For hours citizen Tallien sat in the dark, on the staircase outside Theresia's door, his head buried in his hands. The grey dawn, livid and chill, which came peeping in through the skylight overhead found him still sitting there stiff and numb with cold.
Whether what happened after that was part of a dream he never knew. Certain it is that presently something extraneous appeared to rouse him. He sat up and listened, leaned his back against the wall, for he was very tired. Then he heard—or thought he heard—firm, swift steps on the stairs, and soon after saw the figures of two men coming up the stairs. Both the men were very tall, one of them unusually so, and the ghostly light of dawn made him appear unreal and mysterious. He was dressed with marvellous elegance; his smooth, fair hair was tied at the nape of the neck with a satin bow; soft, billowy lace gleamed at his wrists and throat, and his hands were exquisitely white and slender. Both the men wore huge coats of fine cloth, adorned with many capes, and boots of fine leather, perfectly cut.
They paused on the vestibule outside the door of Theresia's apartment, and appeared to be studying the official seals affixed upon the door. Then one of them—the taller of the two—took a knife out of his pocket and cut through the tapes which held the seals together. Then together they stepped coolly into the apartment.
Tallien had watched them, dazed and fascinated. He was so numb and weary that his tongue—just as it does in dreams—refused him service when he tried to call. But now he struggled to his feet and followed in the wake of the two mysterious strangers. With him, the instinct of the official, the respect due to regulations and laws framed by his colleagues and himself, had been too strong to allow him to tamper with the seals, and there was something mysterious and awesome about that tall figure of a man, dressed with supreme elegance, whose slender, firm hands had so unconcernedly committed this flagrant breach of the law. It did not occur to Tallien to call for help. Somehow, the whole incident—the two men—were so ghostlike, that he felt that at a word they would vanish into thin air.
He stepped cautiously into the familiar little antechamber. The strangers had gone through to the living-room. One of them was kneeling on the floor. Tallien, who knew nothing of the tragedy which had been enacted inside the apartment of his beloved, marvelled what the men were doing. He crept stealthily forward and craned his neck to see. The window at the end of the room had been left unfastened. A weird grey streak of light came peeping in and illumined the awesome scene: the overturned furniture, the torn hangings; and on the ground, the body of a man, with the stranger kneeling beside it.
Tallien, weary and dazed, always of a delicate constitution, felt nigh to swooning. His knees were shaking, a cold dread of the supernatural held his heart with an icy grip and caused his hair to tingle at the roots. His tongue felt huge and as if paralysed, his teeth were chattering together. It was as much as he could do not to measure his length on the ground; and the vague desire to remain unobserved kept him crouching in the gloom.
He just could flee the tall stranger pass his hands over the body on the floor, and could hear the other ask him a question in English.
A few moments went by. The strangers conversed in a low tone of voice. From one or two words which came clearly to his ear, Tallien gathered that they spoke in English—a language with which he himself was familiar. The taller man of the two appeared to be giving his friend some orders, which the latter promised to obey. Then, with utmost precaution, he took the body in his arms and lifted it from the floor.
"Let me help you, Blakeney," the other said in a whisper.
"No, no!" the mysterious stranger replied quickly. "The poor worm is as light as a feather! 'Tis better he died as he did. His unfortunate infatuation was killing him."
"Poor little Régine!" the younger man sighed.
"It is better so," his friend rejoined. "We'll be able to tell her that he died nobly, and that we've given him Christian burial."
No wonder that Tallien thought that he was dreaming! These English were strange folk indeed! Heaven alone knew what they risked by coming here, at this hour, and into this house, in order to fetch away the body of their friend. They certainly were wholly unconscious of danger.
Tallien held his breath. He saw the splendid figure of the mysterious adventurer step across the threshold, bearing the lifeless body in his arms with as much ease as if he were carrying a child. The pale grey light of morning was behind him, and his fine head with its smooth fair hair was silhouetted against the neutral-tinted background. His friend came immediately behind him.
In the dark antechamber he paused and called abruptly:
"Citizen Tallien!"
A cry rose to Tallien's throat. He had thought himself entirely unobserved, and the stranger a mere vision which he was watching in a dream. Now he felt that compelling eyes were gazing straight at him, piercing the darkness for a clearer sight of his face.
But the spell was still on him, and he only moved in order to straighten himself out and to force his trembling knees to be still.
"They have taken the citoyenne Cabarrus to the Conciergerie," the stranger went on simply. "To-morrow she will be charged before the Revolutionary Tribunal. . . . You know what is the inevitable end——"
It seemed as if some subtle magic was in the man's voice, in his very presence, in the glance wherewith he challenged that of the unfortunate Tallien. The latter felt a wave of shame sweep over him. There was something so splendid in these two men—exquisitely dressed, and perfectly deliberate and cool in all their movements—who were braving and daring death in order to give Christian burial to their friend; whilst he, in face of the outrage put upon his beloved, had only sat on her desecrated doorstep like a dumb animal pining for its master. He felt a hot flush rush to his cheeks. With quick, nervy movements he readjusted the set of his coat, passed his thin hands over his rumpled hair; whilst the stranger reiterated with solemn significance:
"You know what is the inevitable end. . . . The citoyenne Cabarrus will be condemned. . . ."
Tallien this time met the stranger's eyes fearlessly. It was the magic of strength and of courage that flowed into him from them. He drew up his meagre stature to its full height and his head with an air of defiance and of conscious power.
