APDL Eductation Resources/APDL Eductation Resources.iso/text/books/pimpernel/CHAP17_31

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CHAPTER XVII            FAREWELL



When Marguerite reached her room, she found her maid terribly
anxious about her.

"Your ladyship will be so tired," said the poor woman, whose
own eyes were half closed with sleep.  "It is past five o'clock."

"Ah, yes, Louise, I daresay I shall be tired presently," said
Marguerite, kindly; "but you are very tired now, so go to bed at once.
I'll get into bed alone."

"But, my lady. . ."

"Now, don't argue, Louise, but go to bed.  Give me a wrap, and
leave me alone."

Louise was only too glad to obey.  She took off her mistress's
gorgeous ball-dress, and wrapped her up in a soft billowy gown.

"Does your ladyship wish for anything else?" she asked, when
that was done.

"No, nothing more.  Put out the lights as you go out."

"Yes, my lady.  Good-night, my lady."

"Good-night, Louise."

When the maid was gone, Marguerite drew aside the curtains and
threw open the windows.  The garden and the river beyond were flooded
with rosy light.  Far away to the east, the rays of the rising sun had
changed the rose into vivid gold.  The lawn was deserted now, and
Marguerite looked down upon the terrace where she had stood a few
moments ago trying in vain to win back a man's love, which once had
been so wholly hers.

It was strange that through all her troubles, all her anxiety
for Armand, she was mostly conscious at the present moment of a keen
and bitter heartache.

Her very limbs seemed to ache with longing for the love of a
man who had spurned her, who had resisted her tenderness, remained
cold to her appeals, and had not responded to the glow of passion,
which had caused her to feel and hope that those happy olden days in
Paris were not all dead and forgotten.

How strange it all was!  She loved him still.  And now that
she looked back upon the last few months of misunderstandings and of
loneliness, she realised that she had never ceased to love him; that
deep down in her heart she had always vaguely felt that his foolish
inanities, his empty laugh, his lazy nonchalance were nothing but a
mask; that the real man, strong, passionate, wilful, was there
still--the man she had loved, whose intensity had fascinated her,
whose personality attracted her, since she always felt that behind his
apparently slow wits there was a certain something, which he kept
hidden from all the world, and most especially from her.

A woman's heart is such a complex problem--the owner thereof
is often most incompetent to find the solution of this puzzle.

Did Marguerite Blakeney, "the cleverest woman in Europe,"
really love a fool?  Was it love that she had felt for him a year ago
when she married him?  Was it love she felt for him now that she
realised that he still loved her, but that he would not become her
slave, her passionate, ardent lover once again?  Nay!  Marguerite
herself could not have told that.  Not at this moment at any rate;
perhaps her pride had sealed her mind against a better understanding
of her own heart.  But this she did know--that she meant to capture
that obstinate heart back again.  That she would conquer once
more. . .and then, that she would never lose him. . . .  She would
keep him, keep his love, deserve it, and cherish it; for this much was
certain, that there was no longer any happiness possible for her
without that one man's love.

Thus the most contradictory thoughts and emotions rushed madly
through her mind.  Absorbed in them, she had allowed time to slip by;
perhaps, tired out with long excitement, she had actually closed her
eyes and sunk into a troubled sleep, wherein quickly fleeting dreams
seemed but the continuation of her anxious thoughts--when suddenly she
was roused, from dream or meditation, by the noise of footsteps
outside her door.

Nervously she jumped up and listened; the house itself was as
still as ever; the footsteps had retreated.  Through her wide-open
window the brilliant rays of the morning sun were flooding her room
with light.  She looked up at the clock; it was half-past six--too
early for any of the household to be already astir.

She certainly must have dropped asleep, quite unconsciously.
The noise of the footsteps, also of hushed subdued voices had awakened
her--what could they be?

Gently, on tip-toe, she crossed the room and opened the door
to listen; not a sound--that peculiar stillness of the early morning
when sleep with all mankind is at its heaviest.  But the noise had
made her nervous, and when, suddenly, at her feet, on the very
doorstep, she saw something white lying there--a letter evidently--she
hardly dared touch it.  It seemed so ghostlike.  It certainly was not
there when she came upstairs; had Louise dropped it? or was some
tantalising spook at play, showing her fairy letters where none
existed?

At last she stooped to pick it up, and, amazed, puzzled beyond
measure, she saw that the letter was addressed to herself in her
husband's large, businesslike-looking hand.  What could he have to say
to her, in the middle of the night, which could not be put off until
the morning?

She tore open the envelope and read:--

        "A most unforeseen circumstance forces me to leave for
the North immediately, so I beg your ladyship's pardon if I do
not avail myself of the honour of bidding you good-bye.  My
business may keep me employed for about a week, so I shall not
have the privilege of being present at your ladyship's
water-party on Wednesday.  I remain your ladyship's most
humble and most obedient servant,
                                        PERCY BLAKENEY."

Marguerite must suddenly have been imbued with her husband's
slowness of intellect, for she had perforce to read the few simple
lines over and over again, before she could fully grasp their meaning.

She stood on the landing, turning over and over in her hand
this curt and mysterious epistle, her mind a blank, her nerves
strained with agitation and a presentiment she could not very well
have explained.

Sir Percy owned considerable property in the North, certainly,
and he had often before gone there alone and stayed away a week at a
time; but it seemed so very strange that circumstances should have
arisen between five and six o'clock in the morning that compelled him
to start in this extreme hurry.

Vainly she tried to shake off an unaccustomed feeling of
nervousness: she was trembling from head to foot.  A wild,
unconquerable desire seized her to see her husband again, at once, if
only he had not already started.

Forgetting the fact that she was only very lightly clad in a
morning wrap, and that her hair lay loosely about her shoulders, she
flew down the stairs, right through the hall towards the front door.

It was as usual barred and bolted, for the indoor servants
were not yet up; but her keen ears had detected the sound of voices
and the pawing of a horse's hoof against the flag-stones.

With nervous, trembling fingers Marguerite undid the bolts one
by one, bruising her hands, hurting her nails, for the locks were
heavy and stiff.  But she did not care; her whole frame shook with
anxiety at the very thought that she might be too late; that he might
have gone without her seeing him and bidding him "God-speed!"

At last, she had turned the key and thrown open the door.
Her ears had not deceived her.  A groom was standing close by holding
a couple of horses; one of these was Sultan, Sir Percy's favourite and
swiftest horse, saddled ready for a journey.

The next moment Sir Percy himself appeared round the further
corner of the house and came quickly towards the horses.  He had
changed his gorgeous ball costume, but was as usual irreproachably and
richly apparelled in a suit of fine cloth, with lace jabot and
ruffles, high top-boots, and riding breeches.

Marguerite went forward a few steps.  He looked up and saw her.
A slight frown appeared between his eyes.

"You are going?" she said quickly and feverishly.  "Whither?"

"As I have had the honour of informing your ladyship, urgent,
most unexpected business calls me to the North this morning," he said,
in his usual cold, drawly manner.

"But. . .your guests to-morrow. . ."

"I have prayed your ladyship to offer my humble excuses to His
Royal Highness.  You are such a perfect hostess, I do not think I
shall be missed."

"But surely you might have waited for your journey. . .until
after our water-party. . ." she said, still speaking quickly and
nervously.  "Surely this business is not so urgent. . .and you said
nothing about it--just now."

"My business, as I had the honour to tell you, Madame, is as
unexpected as it is urgent. . . .  May I therefore crave your
permission to go. . . .  Can I do aught for you in town?. . .on my way
back?"

"No. . .no. . .thanks. . .nothing. . .But you will be back soon?"

"Very soon."

"Before the end of the week?"

"I cannot say."

He was evidently trying to get away, whilst she was straining
every nerve to keep him back for a moment or two.

"Percy," she said, "will you not tell me why you go to-day?
Surely I, as your wife, have the right to know.  You have NOT been
called away to the North.  I know it.  There were no letters, no
couriers from there before we left for the opera last night, and
nothing was waiting for you when we returned from the ball. . . .  You
are NOT going to the North, I feel convinced. . . .  There is some
mystery. . .and. . ."

"Nay, there is no mystery, Madame," he replied, with a slight
tone of impatience.  "My business has to do with Armand. . .there!
Now, have I your leave to depart?"

"With Armand?. . .But you will run no danger?"

"Danger?  I?. . .Nay, Madame, your solicitude does me honour.
As you say, I have some influence; my intention is to exert it before
it be too late."

"Will you allow me to thank you at least?"

"Nay, Madame," he said coldly, "there is no need for that.  My
life is at your service, and I am already more than repaid."

"And mine will be at yours, Sir Percy, if you will but accept
it, in exchange for what you do for Armand," she said, as,
impulsively, she stretched out both her hands to him.  "There!  I will
not detain you. . .my thoughts go with you. . .Farewell!. . ."

How lovely she looked in this morning sunlight, with her
ardent hair streaming around her shoulders.  He bowed very low and
kissed her hand; she felt the burning kiss and her heart thrilled with
joy and hope.

"You will come back?" she said tenderly.

"Very soon!" he replied, looking longingly into her blue eyes.

"Any. . .you will remember?. . ." she asked as her eyes, in
response to his look, gave him an infinity of promise.

"I will always remember, Madame, that you have honoured me by
commanding my services."

The words were cold and formal, but they did not chill her
this time.  Her woman's heart had read his, beneath the impassive mask
his pride still forced him to wear.

He bowed to her again, then begged her leave to depart.  She
stood on one side whilst he jumped on to Sultan's back, then, as he
galloped out of the gates, she waved him a final "Adieu."

A bend in the road soon hid him from view; his confidential
groom had some difficulty in keeping pace with him, for Sultan flew
along in response to his master's excited mood.  Marguerite, with a sigh
that was almost a happy one, turned and went within.  She went back to
her room, for suddenly, like a tired child, she felt quite sleepy.

Her heart seemed all at once to be in complete peace, and,
though it still ached with undefined longing, a vague and delicious
hope soothed it as with a balm.

She felt no longer anxious about Armand.  The man who had just
ridden away, bent on helping her brother, inspired her with complete
confidence in his strength and in his power.  She marvelled at herself
for having ever looked upon him as an inane fool; of course, THAT was
a mask worn to hide the bitter wound she had dealt to his faith and
to his love.  His passion would have overmastered him, and he would
not let her see how much he still cared and how deeply he suffered.

But now all would be well: she would crush her own pride,
humble it before him, tell him everything, trust him in everything;
and those happy days would come back, when they used to wander off
together in the forests of Fontainebleau, when they spoke little--for
he was always a silent man--but when she felt that against that strong
heart she would always find rest and happiness.

The more she thought of the events of the past night, the less
fear had she of Chauvelin and his schemes.  He had failed to discover
the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel, of that she felt sure.  Both
Lord Fancourt and Chauvelin himself had assured her that no one had
been in the dining-room at one o'clock except the Frenchman himself
and Percy--Yes!--Percy! she might have asked him, had she thought of it!
Anyway, she had no fears that the unknown and brave hero would fall
in Chauvelin's trap; his death at any rate would not be at her door.

Armand certainly was still in danger, but Percy had pledged
his word that Armand would be safe, and somehow, as Marguerite had
seen him riding away, the possibility that he could fail in whatever
he undertook never even remotely crossed her mind.  When Armand was
safely over in England she would not allow him to go back to France.

She felt almost happy now, and, drawing the curtains closely
together again to shut out the piercing sun, she went to bed at last,
laid her head upon the pillow, and, like a wearied child, soon fell
into a peaceful and dreamless sleep.




CHAPTER XVIII           THE MYSTERIOUS DEVICE



The day was well advanced when Marguerite woke, refreshed by
her long sleep.  Louise had brought her some fresh milk and a dish of
fruit, and she partook of this frugal breakfast with hearty appetite.

Thoughts crowded thick and fast in her mind as she munched her
grapes; most of them went galloping away after the tall, erect figure
of her husband, whom she had watched riding out of site more than five
hours ago.

In answer to her eager inquiries, Louise brought back the news
that the groom had come home with Sultan, having left Sir Percy in
London.  The groom thought that his master was about to get on board
his schooner, which was lying off just below London Bridge.  Sir Percy
had ridden thus far, had then met Briggs, the skipper of the DAY
DREAM, and had sent the groom back to Richmond with Sultan and the
empty saddle.

This news puzzled Marguerite more than ever.  Where could Sir
Percy be going just now in the DAY DREAM?  On Armand's behalf, he
had said.  Well!  Sir Percy had influential friends everywhere.
Perhaps he was going to Greenwich, or. . .but Marguerite ceased to
conjecture; all would be explained anon: he said that he would come
back, and that he would remember.
A long, idle day lay before Marguerite.  She was expecting a
visit of her old school-fellow, little Suzanne de Tournay.  With all
the merry mischief at her command, she had tendered her request for
Suzanne's company to the Comtesse in the Presence of the Prince of
Wales last night.  His Royal Highness had loudly applauded the notion,
and declared that he would give himself the pleasure of calling on the
two ladies in the course of the afternoon.  The Comtesse had not dared
to refuse, and then and there was entrapped into a promise to send
little Suzanne to spend a long and happy day at Richmond with her
friend.

Marguerite expected her eagerly; she longed for a chat about
old schooldays with the child; she felt that she would prefer
Suzanne's company to that of anyone else, and together they would roam
through the fine old garden and rich deer park, or stroll along the
river.

But Suzanne had not come yet, and Marguerite being dressed,
prepared to go downstairs.  She looked quite a girl this morning in
her simple muslin frock, with a broad blue sash round her slim waist,
and the dainty cross-over fichu into which, at her bosom, she had
fastened a few late crimson roses.

She crossed the landing outside her own suite of apartments,
and stood still for a moment at the head of the fine oak staircase,
which led to the lower floor.  On her left were her husband's
apartments, a suite of rooms which she practically never entered.

They consisted of bedroom, dressing and reception room, and at
the extreme end of the landing, of a small study, which, when Sir
Percy did not use it, was always kept locked.  His own special and
confidential valet, Frank, had charge of this room.  No one was ever
allowed to go inside.  My lady had never cared to do so, and the other
servants, had, of course, not dared to break this hard-and-fast rule.

Marguerite had often, with that good-natured contempt which
she had recently adopted towards her husband, chaffed him about this
secrecy which surrounded his private study.  Laughingly she had always
declared that he strictly excluded all prying eyes from his sanctum
for fear they should detect how very little "study" went on within its
four walls: a comfortable arm-chair for Sir Percy's sweet slumbers
was, no doubt, its most conspicuous piece of furniture.

Marguerite thought of all this on this bright October morning
as she glanced along the corridor.  Frank was evidently busy with his
master's rooms, for most of the doors stood open, that of the study
amongst the others.

A sudden burning, childish curiosity seized her to have a peep
at Sir Percy's sanctum.  This restriction, of course, did not apply to
her, and Frank would, of course, not dare to oppose her.  Still, she
hoped that the valet would be busy in one of the other rooms, that she
might have that one quick peep in secret, and unmolested.

Gently, on tip-toe, she crossed the landing and, like Blue
Beard's wife, trembling half with excitement and wonder, she paused a
moment on the threshold, strangely perturbed and irresolute.

The door was ajar, and she could not see anything within.  She
pushed it open tentatively: there was no sound: Frank was evidently
not there, and she walked boldly in.

At once she was struck by the severe simplicity of everything
around her: the dark and heavy hangings, the massive oak furniture,
the one or two maps on the wall, in no way recalled to her mind the
lazy man about town, the lover of race-courses, the dandified leader
of fashion, that was the outward representation of Sir Percy Blakeney.

There was no sign here, at any rate, of hurried departure.
Everything was in its place, not a scrap of paper littered the floor,
not a cupboard or drawer was left open.  The curtains were drawn aside,
and through the open window the fresh morning air was streaming in.

Facing the window, and well into the centre of the room, stood
a ponderous business-like desk, which looked as if it had seen much
service.  On the wall to the left of the desk, reaching almost from
floor to ceiling, was a large full-length portrait of a woman,
magnificently framed, exquisitely painted, and signed with the name of
Boucher.  It was Percy's mother.

Marguerite knew very little about her, except that she had
died abroad, ailing in body as well as in mind, which Percy was still
a lad.  She must have been a very beautiful woman once, when Boucher
painted her, and as Marguerite looked at the portrait, she could not
but be struck by the extraordinary resemblance which must have existed
between mother and son.  There was the same low, square forehead,
crowned with thick, fair hair, smooth and heavy; the same deep-set,
somewhat lazy blue eyes beneath firmly marked, straight brows; and in
those eyes there was the same intensity behind that apparent laziness,
the same latent passion which used to light up Percy's face in the
olden days before his marriage, and which Marguerite had again noted,
last night at dawn, when she had come quite close to him, and had
allowed a note of tenderness to creep into her voice.

Marguerite studied the portrait, for it interested her: after
that she turned and looked again at the ponderous desk.  It was
covered with a mass of papers, all neatly tied and docketed, which
looked like accounts and receipts arrayed with perfect method.  It had
never before struck Marguerite--nor had she, alas! found it worth
while to inquire--as to how Sir Percy, whom all the world had credited
with a total lack of brains, administered the vast fortune which his
father had left him.

Since she had entered this neat, orderly room, she had been
taken so much by surprise, that this obvious proof of her husband's
strong business capacities did not cause her more than a passing
thought of wonder.  But it also strengthened her in the now certain
knowledge that, with his worldly inanities, his foppish ways, and
foolish talk, he was not only wearing a mask, but was playing a
deliberate and studied part.

Marguerite wondered again.  Why should he take all this trouble?
Why should he--who was obviously a serious, earnest man--wish to appear
before his fellow-men as an empty-headed nincompoop?

He may have wished to hide his love for a wife who held him in
contempt. . .but surely such an object could have been gained at less
sacrifice, and with far less trouble than constant incessant acting of
an unnatural part.

