THE LAST ADVENTURE
I
The riders put their horses to a walk. It was getting late in the
afternoon, and the sun, crimson and cheerless, was setting in a sea
of slate-coloured mist. A blustering wind from the south-west blew
intermittent rain showers into the faces of the two solitary
wayfarers. They had ridden hard all day--a matter of over thirty
miles from Evreux--and one of them, at any rate, a middle-aged,
stoutish, official-looking personage, showed signs both of fatigue
and of growing ill-temper. The other, younger, more slender, dressed
in colourless grey from head to foot, his mantle slung lightly from
his shoulders, his keen eyes fixed straight before him, appeared
moved by impatience rather than by the wind or the lateness of the
hour.
The rain and the rapidly falling dusk covered the distant hills and
the valley beyond with a mantle of gloom. To right and left of the
road the coppice, still dressed in winter garb, already was wrapped
in the mysteries of the night.
"I shall not be sorry to see the lights of Mantes," said M. Gault,
the commissary of police of Evreux, to his companion. "I am getting
saddle-sore, and this abominable damp has got into my bones."
The other sighed with obvious impatience.
"I would like to push on to Paris to-night," he said. "The moon
will be up directly, and I believe the rain-clouds will clear. In
any case the night will not be very dark, and I know every inch of
the way."
"Another six hours or more in the saddle!" growled the commissaire.
"No, thank you!"
"I thought you were anxious about those escaped prisoners of yours,"
observed the Man in Grey.
"So I am," retorted M. Gault.
"And that you desired Monsieur le Ministre to hear of the escape
through your lips, before rumour hath played havoc with the event,"
continued the other tartly.
"So I do--so I do!" grunted the commissary. "But those damned
Chouans only got away last night from Evreux, where they should never
have been brought. They were apprehended at Caen; the outrage, which
you were able to avert, had been planned and was discovered at Caen;
the knaves should have been tried and hanged at Caen. Instead of
which," continued M. Gault wrathfully, "they were marched to Evreux,
on their way to Paris. At Evreux we had neither the facilities nor
the personnel to guard such a _rusé_ gang adequately--they gave us
the slip----"
"And," interrupted the Man in Grey, in his iciest manner, "the men
who planned to murder the Emperor are now at large, free to concoct a
further outrage, which, this time, may prove successful!"
"Through no fault of mine!" protested the commissary.
"That will be for the Minister to decide," concluded the Man in Grey.
But even this thinly-veiled threat failed to instil new vigour into
M. Gault. Alarmed at the possible effects upon his future career of
what might be deemed official negligence, he had wished to place his
excuses personally before His Majesty's Minister of Police, ere the
latter could hear through outside sources that the desperate gang of
malefactors who had planned the affair of the infernal machine
against the Emperor's life had escaped from Evreux, and that such
astute and reckless criminals as Blue-Heart and White-Beak were again
at large. In spite of M. Gault's anxiety, however, to be the first
to gain the Minister's ear, his whole middle-aged, over-indulged
person protested against any prolongation of what had become
torturing fatigue.
"You are young, Monsieur Fernand," he added dolefully. "You do not
realise---- Malediction! What was that?" he ejaculated, as his
horse gave a sudden jump to one side and nearly unseated him. The
animal had shied at something not at present visible to its rider.
It was still retreating, with ears set back, nostrils quivering, its
body trembling with fright, so that M. Gault had the greatest
difficulty alike to keep his seat and soothe the poor beast.
"I wonder what the brute shied at," he said.
But already the Man in Grey had dismounted. He led his horse across
the road, and then to a spot where, on the farther side of the
intervening ditch, a large, dark mass lay huddled, only vaguely
discernible in the gloom. He peered with anxious eyes into the
darkness; then he called to the commissary.
"I pray you hold my horse, Monsieur Gault," he said peremptorily.
"What is it?" queried the latter as--still with some difficulty--he
brought his horse alongside the other and gathered up the reins which
Fernand had thrown to him.
"That is just what I wish to ascertain," replied the Minister's agent
simply.
He jumped lightly over the ditch and approached the huddled mass.
