At half-past ten that same evening, Blakeney, still clad in a workman’s
tattered clothes, his feet bare so that he could tread the streets
unheard, turned into the Rue de la Croix Blanche.
The porte-cochere of the house where Armand lodged had been left on the
latch; not a soul was in sight. Peering cautiously round, he slipped
into the house. On the ledge of the window, immediately on his left when
he entered, a candle was left burning, and beside it there was a scrap
of paper with the initials S. P. roughly traced in pencil. No one
challenged him as he noiselessly glided past it, and up the narrow
stairs that led to the upper floor. Here, too, on the second landing
the door on the right had been left on the latch. He pushed it open and
entered.
As is usual even in the meanest lodgings in Paris houses, a small
antechamber gave between the front door and the main room. When Percy
entered the antechamber was unlighted, but the door into the inner room
beyond was ajar. Blakeney approached it with noiseless tread, and gently
pushed it open.
That very instant he knew that the game was up; he heard the footsteps
closing up behind him, saw Armand, deathly pale, leaning against the
wall in the room in front of him, and Chauvelin and Heron standing guard
over him.
The next moment the room and the antechamber were literally alive with
soldiers--twenty of them to arrest one man.
It was characteristic of that man that when hands were laid on him
from every side he threw back his head and laughed--laughed mirthfully,
light-heartedly, and the first words that escaped his lips were:
“Well, I am d--d!”
“The odds are against you, Sir Percy,” said Chauvelin to him in
English, whilst Heron at the further end of the room was growling like a
contented beast.
“By the Lord, sir,” said Percy with perfect sang-froid, “I do believe
that for the moment they are.”
“Have done, my men--have done!” he added, turning good-humouredly to the
soldiers round him. “I never fight against overwhelming odds. Twenty to
one, eh? I could lay four of you out easily enough, perhaps even six,
but what then?”
But a kind of savage lust seemed to have rendered these men temporarily
mad, and they were being egged on by Heron. The mysterious Englishman,
about whom so many eerie tales were told! Well, he had supernatural
powers, and twenty to one might be nothing to him if the devil was on
his side. Therefore a blow on his forearm with the butt-end of a bayonet
was useful for disabling his right hand, and soon the left arm with a
dislocated shoulder hung limp by his side. Then he was bound with cords.
The vein of luck had given out. The gambler had staked more than usual
and had lost; but he knew how to lose, just as he had always known how
to win.
“Those d--d brutes are trussing me like a fowl,” he murmured with
irrepressible gaiety at the last.
Then the wrench on his bruised arms as they were pulled roughly back by
the cords caused the veil of unconsciousness to gather over his eyes.
“And Jeanne was safe, Armand,” he shouted with a last desperate effort;
“those devils have lied to you and tricked you into this ... Since
yesterday she is out of prison... in the house... you know....”
After that he lost consciousness.
And this occurred on Tuesday, January 21st, in the year 1794, or, in
accordance with the new calendar, on the 2nd Pluviose, year II of the
Republic.
It is chronicled in the Moniteur of the 3rd Pluviose that, “on the
previous evening, at half-past ten of the clock, the Englishman known
as the Scarlet Pimpernel, who for three years has conspired against the
safety of the Republic, was arrested through the patriotic exertions
of citizen Chauvelin, and conveyed to the Conciergerie, where he now
lies--sick, but closely guarded. Long live the Republic!”
PART II.
CHAPTER XXIV. THE NEWS
The grey January day was falling, drowsy, and dull into the arms of
night.
Marguerite, sitting in the dusk beside the fire in her small boudoir,
shivered a little as she drew her scarf closer round her shoulders.
Edwards, the butler, entered with the lamp. The room looked peculiarly
cheery now, with the delicate white panelling of the wall glowing under
the soft kiss of the flickering firelight and the steadier glow of the
rose-shaded lamp.
“Has the courier not arrived yet, Edwards?” asked Marguerite, fixing the
impassive face of the well-drilled servant with her large purple-rimmed
eyes.
“Not yet, m’lady,” he replied placidly.
“It is his day, is it not?”
“Yes, m’lady. And the forenoon is his time. But there have been heavy
rains, and the roads must be rare muddy. He must have been delayed,
m’lady.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” she said listlessly. “That will do, Edwards. No,
don’t close the shutters. I’ll ring presently.”
The man went out of the room as automatically as he had come. He closed
the door behind him, and Marguerite was once more alone.
She picked up the book which she had fingered idly before the light gave
out. She tried once more to fix her attention on this tale of love and
adventure written by Mr. Fielding; but she had lost the thread of the
story, and there was a mist between her eyes and the printed pages.
With an impatient gesture she threw down the book and passed her hand
across her eyes, then seemed astonished to find that her hand was wet.
She rose and went to the window. The air outside had been singularly
mild all day; the thaw was persisting, and a south wind came across the
Channel--from France.
Marguerite threw open the casement and sat down on the wide sill,
leaning her head against the window-frame, and gazing out into the fast
gathering gloom. From far away, at the foot of the gently sloping lawns,
the river murmured softly in the night; in the borders to the right and
left a few snowdrops still showed like tiny white specks through the
surrounding darkness. Winter had begun the process of slowly shedding
its mantle, coquetting with Spring, who still lingered in the land of
Infinity. Gradually the shadows drew closer and closer; the reeds and
rushes on the river bank were the first to sink into their embrace, then
the big cedars on the lawn, majestic and defiant, but yielding still
unconquered to the power of night.
The tiny stars of snowdrop blossoms vanished one by one, and at last the
cool, grey ribbon of the river surface was wrapped under the mantle of
evening.
Only the south wind lingered on, soughing gently in the drowsy reeds,
whispering among the branches of the cedars, and gently stirring the
tender corollas of the sleeping snowdrops.
Marguerite seemed to open out her lungs to its breath. It had come all
the way from France, and on its wings had brought something of Percy--a
murmur as if he had spoken--a memory that was as intangible as a dream.
She shivered again, though of a truth it was not cold. The courier’s
delay had completely unsettled her nerves. Twice a week he came
especially from Dover, and always he brought some message, some token
which Percy had contrived to send from Paris. They were like tiny scraps
of dry bread thrown to a starving woman, but they did just help to keep
her heart alive--that poor, aching, disappointed heart that so longed
for enduring happiness which it could never get.
The man whom she loved with all her soul, her mind and her body, did
not belong to her; he belonged to suffering humanity over there in
terror-stricken France, where the cries of the innocent, the persecuted,
the wretched called louder to him than she in her love could do.
He had been away three months now, during which time her starving heart
had fed on its memories, and the happiness of a brief visit from him six
weeks ago, when--quite unexpectedly--he had appeared before her... home
between two desperate adventures that had given life and freedom to a
number of innocent people, and nearly cost him his--and she had lain in
his arms in a swoon of perfect happiness.
But he had gone away again as suddenly as he had come, and for six weeks
now she had lived partly in anticipation of the courier with messages
from him, and partly on the fitful joy engendered by these messages.
To-day she had not even that, and the disappointment seemed just now
more than she could bear.
She felt unaccountably restless, and could she but have analysed her
feelings--had she dared so to do--she would have realised that the
weight which oppressed her heart so that she could hardly breathe, was
one of vague yet dark foreboding.
She closed the window and returned to her seat by the fire, taking up
her hook with the strong resolution not to allow her nerves to get the
better of her. But it was difficult to pin one’s attention down to the
adventures of Master Tom Jones when one’s mind was fully engrossed with
those of Sir Percy Blakeney.
The sound of carriage wheels on the gravelled forecourt in the front of
the house suddenly awakened her drowsy senses. She threw down the book,
and with trembling hands clutched the arms of her chair, straining
her ears to listen. A carriage at this hour--and on this damp winter’s
evening! She racked her mind wondering who it could be.
Lady Ffoulkes was in London, she knew. Sir Andrew, of course, was in
Paris. His Royal Highness, ever a faithful visitor, would surely not
venture out to Richmond in this inclement weather--and the courier
always came on horseback.
There was a murmur of voices; that of Edwards, mechanical and placid,
could be heard quite distinctly saying:
“I’m sure that her ladyship will be at home for you, m’lady. But I’ll go
and ascertain.”
Marguerite ran to the door and with joyful eagerness tore it open.
“Suzanne!” she called “my little Suzanne! I thought you were in London.
Come up quickly! In the boudoir--yes. Oh! what good fortune hath brought
you?”
Suzanne flew into her arms, holding the friend whom she loved so well
close and closer to her heart, trying to hide her face, which was wet
with tears, in the folds of Marguerite’s kerchief.
“Come inside, my darling,” said Marguerite. “Why, how cold your little
hands are!”
She was on the point of turning back to her boudoir, drawing Lady
Ffoulkes by the hand, when suddenly she caught sight of Sir Andrew, who
stood at a little distance from her, at the top of the stairs.
“Sir Andrew!” she exclaimed with unstinted gladness.
Then she paused. The cry of welcome died on her lips, leaving them dry
and parted. She suddenly felt as if some fearful talons had gripped her
heart and were tearing at it with sharp, long nails; the blood flew from
her cheeks and from her limbs, leaving her with a sense of icy numbness.
She backed into the room, still holding Suzanne’s hand, and drawing her
in with her. Sir Andrew followed them, then closed the door behind him.
At last the word escaped Marguerite’s parched lips:
“Percy! Something has happened to him! He is dead?”
“No, no!” exclaimed Sir Andrew quickly.
Suzanne put her loving arms round her friend and drew her down into the
chair by the fire. She knelt at her feet on the hearthrug, and pressed
her own burning lips on Marguerite’s icy-cold hands. Sir Andrew stood
silently by, a world of loving friendship, of heart-broken sorrow, in
his eyes.
There was silence in the pretty white-panelled room for a while.
Marguerite sat with her eyes closed, bringing the whole armoury of her
will power to bear her up outwardly now.
“Tell me!” she said at last, and her voice was toneless and dull, like
one that came from the depths of a grave--“tell me--exactly--everything.
Don’t be afraid. I can bear it. Don’t be afraid.”
Sir Andrew remained standing, with bowed head and one hand resting on
the table. In a firm, clear voice he told her the events of the past few
days as they were known to him. All that he tried to hide was Armand’s
disobedience, which, in his heart, he felt was the primary cause of the
catastrophe. He told of the rescue of the Dauphin from the Temple, the
midnight drive in the coal-cart, the meeting with Hastings and Tony in
the spinney. He only gave vague explanations of Armand’s stay in Paris
which caused Percy to go back to the city, even at the moment when his
most daring plan had been so successfully carried through.
“Armand, I understand, has fallen in love with a beautiful woman in
Paris, Lady Blakeney,” he said, seeing that a strange, puzzled look had
appeared in Marguerite’s pale face. “She was arrested the day before the
rescue of the Dauphin from the Temple. Armand could not join us. He felt
that he could not leave her. I am sure that you will understand.”
Then as she made no comment, he resumed his narrative:
“I had been ordered to go back to La Villette, and there to resume my
duties as a labourer in the day-time, and to wait for Percy during the
night. The fact that I had received no message from him for two days had
made me somewhat worried, but I have such faith in him, such belief in
his good luck and his ingenuity, that I would not allow myself to be
really anxious. Then on the third day I heard the news.”
“What news?” asked Marguerite mechanically.
“That the Englishman who was known as the Scarlet Pimpernel had been
captured in a house in the Rue de la Croix Blanche, and had been
imprisoned in the Conciergerie.”
“The Rue de la Croix Blanche? Where is that?”
“In the Montmartre quarter. Armand lodged there. Percy, I imagine, was
working to get him away; and those brutes captured him.”
“Having heard the news, Sir Andrew, what did you do?”
“I went into Paris and ascertained its truth.”
“And there is no doubt of it?”
“Alas, none! I went to the house in the Rue de la Croix Blanche. Armand
had disappeared. I succeeded in inducing the concierge to talk. She
seems to have been devoted to her lodger. Amidst tears she told me
some of the details of the capture. Can you bear to hear them, Lady
Blakeney?”
“Yes--tell me everything--don’t be afraid,” she reiterated with the same
dull monotony.
