Armand never could say definitely afterwards whither he went when he
left the Square du Roule that evening. No doubt he wandered about the
streets for some time in an absent, mechanical way, paying no heed to
the passers-by, none to the direction in which he was going.
His mind was full of Jeanne, her beauty, her courage, her attitude in
face of the hideous bloodhound who had come to pollute that charming
old-world boudoir by his loathsome presence. He recalled every word she
uttered, every gesture she made.
He was a man in love for the first time--wholly, irremediably in love.
I suppose that it was the pangs of hunger that first recalled him
to himself. It was close on eight o’clock now, and he had fed on his
imaginings--first on anticipation, then on realisation, and lastly on
memory--during the best part of the day. Now he awoke from his day-dream
to find himself tired and hungry, but fortunately not very far from that
quarter of Paris where food is easily obtainable.
He was somewhere near the Madeleine--a quarter he knew well. Soon he
saw in front of him a small eating-house which looked fairly clean and
orderly. He pushed open its swing-door, and seeing an empty table in a
secluded part of the room, he sat down and ordered some supper.
The place made no impression upon his memory. He could not have told
you an hour later where it was situated, who had served him, what he had
eaten, or what other persons were present in the dining-room at the time
that he himself entered it.
Having eaten, however, he felt more like his normal self--more conscious
of his actions. When he finally left the eating-house, he realised, for
instance, that it was very cold--a fact of which he had for the past few
hours been totally unaware. The snow was falling in thin close flakes,
and a biting north-easterly wind was blowing those flakes into his face
and down his collar. He wrapped his cloak tightly around him. It was
a good step yet to Blakeney’s lodgings, where he knew that he was
expected.
He struck quickly into the Rue St. Honore, avoiding the great open
places where the grim horrors of this magnificent city in revolt against
civilisation were displayed in all their grim nakedness--on the Place
de la Revolution the guillotine, on the Carrousel the open-air camps of
workers under the lash of slave-drivers more cruel than the uncivilised
brutes of the Far West.
And Armand had to think of Jeanne in the midst of all these horrors. She
was still a petted actress to-day, but who could tell if on the morrow
the terrible law of the “suspect” would not reach her in order to drag
her before a tribunal that knew no mercy, and whose sole justice was a
condemnation?
The young man hurried on; he was anxious to be among his own comrades,
to hear his chief’s pleasant voice, to feel assured that by all the
sacred laws of friendship Jeanne henceforth would become the special
care of the Scarlet Pimpernel and his league.
Blakeney lodged in a small house situated on the Quai de l’Ecole, at
the back of St. Germain l’Auxerrois, from whence he had a clear and
uninterrupted view across the river, as far as the irregular block of
buildings of the Chatelet prison and the house of Justice.
The same tower-clock that two centuries ago had tolled the signal for
the massacre of the Huguenots was even now striking nine. Armand slipped
through the half-open porte cochere, crossed the narrow dark courtyard,
and ran up two flights of winding stone stairs. At the top of these, a
door on his right allowed a thin streak of light to filtrate between its
two folds. An iron bell handle hung beside it; Armand gave it a pull.
Two minutes later he was amongst his friends. He heaved a great sigh of
content and relief. The very atmosphere here seemed to be different. As
far as the lodging itself was concerned, it was as bare, as devoid of
comfort as those sort of places--so-called chambres garnies--usually
were in these days. The chairs looked rickety and uninviting, the sofa
was of black horsehair, the carpet was threadbare, and in places
in actual holes; but there was a certain something in the air which
revealed, in the midst of all this squalor, the presence of a man of
fastidious taste.
To begin with, the place was spotlessly clean; the stove, highly
polished, gave forth a pleasing warm glow, even whilst the window,
slightly open, allowed a modicum of fresh air to enter the room. In
a rough earthenware jug on the table stood a large bunch of Christmas
roses, and to the educated nostril the slight scent of perfumes that
hovered in the air was doubly pleasing after the fetid air of the narrow
streets.