This proved to be the body of a young man with fair hair and beard,
dressed in rough peasant's clothes. The linen blouse he wore was
smeared round about his shoulders with stains of a dull crimson
colour, whilst the dead leaves beneath him were soiled in the same
way. In a moment, Fernand had passed his slim, experienced hand over
the face of the man, over his body and his feet, which were bare.
These were cold and rigid, but the stains upon the blouse and upon
the bed of dead leaves were yet dank to the touch.
"What is it?" queried the commissary again, more impatiently.
"Murder!" replied the Man in Grey laconically.
"The high roads are not safe," remarked M. Gault sententiously. "And
even in this district, where those _satané_ Chouans do not ply their
nefarious trade, the police seem unable to ensure the safety of
peaceable travellers."
He gave an involuntary shiver and gazed anxiously behind him.
"I pray you, Monsieur Fernand," he said, "do not let us linger here.
This is an affair for the local police, and we must get to Mantes
before dark."
"You need not linger, Monsieur le Commissaire," rejoined the Man in
Grey. "I pray you, tie my horse to the nearest tree and continue
your journey, if you have a mind."
He had risen to his feet and appeared to be examining the ground
closely all round the spot where lay the body of the murdered man.
M. Gault uttered one of his favourite oaths. Indeed, he had no mind
to continue his journey alone, with those murdering footpads lurking
in the woods and the road to Mantes lonely and unsafe.
"What are you looking for now, Monsieur Fernand?" he queried sharply.
"Surely, the police of Mantes can deal with the affair. Are you
looking for traces of the miscreants?"
"No," replied the other, "I am looking for the murdered man's boots."
"The murdered man's boots!" exclaimed the commissary crossly. "Why,
the fellow is just a rough peasant, and no doubt he walked barefoot."
"No doubt," agreed the Man in Grey.
Nevertheless, he continued his search and even plunged into the
thicket, only to emerge therefrom in a minute or two, as the darkness
made it impossible to distinguish anything that might be hidden in
the undergrowth.
"I don't know why you should be so obstinate about those boots!"
growled the commissary.
But to this remark the Man in Grey vouchsafed no reply. He had
resumed his mount and was already in the saddle.
"I am going on to Paris," he said briefly.
Poor M. Gault heaved a doleful sigh.
"To Paris!" he ejaculated pitiably. "But I----"
"You'll stay at Mantes," enjoined the Minister's agent emphatically,
"and there await my orders or those of Monsieur le Ministre. You are
on no account to leave your post," he added sternly, "on pain of
instant dismissal and degradation."
With that he put his horse to a sharp trot, heedless whether the
unfortunate commissary followed him or not.
II
The Man in Grey was sitting, travel-stained and weary, in the
dressing-room of M. le Duc d'Otrante, Minister of Police to His
Impérial Majesty. He had ridden all night, only halting now and
again to give his horse a rest, as he could not get a change of mount
during the whole distance between Mantes--where he had obtained a
fresh horse, and where he left M. Gault comfortably installed in the
best hotel of the place--and Paris, where he arrived an hour after
daybreak, stiff, aching in every limb, scarcely able to tumble out of
the saddle.
But he would not wait even to change his clothes or get a little
rest. Within a quarter of an hour of his arrival in the capital he
was knocking at the monumental gateway of M. le Duc's magnificent
palace. Obviously he was a privileged person as far as access to the
all-powerful Minister was concerned, for no sooner had his name been
mentioned to M. le Duc's confidential valet than he was ushered into
the great man's presence.
The police agent had the power of concise and rapid diction. Within
a very few minutes the Minister was in possession of all the facts
connected with the mysterious murder of the unknown person on the
highway to Mantes.
"The man's clothes were rougher and more shabby than his physical
condition suggested," Fernand remarked in conclusion. "His hands
were not those of a peasant; his feet were quite clean though the
roads were muddy. Clearly, then, his boots had been taken off by the
murderers, presumably in the hope that some valuables might have been
concealed inside them. At once my mind jumped to thoughts of a
written message--sent by you, Monsieur le Ministre, perhaps. At any
rate, I left old Gault at Mantes and rode another sixty kilomètres to
ascertain as quickly as possible what my conjectures were worth."
"Describe the man to me," said the Minister.
