← catalogue

The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel

by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy · English · Gutenberg #5805 · 445,535 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel

Author: Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy


        
Release date: June 1, 2004 [eBook #5805]
                Most recently updated: March 21, 2018

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5805

Credits: Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LEAGUE OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL ***




Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team









THE LEAGUE OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL

BY BARONESS ORCZY

AUTHOR OF "FLOWER O' THE LILY," "LORD TONY'S WIFE," "THE SCARLET
PIMPERNEL," ETC.




CONTENTS

I    SIR PERCY EXPLAINS

II   A QUESTION OF PASSPORTS

III  TWO GOOD PATRIOTS

IV   THE OLD SCARECROW

V    A FINE BIT OF WORK

VI   HOW JEAN PIERRE MET THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL

VII  OUT OF THE JAWS OF DEATH

VIII THE TRAITOR

IX   THE CABARET DE LA LIBERTE

X    "NEEDS MUST--"

XI   A BATTLE OF WITS




I

SIR PERCY EXPLAINS


It was not, Heaven help us all! a very uncommon occurrence these days: a
woman almost unsexed by misery, starvation, and the abnormal excitement
engendered by daily spectacles of revenge and of cruelty. They were to
be met with every day, round every street corner, these harridans, more
terrible far than were the men.

This one was still comparatively young, thirty at most; would have been
good-looking too, for the features were really delicate, the nose
chiselled, the brow straight, the chin round and small. But the mouth!
Heavens, what a mouth! Hard and cruel and thin-lipped; and those eyes!
sunken and rimmed with purple; eyes that told tales of sorrow and, yes!
of degradation. The crowd stood round her, sullen and apathetic; poor,
miserable wretches like herself, staring at her antics with lack-lustre
eyes and an ever-recurrent contemptuous shrug of the shoulders.

The woman was dancing, contorting her body in the small circle of light
formed by a flickering lanthorn which was hung across the street from
house to house, striking the muddy pavement with her shoeless feet, all
to the sound of a be-ribboned tambourine which she struck now and again
with her small, grimy hand. From time to time she paused, held out the
tambourine at arm's length, and went the round of the spectators, asking
for alms. But at her approach the crowd at once seemed to disintegrate,
to melt into the humid evening air; it was but rarely that a greasy
token fell into the outstretched tambourine. Then as the woman started
again to dance the crowd gradually reassembled, and stood, hands in
pockets, lips still sullen and contemptuous, but eyes watchful of the
spectacle. There were such few spectacles these days, other than the
monotonous processions of tumbrils with their load of aristocrats for
the guillotine!

So the crowd watched, and the woman danced. The lanthorn overhead threw
a weird light on red caps and tricolour cockades, on the sullen faces of
the men and the shoulders of the women, on the dancer's weird antics and
her flying, tattered skirts. She was obviously tired, as a poor,
performing cur might be, or a bear prodded along to uncongenial
buffoonery. Every time that she paused and solicited alms with her
tambourine the crowd dispersed, and some of them laughed because she
insisted.

"Voyons," she said with a weird attempt at gaiety, "a couple of sous for
the entertainment, citizen! You have stood here half an hour. You can't
have it all for nothing, what?"

The man--young, square-shouldered, thick-lipped, with the look of a
bully about his well-clad person--retorted with a coarse insult, which
the woman resented. There were high words; the crowd for the most part
ranged itself on the side of the bully. The woman backed against the
wall nearest to her, held feeble, emaciated hands up to her ears in a
vain endeavour to shut out the hideous jeers and ribald jokes which were
the natural weapons of this untamed crowd.

Soon blows began to rain; not a few fell upon the unfortunate woman. She
screamed, and the more she screamed the louder did the crowd jeer, the
uglier became its temper. Then suddenly it was all over. How it happened
the woman could not tell. She had closed her eyes, feeling sick and
dizzy; but she had heard a loud call, words spoken in English (a
language which she understood), a pleasant laugh, and a brief but
violent scuffle. After that the hurrying retreat of many feet, the click
of sabots on the uneven pavement and patter of shoeless feet, and then
silence.

She had fallen on her knees and was cowering against the wall, had lost
consciousness probably for a minute or two. Then she heard that pleasant
laugh again and the soft drawl of the English tongue.

"I love to see those beggars scuttling off, like so many rats to their
burrows, don't you, Ffoulkes?"

"They didn't put up much fight, the cowards!" came from another voice,
also in English. "A dozen of them against this wretched woman. What had
best be done with her?"

"I'll see to her," rejoined the first speaker. "You and Tony had best
find the others. Tell them I shall be round directly."

It all seemed like a dream. The woman dared not open her eyes lest
reality--hideous and brutal--once more confronted her. Then all at once
she felt that her poor, weak body, encircled by strong arms, was lifted
off the ground, and that she was being carried down the street, away
from the light projected by the lanthorn overhead, into the sheltering
darkness of a yawning porte cochere. But she was not then fully
conscious.


II

When she reopened her eyes she was in what appeared to be the lodge of a
concierge. She was lying on a horsehair sofa. There was a sense of
warmth and of security around her. No wonder that it still seemed like a
dream. Before her stood a man, tall and straight, surely a being from
another world--or so he appeared to the poor wretch who, since
uncountable time, had set eyes on none but the most miserable dregs of
struggling humanity, who had seen little else but rags, and faces either
cruel or wretched. This man was clad in a huge caped coat, which made
his powerful figure seem preternaturally large. His hair was fair and
slightly curly above his low, square brow; the eyes beneath their heavy
lids looked down on her with unmistakable kindness.

The poor woman struggled to her feet. With a quick and pathetically
humble gesture she drew her ragged, muddy skirts over her ankles and her
tattered kerchief across her breast.

"I had best go now, Monsieur ... citizen," she murmured, while a hot
flush rose to the roots of her unkempt hair. "I must not stop here....
I--"

"You are not going, Madame," he broke in, speaking now in perfect French
and with a great air of authority, as one who is accustomed to being
implicitly obeyed, "until you have told me how, a lady of culture and of
refinement, comes to be masquerading as a street-dancer. The game is a
dangerous one, as you have experienced to-night."

"It is no game, Monsieur ... citizen," she stammered; "nor yet a
masquerade. I have been a street-dancer all my life, and--"

By way of an answer he took her hand, always with that air of authority
which she never thought to resent.

"This is not a street-dancer's hand; Madame," he said quietly. "Nor is
your speech that of the people."

She drew her hand away quickly, and the flush on her haggard face
deepened.

"If you will honour me with your confidence, Madame," he insisted.

The kindly words, the courtesy of the man, went to the poor creature's
heart. She fell back upon the sofa and with her face buried in her arms
she sobbed out her heart for a minute or two. The man waited quite
patiently. He had seen many women weep these days, and had dried many a
tear through deeds of valour and of self-sacrifice, which were for ever
recorded in the hearts of those whom he had succoured.

When this poor woman had succeeded in recovering some semblance of
self-control, she turned her wan, tear-stained face to him and said
simply:

"My name is Madeleine Lannoy, Monsieur. My husband was killed during the
emeutes at Versailles, whilst defending the persons of the Queen and of
the royal children against the fury of the mob. When I was a girl I had
the misfortune to attract the attentions of a young doctor named Jean
Paul Marat. You have heard of him, Monsieur?"

The other nodded.

"You know him, perhaps," she continued, "for what he is: the most cruel
and revengeful of men. A few years ago he threw up his lucrative
appointment as Court physician to Monseigneur le Comte d'Artois, and
gave up the profession of medicine for that of journalist and
politician. Politician! Heaven help him! He belongs to the most
bloodthirsty section of revolutionary brigands. His creed is pillage,
murder, and revenge; and he chooses to declare that it is I who, by
rejecting his love, drove him to these foul extremities. May God forgive
him that abominable lie! The evil we do, Monsieur, is within us; it does
not come from circumstance. I, in the meanwhile, was a happy wife. My
husband, M. de Lannoy, who was an officer in the army, idolised me. We
had one child, a boy--"

She paused, with another catch in her throat. Then she resumed, with
calmness that, in view of the tale she told, sounded strangely weird:

"In June last year my child was stolen from me--stolen by Marat in
hideous revenge for the supposed wrong which I had done him. The details
of that execrable outrage are of no importance. I was decoyed from home
one day through the agency of a forged message purporting to come from a
very dear friend whom I knew to be in grave trouble at the time. Oh! the
whole thing was thoroughly well thought out, I can assure you!" she
continued, with a harsh laugh which ended in a heartrending sob. "The
forged message, the suborned servant, the threats of terrible reprisals
if anyone in the village gave me the slightest warning or clue. When the
whole miserable business was accomplished, I was just like a trapped
animal inside a cage, held captive by immovable bars of obstinate
silence and cruel indifference. No one would help me. No one ostensibly
knew anything; no one had seen anything, heard anything. The child was
gone! My servants, the people in the village--some of whom I could have
sworn were true and sympathetic--only shrugged their shoulders. 'Que
voulez-vous, Madame? Children of bourgeois as well as of aristos were
often taken up by the State to be brought up as true patriots and no
longer pampered like so many lap-dogs.'

"Three days later I received a letter from that inhuman monster, Jean
Paul Marat. He told me that he had taken my child away from me, not from
any idea of revenge for my disdain in the past, but from a spirit of
pure patriotism. My boy, he said, should not be brought up with the same
ideas of bourgeois effeteness and love of luxury which had disgraced the
nation for centuries. No! he should be reared amongst men who had
realised the true value of fraternity and equality and the ideal of
complete liberty for the individual to lead his own life, unfettered by
senseless prejudices of education and refinement. Which means,
Monsieur," the poor woman went on with passionate misery, "that my child
is to be reared up in the company of all that is most vile and most
degraded in the disease-haunted slums of indigent Paris; that, with the
connivance of that execrable fiend Marat, my only son will, mayhap, come
back to me one day a potential thief, a criminal probably, a
drink-sodden reprobate at best. Such things are done every day in this
glorious Revolution of ours--done in the sacred name of France and of
Liberty. And the moral murder of my child is to be my punishment for
daring to turn a deaf ear to the indign passion of a brute!"

Once more she paused, and when the melancholy echo of her broken voice
had died away in the narrow room, not another murmur broke the stillness
of this far-away corner of the great city.

The man did not move. He stood looking down upon the poor woman before
him, a world of pity expressed in his deep-set eyes. Through the
absolute silence around there came the sound as of a gentle flutter, the
current of cold air, mayhap, sighing through the ill-fitting shutters,
or the soft, weird soughing made by unseen things. The man's heart was
full of pity, and it seemed as if the Angel of Compassion had come at
his bidding and enfolded the sorrowing woman with his wings.

A moment or two later she was able to finish her pathetic narrative.

"Do you marvel, Monsieur," she said, "that I am still sane--still alive?
But I only live to find my child. I try and keep my reason in order to
fight the devilish cunning of a brute on his own ground. Up to now all
my inquiries have been in vain. At first I squandered money, tried
judicial means, set an army of sleuth-hounds on the track. I tried
bribery, corruption. I went to the wretch himself and abased myself in
the dust before him. He only laughed at me and told me that his love for
me had died long ago; he now was lavishing its treasures upon the
faithful friend and companion--that awful woman, Simonne Evrard--who had
stood by him in the darkest hours of his misfortunes. Then it was that I
decided to adopt different tactics. Since my child was to be reared in
the midst of murderers and thieves, I, too, would haunt their abodes. I
became a street-singer, dancer, what you will. I wear rags now and
solicit alms. I haunt the most disreputable cabarets in the lowest slums
of Paris. I listen and I spy; I question every man, woman, and child who
might afford some clue, give me some indication. There is hardly a house
in these parts that I have not visited and whence I have not been kicked
out as an importunate beggar or worse. Gradually I am narrowing the
circle of my investigations. Presently I shall get a clue. I shall! I
know I shall! God cannot allow this monstrous thing to go on!"

Again there was silence. The poor woman had completely broken down.
Shame, humiliation, passionate grief, had made of her a mere miserable
wreckage of humanity.

The man waited awhile until she was composed, then he said simply:

"You have suffered terribly, Madame; but chiefly, I think, because you
have been alone in your grief. You have brooded over it until it has
threatened your reason. Now, if you will allow me to act as your friend,
I will pledge you my word that I will find your son for you. Will you
trust me sufficiently to give up your present methods and place yourself
entirely in my hands? There are more than a dozen gallant gentlemen, who
are my friends, and who will help me in my search. But for this I must
have a free hand, and only help from you when I require it. I can find
you lodgings where you will be quite safe under the protection of my
wife, who is as like an angel as any man or woman I have ever met on
this earth. When your son is once more in your arms, you will, I hope,
accompany us to England, where so many of your friends have already
found a refuge. If this meets with your approval, Madame, you may
command me, for with your permission I mean to be your most devoted
servant."

Dante, in his wild imaginations of hell and of purgatory and fleeting
glimpses of paradise, never put before us the picture of a soul that was
lost and found heaven, after a cycle of despair. Nor could Madeleine
Lannoy ever explain her feelings at that moment, even to herself. To
begin with, she could not quite grasp the reality of this ray of hope,
which came to her at the darkest hour of her misery. She stared at the
man before her as she would on an ethereal vision; she fell on her knees
and buried her face in her hands.

What happened afterwards she hardly knew; she was in a state of
semi-consciousness. When she once more woke to reality, she was in
comfortable lodgings; she moved and talked and ate and lived like a
human being. She was no longer a pariah, an outcast, a poor,
half-demented creature, insentient save for an infinite capacity for
suffering. She suffered still, but she no longer despaired. There had
been such marvellous power and confidence in that man's voice when he
said: "I pledge you my word." Madeleine Lannoy lived now in hope and a
sweet sense of perfect mental and bodily security. Around her there was
an influence, too, a presence which she did not often see, but always
felt to be there: a woman, tall and graceful and sympathetic, who was
always ready to cheer, to comfort, and to help. Her name was Marguerite.
Madame Lannoy never knew her by any other. The man had spoken of her as
being as like an angel as could be met on this earth, and poor Madeleine
Lannoy fully agreed with him.


III

Even that bloodthirsty tiger, Jean Paul Marat, has had his apologists.
His friends have called him a martyr, a selfless and incorruptible
exponent of social and political ideals. We may take it that Simonne
Evrard loved him, for a more impassioned obituary speech was, mayhap,
never spoken than the one which she delivered before the National
Assembly in honour of that sinister demagogue, whose writings and
activities will for ever sully some of the really fine pages of that
revolutionary era.

But with those apologists we have naught to do. History has talked its
fill of the inhuman monster. With the more intimate biographists alone
has this true chronicle any concern. It is one of these who tells us
that on or about the eighteenth day of Messidor, in the year I of the
Republic (a date which corresponds with the sixth of July, 1793, of our
own calendar), Jean Paul Marat took an additional man into his service,
at the instance of Jeannette Marechal, his cook and maid-of-all-work.
Marat was at this time a martyr to an unpleasant form of skin disease,
brought on by the terrible privations which he had endured during the
few years preceding his association with Simonne Evrard, the faithful
friend and housekeeper, whose small fortune subsequently provided him
with some degree of comfort.

The man whom Jeannette Marechal, the cook, introduced into the household
of No. 30, Rue des Cordeliers, that worthy woman had literally picked
one day out of the gutter where he was grabbing for scraps of food like
some wretched starving cur. He appeared to be known to the police of the
section, his identity book proclaiming him to be one Paul Mole, who had
served his time in gaol for larceny. He professed himself willing to do
any work required of him, for the merest pittance and some kind of roof
over his head. Simonne Evrard allowed Jeannette to take him in, partly
out of compassion and partly with a view to easing the woman's own
burden, the only other domestic in the house--a man named Bas--being
more interested in politics and the meetings of the Club des Jacobins
than he was in his master's ailments. The man Mole, moreover, appeared
to know something of medicine and of herbs and how to prepare the warm
baths which alone eased the unfortunate Marat from pain. He was
powerfully built, too, and though he muttered and grumbled a great deal,
and indulged in prolonged fits of sulkiness, when he would not open his
mouth to anyone, he was, on the whole, helpful and good-tempered.

There must also have been something about his whole wretched personality
which made a strong appeal to the "Friend of the People," for it is
quite evident that within a few days Paul Mole had won no small measure
of his master's confidence.

Marat, sick, fretful, and worried, had taken an unreasoning dislike to
his servant Bas. He was thankful to have a stranger about him, a man who
was as miserable as he himself had been a very little while ago; who,
like himself, had lived in cellars and in underground burrows, and lived
on the scraps of food which even street-curs had disdained.

On the seventh day following Mole's entry into the household, and while
the latter was preparing his employer's bath, Marat said abruptly to
him:

"You'll go as far as the Chemin de Pantin to-day for me, citizen. You
know your way?"

"I can find it, what?" muttered Mole, who appeared to be in one of his
surly moods.

"You will have to go very circumspectly," Marat went on, in his cracked
and feeble voice. "And see to it that no one spies upon your movements.
I have many enemies, citizen ... one especially ... a woman.... She is
always prying and spying on me.... So beware of any woman you see
lurking about at your heels."

Mole gave a half-audible grunt in reply.

"You had best go after dark," the other rejoined after awhile. "Come
back to me after nine o'clock. It is not far to the Chemin de
Pantin--just where it intersects the Route de Meaux. You can get there
and back before midnight. The people will admit you. I will give you a
ring--the only thing I possess.... It has little or no value," he added
with a harsh, grating laugh. "It will not be worth your while to steal
it. You will have to see a brat and report to me on his condition--his
appearance, what?... Talk to him a bit.... See what he says and let me
know. It is not difficult."

"No, citizen."

Mole helped the suffering wretch into his bath. Not a movement, not a
quiver of the eyelid betrayed one single emotion which he may have
felt--neither loathing nor sympathy, only placid indifference. He was
just a half-starved menial, thankful to accomplish any task for the sake
of satisfying a craving stomach. Marat stretched out his shrunken limbs
in the herbal water with a sigh of well-being.

"And the ring, citizen?" Mole suggested presently.

The demagogue held up his left hand--it was emaciated and disfigured by
disease. A cheap-looking metal ring, set with a false stone, glistened
upon the fourth finger.

"Take it off," he said curtly.

The ring must have all along been too small for the bony hand of the
once famous Court physician. Even now it appeared embedded in the flabby
skin and refused to slide over the knuckle.

"The water will loosen it," remarked Mole quietly.

Marat dipped his hand back into the water, and the other stood beside
him, silent and stolid, his broad shoulders bent, his face naught but a
mask, void and expressionless beneath its coating of grime.

One or two seconds went by. The air was heavy with steam and a medley of
evil-smelling fumes, which hung in the close atmosphere of the narrow
room. The sick man appeared to be drowsy, his head rolled over to one
side, his eyes closed. He had evidently forgotten all about the ring.

A woman's voice, shrill and peremptory, broke the silence which had
become oppressive:

"Here, citizen Mole, I want you! There's not a bit of wood chopped up
for my fire, and how am I to make the coffee without firing, I should
like to know?"

"The ring, citizen," Mole urged gruffly.

Marat had been roused by the woman's sharp voice. He cursed her for a
noisy harridan; then he said fretfully:

"It will do presently--when you are ready to start. I said nine o'clock
... it is only four now. I am tired. Tell citizeness Evrard to bring me
some hot coffee in an hour's time.... You can go and fetch me the
Moniteur now, and take back these proofs to citizen Dufour. You will
find him at the 'Cordeliers,' or else at the printing works.... Come
back at nine o'clock.... I am tired now ... too tired to tell you where
to find the house which is off the Chemin de Pantin. Presently will
do...."

Even while he spoke he appeared to drop into a fitful sleep. His two
hands were hidden under the sheet which covered the bath. Mole watched
him in silence for a moment or two, then he turned on his heel and
shuffled off through the ante-room into the kitchen beyond, where
presently he sat down, squatting in an angle by the stove, and started
with his usual stolidness to chop wood for the citizeness' fire.

When this task was done, and he had received a chunk of sour bread for
his reward from Jeannette Marechal, the cook, he shuffled out of the
place and into the street, to do his employer's errands.


IV

Paul Mole had been to the offices of the Moniteur and to the printing
works of L'Ami du Peuple. He had seen the citizen Dufour at the Club
and, presumably, had spent the rest of his time wandering idly about the
streets of the quartier, for he did not return to the Rue des Cordeliers
until nearly nine o'clock.

As soon as he came to the top of the street, he fell in with the crowd
which had collected outside No. 30. With his habitual slouchy gait and
the steady pressure of his powerful elbows, he pushed his way to the
door, whilst gleaning whisperings and rumours on his way.

"The citizen Marat has been assassinated."

"By a woman."

"A mere girl."

"A wench from Caen. Her name is Corday."

"The people nearly tore her to pieces awhile ago."

"She is as much as guillotined already."

The latter remark went off with a loud guffaw and many a ribald joke.

Mole, despite his great height, succeeded in getting through
unperceived. He was of no account, and he knew his way inside the house.
It was full of people: journalists, gaffers, women and men--the usual
crowd that come to gape. The citizen Marat was a great personage. The
Friend of the People. An Incorruptible, if ever there was one. Just look
at the simplicity, almost the poverty, in which he lived! Only the
aristos hated him, and the fat bourgeois who battened on the people.
Citizen Marat had sent hundreds of them to the guillotine with a stroke
of his pen or a denunciation from his fearless tongue.

