It was a narrow, ill-ventilated place, with but one barred window that
gave on the courtyard. An evil-smelling lamp hung by a chain from the
grimy ceiling, and in a corner of the room a tiny iron stove shed more
unpleasant vapour than warm glow around.
There was but little furniture: two or three chairs, a table which was
littered with papers, and a corner-cupboard--the open doors of which
revealed a miscellaneous collection--bundles of papers, a tin saucepan,
a piece of cold sausage, and a couple of pistols. The fumes of stale
tobacco-smoke hovered in the air, and mingled most unpleasantly with
those of the lamp above, and of the mildew that penetrated through the
walls just below the roof.
Heron pointed to one of the chairs, and then sat down on the other,
close to the table, on which he rested his elbow. He picked up a
short-stemmed pipe, which he had evidently laid aside at the sound of
the bell, and having taken several deliberate long-drawn puffs from it,
he said abruptly:
“Well, what is it now?”
In the meanwhile de Batz had made himself as much at home in this
uncomfortable room as he possibly could. He had deposited his hat and
cloak on one rickety rush-bottomed chair, and drawn another close to
the fire. He sat down with one leg crossed over the other, his podgy
be-ringed hand wandering with loving gentleness down the length of his
shapely calf.
He was nothing if not complacent, and his complacency seemed highly to
irritate his friend Heron.
“Well, what is it?” reiterated the latter, drawing his visitor’s
attention roughly to himself by banging his fist on the table. “Out with
it! What do you want? Why have you come at this hour of the night to
compromise me, I suppose--bring your own d--d neck and mine into the
same noose--what?”
“Easy, easy, my friend,” responded de Batz imperturbably; “waste not
so much time in idle talk. Why do I usually come to see you? Surely you
have had no cause to complain hitherto of the unprofitableness of my
visits to you?”
“They will have to be still more profitable to me in the future,”
growled the other across the table. “I have more power now.”
“I know you have,” said de Batz suavely. “The new decree? What? You
may denounce whom you please, search whom you please, arrest whom you
please, and send whom you please to the Supreme Tribunal without giving
them the slightest chance of escape.”
“Is it in order to tell me all this that you have come to see me at this
hour of the night?” queried Heron with a sneer.
“No; I came at this hour of the night because I surmised that in the
future you and your hell-hounds would be so busy all day ‘beating
up game for the guillotine’ that the only time you would have at the
disposal of your friends would be the late hours of the night. I saw you
at the theatre a couple of hours ago, friend Heron; I didn’t think to
find you yet abed.”
“Well, what do you want?”
“Rather,” retorted de Batz blandly, “shall we say, what do YOU want,
citizen Heron?”
“For what?
“For my continued immunity at the hands of yourself and your pack?”
Heron pushed his chair brusquely aside and strode across the narrow room
deliberately facing the portly figure of de Batz, who with head slightly
inclined on one side, his small eyes narrowed till they appeared
mere slits in his pockmarked face, was steadily and quite placidly
contemplating this inhuman monster who had this very day been given
uncontrolled power over hundreds of thousands of human lives.
Heron was one of those tall men who look mean in spite of their height.
His head was small and narrow, and his hair, which was sparse and lank,
fell in untidy strands across his forehead. He stooped slightly from the
neck, and his chest, though wide, was hollow between the shoulders. But
his legs were big and bony, slightly bent at the knees, like those of an
ill-conditioned horse.
The face was thin and the cheeks sunken; the eyes, very large and
prominent, had a look in them of cold and ferocious cruelty, a look
which contrasted strangely with the weakness and petty greed apparent
in the mouth, which was flabby, with full, very red lips, and chin that
sloped away to the long thin neck.
Even at this moment as he gazed on de Batz the greed and the cruelty
in him were fighting one of those battles the issue of which is always
uncertain in men of his stamp.
“I don’t know,” he said slowly, “that I am prepared to treat with you
any longer. You are an intolerable bit of vermin that has annoyed
the Committee of General Security for over two years now. It would
be excessively pleasant to crush you once and for all, as one would a
buzzing fly.”
“Pleasant, perhaps, but immeasurably foolish,” rejoined de Batz coolly;
“you would only get thirty-five livres for my head, and I offer you ten
times that amount for the self-same commodity.”
“I know, I know; but the whole thing has become too dangerous.”
“Why? I am very modest. I don’t ask a great deal. Let your hounds keep
off my scent.”
“You have too many d--d confederates.”
“Oh! Never mind about the others. I am not bargaining about them. Let
them look after themselves.”
“Every time we get a batch of them, one or the other denounces you.”
“Under torture, I know,” rejoined de Batz placidly, holding his podgy
hands to the warm glow of the fire. “For you have started torture in
your house of Justice now, eh, friend Heron? You and your friend the
Public Prosecutor have gone the whole gamut of devilry--eh?”
“What’s that to you?” retorted the other gruffly.