"Age under thirty," replied Fernand; "short, square beard, fair hair
slightly curled----"
"Hector Duroy," broke in the Minister.
"Then he was your messenger?"
"Yes! He started for Evreux early yesterday morning. I wished him
to meet you there."
"To tell me what, Monsieur le Ministre?"
"That the Emperor left Versailles incognito yesterday in response to
the usual request from the ex-Empress. You know how he literally
flies to do her behests."
"Alas!" said the Man in Grey with something of a sigh. "But I don't
understand," he added inquiringly, "if the Emperor has gone to
Malmaison----"
"Not to Malmaison this time," interposed M. le Duc. "The ex-Empress
is at Chartres, staying at the Hôtel National, and she desired the
Emperor to go to her there. This time she seems to have pleaded
family imbroglios. She is always ready with a pretext whenever she
desires to see him; and with him, as you know, her slightest whim is
law. Enough that he set out for Chartres this morning, in the
strictest incognito, accompanied only by one of his valets--Gerbier,
I think. Fortunately he apprised me yesterday of his project. I
begged him to let me send an escort to guard him, but--well! you know
what he is. The future Empress is already on her way to France; the
Emperor, naturally, guards very jealously the secret of his continued
visits to Josephine. Curtly enough he forbade me to interfere. But,
knowing you to be at Evreux, I sent a courier to you, telling you
what had occurred and suggesting that perhaps you could send a posse
across to Chartres to keep watch quietly and discreetly while the
Emperor was there. He will be there to-night, of course," concluded
the Minister with a weary sigh, "and no doubt he will return
to-morrow. But these incognito visits of his are always a terror to
me, and this time----"
"This time," concluded Fernand as the Minister paused, hardly daring
to put into words all the anxiety which he felt, "the courier whom
you dispatched to me was waylaid and murdered, and your message,
which, I imagine, gave some details of the Emperor's movements, is in
the hands of a band of Chouans."
"Chouans?" exclaimed the Minister. "What makes you think----"
"Some of the rascals whom we arrested at Caen in connection with the
affair of the infernal machine, and who were being conveyed to Paris
in accordance with your instructions, escaped from Evreux prison the
night before last. The commissary of police and I were on our way to
report the matter to you when we came across the body of the murdered
man in the woods outside Mantes."
"Malediction!" ejaculated the Duc d'Otrante; and though during his
arduous service he had been faced with many and varied dangers which
threatened at different times the life of his Impérial master, his
cheeks became almost livid now, when the vista of horrible
possibilities was thus suddenly conjured up before his mind. Then he
continued more calmly: "Which of the villains have escaped, did you
say?"
"The Marquis de Trévargan, for one," replied the Man in Grey.
"And the Marquise?"
"No. We had not arrested her yet. She was not directly named in the
affair, and we can always lay our hands on her, if occasion demands."
"Anyone else?"
"Those two villains they call Blue-Heart and White-Beak, the most
daring and infamous scoundrels in the whole crowd."
"One of them was paid by Mademoiselle de Plélan to murder you,"
remarked the Minister drily.
To this, however, the Man in Grey made no reply; only his
cheeks--always colourless--became a shade more ashen in hue. M. le
Duc d'Otrante, who knew something and guessed a great deal of this
single romantic episode in the life of his faithful agent, smiled
somewhat maliciously.
"The last we heard of the Plélans, mother and daughter," he said,
"was that Madame had joined some relatives in the south, but that the
beautiful Constance had remained at Evreux. She is a niece,
remember, of Monsieur de Trévargan, and France does not hold another
conspirator quite so astute and so daring as either of these two. De
Trévargan is a model of caution and Constance de Plélan is
recklessness personified; but both will stake their all for the Cause
of those degenerate Bourbons----"
"And both are at large," added the Man in Grey somewhat impatiently;
"while the Emperor is travelling without escort upon the high roads."
"Do you suppose that Constance de Plélan had anything to do with the
escape of the Chouan prisoners at Evreux?"