"Not while I live!" he said firmly.
"Theresia Cabarrus will be condemned to-morrow," the stranger went on calmly. "Then the next day, the guillotine——"
"Never!"
"Inevitably! . . . Unless——"
"Unless what?" Tallien queried, and hung breathless on the man's lips as he would on those of an oracle.
"Theresia Cabarrus, or Robespierre and his herd of assassins. Which shall it be, citizen Tallien?"
"By Heaven!——" Tallien exclaimed forcefully.
But he got no further. The stranger, bearing his burden, had already gone out of the room, closely followed by his friend.
Tallien was alone in the deserted apartment, where every broken piece of furniture, every torn curtain, cried out for vengeance in the name of his beloved. He said nothing. He neither protested nor swore. But he tip-toed into the apartment and knelt down upon the floor close beside the small sofa on which she was wont to sit. Here he remained quite still for a minute or two, his eyes closed, his hands tightly clasped together. Then he stooped very low and pressed his lips against the spot where her pretty, sandalled foot was wont to rest.
After that he rose, strode with a firm step out of the apartment, carefully closing the doors behind him.
The strangers had vanished into the night; and citizen Tallien went quietly back to his own lodgings.
Forty names! Found on a list in the pocket of Robespierre's coat!
Forty names! And every one of these that of a known opponent of Robespierre's schemes of dictatorship: Tallien, Barrère, Vadier, Cambon, and the rest. Men powerful to-day, prominent Members of the Convention, leaders of the people, too—but opponents!
The inference was obvious, the panic general. That night—it was the 8th Thermidor, July the 26th of the old calendar—men talked of flight, of abject surrender, of appeal—save the mark!—to friendship, camaraderie, humanity! Friendship, camaraderie, humanity? An appeal to a heart of stone! They talked of everything, in fact, save of defying the tyrant; for such talk would have been folly.
Defying the tyrant? Ye gods! When with a word he could sway the Convention, the Committees, the multitude, bend them to his will, bring them to heel like any tamer of beasts when he cracks his whip?
So men talked and trembled. All night they talked and trembled; for they did not sleep, those forty whose names were on Robespierre's list. But Tallien, their chief, was nowhere to be found. 'Twas known that his fiancée, the beautiful Theresia Cabarrus, had been summarily arrested. Since then he had disappeared; and they—the others—were leaderless. But, even so, he was no loss. Tallien was ever pusillanimous, a temporiser—what?
And now the hour for temporising is past. Robespierre then is to be dictator of France. He will be dictator of France, in spite of any opposition led by those forty whose names are on his list! He will be dictator of France! He has not said it; but his friends have shouted it from the house-tops, and have murmured under their breath that those who oppose Robespierre's dictatorship are traitors to the land. Death then must be their fate.
What then, ye gods? What then?
And so the day broke—smiling, mark you! It was a beautiful warm July morning. It broke on what is perhaps the most stupendous cataclysm—save one—the world has ever known.
Behold the picture! A medley. A confusion. A whirl of everything that is passionate and cruel, defiant and desperate. Heavens, how desperate! Men who have thrown lives away as if lives were in truth grains of sand; men who have juggled with death, dealt it and tossed it about like cards upon a gaming table. They are desperate now, because their own lives are at stake; and they find now that life can be very dear.
So, having greeted their leader, the forty draw together, watching the moment when humility will be most opportune.
Robespierre mounts the tribune. The hour has struck. His speech is one long, impassioned, involved tirade, full at first, of vague accusations against the enemies of the Republic and the people, and is full of protestations of his own patriotism and selflessness. Then he warms to his own oratory; his words are prophetic of death, his voice becomes harsh—like a screech owl's, so we're told. His accusations are no longer vague. He begins to strike.
Corruption! Backsliding! Treachery! Moderatism!—oh, moderatism above all! Moderatism is treachery to the glorious revolution. Every victim spared from the guillotine is a traitor let loose against the people! A traitor, he who robs the guillotine of her prey! Robespierre stands alone incorruptible, true, faithful unto death!
And for all that treachery, what remedy is there? Why, death of course! Death! The guillotine! New power to the sovereign guillotine! Death to all the traitors!
And seven hundred faces become paler still with dread, and the sweat of terror rises on seven hundred brows. There were only forty names on that list . . . but there might be others somewhere else!
And still the voice of Robespierre thunders on. His words fall on seven hundred pairs of ears like on a sounding-board; his friends, his sycophants, echo them; they applaud, rise in wild enthusiasm. 'Tis the applause that is thundering now!
One of the tyrant's most abject slaves has put forward the motion that the great speech just delivered shall forthwith be printed, and distributed to every township, every village, throughout France, as a monument to the lofty patriotism of her greatest citizen.
The motion at one moment looks as if it would be carried with acclamations; after which, Robespierre's triumph would have risen to the height of deification. Then suddenly the note of dissension; the hush; the silence. The great Assembly is like a sounding-board that has ceased to respond. Something has turned the acclamations to mutterings, and then to silence. The sounding-board has given forth a dissonance. Citizen Tallien has demanded "delay in printing that speech," and asked pertinently:
"What has become of the Liberty of Opinion in this Convention?"
His face is the colour of ashes, and his eyes, ringed with purple, gleam with an unnatural fire. The coward has become bold; the sheep has donned the lion's skin.