She looked round her quite aimlessly now: she was horribly
puzzled, and a nameless dread, before all this strange, unaccountable
mystery, had begun to seize upon her.  She felt cold and uncomfortable
suddenly in this severe and dark room.  There were no pictures on the
wall, save the fine Boucher portrait, only a couple of maps, both of
parts of France, one of the North coast and the other of the environs
of Paris.  What did Sir Percy want with those, she wondered.

Her head began to ache, she turned away from this strange Blue
Beard's chamber, which she had entered, and which she did not understand.
She did not wish Frank to find her here, and with a fast look round,
she once more turned to the door.  As she did so, her foot knocked
against a small object, which had apparently been lying close to the desk,
on the carpet, and which now went rolling, right across the room.

She stooped to pick it up.  It was a solid gold ring, with a
flat shield, on which was engraved a small device.

Marguerite turned it over in her fingers, and then studied the
engraving on the shield.  It represented a small star-shaped flower,
of a shape she had seen so distinctly twice before: once at the opera,
and once at Lord Grenville's ball.




CHAPTER XIX             THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL



At what particular moment the strange doubt first crept into
Marguerite's mind, she could not herself have said. With the ring
tightly clutched in her hand, she had run out of the room, down the
stairs, and out into the garden, where, in complete seclusion, alone
with the flowers, and the river and the birds, she could look again at
the ring, and study that device more closely.

Stupidly, senselessly, now, sitting beneath the shade of an
overhanging sycamore, she was looking at the plain gold shield, with
the star-shaped little flower engraved upon it.

Bah!  It was ridiculous! she was dreaming! her nerves were
overwrought, and she saw signs and mysteries in the most trivial
coincidences.  Had not everybody about town recently made a point of
affecting the device of that mysterious and heroic Scarlet Pimpernel?

Did she herself wear it embroidered on her gowns?  set in gems
and enamel in her hair?  What was there strange in the fact that Sir
Percy should have chosen to use the device as a seal-ring?  He might
easily have done that. . .yes. . .quite easily. . .and. . .
besides. . .what connection could there be between her exquisite dandy
of a husband, with his fine clothes and refined, lazy ways, and the
daring plotter who rescued French victims from beneath the very eyes
of the leaders of a bloodthirsty revolution?

Her thoughts were in a whirl--her mind a blank. . .She did not
see anything that was going on around her, and was quite startled when
a fresh young voice called to her across the garden.

"CHERIE!--CHERIE! where are you?" and little Suzanne,
fresh as a rosebud, with eyes dancing with glee, and brown curls
fluttering in the soft morning breeze, came running across the lawn.

"They told me you were in the garden," she went on prattling
merrily, and throwing herself with a pretty, girlish impulse into
Marguerite's arms, "so I ran out to give you a surprise.  You did not
expect me quite so soon, did you, my darling little Margot CHERIE?"

Marguerite, who had hastily concealed the ring in the folds of
her kerchief, tried to respond gaily and unconcernedly to the young
girl's impulsiveness.

"Indeed, sweet one," she said with a smile, "it is delightful
to have you all to myself, and for a nice whole long day. . . .  You
won't be bored?"

"Oh! bored!  Margot, how CAN you say such a wicked thing.
Why! when we were in the dear old convent together, we were always
happy when we were allowed to be alone together."

"And to talk secrets."

The two young girls had linked their arms in one another's and
began wandering round the garden.

"Oh! how lovely your home is, Margot, darling," said little
Suzanne, enthusiastically, "and how happy you must be!"

"Aye, indeed!  I ought to be happy--oughtn't I, sweet one?"
said Marguerite, with a wistful little sigh.

"How sadly you say it, CHERIE. . . .  Ah, well, I suppose
now that you are a married woman you won't care to talk secrets with
me any longer.  Oh! what lots and lots of secrets we used to have at
school!  Do you remember?--some we did not even confide to Sister
Theresa of the Holy Angels--though she was such a dear."

"And now you have one all-important secret, eh, little one?"
said Marguerite, merrily, "which you are forthwith going to confide in
me.  nay, you need not blush, CHERIE." she added, as she saw
Suzanne's pretty little face crimson with blushes.  "Faith, there's
naught to be ashamed of!  He is a noble and true man, and one to be
proud of as a lover, and. . .as a husband."
"Indeed, CHERIE, I am not ashamed," rejoined Suzanne,
softly; "and it makes me very, very proud to hear you speak so well of
him.  I think maman will consent," she added thoughtfully, "and I
shall be--oh! so happy--but, of course, nothing is to be thought of
until papa is safe. . . ."

Marguerite started.  Suzanne's father! the Comte de Tournay!--one
of those whose life would be jeopardised if Chauvelin succeeded
in establishing the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel.

She had understood all along from the Comtesse, and also from
one or two of the members of the league, that their mysterious leader
had pledged his honour to bring the fugitive Comte de Tournay safely
out of France.  Whilst little Suzanne--unconscious of all--save her
own all-important little secret, went prattling on.  Marguerite's
thoughts went back to the events of the past night.

Armand's peril, Chauvelin's threat, his cruel "Either--or--"
which she had accepted.

And then her own work in the matter, which should have
culminated at one o'clock in Lord Grenville's dining-room, when the
relentless agent of the French Government would finally learn who was
this mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel, who so openly defied an army of
spies and placed himself so boldly, and for mere sport, on the side of
the enemies of France.

Since then she had heard nothing from Chauvelin.  She had
concluded that he had failed, and yet, she had not felt anxious about
Armand, because her husband had promised her that Armand would be safe.

But now, suddenly, as Suzanne prattled merrily along, an awful
horror came upon her for what she had done.  Chauvelin had told her
nothing, it was true; but she remembered how sarcastic and evil he
looked when she took final leave of him after the ball.  Had he
discovered something then?  Had he already laid his plans for catching
the daring plotter, red-handed, in France, and sending him to the
guillotine without compunction or delay?

Marguerite turned sick with horror, and her hand convulsively
clutched the ring in her dress.

"You are not listening, CHERIE," said Suzanne,
reproachfully, as she paused in her long, highly interesting
narrative.

"Yes, yes, darling--indeed I am," said Marguerite with an
effort, forcing herself to smile."  "I love to hear you talking. . .
and your happiness makes me so very glad. . . .  Have no fear, we will
manage to propitiate maman.  Sir Andrew Ffoulkes is a noble English
gentleman; he has money and position, the Comtesse will not refuse her
consent. . . .  But. . .now, little one. . .tell me. . .  what is the
latest news about your father?"

"Oh!" said Suzanne with mad glee, "the best we could possibly
hear.  My Lord Hastings came to see maman early this morning.  He said
that all is now well with dear papa, and we may safely expect him here
in England in less than four days."

"Yes," said Marguerite, whose glowing eyes were fastened on
Suzanne's lips, as she continued merrily:

"Oh, we have no fear now!  You don't know, CHERIE, that that
great and noble Scarlet Pimpernel himself has gone to save papa.  He
has gone, CHERIE. . .actually gone. . ." added Suzanne excitedly,
"He was in London this morning; he will be in Calais, perhaps,
to-morrow. . .where he will meet papa. . .and then. . .and then. . ."

The blow had fallen.  She had expected it all along, though
she had tried for the last half-hour to delude herself and to cheat
her fears.  He had gone to Calais, had been in London this
morning. . .he. . .the Scarlet Pimpernel. . .Percy Blakeney. . .her
husband. . .whom she had betrayed last night to Chauvelin.

Percy. . .Percy. . .her husband. . .the Scarlet Pimpernel. . .
Oh! how could she have been so blind?  She understood it all now--all
at once. . .that part he played--the mask he wore. . .in order to
throw dust in everybody's eyes.

And all for the sheer sport and devilry of course!--saving
men, women and children from death, as other men destroy and kill
animals for the excitement, the love of the thing.  The idle, rich man
wanted some aim in life--he, and the few young bucks he enrolled under
his banner, had amused themselves for months in risking their lives
for the sake of an innocent few.

Perhaps he had meant to tell her when they were first married;
and then the story of the Marquis de St. Cyr had come to his ears, and
he had suddenly turned from her, thinking, no doubt, that she might
someday betray him and his comrades, who had sworn to follow him; and
so he had tricked her, as he tricked all others, whilst hundreds now
owed their lives to him, and many families owed him both life and
happiness.

The mask of an inane fop had been a good one, and the part
consummately well played.  No wonder that Chauvelin's spies had failed
to detect, in the apparently brainless nincompoop, the man whose
reckless daring and resourceful ingenuity had baffled the keenest
French spies, both in France and in England.  Even last night when
Chauvelin went to Lord Grenville's dining-room to seek that daring
Scarlet Pimpernel, he only saw that inane Sir Percy Blakeney fast
asleep in a corner of the sofa.

Had his astute mind guessed the secret, then?  Here lay the
whole awful, horrible, amazing puzzle.  In betraying a nameless
stranger to his fate in order to save her brother, had Marguerite
Blakeney sent her husband to his death?

No! no! no! a thousand times no!  Surely Fate could not
deal a blow like that: Nature itself would rise in revolt: her hand,
when it held that tiny scrap of paper last night, would have surely have
been struck numb ere it committed a deed so appalling and so terrible.

"But what is it, CHERIE?" said little Suzanne, now genuinely alarmed,
for Marguerite's colour had become dull and ashen.  "Are you ill, Marguerite?
What is it?"

"Nothing, nothing, child," she murmured, as in a dream.  "Wait
a moment. . .let me think. . .think!. . .You said. . .the Scarlet
Pimpernel had gone today. . . . ?"

"Marguerite, CHERIE, what is it?  You frighten me. . . ."

"It is nothing, child, I tell you. . .nothing. . .I must be
alone a minute--and--dear one. . .I may have to curtail our time
together to-day. . . .  I may have to go away--you'll understand?"

"I understand that something has happened, CHERIE, and that
you want to be alone.  I won't be a hindrance to you.  Don't think of
me.  My maid, Lucile, has not yet gone. . .we will go back
together. . .don't think of me."

She threw her arms impulsively round Marguerite.  Child as she
was, she felt the poignancy of her friend's grief, and with the
infinite tact of her girlish tenderness, she did not try to pry into
it, but was ready to efface herself.

She kissed Marguerite again and again, then walked sadly back
across the lawn.  Marguerite did not move, she remained there,
thinking. . .wondering what was to be done.

Just as little Suzanne was about to mount the terrace steps, a
groom came running round the house towards his mistress.  He carried a
sealed letter in his hand.  Suzanne instinctively turned back; her
heart told her that here perhaps was further ill news for her friend,
and she felt that poor Margot was not in a fit state to bear any more.

The groom stood respectfully beside his mistress, then he
handed her the sealed letter.

"What is that?" asked Marguerite.

"Just come by runner, my lady."

Marguerite took the letter mechanically, and turned it over in
her trembling fingers.

"Who sent it?" she said.

"The runner said, my lady," replied the groom, "that his
orders were to deliver this, and that your ladyship would understand
from whom it came."

Marguerite tore open the envelope.  Already her instinct told
her what it contained, and her eyes only glanced at it mechanically.

It was a letter by Armand St. Just to Sir Andrew Ffoulkes--the
letter which Chauvelin's spies had stolen at "The Fisherman's Rest,"
and which Chauvelin had held as a rod over her to enforce her
obedience.

Now he had kept his word--he had sent her back St. Just's
compromising letter. . .for he was on the track of the Scarlet Pimpernel.

Marguerite's senses reeled, her very soul seemed to be leaving
her body; she tottered, and would have fallen but for Suzanne's arm
round her waist.  With superhuman effort she regained control over
herself--there was yet much to be done.

"Bring that runner here to me," she said to the servant, with
much calm.  "He has not gone?"

"No, my lady."

The groom went, and Marguerite turned to Suzanne.

"And you, child, run within.  Tell Lucile to get ready.  I
fear that I must send you home, child.  And--stay, tell one of the
maids to prepare a travelling dress and cloak for me."

Suzanne made no reply.  She kissed Marguerite tenderly and
obeyed without a word; the child was overawed by the terrible,
nameless misery in her friend's face.

A minute later the groom returned, followed by the runner who
had brought the letter.

"Who gave you this packet?" asked Marguerite.

"A gentleman, my lady," replied the man, "at `The Rose and
Thistle' inn opposite Charing Cross.  He said you would understand."

"At `The Rose and Thistle'?  What was he doing?"

"He was waiting for the coach, you ladyship, which he had ordered."

"The coach?"

"Yes, my lady.  A special coach he had ordered.  I understood
from his man that he was posting straight to Dover."

"That's enough.  You may go."  Then she turned to the groom:
"My coach and the four swiftest horses in the stables, to be ready at
once."

The groom and runner both went quickly off to obey.
Marguerite remained standing for a moment on the lawn quite alone.
Her graceful figure was as rigid as a statue, her eyes were fixed, her
hands were tightly clasped across her breast; her lips moved as they
murmured with pathetic heart-breaking persistence,--

"What's to be done?  What's to be done?  Where to find
him?--Oh, God! grant me light."

But this was not the moment for remorse and despair.  She had
done--unwittingly--an awful and terrible thing--the very worst crime,
in her eyes, that woman ever committed--she saw it in all its horror.
Her very blindness in not having guessed her husband's secret seemed
now to her another deadly sin.  She ought to have known! she ought
to have known!

How could she imagine that a man who could love with so much
intensity as Percy Blakeney had loved her from the first--how could
such a man be the brainless idiot he chose to appear?  She, at least,
ought to have known that he was wearing a mask, and having found that
out, she should have torn it from his face, whenever they were alone
together.

Her love for him had been paltry and weak, easily crushed by
her own pride; and she, too, had worn a mask in assuming a contempt
for him, whilst, as a matter of fact, she completely misunderstood
him.

But there was no time now to go over the past.  By her own
blindness she had sinned; now she must repay, not by empty remorse,
but by prompt and useful action.

Percy had started for Calais, utterly unconscious of the fact
that his most relentless enemy was on his heels.  He had set sail
early that morning from London Bridge.  Provided he had a favourable
wind, he would no doubt be in France within twenty-four hours; no
doubt he had reckoned on the wind and chosen this route.

Chauvelin, on the other hand, would post to Dover, charter a
vessel there, and undoubtedly reach Calais much about the same time.
Once in Calais, Percy would meet all those who were eagerly waiting
for the noble and brave Scarlet Pimpernel, who had come to rescue them
from horrible and unmerited death.  With Chauvelin's eyes now fixed
upon his every movement, Percy would thus not only be endangering his
own life, but that of Suzanne's father, the old Comte de Tournay, and
of those other fugitives who were waiting for him and trusting in him.
There was also Armand, who had gone to meet de Tournay, secure in the
knowledge that the Scarlet Pimpernel was watching over his safety.

All these lives and that of her husband, lay in Marguerite's hands;
these she must save, if human pluck and ingenuity were equal to the task.

Unfortunately, she could not do all this quite alone.  Once in
Calais she would not know where to find her husband, whilst Chauvelin,
in stealing the papers at Dover, had obtained the whole itinerary.
Above every thing, she wished to warn Percy.

She knew enough about him by now to understand that he would
never abandon those who trusted in him, that he would not turn his
back from danger, and leave the Comte de Tournay to fall into the
bloodthirsty hands that knew of no mercy.  But if he were warned, he
might form new plans, be more wary, more prudent.  Unconsciously, he
might fall into a cunning trap, but--once warned--he might yet succeed.

And if he failed--if indeed Fate, and Chauvelin, with all the
resources at his command, proved too strong for the daring plotter
after all--then at least she would be there by his side, to comfort,
love and cherish, to cheat death perhaps at the last by making it seem
sweet, if they died both together, locked in each other's arms, with
the supreme happiness of knowing that passion had responded to
passion, and that all misunderstandings were at an end.

Her whole body stiffened as with a great and firm resolution.
This she meant to do, if God gave her wits and strength.  Her eyes
lost their fixed look; they glowed with inward fire at the thought of
meeting him again so soon, in the very midst of most deadly perils;
they sparkled with the joy of sharing these dangers with him--of
helping him perhaps--of being with him at the last--if she failed.

The childlike sweet face had become hard and set, the curved
mouth was closed tightly over her clenched teeth.  She meant to do or
die, with him and for his sake.  A frown, which spoke of an iron will
and unbending resolution, appeared between the two straight brows;
already her plans were formed.  She would go and find Sir Andrew
Ffoulkes first; he was Percy's best friend, and Marguerite remembered,
with a thrill, with what blind enthusiasm the young man always spoke
of his mysterious leader.

He would help her where she needed help; her coach was ready.
A change of raiment, and a farewell to little Suzanne, and she could
be on her way.

Without haste, but without hesitation, she walked quietly
into the house.




CHAPTER XX              THE FRIEND



Less than half an hour later, Marguerite, buried in thoughts,
sat inside her coach, which was bearing her swiftly to London.

She had taken an affectionate farewell of little Suzanne, and
seen the child safely started with her maid, and in her own coach,
back to town.  She had sent one courier with a respectful letter of
excuse to His Royal Highness, begging for a postponement of the august
visit on account of pressing and urgent business, and another on ahead
to bespeak a fresh relay of horses at Faversham.

Then she had changed her muslin frock for a dark traveling
costume and mantle, had provided herself with money--which her
husband's lavishness always placed fully at her disposal--and had
started on her way.

She did not attempt to delude herself with any vain and futile
hopes; the safety of her brother Armand was to have been conditional
on the imminent capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel.  As Chauvelin had
sent her back Armand's compromising letter, there was no doubt that he
was quite satisfied in his own mind that Percy Blakeney was the man
whose death he had sworn to bring about.

No! there was no room for any fond delusions!  Percy, the
husband whom she loved with all the ardour which her admiration for
his bravery had kindled, was in immediate, deadly peril, through her
hand.  She had betrayed him to his enemy--unwittingly `tis true--but
she HAD betrayed him, and if Chauvelin succeeded in trapping him,
who so far was unaware of his danger, then his death would be at her
door.  His death! when with her very heart's blood, she would have
defended him and given willingly her life for his.