“It appears that early on the Tuesday morning the son of the
concierge--a lad about fifteen--was sent off by her lodger with a
message to No. 9 Rue St. Germain l’Auxerrois. That was the house where
Percy was staying all last week, where he kept disguises and so on
for us all, and where some of our meetings were held. Percy evidently
expected that Armand would try and communicate with him at that address,
for when the lad arrived in front of the house he was accosted--so
he says--by a big, rough workman, who browbeat him into giving up the
lodger’s letter, and finally pressed a piece of gold into his hand. The
workman was Blakeney, of course. I imagine that Armand, at the time that
he wrote the letter, must have been under the belief that Mademoiselle
Lange was still in prison; he could not know then that Blakeney had
already got her into comparative safety. In the letter he must have
spoken of the terrible plight in which he stood, and also of his fears
for the woman whom he loved. Percy was not the man to leave a comrade
in the lurch! He would not be the man whom we all love and admire, whose
word we all obey, for whose sake we would gladly all of us give our
life--he would not be that man if he did not brave even certain dangers
in order to be of help to those who call on him. Armand called and Percy
went to him. He must have known that Armand was being spied upon, for
Armand, alas! was already a marked man, and the watch-dogs of
those infernal committees were already on his heels. Whether these
sleuth-hounds had followed the son of the concierge and seen him give
the letter to the workman in the Rue St. Germain l’Auxerrois, or whether
the concierge in the Rue de la Croix Blanche was nothing but a spy of
Heron’s, or, again whether the Committee of General Security kept
a company of soldiers in constant alert in that house, we shall, of
course, never know. All that I do know is that Percy entered that
fatal house at half-past ten, and that a quarter of an hour later the
concierge saw some of the soldiers descending the stairs, carrying
a heavy burden. She peeped out of her lodge, and by the light in the
corridor she saw that the heavy burden was the body of a man bound
closely with ropes: his eyes were closed, his clothes were stained with
blood. He was seemingly unconscious. The next day the official organ
of the Government proclaimed the capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel, and
there was a public holiday in honour of the event.”
Marguerite had listened to this terrible narrative dry-eyed and silent.
Now she still sat there, hardly conscious of what went on around her--of
Suzanne’s tears, that fell unceasingly upon her fingers--of Sir Andrew,
who had sunk into a chair, and buried his head in his hands. She was
hardly conscious that she lived; the universe seemed to have stood still
before this awful, monstrous cataclysm.
But, nevertheless, she was the first to return to the active realities
of the present.
“Sir Andrew,” she said after a while, “tell me, where are my Lords Tony
and Hastings?”
“At Calais, madam,” he replied. “I saw them there on my way hither.
They had delivered the Dauphin safely into the hands of his adherents at
Mantes, and were awaiting Blakeney’s further orders, as he had commanded
them to do.”
“Will they wait for us there, think you?”
“For us, Lady Blakeney?” he exclaimed in puzzlement.
“Yes, for us, Sir Andrew,” she replied, whilst the ghost of a smile
flitted across her drawn face; “you had thought of accompanying me to
Paris, had you not?”
“But Lady Blakeney--”
“Ah! I know what you would say, Sir Andrew. You will speak of dangers,
of risks, of death, mayhap; you will tell me that I as a woman can do
nothing to help my husband--that I could be but a hindrance to him, just
as I was in Boulogne. But everything is so different now. Whilst those
brutes planned his capture he was clever enough to outwit them, but now
they have actually got him, think you they’ll let him escape? They’ll
watch him night and day, my friend, just as they watched the unfortunate
Queen; but they’ll not keep him months, weeks, or even days in
prison--even Chauvelin now will no longer attempt to play with the
Scarlet Pimpernel. They have him, and they will hold him until such time
as they take him to the guillotine.”
Her voice broke in a sob; her self-control was threatening to leave her.
She was but a woman, young and passionately in love with the man who
was about to die an ignominious death, far away from his country, his
kindred, his friends.
“I cannot let him die alone, Sir Andrew; he will be longing for me,
and--and, after all, there is you, and my Lord Tony, and Lord Hastings
and the others; surely--surely we are not going to let him die, not like
that, and not alone.”
“You are right, Lady Blakeney,” said Sir Andrew earnestly; “we are not
going to let him die, if human agency can do aught to save him. Already
Tony, Hastings and I have agreed to return to Paris. There are one or
two hidden places in and around the city known only to Percy and to
the members of the League where he must find one or more of us if he
succeeds in getting away. All the way between Paris and Calais we have
places of refuge, places where any of us can hide at a given moment;
where we can find disguises when we want them, or horses in an
emergency. No! no! we are not going to despair, Lady Blakeney; there are
nineteen of us prepared to lay down our lives for the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Already I, as his lieutenant, have been selected as the leader of as
determined a gang as has ever entered on a work of rescue before. We
leave for Paris to-morrow, and if human pluck and devotion can destroy
mountains then we’ll destroy them. Our watchword is: ‘God save the
Scarlet Pimpernel.’”
He knelt beside her chair and kissed the cold fingers which, with a sad
little smile, she held out to him.
“And God bless you all!” she murmured.
Suzanne had risen to her feet when her husband knelt; now he stood up
beside her. The dainty young woman hardly more than a child--was doing
her best to restrain her tears.
“See how selfish I am,” said Marguerite. “I talk calmly of taking your
husband from you, when I myself know the bitterness of such partings.”
“My husband will go where his duty calls him,” said Suzanne with
charming and simple dignity. “I love him with all my heart, because
he is brave and good. He could not leave his comrade, who is also his
chief, in the lurch. God will protect him, I know. I would not ask him
to play the part of a coward.”
Her brown eyes glowed with pride. She was the true wife of a soldier,
and with all her dainty ways and childlike manners she was a splendid
woman and a staunch friend. Sir Percy Blakeney had saved her entire
family from death, the Comte and Comtesse de Tournai, the Vicomte, her
brother, and she herself all owed their lives to the Scarlet Pimpernel.
This she was not like to forget.
“There is but little danger for us, I fear me,” said Sir Andrew lightly;
“the revolutionary Government only wants to strike at a head, it cares
nothing for the limbs. Perhaps it feels that without our leader we are
enemies not worthy of persecution. If there are any dangers, so much
the better,” he added; “but I don’t anticipate any, unless we succeed in
freeing our chief; and having freed him, we fear nothing more.”
“The same applies to me, Sir Andrew,” rejoined Marguerite earnestly.
“Now that they have captured Percy, those human fiends will care naught
for me. If you succeed in freeing Percy I, like you, will have nothing
more to fear, and if you fail--”
She paused and put her small, white hand on Sir Andrew’s arm.
“Take me with you, Sir Andrew,” she entreated; “do not condemn me to
the awful torture of weary waiting, day after day, wondering, guessing,
never daring to hope, lest hope deferred be more hard to bear than
dreary hopelessness.”
Then as Sir Andrew, very undecided, yet half inclined to yield,
stood silent and irresolute, she pressed her point, gently but firmly
insistent.
“I would not be in the way, Sir Andrew; I would know how to efface
myself so as not to interfere with your plans. But, oh!” she added,
while a quivering note of passion trembled in her voice, “can’t you
see that I must breathe the air that he breathes else I shall stifle or
mayhap go mad?”
Sir Andrew turned to his wife, a mute query in his eyes.
“You would do an inhuman and a cruel act,” said Suzanne with seriousness
that sat quaintly on her baby face, “if you did not afford your
protection to Marguerite, for I do believe that if you did not take her
with you to-morrow she would go to Paris alone.”
Marguerite thanked her friend with her eyes. Suzanne was a child
in nature, but she had a woman’s heart. She loved her husband, and,
therefore, knew and understood what Marguerite must be suffering now.
Sir Andrew no longer could resist the unfortunate woman’s earnest
pleading. Frankly, he thought that if she remained in England while
Percy was in such deadly peril she ran the grave risk of losing her
reason before the terrible strain of suspense. He knew her to be a woman
of courage, and one capable of great physical endurance; and really he
was quite honest when he said that he did not believe there would be
much danger for the headless League of the Scarlet Pimpernel unless they
succeeded in freeing their chief. And if they did succeed, then indeed
there would be nothing to fear, for the brave and loving wife who, like
every true woman does, and has done in like circumstances since the
beginning of time, was only demanding with passionate insistence the
right to share the fate, good or ill, of the man whom she loved.
CHAPTER XXV. PARIS ONCE MORE
Sir Andrew had just come in. He was trying to get a little warmth into
his half-frozen limbs, for the cold had set in again, and this time with
renewed vigour, and Marguerite was pouring out a cup of hot coffee which
she had been brewing for him. She had not asked for news. She knew that
he had none to give her, else he had not worn that wearied, despondent
look in his kind face.
“I’ll just try one more place this evening,” he said as soon as he had
swallowed some of the hot coffee--“a restaurant in the Rue de la Harpe;
the members of the Cordeliers’ Club often go there for supper, and they
are usually well informed. I might glean something definite there.”
“It seems very strange that they are so slow in bringing him to trial,”
said Marguerite in that dull, toneless voice which had become habitual
to her. “When you first brought me the awful news that... I made sure
that they would bring him to trial at once, and was in terror lest we
arrived here too late to--to see him.”
She checked herself quickly, bravely trying to still the quiver of her
voice.
“And of Armand?” she asked.
He shook his head sadly.
“With regard to him I am at a still greater loss,” he said: “I cannot
find his name on any of the prison registers, and I know that he is not
in the Conciergerie. They have cleared out all the prisoners from there;
there is only Percy--”
“Poor Armand!” she sighed; “it must be almost worse for him than for
any of us; it was his first act of thoughtless disobedience that brought
all this misery upon our heads.”
She spoke sadly but quietly. Sir Andrew noted that there was no
bitterness in her tone. But her very quietude was heart-breaking; there
was such an infinity of despair in the calm of her eyes.
“Well! though we cannot understand it all, Lady Blakeney,” he said with
forced cheerfulness, “we must remember one thing--that whilst there is
life there is hope.”
“Hope!” she exclaimed with a world of pathos in her sigh, her large eyes
dry and circled, fixed with indescribable sorrow on her friend’s face.
Ffoulkes turned his head away, pretending to busy himself with
the coffee-making utensils. He could not bear to see that look of
hopelessness in her face, for in his heart he could not find the
wherewithal to cheer her. Despair was beginning to seize on him too, and
this he would not let her see.
They had been in Paris three days now, and it was six days since
Blakeney had been arrested. Sir Andrew and Marguerite had found
temporary lodgings inside Paris, Tony and Hastings were just outside the
gates, and all along the route between Paris and Calais, at St. Germain,
at Mantes, in the villages between Beauvais and Amiens, wherever money
could obtain friendly help, members of the devoted League of the Scarlet
Pimpernel lay in hiding, waiting to aid their chief.
Ffoulkes had ascertained that Percy was kept a close prisoner in the
Conciergerie, in the very rooms occupied by Marie Antoinette during the
last months of her life. He left poor Marguerite to guess how closely
that elusive Scarlet Pimpernel was being guarded, the precautions
surrounding him being even more minute than those which had made the
unfortunate Queen’s closing days a martyrdom for her.
But of Armand he could glean no satisfactory news, only the negative
probability that he was not detained in any of the larger prisons of
Paris, as no register which he, Ffoulkes, so laboriously consulted bore
record of the name of St. Just.
Haunting the restaurants and drinking booths where the most advanced
Jacobins and Terrorists were wont to meet, he had learned one or two
details of Blakeney’s incarceration which he could not possibly impart
to Marguerite. The capture of the mysterious Englishman known as the
Scarlet Pimpernel had created a great deal of popular satisfaction;
but it was obvious that not only was the public mind not allowed to
associate that capture with the escape of little Capet from the Temple,
but it soon became clear to Ffoulkes that the news of that escape was
still being kept a profound secret.
On one occasion he had succeeded in spying on the Chief Agent of the
Committee of General Security, whom he knew by sight, while the latter
was sitting at dinner in the company of a stout, florid man with
pock-marked face and podgy hands covered with rings.
Sir Andrew marvelled who this man might be. Heron spoke to him in
ambiguous phrases that would have been unintelligible to any one who did
not know the circumstances of the Dauphin’s escape and the part that
the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel had played in it. But to Sir Andrew
Ffoulkes, who--cleverly disguised as a farrier, grimy after his day’s
work--was straining his ears to listen whilst apparently consuming huge
slabs of boiled beef, it soon became clear that the chief agent and his
fat friend were talking of the Dauphin and of Blakeney.
“He won’t hold out much longer, citizen,” the chief agent was saying in
a confident voice; “our men are absolutely unremitting in their task.
