Chauvelin, without speaking, extended his hand out towards the city as
if to invite Marguerite to gaze upon it.
She was quite unconscious what hour of the night it might be, but it
must have been late, for the little town, encircled by the stony arms
of its forts, seemed asleep. The moon, now slowly sinking in the west,
edged the towers and spires with filmy lines of silver. To the right
Marguerite caught sight of the frowning Beffroi, which even as she gazed
out began tolling its heavy bell. It sounded like the tocsin, dull and
muffled. After ten strokes it was still.
Ten o'clock! At this hour in far-off England, in fashionable London, the
play was just over, crowds of gaily dressed men and women poured out of
the open gates of the theatres calling loudly for attendant or chaise.
Thence to balls or routs, gaily fluttering like so many butterflies,
brilliant and irresponsible....
And in England also, in the beautiful gardens of her Richmond home,
ofttimes at ten o'clock she had wandered alone with Percy, when he was
at home, and the spirit of adventure in him momentarily laid to rest.
Then, when the night was very dark and the air heavy with the scent of
roses and lilies, she lay quiescent in his arms in that little arbour
beside the river. The rhythmic lapping of the waves was the only sound
that stirred the balmy air. He seldom spoke then, for his voice would
shake whenever he uttered a word: but his impenetrable armour of
flippancy was pierced through and he did not speak because his lips were
pressed to hers, and his love had soared beyond the domain of speech.
A shudder of intense mental pain went through her now as she gazed on
the sleeping city, and sweet memories of the past turned to bitterness
in this agonizing present. One by one as the moon gradually disappeared
behind a bank of clouds, the towers of Boulogne were merged in the
gloom. In front of her far, far away, beyond the flat sand dunes, the
sea seemed to be calling to her with a ghostly and melancholy moan.
The window was on the ground floor of the Fort, and gave direct onto the
wide and shady walk which runs along the crest of the city walls; from
where she stood Marguerite was looking straight along the ramparts, some
thirty metres wide at this point, flanked on either side by the granite
balustrade, and adorned with a double row of ancient elms stunted and
twisted into grotesque shapes by the persistent action of the wind.
“These wide ramparts are a peculiarity of this city...” said a voice
close to her ear, “at times of peace they form an agreeable promenade
under the shade of the trees, and a delightful meeting-place for
lovers... or enemies....”
The sound brought her back to the ugly realities of the present: the
rose-scented garden at Richmond, the lazily flowing river, the tender
memories which for that brief moment had confronted her from out a happy
past, suddenly vanished from her ken. Instead of these the brine-laden
sea-air struck her quivering nostrils, the echo of the old Beffroi died
away in her ear, and now from out one of the streets or open places of
the sleeping city there came the sound of a raucous voice, shooting in
monotonous tones a string of words, the meaning of which failed to reach
her brain.
Not many feet below the window, the southern ramparts of the town
stretched away into the darkness. She felt unaccountably cold suddenly
as she looked down upon them and, with aching eyes, tried to pierce the
gloom. She was shivering in spite of the mildness of this early
autumnal night: her overwrought fancy was peopling the lonely walls
with unearthly shapes strolling along, discussing in spectral language a
strange duel which was to take place here between a noted butcher of men
and a mad Englishman overfond of adventure.
The ghouls seemed to pass and repass along in front of her and to be
laughing audibly because that mad Englishman had been offered his life
in exchange for his honour. They laughed and laughed, no doubt because
he refused the bargain--Englishmen were always eccentric, and in these
days of equality and other devices of a free and glorious revolution,
honour was such a very marketable commodity that it seemed ridiculous to
prize it quite so highly. Then they strolled away again and disappeared,
whilst Marguerite distinctly heard the scrunching of the path beneath
their feet. She leant forward to peer still further into the darkness,
for this sound had seemed so absolutely real, but immediately a
detaining hand was place upon her arm and a sarcastic voice murmured at
her elbow:
“The result, fair lady, would only be a broken leg or arm; the height is
not great enough for picturesque suicides, and believe me these ramparts
are only haunted by ghosts.”
She drew back as if a viper had stung her; for the moment she had become
oblivious of Chauvelin's presence. However, she would not take notice
of his taunt, and, after a slight pause, he asked her if she could hear
the town crier over in the public streets.
“Yes,” she replied.
“What he says at this present moment is of vast importance to your
ladyship,” he remarked drily.
“How so?”
“Your ladyship is a precious hostage. We are taking measures to guard
our valuable property securely.”
Marguerite thought of the Abbe Foucquet, who no doubt was still quietly
telling his beads, even if in his heart he had begun to wonder what had
become of her. She thought of Francois, who was the breadwinner, and of
Felicite, who was blind.