Mole did not pause to listen to these comments. He pushed his way
through the throng up the stairs, to his late employer's lodgings on the
first floor.

The anteroom was crowded, so were the other rooms; but the greatest
pressure was around the door immediately facing him, the one which gave
on the bathroom. In the kitchen on his right, where awhile ago he had
been chopping wood under a flood of abuse from Jeannette Marechal, he
caught sight of this woman, cowering by the hearth, her filthy apron
thrown over her head, and crying--yes! crying for the loathsome
creature, who had expiated some of his abominable crimes at the hands of
a poor, misguided girl, whom an infuriated mob was even now threatening
to tear to pieces in its rage.

The parlour and even Simonne's room were also filled with people: men,
most of whom Mole knew by sight; friends or enemies of the ranting
demagogue who lay murdered in the very bath which his casual servant had
prepared for him. Every one was discussing the details of the murder,
the punishment of the youthful assassin. Simonne Evrard was being loudly
blamed for having admitted the girl into citizen Marat's room. But the
wench had looked so simple, so innocent, and she said she was the bearer
of a message from Caen. She had called twice during the day, and in the
evening the citizen himself said that he would see her. Simonne had been
for sending her away. But the citizen was peremptory. And he was so
helpless ... in his bath ... name of a name, the pitiable affair!

No one paid much attention to Mole. He listened for a while to Simonne's
impassioned voice, giving her version of the affair; then he worked his
way stolidly into the bathroom.

It was some time before he succeeded in reaching the side of that awful
bath wherein lay the dead body of Jean Paul Marat. The small room was
densely packed--not with friends, for there was not a man or woman
living, except Simonne Evrard and her sisters, whom the bloodthirsty
demagogue would have called "friend"; but his powerful personality had
been a menace to many, and now they came in crowds to see that he was
really dead, that a girl's feeble hand had actually done the deed which
they themselves had only contemplated. They stood about whispering,
their heads averted from the ghastly spectacle of this miserable
creature, to whom even death had failed to lend his usual attribute of
tranquil dignity.

The tiny room was inexpressibly hot and stuffy. Hardly a breath of
outside air came in through the narrow window, which only gave on the
bedroom beyond. An evil-smelling oil-lamp swung from the low ceiling and
shed its feeble light on the upturned face of the murdered man.

Mole stood for a moment or two, silent and pensive, beside that hideous
form. There was the bath, just as he had prepared it: the board spread
over with a sheet and laid across the bath, above which only the head
and shoulders emerged, livid and stained. One hand, the left, grasped
the edge of the board with the last convulsive clutch of supreme agony.

On the fourth finger of that hand glistened the shoddy ring which Marat
had said was not worth stealing. Yet, apparently, it roused the cupidity
of the poor wretch who had served him faithfully for these last few
days, and who now would once more be thrown, starving and friendless,
upon the streets of Paris.

Mole threw a quick, furtive glance around him. The crowd which had come
to gloat over the murdered Terrorist stood about whispering, with heads
averted, engrossed in their own affairs. He slid his hand
surreptitiously over that of the dead man. With dexterous manipulation
he lifted the finger round which glistened the metal ring. Death
appeared to have shrivelled the flesh still more upon the bones, to have
contracted the knuckles and shrunk the tendons. The ring slid off quite
easily. Mole had it in his hand, when suddenly a rough blow struck him
on the shoulder.

"Trying to rob the dead?" a stern voice shouted in his ear. "Are you a
disguised aristo, or what?"

At once the whispering ceased. A wave of excitement went round the room.
Some people shouted, others pressed forward to gaze on the abandoned
wretch who had been caught in the act of committing a gruesome deed.

"Robbing the dead!"

They were experts in evil, most of these men here. Their hands were
indelibly stained with some of the foulest crimes ever recorded in
history. But there was something ghoulish in this attempt to plunder
that awful thing lying there, helpless, in the water. There was also a
great relief to nerve-tension in shouting Horror and Anathema with
self-righteous indignation; and additional excitement in the suggested
"aristo in disguise."

Mole struggled vigorously. He was powerful and his fists were heavy. But
he was soon surrounded, held fast by both arms, whilst half a dozen
hands tore at his tattered clothes, searched him to his very skin, for
the booty which he was thought to have taken from the dead.

"Leave me alone, curse you!" he shouted, louder than his aggressors. "My
name is Paul Mole, I tell you. Ask the citizeness Evrard. I waited on
citizen Marat. I prepared his bath. I was the only friend who did not
turn away from him in his sickness and his poverty. Leave me alone, I
say! Why," he added, with a hoarse laugh, "Jean Paul in his bath was as
naked as on the day he was born!"

"'Tis true," said one of those who had been most active in rummaging
through Mole's grimy rags. "There's nothing to be found on him."

But suspicion once aroused was not easily allayed. Mole's protestations
became more and more vigorous and emphatic. His papers were all in
order, he vowed. He had them on him: his own identity papers, clear for
anyone to see. Someone had dragged them out of his pocket; they were
dank and covered with splashes of mud--hardly legible. They were handed
over to a man who stood in the immediate circle of light projected by
the lamp. He seized them and examined them carefully. This man was short
and slight, was dressed in well-made cloth clothes; his hair was held in
at the nape of the next in a modish manner with a black taffeta bow. His
hands were clean, slender, and claw-like, and he wore the tricolour
scarf of office round his waist which proclaimed him to be a member of
one of the numerous Committees which tyrannised over the people.

The papers appeared to be in order, and proclaimed the bearer to be Paul
Mole, a native of Besancon, a carpenter by trade. The identity book had
recently been signed by Jean Paul Marat, the man's latest employer, and
been counter-signed by the Commissary of the section.

The man in the tricolour scarf turned with some acerbity on the crowd
who was still pressing round the prisoner.

"Which of you here," he queried roughly, "levelled an unjust accusation
against an honest citizen?"

But, as usual in such cases, no one replied directly to the charge. It
was not safe these days to come into conflict with men like Mole. The
Committees were all on their side, against the bourgeois as well as
against the aristos. This was the reign of the proletariat, and the
sans-culotte always emerged triumphant in a conflict against the
well-to-do. Nor was it good to rouse the ire of citizen Chauvelin, one
of the most powerful, as he was the most pitiless members of the
Committee of Public Safety. Quiet, sarcastic rather than aggressive,
something of the aristo, too, in his clean linen and well-cut clothes,
he had not even yielded to the defunct Marat in cruelty and relentless
persecution of aristocrats.

Evidently his sympathies now were all with Mole, the out-at-elbows,
miserable servant of an equally miserable master. His pale-coloured,
deep-set eyes challenged the crowd, which gave way before him, slunk
back into the corners, away from his coldly threatening glance. Thus he
found himself suddenly face to face with Mole, somewhat isolated from
the rest, and close to the tin bath with its grim contents. Chauvelin
had the papers in his hand.

"Take these, citizen," he said curtly to the other. "They are all in
order."

He looked up at Mole as he said this, for the latter, though his
shoulders were bent, was unusually tall, and Mole took the papers from
him. Thus for the space of a few seconds the two men looked into one
another's face, eyes to eyes--and suddenly Chauvelin felt an icy sweat
coursing down his spine. The eyes into which he gazed had a strange,
ironical twinkle in them, a kind of good-humoured arrogance, whilst
through the firm, clear-cut lips, half hidden by a dirty and ill-kempt
beard, there came the sound--oh! a mere echo--of a quaint and inane
laugh.

The whole thing--it seemed like a vision--was over in a second.
Chauvelin, sick and faint with the sudden rush of blood to his head,
closed his eyes for one brief instant. The next, the crowd had closed
round him; anxious inquiries reached his re-awakened senses.

But he uttered one quick, hoarse cry:

"Hebert! A moi! Are you there?"

"Present, citizen!" came in immediate response. And a tall figure in the
tattered uniform affected by the revolutionary guard stepped briskly out
of the crowd. Chauvelin's claw-like hand was shaking visibly.

"The man Mole," he called in a voice husky with excitement. "Seize him
at once! And, name of a dog! do not allow a living soul in or out of the
house!"

Hebert turned on his heel. The next moment his harsh voice was heard
above the din and the general hubbub around:

"Quite safe, citizen!" he called to his chief. "We have the rogue right
enough!"

There was much shouting and much cursing, a great deal of bustle and
confusion, as the men of the Surete closed the doors of the defunct
demagogue's lodgings. Some two score men, a dozen or so women, were
locked in, inside the few rooms which reeked of dirt and of disease.
They jostled and pushed, screamed and protested. For two or three
minutes the din was quite deafening. Simonne Evrard pushed her way up to
the forefront of the crowd.

"What is this I hear?" she queried peremptorily. "Who is accusing
citizen Mole? And of what, I should like to know? I am responsible for
everyone inside these apartments ... and if citizen Marat were still
alive--"

Chauvelin appeared unaware of all the confusion and of the woman's
protestations. He pushed his way through the crowd to the corner of the
anteroom where Mole stood, crouching and hunched up, his grimy hands
idly fingering the papers which Chauvelin had returned to him a moment
ago. Otherwise he did not move.

He stood, silent and sullen; and when Chauvelin, who had succeeded in
mastering his emotion, gave the peremptory command: "Take this man to
the depot at once. And do not allow him one instant out of your sight!"
he made no attempt at escape.

He allowed Hebert and the men to seize him, to lead him away. He
followed without a word, without a struggle. His massive figure was
hunched up like that of an old man; his hands, which still clung to his
identity papers, trembled slightly like those of a man who is very
frightened and very helpless. The men of the Surete handled him very
roughly, but he made no protest. The woman Evrard did all the
protesting, vowing that the people would not long tolerate such tyranny.
She even forced her way up to Hebert. With a gesture of fury she tried
to strike him in the face, and continued, with a loud voice, her insults
and objurgations, until, with a movement of his bayonet, he pushed her
roughly out of the way.

After that Paul Mole, surrounded by the guard, was led without ceremony
out of the house. Chauvelin gazed after him as if he had been brought
face to face with a ghoul.


V

Chauvelin hurried to the depot. After those few seconds wherein he had
felt dazed, incredulous, almost under a spell, he had quickly regained
the mastery of his nerves, and regained, too, that intense joy which
anticipated triumph is wont to give.

In the out-at-elbows, half-starved servant of the murdered Terrorist,
citizen Chauvelin, of the Committee of Public Safety, had recognised his
arch enemy, that meddlesome and adventurous Englishman who chose to hide
his identity under the pseudonym of the Scarlet Pimpernel. He knew that
he could reckon on Hebert; his orders not to allow the prisoner one
moment out of sight would of a certainty be strictly obeyed.

Hebert, indeed, a few moments later, greeted his chief outside the doors
of the depot with the welcome news that Paul Mole was safely under lock
and key.

"You had no trouble with him?" Chauvelin queried, with ill-concealed
eagerness.

"No, no! citizen, no trouble," was Hebert's quick reply. "He seems to be
a well-known rogue in these parts," he continued with a complacent
guffaw; "and some of his friends tried to hustle us at the corner of the
Rue de Tourraine; no doubt with a view to getting the prisoner away. But
we were too strong for them, and Paul Mole is now sulking in his cell
and still protesting that his arrest is an outrage against the liberty
of the people."

Chauvelin made no further remark. He was obviously too excited to speak.
Pushing past Hebert and the men of the Surete who stood about the dark
and narrow passages of the depot, he sought the Commissary of the
Section in the latter's office.

It was now close upon ten o'clock. The citizen Commissary Cuisinier had
finished his work for the day and was preparing to go home and to bed.
He was a family man, had been a respectable bourgeois in his day, and
though he was a rank opportunist and had sacrificed not only his
political convictions but also his conscience to the exigencies of the
time, he still nourished in his innermost heart a secret contempt for
the revolutionary brigands who ruled over France at this hour.

To any other man than citizen Chauvelin, the citizen Commissary would,
no doubt, have given a curt refusal to a request to see a prisoner at
this late hour of the evening. But Chauvelin was not a man to be denied,
and whilst muttering various objections in his ill-kempt beard,
Cuisinier, nevertheless, gave orders that the citizen was to be
conducted at once to the cells.

Paul Mole had in truth turned sulky. The turnkey vowed that the prisoner
had hardly stirred since first he had been locked up in the common cell.
He sat in a corner at the end of the bench, with his face turned to the
wall, and paid no heed either to his fellow-prisoners or to the
facetious remarks of the warder.

Chauvelin went up to him, made some curt remark. Mole kept an obstinate
shoulder turned towards him--a grimy shoulder, which showed naked
through a wide rent in his blouse. This portion of the cell was
well-nigh in total darkness; the feeble shaft of light which came
through the open door hardly penetrated to this remote angle of the
squalid burrow. The same sense of mystery and unreality overcame
Chauvelin again as he looked on the miserable creature in whom, an hour
ago, he had recognised the super-exquisite Sir Percy Blakeney. Now he
could only see a vague outline in the gloom: the stooping shoulders, the
long limbs, that naked piece of shoulder which caught a feeble reflex
from the distant light. Nor did any amount of none too gentle prodding
on the part of the warder induce him to change his position.

"Leave him alone," said Chauvelin curly at last. "I have seen all that I
wished to see."

The cell was insufferably hot and stuffy. Chauvelin, finical and queasy,
turned away with a shudder of disgust. There was nothing to be got now
out of a prolonged interview with his captured foe. He had seen him:
that was sufficient. He had seen the super-exquisite Sir Percy Blakeney
locked up in a common cell with some of the most scrubby and abject
rogues which the slums of indigent Paris could yield, having apparently
failed in some undertaking which had demanded for its fulfilment not
only tattered clothes and grimy hands, but menial service with a
beggarly and disease-ridden employer, whose very propinquity must have
been positive torture to the fastidious dandy.

Of a truth this was sufficient for the gratification of any revenge.
Chauvelin felt that he could now go contentedly to rest after an
evening's work excellently done.

He gave order that Mole should be put in a separate cell, denied all
intercourse with anyone outside or in the depot, and that he should be
guarded on sight day and night. After that he went his way.


VI

The following morning citizen Chauvelin, of the Committee of Public
Safety, gave due notice to citizen Fouquier-Tinville, the Public
Prosecutor, that the dangerous English spy, known to the world as the
Scarlet Pimpernel, was now safely under lock and key, and that he must
be transferred to the Abbaye prison forthwith and to the guillotine as
quickly as might be. No one was to take any risks this time; there must
be no question either of discrediting his famous League or of obtaining
other more valuable information out of him. Such methods had proved
disastrous in the past.

There were no safe Englishmen these days, except the dead ones, and it
would not take citizen Fouquier-Tinville much thought or time to frame
an indictment against the notorious Scarlet Pimpernel, which would do
away with the necessity of a prolonged trial. The revolutionary
government was at war with England now, and short work could be made of
all poisonous spies.

By order, therefore, of the Committee of Public Safety, the prisoner,
Paul Mole, was taken out of the cells of the depot and conveyed in a
closed carriage to the Abbaye prison. Chauvelin had the pleasure of
watching this gratifying spectacle from the windows of the Commissariat.
When he saw the closed carriage drive away, with Hebert and two men
inside and two others on the box, he turned to citizen Commissary
Cuisinier with a sigh of intense satisfaction.

"There goes the most dangerous enemy our glorious revolution has had,"
he said, with an accent of triumph which he did not attempt to disguise.

Cuisinier shrugged his shoulders.

"Possibly," he retorted curtly. "He did not seem to me to be very
dangerous and his papers were quite in order."

To this assertion Chauvelin made no reply. Indeed, how could he explain
to this stolid official the subtle workings of an intriguing brain? Had
he himself not had many a proof of how little the forging of identity
papers or of passports troubled the members of that accursed League? Had
he not seen the Scarlet Pimpernel, that exquisite Sir Percy Blakeney,
under disguises that were so grimy and so loathsome that they would have
repelled the most abject, suborned spy?

Indeed, all that was wanted now was the assurance that Hebert--who
himself had a deadly and personal grudge against the Scarlet
Pimpernel--would not allow him for one moment out of his sight.

Fortunately as to this, there was no fear. One hint to Hebert and the
man was as keen, as determined, as Chauvelin himself.

"Set your mind at rest, citizen," he said with a rough oath. "I guessed
how matters stood the moment you gave me the order. I knew you would not
take all that trouble for a real Paul Mole. But have no fear! That
accursed Englishman has not been one second out of my sight, from the
moment I arrested him in the late citizen Marat's lodgings, and by
Satan! he shall not be either, until I have seen his impudent head fall
under the guillotine."

He himself, he added, had seen to the arrangements for the disposal of
the prisoner in the Abbaye: an inner cell, partially partitioned off in
one of the guard-rooms, with no egress of its own, and only a tiny
grated air-hole high up in the wall, which gave on an outside corridor,
and through which not even a cat could manage to slip. Oh! the prisoner
was well guarded! The citizen Representative need, of a truth, have no
fear! Three or four men--of the best and most trustworthy--had not left
the guard-room since the morning. He himself (Hebert) had kept the
accursed Englishman in sight all night, had personally conveyed him to
the Abbaye, and had only left the guard-room a moment ago in order to
speak with the citizen Representative. He was going back now at once,
and would not move until the order came for the prisoner to be conveyed
to the Court of Justice and thence to summary execution.

For the nonce, Hebert concluded with a complacent chuckle, the
Englishman was still crouching dejectedly in a corner of his new cell,
with little of him visible save that naked shoulder through his torn
shirt, which, in the process of transference from one prison to another,
had become a shade more grimy than before.

Chauvelin nodded, well satisfied. He commended Hebert for his zeal,
rejoiced with him over the inevitable triumph. It would be well to
avenge that awful humiliation at Calais last September. Nevertheless, he
felt anxious and nervy; he could not comprehend the apathy assumed by
the factitious Mole. That the apathy was assumed Chauvelin was keen
enough to guess. What it portended he could not conjecture. But that the
Englishman would make a desperate attempt at escape was, of course, a
foregone conclusion. It rested with Hebert and a guard that could
neither be bribed nor fooled into treachery, to see that such an attempt
remained abortive.

What, however, had puzzled citizen Chauvelin all along was the motive
which had induced Sir Percy Blakeney to play the role of menial to Jean
Paul Marat. Behind it there lay, undoubtedly, one of those subtle
intrigues for which that insolent Scarlet Pimpernel was famous; and with
it was associated an attempt at theft upon the murdered body of the
demagogue ... an attempt which had failed, seeing that the
supposititious Paul Mole had been searched and nothing suspicious been
found upon his person.

Nevertheless, thoughts of that attempted theft disturbed Chauvelin's
equanimity. The old legend of the crumpled roseleaf was applicable in
his case. Something of his intense satisfaction would pale if this final
enterprise of the audacious adventurer were to be brought to a
triumphant close in the end.


VII

That same forenoon, on his return from the Abbaye and the depot,
Chauvelin found that a visitor was waiting for him. A woman, who gave
her name as Jeannette Marechal, desired to speak with the citizen
Representative. Chauvelin knew the woman as his colleague Marat's
maid-of-all-work, and he gave orders that she should be admitted at
once.

Jeannette Marechal, tearful and not a little frightened, assured the
citizen Representative that her errand was urgent. Her late employer had
so few friends; she did not know to whom to turn until she bethought
herself of citizen Chauvelin. It took him some little time to
disentangle the tangible facts out of the woman's voluble narrative. At
first the words: "Child ... Chemin de Pantin ... Leridan," were only a
medley of sounds which conveyed no meaning to his ear. But when occasion
demanded, citizen Chauvelin was capable of infinite patience. Gradually
he understood what the woman was driving at.

"The child, citizen!" she reiterated excitedly. "What's to be done about
him? I know that citizen Marat would have wished--"

"Never mind now what citizen Marat would have wished," Chauvelin broke
in quietly. "Tell me first who this child is."

"I do not know, citizen," she replied.

"How do you mean, you do not know? Then I pray you, citizeness, what is
all this pother about?"

"About the child, citizen," reiterated Jeannette obstinately.

"What child?"

"The child whom citizen Marat adopted last year and kept at that awful
house on the Chemin de Pantin."

"I did not know citizen Marat had adopted a child," remarked Chauvelin
thoughtfully.

"No one knew," she rejoined. "Not even citizeness Evrard. I was the only
one who knew. I had to go and see the child once every month. It was a
wretched, miserable brat," the woman went on, her shrivelled old breast
vaguely stirred, mayhap, by some atrophied feeling of motherhood. "More
than half-starved ... and the look in its eyes, citizen! It was enough
to make you cry! I could see by his poor little emaciated body and his
nice little hands and feet that he ought never to have been put in that
awful house, where--"

She paused, and that quick look of furtive terror, which was so often to
be met with in the eyes of the timid these days, crept into her wrinkled
face.

"Well, citizeness," Chauvelin rejoined quietly, "why don't you proceed?
That awful house, you were saying. Where and what is that awful house of
which you speak?"

"The place kept by citizen Leridan, just by Bassin de l'Ourcq," the
woman murmured. "You know it, citizen."

Chauvelin nodded. He was beginning to understand.

