And now at last the shades of evening were drawing in thick and fast.
Within the walls of Fort Gayole the last rays of the setting sun had
long ago ceased to shed their dying radiance, and through the thick
stone embrasures and the dusty panes of glass, the grey light of dusk
soon failed to penetrate.
In the large ground-floor room with its window opened upon the wide
promenade of the southern ramparts, a silence reigned which was
oppressive. The air was heavy with the fumes of the two tallow candles
on the table, which smoked persistently.
Against the walls a row of figures in dark blue uniforms with scarlet
facings, drab breeches and heavy riding boots, silent and immovable,
with fixed bayonets like so many automatons lining the room all round;
at some little distance from the central table and out of the immediate
circle of light, a small group composed of five soldiers in the same
blue and scarlet uniforms. One of these was Sergeant Hebert. In the
centre of this group two persons were sitting: a woman and an old man.
The Abbe Foucquet had been brought down from his prison cell a few
minutes ago, and told to watch what would go on around him, after which
he would be allowed to go to his old church of St. Joseph and ring the
Angelus once more before he and his family left Boulogne forever.
The Angelus would be the signal for the opening of all the prison gates
in the town. Everyone to-night could come and go as they pleased, and
having rung the Angelus, the abbe would be at liberty to join Francois
and Felicite and their old mother, his sister, outside the purlieus of
the town.
The Abbe Foucquet did not quite understand all this, which was very
rapidly and roughly explained to him. It was such a very little while
ago that he had expected to see the innocent children mounting up those
awful steps which lead to the guillotine, whilst he himself was looking
death quite near in the face, that all this talk of amnesty and of
pardon had not quite fully reached his brain.
But he was quite content that it had all been ordained by le bon Dieu,
and very happy at the thought of ringing the dearly-loved Angelus in his
own old church once again. So when he was peremptorily pushed into the
room and found himself close to Marguerite, with four or five soldiers
standing round them, he quietly pulled his old rosary from his pocket
and began murmuring gentle “Paters” and “Aves” under his breath.
Beside him sat Marguerite, rigid as a statue: her cloak thrown over her
shoulders, so that its hood might hide her face. She could not now have
said how that awful day had passed, how she had managed to survive the
terrible, nerve-racking suspense, the agonizing doubt as to what was
going to happen. But above all, what she had found most unendurable was
the torturing thought that in this same grim and frowning building her
husband was there... somewhere... how far or how near she could not
say... but she knew that she was parted from him and perhaps would not
see him again, not even at the hour of death.
That Percy would never write that infamous letter and LIVE, she knew.
That he might write it in order to save her, she feared was possible,
whilst the look of triumph on Chauvelin's face had aroused her most
agonizing terrors.
When she was summarily ordered to go into the next room, she realized
at once that all hope now was more than futile. The walls lined with
troops, the attitude of her enemies, and above all that table with
paper, ink and pens ready as it were for the accomplishment of the
hideous and monstrous deed, all made her very heart numb, as if it were
held within the chill embrace of death.
“If the woman moves, speaks or screams, gag her at once!” said Collot
roughly the moment she sat down, and Sergeant Hebert stood over her,
gag and cloth in hand, whilst two soldiers placed heavy hands on her
shoulders.
But she neither moved nor spoke, not even presently when a loud and
cheerful voice came echoing from a distant corridor, and anon the door
opened and her husband came in, accompanied by Chauvelin.
The ex-ambassador was very obviously in a state of acute nervous
tension; his hands were tightly clasped behind his back, and his
movements were curiously irresponsible and jerky. But Sir Percy Blakeney
looked a picture of calm unconcern: the lace bow at his throat was tied
with scrupulous care, his eyeglass upheld at quite the correct angle,
and his delicate-coloured caped coat was thrown back just sufficiently
to afford a glimpse of the dainty cloth suit and exquisitely embroidered
waistcoat beneath.
He was the perfect presentation of a London dandy, and might have
been entering a royal drawing-room in company with an honoured guest.
