THE SCHOONER
Marguerite’s aching heart stood still. She felt, more than she heard,
the men on the watch preparing for the fight. Her senses told her that
each, with sword in hand, was crouching, ready for the spring.
The voice came nearer and nearer; in the vast immensity of these lonely
cliffs, with the loud murmur of the sea below, it was impossible to say
how near, or how far, nor yet from which direction came that cheerful
singer, who sang to God to save his King, whilst he himself was in such
deadly danger. Faint at first, the voice grew louder and louder; from
time to time a small pebble detached itself apparently from beneath the
firm tread of the singer, and went rolling down the rocky cliffs to the
beach below.
Marguerite as she heard, felt that her very life was slipping away, as
if when that voice drew nearer, when that singer became entrapped . . .
She distinctly heard the click of Desgas’ gun close to her. . . .
No! no! no! no! Oh, God in heaven! this cannot be! let Armand’s blood
then be upon her own head! let her be branded as his murderer! let even
he, whom she loved, despise and loathe her for this, but God! oh God!
save him at any cost!
With a wild shriek, she sprang to her feet, and darted round the rock,
against which she had been cowering; she saw the little red gleam
through the chinks of the hut; she ran up to it and fell against its
wooden walls, which she began to hammer with clenched fists in an
almost maniacal frenzy, while she shouted,—
“Armand! Armand! for God’s sake fire! your leader is near! he is
coming! he is betrayed! Armand! Armand! fire in Heaven’s name!”
She was seized and thrown to the ground. She lay there moaning,
bruised, not caring, but still half-sobbing, half-shrieking,—
“Percy, my husband, for God’s sake fly! Armand! Armand! why don’t you
fire?”
“One of you stop that woman screaming,” hissed Chauvelin, who hardly
could refrain from striking her.
Something was thrown over her face; she could not breathe, and perforce
she was silent.
The bold singer, too, had become silent, warned, no doubt, of his
impending danger by Marguerite’s frantic shrieks. The men had sprung to
their feet, there was no need for further silence on their part; the
very cliffs echoed the poor, heart-broken woman’s screams.
Chauvelin, with a muttered oath, which boded no good to her, who had
dared to upset his most cherished plans, had hastily shouted the word
of command,—
“Into it, my men, and let no one escape from that hut alive!”
The moon had once more emerged from between the clouds: the darkness on
the cliffs had gone, giving place once more to brilliant, silvery
light. Some of the soldiers had rushed to the rough, wooden door of the
hut, whilst one of them kept guard over Marguerite.
The door was partially open; one of the soldiers pushed it further, but
within all was darkness, the charcoal fire only lighting with a dim,
red light the furthest corner of the hut. The soldiers paused
automatically at the door, like machines waiting for further orders.
Chauvelin, who was prepared for a violent onslaught from within, and
for a vigorous resistance from the four fugitives, under cover of the
darkness, was for the moment paralyzed with astonishment when he saw
the soldiers standing there at attention, like sentries on guard,
whilst not a sound proceeded from the hut.
Filled with strange, anxious foreboding, he, too, went to the door of
the hut, and peering into the gloom, he asked quickly,—
“What is the meaning of this?”
“I think, citoyen, that there is no one there now,” replied one of the
soldiers imperturbably.
“You have not let those four men go?” thundered Chauvelin, menacingly.
“I ordered you to let no man escape alive!—Quick, after them all of
you! Quick, in every direction!”
The men, obedient as machines, rushed down the rocky incline towards
the beach, some going off to right and left, as fast as their feet
could carry them.
“You and your men will pay with your lives for this blunder, citoyen
sergeant,” said Chauvelin viciously to the sergeant who had been in
charge of the men; “and you, too, citoyen,” he added, turning with a
snarl to Desgas, “for disobeying my orders.”
“You ordered us to wait, citoyen, until the tall Englishman arrived and
joined the four men in the hut. No one came,” said the sergeant
sullenly.
“But I ordered you just now, when the woman screamed, to rush in and
let no one escape.”
“But, citoyen, the four men who were there before had been gone some
time, I think . . .”
“You think?—You? . . .” said Chauvelin, almost choking with fury, “and
you let them go . . .”
“You ordered us to wait, citoyen,” protested the sergeant, “and to
implicitly obey your commands on pain of death. We waited.”