"Well, now, tell me," he said, with that bland patience which had so oft
served him in good stead in his unavowable profession. "Tell me. Last
year citizen Marat adopted--we'll say adopted--a child, whom he placed
in the Leridans' house on the Pantin road. Is that correct?"

"That is just how it is, citizen. And I--"

"One moment," he broke in somewhat more sternly, as the woman's
garrulity was getting on his nerves. "As you say, I know the Leridans'
house. I have had cause to send children there myself. Children of
aristos or of fat bourgeois, whom it was our duty to turn into good
citizens. They are not pampered there, I imagine," he went on drily;
"and if citizen Marat sent his--er--adopted son there, it was not with a
view to having him brought up as an aristo, what?"

"The child was not to be brought up at all," the woman said gruffly. "I
have often heard citizen Marat say that he hoped the brat would prove a
thief when he grew up, and would take to alcoholism like a duck takes to
water."

"And you know nothing of the child's parents?"

"Nothing, citizen. I had to go to Pantin once a month and have a look at
him and report to citizen Marat. But I always had the same tale to tell.
The child was looking more and more like a young reprobate every time I
saw him."

"Did citizen Marat pay the Leridans for keeping the child?"

"Oh, no, citizen! The Leridans make a trade of the children by sending
them out to beg. But this one was not to be allowed out yet. Citizen
Marat's orders were very stern, and he was wont to terrify the Leridans
with awful threats of the guillotine if they ever allowed the child out
of their sight."

Chauvelin sat silent for a while. A ray of light had traversed the dark
and tortuous ways of his subtle brain. While he mused the woman became
impatient. She continued to talk on with the volubility peculiar to her
kind. He paid no heed to her, until one phrase struck his ear.

"So now," Jeannette Marechal was saying, "I don't know what to do. The
ring has disappeared, and the Leridans are suspicious."

"The ring?" queried Chauvelin curtly. "What ring?"

"As I was telling you, citizen," she replied querulously, "when I went
to see the child, the citizen Marat always gave me this ring to show to
the Leridans. Without I brought the ring they would not admit me inside
their door. They were so terrified with all the citizen's threats of the
guillotine."

"And now you say the ring has disappeared. Since when?"

"Well, citizen," replied Jeannette blandly, "since you took poor Paul
Mole into custody."

"What do you mean?" Chauvelin riposted. "What had Paul Mole to do with
the child and the ring?"

"Only this, citizen, that he was to have gone to Pantin last night
instead of me. And thankful I was not to have to go. Citizen Marat gave
the ring to Mole, I suppose. I know he intended to give it to him. He
spoke to me about it just before that execrable woman came and murdered
him. Anyway, the ring has gone and Mole too. So I imagine that Mole has
the ring and--"

"That's enough!" Chauvelin broke in roughly. "You can go!"

"But, citizen--"

"You can go, I said," he reiterated sharply. "The matter of the child
and the Leridans and the ring no longer concerns you. You understand?"

"Y--y--yes, citizen," murmured Jeannette, vaguely terrified.

And of a truth the change in citizen Chauvelin's demeanour was enough to
scare any timid creature. Not that he raved or ranted or screamed. Those
were not his ways. He still sat beside his desk as he had done before,
and his slender hand, so like the talons of a vulture, was clenched upon
the arm of his chair. But there was such a look of inward fury and of
triumph in his pale, deep-set eyes, such lines of cruelty around his
thin, closed lips, that Jeannette Marechal, even with the picture before
her mind of Jean Paul Marat in his maddest moods, fled, with the
unreasoning terror of her kind, before the sternly controlled, fierce
passion of this man.

Chauvelin never noticed that she went. He sat for a long time, silent
and immovable. Now he understood. Thank all the Powers of Hate and
Revenge, no thought of disappointment was destined to embitter the
overflowing cup of his triumph. He had not only brought his arch-enemy
to his knees, but had foiled one of his audacious ventures. How clear
the whole thing was! The false Paul Mole, the newly acquired menial in
the household of Marat, had wormed himself into the confidence of his
employer in order to wrest from him the secret of the aristo's child.
Bravo! bravo! my gallant Scarlet Pimpernel! Chauvelin now could see it
all. Tragedies such as that which had placed an aristo's child in the
power of a cunning demon like Marat were not rare these days, and
Chauvelin had been fitted by nature and by temperament to understand and
appreciate an execrable monster of the type of Jean Paul Marat.

And Paul Mole, the grimy, degraded servant of the indigent demagogue,
the loathsome mask which hid the fastidious personality of Sir Percy
Blakeney, had made a final and desperate effort to possess himself of
the ring which would deliver the child into his power. Now, having
failed in his machinations, he was safe under lock and key--guarded on
sight. The next twenty-four hours would see him unmasked, awaiting his
trial and condemnation under the scathing indictment prepared by
Fouquier-Tinville, the unerring Public Prosecutor. The day after that,
the tumbril and the guillotine for that execrable English spy, and the
boundless sense of satisfaction that his last intrigue had aborted in
such a signal and miserable manner.

Of a truth Chauvelin at this hour had every cause to be thankful, and it
was with a light heart that he set out to interview the Leridans.


VIII

The Leridans, anxious, obsequious, terrified, were only too ready to
obey the citizen Representative in all things.

They explained with much complacency that, even though they were
personally acquainted with Jeannette Marechal, when the citizeness
presented herself this very morning without the ring they had refused
her permission to see the brat.

Chauvelin, who in his own mind had already reconstructed the whole
tragedy of the stolen child, was satisfied that Marat could not have
chosen more efficient tools for the execution of his satanic revenge
than these two hideous products of revolutionary Paris.

Grasping, cowardly, and avaricious, the Leridans would lend themselves
to any abomination for a sufficiency of money; but no money on earth
would induce them to risk their own necks in the process. Marat had
obviously held them by threats of the guillotine. They knew the power of
the "Friend of the People," and feared him accordingly. Chauvelin's
scarf of office, his curt, authoritative manner, had an equally
awe-inspiring effect upon the two miserable creatures. They became
absolutely abject, cringing, maudlin in their protestations of good-will
and loyalty. No one, they vowed, should as much as see the child--ring
or no ring--save the citizen Representative himself. Chauvelin, however,
had no wish to see the child. He was satisfied that its name was
Lannoy--for the child had remembered it when first he had been brought
to the Leridans. Since then he had apparently forgotten it, even though
he often cried after his "Maman!"

Chauvelin listened to all these explanations with some impatience. The
child was nothing to him, but the Scarlet Pimpernel had desired to
rescue it from out of the clutches of the Leridans; had risked his
all--and lost it--in order to effect that rescue! That in itself was a
sufficient inducement for Chauvelin to interest himself in the execution
of Marat's vengeance, whatever its original mainspring may have been.

At any rate, now he felt satisfied that the child was safe, and that the
Leridans were impervious to threats or bribes which might land them on
the guillotine.

All that they would own to was to being afraid.

"Afraid of what?" queried Chauvelin sharply.

That the brat may be kidnapped ... stolen. Oh! he could not be decoyed
... they were too watchful for that! But apparently there were
mysterious agencies at work....

"Mysterious agencies!" Chauvelin laughed aloud at the suggestion. The
"mysterious agency" was even now rotting in an obscure cell at the
Abbaye. What other powers could be at work on behalf of the brat?

Well, the Leridans had had a warning!

What warning?

"A letter," the man said gruffly. "But as neither my wife nor I can
read--"

"Why did you not speak of this before?" broke in Chauvelin roughly. "Let
me see the letter."

The woman produced a soiled and dank scrap of paper from beneath her
apron. Of a truth she could not read its contents, for they were writ in
English in the form of a doggerel rhyme which caused Chauvelin to utter
a savage oath.

"When did this come?" he asked. "And how?"

"This morning, citizen," the woman mumbled in reply. "I found it outside
the door, with a stone on it to prevent the wind from blowing it away.
What does it mean, citizen?" she went on, her voice shaking with terror,
for of a truth the citizen Representative looked as if he had seen some
weird and unearthly apparition.

He gave no reply for a moment or two, and the two catiffs had no
conception of the tremendous effort at self-control which was hidden
behind the pale, rigid mask of the redoubtable man.

"It probably means nothing that you need fear," Chauvelin said quietly
at last. "But I will see the Commissary of the Section myself, and tell
him to send a dozen men of the Surete along to watch your house and be
at your beck and call if need be. Then you will feel quite safe, I
hope."

"Oh, yes! quite safe, citizen!" the woman replied with a sigh of genuine
relief. Then only did Chauvelin turn on his heel and go his way.


IX

But that crumpled and soiled scrap of paper given to him by the woman
Leridan still lay in his clenched hand as he strode back rapidly
citywards. It seemed to scorch his palm. Even before he had glanced at
the contents he knew what they were. That atrocious English doggerel,
the signature--a five-petalled flower traced in crimson! How well he
knew them!

"We seek him here, we seek him there!"

The most humiliating moments in Chauvelin's career were associated with
that silly rhyme, and now here it was, mocking him even when he knew
that his bitter enemy lay fettered and helpless, caught in a trap, out
of which there was no escape possible; even though he knew for a
positive certainty that the mocking voice which had spoken those rhymes
on that far-off day last September would soon be stilled for ever.

No doubt one of that army of abominable English spies had placed this
warning outside the Leridans' door. No doubt they had done that with a
view to throwing dust in the eyes of the Public Prosecutor and causing a
confusion in his mind with regard to the identity of the prisoner at the
Abbaye, all to the advantage of their chief.

The thought that such a confusion might exist, that Fouquier-Tinville
might be deluded into doubting the real personality of Paul Mole,
brought an icy sweat all down Chauvelin's spine. He hurried along the
interminably long Chemin de Pantin, only paused at the Barriere du
Combat in order to interview the Commissary of the Section on the matter
of sending men to watch over the Leridans' house. Then, when he felt
satisfied that this would be effectively and quickly done, an
unconquerable feeling of restlessness prompted him to hurry round to the
lodgings of the Public Prosecutor in the Rue Blanche--just to see him,
to speak with him, to make quite sure.

Oh! he must be sure that no doubts, no pusillanimity on the part of any
official would be allowed to stand in the way of the consummation of all
his most cherished dreams. Papers or no papers, testimony or no
testimony, the incarcerated Paul Mole was the Scarlet Pimpernel--of this
Chauvelin was as certain as that he was alive. His every sense had
testified to it when he stood in the narrow room of the Rue des
Cordeliers, face to face--eyes gazing into eyes--with his sworn enemy.

Unluckily, however, he found the Public Prosecutor in a surly and
obstinate mood, following on an interview which he had just had with
citizen Commissary Cuisinier on the matter of the prisoner Paul Mole.

"His papers are all in order, I tell you," he said impatiently, in
answer to Chauvelin's insistence. "It is as much as my head is worth to
demand a summary execution."

"But I tell you that, those papers of his are forged," urged Chauvelin
forcefully.

"They are not," retorted the other. "The Commissary swears to his own
signature on the identity book. The concierge at the Abbaye swears that
he knows Mole, so do all the men of the Surete who have seen him. The
Commissary has known him as an indigent, good-for-nothing lubbard who
has begged his way in the streets of Paris ever since he was released
from gaol some months ago, after he had served a term for larceny. Even
your own man Hebert admits to feeling doubtful on the point. You have
had the nightmare, citizen," concluded Fouquier-Tinville with a harsh
laugh.

"But, name of a dog!" broke in Chauvelin savagely. "You are not
proposing to let the man go?"

"What else can I do?" the other rejoined fretfully. "We shall get into
terrible trouble if we interfere with a man like Paul Mole. You know
yourself how it is these days. We should have the whole of the rabble of
Paris clamouring for our blood. If, after we have guillotined him, he is
proved to be a good patriot, it will be my turn next. No! I thank you!"

"I tell you, man," retorted Chauvelin desperately, "that the man is not
Paul Mole--that he is the English spy whom we all know as the Scarlet
Pimpernel."

"EH BIEN!" riposted Fouquier-Tinville. "Bring me more tangible proof
that our prisoner is not Paul Mole and I'll deal with him quickly
enough, never fear. But if by to-morrow morning you do not satisfy me on
the point ... I must let him go his way."

A savage oath rose to Chauvelin's lips. He felt like a man who has been
running, panting to reach a goal, who sees that goal within easy
distance of him, and is then suddenly captured, caught in invisible
meshes which hold him tightly, and against which he is powerless to
struggle. For the moment he hated Fouquier-Tinville with a deadly
hatred, would have tortured and threatened him until he wrung a consent,
an admission, out of him.

Name of a name! when that damnable English spy was actually in his
power, the man was a pusillanimous fool to allow the rich prize to slip
from his grasp! Chauvelin felt as if he were choking; his slender
fingers worked nervily around his cravat; beads of perspiration trickled
unheeded down his pallid forehead.

Then suddenly he had an inspiration--nothing less! It almost seemed as
if Satan, his friend, had whispered insinuating words into his ear. That
scrap of paper! He had thrust it awhile ago into the breast pocket of
his coat. It was still there, and the Public Prosecutor wanted a
tangible proof.... Then, why not....?

Slowly, his thoughts still in the process of gradual coordination,
Chauvelin drew that soiled scrap of paper out of his pocket.
Fouquier-Tinville, surly and ill-humoured, had his back half-turned
towards him, was moodily picking at his teeth. Chauvelin had all the
leisure which he required. He smoothed out the creases in the paper and
spread it out carefully upon the desk close to the other man's elbow.
Fouquier-Tinville looked down on it, over his shoulder.

"What is that?" he queried.

"As you see, citizen," was Chauvelin's bland reply. "A message, such as
you yourself have oft received, methinks, from our mutual enemy, the
Scarlet Pimpernel."

But already the Public Prosecutor had seized upon the paper, and of a
truth Chauvelin had no longer cause to complain of his colleague's
indifference. That doggerel rhyme, no less than the signature, had the
power to rouse Fouquier-Tinville's ire, as it had that of disturbing
Chauvelin's well-studied calm.

"What is it?" reiterated the Public Prosecutor, white now to the lips.

"I have told you, citizen," rejoined Chauvelin imperturbably. "A message
from that English spy. It is also the proof which you have demanded of
me--the tangible proof that the prisoner, Paul Mole, is none other than
the Scarlet Pimpernel."

"But," ejaculated the other hoarsely, "where did you get this?"

"It was found in the cell which Paul Mole occupied in the depot of the
Rue de Tourraine, where he was first incarcerated. I picked it up there
after he was removed ... the ink was scarcely dry upon it."

The lie came quite glibly to Chauvelin's tongue. Was not every method
good, every device allowable, which would lead to so glorious an end?

"Why did you not tell me of this before?" queried Fouquier-Tinville,
with a sudden gleam of suspicion in his deep-set eyes.

"You had not asked me for a tangible proof before," replied Chauvelin
blandly. "I myself was so firmly convinced of what I averred that I had
well-nigh forgotten the existence of this damning scrap of paper."

Damning indeed! Fouquier-Tinville had seen such scraps of paper before.
He had learnt the doggerel rhyme by heart, even though the English
tongue was quite unfamiliar to him. He loathed the English--the entire
nation--with all that deadly hatred which a divergence of political aims
will arouse in times of acute crises. He hated the English government,
Pitt and Burke and even Fox, the happy-go-lucky apologist of the young
Revolution. But, above all, he hated that League of English spies--as he
was pleased to call them--whose courage, resourcefulness, as well as
reckless daring, had more than once baffled his own hideous schemes of
murder, of pillage, and of rape.

Thank Beelzebub and his horde of evil spirits, citizen Chauvelin had
been clear-sighted enough to detect that elusive Pimpernel under the
disguise of Paul Mole.

"You have deserved well of your country," said Tinville with lusty
fervour, and gave Chauvelin a vigorous slap on the shoulder. "But for
you I should have allowed that abominable spy to slip through our
fingers."

"I have succeeded in convincing you, citizen?" Chauvelin retorted dryly.

"Absolutely!" rejoined the other. "You may now leave the matter to me.
And 'twill be friend Mole who will be surprised to-morrow," he added
with a harsh guffaw, "when he finds himself face to face with me, before
a Court of Justice."

He was all eagerness, of course. Such a triumph for him! The indictment
of the notorious Scarlet Pimpernel on a charge of espionage would be the
crowning glory of his career! Let other men look to their laurels! Those
who brought that dangerous enemy of revolution to the guillotine would
for ever be proclaimed as the saviours of France.

"A short indictment," he said, when Chauvelin, after a lengthy
discussion on various points, finally rose to take his leave, "but a
scathing one! I tell you, citizen Chauvelin, that to-morrow you will be
the first to congratulate me on an unprecedented triumph."

He had been arguing in favour of a sensational trial and no less
sensational execution. Chauvelin, with his memory harking back on many
mysterious abductions at the very foot of the guillotine, would have
liked to see his elusive enemy quietly put to death amongst a batch of
traitors, who would help to mask his personality until after the
guillotine had fallen, when the whole of Paris should ring with the
triumph of this final punishment of the hated spy.

In the end, the two friends agreed upon a compromise, and parted well
pleased with the turn of events which a kind Fate had ordered for their
own special benefit.

X

Thus satisfied, Chauvelin returned to the Abbaye. Hebert was safe and
trustworthy, but Hebert, too, had been assailed with the same doubts
which had well-nigh wrecked Chauvelin's triumph, and with such doubts in
his mind he might slacken his vigilance.

Name of a name! every man in charge of that damnable Scarlet Pimpernel
should have three pairs of eyes wherewith to watch his movements. He
should have the alert brain of a Robespierre, the physical strength of a
Danton, the relentlessness of a Marat. He should be a giant in sheer
brute force, a tiger in caution, an elephant in weight, and a mouse in
stealthiness!

Name of a name! but 'twas only hate that could give such powers to any
man!

Hebert, in the guard-room, owned to his doubts. His comrades, too,
admitted that after twenty-four hours spent on the watch, their minds
were in a whirl. The Citizen Commissary had been so sure--so was the
chief concierge of the Abbaye even now; and the men of the Surete!...
they themselves had seen the real Mole more than once ... and this man
in the cell.... Well, would the citizen Representative have a final good
look at him?

"You seem to forget Calais, citizen Hebert," Chauvelin said sharply,
"and the deadly humiliation you suffered then at the hands of this man
who is now your prisoner. Surely your eyes should have been, at least,
as keen as mine own."

Anxious, irritable, his nerves well-nigh on the rack, he nevertheless
crossed the guard-room with a firm step and entered the cell where the
prisoner was still lying upon the palliasse, as he had been all along,
and still presenting that naked piece of shoulder through the hole in
his shirt.

"He has been like this the best part of the day," Hebert said with a
shrug of the shoulders. "We put his bread and water right under his
nose. He ate and he drank, and I suppose he slept. But except for a good
deal of swearing, he has not spoken to any of us."

He had followed his chief into the cell, and now stood beside the
palliasse, holding a small dark lantern in his hand. At a sign from
Chauvelin he flashed the light upon the prisoner's averted head.

Mole cursed for awhile, and muttered something about "good patriots" and
about "retribution." Then, worried by the light, he turned slowly round,
and with fish-like, bleary eyes looked upon his visitor.

The words of stinging irony and triumphant sarcasm, all fully prepared,
froze on Chauvelin's lips. He gazed upon the prisoner, and a weird sense
of something unfathomable and mysterious came over him as he gazed. He
himself could not have defined that feeling: the very next moment he was
prepared to ridicule his own cowardice--yes, cowardice! because for a
second or two he had felt positively afraid.

Afraid of what, forsooth? The man who crouched here in the cell was his
arch-enemy, the Scarlet Pimpernel--the man whom he hated most bitterly
in all the world, the man whose death he desired more than that of any
other living creature. He had been apprehended by the very side of the
murdered man whose confidence he had all but gained. He himself
(Chauvelin) had at that fateful moment looked into the factitious Mole's
eyes, had seen the mockery in them, the lazy insouciance which was the
chief attribute of Sir Percy Blakeney. He had heard a faint echo of that
inane laugh which grated upon his nerves. Hebert had then laid hands
upon this very same man; agents of the Surete had barred every ingress
and egress to the house, had conducted their prisoner straightway to the
depot and thence to the Abbaye, had since that moment guarded him on
sight, by day and by night. Hebert and the other men as well as the
chief warder, all swore to that!

No, no! There could be no doubt! There was no doubt! The days of magic
were over! A man could not assume a personality other than his own; he
could not fly out of that personality like a bird out of its cage. There
on the palliasse in the miserable cell were the same long limbs, the
broad shoulders, the grimy face with the three days' growth of stubbly
beard--the whole wretched personality of Paul Mole, in fact, which hid
the exquisite one of Sir Percy Blakeney, Bart. And yet!...

A cold sweat ran down Chauvelin's spine as he gazed, mute and immovable,
into those fish-like, bleary eyes, which were not--no! they were not
those of the real Scarlet Pimpernel.

The whole situation became dreamlike, almost absurd. Chauvelin was not
the man for such a mock-heroic, melodramatic situation. Commonsense,
reason, his own cool powers of deliberation, would soon reassert
themselves. But for the moment he was dazed. He had worked too hard, no
doubt; had yielded too much to excitement, to triumph, and to hate. He
turned to Hebert, who was standing stolidly by, gave him a few curt
orders in a clear and well-pitched voice. Then he walked out of the
cell, without bestowing another look on the prisoner.