Sir Andrew Ffoulkes was there, also my Lord Tony, and Lord Hastings.
They greeted Armand with whole-hearted cheeriness.
“Where is Blakeney?” asked the young man as soon as he had shaken his
friends by the hand.
“Present!” came in loud, pleasant accents from the door of an inner room
on the right.
And there he stood under the lintel of the door, the man against whom
was raised the giant hand of an entire nation--the man for whose head
the revolutionary government of France would gladly pay out all the
savings of its Treasury--the man whom human bloodhounds were tracking,
hot on the scent--for whom the nets of a bitter revenge and relentless
reprisals were constantly being spread.
Was he unconscious of it, or merely careless? His closest friend, Sir
Andrew Ffoulkes, could not say. Certain it is that, as he now appeared
before Armand, picturesque as ever in perfectly tailored clothes, with
priceless lace at throat and wrists, his slender fingers holding an
enamelled snuff-box and a handkerchief of delicate cambric, his whole
personality that of a dandy rather than a man of action, it seemed
impossible to connect him with the foolhardy escapades which had set one
nation glowing with enthusiasm and another clamouring for revenge.
But it was the magnetism that emanated from him that could not be
denied; the light that now and then, swift as summer lightning, flashed
out from the depths of the blue eyes usually veiled by heavy, lazy lids,
the sudden tightening of firm lips, the setting of the square jaw, which
in a moment--but only for the space of a second--transformed the entire
face, and revealed the born leader of men.
Just now there was none of that in the debonnair, easy-going man of the
world who advanced to meet his friend. Armand went quickly up to him,
glad to grasp his hand, slightly troubled with remorse, no doubt, at the
recollection of his adventure of to-day. It almost seemed to him that
from beneath his half-closed lids Blakeney had shot a quick inquiring
glance upon him. The quick flash seemed to light up the young man’s soul
from within, and to reveal it, naked, to his friend.
It was all over in a moment, and Armand thought that mayhap his
conscience had played him a trick: there was nothing apparent in him--of
this he was sure--that could possibly divulge his secret just yet.
“I am rather late, I fear,” he said. “I wandered about the streets in
the late afternoon and lost my way in the dark. I hope I have not kept
you all waiting.”
They all pulled chairs closely round the fire, except Blakeney, who
preferred to stand. He waited awhile until they were all comfortably
settled, and all ready to listen, then:
“It is about the Dauphin,” he said abruptly without further preamble.
They understood. All of them had guessed it, almost before the summons
came that had brought them to Paris two days ago. Sir Andrew Ffoulkes
had left his young wife because of that, and Armand had demanded it as a
right to join hands in this noble work. Blakeney had not left France for
over three months now. Backwards and forwards between Paris, or Nantes,
or Orleans to the coast, where his friends would meet him to receive
those unfortunates whom one man’s whole-hearted devotion had rescued
from death; backwards and forwards into the very hearts of those cities
wherein an army of sleuth-hounds were on his track, and the guillotine
was stretching out her arms to catch the foolhardy adventurer.
Now it was about the Dauphin. They all waited, breathless and eager,
the fire of a noble enthusiasm burning in their hearts. They waited in
silence, their eyes fixed on the leader, lest one single word from him
should fail to reach their ears.
The full magnetism of the man was apparent now. As he held these
four men at this moment, he could have held a crowd. The man of the
world--the fastidious dandy--had shed his mask; there stood the leader,
calm, serene in the very face of the most deadly danger that had ever
encompassed any man, looking that danger fully in the face, not striving
to belittle it or to exaggerate it, but weighing it in the balance with
what there was to accomplish: the rescue of a martyred, innocent child
from the hands of fiends who were destroying his very soul even more
completely than his body.
“Everything, I think, is prepared,” resumed Sir Percy after a slight
pause. “The Simons have been summarily dismissed; I learned that to-day.