“I heard the men creep out of the hut, not many minutes after we took
cover, and long before the woman screamed,” he added, as Chauvelin
seemed still quite speechless with rage.
“Hark!” said Desgas suddenly.
In the distance the sound of repeated firing was heard. Chauvelin tried
to peer along the beach below, but as luck would have it, the fitful
moon once more hid her light behind a bank of clouds, and he could see
nothing.
“One of you go into the hut and strike a light,” he stammered at last.
Stolidly the sergeant obeyed: he went up to the charcoal fire and lit
the small lantern he carried in his belt; it was evident that the hut
was quite empty.
“Which way did they go?” asked Chauvelin.
“I could not tell, citoyen,” said the sergeant; “they went straight
down the cliff first, then disappeared behind some boulders.”
“Hush! what was that?”
All three men listened attentively. In the far, very far distance,
could be heard faintly echoing and already dying away, the quick, sharp
splash of half a dozen oars. Chauvelin took out his handkerchief and
wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
“The schooner’s boat!” was all he gasped.
Evidently Armand St. Just and his three companions had managed to creep
along the side of the cliffs, whilst the men, like true soldiers of the
well-drilled Republican army, had with blind obedience, and in fear of
their lives, implicitly obeyed Chauvelin’s orders—to wait for the tall
Englishman, who was the important capture.
They had no doubt reached one of the creeks which jut far out to sea on
this coast at intervals; behind this, the boat of the _Day Dream_ must
have been on the look-out for them, and they were by now safely on
board the British schooner.
As if to confirm this last supposition, the dull boom of a gun was
heard from out at sea.
“The schooner, citoyen,” said Desgas, quietly; “she’s off.”
It needed all Chauvelin’s nerve and presence of mind not to give way to
a useless and undignified access of rage. There was no doubt now, that
once again, that accursed British head had completely outwitted him.
How he had contrived to reach the hut, without being seen by one of the
thirty soldiers who guarded the spot, was more than Chauvelin could
conceive. That he had done so before the thirty men had arrived on the
cliff was, of course, fairly clear, but how he had come over in Reuben
Goldstein’s cart, all the way from Calais, without being sighted by the
various patrols on duty was impossible of explanation. It really seemed
as if some potent Fate watched over that daring Scarlet Pimpernel, and
his astute enemy almost felt a superstitious shudder pass through him,
as he looked round at the towering cliffs, and the loneliness of this
outlying coast.
But surely this was reality! and the year of grace 1792: there were no
fairies and hobgoblins about. Chauvelin and his thirty men had all
heard with their own ears that accursed voice singing “God save the
King,” fully twenty minutes _after_ they had all taken cover around the
hut; by that time the four fugitives must have reached the creek, and
got into the boat, and the nearest creek was more than a mile from the
hut.
Where had that daring singer got to? Unless Satan himself had lent him
wings, he could not have covered that mile on a rocky cliff in the
space of two minutes; and only two minutes had elapsed between his song
and the sound of the boat’s oars away at sea. He must have remained
behind, and was even now hiding somewhere about the cliffs; the patrols
were still about, he would still be sighted, no doubt. Chauvelin felt
hopeful once again.
One or two of the men, who had run after the fugitives, were now slowly
working their way up the cliff: one of them reached Chauvelin’s side,
at the very moment that this hope arose in the astute diplomatist’s
heart.
“We were too late, citoyen,” the soldier said, “we reached the beach
just before the moon was hidden by that bank of clouds. The boat had
undoubtedly been on the look-out behind that first creek, a mile off,
but she had shoved off some time ago, when we got to the beach, and was
already some way out to sea. We fired after her, but of course, it was
no good. She was making straight and quickly for the schooner. We saw
her very clearly in the moonlight.”
“Yes,” said Chauvelin, with eager impatience, “she had shoved off some
time ago, you said, and the nearest creek is a mile further on.”
“Yes, citoyen! I ran all the way, straight to the beach, though I
guessed the boat would have waited somewhere near the creek, as the
tide would reach there earliest. The boat must have shoved off some
minutes before the woman began to scream.”
Some minutes before the woman began to scream! Then Chauvelin’s hopes
had not deceived him. The Scarlet Pimpernel may have contrived to send
the fugitives on ahead by the boat, but he himself had not had time to
reach it; he was still on shore, and all the roads were well
patrolled. At any rate, all was not yet lost, and would not be, whilst
that impudent Britisher was still on French soil.