Mole had once more turned over on his palliasse and, apparently, had
gone to sleep. Hebert, with a strange and puzzled laugh, followed his
chief out of the cell.

XI

At first Chauvelin had the wish to go back and see the Public
Prosecutor--to speak with him--to tell him--what? Yes, what? That he,
Chauvelin, had all of a sudden been assailed with the same doubts which
already had worried Hebert and the others?--that he had told a
deliberate lie when he stated that the incriminating doggerel rhyme had
been found in Mole's cell? No, no! Such an admission would not only be
foolish, it would be dangerous now, whilst he himself was scarce
prepared to trust to his own senses. After all, Fouquier-Tinville was in
the right frame of mind for the moment. Paul Mole, whoever he was, was
safely under lock and key.

The only danger lay in the direction of the house on the Chemin de
Pantin. At the thought Chauvelin felt giddy and faint. But he would
allow himself no rest. Indeed, he could not have rested until something
approaching certainty had once more taken possession of his soul. He
could not--would not--believe that he had been deceived. He was still
prepared to stake his very life on the identity of the prisoner at the
Abbaye. Tricks of light, the flash of the lantern, the perfection of the
disguise, had caused a momentary illusion--nothing more.

Nevertheless, that awful feeling of restlessness which had possessed him
during the last twenty-four hours once more drove him to activity. And
although commonsense and reason both pulled one way, an eerie sense of
superstition whispered in his ear the ominous words, "If, after all!"

At any rate, he would see the Leridans, and once more make sure of them;
and, late as was the hour, he set out for the lonely house on the Pantin
Road.

Just inside the Barriere du Combat was the Poste de Section, where
Commissary Burban was under orders to provide a dozen men of the Surete,
who were to be on the watch round and about the house of the Leridans.
Chauvelin called in on the Commissary, who assured him that the men were
at their post.

Thus satisfied, he crossed the Barriere and started at a brisk walk down
the long stretch of the Chemin de Pantin. The night was dark. The
rolling clouds overhead hid the face of the moon and presaged the storm.
On the right, the irregular heights of the Buttes Chaumont loomed out
dense and dark against the heavy sky, whilst to the left, on ahead, a
faintly glimmering, greyish streak of reflected light revealed the
proximity of the canal.

Close to the spot where the main Route de Meux intersects the Chemin de
Pantin, Chauvelin slackened his pace. The house of the Leridans now lay
immediately on his left; from it a small, feeble ray of light, finding
its way no doubt through an ill-closed shutter, pierced the surrounding
gloom. Chauvelin, without hesitation, turned up a narrow track which led
up to the house across a field of stubble. The next moment a peremptory
challenge brought him to a halt.

"Who goes there?"

"Public Safety," replied Chauvelin. "Who are you?"

"Of the Surete," was the counter reply. "There are a dozen of us about
here."

"When did you arrive?"

"Some two hours ago. We marched out directly after you left the orders
at the Commissariat."

"You are prepared to remain on the watch all night?"

"Those are our orders, citizen," replied the man.

"You had best close up round the house, then. And, name of a dog!" he
added, with a threatening ring in his voice. "Let there be no slackening
of vigilance this night. No one to go in or out of that house, no one to
approach it under any circumstances whatever. Is that understood?"

"Those were our orders from the first, citizen," said the man simply.

"And all has been well up to now?"

"We have seen no one, citizen."

The little party closed in around their chief and together they marched
up to the house. Chauvelin, on tenterhooks, walked quicker than the
others. He was the first to reach the door. Unable to find the bell-pull
in the dark, he knocked vigorously.

The house appeared silent and wrapped in sleep. No light showed from
within save that one tiny speck through the cracks of an ill-fitting
shutter, in a room immediately overhead.

In response to Chauvelin's repeated summons, there came anon the sound
of someone moving in one of the upstairs rooms, and presently the light
overhead disappeared, whilst a door above was heard to open and to close
and shuffling footsteps to come slowly down the creaking stairs.

A moment or two later the bolts and bars of the front door were
unfastened, a key grated in the rusty lock, a chain rattled in its
socket, and then the door was opened slowly and cautiously.

The woman Leridan appeared in the doorway. She held a guttering tallow
candle high above her head. Its flickering light illumined Chauvelin's
slender figure.

"Ah! the citizen Representative!" the woman ejaculated, as soon as she
recognised him. "We did not expect you again to-day, and at this late
hour, too. I'll tell my man--"

"Never mind your man," broke in Chauvelin impatiently, and pushed
without ceremony past the woman inside the house. "The child? Is it
safe?"

He could scarcely control his excitement. There was a buzzing, as of an
angry sea, in his ears. The next second, until the woman spoke, seemed
like a cycle of years.

"Quite safe, citizen," she said placidly. "Everything is quite safe. We
were so thankful for those men of the Surete. We had been afraid before,
as I told the citizen Representative, and my man and I could not rest
for anxiety. It was only after they came that we dared go to bed."

A deep sigh of intense relief came from the depths of Chauvelin's heart.
He had not realised himself until this moment how desperately anxious he
had been. The woman's reassuring words appeared to lift a crushing
weight from his mind. He turned to the man behind him.

"You did not tell me," he said, "that some of you had been here
already."

"We have not been here before," the sergeant in charge of the little
platoon said in reply. "I do not know what the woman means."

"Some of your men came about three hours ago," the woman retorted; "less
than an hour after the citizen Representative was here. I remember that
my man and I marvelled how quickly they did come, but they said that
they had been on duty at the Barriere du Combat when the citizen
arrived, and that he had dispatched them off at once. They said they had
run all the way. But even so, we thought it was quick work--"

The words were smothered in her throat in a cry of pain, for, with an
almost brutal gesture, Chauvelin had seized her by the shoulders.

"Where are those men?" he queried hoarsely. "Answer!"

"In there, and in there," the woman stammered, well-nigh faint with
terror as she pointed to two doors, one on each side of the passage.
"Three in each room. They are asleep now, I should say, as they seem so
quiet. But they were an immense comfort to us, citizen ... we were so
thankful to have them in the house...."

But Chauvelin had snatched the candle from her hand. Holding it high
above his head, he strode to the door on the right of the passage. It
was ajar. He pushed it open with a vicious kick. The room beyond was in
total darkness.

"Is anyone here?" he queried sharply.

Nothing but silence answered him. For a moment he remained there on the
threshold, silent and immovable as a figure carved in stone. He had just
a sufficiency of presence of mind and of will power not to drop the
candle, to stand there motionless, with his back turned to the woman and
to the men who had crowded in, in his wake. He would not let them see
the despair, the rage and grave superstitious fear, which distorted
every line of his pallid face.

He did not ask about the child. He would not trust himself to speak, for
he had realised already how completely he had been baffled. Those
abominable English spies had watched their opportunity, had worked on
the credulity and the fears of the Leridans and, playing the game at
which they and their audacious chief were such unconquerable experts,
they had made their way into the house under a clever ruse.

The men of the Surete, not quite understanding the situation, were
questioning the Leridans. The man, too, corroborated his wife's story.
Their anxiety had been worked upon at the moment that it was most acute.
After the citizen Representative left them, earlier in the evening, they
had received another mysterious message which they had been unable to
read, but which had greatly increased their alarm. Then, when the men of
the Surete came.... Ah! they had no cause to doubt that they were men of
the Surete!... their clothes, their speech, their appearance ... figure
to yourself, even their uniforms! They spoke so nicely, so reassuringly.
The Leridans were so thankful to see them! Then they made themselves
happy in the two rooms below, and for additional safety the Lannoy child
was brought down from its attic and put to sleep in the one room with
the men of the Surete.

After that the Leridans went to bed. Name of a dog! how were they to
blame? Those men and the child had disappeared, but they (the Leridans)
would go to the guillotine swearing that they were not to blame.

Whether Chauvelin heard all these jeremiads, he could not afterwards
have told you. But he did not need to be told how it had all been done.
It had all been so simple, so ingenious, so like the methods usually
adopted by that astute Scarlet Pimpernel! He saw it all so clearly
before him. Nobody was to blame really, save he himself--he, who alone
knew and understood the adversary with whom he had to deal.

But these people here should not have the gratuitous spectacle of a man
enduring the torments of disappointment and of baffled revenge. Whatever
Chauvelin was suffering now would for ever remain the secret of his own
soul. Anon, when the Leridans' rasping voices died away in one of the
more distant portions of the house and the men of the Surete were busy
accepting refreshment and gratuity from the two terrified wretches, he
had put down the candle with a steady hand and then walked with a firm
step out of the house.

Soon the slender figure was swallowed up in the gloom as he strode back
rapidly towards the city.

XII

Citizen Fouquier-Tinville had returned home from the Palais at a very
late hour that same evening. His household in his simple lodgings in the
Place Dauphine was already abed: his wife and the twins were asleep. He
himself had sat down for a moment in the living-room, in dressing-gown
and slippers, and with the late edition of the Moniteur in his hand, too
tired to read.

It was half-past ten when there came a ring at the front door bell.
Fouquier-Tinville, half expecting citizen Chauvelin to pay him a final
visit, shuffled to the door and opened it.

A visitor, tall, well-dressed, exceedingly polite and urbane, requested
a few minutes' conversation with citizen Fouquier-Tinville.

Before the Public Prosecutor had made up his mind whether to introduce
such a late-comer into his rooms, the latter had pushed his way through
the door into the ante-chamber, and with a movement as swift as it was
unexpected, had thrown a scarf round Fouquier-Tinville's neck and wound
it round his mouth, so that the unfortunate man's call for help was
smothered in his throat.

So dexterously and so rapidly indeed had the miscreant acted, that his
victim had hardly realised the assault before he found himself securely
gagged and bound to a chair in his own ante-room, whilst that dare-devil
stood before him, perfectly at his ease, his hands buried in the
capacious pockets of his huge caped coat, and murmuring a few casual
words of apology.

"I entreat you to forgive, citizen," he was saying in an even and
pleasant voice, "this necessary violence on my part towards you. But my
errand is urgent, and I could not allow your neighbours or your
household to disturb the few minutes' conversation which I am obliged to
have with you. My friend Paul Mole," he went on, after a slight pause,
"is in grave danger of his life owing to a hallucination on the part of
our mutual friend citizen Chauvelin; and I feel confident that you
yourself are too deeply enamoured of your own neck to risk it wilfully
by sending an innocent and honest patriot to the guillotine."

Once more he paused and looked down upon his unwilling interlocutor,
who, with muscles straining against the cords that held him, and with
eyes nearly starting out of their sockets in an access of fear and of
rage, was indeed presenting a pitiful spectacle.

"I dare say that by now, citizen," the brigand continued imperturbably,
"you will have guessed who I am. You and I have oft crossed invisible
swords before; but this, methinks, is the first time that we have met
face to face. I pray you, tell my dear friend M. Chauvelin that you have
seen me. Also that there were two facts which he left entirely out of
his calculations, perfect though these were. The one fact was that there
were two Paul Moles--one real and one factitious. Tell him that, I pray
you. It was the factitious Paul Mole who stole the ring and who stood
for one moment gazing into clever citizen Chauvelin's eyes. But that
same factitious Paul Mole had disappeared in the crowd even before your
colleague had recovered his presence of mind. Tell him, I pray you, that
the elusive Pimpernel whom he knows so well never assumes a fanciful
disguise. He discovered the real Paul Mole first, studied him, learned
his personality, until his own became a perfect replica of the miserable
caitiff. It was the false Paul Mole who induced Jeannette Marechal to
introduce him originally into the household of citizen Marat. It was he
who gained the confidence of his employer; he, for a consideration,
borrowed the identity papers of his real prototype. He again who for a
few francs induced the real Paul Mole to follow him into the house of
the murdered demagogue and to mingle there with the throng. He who
thrust the identity papers back into the hands of their rightful owner
whilst he himself was swallowed up by the crowd. But it was the real
Paul Mole who was finally arrested and who is now lingering in the
Abbaye prison, whence you, citizen Fouquier-Tinville, must free him on
the instant, on pain of suffering yourself for the nightmares of your
friend."

"The second fact," he went on with the same good-humoured pleasantry,
"which our friend citizen Chauvelin had forgotten was that, though I
happen to have aroused his unconquerable ire, I am but one man amongst a
league of gallant English gentlemen. Their chief, I am proud to say; but
without them, I should be powerless. Without one of them near me, by the
side of the murdered Marat, I could not have rid myself of the ring in
time, before other rough hands searched me to my skin. Without them, I
could not have taken Madeleine Lannoy's child from out that terrible
hell, to which a miscreant's lustful revenge had condemned the poor
innocent. But while citizen Chauvelin, racked with triumph as well as
with anxiety, was rushing from the Leridans' house to yours, and thence
to the Abbaye prison, to gloat over his captive enemy, the League of the
Scarlet Pimpernel carefully laid and carried out its plans at leisure.
Disguised as men of the Surete, we took advantage of the Leridans'
terror to obtain access into the house. Frightened to death by our
warnings, as well as by citizen Chauvelin's threats, they not only
admitted us into their house, but actually placed Madeleine Lannoy's
child in our charge. Then they went contentedly to bed, and we, before
the real men of the Surete arrived upon the scene, were already safely
out of the way. My gallant English friends are some way out of Paris by
now, escorting Madeleine Lannoy and her child into safety. They will
return to Paris, citizen," continued the audacious adventurer, with a
laugh full of joy and of unconquerable vitality, "and be my henchmen as
before in many an adventure which will cause you and citizen Chauvelin
to gnash your teeth with rage. But I myself will remain in Paris," he
concluded lightly. "Yes, in Paris; under your very nose, and entirely at
your service!"

The next second he was gone, and Fouquier-Tinville was left to marvel if
the whole apparition had not been a hideous dream. Only there was no
doubt that he was gagged and tied to a chair with cords: and here his
wife found him, an hour later, when she woke from her first sleep,
anxious because he had not yet come to bed.




II

A QUESTION OF PASSPORTS


Bibot was very sure of himself. There never was, never had been, there
never would be again another such patriotic citizen of the Republic as
was citizen Bibot of the Town Guard.

And because his patriotism was so well known among the members of the
Committee of Public Safety, and his uncompromising hatred of the
aristocrats so highly appreciated, citizen Bibot had been given the most
important military post within the city of Paris.

He was in command of the Porte Montmartre, which goes to prove how
highly he was esteemed, for, believe me, more treachery had been going
on inside and out of the Porte Montmartre than in any other quarter of
Paris. The last commandant there, citizen Ferney, was guillotined for
having allowed a whole batch of aristocrats--traitors to the Republic,
all of them--to slip through the Porte Montmartre and to find safety
outside the walls of Paris. Ferney pleaded in his defence that these
traitors had been spirited away from under his very nose by the devil's
agency, for surely that meddlesome Englishman who spent his time in
rescuing aristocrats--traitors, all of them--from the clutches of Madame
la Guillotine must be either the devil himself, or at any rate one of
his most powerful agents.

"Nom de Dieu! just think of his name! The Scarlet Pimpernel they call
him! No one knows him by any other name! and he is preternaturally tall
and strong and superhumanly cunning! And the power which he has of being
transmuted into various personalities--rendering himself quite
unrecognisable to the eyes of the most sharp-seeing patriot of France,
must of a surety be a gift of Satan!"

But the Committee of Public Safety refused to listen to Ferney's
explanations. The Scarlet Pimpernel was only an ordinary mortal--an
exceedingly cunning and meddlesome personage it is true, and endowed
with a superfluity of wealth which enabled him to break the thin crust
of patriotism that overlay the natural cupidity of many Captains of the
Town Guard--but still an ordinary man for all that! and no true lover of
the Republic should allow either superstitious terror or greed to
interfere with the discharge of his duties which at the Porte Montmartre
consisted in detaining any and every person--aristocrat, foreigner, or
otherwise traitor to the Republic--who could not give a satisfactory
reason for desiring to leave Paris. Having detained such persons, the
patriot's next duty was to hand them over to the Committee of Public
Safety, who would then decide whether Madame la Guillotine would have
the last word over them or not.

And the guillotine did nearly always have the last word to say, unless
the Scarlet Pimpernel interfered.

The trouble was, that that same accursed Englishman interfered at times
in a manner which was positively terrifying. His impudence, certes,
passed all belief. Stories of his daring and of his impudence were
abroad which literally made the lank and greasy hair of every patriot
curl with wonder. 'Twas even whispered--not too loudly, forsooth--that
certain members of the Committee of Public Safety had measured their
skill and valour against that of the Englishman and emerged from the
conflict beaten and humiliated, vowing vengeance which, of a truth, was
still slow in coming.

Citizen Chauvelin, one of the most implacable and unyielding members of
the Committee, was known to have suffered overwhelming shame at the
hands of that daring gang, of whom the so-called Scarlet Pimpernel was
the accredited chief. Some there were who said that citizen Chauvelin
had for ever forfeited his prestige, and even endangered his head by
measuring his well-known astuteness against that mysterious League of
spies.

But then Bibot was different!

He feared neither the devil, nor any Englishman. Had the latter the
strength of giants and the protection of every power of evil, Bibot was
ready for him. Nay! he was aching for a tussle, and haunted the purlieus
of the Committees to obtain some post which would enable him to come to
grips with the Scarlet Pimpernel and his League.

Bibot's zeal and perseverance were duly rewarded, and anon he was
appointed to the command of the guard at the Porte Montmartre.

A post of vast importance as aforesaid; so much so, in fact, that no
less a person than citizen Jean Paul Marat himself came to speak with
Bibot on that third day of Nivose in the year I of the Republic, with a
view to impressing upon him the necessity of keeping his eyes open, and
of suspecting every man, woman, and child indiscriminately until they
had proved themselves to be true patriots.

"Let no one slip through your fingers, citizen Bibot," Marat admonished
with grim earnestness. "That accursed Englishman is cunning and
resourceful, and his impudence surpasses that of the devil himself."

"He'd better try some of his impudence on me!" commented Bibot with a
sneer, "he'll soon find out that he no longer has a Ferney to deal with.
Take it from me, citizen Marat, that if a batch of aristocrats escape
out of Paris within the next few days, under the guidance of the d--d
Englishman, they will have to find some other way than the Porte
Montmartre."

"Well said, citizen!" commented Marat. "But be watchful to-night ...
to-night especially. The Scarlet Pimpernel is rampant in Paris just
now."

"How so?"

"The ci-devant Duc and Duchesse de Montreux and the whole of their
brood--sisters, brothers, two or three children, a priest, and several
servants--a round dozen in all, have been condemned to death. The
guillotine for them to-morrow at daybreak! Would it could have been
to-night," added Marat, whilst a demoniacal leer contorted his face
which already exuded lust for blood from every pore. "Would it could
have been to-night. But the guillotine has been busy; over four hundred
executions to-day ... and the tumbrils are full--the seats bespoken in
advance--and still they come.... But to-morrow morning at daybreak
Madame la Guillotine will have a word to say to the whole of the
Montreux crowd!"

"But they are in the Conciergerie prison surely, citizen! out of the
reach of that accursed Englishman?"

"They are on their way, an I mistake not, to the prison at this moment.
I came straight on here after the condemnation, to which I listened with
true joy. Ah, citizen Bibot! the blood of these hated aristocrats is
good to behold when it drips from the blade of the guillotine. Have a
care, citizen Bibot, do not let the Montreux crowd escape!"

"Have no fear, citizen Marat! But surely there is no danger! They have
been tried and condemned! They are, as you say, even now on their
way--well guarded, I presume--to the Conciergerie prison!--to-morrow at
daybreak, the guillotine! What is there to fear?"

"Well! well!" said Marat, with a slight tone of hesitation, "it is best,
citizen Bibot, to be over-careful these times."

Even whilst Marat spoke his face, usually so cunning and so vengeful,
had suddenly lost its look of devilish cruelty which was almost
superhuman in the excess of its infamy, and a greyish hue--suggestive of
terror--had spread over the sunken cheeks. He clutched Bibot's arm, and
leaning over the table he whispered in his ear:

"The Public Prosecutor had scarce finished his speech to-day, judgment
was being pronounced, the spectators were expectant and still, only the
Montreux woman and some of the females and children were blubbering and
moaning, when suddenly, it seemed from nowhere, a small piece of paper
fluttered from out the assembly and alighted on the desk in front of the
Public Prosecutor. He took the paper up and glanced at its contents. I
saw that his cheeks had paled, and that his hand trembled as he handed
the paper over to me."

"And what did that paper contain, citizen Marat?" asked Bibot, also
speaking in a whisper, for an access of superstitious terror was
gripping him by the throat.

"Just the well-known accursed device, citizen, the small scarlet flower,
drawn in red ink, and the few words: 'To-night the innocent men and
women now condemned by this infamous tribunal will be beyond your
reach!'"

"And no sign of a messenger?"

"None."

"And when did----"

"Hush!" said Marat peremptorily, "no more of that now. To your post,
citizen, and remember--all are suspect! let none escape!"

The two men had been sitting outside a small tavern, opposite the Porte
Montmartre, with a bottle of wine between them, their elbows resting on
the grimy top of a rough wooden table. They had talked in whispers, for
even the walls of the tumble-down cabaret might have had ears.

