I
"Sh!... sh!... It's the Englishman. I'd know his footstep anywhere--"
"God bless him!" murmured petite maman fervently.
Pere Lenegre went to the door; he stepped cautiously and with that
stealthy foot-tread which speaks in eloquent silence of daily, hourly
danger, of anguish and anxiety for lives that are dear.
The door was low and narrow--up on the fifth floor of one of the huge
tenement houses in the Rue Jolivet in the Montmartre quarter of Paris. A
narrow stone passage led to it--pitch-dark at all times, but dirty, and
evil-smelling when the concierge--a free citizen of the new
democracy--took a week's holiday from his work in order to spend whole
afternoons either at the wineshop round the corner, or on the Place du
Carrousel to watch the guillotine getting rid of some twenty aristocrats
an hour for the glorification of the will of the people.
But inside the small apartment everything was scrupulously neat and
clean. Petite maman was such an excellent manager, and Rosette was busy
all the day tidying and cleaning the poor little home, which Pere
Lenegre contrived to keep up for wife and daughter by working fourteen
hours a day in the government saddlery.
When Pere Lenegre opened the narrow door, the entire framework of it was
filled by the broad, magnificent figure of a man in heavy caped coat and
high leather boots, with dainty frills of lace at throat and wrist, and
elegant chapeau-bras held in the hand.
Pere Lenegre at sight of him, put a quick finger to his own quivering
lips.
"Anything wrong, vieux papa?" asked the newcomer lightly.
The other closed the door cautiously before he made reply. But petite
maman could not restrain her anxiety.
"My little Pierre, milor?" she asked as she clasped her wrinkled hands
together, and turned on the stranger her tear-dimmed restless eyes.
"Pierre is safe and well, little mother," he replied cheerily. "We got
him out of Paris early this morning in a coal cart, carefully hidden
among the sacks. When he emerged he was black but safe. I drove the cart
myself as far as Courbevoie, and there handed over your Pierre and those
whom we got out of Paris with him to those of my friends who were going
straight to England. There's nothing more to be afraid of, petite
maman," he added as he took the old woman's wrinkled hands in both his
own; "your son is now under the care of men who would die rather than
see him captured. So make your mind at ease, Pierre will be in England,
safe and well, within a week."
Petite maman couldn't say anything just then because tears were choking
her, but in her turn she clasped those two strong and slender hands--the
hands of the brave Englishman who had just risked his life in order to
save Pierre from the guillotine--and she kissed them as fervently as she
kissed the feet of the Madonna when she knelt before her shrine in
prayer.
Pierre had been a footman in the household of unhappy Marie Antoinette.
His crime had been that he remained loyal to her in words as well as in
thought. A hot-headed but nobly outspoken harangue on behalf of the
unfortunate queen, delivered in a public place, had at once marked him
out to the spies of the Terrorists as suspect of intrigue against the
safety of the Republic. He was denounced to the Committee of Public
Safety, and his arrest and condemnation to the guillotine would have
inevitably followed had not the gallant band of Englishmen, known as the
League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, succeeded in effecting his escape.
What wonder that petite maman could not speak for tears when she clasped
the hands of the noble leader of that splendid little band of heroes?
What wonder that Pere Lenegre, when he heard that his son was safe
murmured a fervent: "God bless you, milor, and your friends!" and that
Rosette surreptitiously raised the fine caped coat to her lips, for
Pierre was her twin-brother, and she loved him very dearly.
But already Sir Percy Blakeney had, with one of his characteristic
cheery words, dissipated the atmosphere of tearful emotion which
oppressed these kindly folk.
"Now, Papa Lenegre," he said lightly, "tell me why you wore such a
solemn air when you let me in just now."
"Because, milor," replied the old man quietly, "that d----d concierge,
Jean Baptiste, is a black-hearted traitor."
Sir Percy laughed, his merry, infectious laugh.
"You mean that while he has been pocketing bribes from me, he has
denounced me to the Committee."
Pere Lenegre nodded: "I only heard it this morning," he said, "from one
or two threatening words the treacherous brute let fall. He knows that
you lodge in the Place des Trois Maries, and that you come here
frequently. I would have given my life to warn you then and there,"
continued the old man with touching earnestness, "but I didn't know
where to find you. All I knew was that you were looking after Pierre."
Even while the man spoke there darted from beneath the Englishman's
heavy lids a quick look like a flash of sudden and brilliant light out
of the lazy depths of his merry blue eyes; it was one of those glances
of pure delight and exultation which light up the eyes of the true
soldier when there is serious fighting to be done.
"La, man," he said gaily, "there was no cause to worry. Pierre is safe,
remember that! As for me," he added with that wonderful insouciance
which caused him to risk his life a hundred times a day with a shrug of
his broad shoulders and a smile upon his lips; "as for me, I'll look
after myself, never fear."
He paused awhile, then added gravely: "So long as you are safe, my good
Lenegre, and petite maman, and Rosette."
Whereupon the old man was silent, petite maman murmured a short prayer,
and Rosette began to cry. The hero of a thousand gallant rescues had
received his answer.
"You, too, are on the black list, Pere Lenegre?" he asked quietly.
The old man nodded.
"How do you know?" queried the Englishman.
"Through Jean Baptiste, milor."
"Still that demmed concierge," muttered Sir Percy.
"He frightened petite maman with it all this morning, saying that he
knew my name was down on the Sectional Committee's list as a 'suspect.'
