Roget knew his way about the murky street well enough. He went up +to the house which lay a little back from the others. It appeared even +more squalid than the rest, not a sound came from within—hardly a +light—only a narrow glimmer found its way through the chink of a +shutter on the floor above. To right and left of it the houses were +tall, with walls that reeked of damp and of filth: from one of +these—the one on the left—an iron sign dangled and creaked dismally as +it swung in the wind. Just above the sign there was a window with +partially closed shutters: through it came the sound of two husky voices +raised in heated argument.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span></p> + +<p>In the open space in front of Louise Adet's house vague forms standing +about or lounging against the walls of the neighbouring houses were +vaguely discernible in the gloom. Martin-Roget and Chauvelin as they +approached were challenged by a raucous voice which came to them out of +the inky blackness around.</p> + +<p>"Halt! who goes there?"</p> + +<p>"Friends!" replied Martin-Roget promptly. "Is citizeness Adet within?"</p> + +<p>"Yes! she is!" retorted the man bluntly; "excuse me, friend Adet—I did +not know you in this confounded darkness."</p> + +<p>"No harm done," said Martin-Roget. "And it is I who am grateful to you +all for your vigilance."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said the other with a laugh, "there's not much fear of your bird +getting out of its cage. Have no fear, friend Adet! That Kernogan rabble +is well looked after."</p> + +<p>The small group dispersed in the darkness and Martin-Roget rapped +against the door of his sister's house with his knuckles.</p> + +<p>"That is the Rat Mort," he said, indicating the building on his left +with a nod of the head. "A very unpleasant neighbourhood for my sister, +and she has oft complained of it—but name of a dog! won't it prove +useful this night?"</p> + +<p>Chauvelin had as usual followed his colleague in silence, but his keen +eyes had not failed to note the presence of the village lads of whom +Martin-Roget had spoken. There are no eyes so watchful as those of hate, +nor is there aught so incorruptible. Every one of these men here had an +old wrong to avenge, an old score to settle with those ci-devant +Kernogans who had once been their masters and who were so completely in +their power now. Louise Adet had gathered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> round her a far more +efficient bodyguard than even the proconsul could hope to have.</p> + +<p>A moment or two later the door was opened, softly and cautiously, and +Martin-Roget asked: "Is that you, Louise?" for of a truth the darkness +was almost deeper within than without, and he could not see who it was +that was standing by the door.</p> + +<p>"Yes! it is," replied a weary and querulous voice. "Enter quickly. The +wind is cruel, and I can't keep myself warm. Who is with you, Pierre?"</p> + +<p>"A friend," said Martin-Roget drily. "We want to see the aristo."</p> + +<p>The woman without further comment closed the door behind the new-comers. +The place now was as dark as pitch, but she seemed to know her way about +like a cat, for her shuffling footsteps were heard moving about +unerringly. A moment or two later she opened another door opposite the +front entrance, revealing an inner room—a sort of kitchen—which was +lighted by a small lamp.</p> + +<p>"You can go straight up," she called curtly to the two men.</p> + +<p>The narrow, winding staircase was divided from this kitchen by a wooden +partition. Martin-Roget, closely followed by Chauvelin, went up the +stairs. On the top of these there was a tiny landing with a door on +either side of it. Martin-Roget without any ceremony pushed open the +door on his right with his foot.</p> + +<p>A tallow candle fixed in a bottle and placed in the centre of a table in +the middle of the room flickered in the draught as the door flew open. +It was bare of everything save a table and a chair, and a bundle of +straw in one corner. The tiny window at right angles to the door was +innocent of glass, and the north-westerly wind came in an icy stream<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> +through the aperture. On the table, in addition to the candle, there was +a broken pitcher half-filled with water, and a small chunk of brown +bread blotched with stains of mould.</p> + +<p>On the chair beside the table and immediately facing the door sat Yvonne +Lady Dewhurst. On the wall above her head a hand unused to calligraphy +had traced in clumsy characters the words: "Liberté! Fraternité! +Egalité!" and below that "ou la Mort."</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>The men entered the narrow room and Chauvelin carefully closed the door +behind him. He at once withdrew into a remote comer of the room and +stood there quite still, wrapped in his mantle, a small, silent, +mysterious figure on which Yvonne fixed dark, inquiring eyes.</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget, restless and excited, paced up and down the small space +like a wild animal in a cage. From time to time exclamations of +impatience escaped him and he struck one fist repeatedly against his +open palm. Yvonne followed his movements with a quiet, uninterested +glance, but Chauvelin paid no heed whatever to him.</p> + +<p>He was watching Yvonne ceaselessly, and closely.</p> + +<p>Three days' incarceration in this wind-swept attic, the lack of decent +food and of warmth, the want of sleep and the horror of her present +position all following upon the soul-agony which she had endured when +she was forcibly torn away from her dear milor, had left their mark on +Yvonne Dewhurst's fresh young face. The look of gravity which had always +sat so quaintly on her piquant features had now changed to one of deep +and abiding sorrow; her large dark eyes were circled and sunk; they had +in them the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> unnatural glow of fever, as well as the settled look of +horror and of pathetic resignation. Her soft brown hair had lost its +lustre; her cheeks were drawn and absolutely colourless.</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget paused in his restless walk. For a moment he stood silent +and absorbed, contemplating by the flickering light of the candle all +the havoc which his brutality had wrought upon Yvonne's dainty face.</p> + +<p>But Yvonne after a while ceased to look at him—she appeared to be +unconscious of the gaze of these two men, each of whom was at this +moment only thinking of the evil which he meant to inflict upon +her—each of whom only thought of her as a helpless bird whom he had at +last ensnared and whom he could crush to death as soon as he felt so +inclined.</p> + +<p>She kept her lips tightly closed and her head averted. She was gazing +across at the unglazed window into the obscurity beyond, marvelling in +what direction lay the sea and the shores of England.</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget crossed his arms over his broad chest and clutched his +elbows with his hands with an obvious effort to keep control over his +movements and his temper in check. The quiet, almost indifferent +attitude of the girl was exasperating to his over-strung nerves.</p> + +<p>"Look here, my girl," he said at last, roughly and peremptorily, "I had +an interview with the proconsul this afternoon. He chides me for my +leniency toward you. Three days he thinks is far too long to keep +traitors eating the bread of honest citizens and taking up valuable +space in our city. Yesterday I made a proposal to you. Have you thought +on it?"</p> + +<p>Yvonne made no reply. She was still gazing out into nothingness and just +at that moment she was very far<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> away from the narrow, squalid room and +the company of these two inhuman brutes. She was thinking of her dear +milor and of that lovely home at Combwich wherein she had spent three +such unforgettable days. She was remembering how beautiful had been the +colour of the bare twigs in the chestnut coppice when the wintry sun +danced through and in between them and drew fantastic patterns of living +gold upon the carpet of dead leaves; and she remembered too how +exquisite were the tints of russet and blue on the distant hills, and +how quaintly the thrushes had called: "Kiss me quick!" She saw again +those trembling leaves of a delicious faintly crimson hue which still +hung upon the branches of the scarlet oak, and the early flowering heath +which clothed the moors with a gorgeous mantle of rosy amethyst.</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget's harsh voice brought her abruptly back to the hideous +reality of the moment.</p> + +<p>"Your obstinacy will avail you nothing," he said, speaking quietly, even +though a note of intense irritation was distinctly perceptible in his +voice. "The proconsul has given me a further delay wherein to deal +leniently with you and with your father if I am so minded. You know what +I have proposed to you: Life with me as my wife—in which case your +father will be free to return to England or to go to the devil as he +pleases—or the death of a malefactor for you both in the company of all +the thieves and evil-doers who are mouldering in the prisons of Nantes +at this moment. Another delay wherein to choose between an honourable +life and a shameful death. The proconsul waits. But to-night he must +have his answer."</p> + +<p>Then Yvonne turned her head slowly and looked calmly on her enemy.</p> + +<p>"The tyrant who murders innocent men, women and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> children," she said, +"can have his answer now. I choose death which is inevitable in +preference to a life of shame."</p> + +<p>"You seem," he retorted, "to have lost sight of the fact that the law +gives me the right to take by force that which you so obstinately +refuse."</p> + +<p>"Have I not said," she replied, "that death is my choice? Life with you +would be a life of shame."</p> + +<p>"I can get a priest to marry us without your consent: and your religion +forbids you to take your own life," he said with a sneer.</p> + +<p>To this she made no reply, but he knew that he had his answer. +Smothering a curse, he resumed after a while:</p> + +<p>"So you prefer to drag your father to death with you? Yet he has begged +you to consider your decision and to listen to reason. He has given his +consent to our marriage."</p> + +<p>"Let me see my father," she retorted firmly, "and hear him say that with +his own lips.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" she added quickly, for at her words Martin-Roget had turned his +head away and shrugged his shoulders with well-assumed indifference, +"you cannot and dare not let me see him. For three days now you have +kept us apart and no doubt fed us both up with your lies. My father is +duc de Kernogan, Marquis de Trentemoult," she added proudly, "he would +far rather die side by side with his daughter than see her wedded to a +criminal."</p> + +<p>"And you, my girl," rejoined Martin-Roget coldly, "would you see your +father branded as a malefactor, linked to a thief and sent to perish in +the Loire?"</p> + +<p>"My father," she retorted, "will die as he has lived, a brave and +honourable gentleman. The brand of a malefactor cannot cling to his +name. Sorrow we are ready to endure—death is less than nothing to +us—we will but follow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> in the footsteps of our King and of our Queen +and of many whom we care for and whom you and your proconsul and your +colleagues have brutally murdered. Shame cannot touch us, and our honour +and our pride are so far beyond your reach that your impious and +blood-stained hands can never sully them."</p> + +<p>She had spoken very slowly and very quietly. There were no heroics about +her attitude. Even Martin-Roget—callous brute though he was—felt that +she had only spoken just as she felt, and that nothing that he might +say, no plea that he might urge, would ever shake her determination.</p> + +<p>"Then it seems to me," he said, "that I am only wasting my time by +trying to make you see reason and common-sense. You look upon me as a +brute. Well! perhaps I am. At any rate I am that which your father and +you have made me. Four years ago, when you had power over me and over +mine, you brutalised us. To-day we—the people—are your masters and we +make you suffer, not for all—that were impossible—but for part of what +you made us suffer. That, after all, is only bare justice. By making you +my wife I would have saved you from death—not from humiliation, for +that you must endure, and at my hands in a full measure—but I would +have made you my wife because I still have pleasant recollections of +that kiss which I snatched from you on that never-to-be-forgotten night +and in the darkness—a kiss for which you would gladly have seen me hang +then, if you could have laid hands on me."</p> + +<p>He paused, trying to read what was going on behind those fine eyes of +hers, with their vacant, far-seeing gaze which seemed like another +barrier between her and him. At this rough allusion to that moment of +horror and of shame, she had not moved a muscle, nor did her gaze lose +its fixity.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span></p> + +<p>He laughed.</p> + +<p>"It is an unpleasant recollection, eh, my proud lady? The first kiss of +passion was not implanted on your exquisite lips by that fine gentleman +whom you deemed worthy of your hand and your love, but by Pierre Adet, +the miller's son, what? a creature not quite so human as your horse or +your pet dog. Neither you nor I are like to forget that methinks...."</p> + +<p>Yvonne vouchsafed no reply to the taunt, and for a moment there was +silence in the room, until Chauvelin's thin, suave voice broke in quite +gently:</p> + +<p>"Do not lose your patience with the wench, citizen Martin-Roget. Your +time is too precious to be wasted in useless recriminations."</p> + +<p>"I have finished with her," retorted the other sullenly. "She shall be +dealt with now as I think best. I agree with citizen Carrier. He is +right after all. To the Loire with the lot of that foul brood!"</p> + +<p>"Nay!" here rejoined Chauvelin with placid urbanity, "are you not a +little harsh, citizen, with our fair Yvonne? Remember! Women have moods +and megrims. What they indignantly refuse to yield to us one day, they +will grant with a smile the next. Our beautiful Yvonne is no exception +to this rule, I'll warrant."</p> + +<p>Even while he spoke he threw a glance of warning on his colleague. There +was something enigmatic in his manner at this moment, in the strange +suavity wherewith he spoke these words of conciliation and of +gentleness. Martin-Roget was as usual ready with an impatient retort. He +was in a mood to bully and to brutalise, to heap threat upon threat, to +win by frightfulness that which he could not gain by persuasion. Perhaps +that at this moment he desired Yvonne de Kernogan for wife, more even +than he desired<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> her death. At any rate his headstrong temper was ready +to chafe against any warning or advice. But once again Chauvelin's +stronger mentality dominated over his less resolute colleague. +Martin-Roget—the fowler—was in his turn caught in the net of a keener +snarer than himself, and whilst—with the obstinacy of the weak—he was +making mental resolutions to rebuke Chauvelin for his interference later +on, he had already fallen in with the latter's attitude.</p> + +<p>"The wench has had three whole days wherein to alter her present mood," +he said more quietly, "and you know yourself, citizen, that the +proconsul will not wait after to-day."</p> + +<p>"The day is young yet," rejoined Chauvelin. "It still hath six hours to +its credit.... Six hours.... Three hundred and sixty minutes!" he +continued with a pleasant little laugh; "time enough for a woman to +change her mind three hundred and sixty times. Let me advise you, +citizen, to leave the wench to her own meditations for the present, and +I trust that she will accept the advice of a man who has a sincere +regard for her beauty and her charms and who is old enough to be her +father, and seriously think the situation over in a conciliatory spirit. +M. le duc de Kernogan will be grateful to her, for of a truth he is not +over happy either at the moment ... and will be still less happy in the +dépôt to-morrow: it is over-crowded, and typhus, I fear me, is rampant +among the prisoners. He has, I am convinced—in spite of what the +citizeness says to the contrary—a rooted objection to being hurled into +the Loire, or to be arraigned before the bar of the Convention, not as +an aristocrat and a traitor but as an unit of an undesirable herd of +criminals sent up to Paris for trial, by an anxious and harried +proconsul. There! there!" he added benignly, "we will not worry our fair +Yvonne any longer, will we, citizen? I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> think she has grasped the +alternative and will soon realise that marriage with an honourable +patriot is not such an untoward fate after all."</p> + +<p>"And now, citizen Martin-Roget," he concluded, "I pray you allow me to +take my leave of the fair lady and to give you the wise recommendation +to do likewise. She will be far better alone for awhile. Night brings +good counsel, so they say."</p> + +<p>He watched the girl keenly while he spoke. Her impassivity had not +deserted her for a single moment: but whether her calmness was of hope +or of despair he was unable to decide. On the whole he thought it must +be the latter: hope would have kindled a spark in those dark, +purple-rimmed eyes, it would have brought moisture to the lips, a tremor +to the hand.</p> + +<p>The Scarlet Pimpernel was in Nantes—that fact was established beyond a +doubt—but Chauvelin had come to the conclusion that so far as Yvonne +Dewhurst herself was concerned, she knew nothing of the mysterious +agencies that were working on her behalf.</p> + +<p>Chauvelin's hand closed with a nervous contraction over the packet of +papers in his pocket. Something of the secret of that enigmatic English +adventurer lay revealed within its folds. Chauvelin had not yet had the +opportunity of examining them: the interview with Yvonne had been the +most important business for the moment.</p> + +<p>From somewhere in the distance a city clock struck six. The afternoon +was wearing on. The keenest brain in Europe was on the watch to drag one +woman and one man from the deadly trap which had been so successfully +set for them. A few hours more and Chauvelin in his turn would be +pitting his wits against the resources of that intricate brain, and he +felt like a war-horse scenting blood and battle.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> He was aching to get +to work—aching to form his plans—to lay his snares—to dispose his +trap so that the noble English quarry should not fail to be caught +within its meshes.</p> + +<p>He gave a last look to Yvonne, who was still sitting quite impassive, +gazing through the squalid walls into some beautiful distance, the +reflection of which gave to her pale, wan face an added beauty.</p> + +<p>"Let us go, citizen Martin-Roget," he said peremptorily. "There is +nothing else that we can do here."</p> + +<p>And Martin-Roget, the weaker morally of the two, yielded to the stronger +personality of his colleague. He would have liked to stay on for awhile, +to gloat for a few moments longer over the helplessness of the woman who +to him represented the root of every evil which had ever befallen him +and his family. But Chauvelin commanded and he felt impelled to obey. He +gave one long, last look on Yvonne—a look that was as full of triumph +as of mockery—he looked round the four dank walls, the unglazed window, +the broken pitcher, the mouldy bread. Revenge was of a truth the +sweetest emotion of the human heart. Pierre Adet—son of the miller who +had been hanged by orders of the Duc de Kernogan for a crime which he +had never committed—would not at this moment have changed places with +Fortune's Benjamin.</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>Downstairs in Louise Adet's kitchen, Martin-Roget seized his colleague +by the arm.</p> + +<p>"Sit down a moment, citizen," he said persuasively, "and tell me what +you think of it all."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span></p> + +<p>Chauvelin sat down at the other's invitation. All his movements were +slow, deliberate, perfectly calm.</p> + +<p>"I think," he said drily, "as far as your marriage with the wench is +concerned, that you are beaten, my friend."</p> + +<p>"Tshaw!" The exclamation, raucous and surcharged with hate came from +Louise Adet. She, too, like Pierre—more so than Pierre mayhap—had +cause to hate the Kernogans. She, too, like Pierre had lived the last +three days in the full enjoyment of the thought that Fate and Chance +were about to level things at last between herself and those detested +aristos. Silent and sullen she was shuffling about in the room, among +her pots and pans, but she kept an eye upon her brother's movements and +an ear on what he said. Men were apt to lose grit where a pretty wench +was concerned. It takes a woman's rancour and a woman's determination to +carry a scheme of vengeance against another to a successful end.</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget rejoined more calmly:</p> + +<p>"I knew that she would still be obstinate," he said. "If I forced her +into a marriage, which I have the right to do, she might take her own +life and make me look a fool. So I don't want to do that. I believe in +the persuasiveness of the Rat Mort to-night," he added with a cynical +laugh, "and if that fails.... Well! I was never really in love with the +fair Yvonne, and now she has even ceased to be desirable.... If the Rat +Mort fails to act on her sensibilities as I would wish, I can easily +console myself by following Carrier's herd to Paris. Louise shall come +with me—eh, little sister?—and we'll give ourselves the satisfaction +of seeing M. le duc de Kernogan and his exquisite daughter stand in the +felon's dock—tried for malpractices and for evil living. We'll see them +branded as convicts and packed off like so much cattle to Cayenne. That +will be a sight,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> he concluded with a deep sigh of satisfaction, "which +will bring rest to my soul."</p> + +<p>He paused: his face looked sullen and evil under the domination of that +passion which tortured him.</p> + +<p>Louise Adet had shuffled up close to her brother. In one hand she held +the wooden spoon wherewith she had been stirring the soup: with the +other she brushed away the dark, lank hair which hung in strands over +her high, pale forehead. In appearance she was a woman immeasurably +older than her years. Her face had the colour of yellow parchment, her +skin was stretched tightly over her high cheekbones—her lips were +colourless and her eyes large, wide-open, were pale in hue and circled +with red. Just now a deep frown of puzzlement between her brows added a +sinister expression to her cadaverous face:</p> + +<p>"The Rat Mort?" she queried in that tired voice of hers, "Cayenne? What +is all that about?"</p> + +<p>"A splendid scheme of Carrier's, my Louise," replied Martin-Roget +airily. "We convey the Kernogan woman to the Rat Mort. To-night a +descent will be made on that tavern of ill-fame by a company of Marats +and every man, woman and child within it will be arrested and sent to +Paris as undesirable inhabitants of this most moral city: in Paris they +will be tried as malefactors or evil-doers—cut throats, thieves, what? +and deported as convicts to Cayenne, or else sent to the guillotine. The +Kernogans among that herd! What sayest thou to that, little sister? Thy +father, thy lover, hung as thieves! M. le Duc and Mademoiselle branded +as convicts! 'Tis pleasant to think on, eh?"</p> + +<p>Louise made no reply. She stood looking at her brother, her pale, +red-rimmed eyes seemed to drink in every word that he uttered, while her +bony hand wandered mechanically across and across her forehead as if in +a pathetic en<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>deavour to clear the brain from everything save of the +satisfying thoughts which this prospect of revenge had engendered.</p> + +<p>Chauvelin's gentle voice broke in on her meditations.</p> + +<p>"In the meanwhile," he said placidly, "remember my warning, citizen +Martin-Roget. There are passing clever and mighty agencies at work, even +at this hour, to wrest your prey from you. How will you convey the wench +to the Rat Mort? Carrier has warned you of spies—but I have warned you +against a crowd of English adventurers far more dangerous than an army +of spies. Three pairs of eyes—probably more, and one pair the keenest +in Europe—will be on the watch to seize upon the woman and to carry her +off under your very nose."</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget uttered a savage oath.</p> + +<p>"That brute Carrier has left me in the lurch," he said roughly. "I don't +believe in your nightmares and your English adventurers, still it would +have been better if I could have had the woman conveyed to the tavern +under armed escort."</p> + +<p>"Armed escort has been denied you, and anyway it would not be much use. +You and I, citizen Martin-Roget, must act independently of Carrier. Your +friends down there," he added, indicating the street with a jerk of the +head, "must redouble their watchfulness. The village lads of Vertou are +of a truth no match intellectually with our English adventurers, but +they have vigorous fists in case there is an attack on the wench while +she walks across to the Rat Mort."</p> + +<p>"It would be simpler," here interposed Louise roughly, "if we were to +knock the wench on the head and then let the lads carry her across."</p> + +<p>"It would not be simpler," retorted Chauvelin drily,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> "for Carrier might +at any moment turn against us. Commandant Fleury with half a company of +Marats will be posted round the Rat Mort, remember. They may interfere +with the lads and arrest them and snatch the wench from us, when all our +plans may fall to the ground ... one never knows what double game +Carrier may be playing. No! no! the girl must not be dragged or carried +to the Rat Mort. She must walk into the trap of her own free will."</p> + +<p>"But name of a dog! how is it to be done?" ejaculated Martin-Roget, and +he brought his clenched fist crashing down upon the table. "The woman +will not follow me—or Louise either—anywhere willingly."</p> + +<p>"She must follow a stranger then—or one whom she thinks a +stranger—some one who will have gained her confidence...."</p> + +<p>"Impossible."</p> + +<p>"Oh! nothing is impossible, citizen," rejoined Chauvelin blandly.</p> + +<p>"Do you know a way then?" queried the other with a sneer.</p> + +<p>"I think I do. If you will trust me that is——"</p> + +<p>"I don't know that I do. Your mind is so intent on those English +adventurers, you are like as not to let the aristos slip through your +fingers."</p> + +<p>"Well, citizen," retorted Chauvelin imperturbably, "will you take the +risk of conveying the fair Yvonne to the Rat Mort by twelve o'clock +to-night? I have very many things to see to, I confess that I should be +glad if you will ease me from that responsibility."</p> + +<p>"I have already told you that I see no way," retorted Martin-Roget with +a snarl.</p> + +<p>"Then why not let me act?"</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span></p> + +<p>"For the moment I am going for a walk on the quay and once more will +commune with the North-West wind."</p> + +<p>"Tshaw!" ejaculated Martin-Roget savagely.</p> + +<p>"Nay, citizen," resumed Chauvelin blandly, "the winds of heaven are +excellent counsellors. I told you so just now and you agreed with me. +They blow away the cobwebs of the mind and clear the brain for serious +thinking. You want the Kernogan girl to be arrested inside the Rat Mort +and you see no way of conveying her thither save by the use of violence, +which for obvious reasons is to be deprecated: Carrier, for equally +obvious reasons, will not have her taken to the place by force. On the +other hand you admit that the wench would not follow you +willingly——Well, citizen, we must find a way out of that impasse, for +it is too unimportant an one to stand in the way of our plans: for this +I must hold a consultation with the North-West wind."</p> + +<p>"I won't allow you to do anything without consulting me."</p> + +<p>"Am I likely to do that? To begin with I shall have need of your +co-operation and that of the citizeness."</p> + +<p>"In that case ..." muttered Martin-Roget grudgingly. "But remember," he +added with a return to his usual self-assured manner, "remember that +Yvonne and her father belong to me and not to you. I brought them into +Nantes for mine own purposes—not for yours. I will not have my revenge +jeopardised so that your schemes may be furthered."</p> + +<p>"Who spoke of my schemes, citizen Martin-Roget?" broke in Chauvelin with +perfect urbanity. "Surely not I? What am I but an humble tool in the +service of the Republic?... a tool that has proved useless—a failure, +what? My only desire is to help you to the best of my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> abilities. Your +enemies are the enemies of the Republic: my ambition is to help you in +destroying them."</p> + +<p>For a moment longer Martin-Roget hesitated: he abominated this +suggestion of becoming a mere instrument in the hands of this man whom +he still would have affected to despise—had he dared. But here came the +difficulty: he no longer dared to despise Chauvelin. He felt the +strength of the man—the clearness of his intellect, and though +he—Martin-Roget—still chose to disregard every warning in connexion +with the English spies, he could not wholly divest his mind from the +possibility of their presence in Nantes. Carrier's scheme was so +magnificent, so satisfying, that the ex-miller's son was ready to humble +his pride and set his arrogance aside in order to see it carried through +successfully.</p> + +<p>So after a moment or two, despite the fact that he positively ached to +shut Chauvelin out of the whole business, Martin-Roget gave a grudging +assent to his proposal.</p> + +<p>"Very well!" he said, "you see to it. So long as it does not interfere +with my plans...."</p> + +<p>"It can but help them," rejoined Chauvelin suavely. "If you will act as +I shall direct I pledge you my word that the wench will walk to the Rat +Mort of her free will and at the hour when you want her. What else is +there to say?"</p> + +<p>"When and where shall we meet again?"</p> + +<p>"Within the hour I will return here and explain to you and to the +citizeness what I want you to do. We will get the aristos inside the Rat +Mort, never fear; and after that I think that we may safely leave +Carrier to do the rest, what?"</p> + +<p>He picked up his hat and wrapped his mantle round him. He took no +further heed of Martin-Roget or of Louise, for suddenly he had felt the +crackling of crisp paper inside the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> breast-pocket of his coat and in a +moment the spirit of the man had gone a-roaming out of the narrow +confines of this squalid abode. It had crossed the English Channel and +wandered once more into a brilliantly-lighted ball-room where an +exquisitely dressed dandy declaimed inanities and doggrel rhymes for the +delectation of a flippant assembly: it heard once more the lazy, +drawling speech, the inane, affected laugh, it caught the glance of a +pair of lazy, grey eyes fixed mockingly upon him. Chauvelin's thin +claw-like hand went back to his pocket: it felt that packet of papers, +it closed over it like a vulture's talon does upon a prey. He no longer +heard Martin-Roget's obstinate murmurings, he no longer felt himself to +be the disgraced, humiliated servant of the State: rather did he feel +once more the master, the leader, the successful weaver of an hundred +clever intrigues. The enemy who had baffled him so often had chosen once +more to throw down the glove of mocking defiance. So be it! The battle +would be fought this night—a decisive one—and long live the Republic +and the power of the people!</p> + +<p>With a curt nod of the head Chauvelin turned on his heel and without +waiting for Martin-Roget to follow him, or for Louise to light him on +his way, he strode from the room, and out of the house, and had soon +disappeared in the darkness in the direction of the quay.</p> + + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>Once more free from the encumbering companionship of Martin-Roget, +Chauvelin felt free to breathe and to think. He, the obscure and +impassive servant of the Republic, the cold-blooded Terrorist who had +gone through every phrase of an exciting career without moving a muscle +of his grave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> countenance, felt as if every one of his arteries was on +fire. He strode along the quay in the teeth of the north-westerly wind, +grateful for the cold blast which lashed his face and cooled his +throbbing temples.</p> + +<p>The packet of papers inside his coat seemed to sear his breast.</p> + +<p>Before turning to go along the quay he paused, hesitating for a moment +what he would do. His very humble lodgings were at the far end of the +town, and every minute of time was precious. Inside Le Bouffay, where he +had a small room allotted to him as a minor representative in Nantes of +the Committee of Public Safety, there was the ever present danger of +prying eyes.</p> + +<p>On the whole—since time was so precious—he decided on returning to Le +Bouffay. The concierge and the clerk fortunately let him through without +those official delays which he—Chauvelin—was wont to find so galling +ever since his disgrace had put a bar against the opening of every door +at the bare mention of his name or the display of his tricolour scarf.</p> + +<p>He strode rapidly across the hall: the men on guard eyed him with lazy +indifference as he passed. Once inside his own sanctum he looked +carefully around him; he drew the curtain closer across the window and +dragged the table and a chair well away from the range which might be +covered by an eye at the keyhole. It was only when he had thoroughly +assured himself that no searching eye or inquisitive ear could possibly +be watching over him that he at last drew the precious packet of papers +from his pocket. He undid the red ribbon which held it together and +spread the papers out on the table before him. Then he examined them +carefully one by one.</p> + +<p>As he did so an exclamation of wrath or of impatience<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span> escaped him from +time to time, once he laughed—involuntarily—aloud.</p> + +<p>The examination of the papers took him some time. When he had finished +he gathered them all together again, retied the bit of ribbon round them +and slipped the packet back into the pocket of his coat. There was a +look of grim determination on his face, even though a bitter sigh +escaped his set lips.</p> + +<p>"Oh! for the power," he muttered to himself, "which I had a year ago! +for the power to deal with mine enemy myself. So you have come to +Nantes, my valiant Sir Percy Blakeney?" he added while a short, sardonic +laugh escaped his thin, set lips: "and you are determined that I shall +know how and why you came! Do you reckon, I wonder, that I have no +longer the power to deal with you? Well!..."</p> + +<p>He sighed again but with more satisfaction this time.</p> + +<p>"Well!..." he reiterated with obvious complacency. "Unless that oaf +Carrier is a bigger fool than I imagine him to be I think I have you +this time, my elusive Scarlet Pimpernel."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IV_a" id="CHAPTER_IV_a"></a>CHAPTER IV</h3> + +<h4>THE NET</h4> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>It was not an easy thing to obtain an audience of the great proconsul at +this hour of the night, nor was Chauvelin, the disgraced servant of the +Committee of Public Safety, a man to be considered. Carrier, with his +love of ostentation and of tyranny, found great delight in keeping his +colleagues waiting upon his pleasure, and he knew that he could trust +young Jacques Lalouët to be as insolent as any tyrant's flunkey of yore.</p> + +<p>"I must speak with the proconsul at once," had been Chauvelin's urgent +request of Fleury, the commandant of the great man's bodyguard.</p> + +<p>"The proconsul dines at this hour," had been Fleury's curt reply.</p> + +<p>"'Tis a matter which concerns the welfare and the safety of the State!"</p> + +<p>"The proconsul's health is the concern of the State too, and he dines at +this hour and must not be disturbed."</p> + +<p>"Commandant Fleury!" urged Chauvelin, "you risk being implicated in a +disaster. Danger and disgrace threaten the proconsul and all his +adherents. I must speak with citizen Carrier at once."</p> + +<p>Fortunately for Chauvelin there were two keys which, when all else +failed, were apt to open the doors of Carrier's stronghold: the key of +fear and that of cupidity. He tried<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> both and succeeded. He bribed and +he threatened: he endured Fleury's brutality and Lalouët's impertinence +but he got his way. After an hour's weary waiting and ceaseless +parleyings he was once more ushered into the antechamber where he had +sat earlier in the day. The doors leading to the inner sanctuary were +open. Young Jacques Lalouët stood by them on guard. Carrier, fuming and +raging at having been disturbed, vented his spleen and ill-temper on +Chauvelin.</p> + +<p>"If the news that you bring me is not worth my consideration," he cried +savagely, "I'll send you to moulder in Le Bouffay or to drink the waters +of the Loire."</p> + +<p>Chauvelin silent, self-effaced, allowed the flood of the great man's +wrath to spend itself in threats. Then he said quietly:</p> + +<p>"Citizen proconsul I have come to tell you that the English spy, who is +called the Scarlet Pimpernel, is now in Nantes. There is a reward of +twenty thousand francs for his capture and I want your help to lay him +by the heels."</p> + +<p>Carrier suddenly paused in his ravings. He sank into a chair and a livid +hue spread over his face.</p> + +<p>"It's not true!" he murmured hoarsely.</p> + +<p>"I saw him—not an hour ago...."</p> + +<p>"What proof have you?"</p> + +<p>"I'll show them to you—but not across this threshold. Let me enter, +citizen proconsul, and close your sanctuary doors behind me rather than +before. What I have come hither to tell you, can only be said between +four walls."</p> + +<p>"I'll make you tell me," broke in Carrier in a raucous voice, which +excitement and fear caused almost to choke in his throat. "I'll make you +... curse you for the traitor that you are.... Curse you!" he cried more +vigorously, "I'll make you speak. Will you shield a spy by your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> +silence, you miserable traitor? If you do I'll send you to rot in the +mud of the Loire with other traitors less accursed than yourself."</p> + +<p>"If you only knew," was Chauvelin's calm rejoinder to the other's +ravings, "how little I care for life. I only live to be even one day +with an enemy whom I hate. That enemy is now in Nantes, but I am like a +bird of prey whose wings have been clipped. If you do not help me mine +enemy will again go free—and death in that case matters little or +nothing to me."</p> + +<p>For a moment longer Carrier hesitated. Fear had gripped him by the +throat. Chauvelin's earnestness seemed to vouch for the truth of his +assertion, and if this were so—if those English spies were indeed in +Nantes—then his own life was in deadly danger. He—like every one of +those bloodthirsty tyrants who had misused the sacred names of +Fraternity and of Equality—had learned to dread the machinations of +those mysterious Englishmen and of their unconquerable leader. Popular +superstition had it that they were spies of the English Government and +that they were not only bent on saving traitors from well-merited +punishment but that they were hired assassins paid by Mr. Pitt to murder +every faithful servant of the Republic. The name of the Scarlet +Pimpernel, so significantly uttered by Chauvelin, had turned Carrier's +sallow cheeks to a livid hue. Sick with terror now he called Lalouët to +him. He clung to the boy with both arms as to the one being in this +world whom he trusted.</p> + +<p>"What shall we do, Jacques?" he murmured hoarsely, "shall we let him +in?"</p> + +<p>The boy roughly shook himself free from the embrace of the great +proconsul.</p> + +<p>"If you want twenty thousand francs," he said with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> dry laugh, "I +should listen quietly to what citizen Chauvelin has to say."</p> + +<p>Terror and rapacity were ranged on one side against inordinate vanity. +The thought of twenty thousand francs made Carrier's ugly mouth water. +Money was ever scarce these days: also the fear of assassination was a +spectre which haunted him at all hours of the day and night. On the +other hand he positively worshipped the mystery wherewith he surrounded +himself. It had been his boast for some time now that no one save the +chosen few had crossed the threshold of his private chamber: and he was +miserably afraid not only of Chauvelin's possible evil intentions, but +also that this despicable ex-aristo and equally despicable failure would +boast in the future of an ascendancy over him.</p> + +<p>He thought the matter over for fully five minutes, during which there +was dead silence in the two rooms—silence only broken by the stertorous +breathing of that wretched coward, and the measured ticking of the fine +Buhl clock behind him. Chauvelin's pale eyes were fixed upon the +darkness, through which he could vaguely discern the uncouth figure of +the proconsul, sprawling over his desk. Which way would his passions +sway him? Chauvelin as he watched and waited felt that his habitual +self-control was perhaps more severely taxed at this moment than it had +ever been before. Upon the swaying of those passions, the passions of a +man infinitely craven and infinitely base, depended all +his—Chauvelin's—hopes of getting even at last with a daring and +resourceful foe. Terror and rapacity were the counsellors which ranged +themselves on the side of his schemes, but mere vanity and caprice +fought a hard battle too.</p> + +<p>In the end it was rapacity that gained the victory. An impatient +exclamation from young Lalouët roused Carrier from his sombre brooding +and hastened on a decision<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> which was destined to have such momentous +consequences for the future of both these men.</p> + +<p>"Introduce citizen Chauvelin in here, Lalouët," said the proconsul +grudgingly. "I will listen to what he has to say."</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Chauvelin crossed the threshold of the tyrant's sanctuary, in no way +awed by the majesty of that dreaded presence or confused by the air of +mystery which hung about the room.</p> + +<p>He did not even bestow a glance on the multitudinous objects of art and +the priceless furniture which littered the tiger's lair. His pale face +remained quite expressionless as he bowed solemnly before Carrier and +then took the chair which was indicated to him. Young Lalouët fetched a +candelabra from the ante-room and carried it into the audience chamber: +then he closed the communicating doors. The candelabra he placed on a +console-table immediately behind Carrier's desk and chair, so that the +latter's face remained in complete shadow, whilst the light fell full +upon Chauvelin.</p> + +<p>"Well! what is it?" queried the proconsul roughly. "What is this story +of English spies inside Nantes? How did they get here? Who is +responsible for keeping such rabble out of our city? Name of a dog, but +some one has been careless of duty! and carelessness these days is +closely allied to treason."</p> + +<p>He talked loudly and volubly—his inordinate terror causing the words to +come tumbling, almost incoherently, out of his mouth. Finally he turned +on Chauvelin with a snarl like an angry cat:</p> + +<p>"And how comes it, citizen," he added savagely, "that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> you alone here in +Nantes are acquainted with the whereabouts of those dangerous spies?"</p> + +<p>"I caught sight of them," rejoined Chauvelin calmly, "this afternoon +after I left you. I knew we should have them here, the moment citizen +Martin-Roget brought the Kernogans into the city. The woman is the wife +of one of them."</p> + +<p>"Curse that blundering fool Martin-Roget for bringing that rabble about +our ears, and those assassins inside our gates."</p> + +<p>"Nay! Why should you complain, citizen proconsul," rejoined Chauvelin in +his blandest manner. "Surely you are not going to let the English spies +escape this time? And if you succeed in laying them by the heels—there +where every one else has failed—you will have earned twenty thousand +francs and the thanks of the entire Committee of Public Safety."</p> + +<p>He paused: and young Lalouët interposed with his impudent laugh:</p> + +<p>"Go on, citizen Chauvelin," he said, "if there is twenty thousand francs +to be made out of this game, I'll warrant that the proconsul will take a +hand in it—eh, Carrier?"</p> + +<p>And with the insolent familiarity of a terrier teasing a grizzly he +tweaked the great man's ear.</p> + +<p>Chauvelin in the meanwhile had drawn the packet of papers from his +pocket and untied the ribbon that held them together. He now spread the +papers out on the desk.</p> + +<p>"What are these?" queried Carrier.</p> + +<p>"A few papers," replied Chauvelin, "which one of your Marats, Paul +Friche by name, picked up in the wake of the Englishmen. I caught sight +of them in the far distance, and sent the Marats after them. For awhile +Paul<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> Friche kept on their track, but after that they disappeared in the +darkness."</p> + +<p>"Who were the senseless louts," growled Carrier, "who allowed a pack of +foreign assassins to escape? I'll soon make them disappear ... in the +Loire."</p> + +<p>"You will do what you like about that, citizen Carrier," retorted +Chauvelin drily; "in the meanwhile you would do well to examine these +papers."</p> + +<p>He sorted these out, examined them one by one, then passed them across +to Carrier. Lalouët, impudent and inquisitive, sat on the corner of the +desk, dangling his legs. With scant ceremony he snatched one paper after +another out of Carrier's hands and examined them curiously.</p> + +<p>"Can you understand all this gibberish?" he asked airily. "Jean +Baptiste, my friend, how much English do you know?"</p> + +<p>"Not much," replied the proconsul, "but enough to recognise that +abominable doggrel rhyme which has gone the round of the Committees of +Public Safety throughout the country."</p> + +<p>"I know it by heart," rejoined young Lalouët. "I was in Paris once, when +citizen Robespierre received a copy of it. Name of a dog!" added the +youngster with a coarse laugh, "how he cursed!"</p> + +<p>It is doubtful however if citizen Robespierre did on that occasion curse +quite so volubly as Carrier did now.</p> + +<p>"If I only knew why that <i>satané</i> Englishman throws so much calligraphy +about," he said, "I would be easier in my mind. Now this senseless rhyme +... I don't see...."</p> + +<p>"Its importance?" broke in Chauvelin quietly. "I dare say not. On the +face of it, it appears foolish and childish: but it is intended as a +taunt and is really a poor attempt at humour. They are a queer people +these English. If you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> knew them as I do, you would not be surprised to +see a man scribbling off a cheap joke before embarking on an enterprise +which may cost him his head."</p> + +<p>"And this inane rubbish is of that sort," concluded young Lalouët. And +in his thin high treble he began reciting:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i3">"We seek him here;<br /></span> +<span class="i3">We seek him there!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Is he in heaven?<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Is he in h——ll?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That demmed elusive Pimpernel?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Pointless and offensive," he said as he tossed the paper back on the +table.</p> + +<p>"A cursed aristo that Englishman of yours," growled Carrier. "Oh! when I +get him...."</p> + +<p>He made an expressive gesture which made Lalouët laugh.</p> + +<p>"What else have we got in the way of documents, citizen Chauvelin?" he +asked.</p> + +<p>"There is a letter," replied the latter.</p> + +<p>"Read it," commanded Carrier. "Or rather translate it as you read. I +don't understand the whole of the gibberish."</p> + +<p>And Chauvelin, taking up a sheet of paper which was covered with neat, +minute writing, began to read aloud, translating the English into French +as he went along:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"'Here we are at last, my dear Tony! Didn't I tell you that we can +get in anywhere despite all precautions taken against us!'"</p></blockquote> + +<p>"The impudent devils!" broke in Carrier.</p> + +<blockquote><p>—"'Did you really think that they could keep us out of Nantes +while Lady Anthony Dewhurst is a prisoner in their hands?'"</p></blockquote><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Who is that?"</p> + +<p>"The Kernogan woman. As I told you just now, she is married to an +Englishman who is named Dewhurst and who is one of the members of that +thrice cursed League."</p> + +<p>Then he continued to read:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"'And did you really suppose that they would spot half a dozen +English gentlemen in the guise of peat-gatherers, returning at dusk +and covered with grime from their work? Not like, friend Tony! Not +like! If you happen to meet mine engaging friend M. Chambertin +before I have that privilege myself, tell him I pray you, with my +regards, that I am looking forward to the pleasure of making a long +nose at him once more. Calais, Boulogne, Paris—now Nantes—the +scenes of his triumphs multiply exceedingly.'"</p></blockquote> + +<p>"What in the devil's name does all this mean?" queried Carrier with an +oath.</p> + +<p>"You don't understand it?" rejoined Chauvelin quietly.</p> + +<p>"No. I do not."</p> + +<p>"Yet I translated quite clearly."</p> + +<p>"It is not the language that puzzles me. The contents seem to me such +drivel. The man wants secrecy, what? He is supposed to be astute, +resourceful, above all mysterious and enigmatic. Yet he writes to his +friend—matter of no importance between them, recollections of the past, +known to them both—and threats for the future, equally futile and +senseless. I cannot reconcile it all. It puzzles me."</p> + +<p>"And it would puzzle me," rejoined Chauvelin, while the ghost of a smile +curled his thin lips, "did I not know the man. Futile? Senseless, you +say? Well, he does futile and senseless things one moment and amazing +deeds of personal bravery and of astuteness the next. He is three parts +a braggart too. He wanted you, me—all of us to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> know how he and his +followers succeeded in eluding our vigilance and entered our +closely-guarded city in the guise of grimy peat-gatherers. Now I come to +think of it, it was easy enough for them to do that. Those +peat-gatherers who live inside the city boundaries return from their +work as the night falls in. Those cursed English adventurers are passing +clever at disguise—they are born mountebanks the lot of them. Money and +impudence they have in plenty. They could easily borrow or purchase some +filthy rags from the cottages on the dunes, then mix with the crowd on +its return to the city. I dare say it was cleverly done. That Scarlet +Pimpernel is just a clever adventurer and nothing more. So far his +marvellous good luck has carried him through. Now we shall see."</p> + +<p>Carrier had listened in silence. Something of his colleague's calm had +by this time communicated itself to him too. He was no longer raving +like an infuriated bull—his terror no longer made a half-cringing, +wholly savage brute of him. He was sprawling across the desk—his arms +folded, his deep-set eyes studying closely the well-nigh inscrutable +face of Chauvelin. Young Lalouët too had lost something of his +impudence. That mysterious spell which seemed to emanate from the +elusive personality of the bold English adventurer had been cast over +these two callous, bestial natures, humbling their arrogance and making +them feel that here was no ordinary situation to be dealt with by +smashing, senseless hitting and the spilling of innocent blood. Both +felt instinctively too that this man Chauvelin, however wholly he may +have failed in the past, was nevertheless still the only man who might +grapple successfully with the elusive and adventurous foe.</p> + +<p>"Are you assuming, citizen Chauvelin," queried Carrier after awhile, +"that this packet of papers was dropped pur<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>posely by the Englishman, so +that it might get into our hands?"</p> + +<p>"There is always such a possibility," replied Chauvelin drily. "With +that type of man one must be prepared to meet the unexpected."</p> + +<p>"Then go on, citizen Chauvelin. What else is there among those <i>satané</i> +papers?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing further of importance. There is a map of Nantes, and one of the +coast and of Le Croisic. There is a cutting from <i>Le Moniteur</i> dated +last September, and one from the <i>London Gazette</i> dated three years ago. +The <i>Moniteur</i> makes reference to the production of <i>Athalie</i> at the +Théâtre Molière, and the <i>London Gazette</i> to the sale of fat cattle at +an Agricultural Show. There is a receipted account from a London tailor +for two hundred pounds' worth of clothes supplied, and one from a Lyons +mercer for an hundred francs worth of silk cravats. Then there is the +one letter which alone amidst all this rubbish appears to be of any +consequence...."</p> + +<p>He took up the last paper; his hand was still quite steady.</p> + +<p>"Read the letter," said Carrier.</p> + +<p>"It is addressed in the English fashion to Lady Anthony Dewhurst," +continued Chauvelin slowly, "the Kernogan woman, you know, citizen. It +says:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"'Keep up your courage. Your friends are inside the city and on the +watch. Try the door of your prison every evening at one hour before +midnight. Once you will find it yield. Slip out and creep +noiselessly down the stairs. At the bottom a friendly hand will be +stretched out to you. Take it with confidence—it will lead you to +safety and to freedom. Courage and secrecy.'"</p></blockquote> + +<p>Lalouët had been looking over his shoulder while he read: now he pointed +to the bottom of the letter.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And there is the device," he said, "we have heard so much about of +late—a five-petalled flower drawn in red ink ... the Scarlet Pimpernel, +I presume."</p> + +<p>"Aye! the Scarlet Pimpernel," murmured Chauvelin, "as you say! +Braggadocio on his part or accident, his letters are certainly in our +hands now and will prove—must prove, the tool whereby we can be even +with him once and for all."</p> + +<p>"And you, citizen Chauvelin," interposed Carrier with a sneer, "are +mighty lucky to have me to help you this time. I am not going to be +fooled, as Candeille and you were fooled last September, as you were +fooled in Calais and Héron in Paris. I shall be seeing this time to the +capture of those English adventurers."</p> + +<p>"And that capture should not be difficult," added Lalouët with a +complacent laugh. "Your famous adventurer's luck hath deserted him this +time: an all-powerful proconsul is pitted against him and the loss of +his papers hath destroyed the anonymity on which he reckons."</p> + +<p>Chauvelin paid no heed to the fatuous remarks.</p> + +<p>How little did this flippant young braggart and this coarse-grained +bully understand the subtle workings of that same adventurer's brain! He +himself—one of the most astute men of the day—found it difficult. Even +now—the losing of those letters in the open streets of Nantes—it was +part of a plan. Chauvelin could have staked his head on that—a part of +a plan for the liberation of Lady Anthony Dewhurst—but what plan?—what +plan?</p> + +<p>He took up the letter which his colleague had thrown down: he fingered +it, handled it, letting the paper crackle through his fingers, as if he +expected it to yield up the secret which it contained. The time had +come—of that he felt no doubt—when he could at last be even with his +enemy. He had endured more bitter humiliation at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> hands of this +elusive Pimpernel than he would have thought himself capable of bearing +a couple of years ago. But the time had come at last—if only he kept +his every faculty on the alert, if Fate helped him and his own nerves +stood the strain. Above all if this blundering, self-satisfied Carrier +could be reckoned on!...</p> + +<p>There lay the one great source of trouble! He—Chauvelin—had no power: +he was disgraced—a failure—a nonentity to be sneered at. He might +protest, entreat, wring his hands, weep tears of blood and not one man +would stir a finger to help him: this brute who sprawled here across his +desk would not lend him half a dozen men to enable him to lay by the +heels the most powerful enemy the Government of the Terror had ever +known. Chauvelin inwardly ground his teeth with rage at his own +impotence, at his own dependence on this clumsy lout, who was at this +moment possessed of powers which he himself would give half his life to +obtain.</p> + +<p>But on the other hand he did possess a power which no one could take +from him—the power to use others for the furtherance of his own +aims—to efface himself while others danced as puppets to his piping. +Carrier had the power: he had spies, Marats, prison-guards at his +disposal. He was greedy for the reward, and cupidity and fear would make +of him a willing instrument. All that Chauvelin need do was to use that +instrument for his own ends. One would be the head to direct, the +other—a mere insentient tool.</p> + +<p>From this moment onwards every minute, every second and every fraction +of a second would be full of portent, full of possibilities. Sir Percy +Blakeney was in Nantes with at least three or four members of his +League: he was at this very moment taxing every fibre of his +resourceful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> brain in order to devise a means whereby he could rescue +his friend's wife from the fate which was awaiting her: to gain this end +he would dare everything, risk everything—risk and dare a great deal +more than he had ever dared and risked before.</p> + +<p>Chauvelin was finding a grim pleasure in reviewing the situation, in +envisaging the danger of failure which he knew lay in wait for him, +unless he too was able to call to his aid all the astuteness, all the +daring, all the resource of his own fertile brain. He studied his +colleague's face keenly—that sullen, savage expression in it, the +arrogance, the blundering vanity. It was terrible to have to humour and +fawn to a creature of that stamp when all one's hopes, all one's future, +one's ideals and the welfare of one's country were at stake.</p> + +<p>But this additional difficulty only served to whet the man's appetite +for action. He drew in a long breath of delight, like a captive who +first after many days and months of weary anguish scents freedom and +ozone. He straightened out his shoulders. A gleam of triumph and of hope +shot out of his keen pale eyes. He studied Carrier and he studied +Lalouët and he felt that he could master them both—quietly, +diplomatically, with subtle skill that would not alarm the proconsul's +rampant self-esteem: and whilst this coarse-fibred brute gloated in +anticipatory pleasure over the handling of a few thousand francs, and +whilst Martin-Roget dreamed of a clumsy revenge against one woman and +one man who had wronged him four years ago, he—Chauvelin—would pursue +his work of striking at the enemy of the Revolution—of bringing to his +knees the man who spent life and fortune in combating its ideals and in +frustrating its aims. The destruction of such a foe was worthy a +patriot's ambition.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span></p> + +<p>On the other hand some of Carrier's bullying arrogance had gone. He was +terrified to the very depths of his cowardly heart, and for once he was +turning away from his favourite Jacques Lalouët and inclined to lean on +Chauvelin for advice. Robespierre had been known to tremble at sight of +that small scarlet device, how much more had he—Carrier—cause to be +afraid. He knew his own limitations and he was terrified of the +assassin's dagger. As Marat had perished, so he too might end his days, +and the English spies were credited with murderous intentions and +superhuman power. In his innermost self Carrier knew that despite +countless failures Chauvelin was mentally his superior, and though he +never would own to this and at this moment did not attempt to shed his +over-bearing manner, he was watching the other keenly and anxiously, +ready to follow the guidance of an intellect stronger than his own.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>At last Carrier elected to speak.</p> + +<p>"And now, citizen Chauvelin," he said, "we know how we stand. We know +that the English assassins are in Nantes. The question is how are we +going to lay them by the heels."</p> + +<p>Chauvelin gave him no direct reply. He was busy collecting his precious +papers together and thrusting them back into the pocket of his coat. +Then he said quietly:</p> + +<p>"It is through the Kernogan woman that we can get hold of him."</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"Where she is, there will the Englishmen be. They are in Nantes for the +sole purpose of getting the woman and her father out of your +clutches...."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Then it will be a fine haul inside the Rat Mort," ejaculated Carrier +with a chuckle. "Eh, Jacques, you young scamp? You and I must go and see +that, what? You have been complaining that life was getting monotonous. +Drownages—Republican marriages! They have all palled in their turn on +your jaded appetite.... But the capture of the English assassins, eh?... +of that League of the Scarlet Pimpernel which has even caused citizen +Robespierre much uneasiness—that will stir up your sluggish blood, you +lazy young vermin!... Go on, go on, citizen Chauvelin, I am vastly +interested!"</p> + +<p>He rubbed his dry, bony hands together and cackled with glee. Chauvelin +interposed quietly:</p> + +<p>"Inside the Rat Mort, eh, citizen?" he queried.</p> + +<p>"Why, yes. Citizen Martin-Roget means to convey the Kernogan woman to +the Rat Mort, doesn't he?"</p> + +<p>"He does."</p> + +<p>"And you say that where the Kernogan woman is there the Englishmen will +be...."</p> + +<p>"The inference is obvious."</p> + +<p>"Which means ten thousand francs from that fool Martin-Roget for having +the wench and her father arrested inside the Rat Mort! and twenty +thousand for the capture of the English spies.... Have you forgotten, +citizen Chauvelin," he added with a raucous cry of triumph, "that +commandant Fleury has my orders to make a raid on the Rat Mort this +night with half a company of my Marats, and to arrest every one whom +they find inside?"</p> + +<p>"The Kernogan wench is not at the Rat Mort yet," quoth Chauvelin drily, +"and you have refused to lend a hand in having her conveyed thither."</p> + +<p>"I can't do it, my little Chauvelin," rejoined Carrier, somewhat sobered +by this reminder. "I can't do it ...<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> you understand ... my Marats +taking an aristo to a house of ill-fame where presently I have her +arrested ... it won't do ... it won't do ... you don't know how I am +spied upon just now.... It really would not do.... I can't be mixed up +in that part of the affair. The wench must go to the Rat Mort of her own +free will, or the whole plan falls to the ground.... That fool +Martin-Roget must think of a way ... it's his affair, after all. He must +see to it.... Or you can think of a way," he added, assuming the coaxing +ways of a tiger-cat; "you are so clever, my little Chauvelin."</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Chauvelin quietly, "I can think of a way. The Kernogan +wench shall leave the house of citizeness Adet and walk into the tavern +of the Rat Mort of her own free will. Your reputation, citizen Carrier," +he added without the slightest apparent trace of a sneer, "your +reputation shall be safeguarded in this matter. But supposing that in +the interval of going from the one house to the other the English +adventurer succeeds in kidnapping her...."</p> + +<p>"Pah! is that likely?" quoth Carrier with a shrug of the shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Exceedingly likely, citizen; and you would not doubt it if you knew +this Scarlet Pimpernel as I do. I have seen him at his nefarious work. I +know what he can do. There is nothing that he would not venture ... +there are few ventures in which he does not succeed. He is as strong as +an ox, as agile as a cat. He can see in the dark and he can always +vanish in a crowd. Here, there and everywhere, you never know where he +will appear. He is a past master in the art of disguise and he is a born +mountebank. Believe me, citizen, we shall want all the resources of our +joint intellects to frustrate the machinations of such a foe."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span></p> + +<p>Carrier mused for a moment in silence.</p> + +<p>"H'm!" he said after awhile, and with a sardonic laugh. "You may be +right, citizen Chauvelin. You have had experience with the rascal ... +you ought to know him. We won't leave anything to chance—don't be +afraid of that. My Marats will be keen on the capture. We'll promise +commandant Fleury a thousand francs for himself and another thousand to +be distributed among his men if we lay hands on the English assassins +to-night. We'll leave nothing to chance," he reiterated with an oath.</p> + +<p>"In which case, citizen Carrier, you must on your side agree to two +things," rejoined Chauvelin firmly.</p> + +<p>"What are they?"</p> + +<p>"You must order Commandant Fleury to place himself and half a company of +his Marats at my disposal."</p> + +<p>"What else?"</p> + +<p>"You must allow them to lend a hand if there is an attempt to kidnap the +Kernogan wench while she is being conveyed to the Rat Mort...."</p> + +<p>Carrier hesitated for a second or two, but only for form's sake: it was +his nature whenever he was forced to yield to do so grudgingly.</p> + +<p>"Very well!" he said at last. "I'll order Fleury to be on the watch and +to interfere if there is any street-brawling outside or near the Rat +Mort. Will that suit you?"</p> + +<p>"Perfectly. I shall be on the watch too—somewhere close by.... I'll +warn commandant Fleury if I suspect that the English are making ready +for a coup outside the tavern. Personally I think it unlikely—because +the duc de Kernogan will be inside the Rat Mort all the time, and he too +will be the object of the Englishmen's attacks on his behalf. Citizen +Martin-Roget too has about a score or so of his friends posted outside +his sister's house: they are lads<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> from his village who hate the +Kernogans as much as he does himself. Still! I shall feel easier in my +mind now that I am certain of commandant Fleury's co-operation."</p> + +<p>"Then it seems to me that we have arranged everything satisfactorily, +what?"</p> + +<p>"Everything, except the exact moment when Commandant Fleury shall +advance with his men to the door of the tavern and demand admittance in +the name of the Republic."</p> + +<p>"Yes, he will have to make quite sure that the whole of our quarry is +inside the net, eh?... before he draws the strings ... or all our pretty +plans fall to nought."</p> + +<p>"As you say," rejoined Chauvelin, "we must make sure. Supposing +therefore that we get the wench safely into the tavern, that we have her +there with her father, what we shall want will be some one in +observation—some one who can help us to draw our birds into the snare +just when we are ready for them. Now there is a man whom I have in my +mind: he hath name Paul Friche and is one of your Marats—a surly, +ill-conditioned giant ... he was on guard outside Le Bouffay this +afternoon.... I spoke to him ... he would suit our purpose admirably."</p> + +<p>"What do you want him to do?"</p> + +<p>"Only to make himself look as like a Nantese cut-throat as he can...."</p> + +<p>"He looks like one already," broke in Jacques Lalouët with a laugh.</p> + +<p>"So much the better. He'll excite no suspicion in that case in the minds +of the frequenters of the Rat Mort. Then I'll instruct him to start a +brawl—a fracas—soon after the arrival of the Kernogan wench. The row +will inevitably draw the English adventurers hot-haste to the spot, +either in the hope of getting the Kernogans away<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> during the <i>mêlée</i> or +with a view to protecting them. As soon as they have appeared upon the +scene, the half company of the Marats will descend on the house and +arrest every one inside it."</p> + +<p>"It all sounds remarkably simple," rejoined Carrier, and with a leer of +satisfaction he turned to Jacques Lalouët.</p> + +<p>"What think you of it, citizen?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"That it sounds so remarkably simple," replied young Lalouët, "that +personally I should be half afraid...."</p> + +<p>"Of what?" queried Chauvelin blandly.</p> + +<p>"If you fail, citizen Chauvelin...."</p> + +<p>"Impossible!"</p> + +<p>"If the Englishmen do not appear?"</p> + +<p>"Even so the citizen proconsul will have lost nothing. He will merely +have failed to gain the twenty thousand francs. But the Kernogans will +still be in his power and citizen Martin-Roget's ten thousand francs are +in any case assured."</p> + +<p>"Friend Jean-Baptiste," concluded Lalouët with his habitual insolent +familiarity, "you had better do what citizen Chauvelin wants. Ten +thousand francs are good ... and thirty better still. Our privy purse +has been empty far too long, and I for one would like the handling of a +few brisk notes."</p> + +<p>"It will only be twenty-eight, citizen Lalouët," interposed Chauvelin +blandly, "for commandant Fleury will want one thousand francs and his +men another thousand to stimulate their zeal. Still! I imagine that +these hard times twenty-eight thousand francs are worth fighting for."</p> + +<p>"You seem to be fighting and planning and scheming for nothing, citizen +Chauvelin," retorted young Lalouët with a sneer. "What are you going to +gain, I should like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> to know, by the capture of that dare-devil +Englishman?"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" replied Chauvelin suavely, "I shall gain the citizen proconsul's +regard, I hope—and yours too, citizen Lalouët. I want nothing more +except the success of my plan."</p> + +<p>Young Lalouët jumped down to his feet. He shrugged his shoulders and +through his fine eyes shot a glance of mockery and scorn on the thin, +shrunken figure of the Terrorist.</p> + +<p>"How you do hate that Englishman, citizen Chauvelin," he said with a +light laugh.</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>Carrier having fully realised that he in any case stood to make a vast +sum of money out of the capture of the band of English spies, gave his +support generously to Chauvelin's scheme. Fleury, summoned into his +presence, was ordered to place himself and half a company of Marats at +the disposal of citizen Chauvelin. He demurred and growled like a bear +with a sore head at being placed under the orders of a civilian, but it +was not easy to run counter to the proconsul's will. A good deal of +swearing, one or two overt threats and the citizen commandant was +reduced to submission. The promise of a thousand francs, when the reward +for the capture of the English spies was paid out by a grateful +Government, overcame his last objections.</p> + +<p>"I think you should rid yourself of that obstinate oaf," was young +Lalouët's cynical comment, when Fleury had finally left the audience +chamber; "he is too argumentative for my taste."</p> + +<p>Chauvelin smiled quietly to himself. He cared little what became of +every one of these Nantese louts once his great object had been +attained.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I need not trouble you further, citizen Carrier," he said as he finally +rose to take his leave. "I shall have my hands full until I myself lay +that meddlesome Englishman bound and gagged at your feet."</p> + +<p>The phrase delighted Carrier's insensate vanity. He was overgracious to +Chauvelin now.</p> + +<p>"You shall do that at the Rat Mort, citizen Chauvelin," he said with +marked affability, "and I myself will commend you for your zeal to the +Committee of Public Safety."</p> + +<p>"Always supposing," interposed Jacques Lalouët with his cynical laugh, +"that citizen Chauvelin does not let the whole rabble slip through his +fingers."</p> + +<p>"If I do," concluded Chauvelin drily, "you may drag the Loire for my +body to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" laughed Carrier, "we won't trouble to do that. <i>Au revoir</i>, +citizen Chauvelin," he added with one of his grandiloquent gestures of +dismissal, "I wish you luck at the Rat Mort to-night."</p> + +<p>Jacques Lalouët ushered Chauvelin out. When he was finally left standing +alone at the head of the stairs and young Lalouët's footsteps had ceased +to resound across the floors of the rooms beyond, he remained quite +still for awhile, his eyes fixed into vacancy, his face set and +expressionless; and through his lips there came a long-drawn-out sigh of +intense satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"And now, my fine Scarlet Pimpernel," he murmured softly, "once more <i>à +nous deux</i>."</p> + +<p>Then he ran swiftly down the stairs and a moment later was once more +speeding toward Le Bouffay.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_V_a" id="CHAPTER_V_a"></a>CHAPTER V</h3> + +<h4>THE MESSAGE OF HOPE</h4> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>After Martin-Roget and Chauvelin had left her, Yvonne had sat for a long +time motionless, almost unconscious. It seemed as if gradually, hour by +hour, minute by minute, her every feeling of courage and of hope were +deserting her. Three days now she had been separated from her +father—three days she had been under the constant supervision of a +woman who had not a single thought of compassion or of mercy for the +"aristocrat" whom she hated so bitterly.</p> + +<p>At night, curled up on a small bundle of dank straw Yvonne had made vain +efforts to snatch a little sleep. Ever since the day when she had been +ruthlessly torn away from the protection of her dear milor, she had +persistently clung to the belief that he would find the means to come to +her, to wrest her from the cruel fate which her pitiless enemies had +devised for her. She had clung to that hope throughout that dreary +journey from dear England to this abominable city. She had clung to it +even whilst her father knelt at her feet in an agony of remorse. She had +clung to hope while Martin-Roget alternately coaxed and terrorised her, +while her father was dragged away from her, while she endured untold +misery, starvation, humiliation at the hands of Louise Adet: but +now—quite unaccountably—that hope seemed suddenly to have fled from +her, leaving her lonely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span> and inexpressibly desolate. That small, +shrunken figure which, wrapped in a dark mantle, had stood in the corner +of the room watching her like a serpent watches its prey, had seemed +like the forerunner of the fate with which Martin-Roget, gloating over +her helplessness, had already threatened her.</p> + +<p>She knew, of course, that neither from him, nor from the callous brute +who governed Nantes, could she expect the slightest justice or mercy. +She had been brought here by Martin-Roget not only to die, but to suffer +grievously at his hands in return for a crime for which she personally +was in no way responsible. To hope for mercy from him at the eleventh +hour were worse than futile. Her already overburdened heart ached at +thought of her father: he suffered all that she suffered, and in +addition he must be tortured with anxiety for her and with remorse. +Sometimes she was afraid that under the stress of desperate soul-agony +he might perhaps have been led to suicide. She knew nothing of what had +happened to him, where he was, nor whether privations and lack of food +or sleep, together with Martin-Roget's threats, had by now weakened his +morale and turned his pride into humiliating submission.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>A distant tower-clock struck the evening hours one after the other. +Yvonne for the past three days had only been vaguely conscious of time. +Martin-Roget had spoken of a few hours' respite only, of the proconsul's +desire to be soon rid of her. Well! this meant no doubt that the morrow +would see the end of it all—the end of her life which such a brief +while ago seemed so full of delight, of love and of happiness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span></p> + +<p>The end of her life! She had hardly begun to live and her dear milor had +whispered to her such sweet promises of endless vistas of bliss.</p> + +<p>Yvonne shivered beneath her thin gown. The north-westerly blast came in +cruel gusts through the unglazed window and a vague instinct of +self-preservation caused Yvonne to seek shelter in the one corner of the +room where the icy draught did not penetrate quite so freely.</p> + +<p>Eight, nine and ten struck from the tower-clock far away: she heard +these sounds as in a dream. Tired, cold and hungry her vitality at that +moment was at its lowest ebb—and, with her back resting against the +wall she fell presently into a torpor-like sleep.</p> + +<p>Suddenly something roused her, and in an instant she sat up—wide-awake +and wide-eyed, every one of her senses conscious and on the alert. +Something had roused her—at first she could not say what it was—or +remember. Then presently individual sounds detached themselves from the +buzzing in her ears. Hitherto the house had always been so still; except +on the isolated occasions when Martin-Roget had come to visit her and +his heavy tread had caused every loose board in the tumble-down house to +creak, it was only Louise Adet's shuffling footsteps which had roused +the dormant echoes, when she crept upstairs either to her own room, or +to throw a piece of stale bread to her prisoner.</p> + +<p>But now—it was neither Martin-Roget's heavy footfall nor the shuffling +gait of Louise Adet which had roused Yvonne from her trance-like sleep. +It was a gentle, soft, creeping step which was slowly, cautiously +mounting the stairs. Yvonne crouching against the wall could count every +tread—now and then a board creaked—now and then the footsteps halted.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span></p> + +<p>Yvonne, wide-eyed, her heart stirred by a nameless terror was watching +the door.</p> + +<p>The piece of tallow-candle flickered in the draught. Its feeble light +just touched the remote corner of the room. And Yvonne heard those soft, +creeping footsteps as they reached the landing and came to a halt +outside the door.</p> + +<p>Every drop of blood in her seemed to be frozen by terror: her knees +shook: her heart almost stopped its beating.</p> + +<p>Under the door something small and white had just been introduced—a +scrap of paper; and there it remained—white against the darkness of the +unwashed boards—a mysterious message left here by an unknown hand, +whilst the unknown footsteps softly crept down the stairs again.</p> + +<p>For awhile longer Yvonne remained as she was—cowering against the +wall—like a timid little animal, fearful lest that innocent-looking +object hid some unthought-of danger. Then at last she gathered courage. +Trembling with excitement she raised herself to her knees and then on +hands and knees—for she was very weak and faint—she crawled up to that +mysterious piece of paper and picked it up.</p> + +<p>Her trembling hand closed over it. With wide staring terror-filled eyes +she looked all round the narrow room, ere she dared cast one more glance +on that mysterious scrap of paper. Then she struggled to her feet and +tottered up to the table. She sat down and with fingers numbed with cold +she smoothed out the paper and held it close to the light, trying to +read what was written on it.</p> + +<p>Her sight was blurred. She had to pull herself resolutely together, for +suddenly she felt ashamed of her weakness and her overwhelming terror +yielded to feverish excitement.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span></p> + +<p>The scrap of paper contained a message—a message addressed to her in +that name of which she was so proud—the name which she thought she +would never be allowed to bear again: Lady Anthony Dewhurst. She +reiterated the words several times, her lips clinging lovingly to +them—and just below them there was a small device, drawn in red ink ... +a tiny flower with five petals....</p> + +<p>Yvonne frowned and murmured, vaguely puzzled—no longer frightened now: +"A flower ... drawn in red ... what can it mean?"</p> + +<p>And as a vague memory struggled for expression in her troubled mind she +added half aloud: "Oh! if it should be ...!"</p> + +<p>But now suddenly all her fears fell away from her. Hope was once more +knocking at the gates of her heart—vague memories had taken definite +shape ... the mysterious letter ... the message of hope ... the red +flower ... all were gaining significance. She stooped low to read the +letter by the feeble light of the flickering candle. She read it through +with her eyes first—then with her lips in a soft murmur, while her mind +gradually took in all that it meant for her.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"Keep up your courage. Your friends are inside the city and on the +watch. Try the door of your prison every evening at one hour before +midnight. Once you will find it yield. Slip out and creep +noiselessly down the stairs. At the bottom a friendly hand will be +stretched out for you. Take it with confidence—it will lead you to +safety and to freedom. Courage and secrecy."</p></blockquote> + +<p>When she had finished reading, her eyes were swimming in tears. There +was no longer any doubt in her mind about the message now, for her dear +milor had so often<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span> spoken to her about the brave Scarlet Pimpernel who +had risked his precious life many a time ere this, in order to render +service to the innocent and the oppressed. And now, of a surety, this +message came from him: from her dear milor and from his gallant chief. +There was the small device—the little red flower which had so often +brought hope to despairing hearts. And it was more than hope that it +brought to Yvonne. It brought certitude and happiness, and a sweet, +tender remorse that she should ever have doubted. She ought to have +known all along that everything would be for the best: she had no right +ever to have given way to despair. In her heart she prayed for +forgiveness from her dear absent milor.</p> + +<p>How could she ever doubt him? Was it likely that he would abandon +her?—he and that brave friend of his whose powers were indeed magical. +Why! she ought to have done her best to keep up her physical as well as +her mental faculties—who knows? But perhaps physical strength might be +of inestimable value both to herself and to her gallant rescuers +presently.</p> + +<p>She took up the stale brown bread and ate it resolutely. She drank some +water and then stamped round the room to get some warmth into her limbs.</p> + +<p>A distant clock had struck ten awhile ago—and if possible she ought to +get an hour's rest before the time came for her to be strong and to act: +so she shook up her meagre straw paillasse and lay down, determined if +possible to get a little sleep—for indeed she felt that that was just +what her dear milor would have wished her to do.</p> + +<p>Thus time went by—waking or dreaming, Yvonne could never afterwards +have said in what state she waited during that one long hour which +separated her from the great,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> blissful moment. The bit of candle burnt +low and presently died out. After that Yvonne remained quite still upon +the straw, in total darkness: no light came in through the tiny window, +only the cold north-westerly wind blew in in gusts. But of a surety the +prisoner who was within sight of freedom felt neither cold nor fatigue +now.</p> + +<p>The tower-clock in the distance struck the quarters with dreary +monotony.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>The last stroke of eleven ceased to vibrate through the stillness of the +winter's night.</p> + +<p>Yvonne roused herself from the torpor-like state into which she had +fallen. She tried to struggle to her feet, but intensity of excitement +had caused a strange numbness to invade her limbs. She could hardly +move. A second or two ago it had seemed to her that she heard a gentle +scraping noise at the door—a drawing of bolts—the grating of a key in +the lock—then again, soft, shuffling footsteps that came and went and +that were not those of Louise Adet.</p> + +<p>At last Yvonne contrived to stand on her feet; but she had to close her +eyes and to remain quite still for awhile after that, for her ears were +buzzing and her head swimming: she thought that she must fall if she +moved and mayhap lose consciousness.</p> + +<p>But this state of weakness only lasted a few seconds: the next she had +groped her way to the door and her hand had found the iron latch. It +yielded. Then she waited, calling up all her strength—for the hour had +come wherein she must not only think and act for herself, but think of +every possibility which might occur, and act as she imagined her dear +lord would require it of her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span></p> + +<p>She pressed the clumsy iron latch further: it yielded again, and anon +she was able to push open the door.</p> + +<p>Excited yet confident she tip-toed out of the room. The darkness—like +unto pitch—was terribly disconcerting. With the exception of her narrow +prison Yvonne had only once seen the interior of the house and that was +when, half fainting, she had been dragged across its threshold and up +the stairs. She had therefore only a very vague idea as to where the +stairs lay and how she was to get about without stumbling.</p> + +<p>Slowly and cautiously she crept a few paces forward, then she turned and +carefully closed the door behind her. There was not a sound inside the +house: everything was silent around her: neither footfall nor +whisperings reached her straining ears. She felt about her with her +hands, she crouched down on her knees: anon she discovered the head of +the stairs.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly she drew back, like a frightened hare conscious of danger. +All the blood rushed back to her heart, making it beat so violently that +she once more felt sick and faint. A sound—gentle as a breath—had +broken that absolute and dead silence which up to now had given her +confidence. She felt suddenly that she was no longer alone in the +darkness—that somewhere close by there was some one—friend or foe—who +was lying in watch for her—that somewhere in the darkness something +moved and breathed.</p> + +<p>The crackling of the paper inside her kerchief served to remind her that +her dear milor was on the watch and that the blessed message had spoken +of a friendly hand which would be stretched out to her and which she was +enjoined to take with confidence. Reassured she crept on again, and anon +a softly murmured: "Hush—sh!—sh!—"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> reached her ear. It seemed to +come from down below—not very far—and Yvonne, having once more located +the head of the stairs with her hands, began slowly to creep +downstairs—softly as a mouse—step by step—but every time that a board +creaked she paused, terrified, listening for Louise Adet's heavy +footstep, for a sound that would mean the near approach of danger.</p> + +<p>"Hush—sh—sh" came again as a gentle murmur from below and the +something that moved and breathed in the darkness seemed to draw nearer +to Yvonne.</p> + +<p>A few more seconds of soul-racking suspense, a few more steps down the +creaking stairs and she felt a strong hand laid upon her wrist and heard +a muffled voice whisper in English:</p> + +<p>"All is well! Trust me! Follow me!"</p> + +<p>She did not recognise the voice, even though there was something vaguely +familiar in its intonation. Yvonne did not pause to conjecture: she had +been made happy by the very sound of the language which stood to her for +every word of love she had ever heard: it restored her courage and her +confidence in their fullest measure.