Opposite them the city wall--broken here by the great gate of
Montmartre--loomed threateningly in the fast-gathering dusk of this
winter's afternoon. Men in ragged red shirts, their unkempt heads
crowned with Phrygian caps adorned with a tricolour cockade, lounged
against the wall, or sat in groups on the top of piles of refuse that
littered the street, with a rough deal plank between them and a greasy
pack of cards in their grimy fingers. Guns and bayonets were propped
against the wall. The gate itself had three means of egress; each of
these was guarded by two men with fixed bayonets at their shoulders, but
otherwise dressed like the others, in rags--with bare legs that looked
blue and numb in the cold--the sans-culottes of revolutionary Paris.

Bibot rose from his seat, nodding to Marat, and joined his men.

From afar, but gradually drawing nearer, came the sound of a ribald
song, with chorus accompaniment sung by throats obviously surfeited with
liquor.

For a moment--as the sound approached--Bibot turned back once more to
the Friend of the People.

"Am I to understand, citizen," he said, "that my orders are not to let
anyone pass through these gates to-night?"

"No, no, citizen," replied Marat, "we dare not do that. There are a
number of good patriots in the city still. We cannot interfere with
their liberty or--"

And the look of fear of the demagogue--himself afraid of the human
whirlpool which he has let loose--stole into Marat's cruel, piercing
eyes.

"No, no," he reiterated more emphatically, "we cannot disregard the
passports issued by the Committee of Public Safety. But examine each
passport carefully, citizen Bibot! If you have any reasonable ground for
suspicion, detain the holder, and if you have not----"

The sound of singing was quite near now. With another wink and a final
leer, Marat drew back under the shadow of the cabaret, and Bibot
swaggered up to the main entrance of the gate.

"Qui va la?" he thundered in stentorian tones as a group of some
half-dozen people lurched towards him out of the gloom, still shouting
hoarsely their ribald drinking song.

The foremost man in the group paused opposite citizen Bibot, and with
arms akimbo, and legs planted well apart tried to assume a rigidity of
attitude which apparently was somewhat foreign to him at this moment.

"Good patriots, citizen," he said in a thick voice which he vainly tried
to render steady.

"What do you want?" queried Bibot.

"To be allowed to go on our way unmolested."

"What is your way?"

"Through the Porte Montmartre to the village of Barency."

"What is your business there?"

This query delivered in Bibot's most pompous manner seemed vastly to
amuse the rowdy crowd. He who was the spokesman turned to his friends
and shouted hilariously:

"Hark at him, citizens! He asks me what is our business. Oh, citizen
Bibot, since when have you become blind? A dolt you've always been, else
you had not asked the question."

But Bibot, undeterred by the man's drunken insolence, retorted gruffly:

"Your business, I want to know."

"Bibot! my little Bibot!" cooed the bibulous orator now in dulcet tones,
"dost not know us, my good Bibot? Yet we all know thee, citizen--Captain
Bibot of the Town Guard, eh, citizens! Three cheers for the citizen
captain!"

When the noisy shouts and cheers from half a dozen hoarse throats had
died down, Bibot, without more ado, turned to his own men at the gate.

"Drive these drunken louts away!" he commanded; "no one is allowed to
loiter here."

Loud protest on the part of the hilarious crowd followed, then a slight
scuffle with the bayonets of the Town Guard. Finally the spokesman,
somewhat sobered, once more appealed to Bibot.

"Citizen Bibot! you must be blind not to know me and my mates! And let
me tell you that you are doing yourself a deal of harm by interfering
with the citizens of the Republic in the proper discharge of their
duties, and by disregarding their rights of egress through this gate, a
right confirmed by passports signed by two members of the Committee of
Public Safety."

He had spoken now fairly clearly and very pompously. Bibot, somewhat
impressed and remembering Marat's admonitions, said very civilly:

"Tell me your business then, citizen, and show me your passports. If
everything is in order you may go your way."

"But you know me, citizen Bibot?" queried the other.

"Yes, I know you--unofficially, citizen Durand."

"You know that I and the citizens here are the carriers for citizen
Legrand, the market gardener of Barency?"

"Yes, I know that," said Bibot guardedly, "unofficially."

"Then, unofficially, let me tell you, citizen, that unless we get to
Barency this evening, Paris will have to do without cabbages and
potatoes to-morrow. So now you know that you are acting at your own risk
and peril, citizen, by detaining us."

"Your passports, all of you," commanded Bibot.

He had just caught sight of Marat still sitting outside the tavern
opposite, and was glad enough, in this instance, to shelve his
responsibility on the shoulders of the popular "Friend of the People."
There was general searching in ragged pockets for grimy papers with
official seals thereon, and whilst Bibot ordered one of his men to take
the six passports across the road to citizen Marat for his inspection,
he himself, by the last rays of the setting winter sun, made close
examination of the six men who desired to pass through the Porte
Montmartre.

As the spokesman had averred, he--Bibot--knew every one of these men.
They were the carriers to citizen Legrand, the Barency market gardener.
Bibot knew every face. They passed with a load of fruit and vegetables
in and out of Paris every day. There was really and absolutely no cause
for suspicion, and when citizen Marat returned the six passports,
pronouncing them to be genuine, and recognising his own signature at the
bottom of each, Bibot was at last satisfied, and the six bibulous
carriers were allowed to pass through the gate, which they did, arm in
arm, singing a wild curmagnole, and vociferously cheering as they
emerged out into the open.

But Bibot passed an unsteady hand over his brow. It was cold, yet he was
in a perspiration. That sort of thing tells on a man's nerves. He
rejoined Marat, at the table outside the drinking booth, and ordered a
fresh bottle of wine.

The sun had set now, and with the gathering dusk a damp mist descended
on Montmartre. From the wall opposite, where the men sat playing cards,
came occasional volleys of blasphemous oaths. Bibot was feeling much
more like himself. He had half forgotten the incident of the six
carriers, which had occurred nearly half an hour ago.

Two or three other people had, in the meanwhile, tried to pass through
the gates, but Bibot had been suspicious and had detained them all.

Marat having commended him for his zeal took final leave of him. Just as
the demagogue's slouchy, grimy figure was disappearing down a side
street there was the loud clatter of hoofs from that same direction, and
the next moment a detachment of the mounted Town Guard, headed by an
officer in uniform, galloped down the ill-paved street.

Even before the troopers had drawn rein the officer had hailed Bibot.

"Citizen," he shouted, and his voice was breathless, for he had
evidently ridden hard and fast, "this message to you from the citizen
Chief Commissary of the Section. Six men are wanted by the Committee of
Public Safety. They are disguised as carriers in the employ of a market
gardener, and have passports for Barency!... The passports are stolen:
the men are traitors--escaped aristocrats--and their spokesman is that
d--d Englishman, the Scarlet Pimpernel."

Bibot tried to speak; he tugged at the collar of his ragged shirt; an
awful curse escaped him.

"Ten thousand devils!" he roared.

"On no account allow these people to go through," continued the officer.
"Keep their passports. Detain them!... Understand?"

Bibot was still gasping for breath even whilst the officer, ordering a
quick "Turn!" reeled his horse round, ready to gallop away as far as he
had come.

"I am for the St. Denis Gate--Grosjean is on guard there!" he shouted.
"Same orders all round the city. No one to leave the gates!...
Understand?"

His troopers fell in. The next moment he would be gone, and those cursed
aristocrats well in safety's way.

"Citizen Captain!"

The hoarse shout at last contrived to escape Bibot's parched throat. As
if involuntarily, the officer drew rein once more.

"What is it? Quick!--I've no time. That confounded Englishman may be at
the St. Denis Gate even now!"

"Citizen Captain," gasped Bibot, his breath coming and going like that
of a man fighting for his life. "Here!... at this gate!... not half an
hour ago ... six men ... carriers ... market gardeners ... I seemed to
know their faces...."

"Yes! yes! market gardener's carriers," exclaimed the officer gleefully,
"aristocrats all of them ... and that d--d Scarlet Pimpernel. You've got
them? You've detained them?... Where are they?... Speak, man, in the
name of hell!..."

"Gone!" gasped Bibot. His legs would no longer bear him. He fell
backwards on to a heap of street debris and refuse, from which lowly
vantage ground he contrived to give away the whole miserable tale.

"Gone! half an hour ago. Their passports were in order!... I seemed to
know their faces! Citizen Marat was here.... He, too--"

In a moment the officer had once more swung his horse round, so that the
animal reared, with wild forefeet pawing the air, with champing of bit,
and white foam scattered around.

"A thousand million curses!" he exclaimed. "Citizen Bibot, your head
will pay for this treachery. Which way did they go?"

A dozen hands were ready to point in the direction where the merry party
of carriers had disappeared half an hour ago; a dozen tongues gave
rapid, confused explanations.

"Into it, my men!" shouted the officer; "they were on foot! They can't
have gone far. Remember the Republic has offered ten thousand francs for
the capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel."

Already the heavy gates had been swung open, and the officer's voice
once more rang out clear through a perfect thunder-clap of fast
galloping hoofs:

"Ventre a terre! Remember!--ten thousand francs to him who first sights
the Scarlet Pimpernel!"

The thunder-clap died away in the distance, the dust of four score hoofs
was merged in the fog and in the darkness; the voice of the captain was
raised again through the mist-laden air. One shout ... a shout of
triumph ... then silence once again.

Bibot had fainted on the heap of debris.

His comrades brought him wine to drink. He gradually revived. Hope came
back to his heart; his nerves soon steadied themselves as the heavy
beverage filtrated through into his blood.

"Bah!" he ejaculated as he pulled himself together, "the troopers were
well-mounted ... the officer was enthusiastic; those carriers could not
have walked very far. And, in any case, I am free from blame. Citoyen
Marat himself was here and let them pass!"

A shudder of superstitious terror ran through him as he recollected the
whole scene: for surely he knew all the faces of the six men who had
gone through the gate. The devil indeed must have given the mysterious
Englishman power to transmute himself and his gang wholly into the
bodies of other people.

More than an hour went by. Bibot was quite himself again, bullying,
commanding, detaining everybody now.

At that time there appeared to be a slight altercation going on, on the
farther side of the gate. Bibot thought it his duty to go and see what
the noise was about. Someone wanting to get into Paris instead of out of
it at this hour of the night was a strange occurrence.

Bibot heard his name spoken by a raucous voice. Accompanied by two of
his men he crossed the wide gates in order to see what was happening.
One of the men held a lanthorn, which he was swinging high above his
head. Bibot saw standing there before him, arguing with the guard by the
gate, the bibulous spokesman of the band of carriers.

He was explaining to the sentry that he had a message to deliver to the
citizen commanding at the Porte Montmartre.

"It is a note," he said, "which an officer of the mounted guard gave me.
He and twenty troopers were galloping down the great North Road not far
from Barency. When they overtook the six of us they drew rein, and the
officer gave me this note for citizen Bibot and fifty francs if I would
deliver it tonight."

"Give me the note!" said Bibot calmly.

But his hand shook as he took the paper; his face was livid with fear
and rage.

The paper had no writing on it, only the outline of a small scarlet
flower done in red--the device of the cursed Englishman, the Scarlet
Pimpernel.

"Which way did the officer and the twenty troopers go," he stammered,
"after they gave you this note?"

"On the way to Calais," replied the other, "but they had magnificent
horses, and didn't spare them either. They are a league and more away by
now!"

All the blood in Bibot's body seemed to rush up to his head, a wild
buzzing was in his ears....

And that was how the Duc and Duchesse de Montreux, with their servants
and family, escaped from Paris on that third day of Nivose in the year I
of the Republic.




III

TWO GOOD PATRIOTS


Being the deposition of citizeness Fanny Roussell, who was brought up,
together with her husband, before the Tribunal of the Revolution on a
charge of treason--both being subsequently acquitted.

My name is Fanny Roussell, and I am a respectable married woman, and as
good a patriot as any of you sitting there.

Aye, and I'll say it with my dying breath, though you may send me to the
guillotine ... as you probably will, for you are all thieves and
murderers, every one of you, and you have already made up your minds
that I and my man are guilty of having sheltered that accursed
Englishman whom they call the Scarlet Pimpernel ... and of having helped
him to escape.

But I'll tell you how it all happened, because, though you call me a
traitor to the people of France, yet am I a true patriot and will prove
it to you by telling you exactly how everything occurred, so that you
may be on your guard against the cleverness of that man, who, I do
believe, is a friend and confederate of the devil ... else how could he
have escaped that time?

Well! it was three days ago, and as bitterly cold as anything that my
man and I can remember. We had no travellers staying in the house, for
we are a good three leagues out of Calais, and too far for the folk who
have business in or about the harbour. Only at midday the coffee-room
would get full sometimes with people on their way to or from the port.

But in the evenings the place was quite deserted, and so lonely that at
times we fancied that we could hear the wolves howling in the forest of
St. Pierre.

It was close on eight o'clock, and my man was putting up the shutters,
when suddenly we heard the tramp of feet on the road outside, and then
the quick word, "Halt!"

The next moment there was a peremptory knock at the door. My man opened
it, and there stood four men in the uniform of the 9th Regiment of the
Line ... the same that is quartered at Calais. The uniform, of course, I
knew well, though I did not know the men by sight.

"In the name of the People and by the order of the Committee of Public
Safety!" said one of the men, who stood in the forefront, and who, I
noticed, had a corporal's stripe on his left sleeve.

He held out a paper, which was covered with seals and with writing, but
as neither my man nor I can read, it was no use our looking at it.

Hercule--that is my husband's name, citizens--asked the corporal what
the Committee of Public Safety wanted with us poor hoteliers of a
wayside inn.

"Only food and shelter for to-night for me and my men," replied the
corporal, quite civilly.

"You can rest here," said Hercule, and he pointed to the benches in the
coffee-room, "and if there is any soup left in the stockpot, you are
welcome to it."

Hercule, you see, is a good patriot, and he had been a soldier in his
day.... No! no ... do not interrupt me, any of you ... you would only be
saying that I ought to have known ... but listen to the end.

"The soup we'll gladly eat," said the corporal very pleasantly. "As for
shelter ... well! I am afraid that this nice warm coffee-room will not
exactly serve our purpose. We want a place where we can lie hidden, and
at the same time keep a watch on the road. I noticed an outhouse as we
came. By your leave we will sleep in there."

"As you please," said my man curtly.

He frowned as he said this, and it suddenly seemed as if some vague
suspicion had crept into Hercule's mind.

The corporal, however, appeared unaware of this, for he went on quite
cheerfully:

"Ah! that is excellent! Entre nous, citizen, my men and I have a
desperate customer to deal with. I'll not mention his name, for I see
you have guessed it already. A small red flower, what?... Well, we know
that he must be making straight for the port of Calais, for he has been
traced through St. Omer and Ardres. But he cannot possibly enter Calais
city to-night, for we are on the watch for him. He must seek shelter
somewhere for himself and any other aristocrat he may have with him,
and, bar this house, there is no other place between Ardres and Calais
where he can get it. The night is bitterly cold, with a snow blizzard
raging round. I and my men have been detailed to watch this road, other
patrols are guarding those that lead toward Boulogne and to Gravelines;
but I have an idea, citizen, that our fox is making for Calais, and that
to me will fall the honour of handing that tiresome scarlet flower to
the Public Prosecutor en route for Madame la Guillotine."

Now I could not really tell you, citizens, what suspicions had by this
time entered Hercule's head or mine; certainly what suspicions we did
have were still very vague.

I prepared the soup for the men and they ate it heartily, after which my
husband led the way to the outhouse where we sometimes stabled a
traveller's horse when the need arose.

It is nice and dry, and always filled with warm, fresh straw. The
entrance into it immediately faces the road; the corporal declared that
nothing would suit him and his men better.

They retired to rest apparently, but we noticed that two men remained on
the watch just inside the entrance, whilst the two others curled up in
the straw.

Hercule put out the lights in the coffee-room, and then he and I went
upstairs--not to bed, mind you--but to have a quiet talk together over
the events of the past half-hour.

The result of our talk was that ten minutes later my man quietly stole
downstairs and out of the house. He did not, however, go out by the
front door, but through a back way which, leading through a
cabbage-patch and then across a field, cuts into the main road some two
hundred metres higher up.

Hercule and I had decided that he would walk the three leagues into
Calais, despite the cold, which was intense, and the blizzard, which was
nearly blinding, and that he would call at the post of gendarmerie at
the city gates, and there see the officer in command and tell him the
exact state of the case. It would then be for that officer to decide
what was to be done; our responsibility as loyal citizens would be
completely covered.

Hercule, you must know, had just emerged from our cabbage-patch on to
the field when he was suddenly challenged:

"Qui va la?"

He gave his name. His certificate of citizenship was in his pocket; he
had nothing to fear. Through the darkness and the veil of snow he had
discerned a small group of men wearing the uniform of the 9th Regiment
of the Line.

"Four men," said the foremost of these, speaking quickly and
commandingly, "wearing the same uniform that I and my men are wearing
... have you seen them?"

"Yes," said Hercule hurriedly.

"Where are they?"

"In the outhouse close by."

The other suppressed a cry of triumph.

"At them, my men!" he said in a whisper, "and you, citizen, thank your
stars that we have not come too late."

"These men ..." whispered Hercule. "I had my suspicions."

"Aristocrats, citizen," rejoined the commander of the little party, "and
one of them is that cursed Englishman--the Scarlet Pimpernel."

Already the soldiers, closely followed by Hercule, had made their way
through our cabbage-patch back to the house.

The next moment they had made a bold dash for the barn. There was a
great deal of shouting, a great deal of swearing and some firing, whilst
Hercule and I, not a little frightened, remained in the coffee-room,
anxiously awaiting events.

Presently the group of soldiers returned, not the ones who had first
come, but the others. I noticed their leader, who seemed to be
exceptionally tall.

He looked very cheerful, and laughed loudly as he entered the
coffee-room. From the moment that I looked at his face I knew, somehow,
that Hercule and I had been fooled, and that now, indeed, we stood eye
to eye with that mysterious personage who is called the Scarlet
Pimpernel.

I screamed, and Hercule made a dash for the door; but what could two
humble and peaceful citizens do against this band of desperate men, who
held their lives in their own hands? They were four and we were two, and
I do believe that their leader has supernatural strength and power.

He treated us quite kindly, even though he ordered his followers to bind
us down to our bed upstairs, and to tie a cloth round our mouths so that
our cries could not be distinctly heard.

Neither my man nor I closed an eye all night, of course, but we heard
the miscreants moving about in the coffee-room below. But they did no
mischief, nor did they steal any of the food or wines.

At daybreak we heard them going out by the front door, and their
footsteps disappearing toward Calais. We found their discarded uniforms
lying in the coffee-room. They must have entered Calais by daylight,
when the gates were opened--just like other peaceable citizens. No doubt
they had forged passports, just as they had stolen uniforms.

Our maid-of-all-work released us from our terrible position in the
course of the morning, and we released the soldiers of the 9th Regiment
of the Line, whom we found bound and gagged, some of them wounded, in
the outhouse.

That same afternoon we were arrested, and here we are, ready to die if
we must, but I swear that I have told you the truth, and I ask you, in
the name of justice, if we have done anything wrong, and if we did not
act like loyal and true citizens, even though we were pitted against an
emissary of the devil?




IV

THE OLD SCARECROW


Nobody in the quartier could quite recollect when it was that the new
Public Letter-Writer first set up in business at the angle formed by the
Quai des Augustins and the Rue Dauphine, immediately facing the Pont
Neuf; but there he certainly was on the 28th day of February, 1793, when
Agnes, with eyes swollen with tears, a market basket on her arm, and a
look of dreary despair on her young face, turned that selfsame angle on
her way to the Pont Neuf, and nearly fell over the rickety construction
which sheltered him and his stock-in-trade.

"Oh, mon Dieu! citizen Lepine, I had no idea you were here," she
exclaimed as soon as she had recovered her balance.

"Nor I, citizeness, that I should have the pleasure of seeing you this
morning," he retorted.

"But you were always at the other corner of the Pont Neuf," she argued.

"So I was," he replied, "so I was. But I thought I would like a change.
The Faubourg St. Michel appealed to me; most of my clients came to me
from this side of the river--all those on the other side seem to know
how to read and write."

"I was just going over to see you," she remarked.

"You, citizeness," he exclaimed in unfeigned surprise, "what should
procure a poor public writer the honour of--"

"Hush, in God's name!" broke in the young girl quickly as she cast a
rapid, furtive glance up and down the quai and the narrow streets which
converged at this angle.

She was dressed in the humblest and poorest of clothes, her skimpy shawl
round her shoulders could scarce protect her against the cold of this
cruel winter's morning; her hair was entirely hidden beneath a frilled
and starched cap, and her feet were encased in coarse worsted stockings
and sabots, but her hands were delicate and fine, and her face had that
nobility of feature and look of patient resignation in the midst of
overwhelming sorrow which proclaimed a lofty refinement both of soul and
of mind.

The old Letter-Writer was surveying the pathetic young figure before him
through his huge horn-rimmed spectacles, and she smiled on him through
her fast-gathering tears. He used to have his pitch at the angle of the
Pont Neuf, and whenever Agnes had walked past it, she had nodded to him
and bidden him "Good morrow!" He had at times done little commissions
for her and gone on errands when she needed a messenger; to-day, in the
midst of her despair, she had suddenly thought of him and that rumour
credited him with certain knowledge which she would give her all to
possess.

