"Then he will come. Am I not right?"
It was on her return from England that Theresia Cabarrus took to consulting the old witch in the Rue de la Planchette, driven thereto by ambition, and also no doubt by remorse. There was nothing of the hardened criminal about the fair Spaniard; she was just a spoilt woman who had been mocked and thwarted, and desired to be revenged. The Scarlet Pimpernel had appeared before her as one utterly impervious to her charms; and, egged on by Chauvelin, who used her for his own ends, she entered into a callous conspiracy, the aim of which was the destruction of that gang of English spies who were the enemies of France, and the first stage of which was the heartless abduction of Lady Blakeney and her incarceration as a decoy for the ultimate capture of her own husband.
A cruel, abominable act! Theresia, who had plunged headlong into this shameful crime, would a few days later have given much to undo the harm she had wrought. But she had yet to learn that, once used as a tool by the Committee of Public Safety and by Chauvelin, its most unscrupulous agent, no man or woman could hope to become free again until the work demanded had been accomplished to the end. There was no freedom from that taskmaster save in death; and Theresia's fit of compunction did not carry her to the lengths of self-sacrifice. Marguerite Blakeney was her prisoner, the decoy which would bring the English milor inevitably to the spot where his wife was incarcerated; and Theresia, who had helped to bring this state of things about, did her best to smother remorse, and having done Chauvelin's dirty work for him she set to see what personal advantage she could derive from it.
Firstly, the satisfaction of her petty revenge: the Scarlet Pimpernel caught in a trap, would surely regret his interference in Theresia's love affairs. Theresia cared less than nothing about Bertrand Moncrif, and would have been quite grateful to the English milor for having spirited that embarrassing lover of hers away but for that letter which had wounded the beautiful Spaniard's vanity to the quick, and still rankled sufficiently to ease her conscience on the score of her subsequent actions. That the letter was a bogus one, concocted and written by Chauvelin himself in order to spur her on to a mean revenge, Theresia did not know.
But far stronger than thoughts of revenge were Theresia's schemes for her own future. She had begun to dream of Robespierre's gratitude, of her triumph over all those who had striven for over two years to bring that gang of English spies to book. She saw her name writ largely on the roll of fame; she even saw in her mind, the tyrant himself as her willing slave . . . and something more than that.
For her tool Bertrand she had no further use. By way of a reward for the abominable abduction of Lady Blakeney, he had been allowed to follow the woman he worshipped like a lacquey attached to her train. Dejected, already spurned, he returned to Paris with her, here to resume the life of humiliation and of despised ardour which had broken his spirit and warped his nature, before his gallant rescuer had snatched him out of the toils of the beautiful Spaniard.
Within an hour of setting his foot on French soil, Bertrand had realised that he had been nothing in Theresia's sight but a lump of malleable wax, which she had moulded to her own design and now threw aside as cumbersome and useless. He had realised that her ambition soared far above linking her fate to an obscure and penniless lover, when the coming man of the hour—citizen Tallien—was already at her feet.
Thus Theresia had attained one of her great desires: the Scarlet Pimpernel was as good as captured, and when he finally succumbed he could not fail to know whence came the blow that struck him.
With regard to her future, matters were more doubtful. She had not yet subjugated Robespierre sufficiently to cause him to give up his more humble love and to lay his power and popularity at her feet; whilst the man who had offered her his hand and name—citizen Tallien—was for ever putting a check upon her ambition and his own advancement by his pusillanimity and lack of enterprise.
Whilst she was aching to push him into decisive action, into seizing the supreme power before Robespierre and his friends had irrevocably established theirs, Tallien was for temporising, fearing that in trying to snatch a dictatorship he and his beloved with him would lose their heads.
"While Robespierre lives," Theresia would argue passionately, "no man's head is safe. Every rival, sooner or later, becomes a victim. St. Just and Couthon aim at a dictatorship for him. Sooner or later they will succeed; then death to every man who has ever dared oppose them."
"Therefore 'tis wiser not to oppose," the prudent Tallien would retort. "The time will come——"
"Never!" she riposted hotly. "While you plot, and argue and ponder, Robespierre acts or signs your death-warrant."
"Robespierre is the idol of the people; he sways the Convention with a word. His eloquence would drag an army of enemies to the guillotine."
"Robespierre!" Theresia retorted with sublime contempt. "Ah, when you have said that, you think you have said everything! France, humanity, the people, sovereign power!—all that, you assert, is embodied in that one man. But, my friend, listen to me!" she went on earnestly. "Listen, when I assert that Robespierre is only a name, a fetish, a manikin set up on a pedestal! By whom? By you, and the Convention; by the Clubs and the Committees. And the pedestal is composed of that elusive entity which you call the people and which will disintegrate from beneath his feet as soon as the people have realised that those feet are less than clay. One touch of a firm finger against that manikin, I tell you, and he will fall as dust before you; and you can rise upon that same elusive pedestal—popularity, to the heights which he hath so easily attained."
But, though Tallien was at times carried away by her vehemence, he would always shake his head and counsel prudence, and assure her that the time was not yet. Theresia, impatient and dictatorial, had more than once hinted at rupture.
"I could not love a weakling," she would aver; and at the back of her mind there would rise schemes, which aimed at transferring her favours to the other man, who she felt would be more worthy of her.
"Robespierre would not fail me, as this coward does!" she mused, even while Tallien, blind and obedient, was bidding her farewell at the very door of the charlatan to whom Theresia had turned in her ambition and her difficulties.
Something of the glamour which had originally surrounded Mother Théot's incantations had vanished since sixty-two of her devotees had been sent to the guillotine on a charge of conspiring for the overthrow of the Republic. Robespierre's enemies, too cowardly to attack him in the Convention or in the Clubs, had seized upon the mystery which hung over the séances in the Rue de la Planchette in order to undermine his popularity in the one and his power in the other.
Spies were introduced into the witch's lair. The names of its chief frequenters became known, and soon wholesale arrests were made, which were followed by the inevitable condemnations. Robespierre had not actually been named; but the identity of the sycophants who had proclaimed him the Messenger of the Most High, the Morning Star, or the Regenerator of Mankind, were hurled across from the tribune of the Convention, like poisoned arrows aimed at the tyrant himself.
But Robespierre had been too wary to allow himself to be dragged into the affair. His enemies tried to goad him into defending his worshippers, thus admitting his association with the gang; but he remained prudently silent, and with callous ruthlessness he sacrificed them to his own safety. He never raised his voice nor yet one finger to save them from death, and whilst he—the bloodthirsty autocrat—remained firmly installed upon his self-constituted throne, those who had acclaimed him as second only to God, perished upon the scaffold.
Mother Théot, for some inexplicable reason, escaped this wholesale slaughter; but her séances were henceforth shorn of their splendour. Robespierre no longer dared frequent them even in disguise. The house in the Rue de la Planchette became a marked one to the agents of the Committee of Public Safety, and the witch herself was reduced to innumerable shifts to eke out a precarious livelihood and to keep herself in the good graces of those agents, by rendering them various unavowable services.
