Resting his elbow on the table, and with his hand to his brow, Caron
sat deep in thought, his forefinger and thumb pressed against his closed
eyelids. From beyond the board Mademoiselle watched him anxiously and
waited. At last he looked up.
“I think I have it,” he announced, rising. “You say that the men are
drinking heavily. That should materially assist us.”
She asked him what plan he had conceived, but he urged that time
pressed; she should know presently; meanwhile, she had best return
immediately to her carriage. He went to the door to call Guyot, but she
stayed him.
“No, no, Monsieur,” she exclaimed. “I will not pass through the
common-room again in that fellow's company. They are all in there,
carousing, and--and I dare not.”
As if to confirm her words, now that he held the door open, he caught
some sounds of mirth and the drone of voices from below.
“Come with me, then,” said he, taking up one of the candles. “I will
escort you.”
Together they descended the narrow staircase, La Boulaye going first, to
guide her, since two might not go abreast. At the foot there was a door,
which he opened, and then, at the end of a short passage--in which the
drone of voices sounded very loud and in particular one, cracked voice
that was raised in song--they gained the door of the common-room. As La
Boulaye pushed it open they came upon a scene of Bacchanalian revelry.
On a chair that had been set upon the table they beheld Mother Capoulade
enthroned like a Goddess of Liberty, and wearing a Phrygian cap on her
dishevelled locks. Her yellow cheeks were flushed and her eyes watery,
whilst hers was the crazy voice that sang.
Around the table, in every conceivable attitude of abandonment, sat
Captain Charlot's guard--every man of the ten--and with them the six men
and the corporal of La Boulaye's escort, all more or less in a condition
of drunkenness.
“Le jour de gloire est arrive?” sang the croaking voice of Dame
Capoulade, and there it stopped abruptly upon catching sight of La
Boulaye and his companion in the doorway. Mademoiselle shivered out of
loathing; but La Boulaye felt his pulses quickened with hope, for surely
all this was calculated to assist him in his purpose.
At the abrupt interruption of the landlady's version of the
“Marseillaise” the men swung round, and upon seeing the Deputy they
sought in ludicrous haste to repair the disorder of their appearance.
“So!” thundered Caron. “This is the watch you keep? This is how you are
to be trusted? And you, Guyot,” he continued, pointing his finger at the
man. “Did I not bid you await my orders? Is this how you wait? You see
that I am compelled to reconduct the Citoyenne myself, for I might have
called you in vain all night.”
Guyot came forward sheepishly, and a trifle unsteady in his gait.
“I did not hear you call, Citizen,” he muttered.
“It had been a miracle if you had with this din,” answered La Boulaye.
“Here, take the Citoyenne back to her carriage.”
Obediently Guyot led the Citoyenne across the room and out into the
courtyard, and the men, restrained by La Boulaye's severe presence,
dared scarcely so much as raise their eyes to her as she passed out.
“And now to your posts,” was Caron's stern command. “By my soul, if you
were men of mine I would have you flogged for this. Out with you!” And
he pointed imperiously to the door.
“It is a bitter night, Citizen,” grumbled one of them.
“Do you call yourself soldiers, and does a touch of frost make cowards
of you? Outside, you old wives, at once! I'll see you at your post
before I go to bed.”
And with that he set himself to drive them out, and they went, until
none but his own half-dozen remained. These he bade dispose themselves
about the hearth, in which they very readily obeyed him.
On a side-table stood a huge steaming can which had attracted La
Boulaye's attention from the moment that he had entered the room. He
went to peer into this, and found it full almost to the brim of mulled
red wine.
With his back to those in the room, so as to screen his actions, he
had uncorked the phial as he was approaching the can. Now, as he made
pretence first to peer into it and then to smell its contents, he
surreptitiously emptied the potion into it, wondering vaguely to himself
whether the men would ever wake again if they had drunk it. Slipping
the phial into his sash he turned to Mother Capoulade, who had descended
from the table and stood looking very foolish.