</p> + +<p>Obeying the whispered command, Yvonne was content now to follow her +mysterious guide who had hold of her hand. The stairs were steep and +winding—at a turn she perceived a feeble light at their foot down +below. Up against this feeble light the form of her guide was +silhouetted in a broad, dark mass. Yvonne could see nothing of him +beyond the square outline of his shoulders and that of his sugar-loaf +hat. Her mind now was thrilled with excitement and her fingers closed +almost convulsively round his hand. He led her across Louise Adet's back +kitchen. It was from here that the feeble light came—from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> a small oil +lamp which stood on the centre table. It helped to guide Yvonne and her +mysterious friend to the bottom of the stairs, then across the kitchen +to the front door, where again complete darkness reigned. But soon +Yvonne—who was following blindly whithersoever she was led—heard the +click of a latch and the grating of a door upon its hinges: a cold +current of air caught her straight in the face. She could see nothing, +for it seemed to be as dark out of doors as in: but she had the +sensation of that open door, of a threshold to cross, of freedom and +happiness beckoning to her straight out of the gloom. Within the next +second or two she would be out of this terrible place, its squalid and +dank walls would be behind her. On ahead in that thrice welcome +obscurity her dear milor and his powerful friend were beckoning to her +to come boldly on—their protecting arms were already stretched out for +her; it seemed to her excited fancy as if the cold night-wind brought to +her ears the echo of their endearing words.</p> + +<p>She filled her lungs with the keen winter air: hope, happiness, +excitement thrilled her every nerve.</p> + +<p>"A short walk, my lady," whispered the guide, still speaking in English; +"you are not cold?"</p> + +<p>"No, no, I am not cold," she whispered in reply. "I am conscious of +nothing save that I am free."</p> + +<p>"And you are not afraid?"</p> + +<p>"Indeed, indeed I am not afraid," she murmured fervently. "May God +reward you, sir, for what you do."</p> + +<p>Again there had been that certain something—vaguely familiar—in the +way the man spoke which for the moment piqued Yvonne's curiosity. She +did not, of a truth, know English well enough to detect the very obvious +foreign intonation; she only felt that sometime in the dim and happy +past she had heard this man speak. But even this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> vague sense of +puzzlement she dismissed very quickly from her mind. Was she not taking +everything on trust? Indeed hope and confidence had a very firm hold on +her at last.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VI_a" id="CHAPTER_VI_a"></a>CHAPTER VI</h3> + +<h4>THE RAT MORT</h4> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>The guide had stepped out of the house into the street, Yvonne following +closely on his heels. The night was very dark and the narrow little +Carrefour de la Poissonnerie very sparsely lighted. Somewhere overhead +on the right, something groaned and creaked persistently in the wind. A +little further on a street lanthorn was swinging aloft, throwing a small +circle of dim, yellowish light on the unpaved street below. By its +fitful glimmer Yvonne could vaguely perceive the tall figure of her +guide as he stepped out with noiseless yet firm tread, his shoulder +brushing against the side of the nearest house as he kept closely within +the shadow of its high wall. The sight of his broad back thrilled her. +She had fallen to imagining whether this was not perchance that gallant +and all-powerful Scarlet Pimpernel himself: the mysterious friend of +whom her dear milor so often spoke with an admiration that was akin to +worship. He too was probably tall and broad—for English gentlemen were +usually built that way; and Yvonne's over-excited mind went galloping on +the wings of fancy, and in her heart she felt that she was glad that she +had suffered so much, and then lived through such a glorious moment as +this.</p> + +<p>Now from the narrow unpaved yard in front of the house the guide turned +sharply to the right. Yvonne could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> only distinguish outlines. The +streets of Nantes were familiar to her, and she knew pretty well where +she was. The lanthorn inside the clock tower of Le Bouffay guided +her—it was now on her right—the house wherein she had been kept a +prisoner these past three days was built against the walls of the great +prison house. She knew that she was in the Carrefour de la Poissonnerie.</p> + +<p>She felt neither fatigue nor cold, for she was wildly excited. The keen +north-westerly wind searched all the weak places in her worn clothing +and her thin shoes were wet through. But her courage up to this point +had never once forsaken her. Hope and the feeling of freedom gave her +marvellous strength, and when her guide paused a moment ere he turned +the angle of the high wall and whispered hurriedly: "You have courage, +my lady?" she was able to answer serenely: "In plenty, sir."</p> + +<p>She tried to peer into the darkness in order to realise whither she was +being led. The guide had come to a halt in front of the house which was +next to that of Louise Adet: it projected several feet in front of the +latter: the thing that had creaked so weirdly in the wind turned out to +be a painted sign, which swung out from an iron bracket fixed into the +wall. Yvonne could not read the writing on the sign, but she noticed +that just above it there was a small window dimly lighted from within.</p> + +<p>What sort of a house it was Yvonne could not, of course, see. The +frontage was dark save for narrow streaks of light which peeped through +the interstices of the door and through the chinks of ill-fastened +shutters on either side. Not a sound came from within, but now that the +guide had come to a halt it seemed to Yvonne—whose nerves and senses +had become preternaturally acute—that the whole air around her was +filled with muffled sounds, and when she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> stood still and strained her +ears to listen she was conscious right through the inky blackness of +vague forms—shapeless and silent—that glided past her in the gloom.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>"Your friends will meet you here," the guide whispered as he pointed to +the door of the house in front of him. "The door is on the latch. Push +it open and walk in boldly. Then gather up all your courage, for you +will find yourself in the company of poor people, whose manners are +somewhat rougher than those to which you have been accustomed. But +though the people are uncouth, you will find them kind. Above all you +will find that they will pay no heed to you. So I entreat you do not be +afraid. Your friends would have arranged for a more refined place +wherein to come and find you, but as you may well imagine they had no +choice."</p> + +<p>"I quite understand, sir," said Yvonne quietly, "and I am not afraid."</p> + +<p>"Ah! that's brave!" he rejoined. "Then do as I tell you. I give you my +word that inside that house you will be perfectly safe until such time +as your friends are able to get to you. You may have to wait an hour, or +even two; you must have patience. Find a quiet place in one of the +corners of the room and sit there quietly, taking no notice of what goes +on around you. You will be quite safe, and the arrival of your friends +is only a question of time."</p> + +<p>"My friends, sir?" she said earnestly, and her voice shook slightly as +she spoke, "are you not one of the most devoted friends I can ever hope +to have? I cannot find the words now wherewith to thank you, but...."</p> + +<p>"I pray you do not thank me," he broke in gruffly, "and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> do not waste +time in parleying. The open street is none too safe a place for you just +now. The house is."</p> + +<p>His hand was on the latch and he was about to push open the door, when +Yvonne stopped him with a word.</p> + +<p>"My father?" she whispered with passionate entreaty. "Will you help him +too?"</p> + +<p>"M. le duc de Kernogan is as safe as you are, my lady," he replied. "He +will join you anon. I pray you have no fears for him. Your friends are +caring for him in the same way as they care for you."</p> + +<p>"Then I shall see him ... soon?"</p> + +<p>"Very soon. And in the meanwhile," he added, "I pray you to sit quite +still and to wait events ... despite anything you may see or hear. Your +father's safety and your own—not to speak of that of your +friends—hangs on your quiescence, your silence, your obedience."</p> + +<p>"I will remember, sir," rejoined Yvonne quietly. "I in my turn entreat +you to have no fears for me."</p> + +<p>Even while she said this, the man pushed the door open.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Yvonne had meant to be brave. Above all she had meant to be obedient. +But even so, she could not help recoiling at sight of the place where +she had just been told she must wait patiently and silently for an hour, +or even two.</p> + +<p>The room into which her guide now gently urged her forward was large and +low, only dimly lighted by an oil-lamp which hung from the ceiling and +emitted a thin stream of black smoke and evil smell. Such air as there +was, was foul and reeked of the fumes of alcohol and charcoal, of the +smoking lamp and of rancid grease. The walls had no doubt been +whitewashed once, now they were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> of a dull greyish tint, with here and +there hideous stains of red or the marks of a set of greasy fingers. The +plaster was hanging in strips and lumps from the ceiling; it had fallen +away in patches from the walls where it displayed the skeleton laths +beneath. There were two doors in the wall immediately facing the front +entrance, and on each side of the latter there was a small window, both +insecurely shuttered. To Yvonne the whole place appeared unspeakably +squalid and noisome. Even as she entered her ears caught the sound of +hideous muttered blasphemy, followed by quickly suppressed hoarse and +mirthless laughter and the piteous cry of an infant at the breast.</p> + +<p>There were perhaps sixteen to twenty people in the room—amongst them a +goodly number of women, some of whom had tiny, miserable atoms of +humanity clinging to their ragged skirts. A group of men in tattered +shirts, bare shins and sabots stood in the centre of the room and had +apparently been in conclave when the entrance of Yvonne and her guide +caused them to turn quickly to the door and to scan the new-comers with +a furtive, suspicious look which would have been pathetic had it not +been so full of evil intent. The muttered blasphemy had come from this +group; one or two of the men spat upon the ground in the direction of +the door, where Yvonne instinctively had remained rooted to the spot.</p> + +<p>As for the women, they only betrayed their sex by the ragged clothes +which they wore: there was not a face here which had on it a single line +of softness or of gentleness: they might have been old women or young: +their hair was of a uniform, nondescript colour, lank and unkempt, +hanging in thin strands over their brows; their eyes were sunken, their +cheeks either flaccid or haggard—there was no individuality amongst +them—just one uniform sisterhood of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> wretchedness which had already +gone hand in hand with crime.</p> + +<p>Across one angle of the room there was a high wooden counter like a bar, +on which stood a number of jugs and bottles, some chunks of bread and +pieces of cheese, and a collection of pewter mugs. An old man and a fat, +coarse-featured, middle-aged woman stood behind it and dispensed various +noxious-looking liquors. Above their heads upon the grimy, tumble-down +wall the Republican device "Liberté! Egalité! Fraternité!" was scrawled +in charcoal in huge characters, and below it was scribbled the hideous +doggrel which an impious mind had fashioned last autumn on the subject +of the martyred Queen.</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>Yvonne had closed her eyes for a moment as she entered; now she turned +appealingly toward her guide.</p> + +<p>"Must it be in here?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid it must," he replied with a sigh. "You told me that you +would be brave."</p> + +<p>She pulled herself together resolutely. "I will be brave," she said +quietly.</p> + +<p>"Ah! that's better," he rejoined. "I give you my word that you will be +absolutely safe in here until such time as your friends can get to you. +I entreat you to gather up your courage. I assure you that these +wretched people are not unkind: misery—not unlike that which you +yourself have endured—has made them what they are. No doubt we should +have arranged for a better place for you wherein to await your friends +if we had the choice. But you will understand that your safety and our +own had to be our paramount consideration, and we had no choice."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>"I quite understand, sir," said Yvonne valiantly, "and am already +ashamed of my fears."</p> + +<p>And without another word of protest she stepped boldly into the room.</p> + +<p>For a moment or two the guide remained standing on the threshold, +watching Yvonne's progress. She had already perceived an empty bench in +the furthest angle of the room, up against the door opposite, where she +hoped or believed that she could remain unmolested while she waited +patiently and in silence as she had been ordered to do. She skirted the +groups of men in the centre of the room as she went, but even so she +felt more than she heard that muttered insults accompanied the furtive +and glowering looks wherewith she was regarded. More than one wretch +spat upon her skirts on the way.</p> + +<p>But now she was in no sense frightened, only wildly excited; even her +feeling of horror she contrived to conquer. The knowledge that her own +attitude, and above all her obedience, would help her gallant rescuers +in their work gave her enduring strength. She felt quite confident that +within an hour or two she would be in the arms of her dear milor who had +risked his life in order to come to her. It was indeed well worth while +to have suffered as she had done, to endure all that she might yet have +to endure, for the sake of the happiness which was in store for her.</p> + +<p>She turned to give a last look at her guide—a look which was intended +to reassure him completely as to her courage and her obedience: but +already he had gone and had closed the door behind him, and quite +against her will the sudden sense of loneliness and helplessness +clutched at her heart with a grip that made it ache. She wished that she +had succeeded in catching sight of the face of so valiant a friend: the +fact that she was safely out of Louise Adet's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> vengeful clutches was due +to the man who had just disappeared behind that door. It would be thanks +to him presently if she saw her father again. Yvonne felt more convinced +than ever that he was the Scarlet Pimpernel—milor's friend—who kept +his valiant personality a mystery, even to those who owed their lives to +him. She had seen the outline of his broad figure, she had felt the +touch of his hand. Would she recognise these again when she met him in +England in the happy days that were to come? In any case she thought +that she would recognise the voice and the manner of speaking, so unlike +that of any English gentleman she had known.</p> + + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>The man who had so mysteriously led Yvonne de Kernogan from the house of +Louise Adet to the Rat Mort, turned away from the door of the tavern as +soon as it had closed on the young girl, and started to go back the way +he came.</p> + +<p>At the angle formed by the high wall of the tavern he paused; a moving +form had detached itself from the surrounding gloom and hailed him with +a cautious whisper.</p> + +<p>"Hist! citizen Martin-Roget, is that you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Everything just as we anticipated?"</p> + +<p>"Everything."</p> + +<p>"And the wench safely inside?"</p> + +<p>"Quite safely."</p> + +<p>The other gave a low cackle, which might have been intended for a laugh.</p> + +<p>"The simplest means," he said, "are always the best."</p> + +<p>"She never suspected me. It was all perfectly simple. You are a +magician, citizen Chauvelin," added Martin-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span>Roget grudgingly. "I never +would have thought of such a clever ruse."</p> + +<p>"You see," rejoined Chauvelin drily, "I graduated in the school of a +master of all ruses—a master of daring and a past master in the art of +mimicry. And hope was our great ally—the hope that never forsakes a +prisoner—that of getting free. Your fair Yvonne had boundless faith in +the power of her English friends, therefore she fell into our trap like +a bird."</p> + +<p>"And like a bird she shall struggle in vain after this," said +Martin-Roget slowly. "Oh! that I could hasten the flight of time—the +next few minutes will hang on me like hours. And I wish too it were not +so bitterly cold," he added with a curse; "this north-westerly wind has +got into my bones."</p> + +<p>"On to your nerves, I imagine, citizen," retorted Chauvelin with a +laugh; "for my part I feel as warm and comfortable as on a lovely day in +June."</p> + +<p>"Hark! Who goes there?" broke in the other man abruptly, as a solitary +moving form detached itself from the surrounding inky blackness and the +sound of measured footsteps broke the silence of the night.</p> + +<p>"Quite in order, citizen!" was the prompt reply.</p> + +<p>The shadowy form came a step or two further forward.</p> + +<p>"Is it you, citizen Fleury?" queried Chauvelin.</p> + +<p>"Himself, citizen," replied the other.</p> + +<p>The men had spoken in a whisper. Fleury now placed his hand on +Chauvelin's arm.</p> + +<p>"We had best not stand so close to the tavern," he said, "the night +hawks are already about and we don't want to scare them."</p> + +<p>He led the others up the yard, then into a very narrow passage which lay +between Louise Adet's house and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span> Rat Mort and was bordered by the +high walls of the houses on either side.</p> + +<p>"This is a blind alley," he whispered. "We have the wall of Le Bouffay +in front of us: the wall of the Rat Mort is on one side and the house of +the citizeness Adet on the other. We can talk here undisturbed."</p> + +<p>Overhead there was a tiny window dimly lighted from within. Chauvelin +pointed up to it.</p> + +<p>"What is that?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"An aperture too small for any human being to pass through," replied +Fleury drily. "It gives on a small landing at the foot of the stairs. I +told Friche to try and manœuvre so that the wench and her father are +pushed in there out of the way while the worst of the fracas is going +on. That was your suggestion, citizen Chauvelin."</p> + +<p>"It was. I was afraid the two aristos might get spirited away while your +men were tackling the crowd in the tap-room. I wanted them put away in a +safe place."</p> + +<p>"The staircase is safe enough," rejoined Fleury; "it has no egress save +that on the tap-room and only leads to the upper story and the attic. +The house has no back entrance—it is built against the wall of Le +Bouffay."</p> + +<p>"And what about your Marats, citizen commandant?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! I have them all along the street—entirely under cover but closely +on the watch—half a company and all keen after the game. The thousand +francs you promised them has stimulated their zeal most marvellously, +and as soon as Paul Friche in there has whipped up the tempers of the +frequenters of the Rat Mort, we shall be ready to rush the place and I +assure you, citizen Chauvelin, that only a disembodied ghost—if there +be one in the place—will succeed in evading arrest."</p> + +<p>"Is Paul Friche already at his post then?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And at work—or I'm much mistaken," replied Fleury as he suddenly +gripped Chauvelin by the arm.</p> + +<p>For just at this moment the silence of the winter's night was broken by +loud cries which came from the interior of the Rat Mort—voices were +raised to hoarse and raucous cries—men and women all appeared to be +shrieking together, and presently there was a loud crash as of +overturned furniture and broken glass.</p> + +<p>"A few minutes longer, citizen Fleury," said Chauvelin, as the +commandant of the Marats turned on his heel and started to go back to +the Carrefour de la Poissonnerie.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes!" whispered the latter, "we'll wait awhile longer to give the +Englishmen time to arrive on the scene. The coast is clear for them—my +Marats are hidden from sight behind the doorways and shop-fronts of the +houses opposite. In about three minutes from now I'll send them +forward."</p> + +<p>"And good luck to your hunting, citizen," whispered Chauvelin in +response.</p> + +<p>Fleury very quickly disappeared in the darkness and the other two men +followed in his wake. They hugged the wall of the Rat Mort as they went +along and its shadow enveloped them completely: their shoes made no +sound on the unpaved ground. Chauvelin's nostrils quivered as he drew +the keen, cold air into his lungs and faced the north-westerly blast +which at this moment also lashed the face of his enemy. His keen eyes +tried to pierce the gloom, his ears were strained to hear that merry +peal of laughter which in the unforgettable past had been wont to +proclaim the presence of the reckless adventurer. He knew—he felt—as +certainly as he felt the air which he breathed, that the man whom he +hated beyond everything on earth was somewhere close by, wrapped in the +murkiness of the night—thinking,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span> planning, intriguing, pitting his +sharp wits, his indomitable pluck, his impudent dare-devilry against the +sure and patient trap which had been set for him.</p> + +<p>Half a company of Marats in front—the walls of Le Bouffay in the rear! +Chauvelin rubbed his thin hands together!</p> + +<p>"You are not a disembodied ghost, my fine Scarlet Pimpernel," he +murmured, "and this time I really think——"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VII_a" id="CHAPTER_VII_a"></a>CHAPTER VII</h3> + +<h4>THE FRACAS IN THE TAVERN</h4> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Yvonne had settled herself in a corner of the tap-room on a bench and +had tried to lose consciousness of her surroundings.</p> + +<p>It was not easy! Glances charged with rancour were levelled at her +dainty appearance—dainty and refined despite the look of starvation and +of weariness on her face and the miserable state of her clothing—and +not a few muttered insults waited on those glances.</p> + +<p>As soon as she was seated Yvonne noticed that the old man and the +coarse, fat woman behind the bar started an animated conversation +together, of which she was very obviously the object, for the two +heads—the lean and the round—were jerked more than once in her +direction. Presently the man—it was George Lemoine, the proprietor of +the Rat Mort—came up to where she was sitting: his lank figure was bent +so that his lean back formed the best part of an arc, and an expression +of mock deference further distorted his ugly face.</p> + +<p>He came up quite close to Yvonne and she found it passing difficult not +to draw away from him, for the leer on his face was appalling: his eyes, +which were set very near to his hooked nose, had a horrible squint, his +lips were thick and moist, and his breath reeked of alcohol.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What will the noble lady deign to drink?" he now asked in an oily, +suave voice.</p> + +<p>And Yvonne, remembering the guide's admonitions, contrived to smile +unconcernedly into the hideous face.</p> + +<p>"I would very much like some wine," she said cheerfully, "but I am +afraid that I have no money wherewith to pay you for it."</p> + +<p>The creature with a gesture of abject humility rubbed his greasy hands +together.</p> + +<p>"And may I respectfully ask," he queried blandly, "what are the +intentions of the noble lady in coming to this humble abode, if she hath +no desire to partake of refreshments?"</p> + +<p>"I am expecting friends," replied Yvonne bravely; "they will be here +very soon, and will gladly repay you lavishly for all the kindness which +you may be inclined to show to me the while."</p> + +<p>She was very brave indeed and looked this awful misshapen specimen of a +man quite boldly in the face: she even contrived to smile, though she +was well aware that a number of men and women—perhaps a dozen +altogether—had congregated in front of her in a compact group around +the landlord, that they were nudging one another and pointing +derisively—malevolently—at her. It was impossible, despite all +attempts at valour, to mistake the hostile attitude of these people. +Some of the most obscene words, coined during these last horrible days +of the Revolution, were freely hurled at her, and one woman suddenly +cried out in a shrill treble:</p> + +<p>"Throw her out, citizen Lemoine! We don't want spies in here!"</p> + +<p>"Indeed, indeed," said Yvonne as quietly as she could, "I am no spy. I +am poor and wreched like yourselves!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> and desperately lonely, save for +the kind friends who will meet me here anon."</p> + +<p>"Aristos like yourself!" growled one of the men. "This is no place for +you or for them."</p> + +<p>"No! No! This is no place for aristos," cried one of the women in a +voice which many excesses and many vices had rendered hoarse and rough. +"Spy or not, we don't want you in here. Do we?" she added as with arms +akimbo she turned to face those of her own sex, who behind the men had +come up in order to see what was going on.</p> + +<p>"Throw her out, Lemoine," reiterated a man who appeared to be an oracle +amongst the others.</p> + +<p>"Please! please let me stop here!" pleaded Yvonne; "if you turn me out I +shall not know what to do: I shall not know where to meet my +friends...."</p> + +<p>"Pretty story about those friends," broke in Lemoine roughly. "How do I +know if you're lying or not?"</p> + +<p>From the opposite angle of the room, the woman behind the bar had been +watching the little scene with eyes that glistened with cupidity. Now +she emerged from behind her stronghold of bottles and mugs and slowly +waddled across the room. She pushed her way unceremoniously past her +customers, elbowing men, women and children vigorously aside with a deft +play of her large, muscular arms. Having reached the forefront of the +little group she came to a standstill immediately in front of Yvonne, +and crossing her mighty arms over her ponderous chest she eyed the +"aristo" with unconcealed malignity.</p> + +<p>"We do know that the slut is lying—that is where you make the mistake, +Lemoine. A slut, that's what she is—and the friend whom she's going to +meet ...? Well!" she added, turning with an ugly leer toward the other +women, "we all know what sort of friend that one is likely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> to be, eh, +mesdames? Bringing evil fame on this house, that's what the wench is +after ... so as to bring the police about our ears ... I wouldn't trust +her, not another minute. Out with you and at once—do you hear?... this +instant ... Lemoine has parleyed quite long enough with you already!"</p> + +<p>Despite all her resolutions Yvonne was terribly frightened. While the +hideous old hag talked and screamed and waved her coarse, red arms +about, the unfortunate young girl with a great effort of will, kept +repeating to herself: "I am not frightened—I must not be frightened. He +assured me that these people would do me no harm...." But now when the +woman had ceased speaking there was a general murmur of:</p> + +<p>"Throw her out! Spy or aristo we don't want her here!" whilst some of +the men added significantly: "I am sure that she is one of Carrier's +spies and in league with his Marats! We shall have those devils in here +in a moment if we don't look out! Throw her out before she can signal to +the Marats!"</p> + +<p>Ugly faces charged with hatred and virulence were thrust threateningly +forward—one or two of the women were obviously looking forward to +joining in the scramble, when this "stuck-up wench" would presently be +hurled out into the street.</p> + +<p>"Now then, my girl, out you get," concluded the woman Lemoine, as with +an expressive gesture she proceeded to roll her sleeves higher up her +arm. She was about to lay her dirty hands on Yvonne, and the poor girl +was nearly sick with horror, when one of the men—a huge, coarse giant, +whose muscular torso, covered with grease and grime showed almost naked +through a ragged shirt which hung from his shoulders in strips—seized +the woman Lemoine by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span> the arm and dragged her back a step or two away +from Yvonne.</p> + +<p>"Don't be a fool, <i>petite mère</i>," he said, accompanying this admonition +with a blasphemous oath. "Slut or no, the wench may as well pay you +something for the privilege of staying here. Look at that cloak she's +wearing—the shoe-leather on her feet. Aren't they worth a bottle of +your sour wine?"</p> + +<p>"What's that to you, Paul Friche?" retorted the woman roughly, as with a +vigorous gesture she freed her arm from the man's grasp. "Is this my +house or yours?"</p> + +<p>"Yours, of course," replied the man with a coarse laugh and a still +coarser jest, "but this won't be the first time that I have saved you +from impulsive folly. Yesterday you were for harbouring a couple of +rogues who were Marats in disguise: if I hadn't given you warning, you +would now have swallowed more water from the Loire than you would care +to hold. But for me two days ago you would have received the goods +pinched by Ferté out of Balaze's shop, and been thrown to the fishes in +consequence for the entertainment of the proconsul and his friends. You +must admit that I've been a good friend to you before now."</p> + +<p>"And if you have, Paul Friche," retorted the hag obstinately, "I paid +you well for your friendship, both yesterday and the day before, didn't +I?"</p> + +<p>"You did," assented Friche imperturbably. "That's why I want to serve +you again to-night."</p> + +<p>"Don't listen to him, <i>petite mère</i>," interposed one of two out of the +crowd. "He is a white-livered skunk to talk to you like that."</p> + +<p>"Very well! Very well!" quoth Paul Friche, and he spat vigorously on the +ground in token that henceforth he divested himself from any +responsibility in this matter,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> "don't listen to me. Lose a benefit of +twenty, perhaps forty francs for the sake of a bit of fun. Very well! +Very well!" he continued as he turned and slouched out of the group to +the further end of the room, where he sat down on a barrel. He drew the +stump of a clay pipe out of the pocket of his breeches, stuffed it into +his mouth, stretched his long legs out before him and sucked away at his +pipe with complacent detachment. "I didn't know," he added with biting +sarcasm by way of a parting shot, "that you and Lemoine had come into a +fortune recently and that forty or fifty francs are nothing to you now."</p> + +<p>"Forty or fifty? Come! come!" protested Lemoine feebly.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Yvonne's fate was hanging in the balance. The attitude of the small +crowd was no less threatening than before, but immediate action was +withheld while the Lemoines obviously debated in their minds what was +best to be done. The instinct to "have at" an aristo with all the +accumulated hatred of many generations was warring with the innate +rapacity of the Breton peasant.</p> + +<p>"Forty or fifty?" reiterated Paul Friche emphatically. "Can't you see +that the wench is an aristo escaped out of Le Bouffay or the entrepôt?" +he added contemptuously.</p> + +<p>"I know that she is an aristo," said the woman, "that's why I want to +throw her out."</p> + +<p>"And get nothing for your pains," retorted Friche roughly. "If you wait +for her friends we may all of us get as much as twenty francs each to +hold our tongues."</p> + +<p>"Twenty francs each...." The murmur was repeated with many a sigh of +savage gluttony, by every one in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> room—and repeated again and +again—especially by the women.</p> + +<p>"You are a fool, Paul Friche ..." commented Lemoine.</p> + +<p>"A fool am I?" retorted the giant. "Then let me tell you, that 'tis you +who are a fool and worse. I happen to know," he added, as he once more +rose and rejoined the group in the centre of the room, "I happen to know +that you and every one here is heading straight for a trap arranged by +the Committee of Public Safety, whose chief emissary came into Nantes +awhile ago and is named Chauvelin. It is a trap which will land you all +in the criminal dock first and on the way to Cayenne or the guillotine +afterwards. This place is surrounded with Marats, and orders have been +issued to them to make a descent on this place, as soon as papa +Lemoine's customers are assembled. There are two members of the accursed +company amongst us at the present moment...."</p> + +<p>He was standing right in the middle of the room, immediately beneath the +hanging lamp. At his words—spoken with such firm confidence, as one who +knows and is therefore empowered to speak—a sudden change came over the +spirit of the whole assembly. Everything was forgotten in the face of +this new danger—two Marats, the sleuth-hounds of the proconsul—here +present, as spies and as informants! Every face became more +haggard—every cheek more livid. There was a quick and furtive scurrying +toward the front door.</p> + +<p>"Two Marats here?" shouted one man, who was bolder than the rest. "Where +are they?"</p> + +<p>Paul Friche, who towered above his friends, stood at this moment quite +close to a small man, dressed like the others in ragged breeches and +shirt, and wearing the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span> broad-brimmed hat usually affected by the Breton +peasantry.</p> + +<p>"Two Marats? Two spies?" screeched a woman. "Where are they?"</p> + +<p>"Here is one," replied Paul Friche with a loud laugh: and with his large +grimy hand he lifted the hat from his neighbour's head and threw it on +the ground; "and there," he added as with long, bony finger he pointed +to the front door, where another man—a square-built youngster with +tow-coloured hair somewhat resembling a shaggy dog—was endeavouring to +effect a surreptitious exit, "there is the other; and he is on the point +of slipping quietly away in order to report to his captain what he has +seen and heard at the Rat Mort. One moment, citizen," he added, and with +a couple of giant strides he too had reached the door; his large rough +hand had come down heavily on the shoulder of the youth with the +tow-coloured hair, and had forced him to veer round and to face the +angry, gesticulating crowd.</p> + +<p>"Two Marats! Two spies!" shouted the men. "Now we'll soon settle their +little business for them!"</p> + +<p>"Marat yourself," cried the small man who had first been denounced by +Friche. "I am no Marat, as a good many of you here know. Maman Lemoine," +he added pleading, "you know me. Am I a Marat?"</p> + +<p>But the Lemoines—man and wife—at the first suggestion of police had +turned a deaf ear to all their customers. Their own safety being in +jeopardy they cared little what happened to anybody else. They had +retired behind their counter and were in close consultation together, no +doubt as to the best means of escape if indeed the man Paul Friche spoke +the truth.</p> + +<p>"I know nothing about him," the woman was saying,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span> "but he certainly was +right last night about those two men who came ferreting in here—and +last week too...."</p> + +<p>"Am I a Marat, maman Lemoine?" shouted the small man as he hammered his +fists upon the counter. "For ten years and more I have been a customer +in this place and...."</p> + +<p>"Am I a Marat?" shouted the youth with the tow-coloured hair addressing +the assembly indiscriminately. "Some of you here know me well enough. +Jean Paul, you know—Ledouble, you too...."</p> + +<p>"Of course! Of course I know you well enough, Jacques Leroux," came with +a loud laugh from one of the crowd. "Who said you were a Marat?"</p> + +<p>"Am I a Marat, maman Lemoine?" reiterated the small man at the counter.</p> + +<p>"Oh! leave me alone with your quarrels," shouted the woman Lemoine in +reply. "Settle them among yourselves."</p> + +<p>"Then if Jacques Leroux is not a Marat," now came in a bibulous voice +from a distant comer of the room, "and this compeer here is known to +maman Lemoine, where are the real Marats who according to this fellow +Friche, whom we none of us know, are spying upon us?"</p> + +<p>"Yes! where are they?" suggested another. "Show 'em to us, Paul Friche, +or whatever your accursed name happens to be."</p> + +<p>"Tell us where you come from yourself," screamed the woman with the +shrill treble, "it seems to me quite possible that you're a Marat +yourself."</p> + +<p>This suggestion was at once taken up.</p> + +<p>"Marat yourself!" shouted the crowd, and the two men who a moment ago +had been accused of being spies in disguise shouted louder than the +rest: "Marat yourself!"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span></p> +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>After that, pandemonium reigned.</p> + +<p>The words "police" and "Marats" had aroused the terror of all these +night-hawks, who were wont to think themselves immune inside their lair: +and terror is at all times an evil counsellor. In the space of a few +seconds confusion held undisputed sway. Every one screamed, waved arms, +stamped feet, struck out with heavy bare fists at his nearest neighbour. +Every one's hand was against every one else.</p> + +<p>"Spy! Marat! Informer!" were the three words that detached themselves +most clearly from out the babel of vituperations freely hurled from end +to end of the room.</p> + +<p>The children screamed, the women's shrill or hoarse treble mingled with +the cries and imprecations of the men.</p> + +<p>Paul Friche had noted that the turn of the tide was against him, long +before the first naked fist had been brandished in his face. Agile as a +monkey he had pushed his way through to the bar, and placing his two +hands upon it, with a swift leap he had taken up a sitting position in +the very middle of the table amongst the jugs and bottles, which he +promptly seized and used as missiles and weapons, whilst with his +dangling feet encased in heavy sabots he kicked out vigorously and +unceasingly against the shins of his foremost assailants.</p> + +<p>He had the advantage of position and used it cleverly. In his right hand +he held a pewter mug by the handle and used it as a swivel against his +aggressors with great effect.</p> + +<p>"The Loire for you—you blackmailer! liar! traitor!" shouted some of the +women who, bolder than the men, thrust shaking fists at Paul Friche as +closely as that pewter mug would allow.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Break his jaw before he can yell for the police," admonished one of the +men from the rear, "before he can save his own skin."</p> + +<p>But those who shouted loudest had only their fists by way of weapon and +Paul Friche had mugs and bottles, and those sabots of his kicked out +with uncomfortable agility.</p> + +<p>"Break my jaw, will you," he shouted every time that a blow from the mug +went home, "a spy am I? Very well then, here's for you, Jacques Leroux; +go and nurse your cracked skull at home. You want a row," he added +hitting at a youth who brandished a heavy fist in his face, "well! you +shall have it and as much of it as you like! as much of it as will bring +the patrols of police comfortably about your ears."</p> + +<p>Bang! went the pewter mug crashing against a man's hard skull! Bang went +Paul Friche's naked fist against the chest of another. He was a hard +hitter and swift.</p> + +<p>The Lemoines from behind their bar shouted louder than the rest, doing +as much as their lungs would allow them in the way of admonishing, +entreating, protesting—cursing every one for a set of fools who were +playing straight into the hands of the police.</p> + +<p>"Now then! Now then, children, stop that bellowing, will you? There are +no spies here. Paul Friche was only having his little joke! We all know +one another, what?"</p> + +<p>"Camels!" added Lemoine more forcibly. "They'll bring the patrols about +our ears for sure."</p> + +<p>Paul Friche was not by any means the only man who was being vigorously +attacked. After the first two or three minutes of this kingdom of +pandemonium, it was difficult to say who was quarrelling with whom. Old +grudges were revived, old feuds taken up there, where they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> had +previously been interrupted. Accusations of spying were followed by +abuse for some past wrong of black-legging or cheating a confrère. The +temperature of the room became suffocating. All these violent passions +seething within these four walls seemed to become tangible and to mingle +with the atmosphere already surcharged with the fumes of alcohol, of +tobacco and of perspiring humanity. There was many a black-eye already, +many a contusion: more than one knife—surreptitiously drawn—was +already stained with red.</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>There was also a stampede for the door. One man gave the signal. Seeing +that his mates were wasting precious time by venting their wrath against +Paul Friche and then quarrelling among themselves, he hoped to effect an +escape ere the police came to stop the noise. No one believed in the +place being surrounded. Why should it be? The Marats were far too busy +hunting up rebels and aristos to trouble much about the Rat Mort and its +customers, but it was quite possible that a brawl would bring a patrol +along, and then 'ware the <i>police correctionnelle</i> and the possibility +of deportation or worse. Retreat was undoubtedly safer while there was +time. One man first: then one or two more on his heels, and those among +the women who had children in their arms or clinging to their skirts: +they turned stealthily to the door—almost ashamed of their cowardice, +ashamed lest they were seen abandoning the field of combat.</p> + +<p>It was while confusion reigned unchecked that Yvonne—who was cowering, +frankly terrified at last, in the corner of the room, became aware that +the door close beside her—the door situated immediately opposite the +front entrance—was surreptitiously opened. She turned quickly to +look—for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span> she was like a terror-stricken little animal now—one that +scents and feels and fears danger from every quarter round. The door was +being pushed open very slowly by what was still to Yvonne an unseen +hand. Somehow that opening door fascinated her: for the moment she +forgot the noise and the confusion around her.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly with a great effort of will she checked the scream which +had forced itself up to her throat.</p> + +<p>"Father!" was all that she contrived to say in a hoarse and passionate +murmur.</p> + +<p>Fortunately as he peered cautiously round the room, M. le duc caught +sight of his daughter. She was staring at him—wide-eyed, her lips +bloodless, her cheeks the colour of ashes. He looked but the ghost now +of that proud aristocrat who little more than a week ago was the centre +of a group of courtiers round the person of the heir to the English +throne. Starved, emaciated, livid, he was the shadow of his former self, +and there was a haunted look in his purple-rimmed eyes which spoke with +pathetic eloquence of sleepless nights and of a soul tortured with +remorse.</p> + +<p>Just for the moment no one took any notice of him—every one was +shrieking, every one was quarrelling, and M. le duc, placing a finger to +his lips, stole cautiously round to his daughter. The next instant they +were clinging to one another, these two, who had endured so much +together—he the father who had wrought such an unspeakable wrong, and +she the child who was so lonely, so forlorn and almost happy in finding +some one who belonged to her, some one to whom she could cling.</p> + +<p>"Father, dear! what shall we do?" Yvonne murmured, for she felt the last +shred of her fictitious courage oozing out of her, in face of this awful +lawlessness which literally paralysed her thinking faculties.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Sh! dear!" whispered M. le duc in reply. "We must get out of this +loathsome place while this hideous row is going on. I heard it all from +the filthy garret up above, where those devils have kept me these three +days. The door was not locked.... I crept downstairs.... No one is +paying heed to us.... We can creep out. Come."</p> + +<p>But at the suggestion, Yvonne's spirits, which had been stunned by the +events of the past few moments, revived with truly mercurial rapidity.</p> + +<p>"No! no! dear," she urged. "We must stay here.... You don't know.... I +have had a message—from my own dear milor—my husband ... he sent a +friend to take me out of the hideous prison where that awful Pierre Adet +was keeping me—a friend who assured me that my dear milor was watching +over me ... he brought me to this place—and begged me not to be +frightened ... but to wait patiently ... and I must wait, dear ... I +must wait!"</p> + +<p>She spoke rapidly in whispers and in short jerky sentences. M. le duc +listened to her wide-eyed, a deep line of puzzlement between his brows. +Sorrow, remorse, starvation, misery had in a measure numbed his mind. +The thought of help, of hope, of friends could not penetrate into his +brain.</p> + +<p>"A message," he murmured inanely, "a message. No! no! my girl, you must +trust no one.... Pierre Adet.... Pierre Adet is full of evil tricks—he +will trap you ... he means to destroy us both ... he has brought you +here so that you should be murdered by these ferocious devils."</p> + +<p>"Impossible, father dear," she said, still striving to speak bravely. +"We have both of us been all this while in the power of Pierre Adet; he +could have had no object in bringing me here to-night."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span></p> + +<p>But the father who had been an insentient tool in the schemes of that +miserable intriguer, who had been the means of bringing his only child +to this terrible and deadly pass—the man who had listened to the lying +counsels and proposals of his own most bitter enemy, could only groan +now in terror and in doubt.</p> + +<p>"Who can probe the depths of that abominable villain's plans?" he +murmured vaguely.</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile the little group who had thought prudence the better +part of valour had reached the door. The foremost man amongst them +opened it and peered cautiously out into the darkness. He turned back to +those behind him, put a finger to his lip and beckoned to them to follow +him in silence.</p> + +<p>"Yvonne, let us go!" whispered the duc, who had seized his daughter by +the hand.</p> + +<p>"But father...."</p> + +<p>"Let us go!" he reiterated pitiably. "I shall die if we stay here!"</p> + +<p>"It won't be for long, father dear," she entreated; "if milor should +come with his friend, and find us gone, we should be endangering his +life as well as our own."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it," he rejoined with the obstinacy of weakness. "I +don't believe in your message ... how could milor or anyone come to your +rescue, my child?... No one knows that you are here, in this hell in +Nantes."</p> + +<p>Yvonne clung to him with the strength of despair. She too was as +terrified as any human creature could be and live, but terror had not +altogether swept away her belief in that mysterious message, in that +tall guide who had led her hither, in that scarlet device—the +five-petalled flower<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> which stood for everything that was most gallant +and most brave.</p> + +<p>She desired with all her might to remain here—despite everything, +despite the awful brawl that was raging round her and which sickened +her, despite the horror of the whole thing—to remain here and to wait. +She put her arms round her father: she dragged him back every time that +he tried to move. But a sort of unnatural strength seemed to have +conquered his former debility. His attempts to get away became more and +more determined and more and more febrile.</p> + +<p>"Come, Yvonne! we must go!" he continued to murmur intermittently and +with ever-growing obstinacy. "No one will notice us.... I heard the +noise from my garret upstairs.... I crept down.... I knew no one would +notice me.... Come—we must go ... now is our time."</p> + +<p>"Father, dear, whither could we go? Once in the streets of Nantes what +would happen to us?"</p> + +<p>"We can find our way to the Loire!" he retorted almost brutally. He +shook himself free from her restraining arms and gripped her firmly by +the hand. He tried to drag her toward the door, whilst she still +struggled to keep him back. He had just caught sight of the group of men +and women at the front door: their leader was standing upon the +threshold and was still peering out into the darkness.</p> + +<p>But the next moment they all came to a halt: what their leader had +perceived through the darkness did not evidently quite satisfy him: he +turned and held a whispered consultation with the others. M. le duc +strove with all his might to join in with that group. He felt that in +its wake would lie the road to freedom. He would have struck Yvonne for +standing in the way of her own safety.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Father dear," she contrived finally to say to him, "if you go hence, +you will go alone. Nothing will move me from here, because I know that +milor will come."</p> + +<p>"Curse you for your obstinacy," retorted the duc, "you jeopardise my +life and yours."</p> + +<p>Then suddenly from the angle of the room where wrangling and fighting +were at their fiercest, there came a loud call:</p> + +<p>"Look out, père Lemoine, your aristos are running away. You are losing +your last chance of those fifty francs."</p> + +<p>It was Paul Friche who had shouted. His position on the table was giving +him a commanding view over the heads of the threatening, shouting, +perspiring crowd, and he had just caught sight of M. le duc dragging his +daughter by force toward the door.</p> + +<p>"The authors of all this pother," he added with an oath, "and they will +get away whilst we have the police about our ears."</p> + +<p>"Name of a name of a dog," swore Lemoine from behind his bar, "that +shall not be. Come along, maman, let us bring those aristos along here. +Quick now."</p> + +<p>It was all done in a second. Lemoine and his wife, with the weight and +authority of the masters of the establishment, contrived to elbow their +way through the crowd. The next moment Yvonne felt herself forcibly +dragged away from her father.</p> + +<p>"This way, my girl, and no screaming," a bibulous voice said in her ear, +"no screaming, or I'll smash some of those front teeth of yours. You +said some rich friends were coming along for you presently. Well then! +come and wait for them out of the crowd!"</p> + +<p>Indeed Yvonne had no desire to struggle or to scream. Salvation she +thought had come to her and to her father<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span> in this rough guise. In +another moment mayhap he would have forced her to follow him, to leave +milor in the lurch, to jeopardise for ever every chance of safety.</p> + +<p>"It is all for the best, father dear," she managed to cry out over her +shoulder, for she had just caught sight of him being seized round the +shoulders by Lemoine and heard him protesting loudly:</p> + +<p>"I'll not go! I'll not go! Let me go!" he shouted hoarsely. "My +daughter! Yvonne! Let me go! You devil!"</p> + +<p>But Lemoine had twice the vigour of the duc de Kernogan, nor did he care +one jot about the other's protests. He hated all this row inside his +house, but there had been rows in it before and he was beginning to hope +that nothing serious would come of it. On the other hand, Paul Friche +might be right about these aristos; there might be forty or fifty francs +to be made out of them, and in any case they had one or two things upon +their persons which might be worth a few francs—and who knows? they +might even have something in their pockets worth taking.</p> + +<p>This hope and thought gave Lemoine additional strength, and seeing that +the aristo struggled so desperately, he thought to silence him by +bringing his heavy fist with a crash upon the old man's head.</p> + +<p>"Yvonne! <i>A moi!</i>" shouted M. le duc ere he fell back senseless.</p> + +<p>That awful cry, Yvonne heard it as she was being dragged through the +noisome crowd. It mingled in her ear with the other awful sounds—the +oaths and blasphemies which filled the air with their hideousness. It +died away just as a formidable crash against the entrance door suddenly +silenced every cry within.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span></p> + +<p>"All hands up!" came with a peremptory word of command from the doorway.</p> + +<p>"Mercy on us!" murmured the woman Lemoine, who still had Yvonne by the +hand, "we are undone this time."</p> + +<p>There was a clatter and grounding of arms—a scurrying of bare feet and +sabots upon the floor, the mingled sounds of men trying to fly and being +caught in the act and hurled back: screams of terror from the women, one +or two pitiable calls, a few shrill cries from frightened children, a +few dull thuds as of human bodies falling.... It was all so confused, so +unspeakably horrible. Yvonne was hardly conscious. Near her some one +whispered hurriedly:</p> + +<p>"Put the aristos away somewhere, maman Lemoine ... the whole thing may +only be a scare ... the Marats may only be here about the aristos ... +they will probably leave you alone if you give them up ... perhaps +you'll get a reward.... Put them away till some of this row subsides ... +I'll talk to commandant Fleury if I can."</p> + +<p>Yvonne felt her knees giving way under her. There was nothing more to +hope for now—nothing. She felt herself lifted from the ground—she was +too sick and faint to realise what was happening: through the din which +filled her ears she vainly tried to distinguish her father's voice +again.</p> + + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>A moment or two later she found herself squatting somewhere on the +ground. How she got here she did not know—where she was she knew still +less. She was in total darkness. A fusty, close smell of food and wine +gave her a wretched feeling of nausea—her head ached intolerably, her +eyes were hot, her throat dry: there was a constant buzzing in her +ears.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span>The terrible sounds of fighting and screaming and cursing, the crash of +broken glass and overturned benches came to her as through a +partition—close by but muffled.</p> + +<p>In the immediate nearness all was silence and darkness.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIII_a" id="CHAPTER_VIII_a"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h3> + +<h4>THE ENGLISH ADVENTURERS</h4> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>It was with that muffled din still ringing in her ear and with the +conception of all that was going on, on the other side of the partition, +standing like an awesome spectre of evil before her mind, that Yvonne +woke to the consciousness that her father was dead.</p> + +<p>He lay along the last half-dozen steps of a narrow wooden staircase +which had its base in the narrow, cupboard-like landing on to which the +Lemoines had just thrust them both. Through a small heart-shaped hole +cut in the door of the partition-wall, a shaft of feeble light struck +straight across to the foot of the stairs: it lit up the recumbent +figure of the last of the ducs de Kernogan, killed in a brawl in a house +of evil fame.</p> + +<p>Weakened by starvation, by the hardships of the past few days, his +constitution undermined by privations and mayhap too by gnawing remorse, +he had succumbed to the stunning blow dealt to him by a half drunken +brute. His cry: "Yvonne! <i>A moi!</i>" was the last despairing call of a +soul racked with remorse to the daughter whom he had so cruelly wronged.</p> + +<p>When first that feeble shaft of light had revealed to her the presence +of that inert form upon the steps, she had struggled to her feet +and—dazed—had tottered up to it. Even before she had touched the face, +the hands, before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span> she had bent her ear to the half-closed mouth and +failed to catch the slightest breath, she knew the full extent of her +misery. The look in the wide-open eyes did not terrify her, but they +told her the truth, and since then she had cowered beside her dead +father on the bottom step of the narrow stairs, her fingers tightly +closed over that one hand which never would be raised against her.</p> + +<p>An unspeakable sense of horror filled her soul. The thought that he—the +proud father, the haughty aristocrat, should lie like this and in such a +spot, dragged in and thrown down—no doubt by Lemoine—like a parcel of +rubbish and left here to be dragged away again and thrown again like a +dog into some unhallowed ground—that thought was so horrible, so +monstrous, that at first it dominated even sorrow. Then came the +heartrending sense of loneliness. Yvonne Dewhurst had endured so much +these past few days that awhile ago she would have affirmed that nothing +could appal her in the future. But this was indeed the awful and +overwhelming climax to what had already been a surfeit of misery.</p> + +<p>This! she, Yvonne, cowering beside her dead father, with no one to stand +between her and any insult, any outrage which might be put upon her, +with nothing now but a few laths between her and that yelling, +screeching mob outside.</p> + +<p>Oh! the loneliness! the utter, utter loneliness!</p> + +<p>She kissed the inert hand, the pale forehead: with gentle, reverent +fingers she tried to smooth out those lines of horror and of fear which +gave such a pitiful expression to the face. Of all the wrongs which her +father had done her she never thought for a moment. It was he who had +brought her to this terrible pass: he who had betrayed her into the +hands of her deadliest enemy: he who had torn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> her from the protecting +arms of her dear milor and flung her and himself at the mercy of a set +of inhuman wretches who knew neither compunction nor pity.</p> + +<p>But all this she forgot, as she knelt beside the lifeless form—the last +thing on earth that belonged to her—the last protection to which she +might have clung.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Out of the confusion of sounds which came—deadened by the intervening +partition—to her ear, it was impossible to distinguish anything very +clearly. All that Yvonne could do, as soon as she had in a measure +collected her scattered senses, was to try and piece together the events +of the last few minutes—minutes which indeed seemed like days and even +years to her.</p> + +<p>Instinctively she gave to the inert hand which she held an additional +tender touch. At any rate her father was out of it all. He was at rest +and at peace. As for the rest, it was in God's hands. Having only +herself to think of now, she ceased to care what became of her. He was +out of it all: and those wretches after all could not do more than kill +her. A complete numbness of senses and of mind had succeeded the +feverish excitement of the past few hours: whether hope still survived +at this moment in Yvonne Dewhurst's mind it were impossible to say. +Certain it is that it lay dormant—buried beneath the overwhelming +misery of her loneliness.</p> + +<p>She took the fichu from her shoulders and laid it reverently over the +dead man's face: she folded the hands across the breast. She could not +cry: she could only pray, and that quite mechanically.</p> + +<p>The thought of her dear milor, of his clever friend, of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span> the message +which she had received in prison, of the guide who had led her to this +awful place, was relegated—almost as a memory—in the furthermost cell +of her brain.</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>But after awhile outraged nature, still full of vitality and of youth, +re-asserted itself. She felt numb and cold and struggled to her feet. +From somewhere close to her a continuous current of air indicated the +presence of some sort of window. Yvonne, faint with the close and sickly +smell, which even that current failed to disperse, felt her way all +round the walls of the narrow landing.</p> + +<p>The window was in the wall between the partition and the staircase, it +was small and quite low down. It was crossed with heavy iron bars. +Yvonne leaned up against it, grateful for the breath of pure air.</p> + +<p>For awhile yet she remained unconscious of everything save the confused +din which still went on inside the tavern, and at first the sounds which +came through the grated window mingled with those on the other side of +the partition. But gradually as she contrived to fill her lungs with the +cold breath of heaven, it seemed as if a curtain was being slowly drawn +away from her atrophied senses.</p> + +<p>Just below the window two men were speaking. She could hear them quite +distinctly now—and soon one of the voices—clearer than the +other—struck her ear with unmistakable familiarity.</p> + +<p>"I told Paul Friche to come out here and speak to me," Yvonne heard that +same voice say.</p> + +<p>"Then he should be here," replied the other, "and if I am not +mistaken...."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span></p> + +<p>There was a pause, and then the first voice was raised again.</p> + +<p>"Halt! Is that Paul Friche?"</p> + +<p>"At your service, citizen," came in reply.</p> + +<p>"Well! Is everything working smoothly inside?"</p> + +<p>"Quite smoothly; but your Englishmen are not there."</p> + +<p>"How do you know?"</p> + +<p>"Bah! I know most of the faces that are to be found inside the Rat Mort +at this hour: there are no strangers among them."</p> + +<p>The voice that had sounded so familiar to Yvonne was raised now in loud +and coarse laughter.</p> + +<p>"Name of a dog! I never for a moment thought that there were any +Englishmen about. Citizen Chauvelin was suffering from nightmare."</p> + +<p>"It is early yet," came in response from a gentle bland voice, "you must +have patience, citizen."</p> + +<p>"Patience? Bah!" ejaculated the other roughly. "As I told you before +'tis but little I care about your English spies. 'Tis the Kernogans I am +interested in. What have you done with them, citizen?"</p> + +<p>"I got that blundering fool Lemoine to lock them up on the landing at +the bottom of the stairs."</p> + +<p>"Is that safe?"</p> + +<p>"Absolutely. It has no egress save into the tap-room and up the stairs, +to the rooms above. Your English spies if they came now would have to +fly in and out of those top windows ere they could get to the aristos."</p> + +<p>"Then in Satan's name keep them there awhile," urged the more gentle, +insinuating voice, "until we can make sure of the English spies."</p> + +<p>"Tshaw! What foolery!" interjected the other, who appeared to be in a +towering passion. "Bring them out at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span> once, citizen Friche ... bring +them out ... right into the middle of the rabble in the tap-room.... +Commandant Fleury is directing the perquisition—he is taking down the +names of all that cattle which he is arresting inside the premises—let +the ci-devant duc de Kernogan and his exquisite daughter figure among +the vilest cut-throats of Nantes."</p> + +<p>"Citizen, let me urge on you once more ..." came in earnest persuasive +accents from that gentle voice.</p> + +<p>"Nothing!" broke in the other savagely. "To h——ll with your English +spies. It is the Kernogans that I want."</p> + +<p>Yvonne, half-crazed with horror, had heard the whole of this abominable +conversation wherein she had not failed to recognise the voice of +Martin-Roget or Pierre-Adet, as she now knew him to be. Who the other +two men were she could easily conjecture. The soft bland voice she had +heard twice during these past few days, which had been so full of +misery, of terror and of surprise: once she had heard it on board the +ship which had taken her away from England and once again a few hours +since, inside the narrow room which had been her prison. The third man +who had subsequently arrived on the scene was that coarse and grimy +creature who had seemed to be the moving evil spirit of that awful brawl +in the tavern.</p> + +<p>What the conversation meant to her she could not fail to guess. Pierre +Adet had by what he said made the whole of his abominable intrigue +against her palpably clear. Her father had been right, after all. It was +Pierre Adet who through some clever trickery had lured her to this place +of evil. How it was all done she could not guess. The message ... the +device ... her walk across the street ... the silence ... the mysterious +guide ... which of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span> these had been the trickery?... which had been +concocted by her enemy?... which devised by her dear milor?</p> + +<p>Enough that the whole thing was a trap, a trap all the more hideous as +she, Yvonne, who would have given her heart's blood for her beloved, was +obviously the bait wherewith these friends meant to capture him and his +noble chief. They knew evidently of the presence of the gallant Scarlet +Pimpernel and his band of heroes here in Nantes—they seemed to expect +their appearance at this abominable place to-night. She, Yvonne, was to +be the decoy which was to lure to this hideous lair those noble eagles +who were still out of reach.</p> + +<p>And if that was so—if indeed her beloved and his valiant friends had +followed her hither, then some part of the message of hope must have +come from them or from their chief ... and milor and his friend must +even now be somewhere close by, watching their opportunity to come to +her rescue ... heedless of the awful danger which lay in wait for them +... ignorant mayhap of the abominable trap which had been so cunningly +set for them by these astute and ferocious brutes.</p> + +<p>Yvonne a prisoner in this narrow space, clinging to the bars of what was +perhaps the most cruel prison in which she had yet been confined, +bruised her hands and arms against those bars in a wild desire to get +out. She longed with all her might to utter one long, loud and piercing +cry of warning to her dear milor not to come nigh her now, to fly, to +run while there was yet time; and all the while she knew that if she did +utter such a cry he would hurry hot-haste to her side. One moment she +would have had him near—another she wished him an hundred miles away.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span></p> +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>In the tap-room a more ordered medley of sounds had followed on the wild +pandemonium of awhile ago. Brief, peremptory words of command, steady +tramping of feet, loud harsh questions and subdued answers, occasionally +a moan or a few words of protest quickly suppressed, came through the +partition to Yvonne's straining ears.</p> + +<p>"Your name?"</p> + +<p>"Where do you live?"</p> + +<p>"Your occupation?"</p> + +<p>"That's enough. Silence. The next."</p> + +<p>"Your name?"</p> + +<p>"Where do you live?"</p> + +<p>Men, women and even children were being questioned, classified, packed +off, God knew whither. Sometimes a child would cry, a man utter an oath, +a woman shriek: then would come harsh orders delivered in a gruff voice, +more swearing, the grounding of arms and more often than not a dull, +flat sound like a blow struck against human flesh, followed by a volley +of curses, or a cry of pain.</p> + +<p>"Your name?"</p> + +<p>"George Amédé Lemoine."</p> + +<p>"Where do you live?"</p> + +<p>"In this house."</p> + +<p>"Your occupation?"</p> + +<p>"I am the proprietor of the tavern, citizen. I am an honest man and a +patriot. The Republic...."</p> + +<p>"That's enough."</p> + +<p>"But I protest."</p> + +<p>"Silence. The next."</p> + +<p>All with dreary, ceaseless monotony: and Yvonne like a trapped bird was +bruising her wings against the bars of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span> her cage. Outside the window +Chauvelin and Martin-Roget were still speaking in whispers: the fowlers +were still watching for their prey. The third man had apparently gone +away. What went on beyond the range of her prison window—out in the +darkness of the night which Yvonne's aching eyes could not pierce—she, +the miserable watcher, the bait set here to catch the noble game, could +not even conjecture. The window was small and her vision was further +obstructed by heavy bars. She could see nothing—hear nothing save those +two men talking in whispers. Now and again she caught a few words:</p> + +<p>"A little while longer, citizen ... you lose nothing by waiting. Your +Kernogans are safe enough. Paul Friche has assured you that the landing +where they are now has no egress save through the tap-room, and to the +floor above. Wait at least until commandant Fleury has got the crowd +together, after which he will send his Marats to search the house. It +won't be too late then to lay hands on your aristos, if in the +meanwhile...."</p> + +<p>"'Tis futile to wait," here interrupted Martin-Roget roughly, "and you +are a fool, citizen, if you think that those Englishmen exist elsewhere +than in your imagination."</p> + +<p>"Hark!" broke in the gentle voice abruptly and with forceful command.</p> + +<p>And as Yvonne too in instinctive response to that peremptory call was +further straining her every sense in order to listen, there came from +somewhere, not very far away, right through the stillness of the night, +a sound which caused her pulses to still their beating and her throat to +choke with the cry which rose from her breast.</p> + +<p>It was only the sound of a quaint and drawly voice saying loudly and in +English:</p> + +<p>"Egad, Tony! ain't you getting demmed sleepy?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span></p> + +<p>Just for the space of two or three seconds Yvonne had remained quite +still while this unexpected sound sent its dulcet echo on the wings of +the north-westerly blast. The next—stumbling in the dark—she had run +to the stairs even while she heard Martin-Roget calling loudly and +excitedly to Paul Friche.</p> + +<p>One reverent pause beside her dead father, one mute prayer commending +his soul to the mercy of his Maker, one agonised entreaty to God to +protect her beloved and his friend, and then she ran swiftly up the +winding steps.</p> + +<p>At the top of the stairs, immediately in front of her, a door—slightly +ajar—showed a feeble light through its aperture. Yvonne pushed the door +further open and slipped into the room beyond. She did not pause to look +round but went straight to the window and throwing open the ricketty +sash she peeped out. For the moment she felt that she would gladly have +bartered away twenty years of her life to know exactly whence had come +that quaint and drawling voice. She leaned far out of the window trying +to see. It gave on the side of the Rat Mort over against Louise Adet's +house—the space below seemed to her to be swarming with men: there were +hurried and whispered calls—orders were given to stand at close +attention, whilst Martin-Roget had apparently been questioning Paul +Friche, for Yvonne heard the latter declare emphatically:</p> + +<p>"I am certain that it came either from inside the house or from the +roof. And with your permission, citizen, I would like to make assurance +doubly sure."</p> + +<p>Then one of the men must suddenly have caught sight of the vague +silhouette leaning out of the window, for Martin-Roget and Friche +uttered a simultaneous cry, whilst Chauvelin said hurriedly:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You are right, citizen, something is going on inside the house."</p> + +<p>"What can we do?" queried Martin-Roget excitedly.</p> + +<p>"Nothing for the moment but wait. The Englishmen are caught sure enough +like rats in their holes."</p> + +<p>"Wait!" ejaculated Martin-Roget with a savage oath, "wait! always wait! +while the quarry slips through one's fingers."</p> + +<p>"It shall not slip through mine," retorted Paul Friche. "I was a +steeple-jack by trade in my day: it won't be the first time that I have +climbed the side of a house by the gutter-pipe. <i>A moi</i> Jean-Pierre," he +added, "and may I be drowned in the Loire if between us two we do not +lay those cursed English spies low."</p> + +<p>"An hundred francs for each of you," called Chauvelin lustily, "if you +succeed."</p> + +<p>Yvonne did not think to close the window again. Vigorous shouting and +laughter from below testified that that hideous creature Friche and his +mate had put their project in immediate execution; she turned and ran +down the stairs—feeling now like an animal at bay; by the time that she +had reached the bottom, she heard a prolonged, hoarse cry of triumph +from below and guessed that Paul Friche and his mate had reached the +window-sill: the next moment there was a crash overhead of broken +window-glass and of furniture kicked from one end of the room to the +other, immediately followed by the sound of heavy footsteps running +helter-skelter down the stairs.</p> + +<p>Yvonne, half-crazed with terror, faint and sick, fell unconscious over +the body of her father.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span></p> +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>Inside the tap-room commandant Fleury was still at work.</p> + +<p>"Your name?"</p> + +<p>"Where do you live?"</p> + +<p>"Your occupation?"</p> + +<p>The low room was filled to suffocation: the walls lined with Marats, the +doors and windows which were wide open were closely guarded, whilst in +the corner of the room, huddled together like bales of rubbish, was the +human cattle that had been driven together, preparatory to being sent +for a trial to Paris in vindication of Carrier's brutalities against the +city.</p> + +<p>Fleury for form's sake made entries in a notebook—the whole thing was a +mere farce—these wretched people were not likely to get a fair +trial—what did the whole thing matter? Still! the commandant of the +Marats went solemnly through the farce which Carrier had invented with a +view to his own justification.</p> + +<p>Lemoine and his wife had protested and been silenced: men had struggled +and women had fought—some of them like wild cats—in trying to get +away. Now there were only half a dozen or so more to docket. Fleury +swore, for he was tired and hot.</p> + +<p>"This place is like a pest-house," he said.</p> + +<p>Just then came the sound of that lusty cry of triumph from outside, +followed by all the clatter and the breaking of window glass.</p> + +<p>"What's that?" queried Fleury.</p> + +<p>The heavy footsteps running down the stairs caused him to look up from +his work and to call briefly to a sergeant of the Marats who stood +beside his chair:</p> + +<p>"Go and see what that <i>sacré</i> row is about," he com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span>manded. "In there," +he added as he indicated the door of the landing with a jerk of the +head.</p> + +<p>But before the man could reach the door, it was thrown open from within +with a vigorous kick from the point of a sabot, and Paul Friche appeared +under the lintel with the aristo wench thrown over his shoulder like a +sack of potatoes, his thick, muscular arms encircling her knees. His +scarlet bonnet was cocked over one eye, his face was smeared with dirt, +his breeches were torn at the knees, his shirt hung in strips from his +powerful shoulders. Behind him his mate—who had climbed up the +gutter-pipe into the house in his wake—was tottering under the load of +the ci-devant duc de Kernogan's body which he had slung across his back +and was holding on to by the wrists.</p> + +<p>Fleury jumped to his feet—the appearance of these two men, each with +his burden, caused him to frown with anger and to demand peremptorily: +"What is the meaning of this?"</p> + +<p>"The aristos," said Paul Friche curtly; "they were trying to escape."</p> + +<p>He strode into the room, carrying the unconscious form of the girl as if +it were a load of feathers. He was a huge, massive-looking giant: the +girl's shoulders nearly touched the low ceiling as he swung forward +facing the angry commandant.</p> + +<p>"How did you get into the house? and by whose orders?" demanded Fleury +roughly.</p> + +<p>"Climbed in by the window, <i>pardi</i>," retorted the man, "and by the +orders of citizen Martin-Roget."</p> + +<p>"A corporal of the Company Marat takes orders only from me; you should +know that, citizen Friche."</p> + +<p>"Nay!" interposed the sergeant quickly, "this man is not a corporal of +the Company Marat, citizen commandant.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span> As for Corporal Friche, why! he +was taken to the infirmary some hours ago with a cracked skull, he...."</p> + +<p>"Not Corporal Friche," exclaimed Fleury with an oath, "then who in the +devil's name is this man?"</p> + +<p>"The Scarlet Pimpernel, at your service, citizen commandant," came +loudly and with a merry laugh from the pseudo Friche.</p> + +<p>And before either Fleury or the sergeant or any of the Marats could even +begin to realise what was happening, he had literally bounded across the +room, and as he did so he knocked against the hanging lamp which fell +with a crash to the floor, scattering oil and broken glass in every +direction and by its fall plunging the place into total darkness. At +once there arose a confusion and medley of terrified screams, of +piercing shrieks from the women and the children, and of loud +imprecations from the men. These mingled with the hasty words of +command, with quick orders from Fleury and the sergeant, with the +grounding of arms and the tramping of many feet, and with the fall of +human bodies that happened to be in the way of the reckless adventurer +and his flight.</p> + +<p>"He is through the door," cried the men who had been there on guard.</p> + +<p>"After him then!" shouted Fleury. "Curse you all for cowards and for +fools."</p> + +<p>The order had no need to be repeated. The confusion, though great, had +only been momentary. Within a second or less, Fleury and his sergeant +had fought their way through to the door, urging the men to follow.</p> + +<p>"After him ... quick!... he is heavily loaded ... he cannot have got far +..." commanded Fleury as soon as he had crossed the threshold. +"Sergeant, keep order within, and on your life see that no one else +escapes."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IX_a" id="CHAPTER_IX_a"></a>CHAPTER IX</h3> + +<h4>THE PROCONSUL</h4> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>From round the angle of the house Martin-Roget and Chauvelin were +already speeding along at a rapid pace.</p> + +<p>"What does it all mean?" queried the latter hastily.</p> + +<p>"The Englishman—with the wench on his back? have you seen him?"</p> + +<p>"Malediction! what do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Have you seen him?" reiterated Fleury hoarsely.</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"He couldn't have passed you?"</p> + +<p>"Impossible."</p> + +<p>"Then unless some of us here have eyes like cats that limb of Satan will +get away. On to him, my men," he called once more. "Can you see him?"</p> + +<p>The darkness outside was intense. The north-westerly wind was whistling +down the narrow street, drowning the sound of every distant footfall: it +tore mercilessly round the men's heads, snatching the bonnets from off +their heads, dragging at their loose shirts and breeches, adding to the +confusion which already reigned.</p> + +<p>"He went this way ..." shouted one.</p> + +<p>"No! that!" cried another.</p> + +<p>"There he is!" came finally in chorus from several lusty throats. "Just +crossing the bridge."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span></p> + +<p>"After him," cried Fleury, "an hundred francs to the man who first lays +hands on that devil."</p> + +<p>Then the chase began. The Englishman on ahead was unmistakable with that +burden on his shoulder. He had just reached the foot of the bridge where +a street lanthorn fixed on a tall bracket on the corner stone had +suddenly thrown him into bold relief. He had less than an hundred metres +start of his pursuers and with a wild cry of excitement they started in +his wake.</p> + +<p>He was now in the middle of the bridge—an unmistakable figure of a +giant vaguely silhouetted against the light from the lanthorns on the +further end of the bridge—seeming preternaturally tall and misshapen +with that hump upon his back.</p> + +<p>From right and left, from under the doorways of the houses in the +Carrefour de la Poissonnerie the Marats who had been left on guard in +the street now joined in the chase. Overhead windows were thrown +open—the good burghers of Nantes, awakened from their sleep, forgetful +for the nonce of all their anxieties, their squalor and their miseries, +leaned out to see what this new kind of din might mean. From +everywhere—it almost seemed as if some sprang out of the earth—men, +either of the town-guard or Marats on patrol duty, or merely idlers and +night hawks who happened to be about, yielded to that primeval instinct +of brutality which causes men as well as beasts to join in a pursuit +against a fellow creature.</p> + +<p>Fleury was in the rear of his posse. Martin-Roget and Chauvelin, walking +as rapidly as they could by his side, tried to glean some information +out of the commandant's breathless and scrappy narrative:</p> + +<p>"What happened exactly?"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span></p><p>"It was the man Paul Friche ... with the aristo wench on his back ... +and another man carrying the ci-devant aristo ... they were the English +spies ... in disguise ... they knocked over the lamp ... and got +away...."</p> + +<p>"Name of a...."</p> + +<p>"No use swearing, citizen Martin-Roget," retorted Fleury as hotly as his +agitated movements would allow. "You and citizen Chauvelin are +responsible for the affair. It was you, citizen Chauvelin, who placed +Paul Friche inside that tavern in observation—you told him what to +do...."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"Paul Friche—the real Paul Friche—was taken to the infirmary some +hours ago ... with a cracked skull, dealt him by your Englishman, I've +no doubt...."</p> + +<p>"Impossible," reiterated Chauvelin with a curse.</p> + +<p>"Impossible? why impossible?"</p> + +<p>"The man I spoke to outside Le Bouffay...."</p> + +<p>"Was not Paul Friche."</p> + +<p>"He was on guard in the Place with two other Marats."</p> + +<p>"He was not Paul Friche—the others were not Marats."</p> + +<p>"Then the man who was inside the tavern?..."</p> + +<p>"Was not Paul Friche."</p> + +<p>" ... who climbed the gutter pipe ...?"</p> + +<p>"Malediction!"</p> + +<p>And the chase continued—waxing hotter every minute. The hare had gained +slightly on the hounds—there were more than a hundred hot on the trail +by now—having crossed the bridge he was on the Isle Feydeau, and +without hesitating a moment he plunged at once into the network of +narrow streets which cover the island in the rear of La Petite Hollande +and the Hôtel de le Villestreux, where lodged Carrier, the +representative of the people. The hounds after him had lost some ground +by halting—if only for a second or two—first at the head of the +bridge, then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span> at the corners of the various streets, while they peered +into the darkness to see which way had gone that fleet-footed hare.</p> + +<p>"Down this way!"</p> + +<p>"No! That!"</p> + +<p>"There he goes!"</p> + +<p>It always took a few seconds to decide, during which the man on ahead +with his burden on his shoulder had time mayhap to reach the end of a +street and to turn a corner and once again to plunge into darkness and +out of sight. The street lanthorns were few in this squalid corner of +the city, and it was only when perforce the running hare had to cross a +circle of light that the hounds were able to keep hot on the trail.</p> + +<p>"To the bridges for your lives!" now shouted Fleury to the men nearest +to him. "Leave him to wander on the island. He cannot come off it, +unless he jumps into the Loire."</p> + +<p>The Marats—intelligent and ferociously keen on the chase—had already +grasped the importance of this order: with the bridges guarded that +fleet-footed Englishman might run as much as he liked, he was bound to +be run to earth like a fox in his burrow. In a moment they had dispersed +along the quays, some to one bridge-head, some to another—the +Englishman could not double back now, and if he had already crossed to +the Isle Gloriette, which was not joined to the left bank of the river +by any bridge, he would be equally caught like a rat in a trap.</p> + +<p>"Unless he jumps into the Loire," reiterated Fleury triumphantly.</p> + +<p>"The proconsul will have more excitement than he hoped for," he added +with a laugh. "He was looking forward to the capture of the English spy, +and in deadly terror lest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span> he escaped. But now meseems that we shall +run our fox down in sight of the very gates of la Villestreux."</p> + +<p>Martin-Roget's thoughts ran on Yvonne and the duc.</p> + +<p>"You will remember, citizen commandant," he contrived to say to Fleury, +"that the ci-devant Kernogans were found inside the Rat Mort."</p> + +<p>Fleury uttered an exclamation of rough impatience. What did he, what did +anyone care at this moment for a couple of aristos more or less when the +noblest game that had ever fallen to the bag of any Terrorist was so +near being run to earth? But Chauvelin said nothing. He walked on at a +brisk pace, keeping close to commandant Fleury's side, in the immediate +wake of the pursuit. His lips were pressed tightly together and a +hissing breath came through his wide-open nostrils. His pale eyes were +fixed into the darkness and beyond it, where the most bitter enemy of +the cause which he loved was fighting his last battle against Fate.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>"He cannot get off the island!" Fleury had said awhile ago. Well! there +was of a truth little or nothing now between the hunted hare and +capture. The bridges were well guarded: the island swarming with hounds, +the Marats at their posts and the Loire an impassable barrier all round.</p> + +<p>And Chauvelin, the most tenacious enemy man ever had, Fleury keen on a +reward and Martin-Roget with a private grudge to pay off, all within two +hundred yards behind him.</p> + +<p>True for the moment the Englishman had disappeared. Burden and all, the +gloom appeared to have swallowed him up. But there was nowhere he could +go; mayhap he had taken refuge under a doorway in one of the narrow +streets and hoped perhaps under cover of the darkness to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span> allow his +pursuers to slip past him and then to double back.</p> + +<p>Fleury was laughing in the best of humours. He was gradually collecting +all the Marats together and sending them to the bridge-heads under the +command of their various sergeants. Let the Englishman spend the night +on the islands if he had a mind. There was a full company of Marats here +to account for him as soon as he attempted to come out in the open.</p> + +<p>The idlers and night hawks as well as the municipal town guard continued +to run excitedly up and down the streets—sometimes there would come a +lusty cry from a knot of pursuers who thought they spied the Englishman +through the darkness, at others there would be a call of halt, and +feverish consultation held at a street corner as to the best policy to +adopt.</p> + +<p>The town guard, jealous of the Marats, were pining to lay hands on the +English spy for the sake of the reward. Fleury, coming across their +provost, called him a fool for his pains.</p> + +<p>"My Marats will deal with the English spies, citizen," he said roughly, +"he is no concern of yours."</p> + +<p>The provost demurred: an altercation might have ensued when Chauvelin's +suave voice poured oil on the troubled waters.</p> + +<p>"Why not," he said, "let the town guard continue their search on the +island, citizen commandant? The men may succeed in digging our rat out +of his hole and forcing him out into the open all the sooner. Your +Marats will have him quickly enough after that."