To those, however, who chose to defy public opinion and to disregard the dangers which attended the frequentation of Mother Théot's sorceries, these latter had lost little or nothing of their pristine solemnity. There was the closely curtained room; the scented, heavy atmosphere; the chants, the coloured flames, the ghost-like neophytes. Draped in her grey veils, the old witch still wove her spells and called on the powers of light and of darkness to aid her in foretelling the future. The neophytes chanted and twisted their bodies in quaint contortions; alone, the small blackamoor grinned at what experience had taught him was nothing but quackery and charlatanism.
Theresia, sitting on the dais, with the heady fumes of Oriental scents blurring her sight and the clearness of her intellect, was drinking in the honeyed words and flattering prophecies of the old witch.
"Thy name will be the greatest in the land! Before thee will bow the mightiest thrones! At thy words heads will fall and diadems will totter!" Mother Théot announced in sepulchral tones, whilst gazing into the crystal before her.
"As the wife of citizen Tallien?" Theresia queried in an awed whisper.
"That the spirits do not say," the old witch replied. "What is a name to them? I see a crown of glory, and thy head surrounded by a golden light; and at thy feet lies something which once was scarlet, and now is crimson and crushed."
"What does it mean?" Theresia murmured.
"That is for thee to know," the sybil replied sternly. "Commune with the spirits; lose thyself in their embrace; learn from them the great truths, and the future will be made clear to thee."
With which cryptic utterance she gathered her veils around her, and with weird murmurs of, "Evohe! Evohe! Sammael! Zamiel! Evohe!" glided out of the room, mysterious and inscrutable, presumably in order to allow her bewildered client to meditate on the enigmatical prophecy in solitude.
But directly she had closed the door behind her, Mother Théot's manner underwent a change. Here the broad light of day appeared to divest her of all her sybilline attributes. She became just an ugly old woman, wrinkled and hook-nosed, dressed in shabby draperies that were grey with age and dirt, and with claw-like hands that looked like the talons of a bird of prey.
As she entered the room, a man who had been standing at the window opposite, staring out into the dismal street below, turned quickly to her.
"Art satisfied?" she asked at once.
"From what I could hear, yes!" he replied, "though I could have wished thy pronouncements had been more clear."
The hag shrugged her lean shoulders and nodded in the direction of her lair.
"Oh!" she said. "The Spaniard understands well enough. She never consults me or invokes the spirits but they speak to her of that which is scarlet. She knows what it means. You need not fear, citizen Chauvelin, that in the pursuit of her vaulting ambition, she will forget that her primary duty is to you!"
"No," Chauvelin asserted calmly, "she'll not forget that. The Cabarrus is no fool. She knows well enough that when citizens of the State have been employed to work on its behalf, they are no longer free agents afterwards. The work must be carried through to the end."
"You need not fear the Cabarrus, citizen," the sybil rejoined dryly. "She'll not fail you. Her vanity is immense. She believes that the Englishman insulted her by writing that flippant letter, and she'll not leave him alone till she has had her revenge."
"No!" Chauvelin assented. "She'll not fail me. Nor thou either, citoyenne."
The old hag shrugged her shoulders.
"I?" she exclaimed, with a quiet laugh. "Is that likely? You promised me ten thousand livres the day the Scarlet Pimpernel is captured!"
"And the guillotine," Chauvelin broke in grimly, "if thou shouldst allow the woman upstairs to escape."
"I know that," the old woman rejoined dryly. "If she escapes 'twill not be through my connivance."
"In the service of the State," Chauvelin riposted, "even carelessness becomes a crime."
Catherine Théot was silent for a moment or two, pressed her thin lips together; then rejoined quite quietly:
"She'll not escape. Have no fear, citizen Chauvelin."
"That's brave! And now, tell me what has become of the coalheaver Rateau?"
"Oh, he comes and goes. You told me to encourage him."
"Yes"
"So I give him potions for his cough. He has one foot in the grave."
"Would that he had both!" Chauvelin broke in savagely. "That man is a perpetual menace to my plans. It would have been so much better if we could have sent him last April to the guillotine."
"It was in your hands," Mother Théot retorted. "The Committee reported against him. His measure was full enough. Aiding that execrable Scarlet Pimpernel to escape . . .! Name of a name! it should have been enough!"
"It was not proved that he did aid the English spies," Chauvelin retorted moodily. "And Foucquier-Tinville would not arraign him. He vowed it would anger the people—the rabble—of which Rateau himself forms an integral part. We cannot afford to anger the rabble these days, it seems."
"And so Rateau, the asthmatic coalheaver, walked out of prison a free man, whilst my neophytes were dragged up to the guillotine, and I was left without means of earning an honest livelihood!" Mother Théot concluded with a doleful sigh.
"Honest?" Chauvelin exclaimed, with a sarcastic chuckle. Then, seeing that the old witch was ready to lose her temper, he quickly added: "Tell me more about Rateau. Does he often come here?"
"Yes; very often. He must be in my anteroom now. He came directly he was let out of prison, and has haunted this place ever since. He thinks I can cure him of his asthma, and as he pays me well——"
"Pays you well?" Chauvelin broke in quickly. "That starveling?"
"Rateau is no starveling," the old woman asserted. "Many an English gold piece hath he given me."
"But not of late?"
"Not later than yesterday."
Chauvelin swore viciously.
"Then he is still in touch with that cursed Englishman!"
Mother Théot shrugged her shoulders.
"Does one ever know which is the Englishman and which the asthmatic Rateau?" she queried, with a dry laugh.
Whereupon a strange thing happened—so strange indeed that Chauvelin's next words turned to savage curses, and that Mother Théot, white to the lips, her knees shaking under her, tiny beads of perspiration rising beneath her scanty locks, had to hold on to the table to save herself from falling.
"Name of a name of a dog!" Chauvelin muttered hoarsely, whilst the old woman, shaken by that superstitious dread which she liked to arouse in her clients, could only stare at him and mutely shake her head.
And yet nothing very alarming had occurred. Only a man had laughed, light-heartedly and long; and the sound of that laughter had come from somewhere near—the next room probably, or the landing beyond Mother Théot's anteroom. It had come low and distinct, slightly muffled by the intervening wall. Nothing in truth to frighten the most nervous child!
A man had laughed. One of Mother Théot's clients probably, who in the company of a friend chose to wile away the weary hour of waiting on the sybil by hilarious conversation. Of course, that was it! Chauvelin, cursing himself now for his cowardice, passed a still shaking hand across his brow, and a wry smile distorted momentarily his thin, set lips.
"One of your clients is of good cheer," he said with well-assumed indifference.
"There is no one in the anteroom at this hour," the old hag murmured under her breath. "Only Rateau . . . and he is too scant of breath to laugh . . . he . . ."
But Chauvelin no longer heard what she had to say. With an exclamation which no one who heard it could have defined, he turned on his heel and almost ran out of the room.
The antechamber, wide and long, ran the whole length of Mother Théot's apartment. Her witch's lair and the room where she had just had her interview with Chauvelin gave directly on it on the one side, and two other living rooms on the other. At one end of the antechamber there were two windows, usually kept closely shuttered; and at the other was the main entrance door, which led to landing and staircase.