They remove from the Temple on Sunday next, the nineteenth. Obviously
that is the one day most likely to help us in our operations. As far
as I am concerned, I cannot make any hard-and-fast plans. Chance at the
last moment will have to dictate. But from every one of you I must
have co-operation, and it can only be by your following my directions
implicitly that we can even remotely hope to succeed.”
He crossed and recrossed the room once or twice before he spoke again,
pausing now and again in his walk in front of a large map of Paris and
its environs that hung upon the wall, his tall figure erect, his hands
behind his back, his eyes fixed before him as if he saw right through
the walls of this squalid room, and across the darkness that overhung
the city, through the grim bastions of the mighty building far away,
where the descendant of an hundred kings lived at the mercy of human
fiends who worked for his abasement.
The man’s face now was that of a seer and a visionary; the firm lines
were set and rigid as those of an image carved in stone--the statue of
heart-whole devotion, with the self-imposed task beckoning sternly to
follow, there where lurked danger and death.
“The way, I think, in which we could best succeed would be this,” he
resumed after a while, sitting now on the edge of the table and directly
facing his four friends. The light from the lamp which stood upon the
table behind him fell full upon those four glowing faces fixed eagerly
upon him, but he himself was in shadow, a massive silhouette broadly cut
out against the light-coloured map on the wall beyond.
“I remain here, of course, until Sunday,” he said, “and will closely
watch my opportunity, when I can with the greatest amount of safety
enter the Temple building and take possession of the child. I shall, of
course choose the moment when the Simons are actually on the move, with
their successors probably coming in at about the same time. God alone
knows,” he added earnestly, “how I shall contrive to get possession of
the child; at the moment I am just as much in the dark about that as you
are.”
He paused a moment, and suddenly his grave face seemed flooded with
sunshine, a kind of lazy merriment danced in his eyes, effacing all
trace of solemnity within them.
“La!” he said lightly, “on one point I am not at all in the dark, and
that is that His Majesty King Louis XVII will come out of that ugly
house in my company next Sunday, the nineteenth day of January in this
year of grace seventeen hundred and ninety-four; and this, too, do I
know--that those murderous blackguards shall not lay hands on me whilst
that precious burden is in my keeping. So I pray you, my good Armand, do
not look so glum,” he added with his pleasant, merry laugh; “you’ll need
all your wits about you to help us in our undertaking.”
“What do you wish me to do, Percy?” said the young man simply.
“In one moment I will tell you. I want you all to understand the
situation first. The child will be out of the Temple on Sunday, but at
what hour I know not. The later it will be the better would it suit
my purpose, for I cannot get him out of Paris before evening with any
chance of safety. Here we must risk nothing; the child is far better off
as he is now than he would be if he were dragged back after an abortive
attempt at rescue. But at this hour of the night, between nine and ten
o’clock, I can arrange to get him out of Paris by the Villette gate, and
that is where I want you, Ffoulkes, and you, Tony, to be, with some kind
of covered cart, yourselves in any disguise your ingenuity will suggest.
Here are a few certificates of safety; I have been making a collection
of them for some time, as they are always useful.”
He dived into the wide pocket of his coat and drew forth a number of
cards, greasy, much-fingered documents of the usual pattern which the
Committee of General Security delivered to the free citizens of the
new republic, and without which no one could enter or leave any town or
country commune without being detained as “suspect.” He glanced at them
and handed them over to Ffoulkes.
“Choose your own identity for the occasion, my good friend,” he said
lightly; “and you too, Tony. You may be stonemasons or coal-carriers,
chimney-sweeps or farm-labourers, I care not which so long as you look
sufficiently grimy and wretched to be unrecognisable, and so long as
you can procure a cart without arousing suspicions, and can wait for me
punctually at the appointed spot.”
Ffoulkes turned over the cards, and with a laugh handed them over
to Lord Tony. The two fastidious gentlemen discussed for awhile the
respective merits of a chimney-sweep’s uniform as against that of a
coal-carrier.