"I imagine that she was the prime mover," replied Fernand calmly; and
even the Minister's sharp, probing eyes failed to detect the
slightest sign of emotion in the grave face of the police agent at
this significant mention of Constance de Plélan's name in connection
with the recent Chouan affair. "No doubt she gave Monsieur de
Trévargan and his gang all the help they required from outside, and
shelter afterwards. But time is getting on, Monsieur le Ministre,"
he continued eagerly, "and the Emperor, you say, is on his way----"
"He left Versailles at six o'clock this morning," rejoined the
Minister. "He will be at Chartres by nightfall."
"He will never reach Chartres," announced the Man in Grey, "if--as I
believe--Blue-Heart and his gang waylay him on the road."
"That is just what is in my mind," assented the Minister with a
shudder. "It is close on seven o'clock now, and I can have a posse
of police on the way within half an hour; but whether they can reach
the Emperor in time to be of service is very doubtful. According to
arrangement, he will have left Versailles an hour ago. He is
travelling in his private _berline_, harnessed with his four bays,
which, as you know, fly over the ground with almost unbelievable
swiftness. He will get relays on the way and proceed with
undiminished speed. Our men have not the horses wherewith to cover
the ground at such a rate."
"Let me have a horse out of your stables, Monsieur le Ministre,"
rejoined the Man in Grey. "I'll cover the ground fast enough."
"You, Fernand!" exclaimed M. le Duc. "What can you do--by yourself?"
"I don't know. I can always take short cuts and gain ground that
way. I know every inch of the district. I can overtake the
Emperor's _berline_ and warn him that assassins are on his track. He
has a postilion, I presume, and Gerbier is with him, you say. Well!
with the coachman, we should be four of us to divert a musket-shot
from the most precious life in France."
"But, my good Fernand," argued the Minister, "I cannot even tell you
which road the Emperor has taken. As you know, he can either go by
the main Paris--Chartres road--which, of course, is the more direct,
but also the more public--or he can go by way of Houdan and----"
"Both roads converge at Maintenon, and I can intercept him there by
cutting across fields and meadows, if you will give me your swiftest
horse, Monsieur le Ministre. If you don't know which road the
Emperor is taking," he continued with unanswerable logic, "the
Chouans do not know it either. They also would have to waylay him
somewhere past Maintenon."
"Unless they are in full force and patrol both roads----" suggested
the Minister.
"They would hardly have had time to make such elaborate arrangements.
Moreover, both roads are very open and moderately frequented. It is
only after Malmaison that the single road strikes through the woods
and becomes very lonely, especially at nightfall. A horse, Monsieur
le Ministre!" entreated the Man in Grey, his keen, deep-set eyes
glowing with ardour and enthusiasm. "A horse! Ten years of my life
for the swiftest horse in your stables!"
The Minister said nothing more. He, too, was a man of energy and of
action; he, too, at this hour, was filled with passionate fervour for
the Cause which he was destined so soon to betray, and he knew how to
appreciate the ardent spirit which irradiated the entire personality
of this insignificant little Man in Grey. At once he rang the bell
and gave the necessary orders. Within twenty minutes Fernand was
again in the saddle. Fatigue and weariness both had fallen from him
like a discarded mantle. He had no time to feel tired now. Ahead,
the _berline_ harnessed with the four swift bays was thundering down
the Chartres road, and the most valuable life in France was
threatened by a band of assassins, shrewd enough to have planned a
desperate _coup_. Somewhere on the broad highway the murderers were
lurking, and the Emperor--unguarded, unsuspecting--might even at this
hour be falling into their hands.
On! On, Fernand! The four splendid bays from the Impérial stables
have two hours' start of you! In the streets of Paris, the life of
the great city is running its usual course. Men are hurrying to
business, women to their marketing, soldiers or officials to their
duties. One and all pause for an instant as the hoofs of a powerful
grey strike showers of glowing sparks from out the stones of the
pavements, and a horse and rider thunder past at breakneck speed on
the way to Versailles.
III
Just before the main Paris-Chartres road plunges into the woods,
about a kilomètre from Maintenon, where two narrow roads which lead,
the one to Houdan and the other to Dreux, branch off from the
diligence route, there stood in this year of grace 1810 an isolated
inn by the wayside. The house itself was ugly enough; square and
devoid of any engaging architectural features, it was built of
mottled brick, but it nestled at the cross roads on the margin of the
wood and was flanked by oak and chestnut coppice, interspersed here
and there with a stately beech or sycamore, and its dilapidated sign
bore the alluring legend, "The Farmer's Paradise."