Two of them watch him night and day; they look after him well, and
practically never lose sight of him, but the moment he tries to get any
sleep one of them rushes into the cell with a loud banging of bayonet
and sabre, and noisy tread on the flagstones, and shouts at the top of
his voice: ‘Now then, aristo, where’s the brat? Tell us now, and you
shall be down and go to sleep.’ I have done it myself all through one
day just for the pleasure of it. It’s a little tiring for you to have to
shout a good deal now, and sometimes give the cursed Englishman a good
shake-up. He has had five days of it, and not one wink of sleep during
that time--not one single minute of rest--and he only gets enough food
to keep him alive. I tell you he can’t last. Citizen Chauvelin had a
splendid idea there. It will all come right in a day or two.”
“H’m!” grunted the other sulkily; “those Englishmen are tough.”
“Yes!” retorted Heron with a grim laugh and a leer of savagery that made
his gaunt face look positively hideous--“you would have given out after
three days, friend de Batz, would you not? And I warned you, didn’t I? I
told you if you tampered with the brat I would make you cry in mercy to
me for death.”
“And I warned you,” said the other imperturbably, “not to worry so much
about me, but to keep your eyes open for those cursed Englishmen.”
“I am keeping my eyes open for you, nevertheless, my friend. If I
thought you knew where the vermin’s spawn was at this moment I would--”
“You would put me on the same rack that you or your precious friend,
Chauvelin, have devised for the Englishman. But I don’t know where the
lad is. If I did I would not be in Paris.”
“I know that,” assented Heron with a sneer; “you would soon be after the
reward--over in Austria, what?--but I have your movements tracked day
and night, my friend. I dare say you are as anxious as we are as to the
whereabouts of the child. Had he been taken over the frontier you would
have been the first to hear of it, eh? No,” he added confidently, and
as if anxious to reassure himself, “my firm belief is that the original
idea of these confounded Englishmen was to try and get the child over
to England, and that they alone know where he is. I tell you it won’t
be many days before that very withered Scarlet Pimpernel will order
his followers to give little Capet up to us. Oh! they are hanging about
Paris some of them, I know that; citizen Chauvelin is convinced that the
wife isn’t very far away. Give her a sight of her husband now, say I,
and she’ll make the others give the child up soon enough.”
The man laughed like some hyena gloating over its prey. Sir Andrew
nearly betrayed himself then. He had to dig his nails into his own flesh
to prevent himself from springing then and there at the throat of that
wretch whose monstrous ingenuity had invented torture for the fallen
enemy far worse than any that the cruelties of medieval Inquisitions had
devised.
So they would not let him sleep! A simple idea born in the brain of a
fiend. Heron had spoken of Chauvelin as the originator of the devilry;
a man weakened deliberately day by day by insufficient food, and the
horrible process of denying him rest. It seemed inconceivable that
human, sentient beings should have thought of such a thing. Perspiration
stood up in beads on Sir Andrew’s brow when he thought of his friend,
brought down by want of sleep to--what? His physique was splendidly
powerful, but could it stand against such racking torment for long? And
the clear, the alert mind, the scheming brain, the reckless daring--how
soon would these become enfeebled by the slow, steady torture of an
utter want of rest?
Ffoulkes had to smother a cry of horror, which surely must have drawn
the attention of that fiend on himself had he not been so engrossed in
the enjoyment of his own devilry. As it is, he ran out of the stuffy
eating-house, for he felt as if its fetid air must choke him.
For an hour after that he wandered about the streets, not daring to face
Marguerite, lest his eyes betrayed some of the horror which was shaking
his very soul.
That was twenty-four hours ago. To-day he had learnt little else. It was
generally known that the Englishman was in the Conciergerie prison, that
he was being closely watched, and that his trial would come on within
the next few days; but no one seemed to know exactly when. The public
was getting restive, demanding that trial and execution to which every
one seemed to look forward as to a holiday. In the meanwhile the escape
of the Dauphin had been kept from the knowledge of the public; Heron and
his gang, fearing for their lives, had still hopes of extracting from
the Englishman the secret of the lad’s hiding-place, and the means they
employed for arriving at this end was worthy of Lucifer and his host of
devils in hell.
From other fragments of conversation which Sir Andrew Ffoulkes had
gleaned that same evening, it seemed to him that in order to hide their
defalcations Heron and the four commissaries in charge of little Capet
had substituted a deaf and dumb child for the escaped little prisoner.
This miserable small wreck of humanity was reputed to be sick and kept
in a darkened room, in bed, and was in that condition exhibited to any
member of the Convention who had the right to see him. A partition had
been very hastily erected in the inner room once occupied by the Simons,
and the child was kept behind that partition, and no one was allowed to
come too near to him. Thus the fraud was succeeding fairly well. Heron
and his accomplices only cared to save their skins, and the wretched
little substitute being really ill, they firmly hoped that he would
soon die, when no doubt they would bruit abroad the news of the death of
Capet, which would relieve them of further responsibility.
That such ideas, such thoughts, such schemes should have engendered in
human minds it is almost impossible to conceive, and yet we know from
no less important a witness than Madame Simon herself that the child who
died in the Temple a few weeks later was a poor little imbecile, a deaf
and dumb child brought hither from one of the asylums and left to die in
peace. There was nobody but kindly Death to take him out of his misery,
for the giant intellect that had planned and carried out the rescue of
the uncrowned King of France, and which alone might have had the power
to save him too, was being broken on the rack of enforced sleeplessness.
CHAPTER XXVI. THE BITTEREST FOE
That same evening Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, having announced his intention
of gleaning further news of Armand, if possible, went out shortly after
seven o’clock, promising to be home again about nine.
Marguerite, on the other hand, had to make her friend a solemn promise
that she would try and eat some supper which the landlady of these
miserable apartments had agreed to prepare for her. So far they had been
left in peaceful occupation of these squalid lodgings in a tumble-down
house on the Quai de la Ferraille, facing the house of Justice, the grim
walls of which Marguerite would watch with wide-open dry eyes for as
long as the grey wintry light lingered over them.
Even now, though the darkness had set in, and snow, falling in close,
small flakes, threw a thick white veil over the landscape, she sat at
the open window long after Sir Andrew had gone out, watching the few
small flicks of light that blinked across from the other side of the
river, and which came from the windows of the Chatelet towers. The
windows of the Conciergerie she could not see, for these gave on one of
the inner courtyards; but there was a melancholy consolation even in the
gazing on those walls that held in their cruel, grim embrace all that
she loved in the world.
It seemed so impossible to think of Percy--the laughter-loving,
irresponsible, light-hearted adventurer--as the prey of those fiends who
would revel in their triumph, who would crush him, humiliate him, insult
him--ye gods alive! even torture him, perhaps--that they might break the
indomitable spirit that would mock them even on the threshold of death.
Surely, surely God would never allow such monstrous infamy as the
deliverance of the noble soaring eagle into the hands of those preying
jackals! Marguerite--though her heart ached beyond what human nature
could endure, though her anguish on her husband’s account was doubled by
that which she felt for her brother--could not bring herself to give
up all hope. Sir Andrew said it rightly; while there was life there
was hope. While there was life in those vigorous limbs, spirit in that
daring mind, how could puny, rampant beasts gain the better of the
immortal soul? As for Armand--why, if Percy were free she would have no
cause to fear for Armand.
She sighed a sigh of deep, of passionate regret and longing. If she
could only see her husband; if she could only look for one second into
those laughing, lazy eyes, wherein she alone knew how to fathom the
infinity of passion that lay within their depths; if she could but once
feel his--ardent kiss on her lips, she could more easily endure this
agonising suspense, and wait confidently and courageously for the issue.
She turned away from the window, for the night was getting bitterly
cold. From the tower of St. Germain l’Auxerrois the clock slowly struck
eight. Even as the last sound of the historic bell died away in the
distance she heard a timid knocking at the door.
“Enter!” she called unthinkingly.
She thought it was her landlady, come up with more wood, mayhap, for
the fire, so she did not turn to the door when she heard it being slowly
opened, then closed again, and presently a soft tread on the threadbare
carpet.
“May I crave your kind attention, Lady Blakeney?” said a harsh voice,
subdued to tones of ordinary courtesy.
She quickly repressed a cry of terror. How well she knew that voice!
When last she heard it it was at Boulogne, dictating that infamous
letter--the weapon wherewith Percy had so effectually foiled his enemy.
She turned and faced the man who was her bitterest foe--hers in the
person of the man she loved.
“Chauvelin!” she gasped.
“Himself at your service, dear lady,” he said simply.
He stood in the full light of the lamp, his trim, small figure boldly
cut out against the dark wall beyond. He wore the usual sable-coloured
clothes which he affected, with the primly-folded jabot and cuffs edged
with narrow lace.
Without waiting for permission from her he quietly and deliberately
placed his hat and cloak on a chair. Then he turned once more
toward her, and made a movement as if to advance into the room; but
instinctively she put up a hand as if to ward off the calamity of his
approach.
He shrugged his shoulders, and the shadow of a smile, that had neither
mirth nor kindliness in it, hovered round the corners of his thin lips.
“Have I your permission to sit?” he asked.
“As you will,” she replied slowly, keeping her wide-open eyes fixed
upon him as does a frightened bird upon the serpent whom it loathes and
fears.
“And may I crave a few moments of your undivided attention, Lady
Blakeney?” he continued, taking a chair, and so placing it beside the
table that the light of the lamp when he sat remained behind him and his
face was left in shadow.
“Is it necessary?” asked Marguerite.
“It is,” he replied curtly, “if you desire to see and speak with your
husband--to be of use to him before it is too late.”
“Then, I pray you, speak, citizen, and I will listen.”
She sank into a chair, not heeding whether the light of the lamp fell
on her face or not, whether the lines in her haggard cheeks, or her
tear-dimmed eyes showed plainly the sorrow and despair that had traced
them. She had nothing to hide from this man, the cause of all the
tortures which she endured. She knew that neither courage nor sorrow
would move him, and that hatred for Percy--personal deadly hatred for
the man who had twice foiled him--had long crushed the last spark of
humanity in his heart.
“Perhaps, Lady Blakeney,” he began after a slight pause and in his
smooth, even voice, “it would interest you to hear how I succeeded in
procuring for myself this pleasure of an interview with you?”
“Your spies did their usual work, I suppose,” she said coldly.
“Exactly. We have been on your track for three days, and yesterday
evening an unguarded movement on the part of Sir Andrew Ffoulkes gave us
the final clue to your whereabouts.”
“Of Sir Andrew Ffoulkes?” she asked, greatly puzzled.
“He was in an eating-house, cleverly disguised, I own, trying to glean
information, no doubt as to the probable fate of Sir Percy Blakeney.
As chance would have it, my friend Heron, of the Committee of
General Security, chanced to be discussing with reprehensible
openness--er--certain--what shall I say?--certain measures which, at my
advice, the Committee of Public Safety have been forced to adopt with a
view to--”
“A truce on your smooth-tongued speeches, citizen Chauvelin,” she
interposed firmly. “Sir Andrew Ffoulkes has told me naught of this--so I
pray you speak plainly and to the point, if you can.”
He bowed with marked irony.
“As you please,” he said. “Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, hearing certain matters
of which I will tell you anon, made a movement which betrayed him to
one of our spies. At a word from citizen Heron this man followed on
the heels of the young farrier who had shown such interest in the
conversation of the Chief Agent. Sir Andrew, I imagine, burning with
indignation at what he had heard, was perhaps not quite so cautious as
he usually is. Anyway, the man on his track followed him to this door.
It was quite simple, as you see. As for me, I had guessed a week ago
that we would see the beautiful Lady Blakeney in Paris before long. When
I knew where Sir Andrew Ffoulkes lodged, I had no difficulty in guessing
that Lady Blakeney would not be far off.”
“And what was there in citizen Heron’s conversation last night,” she
asked quietly, “that so aroused Sir Andrew’s indignation?”
“He has not told you?” “Oh! it is very simple. Let me tell you, Lady
Blakeney, exactly how matters stand. Sir Percy Blakeney--before lucky
chance at last delivered him into our hands--thought fit, as no doubt
you know, to meddle with our most important prisoner of State.”
“A child. I know it, sir--the son of a murdered father whom you and your
friends were slowly doing to death.”
“That is as it may be, Lady Blakeney,” rejoined Chauvelin calmly; “but
it was none of Sir Percy Blakeney’s business. This, however, he chose
to disregard. He succeeded in carrying little Capet from the Temple, and
two days later we had him under lock, and key.”
“Through some infamous and treacherous trick, sir,” she retorted.
Chauvelin made no immediate reply; his pale, inscrutable eyes were fixed
upon her face, and the smile of irony round his mouth appeared more
strongly marked than before.
“That, again, is as it may be,” he said suavely; “but anyhow for the
moment we have the upper hand. Sir Percy is in the Conciergerie, guarded
day and night, more closely than Marie Antoinette even was guarded.”