The antechamber was empty. It appeared to mock Chauvelin's excitement, with its grey-washed walls streaked with grime, its worm-eaten benches and tarnished chandelier. Mother Théot, voluble and quaking with fear, was close at his heels. Curtly he ordered her to be gone; her mutterings irritated him, her obvious fear of something unknown grated unpleasantly on his nerves. He cursed himself for his cowardice, and cursed the one man who alone in this world had the power to unnerve him.
"I was dreaming, of course," he muttered aloud to himself between his teeth. "I have that arch-devil, his laugh, his voice, his affectations, on the brain!"
He was on the point of going to the main door, in order to peer out on the landing or down the stairs, when he heard his name called immediately behind him. Theresia Cabarrus was standing under the lintel of the door which gave on the sybil's sanctum, her delicate hand holding back the portière.
"Citizen Chauvelin," she said, "I was waiting for you."
"And I, citoyenne," he retorted gruffly, "had in truth forgotten you."
"Mother Théot left me alone for a while, to commune with the spirits," she explained.
"Ah!" he riposted, slightly sarcastic. "With what result?"
"To help you further, citizen Chauvelin," she replied; "if you have need of me."
"Ah!" he exclaimed with a savage curse. "In truth, I have need of every willing hand that will raise itself against mine enemy. I have need of you, citizeness; of that old witch; of Rateau, the coalheaver; of every patriot who will sit and watch this house, to which we have brought the one bait that will lure the goldfish to our net."
"Have I not proved my willingness, citizen?" she retorted, with a smile. "Think you 'tis pleasant to give up my life, my salon, my easy, contented existence, and become a mere drudge in your service?"
"A drudge," he broke in with a chuckle, "who will soon be greater than a Queen."
"Ah, if I thought that! . . ." she exclaimed.
"I am as sure of it as that I am alive," he replied firmly. "You will never do anything with citizen Tallien, citoyenne. He is too mean, too cowardly. But bring the Scarlet Pimpernel to his knees at the chariot wheel of Robespierre, and even the crown of the Bourbons would be yours for the asking!"
"I know that, citizen," she rejoined dryly; "else I were not here."
"We hold all the winning cards," he went on eagerly. "Lady Blakeney is in our hands. So long as we hold her, we have the certainty that sooner or later the English spy will establish communication with her. Catherine Théot is a good gaoler, and Captain Boyer upstairs has a number of men under his command—veritable sleuthhounds, whose efficiency I can guarantee and whose eagerness is stimulated by the promise of a magnificent reward. But experience has taught me that accursed Scarlet Pimpernel is never so dangerous as when we think we hold him. His extraordinary histrionic powers have been our undoing hitherto. No man's eyes are keen enough to pierce his disguises. That is why, citoyenne, I dragged you to England; that is why I placed you face to face with him, and said to you, 'that is the man.' Since then, with your help, we hold the decoy. Now you are my coadjutor and my help. In your eyes I place my trust; in your wits, your instinct. In whatever guise the Scarlet Pimpernel presents himself before you—and hewillpresent himself before you, or he is no longer the impudent and reckless adventurer I know him to be!—I feel that you at least will recognise him."
"Yes; I think I should recognise him," she mused.
"Think you that I do not appreciate the sacrifice you make—the anxiety, the watchfulness to which you so nobly subject yourself? But 'tis you above all who are the lure which must inevitably attract the Scarlet Pimpernel into my hands."
"Soon, I hope," she sighed wearily.
"Soon," he asserted firmly. "I dare swear it! Until then, citizeness, in the name of your own future, and in the name of France, I adjure you to watch. Watch and listen! Oh, think of the stakes for which we are playing, you and I! Bring the Scarlet Pimpernel to his knees, citoyenne, and Robespierre will be as much your slave as he is now the prey to a strange dread of that one man. Robespierre fears the Scarlet Pimpernel. A superstitious conviction has seized hold of him that the English spy will bring about his downfall. We have all seen of late how aloof he holds himself. He no longer attends the Committees. He no longer goes to the Clubs; he shuns his friends; and his furtive glance is for ever trying to pierce some imaginary disguise, under which he alternately fears and hopes to discover his arch-enemy. He dreads assassination, anonymous attacks. In every obscure member of the Convention who walks up the steps of the tribune, he fears to find the Scarlet Pimpernel under a new, impenetrable mask. Ah, citoyenne! what influence you would have over him if through your agency all those fears could be drowned in the blood of that abominable Englishman!"
"Now, who would have thought that?" a mocking voice broke in suddenly, with a quiet chuckle. "I vow, my dear M. Chambertin, you are waxing more eloquent than ever before!"
Like the laughter of a while ago, the voice seemed to come from nowhere. It was in the air, muffled by the clouds of Mother Théot's perfumes, or by the thickness of doors and tapestries. Weird, yet human.
"By Satan, this is intolerable!" Chauvelin exclaimed, and paying no heed to Theresia's faint cry of terror, he ran to the main door. It was on the latch. He tore it open and dashed out upon the landing.
From here a narrow stone staircase, dank and sombre, led downwards as well as upwards, in a spiral. The house had only the two stories, perched above some disused and dilapidated storage-rooms, to which a double outside door and wicket gave access from the street.
The staircase received its only light from a small window high up in the roof, the panes of which were coated with grime, so that the well of the stairs, especially past the first-floor landing, was almost in complete gloom. For an instant Chauvelin hesitated. Never a coward physically, he yet had no mind to precipitate himself down a dark staircase when mayhap his enemy was lying in wait for him down below.
Only for an instant however. The very next second had brought forth the positive reflection: "Bah! Assassination, and in the dark, are not the Englishman's ways."
Scarce a few yards from where he stood, the other side of the door, was the dry moat which ran round the Arsenal. From there, at a call from him, a dozen men and more would surge from the ground—sleuthhounds, as he had told Theresia a moment ago, who were there on the watch and whom he could trust to do his work swiftly and securely—if only he could reach the door and call for help. Elusive as that accursed Pimpernel was, successful chase might even now be given to him.
Chauvelin ran down half a dozen steps, peered down the shaft of the staircase, and spied a tiny light, which moved swiftly to and fro. Then presently, below the light a bit of tallow candle, then a grimy hand holding the candle, an arm, the top of a shaggy head crowned by a greasy red cap, a broad back under a tattered blue jersey. He heard the thump of heavy soles upon the stone flooring below, and a moment or two later the weird, sepulchral sound of a churchyard cough. Then the light disappeared. For a second or two the darkness appeared more impenetrably dense; then one or two narrow streaks of daylight showed the position of the outside door. Something prompted him to call:
"Is that you, citizen Rateau?"
It was foolish, of course. And the very next moment he had his answer. A voice—the mocking voice he knew so well—called up to him in reply:
"At your service, dear M. Chambertin! Can I do anything for you?"
Chauvelin swore, threw all prudence to the winds, and ran down the stairs as fast as his shaking knees would allow him. Some three steps from the bottom he paused for the space of a second, like one turned to stone by what he saw. Yet it was simple enough: just the same tiny light, the grimy hand holding the tallow candle, the shaggy head with the greasy red cap. . . . The figure in the gloom looked preternaturally large, and the flickering light threw fantastic shadows on the face and neck of the colossus, distorting the nose to a grotesque length and the chin to weird proportions.