“Methinks you and your colleagues have done that already,” she said.
“Not as completely as we would wish. We know the daring of the Scarlet
Pimpernel. We are not even ashamed to admit that we fear his luck, his
impudence and his marvellous ingenuity.... Have I not told you that I
have the greatest possible respect for that mysterious English hero....
An old priest and two young children might be spirited away by that
enigmatical adventurer, even whilst Lady Blakeney herself is made to
vanish from our sight.
“Ah! I see your ladyship is taking my simple words as a confession
of weakness,” he continued, noting the swift sigh of hope which had
involuntarily escaped her lips. “Nay! and it please you, you shall
despise me for it. But a confession of weakness is the first sign of
strength. The Scarlet Pimpernel is still at large, and whilst we guard
our hostage securely, he is bound to fall into our hands.”
“Aye! still at large!” she retorted with impulsive defiance. “Think
you that all your bolts and bars, the ingenuity of yourself and your
colleagues, the collaboration of the devil himself, would succeed in
outwitting the Scarlet Pimpernel, now that his purpose will be to try
and drag ME from out your clutches.”
She felt hopeful and proud. Now that she had the pure air of heaven in
her lungs, that from afar she could smell the sea, and could feel
that perhaps in a straight line of vision from where she stood, the
“Day-Dream” with Sir Percy on board, might be lying out there in the
roads, it seemed impossible that he should fail in freeing her and those
poor people--an old man and two children--whose lives depended on her
own.
But Chauvelin only laughed a dry, sarcastic laugh and said:
“Hm! perhaps not!... It of course will depend on you and your
personality... your feelings in such matters... and whether an English
gentleman likes to save his own skin at the expense of others.”
Marguerite shivered as if from cold.
“Ah! I see,” resumed Chauvelin quietly, “that your ladyship has not
quite grasped the position. That public crier is a long way off: the
words have lingered on the evening breeze and have failed to reach your
brain. Do you suppose that I and my colleagues do not know that all the
ingenuity of which the Scarlet Pimpernel is capable will now be directed
in piloting Lady Blakeney, and incidentally the Abbe Foucquet with his
nephew and niece, safely across the Channel! Four people!... Bah! a
bagatelle, for this mighty conspirator, who but lately snatched twenty
aristocrats from the prisons of Lyons.... Nay! nay! two children and
an old man were not enough to guard our precious hostage, and I was not
thinking of either the Abbe Foucquet or of the two children, when I
said that an English gentleman would not save himself at the expense of
others.”
“Of whom then were you thinking, Monsieur Chauvelin? Whom else have you
set to guard the prize which you value so highly?”
“The whole city of Boulogne,” he replied simply.
“I do not understand.”
“Let me make my point clear. My colleague, Citizen Collot d'Herbois,
rode over from Paris yesterday; like myself he is a member of the
Committee of Public Safety whose duty it is to look after the welfare
of France by punishing all those who conspire against her laws and the
liberties of the people. Chief among these conspirators, whom it is our
duty to punish is, of course, that impudent adventurer who calls himself
the Scarlet Pimpernel. He has given the government of France a great
deal of trouble through his attempts--mostly successful, as I have
already admitted,--at frustrating the just vengeance which an oppressed
country has the right to wreak on those who have proved themselves to be
tyrants and traitors.”
“Is it necessary to recapitulate all this, Monsieur Chauvelin?” she
asked impatiently.
“I think so,” he replied blandly. “You see, my point is this. We feel
that in a measure now the Scarlet Pimpernel is in our power. Within the
next few hours he will land at Boulogne... Boulogne, where he has agreed
to fight a duel with me... Boulogne, where Lady Blakeney happens to
be at this present moment... as you see, Boulogne has a great
responsibility to bear: just now she is to a certain extent the proudest
city in France, since she holds within her gates a hostage for the
appearance on our shores of her country's most bitter enemy. But she
must not fall from that high estate. Her double duty is clear before
her: she must guard Lady Blakeney and capture the Scarlet Pimpernel;
if she fail in the former she must be punished, if she succeed in the
latter she shall be rewarded.”
He paused and leaned out of the window again, whilst she watched him,
breathless and terrified. She was beginning to understand.