</p> + +<p>To this suggestion the provost gave a grudging assent. The reward when +the English spy was caught could be fought for later on. For the nonce +he turned unceremoni<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span>ously on his heel, and left Fleury cursing him for +a meddlesome busybody.</p> + +<p>"So long as he and his rabble does not interfere with my Marats," +growled the commandant.</p> + +<p>"Will you see your sergeants, citizen?" queried Chauvelin tentatively. +"They will have to keep very much on the alert, and will require +constant prodding to their vigilance. If I can be of any service...."</p> + +<p>"No," retorted Fleury curtly, "you and citizen Martin-Roget had best try +and see the proconsul and tell him what we have done."</p> + +<p>"He'll be half wild with terror when he hears that the English spy is at +large upon the island."</p> + +<p>"You must pacify him as best you can. Tell him I have a score of Marats +at every bridge head and that I am looking personally to every +arrangement. There is no escape for the devil possible save by drowning +himself and the wench in the Loire."</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Chauvelin and Martin-Roget turned from the quay on to the Petite +Hollande—the great open ground with its converging row of trees which +ends at the very apex of the Isle of Feydeau. Opposite to them at the +further corner of the Place was the Hôtel de la Villestreux. One or two +of the windows in the hotel were lighted from within. No doubt the +proconsul was awake, trembling in the remotest angle of his lair, with +the spectre of assassination rampant before him—aroused by the +continued disturbance of the night, by the feverishness of this man-hunt +carried on almost at his gates.</p> + +<p>Even through the darkness it was easy to perceive groups of people +either rushing backwards and forwards on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span> Place or congregating in +groups under the trees. Excitement was in the air. It could be felt and +heard right through the soughing of the north-westerly wind which caused +the bare branches of the trees to groan and to crackle, and the dead +leaves, which still hung on the twigs, to fly wildly through the night.</p> + +<p>In the centre of the Place, two small lights, gleaming like eyes in the +midst of the gloom, betrayed the presence of the proconsul's coach, +which stood there as always, ready to take him away to a place of +safety—away from this city where he was mortally hated and +dreaded—whenever the spectre of terror became more insistent than +usual, and drove him hence out of his stronghold. The horses were pawing +the frozen ground and champing their bits—the steam from their nostrils +caught the rays of the carriage lamps, which also lit up with a feeble +flicker the vague outline of the coachman on his box and of the +postilion rigid in his saddle.</p> + +<p>The citizens of Nantes were never tired of gaping at the carriage—a +huge C-springed barouche—at the coachman's fine caped coat of +bottle-green cloth and at the horses with their handsome harness set off +with heavy brass bosses: they never tired of bandying words with the +successive coachmen as they mounted their box and gathered up the reins, +or with the postilions who loved to crack their whips and to appear +smart and well-groomed, in the midst of the squalor which reigned in the +terror-stricken city. They were the guardians of the mighty proconsul: +on their skill, quickness and presence of mind might depend his precious +life.</p> + +<p>Even when the shadow of death hangs over an entire community, there will +be some who will stand and gape and crack jokes at an uncommon sight.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span></p> + +<p>And now when the pall of night hung over the abode of the man-tiger and +his lair, and wrapped in its embrace the hunted and the hunters, there +still was a knot of people standing round the carriage—between it and +the hotel—gazing with lack-lustre eyes on the costly appurtenances +wherewith the representative of a wretched people loved to surround +himself. They could only see the solid mass of the carriage and of the +horses, but they could hear the coachman clicking with his tongue and +the postilion cracking his whip, and these sights broke the absolute +dreary monotony of their lives.</p> + +<p>It was from behind this knot of gaffers that there rose gradually a +tumult as of a man calling out in wrath and lashing himself into a fury. +Chauvelin and Martin-Roget were just then crossing La Petite Hollande +from one bank of the river to the other: they were walking rapidly +towards the hotel, when they heard the tumult which presently culminated +in a hoarse cry and a volley of oaths.</p> + +<p>"My coach! my coach at once.... Lalouët, don't leave me.... Curse you +all for a set of cowardly oafs.... My coach I say...."</p> + +<p>"The proconsul," murmured Chauvelin as he hastened forward, Martin-Roget +following closely on his heels.</p> + +<p>By the time that they had come near enough to the coach to distinguish +vaguely in the gloom what was going on, people came rushing to the same +spot from end to end of the Place. In a moment there was quite a crowd +round the carriage, and the two men had much ado to push their way +through by a vigorous play of their elbows.</p> + +<p>"Citizen Carrier!" cried Chauvelin at the top of his voice, trying to +dominate the hubbub, "one minute ... I have excellent news for you.... +The English spy...."</p> + +<p>"Curse you for a set of blundering fools," came with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span> husky cry from +out the darkness, "you have let that English devil escape ... I knew it +... I knew it ... the assassin is at large ... the murderer ... my coach +at once ... my coach.... Lalouët—do not leave me."</p> + +<p>Chauvelin had by this time succeeded in pushing his way to the forefront +of the crowd: Martin-Roget, tall and powerful, had effectually made a +way for him. Through the dense gloom he could see the misshapen form of +the proconsul, wildly gesticulating with one arm and with the other +clinging convulsively to young Lalouët who already had his hand on the +handle of the carriage door.</p> + +<p>With a quick, resolute gesture Chauvelin stepped between the door and +the advancing proconsul.</p> + +<p>"Citizen Carrier," he said with calm determination, "on my oath there is +no cause for alarm. Your life is absolutely safe.... I entreat you to +return to your lodgings...."</p> + +<p>To emphasise his words he had stretched out a hand and firmly grasped +the proconsul's coat sleeve. This gesture, however, instead of pacifying +the apparently terror-stricken maniac, seemed to have the effect of +further exasperating his insensate fear. With a loud oath he tore +himself free from Chauvelin's grasp.</p> + +<p>"Ten thousand devils," he cried hoarsely, "who is this fool who dares to +interfere with me? Stand aside man ... stand aside or...."</p> + +<p>And before Chauvelin could utter another word or Martin-Roget come to +his colleague's rescue, there came the sudden sharp report of a pistol; +the horses reared, the crowd was scattered in every direction, Chauvelin +was knocked over by a smart blow on the head whilst a vigorous drag on +his shoulder alone saved him from falling under the wheels of the coach.</p> + +<p>Whilst confusion was at its highest, the carriage door<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span> was closed to +with a bang and there was a loud, commanding cry hurled through the +window at the coachman on his box.</p> + +<p>"<i>En avant</i>, citizen coachman! Drive for your life! through the Savenay +gate. The English assassins are on our heels."</p> + +<p>The postilion cracked his whip. The horses, maddened by the report, by +the pushing, jostling crowd and the confused cries and screams around, +plunged forward, wild with excitement. Their hoofs clattered on the hard +road. Some of the crowd ran after the coach across the Place, shouting +lustily: "The proconsul! the proconsul!"</p> + +<p>Chauvelin—dazed and bruised—was picked up by Martin-Roget.</p> + +<p>"The cowardly brute!" was all that he said between his teeth, "he shall +rue this outrage as soon as I can give my mind to his affairs. In the +meanwhile...."</p> + +<p>The clatter of the horses' hoofs was already dying away in the distance. +For a few seconds longer the rattle of the coach was still accompanied +by cries of "The proconsul! the proconsul!" Fleury at the bridge head, +seeing and hearing its approach, had only just time to order his Marats +to stand at attention. A salvo should have been fired when the +representative of the people, the high and mighty proconsul, was abroad, +but there was no time for that, and the coach clattered over the bridge +at breakneck speed, whilst Carrier with his head out of the window was +hurling anathemas and insults at Fleury for having allowed the paid +spies of that cursed British Government to threaten the life of a +representative of the people.</p> + +<p>"I go to Savenay," he shouted just at the last, "until that assassin has +been thrown in the Loire. But when I return ... look to yourself +commandant Fleury."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span>Then the carriage turned down the Quai de la Fosse and a few minutes +later was swallowed up by the gloom.</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>Chauvelin, supported by Martin-Roget, was hobbling back across the +Place. The crowd was still standing about, vaguely wondering why it had +got so excited over the departure of the proconsul and the rattle of a +coach and pair across the bridge, when on the island there was still an +assassin at large—an English spy, the capture of whom would be one of +the great events in the chronicles of the city of Nantes.</p> + +<p>"I think," said Martin-Roget, "that we may as well go to bed now, and +leave the rest to commandant Fleury. The Englishman may not be captured +for some hours, and I for one am over-fatigued."</p> + +<p>"Then go to bed an you desire, citizen Martin-Roget," retorted Chauvelin +drily, "I for one will stay here until I see the Englishman in the hands +of commandant Fleury."</p> + +<p>"Hark," interposed Martin-Roget abruptly. "What was that?"</p> + +<p>Chauvelin had paused even before Martin-Roget's restraining hand had +rested on his arm. He stood still in the middle of the Place and his +knees shook under him so that he nearly fell prone to the ground.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" reiterated Martin-Roget with vague puzzlement. "It sounds +like young Lalouët's voice."</p> + +<p>Chauvelin said nothing. He had forgotten his bruises: he no longer +hobbled—he ran across the Place to the front of the hotel whence the +voice had come which was so like that of young Lalouët.</p> + +<p>The youngster—it was undoubtedly he—was standing at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span> the angle of the +hotel: above him a lanthorn threw a dim circle of light on his bare head +with its mass of dark curls, and on a small knot of idlers with two or +three of the town guard amongst them. The first words spoken by him +which Chauvelin distinguished quite clearly were:</p> + +<p>"You are all mad ... or else drunk.... The citizen proconsul is upstairs +in his room.... He has just sent me down to hear what news there is of +the English spies...."</p> + + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>No one made reply. It seemed as if some giant and spectral hand had +passed over this mass of people and with its magic touch had stilled +their turbulent passions, silenced their imprecations and cooled their +ardour—and left naught but a vague fear, a subtle sense of awe as when +something unexplainable and supernatural has manifested itself before +the eyes of men.</p> + +<p>From far away the roll of coach wheels rapidly disappearing in the +distance alone broke the silence of the night.</p> + +<p>"Is there no one here who will explain what all this means?" queried +young Lalouët, who alone had remained self-assured and calm, for he +alone knew nothing of what had happened. "Citizen Fleury, are you +there?"</p> + +<p>Then as once again he received no reply, he added peremptorily:</p> + +<p>"Hey! some one there! Are you all louts and oafs that not one of you can +speak?"</p> + +<p>A timid voice from the rear ventured on explanation.</p> + +<p>"The citizen proconsul was here a moment ago.... We all saw him, and you +citizen Lalouët were with him...."</p> + +<p>An imprecation from young Lalouët silenced the timid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span> voice for the +nonce ... and then another resumed the halting narrative.</p> + +<p>"We all could have sworn that we saw you, citizen Lalouët, also the +citizen proconsul.... He got into his coach with you ... you ... that is +... they have driven off...."</p> + +<p>"This is some awful and treacherous hoax," cried the youngster now in a +towering passion; "the citizen proconsul is upstairs in bed, I tell you +... and I have only just come out of the hotel ...! Name of a name of a +dog! am I standing here or am I not?"</p> + +<p>Then suddenly he bethought himself of the many events of the day which +had culminated in this gigantic feat of leger-de-main.</p> + +<p>"Chauvelin!" he exclaimed. "Where in the name of h——ll is citizen +Chauvelin?"</p> + +<p>But Chauvelin for the moment could nowhere be found. Dazed, +half-unconscious, wholly distraught, he had fled from the scene of his +discomfiture as fast as his trembling knees would allow. Carrier +searched the city for him high and low, and for days afterwards the +soldiers of the Compagnie Marat gave aristos and rebels a rest: they +were on the look-out for a small, wizened figure of a man—the man with +the pale, keen eyes who had failed to recognise in the pseudo-Paul +Friche, in the dirty, out-at-elbows <i>sans-culotte</i>—the most exquisite +dandy that had ever graced the salons of Bath and of London: they were +searching for the man with the acute and sensitive brain who had failed +to scent in the pseudo-Carrier and the pseudo-Lalouët his old and arch +enemy Sir Percy Blakeney and the charming wife of my lord Anthony +Dewhurst.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h3> + +<h4>LORD TONY</h4> + + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>A quarter of an hour later citizen-commandant Fleury was at last ushered +into the presence of the proconsul and received upon his truly innocent +head the full torrent of the despot's wrath. But Martin-Roget had +listened to the counsels of prudence: for obvious reasons he desired to +avoid any personal contact for the moment with Carrier, whom fear of the +English spies had made into a more abject and more craven tyrant than +ever before. At the same time he thought it wisest to try and pacify the +brute by sending him the ten thousand francs—the bribe agreed upon for +his help in the undertaking which had culminated in such a disastrous +failure.</p> + +<p>At the self-same hour whilst Carrier—fuming and swearing—was for the +hundredth time uttering that furious "How?" which for the hundredth time +had remained unanswered, two men were taking leave of one another at the +small postern gate which gives on the cemetery of St. Anne. The taller +and younger one of the two had just dropped a heavy purse into the hand +of the other. The latter stooped and kissed the kindly hand.</p> + +<p>"Milor," he said, "I swear to you most solemnly that M. le duc de +Kernogan will rest in peace in hallowed ground. M. le curé de +Vertou—ah! he is a saint and a brave man, milor—comes over whenever he +can prudently do so and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span> reads the offices for the dead—over those who +have died as Christians, and there is a piece of consecrated ground out +here in the open which those fiends of Terrorists have not discovered +yet."</p> + +<p>"And you will bury M. le duc immediately," admonished the younger man, +"and apprise M. le curé of what has happened."</p> + +<p>"Aye! aye! I'll do that, milor, within the hour. Though M. le duc was +never a very kind master to me in the past, I cannot forget that I +served him and his family for over thirty years as coachman. I drove +Mlle. Yvonne in the first pony-cart she ever possessed. I drove her—ah! +that was a bitter day!—her and M. le duc when they left Kernogan never +to return. I drove Mlle. Yvonne on that memorable night when a crowd of +miserable peasants attacked her coach, and that brute Pierre Adet +started to lead a rabble against the château. That was the beginning of +things, milor. God alone knows what has happened to Pierre Adet. His +father Jean was hanged by order of M. le duc. Now M. le duc is destined +to lie in a forgotten grave. I serve this abominable Republic by digging +graves for her victims. I would be happier, I think, if I knew what had +become of Mlle. Yvonne."</p> + +<p>"Mlle. Yvonne is my wife, old friend," said the younger man softly. +"Please God she has years of happiness before her, if I succeed in +making her forget all that she has suffered."</p> + +<p>"Amen to that, milor!" rejoined the man fervently. "Then I pray you tell +the noble lady to rest assured. Jean-Marie—her old coachman whom she +used to trust implicitly in the past—will see that M. le duc de +Kernogan is buried as a gentleman and a Christian should be."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You are not running too great a risk by this, I hope, my good +Jean-Marie," quoth Lord Tony gently.</p> + +<p>"No greater risk, milor," replied Jean-Marie earnestly, "than the one +which you ran by carrying my old master's dead body on your shoulders +through the streets of Nantes."</p> + +<p>"Bah! that was simple enough," said the younger man, "the hue and cry is +after higher quarry to-night. Pray God the hounds have not run the noble +game to earth."</p> + +<p>Even as he spoke there came from far away through the darkness the sound +of a fast trotting pair of horses and the rumble of coach-wheels on the +unpaved road.</p> + +<p>"There they are, thank God!" exclaimed Lord Tony, and the tremor in his +voice alone betrayed the torturing anxiety which he had been enduring, +ever since he had seen the last both of his adored young wife and of his +gallant chief in the squalid tap-room of the Rat Mort.</p> + +<p>With the dead body of Yvonne's father on his back he had quietly worked +his way out of the tavern in the wake of his chief. He had his orders, +and for the members of that gallant League of the Scarlet Pimpernel +there was no such word as "disobedience" and no such word as "fail." +Through the darkness and through the tortuous streets of Nantes Lord +Anthony Dewhurst—the young and wealthy exquisite, the hero of an +hundred fêtes and galas in Bath, in London—staggered under the weight +of a burden imposed upon him only by his loyalty and a noble sense of +self-prescribed discipline—and that burden the dead body of the man who +had done him an unforgivable wrong. Without a thought of revolt he had +obeyed—and risked his life and worse in the obedience.</p> + +<p>The darkness of the night was his faithful handmaiden, and the +excitement of the chase after the other quarry had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span> fortunately drawn +every possible enemy from his track. He had set his teeth and +accomplished his task, and even the deathly anxiety for the wife whom he +idolised had been crushed, under the iron heel of a grim resolve. Now +his work was done, and from far away he heard the rattle of the coach +wheels which were bringing his beloved nearer and nearer to him.</p> + +<p>Five minutes longer and the coach came to a halt. A cheery voice called +out gaily:</p> + +<p>"Tony! are you there?"</p> + +<p>"Percy!" exclaimed the young man.</p> + +<p>Already he knew that all was well. The gallant leader, the loyal and +loving friend, had taxed every resource of a boundlessly fertile brain +in order to win yet another wreath of immortal laurels for the League +which he commanded, and the very tone of his merry voice proclaimed the +triumph which had crowned his daring scheme.</p> + +<p>The next moment Yvonne lay in the arms of her dear milor. He had stepped +into the carriage, even while Sir Percy climbed nimbly on the box and +took the reins from the bewildered coachman's hands.</p> + +<p>"Citizen proconsul ..." murmured the latter, who of a truth thought that +he was dreaming.</p> + +<p>"Get off the box, you old noodle," quoth the pseudo-proconsul +peremptorily. "Thou and thy friend the postilion will remain here in the +road, and on the morrow you'll explain to whomsoever it may concern that +the English spy made a murderous attack on you both and left you half +dead outside the postern gate of the cemetery of Ste. Anne. Here," he +added as he threw a purse down to the two men—who half-dazed and +overcome by superstitious fear had indeed scrambled down, one from his +box, the other from his horse—"there's a hundred francs for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span> each of +you in there, and mind you drink to the health of the English spy and +the confusion of your brutish proconsul."</p> + +<p>There was no time to lose: the horses—still very fresh—were fretting +to start.</p> + +<p>"Where do we pick up Hastings and Ffoulkes?" asked Sir Percy Blakeney +finally as he turned toward the interior of the barouche, the hood of +which hid its occupants from view.</p> + +<p>"At the corner of the rue de Gigan," came the quick answer. "It is only +two hundred metres from the city gate. They are on the look out for +you."</p> + +<p>"Ffoulkes shall be postilion," rejoined Sir Percy with a laugh, "and +Hastings sit beside me on the box. And you will see how at the city gate +and all along the route soldiers of the guard will salute the equipage +of the all-powerful proconsul of Nantes. By Gad!" he added under his +breath, "I've never had a merrier time in all my life—not even +when...."</p> + +<p>He clicked his tongue and gave the horses their heads—and soon the +coachman and the postilion and Jean-Marie the gravedigger of the +cemetery of Ste. Anne were left gaping out into the night in the +direction where the barouche had so quickly disappeared.</p> + +<p>"Now for Le Croisic and the <i>Day-Dream</i>," sighed the daring adventurer +contentedly, "... and for Marguerite!" he added wistfully.</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Under the hood of the barouche Yvonne, wearied but immeasurably happy, +was doing her best to answer all her dear milor's impassioned questions +and to give him a fairly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span> clear account of that terrible chase and +flight through the streets of the Isle Feydeau.</p> + +<p>"Ah, milor, how can I tell you what I felt when I realised that I was +being carried along in the arms of the valiant Scarlet Pimpernel? A word +from him and I understood. After that I tried to be both resourceful and +brave. When the chase after us was at its hottest we slipped into a +ruined and deserted house. In a room at the back there were several +bundles of what looked like old clothes. 'This is my store-house,' milor +said to me; 'now that we have reached it we can just make long noses at +the whole pack of bloodhounds.' He made me slip into some boy's clothes +which he gave me, and whilst I donned these he disappeared. When he +returned I truly did not recognise him. He looked horrible, and his +voice ...! After a moment or two he laughed, and then I knew him. He +explained to me the rôle which I was to play, and I did my best to obey +him in everything. But oh! I hardly lived while we once more emerged +into the open street and then turned into the great Place which was +full—oh full!—of people. I felt that at every moment we might be +suspected. Figure to yourself, my dear milor...."</p> + +<p>What Yvonne Dewhurst was about to say next will never be recorded. My +lord Tony had closed her lips with a kiss.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="transnote"> +<h3>Transcriber's note<a name="tnotes" id="tnotes"></a></h3> + +<p>Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printer +errors have been changed, and they are listed below. All other +inconsistencies are as in the original. +</p> + + +<p> +The following changes have been made to the text:</p> + + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_vii">vii</a>. "Bouffaye" changed to "Bouffay".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_27">27</a>: "down-trodden" changed to "downtrodden".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_46">46</a>: "waste land" changed to "wasteland".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_54">54</a>: "interfence" changed to "interference".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_57">57</a>: "such like" changed to suchlike".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_71">71</a>: "overfull" changed to "over-full'.</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_80">80</a>: "were hard to enumerate" changed to "was hard to enumerate".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_109">109</a>: "aqua-marine" changed to "aquamarine".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_147">147</a>: "taff-rail" changed to "taffrail".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_163">163</a>: "Nante's" changed to Nantes".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_198">198</a>: "what reports" changed to "What reports".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_204">204</a>: "plans wth" changed to "plans with".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_205">205</a>: "clawlike" changed to claw-like".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_207">207</a>: "passersby" changed to "passers-by".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_228">228</a>: "fish crashing" change to "fist crashing".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_238">238</a>: "anteroom" changed to "ante-room".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_239">239</a>: "hs pocket" changed to "his pocket".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_240">240</a>: "our of Carrier's" changed to "out of Carrier's".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_240">240</a>: "abominal doggrel" changed to "abominable doggrel".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_248">248</a>: "overbearing" changed to "over-bearing".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_252">252</a>: "cutthroat" changed to "cut-throat".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_254">254</a>: "good dead of" changed to "good deal of".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_300">300</a>: "tried to smoothe" changed to "tried to smooth".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_308">308</a>: "ricketty" changed to "rickety".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_315">315</a>: "Hotel de le Villestreux" changed to "Hôtel de la +Villestreux".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_318">318</a>: "nighthawks" changed to "night hawks".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_318">318</a>: "lustry" changed to "lusty".</p> + +<p>Page <a href="#Page_319">319</a>: "Hotel de le Villestreux" changed to "Hôtel de la +Villestreux".</p> + +</div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Lord Tony's Wife, by Baroness Emmuska Orczy + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORD TONY'S WIFE *** + +***** This file should be named 35117-h.htm or 35117-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/1/1/35117/ + +Produced by Brenda Lewis, Carla Foust, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lord Tony's Wife + An Adventure of the Scarlet Pimpernel + +Author: Baroness Emmuska Orczy + +Release Date: January 30, 2011 [EBook #35117] +[Last updated: October 6, 2011] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORD TONY'S WIFE *** + + + + +Produced by Brenda Lewis, Carla Foust, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + _LORD TONY'S WIFE_ + BARONESS ORCZY + + + + +By BARONESS ORCZY + + LORD TONY'S WIFE + LEATHERFACE + THE BRONZE EAGLE + A BRIDE OF THE PLAINS + THE LAUGHING CAVALIER + "UNTO CAESAR" + EL DORADO + MEADOWSWEET + THE NOBLE ROGUE + THE HEART OF A WOMAN + PETTICOAT RULE + +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY NEW YORK + + + + + LORD TONY'S WIFE + + AN ADVENTURE OF THE + SCARLET PIMPERNEL + + BY + + BARONESS ORCZY + + AUTHOR OF "THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL," "THE LAUGHING + CAVALIER," ETC. + + + NEW YORK + GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1917, + BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + + To + + DORA COUNTESS OF CHESTERFIELD + + A TOKEN OF FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE. + + EMMUSKA ORCZY. + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + PROLOGUE: NANTES, 1789 11 + + + BOOK ONE: BATH, 1793 + + CHAPTER + + I THE MOOR 43 + + II THE BOTTOM INN 50 + + III THE ASSEMBLY ROOMS 78 + + IV THE FATHER 100 + + V THE NEST 109 + + VI THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL 123 + + VII MARGUERITE 130 + + VIII THE ROAD TO PORTISHEAD 134 + + IX THE COAST OF FRANCE 147 + + + BOOK TWO: NANTES, DECEMBER, 1793 + + I THE TIGER'S LAIR 163 + + II LE BOUFFAY 195 + + III THE FOWLERS 212 + + IV THE NET 234 + + V THE MESSAGE OF HOPE 256 + + VI THE RAT MORT 267 + + VII THE FRACAS IN THE TAVERN 279 + + VIII THE ENGLISH ADVENTURERS 299 + + IX THE PROCONSUL 313 + + X LORD TONY 327 + + + + +PROLOGUE + +NANTES, 1789 + + +I + +"Tyrant! tyrant! tyrant!" + +It was Pierre who spoke, his voice was hardly raised above a murmur, but +there was such an intensity of passion expressed in his face, in the +fingers of his hand which closed slowly and convulsively as if they were +clutching the throat of a struggling viper, there was so much hate in +those muttered words, so much power, such compelling and awesome +determination that an ominous silence fell upon the village lads and the +men who sat with him in the low narrow room of the auberge des Trois +Vertus. + +Even the man in the tattered coat and threadbare breeches, who--perched +upon the centre table--had been haranguing the company on the subject of +the Rights of Man, paused in his peroration and looked down on Pierre +half afraid of that fierce flame of passionate hate which his own words +had helped to kindle. + +The silence, however, had only lasted a few moments, the next Pierre was +on his feet, and a cry like that of a bull in a slaughter-house escaped +his throat. + +"In the name of God!" he shouted, "let us cease all that senseless +talking. Haven't we planned enough and talked enough to satisfy our +puling consciences? The time has come to strike, mes amis, to strike I +say, to strike at those cursed aristocrats, who have made us what we +are--ignorant, wretched, downtrodden--senseless clods to work our +fingers to the bone, our bodies till they break so that they may wallow +in their pleasures and their luxuries! Strike, I say!" he reiterated +while his eyes glowed and his breath came and went through his throat +with a hissing sound. "Strike! as the men and women struck in Paris on +that great day in July. To them the Bastille stood for tyranny, and they +struck at it as they would at the head of a tyrant--and the tyrant +cowered, cringed, made terms--he was frightened at the wrath of the +people! That is what happened in Paris! That is what must happen in +Nantes. The chateau of the duc de Kernogan is our Bastille! Let us +strike at it to-night, and if the arrogant aristocrat resists, we'll +raze his house to the ground. The hour, the day, the darkness are all +propitious. The arrangements hold good. The neighbours are ready. +Strike, I say!" + +He brought his hard fist crashing down upon the table, so that mugs and +bottles rattled: his enthusiasm had fired all his hearers: his hatred +and his lust of revenge had done more in five minutes than all the +tirades of the agitators sent down from Paris to instil revolutionary +ideas into the slow-moving brains of village lads. + +"Who will give the signal?" queried one of the older men quietly. + +"I will!" came a lusty response from Pierre. + +He strode to the door, and all the men jumped to their feet, ready to +follow him, dragged into this hot-headed venture by the mere force of +one man's towering passion. They followed Pierre like sheep--sheep that +have momentarily become intoxicated--sheep that have become fierce--a +strange sight truly--and yet one that the man in the tattered coat who +had done so much speechifying lately, watched with eager interest and +presently related with great wealth of detail to M. de Mirabeau the +champion of the people. + +"It all came about through the death of a pair of pigeons," he said. + +The death of the pigeons, however, was only the spark which set all +these turbulent passions ablaze. They had been smouldering for half a +century, and had been ready to burst into flames for the past decade. + +Antoine Melun, the wheelwright, who was to have married Louise, Pierre's +sister, had trapped a pair of pigeons in the woods of M. le duc de +Kernogan. He had done it to assert his rights as a man--he did not want +the pigeons. Though he was a poor man, he was no poorer than hundreds of +peasants for miles around: but he paid imposts and taxes until every +particle of profit which he gleaned from his miserable little plot of +land went into the hands of the collectors, whilst M. le duc de Kernogan +paid not one sou towards the costs of the State, and he had to live on +what was left of his own rye and wheat after M. le duc's pigeons had had +their fill of them. + +Antoine Melun did not want to eat the pigeons which he had trapped, but +he desired to let M. le duc de Kernogan know that God and Nature had +never intended all the beasts and birds of the woods to be the exclusive +property of one man, rather than another. So he trapped and killed two +pigeons and M. le duc's head-bailiff caught him in the act of carrying +those pigeons home. + +Whereupon Antoine was arrested for poaching and thieving: he was tried +at Nantes under the presidency of M. le duc de Kernogan, and ten minutes +ago, while the man in the tattered coat was declaiming to a number of +peasant lads in the coffee-room of the auberge des Trois Vertus on the +subject of their rights as men and citizens, some one brought the news +that Antoine Melun had just been condemned to death and would be hanged +on the morrow. + +That was the spark which had fanned Pierre Adet's hatred of the +aristocrats to a veritable conflagration: the news of Antoine Melun's +fate was the bleat which rallied all those human sheep around their +leader. For Pierre had naturally become their leader because his hatred +of M. le duc was more tangible, more powerful than theirs. Pierre had +had more education than they. His father, Jean Adet the miller, had sent +him to a school in Nantes, and when Pierre came home M. le cure of +Vertou took an interest in him and taught him all he knew himself--which +was not much--in the way of philosophy and the classics. But later on +Pierre took to reading the writings of M. Jean-Jacques Rousseau and soon +knew the _Contrat Social_ almost by heart. He had also read the articles +in M. Marat's newspaper _L'ami du Peuple!_ and, like Antoine Melun, the +wheelwright, he had got it into his head that it was not God, nor yet +Nature who had intended one man to starve while another gorged himself +on all the good things of this world. + +He did not, however, speak of these matters, either to his father or to +his sister or to M. le cure, but he brooded over them, and when the +price of bread rose to four sous he muttered curses against M. le duc de +Kernogan, and when famine prices ruled throughout the district those +curses became overt threats; and by the time that the pinch of hunger +was felt in Vertou Pierre's passion of fury against the duc de Kernogan +had turned to a frenzy of hate against the entire noblesse of France. + +Still he said nothing to his father, nothing to his mother and sister. +But his father knew. Old Jean would watch the storm-clouds which +gathered on Pierre's lowering brow; he heard the muttered curses which +escaped from Pierre's lips whilst he worked for the liege-lord whom he +hated. But Jean was a wise man and knew how useless it is to put out a +feeble hand in order to stem the onrush of a torrent. He knew how +useless are the words of wisdom from an old man to quell the rebellious +spirit of the young. + +Jean was on the watch. And evening after evening when the work on the +farm was done, Pierre would sit in the small low room of the auberge +with other lads from the village talking, talking of their wrongs, of +the arrogance of the aristocrats, the sins of M. le duc and his family, +the evil conduct of the King and the immorality of the Queen: and men in +ragged coats and tattered breeches came in from Nantes, and even from +Paris, in order to harangue these village lads and told them yet further +tales of innumerable wrongs suffered by the people at the hands of the +aristos, and stuffed their heads full of schemes for getting even once +and for all with those men and women who fattened on the sweat of the +poor and drew their luxury from the hunger and the toil of the +peasantry. + +Pierre sucked in these harangues through every pore: they were meat and +drink to him. His hate and passions fed upon these effusions till his +whole being was consumed by a maddening desire for reprisals, for +vengeance--for the lust of triumph over those whom he had been taught to +fear. + +And in the low, narrow room of the auberge the fevered heads of village +lads were bent together in conclave, and the ravings and shoutings of a +while ago were changed to whisperings and low murmurings behind barred +doors and shuttered windows. Men exchanged cryptic greetings when they +met in the village street, enigmatical signs passed between them while +they worked: strangers came and went at dead of night to and from the +neighbouring villages. M. le duc's overseers saw nothing, heard nothing, +guessed nothing. M. le cure saw much and old Jean Adet guessed a great +deal, but they said nothing, for nothing then would have availed. + +Then came the catastrophe. + + +II + +Pierre pushed open the outer door of the auberge des Trois Vertus and +stepped out under the porch. A gust of wind caught him in the face. The +night, so the chronicles of the time tell us, was as dark as pitch: on +ahead lay the lights of the city flickering in the gale: to the left the +wide tawny ribbon of the river wound its turbulent course toward the +ocean, the booming of the waters swollen by the recent melting of the +snow sounded like the weird echoes of invisible cannons far away. + +Without hesitation Pierre advanced. His little troop followed him in +silence. They were a little sobered now that they came out into the open +and that the fumes of cider and of hot, perspiring humanity no longer +obscured their vision or inflamed their brain. + +They knew whither Pierre was going. It had all been +pre-arranged--throughout this past summer, in the musty parlour of the +auberge, behind barred doors and shuttered windows--all they had to do +was to follow Pierre, whom they had tacitly chosen as their leader. They +walked on behind him, their hands buried in the pockets of their thin, +tattered breeches, their heads bent forward against the fury of the +gale. + +Pierre made straight for the mill--his home--where his father lived and +where Louise was even now crying her eyes out because Antoine Melun, her +sweetheart, had been condemned to be hanged for killing two pigeons. + +At the back of the mill was the dwelling house and beyond it a small +farmery, for Jean Adet owned a little bit of land and would have been +fairly well off if the taxes had not swallowed up all the money that he +made out of the sale of his rye and his hay. Just here the ground rose +sharply to a little hillock which dominated the flat valley of the Loire +and commanded a fine view over the more distant villages. + +Pierre skirted the mill and without looking round to see if the others +followed him he struck squarely to the right up a narrow lane bordered +by tall poplars, and which led upwards to the summit of the little +hillock around which clustered the tumble-down barns of his father's +farmery. + +The gale lashed the straight, tall stems of the poplars until they bent +nearly double, and each tiny bare twig sighed and whispered as if in +pain. Pierre strode on and the others followed in silence. They were +chilled to the bone under their scanty clothes, but they followed on +with grim determination, set teeth, and anger and hate seething in their +hearts. + +The top of the rising ground was reached. It was pitch dark, and the men +when they halted fell up against one another trying to get a foothold on +the sodden ground. But Pierre seemed to have eyes like a cat. He only +paused one moment to get his bearings, then--still without a word--he +set to work. A large barn and a group of small circular straw ricks +loomed like solid masses out of the darkness--black, silhouetted against +the black of the stormy sky. Pierre turned toward the barn: those of his +comrades who were in the forefront of the small crowd saw him +disappearing inside one of those solid shadowy masses that looked so +ghostlike in the night. + +Anon those who watched and who happened to be facing the interior of the +barn saw sparks from a tinder flying in every direction: the next +moment they could see Pierre himself quite clearly. He was standing in +the middle of the barn and intent on lighting a roughly-fashioned torch +with his tinder: soon the resin caught a spark and Pierre held the torch +inclined toward the ground so that the flames could lick their way up +the shaft. The flickering light cast a weird glow and deep grotesque +shadows upon the face and figure of the young man. His hair, lanky and +dishevelled, fell over his eyes; his mouth and jaw, illumined from below +by the torch, looked unnaturally large, and showed his teeth gleaming +white, like the fangs of a beast of prey. His shirt was torn open at the +neck, and the sleeves of his coat were rolled up to the elbow. He seemed +not to feel either the cold from without or the scorching heat of the +flaming torch in his hand. But he worked deliberately and calmly, +without haste or febrile movements: grim determination held his +excitement in check. + +At last his work was done. The men who had pressed forward, in order to +watch him, fell back as he advanced, torch in hand. They knew exactly +what he was going to do, they had thought it all out, planned it, spoken +of it till even their unimaginative minds had visualised this coming +scene with absolutely realistic perception. And yet, now that the +supreme hour had come, now that they saw Pierre--torch in hand--prepared +to give the signal which would set ablaze the seething revolt of the +countryside, their heart seemed to stop its beating within their body; +they held their breath, their toil-worn hands went up to their throats +as if to repress that awful choking sensation which was so like fear. + +But Pierre had no such hesitations; if his breath seemed to choke him as +it reached his throat, if it escaped through his set teeth with a +strange whistling sound, it was because his excitement was that of a +hungry beast who had sighted his prey and is ready to spring and devour. +His hand did not shake, his step was firm: the gusts of wind caught the +flame of his torch till the sparks flew in every direction and scorched +his hair and his hands, and while the others recoiled he strode on, to +the straw-rick that was nearest. + +For one moment he held the torch aloft. There was triumph now in his +eyes, in his whole attitude. He looked out into the darkness far away +which seemed all the more impenetrable beyond the restricted circle of +flickering torchlight. It seemed as if he would wrest from that inky +blackness all the secrets which it hid--all the enthusiasm, the +excitement, the passions, the hatred which he would have liked to set +ablaze as he would the straw-ricks anon. + +"Are you ready, mes amis?" he called. + +"Aye! aye!" they replied--not gaily, not lustily, but calmly and under +their breath. + +One touch of the torch and the dry straw began to crackle; a gust of +wind caught the flame and whipped it into energy; it crept up the side +of the little rick like a glowing python that wraps its prey in its +embrace. Another gust of wind, and the flame leapt joyously up to the +pinnacle of the rick, and sent forth other tongues to lick and to lick, +to enfold the straw, to devour, to consume. + +But Pierre did not wait to see the consummation of his work of +destruction. Already with a few rapid strides he had reached his +father's second straw-rick, and this too he set alight, and then another +and another, until six blazing furnaces sent their lurid tongues of +flames, twisting and twirling, writhing and hissing through the stormy +night. + +Within the space of two minutes the whole summit of the hillock seemed +to be ablaze, and Pierre, like a god of fire, torch in hand, seemed to +preside over and command a multitude of ever-spreading flames to his +will. Excitement had overmastered him now, the lust to destroy was upon +him, and excitement had seized all the others too. + +There was shouting and cursing, and laughter that sounded mirthless and +forced, and calls to Pierre, and oaths of revenge. Memory, like an +evil-intentioned witch, was riding invisibly in the darkness, and she +touched each seething brain with her fever-giving wand. Every man had an +outrage to remember, an injustice to recall, and strong, brown fists +were shaken aloft in the direction of the chateau de Kernogan, whose +lights glimmered feebly in the distance beyond the Loire. + +"Death to the tyrant! A la lanterne les aristos! The people's hour has +come at last! No more starvation! No more injustice! Equality! Liberty! +A mort les aristos!" + +The shouts, the curses, the crackling flames, the howling of the wind, +the soughing of the trees, made up a confusion of sounds which seemed +hardly of this earth; the blazing ricks, the flickering, red light of +the flames had finally transformed the little hillock behind the mill +into another Brocken on whose summit witches and devils do of a truth +hold their revels. + +"A moi!" shouted Pierre again, and he threw his torch down upon the +ground and once more made for the barn. The others followed him. In the +barn were such weapons as these wretched, penniless peasants had managed +to collect--scythes, poles, axes, saws, anything that would prove useful +for the destruction of the chateau de Kernogan and the proposed +brow-beating of M. le duc and his family. All the men trooped in in the +wake of Pierre. The entire hillock was now a blaze of light--lurid and +red and flickering--alternately teased and fanned and subdued by the +gale, so that at times every object stood out clearly cut, every blade +of grass, every stone in bold relief, and in the ruts and fissures, +every tiny pool of muddy water shimmered like strings of fire-opals: +whilst at others, a pall of inky darkness, smoke-laden and impenetrable +would lie over the ground and erase the outline of farm-buildings and +distant mill and of the pushing and struggling mass of humanity inside +the barn. + +But Pierre, heedless of light and darkness, of heat or of cold, +proceeded quietly and methodically to distribute the primitive +implements of warfare to this crowd of ignorant men, who were by now +over ready for mischief: and with every weapon which he placed in +willing hands, he found the right words for willing ears--words which +would kindle passion and lust of vengeance most readily where they lay +dormant, or would fan them into greater vigour where they smouldered. + +"For thee this scythe, Hector Lebrun," he would say to a tall, lanky +youth whose emaciated arms and bony hands were stretched with longing +toward the bright piece of steel; "remember last year's harvest, the +heavy tax thou wert forced to pay, so that not one sou of profit went +into thy pocket, and thy mother starved whilst M. le duc and his brood +feasted and danced, and shiploads of corn were sunk in the Loire lest +abundance made bread too cheap for the poor! + +"For thee this pick-axe, Henri Meunier! Remember the new roof on thy +hut, which thou didst build to keep the wet off thy wife's bed, who was +crippled with ague--and the heavy impost levied on thee by the +tax-collector for this improvement to thy miserable hovel. + +"This pole for thee, Charles Blanc! Remember the beating administered to +thee by the duc's bailiff for daring to keep a tame rabbit to amuse thy +children! + +"Remember! Remember, mes amis!" he added exultantly, "remember every +wrong you have endured, every injustice, every blow! remember your +poverty and his wealth, your crusts of dry bread and his succulent +meals, your rags and his silks and velvets, remember your starving +children and ailing mother, your care-laden wife and toil-worn +daughters! Forget nothing, mes amis, to-night, and at the gates of the +chateau de Kernogan demand of its arrogant owner wrong for wrong and +outrage for outrage." + +A deafening cry of triumph greeted this peroration, scythes and sickles +and axes and poles were brandished in the air and several scores of +hands were stretched out to Pierre and clasped in this newly-formed bond +of vengeful fraternity. + + +III + +Then it was that with vigorous play of the elbows, Jean Adet, the +miller, forced his way through the crowd till he stood face to face with +his son. + +"Unfortunate!" he cried, "what is all this? What dost thou propose to +do? Whither are ye all going?" + +"To Kernogan!" they all shouted in response. + +"En avant, Pierre! we follow!" cried some of them impatiently. + +But Jean Adet--who was a powerful man despite his years--had seized +Pierre by the arm and dragged him to a distant corner of the barn: + +"Pierre!" he said in tones of command, "I forbid thee in the name of thy +duty and the obedience which thou dost owe to me and to thy mother, to +move another step in this hot-headed adventure. I was on the high-road, +walking homewards, when that conflagration and the senseless cries of +these poor lads warned me that some awful mischief was afoot. Pierre! +my son! I command thee to lay that weapon down." + +But Pierre--who in his normal state was a dutiful son and sincerely fond +of his father--shook himself free from Jean Adet's grasp. + +"Father!" he said loudly and firmly, "this is no time for interference. +We are all of us men here and know our own minds. What we mean to do +to-night we have thought on and planned for weeks and months. I pray +you, father, let me be! I am not a child and I have work to do." + +"Not a child?" exclaimed the old man as he turned appealingly to the +lads who had stood by, silent and sullen during this little scene. "Not +a child? But you are all only children, my lads. You don't know what you +are doing. You don't know what terrible consequences this mad escapade +will bring upon us all, upon the whole village, aye! and the +country-side. Do you suppose for one moment that the chateau of Kernogan +will fall at the mercy of a few ignorant unarmed lads like yourselves? +Why! four hundred of you would not succeed in forcing your way even as +far as the courtyard of the palace. M. le duc has had wind for some time +of your turbulent meetings at the auberge: he has kept an armed guard +inside his castle yard for weeks past, a company of artillery with two +guns hoisted upon his walls. My poor lads! you are running straight to +ruin! Go home, I beg of you! Forget this night's escapade! Nothing but +misery to you and yours can result from it." + +They listened quietly, if surlily, to Jean Adet's impassioned words. Far +be it from their thoughts to flout or to mock him. Paternal authority +commanded respect even among the most rough; but they all felt that they +had gone too far now to draw back: the savour of anticipated revenge had +been too sweet to be forgone quite so readily, and Pierre with his +vigorous personality, his glowing eloquence, his compelling power had +more influence over them than the sober counsels of prudence and the +wise admonitions of old Jean Adet. Not one word was spoken, but with an +instinctive gesture every man grasped his weapon more firmly and then +turned to Pierre, thus electing him their spokesman. + +Pierre too had listened in silence to all that his father said, striving +to hide the burning anxiety which was gnawing at his heart, lest his +comrades allowed themselves to be persuaded by the old man's counsels +and their ardour be cooled by the wise dictates of prudence. But when +Jean Adet had finished speaking, and Pierre saw each man thus grasping +his weapon all the more firmly and in silence, a cry of triumph escaped +his lips. + +"It is all in vain, father," he cried, "our minds are made up. A host of +angels from heaven would not bar our way now to victory and to +vengeance." + +"Pierre!" admonished the old man. + +"It is too late, my father," said Pierre firmly, "en avant, lads!" + +"Yes! en avant! en avant!" assented some, "we have wasted too much time +as it is." + +"But, unfortunate lads," admonished the old man, "what are you going to +do?--a handful of you--where are you going?" + +"We go straight to the cross-roads now, father," said Pierre, firmly. +"The firing of your ricks--for which I humbly crave your pardon--is the +preconcerted signal which will bring the lads from all the neighbouring +villages--from Goulaine and les Sorinieres and Doulon and Tourne-Bride +to our meeting place. Never you fear! There will be more than four +hundred of us and a company of paid soldiers is not like to frighten us. +Eh, lads?" + +"No! no! en avant!" they shouted and murmured impatiently, "there has +been too much talking already and we have wasted precious time." + +"Pierre!" entreated the miller. + +But no one listened to the old man now. A general movement down the +hillock had already begun and Pierre, turning his back on his father, +had pushed his way to the front of the crowd and was now leading the way +down the slope. Up on the summit the fire was already burning low; only +from time to time an imprisoned tongue of flame would dart out of the +dying embers and leap fitfully up into the night. A dull red glow +illumined the small farmery and the mill and the slowly moving mass of +men along the narrow road, whilst clouds of black, dense smoke were +tossed about by the gale. Pierre walked with head erect. He ceased to +think of his father and he never looked back to see if the others +followed him. He knew that they did: like the straw-ricks a while ago, +they had become the prey of a consuming fire: the fire of their own +passion which had caught them and held them and would not leave them now +until their ardour was consumed in victory or defeat. + + +IV + +M. le duc de Kernogan had just finished dinner when Jacques Labruniere, +his head-bailiff, came to him with the news that a rabble crowd, +composed of the peasantry of Goulaine and Vertou and the neighbouring +villages, had assembled at the cross-roads, there held revolutionary +speeches, and was even now marching toward the castle still shouting +and singing and brandishing a miscellaneous collection of weapons +chiefly consisting of scythes and axes. + +"The guard is under arms, I imagine," was M. le duc's comment on this +not altogether unforeseen piece of news. + +"Everything is in perfect order," replied the head-bailiff cooly, "for +the defence of M. le duc and his property--and of Mademoiselle." + +M. le duc, who had been lounging in one of the big armchairs in the +stately hall of Kernogan, jumped to his feet at these words: his cheeks +suddenly pallid, and a look of deadly fear in his eyes. + +"Mademoiselle," he said hurriedly, "by G--d, Labruniere, I had +forgotten--momentarily----" + +"M. le duc?" stammered the bailiff in anxious inquiry. + +"Mademoiselle de Kernogan is on her way home--even now--she spent the +day with Mme. le Marquise d'Herbignac--she was to return at about eight +o'clock.... If those devils meet her carriage on the road...." + +"There is no cause for anxiety, M. le duc," broke in Labruniere +hurriedly. "I will see that half a dozen men get to horse at once and go +and meet Mademoiselle and escort her home...." + +"Yes ... yes ... Labruniere," murmured the duc, who seemed very much +overcome with terror now that his daughter's safety was in jeopardy, +"see to it at once. Quick! quick! I shall wax crazy with anxiety." + +While Labruniere ran to make the necessary arrangements for an efficient +escort for Mademoiselle de Kernogan and gave the sergeant in charge of +the posse the necessary directions, M. le duc remained motionless, +huddled up in the capacious armchair, his head buried in his hand, +shivering in front of the huge fire which burned in the monumental +hearth, himself the prey of nameless, overwhelming terror. + +He knew--none better--the appalling hatred wherewith he and all his +family and belongings were regarded by the local peasantry. Astride upon +his manifold rights--feudal, territorial, seignorial rights--he had all +his life ridden roughshod over the prejudices, the miseries, the +undoubted rights of the poor people, who were little better than serfs +in the possession of the high and mighty duc de Kernogan. He also +knew--none better--that gradually, very gradually it is true, but with +unerring certainty, those same downtrodden, ignorant, miserable and +half-starved peasants were turning against their oppressors, that riots +and outrages had occurred in many rural districts in the North and that +the insidious poison of social revolution was gradually creeping toward +the South and West, and had already infected the villages and small +townships which were situated quite unpleasantly close to Nantes and to +Kernogan. + +For this reason he had kept a company of artillery at his own expense +inside the precincts of his chateau, and with the aristocrat's open +contempt for this peasantry which it had not yet learned to fear, he had +disdained to take further measures for the repression of local +gatherings, and would not pay the village rabble the compliment of being +afraid of them in any way. + +But with his daughter Yvonne in the open roadway on the very night when +an assembly of that same rabble was obviously bent on mischief, matters +became very serious. Insult, outrage or worse might befall the proud +aristocrat's only child, and knowing that from these people, whom she +had been taught to look upon as little better than beasts, she could +expect neither mercy nor chivalry, the duc de Kernogan within his +unassailable castle felt for his daughter's safety the most abject, the +most deadly fear which hath ever unnerved any man. + +Labruniere a few minutes later did his best to reassure his master. + +"I have ordered the men to take the best horses out of the stables, M. +le duc," he said, "and to cut across the fields toward la Gramoire so as +to intercept Mademoiselle's coach ere it reach the cross-roads. I feel +confident that there is no cause for alarm," he added emphatically. + +"Pray God you are right, Labruniere," murmured the duc feebly. "Do you +know how strong the rabble crowd is?" + +"No, Monseigneur, not exactly. Camille the under-bailiff, who brought me +the news, was riding homewards across the meadows about an hour ago when +he saw a huge conflagration which seemed to come from the back of Adet's +mill: the whole sky has been lit up by a lurid light for the past hour, +and I fancied myself that Adet's straw must be on fire. But Camille +pushed his horse up the rising ground which culminates at Adet's +farmery. It seems that he heard a great deal of shouting which did not +seem to be accompanied by any attempt at putting out the fire. So he +dismounted and led his horse round the hillock skirting Adet's farm +buildings so that he should not be seen. Under cover of darkness he +heard and saw the old miller with his son Pierre engaged in distributing +scythes, poles and axes to a crowd of youngsters and haranguing them +wildly all the time. He also heard Pierre Adet speak of the +conflagration as a preconcerted signal, and say that he and his mates +would meet the lads of the neighbouring villages at the cross-roads ... +and that four hundred of them would then march on Kernogan and pillage +the castle." + +"Bah!" quoth M. le duc in a voice hoarse with execration and contempt, +"a lot of oafs who will give the hangman plenty of trouble to-morrow. +As for that Adet and his son, they shall suffer for this ... I can +promise them that.... If only Mademoiselle were home!" he added with a +heartrending sigh. + + +V + +Indeed, had M. le duc de Kernogan been gifted with second sight, the +agony of mind which he was enduring would have been aggravated an +hundredfold. At the very moment when the head-bailiff was doing his best +to reassure his liege-lord as to the safety of Mlle. de Kernogan, her +coach was speeding along from the chateau of Herbignac toward those same +cross-roads where a couple of hundred hot-headed peasant lads were +planning as much mischief as their unimaginative minds could conceive. + +The fury of the gale had in no way abated, and now a heavy rain was +falling--a drenching, sopping rain which in the space of half an hour +had added five centimetres to the depth of the mud on the roads, and had +in that same space of time considerably damped the enthusiasm of some of +the poor lads. Three score or so had assembled from Goulaine, two score +from les Sorinieres, some three dozen from Doulon: they had rallied to +the signal in hot haste, gathered their scythes and spades, very eager +and excited, and had reached the cross-roads which were much nearer to +their respective villages than to Jean Adet's farm and the mill, even +while the old man was admonishing his son and the lads of Vertou on the +summit of the blazing hillock. Here they had spent half an hour in +cooling their heels and their tempers under the drenching rain--wet to +the skin--fuming and fretting at the delay. + +But even so--damped in ardour and chilled to the marrow--they were +still a dangerous crowd and prudence ought to have dictated to +Mademoiselle de Kernogan the wiser course of ordering her coachman +Jean-Marie to head his horses back toward Herbignac the moment that the +outrider reported that a mob, armed with scythes, spades and axes, held +the cross-roads, and that it would be dangerous for the coach to advance +any further. + +Already for the past few minutes the sound of loud shouting had been +heard even above the tramp of the horses and the clatter of the coach. +Jean-Marie had pulled up and sent one of the outriders on ahead to see +what was amiss: the man returned with very unpleasant tidings--in his +opinion it certainly would be dangerous to go any further. The mob +appeared bent on mischief: he had heard threats and curses all levelled +against M. le duc de Kernogan--the conflagration up at Vertou was +evidently a signal which would bring along a crowd of malcontents from +all the neighbouring villages. He was for turning back forthwith. But +Mademoiselle put her head out of the window just then and asked what was +amiss. On hearing that Jean-Marie and the postilion and outriders were +inclined to be afraid of a mob of peasant lads who had assembled at the +cross-roads, and were apparently threatening to do mischief, she chided +them for their cowardice. + +"Jean-Marie," she called scornfully to the old coachman, who had been in +her father's service for close on half a century, "do you really mean to +tell me that you are afraid of that rabble!" + +"Why no! Mademoiselle, so please you," replied the old man, nettled in +his pride by the taunt, "but the temper of the peasantry round here has +been ugly of late, and 'tis your safety I have got to guard." + +"'Tis my commands you have got to obey," retorted Mademoiselle with a +gay little laugh which mitigated the peremptoriness of her tone. "If my +father should hear that there's trouble on the road he will die of +anxiety if I do not return: so whip up the horses, Jean-Marie. No one +will dare to attack the coach." + +"But Mademoiselle----" remonstrated the old man. + +"Ah ca!" she broke in more impatiently, "am I to be openly disobeyed? +Best join that rabble, Jean-Marie, if you have no respect for my +commands." + +Thus twitted by Mademoiselle's sharp tongue, Jean-Marie could not help +but obey. He tried to peer into the distance through the veil of +blinding rain which beat against his face and stung the horses to +restlessness. But the light from the coach lanthorns prevented his +seeing clearly into the darkness beyond. Still it seemed to him that on +ahead a dense and solid mass was moving toward the coach, also that the +sound of shouting and of excited humanity was considerably nearer than +it had been before. No doubt the mob had perceived the lights of the +coach, and was even now making towards it, with what intent Jean-Marie +divined all too accurately. + +But he had his orders, and, though he was an old and trusted servant, +disobedience these days was not even to be thought of. So he did as he +was bid. He whipped up his horses, which were high-spirited and answered +to the lash with a bound and a plunge forward. Mlle. de Kernogan leaned +back on the cushions of the coach. She was satisfied that Jean-Marie had +done as he was told, and she was not in the least afraid. + +But less than five minutes later she had a rude awakening. The coach +gave a terrific lurch. The horses reared and plunged, there was a +deafening clamour all around: men were shouting and cursing: there was +the clash of wood and iron and the cracking of whips: the tramp of +horses' hoofs in the soft ground, and the dull thud of human bodies +falling in the mud, followed by loud cries of pain. There was the sudden +crash of broken glass, the coach lanthorns had been seized and broken: +it seemed to Yvonne de Kernogan that out of the darkness faces distorted +with fury were peering at her through the window-panes. But through all +the confusion, the coach kept moving on. Jean-Marie stuck to his post, +as did also the postilion and the four outriders, and with whip and +tongue they urged their horses to break through the crowd regardless of +human lives, knocking and trampling down men and lads heedless of curses +and blasphemies which were hurled on them and on the occupants of the +coach, whoever they might be. + +The next moment, however, the coach came to a sudden halt, and a wild +cry of triumph drowned the groans of the injured and the dying. + +"Kernogan! Kernogan!" was shouted from every side. + +"Adet! Adet!" + +"You limbs of Satan," cried Jean-Marie, "you'll rue this night's work +and weep tears of blood for the rest of your lives. Let me tell you +that! Mademoiselle is in the coach. When M. le duc hears of this, there +will be work for the hangman...." + +"Mademoiselle in the coach," broke in a hoarse voice with a rough tone +of command. "Let's look at her...." + +"Aye! Aye! let's have a look at Mademoiselle," came with a volley of +objurgations and curses from the crowd. + +"You devils--you would dare?" protested Jean-Marie. + +Within the coach Yvonne de Kernogan hardly dared to breathe. She sat +bolt upright, her cape held tightly round her shoulders: her eyes +dilated now with excitement, if not with fear, were fixed upon the +darkness beyond the window-panes. She could see nothing, but she _felt_ +the presence of that hostile crowd who had succeeded in over-powering +Jean-Marie and were intent on doing her harm. + +But she belonged to a caste which never reckoned cowardice amongst its +many faults. During these few moments when she knew that her life hung +on the merest thread of chance, she neither screamed nor fainted but sat +rigidly still, her heart beating in unison with the agonising seconds +which went so fatefully by. And even now, when the carriage door was +torn violently open and even through the darkness she discerned vaguely +the forms of these avowed enemies close beside her, and anon felt a +rough hand seize her wrist, she did not move, but said quite calmly, +with hardly a tremor in her voice: + +"Who are you? and what do you want?" + +An outburst of harsh and ironical laughter came in response. + +"Who are we, my fine lady?" said the foremost man in the crowd, he who +had seized her wrist and was half in and half out of the coach at this +moment, "we are the men who throughout our lives have toiled and starved +whilst you and such as you travel in fine coaches and eat your fill. +What we want? Why, just the spectacle of such a fine lady as you are +being knocked down into the mud just as our wives and daughters are if +they happen to be in the way when your coach is passing. Isn't that it, +mes amis?" + +"Aye! aye!" they replied, shouting lustily. "Into the mud with the fine +lady. Out with her, Adet. Let's have a look at Mademoiselle how she will +look with her face in the mud. Out with her, quick!" + +But the man who was still half in and half out of the coach, and who had +hold of Mademoiselle's wrist did not obey his mates immediately. He drew +her nearer to him and suddenly threw his rough, begrimed arms round +her, and with one hand pulled back her hood, then placing two fingers +under her chin, he jerked it up till her face was level with his own. + +Yvonne de Kernogan was certainly no coward, but at the loathsome contact +of this infuriated and vengeful creature, she was overcome with such a +hideous sense of fear that for the moment consciousness almost left her: +not completely alas! for though she could not distinguish his face she +could feel his hot breath upon her cheeks, she could smell the +nauseating odour of his damp clothes, and she could hear his hoarse +mutterings as for the space of a few seconds he held her thus close to +him in an embrace which to her was far more awesome than that of death. + +"And just to punish you, my fine lady," he said in a whisper which sent +a shudder of horror right through her, "to punish you for what you are, +the brood of tyrants, proud, disdainful, a budding tyrant yourself, to +punish you for every misery my mother and sister have had to endure, for +every luxury which you have enjoyed, I will kiss you on the lips and the +cheeks and just between your white throat and chin and never as long as +you live if you die this night or live to be an hundred will you be able +to wash off those kisses showered upon you by one who hates and loathes +you--a miserable peasant whom you despise and who in your sight is lower +far than your dogs." + +Yvonne, with eyes closed, hardly breathed, but through the veil of +semi-consciousness which mercifully wrapped her senses, she could still +hear those awful words, and feel the pollution of those loathsome kisses +with which--true to his threat--this creature--half man, wholly devil, +whom she could not see, but whom she hated and feared as she would Satan +himself--now covered her face and throat. + +After that she remembered nothing more. Consciousness mercifully forsook +her altogether. When she recovered her senses, she was within the +precincts of the castle: a confused murmur of voices reached her ears, +and her father's arms were round her. Gradually she distinguished what +was being said: she gathered the threads of the story which Jean-Marie +and the postilion and outriders were hastily unravelling in response to +M. le duc's commands. + +These men of course knew nothing of the poignant little drama which had +been enacted inside the coach. All they knew was that they had been +surrounded by a rough crowd--a hundred or so strong--who brandished +scythes and spades, that they had made valiant efforts to break through +the crowd by whipping up their horses, but that suddenly some of those +devils more plucky than the others seized the horses by their bits and +rendered poor Jean-Marie quite helpless. He thought then that all would +be up with the lot of them and was thinking of scrambling down from his +box in order to protect Mademoiselle with his body, and the pistols +which he had in the boot, when happily for every one concerned, he heard +in the distance--above the clatter which that abominable rabble was +making, the hurried tramp of horses. At once he jumped to the conclusion +that these could be none other than a company of soldiers sent by M. le +duc. This spurred him to a fresh effort, and gave him a new idea. To +Carmail the postilion who had a pistol in his holster he gave the +peremptory order to fire a shot into the air or into the crowd, +Jean-Marie cared not which. This Carmail did, and at once the horses, +already maddened by the crowd, plunged and reared wildly, shaking +themselves free. Jean-Marie, however, had them well in hand, and from +far away there came the cries of encouragement from the advancing +horsemen who were bearing down on them full tilt. The next moment there +was a general melee. Jean-Marie saw nothing save his horses' heads, but +the outriders declared that men were trampled down like flies all +around, while others vanished into the night. + +What happened after that none of the men knew or cared. Jean-Marie +galloped his horses all the way to the castle and never drew rein until +the precincts were reached. + + +VI + +Had M. de Kernogan had his way and a free hand to mete out retributive +justice in the proportion that he desired, there is no doubt that the +hangman of Nantes would have been kept exceedingly busy. As it was a +number of arrests were effected the following day--half the manhood of +the countryside was implicated in the aborted _Jacquerie_ and the city +prison was not large enough to hold it all. + +A court of justice presided over by M. le duc, and composed of half a +dozen men who were directly or indirectly in his employ, pronounced +summary sentences on the rioters which were to have been carried out as +soon as the necessary arrangements for such wholesale executions +could be made. Nantes was turned into a city of wailing; +peasant-women--mothers, sisters, daughters, wives of the condemned, +trooped from their villages into the city, loudly calling on M. le duc +for mercy, besieging the improvised court-house, the prison gates, the +town residence of M. le duc, the palace of the bishop: they pushed their +way into the courtyards and the very corridors of those +buildings--flunkeys could not cope with them--they fought with fists and +elbows for the right to make a direct appeal to the liege-lord who had +power of life and death over their men. + +The municipality of Nantes held aloof from this distressful state of +things, and the town councillors, the city functionaries and their +families shut themselves up in their houses in order to avoid being a +witness to the heartrending scenes which took place uninterruptedly +round the court-house and the prison. The mayor himself was powerless to +interfere, but it is averred that he sent a secret courier to Paris to +M. de Mirabeau, who was known to be a personal friend of his, with a +detailed account of the _Jacquerie_ and of the terrible measures of +reprisal contemplated by M. le duc de Kernogan, together with an earnest +request that pressure from the highest possible quarters be brought to +bear upon His Grace so that he should abate something of his vengeful +rigours. + +Poor King Louis, who in these days was being terrorised by the National +Assembly and swept off his feet by the eloquence of M. de Mirabeau, was +only too ready to make concessions to the democratic spirit of the day. +He also desired his noblesse to be equally ready with such concessions. +He sent a personal letter to M. le duc, not only asking him, but +commanding him, to show grace and mercy to a lot of misguided peasant +lads whose loyalty and adherence--he urged--might be won by a gracious +and unexpected act of clemency. + +The King's commands could not in the nature of things be disobeyed: the +same stroke of the pen which was about to send half a hundred young +countrymen to the gallows granted them M. le duc's gracious pardon and +their liberty: the only exception to this general amnesty being Pierre +Adet, the son of the miller. M. le duc's servants had deposed to seeing +him pull open the door of the coach and stand for some time half in and +half out of the carriage, obviously trying to terrorise Mademoiselle. +Mademoiselle refused either to corroborate or to deny this statement, +but she had arrived fainting at the gate of the chateau, and she had +been very ill ever since. She had sustained a serious shock to her +nerves, so the doctor hastily summoned from Paris had averred, and it +was supposed that she had lost all recollection of the terrible +incidents of that night. + +But M. le duc was satisfied that it was Pierre Adet's presence inside +the coach which had brought about his daughter's mysterious illness and +that heartrending look of nameless horror which had dwelt in her eyes +ever since. Therefore with regard to that man M. le duc remained +implacable and as a concession to a father's outraged feelings both the +mayor of Nantes and the city functionaries accepted Adet's condemnation +without a murmur of dissent. + +The sentence of death finally passed upon Pierre, the son of Jean Adet, +miller of Vertou, could not, however, be executed, for the simple reason +that Pierre had disappeared and that the most rigorous search instituted +in the neighbourhood and for miles around failed to bring him to +justice. One of the outriders who had been in attendance on Mademoiselle +on that fateful night declared that when Jean-Marie finally whipped up +his horses at the approach of the party of soldiers, Adet fell backwards +from the step of the carriage and was run over by the hind wheels and +instantly killed. But his body was never found among the score or so +which were left lying there in the mud of the road until the women and +old men came to seek their loved ones among the dead. + +Pierre Adet had disappeared. But M. le duc's vengeance had need of a +prey. The outrage which he was quite convinced had been perpetrated +against his daughter must be punished by death--if not by the death of +the chief offender, then by that of the one who stood nearest to him. +Thus was Jean Adet the miller dragged from his home and cast into +prison. Was he not implicated himself in the riots? Camille the bailiff +had seen and heard him among the insurgents on the hillock that night. +At first it was stated that he would be held as hostage for the +reappearance of his son. But Pierre Adet had evidently fled the +countryside: he was obviously ignorant of the terrible fate which his +own folly had brought upon his father. Many thought that he had gone to +seek his fortune in Paris where his talents and erudition would ensure +him a good place in the present mad rush for equality amongst all men. +Certain it is that he did not return and that with merciless hate and +vengeful relentlessness M. le duc de Kernogan had Jean Adet hanged for a +supposed crime said to be committed by his son. + +Jean Adet died protesting his innocence. But the outburst of indignation +and revolt aroused by this crying injustice was swamped by the torrent +of the revolution which, gathering force by these very acts of tyranny +and of injustice, soon swept innocent and guilty alike into a vast +whirlpool of blood and shame and tears. + + + + +BOOK ONE: BATH, 1793 + +CHAPTER I + +THE MOOR + + +I + +Silence. Loneliness. Desolation. + +And the darkness of late afternoon in November, when the fog from the +Bristol Channel has laid its pall upon moor and valley and hill: the +last grey glimmer of a wintry sunset has faded in the west: earth and +sky are wrapped in the gloomy veils of oncoming night. Some little way +ahead a tiny light flickers feebly. + +"Surely we cannot be far now." + +"A little more patience, Mounzeer. Twenty minutes and we be there." + +"Twenty minutes, mordieu. And I have ridden since the morning. And you +tell me it was not far." + +"Not far, Mounzeer. But we be not 'orzemen either of us. We doan't +travel very fast." + +"How can I ride fast on this heavy beast? And in this _satane_ mud. My +horse is up to his knees in it. And I am wet--ah! wet to my skin in this +_sacre_ fog of yours." + +The other made no reply. Indeed he seemed little inclined for +conversation: his whole attention appeared to be riveted on the business +of keeping in his saddle, and holding his horse's head turned in the +direction in which he wished it to go: he was riding a yard or two ahead +of his companion, and it did not need any assurance on his part that he +was no horseman: he sat very loosely in his saddle, his broad shoulders +bent, his head thrust forward, his knees turned out, his hands clinging +alternately to the reins and to the pommel with that ludicrous +inconsequent gesture peculiar to those who are wholly unaccustomed to +horse exercise. + +His attitude, in fact, as well as the promiscuous set of clothes which +he wore--a labourer's smock, a battered high hat, threadbare corduroys +and fisherman's boots--at once suggested the loafer, the do-nothing who +hangs round the yards of half-way houses and posting inns on the chance +of earning a few coppers by an easy job which does not entail too much +exertion on his part and which will not take him too far from his +favourite haunts. When he spoke--which was not often--the soft burr in +the pronunciation of the sibilants betrayed the Westcountryman. + +His companion, on the other hand, was obviously a stranger: high of +stature, and broadly built, his wide shoulders and large hands and feet, +his square head set upon a short thick neck, all bespoke the physique of +a labouring man, whilst his town-made clothes--his heavy caped coat, +admirably tailored, his buckskin breeches and boots of fine +leather--suggested, if not absolutely the gentleman, at any rate one +belonging to the well-to-do classes. Though obviously not quite so +inexperienced in the saddle as the other man appeared to be, he did not +look very much at home in the saddle either: he held himself very rigid +and upright and squared his shoulders with a visible effort at seeming +at ease, like a townsman out for a constitutional on the fashionable +promenade of his own city, or a cavalry subaltern but lately emerged +from a riding school. He spoke English quite fluently, even +colloquially at times, but with a marked Gallic accent. + + +II + +The road along which the two cavaliers were riding was unspeakably +lonely and desolate--an offshoot from the main Bath to Weston road. It +had been quite a good secondary road once. The accounts of the county +administration under date 1725 go to prove that it was completed in that +year at considerable expense and with stone brought over for the purpose +all the way from Draycott quarries, and for twenty years after that a +coach used to ply along it between Chelwood and Redhill as well as two +or three carriers, and of course there was all the traffic in connexion +with the Stanton markets and the Norton Fairs. But that was nigh on +fifty years ago now, and somehow--once the mail-coach was +discontinued--it had never seemed worth while to keep the road in decent +repair. It had gone from bad to worse since then, and travelling on it +these days either ahorse or afoot had become very unpleasant. It was +full of ruts and crevasses and knee-deep in mud, as the stranger had +very appositely remarked, and the stone parapet which bordered it on +either side, and which had once given it such an air of solidity and of +value, was broken down in very many places and threatened soon to +disappear altogether. + +The country round was as lonely and desolate as the road. And that sense +of desolation seemed to pervade the very atmosphere right through the +darkness which had descended on upland and valley and hill. Though +nothing now could be seen through the gloom and the mist, the senses +were conscious that even in broad daylight there would be nothing to +see. Loneliness dwelt in the air as well as upon the moor. There were no +homesteads for miles around, no cattle grazing, no pastures, no hedges, +nothing--just arid wasteland with here and there a group of stunted +trees or an isolated yew, and tracts of rough, coarse grass not nearly +good enough for cattle to eat. + +There are vast stretches of upland equally desolate in many parts of +Europe--notably in Northern Spain--but in England, where they are rare, +they seem to gain an additional air of loneliness through the very life +which pulsates in their vicinity. This bit of Somersetshire was one of +them in this year of grace 1793. Despite the proximity of Bath and its +fashionable life, its gaieties and vitality, distant only a little over +twenty miles, and of Bristol distant less than thirty, it had remained +wild and forlorn, almost savage in its grim isolation, primitive in the +grandeur of its solitude. + + +III + +The road at the point now reached by the travellers begins to slope in a +gentle gradient down to the level of the Chew, a couple of miles further +on: it was midway down this slope that the only sign of living humanity +could be perceived in that tiny light which glimmered persistently. The +air itself under its mantle of fog had become very still, only the water +of some tiny moorland stream murmured feebly in its stony bed ere it +lost its entity in the bosom of the river far away. + +"Five more minutes and we be at th' Bottom Inn," quoth the man who was +ahead in response to another impatient ejaculation from his companion. + +"If we don't break our necks meanwhile in this confounded darkness," +retorted the other, for his horse had just stumbled and the +inexperienced rider had been very nearly pitched over into the mud. + +"I be as anxious to arrive as you are, Mounzeer," observed the +countryman laconically. + +"I thought you knew the way," muttered the stranger. + +"'Ave I not brought you safely through the darkness?" retorted the +other; "you was pretty well ztranded at Chelwood, Mounzeer, or I be much +mistaken. Who else would 'ave brought you out 'ere at this time o' +night, I'd like to know--and in this weather too? You wanted to get to +th' Bottom Inn and didn't know 'ow to zet about it: none o' the gaffers +up to Chelwood 'peared eager to 'elp you when I come along. Well, I've +brought you to th' Bottom Inn and.... Whoa! Whoa! my beauty! Whoa, +confound you! Whoa!" + +And for the next moment or two the whole of his attention had perforce +to be concentrated on the business of sticking to his saddle whilst he +brought his fagged-out, ill-conditioned nag to a standstill. + +The little glimmer of light had suddenly revealed itself in the shape of +a lanthorn hung inside the wooden porch of a small house which had +loomed out of the darkness and the fog. It stood at an angle of the road +where a narrow lane had its beginnings ere it plunged into the moor +beyond and was swallowed up by the all-enveloping gloom. The house was +small and ugly; square like a box and built of grey stone, its front +flush with the road, its rear flanked by several small outbuildings. +Above the porch hung a plain sign-board bearing the legend: "The Bottom +Inn" in white letters upon a black ground: to right and left of the +porch there was a window with closed shutters, and on the floor above +two more windows--also shuttered--completed the architectural features +of the Bottom Inn. + +It was uncompromisingly ugly and uninviting, for beyond the faint +glimmer of the lanthorn only one or two narrow streaks of light +filtrated through the chinks of the shutters. + + +IV + +The travellers, after some difference of opinion with their respective +horses, contrived to pull up and to dismount without any untoward +accident. The stranger looked about him, peering into the darkness. The +place indeed appeared dismal and inhospitable enough: its solitary +aspect suggested footpads and the abode of cut-throats. The silence of +the moor, the pall of mist and gloom that hung over upland and valley +sent a shiver through his spine. + +"You are sure this is the place?" he queried. + +"Can't ye zee the zign?" retorted the other gruffly. + +"Can you hold the horses while I go in?" + +"I doan't know as 'ow I can, Mounzeer. I've never 'eld two 'orzes all at +once. Suppose they was to start kickin' or thought o' runnin' away?" + +"Running away, you fool!" muttered the stranger, whose temper had +evidently suffered grievously during the weary, cold journey from +Chelwood. "I'll break your _satane_ head if anything happens to the +beasts. How can I get back to Bath save the way I came? Do you think I +want to spend the night in this God-forsaken hole?" + +Without waiting to hear any further protests from the lout, he turned +into the porch and with his riding whip gave three consecutive raps +against the door of the inn, followed by two more. The next moment there +was the sound of a rattling of bolts and chains, the door was cautiously +opened and a timid voice queried: + +"Is it Mounzeer?" + +"Pardieu! Who else?" growled the stranger. "Open the door, woman. I am +perished with cold." + +With an unceremonious kick he pushed the door further open and strode +in. A woman was standing in the dimly lighted passage. As the stranger +walked in she bobbed him a respectful curtsey. + +"It is all right, Mounzeer," she said; "the Captain's in the +coffee-room. He came over from Bristol early this afternoon." + +"No one else here, I hope," he queried curtly. + +"No one, zir. It ain't their hour not yet. You'll 'ave the 'ouse to +yourself till after midnight. After that there'll be a bustle, I reckon. +Two shiploads come into Watchet last night--brandy and cloth, Mounzeer, +so the Captain says, and worth a mint o' money. The pack 'orzes will be +through yere in the small hours." + +"That's all right, then. Send me in a bite and a mug of hot ale." + +"I'll see to it, Mounzeer." + +"And stay--have you some sort of stabling where the man can put the two +horses up for an hour's rest?" + +"Aye, aye, zir." + +"Very well then, see to that too: and see that the horses get a feed and +a drink and give the man something to eat." + +"Very good, Mounzeer. This way, zir. I'll see the man presently. +Straight down the passage, zir. The coffee-room is on the right. The +Captain's there, waiting for ye." + +She closed the front door carefully, then followed the stranger to the +door of the coffee-room. Outside an anxious voice was heard muttering a +string of inconsequent and wholly superfluous "Whoa's!" Of a truth the +two wearied nags were only too anxious for a little rest. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE BOTTOM INN + + +I + +A man was sitting, huddled up in the ingle-nook of the small +coffee-room, sipping hot ale from a tankard which he had in his hand. + +Anything less suggestive of a rough sea-faring life than his appearance +it would be difficult to conceive; and how he came by the appellation +"the Captain" must for ever remain a mystery. He was small and spare, +with thin delicate face and slender hands: though dressed in very rough +garments, he was obviously ill at ease in them; his narrow shoulders +scarcely appeared able to bear the weight of the coarsely made coat, and +his thin legs did not begin to fill the big fisherman's boots which +reached midway up his lean thighs. His hair was lank and plentifully +sprinkled with grey: he wore it tied at the nape of the neck with a silk +bow which certainly did not harmonise with the rest of his clothing. A +wide-brimmed felt hat something the shape of a sailor's, but with higher +crown--of the shape worn by the peasantry in Brittany--lay on the bench +beside him. + +When the stranger entered he had greeted him curtly, speaking in French. + +The room was inexpressibly stuffy, and reeked of the fumes of stale +tobacco, stale victuals and stale beer; but it was warm, and the +stranger, stiff to the marrow and wet to the skin, uttered an +exclamation of well-being as he turned to the hearth, wherein a bright +fire burned cheerily. He had put his hat down when first he entered and +had divested himself of his big coat: now he held one foot and then the +other to the blaze and tried to infuse new life into his numbed hands. + +"The Captain" took scant notice of his comings and goings. He did not +attempt to help him off with his coat, nor did he make an effort to add +another log to the fire. He sat silent and practically motionless, save +when from time to time he took a sip out of his mug of ale. But whenever +the new-comer came within his immediate circle of vision he shot a +glance at the latter's elegant attire--the well-cut coat, the striped +waistcoat, the boots of fine leather--the glance was quick and +comprehensive and full of scorn, a flash that lasted only an instant and +was at once veiled again by the droop of the flaccid lids which hid the +pale, keen eyes. + +"When the woman has brought me something to eat and drink," the stranger +said after a while, "we can talk. I have a good hour to spare, as those +miserable nags must have some rest." + +He too spoke in French and with an air of authority, not to say +arrogance, which caused "the Captain's" glance of scorn to light up with +an added gleam of hate and almost of cruelty. But he made no remark and +continued to sip his ale in silence, and for the next half-hour the two +men took no more notice of one another, just as if they had never +travelled all those miles and come to this desolate spot for the sole +purpose of speaking with one another. During the course of that +half-hour the woman brought in a dish of mutton stew, a chunk of bread, +a piece of cheese and a jug of spiced ale, and placed them on the table: +all of these good things the stranger consumed with an obviously keen +appetite. When he had eaten and drunk his fill, he rose from the table, +drew a bench into the ingle-nook and sat down so that his profile only +was visible to his friend "the Captain." + +"Now, citizen Chauvelin," he said with at attempt at ease and +familiarity not unmixed with condescension, "I am ready for your news." + + +II + +Chauvelin had winced perceptibly both at the condescension and the +familiarity. It was such a very little while ago that men had trembled +at a look, a word from him: his silence had been wont to strike terror +in quaking hearts. It was such a very little while ago that he had been +president of the Committee of Public Safety, all powerful, the right +hand of citizen Robespierre, the master sleuth-hound who could track an +unfortunate "suspect" down to his most hidden lair, before whose keen, +pale eyes the innermost secrets of a soul stood revealed, who guessed at +treason ere it was wholly born, who scented treachery ere it was +formulated. A year ago he had with a word sent scores of men, women and +children to the guillotine--he had with a sign brought the whole +machinery of the ruthless Committee to work against innocent or guilty +alike on mere suspicion, or to gratify his own hatred against all those +whom he considered to be the enemies of that bloody revolution which he +had helped to make. Now his presence, his silence, had not even the +power to ruffle the self-assurance of an upstart. + +But in the hard school both of success and of failure through which he +had passed during the last decade, there was one lesson which Armand +once Marquis de Chauvelin had learned to the last letter, and that was +the lesson of self-control. He had winced at the other's familiarity, +but neither by word nor gesture did he betray what he felt. + +"I can tell you," he merely said quite curtly, "all I have to say in far +less time than it has taken you to eat and drink, citizen Adet...." + +But suddenly, at sound of that name, the other had put a warning hand on +Chauvelin's arm, even as he cast a rapid, anxious look all round the +narrow room. + +"Hush, man!" he murmured hurriedly, "you know quite well that that name +must never be pronounced here in England. I am Martin-Roget now," he +added, as he shook off his momentary fright with equal suddenness, and +once more resumed his tone of easy condescension, "and try not to forget +it." + +Chauvelin without any haste quietly freed his arm from the other's +grasp. His pale face was quite expressionless, only the thin lips were +drawn tightly over the teeth now, and a curious hissing sound escaped +faintly from them as he said: + +"I'll try and remember, citizen, that here in England you are an aristo, +the same as all these confounded English whom may the devil sweep into a +bottomless sea." + +Martin-Roget gave a short, complacent laugh. + +"Ah," he said lightly, "no wonder you hate them, citizen Chauvelin. You +too were an aristo here in England once--not so very long ago, I am +thinking--special envoy to His Majesty King George, what?--until failure +to bring one of these _satane_ Britishers to book made you ... er ... +well, made you what you are now." + +He drew up his tall, broad figure as he spoke and squared his massive +shoulders as he looked down with a fatuous smile and no small measure of +scorn on the hunched-up little figure beside him. It had seemed to him +that something in the nature of a threat had crept into Chauvelin's +attitude, and he, still flushed with his own importance, his +immeasurable belief in himself, at once chose to measure his strength +against this man who was the personification of failure and +disgrace--this man whom so many people had feared for so long and whom +it might not be wise to defy even now. + +"No offence meant, citizen Chauvelin," he added with an air of patronage +which once more made the other wince. "I had no wish to wound your +susceptibilities. I only desired to give you timely warning that what I +do here is no one's concern, and that I will brook interference and +criticism from no man." + +And Chauvelin, who in the past had oft with a nod sent a man to the +guillotine, made no reply to this arrogant taunt. His small figure +seemed to shrink still further within itself: and anon he passed his +thin, claw-like hand over his face as if to obliterate from its surface +any expression which might war with the utter humility wherewith he now +spoke. + +"Nor was there any offence meant on my part, citizen Martin-Roget," he +said suavely. "Do we not both labour for the same end? The glory of the +Republic and the destruction of her foes?" + +Martin-Roget gave a sigh of satisfaction. The battle had been won: he +felt himself strong again--stronger than before through that very act of +deference paid to him by the once all-powerful Chauvelin. Now he was +quite prepared to be condescending and jovial once again: + +"Of course, of course," he said pleasantly, as he once more bent his +tall figure to the fire. "We are both servants of the Republic, and I +may yet help you to retrieve your past failures, citizen, by giving you +an active part in the work I have in hand. And now," he added in a calm, +business-like manner, the manner of a master addressing a servant who +has been found at fault and is taken into favour again, "let me hear +your news." + +"I have made all the arrangements about the ship," said Chauvelin +quietly. + +"Ah! that is good news indeed. What is she?" + +"She is a Dutch ship. Her master and crew are all Dutch...." + +"That's a pity. A Danish master and crew would have been safer." + +"I could not come across any Danish ship willing to take the risks," +said Chauvelin dryly. + +"Well! And what about this Dutch ship then?" + +"She is called the _Hollandia_ and is habitually engaged in the sugar +trade: but her master does a lot of contraband--more that than fair +trading, I imagine: anyway, he is willing for the sum you originally +named to take every risk and incidentally to hold his tongue about the +whole business." + +"For two thousand francs?" + +"Yes." + +"And he will run the _Hollandia_ into Le Croisic?" + +"When you command." + +"And there is suitable accommodation on board her for a lady and her +woman?" + +"I don't know what you call suitable," said Chauvelin with a sarcastic +tone, which the other failed or was unwilling to note, "and I don't know +what you call a lady. The accommodation available on board the +_Hollandia_ will be sufficient for two men and two women." + +"And her master's name?" queried Martin-Roget. + +"Some outlandish Dutch name," replied Chauvelin. "It is spelt +K U Y P E R. The devil only knows how it is pronounced." + +"Well! And does Captain K U Y P E R understand exactly what I want?" + +"He says he does. The _Hollandia_ will put into Portishead on the last +day of this month. You and your guests can get aboard her any day after +that you choose. She will be there at your disposal, and can start +within an hour of your getting aboard. Her master will have all his +papers ready. He will have a cargo of West Indian sugar on +board--destination Amsterdam, consignee Mynheer van Smeer--everything +perfectly straight and square. French aristos, _emigres_ on board on +their way to join the army of the Princes. There will be no difficulty +in England." + +"And none in Le Croisic. The man is running no risks." + +"He thinks he is. France does not make Dutch ships and Dutch crews +exactly welcome just now, does she?" + +"Certainly not. But in Le Croisic and with citizen Adet on board...." + +"I thought that name was not to be mentioned here," retorted Chauvelin +dryly. + +"You are right, citizen," whispered the other, "it escaped me and...." + +Already he had jumped to his feet, his face suddenly pale, his whole +manner changed from easy, arrogant self-assurance to uncertainty and +obvious dread. He moved to the window, trying to subdue the sound of his +footsteps upon the uneven floor. + + +III + +"Are you afraid of eavesdroppers, citizen Roget?" queried Chauvelin with +a shrug of his narrow shoulders. + +"No. There is no one there. Only a lout from Chelwood who brought me +here. The people of the house are safe enough. They have plenty of +secrets of their own to keep." + +He was obviously saying all this in order to reassure himself, for there +was no doubt that his fears were on the alert. With a febrile gesture he +unfastened the shutters, and pushed them open, peering out into the +night. + +"Hallo!" he called. + +But he received no answer. + +"It has started to rain," he said more calmly. "I imagine that lout has +found shelter in an outhouse with the horses." + +"Very likely," commented Chauvelin laconically. + +"Then if you have nothing more to tell me," quoth Martin-Roget, "I may +as well think about getting back. Rain or no rain, I want to be in Bath +before midnight." + +"Ball or supper-party at one of your duchesses?" queried the other with +a sneer. "I know them." + +To this Martin-Roget vouchsafed no reply. + +"How are things at Nantes?" he asked. + +"Splendid! Carrier is like a wild beast let loose. The prisons are +over-full: the surplus of accused, condemned and suspect fills the +cellars and warehouses along the wharf. Priests and suchlike trash are +kept on disused galliots up stream. The guillotine is never idle, and +friend Carrier fearing that she might give out--get tired, what?--or +break down--has invented a wonderful way of getting rid of shoals of +undesirable people at one magnificent swoop. You have heard tell of it +no doubt." + +"Yes. I have heard of it," remarked the other curtly. + +"He began with a load of priests. Requisitioned an old barge. Ordered +Baudet the shipbuilder to construct half a dozen portholes in her +bottom. Baudet demurred: he could not understand what the order could +possibly mean. But Foucaud and Lamberty--Carrier's agents--you know +them--explained that the barge would be towed down the Loire and then +up one of the smaller navigable streams which it was feared the +royalists were preparing to use as a way for making a descent upon +Nantes, and that the idea was to sink the barge in midstream in order to +obstruct the passage of their army. Baudet, satisfied, put five of his +men to the task. Everything was ready on the 16th of last month. I know +the woman Pichot, who keeps a small tavern opposite La Secherie. She saw +the barge glide up the river toward the galliot where twenty-five +priests of the diocese of Nantes had been living for the past two months +in the company of rats and other vermin as noxious as themselves. Most +lovely moonlight there was that night. The Loire looked like a living +ribbon of silver. Foucaud and Lamberty directed operations, and Carrier +had given them full instructions. They tied the calotins up two and two +and transferred them from the galliot to the barge. It seems they were +quite pleased to go. Had enough of the rats, I presume. The only thing +they didn't like was being searched. Some had managed to secrete silver +ornaments about their person when they were arrested. Crucifixes and +such like. They didn't like to part with these, it seems. But Foucaud +and Lamberty relieved them of everything but the necessary clothing, and +they didn't want much of that, seeing whither they were going. Foucaud +made a good pile, so they say. Self-seeking, avaricious brute! He'll +learn the way to one of Carrier's barges too one day, I'll bet." + +He rose and with quick footsteps moved to the table. There was some ale +left in the jug which the woman had brought for Martin-Roget a while +ago. Chauvelin poured the contents of it down his throat. He had talked +uninterruptedly, in short, jerky sentences, without the slightest +expression of horror at the atrocities which he recounted. His whole +appearance had become transfigured while he spoke. Gone was the urbane +manner which he had learnt at courts long ago, gone was the last +instinct of the gentleman sunk to proletarianism through stress of +circumstances, or financial straits or even political convictions. The +erstwhile Marquis de Chauvelin--envoy of the Republic at the Court of +St. James'--had become citizen Chauvelin in deed and in fact, a part of +that rabble which he had elected to serve, one of that vile crowd of +bloodthirsty revolutionaries who had sullied the pure robes of Liberty +and of Fraternity by spattering them with blood. Now he smacked his +lips, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and burying his hands in the +pockets of his breeches he stood with legs wide apart and a look of +savage satisfaction settled upon his pale face. Martin-Roget had made no +comment upon the narrative. He had resumed his seat by the fire and was +listening attentively. Now while the other drank and paused, he showed +no sign of impatience, but there was something in the look of the bent +shoulders, in the rigidity of the attitude, in the large, square hands +tightly clasped together which suggested the deepest interest and an +intentness that was almost painful. + +"I was at the woman Pichot's tavern that night," resumed Chauvelin after +a while. "I saw the barge--a moving coffin, what?--gliding down stream +towed by the galliot and escorted by a small boat. The floating battery +at La Samaritaine challenged her as she passed, for Carrier had +prohibited all navigation up or down the Loire until further notice. +Foucaud, Lamberty, Fouquet and O'Sullivan the armourer were in the boat: +they rowed up to the pontoon and Vailly the chief gunner of the battery +challenged them once more. However, they had some sort of written +authorisation from Carrier, for they were allowed to pass. Vailly +remained on guard. He saw the barge glide further down stream. It seems +that the moon on that time was hidden by a cloud. But the night was not +dark and Vailly watched the barge till she was out of sight. She was +towed past Trentemoult and Chantenay into the wide reach of the river +just below Chevire where, as you know, the Loire is nearly two thousand +feet wide." + +Once more he paused, looking down with grim amusement on the bent +shoulders of the other man. + +"Well?" + +Chauvelin laughed. The query sounded choked and hoarse, whether through +horror, excitement or mere impatient curiosity it were impossible to +say. + +"Well!" he retorted with a careless shrug of the shoulders. "I was too +far up stream to see anything and Vailly saw nothing either. But he +heard. So did others who happened to be on the shore close by." + +"What did they hear?" + +"The hammering," replied Chauvelin curtly, "when the portholes were +knocked open to let in the flood of water. And the screams and yells of +five and twenty drowning priests." + +"Not one of them escaped, I suppose?" + +"Not one." + +Once more Chauvelin laughed. He had a way of laughing--just like +that--in a peculiar mirthless, derisive manner, as if with joy at +another man's discomfiture, at another's material or moral downfall. +There is only one language in the world which has a word to express that +type of mirth; the word is _Schadenfreude_. + +It was Chauvelin's turn to triumph now. He had distinctly perceived the +signs of an inward shudder which had gone right through Martin-Roget's +spine: he had also perceived through the man's bent shoulders, his +silence, his rigidity that his soul was filled with horror at the story +of that abominable crime which he--Chauvelin--had so blandly retailed +and that he was afraid to show the horror which he felt. And the man who +is afraid can never climb the ladder of success above the man who is +fearless. + + +IV + +There was silence in the low raftered room for awhile: silence only +broken by the crackling and sizzling of damp logs in the hearth, and the +tap-tapping of a loosely fastened shutter which sounded weird and +ghoulish like the knocking of ghosts against the window-frame. +Martin-Roget bending still closer to the fire knew that Chauvelin was +watching him and that Chauvelin had triumphed, for--despite failure, +despite humiliation and disgrace--that man's heart and will had never +softened: he had remained as merciless, as fanatical, as before and +still looked upon every sign of pity and humanity for a victim of that +bloody revolution--which was his child, the thing of his creation, yet +worshipped by him, its creator--as a crime against patriotism and +against the Republic. + +And Martin-Roget fought within himself lest something he might say or +do, a look, a gesture should give the other man an indication that the +horrible account of a hideous crime perpetrated against twenty-five +defenceless men had roused a feeling of unspeakable horror in his heart. +That was the punishment of these callous makers of a ruthless +revolution--that was their hell upon earth, that they were doomed to +hate and to fear one another; every man feeling that the other's hand +was up against him as it had been against law and order, against the +guilty and the innocent, the rebel and the defenceless; every man +knowing that the other was always there on the alert, ready to pounce +like a beast of prey upon any victim--friend, comrade, brother--who came +within reach of his hand. + +Like many men stronger than himself, Pierre Adet--or Martin-Roget as he +now called himself--had been drawn into the vortex of bloodshed and of +tyranny out of which now he no longer had the power to extricate +himself. Nor had he any wish to extricate himself. He had too many past +wrongs to avenge, too much injustice on the part of Fate and +Circumstance to make good, to wish to draw back now that a newly-found +power had been placed in the hands of men such as he through the revolt +of an entire people. The sickening sense of horror which a moment ago +had caused him to shudder and to turn away in loathing from Chauvelin +was only like the feeble flicker of a light before it wholly dies +down--the light of something purer, early lessons of childhood, former +ideals, earlier aspirations, now smothered beneath the passions of +revenge and of hate. + +And he would not give Chauvelin the satisfaction of seeing him wince. He +was himself ashamed of his own weakness. He had deliberately thrown in +his lot with these men and he was determined not to fall a victim to +their denunciations and to their jealousies. So now he made a great +effort to pull himself together, to bring back before his mind those +memory-pictures of past tyranny and oppression which had effectually +killed all sense of pity in his heart, and it was in a tone of perfect +indifference which gave no loophole to Chauvelin's sneers that he asked +after awhile: + +"And was citizen Carrier altogether pleased with the result of his +patriotic efforts?" + +"Oh, quite!" replied the other. "He has no one's orders to take. He is +proconsul--virtual dictator in Nantes: and he has vowed that he will +purge the city from all save its most deserving citizens. The cargo of +priests was followed by one of malefactors, night-birds, cut-throats and +such like. That is where Carrier's patriotism shines out in all its +glory. It is not only priests and aristos, you see--other miscreants are +treated with equal fairness." + +"Yes! I see he is quite impartial," remarked Martin-Roget coolly. + +"Quite," retorted Chauvelin, as he once more sat down in the ingle-nook. +And, leaning his elbows upon his knees he looked straight and +deliberately into the other man's face, and added slowly: "You will have +no cause to complain of Carrier's want of patriotism when you hand over +your bag of birds to him." + +This time Martin-Roget had obviously winced, and Chauvelin had the +satisfaction of seeing that his thrust had gone home: though +Martin-Roget's face was in shadow, there was something now in his whole +attitude, in the clasping and unclasping of his large, square hands +which indicated that the man was labouring under the stress of a violent +emotion. In spite of this he managed to say quite coolly: "What do you +mean exactly by that, citizen Chauvelin?" + +"Oh!" replied the other, "you know well enough what I mean--I am no +fool, what?... or the Revolution would have no use for me. If after my +many failures she still commands my services and employs me to keep my +eyes and ears open, it is because she knows that she can count on me. I +do keep my eyes and ears open, citizen Adet or Martin-Roget, whatever +you like to call yourself, and also my mind--and I have a way of putting +two and two together to make four. There are few people in Nantes who do +not know that old Jean Adet, the miller, was hanged four years ago, +because his son Pierre had taken part in some kind of open revolt +against the tyranny of the ci-devant duc de Kernogan, and was not there +to take his punishment himself. I knew old Jean Adet.... I was on the +Place du Bouffay at Nantes when he was hanged...." + +But already Martin-Roget had jumped to his feet with a muttered +blasphemy. + +"Have done, man," he said roughly, "have done!" And he started pacing up +and down the narrow room like a caged panther, snarling and showing his +teeth, whilst his rough, toil-worn hands quivered with the desire to +clutch an unseen enemy by the throat and to squeeze the life out of him. +"Think you," he added hoarsely, "that I need reminding of that?" + +"No. I do not think that, citizen," replied Chauvelin calmly, "I only +desired to warn you." + +"Warn me? Of what?" + +Nervous, agitated, restless, Martin-Roget had once more gone back to his +seat: his hands were trembling as he held them up mechanically to the +blaze and his face was the colour of lead. In contrast with his +restlessness Chauvelin appeared the more calm and bland. + +"Why should you wish to warn me?" asked the other querulously, but with +an attempt at his former over-bearing manner. "What are my affairs to +you--what do you know about them?" + +"Oh, nothing, nothing, citizen Martin-Roget," replied Chauvelin +pleasantly, "I was only indulging the fancy I spoke to you about just +now of putting two and two together in order to make four. The +chartering of a smuggler's craft--aristos on board her--her ostensible +destination Holland--her real objective Le Croisic.... Le Croisic is now +the port for Nantes and we don't bring aristos into Nantes these days +for the object of providing them with a feather-bed and a competence, +what?" + +"And," retorted Martin-Roget quietly, "if your surmises are correct, +citizen Chauvelin, what then?" + +"Oh, nothing!" replied the other indifferently. "Only ... take care, +citizen ... that is all." + +"Take care of what?" + +"Of the man who brought me, Chauvelin, to ruin and disgrace." + +"Oh! I have heard of that legend before now," said Martin-Roget with a +contemptuous shrug of the shoulders. "The man they call the Scarlet +Pimpernel you mean?" + +"Why, yes!" + +"What have I to do with him?" + +"I don't know. But remember that I myself have twice been after that man +here in England; that twice he slipped through my fingers when I thought +I held him so tightly that he could not possibly escape and that twice +in consequence I was brought to humiliation and to shame. I am a marked +man now--the guillotine will soon claim me for her future use. Your +affairs, citizen, are no concern of mine, but I have marked that Scarlet +Pimpernel for mine own. I won't have any blunderings on your part give +him yet another triumph over us all." + +Once more Martin-Roget swore one of his favourite oaths. + +"By Satan and all his brood, man," he cried in a passion of fury, "have +done with this interference. Have done, I say. I have nothing to do, I +tell you, with your _satane_ Scarlet Pimpernel. My concern is with...." + +"With the duc de Kernogan," broke in Chauvelin calmly, "and with his +daughter; I know that well enough. You want to be even with them over +the murder of your father. I know that too. All that is your affair. +But beware, I tell you. To begin with, the secrecy of your identity is +absolutely essential to the success of your plan. What?" + +"Of course it is. But...." + +"But nevertheless, your identity is known to the most astute, the +keenest enemy of the Republic." + +"Impossible," asserted Martin-Roget hotly. + +"The duc de Kernogan...." + +"Bah! He had never the slightest suspicion of me. Think you his High and +Mightiness in those far-off days ever looked twice at a village lad so +that he would know him again four years later? I came into this country +as an _emigre_ stowed away in a smuggler's ship like a bundle of +contraband goods. I have papers to prove that my name is Martin-Roget +and that I am a banker from Brest. The worthy bishop of Brest--denounced +to the Committee of Public Safety for treason against the Republic--was +given his life and a safe conduct into Spain on the condition that he +gave me--Martin-Roget--letters of personal introduction to various +high-born _emigres_ in Holland, in Germany and in England. Armed with +these I am invulnerable. I have been presented to His Royal Highness the +Regent, and to the elite of English society in Bath. I am the friend of +M. le duc de Kernogan now and the accredited suitor for his daughter's +hand." + +"His daughter!" broke in Chauvelin with a sneer, and his pale, keen eyes +had in them a spark of malicious mockery. + +Martin-Roget made no immediate retort to the sneer. A curious hot flush +had spread over his forehead and his ears, leaving his cheeks wan and +livid. + +"What about the daughter?" reiterated Chauvelin. + +"Yvonne de Kernogan has never seen Pierre Adet the miller's son," +replied the other curtly. "She is now the affianced wife of +Martin-Roget the millionaire banker of Brest. To-night I shall persuade +M. le duc to allow my marriage with his daughter to take place within +the week. I shall plead pressing business in Holland and my desire that +my wife shall accompany me thither. The duke will consent and Yvonne de +Kernogan will not be consulted. The day after my wedding I shall be on +board the _Hollandia_ with my wife and father-in-law, and together we +will be on our way to Nantes where Carrier will deal with them both." + +"You are quite satisfied that this plan of yours is known to no one, +that no one at the present moment is aware of the fact that Pierre Adet, +the miller's son, and Martin-Roget, banker of Brest, are one and the +same?" + +"Quite satisfied," replied Martin-Roget emphatically. + +"Very well, then, let me tell you this, citizen," rejoined Chauvelin +slowly and deliberately, "that in spite of what you say I am as +convinced as that I am here, alive, that your real identity will be +known--if it is not known already--to a gentleman who is at this present +moment in Bath, and who is known to you, to me, to the whole of France +as the Scarlet Pimpernel." + +Martin-Roget laughed and shrugged his shoulders. + +"Impossible!" he retorted. "Pierre Adet no longer exists ... he never +existed ... much.... Anyhow, he ceased to be on that stormy day in +September, 1789. Unless your pet enemy is a wizard he cannot know." + +"There is nothing that my pet enemy--as you call him--cannot ferret out +if he has a mind to. Beware of him, citizen Martin-Roget. Beware, I tell +you." + +"How can I," laughed the other contemptuously, "if I don't know who he +is?" + +"If you did," retorted Chauvelin, "it wouldn't help you ... much. But +beware of every man you don't know; beware of every stranger you meet; +trust no one; above all, follow no one. He is there where you least +expect him under a disguise you would scarcely dream of." + +"Tell me who he is then--since you know him--so that I may duly beware +of him." + +"No," rejoined Chauvelin with the same slow deliberation, "I will not +tell you who he is. Knowledge in this case would be a very dangerous +thing." + +"Dangerous? To whom?" + +"To yourself probably. To me and to the Republic most undoubtedly. No! I +will not tell you who the Scarlet Pimpernel is. But take my advice, +citizen Martin-Roget," he added emphatically, "go back to Paris or to +Nantes and strive there to serve your country rather than run your head +into a noose by meddling with things here in England, and running after +your own schemes of revenge." + +"My own schemes of revenge!" exclaimed Martin-Roget with a hoarse cry +that was like a snarl.... It seemed as if he wanted to say something +more, but that the words choked him even before they reached his lips. +The hot flush died down from his forehead and his face was once more the +colour of lead. He took up a log from the corner of the hearth and threw +it with a savage, defiant gesture into the fire. + +Somewhere in the house a clock struck nine. + + +V + +Martin-Roget waited until the last echo of the gong had died away, then +he said very slowly and very quietly: + +"Forgo my own schemes of revenge? Can you even remotely guess, citizen +Chauvelin, what it would mean to a man of my temperament and of my +calibre to give up that for which I have toiled and striven for the past +four years? Think of what I was on that day when a conglomeration of +adverse circumstances turned our proposed expedition against the chateau +de Kernogan into a disaster for our village lads, and a triumph for the +duc. I was knocked down and crushed all but to death by the wheels of +Mlle. de Kernogan's coach. I managed to crawl in the mud and the cold +and the rain, on my hands and knees, hurt, bleeding, half dead, as far +as the presbytery of Vertou where the _cure_ kept me hidden at risk of +his own life for two days until I was able to crawl farther away out of +sight. The _cure_ did not know, I did not know then of the devilish +revenge which the duc de Kernogan meant to wreak against my father. The +news reached me when it was all over and I had worked my way to Paris +with the few sous in my pocket which that good _cure_ had given me, +earning bed and bread as I went along. I was an ignorant lout when I +arrived in Paris. I had been one of the ci-devant Kernogan's +labourers--his chattel, what?--little better or somewhat worse off than +a slave. There I heard that my father had been foully murdered--hung for +a crime which I was supposed to have committed, for which I had not even +been tried. Then the change in me began. For four years I starved in a +garret, toiling like a galley-slave with my hands and muscles by day and +at my books by night. And what am I now? I have worked at books, at +philosophy, at science: I am a man of education. I can talk and discuss +with the best of those d----d aristos who flaunt their caprices and +their mincing manners in the face of the outraged democracy of two +continents. I speak English--almost like a native--and Danish and German +too. I can quote English poets and criticise M. de Voltaire. I am an +aristo, what? For this I have worked, citizen Chauvelin--day and +night--oh! those nights! how I have slaved to make myself what I now am! +And all for the one object--the sole object without which existence +would have been absolutely unendurable. That object guided me, helped me +to bear and to toil, it cheered and comforted me! To be even one day +with the duc de Kernogan and with his daughter! to be their master! to +hold them at my mercy!... to destroy or pardon as I choose!... to be the +arbiter of their fate!... I have worked for four years: now my goal is +in sight, and you talk glibly of forgoing my own schemes of revenge! +Believe me, citizen Chauvelin," he concluded, "it would be easier for me +to hold my right hand into those flames until it hath burned to a cinder +than to forgo the hope of that vengeance which has eaten into my soul. +It would hurt much less." + +He had spoken thus at great length, but with extraordinary restraint. +Never once did he raise his voice or indulge in gesture. He spoke in +even, monotonous tones, like one who is reciting a lesson; and he sat +straight in front of the fire, his elbow on his knee, his chin resting +in his hand and his eyes fixed upon the flames. + +Chauvelin had listened in perfect silence. The scorn, the resentful +anger, the ill-concealed envy of the fallen man for the successful +upstart had died out of his glance. Martin-Roget's story, the intensity +of feeling betrayed in that absolute, outward calm had caused a chord of +sympathy to vibrate in the other's atrophied heart. How well he +understood that vibrant passion of hate, that longing to exact an eye +for an eye, an outrage for an outrage! Was not his own life given over +now to just such a longing?--a mad aching desire to be even once with +that hated enemy, that maddening, mocking, elusive Scarlet Pimpernel who +had fooled and baffled him so often? + + +VI + +Some few moments had gone by since Martin-Roget's harsh, monotonous +voice had ceased to echo through the low raftered room: silence had +fallen between the two men--there was indeed nothing more to say; the +one had unburthened his over-full heart and the other had understood. +They were of a truth made to understand one another, and the silence +between them betokened sympathy. + +Around them all was still, the stillness of a mist-laden night; in the +house no one stirred: the shutter even had ceased to creak; only the +crackling of the wood fire broke that silence which soon became +oppressive. + +Martin-Roget was the first to rouse himself from this trance-like state +wherein memory was holding such ruthless sway: he brought his hands +sharply down on his knees, turned to look for a moment on his companion, +gave a short laugh and finally rose, saying briskly the while: + +"And now, citizen, I shall have to bid you adieu and make my way back to +Bath. The nags have had the rest they needed and I cannot spend the +night here." + +He went to the door and opening it called a loud "Hallo, there!" + +The same woman who had waited on him on his arrival came slowly down the +stairs in response. + +"The man with the horses," commanded Martin-Roget peremptorily. "Tell +him I'll be ready in two minutes." + +He returned to the room and proceeded to struggle into his heavy coat, +Chauvelin as before making no attempt to help him. He sat once more +huddled up in the ingle-nook hugging his elbows with his thin white +hands. There was a smile half scornful, but not wholly dissatisfied +around his bloodless lips. When Martin-Roget was ready to go he called +out quietly after him: + +"The _Hollandia_ remember! At Portishead on the last day of the month. +Captain K U Y P E R." + +"Quite right," replied Martin-Roget laconically. "I'm not like to +forget." + +He then picked up his hat and riding whip and went out. + + +VII + +Outside in the porch he found the woman bending over the recumbent +figure of his guide. + +"He be azleep, Mounzeer," she said placidly, "fast azleep, I do +believe." + +"Asleep?" cried Martin-Roget roughly, "we'll soon see about waking him +up." + +He gave the man a violent kick with the toe of his boot. The man +groaned, stretched himself, turned over and rubbed his eyes. The light +of the swinging lanthorn showed him the wrathful face of his employer. +He struggled to his feet very quickly after that. + +"Stir yourself, man," cried Martin-Roget savagely, as he gripped the +fellow by the shoulder and gave him a vigorous shaking. "Bring the +horses along now, and don't keep me waiting, or there'll be trouble." + +"All right, Mounzeer, all right," muttered the man placidly, as he shook +himself free from the uncomfortable clutch on his shoulder and leisurely +made his way out of the porch. + +"Haven't you got a boy or a man who can give that lout a hand with those +_sacre_ horses?" queried Martin-Roget impatiently. "He hardly knows a +horse's head from its tail." + +"No, zir, I've no one to-night," replied the woman gently. "My man and +my son they be gone down to Watchet to 'elp with the cargo and the +pack-'orzes. They won't be 'ere neither till after midnight. But," she +added more cheerfully, "I can straighten a saddle if you want it." + +"That's all right then--but...." + +He paused suddenly, for a loud cry of "Hallo! Well! I'm ..." rang +through the night from the direction of the rear of the house. The cry +expressed both surprise and dismay. + +"What the ---- is it?" called Martin-Roget loudly in response. + +"The 'orzes!" + +"What about them?" + +To this there was no reply, and with a savage oath and calling to the +woman to show him the way Martin-Roget ran out in the direction whence +had come the cry of dismay. He fell straight into the arms of his guide, +who promptly set up another cry, more dismal, more expressive of +bewilderment than the first. + +"They be gone," he shouted excitedly. + +"Who have gone?" queried the Frenchman. + +"The 'orzes!" + +"The horses? What in ---- do you mean?" + +"The 'orzes have gone, Mounzeer. There was no door to the ztables and +they be gone." + +"You're a fool," growled Martin-Roget, who of a truth had not taken in +as yet the full significance of the man's jerky sentences. "Horses don't +walk out of the stables like that. They can't have done if you tied them +up properly." + +"I didn't tie them up," protested the man. "I didn't know 'ow to tie the +beastly nags up, and there was no one to 'elp me. I didn't think they'd +walk out like that." + +"Well! if they're gone you'll have to go and get them back somehow, +that's all," said Martin-Roget, whose temper by now was beyond his +control, and who was quite ready to give the lout a furious thrashing. + +"Get them back, Mounzeer," wailed the man, "'ow can I? In the dark, too. +Besides, if I did come nose to nose wi' 'em I shouldn't know 'ow to get +'em. Would you, Mounzeer?" he added with bland impertinence. + +"I shall know how to lay you out, you _satane_ idiot," growled +Martin-Roget, "if I have to spend the night in this hole." + +He strode on in the darkness in the direction where a little glimmer of +light showed the entrance to a wide barn which obviously was used as a +rough stabling. He stumbled through a yard and over a miscellaneous lot +of rubbish. It was hardly possible to see one's hands before one's eyes +in the darkness and the fog. The woman followed him, offering +consolation in the shape of a seat in the coffee-room whereon to pass +the night, for indeed she had no bed to spare, and the man from Chelwood +brought up the rear--still ejaculating cries of astonishment rather than +distress. + +"You are that careless, man!" the woman admonished him placidly, "and I +give you a lanthorn and all for to look after your 'orzes properly." + +"But you didn't give me a 'and for to tie 'em up in their stalls, and +give 'em their feed. Drat 'em! I 'ate 'orzes and all to do with 'em." + +"Didn't you give 'em the feed I give you for 'em then?" + +"No, I didn't. Think you I'd go into one o' them narrow stalls and get +kicked for my pains." + +"Then they was 'ungry, pore things," she concluded, "and went out after +the 'ay what's just outside. I don't know 'ow you'll ever get 'em back +in this fog." + +There was indeed no doubt that the nags had made their way out of the +stables, in that irresponsible fashion peculiar to animals, and that +they had gone astray in the dark. There certainly was no sound in the +night to denote their presence anywhere near. + +"We'll get 'em all right in the morning," remarked the woman with her +exasperating placidity. + +"To-morrow morning!" exclaimed Martin-Roget in a passion of fury. "And +what the d----l am I going to do in the meanwhile?" + +The woman reiterated her offers of a seat by the fire in the +coffee-room. + +"The men won't mind ye, zir," she said, "heaps of 'em are Frenchies like +yourself, and I'll tell 'em you ain't a spying on 'em." + +"It's no more than five mile to Chelwood," said the man blandly, "and +maybe you get a better shakedown there." + +"A five-mile tramp," growled Martin-Roget, whose wrath seemed to have +spent itself before the hopelessness of his situation, "in this fog and +gloom, and knee-deep in mud.... There'll be a sovereign for you, woman," +he added curtly, "if you can give me a clean bed for the night." + +The woman hesitated for a second or two. + +"Well! a zovereign is tempting, zir," she said at last. "You shall 'ave +my son's bed. I know 'e'd rather 'ave the zovereign if 'e was ever zo +tired. This way, zir," she added, as she once more turned toward the +house, "mind them 'urdles there." + +"And where am I goin' to zleep?" called the man from Chelwood after the +two retreating figures. + +"I'll look after the man for you, zir," said the woman; "for a matter of +a shillin' 'e can sleep in the coffee-room, and I'll give 'im 'is +breakfast too." + +"Not one farthing will I pay for the idiot," retorted Martin-Roget +savagely. "Let him look after himself." + +He had once more reached the porch. Without another word, and not +heeding the protests and curses of the unfortunate man whom he had left +standing shelterless in the middle of the yard, he pushed open the front +door of the house and once more found himself in the passage outside the +coffee-room. + +But the woman had turned back a little before she followed her guest +into the house, and she called out to the man in the darkness: + +"You may zleep in any of them outhouses and welcome, and zure there'll +be a bit o' porridge for ye in the mornin'!" + +"Think ye I'll stop," came in a furious growl out of the gloom, "and +conduct that d----d frogeater back to Chelwood? No fear. Five miles +ain't nothin' to me, and 'e can keep the miserable shillin' 'e'd 'ave +give me for my pains. Let 'im get 'is 'orzes back 'izelf and get to +Chelwood as best 'e can. I'm off, and you can tell 'im zo from me. It'll +make 'im sleep all the better, I reckon." + +The woman was obviously not of a disposition that would ever argue a +matter of this sort out. She had done her best, she reckoned, both for +master and man, and if they chose to quarrel between themselves that was +their business and not hers. + +So she quietly went into the house again; barred and bolted the door, +and finding the stranger still waiting for her in the passage she +conducted him to a tiny room on the floor above. + +"My son's room, Mounzeer," she said; "I 'ope as 'ow ye'll be +comfortable." + +"It will do all right," assented Martin-Roget. "Is 'the Captain' +sleeping in the house to-night?" he added as with an afterthought. + +"Only in the coffee-room, Mounzeer. I couldn't give 'im a bed. 'The +Captain' will be leaving with the pack 'orzes a couple of hours before +dawn. Shall I tell 'im you be 'ere." + +"No, no," he replied promptly. "Don't tell him anything. I don't want to +see him again: and he'll be gone before I'm awake, I reckon." + +"That 'e will, zir, most like. Good-night, zir." + +"Good-night. And--mind--that lout gets the two horses back again for my +use in the morning. I shall have to make my way to Chelwood as early as +may be." + +"Aye, aye, zir," assented the woman placidly. It were no use, she +thought, to upset the Mounzeer's temper once more by telling him that +his guide had decamped. Time enough in the morning, when she would be +less busy. + +"And my John can see 'im as far as Chelwood," she thought to herself as +she finally closed the door on the stranger and made her way slowly down +the creaking stairs. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE ASSEMBLY ROOMS + + +I + +The sigh of satisfaction was quite unmistakable. + +It could be heard from end to end, from corner to corner of the +building. It sounded above the din of the orchestra who had just +attacked with vigour the opening bars of a schottische, above the +brouhaha of moving dancers and the frou-frou of skirts: it travelled +from the small octagon hall, through the central salon to the tea-room, +the ball-room and the card-room: it reverberated from the gallery in the +ball-room to the maids' gallery: it distracted the ladies from their +gossip and the gentlemen from their cards. + +It was a universal, heartfelt "Ah!" of intense and pleasurable +satisfaction. + +Sir Percy Blakeney and his lady had just arrived. It was close on +midnight, and the ball had positively languished. What was a ball +without the presence of Sir Percy? His Royal Highness too had been +expected earlier than this. But it was not thought that he would come at +all, despite his promise, if the spoilt pet of Bath society remained +unaccountably absent; and the Assembly Rooms had worn an air of woe even +in the face of the gaily dressed throng which filled every vast room in +its remotest angle. + +But now Sir Percy Blakeney had arrived, just before the clocks had +struck midnight, and exactly one minute before His Royal Highness drove +up himself from the Royal Apartments. Lady Blakeney was looking more +radiant and beautiful than ever before, so everyone remarked, when a few +moments later she appeared in the crowded ball-room on the arm of His +Royal Highness and closely followed by my lord Anthony Dewhurst and by +Sir Percy himself, who had the young Duchess of Flintshire on his arm. + +"What do you mean, you incorrigible rogue," her Grace was saying with +playful severity to her cavalier, "by coming so late to the ball? +Another two minutes and you would have arrived after His Royal Highness +himself: and how would you have justified such solecism, I would like to +know." + +"By swearing that thoughts of your Grace had completely addled my poor +brain," he retorted gaily, "and that in the mental contemplation of such +charms I forgot time, place, social duties, everything." + +"Even the homage due to truth," she laughed. "Cannot you for once in +your life be serious, Sir Percy?" + +"Impossible, dear lady, whilst your dainty hand rests upon mine arm." + + +II + +It was not often that His Royal Highness graced Bath with his presence, +and the occasion was made the excuse for quite exceptional gaiety and +brilliancy. The new fashions of this memorable year of 1793 had defied +the declaration of war and filtrated through from Paris: London +milliners had not been backward in taking the hint, and though most of +the more starchy dowagers obstinately adhered to the pre-war +fashions--the huge hooped skirts, stiff stomachers, pointed waists, +voluminous panniers and monumental head erections--the young and smart +matrons were everywhere to be seen in the new gracefully flowing skirts +innocent of steel constructions, the high waist line, the pouter +pigeon-like draperies over their pretty bosoms. + +Her Grace of Flintshire looked ravishing with her curly fair hair +entirely free from powder, and Lady Betty Draitune's waist seemed to be +nestling under her arm-pits. Of course Lady Blakeney wore the very +latest thing in striped silks and gossamer-like muslin and lace, and it +was hard to enumerate all the pretty debutantes and young brides who +fluttered about the Assembly Rooms this night. + +And gliding through that motley throng, bright-plumaged like a swarm of +butterflies, there were a few figures dressed in sober blacks and +greys--the _emigres_ over from France--men, women, young girls and +gilded youth from out that seething cauldron of revolutionary +France--who had shaken the dust of that rampant demagogism from off +their buckled shoes, taking away with them little else but their lives. +Mostly chary of speech, grave in their demeanour, bearing upon their wan +faces traces of that horror which had seized them when they saw all the +traditions of their past tottering around them, the proletariat whom +they had despised turning against them with all the fury of caged beasts +let loose, their kindred and friends massacred, their King and Queen +murdered. The shelter and security which hospitable England had extended +to them, had not altogether removed from their hearts the awful sense of +terror and of gloom. + +Many of them had come to Bath because the more genial climate of the +West of England consoled them for the inclemencies of London's fogs. +Received with open arms and with that lavish hospitality which the +refugees and the oppressed had already learned to look for in England, +they had gradually allowed themselves to be drawn into the fashionable +life of the gay little city. The Comtesse de Tournai was here and her +daughter, Lady Ffoulkes, Sir Andrew's charming and happy bride, and M. +Paul Deroulede and his wife--beautiful Juliette Deroulede with the +strange, haunted look in her large eyes, as of one who has looked +closely on death; and M. le duc de Kernogan with his exquisite daughter, +whose pretty air of seriousness and of repose sat so quaintly upon her +young face. But every one remarked as soon as M. le duc entered the +rooms that M. Martin-Roget was not in attendance upon Mademoiselle, +which was quite against the order of things; also that M. le duc +appeared to keep a more sharp eye than usual upon his daughter in +consequence, and that he asked somewhat anxiously if milor Anthony +Dewhurst was in the room, and looked obviously relieved when the reply +was in the negative. + +At which trifling incident every one who was in the know smiled and +whispered, for M. le duc made it no secret that he favoured his own +compatriot's suit for Mademoiselle Yvonne's hand rather than that of my +lord Tony--which--as old Euclid has it--is absurd. + + +III + +But with the arrival of the royal party M. de Kernogan's troubles began. +To begin with, though M. Martin-Roget had not arrived, my lord Tony +undoubtedly had. He had come in, in the wake of Lady Blakeney, but very +soon he began wandering round the room obviously in search of some one. +Immediately there appeared to be quite a conspiracy among the young folk +in the ball-room to keep both Lord Tony's and Mlle. Yvonne's movements +hidden from the prying eyes of M. le duc: and anon His Royal Highness, +after a comprehensive survey of the ball-room and a few gracious words +to his more intimate circle, wandered away to the card-room, and as luck +would have it he claimed M. le duc de Kernogan for a partner at faro. + +Now M. le duc was a courtier of the old regime: to have disobeyed the +royal summons would in his eyes have been nothing short of a crime. He +followed the royal party to the card-room, and on his way thither had +one gleam of comfort in that he saw Lady Blakeney sitting on a sofa in +the octagon hall engaged in conversation with his daughter, whilst Lord +Anthony Dewhurst was nowhere in sight. + +However, the gleam of comfort was very brief, for less than a quarter of +an hour after he had sat down at His Highness' table, Lady Blakeney came +into the card-room and stood thereafter for some little while close +beside the Prince's chair. The next hour after that was one of special +martyrdom for the anxious father, for he knew that his daughter was in +all probability sitting out in a specially secluded corner in the +company of my lord Tony. + +If only Martin-Roget were here! + + +IV + +Martin-Roget with the eagle eyes and the airs of an accredited suitor +would surely have intervened when my lord Tony in the face of the whole +brilliant assembly in the ball-room, drew Mlle. de Kernogan into the +seclusion of the recess underneath the gallery. + +My lord Tony was never very glib of tongue. That peculiar dignified +shyness which is one of the chief characteristics of well-bred +Englishmen caused him to be tongue-tied when he had most to say. It was +just with gesture and an appealing pressure of his hand upon her arm +that he persuaded Yvonne de Kernogan to sit down beside him on the sofa +in the remotest and darkest corner of the recess, and there she remained +beside him silent and grave for a moment or two, and stole timid glances +from time to time through the veil of her lashes at the +finely-chiselled, expressive face of her young English lover. + +He was pining to put a question to her, and so great was his excitement +that his tongue refused him service, and she, knowing what was hovering +on his lips, would not help him out, but a humorous twinkle in her dark +eyes, and a faint smile round her lips lit up the habitual seriousness +of her young face. + +"Mademoiselle ..." he managed to stammer at last. "Mademoiselle Yvonne +... you have seen Lady Blakeney?" + +"Yes," she replied demurely, "I have seen Lady Blakeney." + +"And ... and ... she told you?" + +"Yes. Lady Blakeney told me many things." + +"She told you that ... that.... In God's name, Mademoiselle Yvonne," he +added desperately, "do help me out--it is cruel to tease me! Can't you +see that I'm nearly crazy with anxiety?" + +Then she looked up at him, her dark eyes glowing and brilliant, her face +shining with the light of a great tenderness. + +"Nay, milor," she said earnestly, "I had no wish to tease you. But you +will own 'tis a grave and serious step which Lady Blakeney suggested +that I should take. I have had no time to think ... as yet." + +"But there is no time for thinking, Mademoiselle Yvonne," he said +naively. "If you will consent.... Oh! you will consent, will you not?" +he pleaded. + +She made no immediate reply, but gradually her hand which rested upon +the sofa stole nearer and then nearer to his; and with a quiver of +exquisite happiness his hand closed upon hers. The tips of his fingers +touched the smooth warm palm and poor Lord Tony had to close his eyes +for a moment as his sense of superlative ecstasy threatened to make him +faint. Slowly he lifted that soft white hand to his lips. + +"Upon my word, Yvonne," he said with quiet fervour, "you will never have +cause to regret that you have trusted me." + +"I know that well, milor," she replied demurely. + +She settled down a shade or two closer to him still. + +They were now like two birds in a cosy nest--secluded from the rest of +the assembly, who appeared to them like dream-figures flitting in some +other world that had nothing to do with their happiness. The strains of +the orchestra who had struck the measure of the first figure of a +contredanse sounded like fairy-music, distant, unreal in their ears. +Only their love was real, their joy in one another's company, their +hands clasped closely together! + +"Tell me," she said after awhile, "how it all came about. It is all so +terribly sudden ... so exquisitely sudden. I was prepared of course ... +but not so soon ... and certainly not to-night. Tell me just how it +happened." + +She spoke English quite fluently, with just a charming slight accent, +which he thought the most adorable thing he had ever heard. + +"You see, dear heart," he replied, and there was a quiver of intense +feeling in his voice as he spoke, "there is a man who not only is the +friend whom I love best in all the world, but is also the one whom I +trust absolutely, more than myself. Two hours ago he sent for me and +told me that grave danger threatened you--threatened our love and our +happiness, and he begged me to urge you to consent to a secret marriage +... at once ... to-night." + +"And you think this ... this friend knew?" + +"I know," he replied earnestly, "that he knew, or he would not have +spoken to me as he did. He knows that my whole life is in your exquisite +hands--he knows that our happiness is somehow threatened by that man +Martin-Roget. How he obtained that information I could not guess ... he +had not the time or the inclination to tell me. I flew to make all +arrangements for our marriage to-night and prayed to God--as I have +never prayed in my life before--that you, dear heart, would deign to +consent." + +"How could I refuse when Lady Blakeney advised? She is the kindest and +dearest friend I possess. She and your friend ought to know one another. +Will you not tell me who he is?" + +"I will present him to you, dear heart, as soon as we are married," he +replied with awkward evasiveness. Then suddenly he exclaimed with boyish +enthusiasm: "I can't believe it! I can't believe it! It is the most +extraordinary thing in the world...." + +"What is that, milor?" she asked. + +"That you should have cared for me at all. For of course you must care, +or you wouldn't be sitting here with me now ... you would not have +consented ... would you?" + +"You know that I do care, milor," she said in her grave quiet way. "How +could it be otherwise?" + +"But I am so stupid and so slow," he said naively. "Why! look at me now. +My heart is simply bursting with all that I want to say to you, but I +just can't find the words, and I do nothing but talk rubbish and feel +how you must despise me." + +Once more that humorous little smile played for a moment round Yvonne de +Kernogan's serious mouth. She didn't say anything just then, but her +delicate fingers gave his hand an expressive squeeze. + +"You are not frightened?" he asked abruptly. + +"Frightened? Of what?" she rejoined. + +"At the step you are going to take?" + +"Would I take it," she retorted gently, "if I had any misgivings?" + +"Oh! if you had.... Do you know that even now ..." he continued clumsily +and haltingly, "now that I have realised just what it will mean to have +you ... and just what it would mean to me, God help me--if I were to +lose you ... well!... that even now I would rather go through that hell +than that you should feel the least bit doubtful or unhappy about it +all." + +Again she smiled, gently, tenderly up into his eager, boyish face. + +"The only unhappiness," she said gravely, "that could ever overtake me +in the future would be parting from you, milor." + +"Oh! God bless you for that, my dear! God bless you for that! But for +pity's sake turn your dear eyes away from me or I vow I shall go crazy +with joy. Men do go crazy with joy sometimes, you know, and I feel that +in another moment I shall stand up and shout at the top of my voice to +all the people in the room that within the next few hours the loveliest +girl in all the world is going to be my wife." + +"She certainly won't be that, if you do shout it at the top of your +voice, milor, for father would hear you and there would be an end to our +beautiful adventure." + +"It will be a beautiful adventure, won't it?" he sighed with unconcealed +ecstasy. + +"So beautiful, my dear lord," she replied with gentle earnestness, "so +perfect, in fact, that I am almost afraid something must happen +presently to upset it all." + +"Nothing can happen," he assured her. "M. Martin-Roget is not here, and +His Royal Highness is even now monopolising M. le duc de Kernogan so +that he cannot get away." + +"Your friend must be very clever to manipulate so many strings on our +behalf!" + +"It is long past midnight now, sweetheart," he said with sudden +irrelevance. + +"Yes, I know. I have been watching the time: and I have already thought +everything out for the best. I very often go home from balls and routs +in the company of Lady Ffoulkes and sleep in her house those nights. +Father is always quite satisfied, when I do that, and to-night he will +be doubly satisfied feeling that I shall be taken away from your +society. Lady Ffoulkes is in the secret, of course, so Lady Blakeney +told me, and she will be ready for me in a few minutes now: she'll take +me home with her and there I will change my dress and rest for awhile, +waiting for the happy hour. She will come to the church with me and then +... oh then! Oh! my dear milor!" she added suddenly with a deep sigh +whilst her whole face became irradiated with a light of intense +happiness, "as you say it is the most wonderful thing in all the +world--this--our beautiful adventure together." + +"The parson will be ready at half-past six, dear heart, it was the +earliest hour that I could secure ... after that we go at once to your +church and the priest will tie up any loose threads which our English +parson failed to make tight. After those two ceremonies we shall be very +much married, shan't we?... and nothing can come between us, dear heart, +can it?" he queried with a look of intense anxiety on his young face. + +"Nothing," she replied. Then she added with a short sigh: "Poor father!" + +"Dear heart, he will only fret for a little while. I don't believe he +can really want you to marry that man Martin-Roget. It is just obstinacy +on his part. He can't have anything against me really ... save of course +that I am not clever and that I shall never do anything very big in the +world ... except to love you, Yvonne, with my whole heart and soul and +with every fibre and muscle in me.... Oh! I'll do that," he added with +boyish enthusiasm, "better than anyone else in all the world could do! +And your father will, I'll be bound, forgive me for stealing you, when +he sees that you are happy, and contented, and have everything you want +and ... and...." + +As usual Lord Tony's eloquence was not equal to all that it should have +expressed. He blushed furiously and with a quaint, shy gesture, passed +his large, well-shaped hand over his smooth, brown hair. "I am not much, +I know," he continued with a winning air of self-deprecation, "and you +are far above me as the stars--you are so wonderful, so clever, so +accomplished and I am nothing at all ... but ... but I have plenty of +high-born connexions, and I have plenty of money and influential +friends ... and ... and Sir Percy Blakeney, who is the most +accomplished and finest gentleman in England, calls me his friend." + +She smiled at his eagerness. She loved him for his clumsy little ways, +his halting speech, that big loving heart of his which was too full of +fine and noble feelings to find vent in mere words. + +"Have you ever met a finer man in all the world?" he added +enthusiastically. + +Yvonne de Kernogan smiled once more. Her recollections of Sir Percy +Blakeney showed her an elegant man of the world, whose mind seemed +chiefly occupied on the devising and the wearing of exquisite clothes, +in the uttering of lively witticisms for the entertainment of his royal +friend and the ladies of his entourage: it showed her a man of great +wealth and vast possessions who seemed willing to spend both in the mere +pursuit of pleasures. She liked Sir Percy Blakeney well enough, but she +could not understand clever and charming Marguerite Blakeney's adoration +for her inane and foppish husband, nor the whole-hearted admiration +openly lavished upon him by men like Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, my lord +Hastings, and others. She would gladly have seen her own dear milor +choose a more sober and intellectual friend. But then she loved him for +his marvellous power of whole-hearted friendship, for his loyalty to +those he cared for, for everything in fact that made up the sum total of +his winning personality, and she pinned her faith on that other +mysterious friend whose individuality vastly intrigued her. + +"I am more interested in your anonymous friend," she said quaintly, +"than in Sir Percy Blakeney. But he too is kindness itself and Lady +Blakeney is an angel. I like to think that the happiest days of my +life--our honeymoon, my dear lord--will be spent in their house." + +"Blakeney has lent me Combwich Hall for as long as we like to stay +there. We'll drive thither directly after the service, dear heart, and +then we'll send a courier to your father and ask for his blessing and +his forgiveness." + +"Poor father!" sighed Yvonne again. But evidently compassion for the +father whom she had elected to deceive did not weigh over heavily in the +balance of her happiness. Her little hand once more stole like a timid +and confiding bird into the shelter of his firm grasp. + + +V + +In the card-room at His Highness' table Sir Percy Blakeney was holding +the bank and seemingly luck was dead against him. Around the various +tables the ladies stood about, chattering and hindering the players. +Nothing appeared serious to-night, not even the capricious chances of +hazard. + +His Royal Highness was in rare good humour, for he was winning +prodigiously. + +Her Grace of Flintshire placed her perfumed and beringed hand upon Sir +Percy Blakeney's shoulder; she stood behind his chair, chattering +incessantly in a high flutey treble just like a canary. Blakeney vowed +that she was so ravishing that she had put Dame Fortune to flight. + +"You have not yet told us, Sir Percy," she said roguishly, "how you came +to arrive so late at the ball." + +"Alas, madam," he sighed dolefully, "'twas the fault of my cravat." + +"Your cravat?" + +"Aye indeed! You see I spent the whole of to-day in perfecting my new +method for tying a butterfly bow, so as to give the neck an appearance +of utmost elegance with a minimum of discomfort. Lady Blakeney will bear +me out when I say that I set my whole mind to my task. Was I not busy +all day m'dear?" he added, making a formal appeal to Marguerite, who +stood immediately behind His Highness' chair, and with her luminous +eyes, full of merriment and shining with happiness fixed upon her +husband. + +"You certainly spent a considerable time in front of the looking-glass," +she said gaily, "with two valets in attendance and my lord Tony an +interested spectator in the proceedings." + +"There now!" rejoined Sir Percy triumphantly, "her ladyship's testimony +thoroughly bears me out. And now you shall see what Tony says on the +matter. Tony! Where's Tony!" he added as his lazy grey eyes sought the +brilliant crowd in the card-room. "Tony, where the devil are you?" + +There was no reply, and anon Sir Percy's merry gaze encountered that of +M. le duc de Kernogan who, dressed in sober black, looked strangely +conspicuous in the midst of this throng of bright-coloured butterflies, +and whose grave eyes, as they rested on the gorgeous figure of the +English exquisite, held a world of contempt in their glance. + +"Ah! M. le duc," continued Blakeney, returning that scornful look with +his habitual good-humoured one, "I had not noticed that mademoiselle +Yvonne was not with you, else I had not thought of inquiring so loudly +for my friend Tony." + +"My lord Antoine is dancing with my daughter, Sir Percy," said the other +man gravely, in excellent if somewhat laboured English, "he had my +permission to ask her." + +"And is a thrice happy man in consequence," retorted Blakeney lightly, +"though I fear me M. Martin-Roget's wrath will descend upon my poor +Tony's head with unexampled vigour in consequence." + +"M. Martin-Roget is not here this evening," broke in the Duchess, "and +methought," she added in a discreet whisper, "that my lord Tony was all +the happier for his absence. The two young people have spent a +considerable time together under the shadow of the gallery in the +ball-room, and, if I mistake not, Lord Tony is making the most of his +time." + +She talked very volubly and with a slight North-country brogue which no +doubt made it a little difficult for the stranger to catch her every +word. But evidently M. le duc had understood the drift of what she said, +for now he rejoined with some acerbity: + +"Mlle. de Kernogan is too well educated, I hope, to allow the attentions +of any gentleman, against her father's will." + +"Come, come, M. de Kernogan," here interposed His Royal Highness with +easy familiarity, "Lord Anthony Dewhurst is the son of my old friend the +Marquis of Atiltone: one of our most distinguished families in this +country, who have helped to make English history. He has moreover +inherited a large fortune from his mother, who was a Cruche of Crewkerne +and one of the richest heiresses in the land. He is a splendid fellow--a +fine sportsman, a loyal gentleman. His attentions to any young lady, +however high-born, can be but flattering--and I should say welcome to +those who have her future welfare at heart." + +But in response to this gracious tirade, M. le duc de Kernogan bowed +gravely, and his stern features did not relax as he said coldly: + +"Your Royal Highness is pleased to take an interest in the affairs of my +daughter. I am deeply grateful." + +There was a second's awkward pause, for every one felt that despite his +obvious respect and deference M. le duc de Kernogan had endeavoured to +inflict a snub upon the royal personage, and one or two hot-headed young +fops in the immediate entourage even muttered the word: "Impertinence!" +inaudibly through their teeth. Only His Royal Highness appeared not to +notice anything unusual or disrespectful in M. le duc's attitude. It +seemed as if he was determined to remain good-humoured and pleasant. At +any rate he chose to ignore the remark which had offended the ears of +his entourage. Only those who stood opposite to His Highness, on the +other side of the card table, declared afterwards that the Prince had +frowned and that a haughty rejoinder undoubtedly hovered on his lips. + +Be that as it may, he certainly did not show the slightest sign of +ill-humour: quite gaily and unconcernedly he scooped up his winnings +which Sir Percy Blakeney, who held the Bank, was at this moment pushing +towards him. + +"Don't go yet, M. de Kernogan," he said as the Frenchman made a movement +to work his way out of the crowd, feeling no doubt that the atmosphere +round him had become somewhat frigid if not exactly inimical, "don't go +yet, I beg of you. _Pardi!_ Can't you see that you have been bringing me +luck? As a rule Blakeney, who can so well afford to lose, has the +devil's own good fortune, but to-night I have succeeded in getting some +of my own back from him. Do not, I entreat you, break the run of my luck +by going." + +"Oh, Monseigneur," rejoined the old courtier suavely, "how can my poor +presence influence the gods, who of a surety always preside over your +Highness' fortunes?" + +"Don't attempt to explain it, my dear sir," quoth the Prince gaily. "I +only know that if you go now, my luck may go with you and I shall blame +you for my losses." + +"Oh! in that case, Monseigneur...." + +"And with all that, Blakeney," continued His Highness, once more taking +up the cards and turning to his friend, "remember that we still await +your explanation as to your coming so late to the ball." + +"An omission, your Royal Highness," rejoined Blakeney, "an absence of +mind brought about by your severity, and that of Her Grace. The trouble +was that all my calculations with regard to the exact adjustment of the +butterfly bow were upset when I realised that the set of the present day +waistcoat would not harmonise with it. Less than two hours before I was +due to appear at this ball my mind had to make a complete _volte-face_ +in the matter of cravats. I became bewildered, lost, utterly confused. I +have only just recovered, and one word of criticism on my final efforts +would plunge me now into the depths of despair." + +"Blakeney, you are absolutely incorrigible," retorted His Highness with +a laugh. "M. le duc," he added, once more turning to the grave Frenchman +with his wonted graciousness, "I pray you do not form your judgment on +the gilded youth of England by the example of my friend Blakeney. Some +of us can be serious when occasion demands, you know." + +"Your Highness is pleased to jest," said M. de Kernogan stiffly. "What +greater occasion for seriousness can there be than the present one. +True, England has never suffered as France is suffering now, but she +has engaged in a conflict against the most powerful democracy the world +has ever known, she has thrown down the gauntlet to a set of human +beasts of prey who are as determined as they are ferocious. England will +not emerge victorious from this conflict, Monseigneur, if her sons do +not realise that war is not mere sport and that victory can only be +attained by the sacrifice of levity and of pleasure." + +He had dropped into French in response to His Highness' remark, in order +to express his thoughts more accurately. The Prince--a little bored no +doubt--seemed disinclined to pursue the subject. Nevertheless, it seemed +as if once again he made a decided effort not to show ill-humour. He +even gave a knowing wink--a wink!--in the direction of his friend +Blakeney and of Her Grace as if to beg them to set the ball of +conversation rolling once more along a smoother--a less boring--path. He +was obviously quite determined not to release M. de Kernogan from +attendance near his royal person. + + +VI + +As usual Sir Percy threw himself in the breach, filling the sudden pause +with his infectious laugh: + +"La!" he said gaily, "how beautifully M. le duc does talk. Ffoulkes," he +added, addressing Sir Andrew, who was standing close by, "I'll wager you +ten pounds to a pinch of snuff that you couldn't deliver yourself of +such splendid sentiments, even in your own native lingo." + +"I won't take you, Blakeney," retorted Sir Andrew with a laugh. "I'm no +good at peroration." + +"You should hear our distinguished guest M. Martin-Roget on the same +subject," continued Sir Percy with mock gravity. "By Gad! can't he talk? +I feel a d----d worm when he talks about our national levity, our insane +worship of sport, our ... our ... M. le duc," he added with becoming +seriousness and in atrocious French, "I appeal to you. Does not M. +Martin-Roget talk beautifully?" + +"M. Martin-Roget," replied the duc gravely, "is a man of marvellous +eloquence, fired by overwhelming patriotism. He is a man who must +command respect wherever he goes." + +"You have known him long, M. le duc?" queried His Royal Highness +graciously. + +"Indeed not very long, Monseigneur. He came over as an _emigre_ from +Brest some three months ago, hidden in a smuggler's ship. He had been +denounced as an aristocrat who was furthering the cause of the royalists +in Brittany by helping them plentifully with money, but he succeeded in +escaping, not only with his life, but also with the bulk of his +fortune." + +"Ah! M. Martin-Roget is rich?" + +"He is sole owner of a rich banking business in Brest, Monseigneur, +which has an important branch in America and correspondents all over +Europe. Monseigneur the Bishop of Brest recommended him specially to my +notice in a very warm letter of introduction, wherein he speaks of M. +Martin-Roget as a gentleman of the highest patriotism and integrity. +Were I not quite satisfied as to M. Martin-Roget's antecedents and +present connexions I would not have ventured to present him to your +Highness." + +"Nor would you have accepted him as a suitor for your daughter, M. le +duc, _c'est entendu_!" concluded His Highness urbanely. "M. +Martin-Roget's wealth will no doubt cover his lack of birth." + +"There are plenty of high-born gentlemen devoted to the royalist cause, +Monseigneur," rejoined the duc in his grave, formal manner. "But the +most just and purest of causes must at times be helped with money. The +Vendeens in Brittany, the Princes at Coblentz are all sorely in need of +funds...." + +"And M. Martin-Roget son-in-law of M. le duc de Kernogan is more likely +to feed those funds than M. Martin-Roget the plain business man who has +no aristocratic connexions," concluded His Royal Highness dryly. "But +even so, M. le duc," he added more gravely, "surely you cannot be so +absolutely certain as you would wish that M. Martin-Roget's antecedents +are just as he has told you. Monseigneur the Bishop of Brest may have +acted in perfect good faith...." + +"Monseigneur the Bishop of Brest, your Highness, is a man who has our +cause, the cause of our King and of our Faith, as much at heart as I +have myself. He would know that on his recommendation I would trust any +man absolutely. He was not like to make careless use of such knowledge." + +"And you are quite satisfied that the worthy Bishop did not act under +some dire pressure ...?" + +"Quite satisfied, Monseigneur," replied the duc firmly. "What pressure +could there be that would influence a prelate of such high integrity as +Monseigneur the Bishop of Brest?" + + +VII + +There was silence for a moment or two, during which the heavy bracket +clock over the door struck the first hour after midnight. His Royal +Highness looked round at Lady Blakeney, and she gave him a smile and an +almost imperceptible nod. Sir Andrew Ffoulkes had in the meanwhile +quietly slipped away. + +"I understand," said His Royal Highness quite gravely, turning back to +M. le duc, "and I must crave your pardon, sir, for what must have seemed +to you an indiscretion. You have given me a very clear expose of the +situation. I confess that until to-night it had seemed to me--and to all +your friends, Monsieur, a trifle obscure. In fact, it had been my +intention to intercede with you in favour of my young friend Lord +Anthony Dewhurst, who of a truth is deeply enamoured of your daughter." + +"Though your Highness' wishes are tantamount to a command, yet would I +humbly assert that my wishes with regard to my daughter are based upon +my loyalty and my duty to my Sovereign King Louis XVII, whom may God +guard and protect, and that therefore it is beyond my power now to +modify them." + +"May God trounce you for an obstinate fool," murmured His Highness in +English, and turning his head away so that the other should not hear +him. But aloud and with studied graciousness he said: + +"M. le duc, will you not take a hand at hazard? My luck is turning, and +I have faith in yours. We must fleece Blakeney to-night. He has had +Satan's own luck these past few weeks. Such good fortune becomes +positively revolting." + +There was no more talk of Mlle. de Kernogan after that. Indeed her +father felt that her future had already been discussed far too freely by +all these well-wishers who of a truth were not a little indiscreet. He +thought that the manners and customs of good society were very peculiar +here in this fog-ridden England. What business was it of all these +high-born ladies and gentlemen--of His Royal Highness himself for that +matter--what plans he had made for Yvonne's future? Martin-Roget was +_bourgeois_ by birth, but he was vastly rich and had promised to pour a +couple of millions into the coffers of the royalist army if Mlle. de +Kernogan became his wife. A couple of millions with more to follow, no +doubt, and a loyal adherence to the royalist cause was worth these days +all the blue blood that flowed in my lord Anthony Dewhurst's veins. + +So at any rate thought M. le duc this night, while His Royal Highness +kept him at cards until the late hours of the morning. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE FATHER + + +I + +It was close on ten o'clock now in the morning on the following day, and +M. le duc de Kernogan was at breakfast in his lodgings in Laura Place, +when a courier was announced who was the bearer of a letter for M. le +duc. + +He thought the man must have been sent by Martin-Roget, who mayhap was +sick, seeing that he had not been present at the Assembly Rooms last +night, and the duc took the letter and opened it without misgivings. He +read the address on the top of the letter: "Combwich Hall"--a place +unknown to him, and the first words of the letter: "Dear father!" And +even then he had no misgivings. + +In fact he had to read the letter through three times before the full +meaning of its contents had penetrated into his brain. Whilst he read, +he sat quite still, and even the hand which held the paper had not the +slightest tremor. When he had finished he spoke quite quietly to his +valet: + +"Give the courier a glass of ale, Frederick," he said, "and tell him he +can go; there is no answer. And--stay," he added, "I want you to go +round at once to M. Martin-Roget's lodgings and ask him to come and +speak with me as early as possible." + +The valet left the room, and M. le duc deliberately read through the +letter from end to end for the fourth time. There was no doubt, no +possible misapprehension. His daughter Yvonne de Kernogan had eloped +clandestinely with my lord Anthony Dewhurst and had been secretly +married to him in the small hours of the morning in the Protestant +church of St. James, and subsequently before a priest of her own +religion in the Priory Church of St. John the Evangelist. + +She apprised her father of this fact in a few sentences which purported +to be dictated by profound affection and filial respect, but in which M. +de Kernogan failed to detect the slightest trace of contrition. Yvonne! +his Yvonne! the sole representative now of the old race--eloped like a +kitchen-wench! Yvonne! his daughter! his asset for the future! his +thing! his fortune! that which he meant with perfect egoism to sacrifice +on the altar of his own beliefs and his own loyalty to the kingship of +France! Yvonne had taken her future in her own hands! She knew that her +hand, her person, were the purchase price of so many millions to be +poured into the coffers of the royalist cause, and she had disposed of +both, in direct defiance of her father's will and of her duty to her +King and to his cause! + +Yvonne de Kernogan was false to her traditions, false to her father! +false to her King and country! In the years to come when the chroniclers +of the time came to write the histories of the great families that had +rallied round their King in the hour of his deadly peril, the name of +Kernogan would be erased from those glorious pages. The Kernogans will +have failed in their duty, failed in their loyalty! Oh! the shame of it +all! The shame!! + +The duc was far too proud a gentleman to allow his valet to see him +under the stress of violent emotion, but now that he was alone his thin, +hard face--with that air of gravity which he had transmitted to his +daughter--became distorted with the passion of unbridled fury; he tore +the letter up into a thousand little pieces and threw the fragments into +the fire. On the bureau beside him there stood a miniature of Yvonne de +Kernogan painted by Hall three years ago, and framed in a circlet of +brilliants. M. le duc's eyes casually fell upon it; he picked it up and +with a violent gesture of rage threw it on the floor and stamped upon it +with his heel, destroying in this paroxysm of silent fury a work of art +worth many hundred pounds. + +His daughter had deceived him. She had also upset all his plans whereby +the army of M. le Prince de Conde would have been enriched by a couple +of million francs. In addition to the shame upon her father, she had +also brought disgrace upon herself and her good name, for she was a +minor and this clandestine marriage, contracted without her father's +consent, was illegal in France, illegal everywhere: save perhaps in +England--of this M. de Kernogan was not quite sure, but he certainly +didn't care. And in this solemn moment he registered a vow that never as +long as he lived would he be reconciled to that English nincompoop who +had dared to filch his daughter from him, and never--as long as he +lived--would he by his consent render the marriage legal, and the +children born of that wedlock legitimate in the eyes of his country's +laws. + +A calm akin to apathy had followed his first outbreak of fury. He sat +down in front of the fire, and buried his chin in his hand. Something of +course must be done to get his daughter back. If only Martin-Roget were +here, he would know better how to act. Would Martin-Roget stick to his +bargain and accept the girl for wife, now that her fame and honour had +been irretrievably tarnished? There was the question which the next +half-hour would decide. M. de Kernogan cast a feverish, anxious look on +the clock. Half an hour had gone by since Frederick went to seek +Martin-Roget, and the latter had not yet appeared. + +Until he had seen Martin-Roget and spoken with Martin-Roget M. de +Kernogan could decide nothing. For one brief, mad moment, the project +had formed itself in his disordered brain to rush down to Combwich Hall +and provoke that impudent Englishman who had stolen his daughter: to +kill him or be killed by him; in either case Yvonne would then be parted +from him for ever. But even then, the thought of Martin-Roget brought +more sober reflection. Martin-Roget would see to it. Martin-Roget would +know what to do. After all, the outrage had hit the accredited lover +just as hard as the father. + +But why in the name of ---- did Martin-Roget not come? + + +II + +It was past midday when at last Martin-Roget knocked at the door of M. +le duc's lodgings in Laura Place. The older man had in the meanwhile +gone through every phase of overwhelming emotions. The outbreak of +unreasoning fury--when like a maddened beast that bites and tears he had +broken his daughter's miniature and trampled it under foot--had been +followed by a kind of dull apathy, when for close upon an hour he had +sat staring into the flames, trying to grapple with an awful reality +which seemed to elude him all the time. He could not believe that this +thing had really happened: that Yvonne, his well-bred dutiful daughter, +who had shown such marvellous courage and presence of mind when the +necessity of flight and of exile had first presented itself in the wake +of the awful massacres and wholesale executions of her own friends and +kindred, that she should have eloped--like some flirtatious wench--and +outraged her father in this monstrous fashion, by a clandestine marriage +with a man of alien race and of a heretical religion! M. de Kernogan +could not realise it. It passed the bounds of possibility. The very +flames in the hearth seemed to dance and to mock the bare suggestion of +such an atrocious transgression. + +To this gloomy numbing of the senses had succeeded the inevitable morbid +restlessness: the pacing up and down the narrow room, the furtive +glances at the clock, the frequent orders to Frederick to go out and see +if M. Martin-Roget was not yet home. For Frederick had come back after +his first errand with the astounding news that M. Martin-Roget had left +his lodgings the previous day at about four o'clock, and had not been +seen or heard of since. In fact his landlady was very anxious about him +and was sorely tempted to see the town-crier on the subject. + +Four times did Frederick have to go from Laura Place to the Bear Inn in +Union Street, where M. Martin-Roget lodged, and three times he returned +with the news that nothing had been heard of Mounzeer yet. The fourth +time--it was then close on midday--he came back running--thankful to +bring back the good tidings, since he was tired of that walk from Laura +Place to the Bear Inn. M. Martin-Roget had come home. He appeared very +tired and in rare ill-humour: but Frederick had delivered the message +from M. le duc, whereupon M. Martin-Roget had become most affable and +promised that he would come round immediately. In fact he was even then +treading hard on Frederick's heels. + + +III + +"My daughter has gone! She left the ball clandestinely last night, and +was married to Lord Anthony Dewhurst in the small hours of the morning. +She is now at a place called Combwich Hall--with him!" + +M. le duc de Kernogan literally threw these words in Martin-Roget's +face, the moment the latter had entered the room, and Frederick had +discreetly closed the door. + +"What? What?" stammered the other vaguely. "I don't understand. What do +you mean?" he added, bewildered at the duc's violence, tired after his +night's adventure and the long ride in the early morning, irritable with +want of sleep and decent food. He stared, uncomprehending, at the duc, +who had once more started pacing up and down the room, like a caged +beast, with hands tightly clenched behind his back, his eyes glowering +both at the new-comer and at the imaginary presence of his most bitter +enemy--the man who had dared to come between him and his projects for +his daughter. + +Martin-Roget passed his hand across his brow like a man who is not yet +fully awake. + +"What do you mean?" he reiterated hazily. + +"Just what I say," retorted the other roughly. "Yvonne has eloped with +that nincompoop Lord Anthony Dewhurst. They have gone through some sort +of marriage ceremony together. And she writes me a letter this morning +to tell me that she is quite happy and contented and spending her +honeymoon at a place called Combwich Hall. Honeymoon!" he repeated +savagely, as if to lash his fury up anew, "Tsha!" + +Martin-Roget on the other hand was not the man to allow himself to fall +into a state of frenzy, which would necessarily interfere with calm +consideration. + +He had taken the fact in now. Yvonne's elopement with his English rival, +the clandestine marriage, everything. But he was not going to allow his +inward rage to obscure his vision of the future. He did not spend the +next precious seconds--as men of his race are wont to do--in smashing +things around him, in raving and fuming and gesticulating. No. That was +not the temper M. Martin-Roget was in at this moment when Fate and a +girl's folly were ranging themselves against his plans. His friend, +citizen Chauvelin, would have envied him his calm in the face of this +disaster. + +Whilst M. le duc still stormed and raved, Martin-Roget sat down quietly +in front of the fire, rested his chin in his hand and waited for a lull +in the other man's paroxysm ere he spoke. + +"From your attitude, M. le duc," he then said quietly, hiding obvious +sarcasm behind a veil of studied deference, "from your attitude I gather +that your wishes with regard to Mlle. de Kernogan have undergone no +modification. You would still honour me by desiring that she should +become my wife?" + +"I am not in the habit of changing my mind," said M. le duc gruffly. He +desired the marriage, he coveted Martin-Roget's millions for the +royalist cause, but he had no love for the man. All the pride of the +Kernogans, their long line of ancestry, rebelled against the thought of +a fair descendant of this glorious race being allied to a _roturier_--a +_bourgeois_--a tradesman, what? and the cause of King and country +counted few greater martyrdoms than that of the duc de Kernogan whenever +he met the banker Martin-Roget on an equal social footing. + +"Then there is not much harm done," rejoined the latter coolly; "the +marriage is not a legal one. It need not even be dissolved--Mademoiselle +de Kernogan is still Mademoiselle de Kernogan and I her humble and +faithful adorer." + +M. le duc paused in his restless walk. + +"You would ..." he stammered, then checked himself, turning abruptly +away. He had some difficulty in hiding the scorn wherewith he regarded +the other's coolness. Bourgeois blood was not to be gainsaid. The +tradesman--or banker, whatever he was--who hankered after an alliance +with Mademoiselle de Kernogan, and was ready to lay down a couple of +millions for the privilege--was not to be deterred from his purpose by +any considerations of pride or of honour. M. le duc was satisfied and +re-assured, but he despised the man for his leniency for all that. + +"The marriage is no marriage at all according to the laws of France," +reiterated Martin-Roget calmly. + +"No, it is not," assented the Duke roughly. + +For a while there was silence: Martin-Roget seemed immersed in his own +thoughts and not to notice the febrile comings and goings of the other +man. + +"What we have to do, M. le duc," he said after a while, "is to induce +Mlle. de Kernogan to return here immediately." + +"How are you going to accomplish that?" sneered the Duke. + +"Oh! I was not suggesting that I should appear in the matter at all," +rejoined Martin-Roget with a shrug of the shoulders. + +"Then how can I ...?" + +"Surely ..." argued the younger man tentatively. + +"You mean ...?" + +Martin-Roget nodded. Despite these ambiguous half-spoken sentences the +two men had understood one another. + +"We must get her back, of course," assented the Duke, who had suddenly +become as calm as the other man. + +"There is no harm done," reiterated Martin-Roget with slow and earnest +emphasis. + +Whereupon the Duke, completely pacified, drew a chair close to the +hearth and sat down, leaning his elbows on his knees and holding his +fine, aristocratic hands to the blaze. + +Frederick came in half an hour later to ask if M. le duc would have his +luncheon. He found the two gentlemen sitting quite close together over +the dying embers of a fire that had not been fed for close upon an hour: +and that prince of valets was glad to note that M. le duc's temper had +quite cooled down and that he was talking calmly and very affably to M. +Martin-Roget. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE NEST + + +I + +There are lovely days in England sometimes in November or December, days +when the departing year strives to make us forget that winter is nigh, +and autumn smiles, gentle and benignant, caressing with a still tender +kiss the last leaves of the scarlet oak which linger on the boughs, and +touching up with a vivid brush the evergreen verdure of bay trees, of +ilex and of yew. The sky is of that pale, translucent blue which +dwellers in the South never see, with the soft transparency of an +aquamarine as it fades into the misty horizon at midday. And at dusk the +thrushes sing: "Kiss me quick! kiss me quick! kiss me quick" in the +naked branches of old acacias and chestnuts, and the robins don their +crimson waistcoats and dart in and out among the coppice and through the +feathery arms of larch and pine. And the sun which tips the prickly +points of holly leaves with gold, joins in this merry make-believe that +winter is still a very, very long way off, and that mayhap he has lost +his way altogether, and is never coming to this balmy beautiful land +again. + +Just such a day was the penultimate one of November, 1793, when Lady +Anthony Dewhurst sat at a desk in the wide bay window of the +drawing-room in Combwich Hall, trying to put into a letter to Lady +Blakeney all that her heart would have wished to express of love and +gratitude and happiness. + +Three whole days had gone by since that exciting night, when before +break of day in the dimly-lighted old church, in the presence of two or +three faithful friends, she had plighted her troth to Lord Anthony: even +whilst other kind friends--including His Royal Highness--formed part of +the little conspiracy which kept her father occupied and, if necessary, +would have kept M. Martin-Roget out of the way. Since then her life had +been one continuous dream of perfect bliss. From the moment when after +the second religious ceremony in the Roman Catholic church she found +herself alone in the carriage with milor, and felt his arms--so strong +and yet so tender--closing round her and his lips pressed to hers in the +first masterful kiss of complete possession, until this hour when she +saw his tall, elegant figure hurrying across the garden toward the gate +and suddenly turning toward the window whence he knew that she was +watching him, every hour and every minute had been nothing but unalloyed +happiness. + +Even there where she had looked for sorrow and difficulty her path had +been made smooth for her. Her father, who she had feared would prove +hard and irreconcilable, had been tender and forgiving to such an extent +that tears almost of shame would gather in her eyes whenever she thought +of him. + +As soon as she arrived at Combwich Hall she had written a long and +deeply affectionate letter to her father, imploring his forgiveness for +the deception and unfilial conduct which on her part must so deeply have +grieved him. She pleaded for her right to happiness in words of +impassioned eloquence, she pleaded for her right to love and to be +loved, for her right to a home, which a husband's devotion would make a +paradise for her. + +This letter she had sent by special courier to her father and the very +next day she had his reply. She had opened the letter with trembling +fingers, fearful lest her father's harshness should mar the perfect +serenity of her life. She was afraid of what he would say, for she knew +her father well: knew his faults as well as his qualities, his pride, +his obstinacy, his unswerving determination and his loyalty to the +King's cause--all of which must have been deeply outraged by his +daughter's high-handed action. But as she began to read, astonishment, +amazement at once filled her soul: she could hardly trust her +comprehension, hardly believe that what she read could indeed be +reality, and not just the continuance of the happy dream wherein she was +dwelling these days. + +Her father--gently reproachful--had not one single harsh word to utter. +He would not, he said, at the close of his life, after so many bitter +disappointments, stand in the way of his daughter's happiness: "You +should have trusted me, my child," he wrote: and indeed Yvonne could not +believe her eyes. "I had no idea that your happiness was at stake in +this marriage, or I should never have pressed the claims of my own +wishes in the matter. I have only you in the world left, now that misery +and exile are to be my portion! Is it likely that I would allow any +personal desires to weigh against my love for you?" + +Happy as she was Yvonne cried--cried bitterly with remorse and shame +when she read that letter. How could she have been so blind, so +senseless as to misjudge her father so? Her young husband found her in +tears, and had much ado to console her: he too read the letter and was +deeply touched by the kind reference to himself contained therein: "My +lord Anthony is a gallant gentleman," wrote M. le duc de Kernogan, "he +will make you happy, my child, and your old father will be more than +satisfied. All that grieves me is that you did not trust me sooner. A +clandestine marriage is not worthy of a daughter of the Kernogans." + +"I did speak most earnestly to M. le duc," said Lord Tony reflectively, +"when I begged him to allow me to pay my addresses to you. But then," he +added cheerfully, "I am such a clumsy lout when I have to talk at any +length--and especially clumsy when I have to plead my own cause. I +suppose I put my case so badly before your father, m'dear, that he +thought me three parts an idiot and would not listen to me." + +"I too begged and entreated him, dear," she said with a smile, "but he +was very determined then and vowed that I should marry M. Martin-Roget +despite my tears and protestations. Dear father! I suppose he didn't +realise that I was in earnest." + +"He has certainly accepted the inevitable very gracefully," was my lord +Tony's final comment. + + +II + +Then they read the letter through once more, sitting close together, he +with one arm round her shoulder, she nestling against his chest, her +hair brushing against his lips and with the letter in her hands which +she could scarcely read for the tears of joy which filled her eyes. + +"I don't feel very well to-day," the letter concluded; "the dampness and +the cold have got into my bones: moreover you two young love birds will +not desire company just yet, but to-morrow if the weather is more genial +I will drive over to Combwich in the afternoon, and perhaps you will +give me supper and a bed for the night. Send me word by the courier who +will forthwith return to Bath if this will be agreeable to you both." + +Could anything be more adorable, more delightful? It was just the last +drop that filled Yvonne's cup of happiness right up to the brim. + + +III + +The next afternoon she sat at her desk in order to tell Lady Blakeney +all about it. She made out a copy of her father's letter and put that in +with her own, and begged dear Lady Blakeney to see Lady Ffoulkes +forthwith and tell her all that had happened. She herself was expecting +her father every minute and milor Tony had gone as far as the gate to +see if the barouche was in sight. + +Half an hour later M. de Kernogan had arrived and his daughter lay in +his arms, happy, beyond the dreams of men. He looked rather tired and +wan and still complained that the cold had got into his bones: evidently +he was not very well and Yvonne after the excitement of the meeting felt +not a little anxious about him. As the evening wore on he became more +and more silent; he hardly would eat anything and soon after eight +o'clock he announced his desire to retire to bed. + +"I am not ill," he said as he kissed his daughter and bade her a fond +"Good-night," "only a little wearied ... with emotion no doubt. I shall +be better after a night's rest." + +He had been quite cordial with my lord Tony, though not effusive, which +was only natural--he was at all times a very reserved man, and--unlike +those of his race--never demonstrative in his manner: but with his +daughter he had been singularly tender, with a wistful affection which +almost suggested remorse, even though it was she who, on his arrival, +had knelt down before him and had begged for his blessing and his +forgiveness. + + +IV + +But the following morning he appeared to be really ill: his cheeks +looked sunken, almost livid, his eyes dim and hollow. Nevertheless he +would not hear of staying on another day or so. + +"No, no," he declared emphatically, "I shall be better in Bath. It is +more sheltered there, here the north winds would drive me to my bed very +quickly. I shall take a course of baths at once. They did me a great +deal of good before, you remember, Yvonne--in September, when I caught a +chill ... they soon put me right. That is all that ails me now.... I've +caught a chill." + +He did his best to reassure his daughter, but she was far from +satisfied: more especially as he hardly would touch the cup of chocolate +which she had prepared for him with her own hands. + +"I shall be quite myself again in Bath," he declared, "and in a day or +two when you can spare the time--or when milor can spare you--perhaps +you will drive over to see how the old father is getting on, eh?" + +"Indeed," she said firmly, "I shall not allow you to go to Bath alone. +If you will go, I shall accompany you." + +"Nay!" he protested, "that is foolishness, my child. The barouche will +take me back quite comfortably. It is less than two hours' drive and I +shall be quite safe and comfortable." + +"You will be quite safe and comfortable in my company," she retorted +with a tender, anxious glance at his pale face and the nervous tremor of +his hands. "I have consulted with my dear husband and he has given his +consent that I should accompany you." + +"But you can't leave milor like that, my child," he protested once more. +"He will be lonely and miserable without you." + +"Yes. I think he will," she said wistfully. "But he will be all the +happier when you are well again, and I can return to Combwich +satisfied." + +Whereupon M. le duc yielded. He kissed and thanked his daughter and +seemed even relieved at the prospect of her company. The barouche was +ordered for eleven o'clock, and a quarter of an hour before that time +Lord Tony had his young wife in his arms, bidding her a sad farewell. + +"I hate your going from me, sweetheart," he said as he kissed her eyes, +her hair, her lips. "I cannot bear you out of my sight even for an hour +... let alone a couple of days." + +"Yet I must go, dear heart," she retorted, looking up with that sweet, +grave smile of hers into his eager young face. "I could not let him +travel alone ... could I?" + +"No, no," he assented somewhat dubiously, "but remember, dear heart, +that you are infinitely precious and that I shall scarce live for sheer +anxiety until I have you here, safe, once more in my arms." + +"I'll send you a courier this evening," she rejoined, as she extricated +herself gently from his embrace, "and if I can come back to-morrow...." + +"I'll ride over to Bath in any case in the morning so that I may escort +you back if you really can come." + +"I will come if I am reassured about father. Oh, my dear lord," she +added with a wistful little sigh, "I knew yesterday morning that I was +too happy, and that something would happen to mar the perfect felicity +of these last few days." + +"You are not seriously anxious about M. le duc's health, dear heart?" + +"No, not seriously anxious. Farewell, milor. It is _au revoir_ ... a few +hours and we'll resume our dream." + + +V + +There was nothing in all that to arouse my lord Tony's suspicions. All +day he was miserable and forlorn because Yvonne was not there--but he +was not suspicious. + +Fate had a blow in store for him, from which he was destined never +wholly to recover, but she gave him no warning, no premonition. He spent +the day in making up arrears of correspondence, for he had a large +private fortune to administer--trust funds on behalf of brothers and +sisters who were minors--and he always did it conscientiously and to the +best of his ability. The last few days he had lived in a dream and there +was an accumulation of business to go through. In the evening he +expected the promised courier, who did not arrive: but his was not the +sort of disposition that would fret and fume because of a contretemps +which might be attributable to the weather--it had rained heavily since +afternoon--or to sundry trifling causes which he at Combwich, ten or a +dozen miles from Bath, could not estimate. He had no suspicions even +then. How could he have? How could he guess? Nevertheless when he +ultimately went to bed, it was with the firm resolve that he would in +any case go over to Bath in the morning and remain there until Yvonne +was able to come back with him. + +Combwich without her was anyhow unendurable. + + +VI + +He started for Bath at nine o'clock in the morning. It was still raining +hard. It had rained all night and the roads were very muddy. He started +out without a groom. A little after half-past ten, he drew rein outside +his house in Chandos Buildings, and having changed his clothes he +started to walk to Laura Place. The rain had momentarily left off, and a +pale wintry sun peeped out through rolling banks of grey clouds. He went +round by way of Saw Close and the Upper Borough Walls, as he wanted to +avoid the fashionable throng that crowded the neighbourhood of the Pump +Room and the Baths. His intention was to seek out the Blakeneys at their +residence in the Circus after he had seen Yvonne and obtained news of M. +le duc. + +He had no suspicions. Why should he have? + +The Abbey clock struck a quarter-past eleven when finally he knocked at +the house in Laura Place. Long afterwards he remembered how just at that +moment a dense grey mist descended into the valley. He had not noticed +it before, now he saw that it had enveloped this part of the city so +that he could not even see clearly across the Place. + +A woman came to open the door. Lord Tony then thought this strange +considering how particular M. le duc always was about everything +pertaining to the management of his household: "The house of a poor +exile," he was wont to say, "but nevertheless that of a gentleman." + +"Can I go straight up?" he asked the woman, who he thought was standing +ostentatiously in the hall as if to bar his way. "I desire to see M. le +duc." + +"Ye can walk upstairs, zir," said the woman, speaking with a broad +Somersetshire accent, "but I doubt me if ye'll see 'is Grace the Duke. +'Es been gone these two days." + +Tony had paid no heed to her at first; he had walked across the narrow +hall to the oak staircase, and was half-way up the first flight when her +last words struck upon his ear ... quite without meaning for the moment +... but nevertheless he paused, one foot on one tread, and the other two +treads below ... and he turned round to look at the woman, a swift frown +across his smooth forehead. + +"Gone these two days," he repeated mechanically; "what do you mean?" + +"Well! 'Is Grace left the day afore yesterday--Thursday it was.... 'Is +man went yesterday afternoon with luggage and sich ... 'e went by coach +'e did.... Leave off," she cried suddenly; "what are ye doin'? Ye're +'urtin' me." + +For Lord Tony had rushed down the stairs again and was across the hall, +gripping the unoffending woman by the wrist and glaring into her +expressionless face until she screamed with fright. + +"I beg your pardon," he said humbly as he released her wrist: all the +instincts of the courteous gentleman arrayed against his loss of +control. "I ... I forgot myself for the moment," he stammered; "would +you mind telling me again ... what ... what you said just now?" + +The woman was prepared to put on the airs of outraged dignity, she even +glanced up at the malapert with scorn expressed in her small beady eyes. +But at sight of his face her anger and her fears both fell away from +her. Lord Tony was white to the lips, his cheeks were the colour of +dead ashes, his mouth trembled, his eyes alone glowed with ill-repressed +anxiety. + +"'Is Grace," she said with slow emphasis, for of a truth she thought +that the young gentleman was either sick or daft, "'Is Grace left +this 'ouse the day afore yesterday in a hired barouche. 'Is +man--Frederick--went yesterday afternoon with the liggage. 'E caught the +Bristol coach at two o'clock. I was 'Is Grace's 'ousekeeper and I am to +look after the 'ouse and the zervants until I 'ear from 'Is Grace again. +Them's my orders. I know no more than I'm tellin' ye." + +"But His Grace returned here yesterday forenoon," argued Lord Tony +calmly, mechanically, as one who would wish to convince an obstinate +child. "And my lady ... Mademoiselle Yvonne, you know ... was with him." + +"Noa! Noa!" said the woman placidly. "'Is Grace 'asn't been near this +'ouse come Thursday afternoon, and 'is man left yesterday wi' th' +liggage. Why!" she added confidentially, "'e ain't gone far. It was all +zettled that zuddint I didn't know nothing about it myzelf till I zeed +Mr. Frederick start off wi' th' liggage. Not much liggage neither it +wasn't. Sure but 'Is Grace'll be 'ome zoon. 'E can't 'ave gone far. Not +wi' that bit o' liggage. Zure." + +"But my lady ... Mademoiselle Yvonne...." + +"Lor, zir, didn't ye know? Why 'twas all over th' town o' Tuesday as 'ow +Mademozell 'ad eloped with my lord Anthony Dew'urst, and...." + +"Yes! yes! But you have seen my lady since?" + +"Not clapped eyes on 'er, zir, since she went to the ball come Monday +evenin'. An' a picture she looked in 'er white gown...." + +"And ... did His Grace leave no message ... for ... for anyone?... no +letter?" + +"Ah, yes, now you come to mention it, zir. Mr. Frederick 'e give me a +letter yesterday. ''Is Grace,' sez 'e, 'left this yere letter on 'is +desk. I just found it,' sez 'e. 'If my lord Anthony Dew'urst calls,' sez +'e, 'give it to 'im.' I've got the letter zomewhere, zir. What may your +name be?" + +"I am Lord Anthony Dewhurst," replied the young man mechanically. + +"Your pardon, my lord, I'll go fetch th' letter." + + +VII + +Lord Tony never moved while the woman shuffled across the passage and +down the back stairs. He was like a man who has received a knock-out +blow and has not yet had time to recover his scattered senses. At first +when the woman spoke, his mind had jumped to fears of some awful +accident ... runaway horses ... a broken barouche ... or a sudden +aggravation of the duc's ill-health. But soon he was forced to reject +what now would have seemed a consoling thought: had there been an +accident, he would have heard--a rumour would have reached him--Yvonne +would have sent a courier. He did not know yet what to think, his mind +was like a slate over which a clumsy hand had passed a wet +sponge--impressions, recollections, above all a hideous, nameless fear, +were all blurred and confused within his brain. + +The woman came back carrying a letter which was crumpled and greasy from +a prolonged sojourn in the pocket of her apron. Lord Tony took the +letter and broke its heavy seal. The woman watched him, curiously, +pityingly now, for he was good to look on, and she scented the +significance of the tragedy which she had been the means of revealing +to him. But he had become quite unconscious of her presence, of +everything in fact save those few sentences, written in French, in a +cramped hand, and which seemed to dance a wild saraband before his eyes: + + "MILOR,-- + + "You tried to steal my daughter from me, but I have taken her from + you now. By the time this reaches you we shall be on the high seas + on our way to Holland, thence to Coblentz, where Mademoiselle de + Kernogan will in accordance with my wishes be united in lawful + marriage to M. Martin-Roget whom I have chosen to be her husband. + She is not and never was your wife. As far as one may look into the + future, I can assure you that you will never in life see her + again." + +And to this monstrous document of appalling callousness and cold-blooded +cruelty there was appended the signature of Andre Dieudonne Duc de +Kernogan. + +But unlike the writer thereof Lord Anthony Dewhurst neither stormed nor +raged: he did not even tear the execrable letter into an hundred +fragments. His firm hand closed over it with one convulsive clutch, and +that was all. Then he slipped the crumpled paper into his pocket. Quite +deliberately he took out some money and gave a piece of silver to the +woman. + +"I thank you very much," he said somewhat haltingly. "I quite understand +everything now." + +The woman curtseyed and thanked him; tears were in her eyes, for it +seemed to her that never had she seen such grief depicted upon any human +face. She preceded him to the hall door and held it open for him, while +he passed out. After the brief gleam of sunshine it had started to rain +again, but he didn't seem to care. The woman suggested fetching a +hackney coach, but he refused quite politely, quite gently: he even +lifted his hat as he went out. Obviously he did not know what he was +doing. Then he went out into the rain and strode slowly across the +Place. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL + + +I + +Instinct kept him away from the more frequented streets--and instinct +after awhile drew him in the direction of his friend's house at the +comer of The Circus. Sir Percy Blakeney had not gone out fortunately: +the lacquey who opened the door to my lord Tony stared astonished and +almost paralysed for the moment at the extraordinary appearance of his +lordship. Rain dropped down from the brim of his hat on to his +shoulders: his boots were muddy to the knees, his clothes wringing wet. +His eyes were wild and hazy and there was a curious tremor round his +mouth. + +The lacquey declared with a knowing wink afterwards that his lordship +must 'ave been drinkin'! + +But at the moment his sense of duty urged him to show my lord--who was +his master's friend--into the library, whatever condition he was in. He +took his dripping coat and hat from him and marshalled him across the +large, square hall. + +Sir Percy Blakeney was sitting at his desk, writing, when Lord Tony was +shown in. He looked up and at once rose and went to his friend. + +"Sit down, Tony," he said quietly, "while I get you some brandy." + +He forced the young man down gently into a chair in front of the fire +and threw another log into the blaze. Then from a cupboard he fetched a +flask of brandy and a glass, poured some out and held it to Tony's lips. +The latter drank--unresisting--like a child. Then as some warmth +penetrated into his bones, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his +knees and buried his face in his hands. Blakeney waited quietly, sitting +down opposite to him, until his friend should be able to speak. + +"And after all that you told me on Monday night!" were the first words +which came from Tony's quivering lips, "and the letter you sent me over +on Tuesday! Oh! I was prepared to mistrust Martin-Roget. Why! I never +allowed her out of my sight!... But her father!... How could I guess?" + +"Can you tell me exactly what happened?" + +Lord Tony drew himself up, and staring vacantly into the fire told his +friend the events of the past four days. On Wednesday the courier with +M. de Kernogan's letter, breathing kindness and forgiveness. On Thursday +his arrival and seeming ill-health, on Friday his departure with Yvonne. +Tony spoke quite calmly. He had never been anything but calm since +first, in the house in Laura Place, he had received that awful blow. + +"I ought to have known," he concluded dully, "I ought to have guessed. +Especially since you warned me." + +"I warned you that Martin-Roget was not the man he pretended to be," +said Blakeney gently, "I warned you against him. But I too failed to +suspect the duc de Kernogan. We are Britishers, you and I, my dear +Tony," he added with a quaint little laugh, "our minds will never be +quite equal to the tortuous ways of these Latin races. But we are not +going to waste time now talking about the past. We have got to find your +wife before those brutes have time to wreak their devilries against +her." + +"On the high seas ... on the way to Holland ... thence to Coblentz ..." +murmured Tony, "I have not yet shown you the duc's letter to me." + +He drew from his pocket the crumpled, damp piece of paper on which the +ink had run into patches and blotches, and which had become almost +undecipherable now. Sir Percy took it from him and read it through: + +"The duc de Kernogan and Lady Anthony Dewhurst are not on their way to +Holland and to Coblentz," he said quietly as he handed the letter back +to Lord Tony. + +"Not on their way to Holland?" queried the young man with a puzzled +frown. "What do you mean?" + +Blakeney drew his chair closer to his friend: a marvellous and subtle +change had suddenly taken place in his individuality. Only a few moments +ago he was the polished, elegant man of the world, then the kindly and +understanding friend--self-contained, reserved, with a perfect manner +redolent of sympathy and dignity. Suddenly all that was changed. His +manner was still perfect and outwardly calm, his gestures scarce, his +speech deliberate, but the compelling power of the leader--which is the +birth-right of such men--glowed and sparkled now in his deep-set eyes: +the spirit of adventure and reckless daring was awake--insistent and +rampant--and subtle effluvia of enthusiasm and audacity emanated from +his entire personality. + +Sir Percy Blakeney had sunk his individuality in that of the Scarlet +Pimpernel. + +"I mean," he said, returning his friend's anxious look with one that was +inspiring in its unshakable confidence, "I mean that on Monday last, the +night before your wedding--when I urged you to obtain Yvonne de +Kernogan's consent to an immediate marriage--I had followed +Martin-Roget to a place called "The Bottom Inn" on Goblin Combe--a +place well known to every smuggler in the county." + +"You, Percy!" exclaimed Tony in amazement. + +"Yes, I," laughed the other lightly. "Why not? I had had my suspicions +of him for some time. As luck would have it he started off on the Monday +afternoon by hired coach to Chelwood. I followed. From Chelwood he +wanted to go on to Redhill: but the roads were axle deep in mud, and +evening was gathering in very fast. Nobody would take him. He wanted a +horse and a guide. I was on the spot--as disreputable a bar-loafer as +you ever saw in your life. I offered to take him. He had no choice. He +had to take me. No one else had offered. I took him to the Bottom Inn. +There he met our esteemed friend M. Chauvelin...." + +"Chauvelin!" cried Tony, suddenly roused from the dull apathy of his +immeasurable grief, at sound of that name which recalled so many +exciting adventures, such mad, wild, hair-breadth escapes. "Chauvelin! +What in the world is he doing here in England?" + +"Brewing mischief, of course," replied Blakeney dryly. "In disgrace, +discredited, a marked man--what you will--my friend M. Chauvelin has +still an infinite capacity for mischief. Through the interstices of a +badly fastened shutter I heard two blackguards devising infinite +devilry. That is why, Tony," he added, "I urged an immediate marriage as +the only real protection for Yvonne de Kernogan against those +blackguards." + +"Would to God you had been more explicit!" exclaimed Tony with a bitter +sigh. + +"Would to God I had," rejoined the other, "but there was so little time, +with licences and what not all to arrange for, and less than an hour to +do it in. And would you have suspected the Duc himself of such +execrable duplicity even if you had known, as I did then, that the +so-called Martin-Roget hath name Adet, and that he matures thoughts of +deadly revenge against the duc de Kernogan and his daughter?" + +"Martin-Roget? the banker--the exiled royalist who...." + +"He may be a banker now ... but he certainly is no royalist--he is the +son of a peasant who was unjustly put to death four years ago by the duc +de Kernogan." + +"Ye gods!" + +"He came over to England plentifully supplied with money--I could not +gather if the money is his or if it has been entrusted to him by the +revolutionary government for purposes of spying and corruption--but he +came to England in order to ingratiate himself with the duc de Kernogan +and his daughter, and then to lure them back to France, for what purpose +you may well imagine." + +"Good God, man ... you can't mean ...?" + +"He has chartered a smuggler's craft--or rather Chauvelin has done it +for him. Her name is the _Hollandia_, her master hath name Kuyper. She +was to be in Portishead harbour on the last day of November: all her +papers in order. Cargo of West India sugar, destination Amsterdam, +consignee some Mynheer over there. But Martin-Roget, or whatever his +name may be, and no doubt our friend Chauvelin too, were to be aboard +her, and also M. le duc de Kernogan and his daughter. And the +_Hollandia_ is to put into Le Croisic for Nantes, whose revolutionary +proconsul, that infamous Carrier, is of course Chauvelin's bosom +friend." + +Sir Percy Blakeney finished speaking. Lord Tony had listened to him +quietly and in silence: now he rose and turned resolutely to his +friend. There was no longer any trace in him of that stunned apathy +which had been the primary result of the terrible blow. His young face +was still almost unrecognisable from the lines of grief and horror which +marred its habitual fresh, boyish look. He looked twenty years older +than he had done a few hours ago, but there was also in his whole +attitude now the virility of more mature manhood, its determination and +unswerving purpose. + +"And what can I do now?" he asked simply, knowing that he could trust +his friend and leader with what he held dearest in all the world. +"Without you, Blakeney, I am of course impotent and lost. I haven't the +head to think. I haven't sufficient brains to pit against those cunning +devils. But if you will help me...." + +Then he checked himself abruptly, and the look of hopeless despair once +more crept into his eyes. + +"I am mad, Percy," he said with a self-deprecating shrug of the +shoulders, "gone crazy with grief, I suppose, or I shouldn't talk of +asking your help, of risking your life in my cause." + +"Tony, if you talk that rubbish, I shall be forced to punch your head," +retorted Blakeney with his light laugh. "Why man," he added gaily, +"can't you see that I am aching to have at my old friend Chauvelin +again?" + +And indeed the zest of adventure, the zest to fight, never dormant, was +glowing with compelling vigour now in those lazy eyes of his which were +resting with such kindliness upon his stricken friend. "Go home, Tony!" +he added, "go, you rascal, and collect what things you want, while I +send for Hastings and Ffoulkes, and see that four good horses are ready +for us within the hour. To-night we sleep at Portishead, Tony. The +_Day-Dream_ is lying off there, ready to sail at any hour of the day or +night. The _Hollandia_ has twenty-four hour's start of us, alas! and we +cannot overtake her now: but we'll be in Nantes ere those devils can do +much mischief: and once in Nantes!... Why, Tony man! think of the +glorious escapes we've had together, you and I! Think of the gay, mad +rides across the north of France, with half-fainting women and swooning +children across our saddle-bows! Think of the day when we smuggled the +de Tournais out of Calais harbour, the day we snatched Juliette +Deroulede and her Paul out of the tumbril and tore across Paris with +that howling mob at our heels! Think! think, Tony! of all the happiest, +merriest moments of your life and they will seem dull and lifeless +beside what is in store for you, when with your dear wife's arms +clinging round your neck, we'll fly along the quays of Nantes on the +road to liberty! Ah, Tony lad! were it not for the anxiety which I know +is gnawing at your heart, I would count this one of the happiest hours +of my happy life!" + +He was so full of enthusiasm, so full of vitality, that life itself +seemed to emanate from him and to communicate itself to the very +atmosphere around. Hope lit up my lord Tony's wan face: he believed in +his friend as mediaeval ascetics believed in the saints whom they adored. +Enthusiasm had crept into his veins, dull despair fell away from him +like a mantle. + +"God bless you, Percy," he exclaimed as his firm and loyal hand grasped +that of the leader whom he revered. + +"Nay!" retorted Blakeney with sudden gravity. "He hath done that +already. Pray for His help to-day, lad, as you have never prayed +before." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MARGUERITE + + +I + +Lord Tony had gone, and for the space of five minutes Sir Percy Blakeney +stood in front of the hearth staring into the fire. Something lay before +him, something had to be done now, which represented the heavy price +that had to be paid for those mad and happy adventures, for that +reckless daring, aye for that selfless supreme sacrifice which was as +the very breath of life to the Scarlet Pimpernel. + +And in the dancing flames he could see Marguerite's blue eyes, her +ardent hair, her tender smile all pleading with him not to go. She had +so much to give him--so much happiness, such an infinity of love, and he +was all that she had in the world! It seemed to him as if he could feel +her arms around him even now, as if he could hear her voice whispering +appealingly: "Do not go! Am I nothing to you that thoughts of others +should triumph over my pleading? that the need of others should outweigh +mine own most pressing need? I want you, Percy! aye! even I! You have +done so much for others--it is my turn now." + +But even as in a kind of trance those words seemed to reach his strained +senses, he knew that he must go, that he must tear himself away once +more from the clinging embrace of her dear arms and shut his eyes to the +tears which anon would fill her own. Destiny demanded that he should go. +He had chosen his path in life himself, at first only in a spirit of +wild recklessness, a mad tossing of his life into the scales of Fate. +But now that same destiny which he had chosen had become his master: he +no longer could draw back. What he had done once, twenty times, an +hundred times, that he must do again, all the while that the weak and +the defenceless called mutely to him from across the seas, all the while +that innocent women suffered and orphaned children cried. + +And to-day it was his friend, his comrade, who had come to him in his +distress: the young wife whom he idolised was in the most dire peril +that could possibly threaten any woman: she was at the mercy of a man +who, driven by the passion of revenge, meant to show her no mercy, and +the devil alone knew these days to what lengths of infamy a man so +driven would go. + +The minutes sped on. Blakeney's eyes grew hot and wearied from staring +into the fire. He closed them for a moment and then quietly turned to +go. + + +II + +All those who knew Marguerite Blakeney these days marvelled if she was +ever unhappy. Lady Ffoulkes, who was her most trusted friend, vowed that +she was not. She had moments--days--sometimes weeks of intense anxiety, +which amounted to acute agony. Whenever she saw her husband start on one +of those expeditions to France wherein every minute, every hour, he +risked his life and more in order to snatch yet another threatened +victim from the awful clutches of those merciless Terrorists, she +endured soul-torture such as few women could have withstood who had not +her splendid courage and her boundless faith. But against such crushing +sorrow she had to set off the happiness of those reunions with the man +whom she loved so passionately--happiness which was so great, that it +overrode and conquered the very memory of past anxieties. + +Marguerite Blakeney suffered terribly at times--at others she was +overwhelmingly happy--the measure of her life was made up of the bitter +dregs of sorrow and the sparkling wine of joy! No! she was not +altogether unhappy: and gradually that enthusiasm which irradiated from +the whole personality of the valiant Scarlet Pimpernel, which dominated +his every action, entered into Marguerite Blakeney's blood too. His +vitality was so compelling, those impulses which carried him headlong +into unknown dangers were so generous and were actuated by such pure +selflessness, that the noble-hearted woman whose very soul was wrapped +up in the idolised husband, allowed herself to ride by his side on the +buoyant waves of his enthusiasm and of his desires: she smothered every +expression of anxiety, she swallowed her tears, she learned to say the +word "Good-bye" and forgot the word "Stay!" + + +III + +It was half an hour after midday when Percy knocked at the door of her +boudoir. She had just come in from a walk in the meadows round the town +and along the bank of the river: the rain had overtaken her and she had +come in very wet, but none the less exhilarated by the movement and the +keen, damp, salt-laden air which came straight over the hills from the +Channel. She had taken off her hat and her mantle and was laughing gaily +with her maid who was shaking the wet out of a feather. She looked round +at her husband when he entered, and with a quick gesture ordered the +maid out of the room. + +She had learned to read every line on Percy's face, every expression of +his lazy, heavy-lidded eyes. She saw that he was dressed with more than +his usual fastidiousness, but in dark clothes and travelling mantle. She +knew, moreover, by that subtle instinct which had become a second nature +and which warned her whenever he meant to go. + +Nor did he announce his departure to her in so many words. As soon as +the maid had gone, he took his beloved in his arms. + +"They have stolen Tony's wife from him," he said with that light, quaint +laugh of his. "I told you that the man Martin-Roget had planned some +devilish mischief--well! he has succeeded so far, thanks to that +unspeakable fool the duc de Kernogan." + +He told her briefly the history of the past few days. + +"Tony did not take my warning seriously enough," he concluded with a +sigh; "he ought never to have allowed his wife out of his sight." + +Marguerite had not interrupted him while he spoke. At first she just lay +in his arms, quiescent and listening, nerving herself by a supreme +effort not to utter one sigh of misery or one word of appeal. Then, as +her knees shook under her, she sank back into a chair by the hearth and +he knelt beside her with his arms clasped tightly round her shoulders, +his cheek pressed against hers. He had no need to tell her that duty and +friendship called, that the call of honour was once again--as it so +often has been in the world--louder than that of love. + +She understood and she knew, and he, with that supersensitive instinct +of his, understood the heroic effort which she made. + +"Your love, dear heart," he whispered, "will draw me back safely home as +it hath so often done before. You believe that, do you not?" + +And she had the supreme courage to murmur: "Yes!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE ROAD TO PORTISHEAD + + +I + +It was not until Bath had very obviously been left behind that Yvonne de +Kernogan--Lady Anthony Dewhurst--realised that she had been trapped. + +During the first half-hour of the journey her father had lain back +against the cushions of the carriage with eyes closed, his face pale and +wan as if with great suffering. Yvonne, her mind a prey to the gravest +anxiety, sat beside him, holding his limp cold hand in hers. Once or +twice she ventured on a timid question as to his health and he +invariably murmured a feeble assurance that he felt well, only very +tired and disinclined to talk. Anon she suggested--diffidently, for she +did not mean to disturb him--that the driver did not appear to know his +way into Bath, he had turned into a side road which she felt sure was +not the right one. M. le duc then roused himself for a moment from his +lethargy. He leaned forward and gazed out of the window. + +"The man is quite right, Yvonne," he said quietly, "he knows his way. He +brought me along this road yesterday. He gets into Bath by a slight +detour but it is pleasanter driving." + +This reply satisfied her. She was a stranger in the land, and knew +little or nothing of the environs of Bath. True, last Monday morning +after the ceremony of her marriage she had driven out to Combwich, but +dawn was only just breaking then, and she had lain for the most +part--wearied and happy--in her young husband's arms. She had taken +scant note of roads and signposts. + +A few minutes later the coach came to a halt and Yvonne, looking through +the window, saw a man who was muffled up to the chin and enveloped in a +huge travelling cape, mount swiftly up beside the driver. + +"Who is that man?" she queried sharply. + +"Some friend of the coachman's, no doubt," murmured her father in reply, +"to whom he is giving a lift as far as Bath." + +The barouche had moved on again. + +Yvonne could not have told you why, but at her father's last words she +had felt a sudden cold grip at her heart--the first since she started. +It was neither fear nor yet suspicion, but a chill seemed to go right +through her. She gazed anxiously through the window, and then looked at +her father with eyes that challenged and that doubted. But M. le duc +would not meet her gaze. He had once more closed his eyes and sat quite +still, pale and haggard, like a man who is suffering acutely. + + +II + +"Father we are going back to Bath, are we not?" + +The query came out trenchant and hard from her throat which now felt +hoarse and choked. Her whole being was suddenly pervaded by a vast and +nameless fear. Time had gone on, and there was no sign in the distance +of the great city. M. de Kernogan made no reply, but he opened his eyes +and a curious glance shot from them at the terror-stricken face of his +daughter. + +Then she knew--knew that she had been tricked and trapped--that her +father had played a hideous and complicated role of hypocrisy and +duplicity in order to take her away from the husband whom she idolised. + +Fear and her love for the man of her choice gave her initiative and +strength. Before M. de Kernogan could realise what she was doing, before +he could make a movement to stop her, she had seized the handle of the +carriage door, wrenched the door open and jumped out into the road. She +fell on her face in the mud, but the next moment she picked herself up +again and started to run--down the road which the carriage had just +traversed, on and on as fast as she could go. She ran on blindly, +unreasoningly, impelled by a purely physical instinct to escape, not +thinking how childish, how futile such an attempt was bound to be. + +Already after the first few minutes of this swift career over the muddy +road, she heard quick, heavy footsteps behind her. Her father could not +run like that--the coachman could not have thus left his horses--but +still she could hear those footsteps at a run--a quicker run than +hers--and they were gaining on her--every minute, every second. The +next, she felt two powerful arms suddenly seizing her by the shoulders. +She stumbled and would once more have fallen, but for those same strong +arms which held her close. + +"Let me go! Let me go!" she cried, panting. + +But she was held and could no longer move. She looked up into the face +of Martin-Roget, who without any hesitation or compunction lifted her up +as if she had been a bale of light goods and carried her back toward the +coach. She had forgotten the man who had been picked up on the road +awhile ago, and had been sitting beside the coachman since. + +He deposited her in the barouche beside her father, then quietly closed +the door and once more mounted to his seat on the box. The carriage +moved on again. M. de Kernogan was no longer lethargic, he looked down +on his daughter's inert form beside him, and not one look of tenderness +or compassion softened the hard callousness of his face. + +"Any resistance, my child," he said coldly, "will as you see be useless +as well as undignified. I deplore this necessary violence, but I should +be forced once more to requisition M. Martin-Roget's help if you +attempted such foolish tricks again. When you are a little more calm, we +will talk openly together." + +For the moment she was lying back against the cushions of the carriage; +her nerves having momentarily given way before this appalling +catastrophe which had overtaken her and the hideous outrage to which she +was being subjected by her own father. She was sobbing convulsively. But +in the face of his abominable callousness, she made a great effort to +regain her self-control. Her pride, her dignity came to the rescue. She +had had time in those few seconds to realise that she was indeed more +helpless than any bird in a fowler's net, and that only absolute calm +and presence of mind could possibly save her now. + +If indeed there was the slightest hope of salvation. + +She drew herself up and resolutely dried her eyes and readjusted her +hair and her hood and mantle. + +"We can talk openly at once, sir," she said coldly. "I am ready to hear +what explanation you can offer for this monstrous outrage." + +"I owe you no explanation, my child," he retorted calmly. "Presently +when you are restored to your own sense of dignity and of self-respect +you will remember that a lady of the house of Kernogan does not elope in +the night with a stranger and a heretic like some kitchen-wench. Having +so far forgotten herself my daughter must, alas! take the consequences, +which I deplore, of her own sins and lack of honour." + +"And no doubt, father," she retorted, stung to the quick by his insults, +"that you too will anon be restored to your own sense of self-respect +and remember that hitherto no gentleman of the house of Kernogan has +acted the part of a liar and of a hypocrite!" + +"Silence!" he commanded sternly. + +"Yes!" she reiterated wildly, "it was the role of a liar and of a +hypocrite that you played from the moment when you sat down to pen that +letter full of protestations of affection and forgiveness, until like a +veritable Judas you betrayed your own daughter with a kiss. Shame on +you, father!" she cried. "Shame!" + +"Enough!" he said, as he seized her wrist so roughly that the cry of +pain which involuntarily escaped her effectually checked the words in +her mouth. "You are mad, beside yourself, a thoughtless, senseless +creature whom I shall have to coerce more effectually if you do not +cease your ravings. Do not force me to have recourse once again to M. +Martin-Roget's assistance to keep your undignified outburst in check." + +The name of the man whom she had learned to hate and fear more than any +other human being in the world was sufficient to restore to her that +measure of self-control which had again threatened to leave her. + +"Enough indeed," she said more calmly; "the brain that could devise and +carry out such infamy in cold blood is not like to be influenced by a +defenceless woman's tears. Will you at least tell me whither you are +taking me?" + +"We go to a place on the coast now," he replied coldly, "the outlandish +name of which has escaped me. There we embark for Holland, from whence +we shall join their Royal Highnesses at Coblentz. It is at Coblentz +that your marriage with M. Martin-Roget will take place, and...." + +"Stay, father," she broke in, speaking quite as calmly as he did, "ere +you go any further. Understand me clearly, for I mean every word that I +say. In the sight of God--if not in that of the laws of France--I am the +wife of Lord Anthony Dewhurst. By everything that I hold most sacred and +most dear I swear to you that I will never become Martin-Roget's wife. I +would die first," she added with burning but resolutely suppressed +passion. + +He shrugged his shoulders. + +"Pshaw, my child," he said quietly, "many a time since the world began +have women registered such solemn and sacred vows, only to break them +when force of circumstance and their own good sense made them ashamed of +their own folly." + +"How little you know me, father," was all that she said in reply. + + +III + +Indeed, Yvonne de Kernogan--Yvonne Dewhurst as she was now in sight of +God and men--had far too much innate dignity and self-respect to +continue this discussion, seeing that in any case she was physically the +weaker, and that she was absolutely helpless and defenceless in the +hands of two men, one of whom--her own father--who should have been her +protector, was leagued with her bitterest enemy against her. + +That Martin-Roget was her enemy--aye and her father's too--she had +absolutely no doubt. Some obscure yet keen instinct was working in her +heart, urging her to mistrust him even more wholly than she had done +before. Just now, when he laid ruthless hands on her and carried her, +inert and half-swooning, back into the coach, and she lay with closed +eyes, her very soul in revolt against this contact with him, against the +feel of his arms around her, a vague memory surcharged with horror and +with dread stirred within her brain: and over the vista of the past few +years she looked back upon an evening in the autumn--a rough night with +the wind from the Atlantic blowing across the lowlands of Poitou and +soughing in the willow trees that bordered the Loire--she seemed to hear +the tumultuous cries of enraged human creatures dominating the sound of +the gale, she felt the crowd of evil-intentioned men around the closed +carriage wherein she sat, calm and unafraid. Darkness then was all +around her. She could not see. She could only hear and feel. And she +heard the carriage door being wrenched open, and she felt the cold +breath of the wind upon her cheek, and also the hot breath of a man in a +passion of fury and of hate. + +She had seen nothing then, and mercifully semi-unconsciousness had +dulled her aching senses, but even now her soul shrunk with horror at +the vague remembrance of that ghostlike form--the spirit of hate and of +revenge--of its rough arms encircling her shoulders, its fingers under +her chin--and then that awful, loathsome, contaminating kiss which she +thought then would have smirched her for ever. It had taken all the +pure, sweet kisses of a brave and loyal man whom she loved and revered, +to make her forget that hideous, indelible stain: and in the arms of her +dear milor she had forgotten that one terrible moment, when she had felt +that the embrace of death must be more endurable than that of this +unknown and hated man. + +It was the memory of that awful night which had come back to her as in a +flash while she lay passive and broken in Martin-Roget's arms. Of +course for the moment she had no thought of connecting the rich banker +from Brest, the enthusiastic royalist and _emigre_, with one of those +turbulent, uneducated peasant lads who had attacked her carriage that +night: all that she was conscious of was that she was outraged by his +presence, just as she had been outraged then, and that the contact of +his hands, of his arms, was absolutely unendurable. + +To fight against the physical power which held her a helpless prisoner +in the hands of the enemy was sheer impossibility. She knew that, and +was too proud to make feeble and futile efforts which could only end in +defeat and further humiliation. She felt hideously wretched and +lonely--thoughts of her husband, who at this hour was still serenely +unconscious of the terrible catastrophe which had befallen him, brought +tears of acute misery to her eyes. What would he do when--to-morrow, +perhaps--he realised that his bride had been stolen from him, that he +had been fooled and duped as she had been too. What could he do when he +knew? + +She tried to solace her own soul-agony by thinking of his influential +friends who, of course, would help him as soon as they knew. There was +that mysterious and potent friend of whom he spoke so little, who +already had warned him of coming danger and urged on the secret marriage +which should have proved a protection. There was Sir Percy Blakeney, of +whom he spoke much, who was enormously rich, independent, the most +intimate friend of the Regent himself. There was.... + +But what was the use of clinging even for one instant to those feeble +cords of Hope's broken lyre? By the time her dear lord knew that she was +gone, she would be on the high seas, far out of his reach. + +And she had not even the solace of tears--heart-broken sobs rose in her +throat, but she resolutely kept them back. Her father's cold, impassive +face, the callous glitter in his eyes told her that every tear would be +in vain, her most earnest appeal an object for his sneers. + + +IV + +As to how long the journey in the coach lasted after that Yvonne +Dewhurst could not have said. It may have been a few hours, it may have +been a cycle of years. She had been young--a happy bride, a dutiful +daughter--when she left Combwich Hall. She was an old woman now, a +supremely unhappy one, parted from the man she loved without hope of +ever seeing him again in life, and feeling nothing but hatred and +contempt for the father who had planned such infamy against her. + +She offered no resistance whatever to any of her father's commands. +After the first outburst of revolt and indignation she had not even +spoken to him. + +There was a halt somewhere on the way, when in the low-raftered room of +a posting-inn, she had to sit at table with the two men who had +compassed her misery. She was thirsty, feverish and weak: she drank some +milk in silence. She felt ill physically as well as mentally, and the +constant effort not to break down had helped to shatter her nerves. As +she had stepped out of the barouche without a word, so she stepped into +it again when it stood outside, ready with a fresh relay of horses to +take her further, still further, away from the cosy little nest where +even now her young husband was waiting longingly for her return. The +people of the inn--a kindly-looking woman, a portly middle-aged man, one +or two young ostlers and serving-maids were standing about in the yard +when her father led her to the coach. For a moment the wild idea rushed +to her mind to run to these people and demand their protection, to +proclaim at the top of her voice the infamous act which was dragging her +away from her husband and her home, and lead her a helpless prisoner to +a fate that was infinitely worse than death. She even ran to the woman +who looked so benevolent and so kind, she placed her small quivering +hand on the other's rough toil-worn one and in hurried, appealing words +begged for her help and the shelter of a home till she could communicate +with her husband. + +The woman listened with a look of kindly pity upon her homely face, she +patted the small, trembling hand and stroked it gently, tears of +compassion gathered in her eyes: + +"Yes, yes, my dear," she said soothingly, speaking as she would to a +sick woman or to a child, "I quite understand. I wouldna' fret if I was +you. I would jess go quietly with your pore father: 'e knows what's best +for you, that 'e do. You come 'long wi' me," she added as she drew +Yvonne's hands through her arm, "I'll see ye're comfortable in the +coach." + +Yvonne, bewildered, could not at first understand either the woman's +sympathy or her obvious indifference to the pitiable tale, until--Oh! +the shame of it!--she saw the two young serving-maids looking on her +with equal pity expressed in their round eyes, and heard one of them +whispering to the other: + +"Pore lady! so zad ain't it? I'm that zorry for the pore father!" + +And the girl with a significant gesture indicated her own forehead and +glanced knowingly at her companion. Yvonne felt a hot flush rise to the +very roots of her hair. So her father and Martin-Roget had thought of +everything, and had taken every precaution to cut the ground from under +her feet. Wherever a halt was necessary, wherever the party might come +in contact with the curious or the indifferent, it would be given out +that the poor young lady was crazed, that she talked wildly, and had to +be kept under restraint. + +Yvonne as she turned away from that last faint glimmer of hope, +encountered Martin-Roget's glance of triumph and saw the sneer which +curled his full lips. Her father came up to her just then and took her +over from the kindly hostess, with the ostentatious manner of one who +has charge of a sick person, and must take every precaution for her +welfare. + +"Another loss of dignity, my child," he said to her in French, so that +none but Martin-Roget could catch what he said. "I guessed that you +would commit some indiscretion, you see, so M. Martin-Roget and myself +warned all the people at the inn the moment we arrived. We told them +that I was travelling with a sick daughter who had become crazed through +the death of her lover, and believed herself--like most crazed persons +do--to be persecuted and oppressed. You have seen the result. They +pitied you. Even the serving-maids smiled. It would have been wiser to +remain silent." + +Whereupon he handed her into the barouche with loving care, a crowd of +sympathetic onlookers gazing with obvious compassion on the poor crazed +lady and her sorely tried father. + +After this episode Yvonne gave up the struggle. + +No one but God could help her, if He chose to perform a miracle. + + +V + +The rest of the journey was accomplished in silence. Yvonne gazed, +unseeing, through the carriage window as the barouche rattled on the +cobble-stones of the streets of Bristol. She marvelled at the number of +people who went gaily by along the streets, unheeding, unknowing that +the greatest depths of misery to which any human being could sink had +been probed by the unfortunate young girl who wide-eyed, mute and +broken-hearted gazed out upon the busy world without. + +Portishead was reached just when the grey light of day turned to a +gloomy twilight. Yvonne unresisting, insentient, went whither she was +bidden to go. Better that, than to feel Martin-Roget's coercive grip on +her arm, or to hear her father's curt words of command. + +She walked along the pier and anon stepped into a boat, hardly knowing +what she was doing: the twilight was welcome to her, for it hid much +from her view and her eyes--hot with unshed tears--ached for the restful +gloom. She realised that the boat was being rowed along for some little +way down the stream, that Frederick, who had come she knew not how or +whence, was in the boat too with some luggage which she recognised as +being familiar: that another woman was there whom she did not know, but +who appeared to look after her comforts, wrapped a shawl closer round +her knees and drew the hood of her mantle closer round her neck. But it +was all like an ugly dream: the voices of her father and of +Martin-Roget, who were talking in monosyllables, the sound of the oars +as they struck the water, or creaked in their rowlocks, came to her as +from an ever-receding distance. + +A couple of hours later she came back to complete consciousness. She +was in a narrow place, which at first appeared to her like a cupboard: +the atmosphere was both cold and stuffy and reeked of tar and of oil. +She was lying on a hard bed with her mantle and a shawl wrapped round +her. It was very dark save where the feeble glimmer of a lamp threw a +circle of light around. Above her head there was a constant and heavy +tramping of feet, and the sound of incessant and varied creakings and +groanings of wood, cordage and metal filled the night air with their +weird and dismal sounds. A slow feeling of movement coupled with a +gentle oscillation confirmed the unfortunate girl's first waking +impression that she was on board a ship. How she had got there she did +not know. She must ultimately have fainted in the small boat and been +carried aboard. She raised herself slightly on her elbow and peered +round her into the dark corners of the cabin: opposite to her upon a +bench, also wrapped up in shawl and mantle, lay the woman who had been +in attendance on her in the boat. + +The woman's heavy breathing indicated that she was fast asleep. + +Loneliness! Misery! Desolation encompassed the happy bride of yesterday. +With a moan of exquisite soul-agony she fell back against the hard +cushions, and for the first time this day a convulsive flow of tears +eased the superacuteness of her misery. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE COAST OF FRANCE + + +I + +The whole of that wretched mournful day Yvonne Dewhurst spent upon the +deck of the ship which was bearing her away every hour, every minute, +further and still further from home and happiness. She seldom spoke: she +ate and drank when food was brought to her: she was conscious neither of +cold nor of wet, of well-being or ill. She sat upon a pile of cordages +in the stern of the ship leaning against the taffrail and in imagination +seeing the coast of England fade into illimitable space. + +Part of the time it rained, and then she sat huddled up in the shawls +and tarpaulins which the woman placed about her: then, when the sun came +out, she still sat huddled up, closing her eyes against the glare. + +When daylight faded into dusk, and then twilight into night she gazed +into nothingness as she had gazed on water and sky before, thinking, +thinking, thinking! This could not be the end--it could not. So much +happiness, such pure love, such perfect companionship as she had had +with the young husband whom she idolised could not all be wrenched from +her like that, without previous foreboding and without some warning from +Fate. This miserable, sordid, wretched journey to an unknown land could +not be the epilogue to the exquisite romance which had suddenly changed +the dreary monotony of her life into one long, glowing dream of joy and +of happiness! This could not be the end! + +And gazing into the immensity of the far horizon she thought and thought +and racked her memory for every word, every look which she had had from +her dear milor. And upon the grey background of sea and sky she seemed +to perceive the vague and dim outline of that mysterious friend--the man +who knew everything--who foresaw everything, even and above all the +dangers that threatened those whom he loved. He had foreseen this awful +danger too! Oh! if only milor and she herself had realised its full +extent! But now surely! surely! he would help, he would know what to do. +Milor was wont to speak of him as being omniscient and having marvellous +powers. + +Once or twice during the day M. le duc de Kernogan came to sit beside +his daughter and tried to speak a few words of comfort and of sympathy. +Of a truth--here on the open sea--far both from home and kindred and +from the new friends he had found in hospitable England--his heart smote +him for all the wrong he had done to his only child. He dared not think +of the gentle and patient wife who lay at rest in the churchyard of +Kernogan, for he feared that with his thoughts he would conjure up her +pale, avenging ghost who would demand an account of what he had done +with her child. + +Cold and exposure--the discomfort of the long sea-journey in this rough +trading ship had somewhat damped M. de Kernogan's pride and obstinacy: +his loyalty to the cause of his King had paled before the demands of a +father's duty toward his helpless daughter. + + +II + +It was close on six o'clock and the night, after the turbulent and +capricious alternations of rain and sunshine, promised to be beautifully +clear, though very cold. The pale crescent of the moon had just emerged +from behind the thick veil of cloud and mist which still hung +threateningly upon the horizon: a fitful sheen of silver danced upon the +waves. + +M. le duc stood beside his daughter. He had inquired after her health +and well-being and received her monosyllabic reply with an impatient +sigh. M. Martin-Roget was pacing up and down the deck with restless and +vigorous strides: he had just gone by and made a loud and cheery comment +on the weather and the beauty of the night. + +Could Yvonne Dewhurst have seen her father's face now, or had she cared +to study it, she would have perceived that he was gazing out to sea in +the direction to which the schooner was heading with an intent look of +puzzlement, and that there was a deep furrow between his brows. Half an +hour went by and he still stood there, silent and absorbed: then +suddenly a curious exclamation escaped his lips: he stooped and seized +his daughter by the wrist. + +"Yvonne!" he said excitedly, "tell me! am I dreaming, or am I crazed?" + +"What is it?" she asked coldly. + +"Out there! Look! Just tell me what you see?" + +He appeared so excited and his pressure on her wrist was so insistent +that she dragged herself to her feet and looked out to sea in the +direction to which he was pointing. + +"Tell me what you see," he reiterated with ever-growing excitement, and +she felt that the hand which held her wrist trembled violently. + +"The light from a lighthouse, I think," she said. + +"And besides that?" + +"Another light--a much smaller one--considerably higher up. It must be +perched up on some cliffs." + +"Anything else?" + +"Yes. There are lights dotted about here and there. Some village on the +coast." + +"On the coast?" he murmured hoarsely, "and we are heading towards it." + +"So it appears," she said indifferently. What cared she to what shore +she was being taken: every land save England was exile to her now. + +Just at this moment M. Martin-Roget in his restless wanderings once more +passed by. + +"M. Martin-Roget!" called the duc. + +And vaguely Yvonne wondered why his voice trembled so. + +"At your service, M. le duc," replied the other as he came to a halt, +and then stood with legs wide apart firmly planted upon the deck, his +hands buried in the pockets of his heavy mantle, his head thrown back, +as if defiantly, his whole attitude that of a master condescending to +talk with slaves. + +"What are those lights over there, ahead of us?" asked M. le duc +quietly. + +"The lighthouse of Le Croisic, M. le duc," replied Martin-Roget dryly, +"and of the guard-house above and the harbour below. All at your +service," he added, with a sneer. + +"Monsieur...." exclaimed the duc. + +"Eh? what?" queried the other blandly. + +"What does this mean?" + +In the vague, dim light of the moon Yvonne could just distinguish the +two men as they stood confronting one another. Martin-Roget, tall, +massive, with arms now folded across his breast, shrugging his broad +shoulders at the duc's impassioned query--and her father who suddenly +appeared to have shrunk within himself, who raised one trembling hand to +his forehead and with the other sought with pathetic entreaty the +support of his daughter's arm. + +"What does this mean?" he murmured again. + +"Only," replied Martin-Roget with a laugh, "that we are close to the +coast of France and that with this unpleasant but useful north-westerly +wind we shall be in Nantes two hours before midnight." + +"In Nantes?" queried the duc vaguely, not understanding, speaking +tonelessly like a somnambulist or a man in a trance. He was leaning +heavily now on his daughter's arm, and she with that motherly instinct +which is ever present in a good woman's heart even in the presence of +her most cruel enemy, drew him tenderly towards her, gave him the +support he needed, not quite understanding herself yet what it was that +had befallen them both. + +"Yes, in Nantes, M. le duc," reiterated Martin-Roget with a sneer. + +"But 'twas to Holland we were going." + +"To Nantes, M. le duc," retorted the other with a ringing note of +triumph in his voice, "to Nantes, from which you fled like a coward when +you realised that the vengeance of an outraged people had at last +overtaken you and your kind." + +"I do not understand," stammered the duc, and mechanically +now--instinctively--father and daughter clung to one another as if each +was striving to protect the other from the raving fury of this madman. +Never for a moment did they believe that he was sane. Excitement, they +thought, had turned his brain: he was acting and speaking like one +possessed. + +"I dare say it would take far longer than the next four hours while we +glide gently along the Loire, to make such as you understand that your +arrogance and your pride are destined to be humbled at last and that you +are now in the power of those men who awhile ago you did not deem worthy +to lick your boots. I dare say," he continued calmly, "you think that I +am crazed. Well! perhaps I am, but sane enough anyhow, M. le duc, to +enjoy the full flavour of revenge." + +"Revenge?... what have we done?... what has my daughter done?..." +stammered the duc incoherently. "You swore you loved her ... desired to +make her your wife ... I consented ... she...." + +Martin-Roget's harsh laugh broke in on his vague murmurings. + +"And like an arrogant fool you fell into the trap," he said with calm +irony, "and you were too blind to see in Martin-Roget, suitor for your +daughter's hand, Pierre Adet, the son of the victim of your execrable +tyranny, the innocent man murdered at your bidding." + +"Pierre Adet ... I don't understand." + +"'Tis but little meseems that you do understand, M. le duc," sneered the +other. "But turn your memory back, I pray you, to the night four years +ago when a few hot-headed peasant lads planned to give you a fright in +your castle of Kernogan ... the plan failed and Pierre Adet, the leader +of that unfortunate band, managed to fly the country, whilst you, like a +crazed and blind tyrant, administered punishment right and left for the +fright which you had had. Just think of it! those boors! those louts! +that swinish herd of human cattle had dared to raise a cry of revolt +against you! To death with them all! to death! Where is Pierre Adet, the +leader of those hogs? to him an exemplary punishment must be meted! a +deterrent against any other attempt at revolt. Well, M. le duc, do you +remember what happened then? Pierre Adet, severely injured in the melee, +had managed to crawl away into safety. While he lay betwixt life and +death, first in the presbytery of Vertou, then in various ditches on his +way to Paris, he knew nothing of what happened at Nantes. When he +returned to consciousness and to active life he heard that his father, +Jean Adet the miller, who was innocent of any share in the revolt, had +been hanged by order of M. le duc de Kernogan." + +He paused awhile and a curious laugh--half-convulsive and not unmixed +with sobs--shook his broad shoulders. Neither the duc nor Yvonne made +any comment on what they heard: the duc felt like a fly caught in a +death-dealing web. He was dazed with the horror of his position, dazed +above all with the rush of bitter remorse which had surged up in his +heart and mind, when he realised that it was his own folly, his +obstinacy--aye! and his heartlessness which had brought this awful fate +upon his daughter. And Yvonne felt that whatever she might endure of +misery and hopelessness was nothing in comparison with what her father +must feel with the addition of bitter self-reproach. + +"Are you beginning to understand the position better now, M. le duc?" +queried Martin-Roget after awhile. + +The duc sank back nerveless upon the pile of cordages close by. Yvonne +was leaning with her back against the taffrail, her two arms +outstretched, the north-west wind blowing her soft brown hair about her +face whilst her eyes sought through the gloom to read the lines of +cruelty and hatred which must be distorting Martin-Roget's face now. + +"And," she said quietly after awhile, "you have waited all these years, +Monsieur, nursing thoughts of revenge and of hate against us. Ah! +believe me," she added earnestly, "though God knows my heart is full of +misery at this moment, and though I know that at your bidding death will +so soon claim me and my father as his own, yet would I not change my +wretchedness for yours." + +"And I, citizeness," he said roughly, addressing her for the first time +in the manner prescribed by the revolutionary government, "would not +change places with any king or other tyrant on earth. Yes," he added as +he came a step or two closer to her, "I have waited all these years. For +four years I have thought and striven and planned, planned to be even +with your father and with you one day. You had fled the country--like +cowards, bah!--ready to lend your arms to the foreigner against your own +country in order to re-establish a tyrant upon the throne whom the whole +of the people of France loathed and detested. You had fled, but soon I +learned whither you had gone. Then I set to work to gain access to +you.... I learned English.... I too went to England ... under an assumed +name ... with the necessary introductions so as to gain a footing in the +circles in which you moved. I won your father's condescension--almost +his friendship!... The rich banker from Brest should be fleeced in order +to provide funds for the armies that were to devastate France--and the +rich banker of Brest refused to be fleeced unless he was lured by the +promise of Mlle. de Kernogan's hand in marriage." + +"You need not, Monsieur," rejoined Yvonne coldly, while Martin-Roget +paused in order to draw breath, "you need not, believe me, take the +trouble to recount all the machinations which you carried through in +order to gain your ends. Enough that my father was so foolish as to +trust you, and that we are now completely in your power, but...." + +"There is no 'but,'" he broke in gruffly, "you are in my power and will +be made to learn the law of the talion which demands an eye for an eye, +a life for a life: that is the law which the people are applying to that +herd of aristos who were arrogant tyrants once and are shrinking, +cowering slaves now. Oh! you were very proud that night, Mademoiselle +Yvonne de Kernogan, when a few peasant lads told you some home truths +while you sat disdainful and callous in your carriage, but there is one +fact that you can never efface from your memory, strive how you may, and +that is that for a few minutes I held you in my arms and that I kissed +you, my fine lady, aye! kissed you like I would any pert kitchen wench, +even I, Pierre Adet, the miller's son." + +He drew nearer and nearer to her as he spoke; she, leaning against the +taffrail, could not retreat any further from him. He laughed. + +"If you fall over into the water, I shall not complain," he said, "it +will save our proconsul the trouble, and the guillotine some work. But +you need not fear. I am not trying to kiss you again. You are nothing to +me, you and your father, less than nothing. Your death in misery and +wretchedness is all I want, whether you find a dishonoured grave in the +Loire or by suicide I care less than nothing. But let me tell you this," +he added, and his voice came now like a hissing sound through his set +teeth, "that there is no intention on my part to make glorious martyrs +of you both. I dare say you have heard some pretty stories over in +England of aristos climbing the steps of the guillotine with an ecstatic +look of martyrdom upon their face: and tales of the tumbrils of Paris +laden with men and women going to their death and shouting "God save the +King" all the way. That is not the sort of paltry revenge which would +satisfy me. My father was hanged by yours as a malefactor--hanged, I +say, like a common thief! he, a man who had never wronged a single soul +in the whole course of his life, who had been an example of fine living, +of hard work, of noble courage through many adversities. My mother was +left a widow--not the honoured widow of an honourable man--but a pariah, +the relict of a malefactor who had died of the hangman's rope--my sister +was left an orphan--dishonoured--without hope of gaining the love of a +respectable man. All that I and my family owe to ci-devant M. le duc de +Kernogan, and therefore I tell you, that both he and his +daughter shall not die like martyrs but like malefactors +too--shamed--dishonoured--loathed and execrated even by their own +kindred! Take note of that, M. le duc de Kernogan! You have sown shame, +shame shall you reap! and the name of which you are so proud will be +dragged in the mire until it has become a by-word in the land for all +that is despicable and base." + +Perhaps at no time of his life had Martin-Roget, erstwhile Pierre Adet, +spoken with such an intensity of passion, even though he was at all +times turbulent and a ready prey to his own emotions. But all that he +had kept hidden in the inmost recesses of his heart, ever since as a +young stripling he had chafed at the social conditions of his country, +now welled forth in that wild harangue. For the first time in his life +he felt that he was really master of those who had once despised and +oppressed him. He held them and was the arbiter of their fate. The +sense of possession and of power had gone to his head like wine: he was +intoxicated with his own feeling of triumphant revenge, and this +impassioned rhetoric flowed from his mouth like the insentient babble of +a drunken man. + +The duc de Kernogan, sitting on the coil of cordages with his elbows on +his knees and his head buried in his hands, had no thought of breaking +in on the other man's ravings. The bitterness of remorse paralysed his +thinking faculties. Martin-Roget's savage words struck upon his senses +like blows from a sledge-hammer. He knew that nothing but his own folly +was the cause of Yvonne's and his own misfortune. Yvonne had been safe +from all evil fortune under the protection of her fine young English +husband; he--the father who should have been her chief protector--had +dragged her by brute force away from that husband's care and had landed +her ... where?... A shudder like acute ague went through the unfortunate +man's whole body as he thought of the future. + +Nor did Yvonne Dewhurst attempt to make reply to her enemy's delirious +talk. She would not give him even the paltry satisfaction of feeling +that he had stung her into a retort. She did not fear him--she hated him +too much for that--but like her father she had no illusions as to his +power over them both. While he stormed and raved she kept her eyes +steadily fixed upon him. She could only just barely distinguish him in +the gloom, and he no doubt failed to see the expression of lofty +indifference wherewith she contrived to regard him: but he _felt_ her +contempt, and but for the presence of the sailors on the deck he +probably would have struck her. + +As it was when, from sheer lack of breath, he had to pause, he gave one +last look of hate on the huddled figure of the duc, and the proud, +upstanding one of Yvonne, then with a laugh which sounded like that of a +fiend--so cruel, so callous was it, he turned on his heel, and as he +strode away towards the bow his tall figure was soon absorbed in the +surrounding gloom. + + +III + +The duc de Kernogan and his daughter saw little or nothing of +Martin-Roget after that. For awhile longer they caught sight of him from +time to time as he walked up and down the deck with ceaseless +restlessness and in the company of another man, who was much shorter and +slimmer than himself and whom they had not noticed hitherto. +Martin-Roget talked most of the time in a loud and excited voice, the +other appearing to listen to him with a certain air of deference. +Whether the conversation between these two was actually intended for the +ears of the two unfortunates, or whether it was merely chance which +brought certain phrases to their ears when the two men passed closely +by, it were impossible to say. Certain it is that from such chance +phrases they gathered that the barque would not put into Nantes, as the +navigation of the Loire was suspended for the nonce by order of +Proconsul Carrier. He had need of the river for his awesome and +nefarious deeds. Yvonne's ears were regaled with tales--told with loud +ostentation--of the terrible _noyades_, the wholesale drowning of men, +women and children, malefactors and traitors, so as to ease the burden +of the guillotine. + +After three bells it got so bitterly cold that Yvonne, fearing that her +father would become seriously ill, suggested their going down to their +stuffy cabins together. After all, even the foul and shut-up atmosphere +of these close, airless cupboards was preferable to the propinquity of +those two human fiends up on deck and the tales of horror and brutality +which they loved to tell. + +And for two hours after that, father and daughter sat in the narrow +cell-like place, locked in each other's arms. She had everything to +forgive, and he everything to atone for: but Yvonne suffered so acutely, +her misery was so great that she found it in her heart to pity the +father whose misery must have been even greater than hers. The supreme +solace of bestowing love and forgiveness and of easing the racking +paroxysms of remorse which brought the unfortunate man to the verge of +dementia, warmed her heart towards him and brought surcease to her own +sorrow. + + + + +BOOK TWO: NANTES, DECEMBER, 1793 + +CHAPTER I + +THE TIGER'S LAIR + + +I + +Nantes is in the grip of the tiger. + +Representative Carrier--with powers as of a proconsul--has been sent +down to stamp out the lingering remnants of the counter-revolution. La +Vendee is temporarily subdued; the army of the royalists driven back +across the Loire; but traitors still abound--this the National +Convention in Paris hath decreed--there are traitors everywhere. They +were not _all_ massacred at Cholet and Savenay. Disbanded, yes! but not +exterminated, and wolves must not be allowed to run loose, lest they +band again, and try to devour the flocks. + +Therefore extermination is the order of the day. Every traitor or +would-be traitor--every son and daughter and father and mother of +traitors must be destroyed ere they do more mischief. And +Carrier--Carrier the coward who turned tail and bolted at Cholet--is +sent to Nantes to carry on the work of destruction. Wolves and wolflings +all! Let none survive. Give them fair trial, of course. As traitors they +have deserved death--have they not taken up arms against the Republic +and against the Will and the Reign of the People? But let a court of +justice sit in Nantes town; let the whole nation know how traitors are +dealt with: let the nation see that her rulers are both wise and just. +Let wolves and wolflings be brought up for trial, and set up the +guillotine on Place du Bouffay with four executioners appointed to do +her work. There would be too much work for two, or even three. Let there +be four--and let the work of extermination be complete. + +And Carrier--with powers as of a proconsul--arrives in Nantes town and +sets to work to organise his household. Civil and military--with pomp +and circumstance--for the son of a small farmer, destined originally for +the Church and for obscurity is now virtual autocrat in one of the great +cities of France. He has power of life and death over thousands of +citizens--under the direction of justice, of course! So now he has +citizens of the bedchamber, and citizens of the household, he has a +guard of honour and a company of citizens of the guard. And above all he +has a crowd of spies around him--servants of the Committee of Public +Safety so they are called--they style themselves "La Compagnie Marat" in +honour of the great patriot who was foully murdered by a female +wolfling. + +So la Compagnie Marat is formed--they wear red bonnets on their +heads--no stockings on their feet--short breeches to display their bare +shins: their captain, Fleury, has access at all times to the person of +the proconsul, to make report on the raids which his company effect at +all hours of the day or night. Their powers are supreme too. In and out +of houses--however private--up and down the streets--through shops, +taverns and warehouses, along the quays and the yards--everywhere they +go. Everywhere they have the right to go! to ferret and to spy, to +listen, to search, to interrogate--the red-capped Company is paid for +what it can find. Piece-work, what? Work for the guillotine! + +And they it is who keep the guillotine busy. Too busy in fact. And the +court of justice sitting in the Hotel du Departement is overworked too. +Carrier gets impatient. Why waste the time of patriots by so much +paraphernalia of justice? Wolves and wolflings can be exterminated so +much more quickly, more easily than that. It only needs a stroke of +genius, one stroke, and Carrier has it. + +He invents the _Noyades_! + +The Drownages we may call them! + +They are so simple! An old flat-bottomed barge. The work of two or three +ship's carpenters! Portholes below the water-line and made to open at a +given moment. All so very, very simple. Then a journey downstream as far +as Belle Isle or la Marechale, and "sentence of deportation" executed +without any trouble on a whole crowd of traitors--"vertical deportation" +Carrier calls it facetiously and is mightily proud of his invention and +of his witticism too. + +The first attempt was highly successful. Ninety priests, and not one +escaped. Think of the work it would have entailed on the guillotine--and +on the friends of Carrier who sit in justice in the Hotel du +Departement! Ninety heads! Bah! That old flat-bottomed barge is the most +wonderful labour-saving machine. + +After that the "Drownages" become the order of the day. The red-capped +Company recruits victims for the hecatomb, and over Nantes Town there +hangs a pall of unspeakable horror. The prisons are not vast enough to +hold all the victims, so the huge entrepot, the bonded warehouse on the +quay, is converted: instead of chests of coffee it is now encumbered +with human freight: into it pell-mell are thrown all those who are +destined to assuage Carrier's passion for killing: ten thousand of them: +men, women, and young children, counter-revolutionists, innocent +tradesmen, thieves, aristocrats, criminals and women of evil fame--they +are herded together like cattle, without straw whereon to lie, without +water, without fire, with barely food enough to keep up the last +attenuated thread of a miserable existence. + +And when the warehouse gets over full, to the Loire with them!