She had ordered her coach to drive her to the "Crown" inn;
once there, she told her coachman to give the horses food and rest.
Then she ordered a chair, and had herself carried to the house in Pall
Mall where Sir Andrew Ffoulkes lived.

Among all Percy's friends who were enrolled under his daring
banner, she felt that she would prefer to confide in Sir Andrew
Ffoulkes.  He had always been her friend, and now his love for little
Suzanne had brought him closer to her still.  Had he been away from
home, gone on the mad errand with Percy, perhaps, then she would have
called on Lord Hastings or Lord Tony--for she wanted the help of one
of these young men, or she would indeed be powerless to save her
husband.

Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, however, was at home, and his servant
introduced her ladyship immediately.  She went upstairs to the young
man's comfortable bachelor's chambers, and was shown into a small,
though luxuriously furnished, dining-room.  A moment or two later Sir
Andrew himself appeared.

He had evidently been much startled when he heard who his lady
visitor was, for he looked anxiously--even suspiciously--at
Marguerite, whilst performing the elaborate bows before her, which the
rigid etiquette of the time demanded.

Marguerite had laid aside every vestige of nervousness; she
was perfectly calm, and having returned the young man's elaborate
salute, she began very calmly,--

"Sir Andrew, I have no desire to waste valuable time in much
talk.  You must take certain things I am going to tell you for
granted.  These will be of no importance.  What is important is that
your leader and comrade, the Scarlet Pimpernel. . .my husband. . .
Percy Blakeney. . .is in deadly peril."

Had she the remotest doubt of the correctness of her
deductions, she would have had them confirmed now, for Sir Andrew,
completely taken by surprise, had grown very pale, and was quite
incapable of making the slightest attempt at clever parrying.

"No matter how I know this, Sir Andrew," she continued
quietly, "thank God that I do, and that perhaps it is not too late to
save him.  Unfortunately, I cannot do this quite alone, and therefore
have come to you for help."

"Lady Blakeney," said the young man, trying to recover himself, "I. . ."

"Will you hear me first?" she interrupted.  "This is how the
matter stands.  When the agent of the French Government stole your
papers that night in Dover, he found amongst them certain plans, which
you or your leader meant to carry out for the rescue of the Comte de
Tournay and others.  The Scarlet Pimpernel--Percy, my husband--has
gone on this errand himself to-day.  Chauvelin knows that the Scarlet
Pimpernel and Percy Blakeney are one and the same person.  He will
follow him to Calais, and there will lay hands on him.  You know as
well as I do the fate that awaits him at the hands of the
Revolutionary Government of France.  No interference from
England--from King George himself--would save him.  Robespierre and
his gang would see to it that the interference came too late.  But not
only that, the much-trusted leader will also have been unconsciously
the means of revealing the hiding-place of the Comte de Tournay and of
all those who, even now, are placing their hopes in him."

She had spoken quietly, dispassionately, and with firm,
unbending resolution.  Her purpose was to make that young man trust
and help her, for she could do nothing without him.

"I do not understand," he repeated, trying to gain time, to
think what was best to be done.

"Aye! but I think you do, Sir Andrew.  You must know that I
am speaking the truth.  Look these facts straight in the face.  Percy
has sailed for Calais, I presume for some lonely part of the coast,
and Chauvelin is on his track.  HE has posted for Dover, and will
cross the Channel probably to-night.  What do you think will happen?"

The young man was silent.

"Percy will arrive at his destination: unconscious of being
followed he will seek out de Tournay and the others--among these is
Armand St. Just my brother--he will seek them out, one after another,
probably, not knowing that the sharpest eyes in the world are watching
his every movement.  When he has thus unconsciously betrayed those who
blindly trust in him, when nothing can be gained from him, and he is
ready to come back to England, with those whom he has gone so bravely
to save, the doors of the trap will close upon him, and he will be
sent to end his noble life upon the guillotine."

Still Sir Andrew was silent.

"You do not trust me," she said passionately.  "Oh God!
cannot you see that I am in deadly earnest?  Man, man," she added,
while, with her tiny hands she seized the young man suddenly by the
shoulders, forcing him to look straight at her, "tell me, do I look
like that vilest thing on earth--a woman who would betray her own
husband?"

"God forbid, Lady Blakeney," said the young man at last,
"that I should attribute such evil motives to you, but. . ."
"But what?. . .tell me. . .Quick, man!. . .the very seconds are precious!"

"Will you tell me," he asked resolutely, and looking
searchingly into her blue eyes, "whose hand helped to guide M.
Chauvelin to the knowledge which you say he possesses?"

"Mine," she said quietly, "I own it--I will not lie to you,
for I wish you to trust me absolutely.  But I had no idea--how COULD
I have?--of the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel. . .and my brother's
safety was to be my prize if I succeeded."

"In helping Chauvelin to track the Scarlet Pimpernel?"

She nodded.

"It is no use telling you how he forced my hand.  Armand is
more than a brother to me, and. . .and. . .how COULD I guess?. . .
But we waste time, Sir Andrew. . .every second is precious. . .in the
name of God!. . .my husband is in peril. . .your friend!--your
comrade!--Help me to save him."

Sir Andrew felt his position to be a very awkward one.  The
oath he had taken before his leader and comrade was one of obedience
and secrecy; and yet the beautiful woman, who was asking him to trust
her, was undoubtedly in earnest; his friend and leader was equally
undoubtedly in imminent danger and. . .

"Lady Blakeney," he said at last, "God knows you have
perplexed me, so that I do not know which way my duty lies.  Tell me
what you wish me to do.  There are nineteen of us ready to lay down
our lives for the Scarlet Pimpernel if he is in danger."

"There is no need for lives just now, my friend," she said
drily; "my wits and four swift horses will serve the necessary
purpose.  But I must know where to find him.  See," she added, while
her eyes filled with tears, "I have humbled myself before you, I have
owned my fault to you; shall I also confess my weakness?--My husband
and I have been estranged, because he did not trust me, and because I
was too blind to understand.  You must confess that the bandage which
he put over my eyes was a very thick one.  Is it small wonder that I
did not see through it?  But last night, after I led him unwittingly
into such deadly peril, it suddenly fell from my eyes.  If you will
not help me, Sir Andrew, I would still strive to save my husband.  I
would still exert every faculty I possess for his sake; but I might be
powerless, for I might arrive too late, and nothing would be left for
you but lifelong remorse, and. . .and. . .for me, a broken heart."

"But, Lady Blakeney," said the young man, touched by the
gentle earnestness of this exquisitely beautiful woman, "do you know
that what you propose doing is man's work?--you cannot possibly
journey to Calais alone.  You would be running the greatest possible
risks to yourself, and your chances of finding your husband now--where
I to direct you ever so carefully--are infinitely remote.

"Oh, I hope there are risks!" she murmured softly, "I hope
there are dangers, too!--I have so much to atone for.  But I fear you
are mistaken.  Chauvelin's eyes are fixed upon you all, he will scarce
notice me.  Quick, Sir Andrew!--the coach is ready, and there is not a
moment to be lost. . . .  I MUST get to him!  I MUST!" she
repeated with almost savage energy, "to warn him that that man is on
his track. . . .  Can't you see--can't you see, that I MUST get to
him. . .even. . .even if it be too late to save him. . .at least. . .
to be by his side. . .at the least."

"Faith, Madame, you must command me.  Gladly would I or any of
my comrades lay down our lives for our husband.  If you WILL go
yourself. . ."

"Nay, friend, do you not see that I would go mad if I let you go
without me."  She stretched out her hand to him.  "You WILL trust me?"

"I await your orders," he said simply.

"Listen, then.  My coach is ready to take me to Dover.  Do you
follow me, as swiftly as horses will take you.  We meet at nightfall
at `The Fisherman's Rest.'  Chauvelin would avoid it, as he is known
there, and I think it would be the safest.  I will gladly accept your
escort to Calais. . .as you say, I might miss Sir Percy were you to
direct me ever so carefully.  We'll charter a schooner at Dover and
cross over during the night.  Disguised, if you will agree to it, as
my lacquey, you will, I think, escape detection."

"I am entirely at your service, Madame," rejoined the young
man earnestly.  "I trust to God that you will sight the DAY DREAM
before we reach Calais.  With Chauvelin at his heels, every step the
Scarlet Pimpernel takes on French soil is fraught with danger."

"God grant it, Sir Andrew.  But now, farewell.  We meet
to-night at Dover!  It will be a race between Chauvelin and me across
the Channel to-night--and the prize--the life of the Scarlet
Pimpernel."

He kissed her hand, and then escorted her to her chair.  A
quarter of an hour later she was back at the "Crown" inn, where her
coach and horses were ready and waiting for her.  The next moment they
thundered along the London streets, and then straight on to the Dover
road at maddening speed.

She had no time for despair now.  She was up and doing and had
no leisure to think.  With Sir Andrew Ffoulkes as her companion and
ally, hope had once again revived in her heart.

God would be merciful.  He would not allow so appalling a
crime to be committed, as the death of a brave man, through the hand
of a woman who loved him, and worshipped him, and who would gladly
have died for his sake.

Marguerite's thoughts flew back to him, the mysterious hero,
whom she had always unconsciously loved, when his identity was still
unknown to her.  Laughingly, in the olden days, she used to call him
the shadowy king of her heart, and now she had suddenly found that
this enigmatic personality whom she had worshipped, and the man who
loved her so passionately, were one and the same: what wonder that one
or two happier Visions began to force their way before her mind?  She
vaguely wondered what she would say to him when first they would stand
face to face.

She had had so many anxieties, so much excitement during the
past few hours, that she allowed herself the luxury of nursing these
few more hopeful, brighter thoughts.  Gradually the rumble of the
coach wheels, with its incessant monotony, acted soothingly on her
nerves: her eyes, aching with fatigue and many shed and unshed tears,
closed involuntarily, and she fell into a troubled sleep.




CHAPTER XXI             SUSPENSE



It was late into the night when she at last reached "The
Fisherman's Rest."  She had done the whole journey in less than eight
hours, thanks to innumerable changes of horses at the various coaching
stations, for which she always paid lavishly, thus obtaining the very
best and swiftest that could be had.

Her coachman, too, had been indefatigible; the promise of
special and rich reward had no doubt helped to keep him up, and he had
literally burned the ground beneath his mistress' coach wheels.

The arrival of Lady Blakeney in the middle of the night caused
a considerable flutter at "The Fisherman's Rest."  Sally jumped
hastily out of bed, and Mr. Jellyband was at great pains how to make
his important guest comfortable.

Both of these good folk were far too well drilled in the
manners appertaining to innkeepers, to exhibit the slightest surprise
at Lady Blakeney's arrival, alone, at this extraordinary hour.  No
doubt they thought all the more, but Marguerite was far too absorbed
in the importance--the deadly earnestness--of her journey, to stop and
ponder over trifles of that sort.

The coffee-room--the scene lately of the dastardly outrage on
two English gentlemen--was quite deserted.  Mr. Jellyband hastily
relit the lamp, rekindled a cheerful bit of fire in the great hearth,
and then wheeled a comfortable chair by it, into which Marguerite
gratefully sank.

"Will your ladyship stay the night?" asked pretty Miss Sally,
who was already busy laying a snow-white cloth on the table,
preparatory to providing a simple supper for her ladyship.

"No! not the whole night," replied Marguerite.  "At any rate,
I shall not want any room but this, if I can have it to myself for an
hour or two."

"It is at your ladyship's service," said honest Jellyband,
whose rubicund face was set in its tightest folds, lest it should
betray before "the quality" that boundless astonishment which the very
worthy fellow had begun to feel.

"I shall be crossing over at the first turn of the tide," said
Marguerite, "and in the first schooner I can get.  But my coachman and
men will stay the night, and probably several days longer, so I hope
you will make them comfortable."

"Yes, my lady; I'll look after them.  Shall Sally bring your
ladyship some supper?"

"Yes, please.  Put something cold on the table, and as soon as
Sir Andrew Ffoulkes comes, show him in here."

"Yes, my lady."

Honest Jellyband's face now expressed distress in spite of
himself.  He had great regard for Sir Percy Blakeney, and did not like
to see his lady running away with young Sir Andrew.  Of course, it was
no business of his, and Mr. Jellyband was no gossip.  Still, in his
heart, he recollected that her ladyship was after all only one of them
"furriners"; what wonder that she was immoral like the rest of them?

"Don't sit up, honest Jellyband," continued Marguerite kindly,
"nor you either, Mistress Sally.  Sir Andrew may be late."

Jellyband was only too willing that Sally should go to bed.
He was beginning not to like these goings-on at all.  Still, Lady
Blakeney would pay handsomely for the accommodation, and it certainly
was no business of his.

Sally arranged a simple supper of cold meat, wine, and fruit
on the table, then with a respectful curtsey, she retired, wondering
in her little mind why her ladyship looked so serious, when she was
about to elope with her gallant.

Then commenced a period of weary waiting for Marguerite.  She
knew that Sir Andrew--who would have to provide himself with clothes
befitting a lacquey--could not possibly reach Dover for at least a
couple of hours.  He was a splendid horseman of course, and would make
light in such an emergency of the seventy odd miles between London and
Dover.  He would, too, literally burn the ground beneath his horse's
hoofs, but he might not always get very good remounts, and in any
case, he could not have started from London until at least an hour
after she did.

She had seen nothing of Chauvelin on the road.  Her coachman,
whom she questioned, had not seen anyone answering the description his
mistress gave him of the wizened figure of the little Frenchman.

Evidently, therefore, he had been ahead of her all the time.
She had not dared to question the people at the various inns, where
they had stopped to change horses.  She feared that Chauvelin had
spies all along the route, who might overhear her questions, then
outdistance her and warn her enemy of her approach.

Now she wondered at what inn he might be stopping, or whether
he had had the good luck of chartering a vessel already, and was now
himself on the way to France.  That thought gripped her at the heart
as with an iron vice.  If indeed she should not be too late already!

The loneliness of the room overwhelmed her; everything within
was so horribly still; the ticking of the grandfather's
clock--dreadfully slow and measured--was the only sound which broke
this awful loneliness.

Marguerite had need of all her energy, all her steadfastness of
purpose, to keep up her courage through this weary midnight waiting.

Everyone else in the house but herself must have been asleep.
She had heard Sally go upstairs.  Mr. Jellyband had gone to see to her
coachman and men, and then had returned and taken up a position under
the porch outside, just where Marguerite had first met Chauvelin about
a week ago.  He evidently meant to wait up for Sir Andrew Ffoulkes,
but was soon overcome by sweet slumbers, for presently--in addition to
the slow ticking of the clock--Marguerite could hear the monotonous
and dulcet tones of the worthy fellow's breathing.

For some time now, she had realised that the beautiful warm
October's day, so happily begun, had turned into a rough and cold
night.  She had felt very chilly, and was glad of the cheerful blaze
in the hearth: but gradually, as time wore on, the weather became more
rough, and the sound of the great breakers against the Admiralty Pier,
though some distance from the inn, came to her as the noise of muffled
thunder.

The wind was becoming boisterous, rattling the leaded windows
and the massive doors of the old-fashioned house: it shook the trees
outside and roared down the vast chimney.  Marguerite wondered if the
wind would be favourable for her journey.  She had no fear of the
storm, and would have braved worse risks sooner than delay the
crossing by an hour.

A sudden commotion outside roused her from her meditations.
Evidently it was Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, just arrived in mad haste, for
she heard his horse's hoofs thundering on the flag-stones outside,
then Mr. Jellyband's sleepy, yet cheerful tones bidding him welcome.

For a moment, then, the awkwardness of her position struck
Marguerite; alone at this hour, in a place where she was well known,
and having made an assignation with a young cavalier equally well
known, and who arrived in disguise!  What food for gossip to those
mischievously inclined.

The idea struck Marguerite chiefly from its humorous side:
there was such quaint contrast between the seriousness of her errand,
and the construction which would naturally be put on her actions by
honest Mr. Jellyband, that, for the first time since many hours, a
little smile began playing round the corners of her childlike mouth,
and when, presently, Sir Andrew, almost unrecognisable in his
lacquey-like garb, entered the coffee-room, she was able to greet him
with quite a merry laugh.

"Faith!  Monsieur, my lacquey," she said, "I am satisfied with
your appearance!"

Mr. Jellyband had followed Sir Andrew, looking strangely
perplexed.  The young gallant's disguise had confirmed his worst
suspicions.  Without a smile upon his jovial face, he drew the cork
from the bottle of wine, set the chairs ready, and prepared to wait.

"Thanks, honest friend," said Marguerite, who was still
smiling at the thought of what the worthy fellow must be thinking at
that very moment, "we shall require nothing more; and here's for all
the trouble you have been put to on our account."

She handed two or three gold pieces to Jellyband, who took
them respectfully, and with becoming gratitude.

"Stay, Lady Blakeney," interposed Sir Andrew, as Jellyband was
about to retire, "I am afraid we shall require something more of my
friend Jelly's hospitality.  I am sorry to say we cannot cross over
to-night."

"Not cross over to-night?" she repeated in amazement.  "But we
must, Sir Andrew, we must!  There can be no question of cannot, and
whatever it may cost, we must get a vessel to-night."

But the young man shook his head sadly.

"I am afraid it is not a question of cost, Lady Blakeney.
There is a nasty storm blowing from France, the wind is dead against
us, we cannot possibly sail until it has changed."

Marguerite became deadly pale.  She had not foreseen this.
Nature herself was playing her a horrible, cruel trick.  Percy was in
danger, and she could not go to him, because the wind happened to blow
from the coast of France.

"But we must go!--we must!" she repeated with strange,
persistent energy, "you know, we must go!--can't you find a way?"