“Bring the light in here!” he commanded eagerly, as he once more
entered the hut.
The sergeant brought his lantern, and together the two men explored the
little place: with a rapid glance Chauvelin noted its contents: the
cauldron placed close under an aperture in the wall, and containing the
last few dying embers of burned charcoal, a couple of stools,
overturned as if in the haste of sudden departure, then the fisherman’s
tools and his nets lying in one corner, and beside them, something
small and white.
“Pick that up,” said Chauvelin to the sergeant, pointing to this white
scrap, “and bring it to me.”
It was a crumpled piece of paper, evidently forgotten there by the
fugitives, in their hurry to get away. The sergeant, much awed by the
citoyen’s obvious rage and impatience, picked the paper up and handed
it respectfully to Chauvelin.
“Read it, sergeant,” said the latter curtly.
“It is almost illegible, citoyen . . . a fearful scrawl. . . .”
“I ordered you to read it,” repeated Chauvelin, viciously.
The sergeant, by the light of his lantern, began deciphering the few
hastily scrawled words.
“I cannot quite reach you, without risking your lives and endangering
the success of your rescue. When you receive this, wait two minutes,
then creep out of the hut one by one, turn to your left sharply, and
creep cautiously down the cliff; keep to the left all the time, till
you reach the first rock, which you see jutting far out to sea—behind
it in the creek the boat is on the look-out for you—give a long, sharp
whistle—she will come up—get into her—my men will row you to the
schooner, and thence to England and safety—once on board the _Day
Dream_ send the boat back for me, tell my men that I shall be at the
creek, which is in a direct line opposite the ‘Chat Gris’ near Calais.
They know it. I shall be there as soon as possible—they must wait for
me at a safe distance out at sea, till they hear the usual signal. Do
not delay—and obey these instructions implicitly.”
“Then there is the signature, citoyen,” added the sergeant, as he
handed the paper back to Chauvelin.
But the latter had not waited an instant. One phrase of the momentous
scrawl had caught his ear. “I shall be at the creek which is in a
direct line opposite the ‘Chat Gris’ near Calais”: that phrase might
yet mean victory for him.
“Which of you knows this coast well?” he shouted to his men who now
one by one had all returned from their fruitless run, and were all
assembled once more round the hut.
“I do, citoyen,” said one of them, “I was born in Calais, and know
every stone of these cliffs.”
“There is a creek in a direct line from the ‘Chat Gris’?”
“There is, citoyen. I know it well.”
“The Englishman is hoping to reach that creek. He does _not_ know every
stone of these cliffs, he may go there by the longest way round, and in
any case he will proceed cautiously for fear of the patrols. At any
rate, there is a chance to get him yet. A thousand francs to each man
who gets to that creek before that long-legged Englishman.”
“I know a short cut across the cliffs,” said the soldier, and with an
enthusiastic shout, he rushed forward, followed closely by his
comrades.
Within a few minutes their running footsteps had died away in the
distance. Chauvelin listened to them for a moment; the promise of the
reward was lending spurs to the soldiers of the Republic. The gleam of
hate and anticipated triumph was once more apparent on his face.
Close to him Desgas still stood mute and impassive, waiting for further
orders, whilst two soldiers were kneeling beside the prostrate form of
Marguerite. Chauvelin gave his secretary a vicious look. His well-laid
plan had failed, its sequel was problematical; there was still a great
chance now that the Scarlet Pimpernel might yet escape, and Chauvelin,
with that unreasoning fury, which sometimes assails a strong nature,
was longing to vent his rage on somebody.
The soldiers were holding Marguerite pinioned to the ground, though
she, poor soul, was not making the faintest struggle. Overwrought
nature had at last peremptorily asserted herself, and she lay there in
a dead swoon: her eyes circled by deep purple lines, that told of long,
sleepless nights, her hair matted and damp round her forehead, her lips
parted in a sharp curve that spoke of physical pain.
The cleverest woman in Europe, the elegant and fashionable Lady
Blakeney, who had dazzled London society with her beauty, her wit and
her extravagances, presented a very pathetic picture of tired-out,
suffering womanhood, which would have appealed to any, but the hard,
vengeful heart of her baffled enemy.