--a +hundred or two at a time! Pestilence, dysentery decimates their numbers. +Under pretence of hygienic requirements two hundred are flung into the +river on the 14th day of December. Two hundred--many of them +women--crowds of children and a batch of parish priests. + +Some there are among Carrier's colleagues--those up in Paris--who +protest! Such wholesale butchery will not redound to the credit of any +revolutionary government--it even savours of treachery--it is +unpatriotic! There are the emissaries of the National Convention, +deputed from Paris to supervise and control--they protest as much as +they dare--but such men are swept off their feet by the torrent of +Carrier's gluttony for blood. Carrier's mission is to "purge the +political body of every evil that infests it." Vague and yet precise! He +reckons that he has full powers and thinks he can flaunt those powers in +the face of those sent to control him. He does it too for three whole +months ere he in his turn meets his doom. But for the moment he is +omnipotent. He has to make report every week to the Committee of Public +Safety, and he sends brief, garbled versions of his doings. "He is +pacifying La Vendee! he is stamping out the remnants of the rebellion! +he is purging the political body of every evil that infests it." Anon he +succeeds in getting the emissaries of the National Convention recalled. +He is impatient of control. "They are weak, pusillanimous, unpatriotic! +He must have freedom to act for the best." + +After that he remains virtual dictator, with none but obsequious, +terrified myrmidons around him: these are too weak to oppose him in any +way. And the municipality dare not protest either--nor the district +council--nor the departmental. They are merely sheep who watch others of +their flock being sent to the slaughter. + +After that from within his lair the man tiger decides that it is a pity +to waste good barges on the cattle: "Fling them out!" he cries. "Fling +them out! Tie two and two together. Man and woman! criminal and aristo! +the thief with the ci-devant duke's daughter! the ci-devant marquis with +the slut from the streets! Fling them all out together into the Loire +and pour a hail of grape shot above them until the last struggler has +disappeared!" "Equality!" he cries, "Equality for all! Fraternity! Unity +in death!" + +His friends call this new invention of his: "Marriage Republicain!" and +he is pleased with the _mot_. + +And Republican marriages become the order of the day. + + +II + +Nantes itself now is akin to a desert--a desert wherein the air is +filled with weird sounds of cries and of moans, of furtive footsteps +scurrying away into dark and secluded byways, of musketry and confused +noises, of sorrow and of lamentations. + +Nantes is a city of the dead--a city of sleepers. Only Carrier is +awake--thinking and devising and planning shorter ways and swifter, for +the extermination of traitors. + +In the Hotel de la Villestreux the tiger has built his lair: at the apex +of the island of Feydeau, with the windows of the hotel facing straight +down the Loire. From here there is a magnificent view downstream upon +the quays which are now deserted and upon the once prosperous port of +Nantes. + +The staircase of the hotel which leads up to the apartments of the +proconsul is crowded every day and all day with suppliants and with +petitioners, with the citizens of the household and the members of the +Compagnie Marat. + +But no one has access to the person of the dictator. He stands aloof, +apart, hidden from the eyes of the world, a mysterious personality whose +word sends hundreds to their death, whose arbitrary will has reduced a +once flourishing city to abject poverty and squalor. No tyrant has ever +surrounded himself with a greater paraphernalia of pomp and +circumstance--no aristo has ever dwelt in greater luxury: the spoils of +churches and chateaux fill the Hotel de la Villestreux from attic to +cellar, gold and silver plate adorn his table, priceless works of art +hang upon his walls, he lolls on couches and chairs which have been the +resting-place of kings. The wholesale spoliation of the entire +country-side has filled the demagogue's abode with all that is most +sumptuous in the land. + +And he himself is far more inaccessible than was _le Roi Soleil_ in the +days of his most towering arrogance, than were the Popes in the glorious +days of mediaeval Rome. Jean Baptiste Carrier, the son of a small farmer, +the obscure deputy for Cantal in the National Convention, dwells in the +Hotel de la Villestreux as in a stronghold. No one is allowed near him +save a few--a very few--intimates: his valet, two or three women, Fleury +the commander of the Marats, and that strange and abominable youngster, +Jacques Lalouet, about whom the chroniclers of that tragic epoch can +tell us so little--a cynical young braggart, said to be a cousin of +Robespierre and the son of a midwife of Nantes, beardless, handsome and +vicious: the only human being--so we are told--who had any influence +over the sinister proconsul: mere hanger-on of Carrier or spy of the +National Convention, no one can say--a malignant personality which has +remained an enigma and a mystery to this hour. + +None but these few are ever allowed now inside the inner sanctuary +wherein dwells and schemes the dictator. Even Lamberty, Fouquet and the +others of the staff are kept at arm's length. Martin-Roget, Chauvelin +and other strangers are only allowed as far as the ante-room. The door +of the inner chamber is left open and they hear the proconsul's voice +and see his silhouette pass and repass in front of them, but that is +all. + +Fear of assassination--the inevitable destiny of the tyrant--haunts the +man-tiger even within the fastnesses of his lair. Day and night a +carriage with four horses stands in readiness on La Petite Hollande, the +great, open, tree-bordered Place at the extreme end of the Isle Feydeau +and on which give the windows of the Hotel de la Villestreux. Day and +night the carriage is ready--with coachman on the box and postillion in +the saddle, who are relieved every two hours lest they get sleepy or +slack--with luggage in the boot and provisions always kept fresh inside +the coach; everything always ready lest something--a warning from a +friend or a threat from an enemy, or merely a sudden access of +unreasoning terror, the haunting memory of a bloody act--should decide +the tyrant at a moment's notice to fly from the scenes of his +brutalities. + + +III + +Carrier in the small room which he has fitted up for himself as a +sumptuous boudoir, paces up and down just like a wild beast in its cage: +and he rubs his large bony hands together with the excitement engendered +by his own cruelties, by the success of this wholesale butchery which he +has invented and carried through. + +There never was an uglier man than Carrier, with that long hatchet-face +of his, those abnormally high cheekbones, that stiff, lanky hair, that +drooping, flaccid mouth and protruding underlip. Nature seemed to have +set herself the task of making the face a true mirror of the soul--the +dark and hideous soul on which of a surety Satan had already set his +stamp. But he is dressed with scrupulous care--not to say elegance--and +with a display of jewelry the provenance of which is as unjustifiable as +that of the works of art which fill his private sanctum in every nook +and cranny. + +In front of the tall window, heavy curtains of crimson damask are drawn +closely together, in order to shut out the light of day: the room is in +all but total darkness: for that is the proconsul's latest caprice: that +no one shall see him save in semi-obscurity. + +Captain Fleury has stumbled into the room, swearing lustily as he barks +his shins against the angle of a priceless Louis XV bureau. He has to +make report on the work done by the Compagnie Marat. Fifty-three priests +from the department of Anjou who have refused to take the new oath of +obedience to the government of the Republic. The red-capped Company who +tracked them down and arrested them, vow that all these _calotins_ have +precious objects--money, jewelry, gold plate--concealed about their +persons. What is to be done about these things? Are the _calotins_ to be +allowed to keep them or to dispose of them for their own profit? + +Carrier is highly delighted. What a haul! + +"Confiscate everything," he cries, "then ship the whole crowd of that +pestilential rabble, and don't let me hear another word about them." + +Fleury goes. And that same night fifty-three priests are "shipped" in +accordance with the orders of the proconsul, and Carrier, still rubbing +his large bony hands contentedly together, exclaims with glee: + +"What a torrent, eh! What a torrent! What a revolution!" + +And he sends a letter to Robespierre. And to the Committee of Public +Safety he makes report: + +"Public spirit in Nantes," he writes, "is magnificent: it has risen to +the most sublime heights of revolutionary ideals." + + +IV + +After the departure of Fleury, Carrier suddenly turned to a slender +youth, who was standing close by the window, gazing out through the +folds of the curtain on the fine vista of the Loire and the quays which +stretched out before him. + +"Introduce citizen Martin-Roget into the ante-room now, Lalouet," he +said loftily. "I will hear what he has to say, and citizen Chauvelin may +present himself at the same time." + +Young Lalouet lolled across the room, smothering a yawn. + +"Why should you trouble about all that rabble?" he said roughly, "it is +nearly dinner-time and you know that the chef hates the soup to be kept +waiting." + +"I shall not trouble about them very long," replied Carrier, who had +just started picking his teeth with a tiny gold tool. "Open the door, +boy, and let the two men come." + +Lalouet did as he was told. The door through which he passed he left +wide open, he then crossed the ante-room to a further door, threw it +open and called in a loud voice: + +"Citizen Chauvelin! Citizen Martin-Roget!" + +For all the world like the ceremonious audiences at Versailles in the +days of the great Louis. + +There was sound of eager whisperings, of shuffling of feet, of chairs +dragged across the polished floor. Young Lalouet had already and quite +unconcernedly turned his back on the two men who, at his call, had +entered the room. + +Two chairs were placed in front of the door which led to the private +sanctuary--still wrapped in religious obscurity--where Carrier sat +enthroned. The youth curtly pointed to the two chairs, then went back to +the inner room. The two men advanced. The full light of midday fell upon +them from the tall window on their right--the pale, grey, colourless +light of December. They bowed slightly in the direction of the audience +chamber where the vague silhouette of the proconsul was alone visible. + +The whole thing was a farce. Martin-Roget held his lips tightly closed +together lest a curse or a sneer escaped them. Chauvelin's face was +impenetrable--but it is worthy of note that just one year later when the +half-demented tyrant was in his turn brought before the bar of the +Convention and sentenced to the guillotine, it was citizen Chauvelin's +testimony which weighed most heavily against him. + +There was silence for a time: Martin-Roget and Chauvelin were waiting +for the dictator's word. He sat at his desk with the scanty light, which +filtrated between the curtains, immediately behind him, his ungainly +form with the high shoulders and mop-like, shaggy hair half swallowed up +by the surrounding gloom. He was deliberately keeping the other two men +waiting and busied himself with turning over desultorily the papers and +writing tools upon his desk, in the intervals of picking at his teeth +and muttering to himself all the time as was his wont. Young Lalouet had +resumed his post beside the curtained window and he was giving sundry +signs of his growing impatience. + +At last Carrier spoke: + +"And now, citizen Martin-Roget," he said in tones of that lofty +condescension which he loved to affect, "I am prepared to hear what you +have to tell me with regard to the cattle which you brought into our +city the other day. Where are the aristos now? and why have they not +been handed over to commandant Fleury?" + +"The girl," replied Martin-Roget, who had much ado to keep his vehement +temper in check, and who chose for the moment to ignore the second of +Carrier's peremptory queries, "the girl is in lodgings in the Carrefour +de la Poissonnerie. The house is kept by my sister, whose lover was +hanged four years ago by the ci-devant duc de Kernogan for trapping two +pigeons. A dozen or so lads from our old village--men who worked with my +father and others who were my friends--lodge in my sister's house. They +keep a watchful eye over the wench for the sake of the past, for my sake +and for the sake of my sister Louise. The ci-devant Kernogan woman is +well-guarded. I am satisfied as to that." + +"And where is the ci-devant duc?" + +"In the house next door--a tavern at the sign of the Rat Mort--a place +which is none too reputable, but the landlord--Lemoine--is a good +patriot and he is keeping a close eye on the aristo for me." + +"And now will you tell me, citizen," rejoined Carrier with that unctuous +suavity which always veiled a threat, "will you tell me how it comes +that you are keeping a couple of traitors alive all this while at the +country's expense?" + +"At mine," broke in Martin-Roget curtly. + +"At the country's expense," reiterated the proconsul inflexibly. "Bread +is scarce in Nantes. What traitors eat is stolen from good patriots. If +you can afford to fill two mouths at your expense, I can supply you with +some that have never done aught but proclaim their adherence to the +Republic. You have had those two aristos inside the city nearly a week +and----" + +"Only three days," interposed Martin-Roget, "and you must have patience +with me, citizen Carrier. Remember I have done well by you, by bringing +such high game to your bag----" + +"Your high game will be no use to me," retorted the other with a harsh +laugh, "if I am not to have the cooking of it. You have talked of +disgrace for the rabble and of your own desire for vengeance over them, +but----" + +"Wait, citizen," broke in Martin-Roget firmly, "let us understand one +another. Before I embarked on this business you gave me your promise +that no one--not even you--would interfere between me and my booty." + +"And no one has done so hitherto to my knowledge, citizen," rejoined +Carrier blandly. "The Kernogan rabble has been yours to do with what you +like--er--so far," he added significantly. "I said that I would not +interfere and I have not done so up to now, even though the +pestilential crowd stinks in the nostrils of every good patriot in +Nantes. But I don't deny that it was a bargain that you should have a +free hand with them ... for a time, and Jean Baptiste Carrier has never +yet gone back on a given word." + +Martin-Roget made no comment on this peroration. He shrugged his broad +shoulders and suddenly fell to contemplating the distant landscape. He +had turned his head away in order to hide the sneer which curled his +lips at the recollection of that "bargain" struck with the imperious +proconsul. It was a matter of five thousand francs which had passed from +one pocket to the other and had bound Carrier down to a definite +promise. + +After a brief while Carrier resumed: "At the same time," he said, "my +promise was conditional, remember. I want that cattle out of Nantes--I +want the bread they eat--I want the room they occupy. I can't allow you +to play fast and loose with them indefinitely--a week is quite long +enough----" + +"Three days," corrected Martin-Roget once more. + +"Well! three days or eight," rejoined the other roughly. "Too long in +any case. I must be rid of them out of this city or I shall have all the +spies of the Convention about mine ears. I am beset with spies, citizen +Martin-Roget, yes, even I--Jean Baptiste Carrier--the most selfless the +most devoted patriot the Republic has ever known! Mine enemies up in +Paris send spies to dog my footsteps, to watch mine every action. They +are ready to pounce upon me at the slightest slip, to denounce me, to +drag me to their bar--they have already whetted the knife of the +guillotine which is to lay low the head of the finest patriot in +France----" + +"Hold on! hold on, Jean Baptiste my friend," here broke in young Lalouet +with a sneer, "we don't want protestations of your patriotism just now. +It is nearly dinner time." + +Carrier had been carried away by his own eloquence. At Lalouet's mocking +words he pulled himself together: murmured: "You young viper!" in tones +of tigerish affection, and then turned back to Martin-Roget and resumed +more calmly: + +"They'll be saying that I harbour aristos in Nantes if I keep that +Kernogan rabble here any longer. So I must be rid of them, citizen +Martin-Roget ... say within the next four-and-twenty hours...." He +paused for a moment or two, then added drily: "That is my last word, and +you must see to it. What is it you do want to do with them enfin?" + +"I want their death," replied Martin-Roget with a curse, and he brought +his heavy fist crashing down upon the arm of his chair, "but not a +martyr's death, understand? I don't want the pathetic figure of Yvonne +Kernogan and her father to remain as a picture of patient resignation in +the hearts and minds of every other aristo in the land. I don't want it +to excite pity or admiration. Death is nothing for such as they! they +glory in it! they are proud to die. The guillotine is their final +triumph! What I want for them is shame ... degradation ... a sensational +trial that will cover them with dishonour.... I want their name dragged +in the mire--themselves an object of derision or of loathing. I want +articles in the _Moniteur_ giving account of the trial of the ci-devant +duc de Kernogan and his daughter for something that is ignominious and +base. I want shame and mud slung at them--noise and beating of drums to +proclaim their dishonour. Noise! noise! that will reach every corner of +the land, aye that will reach Coblentz and Germany and England. It is +that which they would resent--the shame of it--the disgrace to their +name!" + +"Tshaw!" exclaimed Carrier. "Why don't you marry the wench, citizen +Martin-Roget? That would be disgrace enough for her, I'll warrant," he +added with a loud laugh, enchanted at his witticism. + +"I would to-morrow," replied the other, who chose to ignore the coarse +insult, "if she would consent. That is why I have kept her at my +sister's house these three days." + +"Bah! you have no need of a traitor's consent. My consent is +sufficient.... I'll give it if you like. The laws of the Republic +permit, nay desire every good patriot to ally himself with an aristo, if +he have a mind. And the Kernogan wench face to face with the +guillotine--or worse--would surely prefer your embraces, citizen, what?" + +A deep frown settled between Martin-Roget's glowering eyes, and gave his +face a sinister expression. + +"I wonder ..." he muttered between his teeth. + +"Then cease wondering, citizen," retorted Carrier cynically, "and try +our Republican marriage on your Kernogans ... thief linked to aristo, +cut-throat to a proud wench ... and then the Loire! Shame? Dishonour? +Fal lal I say! Death, swift and sure and unerring. Nothing better has +yet been invented for traitors." + +Martin-Roget shrugged his shoulders. + +"You have never known," he said quietly, "what it is to hate." + +Carrier uttered an exclamation of impatience. + +"Bah!" he said, "that is all talk and nonsense. Theories, what? Citizen +Chauvelin is a living example of the futility of all that rubbish. He +too has an enemy it seems whom he hates more thoroughly than any good +patriot has ever hated the enemies of the Republic. And hath this +deadly hatred availed him, forsooth? He too wanted the disgrace and +dishonour of that confounded Englishman whom I would simply have tossed +into the Loire long ago, without further process. What is the result? +The Englishman is over in England, safe and sound, making long noses at +citizen Chauvelin, who has much ado to keep his own head out of the +guillotine." + +Martin-Roget once more was silent: a look of sullen obstinacy had +settled upon his face. + +"You may be right, citizen Carrier," he muttered after awhile. + +"I am always right," broke in Carrier curtly. + +"Exactly ... but I have your promise." + +"And I'll keep it, as I have said, for another four and twenty hours. +Curse you for a mulish fool," added the proconsul with a snarl, "what in +the d----l's name do you want to do? You have talked a vast deal of +rubbish but you have told me nothing of your plans. Have you any ... +that are worthy of my attention?" + + +V + +Martin-Roget rose from his seat and began pacing up and down the narrow +room. His nerves were obviously on edge. It was difficult for any +man--let alone one of his temperament and half-tutored disposition--to +remain calm and deferential in face of the overbearance of this brutal +Jack-in-office, Martin-Roget--himself an upstart--loathed the offensive +self-assertion of that uneducated and bestial parvenu, who had become +all-powerful through the sole might of his savagery, and it cost him a +mighty effort to keep a violent retort from escaping his lips--a retort +which probably would have cost him his head. + +Chauvelin, on the other hand, appeared perfectly unconcerned. He +possessed the art of outward placidity to a masterly degree. Throughout +all this while he had taken no part in the discussion. He sat silent and +all but motionless, facing the darkened room in front of him, as if he +had done nothing else in all his life but interview great dictators who +chose to keep their sacred persons in the dark. Only from time to time +did his slender fingers drum a tattoo on the arm of his chair. + +Carrier had resumed his interesting occupation of picking his teeth: his +long, thin legs were stretched out before him; from beneath his flaccid +lids he shot swift glances upwards, whenever Martin-Roget in his +restless pacing crossed and recrossed in front of the open door. But +anon, when the latter came to a halt under the lintel and with his foot +almost across the threshold, young Lalouet was upon him in an instant, +barring the way to the inner sanctum. + +"Keep your distance, citizen," he said drily, "no one is allowed to +enter here." + +Instinctively Martin-Roget had drawn back--suddenly awed despite himself +by the air of mystery which hung over that darkened room, and by the dim +silhouette of the sinister tyrant who at his approach had with equal +suddenness cowered in his lair, drawing his limbs together and thrusting +his head forward, low down over the desk, like a leopard crouching for a +spring. But this spell of awe only lasted a few seconds, during which +Martin-Roget's unsteady gaze encountered the half-mocking, wholly +supercilious glance of young Lalouet. + +The next, he had recovered his presence of mind. But this crowning act +of audacious insolence broke the barrier of his self-restraint. An angry +oath escaped him. + +"Are we," he exclaimed roughly, "back in the days of Capet, the tyrant, +and of Versailles, that patriots and citizens are treated like menials +and obtrusive slaves? Pardieu, citizen Carrier, let me tell you +this...." + +"Pardieu, citizen Martin-Roget," retorted Carrier with a growl like that +of a savage dog, "let _me_ tell _you_ that for less than two pins I'll +throw you into the next barge that will float with open portholes down +the Loire. Get out of my presence, you swine, ere I call Fleury to throw +you out." + +Martin-Roget at the insult and the threat had become as pale as the +linen at his throat: a cold sweat broke out upon his forehead and he +passed his hand two or three times across his brow like a man dazed with +a sudden and violent blow. His nerves, already overstrained and very +much on edge, gave way completely. He staggered and would have measured +his length across the floor, but that his hand encountered the back of +his chair and he just contrived to sink into it, sick and faint, +horror-struck and pallid. + +A low cackle--something like a laugh--broke from Chauvelin's thin lips. +As usual he had witnessed the scene quite unmoved. + +"My friend Martin-Roget forgot himself for the moment, citizen Carrier," +he said suavely, "already he is ready to make amends." + +Jacques Lalouet looked down for a moment with infinite scorn expressed +in his fine eyes, on the presumptuous creature who had dared to defy the +omnipotent representative of the People. Then he turned on his heel, but +he did not go far this time: he remained standing close beside the +door--the terrier guarding his master. + +Carrier laughed loud and long. It was a hideous, strident laugh which +had not a tone of merriment in it. + +"Wake up, friend Martin-Roget," he said harshly, "I bear no malice: I am +a good dog when I am treated the right way. But if anyone pulls my tail +or treads on my paws, why! I snarl and growl of course. If the offence +is repeated ... I bite ... remember that; and now let us resume our +discourse, though I confess I am getting tired of your Kernogan rabble." + +While the great man spoke, Martin-Roget had succeeded in pulling himself +together. His throat felt parched, his hands hot and moist: he was like +a man who had been stumbling along a road in the dark and been suddenly +pulled up on the edge of a yawning abyss into which he had all but +fallen. With a few harsh words, with a monstrous insult Carrier had made +him feel the gigantic power which could hurl any man from the heights of +self-assurance and of ambition to the lowest depths of degradation: he +had shown him the glint of steel upon the guillotine. + +He had been hit as with a sledge-hammer--the blow hurt terribly, for it +had knocked all his self-esteem into nothingness and pulverised his +self-conceit. It had in one moment turned him into a humble and cringing +sycophant. + +"I had no mind," he began tentatively, "to give offence. My thoughts +were bent on the Kernogans. They are a fine haul for us both, citizen +Carrier, and I worked hard and long to obtain their confidence over in +England and to induce them to come with me to Nantes." + +"No one denies that you have done well," retorted Carrier gruffly and +not yet wholly pacified. "If the haul had not been worth having you +would have received no help from me." + +"I have shown my gratitude for your help, citizen Carrier. I would show +it again ... more substantially if you desire...." + +He spoke slowly and quite deferentially but the suggestion was obvious. +Carrier looked up into his face: the light of measureless cupidity--the +cupidity of the coarse-grained, enriched peasant--glittered in his pale +eyes. It was by a great effort of will that he succeeded in concealing +his eagerness beneath his habitual air of lofty condescension: + +"Eh? What?" he queried airily. + +"If another five thousand francs is of any use to you...." + +"You seem passing rich, citizen Martin-Roget," sneered Carrier. + +"I have slaved and saved for four years. What I have amassed I will +sacrifice for the completion of my revenge." + +"Well!" rejoined Carrier with an expressive wave of the hand, "it +certainly is not good for a pure-minded republican to own too much +wealth. Have we not fought," he continued with a grandiloquent gesture, +"for equality of fortune as well as of privileges...." + +A sardonic laugh from young Lalouet broke in on the proconsul's eloquent +effusion. + +Carrier swore as was his wont, but after a second or two he began again +more quietly: + +"I will accept a further six thousand francs from you, citizen +Martin-Roget, in the name of the Republic and all her needs. The +Republic of France is up in arms against the entire world. She hath need +of men, of arms, of...." + +"Oh! cut that," interposed young Lalouet roughly. + +But the over-vain, high and mighty despot who was ready to lash out with +unbridled fury against the slightest show of disrespect on the part of +any other man, only laughed at the boy's impudence. + +"Curse you, you young viper," he said with that rude familiarity which +he seemed to reserve for the boy, "you presume too much on my +forbearance. These children you know, citizen.... Name of a dog!" he +added roughly, "we are wasting time! What was I saying ...?" + +"That you would take six thousand francs," replied Martin-Roget curtly, +"in return for further help in the matter of the Kernogans." + +"Why, yes!" rejoined Carrier blandly, "I was forgetting. But I'll show +you what a good dog I am. I'll help you with those Kernogans ... but you +mistook my words, citizen: 'tis ten thousand francs you must pour into +the coffers of the Republic, for her servants will have to be placed at +the disposal of your private schemes of vengeance." + +"Ten thousand francs is a large sum," said Martin-Roget. "Let me hear +what you will do for me for that." + +He had regained something of his former complacency. The man who +buys--be it goods, consciences or services--is always for the moment +master of the man who sells. Carrier, despite his dictatorial ways, felt +this disadvantage, no doubt, for his tone was more bland, his manner +less curt. Only young Jacques Lalouet stood by--like a snarling +terrier--still arrogant and still disdainful--the master of the +situation--seeing that neither schemes of vengeance nor those of +corruption had ruffled his self-assurance. He remained beside the door, +ready to pounce on either of the two intruders if they showed the +slightest sign of forgetting the majesty of the great proconsul. + + +VI + +"I told you just now, citizen Martin-Roget," resumed Carrier after a +brief pause, "and I suppose you knew it already, that I am surrounded +with spies." + +"Spies, citizen?" murmured Martin-Roget, somewhat taken aback by this +sudden irrelevance. "I didn't know ... I imagine.... Any one in your +position...." + +"That's just it," broke in Carrier roughly. "My position is envied by +those who are less competent, less patriotic than I am. Nantes is +swarming with spies. Mine enemies in Paris are working against me. They +want to undermine the confidence which the National Convention reposes +in her accredited representative." + +"Preposterous," ejaculated young Lalouet solemnly. + +"Well!" rejoined Carrier with a savage oath, "you would have thought +that the Convention would be only too thankful to get a strong man at +the head of affairs in this hotbed of treason and of rebellion. You +would have thought that it was no one's affair to interfere with the +manner in which I administer the powers that have been given me. I +command in Nantes, what? Yet some busybodies up in Paris, some fools, +seem to think that we are going too fast in Nantes. They have become +weaklings over there since Marat has gone. It seems that they have heard +rumours of our flat-bottomed barges and of our fine Republican +marriages: apparently they disapprove of both. They don't realise that +we have to purge an entire city of every kind of rabble--traitors as +well as criminals. They don't understand my aspirations, my ideals," he +added loftily and with a wide, sweeping gesture of his arm, "which is to +make Nantes a model city, to free her from the taint of crime and of +treachery, and...." + +An impatient exclamation from young Lalouet once again broke in on +Carrier's rhetoric, and Martin-Roget was able to slip in the query which +had been hovering on his lips: + +"And is this relevant, citizen Carrier," he asked, "to the subject which +we have been discussing?" + +"It is," replied Carrier drily, "as you will see in a moment. Learn +then, that it has been my purpose for some time to silence mine enemies +by sending to the National Convention a tangible reply to all the +accusations which have been levelled against me. It is my purpose to +explain to the Assembly my reasons for mine actions in Nantes, my +Drownages, my Republican marriages, all the coercive measures which I +have been forced to take in order to purge the city from all that is +undesirable." + +"And think you, citizen Carrier," queried Martin-Roget without the +slightest trace of a sneer, "that up in Paris they will understand your +explanations?" + +"Yes! they will--they must when they realise that everything that I have +done has been necessitated by the exigencies of public safety." + +"They will be slow to realise that," mused the other. "The National +Convention to-day is not what the Constitutional Assembly was in '92. It +has become soft and sentimental. Many there are who will disapprove of +your doings.... Robespierre talks loftily of the dignity of the Republic +... her impartial justice.... The Girondins...." + +Carrier interposed with a coarse imprecation. He suddenly leaned +forward, sprawling right across the desk. A shaft of light from between +the damask curtains caught the end of his nose and the tip of his +protruding chin, distorting his face and making it seem grotesque as +well as hideous in the dim light. He appeared excited and inflated with +vanity. He always gloried in the atrocities which he committed, and +though he professed to look with contempt on every one of his +colleagues, he was always glad of an opportunity to display his +inventive powers before them, and to obtain their fulsome eulogy. + +"I know well enough what they talk about in Paris," he said, "but I have +an answer--a substantial, definite answer for all their rubbish. Dignity +of the Republic? Bah! Impartial justice? 'Tis force, strength, Spartan +vigour that we want ... and I'll show them.... Listen to my plan, +citizen Martin-Roget, and see how it will work in with yours. My idea is +to collect together all the most disreputable and notorious evil-doers +of this city ... there are plenty in the entrepot at the present moment, +and there are plenty more still at large in the streets of +Nantes--thieves, malefactors, forgers of State bonds, assassins and +women of evil fame ... and to send them in a batch to Paris to appear +before the Committee of Public Safety, whilst I will send to my +colleagues there a letter couched in terms of gentle reproach: 'See!' I +shall say, 'what I have to contend with in Nantes. See! the moral +pestilence that infests the city. These evil-doers are but a few among +the hundreds and thousands of whom I am vainly trying to purge this city +which you have entrusted to my care!' They won't know how to deal with +the rabble," he continued with his harsh strident laugh. "They may send +them to the guillotine wholesale or deport them to Cayenne, and they +will have to give them some semblance of a trial in any case. But they +will have to admit that my severe measures are justified, and in future, +I imagine, they will leave me more severely alone." + +"If as you say," urged Martin-Roget, "the National Convention give your +crowd a trial, you will have to produce some witnesses." + +"So I will," retorted Carrier cynically. "So I will. Have I not said +that I will round up all the most noted evil-doers in the town? There +are plenty of them I assure you. Lately, my Company Marat have not +greatly troubled about them. After Savenay there was such a crowd of +rebels to deal with, there was no room in our prisons for malefactors as +well. But we can easily lay our hands on a couple of hundred or so, and +members of the municipality or of the district council, or tradespeople +of substance in the city will only be too glad to be rid of them, and +will testify against those that were actually caught red-handed. Not one +but has suffered from the pestilential rabble that has infested the +streets at night, and lately I have been pestered with complaints of all +these night-birds--men and women and...." + +Suddenly he paused. He had caught Martin-Roget's feverish gaze fixed +excitedly upon him. Whereupon he leaned back in his chair, threw his +head back and broke into loud and immoderate laughter. + +"By the devil and all his myrmidons, citizen!" he said, as soon as he +had recovered his breath, "meseems you have tumbled to my meaning as a +pig into a heap of garbage. Is not ten thousand francs far too small a +sum to pay for such a perfect realisation of all your dreams? We'll send +the Kernogan girl and her father to Paris with the herd, what?... I +promise you that such filth and mud will be thrown on them and on their +precious name that no one will care to bear it for centuries to come." + +Martin-Roget of a truth had much ado to control his own excitement. As +the proconsul unfolded his infamous plan, he had at once seen as in a +vision the realisation of all his hopes. What more awful humiliation, +what more dire disgrace could be devised for proud Kernogan and his +daughter than being herded together with the vilest scum that could be +gathered together among the flotsam and jetsam of the population of a +seaport town? What more perfect retaliation could there be for the +ignominious death of Jean Adet the miller? + +Martin-Roget leaned forward in his chair. The hideous figure of Carrier +was no longer hideous to him. He saw in that misshapen, gawky form the +very embodiment of the god of vengeance, the wielder of the flail of +retributive justice which was about to strike the guilty at last. + +"You are right, citizen Carrier," he said, and his voice was thick and +hoarse with excitement. He rested his elbow on his knee and his chin in +his hand. He hammered his nails against his teeth. "That was exactly in +my mind while you spoke." + +"I am always right," retorted Carrier loftily. "No one knows better than +I do how to deal with traitors." + +"And how is the whole thing to be accomplished? The wench is in my +sister's house at present ... the father is in the Rat Mort...." + +"And the Rat Mort is an excellent place.... I know of none better. It is +one of the worst-famed houses in the whole of Nantes ... the +meeting-place of all the vagabonds, the thieves and the cut-throats of +the city." + +"Yes! I know that to my cost. My sister's house is next door to it. At +night the street is not safe for decent females to be abroad: and though +there is a platoon of Marats on guard at Le Bouffay close by, they do +nothing to free the neighbourhood of that pest." + +"Bah!" retorted Carrier with cynical indifference, "they have more +important quarry to net. Rebels and traitors swarm in Nantes, what? +Commandant Fleury has had no time hitherto to waste on mere cut-throats, +although I had thoughts before now of razing the place to the ground. +Citizen Lamberty has his lodgings on the other side and he does nothing +but complain of the brawls that go on there o' nights. Sure it is that +while a stone of the Rat Mort remains standing all the night-hawks of +Nantes will congregate around it and brew mischief there which is no +good to me and no good to the Republic." + +"Yes! I know all about the Rat Mort. I found a night's shelter there +four years ago when...." + +"When the ci-devant duc de Kernogan was busy hanging your father--the +miller--for a crime which he never committed. Well then, citizen +Martin-Roget," continued Carrier with one of his hideous leers, "since +you know the Rat Mort so well what say you to your fair and stately +Yvonne de Kernogan and her father being captured there in the company of +the lowest scum of the population of Nantes?" + +"You mean ...?" murmured Martin-Roget, who had become livid with +excitement. + +"I mean that my Marats have orders to raid some of the haunts of our +Nantese cut-throats, and that they may as well begin to-night and with +the Rat Mort. They will make a descent on the house and a thorough +perquisition, and every person--man, woman and child--found on the +premises will be arrested and sent with a batch of malefactors to Paris, +there to be tried as felons and criminals and deported to Cayenne where +they will, I trust, rot as convicts in that pestilential climate. Think +you," concluded the odious creature with a sneer, "that when put face to +face with the alternative, your Kernogan wench will still refuse to +become the wife of a fine patriot like yourself?" + +"I don't know," murmured Martin-Roget. "I ... I...." + +"But I do know," broke in Carrier roughly, "that ten thousand francs is +far too little to pay for so brilliant a realisation of all one's hopes. +Ten thousand francs? 'Tis an hundred thousand you should give to show +your gratitude." + +Martin-Roget rose and stretched his large, heavy figure to its full +height. He was at great pains to conceal the utter contempt which he +felt for the abominable wretch before whom he was forced to cringe. + +"You shall have ten thousand francs, citizen Carrier," he said slowly; +"it is all that I possess in the world now--the last remaining fragment +of a sum of twenty-five thousand francs which I earned and scraped +together for the past four years. You have had five thousand francs +already. And you shall have the other ten. I do not grudge it. If twenty +years of my life were any use to you, I would give you that, in exchange +for the help you are giving me in what means far more than life to me." + +The proconsul laughed and shrugged his shoulders--of a truth he thought +citizen Martin-Roget an awful fool. + +"Very well then," he said, "we will call the matter settled. I confess +that it amuses me, although remember that I have warned you. With all +these aristos, I believe in the potency of my barges rather than in your +elaborate schemes. Still! it shall never be said that Jean Baptiste +Carrier has left a friend in the lurch." + +"I am grateful for your help, citizen Carrier," said Martin-Roget +coldly. Then he added slowly, as if reviewing the situation in his own +mind: "To-night, you say?" + +"Yes. To-night. My Marats under the command of citizen Fleury will make +a descent upon the Rat Mort. Those shall be my orders. The place will be +swept clean of every man, woman and child who is inside. If your two +Kernogans are there ... well!" he said with a cynical laugh and a shrug +of his shoulders, "they can be sent up to Paris with the rest of the +herd." + +"The dinner bell has gone long ago," here interposed young Lalouet +drily, "the soup will be stone-cold and the chef red-hot with anger." + +"You are right, citizen Lalouet," said Carrier as he leaned back in his +chair once more and stretched out his long legs at his ease. "We have +wasted far too much time already over the affairs of a couple of +aristos, who ought to have been at the bottom of the Loire a week ago. +The audience is ended," he added airily, and he made a gesture of +overweening condescension, for all the world like the one wherewith the +_Grand Monarque_ was wont to dismiss his courtiers. + +Chauvelin rose too and quietly turned to the door. He had not spoken a +word for the past half-hour, ever since in fact he had put in a +conciliatory word on behalf of his impetuous colleague. Whether he had +taken an active interest in the conversation or not it were impossible +to say. But now, just as he was ready to go, and young Lalouet prepared +to close the doors of the audience chamber, something seemed suddenly to +occur to him and he called somewhat peremptorily to the young man. + +"One moment, citizen," he said. + +"What is it now?" queried the youth insolently, and from his fine eyes +there shot a glance of contempt on the meagre figure of the once +powerful Terrorist. + +"About the Kernogan wench," continued Chauvelin. "She will have to be +conveyed some time before night to the tavern next door. There may be +agencies at work on her behalf...." + +"Agencies?" broke in the boy gruffly. "What agencies?" + +"Oh!" said Chauvelin vaguely, "we all know that aristos have powerful +friends these days. It will not be over safe to take the girl across +after dark from one house to another ... the alley is badly lighted: the +wench will not go willingly. She might scream and create a disturbance +and draw ... er ... those same unknown agencies to her rescue. I think a +body of Marats should be told off to convey her to the Rat Mort...." + +Young Lalouet shrugged his shoulders. + +"That's your affair," he said curtly. "Eh, Carrier?" And he glanced over +his shoulder at the proconsul, who at once assented. + +Martin-Roget--struck by his colleague's argument--would have interposed, +but Carrier broke in with one of his uncontrolled outbursts of fury. + +"Ah ca," he exclaimed, "enough of this now. Citizen Lalouet is right and +I have done enough for you already. If you want the Kernogan wench to be +at the Rat Mort, you must see to getting her there yourself. She is next +door, what? I won't have anything to do with it and I won't have my +Marats implicated in the affair either. Name of a dog! have I not told +you that I am beset with spies? It would of a truth be a climax if I was +denounced as having dragged aristos to a house of ill-fame and then had +them arrested there as malefactors! Now out with you! I have had enough +of this! If your rabble is at the Rat Mort to-night, they shall be +arrested with all the other cut-throats. That is my last word. The rest +is your affair. Lalouet! the door!" + +And without another word, and without listening to further protests from +Martin-Roget or Chauvelin, Jacques Lalouet closed the doors of the +audience chamber in their face. + + +VII + +Outside on the landing, Martin-Roget swore a violent, all comprehensive +oath. + +"To think that we are under the heel of that skunk!" he said. + +"And that in the pursuit of our own ends we have need of his help!" +added Chauvelin with a sigh. + +"If it were not for that.... And even now," continued Martin-Roget +moodily, "I doubt what I can do. Yvonne de Kernogan will not follow me +willingly either to the Rat Mort or elsewhere, and if I am not to have +her conveyed by the guard...." + +He paused and swore again. His companion's silence appeared to irritate +him. + +"What do you advise me to do, citizen Chauvelin?" he asked. + +"For the moment," replied Chauvelin imperturbably, "I should advise you +to join me in a walk along the quay as far as Le Bouffay. I have work to +see to inside the building and the north-westerly wind is sure to be of +good counsel." + +An angry retort hovered on Martin-Roget's lips, but after a second or +two he succeeded in holding his irascible temper in check. He gave a +quick sigh of impatience. + +"Very well," he said curtly. "Let us to Le Bouffay by all means. I have +much to think on, and as you say the north-westerly wind may blow away +the cobwebs which for the nonce do o'ercloud my brain." + +And the two men wrapped their mantles closely round their shoulders, for +the air was keen. Then they descended the staircase of the hotel and +went out into the street. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +LE BOUFFAY + + +I + +In the centre of the Place the guillotine stood idle--the paint had worn +off her sides--she looked weatherbeaten and forlorn--stern and +forbidding still, but in a kind of sullen loneliness, with the ugly +stains of crimson on her, turned to rust and grime. + +The Place itself was deserted, in strange contrast to the bustle and the +movement which characterised it in the days when the death of men, women +and children was a daily spectacle here for the crowd. Then a constant +stream of traffic, of carts and of tumbrils, of soldiers and gaffers +encumbered it in every corner, now a few tumble-down booths set up +against the frontage of the grim edifice--once the stronghold of the +Dukes of Brittany, now little else but a huge prison--a few vendors and +still fewer purchasers of the scanty wares displayed under their ragged +awnings, one or two idlers loafing against the mud-stained walls, one or +two urchins playing in the gutters were the only signs of life. +Martin-Roget with his colleague Chauvelin turned into the Place from the +quay--they walked rapidly and kept their mantles closely wrapped under +their chin, for the afternoon had turned bitterly cold. It was then +close upon five o'clock--a dark, moonless, starless night had set in +with only a suspicion of frost in the damp air; but a blustering +north-westerly wind blowing down the river and tearing round the narrow +streets and the open Place, caused passers-by to muffle themselves, +shivering, yet tighter in their cloaks. + +Martin-Roget was talking volubly and excitedly, his tall, broad figure +towering above the slender form of his companion. From time to time he +tossed his mantle aside with an impatient, febrile gesture and then +paused in the middle of the Place, with one hand on the other man's +shoulder, marking a point in his discourse or emphasising his argument +with short staccato sentences and brief, emphatic words. +Chauvelin--placid and impenetrable as usual--listened much and talked +little. He was ready to stand still or to walk along just as his +colleague's mood demanded; in the darkness, and with the collar of a +large mantle pulled tightly up to his ears, it was impossible to guess +by any sign in his face what was going on in his mind. + +They were a strange contrast these two men--temperamentally as well as +physically--even though they had so much in common and were both the +direct products of that same social upheaval which was shaking the +archaic dominion of France to its very foundations. Martin-Roget, tall, +broad-shouldered, bull-necked, the typical self-educated peasant, with +square jaw and flat head, with wide bony hands and spatulated fingers: +and Chauvelin--the aristocrat turned demagogue, thin and frail-looking, +bland of manner and suave of speech, with delicate hands and pale, +almost ascetic face. + +The one represented all that was most brutish and sensual in this fight +of one caste against the other, the thirst for the other's blood, the +human beast that has been brought to bay through wrongs perpetrated +against it by others and has turned upon its oppressors, lashing out +right and left with blind and lustful fury at the crowd of tyrants that +had kept him in subjection for so long. Whilst Chauvelin was the +personification of the spiritual side of this bloody Revolution--the +spirit of cool and calculating reprisals that would demand an eye for an +eye and see that it got two. The idealist who dreams of the +righteousness of his own cause and the destruction of its enemies, but +who leaves to others the accomplishment of all the carnage and the +bloodshed which his idealism has demanded, and which his reason has +appraised as necessary for the triumph of which he dreams. Chauvelin was +the man of thought and Martin-Roget the man of action. With the one, +revenge and reprisals were selfish desires, the avenging of wrongs done +to himself or to his caste, hatred for those who had injured him or his +kindred. The other had no personal feelings of hatred: he had no +personal wrongs to avenge: his enemies were the enemies of his party, +the erstwhile tyrants who in the past had oppressed an entire people. +Every man, woman or child who was not satisfied with the present Reign +of Terror, who plotted or planned for its overthrow, who was not ready +to see husband, father, wife or child sacrificed for the ultimate +triumph of the Revolution was in Chauvelin's sight a noxious creature, +fit only to be trodden under heel and ground into subjection or +annihilation as a danger to the State. + +Martin-Roget was the personification of sans-culottism, of rough manners +and foul speech--he chafed against the conventions which forced him to +wear decent clothes and boots on his feet--he would gladly have seen +every one go about the streets half-naked, unwashed, a living sign of +that downward levelling of castes which he and his friends stood for, +and for which they had fought and striven and committed every crime +which human passions let loose could invent. Chauvelin, on the other +hand, was one of those who wore fine linen and buckled shoes and whose +hands were delicately washed and perfumed whilst they signed decrees +which sent hundreds of women and children to a violent and cruel death. + +The one trod in the paths of Danton: the other followed in the footsteps +of Robespierre. + + +II + +Together the two men mounted the outside staircase which leads up past +the lodge of the concierge and through the clerk's office to the +interior of the stronghold. Outside the monumental doors they had to +wait a moment or two while the clerk examined their permits to enter. + +"Will you come into my office with me?" asked Chauvelin of his +companion; "I have a word or two to add to my report for the Paris +courier to-night. I won't be long." + +"You are still in touch with the Committee of Public Safety then?" asked +Martin-Roget. + +"Always," replied the other curtly. + +Martin-Roget threw a quick, suspicious glance on his companion. Darkness +and the broad brim of his sugar-loaf hat effectually concealed even the +outlines of Chauvelin's face, and Martin-Roget fell to musing over one +or two things which Carrier had blurted out awhile ago. The whole of +France was overrun with spies these days--every one was under suspicion, +every one had to be on his guard. Every word was overheard, every glance +seen, every sign noted. + +What was this man Chauvelin doing here in Nantes? What reports did he +send up to Paris by special courier? He, the miserable failure who had +ceased to count was nevertheless in constant touch with that awful +Committee of Public Safety which was wont to strike at all times and +unexpectedly in the dark. Martin-Roget shivered beneath his mantle. For +the first time since his schemes of vengeance had wholly absorbed his +mind he regretted the freedom and safety which he had enjoyed in +England, and he marvelled if the miserable game which he was playing +would be worth the winning in the end. Nevertheless he had followed +Chauvelin without comment. The man appeared to exercise a fascination +over him--a kind of subtle power, which emanated from his small shrunken +figure, from his pale keen eyes and his well-modulated, suave mode of +speech. + + +III + +The clerk had handed the two men their permits back. They were allowed +to pass through the gates. + +In the hall some half-dozen men were nominally on guard--nominally, +because discipline was not over strict these days, and the men sat or +lolled about the place; two of them were intent on a game of dominoes, +another was watching them, whilst the other three were settling some +sort of quarrel among themselves which necessitated vigorous and +emphatic gestures and the copious use of expletives. One man, who +appeared to be in command, divided his time impartially between the +domino-players and those who were quarrelling. + +The vast place was insufficiently lighted by a chandelier which hung +from the ceiling and a couple of small oil-lamps placed in the circular +niches in the wall opposite the front door. + +No one took any notice of Martin-Roget or of Chauvelin as they crossed +the hall, and presently the latter pushed open a door on the left of +the main gates and held it open for his colleague to pass through. + +"You are sure that I shall not be disturbing you?" queried Martin-Roget. + +"Quite sure," replied the other curtly. "And there is something which I +must say to you ... where I know that I shall not be overheard." + +Then he followed Martin-Roget into the room and closed the door behind +him. The room was scantily furnished with a square deal table in the +centre, two or three chairs, a broken-down bureau leaning against one +wall and an iron stove wherein a meagre fire sent a stream of malodorous +smoke through sundry cracks in its chimney-pipe. From the ceiling there +hung an oil-lamp the light of which was thrown down upon the table, by a +large green shade made of cardboard. + +Chauvelin drew a chair to the bureau and sat down; he pointed to another +and Martin-Roget took a seat beside the table. He felt restless and +excited--his nerves all on the jar: his colleague's calm, sardonic +glance acted as a further irritant to his temper. + +"What is it that you wished to say to me, citizen Chauvelin?" he asked +at last. + +"Just a word, citizen," replied the other in his quiet urbane manner. "I +have accompanied you faithfully on your journey to England: I have +placed my feeble powers at your disposal: awhile ago I stood between you +and the proconsul's wrath. This, I think, has earned me the right of +asking what you intend to do." + +"I don't know about the right," retorted Martin-Roget gruffly, "but I +don't mind telling you. As you remarked awhile ago the North-West wind +is wont to be of good counsel. I have thought the matter over whilst I +walked with you along the quay and I have decided to act on Carrier's +suggestion. Our eminent proconsul said just now that it was the duty of +every true patriot to marry an aristo, an he be free and Chance puts a +comely wench in his way. I mean," he added with a cynical laugh, "to act +on that advice and marry Yvonne de Kernogan ... if I can." + +"She has refused you up to now?" + +"Yes ... up to now." + +"You have threatened her--and her father?" + +"Yes--both. Not only with death but with shame." + +"And still she refuses?" + +"Apparently," said Martin-Roget with ever-growing irritation. + +"It is often difficult," rejoined Chauvelin meditatively, "to compel +these aristos. They are obstinate...." + +"Oh! don't forget that I am in a position now to bring additional +pressure on the wench. That lout Carrier has splendid ideas--a brute, +what? but clever and full of resource. That suggestion of his about the +Rat Mort is splendid...." + +"You mean to try and act on it?" + +"Of course I do," said Martin-Roget roughly. "I am going over presently +to my sister's house to see the Kernogan wench again, and to have +another talk with her. Then if she still refuses, if she still chooses +to scorn the honourable position which I offer her, I shall act on +Carrier's suggestion. It will be at the Rat Mort to-night that she and I +will have our final interview, and there when I dangle the prospect of +Cayenne and the convict's brand before her, she may not prove so +obdurate as she has been up to now." + +"H'm! That is as may be," was Chauvelin's dry comment. "Personally I am +inclined to agree with Carrier. Death, swift and sure--the Loire or the +guillotine--is the best that has yet been invented for traitors and +aristos. But we won't discuss that again. I know your feelings in the +matter and in a measure I respect them. But if you will allow me I would +like to be present at your interview with the _soi-disant_ Lady Anthony +Dewhurst. I won't disturb you and I won't say a word ... but there is +something I would like to make sure of...." + +"What is that?" + +"Whether the wench has any hopes ..." said Chauvelin slowly, "whether +she has received a message or has any premonition ... whether in short +she thinks that outside agencies are at work on her behalf." + +"Tshaw!" exclaimed Martin-Roget impatiently, "you are still harping on +that Scarlet Pimpernel idea." + +"I am," retorted the other drily. + +"As you please. But understand, citizen Chauvelin, that I will not allow +you to interfere with my plans, whilst you go off on one of those +wild-goose chases which have already twice brought you into disrepute." + +"I will not interfere with your plans, citizen," rejoined Chauvelin with +unwonted gentleness, "but let me in my turn impress one thing upon you, +and that is that unless you are as wary as the serpent, as cunning as +the fox, all your precious plans will be upset by that interfering +Englishman whom you choose to disregard." + +"What do you mean?" + +"I mean that I know him--to my cost--and you do not. But you will, an I +am not gravely mistaken, make acquaintance with him ere your great +adventure with these Kernogan people is successfully at an end. Believe +me, citizen Martin-Roget," he added impressively, "you would have been +far wiser to accept Carrier's suggestion and let him fling that rabble +into the Loire for you." + +"Pshaw! you are not childish enough to imagine, citizen Chauvelin, that +your Englishman can spirit away that wench from under my sister's eyes? +Do you know what my sister suffered at the hands of the Kernogans? Do +you think that she is like to forget my father's ignominious death any +more than I am? And she mourns a lover as well as a father--she mourns +her youth, her happiness, the mother whom she worshipped. Think you a +better gaoler could be found anywhere? And there are friends of +mine--lads of our own village, men who hate the Kernogans as bitterly as +I do myself--who are only too ready to lend Louise a hand in case of +violence. And after that--suppose your magnificent Scarlet Pimpernel +succeeded in hoodwinking my sister and in evading the vigilance of a +score of determined village lads, who would sooner die one by one than +see the Kernogan escape--suppose all that, I say, there would still be +the guard at every city gate to challenge. No! no! it couldn't be done, +citizen Chauvelin," he added with a complacent laugh. "Your Englishman +would need the help of a legion of angels, what? to get the wench out of +Nantes this time." + +Chauvelin made no comment on his colleague's impassioned harangue. +Memory had taken him back to that one day in September in Boulogne when +he too had set one prisoner to guard a precious hostage: it brought back +to his mind a vision of a strangely picturesque figure as it appeared to +him in the window-embrasure of the old castle-hall:[1] it brought back +to his ears the echo of that quaint, irresponsible laughter, of that +lazy, drawling speech, of all that had acted as an irritant on his +nerves ere he found himself baffled, foiled, eating out his heart with +vain reproach at his own folly. + +"I see you are unconvinced, citizen Martin-Roget," he said quietly, "and +I know that it is the fashion nowadays among young politicians to sneer +at Chauvelin--the living embodiment of failure. But let me just add +this. When you and I talked matters over together at the Bottom Inn, in +the wilds of Somersetshire, I warned you that not only was your identity +known to the man who calls himself the Scarlet Pimpernel, but also that +he knew every one of your plans with regard to the Kernogan wench and +her father. You laughed at me then ... do you remember?... you shrugged +your shoulders and jeered at what you call my far-fetched ideas ... just +as you do now. Well! will you let me remind you of what happened within +four-and-twenty hours of that warning which you chose to disregard? ... +Yvonne de Kernogan was married to Lord Anthony Dewhurst and...." + +"I know all that, man," broke in Martin-Roget impatiently. "It was all a +mere coincidence ... the marriage must have been planned long before +that ... your Scarlet Pimpernel could not possibly have had anything to +do with it." + +"Perhaps not," rejoined Chauvelin drily. "But mark what has happened +since. Just now when we crossed the Place I saw in the distance a figure +flitting past--the gorgeous figure of an exquisite who of a surety is a +stranger in Nantes: and carried upon the wings of the north-westerly +wind there came to me the sound of a voice which, of late, I have only +heard in my dreams. On my soul, citizen Martin-Roget," he added with +earnest emphasis, "I assure you that the Scarlet Pimpernel is in Nantes +at the present moment, that he is scheming, plotting, planning to +rescue the Kernogan wench out of your clutches. He will not leave her in +your power, on this I would stake my life; she is the wife of one of his +dearest friends: he will not abandon her, not while he keeps that +resourceful head of his on his shoulders. Unless you are desperately +careful he will outwit you; of that I am as convinced as that I am +alive." + +"Bah! you have been dreaming, citizen Chauvelin," rejoined Martin-Roget +with a laugh and shrugging his broad shoulders; "your mysterious +Englishman in Nantes? Why man! the navigation of the Loire has been +totally prohibited these last fourteen days--no carriage, van or vehicle +of any kind is allowed to enter the city--no man, woman or child to pass +the barriers without special permit signed either by the proconsul +himself or by Fleury the captain of the Marats. Why! even I, when I +brought the Kernogans in overland from Le Croisic, I was detained two +hours outside Nantes while my papers were sent in to Carrier for +inspection. You know that, you were with me." + +"I know it," replied Chauvelin drily, "and yet...." + +He paused, with one claw-like finger held erect to demand attention. The +door of the small room in which they sat gave on the big hall where the +half-dozen Marats were stationed, the single window at right angles to +the door looked out upon the Place below. It was from there that +suddenly there came the sound of a loud peal of laughter--quaint and +merry--somewhat inane and affected, and at the sound Chauvelin's pale +face took on the hue of ashes and even Martin-Roget felt a strange +sensation of cold creeping down his spine. + +For a few seconds the two men remained quite still, as if a spell had +been cast over them through that light-hearted peal of rippling +laughter. Then equally suddenly the younger man shook himself free of +the spell; with a few long strides he was already at the door and out in +the vast hall; Chauvelin following closely on his heels. + + +IV + +The clock in the tower of the edifice was even then striking five. The +Marats in the hall looked up with lazy indifference at the two men who +had come rushing out in such an abrupt and excited manner. + +"Any stranger been through here?" queried Chauvelin peremptorily of the +sergeant in command. + +"No," replied the latter curtly. "How could they, without a permit?" + +He shrugged his shoulders and the men resumed their game and their +argument. Martin-Roget would have parleyed with them but Chauvelin had +already crossed the hall and was striding past the clerk's office and +the lodge of the concierge out toward the open. Martin-Roget, after a +moment's hesitation, followed him. + +The Place was wrapped in gloom. From the platform of the guillotine an +oil-lamp hoisted on a post threw a small circle of light around. Small +pieces of tallow candle, set in pewter sconces, glimmered feebly under +the awnings of the booths, and there was a street-lamp affixed to the +wall of the old chateau immediately below the parapet of the staircase, +and others at the angles of the Rue de la Monnaye and the narrow Ruelle +des Jacobins. + +Chauvelin's keen eyes tried to pierce the surrounding darkness. He +leaned over the parapet and peered into the remote angles of the +building and round the booths below him. + +There were a few people on the Place, some walking rapidly across from +one end to the other, intent on business, others pausing in order to +make purchases at the booths. Up and down the steps of the guillotine a +group of street urchins were playing hide-and-seek. Round the angles of +the narrow streets the vague figures of passers-by flitted to and fro, +now easily discernible in the light of the street lanthorns, anon +swallowed up again in the darkness beyond. Whilst immediately below the +parapet two or three men of the Company Marat were lounging against the +walls. Their red bonnets showed up clearly in the flickering light of +the street lamps, as did their bare shins and the polished points of +their sabots. But of an elegant, picturesque figure such as Chauvelin +had described awhile ago there was not a sign. + +Martin-Roget leaned over the parapet and called peremptorily: + +"Hey there! citizens of the Company Marat!" + +One of the red-capped men looked up leisurely. + +"Your desire, citizen?" he queried with insolent deliberation, for they +were mighty men, this bodyguard of the great proconsul, his spies and +tools in the awesome work of frightfulness which he carried on so +ruthlessly. + +"Is that you Paul Friche?" queried Martin-Roget in response. + +"At your service, citizen," came the glib reply, delivered not without +mock deference. + +"Then come up here. I wish to speak with you." + +"I can't leave my post, nor can my mates," retorted the man who had +answered to the name of Paul Friche. "Come down, citizen, an you desire +to speak with us." + +Martin-Roget swore lustily. + +"The insolence of that rabble ..." he murmured. + +"Hush! I'll go," interposed Chauvelin quickly. "Do you know that man +Friche? Is he trustworthy?" + +"Yes, I know him. As for being trustworthy ..." added Martin-Roget with +a shrug of the shoulders. "He is a corporal in the Marats and high in +favour with commandant Fleury." + +Every second was of value, and Chauvelin was not the man to waste time +in useless parleyings. He ran down the stairs at the foot of which one +of the red-capped gentry deigned to speak with him. + +"Have you seen any strangers across the Place just now?" he queried in a +whisper. + +"Yes," replied the man Friche. "Two!" + +Then he spat upon the ground and added spitefully: "Aristos, what? In +fine clothes--like yourself, citizen...." + +"Which way did they go?" + +"Down the Ruelle des Jacobins." + +"When?" + +"Two minutes ago." + +"Why did you not follow them?... Aristos and...." + +"I would have followed," retorted Paul Friche with studied insolence; +"'twas you called me away from my duty." + +"After them then!" urged Chauvelin peremptorily. "They cannot have gone +far. They are English spies, and remember, citizen, that there's a +reward for their apprehension." + +The man grunted an eager assent. The word "reward" had fired his zeal. +In a trice he had called to his mates and the three Marats soon sped +across the Place and down the Ruelle des Jacobins where the surrounding +gloom quickly swallowed them up. + +Chauvelin watched them till they were out of sight, then he rejoined his +colleague on the landing at the top of the stairs. For a second or two +longer the click of the men's sabots upon the stones resounded on the +adjoining streets and across the Place, and suddenly that same quaint, +merry, somewhat inane laugh woke the echoes of the grim buildings around +and caused many a head to turn inquiringly, marvelling who it could be +that had the heart to laugh these days in the streets of Nantes. + + +V + +Five minutes or so later the three Marats could vaguely be seen +recrossing the Place and making their way back to Le Bouffay, where +Martin-Roget and Chauvelin still stood on the top of the stairs excited +and expectant. At sight of the men Chauvelin ran down the steps to meet +them. + +"Well?" he queried in an eager whisper. + +"We never saw them," replied Paul Friche gruffly, "though we could hear +them clearly enough, talking, laughing and walking very rapidly toward +the quay. Then suddenly the earth or the river swallowed them up. We saw +and heard nothing more." + +Chauvelin swore and a curious hissing sound escaped his thin lips. + +"Don't be too disappointed, citizen," added the man with a coarse laugh, +"my mate picked this up at the corner of the Ruelle, when, I fancy, we +were pressing the aristos pretty closely." + +He held out a small bundle of papers tied together with a piece of red +ribbon: the bundle had evidently rolled in the mud, for the papers were +covered with grime. Chauvelin's thin, claw-like fingers had at once +closed over them. + +"You must give me back those papers, citizen," said the man, "they are +my booty. I can only give them up to citizen-captain Fleury." + +"I'll give them to the citizen-captain myself," retorted Chauvelin. "For +the moment you had best not leave your post of duty," he added more +peremptorily, seeing that the man made as he would follow him. + +"I take orders from no one except ..." protested the man gruffly. + +"You will take them from me now," broke in Chauvelin with a sudden +assumption of command and authority which sat with weird strangeness +upon his thin shrunken figure. "Go back to your post at once, ere I +lodge a complaint against you for neglect of duty, with the citizen +proconsul." + +He turned on his heel and, without paying further heed to the man and +his mutterings, he remounted the stone stairs. + +"No success, I suppose?" queried Martin-Roget. + +"None," replied Chauvelin curtly. + +He had the packet of papers tightly clasped in his hand. He was debating +in his mind whether he would speak of them to his colleague or not. + +"What did Friche say?" asked the latter impatiently. + +"Oh! very little. He and his mates caught sight of the strangers and +followed them as far as the quays. But they were walking very fast and +suddenly the Marats lost their trace in the darkness. It seemed, +according to Paul Friche, as if the earth or the night had swallowed +them up." + +"And was that all?" + +"Yes. That was all." + +"I wonder," added Martin-Roget with a light laugh and a careless shrug +of his wide shoulders, "I wonder if you and I, citizen Chauvelin--and +Paul Friche too for that matter--have been the victims of our nerves." + +"I wonder," assented Chauvelin drily. And--quite quietly--he slipped the +packet of papers in the pocket of his coat. + +"Then we may as well adjourn. There is nothing else you wish to say to +me about that enigmatic Scarlet Pimpernel of yours?" + +"No--nothing." + +"And you still would like to hear what the Kernogan wench will say and +see how she will look when I put my final proposal before her?" + +"If you will allow me." + +"Then come," said Martin-Roget. "My sister's house is close by." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: This adventure is recorded in _The Elusive Pimpernel_.] + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE FOWLERS + + +I + +In order to reach the Carrefour de la Poissonnerie the two men had to +skirt the whole edifice of Le Bouffay, walk a little along the quay and +turn up the narrow alley opposite the bridge. They walked on in silence, +each absorbed in his own thoughts. + +The house occupied by the citizeness Adet lay back a little from the +others in the street. It was one of an irregular row of mean, squalid, +tumble-down houses, some of them little more than lean-to sheds built +into the walls of Le Bouffay. Most of them had overhanging roofs which +stretched out like awnings more than half way across the road, and even +at midday shut out any little ray of sunshine which might have a +tendency to peep into the street below. + +In this year II of the Republic the Carrefour de la Poissonnerie was +unpaved, dark and evil-smelling. For two thirds of the year it was +ankle-deep in mud: the rest of the time the mud was baked into cakes and +emitted clouds of sticky dust under the shuffling feet of the +passers-by. At night it was dimly lighted by one or two broken-down +lanthorns which were hung on transverse chains overhead from house to +house. These lanthorns only made a very small circle of light +immediately below them: the rest of the street was left in darkness, +save for the faint glimmer which filtrated through an occasional +ill-fitting doorway or through the chinks of some insecurely fastened +shutter. + +The Carrefour de la Poissonnerie was practically deserted in the +daytime; only a few children--miserable little atoms of humanity showing +their meagre, emaciated bodies through the scanty rags which failed to +cover their nakedness--played weird, mirthless games in the mud and +filth of the street. But at night it became strangely peopled with vague +and furtive forms that were wont to glide swiftly by, beneath the +hanging lanthorns, in order to lose themselves again in the welcome +obscurity beyond: men and women--ill-clothed and unshod, with hands +buried in pockets or beneath scanty shawls--their feet, oft-times bare, +making no sound as they went squishing through the mud. A perpetual +silence used to reign in this kingdom of squalor and of darkness, where +night-hawks alone fluttered their wings; only from time to time a +joyless greeting of boon-companions, or the hoarse cough of some +wretched consumptive would wake the dormant echoes that lingered in the +gloom. + + +II + +Martin-Roget knew his way about the murky street well enough. He went up +to the house which lay a little back from the others. It appeared even +more squalid than the rest, not a sound came from within--hardly a +light--only a narrow glimmer found its way through the chink of a +shutter on the floor above. To right and left of it the houses were +tall, with walls that reeked of damp and of filth: from one of +these--the one on the left--an iron sign dangled and creaked dismally as +it swung in the wind. Just above the sign there was a window with +partially closed shutters: through it came the sound of two husky voices +raised in heated argument. + +In the open space in front of Louise Adet's house vague forms standing +about or lounging against the walls of the neighbouring houses were +vaguely discernible in the gloom. Martin-Roget and Chauvelin as they +approached were challenged by a raucous voice which came to them out of +the inky blackness around. + +"Halt! who goes there?" + +"Friends!" replied Martin-Roget promptly. "Is citizeness Adet within?" + +"Yes! she is!" retorted the man bluntly; "excuse me, friend Adet--I did +not know you in this confounded darkness." + +"No harm done," said Martin-Roget. "And it is I who am grateful to you +all for your vigilance." + +"Oh!" said the other with a laugh, "there's not much fear of your bird +getting out of its cage. Have no fear, friend Adet! That Kernogan rabble +is well looked after." + +The small group dispersed in the darkness and Martin-Roget rapped +against the door of his sister's house with his knuckles. + +"That is the Rat Mort," he said, indicating the building on his left +with a nod of the head. "A very unpleasant neighbourhood for my sister, +and she has oft complained of it--but name of a dog! won't it prove +useful this night?" + +Chauvelin had as usual followed his colleague in silence, but his keen +eyes had not failed to note the presence of the village lads of whom +Martin-Roget had spoken. There are no eyes so watchful as those of hate, +nor is there aught so incorruptible. Every one of these men here had an +old wrong to avenge, an old score to settle with those ci-devant +Kernogans who had once been their masters and who were so completely in +their power now. Louise Adet had gathered round her a far more +efficient bodyguard than even the proconsul could hope to have. + +A moment or two later the door was opened, softly and cautiously, and +Martin-Roget asked: "Is that you, Louise?" for of a truth the darkness +was almost deeper within than without, and he could not see who it was +that was standing by the door. + +"Yes! it is," replied a weary and querulous voice. "Enter quickly. The +wind is cruel, and I can't keep myself warm. Who is with you, Pierre?" + +"A friend," said Martin-Roget drily. "We want to see the aristo." + +The woman without further comment closed the door behind the new-comers. +The place now was as dark as pitch, but she seemed to know her way about +like a cat, for her shuffling footsteps were heard moving about +unerringly. A moment or two later she opened another door opposite the +front entrance, revealing an inner room--a sort of kitchen--which was +lighted by a small lamp. + +"You can go straight up," she called curtly to the two men. + +The narrow, winding staircase was divided from this kitchen by a wooden +partition. Martin-Roget, closely followed by Chauvelin, went up the +stairs. On the top of these there was a tiny landing with a door on +either side of it. Martin-Roget without any ceremony pushed open the +door on his right with his foot. + +A tallow candle fixed in a bottle and placed in the centre of a table in +the middle of the room flickered in the draught as the door flew open. +It was bare of everything save a table and a chair, and a bundle of +straw in one corner. The tiny window at right angles to the door was +innocent of glass, and the north-westerly wind came in an icy stream +through the aperture. On the table, in addition to the candle, there was +a broken pitcher half-filled with water, and a small chunk of brown +bread blotched with stains of mould. + +On the chair beside the table and immediately facing the door sat Yvonne +Lady Dewhurst. On the wall above her head a hand unused to calligraphy +had traced in clumsy characters the words: "Liberte! Fraternite! +Egalite!" and below that "ou la Mort." + + +III + +The men entered the narrow room and Chauvelin carefully closed the door +behind him. He at once withdrew into a remote comer of the room and +stood there quite still, wrapped in his mantle, a small, silent, +mysterious figure on which Yvonne fixed dark, inquiring eyes. + +Martin-Roget, restless and excited, paced up and down the small space +like a wild animal in a cage. From time to time exclamations of +impatience escaped him and he struck one fist repeatedly against his +open palm. Yvonne followed his movements with a quiet, uninterested +glance, but Chauvelin paid no heed whatever to him. + +He was watching Yvonne ceaselessly, and closely. + +Three days' incarceration in this wind-swept attic, the lack of decent +food and of warmth, the want of sleep and the horror of her present +position all following upon the soul-agony which she had endured when +she was forcibly torn away from her dear milor, had left their mark on +Yvonne Dewhurst's fresh young face. The look of gravity which had always +sat so quaintly on her piquant features had now changed to one of deep +and abiding sorrow; her large dark eyes were circled and sunk; they had +in them the unnatural glow of fever, as well as the settled look of +horror and of pathetic resignation. Her soft brown hair had lost its +lustre; her cheeks were drawn and absolutely colourless. + +Martin-Roget paused in his restless walk. For a moment he stood silent +and absorbed, contemplating by the flickering light of the candle all +the havoc which his brutality had wrought upon Yvonne's dainty face. + +But Yvonne after a while ceased to look at him--she appeared to be +unconscious of the gaze of these two men, each of whom was at this +moment only thinking of the evil which he meant to inflict upon +her--each of whom only thought of her as a helpless bird whom he had at +last ensnared and whom he could crush to death as soon as he felt so +inclined. + +She kept her lips tightly closed and her head averted. She was gazing +across at the unglazed window into the obscurity beyond, marvelling in +what direction lay the sea and the shores of England. + +Martin-Roget crossed his arms over his broad chest and clutched his +elbows with his hands with an obvious effort to keep control over his +movements and his temper in check. The quiet, almost indifferent +attitude of the girl was exasperating to his over-strung nerves. + +"Look here, my girl," he said at last, roughly and peremptorily, "I had +an interview with the proconsul this afternoon. He chides me for my +leniency toward you. Three days he thinks is far too long to keep +traitors eating the bread of honest citizens and taking up valuable +space in our city. Yesterday I made a proposal to you. Have you thought +on it?" + +Yvonne made no reply. She was still gazing out into nothingness and just +at that moment she was very far away from the narrow, squalid room and +the company of these two inhuman brutes. She was thinking of her dear +milor and of that lovely home at Combwich wherein she had spent three +such unforgettable days. She was remembering how beautiful had been the +colour of the bare twigs in the chestnut coppice when the wintry sun +danced through and in between them and drew fantastic patterns of living +gold upon the carpet of dead leaves; and she remembered too how +exquisite were the tints of russet and blue on the distant hills, and +how quaintly the thrushes had called: "Kiss me quick!" She saw again +those trembling leaves of a delicious faintly crimson hue which still +hung upon the branches of the scarlet oak, and the early flowering heath +which clothed the moors with a gorgeous mantle of rosy amethyst. + +Martin-Roget's harsh voice brought her abruptly back to the hideous +reality of the moment. + +"Your obstinacy will avail you nothing," he said, speaking quietly, even +though a note of intense irritation was distinctly perceptible in his +voice. "The proconsul has given me a further delay wherein to deal +leniently with you and with your father if I am so minded. You know what +I have proposed to you: Life with me as my wife--in which case your +father will be free to return to England or to go to the devil as he +pleases--or the death of a malefactor for you both in the company of all +the thieves and evil-doers who are mouldering in the prisons of Nantes +at this moment. Another delay wherein to choose between an honourable +life and a shameful death. The proconsul waits. But to-night he must +have his answer." + +Then Yvonne turned her head slowly and looked calmly on her enemy. + +"The tyrant who murders innocent men, women and children," she said, +"can have his answer now. I choose death which is inevitable in +preference to a life of shame." + +"You seem," he retorted, "to have lost sight of the fact that the law +gives me the right to take by force that which you so obstinately +refuse." + +"Have I not said," she replied, "that death is my choice? Life with you +would be a life of shame." + +"I can get a priest to marry us without your consent: and your religion +forbids you to take your own life," he said with a sneer. + +To this she made no reply, but he knew that he had his answer. +Smothering a curse, he resumed after a while: + +"So you prefer to drag your father to death with you? Yet he has begged +you to consider your decision and to listen to reason. He has given his +consent to our marriage." + +"Let me see my father," she retorted firmly, "and hear him say that with +his own lips. + +"Ah!" she added quickly, for at her words Martin-Roget had turned his +head away and shrugged his shoulders with well-assumed indifference, +"you cannot and dare not let me see him. For three days now you have +kept us apart and no doubt fed us both up with your lies. My father is +duc de Kernogan, Marquis de Trentemoult," she added proudly, "he would +far rather die side by side with his daughter than see her wedded to a +criminal." + +"And you, my girl," rejoined Martin-Roget coldly, "would you see your +father branded as a malefactor, linked to a thief and sent to perish in +the Loire?" + +"My father," she retorted, "will die as he has lived, a brave and +honourable gentleman. The brand of a malefactor cannot cling to his +name. Sorrow we are ready to endure--death is less than nothing to +us--we will but follow in the footsteps of our King and of our Queen +and of many whom we care for and whom you and your proconsul and your +colleagues have brutally murdered. Shame cannot touch us, and our honour +and our pride are so far beyond your reach that your impious and +blood-stained hands can never sully them." + +She had spoken very slowly and very quietly. There were no heroics about +her attitude. Even Martin-Roget--callous brute though he was--felt that +she had only spoken just as she felt, and that nothing that he might +say, no plea that he might urge, would ever shake her determination. + +"Then it seems to me," he said, "that I am only wasting my time by +trying to make you see reason and common-sense. You look upon me as a +brute. Well! perhaps I am. At any rate I am that which your father and +you have made me. Four years ago, when you had power over me and over +mine, you brutalised us. To-day we--the people--are your masters and we +make you suffer, not for all--that were impossible--but for part of what +you made us suffer. That, after all, is only bare justice. By making you +my wife I would have saved you from death--not from humiliation, for +that you must endure, and at my hands in a full measure--but I would +have made you my wife because I still have pleasant recollections of +that kiss which I snatched from you on that never-to-be-forgotten night +and in the darkness--a kiss for which you would gladly have seen me hang +then, if you could have laid hands on me." + +He paused, trying to read what was going on behind those fine eyes of +hers, with their vacant, far-seeing gaze which seemed like another +barrier between her and him. At this rough allusion to that moment of +horror and of shame, she had not moved a muscle, nor did her gaze lose +its fixity. + +He laughed. + +"It is an unpleasant recollection, eh, my proud lady? The first kiss of +passion was not implanted on your exquisite lips by that fine gentleman +whom you deemed worthy of your hand and your love, but by Pierre Adet, +the miller's son, what? a creature not quite so human as your horse or +your pet dog. Neither you nor I are like to forget that methinks...." + +Yvonne vouchsafed no reply to the taunt, and for a moment there was +silence in the room, until Chauvelin's thin, suave voice broke in quite +gently: + +"Do not lose your patience with the wench, citizen Martin-Roget. Your +time is too precious to be wasted in useless recriminations." + +"I have finished with her," retorted the other sullenly. "She shall be +dealt with now as I think best. I agree with citizen Carrier. He is +right after all. To the Loire with the lot of that foul brood!" + +"Nay!" here rejoined Chauvelin with placid urbanity, "are you not a +little harsh, citizen, with our fair Yvonne? Remember! Women have moods +and megrims. What they indignantly refuse to yield to us one day, they +will grant with a smile the next. Our beautiful Yvonne is no exception +to this rule, I'll warrant." + +Even while he spoke he threw a glance of warning on his colleague. There +was something enigmatic in his manner at this moment, in the strange +suavity wherewith he spoke these words of conciliation and of +gentleness. Martin-Roget was as usual ready with an impatient retort. He +was in a mood to bully and to brutalise, to heap threat upon threat, to +win by frightfulness that which he could not gain by persuasion. Perhaps +that at this moment he desired Yvonne de Kernogan for wife, more even +than he desired her death. At any rate his headstrong temper was ready +to chafe against any warning or advice. But once again Chauvelin's +stronger mentality dominated over his less resolute colleague. +Martin-Roget--the fowler--was in his turn caught in the net of a keener +snarer than himself, and whilst--with the obstinacy of the weak--he was +making mental resolutions to rebuke Chauvelin for his interference later +on, he had already fallen in with the latter's attitude. + +"The wench has had three whole days wherein to alter her present mood," +he said more quietly, "and you know yourself, citizen, that the +proconsul will not wait after to-day." + +"The day is young yet," rejoined Chauvelin. "It still hath six hours to +its credit.... Six hours.... Three hundred and sixty minutes!" he +continued with a pleasant little laugh; "time enough for a woman to +change her mind three hundred and sixty times. Let me advise you, +citizen, to leave the wench to her own meditations for the present, and +I trust that she will accept the advice of a man who has a sincere +regard for her beauty and her charms and who is old enough to be her +father, and seriously think the situation over in a conciliatory spirit. +M. le duc de Kernogan will be grateful to her, for of a truth he is not +over happy either at the moment ... and will be still less happy in the +depot to-morrow: it is over-crowded, and typhus, I fear me, is rampant +among the prisoners. He has, I am convinced--in spite of what the +citizeness says to the contrary--a rooted objection to being hurled into +the Loire, or to be arraigned before the bar of the Convention, not as +an aristocrat and a traitor but as an unit of an undesirable herd of +criminals sent up to Paris for trial, by an anxious and harried +proconsul. There! there!" he added benignly, "we will not worry our fair +Yvonne any longer, will we, citizen? I think she has grasped the +alternative and will soon realise that marriage with an honourable +patriot is not such an untoward fate after all." + +"And now, citizen Martin-Roget," he concluded, "I pray you allow me to +take my leave of the fair lady and to give you the wise recommendation +to do likewise. She will be far better alone for awhile. Night brings +good counsel, so they say." + +He watched the girl keenly while he spoke. Her impassivity had not +deserted her for a single moment: but whether her calmness was of hope +or of despair he was unable to decide. On the whole he thought it must +be the latter: hope would have kindled a spark in those dark, +purple-rimmed eyes, it would have brought moisture to the lips, a tremor +to the hand. + +The Scarlet Pimpernel was in Nantes--that fact was established beyond a +doubt--but Chauvelin had come to the conclusion that so far as Yvonne +Dewhurst herself was concerned, she knew nothing of the mysterious +agencies that were working on her behalf. + +Chauvelin's hand closed with a nervous contraction over the packet of +papers in his pocket. Something of the secret of that enigmatic English +adventurer lay revealed within its folds. Chauvelin had not yet had the +opportunity of examining them: the interview with Yvonne had been the +most important business for the moment. + +From somewhere in the distance a city clock struck six. The afternoon +was wearing on. The keenest brain in Europe was on the watch to drag one +woman and one man from the deadly trap which had been so successfully +set for them. A few hours more and Chauvelin in his turn would be +pitting his wits against the resources of that intricate brain, and he +felt like a war-horse scenting blood and battle. He was aching to get +to work--aching to form his plans--to lay his snares--to dispose his +trap so that the noble English quarry should not fail to be caught +within its meshes. + +He gave a last look to Yvonne, who was still sitting quite impassive, +gazing through the squalid walls into some beautiful distance, the +reflection of which gave to her pale, wan face an added beauty. + +"Let us go, citizen Martin-Roget," he said peremptorily. "There is +nothing else that we can do here." + +And Martin-Roget, the weaker morally of the two, yielded to the stronger +personality of his colleague. He would have liked to stay on for awhile, +to gloat for a few moments longer over the helplessness of the woman who +to him represented the root of every evil which had ever befallen him +and his family. But Chauvelin commanded and he felt impelled to obey. He +gave one long, last look on Yvonne--a look that was as full of triumph +as of mockery--he looked round the four dank walls, the unglazed window, +the broken pitcher, the mouldy bread. Revenge was of a truth the +sweetest emotion of the human heart. Pierre Adet--son of the miller who +had been hanged by orders of the Duc de Kernogan for a crime which he +had never committed--would not at this moment have changed places with +Fortune's Benjamin. + + +IV + +Downstairs in Louise Adet's kitchen, Martin-Roget seized his colleague +by the arm. + +"Sit down a moment, citizen," he said persuasively, "and tell me what +you think of it all." + +Chauvelin sat down at the other's invitation. All his movements were +slow, deliberate, perfectly calm. + +"I think," he said drily, "as far as your marriage with the wench is +concerned, that you are beaten, my friend." + +"Tshaw!" The exclamation, raucous and surcharged with hate came from +Louise Adet. She, too, like Pierre--more so than Pierre mayhap--had +cause to hate the Kernogans. She, too, like Pierre had lived the last +three days in the full enjoyment of the thought that Fate and Chance +were about to level things at last between herself and those detested +aristos. Silent and sullen she was shuffling about in the room, among +her pots and pans, but she kept an eye upon her brother's movements and +an ear on what he said. Men were apt to lose grit where a pretty wench +was concerned. It takes a woman's rancour and a woman's determination to +carry a scheme of vengeance against another to a successful end. + +Martin-Roget rejoined more calmly: + +"I knew that she would still be obstinate," he said. "If I forced her +into a marriage, which I have the right to do, she might take her own +life and make me look a fool. So I don't want to do that. I believe in +the persuasiveness of the Rat Mort to-night," he added with a cynical +laugh, "and if that fails.... Well! I was never really in love with the +fair Yvonne, and now she has even ceased to be desirable.... If the Rat +Mort fails to act on her sensibilities as I would wish, I can easily +console myself by following Carrier's herd to Paris. Louise shall come +with me--eh, little sister?