Marguerite's eyes were riveted on him as he came well within the circle
of light projected by the candles, but not even with that acute sixth
sense of a passionate and loving woman could she detect the slightest
tremor in the aristocratic hands which held the gold-rimmed eyeglass,
nor the faintest quiver of the firmly moulded lips.
This had occurred just as the bell of the old Beffroi chimed
three-quarters after six. Now it was close on seven, and in the centre
of the room and with his face and figure well lighted up by the candles,
at the table pen in hand sat Sir Percy writing.
At his elbow just behind him stood Chauvelin on the one side and Collot
d'Herbois on the other, both watching with fixed and burning eyes the
writing of that letter.
Sir Percy seemed in no hurry. He wrote slowly and deliberately,
carefully copying the draft of the letter which was propped up in front
of him. The spelling of some of the French words seemed to have
troubled him at first, for when he began he made many facetious
and self-deprecatory remarks anent his own want of education, and
carelessness in youth in acquiring the gentle art of speaking so elegant
a language.
Presently, however, he appeared more at his ease, or perhaps less
inclined to talk, since he only received curt monosyllabic answers to
his pleasant sallies. Five minutes had gone by without any other sound,
save the spasmodic creak of Sir Percy's pen upon the paper, the while
Chauvelin and Collot watched every word he wrote.
But gradually from afar there had arisen in the stillness of evening a
distant, rolling noise like that of surf breaking against the cliffs.
Nearer and louder it grew, and as it increased in volume, so it gained
now in diversity. The monotonous, roll-like, far-off thunder was just as
continuous as before, but now shriller notes broke out from amongst
the more remote sounds, a loud laugh seemed ever and anon to pierce the
distance and to rise above the persistent hubbub, which became the mere
accompaniment to these isolated tones.
The merrymakers of Boulogne, having started from the Place de la
Senechaussee, were making the round of the town by the wide avenue which
tops the ramparts. They were coming past the Fort Gayole, shouting,
singing, brass trumpets in front, big drum ahead, drenched, hot, and
hoarse, but supremely happy.
Sir Percy looked up for a moment as the noise drew nearer, then turned
to Chauvelin and pointing to the letter, he said:
“I have nearly finished!”
The suspense in the smoke-laden atmosphere of this room was becoming
unendurable, and four hearts at least were beating wildly with
overpowering anxiety. Marguerite's eyes were fixed with tender intensity
on the man she so passionately loved. She did not understand his actions
or his motives, but she felt a wild longing in her, to drink in every
line of that loved face, as if with this last, long look she was bidding
an eternal farewell to all hopes of future earthly happiness.
The old priest had ceased to tell his beads. Feeling in his kindly heart
the echo of the appalling tragedy which was being enacted before him, he
had put out a fatherly, tentative hand towards Marguerite, and given her
icy fingers a comforting pressure.
And in the hearts of Chauvelin and his colleague there was satisfied
revenge, eager, exultant triumph and that terrible nerve-tension which
immediately precedes the long-expected climax.
But who can say what went on within the heart of that bold adventurer,
about to be brought to the lowest depths of humiliation which it is in
the power of man to endure? What behind that smooth unruffled brow still
bent laboriously over the page of writing?
The crowd was now on the Place Daumont; some of the foremost in
the ranks were ascending the stone steps which lead to the southern
ramparts. The noise had become incessant: Pierrots and Pierrettes,
Harlequins and Columbines had worked themselves up into a veritable
intoxication of shouts and laughter.
Now as they all swarmed up the steps and caught sight of the open window
almost on a level with the ground, and of the large dimly-lighted room,
they gave forth one terrific and voluminous “Hurrah!” for the paternal
government up in Paris, who had given them cause for all this joy. Then
they recollected how the amnesty, the pardon, the national fete, this
brilliant procession had come about, and somebody in the crowd shouted:
“Allons! les us have a look at that English spy!...”
“Let us see the Scarlet Pimpernel!”
“Yes! yes! let us see what he is like!”
They shouted and stamped and swarmed round the open window, swinging
their lanthorns and demanding in a loud tone of voice that the English
spy be shown to them.
Faces wet with rain and perspiration tried to peep in at the window.