There is a flutter in the Convention, a moment's hesitation. But the question is put to the vote, and the speech isnotto be printed. A small matter, in truth—printing or not printing. . . . Does the Destiny of France hang on so small a peg?
It is a small matter; and yet how full of portent! Like the breath of mutiny blowing across a ship. But nothing more occurs just then. Robespierre, lofty in his scorn, puts the notes of his speech into his pocket. He does not condescend to argue. He, the master of France, will not deign to bandy words with his slaves. And he stalks out of the Hall surrounded by his friends.
Therehasbeen a breath of mutiny; but his is still the iron heel, powerful enough to crush a raging revolt. His withdrawal—proud, silent, menacing—is in keeping with his character and with the pose which he has assumed of late. But he is still the Chosen of the People; and the multitude is there, thronging the streets of Paris—there, to avenge the insult put upon their idol by a pack of slinking wolves.
And now the picture becomes still more poignant. It is painted in colours more vivid, more glowing than before. The morning breaks on the 9th Thermidor, and again the Hall of the Convention is crowded to the roof, with Tallien and his friends, in a close phalanx, early at their post!
Tallien is there, pale, resolute, the fire of his hatred kept up by anxiety for his beloved. The night before, at the corner of a dark street, a surreptitious hand slipped a scrap of paper into the pocket of his coat. It was a message written by Theresia in prison, and written with her own blood. How it ever came into his pocket Tallien never knew; but the few impassioned, agonised words seared his very soul and whipped up his courage:
"The Commissary of Police has just left me," Theresia wrote. "He came to tell me that to-morrow I must appear before the tribunal. This means the guillotine. And I, who thought that you were aman. . .!"
Not only is his own head in peril, not only that of his friends; but the life of the woman whom he worships hangs now upon the thread of his own audacity and of his courage.
St. Just on this occasion is the first to mount the tribune; and Robespierre, the very incarnation of lustful and deadly Vengeance, stands silently by. He has spent the afternoon and evening with his friends at the Jacobins Club, where deafening applause greeted his every word, and wild fury raged against his enemies.
It is then to be a fight to the finish! To your tents, O Israel!
To the guillotine all those who have dared to say one word against the Chosen of the People! St. Just shall thunder Vengeance from the tribune at the Convention, whilst Henriot, the drunken and dissolute Commandant of the Municipal Guard, shall, by the might of sword and fire, proclaim the sovereignty of Robespierre through the streets of Paris. That is the picture as it has been painted in the minds of the tyrant and of his sycophants: a picture of death paramount, and of Robespierre rising like a new Phoenix from out the fire of calumny and revolt, greater, more unassailable than before.
And lo! One sweep of the brush, and the picture is changed.
Ten minutes . . . less . . . and the whole course of the world's history is altered. No sooner has St. Just mounted the tribune than Tallien jumps to his feet. His voice, usually meek and cultured, rises in a harsh crescendo, until it drowns that of the younger orator.
"Citizens," he exclaims, "I ask for truth! Let us tear aside the curtain behind which lurk concealed the real conspirators and the traitors!"
"Yes, yes! Truth! Let us have the truth!" One hundred voices—not forty—have raised the echo.
The mutiny is on the verge of becoming open revolt, is that already, perhaps. It is like a spark fallen—who knows where?—into a powder magazine. Robespierre feels it, sees the spark. He knows that one movement, one word, one plunge into that magazine, foredoomed though it be to destruction, one stamp with a sure foot, may yet quench the spark, may yet smother the mutiny. He rushes to the tribune, tries to mount. But Tallien has forestalled him, elbows him out of the way, and turns to the seven hundred, with a cry that rings far beyond the Hall, out into the streets.
"Citizens!" he thunders in his turn. "I begged of you just now to tear aside the curtains behind which lurk the traitors. Well, the curtain is already rent. And if you dare not strike at the tyrant now, then 'tis I who will dare!" And from beneath his coat he draws a dagger and raises it above his head. "And I will plunge this into his heart," he cries, "if you have not the courage to smite!"
His words, that gleaming bit of steel, fan the spark into a flame. Within a few seconds, seven hundred voices are shouting, "Down with the tyrant!" Arms are waving, hands gesticulate wildly, excitedly. Only a very few shout, "Behold the dagger of Brutus!" All the others retort with "Tyranny!" and "Conspiracy!" and with cries of "Vive la Liberté!"
At this hour all is confusion and deafening uproar. In vain Robespierre tries to speak. He demands to speak. He hurls insults, anathema, upon the President, who relentlessly refuses him speech and jingles his bell against him.
"President of Assassins," the falling tyrant cries, "I demand speech of thee!"
But the bell goes jingling on, and Robespierre, choked with rage and terror, "turns blue" we are told, and his hand goes up to his throat.
"The blood of Danton chokes thee!" cries one man. And these words seem like the last blow dealt to the fallen foe. The next moment the voice of an obscure Deputy is raised, in order to speak the words that have been hovering on every lip:
"I demand a decree of accusation against Robespierre!"
"Accusation!" comes from seven hundred throats. "The decree of accusation!"
The President jingles his bell, puts the question, and the motion is passed unanimously.
Maximilien Robespierre—erstwhile master of France—is decreedaccused.
It was then noon. Five minutes later, the Chosen of the People, the fallen idol, is hustled out of the Hall into one of the Committee rooms close by, and with his friends—St. Just, Couthon, Lebas, his brother Augustin, and the others—all decreed accused and the order of arrest launched against them. As for the rest, 'tis the work of the Public Prosecutor—and of the guillotine.