The next instant Chauvelin gave a cry like an enraged bull and hurled his meagre person upon the giant, who, shaken at the moment by a tearing fit of coughing, was taken unawares and fell backwards, overborne by the impact, dropping the light as he fell and still wheezing pitiably whilst trying to give vent to his feelings by vigorous curses.
Chauvelin, vaguely surprised at his own strength or the weakness of his opponent, pressed his knee against the latter's chest, gripped him by the throat, smothering his curses and wheezes, turning the funereal cough into agonised gasps.
"At my service, in truth, my gallant Pimpernel!" he murmured hoarsely, feeling his small reserve of strength oozing away by the strenuous effort. "What you can do for me? Wait here, until I have you bound and gagged, safe against further mischief!"
His victim had in fact given a last convulsive gasp, lay now at full length upon the stone floor, with arms outstretched, motionless. Chauvelin relaxed his grip. His strength was spent, he was bathed in sweat, his body shook from head to foot. But he was triumphant! His mocking enemy, carried away by his own histrionics, had overtaxed his colossal strength. The carefully simulated fit of coughing had taken away his breath at the critical moment; the surprise attack had done the rest; and Chauvelin—meagre, feeble, usually the merest human insect beside the powerful Englishman—had conquered by sheer pluck and resource.
There lay the Scarlet Pimpernel, who had assumed the guise of asthmatic Rateau once too often, helpless and broken beneath the weight of the man whom he had hoodwinked and derided. And now at last all the intrigues, the humiliations, the schemes and the disappointments, were at an end. He—Chauvelin—free and honoured: Robespierre his grateful servant.
A wave of dizziness passed over his brain—the dizziness of coming glory. His senses reeled. When he staggered to his feet he could scarcely stand. The darkness was thick around him; only two streaks of daylight at right angles to one another came through the chinks of the outside door and vaguely illumined the interior of the dilapidated store-room, the last step or two of the winding stairway, the row of empty barrels on one side, the pile of rubbish on the other, and on the stone floor the huge figure in grimy and tattered rags, lying prone and motionless. Guided by those streaks of light, Chauvelin lurched up to the door, fumbled for the latch of the wicket-gate, and finding it pulled the gate open and almost fell out into the open.
The Rue de la Planchette was as usual lonely and deserted. It was a second or two before Chauvelin spied a passer-by. That minute he spent in calling for help with all his might. The passer-by he quickly dispatched across to the Arsenal for assistance.
"In the name of the Republic!" he said solemnly.
But already his cries had attracted the attention of the sentries. Within two or three minutes, half a dozen men of the National Guard were speeding down the street. Soon they had reached the house, the door where Chauvelin, still breathless but with his habitual official manner that brooked of no argument, gave them hasty instructions.
"The man lying on the ground in there," he commanded. "Seize him and raise him. Then one of you find some cord and bind him securely."
The men flung the double doors wide open. A flood of light illumined the store-room. There lay the huge figure on the floor, no longer motionless, but trying to scramble to its feet, once more torn by a fit of coughing. The men ran up to him; one of them laughed.
"Why, if it isn't old Rateau!"
They lifted him up by his arms. He was helpless as a child, and his face was of a dull purple colour.
"He will die!" another man said, with an indifferent shrug of the shoulders.
But, in a way, they were sorry for him. He was one of themselves. Nothing of the aristo about asthmatic old Rateau!
"Hast thou been playing again at being an English milor, poor old Rateau?" another man asked compassionately.
They had succeeded in propping him up and sitting him down upon a barrel His fit of coughing was subsiding. He had breath enough now to swear. He raised his head and encountered the pale eyes of citizen Chauvelin fixed as if sightlessly upon him.
"Name of a dog!" he began; but got no farther. Giddiness seized him, for he was weak from coughing and from that strangling grip round his throat, after he had been attacked in the darkness and thrown violently to the ground.
The men around him recoiled at sight of citizen Chauvelin. His appearance was almost death-like. His cheeks and lips were livid; his hair dishevelled; his eyes of an unearthly paleness. One hand, claw-like and shaking, he held out before him, as if to ward off some horrible apparition.
This trance-like state made up of a ghastly fear and a sense of the most hideous, most unearthly impotence, lasted for several seconds. The men themselves were frightened. Unable to understand what had happened, they thought that citizen Chauvelin, whom they all knew by sight, had suddenly lost his reason or was possessed of a devil. For in truth there was nothing about poor old Rateau to frighten a child!
Fortunately the tension was over before real panic had seized on any of them. The next moment Chauvelin had pulled himself together with one of those mighty efforts of will of which strong natures are always capable. With an impatient gesture he passed his hand across his brow, then backwards and forwards in front of his face, as if to chase away the demon of terror that obsessed him. He gazed on Rateau for a moment or two, his eyes travelling over the uncouth, semi-conscious figure of the coalheaver with a searching, undefinable glance. Then, as if suddenly struck with an idea, he spoke to the man nearest him:
"Sergeant Chazot? Is he at the Arsenal?"
"Yes, citizen," the man replied.
"Run across quickly then," Chauvelin continued; "and bring him hither at once."
The soldier obeyed, and a few more minutes—ten, perhaps—went by in silence. Rateau, weary, cursing, not altogether in full possession of his faculties, sat huddled upon the barrel, his bleary eyes following every movement of citizen Chauvelin with an anxious, furtive gaze. The latter was pacing up and down the stone floor, like a caged, impatient animal. From time to time he paused, either to peer out into the open in the direction of the Arsenal, or to search the dark angles of the store-room, kicking the piles of rubbish about with his foot.
Anon he uttered a sigh of satisfaction. The soldier had returned, was even now in the doorway with a comrade—a short, thick-set, powerful-looking fellow—beside him.
"Sergeant Chazot!" Chauvelin said abruptly.
"At your commands, citizen!" the sergeant replied, and at a sign from the other followed him to the most distant corner of the room.
"Bend your ear and listen," Chauvelin murmured peremptorily. "I don't want those fools to hear." And, having assured himself that he and Chazot could speak without being overheard, he pointed to Rateau, then went on rapidly: "You will take this lout over to the cavalry barracks. See the veterinary. Tell him——"
He paused, as if unable to proceed. His lips were trembling, his face, ashen-white, looked spectral in the gloom. Chazot, not understanding, waited patiently.
"That lout," Chauvelin resumed more steadily after a while, "is in collusion with a gang of dangerous English spies. One Englishman especially—tall, and a master of histrionics—uses this man as a kind of double. Perhaps you heard . . .?"
Chazot nodded.
"I know, citizen," he said sagely. "The Fraternal Supper in the Rue St. Honoré. Comrades have told me that no one could tell who was Rateau the coalheaver and who the English milor."
"Exactly!" Chauvelin rejoined dryly, quite firmly now. "Therefore, I want to make sure. The veterinary, you understand? He brands the horses for the cavalry. I want a brand on this lout's arm. Just a letter . . . a distinguishing mark . . ."
Chazot gave an involuntary gasp.
"But, citizen——!" he exclaimed.