She had sallied forth this morning with the express purpose of speaking
with him; but now suddenly she felt afraid, and stood looking at him for
a moment or two, hesitating, wondering if she dared tell him--one never
knew these days into what terrible pitfall an ill-considered word might
lead one.

A scarecrow he was, that old Public Letter-Writer, more like a great,
gaunt bird than a human being, with those spectacles of his, and his
long, very sparse and very lanky fringe of a beard which fell from his
cheeks and chin and down his chest for all the world like a crumpled
grey bib. He was wrapped from head to foot in a caped coat which had
once been green in colour, but was now of many hues not usually seen in
rainbows. He wore his coat all buttoned down the front, like a
dressing-gown, and below the hem there peeped out a pair of very large
feet encased in boots which had never been a pair. He sat upon a
rickety, straw-bottomed chair under an improvised awning which was made
up of four poles and a bit of sacking. He had a table in front of him--a
table partially and very insecurely propped up by a bundle of old papers
and books, since no two of its four legs were completely whole--and on
the table there was a neckless bottle half-filled with ink, a few sheets
of paper and a couple of quill pens.

The young girl's hesitation had indeed not lasted more than a few
seconds.

Furtively, like a young creature terrified of lurking enemies, she once
more glanced to right and left of her and down the two streets and the
river bank, for Paris was full of spies these days--human bloodhounds
ready for a few sous to sell their fellow-creatures' lives. It was
middle morning now, and a few passers-by were hurrying along wrapped to
the nose in mufflers, for the weather was bitterly cold.

Agnes waited until there was no one in sight, then she leaned forward
over the table and whispered under her breath:

"They say, citizen, that you alone in Paris know the whereabouts of the
English milor'--of him who is called the Scarlet Pimpernel...."

"Hush-sh-sh!" said the old man quickly, for just at that moment two men
had gone by, in ragged coats and torn breeches, who had leered at Agnes
and her neat cap and skirt as they passed. Now they had turned the angle
of the street and the old man, too, sank his voice to a whisper.

"I know nothing of any Englishman," he muttered.

"Yes, you do," she rejoined insistently. "When poor Antoine Carre was
somewhere in hiding and threatened with arrest, and his mother dared not
write to him lest her letter be intercepted, she spoke to you about the
English milor', and the English milor' found Antoine Carre and took him
and his mother safely out of France. Mme. Carre is my godmother.... I
saw her the very night when she went to meet the English milor' at his
commands. I know all that happened then.... I know that you were the
intermediary."

"And if I was," he muttered sullenly as he fiddled with his pen and
paper, "maybe I've had cause to regret it. For a week after that Carre
episode I dared not show my face in the streets of Paris; for nigh on a
fortnight I dared not ply my trade ... I have only just ventured again
to set up in business. I am not going to risk my old neck again in a
hurry...."

"It is a matter of life and death," urged Agnes, as once more the tears
rushed to her pleading eyes and the look of misery settled again upon
her face.

"Your life, citizeness?" queried the old man, "or that of citizen-deputy
Fabrice?"

"Hush!" she broke in again, as a look of real terror now overspread her
face. Then she added under her breath: "You know?"

"I know that Mademoiselle Agnes de Lucines is fiancee to the
citizen-deputy Arnould Fabrice," rejoined the old man quietly, "and that
it is Mademoiselle Agnes de Lucines who is speaking with me now."

"You have known that all along?"

"Ever since mademoiselle first tripped past me at the angle of the Pont
Neuf dressed in winsey kirtle and wearing sabots on her feet...."

"But how?" she murmured, puzzled, not a little frightened, for his
knowledge might prove dangerous to her. She was of gentle birth, and as
such an object of suspicion to the Government of the Republic and of the
Terror; her mother was a hopeless cripple, unable to move: this together
with her love for Arnould Fabrice had kept Agnes de Lucines in France
these days, even though she was in hourly peril of arrest.

"Tell me what has happened," the old man said, unheeding her last
anxious query. "Perhaps I can help ..."

"Oh! you cannot--the English milor' can and will if only we could know
where he is. I thought of him the moment I received that awful man's
letter--and then I thought of you...."

"Tell me about the letter--quickly," he interrupted her with some
impatience. "I'll be writing something--but talk away, I shall hear
every word. But for God's sake be as brief as you can."

He drew some paper nearer to him and dipped his pen in the ink. He
appeared to be writing under her dictation. Thin, flaky snow had begun
to fall and settled in a smooth white carpet upon the frozen ground, and
the footsteps of the passers-by sounded muffled as they hurried along.
Only the lapping of the water of the sluggish river close by broke the
absolute stillness of the air.

Agnes de Lucines' pale face looked ethereal in this framework of white
which covered her shoulders and the shawl crossed over her bosom: only
her eyes, dark, appealing, filled with a glow of immeasurable despair,
appeared tensely human and alive.

"I had a letter this morning," she whispered, speaking very rapidly,
"from citizen Heriot--that awful man--you know him?"

"Yes, yes!"

"He used to be valet in the service of deputy Fabrice. Now he, too, is a
member of the National Assembly ... he is arrogant and cruel and vile.
He hates Arnould Fabrice and he professes himself passionately in love
with me."

"Yes, yes!" murmured the old man, "but the letter?"

"It came this morning. In it he says that he has in his possession a
number of old letters, documents and manuscripts which are quite enough
to send deputy Fabrice to the guillotine. He threatens to place all
those papers before the Committee of Public Safety unless ... unless
I...."

She paused, and a deep blush, partly of shame, partly of wrath, suffused
her pale cheeks.

"Unless you accept his grimy hand in marriage," concluded the man dryly.

Her eyes gave him answer. With pathetic insistence she tried now to
glean a ray of hope from the old scarecrow's inscrutable face. But he
was bending over his writing: his fingers were blue with cold, his great
shoulders were stooping to his task.

"Citizen," she pleaded.

"Hush!" he muttered, "no more now. The very snowflakes are made up of
whispers that may reach those bloodhounds yet. The English milor' shall
know of this. He will send you a message if he thinks fit."

"Citizen--"

"Not another word, in God's name! Pay me five sous for this letter and
pray Heaven that you have not been watched."

She shivered and drew her shawl closer round her shoulders, then she
counted out five sous with elaborate care and laid them out upon the
table. The old man took up the coins. He blew into his fingers, which
looked paralysed with the cold. The snow lay over everything now; the
rough awning had not protected him or his wares.

Agnes turned to go. The last she saw of him, as she went up the Rue
Dauphine, was one broad shoulder still bending over the table, and clad
in the shabby, caped coat all covered with snow like an old Santa Claus.


II

It was half-an-hour before noon, and citizen-deputy Heriot was preparing
to go out to the small tavern round the corner where he habitually took
his dejeuner. Citizen Rondeau, who for the consideration of ten sous a
day looked after Heriot's paltry creature-comforts, was busy tidying up
the squalid apartment which the latter occupied on the top floor of a
lodging-house in the Rue Cocatrice. This apartment consisted of three
rooms leading out of one another; firstly there was a dark and narrow
antichambre wherein slept the aforesaid citizen-servant; then came a
sitting-room sparsely furnished with a few chairs, a centre table and an
iron stove, and finally there was the bedroom wherein the most
conspicuous object was a large oak chest clamped with wide iron hinges
and a massive writing-desk; the bed and a very primitive washstand were
in an alcove at the farther end of the room and partially hidden by a
tapestry curtain.

At exactly half-past seven that morning there came a peremptory knock at
the door of the antichambre, and as Rondeau was busy in the bedroom,
Heriot went himself to see who his unexpected visitor might be. On the
landing outside stood an extraordinary-looking individual--more like a
tall and animated scarecrow than a man--who in a tremulous voice asked
if he might speak with the citizen Heriot.

"That is my name," said the deputy gruffly, "what do you want?"

He would have liked to slam the door in the old scarecrow's face, but
the latter, with the boldness which sometimes besets the timid, had
already stepped into the anti-chambre and was now quietly sauntering
through to the next room into the one beyond. Heriot, being a
representative of the people and a social democrat of the most advanced
type, was supposed to be accessible to every one who desired speech with
him. Though muttering sundry curses, he thought it best not to go
against his usual practice, and after a moment's hesitation he followed
his unwelcome visitor.

The latter was in the sitting-room by this time; he had drawn a chair
close to the table and sat down with the air of one who has a perfect
right to be where he is; as soon as Heriot entered he said placidly:

"I would desire to speak alone with the citizen-deputy."

And Heriot, after another slight hesitation, ordered Rondeau to close
the bedroom door.

"Keep your ears open in case I call," he added significantly.

"You are cautious, citizen," merely remarked the visitor with a smile.

To this Heriot vouchsafed no reply. He, too, drew a chair forward and
sat opposite his visitor, then he asked abruptly: "Your name and
quality?"

"My name is Lepine at your service," said the old man, "and by
profession I write letters at the rate of five sous or so, according to
length, for those who are not able to do it for themselves."

"Your business with me?" queried Heriot curtly.

"To offer you two thousand francs for the letters which you stole from
deputy Fabrice when you were his valet," replied Lepine with perfect
calm.

In a moment Heriot was on his feet, jumping up as if he had been stung;
his pale, short-sighted eyes narrowed till they were mere slits, and
through them he darted a quick, suspicious glance at the extraordinary
out-at-elbows figure before him. Then he threw back his head and laughed
till the tears streamed down his cheeks and his sides began to ache.

"This is a farce, I presume, citizen," he said when he had recovered
something of his composure.

"No farce, citizen," replied Lepine calmly. "The money is at your
disposal whenever you care to bring the letters to my pitch at the angle
of the Rue Dauphine and the Quai des Augustins, where I carry on my
business."

"Whose money is it? Agnes de Lucines' or did that fool Fabrice send
you?"

"No one sent me, citizen. The money is mine--a few savings I possess--I
honour citizen Fabrice--I would wish to do him service by purchasing
certain letters from you."

Then as Heriot, moody and sullen, remained silent and began pacing up
and down the long, bare floor of the room, Lepine added persuasively,
"Well! what do you say? Two thousand francs for a packet of letters--not
a bad bargain these hard times."

"Get out of this room," was Heriot's fierce and sudden reply.

"You refuse?"

"Get out of this room!"

"As you please," said Lepine as he, too, rose from his chair. "But
before I go, citizen Heriot," he added, speaking very quietly, "let me
tell you one thing. Mademoiselle Agnes de Lucines would far sooner cut
off her right hand than let yours touch it even for one instant. Neither
she nor deputy Fabrice would ever purchase their lives at such a price."

"And who are you--you mangy old scarecrow?" retorted Heriot, who was
getting beside himself with rage, "that you should assert these things?
What are those people to you, or you to them, that you should interfere
in their affairs?"

"Your question is beside the point, citizen," said Lepine blandly; "I am
here to propose a bargain. Had you not better agree to it?"

"Never!" reiterated Heriot emphatically.

"Two thousand francs," reiterated the old man imperturbably.

"Not if you offered me two hundred thousand," retorted the other
fiercely. "Go and tell that, to those who sent you. Tell them that
I--Heriot--would look upon a fortune as mere dross against the delight
of seeing that man Fabrice, whom I hate beyond everything in earth or
hell, mount up the steps to the guillotine. Tell them that I know that
Agnes de Lucines loathes me, that I know that she loves him. I know that
I cannot win her save by threatening him. But you are wrong, citizen
Lepine," he continued, speaking more and more calmly as his passions of
hatred and of love seemed more and more to hold him in their grip; "you
are wrong if you think that she will not strike a bargain with me in
order to save the life of Fabrice, whom she loves. Agnes de Lucines will
be my wife within the month, or Arnould Fabrice's head will fall under
the guillotine, and you, my interfering friend, may go to the devil, if
you please."

"That would be but a tame proceeding, citizen, after my visit to you,"
said the old man, with unruffled sang-froid. "But let me, in my turn,
assure you of this, citizen Heriot," he added, "that Mlle. de Lucines
will never be your wife, that Arnould Fabrice will not end his valuable
life under the guillotine--and that you will never be allowed to use
against him the cowardly and stolen weapon which you possess."

Heriot laughed--a low, cynical laugh and shrugged his thin shoulders:

"And who will prevent me, I pray you?" he asked sarcastically.

The old man made no immediate reply, but he came just a step or two
closer to the citizen-deputy and, suddenly drawing himself up to his
full height, he looked for one brief moment down upon the mean and
sordid figure of the ex-valet. To Heriot it seemed as if the whole man
had become transfigured; the shabby old scarecrow looked all of a sudden
like a brilliant and powerful personality; from his eyes there flashed
down a look of supreme contempt and of supreme pride, and Heriot--unable
to understand this metamorphosis which was more apparent to his inner
consciousness than to his outward sight, felt his knees shake under him
and all the blood rush back to his heart in an agony of superstitious
terror.

From somewhere there came to his ear the sound of two words: "I will!"
in reply to his own defiant query. Surely those words uttered by a man
conscious of power and of strength could never have been spoken by the
dilapidated old scarecrow who earned a precarious living by writing
letters for ignorant folk.

But before he could recover some semblance of presence of mind citizen
Lepine had gone, and only a loud and merry laugh seemed to echo through
the squalid room.

Heriot shook off the remnant of his own senseless terror; he tore open
the door of the bedroom and shouted to Rondeau, who truly was thinking
that the citizen-deputy had gone mad:

"After him!--after him! Quick! curse you!" he cried.

"After whom?" gasped the man.

"The man who was here just now--an aristo."

"I saw no one--but the Public Letter-Writer, old Lepine--I know him
well---"

"Curse you for a fool!" shouted Heriot savagely, "the man who was here
was that cursed Englishman--the one whom they call the Scarlet
Pimpernel. Run after him--stop him, I say!"

"Too late, citizen," said the other placidly; "whoever was here before
is certainly half-way down the street by now."


III

"No use, Ffoulkes," said Sir Percy Blakeney to his friend half-an-hour
later, "the man's passions of hatred and desire are greater than his
greed."

The two men were sitting together in one of Sir Percy Blakeney's many
lodgings--the one in the Rue des Petits Peres--and Sir Percy had just
put Sir Andrew Ffoulkes au fait with the whole sad story of Arnould
Fabrice's danger and Agnes de Lucines' despair.

"You could do nothing with the brute, then?" queried Sir Andrew.

"Nothing," replied Blakeney. "He refused all bribes, and violence would
not have helped me, for what I wanted was not to knock him down, but to
get hold of the letters."

"Well, after all, he might have sold you the letters and then denounced
Fabrice just the same."

"No, without actual proofs he could not do that. Arnould Fabrice is not
a man against whom a mere denunciation would suffice. He has the
grudging respect of every faction in the National Assembly. Nothing but
irrefutable proof would prevail against him--and bring him to the
guillotine."

"Why not get Fabrice and Mlle. de Lucines safely over to England?"

"Fabrice would not come. He is not of the stuff that emigres are made
of. He is not an aristocrat; he is a republican by conviction, and a
demmed honest one at that. He would scorn to run away, and Agnes de
Lucines would not go without him."

"Then what can we do?"

"Filch those letters from that brute Heriot," said Blakeney calmly.

"House-breaking, you mean!" commented Sir Andrew Ffoulkes dryly.

"Petty theft, shall we say?" retorted Sir Percy. "I can bribe the lout
who has charge of Heriot's rooms to introduce us into his master's
sanctum this evening when the National Assembly is sitting and the
citizen-deputy safely out of the way."

And the two men--one of whom was the most intimate friend of the Prince
of Wales and the acknowledged darling of London society--thereupon fell
to discussing plans for surreptitiously entering a man's room and
committing larceny, which in normal times would entail, if discovered, a
long term of imprisonment, but which, in these days, in Paris, and
perpetrated against a member of the National Assembly, would certainly
be punished by death.


IV

Citizen Rondeau, whose business it was to look after the creature
comforts of deputy Heriot, was standing in the antichambre facing the
two visitors whom he had just introduced into his master's apartments,
and idly turning a couple of gold coins over and over between his grimy
fingers.

"And mind, you are to see nothing and hear nothing of what goes on in
the next room," said the taller of the two strangers; "and when we go
there'll be another couple of louis for you. Is that understood?"

"Yes! it's understood," grunted Rondeau sullenly; "but I am running
great risks. The citizen-deputy sometimes returns at ten o'clock, but
sometimes at nine.... I never know."

"It is now seven," rejoined the other; "we'll be gone long before nine."

"Well," said Rondeau surlily, "I go out now for my supper. I'll return
in half an hour, but at half-past eight you must clear out."

Then he added with a sneer:

"Citizens Legros and Desgas usually come back with deputy Heriot of
nights, and citizens Jeanniot and Bompard come in from next door for a
game of cards. You wouldn't stand much chance if you were caught here."

"Not with you to back up so formidable a quintette of stalwarts,"
assented the tall visitor gaily. "But we won't trouble about that just
now. We have a couple of hours before us in which to do all that we
want. So au revoir, friend Rondeau ... two more louis for your
complaisance, remember, when we have accomplished our purpose."

Rondeau muttered something more, but the two strangers paid no further
heed to him; they had already walked to the next room, leaving Rondeau
in the antichambre.

Sir Percy Blakeney did not pause in the sitting-room where an oil lamp
suspended from the ceiling threw a feeble circle of light above the
centre table. He went straight through to the bedroom. Here, too, a
small lamp was burning which only lit up a small portion of the
room--the writing-desk and the oak chest--leaving the corners and the
alcove, with its partially drawn curtains, in complete shadow.

Blakeney pointed to the oak chest and to the desk.

"You tackle the chest, Ffoulkes, and I will go for the desk," he said
quietly, as soon as he had taken a rapid survey of the room. "You have
your tools?"

Ffoulkes nodded, and anon in this squalid room, ill-lit, ill-ventilated,
barely furnished, was presented one of the most curious spectacles of
these strange and troublous times: two English gentlemen, the
acknowledged dandies of London drawing-rooms, busy picking locks and
filing hinges like any common house-thieves.

Neither of them spoke, and a strange hush fell over the room--a hush
only broken by the click of metal against metal, and the deep breathing
of the two men bending to their task. Sir Andrew Ffoulkes was working
with a file on the padlocks of the oak chest, and Sir Percy Blakeney,
with a bunch of skeleton keys, was opening the drawers of the
writing-desk. These, when finally opened, revealed nothing of any
importance; but when anon Sir Andrew was able to lift the lid of the oak
chest, he disclosed an innumerable quantity of papers and documents tied
up in neat bundles, docketed and piled up in rows and tiers to the very
top of the chest.

"Quick to work, Ffoulkes," said Blakeney, as in response to his friend's
call he drew a chair forward and, seating himself beside the chest,
started on the task of looking through the hundreds of bundles which lay
before him. "It will take us all our time to look through these."

Together now the two men set to work--methodically and quietly--piling
up on the floor beside them the bundles of papers which they had already
examined, and delving into the oak chest for others. No sound was heard
save the crackling of crisp paper and an occasional ejaculation from
either of them when they came upon some proof or other of Heriot's
propensity for blackmail.

"Agnes de Lucines is not the only one whom this brute is terrorising,"
murmured Blakeney once between his teeth; "I marvel that the man ever
feels safe, alone in these lodgings, with no one but that weak-kneed
Rondeau to protect him. He must have scores of enemies in this city who
would gladly put a dagger in his heart or a bullet through his back."

They had been at work for close on half an hour when an exclamation of
triumph, quickly smothered, escaped Sir Percy's lips.

"By Gad, Ffoulkes!" he said, "I believe I have got what we want!"

With quick, capable hands he turned over a bundle which he had just
extracted from the chest. Rapidly he glanced through them. "I have them,
Ffoulkes," he reiterated more emphatically as he put the bundle into his
pocket; "now everything back in its place and--"

Suddenly he paused, his slender hand up to his lips, his head turned
toward the door, an expression of tense expectancy in every line of his
face.

"Quick, Ffoulkes," he whispered, "everything back into the chest, and
the lid down."

"What ears you have," murmured Ffoulkes as he obeyed rapidly and without
question. "I heard nothing."

Blakeney went to the door and bent his head to listen.

"Three men coming up the stairs," he said; "they are on the landing
now."

"Have we time to rush them?"

"No chance! They are at the door. Two more men have joined them, and I
can distinguish Rondeau's voice, too."

"The quintette," murmured Sir Andrew. "We are caught like two rats in a
trap."

Even as he spoke the opening of the outside door could be distinctly
heard, then the confused murmur of many voices. Already Blakeney and
Ffoulkes had with perfect presence of mind put the finishing touches to
the tidying of the room--put the chairs straight, shut down the lid of
the oak chest, closed all the drawers of the desk.

"Nothing but good luck can save us now," whispered Blakeney as he
lowered the wick of the lamp. "Quick now," he added, "behind that
tapestry in the alcove and trust to our stars."