“You can carry more grime if you are a sweep,” suggested Blakeney; “and
if the soot gets into your eyes it does not make them smart like coal
does.”
“But soot adheres more closely,” argued Tony solemnly, “and I know that
we shan’t get a bath for at least a week afterwards.”
“Certainly you won’t, you sybarite!” asserted Sir Percy with a laugh.
“After a week soot might become permanent,” mused Sir Andrew, wondering
what, under the circumstance, my lady would say to him.
“If you are both so fastidious,” retorted Blakeney, shrugging his broad
shoulders, “I’ll turn one of you into a reddleman, and the other into a
dyer. Then one of you will be bright scarlet to the end of his days, as
the reddle never comes off the skin at all, and the other will have to
soak in turpentine before the dye will consent to move.... In either
case... oh, my dear Tony!... the smell....”
He laughed like a schoolboy in anticipation of a prank, and held his
scented handkerchief to his nose. My Lord Hastings chuckled audibly, and
Tony punched him for this unseemly display of mirth.
Armand watched the little scene in utter amazement. He had been in
England over a year, and yet he could not understand these Englishmen.
Surely they were the queerest, most inconsequent people in the world.
Here were these men, who were engaged at this very moment in an
enterprise which for cool-headed courage and foolhardy daring had
probably no parallel in history. They were literally taking their lives
in their hands, in all probability facing certain death; and yet they
now sat chaffing and fighting like a crowd of third-form schoolboys,
talking utter, silly nonsense, and making foolish jokes that would have
shamed a Frenchman in his teens. Vaguely he wondered what fat, pompous
de Batz would think of this discussion if he could overhear it. His
contempt, no doubt, for the Scarlet Pimpernel and his followers would be
increased tenfold.
Then at last the question of the disguise was effectually dismissed. Sir
Andrew Ffoulkes and Lord Anthony Dewhurst had settled their differences
of opinion by solemnly agreeing to represent two over-grimy and
overheated coal-heavers. They chose two certificates of safety that were
made out in the names of Jean Lepetit and Achille Grospierre, labourers.
“Though you don’t look at all like an Achille, Tony,” was Blakeney’s
parting shot to his friend.
Then without any transition from this schoolboy nonsense to the serious
business of the moment, Sir Andrew Ffoulkes said abruptly:
“Tell us exactly, Blakeney, where you will want the cart to stand on
Sunday.”
Blakeney rose and turned to the map against the wall, Ffoulkes and Tony
following him. They stood close to his elbow whilst his slender, nervy
hand wandered along the shiny surface of the varnished paper. At last he
placed his finger on one spot.
“Here you see,” he said, “is the Villette gate. Just outside it a narrow
street on the right leads down in the direction of the canal. It is just
at the bottom of that narrow street at its junction with the tow-path
there that I want you two and the cart to be. It had better be a
coal-car by the way; they will be unloading coal close by there
to-morrow,” he added with one of his sudden irrepressible outbursts of
merriment. “You and Tony can exercise your muscles coal-heaving, and
incidentally make yourselves known in the neighbourhood as good if
somewhat grimy patriots.”
“We had better take up our parts at once then,” said Tony. “I’ll take a
fond farewell of my clean shirt to-night.”
“Yes, you will not see one again for some time, my good Tony. After
your hard day’s work to-morrow you will have to sleep either inside your
cart, if you have already secured one, or under the arches of the canal
bridge, if you have not.”
“I hope you have an equally pleasant prospect for Hastings,” was my Lord
Tony’s grim comment.
It was easy to see that he was as happy as a schoolboy about to start
for a holiday. Lord Tony was a true sportsman. Perhaps there was in him
less sentiment for the heroic work which he did under the guidance of
his chief than an inherent passion for dangerous adventures. Sir Andrew
Ffoulkes, on the other hand, thought perhaps a little less of the
adventure, but a great deal of the martyred child in the Temple. He was
just as buoyant, just as keen as his friend, but the leaven of
sentiment raised his sporting instincts to perhaps a higher plane of
self-devotion.