“It is no use mounting guard over a woman who is half dead,” he said
spitefully to the soldiers, “when you have allowed five men who were
very much alive to escape.”
Obediently the soldiers rose to their feet.
“You’d better try and find that footpath again for me, and that
broken-down cart we left on the road.”
Then suddenly a bright idea seemed to strike him.
“Ah! by-the-bye! where is the Jew?”
“Close by here, citoyen,” said Desgas; “I gagged him and tied his legs
together as you commanded.”
From the immediate vicinity, a plaintive moan reached Chauvelin’s ears.
He followed his secretary, who led the way to the other side of the
hut, where, fallen into an absolute heap of dejection, with his legs
tightly pinioned together and his mouth gagged, lay the unfortunate
descendant of Israel.
His face in the silvery light of the moon looked positively ghastly
with terror: his eyes were wide open and almost glassy, and his whole
body was trembling, as if with ague, while a piteous wail escaped his
bloodless lips. The rope which had originally been wound round his
shoulders and arms had evidently given way, for it lay in a tangle
about his body, but he seemed quite unconscious of this, for he had not
made the slightest attempt to move from the place where Desgas had
originally put him: like a terrified chicken which looks upon a line of
white chalk, drawn on a table, as on a string which paralyzes its
movements.
“Bring the cowardly brute here,” commanded Chauvelin.
He certainly felt exceedingly vicious, and since he had no reasonable
grounds for venting his ill-humour on the soldiers who had but too
punctually obeyed his orders, he felt that the son of the despised race
would prove an excellent butt. With true French contempt of the Jew,
which has survived the lapse of centuries even to this day, he would
not go too near him, but said with biting sarcasm, as the wretched old
man was brought in full light of the moon by the two soldiers,—
“I suppose now, that being a Jew, you have a good memory for bargains?”
“Answer!” he again commanded, as the Jew with trembling lips seemed too
frightened to speak.
“Yes, your Honour,” stammered the poor wretch.
“You remember, then, the one you and I made together in Calais, when
you undertook to overtake Reuben Goldstein, his nag and my friend the
tall stranger? Eh?”
“B . . . b . . . but . . . your Honour . . .”
“There is no ‘but.’ I said, do you remember?”
“Y . . . y . . . y . . . yes . . . your Honour!”
“What was the bargain?”
There was dead silence. The unfortunate man looked round at the great
cliffs, the moon above, the stolid faces of the soldiers, and even at
the poor, prostrate, inanimate woman close by, but said nothing.
“Will you speak?” thundered Chauvelin, menacingly.
He did try, poor wretch, but, obviously, he could not. There was no
doubt, however, that he knew what to expect from the stern man before
him.
“Your Honour . . .” he ventured imploringly.
“Since your terror seems to have paralyzed your tongue,” said
Chauvelin, sarcastically, “I must needs refresh your memory. It was
agreed between us, that if we overtook my friend the tall stranger,
before he reached this place, you were to have ten pieces of gold.”
A low moan escaped from the Jew’s trembling lips.
“But,” added Chauvelin, with slow emphasis, “if you deceived me in your
promise, you were to have a sound beating, one that would teach you not
to tell lies.”
“I did not, your Honour; I swear it by Abraham . . .”
“And by all the other patriarchs, I know. Unfortunately, they are still
in Hades, I believe, according to your creed, and cannot help you much
in your present trouble. Now, you did not fulfil your share of the
bargain, but I am ready to fulfil mine. Here,” he added, turning to the
soldiers, “the buckle-end of your two belts to this confounded Jew.”
As the soldiers obediently unbuckled their heavy leather belts, the Jew
set up a howl that surely would have been enough to bring all the
patriarchs out of Hades and elsewhere, to defend their descendant from
the brutality of this French official.
“I think I can rely on you, citoyen soldiers,” laughed Chauvelin,
maliciously, “to give this old liar the best and soundest beating he
has ever experienced. But don’t kill him,” he added drily.
“We will obey, citoyen,” replied the soldiers as imperturbably as ever.
He did not wait to see his orders carried out: he knew that he could
trust these soldiers—who were still smarting under his rebuke—not to
mince matters, when given a free hand to belabour a third party.