“And he laughs at your bolts and bars, sir,” she rejoined proudly.
“Remember Calais, remember Boulogne. His laugh at your discomfiture,
then, must resound in your ear even to-day.”
“Yes; but for the moment laughter is on our side. Still we are willing
to forego even that pleasure, if Sir Percy will but move a finger
towards his own freedom.”
“Again some infamous letter?” she asked with bitter contempt; “some
attempt against his honour?”
“No, no, Lady Blakeney,” he interposed with perfect blandness. “Matters
are so much simpler now, you see. We hold Sir Percy at our mercy.
We could send him to the guillotine to-morrow, but we might be
willing--remember, I only say we might--to exercise our prerogative of
mercy if Sir Percy Blakeney will on his side accede to a request from
us.”
“And that request?”
“Is a very natural one. He took Capet away from us, and it is but
credible that he knows at the present moment exactly where the child is.
Let him instruct his followers--and I mistake not, Lady Blakeney, there
are several of them not very far from Paris just now--let him, I say,
instruct these followers of his to return the person of young Capet to
us, and not only will we undertake to give these same gentlemen a safe
conduct back to England, but we even might be inclined to deal somewhat
less harshly with the gallant Scarlet Pimpernel himself.”
She laughed a harsh, mirthless, contemptuous laugh.
“I don’t think that I quite understand,” she said after a moment or
two, whilst he waited calmly until her out-break of hysterical mirth
had subsided. “You want my husband--the Scarlet Pimpernel, citizen--to
deliver the little King of France to you after he has risked his life
to save the child out of your clutches? Is that what you are trying to
say?”
“It is,” rejoined Chauvelin complacently, “just what we have been saying
to Sir Percy Blakeney for the past six days, madame.”
“Well! then you have had your answer, have you not?”
“Yes,” he replied slowly; “but the answer has become weaker day by day.”
“Weaker? I don’t understand.”
“Let me explain, Lady Blakeney,” said Chauvelin, now with measured
emphasis. He put both elbows on the table and leaned well forward,
peering into her face, lest one of its varied expressions escaped
him. “Just now you taunted me with my failure in Calais, and again
at Boulogne, with a proud toss of the head, which I own is excessive
becoming; you threw the name of the Scarlet Pimpernel in my face like a
challenge which I no longer dare to accept. ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel,’ you
would say to me, ‘stands for loyalty, for honour, and for indomitable
courage. Think you he would sacrifice his honour to obtain your mercy?
Remember Boulogne and your discomfiture!’ All of which, dear lady, is
perfectly charming and womanly and enthusiastic, and I, bowing my humble
head, must own that I was fooled in Calais and baffled in Boulogne.
But in Boulogne I made a grave mistake, and one from which I learned a
lesson, which I am putting into practice now.”
He paused a while as if waiting for her reply. His pale, keen eyes
had already noted that with every phrase he uttered the lines in her
beautiful face became more hard and set. A look of horror was gradually
spreading over it, as if the icy-cold hand of death had passed over her
eyes and cheeks, leaving them rigid like stone.
“In Boulogne,” resumed Chauvelin quietly, satisfied that his words were
hitting steadily at her heart--“in Boulogne Sir Percy and I did
not fight an equal fight. Fresh from a pleasant sojourn in his own
magnificent home, full of the spirit of adventure which puts the essence
of life into a man’s veins, Sir Percy Blakeney’s splendid physique was
pitted against my feeble powers. Of course I lost the battle. I made the
mistake of trying to subdue a man who was in the zenith of his strength,
whereas now--”
“Yes, citizen Chauvelin,” she said, “whereas now--”
“Sir Percy Blakeney has been in the prison of the Conciergerie for
exactly one week, Lady Blakeney,” he replied, speaking very slowly, and
letting every one of his words sink individually into her mind. “Even
before he had time to take the bearings of his cell or to plan on his
own behalf one of those remarkable escapes for which he is so justly
famous, our men began to work on a scheme which I am proud to say
originated with myself. A week has gone by since then, Lady Blakeney,
and during that time a special company of prison guard, acting under the
orders of the Committee of General Security and of Public Safety, have
questioned the prisoner unremittingly--unremittingly, remember--day and
night. Two by two these men take it in turns to enter the prisoner’s
cell every quarter of an hour--lately it has had to be more often--and
ask him the one question, ‘Where is little Capet?’ Up to now we have
received no satisfactory reply, although we have explained to Sir Percy
that many of his followers are honouring the neighbourhood of Paris with
their visit, and that all we ask for from him are instructions to
those gallant gentlemen to bring young Capet back to us. It is all very
simple, unfortunately the prisoner is somewhat obstinate. At first,
even, the idea seemed to amuse him; he used to laugh and say that he
always had the faculty of sleeping with his eyes open. But our soldiers
are untiring in their efforts, and the want of sleep as well as of a
sufficiency of food and of fresh air is certainly beginning to tell on
Sir Percy Blakeney’s magnificent physique. I don’t think that it will be
very long before he gives way to our gentle persuasions; and in any case
now, I assure you, dear lady, that we need not fear any attempt on
his part to escape. I doubt if he could walk very steadily across this
room--”
Marguerite had sat quite silent and apparently impassive all the while
that Chauvelin had been speaking; even now she scarcely stirred. Her
face expressed absolutely nothing but deep puzzlement. There was a frown
between her brows, and her eyes, which were always of such liquid
blue, now looked almost black. She was trying to visualise that which
Chauvelin had put before her: a man harassed day and night, unceasingly,
unremittingly, with one question allowed neither respite nor sleep--his
brain, soul, and body fagged out at every hour, every moment of the day
and night, until mind and body and soul must inevitably give way under
anguish ten thousand times more unendurable than any physical torment
invented by monsters in barbaric times.
That man thus harassed, thus fagged out, thus martyrised at all hours of
the day and night, was her husband, whom she loved with every fibre of
her being, with every throb of her heart.
Torture? Oh, no! these were advanced and civilised times that could
afford to look with horror on the excesses of medieval days. This was
a revolution that made for progress, and challenged the opinion of the
world. The cells of the Temple of La Force or the Conciergerie held no
secret inquisition with iron maidens and racks and thumbscrews; but
a few men had put their tortuous brains together, and had said one to
another: “We want to find out from that man where we can lay our hands
on little Capet, so we won’t let him sleep until he has told us. It
is not torture--oh, no! Who would dare to say that we torture our
prisoners? It is only a little horseplay, worrying to the prisoner, no
doubt; but, after all, he can end the unpleasantness at any moment. He
need but to answer our question, and he can go to sleep as comfortably
as a little child. The want of sleep is very trying, the want of proper
food and of fresh air is very weakening; the prisoner must give way
sooner or later--”
So these fiends had decided it between them, and they had put their idea
into execution for one whole week. Marguerite looked at Chauvelin as she
would on some monstrous, inscrutable Sphinx, marveling if God--even in
His anger--could really have created such a fiendish brain, or, having
created it, could allow it to wreak such devilry unpunished.
Even now she felt that he was enjoying the mental anguish which he had
put upon her, and she saw his thin, evil lips curled into a smile.
“So you came to-night to tell me all this?” she asked as soon as
she could trust herself to speak. Her impulse was to shriek out her
indignation, her horror of him, into his face. She longed to call down
God’s eternal curse upon this fiend; but instinctively she held herself
in check. Her indignation, her words of loathing would only have added
to his delight.
“You have had your wish,” she added coldly; “now, I pray you, go.”
“Your pardon, Lady Blakeney,” he said with all his habitual blandness;
“my object in coming to see you tonight was twofold. Methought that I
was acting as your friend in giving you authentic news of Sir Percy, and
in suggesting the possibility of your adding your persuasion to ours.”
“My persuasion? You mean that I--”
“You would wish to see your husband, would you not, Lady Blakeney?”
“Yes.”
“Then I pray you command me. I will grant you the permission whenever
you wish to go.”
“You are in the hope, citizen,” she said, “that I will do my best to
break my husband’s spirit by my tears or my prayers--is that it?”
“Not necessarily,” he replied pleasantly. “I assure you that we can
manage to do that ourselves, in time.”
“You devil!” The cry of pain and of horror was involuntarily wrung from
the depths of her soul. “Are you not afraid that God’s hand will strike
you where you stand?”
“No,” he said lightly; “I am not afraid, Lady Blakeney. You see, I do
not happen to believe in God. Come!” he added more seriously, “have I
not proved to you that my offer is disinterested? Yet I repeat it even
now. If you desire to see Sir Percy in prison, command me, and the doors
shall be open to you.”
She waited a moment, looking him straight and quite dispassionately in
the face; then she said coldly:
“Very well! I will go.”
“When?” he asked.
“This evening.”
“Just as you wish. I would have to go and see my friend Heron first, and
arrange with him for your visit.”
“Then go. I will follow in half an hour.”
“C’est entendu. Will you be at the main entrance of the Conciergerie
at half-past nine? You know it, perhaps--no? It is in the Rue de la
Barillerie, immediately on the right at the foot of the great staircase
of the house of Justice.”
“Of the house of Justice!” she exclaimed involuntarily, a world of
bitter contempt in her cry. Then she added in her former matter-of-fact
tones:
“Very good, citizen. At half-past nine I will be at the entrance you
name.”
“And I will be at the door prepared to escort you.”
He took up his hat and coat and bowed ceremoniously to her. Then he
turned to go. At the door a cry from her--involuntarily enough, God
knows!--made him pause.
“My interview with the prisoner,” she said, vainly trying, poor soul! to
repress that quiver of anxiety in her voice, “it will be private?”
“Oh, yes! Of course,” he replied with a reassuring smile. “Au revoir,
Lady Blakeney! Half-past nine, remember--”
She could no longer trust herself to look on him as he finally took his
departure. She was afraid--yes, absolutely afraid that her fortitude
would give way--meanly, despicably, uselessly give way; that she would
suddenly fling herself at the feet of that sneering, inhuman wretch,
that she would pray, implore--Heaven above! what might she not do in
the face of this awful reality, if the last lingering shred of vanishing
reason, of pride, and of courage did not hold her in check?
Therefore she forced herself not to look on that departing, sable-clad
figure, on that evil face, and those hands that held Percy’s fate
in their cruel grip; but her ears caught the welcome sound of his
departure--the opening and shutting of the door, his light footstep
echoing down the stone stairs.
When at last she felt that she was really alone she uttered a loud cry
like a wounded doe, and falling on her knees she buried her face in
her hands in a passionate fit of weeping. Violent sobs shook her entire
frame; it seemed as if an overwhelming anguish was tearing at her
heart--the physical pain of it was almost unendurable. And yet even
through this paroxysm of tears her mind clung to one root idea: when she
saw Percy she must be brave and calm, be able to help him if he wanted
her, to do his bidding if there was anything that she could do, or any
message that she could take to the others. Of hope she had none. The
last lingering ray of it had been extinguished by that fiend when he
said, “We need not fear that he will escape. I doubt if he could walk
very steadily across this room now.”
CHAPTER XXVII. IN THE CONCIERGERIE
Marguerite, accompanied by Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, walked rapidly along
the quay. It lacked ten minutes to the half hour; the night was dark and
bitterly cold. Snow was still falling in sparse, thin flakes, and lay
like a crisp and glittering mantle over the parapets of the bridges and
the grim towers of the Chatelet prison.
They walked on silently now. All that they had wanted to say to one
another had been said inside the squalid room of their lodgings when Sir
Andrew Ffoulkes had come home and learned that Chauvelin had been.
“They are killing him by inches, Sir Andrew,” had been the heartrending
cry which burst from Marguerite’s oppressed heart as soon as her hands
rested in the kindly ones of her best friend. “Is there aught that we
can do?”
There was, of course, very little that could be done. One or two fine
steel files which Sir Andrew gave her to conceal beneath the folds of
her kerchief; also a tiny dagger with sharp, poisoned blade, which for a
moment she held in her hand hesitating, her eyes filling with tears, her
heart throbbing with unspeakable sorrow.
Then slowly--very slowly--she raised the small, death-dealing instrument
to her lips, and reverently kissed the narrow blade.
“If it must be!” she murmured, “God in His mercy will forgive!”
She sheathed the dagger, and this, too, she hid in the folds of her
gown.