“Well, now, to recapitulate,” he said, in turn following with his finger
the indicated route on the map. “Tony and I and the coal-cart will await
you on this spot, at the corner of the towpath on Sunday evening at nine
o’clock.”
“And your signal, Blakeney?” asked Tony.
“The usual one,” replied Sir Percy, “the seamew’s cry thrice repeated at
brief intervals. But now,” he continued, turning to Armand and Hastings,
who had taken no part in the discussion hitherto, “I want your help a
little further afield.”
“I thought so,” nodded Hastings.
“The coal-cart, with its usual miserable nag, will carry us a distance
of fifteen or sixteen kilometres, but no more. My purpose is to cut
along the north of the city, and to reach St. Germain, the nearest point
where we can secure good mounts. There is a farmer just outside the
commune; his name is Achard. He has excellent horses, which I have
borrowed before now; we shall want five, of course, and he has one
powerful beast that will do for me, as I shall have, in addition to
my own weight, which is considerable, to take the child with me on
the pillion. Now you, Hastings and Armand, will have to start early
to-morrow morning, leave Paris by the Neuilly gate, and from there make
your way to St. Germain by any conveyance you can contrive to obtain. At
St. Germain you must at once find Achard’s farm; disguised as labourers
you will not arouse suspicion by so doing. You will find the farmer
quite amenable to money, and you must secure the best horses you can get
for our own use, and, if possible, the powerful mount I spoke of just
now. You are both excellent horse-men, therefore I selected you amongst
the others for this special errand, for you two, with the five horses,
will have to come and meet our coal-cart some seventeen kilometres
out of St. Germain, to where the first sign-post indicates the road to
Courbevoie. Some two hundred metres down this road on the right there is
a small spinney, which will afford splendid shelter for yourselves and
your horses. We hope to be there at about one o’clock after midnight
of Monday morning. Now, is all that quite clear, and are you both
satisfied?”
“It is quite clear,” exclaimed Hastings placidly; “but I, for one, am
not at all satisfied.”
“And why not?”
“Because it is all too easy. We get none of the danger.”
“Oho! I thought that you would bring that argument forward, you
incorrigible grumbler,” laughed Sir Percy good-humouredly. “Let me tell
you that if you start to-morrow from Paris in that spirit you will run
your head and Armand’s into a noose long before you reach the gate of
Neuilly. I cannot allow either of you to cover your faces with too much
grime; an honest farm labourer should not look over-dirty, and your
chances of being discovered and detained are, at the outset, far greater
than those which Ffoulkes and Tony will run--”
Armand had said nothing during this time. While Blakeney was unfolding
his plan for him and for Lord Hastings--a plan which practically was a
command--he had sat with his arms folded across his chest, his head sunk
upon his breast. When Blakeney had asked if they were satisfied, he
had taken no part in Hastings’ protest nor responded to his leader’s
good-humoured banter.
Though he did not look up even now, yet he felt that Percy’s eyes were
fixed upon him, and they seemed to scorch into his soul. He made a great
effort to appear eager like the others, and yet from the first a chill
had struck at his heart. He could not leave Paris before he had seen
Jeanne.
He looked up suddenly, trying to seem unconcerned; he even looked his
chief fully in the face.
“When ought we to leave Paris?” he asked calmly.
“You MUST leave at daybreak,” replied Blakeney with a slight, almost
imperceptible emphasis on the word of command. “When the gates are first
opened, and the work-people go to and fro at their work, that is the
safest hour. And you must be at St. Germain as soon as may be, or the
farmer may not have a sufficiency of horses available at a moment’s
notice. I want you to be spokesman with Achard, so that Hastings’
British accent should not betray you both. Also you might not get
a conveyance for St. Germain immediately. We must think of every
eventuality, Armand. There is so much at stake.”
Armand made no further comment just then. But the others looked
astonished. Armand had but asked a simple question, and Blakeney’s reply
seemed almost like a rebuke--so circumstantial too, and so explanatory.