Securely hidden for the moment behind the curtains in the dark recess of
the alcove the two men waited. The door leading into the sitting-room
was ajar, and they could hear Heriot and his friends making merry
irruption into the place. From out the confusion of general conversation
they soon gathered that the debates in the Chamber had been so dull and
uninteresting that, at a given signal, the little party had decided to
adjourn to Heriot's rooms for their habitual game of cards. They could
also hear Heriot calling to Rondeau to bring bottles and glasses, and
vaguely they marvelled what Rondeau's attitude might be like at this
moment. Was he brazening out the situation, or was he sick with terror?

Suddenly Heriot's voice came out more distinctly.

"Make yourselves at home, friends," he was saying; "here are cards,
dominoes, and wine. I must leave you to yourselves for ten minutes
whilst I write an important letter."

"All right, but don't be long," came in merry response.

"Not longer than I can help," rejoined Heriot. "I want my revenge
against Bompard, remember. He did fleece me last night."

"Hurry on, then," said one of the men. "I'll play Desgas that return
game of dominoes until then."

"Ten minutes and I'll be back," concluded Heriot.

He pushed open the bedroom door. The light within was very dim. The two
men hidden behind the tapestry could hear him moving about the room
muttering curses to himself. Presently the light of the lamp was shifted
from one end of the room to the other. Through the opening between the
two curtains Blakeney could just see Heriot's back as he placed the lamp
at a convenient angle upon his desk, divested himself of his overcoat
and muffler, then sat down and drew pen and paper closer to him. He was
leaning forward, his elbow resting upon the table, his fingers fidgeting
with his long, lank hair. He had closed the door when he entered, and
from the other room now the voices of his friends sounded confused and
muffled. Now and then an exclamation: "Double!" "Je ... tiens!"
"Cinq-deux!" an oath, a laugh, the click of glasses and bottles came out
more clearly; but the rest of the time these sounds were more like a
droning accompaniment to the scraping of Heriot's pen upon the paper
when he finally began to write his letter.

Two minutes went by and then two more. The scratching of Heriot's pen
became more rapid as he appeared to be more completely immersed in his
work. Behind the curtain the two men had been waiting: Blakeney ready to
act, Ffoulkes equally ready to interpret the slightest signal from his
chief.

The next minute Blakeney had stolen out of the alcove, and his two
hands--so slender and elegant looking, and yet with a grip of steel--had
fastened themselves upon Heriot's mouth, smothering within the space of
a second the cry that had been half-uttered. Ffoulkes was ready to
complete the work of rendering the man helpless: one handkerchief made
an efficient gag, another tied the ankles securely. Heriot's own
coat-sleeves supplied the handcuffs, and the blankets off the bed tied
around his legs rendered him powerless to move. Then the two men lifted
this inert mass on to the bed and Ffoulkes whispered anxiously: "Now,
what next?"

Heriot's overcoat, hat, and muffler lay upon a chair. Sir Percy, placing
a warning finger upon his lips, quickly divested himself of his own
coat, slipped that of Heriot on, twisted the muffler round his neck,
hunched up his shoulders, and murmuring: "Now for a bit of luck!" once
more lowered the light of the lamp and then went to the door.

"Rondeau!" he called. "Hey, Rondeau!" And Sir Percy himself was
surprised at the marvellous way in which he had caught the very
inflection of Heriot's voice.

"Hey, Rondeau!" came from one of the players at the table, "the
citizen-deputy is calling you!"

They were all sitting round the table: two men intent upon their game of
dominoes, the other two watching with equal intentness. Rondeau came
shuffling out of the antichambre. His face, by the dim light of the oil
lamp, looked jaundiced with fear.

"Rondeau, you fool, where are you?" called Blakeney once again.

The next moment Rondeau had entered the room. No need for a signal or an
order this time. Ffoulkes knew by instinct what his chief's bold scheme
would mean to them both if it succeeded. He retired into the darkest
corner of the room as Rondeau shuffled across to the writing-desk. It
was all done in a moment. In less time than it had taken to bind and gag
Heriot, his henchman was laid out on the floor, his coat had been taken
off him, and he was tied into a mummy-like bundle with Sir Andrew
Ffoulkes' elegant coat fastened securely round his arms and chest. It
had all been done in silence. The men in the next room were noisy and
intent on their game; the slight scuffle, the quickly smothered cries
had remained unheeded.

"Now, what next?" queried Sir Andrew Ffoulkes once more.

"The impudence of the d--- l, my good Ffoulkes," replied Blakeney in a
whisper, "and may our stars not play us false. Now let me make you look
as like Rondeau as possible--there! Slip on his coat--now your hair over
your forehead--your coat-collar up--your knees bent--that's better!" he
added as he surveyed the transformation which a few deft strokes had
made in Sir Andrew Ffoulkes' appearance. "Now all you have to do is to
shuffle across the room--here's your prototype's handkerchief--of
dubious cleanliness, it is true, but it will serve--blow your nose as
you cross the room, it will hide your face. They'll not heed you--keep
in the shadows and God guard you--I'll follow in a moment or two ... but
don't wait for me."

He opened the door, and before Sir Andrew could protest his chief had
pushed him out into the room where the four men were still intent on
their game. Through the open door Sir Percy now watched his friend who,
keeping well within the shadows, shuffled quietly across the room. The
next moment Sir Andrew was through and in the antichambre. Blakeney's
acutely sensitive ears caught the sound of the opening of the outer
door. He waited for a while, then he drew out of his pocket the bundle
of letters which he had risked so much to obtain. There they were neatly
docketed and marked: "The affairs of Arnould Fabrice."

Well! if he got away to-night Agnes de Lucines would be happy and free
from the importunities of that brute Heriot; after that he must persuade
her and Fabrice to go to England and to freedom.

For the moment his own safety was terribly in jeopardy; one false
move--one look from those players round the table.... Bah! even then--!

With an inward laugh he pushed open the door once more and stepped into
the room. For the moment no one noticed him; the game was at its most
palpitating stage; four shaggy heads met beneath the lamp and four pairs
of eyes were gazing with rapt attention upon the intricate maze of the
dominoes.

Blakeney walked quietly across the room; he was just midway and on a
level with the centre table when a voice was suddenly raised from that
tense group beneath the lamp: "Is it thou, friend Heriot?"

Then one of the men looked up and stared, and another did likewise and
exclaimed: "It is not Heriot!"

In a moment all was confusion, but confusion was the very essence of
those hair-breadth escapes and desperate adventures which were as the
breath of his nostrils to the Scarlet Pimpernel. Before those four men
had had time to jump to their feet, or to realise that something was
wrong with their friend Heriot, he had run across the room, his hand was
on the knob of the door--the door that led to the antichambre and to
freedom.

Bompard, Desgas, Jeanniot, Legros were at his heels, but he tore open
the door, bounded across the threshold, and slammed it to with such a
vigorous bang that those on the other side were brought to a momentary
halt. That moment meant life and liberty to Blakeney; already he had
crossed the antichambre. Quite coolly and quietly now he took out the
key from the inner side of the main door and slipped it to the outside.
The next second--even as the four men rushed helter-skelter into the
antichambre he was out on the landing and had turned the key in the
door.

His prisoners were safely locked in--in Heriot's apartments--and Sir
Percy Blakeney, calmly and without haste, was descending the stairs of
the house in the Rue Cocatrice.

The next morning Agnes de Lucines received, through an anonymous
messenger, the packet of letters which would so gravely have compromised
Arnould Fabrice. Though the weather was more inclement than ever, she
ran out into the streets, determined to seek out the old Public
Letter-Writer and thank him for his mediation with the English milor,
who surely had done this noble action.

But the old scarecrow had disappeared.




V

A FINE BIT OF WORK


I

"Sh!... sh!... It's the Englishman. I'd know his footstep anywhere--"

"God bless him!" murmured petite maman fervently.

Pere Lenegre went to the door; he stepped cautiously and with that
stealthy foot-tread which speaks in eloquent silence of daily, hourly
danger, of anguish and anxiety for lives that are dear.

The door was low and narrow--up on the fifth floor of one of the huge
tenement houses in the Rue Jolivet in the Montmartre quarter of Paris. A
narrow stone passage led to it--pitch-dark at all times, but dirty, and
evil-smelling when the concierge--a free citizen of the new
democracy--took a week's holiday from his work in order to spend whole
afternoons either at the wineshop round the corner, or on the Place du
Carrousel to watch the guillotine getting rid of some twenty aristocrats
an hour for the glorification of the will of the people.

But inside the small apartment everything was scrupulously neat and
clean. Petite maman was such an excellent manager, and Rosette was busy
all the day tidying and cleaning the poor little home, which Pere
Lenegre contrived to keep up for wife and daughter by working fourteen
hours a day in the government saddlery.

When Pere Lenegre opened the narrow door, the entire framework of it was
filled by the broad, magnificent figure of a man in heavy caped coat and
high leather boots, with dainty frills of lace at throat and wrist, and
elegant chapeau-bras held in the hand.

Pere Lenegre at sight of him, put a quick finger to his own quivering
lips.

"Anything wrong, vieux papa?" asked the newcomer lightly.

The other closed the door cautiously before he made reply. But petite
maman could not restrain her anxiety.

"My little Pierre, milor?" she asked as she clasped her wrinkled hands
together, and turned on the stranger her tear-dimmed restless eyes.

"Pierre is safe and well, little mother," he replied cheerily. "We got
him out of Paris early this morning in a coal cart, carefully hidden
among the sacks. When he emerged he was black but safe. I drove the cart
myself as far as Courbevoie, and there handed over your Pierre and those
whom we got out of Paris with him to those of my friends who were going
straight to England. There's nothing more to be afraid of, petite
maman," he added as he took the old woman's wrinkled hands in both his
own; "your son is now under the care of men who would die rather than
see him captured. So make your mind at ease, Pierre will be in England,
safe and well, within a week."

Petite maman couldn't say anything just then because tears were choking
her, but in her turn she clasped those two strong and slender hands--the
hands of the brave Englishman who had just risked his life in order to
save Pierre from the guillotine--and she kissed them as fervently as she
kissed the feet of the Madonna when she knelt before her shrine in
prayer.

Pierre had been a footman in the household of unhappy Marie Antoinette.
His crime had been that he remained loyal to her in words as well as in
thought. A hot-headed but nobly outspoken harangue on behalf of the
unfortunate queen, delivered in a public place, had at once marked him
out to the spies of the Terrorists as suspect of intrigue against the
safety of the Republic. He was denounced to the Committee of Public
Safety, and his arrest and condemnation to the guillotine would have
inevitably followed had not the gallant band of Englishmen, known as the
League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, succeeded in effecting his escape.

What wonder that petite maman could not speak for tears when she clasped
the hands of the noble leader of that splendid little band of heroes?
What wonder that Pere Lenegre, when he heard that his son was safe
murmured a fervent: "God bless you, milor, and your friends!" and that
Rosette surreptitiously raised the fine caped coat to her lips, for
Pierre was her twin-brother, and she loved him very dearly.

But already Sir Percy Blakeney had, with one of his characteristic
cheery words, dissipated the atmosphere of tearful emotion which
oppressed these kindly folk.

"Now, Papa Lenegre," he said lightly, "tell me why you wore such a
solemn air when you let me in just now."

"Because, milor," replied the old man quietly, "that d----d concierge,
Jean Baptiste, is a black-hearted traitor."

Sir Percy laughed, his merry, infectious laugh.

"You mean that while he has been pocketing bribes from me, he has
denounced me to the Committee."

Pere Lenegre nodded: "I only heard it this morning," he said, "from one
or two threatening words the treacherous brute let fall. He knows that
you lodge in the Place des Trois Maries, and that you come here
frequently. I would have given my life to warn you then and there,"
continued the old man with touching earnestness, "but I didn't know
where to find you. All I knew was that you were looking after Pierre."

Even while the man spoke there darted from beneath the Englishman's
heavy lids a quick look like a flash of sudden and brilliant light out
of the lazy depths of his merry blue eyes; it was one of those glances
of pure delight and exultation which light up the eyes of the true
soldier when there is serious fighting to be done.

"La, man," he said gaily, "there was no cause to worry. Pierre is safe,
remember that! As for me," he added with that wonderful insouciance
which caused him to risk his life a hundred times a day with a shrug of
his broad shoulders and a smile upon his lips; "as for me, I'll look
after myself, never fear."

He paused awhile, then added gravely: "So long as you are safe, my good
Lenegre, and petite maman, and Rosette."

Whereupon the old man was silent, petite maman murmured a short prayer,
and Rosette began to cry. The hero of a thousand gallant rescues had
received his answer.

"You, too, are on the black list, Pere Lenegre?" he asked quietly.

The old man nodded.

"How do you know?" queried the Englishman.

"Through Jean Baptiste, milor."

"Still that demmed concierge," muttered Sir Percy.

"He frightened petite maman with it all this morning, saying that he
knew my name was down on the Sectional Committee's list as a 'suspect.'
That's when he let fall a word or two about you, milor. He said it is
known that Pierre has escaped from justice, and that you helped him to
it.

"I am sure that we shall get a domiciliary visit presently," continued
Pere Lenegre, after a slight pause. "The gendarmes have not yet been,
but I fancy that already this morning early I saw one or two of the
Committee's spies hanging about the house, and when I went to the
workshop I was followed all the time."

The Englishman looked grave: "And tell me," he said, "have you got
anything in this place that may prove compromising to any of you?"

"No, milor. But, as Jean Baptiste said, the Sectional Committee know
about Pierre. It is because of my son that I am suspect."

The old man spoke quite quietly, very simply, like a philosopher who has
long ago learned to put behind him the fear of death. Nor did petite
maman cry or lament. Her thoughts were for the brave milor who had saved
her boy; but her fears for her old man left her dry-eyed and dumb with
grief.

There was silence in the little room for one moment while the angel of
sorrow and anguish hovered round these faithful and brave souls, then
the Englishman's cheery voice, so full of spirit and merriment, rang out
once more--he had risen to his full, towering height, and now placed a
kindly hand on the old man's shoulder:

"It seems to me, my good Lenegre," he said, "that you and I haven't many
moments to spare if we mean to cheat those devils by saving your neck.
Now, petite maman," he added, turning to the old woman, "are you going
to be brave?"

"I will do anything, milor," she replied quietly, "to help my old man."

"Well, then," said Sir Percy Blakeney in that optimistic, light-hearted
yet supremely authoritative tone of which he held the secret, "you and
Rosette remain here and wait for the gendarmes. When they come, say
nothing; behave with absolute meekness, and let them search your place
from end to end. If they ask you about your husband say that you believe
him to be at his workshop. Is that clear?"

"Quite clear, milor," replied petite maman.

"And you, Pere Lenegre," continued the Englishman, speaking now with
slow and careful deliberation, "listen very attentively to the
instructions I am going to give you, for on your implicit obedience to
them depends not only your own life but that of these two dear women. Go
at once, now, to the Rue Ste. Anne, round the corner, the second house
on your right, which is numbered thirty-seven. The porte cochere stands
open, go boldly through, past the concierge's box, and up the stairs to
apartment number twelve, second floor. Here is the key of the
apartment," he added, producing one from his coat pocket and handing it
over to the old man. "The rooms are nominally occupied by a certain
Maitre Turandot, maker of violins, and not even the concierge of the
place knows that the hunchbacked and snuffy violin-maker and the
meddlesome Scarlet Pimpernel, whom the Committee of Public Safety would
so love to lay by the heels, are one and the same person. The apartment,
then, is mine; one of the many which I occupy in Paris at different
times," he went on. "Let yourself in quietly with this key, walk
straight across the first room to a wardrobe, which you will see in
front of you. Open it. It is hung full of shabby clothes; put these
aside, and you will notice that the panels at the back do not fit very
closely, as if the wardrobe was old or had been badly put together.
Insert your fingers in the tiny aperture between the two middle panels.
These slide back easily: there is a recess immediately behind them. Get
in there; pull the doors of the wardrobe together first, then slide the
back panels into their place. You will be perfectly safe there, as the
house is not under suspicion at present, and even if the revolutionary
guard, under some meddle-some sergeant or other, chooses to pay it a
surprise visit, your hiding-place will be perfectly secure. Now is all
that quite understood?"

"Absolutely, milor," replied Lenegre, even as he made ready to obey Sir
Percy's orders, "but what about you? You cannot get out of this house,
milor," he urged; "it is watched, I tell you."

"La!" broke in Blakeney, in his light-hearted way, "and do you think I
didn't know that? I had to come and tell you about Pierre, and now I
must give those worthy gendarmes the slip somehow. I have my rooms
downstairs on the ground floor, as you know, and I must make certain
arrangements so that we can all get out of Paris comfortably this
evening. The demmed place is no longer safe either for you, my good
Lenegre, or for petite maman and Rosette. But wherever I may be,
meanwhile, don't worry about me. As soon as the gendarmes have been and
gone, I'll go over to the Rue Ste. Anne and let you know what
arrangements I've been able to make. So do as I tell you now, and in
Heaven's name let me look after myself."

Whereupon, with scant ceremony, he hustled the old man out of the room.

Pere Lenegre had contrived to kiss petite maman and Rosette before he
went. It was touching to see the perfect confidence with which these
simple-hearted folk obeyed the commands of milor. Had he not saved
Pierre in his wonderful, brave, resourceful way? Of a truth he would
know how to save Pere Lenegre also. But, nevertheless, anguish gripped
the women's hearts; anguish doubly keen since the saviour of Pierre was
also in danger now.

When Pere Lenegre's shuffling footsteps had died away along the flagged
corridor, the stranger once more turned to the two women.

"And now, petite maman," he said cheerily, as he kissed the old woman on
both her furrowed cheeks, "keep up a good heart, and say your prayers
with Rosette. Your old man and I will both have need of them."

He did not wait to say good-bye, and anon it was his firm footstep that
echoed down the corridor. He went off singing a song, at the top of his
voice, for the whole house to hear, and for that traitor, Jean Baptiste,
to come rushing out of his room marvelling at the impudence of the man,
and cursing the Committee of Public Safety who were so slow in sending
the soldiers of the Republic to lay this impertinent Englishman by the
heels.


II

A quarter of an hour later half dozen men of the Republican Guard, with
corporal and sergeant in command, were in the small apartment on the
fifth floor of the tenement house in the Rue Jolivet. They had demanded
an entry in the name of the Republic, had roughly hustled petite maman
and Rosette, questioned them to Lenegre's whereabouts, and not satisfied
with the reply which they received, had turned the tidy little home
topsy-turvy, ransacked every cupboard, dislocated every bed, table or
sofa which might presumably have afforded a hiding place for a man.

Satisfied now that the "suspect" whom they were searching for was not on
the premises, the sergeant stationed four of his men with the corporal
outside the door, and two within, and himself sitting down in the centre
of the room ordered the two women to stand before him and to answer his
questions clearly on pain of being dragged away forthwith to the St.
Lazare house of detention.

Petite maman smoothed out her apron, crossed her arms before her, and
looked the sergeant quite straight in the face. Rosette's eyes were full
of tears, but she showed no signs of fear either, although her
shoulder--where one of the gendarmes had seized it so roughly--was
terribly painful.

"Your husband, citizeness," asked the sergeant peremptorily, "where is
he?"

"I am not sure, citizen," replied petite maman. "At this hour he is
generally at the government works in the Quai des Messageries."

"He is not there now," asserted the sergeant. "We have knowledge that he
did not go back to his work since dinner-time."

Petite maman was silent.

"Answer," ordered the sergeant.

"I cannot tell you more, citizen sergeant," she said firmly. "I do not
know."

"You do yourself no good, woman, by this obstinacy," he continued
roughly. "My belief is that your husband is inside this house, hidden
away somewhere. If necessary I can get orders to have every apartment
searched until he is found: but in that case it will go much harder with
you and with your daughter, and much harder too with your husband than
if he gave us no trouble and followed us quietly."

But with sublime confidence in the man who had saved Pierre and who had
given her explicit orders as to what she should do, petite maman, backed
by Rosette, reiterated quietly:

"I cannot tell you more, citizen sergeant, I do not know."

"And what about the Englishman?" queried the sergeant more roughly, "the
man they call the Scarlet Pimpernel, what do you know of him?"

"Nothing, citizen," replied petite maman, "what should we poor folk know
of an English milor?"

"You know at any rate this much, citizeness, that the English milor
helped your son Pierre to escape from justice."

"If that is so," said petite maman quietly, "it cannot be wrong for a
mother to pray to God to bless her son's preserver."

"It behooves every good citizen," retorted the sergeant firmly, "to
denounce all traitors to the Republic."

"But since I know nothing about the Englishman, citizen sergeant--?"

And petite maman shrugged her thin shoulders as if the matter had ceased
to interest her.

"Think again, citizeness," admonished the sergeant, "it is your
husband's neck as well as your daughter's and your own that you are
risking by so much obstinacy."

He waited a moment or two as if willing to give the old woman time to
speak: then, when he saw that she kept her thin, quivering lips
resolutely glued together he called his corporal to him.

"Go to the citizen Commissary of the Section," he commanded, "and ask
for a general order to search every apartment in No. 24 Rue Jolivet.
Leave two of our men posted on the first and third landings of this
house and leave two outside this door. Be as quick as you can. You can
be back here with the order in half an hour, or perhaps the committee
will send me an extra squad; tell the citizen Commissary that this is a
big house, with many corridors. You can go."

The corporal saluted and went.