“Hark!” he said, looking straight at her. “Do you hear the crier now? He
is proclaiming the punishment and the reward. He is making it clear
to the citizens of Boulogne that on the day when the Scarlet Pimpernel
falls into the hands of the Committee of Public Safety a general amnesty
will be granted to all natives of Boulogne who are under arrest at the
present time, and a free pardon to all those who, born within these
city walls, are to-day under sentence of death.... A noble reward, eh?
well-deserved you'll admit.... Should you wonder then if the whole town
of Boulogne were engaged just now in finding that mysterious hero, and
delivering him into our hands?... How many mothers, sisters, wives,
think you, at the present moment, would fail to lay hands on the English
adventurer, if a husband's or a son's life or freedom happened to be
at stake?... I have some records there,” he continued, pointing in the
direction of the table, “which tell me that there are five and thirty
natives of Boulogne in the local prisons, a dozen more in the prisons
of Paris; of these at least twenty have been tried already and are
condemned to death. Every hour that the Scarlet Pimpernel succeeds in
evading his captors so many deaths lie at his door. If he succeeds in
once more reaching England safely three score lives mayhap will be the
price of his escape.... Nay! but I see your ladyship is shivering with
cold...” he added with a dry little laugh, “shall I close the window? or
do you wish to hear what punishment will be meted out to Boulogne, if on
the day that the Scarlet Pimpernel is captured, Lady Blakeney happens to
have left the shelter of these city walls?”
“I pray you proceed, Monsieur,” she rejoined with perfect calm.
“The Committee of Public Safety,” he resumed, “would look upon this city
as a nest of traitors if on the day that the Scarlet Pimpernel becomes
our prisoner Lady Blakeney herself, the wife of that notorious English
spy, had already quitted Boulogne. The whole town knows by now that you
are in our hands--you, the most precious hostage we can hold for the
ultimate capture of the man whom we all fear and detest. Virtually the
town-crier is at the present moment proclaiming to the inhabitants of
this city: 'We want that man, but we already have his wife, see to it,
citizens, that she does not escape! for if she do, we shall summarily
shoot the breadwinner in every family in the town!'”
A cry of horror escaped Marguerite's parched lips.
“Are you devils then, all of you,” she gasped, “that you should think of
such things?”
“Aye! some of us are devils, no doubt,” said Chauvelin drily; “but why
should you honour us in this case with so flattering an epithet? We are
mere men striving to guard our property and mean no harm to the citizens
of Boulogne. We have threatened them, true! but is it not for you
and that elusive Pimpernel to see that the threat is never put into
execution?”
“You would not do it!” she repeated, horror-stricken.
“Nay! I pray you, fair lady, do not deceive yourself. At present the
proclamation sounds like a mere threat, I'll allow, but let me assure
you that if we fail to capture the Scarlet Pimpernel and if you on
the other hand are spirited out of this fortress by that mysterious
adventurer we shall undoubtedly shoot or guillotine every able-bodied
man and woman in this town.”
He had spoken quietly and emphatically, neither with bombast, nor with
rage, and Marguerite saw in his face nothing but a calm and ferocious
determination, the determination of an entire nation embodied in this
one man, to be revenged at any cost. She would not let him see the depth
of her despair, nor would she let him read in her face the unutterable
hopelessness which filled her soul. It were useless to make an appeal
to him: she knew full well that from him she could obtain neither
gentleness nor mercy.
“I hope at last I have made the situation quite clear to your ladyship?”
he was asking quite pleasantly now. “See how easy is your position: you
have but to remain quiescent in room No. 6, and if any chance of escape
be offered you ere the Scarlet Pimpernel is captured, you need but to
think of all the families of Boulogne, who would be deprived of their
breadwinner--fathers and sons mostly, but there are girls too, who
support their mothers or sisters; the fish curers of Boulogne are mostly
women, and there are the net-makers and the seamstresses, all would
suffer if your ladyship were no longer to be found in No. 6 room of this
ancient fort, whilst all would be included in the amnesty if the Scarlet
Pimpernel fell into our hands...”
He gave a low, satisfied chuckle which made Marguerite think of the evil
spirits in hell exulting over the torments of unhappy lost souls.
“I think, Lady Blakeney,” he added drily and making her an ironical bow,
“that your humble servant hath outwitted the elusive hero at last.”
Quietly he turned on his heel and went back into the room, Marguerite
remaining motionless beside the open window, where the soft, brine-laden
air, the distant murmur of the sea, the occasional cry of a sea-mew, all
seemed to mock her agonizing despair.
The voice of the town-crier came nearer and nearer now: she could hear
the words he spoke quite distinctly: something about “amnesty” and
pardon, the reward for the capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel, the lives
of men, women and children in exchange for his.
Oh! she knew what all that meant! that Percy would not hesitate one
single instant to throw his life into the hands of his enemies, in
exchange for that of others. Others! others! always others! this
sigh that had made her heart ache so often in England, what terrible
significance it bore now!
And how he would suffer in his heart and in his pride, because of her
whom he could not even attempt to save since it would mean the death of
others! of others, always of others!