"I have been down to the shore already," he said, "and had a
talk to one or two skippers.  It is quite impossible to set sail
to-night, so every sailor assured me.  No one," he added, looking
significantly at Marguerite, "NO ONE could possibly put out of Dover
to-night."

Marguerite at once understood what he meant.  NO ONE
included Chauvelin as well as herself.  She nodded pleasantly to
Jellyband.

"Well, then, I must resign myself," she said to him.  "Have
you a room for me?"

"Oh, yes, your ladyship.  A nice, bright, airy room.  I'll see
to it at once. . . .  And there is another one for Sir Andrew--both
quite ready."

"That's brave now, mine honest Jelly," said Sir Andrew, gaily,
and clapping his worth host vigorously on the back.  "You unlock both
those rooms, and leave our candles here on the dresser.  I vow you are
dead with sleep, and her ladyship must have some supper before she
retires.  There, have no fear, friend of the rueful countenance, her
ladyship's visit, though at this unusual hour, is a great honour to
thy house, and Sir Percy Blakeney will reward thee doubly, if thou
seest well to her privacy and comfort."

Sir Andrew had no doubt guessed the many conflicting doubts
and fears which raged in honest Jellyband's head; and, as he was a
gallant gentleman, he tried by this brave hint to allay some of the
worthy innkeeper's suspicions.  He had the satisfaction of seeing that
he had partially succeeded.  Jellyband's rubicund countenance
brightened somewhat, at the mention of Sir Percy's name.

"I'll go and see to it at once, sir," he said with alacrity,
and with less frigidity in his manner.  "Has her ladyship everything
she wants for supper?"

"Everything, thanks, honest friend, and as I am famished and
dead with fatigue, I pray you see to the rooms."

"Now tell me," she said eagerly, as soon as Jellyband had gone
from the room, "tell me all your news."

"There is nothing else much to tell you, Lady Blakeney,"
replied the young man.  "The storm makes it quite impossible for any
vessel to put out of Dover this tide.  But, what seems to you at first
a terrible calamity is really a blessing in disguise.  If we cannot
cross over to France to-night, Chauvelin is in the same quandary.

"He may have left before the storm broke out."

"God grant he may," said Sir Andrew, merrily, "for very likely
then he'll have been driven out of his course!  Who knows?  He may now
even be lying at the bottom of the sea, for there is a furious storm
raging, and it will fare ill with all small craft which happen to be
out.  But I fear me we cannot build our hopes upon the shipwreck of
that cunning devil, and of all his murderous plans.  The sailors I
spoke to, all assured me that no schooner had put out of Dover for
several hours: on the other hand, I ascertained that a stranger had
arrived by coach this afternoon, and had, like myself, made some
inquiries about crossing over to France.

"Then Chauvelin is still in Dover?"

"Undoubtedly.  Shall I go waylay him and run my sword through him?
That were indeed the quickest way out of the difficulty."

"Nay! Sir Andrew, do not jest!  Alas!  I have often since last
night caught myself wishing for that fiend's death.  But what you
suggest is impossible!  The laws of this country do not permit of
murder!  It is only in our beautiful France that wholesale slaughter
is done lawfully, in the name of Liberty and of brotherly love."

Sir Andrew had persuaded her to sit down to the table, to partake of
some supper and to drink a little wine.  This enforced rest of at least
twelve hours, until the next tide, was sure to be terribly difficult to
bear in the state of intense excitement in which she was.  Obedient in
these small matters like a child, Marguerite tried to eat and drink.

Sir Andrew, with that profound sympathy born in all those who
are in love, made her almost happy by talking to her about her
husband.  He recounted to her some of the daring escapes the brave
Scarlet Pimpernel had contrived for the poor French fugitives, whom a
relentless and bloody revolution was driving out of their country.  He
made her eyes glow with enthusiasm by telling her of his bravery, his
ingenuity, his resourcefulness, when it meant snatching the lives of
men, women, and even children from beneath the very edge of that
murderous, ever-ready guillotine.

He even made her smile quite merrily by telling her of the
Scarlet Pimpernel's quaint and many disguises, through which he had
baffled the strictest watch set against him at the barricades of
Paris.  This last time, the escape of the Comtesse de Tournay and her
children had been a veritable masterpiece--Blakeney disguised as a
hideous old market-woman, in filthy cap and straggling grey locks, was
a sight fit to make the gods laugh.

Marguerite laughed heartily as Sir Andrew tried to describe
Blakeney's appearance, whose gravest difficulty always consisted in
his great height, which in France made disguise doubly difficult.

Thus an hour wore on.  There were many more to spend in
enforced inactivity in Dover.  Marguerite rose from the table with an
impatient sigh.  She looked forward with dread to the night in the bed
upstairs, with terribly anxious thoughts to keep her company, and the
howling of the storm to help chase sleep away.

She wondered where Percy was now.  The DAY DREAM was a strong,
well-built sea-going yacht.  Sir Andrew had expressed the opinion
that no doubt she had got in the lee of the wind before the storm
broke out, or else perhaps had not ventured into the open at all,
but was lying quietly at Gravesend.

Briggs was an expert skipper, and Sir Percy handled a schooner as well
as any master mariner.  There was no danger for them from the storm.

It was long past midnight when at last Marguerite retired to
rest.  As she had feared, sleep sedulously avoided her eyes.  Her
thoughts were of the blackest during these long, weary hours, whilst
that incessant storm raged which was keeping her away from Percy.  The
sound of the distant breakers made her heart ache with melancholy.
She was in the mood when the sea has a saddening effect upon the
nerves.  It is only when we are very happy, that we can bear to gaze
merrily upon the vast and limitless expanse of water, rolling on and
on with such persistent, irritating monotony, to the accompaniment of
our thoughts, whether grave or gay.  When they are gay, the waves echo
their gaiety; but when they are sad, then every breaker, as it rolls,
seems to bring additional sadness, and to speak to us of hopelessness
and of the pettiness of all our joys.




CHAPTER XXII            CALAIS



The weariest nights, the longest days, sooner or later must
perforce come to an end.

Marguerite had spent over fifteen hours in such acute mental
torture as well-nigh drove her crazy.  After a sleepless night, she
rose early, wild with excitement, dying to start on her journey,
terrified lest further obstacles lay in her way.  She rose before
anyone else in the house was astir, so frightened was she, lest she
should miss the one golden opportunity of making a start.

When she came downstairs, she found Sir Andrew Ffoulkes
sitting in the coffee-room.  He had been out half an hour earlier, and
had gone to the Admiralty Pier, only to find that neither the French
packet nor any privately chartered vessel could put out of Dover yet.
The storm was then at its fullest, and the tide was on the turn.  If
the wind did not abate or change, they would perforce have to wait
another ten or twelve hours until the next tide, before a start could
be made.  And the storm had not abated, the wind had not changed, and
the tide was rapidly drawing out.

Marguerite felt the sickness of despair when she heard this
melancholy news.  Only the most firm resolution kept her from totally
breaking down, and thus adding to the young man's anxiety, which
evidently had become very keen.

Though he tried to hide it, Marguerite could see that Sir
Andrew was just as anxious as she was to reach his comrade and friend.
This enforced inactivity was terrible to them both.

How they spend that wearisome day at Dover, Marguerite could
never afterwards say.  She was in terror of showing herself, lest
Chauvelin's spies happened to be about, so she had a private
sitting-room, and she and Sir Andrew sat there hour after hour, trying
to take, at long intervals, some perfunctory meals, which little Sally
would bring them, with nothing to do but to think, to conjecture, and
only occasionally to hope.

The storm had abated just too late; the tide was by then too
far out to allow a vessel to put off to sea.  The wind had changed,
and was settling down to a comfortable north-westerly breeze--a
veritable godsend for a speedy passage across to France.

And there those two waited, wondering if the hour would ever
come when they could finally make a start.  There had been one happy
interval in this long weary day, and that was when Sir Andrew went
down once again to the pier, and presently came back to tell
Marguerite that he had chartered a quick schooner, whose skipper was
ready to put to sea the moment the tide was favourable.

From that moment the hours seemed less wearisome; there was
less hopelessness in the waiting; and at last, at five o'clock in the
afternoon, Marguerite, closely veiled and followed by Sir Andrew
Ffoulkes, who, in the guise of her lacquey, was carrying a number of
impedimenta, found her way down to the pier.

Once on board, the keen, fresh sea-air revived her, the breeze
was just strong enough to nicely swell the sails of the FOAM CREST,
as she cut her way merrily towards the open.

The sunset was glorious after the storm, and Marguerite, as
she watched the white cliffs of Dover gradually disappearing from
view, felt more at peace and once more almost hopeful.

Sir Andrew was full of kind attentions, and she felt how lucky
she had been to have him by her side in this, her great trouble.

Gradually the grey coast of France began to emerge from the
fast-gathering evening mists.  One or two lights could be seen
flickering, and the spires of several churches to rise out of the
surrounding haze.

Half an hour later Marguerite had landed upon French shore.
She was back in that country where at this very moment men slaughtered
their fellow-creatures by the hundreds, and sent innocent women and
children in thousands to the block.

The very aspect of the country and its people, even in this
remote sea-coast town, spoke of that seething revolution, three
hundred miles away, in beautiful Paris, now rendered hideous by the
constant flow of the blood of her noblest sons, by the wailing of the
widows, and the cries of fatherless children.

The men all wore red caps--in various stages of
cleanliness--but all with the tricolor cockade pinned on the
left-side.  Marguerite noticed with a shudder that, instead of the
laughing, merry countenance habitual to her own countrymen, their
faces now invariably wore a look of sly distrust.

Every man nowadays was a spy upon his fellows: the most
innocent word uttered in jest might at any time be brought up as a
proof of aristocratic tendencies, or of treachery against the people.
Even the women went about with a curious look of fear and of hate
lurking in their brown eyes; and all watched Marguerite as she stepped
on shore, followed by Sir Andrew, and murmured as she passed along:
"SACRES ARISTOS!" or else "SACRES ANGLAIS!"

Otherwise their presence excited no further comment.  Calais,
even in those days, was in constant business communication with
England, and English merchants were often seen on this coast.  It was
well known that in view of the heavy duties in England, a vast deal of
French wines and brandies were smuggled across.  This pleased the
French BOURGEOIS immensely; he liked to see the English Government
and the English king, both of whom he hated, cheated out of their
revenues; and an English smuggler was always a welcome guest at the
tumble-down taverns of Calais and Boulogne.

So, perhaps, as Sir Andrew gradually directed Marguerite
through the tortuous streets of Calais, many of the population, who
turned with an oath to look at the strangers clad in English fashion,
thought that they were bent on purchasing dutiable articles for their
own fog-ridden country, and gave them no more than a passing thought.

Marguerite, however, wondered how her husband's tall, massive
figure could have passed through Calais unobserved: she marvelled what
disguise he assumed to do his noble work, without exciting too much
attention.

Without exchanging more than a few words, Sir Andrew was
leading her right across the town, to the other side from that where
they had landed, and the way towards Cap Gris Nez.  The streets were
narrow, tortuous, and mostly evil-smelling, with a mixture of stale
fish and damp cellar odours.  There had been heavy rain here during
the storm last night, and sometimes Marguerite sank ankle-deep in the
mud, for the roads were not lighted save by the occasional glimmer
from a lamp inside a house.

But she did not heed any of these petty discomforts: "We may
meet Blakeney at the `Chat Gris,'" Sir Andrew had said, when they
landed, and she was walking as if on a carpet of rose-leaves, for she
was going to meet him almost at once.

At last they reached their destination.  Sir Andrew evidently
knew the road, for he had walked unerringly in the dark, and had not
asked his way from anyone.  It was too dark then for Marguerite to
notice the outside aspect of this house.  The "Chat Gris," as Sir
Andrew had called it, was evidently a small wayside inn on the outskirts
of Calais, and on the way to Gris Nez.  It lay some little distance
from the coast, for the sound of the sea seemed to come from afar.

Sir Andrew knocked at the door with the knob of his cane, and
from within Marguerite heard a sort of grunt and the muttering of a
number of oaths.  Sir Andrew knocked again, this time more
peremptorily: more oaths were heard, and then shuffling steps seemed
to draw near the door.  Presently this was thrown open, and Marguerite
found herself on the threshold of the most dilapidated, most squalid
room she had ever seen in all her life.

The paper, such as it was, was hanging from the walls in
strips; there did not seem to be a single piece of furniture in the
room that could, by the wildest stretch of imagination, be called
"whole."  Most of the chairs had broken backs, others had no seats to
them, one corner of the table was propped up with a bundle of faggots,
there where the fourth leg had been broken.

In one corner of the room there was a huge hearth, over which
hung a stock-pot, with a not altogether unpalatable odour of hot soup
emanating therefrom.  On one side of the room, high up in the wall,
there was a species of loft, before which hung a tattered blue-and-white
checked curtain.  A rickety set of steps led up to this loft.

On the great bare walls, with their colourless paper, all
stained with varied filth, there were chalked up at intervals in great
bold characters, the words: "Liberte--Egalite--Fraternite."

The whole of this sordid abode was dimly lighted by an
evil-smelling oil-lamp, which hung from the rickety rafters of the
ceiling.  It all looked so horribly squalid, so dirty and uninviting,
that Marguerite hardly dared to cross the threshold.

Sir Andrew, however, had stepped unhesitatingly forward.

"English travellers, citoyen!" he said boldly, and speaking in French.

The individual who had come to the door in response to Sir
Andrew's knock, and who, presumably, was the owner of this squalid
abode, was an elderly, heavily built peasant, dressed in a dirty blue
blouse, heavy sabots, from which wisps of straw protruded all round,
shabby blue trousers, and the inevitable red cap with the tricolour
cockade, that proclaimed his momentary political views.  He carried a
short wooden pipe, from which the odour of rank tobacco emanated.  He
looked with some suspicion and a great deal of contempt at the two
travellers, muttering "SACRRRES ANGLAIS!" and spat upon the ground
to further show his independence of spirit, but, nevertheless, he
stood aside to let them enter, no doubt well aware that these same
SACCRES ANGLAIS always had well-filled purses.

"Oh, lud!" said Marguerite, as she advanced into the room,
holding her handkerchief to her dainty nose, "what a dreadful hole!
Are you sure this is the place?"

"Aye! `this the place, sure enough," replied the young man
as, with his lace-edged, fashionable handkerchief, he dusted a chair
for Marguerite to sit on; "but I vow I never saw a more villainous
hole."

"Faith!" she said, looking round with some curiosity and a
great deal of horror at the dilapidated walls, the broken chairs, the
rickety table, "it certainly does not look inviting."

The landlord of the "Chat Gris"--by name, Brogard--had taken
no further notice of his guests; he concluded that presently they
would order supper, and in the meanwhile it was not for a free citizen
to show deference, or even courtesy, to anyone, however smartly they
might be dressed.

By the hearth sat a huddled-up figure clad, seemingly, mostly
in rags: that figure was apparently a woman, although even that would
have been hard to distinguish, except for the cap, which had once been
white, and for what looked like the semblance of a petticoat.  She was
sitting mumbling to herself, and from time to time stirring the brew
in her stock-pot.

"Hey, my friend!" said Sir Andrew at last, "we should like
some supper. . . .  The citoyenne there," he added, "is concocting
some delicious soup, I'll warrant, and my mistress has not tasted food
for several hours.

It took Brogard some few minutes to consider the question.  A
free citizen does not respond too readily to the wishes of those who
happen to require something of him.

"SACRRRES ARISTOS!" he murmured, and once more spat upon the
ground.

Then he went very slowly up to a dresser which stood in a
corner of the room; from this he took an old pewter soup-tureen and
slowly, and without a word, he handed it to his better-half, who, in
the same silence, began filling the tureen with the soup out of her
stock-pot.

Marguerite had watched all these preparations with absolute
horror; were it not for the earnestness of her purpose, she would
incontinently have fled from this abode of dirt and evil smells.

"Faith! our host and hostess are not cheerful people," said
Sir Andrew, seeing the look of horror on Marguerite's face.  "I would
I could offer you a more hearty and more appetising meal. . .but I
think you will find the soup eatable and the wine good; these people
wallow in dirt, but live well as a rule."

"Nay!  I pray you, Sir Andrew," she said gently, "be not anxious
about me.  My mind is scarce inclined to dwell on thoughts of supper."

Brogard was slowly pursuing his gruesome preparations; he had
placed a couple of spoons, also two glasses on the table, both of
which Sir Andrew took the precaution of wiping carefully.

Brogard had also produced a bottle of wine and some bread, and
Marguerite made an effort to draw her chair to the table and to make
some pretence at eating.  Sir Andrew, as befitting his ROLE of
lacquey, stood behind her chair.

"Nay, Madame, I pray you," he said, seeing that Marguerite
seemed quite unable to eat, "I beg of you to try and swallow some
food--remember you have need of all your strength."

The soup certainly was not bad; it smelt and tasted good.
Marguerite might have enjoyed it, but for the horrible surroundings.
She broke the bread, however, and drank some of the wine.

"Nay, Sir Andrew," she said, "I do not like to see you
standing.  You have need of food just as much as I have.  This
creature will only think that I am an eccentric Englishwoman eloping
with her lacquey, if you'll sit down and partake of this semblance of
supper beside me."

Indeed, Brogard having placed what was strictly necessary upon
the table, seemed not to trouble himself any further about his guests.
The Mere Brogard had quietly shuffled out of the room, and the man
stood and lounged about, smoking his evil-smelling pipe, sometimes
under Marguerite's very nose, as any free-born citizen who was
anybody's equal should do.

"Confound the brute!" said Sir Andrew, with native British
wrath, as Brogard leant up against the table, smoking and looking down
superciliously at these two SACRRRES ANGLAIS.

"In Heaven's name, man," admonished Marguerite, hurriedly,
seeing that Sir Andrew, with British-born instinct, was ominously
clenching his fist, "remember that you are in France, and that in this
year of grace this is the temper of the people."

"I'd like to scrag the brute!" muttered Sir Andrew, savagely.