--and we'll give ourselves the satisfaction +of seeing M. le duc de Kernogan and his exquisite daughter stand in the +felon's dock--tried for malpractices and for evil living. We'll see them +branded as convicts and packed off like so much cattle to Cayenne. That +will be a sight," he concluded with a deep sigh of satisfaction, "which +will bring rest to my soul." + +He paused: his face looked sullen and evil under the domination of that +passion which tortured him. + +Louise Adet had shuffled up close to her brother. In one hand she held +the wooden spoon wherewith she had been stirring the soup: with the +other she brushed away the dark, lank hair which hung in strands over +her high, pale forehead. In appearance she was a woman immeasurably +older than her years. Her face had the colour of yellow parchment, her +skin was stretched tightly over her high cheekbones--her lips were +colourless and her eyes large, wide-open, were pale in hue and circled +with red. Just now a deep frown of puzzlement between her brows added a +sinister expression to her cadaverous face: + +"The Rat Mort?" she queried in that tired voice of hers, "Cayenne? What +is all that about?" + +"A splendid scheme of Carrier's, my Louise," replied Martin-Roget +airily. "We convey the Kernogan woman to the Rat Mort. To-night a +descent will be made on that tavern of ill-fame by a company of Marats +and every man, woman and child within it will be arrested and sent to +Paris as undesirable inhabitants of this most moral city: in Paris they +will be tried as malefactors or evil-doers--cut throats, thieves, what? +and deported as convicts to Cayenne, or else sent to the guillotine. The +Kernogans among that herd! What sayest thou to that, little sister? Thy +father, thy lover, hung as thieves! M. le Duc and Mademoiselle branded +as convicts! 'Tis pleasant to think on, eh?" + +Louise made no reply. She stood looking at her brother, her pale, +red-rimmed eyes seemed to drink in every word that he uttered, while her +bony hand wandered mechanically across and across her forehead as if in +a pathetic endeavour to clear the brain from everything save of the +satisfying thoughts which this prospect of revenge had engendered. + +Chauvelin's gentle voice broke in on her meditations. + +"In the meanwhile," he said placidly, "remember my warning, citizen +Martin-Roget. There are passing clever and mighty agencies at work, even +at this hour, to wrest your prey from you. How will you convey the wench +to the Rat Mort? Carrier has warned you of spies--but I have warned you +against a crowd of English adventurers far more dangerous than an army +of spies. Three pairs of eyes--probably more, and one pair the keenest +in Europe--will be on the watch to seize upon the woman and to carry her +off under your very nose." + +Martin-Roget uttered a savage oath. + +"That brute Carrier has left me in the lurch," he said roughly. "I don't +believe in your nightmares and your English adventurers, still it would +have been better if I could have had the woman conveyed to the tavern +under armed escort." + +"Armed escort has been denied you, and anyway it would not be much use. +You and I, citizen Martin-Roget, must act independently of Carrier. Your +friends down there," he added, indicating the street with a jerk of the +head, "must redouble their watchfulness. The village lads of Vertou are +of a truth no match intellectually with our English adventurers, but +they have vigorous fists in case there is an attack on the wench while +she walks across to the Rat Mort." + +"It would be simpler," here interposed Louise roughly, "if we were to +knock the wench on the head and then let the lads carry her across." + +"It would not be simpler," retorted Chauvelin drily, "for Carrier might +at any moment turn against us. Commandant Fleury with half a company of +Marats will be posted round the Rat Mort, remember. They may interfere +with the lads and arrest them and snatch the wench from us, when all our +plans may fall to the ground ... one never knows what double game +Carrier may be playing. No! no! the girl must not be dragged or carried +to the Rat Mort. She must walk into the trap of her own free will." + +"But name of a dog! how is it to be done?" ejaculated Martin-Roget, and +he brought his clenched fist crashing down upon the table. "The woman +will not follow me--or Louise either--anywhere willingly." + +"She must follow a stranger then--or one whom she thinks a +stranger--some one who will have gained her confidence...." + +"Impossible." + +"Oh! nothing is impossible, citizen," rejoined Chauvelin blandly. + +"Do you know a way then?" queried the other with a sneer. + +"I think I do. If you will trust me that is----" + +"I don't know that I do. Your mind is so intent on those English +adventurers, you are like as not to let the aristos slip through your +fingers." + +"Well, citizen," retorted Chauvelin imperturbably, "will you take the +risk of conveying the fair Yvonne to the Rat Mort by twelve o'clock +to-night? I have very many things to see to, I confess that I should be +glad if you will ease me from that responsibility." + +"I have already told you that I see no way," retorted Martin-Roget with +a snarl. + +"Then why not let me act?" + +"What are you going to do?" + +"For the moment I am going for a walk on the quay and once more will +commune with the North-West wind." + +"Tshaw!" ejaculated Martin-Roget savagely. + +"Nay, citizen," resumed Chauvelin blandly, "the winds of heaven are +excellent counsellors. I told you so just now and you agreed with me. +They blow away the cobwebs of the mind and clear the brain for serious +thinking. You want the Kernogan girl to be arrested inside the Rat Mort +and you see no way of conveying her thither save by the use of violence, +which for obvious reasons is to be deprecated: Carrier, for equally +obvious reasons, will not have her taken to the place by force. On the +other hand you admit that the wench would not follow you +willingly----Well, citizen, we must find a way out of that impasse, for +it is too unimportant an one to stand in the way of our plans: for this +I must hold a consultation with the North-West wind." + +"I won't allow you to do anything without consulting me." + +"Am I likely to do that? To begin with I shall have need of your +co-operation and that of the citizeness." + +"In that case ..." muttered Martin-Roget grudgingly. "But remember," he +added with a return to his usual self-assured manner, "remember that +Yvonne and her father belong to me and not to you. I brought them into +Nantes for mine own purposes--not for yours. I will not have my revenge +jeopardised so that your schemes may be furthered." + +"Who spoke of my schemes, citizen Martin-Roget?" broke in Chauvelin with +perfect urbanity. "Surely not I? What am I but an humble tool in the +service of the Republic?... a tool that has proved useless--a failure, +what? My only desire is to help you to the best of my abilities. Your +enemies are the enemies of the Republic: my ambition is to help you in +destroying them." + +For a moment longer Martin-Roget hesitated: he abominated this +suggestion of becoming a mere instrument in the hands of this man whom +he still would have affected to despise--had he dared. But here came the +difficulty: he no longer dared to despise Chauvelin. He felt the +strength of the man--the clearness of his intellect, and though +he--Martin-Roget--still chose to disregard every warning in connexion +with the English spies, he could not wholly divest his mind from the +possibility of their presence in Nantes. Carrier's scheme was so +magnificent, so satisfying, that the ex-miller's son was ready to humble +his pride and set his arrogance aside in order to see it carried through +successfully. + +So after a moment or two, despite the fact that he positively ached to +shut Chauvelin out of the whole business, Martin-Roget gave a grudging +assent to his proposal. + +"Very well!" he said, "you see to it. So long as it does not interfere +with my plans...." + +"It can but help them," rejoined Chauvelin suavely. "If you will act as +I shall direct I pledge you my word that the wench will walk to the Rat +Mort of her free will and at the hour when you want her. What else is +there to say?" + +"When and where shall we meet again?" + +"Within the hour I will return here and explain to you and to the +citizeness what I want you to do. We will get the aristos inside the Rat +Mort, never fear; and after that I think that we may safely leave +Carrier to do the rest, what?" + +He picked up his hat and wrapped his mantle round him. He took no +further heed of Martin-Roget or of Louise, for suddenly he had felt the +crackling of crisp paper inside the breast-pocket of his coat and in a +moment the spirit of the man had gone a-roaming out of the narrow +confines of this squalid abode. It had crossed the English Channel and +wandered once more into a brilliantly-lighted ball-room where an +exquisitely dressed dandy declaimed inanities and doggrel rhymes for the +delectation of a flippant assembly: it heard once more the lazy, +drawling speech, the inane, affected laugh, it caught the glance of a +pair of lazy, grey eyes fixed mockingly upon him. Chauvelin's thin +claw-like hand went back to his pocket: it felt that packet of papers, +it closed over it like a vulture's talon does upon a prey. He no longer +heard Martin-Roget's obstinate murmurings, he no longer felt himself to +be the disgraced, humiliated servant of the State: rather did he feel +once more the master, the leader, the successful weaver of an hundred +clever intrigues. The enemy who had baffled him so often had chosen once +more to throw down the glove of mocking defiance. So be it! The battle +would be fought this night--a decisive one--and long live the Republic +and the power of the people! + +With a curt nod of the head Chauvelin turned on his heel and without +waiting for Martin-Roget to follow him, or for Louise to light him on +his way, he strode from the room, and out of the house, and had soon +disappeared in the darkness in the direction of the quay. + + +V + +Once more free from the encumbering companionship of Martin-Roget, +Chauvelin felt free to breathe and to think. He, the obscure and +impassive servant of the Republic, the cold-blooded Terrorist who had +gone through every phrase of an exciting career without moving a muscle +of his grave countenance, felt as if every one of his arteries was on +fire. He strode along the quay in the teeth of the north-westerly wind, +grateful for the cold blast which lashed his face and cooled his +throbbing temples. + +The packet of papers inside his coat seemed to sear his breast. + +Before turning to go along the quay he paused, hesitating for a moment +what he would do. His very humble lodgings were at the far end of the +town, and every minute of time was precious. Inside Le Bouffay, where he +had a small room allotted to him as a minor representative in Nantes of +the Committee of Public Safety, there was the ever present danger of +prying eyes. + +On the whole--since time was so precious--he decided on returning to Le +Bouffay. The concierge and the clerk fortunately let him through without +those official delays which he--Chauvelin--was wont to find so galling +ever since his disgrace had put a bar against the opening of every door +at the bare mention of his name or the display of his tricolour scarf. + +He strode rapidly across the hall: the men on guard eyed him with lazy +indifference as he passed. Once inside his own sanctum he looked +carefully around him; he drew the curtain closer across the window and +dragged the table and a chair well away from the range which might be +covered by an eye at the keyhole. It was only when he had thoroughly +assured himself that no searching eye or inquisitive ear could possibly +be watching over him that he at last drew the precious packet of papers +from his pocket. He undid the red ribbon which held it together and +spread the papers out on the table before him. Then he examined them +carefully one by one. + +As he did so an exclamation of wrath or of impatience escaped him from +time to time, once he laughed--involuntarily--aloud. + +The examination of the papers took him some time. When he had finished +he gathered them all together again, retied the bit of ribbon round them +and slipped the packet back into the pocket of his coat. There was a +look of grim determination on his face, even though a bitter sigh +escaped his set lips. + +"Oh! for the power," he muttered to himself, "which I had a year ago! +for the power to deal with mine enemy myself. So you have come to +Nantes, my valiant Sir Percy Blakeney?" he added while a short, sardonic +laugh escaped his thin, set lips: "and you are determined that I shall +know how and why you came! Do you reckon, I wonder, that I have no +longer the power to deal with you? Well!..." + +He sighed again but with more satisfaction this time. + +"Well!..." he reiterated with obvious complacency. "Unless that oaf +Carrier is a bigger fool than I imagine him to be I think I have you +this time, my elusive Scarlet Pimpernel." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE NET + + +I + +It was not an easy thing to obtain an audience of the great proconsul at +this hour of the night, nor was Chauvelin, the disgraced servant of the +Committee of Public Safety, a man to be considered. Carrier, with his +love of ostentation and of tyranny, found great delight in keeping his +colleagues waiting upon his pleasure, and he knew that he could trust +young Jacques Lalouet to be as insolent as any tyrant's flunkey of yore. + +"I must speak with the proconsul at once," had been Chauvelin's urgent +request of Fleury, the commandant of the great man's bodyguard. + +"The proconsul dines at this hour," had been Fleury's curt reply. + +"'Tis a matter which concerns the welfare and the safety of the State!" + +"The proconsul's health is the concern of the State too, and he dines at +this hour and must not be disturbed." + +"Commandant Fleury!" urged Chauvelin, "you risk being implicated in a +disaster. Danger and disgrace threaten the proconsul and all his +adherents. I must speak with citizen Carrier at once." + +Fortunately for Chauvelin there were two keys which, when all else +failed, were apt to open the doors of Carrier's stronghold: the key of +fear and that of cupidity. He tried both and succeeded. He bribed and +he threatened: he endured Fleury's brutality and Lalouet's impertinence +but he got his way. After an hour's weary waiting and ceaseless +parleyings he was once more ushered into the antechamber where he had +sat earlier in the day. The doors leading to the inner sanctuary were +open. Young Jacques Lalouet stood by them on guard. Carrier, fuming and +raging at having been disturbed, vented his spleen and ill-temper on +Chauvelin. + +"If the news that you bring me is not worth my consideration," he cried +savagely, "I'll send you to moulder in Le Bouffay or to drink the waters +of the Loire." + +Chauvelin silent, self-effaced, allowed the flood of the great man's +wrath to spend itself in threats. Then he said quietly: + +"Citizen proconsul I have come to tell you that the English spy, who is +called the Scarlet Pimpernel, is now in Nantes. There is a reward of +twenty thousand francs for his capture and I want your help to lay him +by the heels." + +Carrier suddenly paused in his ravings. He sank into a chair and a livid +hue spread over his face. + +"It's not true!" he murmured hoarsely. + +"I saw him--not an hour ago...." + +"What proof have you?" + +"I'll show them to you--but not across this threshold. Let me enter, +citizen proconsul, and close your sanctuary doors behind me rather than +before. What I have come hither to tell you, can only be said between +four walls." + +"I'll make you tell me," broke in Carrier in a raucous voice, which +excitement and fear caused almost to choke in his throat. "I'll make you +... curse you for the traitor that you are.... Curse you!" he cried more +vigorously, "I'll make you speak. Will you shield a spy by your +silence, you miserable traitor? If you do I'll send you to rot in the +mud of the Loire with other traitors less accursed than yourself." + +"If you only knew," was Chauvelin's calm rejoinder to the other's +ravings, "how little I care for life. I only live to be even one day +with an enemy whom I hate. That enemy is now in Nantes, but I am like a +bird of prey whose wings have been clipped. If you do not help me mine +enemy will again go free--and death in that case matters little or +nothing to me." + +For a moment longer Carrier hesitated. Fear had gripped him by the +throat. Chauvelin's earnestness seemed to vouch for the truth of his +assertion, and if this were so--if those English spies were indeed in +Nantes--then his own life was in deadly danger. He--like every one of +those bloodthirsty tyrants who had misused the sacred names of +Fraternity and of Equality--had learned to dread the machinations of +those mysterious Englishmen and of their unconquerable leader. Popular +superstition had it that they were spies of the English Government and +that they were not only bent on saving traitors from well-merited +punishment but that they were hired assassins paid by Mr. Pitt to murder +every faithful servant of the Republic. The name of the Scarlet +Pimpernel, so significantly uttered by Chauvelin, had turned Carrier's +sallow cheeks to a livid hue. Sick with terror now he called Lalouet to +him. He clung to the boy with both arms as to the one being in this +world whom he trusted. + +"What shall we do, Jacques?" he murmured hoarsely, "shall we let him +in?" + +The boy roughly shook himself free from the embrace of the great +proconsul. + +"If you want twenty thousand francs," he said with a dry laugh, "I +should listen quietly to what citizen Chauvelin has to say." + +Terror and rapacity were ranged on one side against inordinate vanity. +The thought of twenty thousand francs made Carrier's ugly mouth water. +Money was ever scarce these days: also the fear of assassination was a +spectre which haunted him at all hours of the day and night. On the +other hand he positively worshipped the mystery wherewith he surrounded +himself. It had been his boast for some time now that no one save the +chosen few had crossed the threshold of his private chamber: and he was +miserably afraid not only of Chauvelin's possible evil intentions, but +also that this despicable ex-aristo and equally despicable failure would +boast in the future of an ascendancy over him. + +He thought the matter over for fully five minutes, during which there +was dead silence in the two rooms--silence only broken by the stertorous +breathing of that wretched coward, and the measured ticking of the fine +Buhl clock behind him. Chauvelin's pale eyes were fixed upon the +darkness, through which he could vaguely discern the uncouth figure of +the proconsul, sprawling over his desk. Which way would his passions +sway him? Chauvelin as he watched and waited felt that his habitual +self-control was perhaps more severely taxed at this moment than it had +ever been before. Upon the swaying of those passions, the passions of a +man infinitely craven and infinitely base, depended all +his--Chauvelin's--hopes of getting even at last with a daring and +resourceful foe. Terror and rapacity were the counsellors which ranged +themselves on the side of his schemes, but mere vanity and caprice +fought a hard battle too. + +In the end it was rapacity that gained the victory. An impatient +exclamation from young Lalouet roused Carrier from his sombre brooding +and hastened on a decision which was destined to have such momentous +consequences for the future of both these men. + +"Introduce citizen Chauvelin in here, Lalouet," said the proconsul +grudgingly. "I will listen to what he has to say." + + +II + +Chauvelin crossed the threshold of the tyrant's sanctuary, in no way +awed by the majesty of that dreaded presence or confused by the air of +mystery which hung about the room. + +He did not even bestow a glance on the multitudinous objects of art and +the priceless furniture which littered the tiger's lair. His pale face +remained quite expressionless as he bowed solemnly before Carrier and +then took the chair which was indicated to him. Young Lalouet fetched a +candelabra from the ante-room and carried it into the audience chamber: +then he closed the communicating doors. The candelabra he placed on a +console-table immediately behind Carrier's desk and chair, so that the +latter's face remained in complete shadow, whilst the light fell full +upon Chauvelin. + +"Well! what is it?" queried the proconsul roughly. "What is this story +of English spies inside Nantes? How did they get here? Who is +responsible for keeping such rabble out of our city? Name of a dog, but +some one has been careless of duty! and carelessness these days is +closely allied to treason." + +He talked loudly and volubly--his inordinate terror causing the words to +come tumbling, almost incoherently, out of his mouth. Finally he turned +on Chauvelin with a snarl like an angry cat: + +"And how comes it, citizen," he added savagely, "that you alone here in +Nantes are acquainted with the whereabouts of those dangerous spies?" + +"I caught sight of them," rejoined Chauvelin calmly, "this afternoon +after I left you. I knew we should have them here, the moment citizen +Martin-Roget brought the Kernogans into the city. The woman is the wife +of one of them." + +"Curse that blundering fool Martin-Roget for bringing that rabble about +our ears, and those assassins inside our gates." + +"Nay! Why should you complain, citizen proconsul," rejoined Chauvelin in +his blandest manner. "Surely you are not going to let the English spies +escape this time? And if you succeed in laying them by the heels--there +where every one else has failed--you will have earned twenty thousand +francs and the thanks of the entire Committee of Public Safety." + +He paused: and young Lalouet interposed with his impudent laugh: + +"Go on, citizen Chauvelin," he said, "if there is twenty thousand francs +to be made out of this game, I'll warrant that the proconsul will take a +hand in it--eh, Carrier?" + +And with the insolent familiarity of a terrier teasing a grizzly he +tweaked the great man's ear. + +Chauvelin in the meanwhile had drawn the packet of papers from his +pocket and untied the ribbon that held them together. He now spread the +papers out on the desk. + +"What are these?" queried Carrier. + +"A few papers," replied Chauvelin, "which one of your Marats, Paul +Friche by name, picked up in the wake of the Englishmen. I caught sight +of them in the far distance, and sent the Marats after them. For awhile +Paul Friche kept on their track, but after that they disappeared in the +darkness." + +"Who were the senseless louts," growled Carrier, "who allowed a pack of +foreign assassins to escape? I'll soon make them disappear ... in the +Loire." + +"You will do what you like about that, citizen Carrier," retorted +Chauvelin drily; "in the meanwhile you would do well to examine these +papers." + +He sorted these out, examined them one by one, then passed them across +to Carrier. Lalouet, impudent and inquisitive, sat on the corner of the +desk, dangling his legs. With scant ceremony he snatched one paper after +another out of Carrier's hands and examined them curiously. + +"Can you understand all this gibberish?" he asked airily. "Jean +Baptiste, my friend, how much English do you know?" + +"Not much," replied the proconsul, "but enough to recognise that +abominable doggrel rhyme which has gone the round of the Committees of +Public Safety throughout the country." + +"I know it by heart," rejoined young Lalouet. "I was in Paris once, when +citizen Robespierre received a copy of it. Name of a dog!" added the +youngster with a coarse laugh, "how he cursed!" + +It is doubtful however if citizen Robespierre did on that occasion curse +quite so volubly as Carrier did now. + +"If I only knew why that _satane_ Englishman throws so much calligraphy +about," he said, "I would be easier in my mind. Now this senseless rhyme +... I don't see...." + +"Its importance?" broke in Chauvelin quietly. "I dare say not. On the +face of it, it appears foolish and childish: but it is intended as a +taunt and is really a poor attempt at humour. They are a queer people +these English. If you knew them as I do, you would not be surprised to +see a man scribbling off a cheap joke before embarking on an enterprise +which may cost him his head." + +"And this inane rubbish is of that sort," concluded young Lalouet. And +in his thin high treble he began reciting: + + "We seek him here; + We seek him there! + Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. + Is he in heaven? + Is he in h----ll? + That demmed elusive Pimpernel?" + +"Pointless and offensive," he said as he tossed the paper back on the +table. + +"A cursed aristo that Englishman of yours," growled Carrier. "Oh! when I +get him...." + +He made an expressive gesture which made Lalouet laugh. + +"What else have we got in the way of documents, citizen Chauvelin?" he +asked. + +"There is a letter," replied the latter. + +"Read it," commanded Carrier. "Or rather translate it as you read. I +don't understand the whole of the gibberish." + +And Chauvelin, taking up a sheet of paper which was covered with neat, +minute writing, began to read aloud, translating the English into French +as he went along: + + "'Here we are at last, my dear Tony! Didn't I tell you that we can + get in anywhere despite all precautions taken against us!'" + +"The impudent devils!" broke in Carrier. + + --"'Did you really think that they could keep us out of Nantes + while Lady Anthony Dewhurst is a prisoner in their hands?'" + +"Who is that?" + +"The Kernogan woman. As I told you just now, she is married to an +Englishman who is named Dewhurst and who is one of the members of that +thrice cursed League." + +Then he continued to read: + + "'And did you really suppose that they would spot half a dozen + English gentlemen in the guise of peat-gatherers, returning at dusk + and covered with grime from their work? Not like, friend Tony! Not + like! If you happen to meet mine engaging friend M. Chambertin + before I have that privilege myself, tell him I pray you, with my + regards, that I am looking forward to the pleasure of making a long + nose at him once more. Calais, Boulogne, Paris--now Nantes--the + scenes of his triumphs multiply exceedingly.'" + +"What in the devil's name does all this mean?" queried Carrier with an +oath. + +"You don't understand it?" rejoined Chauvelin quietly. + +"No. I do not." + +"Yet I translated quite clearly." + +"It is not the language that puzzles me. The contents seem to me such +drivel. The man wants secrecy, what? He is supposed to be astute, +resourceful, above all mysterious and enigmatic. Yet he writes to his +friend--matter of no importance between them, recollections of the past, +known to them both--and threats for the future, equally futile and +senseless. I cannot reconcile it all. It puzzles me." + +"And it would puzzle me," rejoined Chauvelin, while the ghost of a smile +curled his thin lips, "did I not know the man. Futile? Senseless, you +say? Well, he does futile and senseless things one moment and amazing +deeds of personal bravery and of astuteness the next. He is three parts +a braggart too. He wanted you, me--all of us to know how he and his +followers succeeded in eluding our vigilance and entered our +closely-guarded city in the guise of grimy peat-gatherers. Now I come to +think of it, it was easy enough for them to do that. Those +peat-gatherers who live inside the city boundaries return from their +work as the night falls in. Those cursed English adventurers are passing +clever at disguise--they are born mountebanks the lot of them. Money and +impudence they have in plenty. They could easily borrow or purchase some +filthy rags from the cottages on the dunes, then mix with the crowd on +its return to the city. I dare say it was cleverly done. That Scarlet +Pimpernel is just a clever adventurer and nothing more. So far his +marvellous good luck has carried him through. Now we shall see." + +Carrier had listened in silence. Something of his colleague's calm had +by this time communicated itself to him too. He was no longer raving +like an infuriated bull--his terror no longer made a half-cringing, +wholly savage brute of him. He was sprawling across the desk--his arms +folded, his deep-set eyes studying closely the well-nigh inscrutable +face of Chauvelin. Young Lalouet too had lost something of his +impudence. That mysterious spell which seemed to emanate from the +elusive personality of the bold English adventurer had been cast over +these two callous, bestial natures, humbling their arrogance and making +them feel that here was no ordinary situation to be dealt with by +smashing, senseless hitting and the spilling of innocent blood. Both +felt instinctively too that this man Chauvelin, however wholly he may +have failed in the past, was nevertheless still the only man who might +grapple successfully with the elusive and adventurous foe. + +"Are you assuming, citizen Chauvelin," queried Carrier after awhile, +"that this packet of papers was dropped purposely by the Englishman, so +that it might get into our hands?" + +"There is always such a possibility," replied Chauvelin drily. "With +that type of man one must be prepared to meet the unexpected." + +"Then go on, citizen Chauvelin. What else is there among those _satane_ +papers?" + +"Nothing further of importance. There is a map of Nantes, and one of the +coast and of Le Croisic. There is a cutting from _Le Moniteur_ dated +last September, and one from the _London Gazette_ dated three years ago. +The _Moniteur_ makes reference to the production of _Athalie_ at the +Theatre Moliere, and the _London Gazette_ to the sale of fat cattle at +an Agricultural Show. There is a receipted account from a London tailor +for two hundred pounds worth of clothes supplied, and one from a Lyons +mercer for an hundred francs worth of silk cravats. Then there is the +one letter which alone amidst all this rubbish appears to be of any +consequence...." + +He took up the last paper; his hand was still quite steady. + +"Read the letter," said Carrier. + +"It is addressed in the English fashion to Lady Anthony Dewhurst," +continued Chauvelin slowly, "the Kernogan woman, you know, citizen. It +says: + + "'Keep up your courage. Your friends are inside the city and on the + watch. Try the door of your prison every evening at one hour before + midnight. Once you will find it yield. Slip out and creep + noiselessly down the stairs. At the bottom a friendly hand will be + stretched out to you. Take it with confidence--it will lead you to + safety and to freedom. Courage and secrecy.'" + +Lalouet had been looking over his shoulder while he read: now he pointed +to the bottom of the letter. + +"And there is the device," he said, "we have heard so much about of +late--a five-petalled flower drawn in red ink ... the Scarlet Pimpernel, +I presume." + +"Aye! the Scarlet Pimpernel," murmured Chauvelin, "as you say! +Braggadocio on his part or accident, his letters are certainly in our +hands now and will prove--must prove, the tool whereby we can be even +with him once and for all." + +"And you, citizen Chauvelin," interposed Carrier with a sneer, "are +mighty lucky to have me to help you this time. I am not going to be +fooled, as Candeille and you were fooled last September, as you were +fooled in Calais and Heron in Paris. I shall be seeing this time to the +capture of those English adventurers." + +"And that capture should not be difficult," added Lalouet with a +complacent laugh. "Your famous adventurer's luck hath deserted him this +time: an all-powerful proconsul is pitted against him and the loss of +his papers hath destroyed the anonymity on which he reckons." + +Chauvelin paid no heed to the fatuous remarks. + +How little did this flippant young braggart and this coarse-grained +bully understand the subtle workings of that same adventurer's brain! He +himself--one of the most astute men of the day--found it difficult. Even +now--the losing of those letters in the open streets of Nantes--it was +part of a plan. Chauvelin could have staked his head on that--a part of +a plan for the liberation of Lady Anthony Dewhurst--but what plan?--what +plan? + +He took up the letter which his colleague had thrown down: he fingered +it, handled it, letting the paper crackle through his fingers, as if he +expected it to yield up the secret which it contained. The time had +come--of that he felt no doubt--when he could at last be even with his +enemy. He had endured more bitter humiliation at the hands of this +elusive Pimpernel than he would have thought himself capable of bearing +a couple of years ago. But the time had come at last--if only he kept +his every faculty on the alert, if Fate helped him and his own nerves +stood the strain. Above all if this blundering, self-satisfied Carrier +could be reckoned on!... + +There lay the one great source of trouble! He--Chauvelin--had no power: +he was disgraced--a failure--a nonentity to be sneered at. He might +protest, entreat, wring his hands, weep tears of blood and not one man +would stir a finger to help him: this brute who sprawled here across his +desk would not lend him half a dozen men to enable him to lay by the +heels the most powerful enemy the Government of the Terror had ever +known. Chauvelin inwardly ground his teeth with rage at his own +impotence, at his own dependence on this clumsy lout, who was at this +moment possessed of powers which he himself would give half his life to +obtain. + +But on the other hand he did possess a power which no one could take +from him--the power to use others for the furtherance of his own +aims--to efface himself while others danced as puppets to his piping. +Carrier had the power: he had spies, Marats, prison-guards at his +disposal. He was greedy for the reward, and cupidity and fear would make +of him a willing instrument. All that Chauvelin need do was to use that +instrument for his own ends. One would be the head to direct, the +other--a mere insentient tool. + +From this moment onwards every minute, every second and every fraction +of a second would be full of portent, full of possibilities. Sir Percy +Blakeney was in Nantes with at least three or four members of his +League: he was at this very moment taxing every fibre of his +resourceful brain in order to devise a means whereby he could rescue +his friend's wife from the fate which was awaiting her: to gain this end +he would dare everything, risk everything--risk and dare a great deal +more than he had ever dared and risked before. + +Chauvelin was finding a grim pleasure in reviewing the situation, in +envisaging the danger of failure which he knew lay in wait for him, +unless he too was able to call to his aid all the astuteness, all the +daring, all the resource of his own fertile brain. He studied his +colleague's face keenly--that sullen, savage expression in it, the +arrogance, the blundering vanity. It was terrible to have to humour and +fawn to a creature of that stamp when all one's hopes, all one's future, +one's ideals and the welfare of one's country were at stake. + +But this additional difficulty only served to whet the man's appetite +for action. He drew in a long breath of delight, like a captive who +first after many days and months of weary anguish scents freedom and +ozone. He straightened out his shoulders. A gleam of triumph and of hope +shot out of his keen pale eyes. He studied Carrier and he studied +Lalouet and he felt that he could master them both--quietly, +diplomatically, with subtle skill that would not alarm the proconsul's +rampant self-esteem: and whilst this coarse-fibred brute gloated in +anticipatory pleasure over the handling of a few thousand francs, and +whilst Martin-Roget dreamed of a clumsy revenge against one woman and +one man who had wronged him four years ago, he--Chauvelin--would pursue +his work of striking at the enemy of the Revolution--of bringing to his +knees the man who spent life and fortune in combating its ideals and in +frustrating its aims. The destruction of such a foe was worthy a +patriot's ambition. + +On the other hand some of Carrier's bullying arrogance had gone. He was +terrified to the very depths of his cowardly heart, and for once he was +turning away from his favourite Jacques Lalouet and inclined to lean on +Chauvelin for advice. Robespierre had been known to tremble at sight of +that small scarlet device, how much more had he--Carrier--cause to be +afraid. He knew his own limitations and he was terrified of the +assassin's dagger. As Marat had perished, so he too might end his days, +and the English spies were credited with murderous intentions and +superhuman power. In his innermost self Carrier knew that despite +countless failures Chauvelin was mentally his superior, and though he +never would own to this and at this moment did not attempt to shed his +over-bearing manner, he was watching the other keenly and anxiously, +ready to follow the guidance of an intellect stronger than his own. + + +III + +At last Carrier elected to speak. + +"And now, citizen Chauvelin," he said, "we know how we stand. We know +that the English assassins are in Nantes. The question is how are we +going to lay them by the heels." + +Chauvelin gave him no direct reply. He was busy collecting his precious +papers together and thrusting them back into the pocket of his coat. +Then he said quietly: + +"It is through the Kernogan woman that we can get hold of him." + +"How?" + +"Where she is, there will the Englishmen be. They are in Nantes for the +sole purpose of getting the woman and her father out of your +clutches...." + +"Then it will be a fine haul inside the Rat Mort," ejaculated Carrier +with a chuckle. "Eh, Jacques, you young scamp? You and I must go and see +that, what? You have been complaining that life was getting monotonous. +Drownages--Republican marriages! They have all palled in their turn on +your jaded appetite.... But the capture of the English assassins, eh?... +of that League of the Scarlet Pimpernel which has even caused citizen +Robespierre much uneasiness--that will stir up your sluggish blood, you +lazy young vermin!... Go on, go on, citizen Chauvelin, I am vastly +interested!" + +He rubbed his dry, bony hands together and cackled with glee. Chauvelin +interposed quietly: + +"Inside the Rat Mort, eh, citizen?" he queried. + +"Why, yes. Citizen Martin-Roget means to convey the Kernogan woman to +the Rat Mort, doesn't he?" + +"He does." + +"And you say that where the Kernogan woman is there the Englishmen will +be...." + +"The inference is obvious." + +"Which means ten thousand francs from that fool Martin-Roget for having +the wench and her father arrested inside the Rat Mort! and twenty +thousand for the capture of the English spies.... Have you forgotten, +citizen Chauvelin," he added with a raucous cry of triumph, "that +commandant Fleury has my orders to make a raid on the Rat Mort this +night with half a company of my Marats, and to arrest every one whom +they find inside?" + +"The Kernogan wench is not at the Rat Mort yet," quoth Chauvelin drily, +"and you have refused to lend a hand in having her conveyed thither." + +"I can't do it, my little Chauvelin," rejoined Carrier, somewhat sobered +by this reminder. "I can't do it ... you understand ... my Marats +taking an aristo to a house of ill-fame where presently I have her +arrested ... it won't do ... it won't do ... you don't know how I am +spied upon just now.... It really would not do.... I can't be mixed up +in that part of the affair. The wench must go to the Rat Mort of her own +free will, or the whole plan falls to the ground.... That fool +Martin-Roget must think of a way ... it's his affair, after all. He must +see to it.... Or you can think of a way," he added, assuming the coaxing +ways of a tiger-cat; "you are so clever, my little Chauvelin." + +"Yes," replied Chauvelin quietly, "I can think of a way. The Kernogan +wench shall leave the house of citizeness Adet and walk into the tavern +of the Rat Mort of her own free will. Your reputation, citizen Carrier," +he added without the slightest apparent trace of a sneer, "your +reputation shall be safeguarded in this matter. But supposing that in +the interval of going from the one house to the other the English +adventurer succeeds in kidnapping her...." + +"Pah! is that likely?" quoth Carrier with a shrug of the shoulders. + +"Exceedingly likely, citizen; and you would not doubt it if you knew +this Scarlet Pimpernel as I do. I have seen him at his nefarious work. I +know what he can do. There is nothing that he would not venture ... +there are few ventures in which he does not succeed. He is as strong as +an ox, as agile as a cat. He can see in the dark and he can always +vanish in a crowd. Here, there and everywhere, you never know where he +will appear. He is a past master in the art of disguise and he is a born +mountebank. Believe me, citizen, we shall want all the resources of our +joint intellects to frustrate the machinations of such a foe." + +Carrier mused for a moment in silence. + +"H'm!" he said after awhile, and with a sardonic laugh. "You may be +right, citizen Chauvelin. You have had experience with the rascal ... +you ought to know him. We won't leave anything to chance--don't be +afraid of that. My Marats will be keen on the capture. We'll promise +commandant Fleury a thousand francs for himself and another thousand to +be distributed among his men if we lay hands on the English assassins +to-night. We'll leave nothing to chance," he reiterated with an oath. + +"In which case, citizen Carrier, you must on your side agree to two +things," rejoined Chauvelin firmly. + +"What are they?" + +"You must order Commandant Fleury to place himself and half a company of +his Marats at my disposal." + +"What else?" + +"You must allow them to lend a hand if there is an attempt to kidnap the +Kernogan wench while she is being conveyed to the Rat Mort...." + +Carrier hesitated for a second or two, but only for form's sake: it was +his nature whenever he was forced to yield to do so grudgingly. + +"Very well!" he said at last. "I'll order Fleury to be on the watch and +to interfere if there is any street-brawling outside or near the Rat +Mort. Will that suit you?" + +"Perfectly. I shall be on the watch too--somewhere close by.... I'll +warn commandant Fleury if I suspect that the English are making ready +for a coup outside the tavern. Personally I think it unlikely--because +the duc de Kernogan will be inside the Rat Mort all the time, and he too +will be the object of the Englishmen's attacks on his behalf. Citizen +Martin-Roget too has about a score or so of his friends posted outside +his sister's house: they are lads from his village who hate the +Kernogans as much as he does himself. Still! I shall feel easier in my +mind now that I am certain of commandant Fleury's co-operation." + +"Then it seems to me that we have arranged everything satisfactorily, +what?" + +"Everything, except the exact moment when Commandant Fleury shall +advance with his men to the door of the tavern and demand admittance in +the name of the Republic." + +"Yes, he will have to make quite sure that the whole of our quarry is +inside the net, eh?... before he draws the strings ... or all our pretty +plans fall to nought." + +"As you say," rejoined Chauvelin, "we must make sure. Supposing +therefore that we get the wench safely into the tavern, that we have her +there with her father, what we shall want will be some one in +observation--some one who can help us to draw our birds into the snare +just when we are ready for them. Now there is a man whom I have in my +mind: he hath name Paul Friche and is one of your Marats--a surly, +ill-conditioned giant ... he was on guard outside Le Bouffay this +afternoon.... I spoke to him ... he would suit our purpose admirably." + +"What do you want him to do?" + +"Only to make himself look as like a Nantese cut-throat as he can...." + +"He looks like one already," broke in Jacques Lalouet with a laugh. + +"So much the better. He'll excite no suspicion in that case in the minds +of the frequenters of the Rat Mort. Then I'll instruct him to start a +brawl--a fracas--soon after the arrival of the Kernogan wench. The row +will inevitably draw the English adventurers hot-haste to the spot, +either in the hope of getting the Kernogans away during the _melee_ or +with a view to protecting them. As soon as they have appeared upon the +scene, the half company of the Marats will descend on the house and +arrest every one inside it." + +"It all sounds remarkably simple," rejoined Carrier, and with a leer of +satisfaction he turned to Jacques Lalouet. + +"What think you of it, citizen?" he asked. + +"That it sounds so remarkably simple," replied young Lalouet, "that +personally I should be half afraid...." + +"Of what?" queried Chauvelin blandly. + +"If you fail, citizen Chauvelin...." + +"Impossible!" + +"If the Englishmen do not appear?" + +"Even so the citizen proconsul will have lost nothing. He will merely +have failed to gain the twenty thousand francs. But the Kernogans will +still be in his power and citizen Martin-Roget's ten thousand francs are +in any case assured." + +"Friend Jean-Baptiste," concluded Lalouet with his habitual insolent +familiarity, "you had better do what citizen Chauvelin wants. Ten +thousand francs are good ... and thirty better still. Our privy purse +has been empty far too long, and I for one would like the handling of a +few brisk notes." + +"It will only be twenty-eight, citizen Lalouet," interposed Chauvelin +blandly, "for commandant Fleury will want one thousand francs and his +men another thousand to stimulate their zeal. Still! I imagine that +these hard times twenty-eight thousand francs are worth fighting for." + +"You seem to be fighting and planning and scheming for nothing, citizen +Chauvelin," retorted young Lalouet with a sneer. "What are you going to +gain, I should like to know, by the capture of that dare-devil +Englishman?" + +"Oh!" replied Chauvelin suavely, "I shall gain the citizen proconsul's +regard, I hope--and yours too, citizen Lalouet. I want nothing more +except the success of my plan." + +Young Lalouet jumped down to his feet. He shrugged his shoulders and +through his fine eyes shot a glance of mockery and scorn on the thin, +shrunken figure of the Terrorist. + +"How you do hate that Englishman, citizen Chauvelin," he said with a +light laugh. + + +IV + +Carrier having fully realised that he in any case stood to make a vast +sum of money out of the capture of the band of English spies, gave his +support generously to Chauvelin's scheme. Fleury, summoned into his +presence, was ordered to place himself and half a company of Marats at +the disposal of citizen Chauvelin. He demurred and growled like a bear +with a sore head at being placed under the orders of a civilian, but it +was not easy to run counter to the proconsul's will. A good deal of +swearing, one or two overt threats and the citizen commandant was +reduced to submission. The promise of a thousand francs, when the reward +for the capture of the English spies was paid out by a grateful +Government, overcame his last objections. + +"I think you should rid yourself of that obstinate oaf," was young +Lalouet's cynical comment, when Fleury had finally left the audience +chamber; "he is too argumentative for my taste." + +Chauvelin smiled quietly to himself. He cared little what became of +every one of these Nantese louts once his great object had been +attained. + +"I need not trouble you further, citizen Carrier," he said as he finally +rose to take his leave. "I shall have my hands full until I myself lay +that meddlesome Englishman bound and gagged at your feet." + +The phrase delighted Carrier's insensate vanity. He was overgracious to +Chauvelin now. + +"You shall do that at the Rat Mort, citizen Chauvelin," he said with +marked affability, "and I myself will commend you for your zeal to the +Committee of Public Safety." + +"Always supposing," interposed Jacques Lalouet with his cynical laugh, +"that citizen Chauvelin does not let the whole rabble slip through his +fingers." + +"If I do," concluded Chauvelin drily, "you may drag the Loire for my +body to-morrow." + +"Oh!" laughed Carrier, "we won't trouble to do that. _Au revoir_, +citizen Chauvelin," he added with one of his grandiloquent gestures of +dismissal, "I wish you luck at the Rat Mort to-night." + +Jacques Lalouet ushered Chauvelin out. When he was finally left standing +alone at the head of the stairs and young Lalouet's footsteps had ceased +to resound across the floors of the rooms beyond, he remained quite +still for awhile, his eyes fixed into vacancy, his face set and +expressionless; and through his lips there came a long-drawn-out sigh of +intense satisfaction. + +"And now, my fine Scarlet Pimpernel," he murmured softly, "once more _a +nous deux_." + +Then he ran swiftly down the stairs and a moment later was once more +speeding toward Le Bouffay. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE MESSAGE OF HOPE + + +I + +After Martin-Roget and Chauvelin had left her, Yvonne had sat for a long +time motionless, almost unconscious. It seemed as if gradually, hour by +hour, minute by minute, her every feeling of courage and of hope were +deserting her. Three days now she had been separated from her +father--three days she had been under the constant supervision of a +woman who had not a single thought of compassion or of mercy for the +"aristocrat" whom she hated so bitterly. + +At night, curled up on a small bundle of dank straw Yvonne had made vain +efforts to snatch a little sleep. Ever since the day when she had been +ruthlessly torn away from the protection of her dear milor, she had +persistently clung to the belief that he would find the means to come to +her, to wrest her from the cruel fate which her pitiless enemies had +devised for her. She had clung to that hope throughout that dreary +journey from dear England to this abominable city. She had clung to it +even whilst her father knelt at her feet in an agony of remorse. She had +clung to hope while Martin-Roget alternately coaxed and terrorised her, +while her father was dragged away from her, while she endured untold +misery, starvation, humiliation at the hands of Louise Adet: but +now--quite unaccountably--that hope seemed suddenly to have fled from +her, leaving her lonely and inexpressibly desolate. That small, +shrunken figure which, wrapped in a dark mantle, had stood in the corner +of the room watching her like a serpent watches its prey, had seemed +like the forerunner of the fate with which Martin-Roget, gloating over +her helplessness, had already threatened her. + +She knew, of course, that neither from him, nor from the callous brute +who governed Nantes, could she expect the slightest justice or mercy. +She had been brought here by Martin-Roget not only to die, but to suffer +grievously at his hands in return for a crime for which she personally +was in no way responsible. To hope for mercy from him at the eleventh +hour were worse than futile. Her already overburdened heart ached at +thought of her father: he suffered all that she suffered, and in +addition he must be tortured with anxiety for her and with remorse. +Sometimes she was afraid that under the stress of desperate soul-agony +he might perhaps have been led to suicide. She knew nothing of what had +happened to him, where he was, nor whether privations and lack of food +or sleep, together with Martin-Roget's threats, had by now weakened his +morale and turned his pride into humiliating submission. + + +II + +A distant tower-clock struck the evening hours one after the other. +Yvonne for the past three days had only been vaguely conscious of time. +Martin-Roget had spoken of a few hours' respite only, of the proconsul's +desire to be soon rid of her. Well! this meant no doubt that the morrow +would see the end of it all--the end of her life which such a brief +while ago seemed so full of delight, of love and of happiness. + +The end of her life! She had hardly begun to live and her dear milor had +whispered to her such sweet promises of endless vistas of bliss. + +Yvonne shivered beneath her thin gown. The north-westerly blast came in +cruel gusts through the unglazed window and a vague instinct of +self-preservation caused Yvonne to seek shelter in the one corner of the +room where the icy draught did not penetrate quite so freely. + +Eight, nine and ten struck from the tower-clock far away: she heard +these sounds as in a dream. Tired, cold and hungry her vitality at that +moment was at its lowest ebb--and, with her back resting against the +wall she fell presently into a torpor-like sleep. + +Suddenly something roused her, and in an instant she sat up--wide-awake +and wide-eyed, every one of her senses conscious and on the alert. +Something had roused her--at first she could not say what it was--or +remember. Then presently individual sounds detached themselves from the +buzzing in her ears. Hitherto the house had always been so still; except +on the isolated occasions when Martin-Roget had come to visit her and +his heavy tread had caused every loose board in the tumble-down house to +creak, it was only Louise Adet's shuffling footsteps which had roused +the dormant echoes, when she crept upstairs either to her own room, or +to throw a piece of stale bread to her prisoner. + +But now--it was neither Martin-Roget's heavy footfall nor the shuffling +gait of Louise Adet which had roused Yvonne from her trance-like sleep. +It was a gentle, soft, creeping step which was slowly, cautiously +mounting the stairs. Yvonne crouching against the wall could count every +tread--now and then a board creaked--now and then the footsteps halted. + +Yvonne, wide-eyed, her heart stirred by a nameless terror was watching +the door. + +The piece of tallow-candle flickered in the draught. Its feeble light +just touched the remote corner of the room. And Yvonne heard those soft, +creeping footsteps as they reached the landing and came to a halt +outside the door. + +Every drop of blood in her seemed to be frozen by terror: her knees +shook: her heart almost stopped its beating. + +Under the door something small and white had just been introduced--a +scrap of paper; and there it remained--white against the darkness of the +unwashed boards--a mysterious message left here by an unknown hand, +whilst the unknown footsteps softly crept down the stairs again. + +For awhile longer Yvonne remained as she was--cowering against the +wall--like a timid little animal, fearful lest that innocent-looking +object hid some unthought-of danger. Then at last she gathered courage. +Trembling with excitement she raised herself to her knees and then on +hands and knees--for she was very weak and faint--she crawled up to that +mysterious piece of paper and picked it up. + +Her trembling hand closed over it. With wide staring terror-filled eyes +she looked all round the narrow room, ere she dared cast one more glance +on that mysterious scrap of paper. Then she struggled to her feet and +tottered up to the table. She sat down and with fingers numbed with cold +she smoothed out the paper and held it close to the light, trying to +read what was written on it. + +Her sight was blurred. She had to pull herself resolutely together, for +suddenly she felt ashamed of her weakness and her overwhelming terror +yielded to feverish excitement. + +The scrap of paper contained a message--a message addressed to her in +that name of which she was so proud--the name which she thought she +would never be allowed to bear again: Lady Anthony Dewhurst. She +reiterated the words several times, her lips clinging lovingly to +them--and just below them there was a small device, drawn in red ink ... +a tiny flower with five petals.... + +Yvonne frowned and murmured, vaguely puzzled--no longer frightened now: +"A flower ... drawn in red ... what can it mean?" + +And as a vague memory struggled for expression in her troubled mind she +added half aloud: "Oh! if it should be ...!" + +But now suddenly all her fears fell away from her. Hope was once more +knocking at the gates of her heart--vague memories had taken definite +shape ... the mysterious letter ... the message of hope ... the red +flower ... all were gaining significance. She stooped low to read the +letter by the feeble light of the flickering candle. She read it through +with her eyes first--then with her lips in a soft murmur, while her mind +gradually took in all that it meant for her. + + "Keep up your courage. Your friends are inside the city and on the + watch. Try the door of your prison every evening at one hour before + midnight. Once you will find it yield. Slip out and creep + noiselessly down the stairs. At the bottom a friendly hand will be + stretched out for you. Take it with confidence--it will lead you to + safety and to freedom. Courage and secrecy." + +When she had finished reading, her eyes were swimming in tears. There +was no longer any doubt in her mind about the message now, for her dear +milor had so often spoken to her about the brave Scarlet Pimpernel who +had risked his precious life many a time ere this, in order to render +service to the innocent and the oppressed. And now, of a surety, this +message came from him: from her dear milor and from his gallant chief. +There was the small device--the little red flower which had so often +brought hope to despairing hearts. And it was more than hope that it +brought to Yvonne. It brought certitude and happiness, and a sweet, +tender remorse that she should ever have doubted. She ought to have +known all along that everything would be for the best: she had no right +ever to have given way to despair. In her heart she prayed for +forgiveness from her dear absent milor. + +How could she ever doubt him? Was it likely that he would abandon +her?--he and that brave friend of his whose powers were indeed magical. +Why! she ought to have done her best to keep up her physical as well as +her mental faculties--who knows? But perhaps physical strength might be +of inestimable value both to herself and to her gallant rescuers +presently. + +She took up the stale brown bread and ate it resolutely. She drank some +water and then stamped round the room to get some warmth into her limbs. + +A distant clock had struck ten awhile ago--and if possible she ought to +get an hour's rest before the time came for her to be strong and to act: +so she shook up her meagre straw paillasse and lay down, determined if +possible to get a little sleep--for indeed she felt that that was just +what her dear milor would have wished her to do. + +Thus time went by--waking or dreaming, Yvonne could never afterwards +have said in what state she waited during that one long hour which +separated her from the great, blissful moment. The bit of candle burnt +low and presently died out. After that Yvonne remained quite still upon +the straw, in total darkness: no light came in through the tiny window, +only the cold north-westerly wind blew in in gusts. But of a surety the +prisoner who was within sight of freedom felt neither cold nor fatigue +now. + +The tower-clock in the distance struck the quarters with dreary +monotony. + + +III + +The last stroke of eleven ceased to vibrate through the stillness of the +winter's night. + +Yvonne roused herself from the torpor-like state into which she had +fallen. She tried to struggle to her feet, but intensity of excitement +had caused a strange numbness to invade her limbs. She could hardly +move. A second or two ago it had seemed to her that she heard a gentle +scraping noise at the door--a drawing of bolts--the grating of a key in +the lock--then again, soft, shuffling footsteps that came and went and +that were not those of Louise Adet. + +At last Yvonne contrived to stand on her feet; but she had to close her +eyes and to remain quite still for awhile after that, for her ears were +buzzing and her head swimming: she thought that she must fall if she +moved and mayhap lose consciousness. + +But this state of weakness only lasted a few seconds: the next she had +groped her way to the door and her hand had found the iron latch. It +yielded. Then she waited, calling up all her strength--for the hour had +come wherein she must not only think and act for herself, but think of +every possibility which might occur, and act as she imagined her dear +lord would require it of her. + +She pressed the clumsy iron latch further: it yielded again, and anon +she was able to push open the door. + +Excited yet confident she tip-toed out of the room. The darkness--like +unto pitch--was terribly disconcerting. With the exception of her narrow +prison Yvonne had only once seen the interior of the house and that was +when, half fainting, she had been dragged across its threshold and up +the stairs. She had therefore only a very vague idea as to where the +stairs lay and how she was to get about without stumbling. + +Slowly and cautiously she crept a few paces forward, then she turned and +carefully closed the door behind her. There was not a sound inside the +house: everything was silent around her: neither footfall nor +whisperings reached her straining ears. She felt about her with her +hands, she crouched down on her knees: anon she discovered the head of +the stairs. + +Then suddenly she drew back, like a frightened hare conscious of danger. +All the blood rushed back to her heart, making it beat so violently that +she once more felt sick and faint. A sound--gentle as a breath--had +broken that absolute and dead silence which up to now had given her +confidence. She felt suddenly that she was no longer alone in the +darkness--that somewhere close by there was some one--friend or foe--who +was lying in watch for her--that somewhere in the darkness something +moved and breathed. + +The crackling of the paper inside her kerchief served to remind her that +her dear milor was on the watch and that the blessed message had spoken +of a friendly hand which would be stretched out to her and which she was +enjoined to take with confidence. Reassured she crept on again, and anon +a softly murmured: "Hush--sh!--sh!--" reached her ear. It seemed to +come from down below--not very far--and Yvonne, having once more located +the head of the stairs with her hands, began slowly to creep +downstairs--softly as a mouse--step by step--but every time that a board +creaked she paused, terrified, listening for Louise Adet's heavy +footstep, for a sound that would mean the near approach of danger. + +"Hush--sh--sh" came again as a gentle murmur from below and the +something that moved and breathed in the darkness seemed to draw nearer +to Yvonne. + +A few more seconds of soul-racking suspense, a few more steps down the +creaking stairs and she felt a strong hand laid upon her wrist and heard +a muffled voice whisper in English: + +"All is well! Trust me! Follow me!" + +She did not recognise the voice, even though there was something vaguely +familiar in its intonation. Yvonne did not pause to conjecture: she had +been made happy by the very sound of the language which stood to her for +every word of love she had ever heard: it restored her courage and her +confidence in their fullest measure. + +Obeying the whispered command, Yvonne was content now to follow her +mysterious guide who had hold of her hand. The stairs were steep and +winding--at a turn she perceived a feeble light at their foot down +below. Up against this feeble light the form of her guide was +silhouetted in a broad, dark mass. Yvonne could see nothing of him +beyond the square outline of his shoulders and that of his sugar-loaf +hat. Her mind now was thrilled with excitement and her fingers closed +almost convulsively round his hand. He led her across Louise Adet's back +kitchen. It was from here that the feeble light came--from a small oil +lamp which stood on the centre table. It helped to guide Yvonne and her +mysterious friend to the bottom of the stairs, then across the kitchen +to the front door, where again complete darkness reigned. But soon +Yvonne--who was following blindly whithersoever she was led--heard the +click of a latch and the grating of a door upon its hinges: a cold +current of air caught her straight in the face. She could see nothing, +for it seemed to be as dark out of doors as in: but she had the +sensation of that open door, of a threshold to cross, of freedom and +happiness beckoning to her straight out of the gloom. Within the next +second or two she would be out of this terrible place, its squalid and +dank walls would be behind her. On ahead in that thrice welcome +obscurity her dear milor and his powerful friend were beckoning to her +to come boldly on--their protecting arms were already stretched out for +her; it seemed to her excited fancy as if the cold night-wind brought to +her ears the echo of their endearing words. + +She filled her lungs with the keen winter air: hope, happiness, +excitement thrilled her every nerve. + +"A short walk, my lady," whispered the guide, still speaking in English; +"you are not cold?" + +"No, no, I am not cold," she whispered in reply. "I am conscious of +nothing save that I am free." + +"And you are not afraid?" + +"Indeed, indeed I am not afraid," she murmured fervently. "May God +reward you, sir, for what you do." + +Again there had been that certain something--vaguely familiar--in the +way the man spoke which for the moment piqued Yvonne's curiosity. She +did not, of a truth, know English well enough to detect the very obvious +foreign intonation; she only felt that sometime in the dim and happy +past she had heard this man speak. But even this vague sense of +puzzlement she dismissed very quickly from her mind. Was she not taking +everything on trust? Indeed hope and confidence had a very firm hold on +her at last. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE RAT MORT + + +I + +The guide had stepped out of the house into the street, Yvonne following +closely on his heels. The night was very dark and the narrow little +Carrefour de la Poissonnerie very sparsely lighted. Somewhere overhead +on the right, something groaned and creaked persistently in the wind. A +little further on a street lanthorn was swinging aloft, throwing a small +circle of dim, yellowish light on the unpaved street below. By its +fitful glimmer Yvonne could vaguely perceive the tall figure of her +guide as he stepped out with noiseless yet firm tread, his shoulder +brushing against the side of the nearest house as he kept closely within +the shadow of its high wall. The sight of his broad back thrilled her. +She had fallen to imagining whether this was not perchance that gallant +and all-powerful Scarlet Pimpernel himself: the mysterious friend of +whom her dear milor so often spoke with an admiration that was akin to +worship. He too was probably tall and broad--for English gentlemen were +usually built that way; and Yvonne's over-excited mind went galloping on +the wings of fancy, and in her heart she felt that she was glad that she +had suffered so much, and then lived through such a glorious moment as +this. + +Now from the narrow unpaved yard in front of the house the guide turned +sharply to the right. Yvonne could only distinguish outlines. The +streets of Nantes were familiar to her, and she knew pretty well where +she was. The lanthorn inside the clock tower of Le Bouffay guided +her--it was now on her right--the house wherein she had been kept a +prisoner these past three days was built against the walls of the great +prison house. She knew that she was in the Carrefour de la Poissonnerie. + +She felt neither fatigue nor cold, for she was wildly excited. The keen +north-westerly wind searched all the weak places in her worn clothing +and her thin shoes were wet through. But her courage up to this point +had never once forsaken her. Hope and the feeling of freedom gave her +marvellous strength, and when her guide paused a moment ere he turned +the angle of the high wall and whispered hurriedly: "You have courage, +my lady?" she was able to answer serenely: "In plenty, sir." + +She tried to peer into the darkness in order to realise whither she was +being led. The guide had come to a halt in front of the house which was +next to that of Louise Adet: it projected several feet in front of the +latter: the thing that had creaked so weirdly in the wind turned out to +be a painted sign, which swung out from an iron bracket fixed into the +wall. Yvonne could not read the writing on the sign, but she noticed +that just above it there was a small window dimly lighted from within. + +What sort of a house it was Yvonne could not, of course, see. The +frontage was dark save for narrow streaks of light which peeped through +the interstices of the door and through the chinks of ill-fastened +shutters on either side. Not a sound came from within, but now that the +guide had come to a halt it seemed to Yvonne--whose nerves and senses +had become preternaturally acute--that the whole air around her was +filled with muffled sounds, and when she stood still and strained her +ears to listen she was conscious right through the inky blackness of +vague forms--shapeless and silent--that glided past her in the gloom. + + +II + +"Your friends will meet you here," the guide whispered as he pointed to +the door of the house in front of him. "The door is on the latch. Push +it open and walk in boldly. Then gather up all your courage, for you +will find yourself in the company of poor people, whose manners are +somewhat rougher than those to which you have been accustomed. But +though the people are uncouth, you will find them kind. Above all you +will find that they will pay no heed to you. So I entreat you do not be +afraid. Your friends would have arranged for a more refined place +wherein to come and find you, but as you may well imagine they had no +choice." + +"I quite understand, sir," said Yvonne quietly, "and I am not afraid." + +"Ah! that's brave!" he rejoined. "Then do as I tell you. I give you my +word that inside that house you will be perfectly safe until such time +as your friends are able to get to you. You may have to wait an hour, or +even two; you must have patience. Find a quiet place in one of the +comers of the room and sit there quietly, taking no notice of what goes +on around you. You will be quite safe, and the arrival of your friends +is only a question of time." + +"My friends, sir?" she said earnestly, and her voice shook slightly as +she spoke, "are you not one of the most devoted friends I can ever hope +to have? I cannot find the words now wherewith to thank you, but...." + +"I pray you do not thank me," he broke in gruffly, "and do not waste +time in parleying. The open street is none too safe a place for you just +now. The house is." + +His hand was on the latch and he was about to push open the door, when +Yvonne stopped him with a word. + +"My father?" she whispered with passionate entreaty. "Will you help him +too?" + +"M. le duc de Kernogan is as safe as you are, my lady," he replied. "He +will join you anon. I pray you have no fears for him. Your friends are +caring for him in the same way as they care for you." + +"Then I shall see him ... soon?" + +"Very soon. And in the meanwhile," he added, "I pray you to sit quite +still and to wait events ... despite anything you may see or hear. Your +father's safety and your own--not to speak of that of your +friends--hangs on your quiescence, your silence, your obedience." + +"I will remember, sir," rejoined Yvonne quietly. "I in my turn entreat +you to have no fears for me." + +Even while she said this, the man pushed the door open. + + +III + +Yvonne had meant to be brave. Above all she had meant to be obedient. +But even so, she could not help recoiling at sight of the place where +she had just been told she must wait patiently and silently for an hour, +or even two. + +The room into which her guide now gently urged her forward was large and +low, only dimly lighted by an oil-lamp which hung from the ceiling and +emitted a thin stream of black smoke and evil smell. Such air as there +was, was foul and reeked of the fumes of alcohol and charcoal, of the +smoking lamp and of rancid grease. The walls had no doubt been +whitewashed once, now they were of a dull greyish tint, with here and +there hideous stains of red or the marks of a set of greasy fingers. The +plaster was hanging in strips and lumps from the ceiling; it had fallen +away in patches from the walls where it displayed the skeleton laths +beneath. There were two doors in the wall immediately facing the front +entrance, and on each side of the latter there was a small window, both +insecurely shuttered. To Yvonne the whole place appeared unspeakably +squalid and noisome. Even as she entered her ears caught the sound of +hideous muttered blasphemy, followed by quickly suppressed hoarse and +mirthless laughter and the piteous cry of an infant at the breast. + +There were perhaps sixteen to twenty people in the room--amongst them a +goodly number of women, some of whom had tiny, miserable atoms of +humanity clinging to their ragged skirts. A group of men in tattered +shirts, bare shins and sabots stood in the centre of the room and had +apparently been in conclave when the entrance of Yvonne and her guide +caused them to turn quickly to the door and to scan the new-comers with +a furtive, suspicious look which would have been pathetic had it not +been so full of evil intent. The muttered blasphemy had come from this +group; one or two of the men spat upon the ground in the direction of +the door, where Yvonne instinctively had remained rooted to the spot. + +As for the women, they only betrayed their sex by the ragged clothes +which they wore: there was not a face here which had on it a single line +of softness or of gentleness: they might have been old women or young: +their hair was of a uniform, nondescript colour, lank and unkempt, +hanging in thin strands over their brows; their eyes were sunken, their +cheeks either flaccid or haggard--there was no individuality amongst +them--just one uniform sisterhood of wretchedness which had already +gone hand in hand with crime. + +Across one angle of the room there was a high wooden counter like a bar, +on which stood a number of jugs and bottles, some chunks of bread and +pieces of cheese, and a collection of pewter mugs. An old man and a fat, +coarse-featured, middle-aged woman stood behind it and dispensed various +noxious-looking liquors. Above their heads upon the grimy, tumble-down +wall the Republican device "Liberte! Egalite! Fraternite!" was scrawled +in charcoal in huge characters, and below it was scribbled the hideous +doggrel which an impious mind had fashioned last autumn on the subject +of the martyred Queen. + + +IV + +Yvonne had closed her eyes for a moment as she entered; now she turned +appealingly toward her guide. + +"Must it be in here?" she asked. + +"I am afraid it must," he replied with a sigh. "You told me that you +would be brave." + +She pulled herself together resolutely. "I will be brave," she said +quietly. + +"Ah! that's better," he rejoined. "I give you my word that you will be +absolutely safe in here until such time as your friends can get to you. +I entreat you to gather up your courage. I assure you that these +wretched people are not unkind: misery--not unlike that which you +yourself have endured--has made them what they are. No doubt we should +have arranged for a better place for you wherein to await your friends +if we had the choice. But you will understand that your safety and our +own had to be our paramount consideration, and we had no choice." + +"I quite understand, sir," said Yvonne valiantly, "and am already +ashamed of my fears." + +And without another word of protest she stepped boldly into the room. + +For a moment or two the guide remained standing on the threshold, +watching Yvonne's progress. She had already perceived an empty bench in +the furthest angle of the room, up against the door opposite, where she +hoped or believed that she could remain unmolested while she waited +patiently and in silence as she had been ordered to do. She skirted the +groups of men in the centre of the room as she went, but even so she +felt more than she heard that muttered insults accompanied the furtive +and glowering looks wherewith she was regarded. More than one wretch +spat upon her skirts on the way. + +But now she was in no sense frightened, only wildly excited; even her +feeling of horror she contrived to conquer. The knowledge that her own +attitude, and above all her obedience, would help her gallant rescuers +in their work gave her enduring strength. She felt quite confident that +within an hour or two she would be in the arms of her dear milor who had +risked his life in order to come to her. It was indeed well worth while +to have suffered as she had done, to endure all that she might yet have +to endure, for the sake of the happiness which was in store for her. + +She turned to give a last look at her guide--a look which was intended +to reassure him completely as to her courage and her obedience: but +already he had gone and had closed the door behind him, and quite +against her will the sudden sense of loneliness and helplessness +clutched at her heart with a grip that made it ache. She wished that she +had succeeded in catching sight of the face of so valiant a friend: the +fact that she was safely out of Louise Adet's vengeful clutches was due +to the man who had just disappeared behind that door. It would be thanks +to him presently if she saw her father again. Yvonne felt more convinced +than ever that he was the Scarlet Pimpernel--milor's friend--who kept +his valiant personality a mystery, even to those who owed their lives to +him. She had seen the outline of his broad figure, she had felt the +touch of his hand. Would she recognise these again when she met him in +England in the happy days that were to come? In any case she thought +that she would recognise the voice and the manner of speaking, so unlike +that of any English gentleman she had known. + + +V + +The man who had so mysteriously led Yvonne de Kernogan from the house of +Louise Adet to the Rat Mort, turned away from the door of the tavern as +soon as it had closed on the young girl, and started to go back the way +he came. + +At the angle formed by the high wall of the tavern he paused; a moving +form had detached itself from the surrounding gloom and hailed him with +a cautious whisper. + +"Hist! citizen Martin-Roget, is that you?" + +"Yes." + +"Everything just as we anticipated?" + +"Everything." + +"And the wench safely inside?" + +"Quite safely." + +The other gave a low cackle, which might have been intended for a laugh. + +"The simplest means," he said, "are always the best." + +"She never suspected me. It was all perfectly simple. You are a +magician, citizen Chauvelin," added Martin-Roget grudgingly. "I never +would have thought of such a clever ruse." + +"You see," rejoined Chauvelin drily, "I graduated in the school of a +master of all ruses--a master of daring and a past master in the art of +mimicry. And hope was our great ally--the hope that never forsakes a +prisoner--that of getting free. Your fair Yvonne had boundless faith in +the power of her English friends, therefore she fell into our trap like +a bird." + +"And like a bird she shall struggle in vain after this," said +Martin-Roget slowly. "Oh! that I could hasten the flight of time--the +next few minutes will hang on me like hours. And I wish too it were not +so bitterly cold," he added with a curse; "this north-westerly wind has +got into my bones." + +"On to your nerves, I imagine, citizen," retorted Chauvelin with a +laugh; "for my part I feel as warm and comfortable as on a lovely day in +June." + +"Hark! Who goes there?" broke in the other man abruptly, as a solitary +moving form detached itself from the surrounding inky blackness and the +sound of measured footsteps broke the silence of the night. + +"Quite in order, citizen!" was the prompt reply. + +The shadowy form came a step or two further forward. + +"Is it you, citizen Fleury?" queried Chauvelin. + +"Himself, citizen," replied the other. + +The men had spoken in a whisper. Fleury now placed his hand on +Chauvelin's arm. + +"We had best not stand so close to the tavern," he said, "the night +hawks are already about and we don't want to scare them." + +He led the others up the yard, then into a very narrow passage which lay +between Louise Adet's house and the Rat Mort and was bordered by the +high walls of the houses on either side. + +"This is a blind alley," he whispered. "We have the wall of Le Bouffay +in front of us: the wall of the Rat Mort is on one side and the house of +the citizeness Adet on the other. We can talk here undisturbed." + +Overhead there was a tiny window dimly lighted from within. Chauvelin +pointed up to it. + +"What is that?" he asked. + +"An aperture too small for any human being to pass through," replied +Fleury drily. "It gives on a small landing at the foot of the stairs. I +told Friche to try and manoeuvre so that the wench and her father are +pushed in there out of the way while the worst of the fracas is going +on. That was your suggestion, citizen Chauvelin." + +"It was. I was afraid the two aristos might get spirited away while your +men were tackling the crowd in the tap-room. I wanted them put away in a +safe place." + +"The staircase is safe enough," rejoined Fleury; "it has no egress save +that on the tap-room and only leads to the upper story and the attic. +The house has no back entrance--it is built against the wall of Le +Bouffay." + +"And what about your Marats, citizen commandant?" + +"Oh! I have them all along the street--entirely under cover but closely +on the watch--half a company and all keen