"Eh? What?" the other retorted sharply. "In the service of the Republic there is no 'but,' sergeant Chazot."
"I know that, citizen," Chazot, abashed, murmured humbly. "I only meant . . . it seems so strange . . ."
"Stranger things than that occur every day in Paris, my friend," Chauvelin said dryly. "We brand horses that are the property of the State; why not a man? Time may come," he added with a vicious snarl, "when the Republic may demand that every loyal citizen carry—indelibly branded in his flesh and by order of the State—the sign of his own allegiance."
"'Tis not for me to argue, citizen," Chazot rejoined, with a careless shrug of the shoulders. "If you tell me to take citizen Rateau over to the veterinary at the cavalry barracks and have him branded like cattle, why . . ."
"Not like cattle, citizen," Chauvelin broke in blandly. "You shall commence proceedings by administering to citizen Rateau a whole bottle of excellent eau de vie, at the Government's expense. Then, when he is thoroughly and irretrievably drunk, the veterinary will put the brand upon his left forearm . . . just one letter. . . . Why, the drunken reprobate will never feel it!"
"As you command, citizen," Chazot assented with perfect indifference. "I am not responsible. I do as I'm told."
"Like the fine soldier that you are, citizen Chazot!" Chauvelin concluded. "And I know that I can trust to your discretion."
"Oh, as to that——!"
"It would not serve you to be otherwise; that's understood. So now, my friend, get you gone with the lout; and take these few words of instruction with you, for the citizen veterinary."
He took tablet and point from his pocket and scribbled a few words; signed it "Chauvelin" with that elegant flourish which can be traced to this day on so many secret orders that emanated from the Committee of Public Safety during the two years of its existence.
Chazot took the written order and slipped it into his pocket. Then he turned on his heel and briefly gave the necessary orders to the men. Once more they hoisted the helpless giant up on his feet. Rateau was willing enough to go. He was willing to do anything so long as they took him away from here, away from the presence of that small devil with the haggard face and the pale, piercing eyes. He allowed himself to be conducted out of the building without a murmur.
Chauvelin watched the little party—the six men, the asthmatic coalheaver and lastly the sergeant—file out of the place, then cross the Rue de la Planchette and take the turning opposite, the one that led through the Porte and the Rue St. Antoine to the cavalry barracks in the Quartier Bastille. After which, he carefully closed the double outside doors and, guided by instinct since the place down here was in darkness once more, he groped his way to the foot of the stairs and slowly mounted to the floor above.
He reached the first-floor landing. The door which led into Mother Théot's apartments was on the latch, and Chauvelin had just stretched out his hand with a view to pushing it open, when the door swung out on its hinges, as if moved by an invisible hand, and a pleasant, mocking voice immediately behind him said, with grave politeness:
"Allow me, my dear M. Chambertin!"
What occurred during the next few seconds Chauvelin himself would have been least able to say. Whether he stepped of his own accord into the antechamber of Catherine Théot's apartment, or whether an unseen hand pushed him in, he could not have told you. Certain it is that, when he returned to the full realisation of things, he was sitting on one of the benches, his back against the wall, whilst immediately in front of him, looking down on him through half-closed, lazy eyes, débonnair, well groomed, unperturbed, stood his arch-enemy, Sir Percy Blakeney.
The antechamber was gloomy in the extreme. Some one in the interval had lighted the tallow candles in the centre chandelier, and these shed a feeble, flickering light on the dank, bare walls, the carpetless floor, the shuttered windows; whilst a thin spiral of evil-smelling smoke wound its way to the blackened ceiling above.
Of Theresia Cabarrus there was not a sign. Chauvelin looked about him, feeling like a goaded animal shut up in a narrow space with its tormentor. He was making desperate efforts to regain his composure, above all he made appeal to that courage which was wont never to desert him. In truth, Chauvelin had never been a physical coward, nor was he afraid of death or outrage at the hands of the man whom he had so deeply wronged, and whom he had pursued with a veritable lust of hate. No! he did not fear death at the hands of the Scarlet Pimpernel. What he feared was ridicule, humiliation, those schemes—bold, adventurous, seemingly impossible—which he knew were already seething behind the smooth, unruffled brow of his arch-enemy, behind those lazy, supercilious eyes, which had the power to irritate his nerves to the verge of dementia.
This impudent adventurer—no better than a spy, despite his aristocratic mien and air of lofty scorn—this meddlesome English brigand, was the one man in the world who had, when he measured his prowess against him, invariably brought him to ignominy and derision, made him a laughing-stock before those whom he had been wont to dominate; and at this moment, when once again he was being forced to look into those strangely provoking eyes, he appraised their glance as he would the sword of a proved adversary, and felt as he did so just that same unaccountable dread of them which had so often paralysed his limbs and atrophied his brain whenever mischance flung him into the presence of his enemy.
He could not understand why Theresia Cabarrus had deserted him. Even a woman, if she happened to be a friend, would by her presence have afforded him moral support.
"You are looking for Mme. de Fontenay, I believe, dear M. Chambertin," Sir Percy said lightly, as if divining his thoughts. "The ladies—ah, the ladies! They add charm, piquancy, eh? to the driest conversations. Alas!" he went on with mock affectation, "that Mme. de Fontenay should have fled at first sound of my voice! Now she hath sought refuge in the old witch's lair, there to consult the spirits as to how best she can get out again, seeing that the door is now locked. . . . Demmed awkward, a locked door, when a pretty woman wants to be on the other side. What think you, M. Chambertin?"
"I only think, Sir Percy," Chauvelin contrived to retort, calling all his wits and all his courage to aid him in his humiliating position, "I only think of another pretty woman, who is in the room just above our heads, and who would also be mightily glad to find herself the other side of a locked door."
"Your thoughts," Sir Percy retorted with a light laugh, "are always so ingenuous, my dear M. Chambertin. Strangely enough, mine just at this moment run on the possibility—not a very unlikely one, you will admit—of shaking the breath out of your ugly little body, as I would that of a rat."
"Shake, my dear Sir Percy, shake!" Chauvelin riposted with well-simulated calm. "I grant you that I am a puny rat and you the most magnificent of lions; but even if I lie mangled and breathless on this stone floor at your feet, Lady Blakeney will still be a prisoner in our hands."
"And you will still be wearing the worst-cut pair of breeches it has ever been my bad fortune to behold," Sir Percy retorted, quite unruffled. "Lud love you, man! Have you guillotined all the good tailors in Paris?"
"You choose to be flippant, Sir Percy," Chauvelin rejoined dryly. "But, though you have chosen for the past few years to play the rôle of a brainless nincompoop, I have cause to know that behind your affectations there lurks an amount of sound common sense."
"Lud, how you flatter me, my dear sir!" quoth Sir Percy airily. "I vow you had not so high an opinion of me the last time I had the honour of conversing with you. It was at Nantes; do you remember?"
"There, as elsewhere, you succeeded in circumventing me. Sir Percy."
"No, no!" he protested. "Not in circumventing you. Only in making you look a demmed fool!"
"Call it that, if you like, sir," Chauvelin admitted with an indifferent shrug of the shoulders. "Luck has favoured you many a time. As I had the honour to tell you, you have had the laugh of us in the past, and no doubt you are under the impression that you will have it again this time."