She wondered if he had already landed in Boulogne! Again she remembered
the vision on the landing stage: his massive figure, the glimpse she had
of the loved form, in the midst of the crowd!
The moment he entered the town he would hear the proclamation read, see
it posted up no doubt on every public building, and realize that she had
been foolish enough to follow him, that she was a prisoner and that he
could do nothing to save her.
What would he do? Marguerite at the thought instinctively pressed her
hands to her heart, the agony of it all had become physically painful.
She hoped that perhaps this pain meant approaching death! oh! how easy
would this simple solution be!
The moon peered out from beneath the bank of clouds which had obscured
her for so long; smiling, she drew her pencilled silver lines along the
edge of towers and pinnacles, the frowning Beffroi and those stony walls
which seemed to Marguerite as if they encircled a gigantic graveyard.
The town-crier had evidently ceased to read the proclamation. One by
one the windows in the public square were lighted up from within. The
citizens of Boulogne wanted to think over the strange events which had
occurred without their knowledge, yet which were apparently to have such
direful or such joyous consequences for them.
A man to be captured! the mysterious English adventurer of whom they
had all heard, but whom nobody had seen. And a woman--his wife--to be
guarded until the man was safely under lock and key.
Marguerite felt as if she could almost hear them talking it over and
vowing that she should not escape, and that the Scarlet Pimpernel should
soon be captured.
A gentle wind stirred the old gnarled trees on the southern ramparts, a
wind that sounded like the sigh of swiftly dying hope.
What could Percy do now? His hands were tied, and he was inevitably
destined to endure the awful agony of seeing the woman he loved die a
terrible death beside him.
Having captured him, they would not keep him long; no necessity for a
trial, for detention, for formalities of any kind. A summary execution
at dawn on the public place, a roll of drums, a public holiday to mark
the joyful event, and a brave man will have ceased to live, a noble
heart have stilled its beatings forever, whilst a whole nation gloried
over the deed.
“Sleep, citizens of Boulogne! all is still!”
The night watchman had replaced the town-crier. All was quiet within
the city walls: the inhabitants could sleep in peace, a beneficent
government was wakeful and guarding their rest.
But many of the windows of the town remained lighted up, and at a little
distance below her, round the corner so that she could not see it, a
small crowd must have collected in front of the gateway which led into
the courtyard of the Gayole Fort. Marguerite could hear a persistent
murmur of voices, mostly angry and threatening, and once there were loud
cries of: “English spies,” and “a la lanterne!”
“The citizens of Boulogne are guarding the treasures of France!”
commented Chauvelin drily, as he laughed again, that cruel, mirthless
laugh of his.
Then she roused herself from her torpor: she did not know how long she
had stood beside the open window, but the fear seized her that that man
must have seen and gloated over the agony of her mind. She straightened
her graceful figure, threw back her proud head defiantly, and quietly
walked up to the table, where Chauvelin seemed once more absorbed in the
perusal of his papers.
“Is this interview over?” she asked quietly, and without the slightest
tremor in her voice. “May I go now?”
“As soon as you wish,” he replied with gentle irony.
He regarded her with obvious delight, for truly she was beautiful: grand
in this attitude of defiant despair. The man, who had spent the last
half-hour in martyrizing her, gloried over the misery which he had
wrought, and which all her strength of will could not entirely banish
from her face.
“Will you believe me, Lady Blakeney?” he added, “that there is no
personal animosity in my heart towards you or your husband? Have I not
told you that I do not wish to compass his death?”
“Yet you propose to send him to the guillotine as soon as you have laid
hands on him.”
“I have explained to you the measures which I have taken in order to
make sure that we DO lay hands on the Scarlet Pimpernel. Once he is in
our power, it will rest with him to walk to the guillotine or to embark
with you on board his yacht.”
“You propose to place an alternative before Sir Percy Blakeney?”
“Certainly.”
“To offer him his life?”
“And that of his charming wife.”
“In exchange for what?”
“His honour.”
“He will refuse, Monsieur.”
“We shall see.”
Then he touched a handbell which stood on the table, and within a few
seconds the door was opened and the soldier who had led Marguerite
hither, re-entered the room.
The interview was at an end. It had served its purpose. Marguerite knew
now that she must not even think of escape for herself, or hope for
safety for the man she loved. Of Chauvelin's talk of a bargain which
would touch Percy's honour she would not even think: and she was too
proud to ask anything further from him.
Chauvelin stood up and made her a deep bow, as she crossed the room and
finally went out of the door. The little company of soldiers closed in
around her and she was once more led along the dark passages, back to
her own prison cell.