At five o'clock the Convention adjourns. The deputies have earned food and rest. They rush to their homes, there to relate what has happened; Tallien to the Conciergerie, to get a sight of Theresia. This is denied him. He is not dictator yet; and Robespierre, though apparently vanquished, still dominates—and lives.
But from every church steeple the tocsin bursts; and a prolonged roll of drums ushers in the momentous evening.
In the city all is hopeless confusion. Men are running in every direction, shouting, brandishing pistols and swords. Henriot, Commandant of the Municipal Guard, rides through the streets at the head of his gendarmes like one possessed, bent on delivering Robespierre. Women and children fly screaming in every direction; the churches, so long deserted, are packed with people who, terror-stricken, are trying to remember long-forgotten prayers.
Proclamations are read at street corners; there are rumours of a general massacre of all the prisoners. At one moment—the usual hour—the familiar tumbril with its load of victims for the guillotine rattles along the cobblestones of the Rue St. Antoine. The populace, vaguely conscious of something stupendous in the air—even though the decree of accusation against Robespierre has not yet transpired—loudly demand the release of the victims. They surround the tumbrils, crying, "Let them be free!"
But Henriot at the head of his gendarmes comes riding down the street, and while the populace shouts, "It shall not be! Let them be free!" he threatens with pistols and sabre, and retorts, bellowing: "It shall be! To the guillotine!" And the tumbrils, which for a moment had halted, lumber on, on their way.
Up in the attic of the lonely house in the Rue de la Planchette, Marguerite Blakeney heard but a mere faint echo of the confusion and of the uproar.
During the previous long, sultry afternoon, it had seemed to her as if her jailers had been unwontedly agitated. There was much more moving to and fro on the landing outside her door than there had been in the last three days. Men talked, mostly in whispers; but at times a word, a phrase here and there, a voice raised above the others, reached her straining ears. She glued her ear to the keyhole and listened; but what she heard was all confusion, sentences that conveyed but little meaning to her. She distinguished the voice of the Captain of the Guard. He appeared impatient about something, and talked about "missing all the fun." The other soldiers seemed to agree with him. Obviously they were all drinking heavily, for their voices sounded hoarse and thick, and often would break into bibulous song. From time to time, too, she would hear the patter of wooden shoes, together with a wheezy cough, as from a man troubled with asthma.
But it was all very vague, for her nerves by this time were on the rack. She had lost count of time, of place; she knew nothing. She was unable even to think. All her instincts were merged in the dread of that silent evening hour, when Chauvelin's furtive footsteps would once more resound upon the stone floor outside her door, when she would hear the quick word of command that heralded his approach, the grounding of arms, the sharp query and quick answer, and when she would feel again the presence of the relentless enemy who lay in wait to trap her beloved.
At one moment that evening he had raised his voice, obviously so that she might hear.
"To-morrow is the fourth day, citizen Captain," she had heard him say. "I may not be able to come."
"Then," the voice of the Captain had said in reply, "if the Englishman is not here by seven o'clock——"
Chauvelin had given a harsh, dry laugh, and retorted:
"Your orders are as they were, citizen. But I think that the Englishman will come."
What it all meant Marguerite could not fail to conjecture. It meant death to her or to her husband—to both, in fact. And all to-day she had sat by the open window, her hands clasped in silent, constant prayer, her eyes fixed upon the horizon far away, longing with all her might for one last sight of her beloved, fighting against despair, striving for trust in him and for hope.
At this hour, the centre of interest is the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, where Robespierre and his friends sit entrenched and—for the moment—safe. The prisons have refused one by one to close their gates upon the Chosen of the People; governors and jailers alike have quaked in the face of so monstrous a sacrilege. And the same gendarmes who have been told off to escort the fallen tyrant to his penultimate resting place, have had a touch of the same kind of scruple—or dread—and at his command have conveyed him to the Hôtel de Ville.
In vain does the Convention hastily reassemble. In vain—apparently—does Tallien demand that the traitor Robespierre and his friends be put outside the pale of the law. They are for the moment safe, redacting proclamations, sending out messengers in every direction; whilst Henriot and his gendarmes, having struck terror in the hearts of all peaceable citizens, hold the place outside the Town Hall and proclaim Robespierre dictator of France.
The sun sinks towards the West behind a veil of mist. Ferment and confusion are at their height. All around the City there is an invisible barrier that seems to confine agitation within its walls. Outside this barrier, no one knows what is happening. Only a vague dread has filtrated through and gripped every heart. The guard at the several gates appear slack and undisciplined. Sentries are accosted by passers-by, eager for news. And, from time to time, from every direction, troops of the Municipal gendarmes ride furiously by, with shouts of "Robespierre! Robespierre! Death to the traitors! Long live Robespierre!"
They raise a cloud of dust around them, trample unheedingly over every obstacle, human or otherwise, that happens to be in their way. They threaten peaceable citizens with their pistols and strike at women and children with the flat of their sabres.
As soon as they have gone by, excited groups close up in their wake.
"Name of a name, what is happening?" every one queries in affright.
And gossip, conjectures, rumours, hold undisputed sway.
"Robespierre is dictator of France!"
"He has ordered the arrest of all the Members of the Convention."
"And the massacre of all the prisoners."
"Pardi, a wise decree! As for me, I am sick of the eternal tumbrils and the guillotine!"