The Paris-Chartres road with its intermittent traffic provided the
"Paradise" with a few customers--with some, at least, who were not to
be scared by the uninviting appearance of the house and its not too
enviable reputation. Wayfarers, coming from Houdan or from Dreux on
their way to Chartres, were forced to halt here in order to pick up
the diligence, and would sometimes turn into the squalid inn for a
cup of that tepid, acid fluid which Alain Gorot, the landlord, so
grandiloquently termed "steaming nectar." But during the greater
part of the day the place appeared deserted. The light-fingered
gentry--footpads and vagabonds--who were its chief customers, were
wont to use it as a meeting-place at night, but during the day they
preferred the shelter of the woods, for the police were mostly always
at their heels.
On this cold winter's afternoon, however, quite a goodly company was
gathered in the coffee-room. A log fire blazed in the open hearth
and lent a semblance of cheeriness and comfort to the bare, ugly
room, in which the fumes of rank tobacco and wet, steaming clothes
vied with the odour of stale food and wine to create an almost
insufferable atmosphere.
The Paris-Chartres diligence had gone by an hour ago, and had picked
up one solitary passenger at the cross roads. Soon after that a
hired chaise, coming from Dreux, had driven up to the "Farmers
Paradise." A lady and a gentleman had alighted from it and gone into
the house, while the driver sought shelter for his horse in the
tumbledown barn at the back of the house and a warm corner for
himself in the kitchen.
It was then three o'clock in the afternoon, and the roads and country
around appeared desolate and still. M. le Marquis de Trévargan sat
with his niece, Constance de Plélan, at a trestle-table in a corner
of the coffee-room. It was they who had driven over from Dreux in
the hired chaise. The landlord had served them with soup which,
though unpalatable in other ways, was, at any rate, hot and therefore
very welcome after the long, cold journey in the narrow, rickety
chaise.
Three or four men--ill-clad, travel-stained and unwashed--were
assembled in the opposite corner of the room, talking in whispers,
and near the door a couple of farm labourers were settling accounts
with mine host, whilst a third, seemingly overcome by papa Gorot's
"nectar," was sprawling across the table with arms outstretched and
face buried between them--fast asleep.
Gorot, having settled with the two labourers, shook this lout
vigorously by the shoulder.
"Now, then," he shouted roughly. "Up you get! You cannot stay here
all night, you know!"
The sleeper raised a puckered, imbecile face to the disturber of his
peace.
"Can't I?" he said slowly with the deliberateness of the drunkard.
And his head fell down again with a thud upon his arm.
Gorot swore lustily.
"Out you get!" he shouted into the man's ear. "You drunken oaf--I'll
put you out if you don't go!"
Once more the sleeper raised his head and stared with dim, bleary
eyes at his host.
"I am not drunk," he said thickly and with comical solemnity. "I am
not nearly so drunk as you think I am."
"We'll soon see about that," retorted Gorot. "Here!" he added,
turning to the three ruffians at the farther end of the room. "One
of you give me a hand. We'll put this lout the other side of the
door."
There was more than one volunteer for the diverting job. One of the
men without more ado seized the sleeper under the armpits. Gorot
took hold of his legs, and together they carried him out of the room
and deposited him in the passage, where he rolled over contentedly
and settled down to sleep in the angle of the door even whilst he
continued to mutter thickly: "I am not nearly so drunk as you think I
am."
When the landlord returned to the coffee-room he was summarily
ordered out again by M. de Trévargan, and he, nothing loth,
accustomed as he was to his house being used for every kind of secret
machinations and nameless plottings, shuffled out
complacently--unastonished and incurious--and retired to the purlieus
of the kitchen, leaving his customers to settle their own affairs
without interference from himself.
IV
As soon as the door had closed on Alain Gorot, M. de Trévargan turned
to the crowd of ill-clad loafers in the corner.
"Now that we are rid of that fellow at last," he said with marked
impatience, "tell me just what you have done."