after the game. The thousand +francs you promised them has stimulated their zeal most marvellously, +and as soon as Paul Friche in there has whipped up the tempers of the +frequenters of the Rat Mort, we shall be ready to rush the place and I +assure you, citizen Chauvelin, that only a disembodied ghost--if there +be one in the place--will succeed in evading arrest." + +"Is Paul Friche already at his post then?" + +"And at work--or I'm much mistaken," replied Fleury as he suddenly +gripped Chauvelin by the arm. + +For just at this moment the silence of the winter's night was broken by +loud cries which came from the interior of the Rat Mort--voices were +raised to hoarse and raucous cries--men and women all appeared to be +shrieking together, and presently there was a loud crash as of +overturned furniture and broken glass. + +"A few minutes longer, citizen Fleury," said Chauvelin, as the +commandant of the Marats turned on his heel and started to go back to +the Carrefour de la Poissonnerie. + +"Oh yes!" whispered the latter, "we'll wait awhile longer to give the +Englishmen time to arrive on the scene. The coast is clear for them--my +Marats are hidden from sight behind the doorways and shop-fronts of the +houses opposite. In about three minutes from now I'll send them +forward." + +"And good luck to your hunting, citizen," whispered Chauvelin in +response. + +Fleury very quickly disappeared in the darkness and the other two men +followed in his wake. They hugged the wall of the Rat Mort as they went +along and its shadow enveloped them completely: their shoes made no +sound on the unpaved ground. Chauvelin's nostrils quivered as he drew +the keen, cold air into his lungs and faced the north-westerly blast +which at this moment also lashed the face of his enemy. His keen eyes +tried to pierce the gloom, his ears were strained to hear that merry +peal of laughter which in the unforgettable past had been wont to +proclaim the presence of the reckless adventurer. He knew--he felt--as +certainly as he felt the air which he breathed, that the man whom he +hated beyond everything on earth was somewhere close by, wrapped in the +murkiness of the night--thinking, planning, intriguing, pitting his +sharp wits, his indomitable pluck, his impudent dare-devilry against the +sure and patient trap which had been set for him. + +Half a company of Marats in front--the walls of Le Bouffay in the rear! +Chauvelin rubbed his thin hands together! + +"You are not a disembodied ghost, my fine Scarlet Pimpernel," he +murmured, "and this time I really think----" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE FRACAS IN THE TAVERN + + +I + +Yvonne had settled herself in a corner of the tap-room on a bench and +had tried to lose consciousness of her surroundings. + +It was not easy! Glances charged with rancour were levelled at her +dainty appearance--dainty and refined despite the look of starvation and +of weariness on her face and the miserable state of her clothing--and +not a few muttered insults waited on those glances. + +As soon as she was seated Yvonne noticed that the old man and the +coarse, fat woman behind the bar started an animated conversation +together, of which she was very obviously the object, for the two +heads--the lean and the round--were jerked more than once in her +direction. Presently the man--it was George Lemoine, the proprietor of +the Rat Mort--came up to where she was sitting: his lank figure was bent +so that his lean back formed the best part of an arc, and an expression +of mock deference further distorted his ugly face. + +He came up quite close to Yvonne and she found it passing difficult not +to draw away from him, for the leer on his face was appalling: his eyes, +which were set very near to his hooked nose, had a horrible squint, his +lips were thick and moist, and his breath reeked of alcohol. + +"What will the noble lady deign to drink?" he now asked in an oily, +suave voice. + +And Yvonne, remembering the guide's admonitions, contrived to smile +unconcernedly into the hideous face. + +"I would very much like some wine," she said cheerfully, "but I am +afraid that I have no money wherewith to pay you for it." + +The creature with a gesture of abject humility rubbed his greasy hands +together. + +"And may I respectfully ask," he queried blandly, "what are the +intentions of the noble lady in coming to this humble abode, if she hath +no desire to partake of refreshments?" + +"I am expecting friends," replied Yvonne bravely; "they will be here +very soon, and will gladly repay you lavishly for all the kindness which +you may be inclined to show to me the while." + +She was very brave indeed and looked this awful misshapen specimen of a +man quite boldly in the face: she even contrived to smile, though she +was well aware that a number of men and women--perhaps a dozen +altogether--had congregated in front of her in a compact group around +the landlord, that they were nudging one another and pointing +derisively--malevolently--at her. It was impossible, despite all +attempts at valour, to mistake the hostile attitude of these people. +Some of the most obscene words, coined during these last horrible days +of the Revolution, were freely hurled at her, and one woman suddenly +cried out in a shrill treble: + +"Throw her out, citizen Lemoine! We don't want spies in here!" + +"Indeed, indeed," said Yvonne as quietly as she could, "I am no spy. I +am poor and wreched like yourselves! and desperately lonely, save for +the kind friends who will meet me here anon." + +"Aristos like yourself!" growled one of the men. "This is no place for +you or for them." + +"No! No! This is no place for aristos," cried one of the women in a +voice which many excesses and many vices had rendered hoarse and rough. +"Spy or not, we don't want you in here. Do we?" she added as with arms +akimbo she turned to face those of her own sex, who behind the men had +come up in order to see what was going on. + +"Throw her out, Lemoine," reiterated a man who appeared to be an oracle +amongst the others. + +"Please! please let me stop here!" pleaded Yvonne; "if you turn me out I +shall not know what to do: I shall not know where to meet my +friends...." + +"Pretty story about those friends," broke in Lemoine roughly. "How do I +know if you're lying or not?" + +From the opposite angle of the room, the woman behind the bar had been +watching the little scene with eyes that glistened with cupidity. Now +she emerged from behind her stronghold of bottles and mugs and slowly +waddled across the room. She pushed her way unceremoniously past her +customers, elbowing men, women and children vigorously aside with a deft +play of her large, muscular arms. Having reached the forefront of the +little group she came to a standstill immediately in front of Yvonne, +and crossing her mighty arms over her ponderous chest she eyed the +"aristo" with unconcealed malignity. + +"We do know that the slut is lying--that is where you make the mistake, +Lemoine. A slut, that's what she is--and the friend whom she's going to +meet ...? Well!" she added, turning with an ugly leer toward the other +women, "we all know what sort of friend that one is likely to be, eh, +mesdames? Bringing evil fame on this house, that's what the wench is +after ... so as to bring the police about our ears ... I wouldn't trust +her, not another minute. Out with you and at once--do you hear?... this +instant ... Lemoine has parleyed quite long enough with you already!" + +Despite all her resolutions Yvonne was terribly frightened. While the +hideous old hag talked and screamed and waved her coarse, red arms +about, the unfortunate young girl with a great effort of will, kept +repeating to herself: "I am not frightened--I must not be frightened. He +assured me that these people would do me no harm...." But now when the +woman had ceased speaking there was a general murmur of: + +"Throw her out! Spy or aristo we don't want her here!" whilst some of +the men added significantly: "I am sure that she is one of Carrier's +spies and in league with his Marats! We shall have those devils in here +in a moment if we don't look out! Throw her out before she can signal to +the Marats!" + +Ugly faces charged with hatred and virulence were thrust threateningly +forward--one or two of the women were obviously looking forward to +joining in the scramble, when this "stuck-up wench" would presently be +hurled out into the street. + +"Now then, my girl, out you get," concluded the woman Lemoine, as with +an expressive gesture she proceeded to roll her sleeves higher up her +arm. She was about to lay her dirty hands on Yvonne, and the poor girl +was nearly sick with horror, when one of the men--a huge, coarse giant, +whose muscular torso, covered with grease and grime showed almost naked +through a ragged shirt which hung from his shoulders in strips--seized +the woman Lemoine by the arm and dragged her back a step or two away +from Yvonne. + +"Don't be a fool, _petite mere_," he said, accompanying this admonition +with a blasphemous oath. "Slut or no, the wench may as well pay you +something for the privilege of staying here. Look at that cloak she's +wearing--the shoe-leather on her feet. Aren't they worth a bottle of +your sour wine?" + +"What's that to you, Paul Friche?" retorted the woman roughly, as with a +vigorous gesture she freed her arm from the man's grasp. "Is this my +house or yours?" + +"Yours, of course," replied the man with a coarse laugh and a still +coarser jest, "but this won't be the first time that I have saved you +from impulsive folly. Yesterday you were for harbouring a couple of +rogues who were Marats in disguise: if I hadn't given you warning, you +would now have swallowed more water from the Loire than you would care +to hold. But for me two days ago you would have received the goods +pinched by Ferte out of Balaze's shop, and been thrown to the fishes in +consequence for the entertainment of the proconsul and his friends. You +must admit that I've been a good friend to you before now." + +"And if you have, Paul Friche," retorted the hag obstinately, "I paid +you well for your friendship, both yesterday and the day before, didn't +I?" + +"You did," assented Friche imperturbably. "That's why I want to serve +you again to-night." + +"Don't listen to him, _petite mere_," interposed one of two out of the +crowd. "He is a white-livered skunk to talk to you like that." + +"Very well! Very well!" quoth Paul Friche, and he spat vigorously on the +ground in token that henceforth he divested himself from any +responsibility in this matter, "don't listen to me. Lose a benefit of +twenty, perhaps forty francs for the sake of a bit of fun. Very well! +Very well!" he continued as he turned and slouched out of the group to +the further end of the room, where he sat down on a barrel. He drew the +stump of a clay pipe out of the pocket of his breeches, stuffed it into +his mouth, stretched his long legs out before him and sucked away at his +pipe with complacent detachment. "I didn't know," he added with biting +sarcasm by way of a parting shot, "that you and Lemoine had come into a +fortune recently and that forty or fifty francs are nothing to you now." + +"Forty or fifty? Come! come!" protested Lemoine feebly. + + +II + +Yvonne's fate was hanging in the balance. The attitude of the small +crowd was no less threatening than before, but immediate action was +withheld while the Lemoines obviously debated in their minds what was +best to be done. The instinct to "have at" an aristo with all the +accumulated hatred of many generations was warring with the innate +rapacity of the Breton peasant. + +"Forty or fifty?" reiterated Paul Friche emphatically. "Can't you see +that the wench is an aristo escaped out of Le Bouffay or the entrepot?" +he added contemptuously. + +"I know that she is an aristo," said the woman, "that's why I want to +throw her out." + +"And get nothing for your pains," retorted Friche roughly. "If you wait +for her friends we may all of us get as much as twenty francs each to +hold our tongues." + +"Twenty francs each...." The murmur was repeated with many a sigh of +savage gluttony, by every one in the room--and repeated again and +again--especially by the women. + +"You are a fool, Paul Friche ..." commented Lemoine. + +"A fool am I?" retorted the giant. "Then let me tell you, that 'tis you +who are a fool and worse. I happen to know," he added, as he once more +rose and rejoined the group in the centre of the room, "I happen to know +that you and every one here is heading straight for a trap arranged by +the Committee of Public Safety, whose chief emissary came into Nantes +awhile ago and is named Chauvelin. It is a trap which will land you all +in the criminal dock first and on the way to Cayenne or the guillotine +afterwards. This place is surrounded with Marats, and orders have been +issued to them to make a descent on this place, as soon as papa +Lemoine's customers are assembled. There are two members of the accursed +company amongst us at the present moment...." + +He was standing right in the middle of the room, immediately beneath the +hanging lamp. At his words--spoken with such firm confidence, as one who +knows and is therefore empowered to speak--a sudden change came over the +spirit of the whole assembly. Everything was forgotten in the face of +this new danger--two Marats, the sleuth-hounds of the proconsul--here +present, as spies and as informants! Every face became more +haggard--every cheek more livid. There was a quick and furtive scurrying +toward the front door. + +"Two Marats here?" shouted one man, who was bolder than the rest. "Where +are they?" + +Paul Friche, who towered above his friends, stood at this moment quite +close to a small man, dressed like the others in ragged breeches and +shirt, and wearing the broad-brimmed hat usually affected by the Breton +peasantry. + +"Two Marats? Two spies?" screeched a woman. "Where are they?" + +"Here is one," replied Paul Friche with a loud laugh: and with his large +grimy hand he lifted the hat from his neighbour's head and threw it on +the ground; "and there," he added as with long, bony finger he pointed +to the front door, where another man--a square-built youngster with +tow-coloured hair somewhat resembling a shaggy dog--was endeavouring to +effect a surreptitious exit, "there is the other; and he is on the point +of slipping quietly away in order to report to his captain what he has +seen and heard at the Rat Mort. One moment, citizen," he added, and with +a couple of giant strides he too had reached the door; his large rough +hand had come down heavily on the shoulder of the youth with the +tow-coloured hair, and had forced him to veer round and to face the +angry, gesticulating crowd. + +"Two Marats! Two spies!" shouted the men. "Now we'll soon settle their +little business for them!" + +"Marat yourself," cried the small man who had first been denounced by +Friche. "I am no Marat, as a good many of you here know. Maman Lemoine," +he added pleading, "you know me. Am I a Marat?" + +But the Lemoines--man and wife--at the first suggestion of police had +turned a deaf ear to all their customers. Their own safety being in +jeopardy they cared little what happened to anybody else. They had +retired behind their counter and were in close consultation together, no +doubt as to the best means of escape if indeed the man Paul Friche spoke +the truth. + +"I know nothing about him," the woman was saying, "but he certainly was +right last night about those two men who came ferreting in here--and +last week too...." + +"Am I a Marat, maman Lemoine?" shouted the small man as he hammered his +fists upon the counter. "For ten years and more I have been a customer +in this place and...." + +"Am I a Marat?" shouted the youth with the tow-coloured hair addressing +the assembly indiscriminately. "Some of you here know me well enough. +Jean Paul, you know--Ledouble, you too...." + +"Of course! Of course I know you well enough, Jacques Leroux," came with +a loud laugh from one of the crowd. "Who said you were a Marat?" + +"Am I a Marat, maman Lemoine?" reiterated the small man at the counter. + +"Oh! leave me alone with your quarrels," shouted the woman Lemoine in +reply. "Settle them among yourselves." + +"Then if Jacques Leroux is not a Marat," now came in a bibulous voice +from a distant comer of the room, "and this compeer here is known to +maman Lemoine, where are the real Marats who according to this fellow +Friche, whom we none of us know, are spying upon us?" + +"Yes! where are they?" suggested another. "Show 'em to us, Paul Friche, +or whatever your accursed name happens to be." + +"Tell us where you come from yourself," screamed the woman with the +shrill treble, "it seems to me quite possible that you're a Marat +yourself." + +This suggestion was at once taken up. + +"Marat yourself!" shouted the crowd, and the two men who a moment ago +had been accused of being spies in disguise shouted louder than the +rest: "Marat yourself!" + + +III + +After that, pandemonium reigned. + +The words "police" and "Marats" had aroused the terror of all these +night-hawks, who were wont to think themselves immune inside their lair: +and terror is at all times an evil counsellor. In the space of a few +seconds confusion held undisputed sway. Every one screamed, waved arms, +stamped feet, struck out with heavy bare fists at his nearest neighbour. +Every one's hand was against every one else. + +"Spy! Marat! Informer!" were the three words that detached themselves +most clearly from out the babel of vituperations freely hurled from end +to end of the room. + +The children screamed, the women's shrill or hoarse treble mingled with +the cries and imprecations of the men. + +Paul Friche had noted that the turn of the tide was against him, long +before the first naked fist had been brandished in his face. Agile as a +monkey he had pushed his way through to the bar, and placing his two +hands upon it, with a swift leap he had taken up a sitting position in +the very middle of the table amongst the jugs and bottles, which he +promptly seized and used as missiles and weapons, whilst with his +dangling feet encased in heavy sabots he kicked out vigorously and +unceasingly against the shins of his foremost assailants. + +He had the advantage of position and used it cleverly. In his right hand +he held a pewter mug by the handle and used it as a swivel against his +aggressors with great effect. + +"The Loire for you--you blackmailer! liar! traitor!" shouted some of the +women who, bolder than the men, thrust shaking fists at Paul Friche as +closely as that pewter mug would allow. + +"Break his jaw before he can yell for the police," admonished one of the +men from the rear, "before he can save his own skin." + +But those who shouted loudest had only their fists by way of weapon and +Paul Friche had mugs and bottles, and those sabots of his kicked out +with uncomfortable agility. + +"Break my jaw, will you," he shouted every time that a blow from the mug +went home, "a spy am I? Very well then, here's for you, Jacques Leroux; +go and nurse your cracked skull at home. You want a row," he added +hitting at a youth who brandished a heavy fist in his face, "well! you +shall have it and as much of it as you like! as much of it as will bring +the patrols of police comfortably about your ears." + +Bang! went the pewter mug crashing against a man's hard skull! Bang went +Paul Friche's naked fist against the chest of another. He was a hard +hitter and swift. + +The Lemoines from behind their bar shouted louder than the rest, doing +as much as their lungs would allow them in the way of admonishing, +entreating, protesting--cursing every one for a set of fools who were +playing straight into the hands of the police. + +"Now then! Now then, children, stop that bellowing, will you? There are +no spies here. Paul Friche was only having his little joke! We all know +one another, what?" + +"Camels!" added Lemoine more forcibly. "They'll bring the patrols about +our ears for sure." + +Paul Friche was not by any means the only man who was being vigorously +attacked. After the first two or three minutes of this kingdom of +pandemonium, it was difficult to say who was quarrelling with whom. Old +grudges were revived, old feuds taken up there, where they had +previously been interrupted. Accusations of spying were followed by +abuse for some past wrong of black-legging or cheating a confrere. The +temperature of the room became suffocating. All these violent passions +seething within these four walls seemed to become tangible and to mingle +with the atmosphere already surcharged with the fumes of alcohol, of +tobacco and of perspiring humanity. There was many a black-eye already, +many a contusion: more than one knife--surreptitiously drawn--was +already stained with red. + + +IV + +There was also a stampede for the door. One man gave the signal. Seeing +that his mates were wasting precious time by venting their wrath against +Paul Friche and then quarrelling among themselves, he hoped to effect an +escape ere the police came to stop the noise. No one believed in the +place being surrounded. Why should it be? The Marats were far too busy +hunting up rebels and aristos to trouble much about the Rat Mort and its +customers, but it was quite possible that a brawl would bring a patrol +along, and then 'ware the _police correctionnelle_ and the possibility +of deportation or worse. Retreat was undoubtedly safer while there was +time. One man first: then one or two more on his heels, and those among +the women who had children in their arms or clinging to their skirts: +they turned stealthily to the door--almost ashamed of their cowardice, +ashamed lest they were seen abandoning the field of combat. + +It was while confusion reigned unchecked that Yvonne--who was cowering, +frankly terrified at last, in the corner of the room, became aware that +the door close beside her--the door situated immediately opposite the +front entrance--was surreptitiously opened. She turned quickly to +look--for she was like a terror-stricken little animal now--one that +scents and feels and fears danger from every quarter round. The door was +being pushed open very slowly by what was still to Yvonne an unseen +hand. Somehow that opening door fascinated her: for the moment she +forgot the noise and the confusion around her. + +Then suddenly with a great effort of will she checked the scream which +had forced itself up to her throat. + +"Father!" was all that she contrived to say in a hoarse and passionate +murmur. + +Fortunately as he peered cautiously round the room, M. le duc caught +sight of his daughter. She was staring at him--wide-eyed, her lips +bloodless, her cheeks the colour of ashes. He looked but the ghost now +of that proud aristocrat who little more than a week ago was the centre +of a group of courtiers round the person of the heir to the English +throne. Starved, emaciated, livid, he was the shadow of his former self, +and there was a haunted look in his purple-rimmed eyes which spoke with +pathetic eloquence of sleepless nights and of a soul tortured with +remorse. + +Just for the moment no one took any notice of him--every one was +shrieking, every one was quarrelling, and M. le duc, placing a finger to +his lips, stole cautiously round to his daughter. The next instant they +were clinging to one another, these two, who had endured so much +together--he the father who had wrought such an unspeakable wrong, and +she the child who was so lonely, so forlorn and almost happy in finding +some one who belonged to her, some one to whom she could cling. + +"Father, dear! what shall we do?" Yvonne murmured, for she felt the last +shred of her fictitious courage oozing out of her, in face of this awful +lawlessness which literally paralysed her thinking faculties. + +"Sh! dear!" whispered M. le duc in reply. "We must get out of this +loathsome place while this hideous row is going on. I heard it all from +the filthy garret up above, where those devils have kept me these three +days. The door was not locked.... I crept downstairs.... No one is +paying heed to us.... We can creep out. Come." + +But at the suggestion, Yvonne's spirits, which had been stunned by the +events of the past few moments, revived with truly mercurial rapidity. + +"No! no! dear," she urged. "We must stay here.... You don't know.... I +have had a message--from my own dear milor--my husband ... he sent a +friend to take me out of the hideous prison where that awful Pierre Adet +was keeping me--a friend who assured me that my dear milor was watching +over me ... he brought me to this place--and begged me not to be +frightened ... but to wait patiently ... and I must wait, dear ... I +must wait!" + +She spoke rapidly in whispers and in short jerky sentences. M. le duc +listened to her wide-eyed, a deep line of puzzlement between his brows. +Sorrow, remorse, starvation, misery had in a measure numbed his mind. +The thought of help, of hope, of friends could not penetrate into his +brain. + +"A message," he murmured inanely, "a message. No! no! my girl, you must +trust no one.... Pierre Adet.... Pierre Adet is full of evil tricks--he +will trap you ... he means to destroy us both ... he has brought you +here so that you should be murdered by these ferocious devils." + +"Impossible, father dear," she said, still striving to speak bravely. +"We have both of us been all this while in the power of Pierre Adet; he +could have had no object in bringing me here to-night." + +But the father who had been an insentient tool in the schemes of that +miserable intriguer, who had been the means of bringing his only child +to this terrible and deadly pass--the man who had listened to the lying +counsels and proposals of his own most bitter enemy, could only groan +now in terror and in doubt. + +"Who can probe the depths of that abominable villain's plans?" he +murmured vaguely. + +In the meanwhile the little group who had thought prudence the better +part of valour had reached the door. The foremost man amongst them +opened it and peered cautiously out into the darkness. He turned back to +those behind him, put a finger to his lip and beckoned to them to follow +him in silence. + +"Yvonne, let us go!" whispered the duc, who had seized his daughter by +the hand. + +"But father...." + +"Let us go!" he reiterated pitiably. "I shall die if we stay here!" + +"It won't be for long, father dear," she entreated; "if milor should +come with his friend, and find us gone, we should be endangering his +life as well as our own." + +"I don't believe it," he rejoined with the obstinacy of weakness. "I +don't believe in your message ... how could milor or anyone come to your +rescue, my child?... No one knows that you are here, in this hell in +Nantes." + +Yvonne clung to him with the strength of despair. She too was as +terrified as any human creature could be and live, but terror had not +altogether swept away her belief in that mysterious message, in that +tall guide who had led her hither, in that scarlet device--the +five-petalled flower which stood for everything that was most gallant +and most brave. + +She desired with all her might to remain here--despite everything, +despite the awful brawl that was raging round her and which sickened +her, despite the horror of the whole thing--to remain here and to wait. +She put her arms round her father: she dragged him back every time that +he tried to move. But a sort of unnatural strength seemed to have +conquered his former debility. His attempts to get away became more and +more determined and more and more febrile. + +"Come, Yvonne! we must go!" he continued to murmur intermittently and +with ever-growing obstinacy. "No one will notice us.... I heard the +noise from my garret upstairs.... I crept down.... I knew no one would +notice me.... Come--we must go ... now is our time." + +"Father, dear, whither could we go? Once in the streets of Nantes what +would happen to us?" + +"We can find our way to the Loire!" he retorted almost brutally. He +shook himself free from her restraining arms and gripped her firmly by +the hand. He tried to drag her toward the door, whilst she still +struggled to keep him back. He had just caught sight of the group of men +and women at the front door: their leader was standing upon the +threshold and was still peering out into the darkness. + +But the next moment they all came to a halt: what their leader had +perceived through the darkness did not evidently quite satisfy him: he +turned and held a whispered consultation with the others. M. le duc +strove with all his might to join in with that group. He felt that in +its wake would lie the road to freedom. He would have struck Yvonne for +standing in the way of her own safety. + +"Father dear," she contrived finally to say to him, "if you go hence, +you will go alone. Nothing will move me from here, because I know that +milor will come." + +"Curse you for your obstinacy," retorted the duc, "you jeopardise my +life and yours." + +Then suddenly from the angle of the room where wrangling and fighting +were at their fiercest, there came a loud call: + +"Look out, pere Lemoine, your aristos are running away. You are losing +your last chance of those fifty francs." + +It was Paul Friche who had shouted. His position on the table was giving +him a commanding view over the heads of the threatening, shouting, +perspiring crowd, and he had just caught sight of M. le duc dragging his +daughter by force toward the door. + +"The authors of all this pother," he added with an oath, "and they will +get away whilst we have the police about our ears." + +"Name of a name of a dog," swore Lemoine from behind his bar, "that +shall not be. Come along, maman, let us bring those aristos along here. +Quick now." + +It was all done in a second. Lemoine and his wife, with the weight and +authority of the masters of the establishment, contrived to elbow their +way through the crowd. The next moment Yvonne felt herself forcibly +dragged away from her father. + +"This way, my girl, and no screaming," a bibulous voice said in her ear, +"no screaming, or I'll smash some of those front teeth of yours. You +said some rich friends were coming along for you presently. Well then! +come and wait for them out of the crowd!" + +Indeed Yvonne had no desire to struggle or to scream. Salvation she +thought had come to her and to her father in this rough guise. In +another moment mayhap he would have forced her to follow him, to leave +milor in the lurch, to jeopardise for ever every chance of safety. + +"It is all for the best, father dear," she managed to cry out over her +shoulder, for she had just caught sight of him being seized round the +shoulders by Lemoine and heard him protesting loudly: + +"I'll not go! I'll not go! Let me go!" he shouted hoarsely. "My +daughter! Yvonne! Let me go! You devil!" + +But Lemoine had twice the vigour of the duc de Kernogan, nor did he care +one jot about the other's protests. He hated all this row inside his +house, but there had been rows in it before and he was beginning to hope +that nothing serious would come of it. On the other hand, Paul Friche +might be right about these aristos; there might be forty or fifty francs +to be made out of them, and in any case they had one or two things upon +their persons which might be worth a few francs--and who knows? they +might even have something in their pockets worth taking. + +This hope and thought gave Lemoine additional strength, and seeing that +the aristo struggled so desperately, he thought to silence him by +bringing his heavy fist with a crash upon the old man's head. + +"Yvonne! _A moi!_" shouted M. le duc ere he fell back senseless. + +That awful cry, Yvonne heard it as she was being dragged through the +noisome crowd. It mingled in her ear with the other awful sounds--the +oaths and blasphemies which filled the air with their hideousness. It +died away just as a formidable crash against the entrance door suddenly +silenced every cry within. + +"All hands up!" came with a peremptory word of command from the doorway. + +"Mercy on us!" murmured the woman Lemoine, who still had Yvonne by the +hand, "we are undone this time." + +There was a clatter and grounding of arms--a scurrying of bare feet and +sabots upon the floor, the mingled sounds of men trying to fly and being +caught in the act and hurled back: screams of terror from the women, one +or two pitiable calls, a few shrill cries from frightened children, a +few dull thuds as of human bodies falling.... It was all so confused, so +unspeakably horrible. Yvonne was hardly conscious. Near her some one +whispered hurriedly: + +"Put the aristos away somewhere, maman Lemoine ... the whole thing may +only be a scare ... the Marats may only be here about the aristos ... +they will probably leave you alone if you give them up ... perhaps +you'll get a reward.... Put them away till some of this row subsides ... +I'll talk to commandant Fleury if I can." + +Yvonne felt her knees giving way under her. There was nothing more to +hope for now--nothing. She felt herself lifted from the ground--she was +too sick and faint to realise what was happening: through the din which +filled her ears she vainly tried to distinguish her father's voice +again. + + +V + +A moment or two later she found herself squatting somewhere on the +ground. How she got here she did not know--where she was she knew still +less. She was in total darkness. A fusty, close smell of food and wine +gave her a wretched feeling of nausea--her head ached intolerably, her +eyes were hot, her throat dry: there was a constant buzzing in her +ears. + +The terrible sounds of fighting and screaming and cursing, the crash of +broken glass and overturned benches came to her as through a +partition--close by but muffled. + +In the immediate nearness all was silence and darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE ENGLISH ADVENTURERS + + +I + +It was with that muffled din still ringing in her ear and with the +conception of all that was going on, on the other side of the partition, +standing like an awesome spectre of evil before her mind, that Yvonne +woke to the consciousness that her father was dead. + +He lay along the last half-dozen steps of a narrow wooden staircase +which had its base in the narrow, cupboard-like landing on to which the +Lemoines had just thrust them both. Through a small heart-shaped hole +cut in the door of the partition-wall, a shaft of feeble light struck +straight across to the foot of the stairs: it lit up the recumbent +figure of the last of the ducs de Kernogan, killed in a brawl in a house +of evil fame. + +Weakened by starvation, by the hardships of the past few days, his +constitution undermined by privations and mayhap too by gnawing remorse, +he had succumbed to the stunning blow dealt to him by a half drunken +brute. His cry: "Yvonne! _A moi!_" was the last despairing call of a +soul racked with remorse to the daughter whom he had so cruelly wronged. + +When first that feeble shaft of light had revealed to her the presence +of that inert form upon the steps, she had struggled to her feet +and--dazed--had tottered up to it. Even before she had touched the face, +the hands, before she had bent her ear to the half-closed mouth and +failed to catch the slightest breath, she knew the full extent of her +misery. The look in the wide-open eyes did not terrify her, but they +told her the truth, and since then she had cowered beside her dead +father on the bottom step of the narrow stairs, her fingers tightly +closed over that one hand which never would be raised against her. + +An unspeakable sense of horror filled her soul. The thought that he--the +proud father, the haughty aristocrat, should lie like this and in such a +spot, dragged in and thrown down--no doubt by Lemoine--like a parcel of +rubbish and left here to be dragged away again and thrown again like a +dog into some unhallowed ground--that thought was so horrible, so +monstrous, that at first it dominated even sorrow. Then came the +heartrending sense of loneliness. Yvonne Dewhurst had endured so much +these past few days that awhile ago she would have affirmed that nothing +could appal her in the future. But this was indeed the awful and +overwhelming climax to what had already been a surfeit of misery. + +This! she, Yvonne, cowering beside her dead father, with no one to stand +between her and any insult, any outrage which might be put upon her, +with nothing now but a few laths between her and that yelling, +screeching mob outside. + +Oh! the loneliness! the utter, utter loneliness! + +She kissed the inert hand, the pale forehead: with gentle, reverent +fingers she tried to smooth out those lines of horror and of fear which +gave such a pitiful expression to the face. Of all the wrongs which her +father had done her she never thought for a moment. It was he who had +brought her to this terrible pass: he who had betrayed her into the +hands of her deadliest enemy: he who had torn her from the protecting +arms of her dear milor and flung her and himself at the mercy of a set +of inhuman wretches who knew neither compunction nor pity. + +But all this she forgot, as she knelt beside the lifeless form--the last +thing on earth that belonged to her--the last protection to which she +might have clung. + + +II + +Out of the confusion of sounds which came--deadened by the intervening +partition--to her ear, it was impossible to distinguish anything very +clearly. All that Yvonne could do, as soon as she had in a measure +collected her scattered senses, was to try and piece together the events +of the last few minutes--minutes which indeed seemed like days and even +years to her. + +Instinctively she gave to the inert hand which she held an additional +tender touch. At any rate her father was out of it all. He was at rest +and at peace. As for the rest, it was in God's hands. Having only +herself to think of now, she ceased to care what became of her. He was +out of it all: and those wretches after all could not do more than kill +her. A complete numbness of senses and of mind had succeeded the +feverish excitement of the past few hours: whether hope still survived +at this moment in Yvonne Dewhurst's mind it were impossible to say. +Certain it is that it lay dormant--buried beneath the overwhelming +misery of her loneliness. + +She took the fichu from her shoulders and laid it reverently over the +dead man's face: she folded the hands across the breast. She could not +cry: she could only pray, and that quite mechanically. + +The thought of her dear milor, of his clever friend, of the message +which she had received in prison, of the guide who had led her to this +awful place, was relegated--almost as a memory--in the furthermost cell +of her brain. + + +III + +But after awhile outraged nature, still full of vitality and of youth, +re-asserted itself. She felt numb and cold and struggled to her feet. +From somewhere close to her a continuous current of air indicated the +presence of some sort of window. Yvonne, faint with the close and sickly +smell, which even that current failed to disperse, felt her way all +round the walls of the narrow landing. + +The window was in the wall between the partition and the staircase, it +was small and quite low down. It was crossed with heavy iron bars. +Yvonne leaned up against it, grateful for the breath of pure air. + +For awhile yet she remained unconscious of everything save the confused +din which still went on inside the tavern, and at first the sounds which +came through the grated window mingled with those on the other side of +the partition. But gradually as she contrived to fill her lungs with the +cold breath of heaven, it seemed as if a curtain was being slowly drawn +away from her atrophied senses. + +Just below the window two men were speaking. She could hear them quite +distinctly now--and soon one of the voices--clearer than the +other--struck her ear with unmistakable familiarity. + +"I told Paul Friche to come out here and speak to me," Yvonne heard that +same voice say. + +"Then he should be here," replied the other, "and if I am not +mistaken...." + +There was a pause, and then the first voice was raised again. + +"Halt! Is that Paul Friche?" + +"At your service, citizen," came in reply. + +"Well! Is everything working smoothly inside?" + +"Quite smoothly; but your Englishmen are not there." + +"How do you know?" + +"Bah! I know most of the faces that are to be found inside the Rat Mort +at this hour: there are no strangers among them." + +The voice that had sounded so familiar to Yvonne was raised now in loud +and coarse laughter. + +"Name of a dog! I never for a moment thought that there were any +Englishmen about. Citizen Chauvelin was suffering from nightmare." + +"It is early yet," came in response from a gentle bland voice, "you must +have patience, citizen." + +"Patience? Bah!" ejaculated the other roughly. "As I told you before +'tis but little I care about your English spies. 'Tis the Kernogans I am +interested in. What have you done with them, citizen?" + +"I got that blundering fool Lemoine to lock them up on the landing at +the bottom of the stairs." + +"Is that safe?" + +"Absolutely. It has no egress save into the tap-room and up the stairs, +to the rooms above. Your English spies if they came now would have to +fly in and out of those top windows ere they could get to the aristos." + +"Then in Satan's name keep them there awhile," urged the more gentle, +insinuating voice, "until we can make sure of the English spies." + +"Tshaw! What foolery!" interjected the other, who appeared to be in a +towering passion. "Bring them out at once, citizen Friche ... bring +them out ... right into the middle of the rabble in the tap-room.... +Commandant Fleury is directing the perquisition--he is taking down the +names of all that cattle which he is arresting inside the premises--let +the ci-devant duc de Kernogan and his exquisite daughter figure among +the vilest cut-throats of Nantes." + +"Citizen, let me urge on you once more ..." came in earnest persuasive +accents from that gentle voice. + +"Nothing!" broke in the other savagely. "To h----ll with your English +spies. It is the Kernogans that I want." + +Yvonne, half-crazed with horror, had heard the whole of this abominable +conversation wherein she had not failed to recognise the voice of +Martin-Roget or Pierre-Adet, as she now knew him to be. Who the other +two men were she could easily conjecture. The soft bland voice she had +heard twice during these past few days, which had been so full of +misery, of terror and of surprise: once she had heard it on board the +ship which had taken her away from England and once again a few hours +since, inside the narrow room which had been her prison. The third man +who had subsequently arrived on the scene was that coarse and grimy +creature who had seemed to be the moving evil spirit of that awful brawl +in the tavern. + +What the conversation meant to her she could not fail to guess. Pierre +Adet had by what he said made the whole of his abominable intrigue +against her palpably clear. Her father had been right, after all. It was +Pierre Adet who through some clever trickery had lured her to this place +of evil. How it was all done she could not guess. The message ... the +device ... her walk across the street ... the silence ... the mysterious +guide ... which of these had been the trickery?... which had been +concocted by her enemy?... which devised by her dear milor? + +Enough that the whole thing was a trap, a trap all the more hideous as +she, Yvonne, who would have given her heart's blood for her beloved, was +obviously the bait wherewith these friends meant to capture him and his +noble chief. They knew evidently of the presence of the gallant Scarlet +Pimpernel and his band of heroes here in Nantes--they seemed to expect +their appearance at this abominable place to-night. She, Yvonne, was to +be the decoy which was to lure to this hideous lair those noble eagles +who were still out of reach. + +And if that was so--if indeed her beloved and his valiant friends had +followed her hither, then some part of the message of hope must have +come from them or from their chief ... and milor and his friend must +even now be somewhere close by, watching their opportunity to come to +her rescue ... heedless of the awful danger which lay in wait for them +... ignorant mayhap of the abominable trap which had been so cunningly +set for them by these astute and ferocious brutes. + +Yvonne a prisoner in this narrow space, clinging to the bars of what was +perhaps the most cruel prison in which she had yet been confined, +bruised her hands and arms against those bars in a wild desire to get +out. She longed with all her might to utter one long, loud and piercing +cry of warning to her dear milor not to come nigh her now, to fly, to +run while there was yet time; and all the while she knew that if she did +utter such a cry he would hurry hot-haste to her side. One moment she +would have had him near--another she wished him an hundred miles away. + + +IV + +In the tap-room a more ordered medley of sounds had followed on the wild +pandemonium of awhile ago. Brief, peremptory words of command, steady +tramping of feet, loud harsh questions and subdued answers, occasionally +a moan or a few words of protest quickly suppressed, came through the +partition to Yvonne's straining ears. + +"Your name?" + +"Where do you live?" + +"Your occupation?" + +"That's enough. Silence. The next." + +"Your name?" + +"Where do you live?" + +Men, women and even children were being questioned, classified, packed +off, God knew whither. Sometimes a child would cry, a man utter an oath, +a woman shriek: then would come harsh orders delivered in a gruff voice, +more swearing, the grounding of arms and more often than not a dull, +flat sound like a blow struck against human flesh, followed by a volley +of curses, or a cry of pain. + +"Your name?" + +"George Amede Lemoine." + +"Where do you live?" + +"In this house." + +"Your occupation?" + +"I am the proprietor of the tavern, citizen. I am an honest man and a +patriot. The Republic...." + +"That's enough." + +"But I protest." + +"Silence. The next." + +All with dreary, ceaseless monotony: and Yvonne like a trapped bird was +bruising her wings against the bars of her cage. Outside the window +Chauvelin and Martin-Roget were still speaking in whispers: the fowlers +were still watching for their prey. The third man had apparently gone +away. What went on beyond the range of her prison window--out in the +darkness of the night which Yvonne's aching eyes could not pierce--she, +the miserable watcher, the bait set here to catch the noble game, could +not even conjecture. The window was small and her vision was further +obstructed by heavy bars. She could see nothing--hear nothing save those +two men talking in whispers. Now and again she caught a few words: + +"A little while longer, citizen ... you lose nothing by waiting. Your +Kernogans are safe enough. Paul Friche has assured you that the landing +where they are now has no egress save through the tap-room, and to the +floor above. Wait at least until commandant Fleury has got the crowd +together, after which he will send his Marats to search the house. It +won't be too late then to lay hands on your aristos, if in the +meanwhile...." + +"'Tis futile to wait," here interrupted Martin-Roget roughly, "and you +are a fool, citizen, if you think that those Englishmen exist elsewhere +than in your imagination." + +"Hark!" broke in the gentle voice abruptly and with forceful command. + +And as Yvonne too in instinctive response to that peremptory call was +further straining her every sense in order to listen, there came from +somewhere, not very far away, right through the stillness of the night, +a sound which caused her pulses to still their beating and her throat to +choke with the cry which rose from her breast. + +It was only the sound of a quaint and drawly voice saying loudly and in +English: + +"Egad, Tony! ain't you getting demmed sleepy?" + +Just for the space of two or three seconds Yvonne had remained quite +still while this unexpected sound sent its dulcet echo on the wings of +the north-westerly blast. The next--stumbling in the dark--she had run +to the stairs even while she heard Martin-Roget calling loudly and +excitedly to Paul Friche. + +One reverent pause beside her dead father, one mute prayer commending +his soul to the mercy of his Maker, one agonised entreaty to God to +protect her beloved and his friend, and then she ran swiftly up the +winding steps. + +At the top of the stairs, immediately in front of her, a door--slightly +ajar--showed a feeble light through its aperture. Yvonne pushed the door +further open and slipped into the room beyond. She did not pause to look +round but went straight to the window and throwing open the rickety sash +she peeped out. For the moment she felt that she would gladly have +bartered away twenty years of her life to know exactly whence had come +that quaint and drawling voice. She leaned far out of the window trying +to see. It gave on the side of the Rat Mort over against Louise Adet's +house--the space below seemed to her to be swarming with men: there were +hurried and whispered calls--orders were given to stand at close +attention, whilst Martin-Roget had apparently been questioning Paul +Friche, for Yvonne heard the latter declare emphatically: + +"I am certain that it came either from inside the house or from the +roof. And with your permission, citizen, I would like to make assurance +doubly sure." + +Then one of the men must suddenly have caught sight of the vague +silhouette leaning out of the window, for Martin-Roget and Friche +uttered a simultaneous cry, whilst Chauvelin said hurriedly: + +"You are right, citizen, something is going on inside the house." + +"What can we do?" queried Martin-Roget excitedly. + +"Nothing for the moment but wait. The Englishmen are caught sure enough +like rats in their holes." + +"Wait!" ejaculated Martin-Roget with a savage oath, "wait! always wait! +while the quarry slips through one's fingers." + +"It shall not slip through mine," retorted Paul Friche. "I was a +steeple-jack by trade in my day: it won't be the first time that I have +climbed the side of a house by the gutter-pipe. _A moi_ Jean-Pierre," he +added, "and may I be drowned in the Loire if between us two we do not +lay those cursed English spies low." + +"An hundred francs for each of you," called Chauvelin lustily, "if you +succeed." + +Yvonne did not think to close the window again. Vigorous shouting and +laughter from below testified that that hideous creature Friche and his +mate had put their project in immediate execution; she turned and ran +down the stairs--feeling now like an animal at bay; by the time that she +had reached the bottom, she heard a prolonged, hoarse cry of triumph +from below and guessed that Paul Friche and his mate had reached the +window-sill: the next moment there was a crash overhead of broken +window-glass and of furniture kicked from one end of the room to the +other, immediately followed by the sound of heavy footsteps running +helter-skelter down the stairs. + +Yvonne, half-crazed with terror, faint and sick, fell unconscious over +the body of her father. + + +V + +Inside the tap-room commandant Fleury was still at work. + +"Your name?" + +"Where do you live?" + +"Your occupation?" + +The low room was filled to suffocation: the walls lined with Marats, the +doors and windows which were wide open were closely guarded, whilst in +the corner of the room, huddled together like bales of rubbish, was the +human cattle that had been driven together, preparatory to being sent +for a trial to Paris in vindication of Carrier's brutalities against the +city. + +Fleury for form's sake made entries in a notebook--the whole thing was a +mere farce--these wretched people were not likely to get a fair +trial--what did the whole thing matter? Still! the commandant of the +Marats went solemnly through the farce which Carrier had invented with a +view to his own justification. + +Lemoine and his wife had protested and been silenced: men had struggled +and women had fought--some of them like wild cats--in trying to get +away. Now there were only half a dozen or so more to docket. Fleury +swore, for he was tired and hot. + +"This place is like a pest-house," he said. + +Just then came the sound of that lusty cry of triumph from outside, +followed by all the clatter and the breaking of window glass. + +"What's that?" queried Fleury. + +The heavy footsteps running down the stairs caused him to look up from +his work and to call briefly to a sergeant of the Marats who stood +beside his chair: + +"Go and see what that _sacre_ row is about," he commanded. "In there," +he added as he indicated the door of the landing with a jerk of the +head. + +But before the man could reach the door, it was thrown open from within +with a vigorous kick from the point of a sabot, and Paul Friche appeared +under the lintel with the aristo wench thrown over his shoulder like a +sack of potatoes, his thick, muscular arms encircling her knees. His +scarlet bonnet was cocked over one eye, his face was smeared with dirt, +his breeches were torn at the knees, his shirt hung in strips from his +powerful shoulders. Behind him his mate--who had climbed up the +gutter-pipe into the house in his wake--was tottering under the load of +the ci-devant duc de Kernogan's body which he had slung across his back +and was holding on to by the wrists. + +Fleury jumped to his feet--the appearance of these two men, each with +his burden, caused him to frown with anger and to demand peremptorily: +"What is the meaning of this?" + +"The aristos," said Paul Friche curtly; "they were trying to escape." + +He strode into the room, carrying the unconscious form of the girl as if +it were a load of feathers. He was a huge, massive-looking giant: the +girl's shoulders nearly touched the low ceiling as he swung forward +facing the angry commandant. + +"How did you get into the house? and by whose orders?" demanded Fleury +roughly. + +"Climbed in by the window, _pardi_," retorted the man, "and by the +orders of citizen Martin-Roget." + +"A corporal of the Company Marat takes orders only from me; you should +know that, citizen Friche." + +"Nay!" interposed the sergeant quickly, "this man is not a corporal of +the Company Marat, citizen commandant. As for Corporal Friche, why! he +was taken to the infirmary some hours ago with a cracked skull, he...." + +"Not Corporal Friche," exclaimed Fleury with an oath, "then who in the +devil's name is this man?" + +"The Scarlet Pimpernel, at your service, citizen commandant," came +loudly and with a merry laugh from the pseudo Friche. + +And before either Fleury or the sergeant or any of the Marats could even +begin to realise what was happening, he had literally bounded across the +room, and as he did so he knocked against the hanging lamp which fell +with a crash to the floor, scattering oil and broken glass in every +direction and by its fall plunging the place into total darkness. At +once there arose a confusion and medley of terrified screams, of +piercing shrieks from the women and the children, and of loud +imprecations from the men. These mingled with the hasty words of +command, with quick orders from Fleury and the sergeant, with the +grounding of arms and the tramping of many feet, and with the fall of +human bodies that happened to be in the way of the reckless adventurer +and his flight. + +"He is through the door," cried the men who had been there on guard. + +"After him then!" shouted Fleury. "Curse you all for cowards and for +fools." + +The order had no need to be repeated. The confusion, though great, had +only been momentary. Within a second or less, Fleury and his sergeant +had fought their way through to the door, urging the men to follow. + +"After him ... quick!... he is heavily loaded ... he cannot have got far +..." commanded Fleury as soon as he had crossed the threshold. +"Sergeant, keep order within, and on your life see that no one else +escapes." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE PROCONSUL + + +I + +From round the angle of the house Martin-Roget and Chauvelin were +already speeding along at a rapid pace. + +"What does it all mean?" queried the latter hastily. + +"The Englishman--with the wench on his back? have you seen him?" + +"Malediction! what do you mean?" + +"Have you seen him?" reiterated Fleury hoarsely. + +"No." + +"He couldn't have passed you?" + +"Impossible." + +"Then unless some of us here have eyes like cats that limb of Satan will +get away. On to him, my men," he called once more. "Can you see him?" + +The darkness outside was intense. The north-westerly wind was whistling +down the narrow street, drowning the sound of every distant footfall: it +tore mercilessly round the men's heads, snatching the bonnets from off +their heads, dragging at their loose shirts and breeches, adding to the +confusion which already reigned. + +"He went this way ..." shouted one. + +"No! that!" cried another. + +"There he is!" came finally in chorus from several lusty throats. "Just +crossing the bridge." + +"After him," cried Fleury, "an hundred francs to the man who first lays +hands on that devil." + +Then the chase began. The Englishman on ahead was unmistakable with that +burden on his shoulder. He had just reached the foot of the bridge where +a street lanthorn fixed on a tall bracket on the corner stone had +suddenly thrown him into bold relief. He had less than an hundred metres +start of his pursuers and with a wild cry of excitement they started in +his wake. + +He was now in the middle of the bridge--an unmistakable figure of a +giant vaguely silhouetted against the light from the lanthorns on the +further end of the bridge--seeming preternaturally tall and misshapen +with that hump upon his back. + +From right and left, from under the doorways of the houses in the +Carrefour de la Poissonnerie the Marats who had been left on guard in +the street now joined in the chase. Overhead windows were thrown +open--the good burghers of Nantes, awakened from their sleep, forgetful +for the nonce of all their anxieties, their squalor and their miseries, +leaned out to see what this new kind of din might mean. From +everywhere--it almost seemed as if some sprang out of the earth--men, +either of the town-guard or Marats on patrol duty, or merely idlers and +night hawks who happened to be about, yielded to that primeval instinct +of brutality which causes men as well as beasts to join in a pursuit +against a fellow creature. + +Fleury was in the rear of his posse. Martin-Roget and Chauvelin, walking +as rapidly as they could by his side, tried to glean some information +out of the commandant's breathless and scrappy narrative: + +"What happened exactly?" + +"It was the man Paul Friche ... with the aristo wench on his back ... +and another man carrying the ci-devant aristo ... they were the English +spies ... in disguise ... they knocked over the lamp ... and got +away...." + +"Name of a...." + +"No use swearing, citizen Martin-Roget," retorted Fleury as hotly as his +agitated movements would allow. "You and citizen Chauvelin are +responsible for the affair. It was you, citizen Chauvelin, who placed +Paul Friche inside that tavern in observation--you told him what to +do...." + +"Well?" + +"Paul Friche--the real Paul Friche--was taken to the infirmary some +hours ago ... with a cracked skull, dealt him by your Englishman, I've +no doubt...." + +"Impossible," reiterated Chauvelin with a curse. + +"Impossible? why impossible?" + +"The man I spoke to outside Le Bouffay...." + +"Was not Paul Friche." + +"He was on guard in the Place with two other Marats." + +"He was not Paul Friche--the others were not Marats." + +"Then the man who was inside the tavern?..." + +"Was not Paul Friche." + +" ... who climbed the gutter pipe ...?" + +"Malediction!" + +And the chase continued--waxing hotter every minute. The hare had gained +slightly on the hounds--there were more than a hundred hot on the trail +by now--having crossed the bridge he was on the Isle Feydeau, and +without hesitating a moment he plunged at once into the network of +narrow streets which cover the island in the rear of La Petite Hollande +and the Hotel de le Villestreux, where lodged Carrier, the +representative of the people. The hounds after him had lost some ground +by halting--if only for a second or two--first at the head of the +bridge, then at the corners of the various streets, while they peered +into the darkness to see which way had gone that fleet-footed hare. + +"Down this way!" + +"No! That!" + +"There he goes!" + +It always took a few seconds to decide, during which the man on ahead +with his burden on his shoulder had time mayhap to reach the end of a +street and to turn a corner and once again to plunge into darkness and +out of sight. The street lanthorns were few in this squalid corner of +the city, and it was only when perforce the running hare had to cross a +circle of light that the hounds were able to keep hot on the trail. + +"To the bridges for your lives!" now shouted Fleury to the men nearest +to him. "Leave him to wander on the island. He cannot come off it, +unless he jumps into the Loire." + +The Marats--intelligent and ferociously keen on the chase--had already +grasped the importance of this order: with the bridges guarded that +fleet-footed Englishman might run as much as he liked, he was bound to +be run to earth like a fox in his burrow. In a moment they had dispersed +along the quays, some to one bridge-head, some to another--the +Englishman could not double back now, and if he had already crossed to +the Isle Gloriette, which was not joined to the left bank of the river +by any bridge, he would be equally caught like a rat in a trap. + +"Unless he jumps into the Loire," reiterated Fleury triumphantly. + +"The proconsul will have more excitement than he hoped for," he added +with a laugh. "He was looking forward to the capture of the English spy, +and in deadly terror lest he escaped. But now meseems that we shall +run our fox down in sight of the very gates of la Villestreux." + +Martin-Roget's thoughts ran on Yvonne and the duc. + +"You will remember, citizen commandant," he contrived to say to Fleury, +"that the ci-devant Kernogans were found inside the Rat Mort." + +Fleury uttered an exclamation of rough impatience. What did he, what did +anyone care at this moment for a couple of aristos more or less when the +noblest game that had ever fallen to the bag of any Terrorist was so +near being run to earth? But Chauvelin said nothing. He walked on at a +brisk pace, keeping close to commandant Fleury's side, in the immediate +wake of the pursuit. His lips were pressed tightly together and a +hissing breath came through his wide-open nostrils. His pale eyes were +fixed into the darkness and beyond it, where the most bitter enemy of +the cause which he loved was fighting his last battle against Fate. + + +II + +"He cannot get off the island!" Fleury had said awhile ago. Well! there +was of a truth little or nothing now between the hunted hare and +capture. The bridges were well guarded: the island swarming with hounds, +the Marats at their posts and the Loire an impassable barrier all round. + +And Chauvelin, the most tenacious enemy man ever had, Fleury keen on a +reward and Martin-Roget with a private grudge to pay off, all within two +hundred yards behind him. + +True for the moment the Englishman had disappeared. Burden and all, the +gloom appeared to have swallowed him up. But there was nowhere he could +go; mayhap he had taken refuge under a doorway in one of the narrow +streets and hoped perhaps under cover of the darkness to allow his +pursuers to slip past him and then to double back. + +Fleury was laughing in the best of humours. He was gradually collecting +all the Marats together and sending them to the bridge-heads under the +command of their various sergeants. Let the Englishman spend the night +on the islands if he had a mind. There was a full company of Marats here +to account for him as soon as he attempted to come out in the open. + +The idlers and night hawks as well as the municipal town guard continued +to run excitedly up and down the streets--sometimes there would come a +lusty cry from a knot of pursuers who thought they spied the Englishman +through the darkness, at others there would be a call of halt, and +feverish consultation held at a street corner as to the best policy to +adopt. + +The town guard, jealous of the Marats, were pining to lay hands on the +English spy for the sake of the reward. Fleury, coming across their +provost, called him a fool for his pains. + +"My Marats will deal with the English spies, citizen," he said roughly, +"he is no concern of yours." + +The provost demurred: an altercation might have ensued when Chauvelin's +suave voice poured oil on the troubled waters. + +"Why not," he said, "let the town guard continue their search on the +island, citizen commandant? The men may succeed in digging our rat out +of his hole and forcing him out into the open all the sooner. Your +Marats will have him quickly enough after that." + +To this suggestion the provost gave a grudging assent. The reward when +the English spy was caught could be fought for later on. For the nonce +he turned unceremoniously on his heel, and left Fleury cursing him for +a meddlesome busybody. + +"So long as he and his rabble does not interfere with my Marats," +growled the commandant. + +"Will you see your sergeants, citizen?" queried Chauvelin tentatively. +"They will have to keep very much on the alert, and will require +constant prodding to their vigilance. If I can be of any service...." + +"No," retorted Fleury curtly, "you and citizen Martin-Roget had best try +and see the proconsul and tell him what we have done." + +"He'll be half wild with terror when he hears that the English spy is at +large upon the island." + +"You must pacify him as best you can. Tell him I have a score of Marats +at every bridge head and that I am looking personally to every +arrangement. There is no escape for the devil possible save by drowning +himself and the wench in the Loire." + + +III + +Chauvelin and Martin-Roget turned from the quay on to the Petite +Hollande--the great open ground with its converging row of trees which +ends at the very apex of the Isle of Feydeau. Opposite to them at the +further corner of the Place was the Hotel de la Villestreux. One or two +of the windows in the hotel were lighted from within. No doubt the +proconsul was awake, trembling in the remotest angle of his lair, with +the spectre of assassination rampant before him--aroused by the +continued disturbance of the night, by the feverishness of this man-hunt +carried on almost at his gates. + +Even through the darkness it was easy to perceive groups of people +either rushing backwards and forwards on the Place or congregating in +groups under the trees. Excitement was in the air. It could be felt and +heard right through the soughing of the north-westerly wind which caused +the bare branches of the trees to groan and to crackle, and the dead +leaves, which still hung on the twigs, to fly wildly through the night. + +In the centre of the Place, two small lights, gleaming like eyes in the +midst of the gloom, betrayed the presence of the proconsul's coach, +which stood there as always, ready to take him away to a place of +safety--away from this city where he was mortally hated and +dreaded--whenever the spectre of terror became more insistent than +usual, and drove him hence out of his stronghold. The horses were pawing +the frozen ground and champing their bits--the steam from their nostrils +caught the rays of the carriage lamps, which also lit up with a feeble +flicker the vague outline of the coachman on his box and of the +postilion rigid in his saddle. + +The citizens of Nantes were never tired of gaping at the carriage--a +huge C-springed barouche--at the coachman's fine caped coat of +bottle-green cloth and at the horses with their handsome harness set off +with heavy brass bosses: they never tired of bandying words with the +successive coachmen as they mounted their box and gathered up the reins, +or with the postilions who loved to crack their whips and to appear +smart and well-groomed, in the midst of the squalor which reigned in the +terror-stricken city. They were the guardians of the mighty proconsul: +on their skill, quickness and presence of mind might depend his precious +life. + +Even when the shadow of death hangs over an entire community, there will +be some who will stand and gape and crack jokes at an uncommon sight. + +And now when the pall of night hung over the abode of the man-tiger and +his lair, and wrapped in its embrace the hunted and the hunters, there +still was a knot of people standing round the carriage--between it and +the hotel--gazing with lack-lustre eyes on the costly appurtenances +wherewith the representative of a wretched people loved to surround +himself. They could only see the solid mass of the carriage and of the +horses, but they could hear the coachman clicking with his tongue and +the postilion cracking his whip, and these sights broke the absolute +dreary monotony of their lives. + +It was from behind this knot of gaffers that there rose gradually a +tumult as of a man calling out in wrath and lashing himself into a fury. +Chauvelin and Martin-Roget were just then crossing La Petite Hollande +from one bank of the river to the other: they were walking rapidly +towards the hotel, when they heard the tumult which presently culminated +in a hoarse cry and a volley of oaths. + +"My coach! my coach at once.... Lalouet, don't leave me.... Curse you +all for a set of cowardly oafs.... My coach I say...." + +"The proconsul," murmured Chauvelin as he hastened forward, Martin-Roget +following closely on his heels. + +By the time that they had come near enough to the coach to distinguish +vaguely in the gloom what was going on, people came rushing to the same +spot from end to end of the Place. In a moment there was quite a crowd +round the carriage, and the two men had much ado to push their way +through by a vigorous play of their elbows. + +"Citizen Carrier!" cried Chauvelin at the top of his voice, trying to +dominate the hubbub, "one minute ... I have excellent news for you.... +The English spy...." + +"Curse you for a set of blundering fools," came with a husky cry from +out the darkness, "you have let that English devil escape ... I knew it +... I knew it ... the assassin is at large ... the murderer ... my coach +at once ... my coach.... Lalouet--do not leave me." + +Chauvelin had by this time succeeded in pushing his way to the forefront +of the crowd: Martin-Roget, tall and powerful, had effectually made a +way for him. Through the dense gloom he could see the misshapen form of +the proconsul, wildly gesticulating with one arm and with the other +clinging convulsively to young Lalouet who already had his hand on the +handle of the carriage door. + +With a quick, resolute gesture Chauvelin stepped between the door and +the advancing proconsul. + +"Citizen Carrier," he said with calm determination, "on my oath there is +no cause for alarm. Your life is absolutely safe.... I entreat you to +return to your lodgings...." + +To emphasise his words he had stretched out a hand and firmly grasped +the proconsul's coat sleeve. This gesture, however, instead of pacifying +the apparently terror-stricken maniac, seemed to have the effect of +further exasperating his insensate fear. With a loud oath he tore +himself free from Chauvelin's grasp. + +"Ten thousand devils," he cried hoarsely, "who is this fool who dares to +interfere with me? Stand aside man ... stand aside or...." + +And before Chauvelin could utter another word or Martin-Roget come to +his colleague's rescue, there came the sudden sharp report of a pistol; +the horses reared, the crowd was scattered in every direction, Chauvelin +was knocked over by a smart blow on the head whilst a vigorous drag on +his shoulder alone saved him from falling under the wheels of the coach. + +Whilst confusion was at its highest, the carriage door was closed to +with a bang and there was a loud, commanding cry hurled through the +window at the coachman on his box. + +"_En avant_, citizen coachman! Drive for your life! through the Savenay +gate. The English assassins are on our heels." + +The postilion cracked his whip. The horses, maddened by the report, by +the pushing, jostling crowd and the confused cries and screams around, +plunged forward, wild with excitement. Their hoofs clattered on the hard +road. Some of the crowd ran after the coach across the Place, shouting +lustily: "The proconsul! the proconsul!" + +Chauvelin--dazed and bruised--was picked up by Martin-Roget. + +"The cowardly brute!" was all that he said between his teeth, "he shall +rue this outrage as soon as I can give my mind to his affairs. In the +meanwhile...." + +The clatter of the horses' hoofs was already dying away in the distance. +For a few seconds longer the rattle of the coach was still accompanied +by cries of "The proconsul! the proconsul!" Fleury at the bridge head, +seeing and hearing its approach, had only just time to order his Marats +to stand at attention. A salvo should have been fired when the +representative of the people, the high and mighty proconsul, was abroad, +but there was no time for that, and the coach clattered over the bridge +at breakneck speed, whilst Carrier with his head out of the window was +hurling anathemas and insults at Fleury for having allowed the paid +spies of that cursed British Government to threaten the life of a +representative of the people. + +"I go to Savenay," he shouted just at the last, "until that assassin has +been thrown in the Loire. But when I return ... look to yourself +commandant Fleury." + +Then the carriage turned down the Quai de la Fosse and a few minutes +later was swallowed up by the gloom. + + +IV + +Chauvelin, supported by Martin-Roget, was hobbling back across the +Place. The crowd was still standing about, vaguely wondering why it had +got so excited over the departure of the proconsul and the rattle of a +coach and pair across the bridge, when on the island there was still an +assassin at large--an English spy, the capture of whom would be one of +the great events in the chronicles of the city of Nantes. + +"I think," said Martin-Roget, "that we may as well go to bed now, and +leave the rest to commandant Fleury. The Englishman may not be captured +for some hours, and I for one am over-fatigued." + +"Then go to bed an you desire, citizen Martin-Roget," retorted Chauvelin +drily, "I for one will stay here until I see the Englishman in the hands +of commandant Fleury." + +"Hark," interposed Martin-Roget abruptly. "What was that?" + +Chauvelin had paused even before Martin-Roget's restraining hand had +rested on his arm. He stood still in the middle of the Place and his +knees shook under him so that he nearly fell prone to the ground. + +"What is it?" reiterated Martin-Roget with vague puzzlement. "It sounds +like young Lalouet's voice." + +Chauvelin said nothing. He had forgotten his bruises: he no longer +hobbled--he ran across the Place to the front of the hotel whence the +voice had come which was so like that of young Lalouet. + +The youngster--it was undoubtedly he--was standing at the angle of the +hotel: above him a lanthorn threw a dim circle of light on his bare head +with its mass of dark curls, and on a small knot of idlers with two or +three of the town guard amongst them. The first words spoken by him +which Chauvelin distinguished quite clearly were: + +"You are all mad ... or else drunk.... The citizen proconsul is upstairs +in his room.... He has just sent me down to hear what news there is of +the English spies...." + + +V + +No one made reply. It seemed as if some giant and spectral hand had +passed over this mass of people and with its magic touch had stilled +their turbulent passions, silenced their imprecations and cooled their +ardour--and left naught but a vague fear, a subtle sense of awe as when +something unexplainable and supernatural has manifested itself before +the eyes of men. + +From far away the roll of coach wheels rapidly disappearing in the +distance alone broke the silence of the night. + +"Is there no one here who will explain what all this means?" queried +young Lalouet, who alone had remained self-assured and calm, for he +alone knew nothing of what had happened. "Citizen Fleury, are you +there?" + +Then as once again he received no reply, he added peremptorily: + +"Hey! some one there! Are you all louts and oafs that not one of you can +speak?" + +A timid voice from the rear ventured on explanation. + +"The citizen proconsul was here a moment ago.... We all saw him, and you +citizen Lalouet were with him...." + +An imprecation from young Lalouet silenced the timid voice for the +nonce ... and then another resumed the halting narrative. + +"We all could have sworn that we saw you, citizen Lalouet, also the +citizen proconsul.... He got into his coach with you ... you ... that is +... they have driven off...." + +"This is some awful and treacherous hoax," cried the youngster now in a +towering passion; "the citizen proconsul is upstairs in bed, I tell you +... and I have only just come out of the hotel ...! Name of a name of a +dog! am I standing here or am I not?" + +Then suddenly he bethought himself of the many events of the day which +had culminated in this gigantic feat of leger-de-main. + +"Chauvelin!" he exclaimed. "Where in the name of h----ll is citizen +Chauvelin?" + +But Chauvelin for the moment could nowhere be found. Dazed, +half-unconscious, wholly distraught, he had fled from the scene of his +discomfiture as fast as his trembling knees would allow. Carrier +searched the city for him high and low, and for days afterwards the +soldiers of the Compagnie Marat gave aristos and rebels a rest: they +were on the look-out for a small, wizened figure of a man--the man with +the pale, keen eyes who had failed to recognise in the pseudo-Paul +Friche, in the dirty, out-at-elbows _sans-culotte_--the most exquisite +dandy that had ever graced the salons of Bath and of London: they were +searching for the man with the acute and sensitive brain who had failed +to scent in the pseudo-Carrier and the pseudo-Lalouet his old and arch +enemy Sir Percy Blakeney and the charming wife of my lord Anthony +Dewhurst. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +LORD TONY + + +I + +A quarter of an hour later citizen-commandant Fleury was at last ushered +into the presence of the proconsul and received upon his truly innocent +head the full torrent of the despot's wrath. But Martin-Roget had +listened to the counsels of prudence: for obvious reasons he desired to +avoid any personal contact for the moment with Carrier, whom fear of the +English spies had made into a more abject and more craven tyrant than +ever before. At the same time he thought it wisest to try and pacify the +brute by sending him the ten thousand francs--the bribe agreed upon for +his help in the undertaking which had culminated in such a disastrous +failure. + +At the self-same hour whilst Carrier--fuming and swearing--was for the +hundredth time uttering that furious "How?" which for the hundredth time +had remained unanswered, two men were taking leave of one another at the +small postern gate which gives on the cemetery of St. Anne. The taller +and younger one of the two had just dropped a heavy purse into the hand +of the other. The latter stooped and kissed the kindly hand. + +"Milor," he said, "I swear to you most solemnly that M. le duc de +Kernogan will rest in peace in hallowed ground. M. le cure de +Vertou--ah! he is a saint and a brave man, milor--comes over whenever he +can prudently do so and reads the offices for the dead--over those who +have died as Christians, and there is a piece of consecrated ground out +here in the open which those fiends of Terrorists have not discovered +yet." + +"And you will bury M. le duc immediately," admonished the younger man, +"and apprise M. le cure of what has happened." + +"Aye! aye! I'll do that, milor, within the hour. Though M. le duc was +never a very kind master to me in the past, I cannot forget that I +served him and his family for over thirty years as coachman. I drove +Mlle. Yvonne in the first pony-cart she ever possessed. I drove her--ah! +that was a bitter day!--her and M. le duc when they left Kernogan never +to return. I drove Mlle. Yvonne on that memorable night when a crowd of +miserable peasants attacked her coach, and that brute Pierre Adet +started to lead a rabble against the chateau. That was the beginning of +things, milor. God alone knows what has happened to Pierre Adet. His +father Jean was hanged by order of M. le duc. Now M. le duc is destined +to lie in a forgotten grave. I serve this abominable Republic by digging +graves for her victims. I would be happier, I think, if I knew what had +become of Mlle. Yvonne." + +"Mlle. Yvonne is my wife, old friend," said the younger man softly. +"Please God she has years of happiness before her, if I succeed in +making her forget all that she has suffered." + +"Amen to that, milor!" rejoined the man fervently. "Then I pray you tell +the noble lady to rest assured. Jean-Marie--her old coachman whom she +used to trust implicitly in the past--will see that M. le duc de +Kernogan is buried as a gentleman and a Christian should be." + +"You are not running too great a risk by this, I hope, my good +Jean-Marie," quoth Lord Tony gently. + +"No greater risk, milor," replied Jean-Marie earnestly, "than the one +which you ran by carrying my old master's dead body on your shoulders +through the streets of Nantes." + +"Bah! that was simple enough," said the younger man, "the hue and cry is +after higher quarry to-night. Pray God the hounds have not run the noble +game to earth." + +Even as he spoke there came from far away through the darkness the sound +of a fast trotting pair of horses and the rumble of coach-wheels on the +unpaved road. + +"There they are, thank God!" exclaimed Lord Tony, and the tremor in his +voice alone betrayed the torturing anxiety which he had been enduring, +ever since he had seen the last both of his adored young wife and of his +gallant chief in the squalid tap-room of the Rat Mort. + +With the dead body of Yvonne's father on his back he had quietly worked +his way out of the tavern in the wake of his chief. He had his orders, +and for the members of that gallant League of the Scarlet Pimpernel +there was no such word as "disobedience" and no such word as "fail." +Through the darkness and through the tortuous streets of Nantes Lord +Anthony Dewhurst--the young and wealthy exquisite, the hero of an +hundred fetes and galas in Bath, in London--staggered under the weight +of a burden imposed upon him only by his loyalty and a noble sense of +self-prescribed discipline--and that burden the dead body of the man who +had done him an unforgivable wrong. Without a thought of revolt he had +obeyed--and risked his life and worse in the obedience. + +The darkness of the night was his faithful handmaiden, and the +excitement of the chase after the other quarry had fortunately drawn +every possible enemy from his track. He had set his teeth and +accomplished his task, and even the deathly anxiety for the wife whom he +idolised had been crushed, under the iron heel of a grim resolve. Now +his work was done, and from far away he heard the rattle of the coach +wheels which were bringing his beloved nearer and nearer to him. + +Five minutes longer and the coach came to a halt. A cheery voice called +out gaily: + +"Tony! are you there?" + +"Percy!" exclaimed the young man. + +Already he knew that all was well. The gallant leader, the loyal and +loving friend, had taxed every resource of a boundlessly fertile brain +in order to win yet another wreath of immortal laurels for the League +which he commanded, and the very tone of his merry voice proclaimed the +triumph which had crowned his daring scheme. + +The next moment Yvonne lay in the arms of her dear milor. He had stepped +into the carriage, even while Sir Percy climbed nimbly on the box and +took the reins from the bewildered coachman's hands. + +"Citizen proconsul ..." murmured the latter, who of a truth thought that +he was dreaming. + +"Get off the box, you old noodle," quoth the pseudo-proconsul +peremptorily. "Thou and thy friend the postilion will remain here in the +road, and on the morrow you'll explain to whomsoever it may concern that +the English spy made a murderous attack on you both and left you half +dead outside the postern gate of the cemetery of Ste. Anne. Here," he +added as he threw a purse down to the two men--who half-dazed and +overcome by superstitious fear had indeed scrambled down, one from his +box, the other from his horse--"there's a hundred francs for each of +you in there, and mind you drink to the health of the English spy and +the confusion of your brutish proconsul." + +There was no time to lose: the horses--still very fresh--were fretting +to start. + +"Where do we pick up Hastings and Ffoulkes?" asked Sir Percy Blakeney +finally as he turned toward the interior of the barouche, the hood of +which hid its occupants from view. + +"At the comer of the rue de Gigan," came the quick answer. "It is only +two hundred metres from the city gate. They are on the look out for +you." + +"Ffoulkes shall be postilion," rejoined Sir Percy with a laugh, "and +Hastings sit beside me on the box. And you will see how at the city gate +and all along the route soldiers of the guard will salute the equipage +of the all-powerful proconsul of Nantes. By Gad!" he added under his +breath, "I've never had a merrier time in all my life--not even +when...." + +He clicked his tongue and gave the horses their heads--and soon the +coachman and the postilion and Jean-Marie the gravedigger of the +cemetery of Ste. Anne were left gaping out into the night in the +direction where the barouche had so quickly disappeared. + +"Now for Le Croisic and the _Day-Dream_," sighed the daring adventurer +contentedly, "... and for Marguerite!" he added wistfully. + + +II + +Under the hood of the barouche Yvonne, wearied but immeasurably happy, +was doing her best to answer all her dear milor's impassioned questions +and to give him a fairly clear account of that terrible chase and +flight through the streets of the Isle Feydeau. + +"Ah, milor, how can I tell you what I felt when I realised that I was +being carried along in the arms of the valiant Scarlet Pimpernel? A word +from him and I understood. After that I tried to be both resourceful and +brave. When the chase after us was at its hottest we slipped into a +ruined and deserted house. In a room at the back there were several +bundles of what looked like old clothes. 'This is my store-house,' milor +said to me; 'now that we have reached it we can just make long noses at +the whole pack of bloodhounds.' He made me slip into some boy's clothes +which he gave me, and whilst I donned these he disappeared. When he +returned I truly did not recognise him. He looked horrible, and his +voice ...! After a moment or two he laughed, and then I knew him. He +explained to me the role which I was to play, and I did my best to obey +him in everything. But oh! I hardly lived while we once more emerged +into the open street and then turned into the great Place which was +full--oh full!--of people. I felt that at every moment we might be +suspected. Figure to yourself, my dear milor...." + +What Yvonne Dewhurst was about to say next will never be recorded. My +lord Tony had closed her lips with a kiss. + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's note + +Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printer +errors have been changed and are listed below. All other +inconsistencies are as in the original. + +Characters that could not be displayed directly in Latin-1 are +transcribed as follows: + + _ - Italics + +The following changes have been made to the text: + +Page vii. "Bouffaye" changed to "Bouffay". + +Page 27: "down-trodden" changed to "downtrodden". + +Page 46: "waste land" changed to "wasteland". + +Page 54: "interfence" changed to "interference". + +Page 57: "such like" changed to suchlike". + +Page 71: "overfull" changed to "over-full'. + +Page 80: "were hard to enumerate" changed to "was hard to enumerate". + +Page 109: "aqua-marine" changed to "aquamarine". + +Page 147: "taff-rail" changed to "taffrail". + +Page 163: "Nante's" changed to Nantes". + +Page 198: "what reports" changed to "What reports". + +Page 204: "plans wth" changed to "plans with". + +Page 205: "clawlike" changed to claw-like". + +Page 207: "passersby" changed to "passers-by". + +Page 228: "fish crashing" change to "fist crashing". + +Page 238: "anteroom" changed to "ante-room". + +Page 239: "hs pocket" changed to "his pocket". + +Page 240: "our of Carrier's" changed to "out of Carrier's". + +Page 240: "abominal doggrel" changed to "abominable doggrel". + +Page 248: "overbearing" changed to "over-bearing". + +Page 252: "cutthroat" changed to "cut-throat". + +Page 254: "good dead of" changed to "good deal of". + +Page 300: "tried to smoothe" changed to "tried to smooth". + +Page 308: "ricketty" changed to "rickety". + +Page 315: "Hotel de le Villestreux" changed to "Hotel de la +Villestreux". + +Page 318: "nighthawks" changed to "night hawks". + +Page 318: "lustry" changed to "lusty". + +Page 319: "Hotel de le Villestreux" changed to "Hotel de la +Villestreux". + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Lord Tony's Wife, by Baroness Emmuska Orczy + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORD TONY'S WIFE *** + +***** This file should be named 35117.txt or 35117.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/1/1/35117/ + +Produced by Brenda Lewis, Carla Foust, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +book was produced from scanned images of public domain +material from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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