“When that lumbering coward has had his punishment,” he said to Desgas,
“the men can guide us as far as the cart, and one of them can drive us
in it back to Calais. The Jew and the woman can look after each other,”
he added roughly, “until we can send somebody for them in the morning.
They can’t run away very far, in their present condition, and we cannot
be troubled with them just now.”
Chauvelin had not given up all hope. His men, he knew, were spurred on
by the hope of the reward. That enigmatic and audacious Scarlet
Pimpernel, alone and with thirty men at his heels, could not reasonably
be expected to escape a second time.
But he felt less sure now: the Englishman’s audacity had baffled him
once, whilst the wooden-headed stupidity of the soldiers, and the
interference of a woman had turned his hand, which held all the trumps,
into a losing one. If Marguerite had not taken up his time, if the
soldiers had had a grain of intelligence, if . . . it was a long “if,”
and Chauvelin stood for a moment quite still, and enrolled thirty odd
people in one long, overwhelming anathema. Nature, poetic, silent,
balmy, the bright moon, the calm, silvery sea spoke of beauty and of
rest, and Chauvelin cursed nature, cursed man and woman, and, above
all, he cursed all long-legged, meddlesome British enigmas with one
gigantic curse.
The howls of the Jew behind him, undergoing his punishment, sent a balm
through his heart, overburdened as it was with revengeful malice. He
smiled. It eased his mind to think that some human being at least was,
like himself, not altogether at peace with mankind.
He turned and took a last look at the lonely bit of coast, where stood
the wooden hut, now bathed in moonlight, the scene of the greatest
discomfiture ever experienced by a leading member of the Committee of
Public Safety.
Against a rock, on a hard bed of stone, lay the unconscious figure of
Marguerite Blakeney, while some few paces further on, the unfortunate
Jew was receiving on his broad back the blows of two stout leather
belts, wielded by the stolid arms of two sturdy soldiers of the
Republic. The howls of Benjamin Rosenbaum were fit to make the dead
rise from their graves. They must have wakened all the gulls from
sleep, and made them look down with great interest at the doings of the
lords of the creation.
“That will do,” commanded Chauvelin, as the Jew’s moans became more
feeble, and the poor wretch seemed to have fainted away, “we don’t want
to kill him.”
Obediently the soldiers buckled on their belts, one of them viciously
kicking the Jew to one side.
“Leave him there,” said Chauvelin, “and lead the way now quickly to the
cart. I’ll follow.”
He walked up to where Marguerite lay, and looked down into her face.
She had evidently recovered consciousness, and was making feeble
efforts to raise herself. Her large, blue eyes were looking at the
moonlit scene round her with a scared and terrified look; they rested
with a mixture of horror and pity on the Jew, whose luckless fate and
wild howls had been the first signs that struck her, with her returning
senses; then she caught sight of Chauvelin, in his neat, dark clothes,
which seemed hardly crumpled after the stirring events of the last few
hours. He was smiling sarcastically, and his pale eyes peered down at
her with a look of intense malice.
With mock gallantry, he stooped and raised her icy-cold hand to his
lips, which sent a thrill of indescribable loathing through
Marguerite’s weary frame.
“I much regret, fair lady,” he said in his most suave tones, “that
circumstances, over which I have no control, compel me to leave you
here for the moment. But I go away, secure in the knowledge that I do
not leave you unprotected. Our friend Benjamin here, though a trifle
the worse for wear at the present moment, will prove a gallant defender
of your fair person, I have no doubt. At dawn I will send an escort for
you; until then, I feel sure that you will find him devoted, though
perhaps a trifle slow.”
Marguerite only had the strength to turn her head away. Her heart was
broken with cruel anguish. One awful thought had returned to her mind,
together with gathering consciousness: “What had become of Percy?—What
of Armand?”
She knew nothing of what had happened after she heard the cheerful
song, “God save the King,” which she believed to be the signal of
death.
“I, myself,” concluded Chauvelin, “must now very reluctantly leave you.
_Au revoir_, fair lady. We meet, I hope, soon in London. Shall I see
you at the Prince of Wales’ garden party?—No?—Ah, well, _au
revoir!_—Remember me, I pray, to Sir Percy Blakeney.”
And, with a last ironical smile and bow, he once more kissed her hand,
and disappeared down the footpath in the wake of the soldiers, and
followed by the imperturbable Desgas.