"I am such a believer in impressions, my dear sir. The impression now that I have of your charming personality is indelibly graven upon my memory."
"Sir Percy Blakeney counts a good memory as one of his many accomplishments. Another is his adventurous spirit, and the gallantry which must inevitably bring him into the net which we have been at pains to spread for him. Lady Blakeney——"
"Name her not, man!" Sir Percy broke in with affected deliberation; "or I verily believe that within sixty seconds you would be a dead man!"
"I am not worthy to speak her name, c'est entendu," Chauvelin retorted with mock humility. "Nevertheless, Sir Percy, it is around the person of that gracious lady that the Fates will spin their web during the next few days. You may kill me. Of course, I am at this moment entirely at your mercy. But before you embark on such a perilous undertaking, will you allow me to place the position a little more clearly before you?"
"Lud, man!" quoth Sir Percy with a quaint laugh. "That's what I'm here for! Think you that I have sought your agreeable company for the mere pleasure of gazing at your amiable countenance?"
"I only desired to explain to you, Sir Percy, the dangers to which you expose Lady Blakeney, if you laid violent hands; upon ma 'Tis you, remember, who sought this interview—not I."
"You are right, my dear sir, always right; and I'll not interrupt again. I pray you to proceed."
"Allow me then to make my point clear. There are at this moment a score of men of the National Guard in the room above your head. Every one of them goes to the guillotine if they allow their prisoner to escape; every one of them receives a reward of ten thousand livres the day they capture the Scarlet Pimpernel. A good spur for vigilance, what? But that is not all," Chauvelin went on quite steadily, seeing that Sir Percy had apparently become thoughtful and absorbed. "The men are under the command of Captain Boyer, and he understands that every day at a certain hour—seven in the evening, to be precise—I will be with him and interrogate him as to the welfare of the prisoner. If—mark me, Sir Percy!—if on any one day I do not appear before him at that hour, his orders are to shoot the prisoner on sight. . . ."
The word was scarce out of his mouth; it broke in a hoarse spasm. Sir Percy had him by the throat, shook him indeed as he would a rat.
"You cur!" he said in an ominous whisper, his face quite close now to that of his enemy, his jaw set, his eyes no longer good-humoured and mildly scornful, but burning with the fire of a mighty, unbridled wrath. "You damned—insolent—miserable cur! As there is a Heaven above us——"
Then suddenly his grip relaxed, the whole face changed as if an unseen hand had swept away the fierce lines of anger and of hate. The eyes softened beneath their heavy lids, the set lips broke into a mocking smile. He let go his hold of the Terrorist's throat; and the unfortunate man, panting and breathless, fell heavily against the wall. He tried to steady himself as best he could, but his knees were shaking, and faint and helpless, he finally collapsed upon the nearest bench, the while Sir Percy straightened out his tall figure, with unruffled composure rubbed his slender hands one against the other, as if to free them from dust, and said, with gentle, good-humoured sarcasm:
"Do put your cravat straight, man! You look a disgusting object!"
He dragged the corner of a bench forward, sat astride upon it, and waited with perfect sang-froid, spy-glass in hand, while Chauvelin mechanically readjusted the set of his clothes.
"That's better," he said approvingly. "Just the bow at the back of your neck . . . a little more to the right . . . now your cuffs. . . . Ah, you look quite tidy again! . . . a perfect picture, I vow, my dear M. Chambertin, of elegance and of a well-regulated mind!"
"Sir Percy——!" Chauvelin broke in with a vicious snarl.
"I entreat you to accept my apologies," the other rejoined with utmost courtesy. "I was on the verge of losing my temper, which we in England would call demmed bad form. I'll not transgress again. I pray you, proceed with what you were saying. So interesting—demmed interesting! You were talking about murdering a woman in cold blood, I think——"
"In hot blood, Sir Percy," Chauvelin rejoined more firmly. "Blood fired by thoughts of a just revenge."
"Pardon! My mistake! As you were saying——"
"'Tis you who attack us. You—the meddlesome Scarlet Pimpernel, with your accursed gang! . . . We defend ourselves as best we can, using what weapons lie closest to our hand——"
"Such as murder, outrage, abduction . . . and wearing breeches the cut of which would provoke a saint to indignation!"
"Murder, abduction, outrage, as you will, Sir Percy," Chauvelin retorted, as cool now as his opponent. "Had you ceased to interfere in the affairs of France when first you escaped punishment for your machinations, you would not now be in the sorry plight in which your own intrigues have at last landed you. Had you left us alone, we should by now have forgotten you."
"Which would have been such a pity, my dear M. Chambertin," Blakeney rejoined gravely. "I should not like you to forget me. Believe me, I have enjoyed life so much these past two years,'I would not give up those pleasures even for that of seeing you and your friends have a bath or wear tidy buckles on your shoes."
"You will have cause to indulge in those pleasures within the next few days, Sir Percy," Chauvelin rejoined dryly.
"What?" Sir Percy exclaimed. "The Committee of Public Safety going to have a bath? Or the Revolutionary Tribunal? Which?"
But Chauvelin was determined not to lose his temper again. Indeed, he abhorred this man so deeply that he felt no anger against him, no resentment; only a cold, calculating hate.
"The pleasure of pitting your wits against the inevitable," he riposted dryly.
"Ah?" quoth Sir Percy airily. "The inevitable has always been such a good friend to me."
"Not this time, I fear, Sir Percy."
"Ah? You really mean this time to——?" and he made a significant gesture across his own neck.
"In as few days as possible."
Whereupon Sir Percy rose, and said solemnly:
"You are right there, my friend, quite right. Delays are always dangerous. If you mean to have my head, why—have it quickly. As for me, delays always bore me to tears."
He yawned and stretched his long limbs.
"I am getting so demmed fatigued," he said. "Do you not think this conversation has lasted quite long enough?"
"It was none of my seeking, Sir Percy."
"Mine, I grant you; mine, absolutely! But, hang it, man! I had to tell you that your breeches were badly cut."
"And I, that we are at your service, to end the business as soon as may be."
"To——?" And once more Sir Percy passed his firm hand across his throat. Then he gave a shudder.
"B-r-r-r!" he exclaimed. "I had no idea you were in such a demmed hurry."
"We await your pleasure, Sir Percy. Lady Blakeney must not be kept in suspense too long. Shall we say that in three days . . .?"
"Make it four, my dear M. Chambertin, and I am eternally your debtor."
"In four days then, Sir Percy," Chauvelin rejoined with pronounced sarcasm. "You see how ready I am to meet you in a spirit of conciliation! Four days, you say? Very well then; for four days more we keep our prisoner in those rooms upstairs. . . . After that——"
He paused, awed mayhap, in spite of himself, by the diabolical thought which had suddenly come into his mind—a sudden inspiration which in truth must have emanated from some unclean spirit with which he held converse. He looked the Scarlet Pimpernel—his enemy—squarely in the face. Conscious of his power, he was no longer afraid. What he longed for most at this moment was to see the least suspicion of a shadow dim the mocking light that danced in those lazy, supercilious eyes, or the merest tremor pass over the slender hand framed in priceless Mechlin lace.