“Can you think of anything else, Sir Andrew, that he might want?” she
asked. “I have money in plenty, in case those soldiers--”
Sir Andrew sighed, and turned away from her so as to hide the
hopelessness which he felt. Since three days now he had been exhausting
every conceivable means of getting at the prison guard with bribery
and corruption. But Chauvelin and his friends had taken excellent
precautions. The prison of the Conciergerie, situated as it was in the
very heart of the labyrinthine and complicated structure of the Chatelet
and the house of Justice, and isolated from every other group of cells
in the building, was inaccessible save from one narrow doorway which
gave on the guard-room first, and thence on the inner cell beyond. Just
as all attempts to rescue the late unfortunate Queen from that prison
had failed, so now every attempt to reach the imprisoned Scarlet
Pimpernel was equally doomed to bitter disappointment.
The guard-room was filled with soldiers day and night; the windows of
the inner cell, heavily barred, were too small to admit of the passage
of a human body, and they were raised twenty feet from the corridor
below. Sir Andrew had stood in the corridor two days ago, he had looked
on the window behind which he knew that his friend must be eating out
his noble heart in a longing for liberty, and he had realised then that
every effort at help from the outside was foredoomed to failure.
“Courage, Lady Blakeney,” he said to Marguerite, when anon they had
crossed the Pont au Change, and were wending their way slowly along the
Rue de la Barillerie; “remember our proud dictum: the Scarlet Pimpernel
never fails! and also this, that whatever messages Blakeney gives you
for us, whatever he wishes us to do, we are to a man ready to do it, and
to give our lives for our chief. Courage! Something tells me that a man
like Percy is not going to die at the hands of such vermin as Chauvelin
and his friends.”
They had reached the great iron gates of the house of Justice.
Marguerite, trying to smile, extended her trembling hand to this
faithful, loyal comrade.
“I’ll not be far,” he said. “When you come out do not look to the right
or left, but make straight for home; I’ll not lose sight of you for a
moment, and as soon as possible will overtake you. God bless you both.”
He pressed his lips on her cold little hand, and watched her tall,
elegant figure as she passed through the great gates until the veil
of falling snow hid her from his gaze. Then with a deep sigh of bitter
anguish and sorrow he turned away and was soon lost in the gloom.
Marguerite found the gate at the bottom of the monumental stairs open
when she arrived. Chauvelin was standing immediately inside the building
waiting for her.
“We are prepared for your visit, Lady Blakeney,” he said, “and the
prisoner knows that you are coming.”
He led the way down one of the numerous and interminable corridors of
the building, and she followed briskly, pressing her hand against her
bosom there where the folds of her kerchief hid the steel files and the
precious dagger.
Even in the gloom of these ill-lighted passages she realised that she
was surrounded by guards. There were soldiers everywhere; two had stood
behind the door when first she entered, and had immediately closed
it with a loud clang behind her; and all the way down the corridors,
through the half-light engendered by feebly flickering lamps, she caught
glimpses of the white facings on the uniforms of the town guard, or
occasionally the glint of steel of a bayonet. Presently Chauvelin paused
beside a door, which he had just reached. His hand was on the latch, for
it did not appear to be locked, and he turned toward Marguerite.
“I am very sorry, Lady Blakeney,” he said in simple, deferential tones,
“that the prison authorities, who at my request are granting you this
interview at such an unusual hour, have made a slight condition to your
visit.”
“A condition?” she asked. “What is it?”
“You must forgive me,” he said, as if purposely evading her question,
“for I give you my word that I had nothing to do with a regulation that
you might justly feel was derogatory to your dignity. If you will kindly
step in here a wardress in charge will explain to you what is required.”
He pushed open the door, and stood aside ceremoniously in order to allow
her to pass in. She looked on him with deep puzzlement and a look of
dark suspicion in her eyes. But her mind was too much engrossed with
the thought of her meeting with Percy to worry over any trifle that
might--as her enemy had inferred--offend her womanly dignity.
She walked into the room, past Chauvelin, who whispered as she went by:
“I will wait for you here. And, I pray you, if you have aught to
complain of summon me at once.”
Then he closed the door behind her. The room in which Marguerite now
found herself was a small unventilated quadrangle, dimly lighted by a
hanging lamp. A woman in a soiled cotton gown and lank grey hair brushed
away from a parchment-like forehead rose from the chair in which she
had been sitting when Marguerite entered, and put away some knitting on
which she had apparently been engaged.
“I was to tell you, citizeness,” she said the moment the door had been
closed and she was alone with Marguerite, “that the prison authorities
have given orders that I should search you before you visit the
prisoner.”
She repeated this phrase mechanically like a child who has been taught
to say a lesson by heart. She was a stoutish middle-aged woman, with
that pasty, flabby skin peculiar to those who live in want of fresh
air; but her small, dark eyes were not unkindly, although they shifted
restlessly from one object to another as if she were trying to avoid
looking the other woman straight in the face.
“That you should search me!” reiterated Marguerite slowly, trying to
understand.
“Yes,” replied the woman. “I was to tell you to take off your clothes,
so that I might look them through and through. I have often had to do
this before when visitors have been allowed inside the prison, so it is
no use your trying to deceive me in any way. I am very sharp at
finding out if any one has papers, or files or ropes concealed in an
underpetticoat. Come,” she added more roughly, seeing that Marguerite
had remained motionless in the middle of the room; “the quicker you are
about it the sooner you will be taken to see the prisoner.”
These words had their desired effect. The proud Lady Blakeney, inwardly
revolting at the outrage, knew that resistance would be worse than
useless. Chauvelin was the other side of the door. A call from the woman
would bring him to her assistance, and Marguerite was only longing to
hasten the moment when she could be with her husband.
She took off her kerchief and her gown and calmly submitted to the
woman’s rough hands as they wandered with sureness and accuracy to the
various pockets and folds that might conceal prohibited articles. The
woman did her work with peculiar stolidity; she did not utter a word
when she found the tiny steel files and placed them on a table beside
her. In equal silence she laid the little dagger beside them, and the
purse which contained twenty gold pieces. These she counted in front
of Marguerite and then replaced them in the purse. Her face expressed
neither surprise, nor greed nor pity. She was obviously beyond the reach
of bribery--just a machine paid by the prison authorities to do this
unpleasant work, and no doubt terrorised into doing it conscientiously.
When she had satisfied herself that Marguerite had nothing further
concealed about her person, she allowed her to put her dress on once
more. She even offered to help her on with it. When Marguerite was
fully dressed she opened the door for her. Chauvelin was standing in the
passage waiting patiently. At sight of Marguerite, whose pale, set face
betrayed nothing of the indignation which she felt, he turned quick,
inquiring eyes on the woman.
“Two files, a dagger and a purse with twenty louis,” said the latter
curtly.
Chauvelin made no comment. He received the information quite placidly,
as if it had no special interest for him. Then he said quietly:
“This way, citizeness!”
Marguerite followed him, and two minutes later he stood beside a heavy
nail-studded door that had a small square grating let into one of the
panels, and said simply:
“This is it.”
Two soldiers of the National Guard were on sentry at the door, two
more were pacing up and down outside it, and had halted when citizen
Chauvelin gave his name and showed his tricolour scarf of office.
From behind the small grating in the door a pair of eyes peered at the
newcomers.
“Qui va la?” came the quick challenge from the guard-room within.
“Citizen Chauvelin of the Committee of Public Safety,” was the prompt
reply.
There was the sound of grounding of arms, of the drawing of bolts and
the turning of a key in a complicated lock. The prison was kept locked
from within, and very heavy bars had to be moved ere the ponderous door
slowly swung open on its hinges.
Two steps led up into the guard-room. Marguerite mounted them with the
same feeling of awe and almost of reverence as she would have mounted
the steps of a sacrificial altar.
The guard-room itself was more brilliantly lighted than the corridor
outside. The sudden glare of two or three lamps placed about the room
caused her momentarily to close her eyes that were aching with many shed
and unshed tears. The air was rank and heavy with the fumes of tobacco,
of wine and stale food. A large barred window gave on the corridor
immediately above the door.
When Marguerite felt strong enough to look around her, she saw that
the room was filled with soldiers. Some were sitting, others standing,
others lay on rugs against the wall, apparently asleep. There was one
who appeared to be in command, for with a word he checked the noise that
was going on in the room when she entered, and then he said curtly:
“This way, citizeness!”
He turned to an opening in the wall on the left, the stone-lintel of
a door, from which the door itself had been removed; an iron bar
ran across the opening, and this the sergeant now lifted, nodding to
Marguerite to go within.
Instinctively she looked round for Chauvelin.
But he was nowhere to be seen.
CHAPTER XXVIII. THE CAGED LION
Was there some instinct of humanity left in the soldier who allowed
Marguerite through the barrier into the prisoner’s cell? Had the wan
face of this beautiful woman stirred within his heart the last chord of
gentleness that was not wholly atrophied by the constant cruelties, the
excesses, the mercilessness which his service under this fraternising
republic constantly demanded of him?
Perhaps some recollection of former years, when first he served his King
and country, recollection of wife or sister or mother pleaded within
him in favour of this sorely-stricken woman with the look of unspeakable
sorrow in her large blue eyes.
Certain it is that as soon as Marguerite passed the barrier he put
himself on guard against it with his back to the interior of the cell
and to her.
Marguerite had paused on the threshold.
After the glaring light of the guard-room the cell seemed dark, and at
first she could hardly see. The whole length of the long, narrow cubicle
lay to her left, with a slight recess at its further end, so that from
the threshold of the doorway she could not see into the distant corner.
Swift as a lightning flash the remembrance came back to her of proud
Marie Antoinette narrowing her life to that dark corner where the
insolent eyes of the rabble soldiery could not spy her every movement.
Marguerite stepped further into the room. Gradually by the dim light of
an oil lamp placed upon a table in the recess she began to distinguish
various objects: one or two chairs, another table, and a small but very
comfortable-looking camp bedstead.
Just for a few seconds she only saw these inanimate things, then she
became conscious of Percy’s presence.
He sat on a chair, with his left arm half-stretched out upon the table,
his head hidden in the bend of the elbow.
Marguerite did not utter a cry; she did not even tremble. Just for one
brief instant she closed her eyes, so as to gather up all her courage
before she dared to look again. Then with a steady and noiseless step
she came quite close to him. She knelt on the flagstones at his feet and
raised reverently to her lips the hand that hung nerveless and limp by
his side.
He gave a start; a shiver seemed to go right through him; he half raised
his head and murmured in a hoarse whisper:
“I tell you that I do not know, and if I did--”
She put her arms round him and pillowed her head upon his breast. He
turned his head slowly toward her, and now his eyes--hollowed and rimmed
with purple--looked straight into hers.
“My beloved,” he said, “I knew that you would come.” His arms closed
round her. There was nothing of lifelessness or of weariness in the
passion of that embrace; and when she looked up again it seemed to her
as if that first vision which she had had of him with weary head bent,
and wan, haggard face was not reality, only a dream born of her own
anxiety for him, for now the hot, ardent blood coursed just as swiftly
as ever through his veins, as if life--strong, tenacious, pulsating
life--throbbed with unabated vigour in those massive limbs, and behind
that square, clear brow as though the body, but half subdued, had
transferred its vanishing strength to the kind and noble heart that was
beating with the fervour of self-sacrifice.
“Percy,” she said gently, “they will only give us a few moments
together. They thought that my tears would break your spirit where their
devilry had failed.”
He held her glance with his own, with that close, intent look which
binds soul to soul, and in his deep blue eyes there danced the restless
flames of his own undying mirth:
“La! little woman,” he said with enforced lightness, even whilst his
voice quivered with the intensity of passion engendered by her presence,
her nearness, the perfume of her hair, “how little they know you, eh?
Your brave, beautiful, exquisite soul, shining now through your glorious
eyes, would defy the machinations of Satan himself and his horde. Close
your dear eyes, my love. I shall go mad with joy if I drink their beauty
in any longer.”
He held her face between his two hands, and indeed it seemed as if he
could not satiate his soul with looking into her eyes. In the midst of
so much sorrow, such misery and such deadly fear, never had Marguerite
felt quite so happy, never had she felt him so completely her own. The
inevitable bodily weakness, which of necessity had invaded even his
splendid physique after a whole week’s privations, had made a severe
breach in the invincible barrier of self-control with which the soul of
the inner man was kept perpetually hidden behind a mask of indifference
and of irresponsibility.
And yet the agony of seeing the lines of sorrow so plainly writ on the
beautiful face of the woman he worshipped must have been the keenest
that the bold adventurer had ever experienced in the whole course of his
reckless life. It was he--and he alone--who was making her suffer;
her for whose sake he would gladly have shed every drop of his blood,
endured every torment, every misery and every humiliation; her whom he
worshipped only one degree less than he worshipped his honour and the
cause which he had made his own.