"Better finish with the lot, say I!"
"Robespierre! Robespierre!" comes as a far-off echo, to the accompaniment of thundering hoofs upon the cobblestones.
And so, from mouth to mouth! The meek and the peace-loving magnify these rumours into approaching cataclysm; the opportunists hold their tongue, ready to fall in with this party or that; the cowards lie in hiding and shout "Robespierre!" with Henriot's horde or "Tallien!" in the neighbourhood of the Tuileries.
Here the Convention has reassembled, and here they are threatened presently by Henriot and his artillery. The members of the great Assembly remain at their post. The President has harangued them.
"Citizen deputies!" he calls aloud. "The moment has come to die at our posts!"
And they sit waiting for Henriot's cannonade, and calmly decree all the rebels "outside the pale of the law."
Tallien, moved by a spirit of lofty courage, goes, followed by a few intimates, to meet Henriot's gunners boldly face to face.
"Citizen soldiers!" he calls aloud, and his voice has the resonance of undaunted courage. "After covering yourselves with glory on the fields of honour, are you going to disgrace your country?" He points a scornful finger at Henriot who, bloated, purple in the face, grunting and spluttering like an old seal, is reeling in his saddle. "Look at him, citizen soldiers!" Tallien commands. "He is drunk and besotted! What man is there who, being sober, would dare to order fire against the representatives of the people?"
The gunners are moved, frightened too by the decree which has placed them "outside the pale of the law." Henriot, fearing mutiny if he persisted in the monstrous order to fire, withdraws his troops, back to the Hôtel de Ville.
Some follow him; some do not. And Tallien goes back to the Hall of the Convention covered with glory.
Citizen Barras is promoted Commandant of the National Guard and of all forces at the disposal of the Convention, and order to recruit loyal troops that will stand up to the traitor Henriot and his ruffianly gendarmes. The latter are in open revolt against the Government; but, name of a name! Citizen Barras, with a few hundred patriots, will soon put reason—and a few charges of gunpowder—into them!
So, at five o'clock in the afternoon, whilst Henriot has once more collected his gendarmes and the remnants of his artillery outside the Hôtel de Ville, citizen Barras, accompanied by two aides-de-camp, goes forth on his recruiting mission. He makes the round of the city gates, wishing to find out what loyal soldiers amongst the National Guard the Convention can rely upon.
Chauvelin, on his way to the Rue de la Planchette, meets Barras at the Porte St. Antoine; and Barras is full of the news.
"Why were you not at your place at the Assembly, citizen Chauvelin?" he asks of his colleague. "It was the grandest moment I have ever witnessed! Tallien was superb, and Robespierre ignoble! And if we succeed in crushing that bloodthirsty monster once and for all, it will be a new era of civilisation and liberty!"
He halts, and continues with a fretful sigh:
"But we want soldiers—loyal soldiers! All the troops that we can get! Henriot has the whole of the Municipal Gendarmerie at his command, with muskets and guns; and Robespierre can always sway that rabble with a word. We want men! . . . Men! . . ."
But Chauvelin is in no mood to listen. Robespierre's fall or his triumph, what are they to him at this hour, when the curtain is about to fall on the final act of his own stupendous drama of revenge? Whatever happens, whoever remains in power, vengeance is his! The English spy in any event is sure of the guillotine. He is not the enemy of a party, but of the people of France. And the sovereignty of the people is not in question yet. Then, what matters if the wild beasts in the Convention are at one another's throat?
So Chauvelin listens unmoved to Barras' passionate tirades, and when the latter, puzzled at his colleague's indifference, reiterates frowning:
"I must have all the troops I can get. You have some capable soldiers at your command always, citizen Chauvelin. Where are they now?"
Chauvelin retorts drily:
"At work. On business at least as important as taking sides in a quarrel between Robespierre and Tallien."
"Pardi! . . ." Barras protests hotly.
But Chauvelin pays no further attention to him. A neighbouring church clock has just struck six. Within the hour his arch-enemy will be in his hands! Never for a moment does he doubt that the bold adventurer will come to the lonely house in the Rue de la Planchette. Even hating the Englishman as he does, he knows that the latter would not endanger his wife's safety by securing his own.
So Chauvelin turns on his heel, leaving Barras to fume and to threaten. At the angle of the Porte St. Antoine, he stumbles against and nearly knocks over a man who sits on the ground, with his back to the wall, munching a straw, his knees drawn up to his nose, a crimson cap pulled over his eyes, and his two long arms encircling his shins.
Chauvelin swore impatiently. His nerves were on the rack, and he was in no pleasant mood. The man, taken unawares, had uttered an oath, which died away in a racking fit of coughing. Chauvelin looked down, and saw the one long arm branded with the letter "M," the flesh still swollen and purple with the fire of the searing iron.
"Rateau!" he ejaculated roughly. "What are you doing here?"
Meek and servile, Rateau struggled with some difficulty to his feet.
"I have finished my work at Mother Théot's, citizen," he said humbly. "I was resting."
Chauvelin kicked at him with the toe of his boot.
"Then go and rest elsewhere," he muttered. "The gates of the city are not refuges for vagabonds."
After which act of unnecessary brutality, his temper momentarily soothed, he turned on his heel and walked rapidly through the gate.
Barras had stood by during this brief interlude, vaguely interested in the little scene. But now, when the coalheaver lurched past him, one of his aides-de-camp remarked audibly:
"An unpleasant customer, citizen Chauvelin! Eh, friend?"