"We carried out your orders," replied one of the men, a grim-looking
giant, bearded and shaggy like a frowsy cat. "We strewed more than a
kilo of nails, bits of broken glass and pieces of flint across both
the roads, at a distance of about a kilomètre from here, and then we
covered up the lot with a thin layer of earth."
The others chuckled contentedly.
"When the _sacré_ Corsican comes along in his fine chaise," said one
of them with a coarse laugh, "he'll have two or three spanking bays
dead lame as soon as they have pranced across our beautiful carpet."
M. de Trévargan turned to his niece.
"We couldn't think of a better plan," he said, "as we could only
muster one musket among us, and that one we owe to your kindness and
foresight."
Constance de Plélan did not reply at once. She took up an old and
dilapidated musket from the nook behind her and examined it with deft
fingers and a critical eye.
"It will serve," she said coldly after a while.
"Serve? Of course it will serve," rejoined M. de Trévargan lightly.
"What say you, Blue-Heart?"
"That I wish you would let me have it, Monsieur le Marquis," answered
the old Chouan. "I'd guarantee that I would not miss the accursed
Corsican."
"And I'll not miss him either," said M. de Trévargan, as he rose from
the table and stood before his ruffianly followers the very
embodiment of power and determination. "And I myself desire to have
the honour of ridding France of that pestilential vermin."
"And now 'tis time we went," he added authoritatively. "Two of you
go up the Paris road--and two up the Dreux road. Take cover in the
thicket, and as soon as one of you perceives the rumble of wheels in
the distance, give the signal. We'll all be on the watch for it and
hurry to the spot ere the first of the bays goes lame."
M. de Trévargan then once more turned to his niece.
"If we succeed, Constance," he said, and with sudden impulse he took
her hand and kissed it almost reverently, "the glory of it will be
yours."
"I only did my duty," she replied coldly. "I am thankful that I
happened to be at Evreux, just when you wanted me most."
"Nay, dear child," he rejoined earnestly. "You must not belittle the
services you have rendered to me and to the King. If you had not
known how to bribe our warders at Evreux, and how to send us word and
succour, we could not have effected our escape. If you had not given
us shelter we must certainly have been recaptured. If you had not
conveyed me hither, I--in my indifferent state of health--could never
have followed the others across country; and if you had not found
that old musket for us, we could not have done for the Corsican at
this hour, when God Himself is delivering him into our hands. That
is so, is it not, my men?" he concluded, turning to his followers.
"Ay! Ay!" they replied unanimously.
"God grant you may succeed!" said Constance de Plélan, as she gently
disengaged her hand from his.
"We cannot fail," he declared firmly. "One or more of the Corsican's
horses must go dead lame over the carpet of nails and broken glass
and flint. The carriage must then halt, and the coachman and
postilion will get down to see to the injured beasts. That will be
our opportunity. Blue-Heart and the others will fall on the men and
I shall hold Napoleon at the end of my musket, and though it may be
old, I know how to shoot straight and my aim is not likely to err.
And now let us get on," he added peremptorily. "The Corsican's
carriage cannot be far off."
Constance, without another word, handed him his hat and mantle. The
latter he fastened securely round his shoulders, leaving his arms
free for action. Then he turned to pick up the musket Blue-Heart and
White-Beak were ready to follow. They and the two others strode
towards the door, with backs bent and an eager, furtive look on their
bearded faces, like feline creatures on the hunt. Constance de
Plélan was standing in the middle of the room and her eyes were on
the door, when it was suddenly thrown open. The figure of the
drunken labourer appeared, clear-cut against the dark passage beyond.
In an instant he had stepped into the room, closed the door to behind
him, and was now standing with his back to it and holding a loaded
pistol in his right hand.
It all happened so quickly that neither M. de Trévargan nor any of
the others had time to realise what had occurred; and for an instant
they stood as if rooted to the spot, staring at the unexpected
apparition. Only Constance de Plélan understood what the presence of
this man, here and at this hour, portended. She was gazing at him
with fixed, dilated pupils, and her cheeks had become livid.
"You!" came in a hoarse murmur through her bloodless lips.
Next moment, however, M. de Trévargan had recovered his presence of
mind.