Yet, in spite of that agony, in spite of the heartrending pathos of her
pale wan face, and through the anguish of seeing her tears, the ruling
passion--strong in death--the spirit of adventure, the mad, wild,
devil-may-care irresponsibility was never wholly absent.
“Dear heart,” he said with a quaint sigh, whilst he buried his face in
the soft masses of her hair, “until you came I was so d--d fatigued.”
He was laughing, and the old look of boyish love of mischief illumined
his haggard face.
“Is it not lucky, dear heart,” he said a moment or two later, “that
those brutes do not leave me unshaved? I could not have faced you with a
week’s growth of beard round my chin. By dint of promises and bribery
I have persuaded one of that rabble to come and shave me every morning.
They will not allow me to handle a razor my-self. They are afraid I
should cut my throat--or one of theirs. But mostly I am too d--d sleepy
to think of such a thing.”
“Percy!” she exclaimed with tender and passionate reproach.
“I know--I know, dear,” he murmured, “what a brute I am! Ah, God did
a cruel thing the day that He threw me in your path. To think that
once--not so very long ago--we were drifting apart, you and I. You would
have suffered less, dear heart, if we had continued to drift.”
Then as he saw that his bantering tone pained her, he covered her hands
with kisses, entreating her forgiveness.
“Dear heart,” he said merrily, “I deserve that you should leave me to
rot in this abominable cage. They haven’t got me yet, little woman, you
know; I am not yet dead--only d--d sleepy at times. But I’ll cheat them
even now, never fear.”
“How, Percy--how?” she moaned, for her heart was aching with intolerable
pain; she knew better than he did the precautions which were being taken
against his escape, and she saw more clearly than he realised it himself
the terrible barrier set up against that escape by ever encroaching
physical weakness.
“Well, dear,” he said simply, “to tell you the truth I have not yet
thought of that all-important ‘how.’ I had to wait, you see, until you
came. I was so sure that you would come! I have succeeded in putting on
paper all my instructions for Ffoulkes and the others. I will give them
to you anon. I knew that you would come, and that I could give them to
you; until then I had but to think of one thing, and that was of keeping
body and soul together. My chance of seeing you was to let them have
their will with me. Those brutes were sure, sooner or later, to bring
you to me, that you might see the caged fox worn down to imbecility,
eh? That you might add your tears to their persuasion, and succeed where
they have failed.”
He laughed lightly with an unstrained note of gaiety, only Marguerite’s
sensitive ears caught the faint tone of bitterness which rang through
the laugh.
“Once I know that the little King of France is safe,” he said, “I can
think of how best to rob those d--d murderers of my skin.”
Then suddenly his manner changed. He still held her with one arm closely
to, him, but the other now lay across the table, and the slender,
emaciated hand was tightly clutched. He did not look at her, but
straight ahead; the eyes, unnaturally large now, with their deep purple
rims, looked far ahead beyond the stone walls of this grim, cruel
prison.
The passionate lover, hungering for his beloved, had vanished; there
sat the man with a purpose, the man whose firm hand had snatched men and
women and children from death, the reckless enthusiast who tossed his
life against an ideal.
For a while he sat thus, while in his drawn and haggard face she could
trace every line formed by his thoughts--the frown of anxiety, the
resolute setting of the lips, the obstinate look of will around the firm
jaw. Then he turned again to her.
“My beautiful one,” he said softly, “the moments are very precious. God
knows I could spend eternity thus with your dear form nestling against
my heart. But those d--d murderers will only give us half an hour, and I
want your help, my beloved, now that I am a helpless cur caught in their
trap. Will you listen attentively, dear heart, to what I am going to
say?
“Yes, Percy, I will listen,” she replied.
“And have you the courage to do just what I tell you, dear?”
“I would not have courage to do aught else,” she said simply.
“It means going from hence to-day, dear heart, and perhaps not meeting
again. Hush-sh-sh, my beloved,” he said, tenderly placing his thin hand
over her mouth, from which a sharp cry of pain had well-nigh escaped;
“your exquisite soul will be with me always. Try--try not to give way to
despair. Why! your love alone, which I see shining from your dear eyes,
is enough to make a man cling to life with all his might. Tell me! will
you do as I ask you?”
And she replied firmly and courageously:
“I will do just what you ask, Percy.”
“God bless you for your courage, dear. You will have need of it.”
CHAPTER XXIX. FOR THE SAKE OF THAT HELPLESS INNOCENT
The next instant he was kneeling on the floor and his hands were
wandering over the small, irregular flagstones immediately underneath
the table. Marguerite had risen to her feet; she watched her husband
with intent and puzzled eyes; she saw him suddenly pass his slender
fingers along a crevice between two flagstones, then raise one of these
slightly and from beneath it extract a small bundle of papers, each
carefully folded and sealed. Then he replaced the stone and once more
rose to his knees.
He gave a quick glance toward the doorway. That corner of his cell, the
recess wherein stood the table, was invisible to any one who had not
actually crossed the threshold. Reassured that his movements could not
have been and were not watched, he drew Marguerite closer to him.
“Dear heart,” he whispered, “I want to place these papers in your care.
Look upon them as my last will and testament. I succeeded in fooling
those brutes one day by pretending to be willing to accede to their
will. They gave me pen and ink and paper and wax, and I was to write out
an order to my followers to bring the Dauphin hither. They left me in
peace for one quarter of an hour, which gave me time to write three
letters--one for Armand and the other two for Ffoulkes, and to hide them
under the flooring of my cell. You see, dear, I knew that you would come
and that I could give them to you then.”
He paused, and that ghost of a smile once more hovered round his lips.
He was thinking of that day when he had fooled Heron and Chauvelin into
the belief that their devilry had succeeded, and that they had brought
the reckless adventurer to his knees. He smiled at the recollection
of their wrath when they knew that they had been tricked, and after
a quarter of an hour’s anxious waiting found a few sheets of paper
scribbled over with incoherent words or satirical verse, and the
prisoner having apparently snatched ten minutes’ sleep, which seemingly
had restored to him quite a modicum of his strength.
But of this he told Marguerite nothing, nor of the insults and the
humiliation which he had had to bear in consequence of that trick. He
did not tell her that directly afterwards the order went forth that
the prisoner was to be kept on bread and water in the future, nor that
Chauvelin had stood by laughing and jeering while...
No! he did not tell her all that; the recollection of it all had still
the power to make him laugh; was it not all a part and parcel of that
great gamble for human lives wherein he had held the winning cards
himself for so long?
“It is your turn now,” he had said even then to his bitter enemy.
“Yes!” Chauvelin had replied, “our turn at last. And you will not bend
my fine English gentleman, we’ll break you yet, never fear.”
It was the thought of it all, of that hand to hand, will to will, spirit
to spirit struggle that lighted up his haggard face even now, gave him a
fresh zest for life, a desire to combat and to conquer in spite of all,
in spite of the odds that had martyred his body but left the mind, the
will, the power still unconquered.
He was pressing one of the papers into her hand, holding her fingers
tightly in his, and compelling her gaze with the ardent excitement of
his own.
“This first letter is for Ffoulkes,” he said. “It relates to the final
measures for the safety of the Dauphin. They are my instructions to
those members of the League who are in or near Paris at the present
moment. Ffoulkes, I know, must be with you--he was not likely, God bless
his loyalty, to let you come to Paris alone. Then give this letter to
him, dear heart, at once, to-night, and tell him that it is my express
command that he and the others shall act in minute accordance with my
instructions.”
“But the Dauphin surely is safe now,” she urged. “Ffoulkes and the
others are here in order to help you.”
“To help me, dear heart?” he interposed earnestly. “God alone can do
that now, and such of my poor wits as these devils do not succeed in
crushing out of me within the next ten days.”
Ten days!
“I have waited a week, until this hour when I could place this packet in
your hands; another ten days should see the Dauphin out of France--after
that, we shall see.”
“Percy,” she exclaimed in an agony of horror, “you cannot endure this
another day--and live!”
“Nay!” he said in a tone that was almost insolent in its proud defiance,
“there is but little that a man cannot do an he sets his mind to it. For
the rest, ‘tis in God’s hands!” he added more gently. “Dear heart! you
swore that you would be brave. The Dauphin is still in France, and until
he is out of it he will not really be safe; his friends wanted to keep
him inside the country. God only knows what they still hope; had I been
free I should not have allowed him to remain so long; now those good
people at Mantes will yield to my letter and to Ffoulkes’ earnest
appeal--they will allow one of our League to convey the child safely out
of France, and I’ll wait here until I know that he is safe. If I tried
to get away now, and succeeded--why, Heaven help us! the hue and cry
might turn against the child, and he might be captured before I could
get to him. Dear heart! dear, dear heart! try to understand. The safety
of that child is bound with mine honour, but I swear to you, my sweet
love, that the day on which I feel that that safety is assured I will
save mine own skin--what there is left of it--if I can!”
“Percy!” she cried with a sudden outburst of passionate revolt, “you
speak as if the safety of that child were of more moment than your own.
Ten days!--but, God in Heaven! have you thought how I shall live these
ten days, whilst slowly, inch by inch, you give your dear, your precious
life for a forlorn cause?
“I am very tough, m’dear,” he said lightly; “‘tis not a question of
life. I shall only be spending a few more very uncomfortable days in
this d--d hole; but what of that?”
Her eyes spoke the reply; her eyes veiled with tears, that wandered
with heart-breaking anxiety from the hollow circles round his own to
the lines of weariness about the firm lips and jaw. He laughed at her
solicitude.
“I can last out longer than these brutes have any idea of,” he said
gaily.
“You cheat yourself, Percy,” she rejoined with quiet earnestness. “Every
day that you spend immured between these walls, with that ceaseless
nerve-racking torment of sleeplessness which these devils have devised
for the breaking of your will--every day thus spent diminishes
your power of ultimately saving yourself. You see, I speak
calmly--dispassionately--I do not even urge my claims upon your life.
But what you must weigh in the balance is the claim of all those for
whom in the past you have already staked your life, whose lives you have
purchased by risking your own. What, in comparison with your noble life,
is that of the puny descendant of a line of decadent kings? Why should
it be sacrificed--ruthlessly, hopelessly sacrificed that a boy might
live who is as nothing to the world, to his country--even to his own
people?”
She had tried to speak calmly, never raising her voice beyond a whisper.
Her hands still clutched that paper, which seemed to sear her fingers,
the paper which she felt held writ upon its smooth surface the
death-sentence of the man she loved.
But his look did not answer her firm appeal; it was fixed far away
beyond the prison walls, on a lonely country road outside Paris, with
the rain falling in a thin drizzle, and leaden clouds overhead chasing
one another, driven by the gale.
“Poor mite,” he murmured softly; “he walked so bravely by my side, until
the little feet grew weary; then he nestled in my arms and slept until
we met Ffoulkes waiting with the cart. He was no King of France just
then, only a helpless innocent whom Heaven aided me to save.”
Marguerite bowed her head in silence. There was nothing more that she
could say, no plea that she could urge. Indeed, she had understood, as
he had begged her to understand. She understood that long ago he had
mapped out the course of his life, and now that that course happened to
lead up a Calvary of humiliation and of suffering he was not likely to
turn back, even though, on the summit, death already was waiting and
beckoning with no uncertain hand; not until he could murmur, in the wake
of the great and divine sacrifice itself, the sublime words:
“It is accomplished.”
“But the Dauphin is safe enough now,” was all that she said, after that
one moment’s silence when her heart, too, had offered up to God the
supreme abnegation of self, and calmly faced a sorrow which threatened
to break it at last.
“Yes!” he rejoined quietly, “safe enough for the moment. But he would
be safer still if he were out of France. I had hoped to take him one day
with me to England. But in this plan damnable Fate has interfered.
His adherents wanted to get him to Vienna, and their wish had best be
fulfilled now. In my instructions to Ffoulkes I have mapped out a simple
way for accomplishing the journey. Tony will be the one best suited to
lead the expedition, and I want him to make straight for Holland; the
Northern frontiers are not so closely watched as are the Austrian ones.
There is a faithful adherent of the Bourbon cause who lives at Delft,
and who will give the shelter of his name and home to the fugitive King
of France until he can be conveyed to Vienna. He is named Nauudorff.
Once I feel that the child is safe in his hands I will look after
myself, never fear.”
He paused, for his strength, which was only factitious, born of the
excitement that Marguerite’s presence had called forth, was threatening
to give way. His voice, though he had spoken in a whisper all along, was
very hoarse, and his temples were throbbing with the sustained effort to
speak.