He was so used to being obeyed at a word, so accustomed that the merest
wish, the slightest hint from him was understood by his band of devoted
followers, that the long explanation of his orders which he gave to
Armand struck them all with a strange sense of unpleasant surprise.
Hastings was the first to break the spell that seemed to have fallen
over the party.
“We leave at daybreak, of course,” he said, “as soon as the gates are
open. We can, I know, get one of the carriers to give us a lift as far
as St. Germain. There, how do we find Achard?”
“He is a well-known farmer,” replied Blakeney. “You have but to ask.”
“Good. Then we bespeak five horses for the next day, find lodgings in
the village that night, and make a fresh start back towards Paris in the
evening of Sunday. Is that right?”
“Yes. One of you will have two horses on the lead, the other one. Pack
some fodder on the empty saddles and start at about ten o’clock. Ride
straight along the main road, as if you were making back for Paris,
until you come to four cross-roads with a sign-post pointing to
Courbevoie. Turn down there and go along the road until you meet a close
spinney of fir-trees on your right. Make for the interior of that. It
gives splendid shelter, and you can dismount there and give the horses a
feed. We’ll join you one hour after midnight. The night will be dark, I
hope, and the moon anyhow will be on the wane.”
“I think I understand. Anyhow, it’s not difficult, and we’ll be as
careful as may be.”
“You will have to keep your heads clear, both of you,” concluded
Blakeney.
He was looking at Armand as he said this; but the young man had not made
a movement during this brief colloquy between Hastings and the chief. He
still sat with arms folded, his head falling on his breast.
Silence had fallen on them all. They all sat round the fire buried in
thought. Through the open window there came from the quay beyond the hum
of life in the open-air camp; the tramp of the sentinels around it, the
words of command from the drill-sergeant, and through it all the moaning
of the wind and the beating of the sleet against the window-panes.
A whole world of wretchedness was expressed by those sounds! Blakeney
gave a quick, impatient sigh, and going to the window he pushed it
further open, and just then there came from afar the muffled roll of
drums, and from below the watchman’s cry that seemed such dire mockery:
“Sleep, citizens! Everything is safe and peaceful.”
“Sound advice,” said Blakeney lightly. “Shall we also go to sleep? What
say you all--eh?”
He had with that sudden rapidity characteristic of his every action,
already thrown off the serious air which he had worn a moment ago when
giving instructions to Hastings. His usual debonnair manner was on him
once again, his laziness, his careless insouciance. He was even at
this moment deeply engaged in flicking off a grain of dust from the
immaculate Mechlin ruff at his wrist. The heavy lids had fallen over the
tell-tale eyes as if weighted with fatigue, the mouth appeared ready for
the laugh which never was absent from it very long.
It was only Ffoulkes’s devoted eyes that were sharp enough to pierce the
mask of light-hearted gaiety which enveloped the soul of his leader at
the present moment. He saw--for the first time in all the years that
he had known Blakeney--a frown across the habitually smooth brow, and
though the lips were parted for a laugh, the lines round mouth and chin
were hard and set.
With that intuition born of whole-hearted friendship Sir Andrew guessed
what troubled Percy. He had caught the look which the latter had thrown
on Armand, and knew that some explanation would have to pass between the
two men before they parted to-night. Therefore he gave the signal for
the breaking up of the meeting.
“There is nothing more to say, is there, Blakeney?” he asked.
“No, my good fellow, nothing,” replied Sir Percy. “I do not know how you
all feel, but I am demmed fatigued.”
“What about the rags for to-morrow?” queried Hastings.
“You know where to find them. In the room below. Ffoulkes has the key.
Wigs and all are there. But don’t use false hair if you can help it--it
is apt to shift in a scrimmage.”
He spoke jerkily, more curtly than was his wont. Hastings and Tony
thought that he was tired. They rose to say good night. Then the three
men went away together, Armand remaining behind.