He had taken Marguerite's advice and sat next to her at table,
and they were both making noble efforts to deceive one another, by
pretending to eat and drink.

"I pray you," said Marguerite, "keep the creature in a good
temper, so that he may answer the questions we must put to him."

"I'll do my best, but, begad!  I'd sooner scrag him than
question him.  Hey! my friend," he said pleasantly in French, and
tapping Brogard lightly on the shoulder, "do you see many of our
quality along these parts?  Many English travellers, I mean?"

Brogard looked round at him, over his near shoulder, puffed
away at his pipe for a moment or two as he was in no hurry, then
muttered,--

"Heu!--sometimes!"

"Ah!" said Sir Andrew, carelessly, "English travellers always
know where they can get good wine, eh! my friend?--Now, tell me, my
lady was desiring to know if by any chance you happen to have seen a
great friend of hers, an English gentleman, who often comes to Calais
on business; he is tall, and recently was on his way to Paris--my lady
hoped to have met him in Calais."

Marguerite tried not to look at Brogard, lest she should
betray before him the burning anxiety with which she waited for his
reply.  But a free-born French citizen is never in any hurry to answer
questions: Brogard took his time, then he said very slowly,--

"Tall Englishman?--To-day!--Yes."

"Yes, to-day," muttered Brogard, sullenly.  Then he quietly
took Sir Andrew's hat from a chair close by, put it on his own head,
tugged at his dirty blouse, and generally tried to express in
pantomime that the individual in question wore very fine clothes.
"SACRRE ARISTO!" he muttered, "that tall Englishman!"

Marguerite could scarce repress a scream.

"It's Sir Percy right enough," she murmured, "and not even in disguise!"

She smiled, in the midst of all her anxiety and through her
gathering tears, at the thought of "the ruling passion strong in
death"; of Percy running into the wildest, maddest dangers, with the
latest-cut coat upon his back, and the laces of his jabot unruffled.

"Oh! the foolhardiness of it!" she sighed.  "Quick, Sir Andrew!
ask the man when he went."

"Ah yes, my friend," said Sir Andrew, addressing Brogard, with
the same assumption of carelessness, "my lord always wears beautiful
clothes; the tall Englishman you saw, was certainly my lady's friend.
And he has gone, you say?"

"He went. . .yes. . .but he's coming back. . .here--he ordered supper. . ."

Sir Andrew put his hand with a quick gesture of warning upon
Marguerite's arm; it came none too sone, for the next moment her wild,
mad joy would have betrayed her.  He was safe and well, was coming
back here presently, she would see him in a few moments perhaps. . . .
Oh! the wildness of her joy seemed almost more than she could bear.

"Here!" she said to Brogard, who seemed suddenly to have been
transformed in her eyes into some heavenborn messenger of bliss.
"Here!--did you say the English gentleman was coming back here?"

The heaven-born messenger of bliss spat upon the floor, to
express his contempt for all and sundry ARISTOS, who chose to haunt
the "Chat Gris."

"Heu!" he muttered, "he ordered supper--he will come back. . .
SACRRE ANGLAIS!"  he added, by way of protest against all this fuss
for a mere Englishman.

"But where is he now?--Do you know?" she asked eagerly,
placing her dainty white hand upon the dirty sleeve of his blue
blouse.

"He went to get a horse and cart," said Brogard, laconically,
as with a surly gesture, he shook off from his arm that pretty hand
which princes had been proud to kiss.

"At what time did he go?"

But Brogard had evidently had enough of these questionings.
He did not think that it was fitting for a citizen--who was the equal
of anybody--to be thus catechised by these SACRRES ARISTOS, even
though they were rich English ones.  It was distinctly more fitting to
his newborn dignity to be as rude as possible; it was a sure sign of
servility to meekly reply to civil questions.

"I don't know," he said surlily.  "I have said enough,
VOYONS, LES ARISTOS!. . .He came to-day.  He ordered supper.  He
went out.--He'll come back.  VOILA!"

And with this parting assertion of his rights as a citizen and
a free man, to be as rude as he well pleased, Brogard shuffled out of
the room, banging the door after him.




CHAPTER XXIII           HOPE



"Faith, Madame!" said Sir Andrew, seeing that Marguerite
seemed desirous to call her surly host back again, "I think we'd
better leave him alone.  We shall not get anything more out of him,
and we might arouse his suspicions.  One never knows what spies may be
lurking around these God-forsaken places."

"What care I?" she replied lightly, "now I know that my
husband is safe, and that I shall see him almost directly!"

"Hush!" he said in genuine alarm, for she had talked quite
loudly, in the fulness of her glee, "the very walls have ears in
France, these days."

He rose quickly from the table, and walked round the bare,
squalid room, listening attentively at the door, through which Brogard
has just disappeared, and whence only muttered oaths and shuffling
footsteps could be heard.  He also ran up the rickety steps that led
to the attic, to assure himself that there were no spies of
Chauvelin's about the place.

"Are we alone, Monsieur, my lacquey?" said Marguerite, gaily,
as the young man once more sat down beside her.  "May we talk?"

"As cautiously as possible!" he entreated.

"Faith, man! but you wear a glum face!  As for me, I could
dance with joy!  Surely there is no longer any cause for fear.  Our
boat is on the beach, the FOAM CREST not two miles out at sea, and
my husband will be here, under this very roof, within the next half
hour perhaps.  Sure! there is naught to hinder us.  Chauvelin and his
gang have not yet arrived."

"Nay, madam! that I fear we do not know."

"What do you mean?"

"He was at Dover at the same time that we were."

"Held up by the same storm, which kept us from starting."

"Exactly.  But--I did not speak of it before, for I feared to
alarm you--I saw him on the beach not five minutes before we embarked.
At least, I swore to myself at the time that it was himself; he was
disguised as a CURE, so that Satan, his own guardian, would scarce
have known him.  But I heard him then, bargaining for a vessel to take
him swiftly to Calais; and he must have set sail less than an hour
after we did."

Marguerite's face had quickly lost its look of joy.  The
terrible danger in which Percy stood, now that he was actually on
French soil, became suddenly and horribly clear to her.  Chauvelin was
close upon his heels; here in Calais, the astute diplomatist was
all-powerful; a word from him and Percy could be tracked and arrested
and. . .

Every drop of blood seemed to freeze in her veins; not even
during the moments of her wildest anguish in England had she so
completely realised the imminence of the peril in which her husband
stood.  Chauvelin had sworn to bring the Scarlet Pimpernel to the
guillotine, and now the daring plotter, whose anonymity hitherto had
been his safeguard, stood revealed through her own hand, to his most
bitter, most relentless enemy.

Chauvelin--when he waylaid Lord Tony and Sir Andrew Ffoulkes
in the coffee-room of "The Fisherman's Rest"--had obtained possession
of all the plans of this latest expedition.  Armand St. Just, the
Comte de Tournay and other fugitive royalists were to have met the
Scarlet Pimpernel--or rather, as it had been originally arranged, two
of his emissaries--on this day, the 2nd of October, at a place
evidently known to the league, and vaguely alluded to as the "Pere
Blanchard's hut."

Armand, whose connection with the Scarlet Pimpernel and disavowal
of the brutal policy of the Reign of Terror was still unknown to
his countryman, had left England a little more than a week ago,
carrying with him the necessary instructions, which would enable him
to meet the other fugitives and to convey them to this place of safety.

This much Marguerite had fully understood from the first, and
Sir Andrew Ffoulkes had confirmed her surmises.  She knew, too, that
when Sir Percy realized that his own plans and his directions to his
lieutenants had been stolen by Chauvelin, it was too late to communicate
with Armand, or to send fresh instructions to the fugitives.

They would, of necessity, be at the appointed time and place, not knowing
how grave was the danger which now awaited their brave rescuer.

Blakeney, who as usual had planned and organized the whole
expedition, would not allow any of his younger comrades to run the
risk of almost certain capture.  Hence his hurried note to them at
Lord Grenville's ball--"Start myself to-morrow--alone."

And now with his identity known to his most bitter enemy, his
every step would be dogged, the moment he set foot in France.  He
would be tracked by Chauvelin's emissaries, followed until he reached
that mysterious hut where the fugitives were waiting for him, and
there the trap would be closed on him and on them.

There was but one hour--the hour's start which Marguerite and
Sir Andrew had of their enemy--in which to warn Percy of the imminence
of his danger, and to persuade him to give up the foolhardy
expedition, which could only end in his own death.

But there WAS that one hour.

"Chauvelin knows of this inn, from the papers he stole," said
Sir Andrew, earnestly, "and on landing will make straight for it."

"He has not landed yet," she said, "we have an hour's start on
him, and Percy will be here directly.  We shall be mid-Channel ere
Chauvelin has realised that we have slipped through his fingers.

She spoke excitedly and eagerly, wishing to infuse into her
young friend some of that buoyant hope which still clung to her heart.
But he shook his head sadly.

"Silent again, Sir Andrew?" she said with some impatience.
"Why do you shake your head and look so glum?"

"Faith, Madame," he replied, "`tis only because in making your
rose-coloured plans, you are forgetting the most important factor."

"What in the world do you mean?--I am forgetting nothing. . . .
What factor do you mean?" she added with more impatience.

"It stands six foot odd high," replied Sir Andrew, quietly,
"and hath name Percy Blakeney."

"I don't understand," she murmured.

"Do you think that Blakeney would leave Calais without having
accomplished what he set out to do?"

"You mean. . .?"

"There's the old Comte de Tournay. . ."

"The Comte. . .?" she murmured.

"And St. Just. . .and others. . ."

"My brother!" she said with a heart-broken sob of anguish.
"Heaven help me, but I fear I had forgotten."
"Fugitives as they are, these men at this moment await with
perfect confidence and unshaken faith the arrival of the Scarlet
Pimpernel, who has pledged his honour to take them safely across the
Channel.

Indeed, she had forgotten!  With the sublime selfishness of a
woman who loves with her whole heart, she had in the last twenty-four
hours had no thought save for him.  His precious, noble life, his
danger--he, the loved one, the brave hero, he alone dwelt in her mind.

"My brother!" she murmured, as one by one the heavy tears
gathered in her eyes, as memory came back to her of Armand, the
companion and darling of her childhood, the man for whom she had
committed the deadly sin, which had so hopelessly imperilled her brave
husband's life.

"Sir Percy Blakeney would not be the trusted, honoured leader
of a score of English gentlemen," said Sir Andrew, proudly, "if he
abandoned those who placed their trust in him.  As for breaking his
word, the very thought is preposterous!"

There was silence for a moment or two.  Marguerite had buried
her face in her hands, and was letting the tears slowly trickle
through her trembling fingers.  The young man said nothing; his heart
ached for this beautiful woman in her awful grief.  All along he had
felt the terrible IMPASSE in which her own rash act had plunged them
all.  He knew his friend and leader so well, with his reckless daring,
his mad bravery, his worship of his own word of honour.  Sir Andrew
knew that Blakeney would brave any danger, run the wildest risks
sooner than break it, and with Chauvelin at his very heels, would make
a final attempt, however desperate, to rescue those who trusted in him.

"Faith, Sir Andrew," said Marguerite at last, making brave
efforts to dry her tears, "you are right, and I would not now shame
myself by trying to dissuade him from doing his duty.  As you say, I
should plead in vain.  God grant him strength and ability," she added
fervently and resolutely, "to outwit his pursuers.  He will not refuse
to take you with him, perhaps, when he starts on his noble work;
between you, you will have cunning as well as valour!  God guard you
both!  In the meanwhile I think we should lose no time.  I still believe
that his safety depends upon his knowing that Chauvelin is on his track."

"Undoubtedly.  He has wonderful resources at his command.  As
soon as he is aware of his danger he will exercise more caution: his
ingenuity is a veritable miracle."

"Then, what say you to a voyage of reconnaissance in the
village whilst I wait here against his coming!--You might come across
Percy's track and thus save valuable time.  If you find him, tell him
to beware!--his bitterest enemy is on his heels!"

"But this is such a villainous hole for you to wait in."

"Nay, that I do not mind!--But you might ask our surly host if
he could let me wait in another room, where I could be safer from the
prying eyes of any chance traveller.  Offer him some ready money, so
that he should not fail to give me word the moment the tall Englishman
returns."

She spike quite calmly, even cheerfully now, thinking out her
plans, ready for the worst if need be; she would show no more
weakness, she would prove herself worthy of him, who was about to give
his life for the sake of his fellow-men.

Sir Andrew obeyed her without further comment.  Instinctively
he felt that hers now was the stronger mind; he was willing to give
himself over to her guidance, to become the hand, whilst she was the
directing hand.

He went to the door of the inner room, through which Brogard
and his wife had disappeared before, and knocked; as usual, he was
answered by a salvo of muttered oaths.

"Hey! friend Brogard!" said the man peremptorily, "my lady friend
would wish to rest here awhile.  Could you give her the use of
another room?  She would wish to be alone."

He took some money out of his pocket, and allowed it to jingle
significantly in his hand.  Brogard had opened the door, and listened,
with his usual surly apathy, to the young man's request.  At the sight
of the gold, however, his lazy attitude relaxed slightly; he took his
pipe from his mouth and shuffled into the room.

He then pointed over his shoulder at the attic up in the wall.

"She can wait up there!" he said with a grunt.  "It's comfortable,
and I have no other room."

"Nothing could be better," said Marguerite in English; she at
once realised the advantages such a position hidden from view would
give her.  "Give him the money, Sir Andrew; I shall be quite happy up
there, and can see everything without being seen."

She nodded to Brogard, who condescended to go up to the attic,
and to shake up the straw that lay on the floor.

"May I entreat you, madam, to do nothing rash," said Sir
Andrew, as Marguerite prepared in her turn to ascend the rickety
flight of steps.  "Remember this place is infested with spies.  Do
not, I beg of you, reveal yourself to Sir Percy, unless you are
absolutely certain that you are alone with him."

Even as he spoke, he felt how unnecessary was this caution:
Marguerite was as calm, as clear-headed as any man.  There was no fear
of her doing anything that was rash.

"Nay," she said with a slight attempt at cheerfulness, "that I
can faithfully promise you.  I would not jeopardise my husband's life,
nor yet his plans, by speaking to him before strangers.  Have no fear,
I will watch my opportunity, and serve him in the manner I think he
needs it most."

Brogard had come down the steps again, and Marguerite was
ready to go up to her safe retreat.

"I dare not kiss your hand, madam," said Sir Andrew, as she
began to mount the steps, "since I am your lacquey, but I pray you be
of good cheer.  If I do not come across Blakeney in half an hour, I
shall return, expecting to find him here."

"Yes, that will be best.  We can afford to wait for half an
hour. Chauvelin cannot possibly be here before that.  God grant that
either you or I may have seen Percy by then.  Good luck to you,
friend!  Have no fear for me."

Lightly she mounted the rickety wooden steps that led to the
attic.  Brogard was taking no further heed of her.  She could make
herself comfortable there or not as she chose.  Sir Andrew watched her
until she had reached the curtains across, and the young man noted
that she was singularly well placed there, for seeing and hearing,
whilst remaining unobserved.

He had paid Brogard well; the surly old innkeeper would have no object
in betraying her.  Then Sir Andrew prepared to go.  At the door he
turned once again and looked up at the loft.  Through the ragged
curtains Marguerite's sweet face was peeping down at him, and the
young man rejoiced to see that it looked serene, and even gently smiling.
With a final nod of farewell to her, he walked out into the night.




CHAPTER XXIV            THE DEATH-TRAP



The next quarter of an hour went by swiftly and noiselessly.
In the room downstairs, Brogard had for a while busied himself with
clearing the table, and re-arranging it for another guest.

It was because she watched these preparations that Marguerite
found the time slipping by more pleasantly.  It was for Percy that
this semblance of supper was being got ready.  Evidently Brogard had a
certain amount of respect for the tall Englishman, as he seemed to
take some trouble in making the place look a trifle less uninviting
than it had done before.

He even produced, from some hidden recess in the old dresser,
what actually looked like a table-cloth; and when he spread it out,
and saw it was full of holes, he shook his head dubiously for a while,
then was at much pains so to spread it over the table as to hide most
of its blemishes.

Then he got out a serviette, also old and ragged, but
possessing some measure of cleanliness, and with this he carefully
wiped the glasses, spoons and plates, which he put on the table.

Marguerite could not help smiling to herself as she watched
all these preparations, which Brogard accomplished to an accompaniment
of muttered oaths.  Clearly the great height and bulk of the
Englishman, or perhaps the weight of his fist, had overawed this
free-born citizen of France, or he would never have been at such
trouble for any SACRRE ARISTO.

When the table was set--such as it was--Brogard surveyed it
with evident satisfaction.  He then dusted one of the chairs with the
corner of his blouse, gave a stir to the stock-pot, threw a fresh
bundle of faggots on to the fire, and slouched out of the room.

Marguerite was left alone with her reflections.  She had
spread her travelling cloak over the straw, and was sitting fairly
comfortably, as the straw was fresh, and the evil odours from below
came up to her only in a modified form.

But, momentarily, she was almost happy; happy because, when
she peeped through the tattered curtains, she could see a rickety
chair, a torn table-cloth, a glass, a plate and a spoon; that was all.
But those mute and ugly things seemed to say to her that they were
waiting for Percy; that soon, very soon, he would be here, that the
squalid room being still empty, they would be alone together.

That thought was so heavenly, that Marguerite closed her eyes
in order to shut out everything but that.  In a few minutes she would
be alone with him; she would run down the ladder, and let him see her;
then he would take her in his arms, and she would let him see that,
after that, she would gladly die for him, and with him, for earth
could hold no greater happiness than that.