“If those friends had only thought of denying me food instead of sleep,”
he murmured involuntarily, “I could have held out until--”
Then with characteristic swiftness his mood changed in a moment. His
arms closed round Marguerite once more with a passion of self-reproach.
“Heaven forgive me for a selfish brute,” he said, whilst the ghost of
a smile once more lit up the whole of his face. “Dear soul, I must
have forgotten your sweet presence, thus brooding over my own troubles,
whilst your loving heart has a graver burden--God help me!--than it can
possibly bear. Listen, my beloved, for I don’t know how many minutes
longer they intend to give us, and I have not yet spoken to you about
Armand--”
“Armand!” she cried.
A twinge of remorse had gripped her. For fully ten minutes now she had
relegated all thoughts of her brother to a distant cell of her memory.
“We have no news of Armand,” she said. “Sir Andrew has searched all the
prison registers. Oh! were not my heart atrophied by all that it has
endured this past sennight it would feel a final throb of agonising pain
at every thought of Armand.”
A curious look, which even her loving eyes failed to interpret, passed
like a shadow over her husband’s face. But the shadow lifted in a
moment, and it was with a reassuring smile that he said to her:
“Dear heart! Armand is comparatively safe for the moment. Tell
Ffoulkes not to search the prison registers for him, rather to seek out
Mademoiselle Lange. She will know where to find Armand.”
“Jeanne Lange!” she exclaimed with a world of bitterness in the tone of
her voice, “the girl whom Armand loved, it seems, with a passion greater
than his loyalty. Oh! Sir Andrew tried to disguise my brother’s
folly, but I guessed what he did not choose to tell me. It was his
disobedience, his want of trust, that brought this unspeakable misery on
us all.”
“Do not blame him overmuch, dear heart. Armand was in love, and love
excuses every sin committed in its name. Jeanne Lange was arrested and
Armand lost his reason temporarily. The very day on which I rescued the
Dauphin from the Temple I had the good fortune to drag the little lady
out of prison. I had given my promise to Armand that she should be safe,
and I kept my word. But this Armand did not know--or else--”
He checked himself abruptly, and once more that strange, enigmatical
look crept into his eyes.
“I took Jeanne Lange to a place of comparative safety,” he said after a
slight pause, “but since then she has been set entirely free.”
“Free?”
“Yes. Chauvelin himself brought me the news,” he replied with a quick,
mirthless laugh, wholly unlike his usual light-hearted gaiety. “He had
to ask me where to find Jeanne, for I alone knew where she was. As for
Armand, they’ll not worry about him whilst I am here. Another reason why
I must bide a while longer. But in the meanwhile, dear, I pray you find
Mademoiselle Lange; she lives at No. 5 Square du Roule. Through her
I know that you can get to see Armand. This second letter,” he added,
pressing a smaller packet into her hand, “is for him. Give it to him,
dear heart; it will, I hope, tend to cheer him. I fear me the poor lad
frets; yet he only sinned because he loved, and to me he will always be
your brother--the man who held your affection for all the years before
I came into your life. Give him this letter, dear; they are my
instructions to him, as the others are for Ffoulkes; but tell him to
read them when he is all alone. You will do that, dear heart, will you
not?”
“Yes, Percy,” she said simply. “I promise.”
Great joy, and the expression of intense relief, lit up his face, whilst
his eyes spoke the gratitude which he felt.
“Then there is one thing more,” he said. “There are others in this cruel
city, dear heart, who have trusted me, and whom I must not fail--Marie
de Marmontel and her brother, faithful servants of the late queen; they
were on the eve of arrest when I succeeded in getting them to a place
of comparative safety; and there are others there, too all of these
poor victims have trusted me implicitly. They are waiting for me there,
trusting in my promise to convey them safely to England. Sweetheart, you
must redeem my promise to them. You will?--you will? Promise me that you
will--”
“I promise, Percy,” she said once more.
“Then go, dear, to-morrow, in the late afternoon, to No. 98, Rue de
Charonne. It is a narrow house at the extreme end of that long street
which abuts on the fortifications. The lower part of the house is
occupied by a dealer in rags and old clothes. He and his wife and
family are wretchedly poor, but they are kind, good souls, and for
a consideration and a minimum of risk to themselves they will always
render service to the English milors, whom they believe to be a band of
inveterate smugglers. Ffoulkes and all the others know these people
and know the house; Armand by the same token knows it too. Marie de
Marmontel and her brother are there, and several others; the old
Comte de Lezardiere, the Abbe de Firmont; their names spell suffering,
loyalty, and hopelessness. I was lucky enough to convey them safely
to that hidden shelter. They trust me implicitly, dear heart. They are
waiting for me there, trusting in my promise to them. Dear heart, you
will go, will you not?”
“Yes, Percy,” she replied. “I will go; I have promised.”
“Ffoulkes has some certificates of safety by him, and the old clothes
dealer will supply the necessary disguises; he has a covered cart which
he uses for his business, and which you can borrow from him. Ffoulkes
will drive the little party to Achard’s farm in St. Germain, where other
members of the League should be in waiting for the final journey to
England. Ffoulkes will know how to arrange for everything; he was always
my most able lieutenant. Once everything is organised he can appoint
Hastings to lead the party. But you, dear heart, must do as you wish.
Achard’s farm would be a safe retreat for you and for Ffoulkes: if...
I know--I know, dear,” he added with infinite tenderness. “See I do not
even suggest that you should leave me. Ffoulkes will be with you, and
I know that neither he nor you would go even if I commanded. Either
Achard’s farm, or even the house in the Rue de Charonne, would be quite
safe for you, dear, under Ffoulkes’s protection, until the time when I
myself can carry you back--you, my precious burden--to England in mine
own arms, or until... Hush-sh-sh, dear heart,” he entreated, smothering
with a passionate kiss the low moan of pain which had escaped her lips;
“it is all in God’s hands now; I am in a tight corner--tighter than ever
I have been before; but I am not dead yet, and those brutes have not
yet paid the full price for my life. Tell me, dear heart, that you have
understood--that you will do all that I asked. Tell me again, my dear,
dear love; it is the very essence of life to hear your sweet lips murmur
this promise now.”
And for the third time she reiterated firmly:
“I have understood every word that you said to me, Percy, and I promise
on your precious life to do what you ask.”
He sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and even at that moment there
came from the guard-room beyond the sound of a harsh voice, saying
peremptorily:
“That half-hour is nearly over, sergeant; ‘tis time you interfered.”
“Three minutes more, citizen,” was the curt reply.
“Three minutes, you devils,” murmured Blakeney between set teeth, whilst
a sudden light which even Marguerite’s keen gaze failed to interpret
leapt into his eyes. Then he pressed the third letter into her hand.
Once more his close, intent gaze compelled hers; their faces were close
one to the other, so near to him did he draw her, so tightly did he
hold her to him. The paper was in her hand and his fingers were pressed
firmly on hers.
“Put this in your kerchief, my beloved,” he whispered. “Let it rest on
your exquisite bosom where I so love to pillow my head. Keep it there
until the last hour when it seems to you that nothing more can come
between me and shame.... Hush-sh-sh, dear,” he added with passionate
tenderness, checking the hot protest that at the word “shame” had sprung
to her lips, “I cannot explain more fully now. I do not know what may
happen. I am only a man, and who knows what subtle devilry those brutes
might not devise for bringing the untamed adventurer to his knees. For
the next ten days the Dauphin will be on the high roads of France, on
his way to safety. Every stage of his journey will be known to me. I can
from between these four walls follow him and his escort step by step.
Well, dear, I am but a man, already brought to shameful weakness by mere
physical discomfort--the want of sleep--such a trifle after all; but
in case my reason tottered--God knows what I might do--then give this
packet to Ffoulkes--it contains my final instructions--and he will know
how to act. Promise me, dear heart, that you will not open the packet
unless--unless mine own dishonour seems to you imminent--unless I have
yielded to these brutes in this prison, and sent Ffoulkes or one of the
others orders to exchange the Dauphin’s life for mine; then, when mine
own handwriting hath proclaimed me a coward, then and then only, give
this packet to Ffoulkes. Promise me that, and also that when you and
he have mastered its contents you will act exactly as I have commanded.
Promise me that, dear, in your own sweet name, which may God bless, and
in that of Ffoulkes, our loyal friend.”
Through the sobs that well-nigh choked her she murmured the promise he
desired.
His voice had grown hoarser and more spent with the inevitable reaction
after the long and sustained effort, but the vigour of the spirit was
untouched, the fervour, the enthusiasm.
“Dear heart,” he murmured, “do not look on me with those dear, scared
eyes of yours. If there is aught that puzzles you in what I said, try
and trust me a while longer. Remember, I must save the Dauphin at all
costs; mine honour is bound with his safety. What happens to me after
that matters but little, yet I wish to live for your dear sake.”
He drew a long breath which had naught of weariness in it. The haggard
look had completely vanished from his face, the eyes were lighted
up from within, the very soul of reckless daring and immortal gaiety
illumined his whole personality.
“Do not look so sad, little woman,” he said with a strange and sudden
recrudescence of power; “those d--d murderers have not got me yet--even
now.”
Then he went down like a log.
The effort had been too prolonged--weakened nature reasserted her rights
and he lost consciousness. Marguerite, helpless and almost distraught
with grief, had yet the strength of mind not to call for assistance.
She pillowed the loved one’s head upon her breast, she kissed the dear,
tired eyes, the poor throbbing temples. The unutterable pathos of
seeing this man, who was always the personification of extreme vitality,
energy, and boundless endurance and pluck, lying thus helpless, like a
tired child, in her arms, was perhaps the saddest moment of this day of
sorrow. But in her trust she never wavered for one instant. Much that he
had said had puzzled her; but the word “shame” coming from his own lips
as a comment on himself never caused her the slightest pang of fear. She
had quickly hidden the tiny packet in her kerchief. She would act point
by point exactly as he had ordered her to do, and she knew that Ffoulkes
would never waver either.
Her heart ached well-nigh to breaking point. That which she could not
understand had increased her anguish tenfold. If she could only have
given way to tears she could have borne this final agony more easily.
But the solace of tears was not for her; when those loved eyes once more
opened to consciousness they should see hers glowing with courage and
determination.
There had been silence for a few minutes in the little cell. The
soldiery outside, inured to their hideous duty, thought no doubt that
the time had come for them to interfere. The iron bar was raised and
thrown back with a loud crash, the butt-ends of muskets were grounded
against the floor, and two soldiers made noisy irruption into the cell.
“Hola, citizen! Wake up,” shouted one of the men; “you have not told us
yet what you have done with Capet!”
Marguerite uttered a cry of horror. Instinctively her arms were
interposed between the unconscious man and these inhuman creatures, with
a beautiful gesture of protecting motherhood.
“He has fainted,” she said, her voice quivering with indignation. “My
God! are you devils that you have not one spark of manhood in you?”
The men shrugged their shoulders, and both laughed brutally. They had
seen worse sights than these, since they served a Republic that ruled
by bloodshed and by terror. They were own brothers in callousness and
cruelty to those men who on this self-same spot a few months ago had
watched the daily agony of a martyred Queen, or to those who had rushed
into the Abbaye prison on that awful day in September, and at a word
from their infamous leaders had put eighty defenceless prisoners--men,
women, and children--to the sword.
“Tell him to say what he has done with Capet,” said one of the soldiers
now, and this rough command was accompanied with a coarse jest that sent
the blood flaring up into Marguerite’s pale cheeks.
The brutal laugh, the coarse words which accompanied it, the insult
flung at Marguerite, had penetrated to Blakeney’s slowly returning
consciousness. With sudden strength, that appeared almost supernatural,
he jumped to his feet, and before any of the others could interfere he
had with clenched fist struck the soldier a full blow on the mouth.
The man staggered back with a curse, the other shouted for help; in a
moment the narrow place swarmed with soldiers; Marguerite was roughly
torn away from the prisoner’s side, and thrust into the far corner of
the cell, from where she only saw a confused mass of blue coats and
white belts, and--towering for one brief moment above what seemed to
her fevered fancy like a veritable sea of heads--the pale face of her
husband, with wide dilated eyes searching the gloom for hers.
“Remember!” he shouted, and his voice for that brief moment rang out
clear and sharp above the din.