"I believe you!" Rateau replied readily enough. Then, with the mulish persistence of a gaby who is smarting under a wrong, he thrust out his branded arm, right under citizen Barras' nose. "See what he has done to me!"
Barras frowned.
"A convict, what? Then, how is it you are at large?"
"I am not a convict," Rateau protested with sullen emphasis. "I am an innocent man, and a free citizen of the Republic. But I got in citizen Chauvelin's way, what? He is always full of schemes——"
"You are right there!" Barras retorted grimly. But the subject was not sufficiently interesting to engross his attention further. He had so many and such momentous things to do. Already he had nodded to his men and turned his back on the grimy coalheaver, who, shaken by a fit of coughing, unable to speak for the moment, had put out his grimy hand and gripped the deputy firmly by the sleeve.
"What is it now?" Barras ejaculated roughly.
"If you will but listen, citizen," Rateau wheezed painfully, "I can tell you——"
"What?"
"You were asking citizen Chauvelin where you could find some soldiers of the Republic to do you service."
"Yes; I did."
"Well," Rateau rejoined, and an expression of malicious cunning distorted his ugly face. "I can tell you."
"What do you mean?"
"I lodge in an empty warehouse over yonder," Rateau went on eagerly, and pointed in the direction where Chauvelin's spare figure had disappeared awhile ago. "The floor above is inhabited by Mother Théot, the witch. You know her, citizen?"
"Yes, yes! I thought she had been sent to the guillotine along with——"
"She was let out of prison, and has been doing some of citizen Chauvelin's spying for him."
Barras frowned. This was none of his business, and the dirty coalheaver inspired him with an unpleasant sense of loathing.
"To the point, citizen!" he said curtly.
"Citizen Chauvelin has a dozen or more soldiers under his command, in that house," Rateau went on with a leer. "They are trained troops of the National Guard——"
"How do you know?" Barras broke in harshly.
"Pardi!" was the coalheaver's dry reply. "I clean their boots for them."
"Where is the house?"
"In the Rue de la Planchette. But there is an entrance into the warehouse at the back of it."
"Allons!" was Barras' curt word of command, to the two men who accompanied him.
He strode up the street toward the gate, not caring whether Rateau came along or no. But the coalheaver followed in the wake of the three men. He had buried his grimy fists once more in the pocket of his tattered breeches; but not before he had shaken them, each in turn, in the direction of the Rue de la Planchette.
Chauvelin in the meanwhile had turned into Mother Théot's house, and without speaking to the old charlatan, who was watching for him in the vestibule, he mounted to the top floor. Here he called peremptorily to Captain Boyer.
"There is half an hour yet," the latter murmured gruffly; "and I am sick of all this waiting! Let me finish with that cursed aristo in there. My comrades and I want to see what is going on in the city, and join in the fun, if there is any."
"Half an hour, citizen," Chauvelin rejoined dryly. "You'll lose little of the fun, and you'll certainly lose your share of the ten thousand livres if you shoot the woman and fail to capture the Scarlet Pimpernel."
"Bah! He'll not come now," Boyer riposted. "It is too late. He is looking after his own skin, pardi!"
"He will come, I swear!" Chauvelin said firmly, as if in answer to his own thoughts.
Inside the room, Marguerite has heard every word of this colloquy. Its meaning is clear enough. Clear, and horrible! Death awaits her at the hands of those abominable ruffians—here—within half an hour—unless . . . Her thoughts are becoming confused; she cannot concentrate. Frightened? No, she is not frightened. She has looked death in the face before now. That time in Boulogne. And there are worse things than death. . . . There is, for instance, the fear that she might never see her husband again . . . in this life . . . There is only half an hour or less than that . . . and . . . and he might not come. . . . She prays that he might not come. But, if he does, then what chance has he? My God, what chance?
And her tortured mind conjures up visions of his courage, his coolness, his amazing audacity and luck. . . . She thinks and thinks . . . if he does not come . . . and if he does. . . .
A distant church clock strikes the half-hour . . . a short half-hour now . . .
The evening is sultry. Another storm is threatening, and the sun has tinged the heat-mist with red. The air smells foul, as in the midst of a huge, perspiring crowd. And through the heat, the lull, above the hideous sounds of those ruffians outside her door, there is a rumbling noise as of distant, unceasing thunder. The city is in travail.
Then suddenly Boyer, the Captain of the ruffians, exclaims loudly:
"Let me finish with the aristo, citizen Chauvelin! I want to join in the fun."
And the door of her room is torn open by a savage, violent hand. The window behind Marguerite is open, and she, facing the door, clings with both hands to the sill. Her cheeks bloodless, her eyes glowing, her head erect, she waits, praying with all her might for courage . . . only courage.
The ruffianly captain in his tattered, mud-stained uniform, stands in the doorway—for one moment only. The next, Chauvelin has elbowed him out of the way, and in his turn faces the prisoner—the innocent woman whom he has pursued with such relentless hatred. Marguerite prays with all her might, and does not flinch. Not for one second. Death stands there before her in the guise of this man's vengeful lust, which gleams in his pale eyes. Death is there waiting for her, under the guise of those ignoble soldiers in the scrubby rags, with their muskets held in stained, filthy hands.
Courage—only courage! The power to die ashewould wish her to . . . could be but know!