Collot gave brief orders to the soldiers to close the shutters at once
and to push away the crowd, but the crowd would not be pushed. It would
not be gainsaid, and when the soldiers tried to close the window, twenty
angry fists broke the panes of glass.
“I can't finish this writing in your lingo, sir, whilst this demmed row
is going on,” said Sir Percy placidly.
“You have not much more to write, Sir Percy,” urged Chauvelin with
nervous impatience, “I pray you, finish the matter now, and get you gone
from out this city.”
“Send that demmed lot away, then,” rejoined Sir Percy calmly.
“They won't go.... They want to see you...”
Sir Percy paused a moment, pen in hand, as if in deep reflection.
“They want to see me,” he said with a laugh. “Why, demn it all... then,
why not let em?...”
And with a few rapid strokes of the pen, he quickly finished the letter,
adding his signature with a bold flourish, whilst the crowd, pushing,
jostling, shouting and cursing the soldiers, still loudly demanded to
see the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Chauvelin felt as if his heart would veritably burst with the wildness
of its beating.
Then Sir Percy, with one hand lightly pressed on the letter, pushed his
chair away and with his pleasant ringing voice, said once again:
“Well! demn it... let 'em see me!...”
With that he sprang to his feet and up to his full height, and as he did
so he seized the two massive pewter candlesticks, one in each hand, and
with powerful arms well outstretched he held them high above his head.
“The letter...” murmured Chauvelin in a hoarse whisper.
But even as he was quickly reaching out a hand, which shook with the
intensity of his excitement, towards the letter on the table, Blakeney,
with one loud and sudden shout, threw the heavy candlesticks onto
the floor. They rattled down with a terrific crash, the lights were
extinguished, and the whole room was immediately plunged in utter
darkness.
The crowd gave a wild yell of fear: they had only caught sight for
one instant of that gigantic figure--which, with arms outstretched had
seemed supernaturally tall--weirdly illumined by the flickering light of
the tallow candles and the next moment disappearing into utter darkness
before their very gaze. Overcome with sudden superstitious fear,
Pierrots and Pierrettes, drummer and trumpeters turned and fled in every
direction.
Within the room all was wild confusion. The soldiers had heard a cry:
“La fenetre! La fenetre!”
Who gave it no one knew, no one could afterwards recollect: certain it
is that with one accord the majority of the men made a rush for the open
window, driven thither partly by the wild instinct of the chase after
an escaping enemy, and partly by the same superstitious terror which had
caused the crowd to flee. They clambered over the sill and dropped down
on to the ramparts below, then started in wild pursuit.
But when the crash came, Chauvelin had given one frantic shout:
“The letter!!!... Collot!!... A moi.... In his hand.... The letter!...”
There was the sound of a heavy thud, of a terrible scuffle there on the
floor in the darkness and then a yell of victory from Collot d'Herbois.
“I have the letter! A Paris!”
“Victory!” echoed Chauvelin, exultant and panting, “victory!! The
Angelus, friend Hebert! Take the calotin to ring the Angelus!!!”
It was instinct which caused Collot d'Herbois to find the door; he tore
it open, letting in a feeble ray of light from the corridor. He stood in
the doorway one moment, his slouchy, ungainly form distinctly outlined
against the lighter background beyond, a look of exultant and malicious
triumph, of deadly hate and cruelty distinctly imprinted on his face and
with upraised hand wildly flourishing the precious document, the brand
of dishonour for the enemy of France.
“A Paris!” shouted Chauvelin to him excitedly. “Into Robespierre's
hands. ... The letter!...”
Then he fell back panting, exhausted on the nearest chair.
Collot, without looking again behind him, called wildly for the men
who were to escort him to Paris. They were picked troopers, stalwart
veterans from the old municipal guard. They had not broken their ranks
throughout the turmoil, and fell into line in perfect order as they
followed Citizen Collot out of the room.
Less than five minutes later there was the noise of stamping and
champing of bits in the courtyard below, a shout from Collot, and the
sound of a cavalcade galloping at break-neck speed towards the distant
Paris gate.