For a while complete silence reigned in the bare, dank room—a silence broken only by the stertorous, rapid breathing of the one man who appeared moved. That man was not Sir Percy Blakeney. He indeed had remained quite still, spy-glass in hand, the good-humoured smile still dancing round his lips. Somewhere in the far distance a church clock struck the hour. Then only did Chauvelin put his full fiendish project into words.
"For four days," he reiterated with slow deliberation, "We keep our prisoner in the room upstairs. . . . After that, Captain Boyer has orders to shoot her."
Again there was silence—only for a second perhaps; whilst down by the Stygian creek, where Time never was, the elfish ghouls and impish demons set up a howl of delight at the hellish knavery of man.
Just one second, whilst Chauvelin waited for his enemy's answer to this monstrous pronouncement, and the very walls of the drabby apartment appeared to listen, expectant. Overhead, could be dimly heard the measured tramp of heavy feet upon the uncarpeted floor. And suddenly through the bare apartment there rang the sound of a quaint, light-hearted laugh.
"You really are the worst-dressed man I have ever come across, my good M. Chambertin," Sir Percy said with rare good-humour. "You must allow me to give you the address of a good little tailor I came across in the Latin quarter the other day. No decent man would be seen walking up the guillotine in such a waistcoat as you are wearing. As for your boots——" He yawned again. "You really must excuse me! I came home late from the theatre last night, and have not had my usual hours of sleep. So, by your leave——"
"By all means, Sir Percy!" Chauvelin replied complacently. "At this moment you are a free man, because I happen to be alone and unarmed, and because this house is solidly built and my voice would not carry to the floor above. Also because you are so nimble that no doubt you could give me the slip long before Captain Boyer and his men came to my rescue. Yes, Sir Percy; for the moment you are a free man! Free to walk out of this house unharmed. But even now, you are not as free as you would wish to be, eh? You are free to despise me, to overwhelm me with lofty scorn, to sharpen your wits at my expense; but you are not free to indulge your desire to squeeze the life out of me, to shake me as you would a rat And shall I tell you why? Because you know now that if at a certain hour of the day I do not pay my daily visit to Captain Boyer upstairs, he will shoot his prisoner without the least compunction."
Whereupon Blakeney threw up his head and laughed heartily.
"You are absolutely priceless, my dear M. Chambertin!" he said gaily. "But you really must put your cravat straight. It has once again become disarranged . . . in the heat of your oratory, no doubt . . . Allow me to offer you a pin."
And with inimitable affectation, he took a pin out of his own cravat and presented it to Chauvelin, who, unable to control his wrath, jumped to his feet.
"Sir Percy——!" he snarled.
But Blakeney placed a gentle, Arm hand upon his shoulder, forcing him to sit down again.
"Easy, easy, my friend," he said. "Do not, I pray you, lose that composure for which you are so justly famous. There! Allow me to arrange your cravat for you. A gentle tug here," he added, suiting the action to the word, "a delicate flick there, and you are the most perfectly cravatted man in France!"
"Your insults leave me unmoved, Sir Percy," Chauvelin broke in savagely, and tried to free himself from the touch of those slender, strong hands that wandered so uncomfortably in the vicinity of his throat.
"No doubt," Blakeney riposted lightly, "that they are as futile as your threats. One does not insult a cur, any more than one threatens Sir Percy Blakeney—what?"
"You are right there, Sir Percy. The time for threats has gone by. And since you appear so vastly entertained——"
"Iamvastly entertained, my dear M. Chambertin! How can I help it, when I see before me a miserable shred of humanity who does not even know how to keep his tie or his hair smooth, calmly—or almost calmly—talking of——Let me see, what were you talking of, my amiable friend?"
"Of the hostage, Sir Percy, which we hold until the happy day when the gallant Scarlet Pimpernel is a prisoner in our hands."
"'M, yes! He was that once before, was he not, my good sir? Then, too, you laid down mighty schemes for his capture."
"And we succeeded."
"By your usual amiable methods—lies, deceit, forgery. The latter has been useful to you this time too, eh?"
"What do you mean, Sir Percy?"
"You had need of the assistance of a fair lady for your schemes. She appeared disinclined to help you. So when her inconvenient lover, Bertrand Moncrif, was happily dragged away from her path, you forged a letter, which the lady rightly looked upon as an insult. Because of that letter, she nourished a comfortable amount of spite against me, and lent you her aid in the fiendish outrage for which you are about to receive punishment." He had raised his voice slightly while he spoke, and Chauvelin cast an apprehensive glance in the direction of the door behind which he guessed that Theresia Cabarrus must be straining her ears to listen.
"A pretty story, Sir Percy," he said with affected coolness. "And one that does infinite credit to your imagination. It is mere surmise on your part."
"What, my friend? What is surmise? That you gave a letter to Madame de Fontenay which you had concocted, and which I had never written? Why, man," he added with a laugh, "I saw you do it!"
"You? Impossible!"
"More impossible things than that will happen within the next few days, my good sir. I was outside the window of Madame de Fontenay's apartment during the whole of your interview with her. And the shutters were not as closely fastened as you would have wished. But why argue about it, my dear M. Chambertin, when you know quite well that I have given you a perfectly accurate exposé of the means which you employed to make a pretty and spoilt woman help you in your nefarious work?"
"Why argue, indeed?" Chauvelin retorted dryly. "The past is past. I'll answer to my country which you outrage by your machinations, for the methods which I employ to circumvent them. Your concern and mine, my gallant friend, is solely with the future—with the next four days, in fact. . . . After which, either the Scarlet Pimpernel is in our hands, or Lady Blakeney will be put against the wall upstairs and summarily shot."
Then only did something of his habitual lazy nonchalance go out of Blakeney's attitude. Just for the space of a few seconds he drew himself up to his full magnificent height, and from the summit of his splendid audacity and the consciousness of his own power he looked down at the mean cringing figure of the enemy who had hurled this threat of death against the woman he worshipped. Chauvelin vainly tried to keep up some semblance of dignity; he tried to meet the glance which no longer mocked, and to close his ears to the voice which, sonorous and commanding, now threatened in its turn.
"And you really believe," Sir Percy Blakeney said slowly and deliberately, "that you have the power to carry through your infamous schemes? That I—yes, I!—would allow you! to come within measurable distance of their execution? Bah! my dear friend. You have learned nothing by past experience—not even this: that when you dared to lay your filthy hands upon Lady Blakeney, you and the whole pack of assassins who have terrorized this beautiful country far too long, struck the knell of your ultimate doom. You have dared to measure your strength against mine by perpetrating an outrage so monstrous in my sight that, to punish you, I—even I!—will sweep you off the face of the earth and send you to join the pack of unclean ghouls who have aided you in your crimes. After which—thank the lord!—the earth, being purged of your presence, will begin to smell sweetly again."