Chauvelin speaks to her; she does not hear. There is a mighty buzzing in her ears as of men shouting—shouting what, she does not know, for she is still praying for courage. Chauvelin has ceased talking. Then it must be the end. Thank God! she has had the courage not to speak and not to flinch. Now she closes her eyes, for there is a red mist before her and she feels that she might fall into it—straight into that mist.
With closed eyes, Marguerite suddenly seems able to hear. She hears shouts which come from below—quite close, and coming nearer every moment. Shouts, and the tramp, the scurry of many feet; and now and then that wheezing, asthmatic cough, that strange, strange cough, and the click of wooden shoes. Then a voice, harsh and peremptory:
"Citizen soldiers, your country needs you! Rebels have defied her laws. To arms! Every man who hangs back is a deserter and a traitor!"
After this, Chauvelin's sharp, dictatorial voice raised in protest:
"In the name of the Republic, citizen Barras!——"
But the other breaks in more peremptorily still:
"Ah, ça, citizen Chauvelin! Do you presume to stand between me and my duty? By order of the Convention now assembled, every soldier must report at once at his section. Are you perchance on the side of the rebels?"
At this point, Marguerite opens her eyes. Through the widely open door she sees the small, sable-clad figure of Chauvelin, his pale face distorted with rage to which he obviously dare not give rein; and beside him a short, stoutish man in cloth coat and cord breeches, and with the tricolour scarf around his waist. His round face appears crimson with choler and in his right hand he grasps a heavy malacca stick, with a grip that proclaims the desire to strike. The two men appear to be defying one another; and all around them are the vague forms of the soldiers silhouetted against a distant window, through which the crimson afternoon glow comes peeping in on a cloud of flickering dust.
"Now then, citizen soldiers!" Barras resumes, and incontinently turns his back on Chauvelin who, white to the lips, raises a final and menacing word of warning.
"I warn you, citizen Barras," he says firmly, "that, by taking these men away from their post, you place yourself in league with the enemy of your country, and will have to answer to her for this crime."
His accent is so convinced, so firm, and fraught with such dire menace, that for one instant Barras hesitates.
"Eh bien!" he exclaims. "I will humour you thus far, citizen Chauvelin. I will leave you a couple of men to wait on your pleasure until sundown. But, after that. . . ."
For a second or two there is silence. Chauvelin stands there, with his thin lips pressed tightly together. Then Barras adds, with a shrug of his wide shoulders:
"I am contravening my duty in doing even so much; and the responsibility must rest with you, citizen Chauvelin. Allons, my men!" he says once more; and without another glance on his discomfited colleague, he strides down the stairs, followed by captain Boyer and the soldiers.
For a while the house is still filled with confusion and sounds: men tramping down the stone stairs, words of command, click of sabres and muskets, opening and slamming of doors. Then the sounds slowly die away, out in the street in the direction of the Porte St. Antoine. After which, there is silence.
Chauvelin stands in the doorway with his back to the room and to Marguerite, his claw-like hands intertwined convulsively behind him. The silhouettes of the two remaining soldiers are still visible; they stand silently and at attention with their muskets in their hands. Between them and Chauvelin hovers the tall, ungainly figure of a man, clothed in rags and covered in soot and coal-dust. His feet are thrust into wooden shoes, his grimy hands are stretched out each side of him; and on his left arm, just above the wrist, there is an ugly mark like the brand seared into the flesh of a convict.
Just now he looks terribly distressed with a tearing fit of coughing. Chauvelin curtly bids him stand aside; and at the same moment the church clock of St. Louis, close by, strikes seven.
"Now then, citizen soldiers!" Chauvelin commands.
The soldiers grasp their muskets more firmly, and Chauvelin raises his hand. The next instant he is thrust violently back into the room, loses his balance, and falls backward against a table, whilst the door is slammed to between him and the soldiers. From the other side of the door there comes the sound of a short, sharp scuffle. Then silence.
Marguerite, holding her breath, hardly realised that she lived. A second ago she was facing death; and now. . . .
Chauvelin struggled painfully to his feet. With a mighty effort and a hoarse cry of rage, he threw himself against the door. The impetus carried him further than he intended, no doubt; for at that same moment the door was opened, and he fell up against the massive form of the grimy coalheaver, whose long arms closed round him, lifted him off the floor, and carried him like a bundle of straw to the nearest chair.
"There, my dear M. Chambertin!" the coalheaver said, in exceedingly light and pleasant tones. "Let me make you quite comfortable!"
Marguerite watched—dumb and fascinated—the dexterous hands that twined a length of rope round the arms and legs of her helpless enemy, and wound his own tricolour scarf around that snarling mouth.
She scarcely dared trust her eyes and ears.
There was the hideous, dust-covered mudlark with bare feet thrust into sabots, with ragged breeches and tattered shirt; there was the cruel, mud-stained face, the purple lips, the toothless mouth; and those huge, muscular arms, one of them branded like the arm of a convict, the flesh still swollen with the searing of the iron.
"I must indeed crave your ladyship's forgiveness. In very truth, I am a disgusting object!"
Ah, there was the voice!—the dear, dear, merry voice! A little weary perhaps, but oh! so full of laughter and of boyish shame-facedness! To Marguerite it seemed as if God's own angels had opened to her the gates of Paradise. She did not speak; she scarce could move. All that she could do was to put out her arms.