Petite maman and Rosette the while were still standing quietly in the
middle of the room, their arms folded underneath their aprons, their
wide-open, anxious eyes fixed into space. Rosette's tears were falling
slowly, one by one down her cheeks, but petite maman was dry-eyed. She
was thinking, and thinking as she had never had occasion to think
before.

She was thinking of the brave and gallant Englishman who had saved
Pierre's life only yesterday. The sergeant, who sat there before her,
had asked for orders from the citizen Commissary to search this big
house from attic to cellar. That is what made petite maman think and
think.

The brave Englishman was in this house at the present moment: the house
would be searched from attic to cellar and he would be found, taken, and
brought to the guillotine.

The man who yesterday had risked his life to save her boy was in
imminent and deadly danger, and she--petite maman--could do nothing to
save him.

Every moment now she thought to hear milor's firm tread resounding on
stairs or corridor, every moment she thought to hear snatches of an
English song, sung by a fresh and powerful voice, never after to-day to
be heard in gaiety again.

The old clock upon the shelf ticked away these seconds and minutes while
petite maman thought and thought, while men set traps to catch a
fellow-being in a deathly snare, and human carnivorous beasts lay
lurking for their prey.


III

Another quarter of an hour went by. Petite maman and Rosette had hardly
moved. The shadows of evening were creeping into the narrow room,
blurring the outlines of the pieces of furniture and wrapping all the
corners in gloom.

The sergeant had ordered Rosette to bring in a lamp. This she had done,
placing it upon the table so that the feeble light glinted upon the belt
and buckles of the sergeant and upon the tricolour cockade which was
pinned to his hat. Petite maman had thought and thought until she could
think no more.

Anon there was much commotion on the stairs; heavy footsteps were heard
ascending from below, then crossing the corridors on the various
landings. The silence which reigned otherwise in the house, and which
had fallen as usual on the squalid little street, void of traffic at
this hour, caused those footsteps to echo with ominous power.

Petite maman felt her heart beating so vigorously that she could hardly
breathe. She pressed her wrinkled hands tightly against her bosom.

There were the quick words of command, alas! so familiar in France just
now, the cruel, peremptory words that invariably preceded an arrest,
preliminaries to the dragging of some wretched--often wholly
harmless--creature before a tribunal that knew neither pardon nor mercy.

The sergeant, who had become drowsy in the close atmosphere of the tiny
room, roused himself at the sound and jumped to his feet. The door was
thrown open by the men stationed outside even before the authoritative
words, "Open! in the name of the Republic!" had echoed along the narrow
corridor.

The sergeant stood at attention and quickly lifted his hand to his
forehead in salute. A fresh squad of some half-dozen men of the
Republican Guard stood in the doorway; they were under the command of an
officer of high rank, a rough, uncouth, almost bestial-looking creature,
with lank hair worn the fashionable length under his greasy
chapeau-bras, and unkempt beard round an ill-washed and bloated face.
But he wore the tricolour sash and badge which proclaimed him one of the
military members of the Sectional Committee of Public Safety, and the
sergeant, who had been so overbearing with the women just now, had
assumed a very humble and even obsequious manner.

"You sent for a general order to the sectional Committee," said the
new-comer, turning abruptly to the sergeant after he had cast a quick,
searching glance round the room, hardly condescending to look on petite
maman and Rosette, whose very souls were now gazing out of their
anguish-filled eyes.

"I did, citizen commandant," replied the sergeant.

"I am not a commandant," said the other curtly. "My name is Rouget,
member of the Convention and of the Committee of Public Safety. The
sectional Committee to whom you sent for a general order of search
thought that you had blundered somehow, so they sent me to put things
right."

"I am not aware that I committed any blunder, citizen," stammered the
sergeant dolefully. "I could not take the responsibility of making a
domiciliary search all through the house. So I begged for fuller
orders."

"And wasted the Committee's time and mine by such nonsense," retorted
Rouget harshly. "Every citizen of the Republic worthy of the name should
know how to act on his own initiative when the safety of the nation
demands it."

"I did not know--I did not dare--" murmured the sergeant, obviously
cowed by this reproof, which had been delivered in the rough,
overbearing tones peculiar to these men who, one and all, had risen from
the gutter to places of importance and responsibility in the
newly-modelled State.

"Silence!" commanded the other peremptorily. "Don't waste any more of my
time with your lame excuses. You have failed in zeal and initiative.
That's enough. What else have you done? Have you got the man Lenegre?"

"No, citizen. He is not in hiding here, and his wife and daughter will
not give us any information about him."

"That is their look-out," retorted Rouget with a harsh laugh. "If they
give up Lenegre of their own free will the law will deal leniently with
them, and even perhaps with him. But if we have to search the house for
him, then it means the guillotine for the lot of them."

He had spoken these callous words without even looking on the two
unfortunate women; nor did he ask them any further questions just then,
but continued speaking to the sergeant:

"And what about the Englishman? The sectional Committee sent down some
spies this morning to be on the look-out for him on or about this house.
Have you got him?"

"Not yet, citizen. But--"

"Ah ca, citizen sergeant," broke in the other brusquely, "meseems that
your zeal has been even more at fault than I had supposed. Have you done
anything at all, then, in the matter of Lenegre or the Englishman?"

"I have told you, citizen," retorted the sergeant sullenly, "that I
believe Lenegre to be still in this house. At any rate, he had not gone
out of it an hour ago--that's all I know. And I wanted to search the
whole of this house, as I am sure we should have found him in one of the
other apartments. These people are all friends together, and will always
help each other to evade justice. But the Englishman was no concern of
mine. The spies of the Committee were ordered to watch for him, and when
they reported to me I was to proceed with the arrest. I was not set to
do any of the spying work. I am a soldier, and obey my orders when I get
them."

"Very well, then, you'd better obey them now, citizen sergeant," was
Rouget's dry comment on the other man's surly explanation, "for you seem
to have properly blundered from first to last, and will be hard put to
it to redeem your character. The Republic, remember, has no use for
fools."

The sergeant, after this covert threat, thought it best, apparently, to
keep his tongue, whilst Rouget continued, in the same aggressive,
peremptory tone:

"Get on with your domiciliary visits at once. Take your own men with
you, and leave me the others. Begin on this floor, and leave your sentry
at the front door outside. Now let me see your zeal atoning for your
past slackness. Right turn! Quick march!"

Then it was that petite maman spoke out. She had thought and thought,
and now she knew what she ought to do; she knew that that cruel, inhuman
wretch would presently begin his tramp up and down corridors and stairs,
demanding admittance at every door, entering every apartment. She knew
that the man who had saved her Pierre's life was in hiding somewhere in
the house--that he would be found and dragged to the guillotine, for she
knew that the whole governing body of this abominable Revolution was
determined not to allow that hated Englishman to escape again.

She was old and feeble, small and thin--that's why everyone called her
petite maman--but once she knew what she ought to do, then her spirit
overpowered the weakness of her wizened body.

Now she knew, and even while that arrogant member of an execrated
murdering Committee was giving final instructions to the sergeant,
petite maman said, in a calm, piping voice:

"No need, citizen sergeant, to go and disturb all my friends and
neighbours. I'll tell you where my husband is."

In a moment Rouget had swung round on his heel, a hideous gleam of
satisfaction spread over his grimy face, and he said, with an ugly
sneer:

"So! you have thought better of it, have you? Well, out with it! You'd
better be quick about it if you want to do yourselves any good."

"I have my daughter to think of," said petite maman in a feeble,
querulous way, "and I won't have all my neighbours in this house made
unhappy because of me. They have all been kind neighbours. Will you
promise not to molest them and to clear the house of soldiers if I tell
you where Lenegre is?"

"The Republic makes no promises," replied Rouget gruffly. "Her citizens
must do their duty without hope of a reward. If they fail in it, they
are punished. But privately I will tell you, woman, that if you save us
the troublesome and probably unprofitable task of searching this
rabbit-warren through and through, it shall go very leniently with you
and with your daughter, and perhaps--I won't promise, remember--perhaps
with your husband also."

"Very good, citizen," said petite maman calmly. "I am ready."

"Ready for what?" he demanded.

"To take you to where my husband is in hiding."

"Oho! He is not in the house, then?"

"No."

"Where is he, then?"

"In the Rue Ste. Anne. I will take you there."

Rouget cast a quick, suspicious glance on the old woman, and exchanged
one of understanding with the sergeant.

"Very well," he said after a slight pause. "But your daughter must come
along too. Sergeant," he added, "I'll take three of your men with me; I
have half a dozen, but it's better to be on the safe side. Post your
fellows round the outer door, and on my way to the Rue Ste. Anne I will
leave word at the gendarmerie that a small reinforcement be sent on to
you at once. These can be here in five minutes; until then you are quite
safe."

Then he added under his breath, so that the women should not hear: "The
Englishman may still be in the house. In which case, hearing us depart,
he may think us all gone and try to give us the slip. You'll know what
to do?" he queried significantly.

"Of course, citizen," replied the sergeant.

"Now, then, citizeness--hurry up."

Once more there was tramping of heavy feet on stone stairs and
corridors. A squad of soldiers of the Republican Guard, with two women
in their midst, and followed by a member of the Committee of Public
Safety, a sergeant, corporal and two or three more men, excited much
anxious curiosity as they descended the steep flights of steps from the
fifth floor.

Pale, frightened faces peeped shyly through the doorways at sound of the
noisy tramp from above, but quickly disappeared again at sight of the
grimy scarlet facings and tricolour cockades.

The sergeant and three soldiers remained stationed at the foot of the
stairs inside the house. Then citizen Rouget roughly gave the order to
proceed. It seemed strange that it should require close on a dozen men
to guard two women and to apprehend one old man, but as the member of
the Committee of Public Safety whispered to the sergeant before he
finally went out of the house: "The whole thing may be a trap, and one
can't be too careful. The Englishman is said to be very powerful; I'll
get the gendarmerie to send you another half-dozen men, and mind you
guard the house until my return."


IV

Five minutes later the soldiers, directed by petite maman, had reached
No. 37 Rue Ste. Anne. The big outside door stood wide open, and the
whole party turned immediately into the house.

The concierge, terrified and obsequious, rushed--trembling--out of his
box.

"What was the pleasure of the citizen soldiers?" he asked.

"Tell him, citizeness," commanded Rouget curtly.

"We are going to apartment No. 12 on the second floor," said petite
maman to the concierge.

"Have you a key of the apartment?" queried Rouget.

"No, citizen," stammered the concierge, "but--"

"Well, what is it?" queried the other peremptorily.

"Papa Turandot is a poor, harmless maker of volins," said the concierge.
"I know him well, though he is not often at home. He lives with a
daughter somewhere Passy way, and only uses this place as a workshop. I
am sure he is no traitor."

"We'll soon see about that," remarked Rouget dryly.

Petite maman held her shawl tightly crossed over her bosom: her hands
felt clammy and cold as ice. She was looking straight out before her,
quite dry-eyed and calm, and never once glanced on Rosette, who was not
allowed to come anywhere near her mother.

As there was no duplicate key to apartment No. 12, citizen Rouget
ordered his men to break in the door. It did not take very long: the
house was old and ramshackle and the doors rickety. The next moment the
party stood in the room which a while ago the Englishman had so
accurately described to pere Lenegre in petite maman's hearing.

There was the wardrobe. Petite maman, closely surrounded by the
soldiers, went boldly up to it; she opened it just as milor had
directed, and pushed aside the row of shabby clothes that hung there.
Then she pointed to the panels that did not fit quite tightly together
at the back. Petite maman passed her tongue over her dry lips before she
spoke.

"There's a recess behind those panels," she said at last. "They slide
back quite easily. My old man is there."

"And God bless you for a brave, loyal soul," came in merry, ringing
accent from the other end of the room. "And God save the Scarlet
Pimpernel!"

These last words, spoken in English, completed the blank amazement which
literally paralysed the only three genuine Republican soldiers
there--those, namely, whom Rouget had borrowed from the sergeant. As for
the others, they knew what to do. In less than a minute they had
overpowered and gagged the three bewildered soldiers.

Rosette had screamed, terror-stricken, from sheer astonishment, but
petite maman stood quite still, her pale, tear-dimmed eyes fixed upon
the man whose gay "God bless you!" had so suddenly turned her despair
into hope.

How was it that in the hideous, unkempt and grimy Rouget she had not at
once recognised the handsome and gallant milor who had saved her
Pierre's life? Well, of a truth he had been unrecognisable, but now that
he tore the ugly wig and beard from his face, stretched out his fine
figure to its full height, and presently turned his lazy, merry eyes on
her, she could have screamed for very joy.

The next moment he had her by the shoulders and had imprinted two
sounding kisses upon her cheeks.

"Now, petite maman," he said gaily, "let us liberate the old man."

Pere Lenegre, from his hiding-place, had heard all that had been going
on in the room for the last few moments. True, he had known exactly what
to expect, for no sooner had he taken possession of the recess behind
the wardrobe than milor also entered the apartment and then and there
told him of his plans not only for pere's own safety, but for that of
petite maman and Rosette who would be in grave danger if the old man
followed in the wake of Pierre.

Milor told him in his usual light-hearted way that he had given the
Committee's spies the slip.

"I do that very easily, you know," he explained. "I just slip into my
rooms in the Rue Jolivet, change myself into a snuffy and hunchback
violin-maker, and walk out of the house under the noses of the spies. In
the nearest wine-shop my English friends, in various disguises, are all
ready to my hand: half a dozen of them are never far from where I am in
case they may be wanted."

These half-dozen brave Englishmen soon arrived one by one: one looked
like a coal-heaver, another like a seedy musician, a third like a
coach-driver. But they all walked boldly into the house and were soon
all congregated in apartment No. 12. Here fresh disguises were assumed,
and soon a squad of Republican Guards looked as like the real thing as
possible.

Pere Lenegre admitted himself that though he actually saw milor
transforming himself into citizen Rouget, he could hardly believe his
eyes, so complete was the change.

"I am deeply grieved to have frightened and upset you so, petite maman,"
now concluded milor kindly, "but I saw no other way of getting you and
Rosette out of the house and leaving that stupid sergeant and some of
his men behind. I did not want to arouse in him even the faintest breath
of suspicion, and of course if he had asked me for the written orders
which he was actually waiting for, or if his corporal had returned
sooner than I anticipated, there might have been trouble. But even
then," he added with his usual careless insouciance, "I should have
thought of some way of baffling those brutes."

"And now," he concluded more authoritatively, "it is a case of getting
out of Paris before the gates close. Pere Lenegre, take your wife and
daughter with you and walk boldly out of this house. The sergeant and
his men have not vacated their post in the Rue Jolivet, and no one else
can molest you. Go straight to the Porte de Neuilly, and on the other
side wait quietly in the little cafe at the corner of the Avenue until I
come. Your old passes for the barriers still hold good; you were only
placed on the 'suspect' list this morning, and there has not been a hue
and cry yet about you. In any case some of us will be close by to help
you if needs be."

"But you, milor," stammered pere Lenegre, "and your friends--?"

"La, man," retorted Blakeney lightly, "have I not told you before never
to worry about me and my friends? We have more ways than one of giving
the slip to this demmed government of yours. All you've got to think of
is your wife and your daughter. I am afraid that petite maman cannot
take more with her than she has on, but we'll do all we can for her
comfort until we have you all in perfect safety--in England--with
Pierre."

Neither pere Lenegre, nor petite maman, nor Rosette could speak just
then, for tears were choking them, but anon when milor stood nearer,
petite maman knelt down, and, imprisoning his slender hand in her brown,
wrinkled ones, she kissed it reverently.

He laughed and chided her for this.

"'Tis I should kneel to you in gratitude, petite maman," he said
earnestly, "you were ready to sacrifice your old man for me."

"You have saved Pierre, milor," said the mother simply.

A minute later pere Lenegre and the two women were ready to go. Already
milor and his gallant English friends were busy once more transforming
themselves into grimy workmen or seedy middle-class professionals.

As soon as the door of apartment No. 12 finally closed behind the three
good folk, my lord Tony asked of his chief:

"What about these three wretched soldiers, Blakeney?"

"Oh! they'll be all right for twenty-four hours. They can't starve till
then, and by that time the concierge will have realised that there's
something wrong with the door of No. 12 and will come in to investigate
the matter. Are they securely bound, though?"

"And gagged! Rather!" ejaculated one of the others. "Odds life,
Blakeney!" he added enthusiastically, "that was a fine bit of work!"




VI

HOW JEAN PIERRE MET THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL

As told by Himself


I

Ah, monsieur! the pity of it, the pity! Surely there are sins which le
bon Dieu Himself will condone. And if not--well, I had to risk His
displeasure anyhow. Could I see them both starve, monsieur? I ask you!
and M. le Vicomte had become so thin, so thin, his tiny, delicate bones
were almost through his skin. And Mme. la Marquise! an angel, monsieur!
Why, in the happy olden days, before all these traitors and assassins
ruled in France, M. and Mme. la Marquise lived only for the child, and
then to see him dying--yes, dying, there was no shutting one's eyes to
that awful fact--M. le Vicomte de Mortain was dying of starvation and of
disease.

There we were all herded together in a couple of attics--one of which
little more than a cupboard--at the top of a dilapidated half-ruined
house in the Rue des Pipots--Mme. la Marquise, M. le Vicomte and I--just
think of that, monsieur! M. le Marquis had his chateau, as no doubt you
know, on the outskirts of Lyons. A loyal high-born gentleman; was it
likely, I ask you, that he would submit passively to the rule of those
execrable revolutionaries who had murdered their King, outraged their
Queen and Royal family, and, God help them! had already perpetrated
every crime and every abomination for which of a truth there could be no
pardon either on earth or in Heaven? He joined that plucky but, alas!
small and ill-equipped army of royalists who, unable to save their King,
were at least determined to avenge him.

Well, you know well enough what happened. The counter-revolution failed;
the revolutionary army brought Lyons down to her knees after a siege of
two months. She was then marked down as a rebel city, and after the
abominable decree of October 9th had deprived her of her very name, and
Couthon had exacted bloody reprisals from the entire population for its
loyalty to the King, the infamous Laporte was sent down in order finally
to stamp out the lingering remnants of the rebellion. By that time,
monsieur, half the city had been burned down, and one-tenth and more of
the inhabitants--men, women, and children--had been massacred in cold
blood, whilst most of the others had fled in terror from the appalling
scene of ruin and desolation. Laporte completed the execrable work so
ably begun by Couthon. He was a very celebrated and skilful doctor at
the Faculty of Medicine, now turned into a human hyena in the name of
Liberty and Fraternity.

M. le Marquis contrived to escape with the scattered remnant of the
Royalist army into Switzerland. But Mme la Marquise throughout all these
strenuous times had stuck to her post at the chateau like the valiant
creature that she was. When Couthon entered Lyons at the head of the
revolutionary army, the whole of her household fled, and I was left
alone to look after her and M. le Vicomte.

Then one day when I had gone into Lyons for provisions, I suddenly
chanced to hear outside an eating-house that which nearly froze the
marrow in my old bones. A captain belonging to the Revolutionary Guard
was transmitting to his sergeant certain orders, which he had apparently
just received.

The orders were to make a perquisition at ten o'clock this same evening
in the chateau of Mortaine as the Marquis was supposed to be in hiding
there, and in any event to arrest every man, woman, and child who was
found within its walls.

"Citizen Laporte," the captain concluded, "knows for a certainty that
the ci-devant Marquise and her brat are still there, even if the Marquis
has fled like the traitor that he is. Those cursed English spies who
call themselves the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel have been very
active in Lyons of late, and citizen Laporte is afraid that they might
cheat the guillotine of the carcase of those aristos, as they have
already succeeded in doing in the case of a large number of traitors."

I did not, of course, wait to hear any more of that abominable talk. I
sped home as fast as my old legs would carry me. That self-same evening,
as soon as it was dark, Mme. la Marquise, carrying M. le Vicomte in her
arms and I carrying a pack with a few necessaries on my back, left the
ancestral home of the Mortaines never to return to it again: for within
an hour of our flight a detachment of the revolutionary army made a
descent upon the chateau; they ransacked it from attic to cellar, and
finding nothing there to satisfy their lust of hate, they burned the
stately mansion down to the ground.

We were obliged to take refuge in Lyons, at any rate for a time. Great
as was the danger inside the city, it was infinitely greater on the high
roads, unless we could arrange for some vehicle to take us a
considerable part of the way to the frontier, and above all for some
sort of passports--forged or otherwise--to enable us to pass the various
toll-gates on the road, where vigilance was very strict. So we wandered
through the ruined and deserted streets of the city in search of
shelter, but found every charred and derelict house full of miserable
tramps and destitutes like ourselves. Half dead with fatigue, Mme. la
Marquise was at last obliged to take refuge in one of these houses which
was situated in the Rue des Pipots. Every room was full to overflowing
with a miserable wreckage of humanity thrown hither by the tide of
anarchy and of bloodshed. But at the top of the house we found an attic.
It was empty save for a couple of chairs, a table and a broken-down
bedstead on which were a ragged mattress and pillow.

Here, monsieur, we spent over three weeks, at the end of which time M.
le Vicomte fell ill, and then there followed days, monsieur, through
which I would not like my worst enemy to pass.

Mme. la Marquise had only been able to carry away in her flight what
ready money she happened to have in the house at the time. Securities,

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/5805