Then he disappeared behind the wall of glistening bayonets, of blue
coats and uplifted arms; mercifully for her she remembered nothing more
very clearly. She felt herself being dragged out of the cell, the iron
bar being thrust down behind her with a loud clang. Then in a vague,
dreamy state of semi-unconsciousness she saw the heavy bolts being drawn
back from the outer door, heard the grating of the key in the monumental
lock, and the next moment a breath of fresh air brought the sensation of
renewed life into her.
CHAPTER XXX. AFTERWARDS
“I am sorry, Lady Blakeney,” said a harsh, dry voice close to her; “the
incident at the end of your visit was none of our making, remember.”
She turned away, sickened with horror at thought of contact with this
wretch. She had heard the heavy oaken door swing to behind her on its
ponderous hinges, and the key once again turn in the lock. She felt as
if she had suddenly been thrust into a coffin, and that clods of earth
were being thrown upon her breast, oppressing her heart so that she
could not breathe.
Had she looked for the last time on the man whom she loved beyond
everything else on earth, whom she worshipped more ardently day by day?
Was she even now carrying within the folds of her kerchief a message
from a dying man to his comrades?
Mechanically she followed Chauvelin down the corridor and along the
passages which she had traversed a brief half-hour ago. From some
distant church tower a clock tolled the hour of ten. It had then really
only been little more than thirty brief minutes since first she had
entered this grim building, which seemed less stony than the monsters
who held authority within it; to her it seemed that centuries had gone
over her head during that time. She felt like an old woman, unable to
straighten her back or to steady her limbs; she could only dimly see
some few paces ahead the trim figure of Chauvelin walking with measured
steps, his hands held behind his back, his head thrown up with what
looked like triumphant defiance.
At the door of the cubicle where she had been forced to submit to the
indignity of being searched by a wardress, the latter was now standing,
waiting with characteristic stolidity. In her hand she held the steel
files, the dagger and the purse which, as Marguerite passed, she held
out to her.
“Your property, citizeness,” she said placidly.
She emptied the purse into her own hand, and solemnly counted out the
twenty pieces of gold. She was about to replace them all into the purse,
when Marguerite pressed one of them back into her wrinkled hand.
“Nineteen will be enough, citizeness,” she said; “keep one for yourself,
not only for me, but for all the poor women who come here with their
heart full of hope, and go hence with it full of despair.”
The woman turned calm, lack-lustre eyes on her, and silently pocketed
the gold piece with a grudgingly muttered word of thanks.
Chauvelin during this brief interlude, had walked thoughtlessly on
ahead. Marguerite, peering down the length of the narrow corridor, spied
his sable-clad figure some hundred metres further on as it crossed the
dim circle of light thrown by one of the lamps.
She was about to follow, when it seemed to her as if some one was moving
in the darkness close beside her. The wardress was even now in the act
of closing the door of her cubicle, and there were a couple of soldiers
who were disappearing from view round one end of the passage, whilst
Chauvelin’s retreating form was lost in the gloom at the other.
There was no light close to where she herself was standing, and the
blackness around her was as impenetrable as a veil; the sound of a human
creature moving and breathing close to her in this intense darkness
acted weirdly on her overwrought nerves.
“Qui va la?” she called.
There was a more distinct movement among the shadows this time, as of
a swift tread on the flagstones of the corridor. All else was silent
round, and now she could plainly hear those footsteps running rapidly
down the passage away from her. She strained her eyes to see more
clearly, and anon in one of the dim circles of light on ahead she spied
a man’s figure--slender and darkly clad--walking quickly yet furtively
like one pursued. As he crossed the light the man turned to look back.
It was her brother Armand.
Her first instinct was to call to him; the second checked that call upon
her lips.
Percy had said that Armand was in no danger; then why should he be
sneaking along the dark corridors of this awful house of Justice if he
was free and safe?
Certainly, even at a distance, her brother’s movements suggested to
Marguerite that he was in danger of being seen. He cowered in the
darkness, tried to avoid the circles of light thrown by the lamps in the
passage. At all costs Marguerite felt that she must warn him that the
way he was going now would lead him straight into Chauvelin’s arms, and
she longed to let him know that she was close by.
Feeling sure that he would recognise her voice, she made pretence to
turn back to the cubicle through the door of which the wardress had
already disappeared, and called out as loudly as she dared:
“Good-night, citizeness!”
But Armand--who surely must have heard--did not pause at the sound.
Rather was he walking on now more rapidly than before. In less than a
minute he would be reaching the spot where Chauvelin stood waiting for
Marguerite. That end of the corridor, however, received no light from
any of the lamps; strive how she might, Marguerite could see nothing now
either of Chauvelin or of Armand.
Blindly, instinctively, she ran forward, thinking only to reach Armand,
and to warn him to turn back before it was too late; before he found
himself face to face with the most bitter enemy he and his nearest and
dearest had ever had. But as she at last came to a halt at the end of
the corridor, panting with the exertion of running and the fear for
Armand, she almost fell up against Chauvelin, who was standing there
alone and imperturbable, seemingly having waited patiently for her. She
could only dimly distinguish his face, the sharp features and thin cruel
mouth, but she felt--more than she actually saw--his cold steely eyes
fixed with a strange expression of mockery upon her.
But of Armand there was no sign, and she--poor soul!--had difficulty
in not betraying the anxiety which she felt for her brother. Had the
flagstones swallowed him up? A door on the right was the only one that
gave on the corridor at this point; it led to the concierge’s lodge,
and thence out into the courtyard. Had Chauvelin been dreaming, sleeping
with his eyes open, whilst he stood waiting for her, and had Armand
succeeded in slipping past him under cover of the darkness and through
that door to safety that lay beyond these prison walls?
Marguerite, miserably agitated, not knowing what to think, looked
somewhat wild-eyed on Chauvelin; he smiled, that inscrutable, mirthless
smile of his, and said blandly:
“Is there aught else that I can do for you, citizeness? This is your
nearest way out. No doubt Sir Andrew will be waiting to escort you
home.”
Then as she--not daring either to reply or to question--walked straight
up to the door, he hurried forward, prepared to open it for her. But
before he did so he turned to her once again:
“I trust that your visit has pleased you, Lady Blakeney,” he said
suavely. “At what hour do you desire to repeat it to-morrow?”
“To-morrow?” she reiterated in a vague, absent manner, for she was still
dazed with the strange incident of Armand’s appearance and his flight.
“Yes. You would like to see Sir Percy again to-morrow, would you not? I
myself would gladly pay him a visit from time to time, but he does not
care for my company. My colleague, citizen Heron, on the other hand,
calls on him four times in every twenty-four hours; he does so a few
moments before the changing of the guard, and stays chatting with Sir
Percy until after the guard is changed, when he inspects the men and
satisfies himself that no traitor has crept in among them. All the men
are personally known to him, you see. These hours are at five in the
morning and again at eleven, and then again at five and eleven in the
evening. My friend Heron, as you see, is zealous and assiduous, and,
strangely enough, Sir Percy does not seem to view his visit with any
displeasure. Now at any other hour of the day, Lady Blakeney, I pray
you command me and I will arrange that citizen Heron grant you a second
interview with the prisoner.”
Marguerite had only listened to Chauvelin’s lengthy speech with half an
ear; her thoughts still dwelt on the past half-hour with its bitter joy
and its agonising pain; and fighting through her thoughts of Percy there
was the recollection of Armand which so disquieted her. But though she
had only vaguely listened to what Chauvelin was saying, she caught the
drift of it.
Madly she longed to accept his suggestion. The very thought of seeing
Percy on the morrow was solace to her aching heart; it could feed on
hope to-night instead of on its own bitter pain. But even during this
brief moment of hesitancy, and while her whole being cried out for this
joy that her enemy was holding out to her, even then in the gloom ahead
of her she seemed to see a vision of a pale face raised above a crowd
of swaying heads, and of the eyes of the dreamer searching for her own,
whilst the last sublime cry of perfect self-devotion once more echoed in
her ear:
“Remember!”
The promise which she had given him, that would she fulfil. The burden
which he had laid on her shoulders she would try to bear as heroically
as he was bearing his own. Aye, even at the cost of the supreme sorrow
of never resting again in the haven of his arms.
But in spite of sorrow, in spite of anguish so terrible that she could
not imagine Death itself to have a more cruel sting, she wished above
all to safeguard that final, attenuated thread of hope which was wound
round the packet that lay hidden on her breast.
She wanted, above all, not to arouse Chauvelin’s suspicions by markedly
refusing to visit the prisoner again--suspicions that might lead to
her being searched once more and the precious packet filched from her.
Therefore she said to him earnestly now:
“I thank you, citizen, for your solicitude on my behalf, but you will
understand, I think, that my visit to the prisoner has been almost more
than I could bear. I cannot tell you at this moment whether to-morrow I
should be in a fit state to repeat it.”
“As you please,” he replied urbanely. “But I pray you to remember one
thing, and that is--”
He paused a moment while his restless eyes wandered rapidly over her
face, trying, as it were, to get at the soul of this woman, at her
innermost thoughts, which he felt were hidden from him.
“Yes, citizen,” she said quietly; “what is it that I am to remember?”
“That it rests with you, Lady Blakeney, to put an end to the present
situation.”
“How?”
“Surely you can persuade Sir Percy’s friends not to leave their chief
in durance vile. They themselves could put an end to his troubles
to-morrow.”
“By giving up the Dauphin to you, you mean?” she retorted coldly.
“Precisely.”
“And you hoped--you still hope that by placing before me the picture of
your own fiendish cruelty against my husband you will induce me to act
the part of a traitor towards him and a coward before his followers?”
“Oh!” he said deprecatingly, “the cruelty now is no longer mine.
Sir Percy’s release is in your hands, Lady Blakeney--in that of his
followers. I should only be too willing to end the present intolerable
situation. You and your friends are applying the last turn of the
thumbscrew, not I--”
She smothered the cry of horror that had risen to her lips. The man’s
cold-blooded sophistry was threatening to make a breach in her armour of
self-control.
She would no longer trust herself to speak, but made a quick movement
towards the door.
He shrugged his shoulders as if the matter were now entirely out of his
control. Then he opened the door for her to pass out, and as her skirts
brushed against him he bowed with studied deference, murmuring a cordial
“Good-night!”
“And remember, Lady Blakeney,” he added politely, “that should you at
any time desire to communicate with me at my rooms, 19, Rue Dupuy, I
hold myself entirely at your service.”
Then as her tall, graceful figure disappeared in the outside gloom
he passed his thin hand over his mouth as if to wipe away the last
lingering signs of triumphant irony:
“The second visit will work wonders, I think, my fine lady,” he murmured
under his breath.
CHAPTER XXXI. AN INTERLUDE
It was close on midnight now, and still they sat opposite one another,
he the friend and she the wife, talking over that brief half-hour that
had meant an eternity to her.
Marguerite had tried to tell Sir Andrew everything; bitter as it was to
put into actual words the pathos and misery which she had witnessed,
yet she would hide nothing from the devoted comrade whom she knew Percy
would trust absolutely. To him she repeated every word that Percy had
uttered, described every inflection of his voice, those enigmatical
phrases which she had not understood, and together they cheated one
another into the belief that hope lingered somewhere hidden in those
words.
“I am not going to despair, Lady Blakeney,” said Sir Andrew firmly;
“and, moreover, we are not going to disobey. I would stake my life that
even now Blakeney has some scheme in his mind which is embodied in the
various letters which he has given you, and which--Heaven help us
in that case!--we might thwart by disobedience. Tomorrow in the late
afternoon I will escort you to the Rue de Charonne. It is a house that
we all know well, and which Armand, of course, knows too. I had already
inquired there two days ago to ascertain whether by chance St. Just was
not in hiding there, but Lucas, the landlord and old-clothes dealer,
knew nothing about him.”
Marguerite told him about her swift vision of Armand in the dark
corridor of the house of Justice.
“Can you understand it, Sir Andrew?” she asked, fixing her deep,
luminous eyes inquiringly upon him.
“No, I cannot,” he said, after an almost imperceptible moment of
hesitancy; “but we shall see him to-morrow. I have no doubt that
Mademoiselle Lange will know where to find him; and now that we know
where she is, all our anxiety about him, at any rate, should soon be at
an end.”
He rose and made some allusion to the lateness of the hour. Somehow it
seemed to her that her devoted friend was trying to hide his innermost
thoughts from her. She watched him with an anxious, intent gaze.
“Can you understand it all, Sir Andrew?” she reiterated with a pathetic
note of appeal.
“No, no!” he said firmly. “On my soul, Lady Blakeney, I know no more of
Armand than you do yourself. But I am sure that Percy is right. The boy
frets because remorse must have assailed him by now. Had he but obeyed
implicitly that day, as we all did--”