And then what would happen?  She could not even remotely
conjecture.  She knew, of course, that Sir Andrew was right, that
Percy would do everything he had set out to accomplish; that she--now
she was here--could do nothing, beyond warning him to be cautious,
since Chauvelin himself was on his track.  After having cautioned him,
she would perforce have to see him go off upon the terrible and daring
mission; she could not even with a word or look, attempt to keep him
back.  She would have to obey, whatever he told her to do, even
perhaps have to efface herself, and wait, in indescribable agony,
whilst he, perhaps, went to his death.

But even that seemed less terrible to bear than the thought
that he should never know how much she loved him--that at any rate
would be spared her; the squalid room itself, which seemed to be
waiting for him, told her that he would be here soon.

Suddenly her over-sensitive ears caught the sound of distant
footsteps drawing near; her heart gave a wild leap of joy!  Was it
Percy at last?  No! the step did not seem quite as long, nor quite as
firm as his; she also thought that she could hear two distinct sets of
footsteps.  Yes! that was it! two men were coming this way.
Two strangers perhaps, to get a drink, or. . .

But she had not time to conjecture, for presently there was a
peremptory call at the door, and the next moment it was violently open
from the outside, whilst a rough, commanding voice shouted,--

"Hey!  Citoyen Brogard!  Hola!"

Marguerite could not see the newcomers, but, through a hole in
one of the curtains, she could observe one portion of the room below.

She heard Brogard's shuffling footsteps, as he came out of the
inner room, muttering his usual string of oaths.  On seeing the
strangers, however, he paused in the middle of the room, well within
range of Marguerite's vision, looked at them, with even more withering
contempt than he had bestowed upon his former guests, and muttered,
"SACRRREE SOUTANE!"

Marguerite's heart seemed all at once to stop beating; her
eyes, large and dilated, had fastened on one of the newcomers, who, at
this point, had taken a quick step forward towards Brogard.  He was
dressed in the soutane, broad-brimmed hat and buckled shoes habitual
to the French CURE, but as he stood opposite the innkeeper, he threw
open his soutane for a moment, displaying the tri-colour scarf of
officialism, which sight immediately had the effect of transforming
Brogard's attitude of contempt, into one of cringing obsequiousness.

It was the sight of this French CURE, which seemed to freeze the very
blood in Marguerite's veins.  She could not see his face, which was
shaded by his broad-brimmed hat, but she recognized the thin, bony hands,
the slight stoop, the whole gait of the man!  It was Chauvelin!

The horror of the situation struck her as with a physical
blow; the awful disappointment, the dread of what was to come, made
her very senses reel, and she needed almost superhuman effort, not to
fall senseless beneath it all.

"A plate of soup and a bottle of wine," said Chauvelin imperiously
to Brogard, "then clear out of here--understand?  I want to be alone."

Silently, and without any muttering this time, Brogard obeyed.
Chauvelin sat down at the table, which had been prepared for the tall
Englishman, and the innkeeper busied himself obsequiously round him,
dishing up the soup and pouring out the wine.  The man who had entered
with Chauvelin and whom Marguerite could not see, stood waiting close
by the door.

At a brusque sign from Chauvelin, Brogard had hurried back to
the inner room, and the former now beckoned to the man who had
accompanied him.

In him Marguerite at once recognised Desgas, Chauvelin's
secretary and confidential factotum, whom she had often seen in Paris,
in days gone by.  He crossed the room, and for a moment or two
listened attentively at the Brogards' door.
"Not listening?" asked Chauvelin, curtly.

"No, citoyen."

For a moment Marguerite dreaded lest Chauvelin should order
Desgas to search the place; what would happen if she were to be
discovered, she hardly dared to imagine.  Fortunately, however,
Chauvelin seemed more impatient to talk to his secretary than afraid
of spies, for he called Desgas quickly back to his side.

"The English schooner?" he asked.

"She was lost sight of at sundown, citoyen," replied Desgas,
"but was then making west, towards Cap Gris Nez."

"Ah!--good!--" muttered Chauvelin, "and now, about Captain
Jutley?--what did he say?"

"He assured me that all the orders you sent him last week have
been implicitly obeyed.  All the roads which converge to this place
have been patrolled night and day ever since: and the beach and cliffs
have been most rigorously searched and guarded."

"Does he know where this `Pere Blanchard's' hut is?"

"No, citoyen, nobody seems to know of it by that name.  There
are any amount of fisherman's huts all along the course. . .but. . ."

"That'll do.  Now about tonight?" interrupted Chauvelin,
impatiently.

"The roads and the beach are patrolled as usual, citoyen, and
Captain Jutley awaits further orders."

"Go back to him at once, then.  Tell him to send
reinforcements to the various patrols; and especially to those along
the beach--you understand?"

Chauvelin spoke curtly and to the point, and every word he
uttered struck at Marguerite's heart like the death-knell of her
fondest hopes.

"The men," he continued, "are to keep the sharpest possible
look-out for any stranger who may be walking, riding, or driving,
along the road or the beach, more especially for a tall stranger, whom
I need not describe further, as probably he will be disguised; but he
cannot very well conceal his height, except by stooping.  You understand?"

"Perfectly, citoyen," replied Desgas.

"As soon as any of the men have sighted a stranger, two of
them are to keep him in view. The man who loses sight of the tall
stranger, after he is once seen, will pay for his negligence with his
life; but one man is to ride straight back here and report to me.  Is
that clear?"

"Absolutely clear, citoyen."

"Very well, then.  Go and see Jutley at once.  See the
reinforcements start off for the patrol duty, then ask the captain to
let you have a half-a-dozen more men and bring them here with you.
You can be back in ten minutes.  Go--"

Desgas saluted and went to the door.

As Marguerite, sick with horror, listened to Chauvelin's
directions to his underling, the whole of the plan for the capture of
the Scarlet Pimpernel became appallingly clear to her.  Chauvelin
wished that the fugitives should be left in false security waiting in
their hidden retreat until Percy joined them.  Then the daring plotter
was to be surrounded and caught red-handed, in the very act of aiding
and abetting royalists, who were traitors to the republic.  Thus, if
his capture were noised abroad, even the British Government could not
legally protest in his favour; having plotted with the enemies of the
French Government, France had the right to put him to death.

Escape for him and them would be impossible.  All the roads
patrolled and watched, the trap well set, the net, wide at present,
but drawing together tighter and tighter, until it closed upon the
daring plotter, whose superhuman cunning even could not rescue him
from its meshes now.

Desgas was about to go, but Chauvelin once more called him
back.  Marguerite vaguely wondered what further devilish plans he
could have formed, in order to entrap one brave man, alone, against
two-score of others.  She looked at him as he turned to speak to
Desgas; she could just see his face beneath the broad-brimmed,
CURES'S hat.  There was at that moment so much deadly hatred, such
fiendish malice in the thin face and pale, small eyes, that
Marguerite's last hope died in her heart, for she felt that from this
man she could expect no mercy.

"I had forgotten," repeated Chauvelin, with a weird chuckle,
as he rubbed his bony, talon-like hands one against the other, with a
gesture of fiendish satisfaction.  "The tall stranger may show fight.
In any case no shooting, remember, except as a last resort.  I want
that tall stranger alive. . .if possible."

He laughed, as Dante has told us that the devils laugh at the
sight of the torture of the damned.  Marguerite had thought that by
now she had lived through the whole gamut of horror and anguish that
human heart could bear; yet now, when Desgas left the house, and she
remained alone in this lonely, squalid room, with that fiend for
company, she felt as if all that she had suffered was nothing compared
with this.  He continued to laugh and chuckle to himself for awhile,
rubbing his hands together in anticipation of his triumph.

His plans were well laid, and he might well triumph!  Not a
loophole was left, through which the bravest, the most cunning man
might escape.  Every road guarded, every corner watched, and in that
lonely hut somewhere on the coast, a small band of fugitives waiting
for their rescuer, and leading him to his death--nay! to worse than death.
That fiend there, in a holy man's garb, was too much of a devil to allow
a brave man to die the quick, sudden death of a soldier at the post of duty.

He, above all, longed to have the cunning enemy, who had so
long baffled him, helpless in his power; he wished to gloat over him,
to enjoy his downfall, to inflict upon him what moral and mental
torture a deadly hatred alone can devise.  The brave eagle, captured,
and with noble wings clipped, was doomed to endure the gnawing of the
rat.  And she, his wife, who loved him, and who had brought him to
this, could do nothing to help him.

Nothing, save to hope for death by his side, and for one brief
moment in which to tell him that her love--whole, true and
passionate--was entirely his.

Chauvelin was now sitting close to the table; he had taken off
his hat, and Marguerite could just see the outline of his thin profile
and pointed chin, as he bent over his meagre supper.  He was evidently
quite contented, and awaited evens with perfect calm; he even seemed
to enjoy Brogard's unsavoury fare.  Marguerite wondered how so much
hatred could lurk in one human being against another.

Suddenly, as she watched Chauvelin, a sound caught her ear, which
turned her very heart to stone.  And yet that sound was not calculated
to inspire anyone with horror, for it was merely the cheerful sound
of a gay, fresh voice singing lustily, "God save the King!"




CHAPTER XXV             THE EAGLE AND THE FOX



Marguerite's breath stopped short; she seemed to feel her very
life standing still momentarily whilst she listened to that voice and
to that song.  In the singer she had recognised her husband.
Chauvelin, too, had heard it, for he darted a quick glance towards the
door, then hurriedly took up his broad-brimmed hat and clapped it over
his head.

The voice drew nearer; for one brief second the wild desire
seized Marguerite to rush down the steps and fly across the room, to
stop that song at any cost, to beg the cheerful singer to fly--fly for
his life, before it be too late.  She checked the impulse just in
time.  Chauvelin would stop her before she reached the door, and,
moreover, she had no idea if he had any soldiers posted within his
call.  Her impetuous act might prove the death-signal of the man she
would have died to save.

        "Long reign over us, God save the King!"

sang the voice more lustily than ever.  The next moment the door was
thrown open and there was dead silence for a second or so.

Marguerite could not see the door; she held her breath, trying
to imagine what was happening.

Percy Blakeney on entering had, of course, at once caught
sight of the CURE at the table; his hesitation lasted less than five
seconds, the next moment, Marguerite saw his tall figure crossing the
room, whilst he called in a loud, cheerful voice,--

"Hello, there! no one about?  Where's that fool Brogard?"

He wore the magnificent coat and riding-suit which he had on
when Marguerite last saw him at Richmond, so many hours ago.  As
usual, his get-up was absolutely irreproachable, the fine Mechlin lace
at his neck and wrists were immaculate and white, his fair hair was
carefully brushed, and he carried his eyeglass with his usual affected
gesture.  In fact, at this moment, Sir Percy Blakeney, Bart., might
have been on his way to a garden-party at the Prince of Wales',
instead of deliberately, cold-bloodedly running his head in a trap,
set for him by his deadliest enemy.

He stood for a moment in the middle of the room, whilst
Marguerite, absolutely paralysed with horror, seemed unable even to
breathe.

Every moment she expected that Chauvelin would give a signal,
that the place would fill with soldiers, that she would rush down and
help Percy to sell his life dearly.  As he stood there, suavely
unconscious, she very nearly screamed out to him,--

"Fly, Percy!--'tis your deadly enemy!--fly before it be too late!"

But she had not time even to do that, for the next moment
Blakeney quietly walked to the table, and, jovially clapped the CURE
on the back, said in his own drawly, affected way,--

"Odds's fish!. . .er. . .M. Chauvelin. . . .  I vow I never
thought of meeting you here."

Chauvelin, who had been in the very act of conveying soup to
his mouth, fairly choked.  His thin face became absolutely purple, and
a violent fit of coughing saved this cunning representative of France
from betraying the most boundless surprise he had ever experienced.
There was no doubt that this bold move on the part of the enemy had
been wholly unexpected, as far as he was concerned: and the daring
impudence of it completely nonplussed him for the moment.

Obviously he had not taken the precaution of having the inn
surrounded with soldiers.  Blakeney had evidently guessed that much,
and no doubt his resourceful brain had already formed some plan by
which he could turn this unexpected interview to account.

Marguerite up in the loft had not moved.  She had made a
solemn promise to Sir Andrew not to speak to her husband before
strangers, and she had sufficient self-concontrol not to throw herself
unreasoningly and impulsively across his plans.  To sit still and
watch these two men together was a terrible trial of fortitude.
Marguerite had heard Chauvelin give the orders for the patrolling of
all the roads.  She knew that if Percy now left the "Chat Gris"--in
whatever direction he happened to go--he could not go far without
being sighted by some of Captain Jutley's men on patrol.  On the other
hand, if he stayed, then Desgas would have time to come back with the
dozen men Chauvelin had specially ordered.

The trap was closing in, and Marguerite could do nothing but
watch and wonder.  The two men looked such a strange contrast, and of
the two it was Chauvelin who exhibited a slight touch of fear.
Marguerite knew him well enough to guess what was passing in his mind.
He had no fear for his own person, although he certainly was alone in
a lonely inn with a man who was powerfully built, and who was daring
and reckless beyond the bounds of probability.  She knew that
Chauvelin would willingly have braved perilous encounters for the sake
of the cause he had at heart, but what he did fear was that this
impudent Englishman would, by knocking him down, double his own
chances of escape; his underlings might not succeed so sell in
capturing the Scarlet Pimpernel, when not directed by the cunning hand
and the shrewd brain, which had deadly hate for an incentive.

Evidently, however, the representative of the French
Government had nothing to fear for the moment, at the hands of his
powerful adversary.  Blakeney, with his most inane laugh and pleasant
good-nature, was solemnly patting him on the back.

"I am so demmed sorry. . ." he was saying cheerfully, "so very
sorry. . .I seem to have upset you. . .eating soup, too. . .nasty,
awkward thing, soup. . .er. . .Begad!--a friend of mine died once. . .
er. . .choked. . .just like you. . .with a spoonful of soup.

And he smiled shyly, good-humouredly, down at Chauvelin.

"Odd's life!" he continued, as soon as the latter had somewhat
recovered himself, "beastly hole this. . .ain't it now?  La! you
don't mind?" he added, apologetically, as he sat down on a chair close
to the table and drew the soup tureen towards him.  "That fool Brogard
seems to be asleep or something."

There was a second plate on the table, and he calmly helped
himself to soup, then poured himself out a glass of wine.

For a moment Marguerite wondered what Chauvelin would do.  His
disguise was so good that perhaps he meant, on recovering himself, to
deny his identity: but Chauvelin was too astute to make such an
obviously false and childish move, and already he too had stretched
out his hand and said pleasantly,--

"I am indeed charmed to see you Sir Percy.  You must excuse
me--h'm--I thought you the other side of the Channel.  Sudden surprise
almost took my breath away."

"La!" said Sir Percy, with a good-humoured grin, "it did that
quite, didn't it--er--M.--er--Chaubertin?"

"Pardon me--Chauvelin."

"I beg pardon--a thousand times.  Yes--Chauvelin of  course. . . .
Er. . .I never could cotton to foreign names. . . ."

He was calmly eating his soup, laughing with pleasant good-humour,
as if he had come all the way to Calais for the express purpose of
enjoying supper at this filthy inn, in the company of his arch-enemy.

For the moment Marguerite wondered why Percy did not knock the
little Frenchman down then and there--and no doubt something of the
sort must have darted through his mind, for every now and then his
lazy eyes seemed to flash ominously, as they rested on the slight
figure of Chauvelin, who had now quite recovered himself and was also
calmly eating his soup.

But the keen brain, which had planned and carried through so
many daring plots, was too far-seeing to take unnecessary risks.  This
place, after all, might be infested with spies; the innkeeper might be
in Chauvelin's pay.  One call on Chauvelin's part might bring twenty
men about Blakeney's ears for aught he knew, and he might be caught
and trapped before he could help, or, at least, warn the fugitives.
This he would not risk; he meant to help the others, to get THEM
safely away; for he had pledged his word to them, and his word he
WOULD keep.  And whilst he ate and chatted, he thought and planned,
whilst, up in the loft, the poor, anxious woman racked her brain as to
what she should do, and endured agonies of longing to rush down to
him, yet not daring to move for fear of upsetting his plans.

"I didn't know," Blakeney was saying jovially, "that you. . .
er. . .were in holy orders."

"I. . .er. . .hem. . ." stammered Chauvelin.  The calm impudence
of his antagonist had evidently thrown him off his usual balance.

"But, la!  I should have known you anywhere," continued Sir
Percy, placidly, as he poured himself out another glass of wine,
"although the wig and hat have changed you a bit."

"Do you think so?"

"Lud! they alter a man so. . .but. . .begad!  I hope you
don't mind my having made the remark?. . .Demmed bad form making
remarks. . . .  I hope you don't mind?"

"No, no, not at all--hem!  I hope Lady Blakeney is well," said
Chauvelin, hurriedly changing the topic of conversation.

Blakeney, with much deliberation, finished his plate of soup,
drank his glass of wine, and, momentarily, it seemed to Marguerite as
if he glanced all round the room.
"Quite well, thank you," he said at last, drily.  There was a
pause, during which Marguerite could watch these two antagonists who,
evidently in their minds, were measuring themselves against one
another.  She could see Percy almost full face where he sat at the
table not ten yards from where she herself was crouching, puzzled, not
knowing what to do, or what she should think.  She had quite
controlled her impulse now of rushing down hand disclosing herself to
her husband.  A man capable of acting a part, in the way he was doing
at the present moment, did not need a woman's word to warn him to be
cautious.

Marguerite indulged in the luxury, dear to every tender
woman's heart, of looking at the man she loved.  She looked through
the tattered curtain, across at the handsome face of her husband, in
whose lazy blue eyes, and behind whose inane smile, she could now so
plainly see the strength, energy, and resourcefulness which had caused
the Scarlet Pimpernel to be reverenced and trusted by his followers.
"There are nineteen of us ready to lay down our lives for your
husband, Lady Blakeney," Sir Andrew had said to her; and as she looked
at the forehead, low, but square and broad, the eyes, blue, yet
deep-set and intense, the whole aspect of the man, of indomitable
energy, hiding, behind a perfectly acted comedy, his almost superhuman
strength of will and marvellous ingenuity, she understood the
fascination which he exercised over his followers, for had he not also
cast his spells over her heart and her imagination?