“What is this?” he demanded angrily.
“It was a last cup of wine for the men,” she faltered. “The night is
bitterly cold, Citizen,” she added, by way of excusing herself.
“Bah!” snarled Caron, and for a moment he stood there as if
deliberating. “I am minded to empty it into the kennel,” he announced.
“Citizen!” cried the woman, in alarm. “It is good wine, and I have
spiced it.”
“Well,” he relented, “they may have it. But see that it is the last
to-night.”
And with that he strode across the room, and with a surly “Good-night”
to his men, he mounted the stairs once more.
He waited perhaps ten minutes in the chamber above, then he went to the
casement, and softly opened the window. It was as he expected. With
the exception of the coach standing in the middle of the yard, and just
discernible by the glow of the smouldering fire they had built there
but allowed to burn low, the place was untenanted. Believing him to have
retired for the night, the men were back again in the more congenial
atmosphere of the hostelry, drinking themselves no doubt into a stupor
with that last can of drugged wine. He sat down to quietly mature his
plans, and to think out every detail of what he was about to do. At the
end of a half-hour, silence reigning throughout the house, he rose.
He crept softly into Charlot's chamber and possessed himself of the
Captain's outer garments. These he carried back to the sitting-room, and
extracted from the coat pocket two huge keys tied together with a piece
of string. He never doubted that they were the keys he sought, one
opening the stable door and the other the gates of the porte-cochere.
He replaced the garments, and then to make doubly sure, he waited
yet--in a fever of impatience--another half-hour by his watch.
It wanted a few minutes to midnight when, taking up his cloak and a
lantern he had lighted, he went below once more. In the common-room he
found precisely the scene he had expected. Both Charlot's men and
his own followers lay about the floor in all conceivable manner of
attitudes, their senses locked deep in the drunken stupor that possessed
them. Two or three had remained seated, and had fallen across the table,
when overcome. Of these was Mother Capoulade, whose head lay sideways
on her curled arms, and from whose throat there issued a resonant
and melodious snore. Most of the faces that La Boulaye could see were
horribly livid and bedewed with sweat, and again it came into his mind
to wonder whether he had overdone things, and they would wake no more.
On the other hand, an even greater fear beset him, that the drug might
have been insufficient. By way of testing it, he caught one fellow who
lay across his path a violent kick in the side. The man grunted in his
sleep, and stirred slightly, to relapse almost at once into his helpless
attitude, and to resume his regular breathing, which the blow had
interrupted.
La Boulaye smiled his satisfaction, and without further hesitancy passed
out into the yard. He had yet a good deal to say to Mademoiselle, but he
could not bring himself to speak to her before her mother, particularly
as he realised how much the Marquise might be opposed to him. He opened
the carriage door.
“Mademoiselle,” he called softly, “will you do me the favour to alight
for an instant? I must speak to you.”
“Can you not say what you have to say where you are?” came the
Marquise's voice.
“No, Madame,” answered La Boulaye coldly, “I cannot.”
“Oh, it is 'Madame' and 'Mademoiselle' now, eh? What have you done to
the man, child, to have earned us so much deference.”
“May I remind Mademoiselle,” put in La Boulaye firmly, “that time
presses, and that there is much to be done?”
“I am here, Monsieur” she answered, as without more ado, and heedless of
her mother's fresh remarks, she stepped from the carriage.
La Boulaye proffered his wrist to assist her to alight, then reclosed
the door, and led her slowly towards the stable.
“Where are the soldiers?” she whispered.
“Every soul in the inn is asleep,” he answered. “I have drugged them
all, from the Captain down to the hostess. The only one left is the
ostler, who is sleeping in one of the outhouses here. Him you must take
with you, not only because it is not possible to drug him as well, but
also because the blame of your escape must rest on someone, and it may
as well rest on him as another.”
“But why not on you?” she asked.
“Because I must remain.”
“Ah!” It was no more than a breath of interrogation, and her face was
turned towards him as she awaited an explanation.
