And now the shades of evening had long since yielded to those of night.
The gate of La Villette, at the northeast corner of the city, was about
to close. Armand, dressed in the rough clothes of a labouring man, was
leaning against a low wall at the angle of the narrow street which abuts
on the canal at its further end; from this point of vantage he could
command a view of the gate and of the life and bustle around it.
He was dog-tired. After the emotions of the past twenty-four hours, a
day’s hard manual toil to which he was unaccustomed had caused him to
ache in every limb. As soon as he had arrived at the canal wharf in the
early morning he had obtained the kind of casual work that ruled about
here, and soon was told off to unload a cargo of coal which had arrived
by barge overnight. He had set-to with a will, half hoping to kill
his anxiety by dint of heavy bodily exertion. During the course of the
morning he had suddenly become aware of Sir Andrew Ffoulkes and of Lord
Anthony Dewhurst working not far away from him, and as fine a pair of
coalheavers as any shipper could desire.
It was not very difficult in the midst of the noise and activity that
reigned all about the wharf for the three men to exchange a few words
together, and Armand soon communicated the chief’s new instructions
to my Lord Tony, who effectually slipped away from his work some time
during the day. Armand did not even see him go, it had all been so
neatly done.
Just before five o’clock in the afternoon the labourers were paid off.
It was then too dark to continue work. Armand would have liked to talk
to Sir Andrew, if only for a moment. He felt lonely and desperately
anxious. He had hoped to tire out his nerves as well as his body, but
in this he had not succeeded. As soon as he had given up his tools, his
brain began to work again more busily than ever. It followed Percy in
his peregrinations through the city, trying to discover where those
brutes were keeping Jeanne.
That task had suddenly loomed up before Armand’s mind with all its
terrible difficulties. How could Percy--a marked man if ever there was
one--go from prison to prison to inquire about Jeanne? The very idea
seemed preposterous. Armand ought never to have consented to such an
insensate plan. The more he thought of it, the more impossible did it
seem that Blakeney could find anything out.
Sir Andrew Ffoulkes was nowhere to be seen. St. Just wandered about in
the dark, lonely streets of this outlying quarter vainly trying to find
the friend in whom he could confide, who, no doubt, would reassure
him as to Blakeney’s probable movements in Paris. Then as the hour
approached for the closing of the city gates Armand took up his stand
at an angle of the street from whence he could see both the gate on one
side of him and the thin line of the canal intersecting the street at
its further end.
Unless Percy came within the next five minutes the gates would be
closed and the difficulties of crossing the barrier would be increased a
hundredfold. The market gardeners with their covered carts filed out
of the gate one by one; the labourers on foot were returning to their
homes; there was a group of stonemasons, a few road-makers, also a
number of beggars, ragged and filthy, who herded somewhere in the
neighbourhood of the canal.
In every form, under every disguise, Armand hoped to discover Percy.
He could not stand still for very long, but strode up and down the road
that skirts the fortifications at this point.
There were a good many idlers about at this hour; some men who had
finished their work, and meant to spend an hour or so in one of the
drinking shops that abounded in the neighbourhood of the wharf; others
who liked to gather a small knot of listeners around them, whilst they
discoursed on the politics of the day, or rather raged against the
Convention, which was all made up of traitors to the people’s welfare.
Armand, trying manfully to play his part, joined one of the groups that
stood gaping round a street orator. He shouted with the best of them,
waved his cap in the air, and applauded or hissed in unison with the
majority. But his eyes never wandered for long away from the gate whence
Percy must come now at any moment--now or not at all.
At what precise moment the awful doubt took birth in his mind the young
man could not afterwards have said. Perhaps it was when he heard the
roll of drums proclaiming the closing of the gates, and witnessed the
changing of the guard.
Percy had not come. He could not come now, and he (Armand) would have
the night to face without news of Jeanne. Something, of course, had
detained Percy; perhaps he had been unable to get definite information
about Jeanne; perhaps the information which he had obtained was too
terrible to communicate.
If only Sir Andrew Ffoulkes had been there, and Armand had had some one
to talk to, perhaps then he would have found sufficient strength of mind
to wait with outward patience, even though his nerves were on the rack.
Darkness closed in around him, and with the darkness came the full
return of the phantoms that had assailed him in the house of the Square
du Roule when first he had heard of Jeanne’s arrest. The open place
facing the gate had transformed itself into the Place de la Revolution,
the tall rough post that held a flickering oil lamp had become the gaunt
arm of the guillotine, the feeble light of the lamp was the knife that
gleamed with the reflection of a crimson light.
And Armand saw himself, as in a vision, one of a vast and noisy
throng--they were all pressing round him so that he could not move; they
were brandishing caps and tricolour flags, also pitchforks and scythes.
He had seen such a crowd four years ago rushing towards the Bastille.
Now they were all assembled here around him and around the guillotine.
Suddenly a distant rattle caught his subconscious ear: the rattle of
wheels on rough cobble-stones. Immediately the crowd began to cheer and
to shout; some sang the “Ca ira!” and others screamed:
“Les aristos! a la lanterne! a mort! a mort! les aristos!”
He saw it all quite plainly, for the darkness had vanished, and the
vision was more vivid than even reality could have been. The rattle of
wheels grew louder, and presently the cart debouched on the open place.
Men and women sat huddled up in the cart; but in the midst of them a
woman stood, and her eyes were fixed upon Armand. She wore her pale-grey
satin gown, and a white kerchief was folded across her bosom. Her brown
hair fell in loose soft curls all round her head. She looked exactly
like the exquisite cameo which Marguerite used to wear. Her hands were
tied with cords behind her back, but between her fingers she held a
small bunch of violets.
Armand saw it all. It was, of course, a vision, and he knew that it was
one, but he believed that the vision was prophetic. No thought of the
chief whom he had sworn to trust and to obey came to chase away these
imaginings of his fevered fancy. He saw Jeanne, and only Jeanne,
standing on the tumbril and being led to the guillotine. Sir Andrew was
not there, and Percy had not come. Armand believed that a direct message
had come to him from heaven to save his beloved.
Therefore he forgot his promise--his oath; he forgot those very things
which the leader had entreated him to remember--his duty to the others,
his loyalty, his obedience. Jeanne had first claim on him. It were
the act of a coward to remain in safety whilst she was in such deadly
danger.
Now he blamed himself severely for having quitted Paris. Even Percy
must have thought him a coward for obeying quite so readily. Maybe the
command had been but a test of his courage, of the strength of his love
for Jeanne.
A hundred conjectures flashed through his brain; a hundred plans
presented themselves to his mind. It was not for Percy, who did not
know her, to save Jeanne or to guard her. That task was Armand’s, who
worshipped her, and who would gladly die beside her if he failed to
rescue her from threatened death.
Resolution was not slow in coming. A tower clock inside the city struck
the hour of six, and still no sign of Percy.
Armand, his certificate of safety in his hand, walked boldly up to the
gate.
The guard challenged him, but he presented the certificate. There was an
agonising moment when the card was taken from him, and he was detained
in the guard-room while it was being examined by the sergeant in
command.
But the certificate was in good order, and Armand, covered in coal-dust,
with the perspiration streaming down his face, did certainly not look
like an aristocrat in disguise. It was never very difficult to enter the
great city; if one wished to put one’s head in the lion’s mouth, one was
welcome to do so; the difficulty came when the lion thought fit to close
his jaws.
Armand, after five minutes of tense anxiety, was allowed to cross the
barrier, but his certificate of safety was detained. He would have to
get another from the Committee of General Security before he would be
allowed to leave Paris again.
The lion had thought fit to close his jaws.