Chauvelin, who was trying to conceal his impatience beneath
his usual urbane manner, took a quick look at his watch.  Desgas
should not be long: another two or three minutes, and this impudent
Englishman would be secure in the keeping of half a dozen of Captain
Jutley's most trusted men.

"You are on your way to Paris, Sir Percy?" he asked carelessly.

"Odd's life, no," replied Blakeney, with a laugh.  "Only as
far as Lille--not Paris for me. . .beastly uncomfortable place Paris,
just now. . .eh, Monsieur Chaubertin. . .beg pardon. . .Chauvelin!"

"Not for an English gentleman like yourself, Sir Percy,"
rejoined Chauvelin, sarcastically, "who takes no interest in the
conflict that is raging there."

"La! you see it's no business of mine, and our demmed
government is all on your side of the business.  Old Pitt daren't say
'Bo' to a goose.  You are in a hurry, sir," he added, as Chauvelin
once again took out his watch; "an appointment, perhaps. . . .  I pray
you take no heed of me. . . .  My time's my own."

He rose from the table and dragged a chair to the hearth.
Once more Marguerite was terribly tempted to go to him, for time was
getting on; Desgas might be back at any moment with his men.  Percy
did not know that and. . .oh! how horrible it all was--and how
helpless she felt.

"I am in no hurry," continued Percy, pleasantly, "but, la! I don't want
to spend any more time than I can help in this God-forsaken hole!  But,
begad! sir," he added, as Chauvelin had surreptitiously looked at his
watch for the third time, "that watch of yours won't go any faster for
all the looking you give it.  You are expecting a friend, maybe?"

"Aye--a friend!"

"Not a lady--I trust, Monsieur l'Abbe," laughed Blakeney;
"surely the holy church does not allow?. . .eh?. . .what!
But, I say, come by the fire. . .it's getting demmed cold."

He kicked the fire with the heel of his boot, making the logs
blaze in the old hearth.  He seemed in no hurry to go, and apparently
was quite unconscious of his immediate danger.  He dragged another
chair to the fire, and Chauvelin, whose impatience was by now quite
beyond control, sat down beside the hearth, in such a way as to command
a view of the door.  Desgas had been gone nearly a quarter of an hour.
It was quite plane to Marguerite's aching senses that as soon as he arrived,
Chauvelin would abandon all his other plans with regard to the fugitives,
and capture this impudent Scarlet Pimpernel at once.

"Hey, M. Chauvelin," the latter was saying arily, "tell me, I
pray you, is your friend pretty?  Demmed smart these little French
women sometimes--what?  But I protest I need not ask," he added, as he
carelessly strode back towards the supper-table.  "In matters of taste
the Church has never been backward. . . .  Eh?"

But Chauvelin was not listening.  His every faculty was now
concentrated on that door through which presently Desgas would enter.
Marguerite's thoughts, too, were centered there, for her ears had
suddenly caught, through the stillness of the night, the sound of
numerous and measured treads some distance away.

It was Desgas and his men.  Another three minutes and they
would be here!  Another three minutes and the awful thing would have
occurred: the brave eagle would have fallen in the ferret's trap!
She would have moved now and screamed, but she dared not; for whilst she
heard the soldiers approaching, she was looking at Percy and watching
his every movement.  He was standing by the table whereon the remnants
of the supper, plates, glasses, spoons, salt and pepper-pots were
scattered pell-mell.  His back was turned to Chauvelin and he was
still prattling along in his own affected and inane way, but from his
pocket he had taken his snuff-box, and quickly and suddenly he emptied
the contents of the pepper-pot into it.

Then he again turned with an inane laugh to Chauvelin,--

"Eh?  Did you speak, sir?"

Chauvelin had been too intent on listening to the sound of
those approaching footsteps, to notice what his cunning adversary had
been doing.  He now pulled himself together, trying to look
unconcerned in the very midst of his anticipated triumph.
"No," he said presently, "that is--as you were saying, Sir Percy--?"

"I was saying," said Blakeney, going up to Chauvelin, by the
fire, "that the Jew in Piccadilly has sold me better snuff this time
than I have ever tasted.  Will you honour me, Monsieur l'Abbe?"

He stood close to Chauvelin in his own careless, DEBONNAIRE
way, holding out his snuff-box to his arch-enemy.

Chauvelin, who, as he told Marguerite once, had seen a trick
or two in his day, had never dreamed of this one.  With one ear fixed
on those fast-approaching footsteps, one eye turned to that door where
Desgas and his men would presently appear, lulled into false security
by the impudent Englishman's airy manner, he never even remotely
guessed the trick which was being played upon him.

He took a pinch of snuff.

Only he, who has ever by accident sniffed vigorously a dose of
pepper, can have the faintest conception of the hopeless condition in
which such a sniff would reduce any human being.

Chauvelin felt as if his head would burst--sneeze after sneeze
seemed nearly to choke him; he was blind, deaf, and dumb for the
moment, and during that moment Blakeney quietly, without the slightest
haste, took up his hat, took some money out of his pocket, which he
left on the table, then calmly stalked out of the room!




CHAPTER XXVI            THE JEW



It took Marguerite some time to collect her scattered senses;
the whole of this last short episode had taken place in less than a
minute, and Desgas and the soldiers were still about two hundred yards
away from the "Chat Gris."

When she realised what had happened, a curious mixture of joy
and wonder filled her heart.  It all was so neat, so ingenious.
Chauvelin was still absolutely helpless, far more so than he could
even have been under a blow from the fist, for now he could neither
see, nor hear, nor speak, whilst his cunning adversary had quietly
slipped through his fingers.

Blakeney was gone, obviously to try and join the fugitives at
the Pere Blanchard's hut.  For the moment, true, Chauvelin was
helpless; for the moment the daring Scarlet Pimpernel had not been
caught by Desgas and his men.  But all the roads and the beach were
patrolled.  Every place was watched, and every stranger kept in sight.
How far could Percy go, thus arrayed in his gorgeous clothes, without
being sighted and followed?
Now she blamed herself terribly for not having gone down to
him sooner, and given him that word of warning and of love which,
perhaps, after all, he needed.  He could not know of the orders which
Chauvelin had given for his capture, and even now, perhaps. . .

But before all these horrible thoughts had taken concrete form
in her brain, she heard the grounding of arms outside, close to the
door, and Desgas' voice shouting "Halt!" to his men.

Chauvelin had partially recovered; his sneezing had become
less violent, and he had struggled to his feet.  He managed to reach
the door just as Desgas' knock was heard on the outside.

Chauvelin threw open the door, and before his secretary could
say a word, he had managed to stammer between two sneezes--

"The tall stranger--quick!--did any of you see him?"

"Where, citoyen?" asked Desgas, in surprise.

"Here, man! through that door! not five minutes ago."

"We saw nothing, citoyen!  The moon is not yet up, and. . ."

"And you are just five minutes too late, my friend," said
Chauvelin, with concentrated fury.

"Citoyen. . .I. . ."

"You did what I ordered you to do," said Chauvelin, with
impatience.  "I know that, but you were a precious long time about it.
Fortunately, there's not much harm done, or it had fared ill with you,
Citoyen Desgas."

Desgas turned a little pale.  There was so much rage and
hatred in his superior's whole attitude.

"The tall stranger, citoyen--" he stammered.

"Was here, in this room, five minutes ago, having supper at
that table.  Damn his impudence!  For obvious reasons, I dared not
tackle him alone.  Brogard is too big a fool, and that cursed
Englishman appears to have the strength of a bullock, and so he
slipped away under your very nose."

"He cannot go far without being sighted, citoyen."

"Ah?"

"Captain Jutley sent forty men as reinforcements for the
patrol duty: twenty went down to the beach.  He again assured me that
the watch had been constant all day, and that no stranger could
possibly get to the beach, or reach a boat, without being sighted."

"That's good.--Do the men know their work?"
"They have had very clear orders, citoyen: and I myself spoke
to those who were about to start.  They are to shadow--as secretly as
possible--any stranger they may see, especially if he be tall, or
stoop as if her would disguise his height."

"In no case to detain such a person, of course," said
Chauvelin, eagerly.  "That impudent Scarlet Pimpernel would slip
through clumsy fingers.  We must let him get to the Pere Blanchard's
hut now; there surround and capture him."

"The men understand that, citoyen, and also that, as soon as a
tall stranger has been sighted, he must be shadowed, whilst one man is
to turn straight back and report to you."

"That is right," said Chauvelin, rubbing his hands, well
pleased.

"I have further news for you, citoyen."

"What is it?"

"A tall Englishman had a long conversation about
three-quarters of an hour ago with a Jew, Reuben by name, who lives
not ten paces from here."

"Yes--and?" queried Chauvelin, impatiently.

"The conversation was all about a horse and cart, which the
tall Englishman wished to hire, and which was to have been ready for
him by eleven o'clock."

"It is past that now.  Where does that Reuben live?"

"A few minutes' walk from this door."

"Send one of the men to find out if the stranger has driven
off in Reuben's cart."

"Yes, citoyen."

Desgas went to give the necessary orders to one of the men.
Not a word of this conversation between him and Chauvelin had escaped
Marguerite, and every word they had spoken seemed to strike at her
heart, with terrible hopelessness and dark foreboding.

She had come all this way, and with such high hopes and firm
determination to help her husband, and so far she had been able to do
nothing, but to watch, with a heart breaking with anguish, the meshes
of the deadly net closing round the daring Scarlet Pimpernel.

He could not now advance many steps, without spying eyes to
track and denounce him.  Her own helplessness struck her with the
terrible sense of utter disappointment.  The possibility of being the
slightest use to her husband had become almost NIL, and her only
hope rested in being allowed to share his fate, whatever it might
ultimately be.

For the moment, even her chance of ever seeing the man she
loved again, had become a remote one.  Still, she was determined to
keep a close watch over his enemy, and a vague hope filled her heart,
that whilst she kept Chauvelin in sight, Percy's fate might still be
hanging in the balance.

Desgas left Chauvelin moodily pacing up and down the room,
whilst he himself waited outside for the return of the man whom he had
sent in search of Reuben.  Thus several minutes went by.  Chauvelin
was evidently devoured with impatience.  Apparently he trusted no one:
this last trick played upon him by the daring Scarlet Pimpernel had
made him suddenly doubtful of success, unless he himself was there to
watch, direct and superintend the capture of this impudent Englishman.

About five minutes later, Desgas returned, followed by an
elderly Jew, in a dirty, threadbare gaberdine, worn greasy across the
shoulders.  His red hair, which he wore after the fashion of the
Polish Jews, with the corkscrew curls each side of his face, was
plentifully sprinkled with grey--a general coating of grime, about his
cheeks and his chin, gave him a peculiarly dirty and loathsome
appearance.  He had the habitual stoop, those of his race affected in
mock humility in past centuries, before the dawn of equality and
freedom in matters of faith, and he walked behind Desgas with the
peculiar shuffling gait which has remained the characteristic of the
Jew trader in continental Europe to this day.

Chauvelin, who had all the Frenchman's prejudice against the
despised race, motioned to the fellow to keep at a respectful
distance.  The group of the three men were standing just underneath
the hanging oil-lamp, and Marguerite had a clear view of them all.

"Is this the man?" asked Chauvelin.

"No, citoyen," replied Desgas, "Reuben could not be found, so
presumably his cart has gone with the stranger; but this man here
seems to know something, which he is willing to sell for a
consideration."

"Ah!" said Chauvelin, turning away with disgust from the
loathsome specimen of humanity before him.

The Jew, with characteristic patience, stood humbly on one
side, leaning on the knotted staff, his greasy, broad-brimmed hat
casting a deep shadow over his grimy face, waiting for the noble
Excellency to deign to put some questions to him.

"The citoyen tells me," said Chauvelin peremptorily to him,
"that you know something of my friend, the tall Englishman, whom I
desire to meet. . .MORBLEU! keep your distance, man," he added
hurriedly, as the Jew took a quick and eager step forward.

"Yes, your Excellency," replied the Jew, who spoke the
language with that peculiar lisp which denotes Eastern origin, "I and
Reuben Goldstein met a tall Englishman, on the road, close by here
this evening."

"Did you speak to him?"

"He spoke to us, your Excellency.  He wanted to know if he
could hire a horse and cart to go down along the St. Martin road, to a
place he wanted to reach to-night."

"What did you say?"

"I did not say anything," said the Jew in an injured tone,
"Reuben Goldstein, that accursed traitor, that son of Belial. . ."

"Cut that short, man," interrupted Chauvelin, roughly, "and go
on with your story."

"He took the words out of my mouth, your Excellency: when I
was about to offer the wealthy Englishman my horse and cart, to take
him wheresoever he chose, Reuben had already spoken, and offered his
half-starved nag, and his broken-down cart."

"And what did the Englishman do?"

"He listened to Reuben Goldstein, your Excellency, and put his
hand in his pocket then and there, and took out a handful of gold,
which he showed to that descendant of Beelzebub, telling him that all
that would be his, if the horse and cart were ready for him by eleven
o'clock."

"And, of course, the horse and cart were ready?"

"Well! they were ready for him in a manner, so to speak, your
Excellency.  Reuben's nag was lame as usual; she refused to budge at
first.  It was only after a time and with plenty of kicks, that she at
last could be made to move," said the Jew with a malicious chuckle.

"Then they started?"

"Yes, they started about five minutes ago.  I was disgusted
with that stranger's folly.  An Englishman too!--He ought to have
known Reuben's nag was not fit to drive."

"But if he had no choice?"

"No choice, your Excellency?" protested the Jew, in a rasping
voice, "did I not repeat to him a dozen times, that my horse and cart
would take him quicker, and more comfortably than Reuben's bag of
bones.  He would not listen.  Reuben is such a liar, and has such
insinuating ways.  The stranger was deceived.  If he was in a hurry,
he would have had better value for his money by taking my cart."

"You have a horse and cart too, then?" asked Chauvelin, peremptorily.

"Aye! that I have, your Excellency, and if your Excellency wants
to drive. . ."

"Do you happen to know which way my friend went in Reuben Goldstein's cart?"

Thoughtfully the Jew rubbed his dirty chin.  Marguerite's heart was
beating well-nigh to bursting.  She had heard the peremptory question;
she looked anxiously at the Jew, but could not read his face beneath
the shadow of his broad-brimmed hat.  Vaguely she felt somehow as if
he held Percy's fate in his long dirty hands.

There was a long pause, whilst Chauvelin frowned impatiently
at the stooping figure before him: at last the Jew slowly put his hand
in his breast pocket, and drew out from its capacious depths a number
of silver coins.  He gazed at them thoughtfully, then remarked, in a
quiet tone of voice,--

"This is what the tall stranger gave me, when he drove away
with Reuben, for holding my tongue about him, and his doings."

Chauvelin shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

"How much is there there?" he asked.

"Twenty francs, your Excellency," replied the Jew, "and I have
been an honest man all my life."

Chauvelin without further comment took a few pieces of gold
out of his own pocket, and leaving them in the palm of his hand, he
allowed them to jingle as he held them out towards the Jew.

"How many gold pieces are there in the palm of my hand?" he asked quietly.

Evidently he had no desire to terrorize the man, but to conciliate him,
for his own purposes, for his manner was pleasant and suave.  No doubt
he feared that threats of the guillotine, and various other persuasive
methods of that type, might addle the old man's brains, and that he would
be more likely to be useful through greed of gain, than through terror
of death.

The eyes of the Jew shot a quick, keen glance at the gold in
his interlocutor's hand.

"At least five, I should say, your Excellency," he replied obsequiously.

"Enough, do you think, to loosen that honest tongue of yours?"

"What does your Excellency wish to know?"

"Whether your horse and cart can take me to where I can find my friend
the tall stranger, who has driven off in Reuben Goldstein's cart?"

"My horse and cart can take your Honour there, where you please."

"To a place called the Pere Blanchard's hut?"

"Your Honour has guessed?" said the Jew in astonishment.

"You know the place?"

"Which road leads to it?"

"The St. Martin Road, your Honour, then a footpath from there to the cliffs."

"You know the road?" repeated Chauvelin, roughly.

"Every stone, every blade of grass, your Honour," replied the Jew quietly.

Chauvelin without another word threw the five pieces of gold
one by one before the Jew, who knelt down, and on his hands and knees
struggled to collect them.  One rolled away, and he had some trouble
to get it, for it had lodged underneath the dresser.  Chauvelin
quietly waited while the old man scrambled on the floor, to find the
piece of gold.

When the Jew was again on his feet, Chauvelin said,--

"How soon can your horse and cart be ready?"

"They are ready now, your Honour."

"Where?"

"Not ten meters from this door.  Will your Excellency deign to look."

"I don't want to see it.  How far can you drive me in it?"

"As far as the Pere Blanchard's hut, your Honour, and further
than Reuben's nag took your friend.  I am sure that, not two leagues
from here, we shall come across that wily Reuben, his nag, his cart
and the tall stranger all in a heap in the middle of the road."

"How far is the nearest village from here?"

"On the road which the Englishman took, Miquelon is the
nearest village, not two leagues from here."

"There he could get fresh conveyance, if he wanted to go further?"

"He could--if he ever got so far."

"Can you?"

"Will your Excellency try?" said the Jew simply.

"That is my intention," said Chauvelin very quietly, "but
remember, if you have deceived me, I shall tell off two of my most
stalwart soldiers to give you such a beating, that your breath will
perhaps leave your ugly body for ever.  But if we find my friend the
tall Englishman, either on the road or at the Pere Blanchard's hut,
there will be ten more gold pieces for you.  Do you accept the bargain?"

The Jew again thoughtfully rubbed his chin.  He looked at the money
in his hand, then at this stern interlocutor, and at Desgas, who
had stood silently behind him all this while.  After a moment's pause,
he said deliberately,--

"I accept."