"Out of the way, you lout!" he cried roughly.
And he stretched out his hand to grasp the musket, still believing
that this was merely a drunken boor who was feeling quarrelsome and
who could easily be scared away.
"If you touch that musket, Monsieur le Marquis," said the man at the
door quietly, "I fire."
Then only did de Trévargan, in his turn, look steadily at him. As in
a flash, remembrance came to him. He recognised that pale,
colourless face, those deep-set grey eyes which once before--at the
Château de Trévargan--had probed his very soul and wrested from him
the secret of Darnier's assassination.
"That accursed police agent!" he muttered between his teeth. "A moi,
Blue-Heart. Let him fire and be damned to him!"
But even Blue-Heart and White-Beak, those desperate and reckless
Chouans, who were always prepared to take any and every risk, and who
counted life more cheaply than they did the toss of a coin, paused,
awestruck, ere they obeyed; for the Man in Grey, with one of those
swift and sudden movements which were peculiar to him, had taken one
step forward, seized Constance de Plélan by the wrist, dragged her to
him against the door, and was even now holding the pistol to her side.
"One movement from any of you," he said with the same icy calm; "one
word, one step, one gesture, and by the living God, I swear that I
will kill her before your eyes!"
Absolute, death-like silence ensued. M. de Trévargan and the four
Chouans stood there, paralysed and rigid. To say that they did not
stir, that they did not breathe one word or utter as much as a sigh,
would but ill express the complete stillness which fell upon them, as
if some hidden and awful petrifying hand had suddenly turned them
into stone. Constance de Plélan had not stirred either. She also
stood, motionless as a statue, her hand held firmly in a steel-like
grasp, the muzzle of the pistol against her breast. Fearlessly,
almost defiantly, she gazed straight into the eyes of this man who
had so reverently worshipped her and whom she had so nearly learned
to love.
"From my soul," he whispered, so low that even she could scarcely
hear, "I crave your pardon. From my soul I worship you still. But I
would not love you half so dearly, Constance, did I not love my
Emperor and France more dearly still."
"You coward!" came after a moment or two of tense suspense, from the
parched lips of M. de Trévargan. "Would you seize upon a woman----?"
"The Emperor's life or hers," broke in the Man in Grey coldly. "You
give me no other choice. What I do, I do, and am answerable for my
actions to God alone. So down on your knees every one of you!" he
added firmly. "Now! At once! Another movement, another word, and I
fire!"
"Fire then, in the name of Satan, your friend!" cried Constance de
Plélan loudly. "Oncle Armand, do not hesitate. Blue-Heart, seize
this miscreant! Let him kill me first; but after that you will be
five against one, and you can at last rid us of this deadly foe!"
"Down on your knees!" came in a tone of frigid calm from the police
agent. "If, ere I count three, I do not see you kneel--I fire!"
And even before the words were out of his mouth, the five Chouans
dropped on their knees, helpless before this relentless threat which
deprived them of every vestige of will-power.
"Oh, that I had not stayed Blue-Heart's hand that day in the woods!"
cried Constance de Plélan with a sigh of fierce regret. "He had you
then, as you have us now----"
"As he and the others would have the Emperor," rejoined the Man in
Grey. "If I allowed my heart to stay my hand."
And that relentless hand of his tightened its grip on Constance de
Plélan's wrist, till she felt sick and faint and fell back against
the door. She felt the muzzle of the pistol against her side: the
hand which held it neither swerved nor quaked. The keen, grey eyes
which had once radiated the light of his ineffable love for her held
no pity or remorse in them now: they were watching for the slightest
movement on the part of the five Chouans.
Slowly the afternoon light faded into dusk. The figures of the
Chouans now appeared like dark and rigid ghosts in the twilight. The
ticking of the old clock in the ingle-nook alone broke the deathlike
silence of the room. Minute sped after minute while the conspirators
remained as if under the ban of some evil fairy, who was keeping them
in an enchanted castle in a dreamless trance from which perhaps they
would never wake again. Minute sped after minute, and they lost
count of time, of place, of very existence. They only appeared alive
through the one sense of hearing, which had for them become
preternaturally acute. In the house, too, every sound was hushed.