Chauvelin made a vain effort to laugh, to shrug his shoulders, to put on those airs of insolence which came so naturally to his opponent. No doubt the strain of this long interview with his enemy had told upon his nerves. Certain it is that at this moment, though he was conscious enough to rail inwardly at his own cowardice, he was utterly unable to move or to retort. His limbs felt heavy as lead, an icy shudder was coursing down his spine. It seemed in truth as if some uncanny ghoul had entered the dreary, dank apartment and with gaunt, invisible hand was tolling a silent passing bell—the death-knell of all his ambitions and of all his hopes. He closed his eyes, for he felt giddy and sick. When he opened his eyes again he was alone.
Chauvelin had not yet regained full possession of his faculties, when a few seconds later he saw Theresia Cabarrus glide swiftly across the antechamber. She appeared to him like a ghost—a pixie who had found her way through a keyhole. But she threw him a glance of contempt that was very human, very feminine indeed, and the next moment she was gone.
Outside on the landing she paused. Straining her ears, she caught the sound of a firm footfall slowly descending the stairs. She ran down a few steps, then called softly:
"Milor!"
The footsteps paused, and a pleasant voice gave quiet reply:
"At your service, fair lady!"
Theresia, shrewd as well as brave, continued to descend. She was not in the least afraid. Instinct had told her before now that no woman need ever have the slightest fear of that elegant milor with the quaint laugh and gently mocking mien, whom she had learned to know over in England.
Midway down the stairs she came face to face with him, and when she paused, panting, a little breathless with excitement, he said with perfect courtesy:
"You did me the honour to call me, Madame?"
"Yes, milor," she replied in a quick, eager whisper. "I heard every word that passed between you and citizen Chauvelin."
"Of course you did, dear lady," he rejoined with a smile. "If a woman once resisted the temptation of putting a shell-like ear to a keyhole, the world would lose many a cause for entertainment."
"That letter, milor——" she broke in impatiently.
"Which letter, Madame?"
"That insulting letter to me . . . when you took Moncrif away. . . . You never wrote it?"
"Did you really think that I did?" he retorted.
"No. I ought to have guessed . . . the moment that I saw you in England. . . ."
"And realised that I was not a cad—what?"
"Oh, milor!" she protested. "But why—why did you not tell me before?"
"It had escaped my memory. And if I remember rightly, you spent most of the time when I had the honour of walking with you, in giving me elaborate and interesting accounts of your difficulties, and I, in listening to them."
"Oh!" she exclaimed vehemently. "I hate that man! I hate him!"
"In truth, he is not a lovable personality. But, by your leave, I presume that you did not desire to speak with me so that we might discuss our friend Chauvelin's amiable qualities."
"No, no, milor!" she rejoined quickly. "I called to you because——"
Then she paused for a moment or two, as if to collect her thoughts. Her eager eyes strove to pierce the bloom that enveloped the figure of the bold adventurer. She could only see the dim outline of his powerful figure, the light from above striking on his smooth hair, the elegantly tied bow at the nape of his neck, the exquisite filmy lace at his throat and wrists. His head was slightly bent, one arm in a curve supported his chapeau-bras, his whole attitude was one befitting a salon rather than this dank hovel, where death was even now at his elbow; it was as cool and unperturbed as it had been on that May-day evening, in the hawthorn-scented lanes of Kent.
"Milor," she said abruptly, "you told me once—you remember?—that you were what you English call a sportsman. Is that so?"
"I hope always to remain that, dear lady," he replied with a smile.
"Does that mean," she queried, with a pretty air of deference and hesitation, "does that mean a man who would under no circumstances harm a woman?"
"I think so."
"Not even if she—if she has sinned—transgressed against him?"
"I don't quite understand, Madame," he rejoined simply. "And, time being short—— Are you perchance speaking of yourself?"
"Yes. I have done you an injury, milor."
"A very great one indeed," he assented gravely.
"Could you," she pleaded, raising earnest, tear-filled eyes to his, "could you bring yourself to believe that I have been nothing but a miserable, innocent tool?"
"So was the lady upstairs innocent, Madame," he broke in quietly.
"I know," she retorted with a sigh. "I know. I would never dare to plead, as you must hate me so."
He shrugged his shoulders with an air of carelessness.
"Oh!" he said. "Does a man ever hate a pretty woman?"
"He forgives her, milor," she entreated, "if he is a true sportsman."
"Indeed? You astonish me, dear lady. But in verity you all in this unhappy country are full of surprises for a plain, blunt-headed Britisher. Now what, I wonder," he added, with a light, good-humoured laugh, "would my forgiveness be worth to you?"
"Everything!" she replied earnestly. "I was deceived by that abominable liar, who knew how to play upon a woman's pique. I am ashamed, wretched. . . . Oh, cannot you believe me? And I would give worlds to atone!"
He laughed in his quiet, gently ironical way.
"You do not happen to possess worlds, dear lady. All that you have is youth and beauty and ambition, and life. You would forfeit all those treasures if you really tried to atone."
"But——"
"Lady Blakeney is a prisoner. . . . You are her jailer. . . . Her precious life is the hostage for yours."
"Milor——" she murmured.
"From my heart, I wish you well, fair one," he broke in lightly. "Believe me, the pagan gods that fashioned you did not design you for tragedy. . . . And if you ran counter to your friend Chauvelin's desires, I fear me that pretty neck of yours would suffer. A thing to be avoided at all costs! And now," he added, "have I your permission to go? My position here is somewhat precarious, and for the next four days I cannot afford the luxury of entertaining so fair a lady, by running my head into a noose."
He was on the point of going when she placed a restraining hand upon his arm.
"Milor!" she pleaded.
"At your service, dear lady!"
"Is there naught I can do for you?"
He looked at her for a moment or two, and even through the gloom she caught his quizzical look and the mocking lines around his firm lips.
"You can ask Lady Blakeney to forgive you," he said, with a thought more seriousness than was habitual to him, "She is an angel; she might do it."
"And if she does?"
"She will know what to do, to convey her thoughts to me."
"Nay! but I'll do more than that, milor," Theresia continued excitedly. "I will tell her that I shall pray night and day for your deliverance and hers. I will tell her that I have seen you, and that you are well."
"Ah, if you did that——!" he exclaimed, almost involuntarily.
"You would forgive me, too?" she pleaded.
"I would do more than that, fair one. I would make you Queen of France, in all but name."
"What do you mean?" she murmured.
"That I would then redeem the promise which I made to you that evening, in the lane—outside Dover. Do you remember?"
She made no reply, closed her eyes; and her vivid fancy, rendered doubly keen by the mystery which seemed to encompass him as with a supernal mantle, conjured up the vision of that unforgettable evening: the moonlight, the scent of the hawthorn, the call of the thrush. She saw him stooping before her, and kissing her finger-tips, even whilst her ears recalled every word he had spoken and every inflexion of his mocking voice:
"Let me rather put it differently, dear lady," he had said then. "One day the exquisite Theresia Cabarrus, the Egeria of the Terrorists, the fiancée of the great Tallien, might need the help of the Scarlet Pimpernel."
And she, angered, piqued by his coolness, thirsting for revenge for the insult which she believed he had put upon her, had then protested earnestly:
"I would sooner die," she had boldly asserted, "than seek your help, milor!"
And now, at this hour, here in this house where Death lurked in every corner, she could still hear his retort: "Here in Dover, perhaps. . . . But in France?"