“I have given it much thought, Suzanne, and unless someone remains to
cover, as it were, your retreat, I am afraid that your flight might be
vain, and that you would run an overwhelming risk of recapture. You must
remember the resourcefulness of this fellow, Tardivet, and his power in
the country here. If he were to awake to the discovery that I had duped
him, he would be up and after us, and I make little doubt that it would
not be long ere he found the scent and ran us to earth. Tomorrow I shall
discover your flight and the villainy of the ostler, and I shall so
organise the pursuit that you shall not be overtaken.”
There was a moment's pause, during which La Boulaye seemed to expect
some question. But none came, so he proceeded:
“Your original intention was to make for Prussia, where you say that
your father and your brother are awaiting you.”
“Yes, Monsieur. Beyond the Moselle--at Treves.”
“You must alter your plans,” said he shortly. “Your mother, no doubt,
will insist upon repairing thither, and I will see that the road is
left open for her escape. At Soignies you, Suzanne, can hire yourself a
berline, that will take you back to France.”
“Back to France?” she echoed.
“Yes, back to France. That is the unlikeliest road on which to think of
pursuing you, and thus you will baffle Charlot. Let your mother proceed
on her journey to Prussia, but tell her to avoid Charleroi, and to go
round by Liege. Thus only can she hope to escape Tardivet's men that are
patrolling the road from France. As for you, Suzanne, you had best go
North as far as Oudenarde, so as to circumvent the Captain's brigands
on that side. Then make straight for Roubaix, and await me at the 'Hotel
des Cloches.'”
“But, Monsieur, I shudder at the very thought of re-entering France.”
“As Mademoiselle de Bellecour, a proscribed aristocrat, that is every
reason for your fears. But I have given the matter thought and I can
promise you that as the Citoyenne La Boulaye, wife of the Citizen-deputy
Caron La Boulaye, you will be as safe as I should be myself, if you are
questioned, and, in response, you will find nothing but eagerness to
serve you on every hand.”
She spoke now of the difficulties her mother would make, but he
dismissed the matter by reminding her that her mother could not
detain her by force. Again she alluded to her dowry, but that also he
dismissed, bidding her leave it behind. Her family would need the money,
to be realised by the jewels. As for herself, he assured her that as his
wife she would not want, and showed her how idle was her dread of living
in France.
“And now, Mademoiselle,” he said, more briskly, “let us see to this
ostler.”
He opened the door of the outhouse, and uncovering his lantern he raised
it above his head. Its yellow light revealed to them a sleeper on the
straw in a corner. La Boulaye entered and stirred the man with his foot.
The fellow sat up blinking stupidly and dragging odd wisps of straw from
his grey hair.
“What's amiss?” he grunted.
As briefly as might be La Boulaye informed him that he was to receive a
matter of five hundred francs if he would journey into Prussia with the
ci-devant Marquise de Bellecour.
Five hundred francs? It was a vast sum, the tenth of which had never
been his at any one time of his wretched life. For five hundred francs
he would have journeyed into Hades, and La Boulaye found him willing
enough to go to Prussia, and had no need to resort to the more forcible
measures he had come prepared to employ.
Accompanied by the ostler, they now passed to the stables, and when
La Boulaye had unlocked the door and cut the bonds that pinioned the
Marquis's coachman, they got the horses, and together they harnessed
them as quietly as might be.
Then working with infinite precaution, and as little sound as possible,
they brought them out into the yard and set them in the shafts of the
carriage. The rest was easy work, and a quarter of an hour later the
heavy vehicle rumbled through the porte-cochere and started on its way
to Soignies.
La Boulaye dropped the keys into a bucket and went within. In the
common-room nothing had changed, and the men lay about precisely as he
had left them. Reassured, he went above and took a peep at the Captain,
whom he found snoring lustily.
Satisfied that all was well, Caron passed quietly to his own chamber,
and with an elation of soul such as had never been his since boyhood,
he fell asleep amid visions of Suzanne and the new life he was to enter
upon in her sweet company.