He did not approach her, for in truth he looked a dusty object; but he dragged his ugly cap off his head, then slowly, and keeping his eyes fixed upon her, he put one knee to the ground.
"You did not doubt, m'dear, that I would come?" he asked quaintly.
She shook her head. The last days were like a nightmare now; and in truth she ought never to have been afraid.
"Will you ever forgive me?" he continued.
"Forgive? What?" she murmured.
"These last few days. I could not come before. You were safe for the time being. . . . That fiend was waiting for me. . . ."
She gave a shudder and closed her eyes.
"Where is he?"
He laughed his gay, irresponsible laugh, and with a slender hand, still covered with coal-dust, he pointed to the helpless figure of Chauvelin.
"Look at him!" he said. "Doth he not look a picture?"
Marguerite ventured to look. Even at sight of her enemy bound tightly with ropes to a chair, his own tricolour scarf wound loosely round his mouth, she could not altogether suppress a cry of horror.
"What is to become of him?"
He shrugged his broad shoulders.
"I wonder!" he said lightly.
Then he rose to his feet, and went on with quaint bashfulness:
"I wonder," he said, "how I dare stand thus before your ladyship!"
And in a moment she was in his arms, laughing, crying, covered herself now with coal-dust and with grime.
"My beloved!" she exclaimed with a shudder of horror. "What you must have gone through!"
He only laughed like a schoolboy who has come through some impish adventure without much harm.
"Very little, I swear!" he asserted gaily. "But for thoughts of you, I have never enjoyed anything so much as this last phase of a glorious adventure. After our clever friend here ordered the real Rateau to be branded, so that he might know him again wherever he saw him, I had to bribe the veterinary who had done the deed, to do the same thing for me. It was not difficult. For a thousand livres the man would have branded his own mother on the nose; and I appeared before him as a man of science, eager for an experiment He asked no questions. And, since then, I whenever Chauvelin gazed contentedly on my arm, I could have screamed for joy!
"For the love of Heaven, my lady!" he added quickly, for he felt her soft, warm lips against his branded flesh; "don't shame me over such a trifle! I shall always love that scar, for the exciting time it recalls and because it happens to be the initial of your dear name."
He stooped down to the ground and kissed the hem of her gown.
After which he had to tell her as quickly and as briefly as he could, all that had happened in the past few days.
"It was only by risking the fair Theresia's life," he said, "that I could save your own. No other spur would have goaded Tallien into open revolt."
He turned and looked down for a moment on his enemy, who lay pinioned and helpless, with hatred and baffled revenge writ plainly on the contorted face and pale, rolling eyes.
And Sir Percy Blakeney sighed, a quaint sigh of regret.
"I only regret one thing, my dear M. Chambertin," he said after a while. "And that is, that you and I will never measure wits again after this. Your damnable revolution is dead . . . your unsavoury occupation gone. . . . I am glad I was never tempted to kill you. I might have succumbed, and in very truth robbed the guillotine of an interesting prey. Without any doubt, they will guillotine the lot of you, my good M. Chambertin. Robespierre to-morrow; then his friends, his sycophants, his imitators—you amongst the rest. . . . 'Tis a pity! You have so often amused me. Especially after you had put a brand on Rateau's arm, and thought you would always know him after that. Think it all out, my dear sir! Remember our happy conversation in the warehouse down below, and my denunciation of citoyenne Cabarrus. . . . You gazed upon my branded arm then and were quite satisfied. My denunciation was a false one, of course! 'Tis I who put the letters and the rags in the beautiful Theresia's apartments. But she will bear me no malice, I dare swear; for I shall have redeemed my promise. To-morrow, after Robespierre's head has fallen, Tallien will be the greatest man in France and his Theresia a virtual queen. Think it all out, my dear Monsieur Chambertin! You have plenty of time. Some one is sure to drift up here presently, and will free you and the two soldiers, whom I left out on the landing. But no one will free you from the guillotine when the time comes, unless I myself. . . ."
He did not finish; the rest of the sentence was merged in a merry laugh.
"A pleasant conceit—what?" he said lightly. "I'll think on it, I promise you!"
And the next day Paris went crazy with joy. Never had the streets looked more gay, more crowded. The windows were filled with spectators; the very roofs were crowded with an eager, shouting throng.
The seventeen hours of agony were ended. The tyrant was a fallen, broken man, maimed, dumb, bullied and insulted. Aye! He, who yesterday was the Chosen of the People, the Messenger of the Most High, now sat, or rather lay, in the tumbril, with broken jaw, eyes closed, spirit already wandering on the shores of the Styx; insulted, railed at, cursed—aye, cursed!—by every woman, reviled by every child.
The end came at four in the afternoon, in the midst of acclamations from a populace drunk with gladness—acclamations which found their echo in the whole of France, and have never ceased to re-echo to this day.
But of all that tumult, Marguerite and her husband heard but little. They lay snugly concealed the whole of that day in the quiet lodgings in the Rue de l'Anier, which Sir Percy had occupied during these terribly anxious times. Here they were waited on by that asthmatic reprobate Rateau and his mother, both of whom were now rich for the rest of their days.
When the shades of evening gathered in over the jubilant city, whilst the church bells were ringing and the cannons booming, a market gardener's cart, driven by a worthy farmer and his wife, rattled out of the Porte St. Antoine. It created no excitement, and suspicion was far from everybody's mind. The passports appeared in order; but even if they were not, who cared, on this day of all days, when tyranny was crushed and men dared to be men again?