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.