“Oh, nothing, nothing! I was even proposing to pay you three thousand
five hundred livres for the privilege of taking no further interest in
what goes on inside this prison!”
“Three thousand five hundred!” ejaculated Heron involuntarily, and this
time even his eyes lost their cruelty; they joined issue with the mouth
in an expression of hungering avarice.
“Two little zeros added to the thirty-five, which is all you would get
for handing me over to your accursed Tribunal,” said de Batz, and, as if
thoughtlessly, his hand wandered to the inner pocket of his coat, and
a slight rustle as of thin crisp paper brought drops of moisture to the
lips of Heron.
“Leave me alone for three weeks and the money is yours,” concluded de
Batz pleasantly.
There was silence in the room now. Through the narrow barred window
the steely rays of the moon fought with the dim yellow light of the oil
lamp, and lit up the pale face of the Committee’s agent with its lines
of cruelty in sharp conflict with those of greed.
“Well! is it a bargain?” asked de Batz at last in his usual smooth, oily
voice, as he half drew from out his pocket that tempting little bundle
of crisp printed paper. “You have only to give me the usual receipt for
the money and it is yours.”
Heron gave a vicious snarl.
“It is dangerous, I tell you. That receipt, if it falls into some cursed
meddler’s hands, would send me straight to the guillotine.”
“The receipt could only fall into alien hands,” rejoined de Batz
blandly, “if I happened to be arrested, and even in that case they
could but fall into those of the chief agent of the Committee of General
Security, and he hath name Heron. You must take some risks, my friend.
I take them too. We are each in the other’s hands. The bargain is quite
fair.”
For a moment or two longer Heron appeared to be hesitating whilst de
Batz watched him with keen intentness. He had no doubt himself as to the
issue. He had tried most of these patriots in his own golden crucible,
and had weighed their patriotism against Austrian money, and had never
found the latter wanting.
He had not been here to-night if he were not quite sure. This inveterate
conspirator in the Royalist cause never took personal risks. He looked
on Heron now, smiling to himself the while with perfect satisfaction.
“Very well,” said the Committee’s agent with sudden decision, “I’ll take
the money. But on one condition.”
“What is it?”
“That you leave little Capet alone.”
“The Dauphin!”
“Call him what you like,” said Heron, taking a step nearer to de Batz,
and from his great height glowering down in fierce hatred and rage upon
his accomplice; “call the young devil what you like, but leave us to
deal with him.”
“To kill him, you mean? Well, how can I prevent it, my friend?”
“You and your like are always plotting to get him out of here. I won’t
have it. I tell you I won’t have it. If the brat disappears I am a dead
man. Robespierre and his gang have told me as much. So you leave him
alone, or I’ll not raise a finger to help you, but will lay my own hands
on your accursed neck.”
He looked so ferocious and so merciless then, that despite himself, the
selfish adventurer, the careless self-seeking intriguer, shuddered with
a quick wave of unreasoning terror. He turned away from Heron’s piercing
gaze, the gaze of a hyena whose prey is being snatched from beneath its
nails. For a moment he stared thoughtfully into the fire.
He heard the other man’s heavy footsteps cross and re-cross the narrow
room, and was conscious of the long curved shadow creeping up the
mildewed wall or retreating down upon the carpetless floor.
Suddenly, without any warning he felt a grip upon his shoulder. He gave
a start and almost uttered a cry of alarm which caused Heron to laugh.
The Committee’s agent was vastly amused at his friend’s obvious access
of fear. There was nothing that he liked better than that he should
inspire dread in the hearts of all those with whom he came in contact.
“I am just going on my usual nocturnal round,” he said abruptly. “Come
with me, citizen de Batz.”
A certain grim humour was apparent in his face as he proffered this
invitation, which sounded like a rough command. As de Batz seemed to
hesitate he nodded peremptorily to him to follow. Already he had gone
into the hall and picked up his lanthorn. From beneath his waistcoat he
drew forth a bunch of keys, which he rattled impatiently, calling to his
friend to come.
“Come, citizen,” he said roughly. “I wish to show you the one treasure
in this house which your d--d fingers must not touch.”
Mechanically de Batz rose at last. He tried to be master of the terror
which was invading his very bones. He would not own to himself even that
he was afraid, and almost audibly he kept murmuring to himself that he
had no cause for fear.
Heron would never touch him. The spy’s avarice, his greed of money were
a perfect safeguard for any man who had the control of millions, and
Heron knew, of course, that he could make of this inveterate plotter
a comfortable source of revenue for himself. Three weeks would soon be
over, and fresh bargains could be made time and again, while de Batz was
alive and free.
Heron was still waiting at the door, even whilst de Batz wondered
what this nocturnal visitation would reveal to him of atrocity and of
outrage. He made a final effort to master his nervousness, wrapped his
cloak tightly around him, and followed his host out of the room.