A quarter of an hour later half dozen men of the Republican Guard, with
corporal and sergeant in command, were in the small apartment on the
fifth floor of the tenement house in the Rue Jolivet. They had demanded
an entry in the name of the Republic, had roughly hustled petite maman
and Rosette, questioned them to Lenegre's whereabouts, and not satisfied
with the reply which they received, had turned the tidy little home
topsy-turvy, ransacked every cupboard, dislocated every bed, table or
sofa which might presumably have afforded a hiding place for a man.
Satisfied now that the "suspect" whom they were searching for was not on
the premises, the sergeant stationed four of his men with the corporal
outside the door, and two within, and himself sitting down in the centre
of the room ordered the two women to stand before him and to answer his
questions clearly on pain of being dragged away forthwith to the St.
Lazare house of detention.
Petite maman smoothed out her apron, crossed her arms before her, and
looked the sergeant quite straight in the face. Rosette's eyes were full
of tears, but she showed no signs of fear either, although her
shoulder--where one of the gendarmes had seized it so roughly--was
terribly painful.
"Your husband, citizeness," asked the sergeant peremptorily, "where is
he?"
"I am not sure, citizen," replied petite maman. "At this hour he is
generally at the government works in the Quai des Messageries."
"He is not there now," asserted the sergeant. "We have knowledge that he
did not go back to his work since dinner-time."
Petite maman was silent.
"Answer," ordered the sergeant.
"I cannot tell you more, citizen sergeant," she said firmly. "I do not
know."
"You do yourself no good, woman, by this obstinacy," he continued
roughly. "My belief is that your husband is inside this house, hidden
away somewhere. If necessary I can get orders to have every apartment
searched until he is found: but in that case it will go much harder with
you and with your daughter, and much harder too with your husband than
if he gave us no trouble and followed us quietly."
But with sublime confidence in the man who had saved Pierre and who had
given her explicit orders as to what she should do, petite maman, backed
by Rosette, reiterated quietly:
"I cannot tell you more, citizen sergeant, I do not know."
"And what about the Englishman?" queried the sergeant more roughly, "the
man they call the Scarlet Pimpernel, what do you know of him?"
"Nothing, citizen," replied petite maman, "what should we poor folk know
of an English milor?"
"You know at any rate this much, citizeness, that the English milor
helped your son Pierre to escape from justice."
"If that is so," said petite maman quietly, "it cannot be wrong for a
mother to pray to God to bless her son's preserver."
"It behooves every good citizen," retorted the sergeant firmly, "to
denounce all traitors to the Republic."
"But since I know nothing about the Englishman, citizen sergeant--?"
And petite maman shrugged her thin shoulders as if the matter had ceased
to interest her.
"Think again, citizeness," admonished the sergeant, "it is your
husband's neck as well as your daughter's and your own that you are
risking by so much obstinacy."
He waited a moment or two as if willing to give the old woman time to
speak: then, when he saw that she kept her thin, quivering lips
resolutely glued together he called his corporal to him.
"Go to the citizen Commissary of the Section," he commanded, "and ask
for a general order to search every apartment in No. 24 Rue Jolivet.
Leave two of our men posted on the first and third landings of this
house and leave two outside this door. Be as quick as you can. You can
be back here with the order in half an hour, or perhaps the committee
will send me an extra squad; tell the citizen Commissary that this is a
big house, with many corridors. You can go."
The corporal saluted and went.
Petite maman and Rosette the while were still standing quietly in the
middle of the room, their arms folded underneath their aprons, their
wide-open, anxious eyes fixed into space. Rosette's tears were falling
slowly, one by one down her cheeks, but petite maman was dry-eyed. She
was thinking, and thinking as she had never had occasion to think
before.
She was thinking of the brave and gallant Englishman who had saved
Pierre's life only yesterday. The sergeant, who sat there before her,
had asked for orders from the citizen Commissary to search this big
house from attic to cellar. That is what made petite maman think and
think.
The brave Englishman was in this house at the present moment: the house
would be searched from attic to cellar and he would be found, taken, and
brought to the guillotine.
The man who yesterday had risked his life to save her boy was in
imminent and deadly danger, and she--petite maman--could do nothing to
save him.
Every moment now she thought to hear milor's firm tread resounding on
stairs or corridor, every moment she thought to hear snatches of an
English song, sung by a fresh and powerful voice, never after to-day to
be heard in gaiety again.
The old clock upon the shelf ticked away these seconds and minutes while
petite maman thought and thought, while men set traps to catch a
fellow-being in a deathly snare, and human carnivorous beasts lay
lurking for their prey.