The landlord and his servants had received their orders from the
accredited agent of His Majesty's Minister of Police, and they were
not likely to risk life and liberty by disobedience.
Outside, the air was damp and still, so still that through the open
casement there could be heard--very far away--the rumble of carriage
wheels and the patter of horses' hoofs on the muddy road.
It seemed as if an electrical wave went right through the room at the
sound, and the police agent's grip tightened on Constance's wrist. A
slight tremor appeared to animate those five marble-like statues who
were kneeling on the floor.
The carriage was drawing nearer: it was less than a hundred mètres
away. The clang of hoofs upon the road, the rattle of metal chains,
the shouts of the postilion, could already be distinctly heard. Then
suddenly the carriage had come to stop.
A bitter groan went right through the room, like the wail of
condemned spirits in torment. But not one of the Chouans moved. How
could they when a woman's life was the price that would have to be
paid now for the success of their scheme.
Only a heartrending cry rose from Constance de Plélan's lips:
"In Heaven's name, Oncle Armand," she entreated, "let the man fire!
Think you I should not be glad to die? Blue-Heart, has your courage
forsaken you? What is one life when there is so much at stake? O
God!" she added in a fervent prayer, "give them the strength to
forget everything save their duty to our King!"
But not a sound--not a movement came in response to her passionate
appeal. Through the open casement a confused murmur of voices could
be distinctly heard some distance away, up the side-road which ran
from Dreux. The Emperor's carriage was obviously being held up.
One, if not more, of the spanking bays had gone dead lame while
trotting across Blue-Heart's well-laid carpet. The rough, stained
hands of the Chouans opened and closed till their thick knuckles
cracked in an agony of impotence.
V
How long the torture of this well-nigh intolerable suspense lasted
not one of those present could have told. The twilight gradually
faded into gloom; darkness like a huge mantle slowly enveloped those
motionless, kneeling figures in the coffee-room of "The Farmer's
Paradise."
But if some semblance of hope had crept into the hearts of the
Chouans at sight of the beneficent darkness, it was soon dispelled by
the trenchant warning which came like a blow from a steel-hammer from
the police agent's lips:
"If I hear the slightest movement through the darkness, one flutter,
one creak, even a sigh--I shall fire," he had said, as soon as the
gloom of the night had begun to creep into the more remote corners of
the room. And even through the darkness the over-strained ears of
the kneeling Chouans caught the sound of a metallic click--the
cocking of the pistol which threatened Constance de Plélan's life.
And so they remained still--held more securely on their knees by that
one threat than by the pressure of giant hands.
An hour went by. Through the open window the sound of the murmur of
voices had given place to renewed clanking of metal chains, to pawing
of the ground by high-mettled horses, to champing of bits, to
snorting, groaning and creaking, as the heavy travelling chaise once
more started on its way.
After that it seemed like eternity.
When once again the silent roads gave forth signs of life and
movement; when, from the direction of Paris there came the sound of a
cavalcade, of a number of horses galloping along at breakneck speed;
when after a while it dawned upon these enchanted statues here that a
posse of police had arrived at "The Farmer's Paradise," and the men
were even now dismounting, almost a sigh of relief rose from five
oppressed breasts.
They knew the game was up; they knew that all that they had staked
had been swept aside by the ruthless, unerring hand of the man who
had terrorised and cowed and bent them to his will.
Constance de Plélan was resting against the door in a state of
semi-consciousness. Two or three minutes later the landlord, who,
acting under the orders given him by the secret agent, had gone to
meet the posse of police on the road and guided them to his house,
now led them to the back entrance of the coffee-room. The arrest of
M. de Trévargan and the Chouans was an easy matter. They were, in
fact, too numb and dazed to resist.
All five were tried for the murder of Hector Duroy, the police
messenger, and for an attempted outrage against the person of the
Emperor, and all five were condemned to penal servitude for life. At
the Restoration, however, M. de Trévargan was publicly absolved of
participation in the murder, and honoured by the King for having made
such a bold, if unsuccessful, attempt to "remove" the Corsican
usurper.
But Constance de Plélan was never brought to trial. Powerful
influences were said to have saved her.