That's when he let fall a word or two about you, milor. He said it is
known that Pierre has escaped from justice, and that you helped him to
it.
"I am sure that we shall get a domiciliary visit presently," continued
Pere Lenegre, after a slight pause. "The gendarmes have not yet been,
but I fancy that already this morning early I saw one or two of the
Committee's spies hanging about the house, and when I went to the
workshop I was followed all the time."
The Englishman looked grave: "And tell me," he said, "have you got
anything in this place that may prove compromising to any of you?"
"No, milor. But, as Jean Baptiste said, the Sectional Committee know
about Pierre. It is because of my son that I am suspect."
The old man spoke quite quietly, very simply, like a philosopher who has
long ago learned to put behind him the fear of death. Nor did petite
maman cry or lament. Her thoughts were for the brave milor who had saved
her boy; but her fears for her old man left her dry-eyed and dumb with
grief.
There was silence in the little room for one moment while the angel of
sorrow and anguish hovered round these faithful and brave souls, then
the Englishman's cheery voice, so full of spirit and merriment, rang out
once more--he had risen to his full, towering height, and now placed a
kindly hand on the old man's shoulder:
"It seems to me, my good Lenegre," he said, "that you and I haven't many
moments to spare if we mean to cheat those devils by saving your neck.
Now, petite maman," he added, turning to the old woman, "are you going
to be brave?"
"I will do anything, milor," she replied quietly, "to help my old man."
"Well, then," said Sir Percy Blakeney in that optimistic, light-hearted
yet supremely authoritative tone of which he held the secret, "you and
Rosette remain here and wait for the gendarmes. When they come, say
nothing; behave with absolute meekness, and let them search your place
from end to end. If they ask you about your husband say that you believe
him to be at his workshop. Is that clear?"
"Quite clear, milor," replied petite maman.
"And you, Pere Lenegre," continued the Englishman, speaking now with
slow and careful deliberation, "listen very attentively to the
instructions I am going to give you, for on your implicit obedience to
them depends not only your own life but that of these two dear women. Go
at once, now, to the Rue Ste. Anne, round the corner, the second house
on your right, which is numbered thirty-seven. The porte cochere stands
open, go boldly through, past the concierge's box, and up the stairs to
apartment number twelve, second floor. Here is the key of the
apartment," he added, producing one from his coat pocket and handing it
over to the old man. "The rooms are nominally occupied by a certain
Maitre Turandot, maker of violins, and not even the concierge of the
place knows that the hunchbacked and snuffy violin-maker and the
meddlesome Scarlet Pimpernel, whom the Committee of Public Safety would
so love to lay by the heels, are one and the same person. The apartment,
then, is mine; one of the many which I occupy in Paris at different
times," he went on. "Let yourself in quietly with this key, walk
straight across the first room to a wardrobe, which you will see in
front of you. Open it. It is hung full of shabby clothes; put these
aside, and you will notice that the panels at the back do not fit very
closely, as if the wardrobe was old or had been badly put together.
Insert your fingers in the tiny aperture between the two middle panels.
These slide back easily: there is a recess immediately behind them. Get
in there; pull the doors of the wardrobe together first, then slide the
back panels into their place. You will be perfectly safe there, as the
house is not under suspicion at present, and even if the revolutionary
guard, under some meddle-some sergeant or other, chooses to pay it a
surprise visit, your hiding-place will be perfectly secure. Now is all
that quite understood?"
"Absolutely, milor," replied Lenegre, even as he made ready to obey Sir
Percy's orders, "but what about you? You cannot get out of this house,
milor," he urged; "it is watched, I tell you."
"La!" broke in Blakeney, in his light-hearted way, "and do you think I
didn't know that? I had to come and tell you about Pierre, and now I
must give those worthy gendarmes the slip somehow. I have my rooms
downstairs on the ground floor, as you know, and I must make certain
arrangements so that we can all get out of Paris comfortably this
evening. The demmed place is no longer safe either for you, my good
Lenegre, or for petite maman and Rosette. But wherever I may be,
meanwhile, don't worry about me. As soon as the gendarmes have been and
gone, I'll go over to the Rue Ste. Anne and let you know what
arrangements I've been able to make. So do as I tell you now, and in
Heaven's name let me look after myself."
Whereupon, with scant ceremony, he hustled the old man out of the room.
Pere Lenegre had contrived to kiss petite maman and Rosette before he
went. It was touching to see the perfect confidence with which these
simple-hearted folk obeyed the commands of milor. Had he not saved
Pierre in his wonderful, brave, resourceful way? Of a truth he would
know how to save Pere Lenegre also. But, nevertheless, anguish gripped
the women's hearts; anguish doubly keen since the saviour of Pierre was
also in danger now.
When Pere Lenegre's shuffling footsteps had died away along the flagged
corridor, the stranger once more turned to the two women.
"And now, petite maman," he said cheerily, as he kissed the old woman on
both her furrowed cheeks, "keep up a good heart, and say your prayers
with Rosette. Your old man and I will both have need of them."
He did not wait to say good-bye, and anon it was his firm footstep that
echoed down the corridor. He went off singing a song, at the top of his
voice, for the whole house to hear, and for that traitor, Jean Baptiste,
to come rushing out of his room marvelling at the impudence of the man,
and cursing the Committee of Public Safety who were so slow in sending
the soldiers of the Republic to lay this impertinent Englishman by the
heels.