"Go and wait outside then," said Chauvelin, "and remember to
stick to your bargain, or by Heaven, I will keep to mine."

With a final, most abject and cringing bow, the old Jew
shuffled out of the room.  Chauvelin seemed pleased with his
interview, for he rubbed his hands together, with that usual gesture
of his, of malignant satisfaction.

"My coat and boots," he said to Desgas at last.

Desgas went to the door, and apparently gave the necessary orders, for
presently a soldier entered, carrying Chauvelin's coat, boots, and hat.

He took off his soutane, beneath which he was wearing close-fitting
breeches and a cloth waistcoat, and began changing his attire.

"You, citoyen, in the meanwhile," he said to Desgas, "go back
to Captain Jutley as fast as you can, and tell him to let you have
another dozen men, and bring them with you along the St. Martin Road,
where I daresay you will soon overtake the Jew's cart with myself in
it.  There will be hot work presently, if I mistake not, in the Pere
Blanchard's hut.  We shall corner our game there, I'll warrant, for
this impudent Scarlet Pimpernel has had the audacity--or the
stupidity, I hardly know which--to adhere to his original plans.  He
has gone to meet de Tournay, St. Just and the other traitors, which
for the moment, I thought, perhaps, he did not intend to do.  When we
find them, there will be a band of desperate men at bay.  Some of our
men will, I presume, be put HORS DE COMBAT.  These royalists are
good swordsmen, and the Englishman is devilish cunning, and looks very
powerful.  Still, we shall be five against one at least.  You can
follow the cart closely with your men, all along the St. Martin Road,
through Miquelon.  The Englishman is ahead of us, and not likely to
look behind him."

Whilst he gave these curt and concise orders, he had completed
his change of attire.  The priest's costume had been laid aside, and
he was once more dressed in his usual dark, tight-fitting clothes.  At
last he took up his hat.

"I shall have an interesting prisoner to deliver into your
hands," he said with a chuckle, as with unwonted familiarity he took
Desgas' arm, and led him towards the door.  "We won't kill him
outright, eh, friend Desgas?  The Pere Blanchard's hut is--an I
mistake not--a lonely spot upon the beach, and our men will enjoy a
bit of rough sport there with the wounded fox.  Choose your men well,
friend Desgas. . .of the sort who would enjoy that type of sport--eh?
We must see that Scarlet Pimpernel wither a bit--what?--shrink and
tremble, eh?. . .before we finally. . ." He made an expressive
gesture, whilst he laughed a low, evil laugh, which filled
Marguerite's soul with sickening horror.

"Choose your men well, Citoyen Desgas," he said once more, as
he led his secretary finally out of the room.




CHAPTER XXVII           ON THE TRACK



Never for a moment did Marguerite Blakeney hesitate.  The last
sounds outside the "Chat Gris" had died away in the night.  She had
heard Desgas giving orders to his men, and then starting off towards
the fort, to get a reinforcement of a dozen more men: six were not
thought sufficient to capture the cunning Englishman, whose
resourceful brain was even more dangerous than his valour and his
strength.

Then a few minutes later, she heard the Jew's husky voice
again, evidently shouting to his nag, then the rumble of wheels, and
noise of a rickety cart bumping over the rough road.

Inside the inn, everything was still.  Brogard and his wife,
terrified of Chauvelin, had given no sign of life; they hoped to be
forgotten, and at any rate to remain unperceived: Marguerite could not
even hear their usual volleys of muttered oaths.

She waited a moment or two longer, then she quietly slipped
down the broken stairs, wrapped her dark cloak closely round her and
slipped out of the inn.

The night was fairly dark, sufficiently so at any rate to hide
her dark figure from view, whilst her keen ears kept count of the
sound of the cart going on ahead.  She hoped by keeping well within
the shadow of the ditches which lined the road, that she would not be
seen by Desgas' men, when they approached, or by the patrols, which
she concluded were still on duty.

Thus she started to do this, the last stage of her weary
journey, alone, at night, and on foot.  Nearly three leagues to
Miquelon, and then on to the Pere Blanchard's hut, wherever that fatal
spot might be, probably over rough roads: she cared not.

The Jew's nag could not get on very fast, and though she was
wary with mental fatigue and nerve strain, she knew that she could
easily keep up with it, on a hilly road, where the poor beast, who was
sure to be half-starved, would have to be allowed long and frequent
rests.  The road lay some distance from the sea, bordered on either
side by shrubs and stunted trees, sparsely covered with meagre foliage,
all turning away from the North, with their branches looking in the
semi-darkness, like stiff, ghostly hair, blown by a perpetual wind.

Fortunately, the moon showed no desire to peep between the
clouds, and Marguerite hugging the edge of the road, and keeping close
to the low line of shrubs, was fairly safe from view.  Everything
around her was so still: only from far, very far away, there came like
a long soft moan, the sound of the distant sea.

The air was keen and full of brine; after that enforced period
of inactivity, inside the evil-smelling, squalid inn, Marguerite would
have enjoyed the sweet scent of this autumnal night, and the distant
melancholy rumble of the autumnal night, and the distant melancholy
rumble of the waves; she would have revelled in the calm and stillness
of this lonely spot, a calm, broken only at intervals by the strident
and mournful cry of some distant gull, and by the creaking of the
wheels, some way down the road: she would have loved the cool
atmosphere, the peaceful immensity of Nature, in this lonely part of
the coast: but her heart was too full of cruel foreboding, of a great
ache and longing for a being who had become infinitely dear to her.

Her feet slipped on the grassy bank, for she thought it safest
not to walk near the centre of the road, and she found it difficult to
keep up a sharp pace along the muddy incline.  She even thought it
best not to keep too near to the cart; everything was so still, that
the rumble of the wheels could not fail to be a safe guide.

The loneliness was absolute.  Already the few dim lights of
Calais lay far behind, and on this road there was not a sign of human
habitation, not even the hut of a fisherman or of a woodcutter
anywhere near; far away on her right was the edge of the cliff, below
it the rough beach, against which the incoming tide was dashing itself
with its constant, distant murmur.  And ahead the rumble of the
wheels, bearing an implacable enemy to his triumph.

Marguerite wondered at what particular spot, on this lonely
coast, Percy could be at this moment.  Not very far surely, for he had
had less than a quarter of an hour's start of Chauvelin.  She wondered
if he knew that in this cool, ocean-scented bit of France, there
lurked many spies, all eager to sight his tall figure, to track him to
where his unsuspecting friends waited for him, and then, to close the
net over him and them.

Chauvelin, on ahead, jolted and jostled in the Jew's vehicle,
was nursing comfortable thoughts.  He rubbed his hands together, with
content, as he thought of the web which he had woven, and through
which that ubiquitous and daring Englishman could not hope to escape.
As the time went on, and the old Jew drove him leisurely but surely
along the dark road, he felt more and more eager for the grand finale
of this exciting chase after the mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel.
The capture of the audacious plotter would be the finest leaf
in Citoyen Chauvelin's wreath of glory.  Caught, red-handed, on the
spot, in the very act of aiding and abetting the traitors against the
Republic of France, the Englishman could claim no protection from his
own country.  Chauvelin had, in any case, fully made up his mind that
all intervention should come too late.

Never for a moment did the slightest remorse enter his heart,
as to the terrible position in which he had placed the unfortunate
wife, who had unconsciously betrayed her husband.  As a matter of
fact, Chauvelin had ceased even to think of her: she had been a useful
tool, that was all.

The Jew's lean nag did little more than walk.  She was going
along at a slow jog trot, and her driver had to give her long and
frequent halts.

"Are we a long way yet from Miquelon?" asked Chauvelin from
time to time.

"Not very far, your Honour," was the uniform placid reply.

"We have not yet come across your friend and mine, lying in a
heap in the roadway," was Chauvelin's sarcastic comment.

"Patience, noble Excellency," rejoined the son of Moses, "they
are ahead of us.  I can see the imprint of the cart wheels, driven by
that traitor, that son of the Amalekite."

"You are sure of the road?"

"As sure as I am of the presence of those ten gold pieces in
the noble Excellency's pockets, which I trust will presently be mine."

"As soon as I have shaken hands with my friend the tall
stranger, they will certainly be yours."

"Hark, what was that?" said the Jew suddenly.

Through the stillness, which had been absolute, there could
now be heard distinctly the sound of horses' hoofs on the muddy road.

"They are soldiers," he added in an awed whisper.

"Stop a moment, I want to hear," said Chauvelin.

Marguerite had also heard the sound of galloping hoofs, coming
towards the cart and towards herself.  For some time she had been on
the alert thinking that Desgas and his squad would soon overtake them,
but these came from the opposite direction, presumably from Miquelon.
The darkness lent her sufficient cover.  She had perceived that the
cart had stopped, and with utmost caution, treading noiselessly on the
soft road, she crept a little nearer.

Her heart was beating fast, she was trembling in every limb;
already she had guessed what news these mounted men would bring.
"Every stranger on these roads or on the beach must be shadowed,
especially if he be tall or stoops as if he would disguise his height;
when sighted a mounted messenger must at once ride back and report."
Those had been Chauvelin's orders.  Had then the tall stranger been
sighted, and was this the mounted messenger, come to bring the great
news, that the hunted hare had run its head into the noose at last?"

Marguerite, realizing that the cart had come to a standstill,
managed to slip nearer to it in the darkness; she crept close up,
hoping to get within earshot, to hear what the messenger had to say.

She heard the quick words of challenge--

"Liberte, Fraternite, Egalite!" then Chauvelin's quick query:--

"What news?"

Two men on horseback had halted beside the vehicle.

Marguerite could see them silhouetted against the midnight
sky.  She could hear their voices, and the snorting of their horses,
and now, behind her, some little distance off, the regular and
measured tread of a body of advancing men: Desgas and his soldiers.

There had been a long pause, during which, no doubt, Chauvelin
satisfied the men as to his identity, for presently, questions and
answers followed each other in quick succession.

"You have seen the stranger?" asked Chauvelin, eagerly.

"No, citoyen, we have seen no tall stranger; we came by the
edge of the cliff."

"Then?"

"Less than a quarter of a league beyond Miquelon, we came
across a rough construction of wood, which looked like the hut of a
fisherman, where he might keep his tools and nets.  When we first
sighted it, it seemed to be empty, and, at first we thought that there
was nothing suspicious about, until we saw some smoke issuing through
an aperture at the side.  I dismounted and crept close to it.  It was
then empty, but in one corner of the hut, there was a charcoal fire,
and a couple of stools were also in the hut.  I consulted with my
comrades, and we decided that they should take cover with the horses,
well out of sight, and that I should remain on the watch, which I did."

"Well! and did you see anything?"

"About half an hour later, I heard voices, citoyen, and
presently, two men came along towards the edge of the cliff; they
seemed to me to have come from the Lille Road.  One was young, the
other quite old.  They were talking in a whisper, to one another, and
I could not hear what they said."
One was young, and the other quite old.  Marguerite's aching
heart almost stopped beating as she listened: was the young one
Armand?--her brother?--and the old one de Tournay--were they the two
fugitives who, unconsciously, were used as a decoy, to entrap their
fearless and noble rescuer.

"The two men presently went into the hut," continued the
soldier, whilst Marguerite's aching nerves seemed to catch the sound
of Chauvelin's triumphant chuckle, "and I crept nearer to it then.
The hut is very roughly built, and I caught snatches of their
conversation."

"Yes?--Quick!--What did you hear?"

"The old man asked the young one if he were sure that was
right place.  `Oh, yes,' he replied, `'tis the place sure enough,' and
by the light of the charcoal fire he showed to his companion a paper,
which he carried.  `Here is the plan,' he said, `which he gave me
before I left London.  We were to adhere strictly to that plan, unless
I had contrary orders, and I have had none.  Here is the road we
followed, see. . .here the fork. . .here we cut across the St. Martin
Road. . .and here is the footpath which brought us to the edge of the
cliff.'  I must have made a slight noise then, for the young man came
to the door of the hut, and peered anxiously all round him.  When he
again joined his companion, they whispered so low, that I could no
longer hear them."

"Well?--and?" asked Chauvelin, impatiently.

"There were six of us altogether, patrolling that part of the
beach, so we consulted together, and thought it best that four should
remain behind and keep the hut in sight, and I and my comrade rode
back at once to make report of what we had seen."

"You saw nothing of the tall stranger?"

"Nothing, citoyen."

"If your comrades see him, what would they do?"

"Not lose sight of him for a moment, and if he showed signs of
escape, or any boat came in sight, they would close in on him, and, if
necessary, they would shoot: the firing would bring the rest of the
patrol to the spot.  In any case they would not let the stranger go."

"Aye! but I did not want the stranger hurt--not just yet,"
murmured Chauvelin, savagely, "but there, you've done your best.  The
Fates grant that I may not be too late. . . ."

"We met half a dozen men just now, who have been patrolling
this road for several hours."

"Well?"

"They have seen no stranger either."
"Yet he is on ahead somewhere, in a cart or else. . .Here!
there is not a moment to lose.  How far is that hut from here?"

"About a couple of leagues, citoyen."

"You can find it again?--at once?--without hesitation?"

"I have absolutely no doubt, citoyen."

"The footpath, to the edge of the cliff?--Even in the dark?"

"It is not a dark night, citoyen, and I know I can find my
way," repeated the soldier firmly.

"Fall in behind then.  Let your comrade take both your horses back
to Calais.  You won't want them.  Keep beside the cart, and direct
the Jew to drive straight ahead; then stop him, within a quarter of
a league of the footpath; see that he takes the most direct road."

Whilst Chauvelin spoke, Desgas and his men were fast
approaching, and Marguerite could hear their footsteps within a
hundred yards behind her now.  She thought it unsafe to stay where she
was, and unnecessary too, as she had heard enough.  She seemed
suddenly to have lost all faculty even for suffering: her heart, her
nerves, her brain seemed to have become numb after all these hours of
ceaseless anguish, culminating in this awful despair.

For now there was absolutely not the faintest hope.  Within
two short leagues of this spot, the fugitives were waiting for their
brave deliverer.  He was on his way, somewhere on this lonely road,
and presently he would join them; then the well-laid trap would close,
two dozen men, led by one whose hatred was as deadly as his cunning
was malicious, would close round the small band of fugitives, and
their daring leader.  They would all be captured.  Armand, according
to Chauvelin's pledged word would be restored to her, but her husband,
Percy, whom with every breath she drew she seemed to love and worship
more and more, he would fall into the hands of a remorseless enemy,
who had no pity for a brave heart, no admiration for the courage of a
noble soul, who would show nothing but hatred for the cunning
antagonist, who had baffled him so long.

She heard the soldier giving a few brief directions to the
Jew, then she retired quickly to the edge of the road, and cowered
behind some low shrubs, whilst Desgas and his men came up.

All fell in noiselessly behind the cart, and slowly they all
started down the dark road.  Marguerite waited until she reckoned that
they were well outside the range of earshot, then, she too in the
darkness, which suddenly seemed to have become more intense, crept
noiselessly along.




CHAPTER XXVIII          THE PERE BLANCHARD'S HUT



As in a dream, Marguerite followed on; the web was drawing
more and more tightly every moment round the beloved life, which had
become dearer than all.  To see her husband once again, to tell him
how she had suffered, how much she had wronged, and how little
understood him, had become now her only aim.  She had abandoned all
hope of saving him: she saw him gradually hemmed in on all sides, and,
in despair, she gazed round her into the darkness, and wondered whence
he would presently come, to fall into the death-trap which his
relentless enemy had prepared for him.

The distant roar of the waves now made her shudder; the
occasional dismal cry of an owl, or a sea-gull, filled her with
unspeakable horror.  She thought of the ravenous beasts--in human
shape--who lay in wait for their prey, and destroyed them, as
mercilessly as any hungry wolf, for the satisfaction of their own
appetite of hate.  Marguerite was not afraid of the darkness, she only
feared that man, on ahead, who was sitting at the bottom of a rough
wooden cart, nursing thoughts of vengeance, which would have made the
very demons in hell chuckle with delight.

Her feet were sore.  Her knees shook under her, from sheer
bodily fatigue.  For days now she had lived in a wild turmoil of
excitement; she had not had a quiet rest for three nights; now, she
had walked on a slippery road for nearly two hours, and yet her
determination never swerved for a moment.  She would see her husband,
tell him all, and, if he was ready to forgive the crime, which she had
committed in her blind ignorance, she would yet have the happiness of
dying by his side.

She must have walked on almost in a trance, instinct alone
keeping her up, and guiding her in the wake of the enemy, when
suddenly her ears, attuned to the slightest sound, by that same blind
instinct, told her that the cart had stopped, and that the soldiers
had halted.  They had come to their destination.  No doubt on the
right, somewhere close ahead, was the footpath that led to the edge of
the cliff and to the hut.

Heedless of any risks, she crept up quite close up to where
Chauvelin stood, surrounded by his little troop: he had descended from
the cart, and was giving some orders to the men.  These she wanted to
hear: what little chance she yet had, of being useful to Percy,
consisted in hearing absolutely every word of his enemy's plans.

The spot where all the party had halted must have lain some
eight hundred meters from the coast; the sound of the sea came only
very faintly, as from a distance.  Chauvelin and Desgas, followed by
the soldiers, had turned off sharply to the right of the road,
apparently on to the footpath, which led to the cliffs.  The Jew had
remained on the road, with his cart and nag.

Marguerite, with infinite caution, and literally crawling on
her hands and knees, had also turned off to the right: to accomplish
this she had to creep through the rough, low shrubs, trying to make as
little noise as possible as she went along, tearing her face and hands
against the dry twigs, intent only upon hearing without being seen or
heard.  Fortunately--as is usual in this part of France--the footpath
was bordered by a low rough hedge, beyond which was a dry ditch,
filled with coarse grass.  In this Marguerite managed to find shelter;
she was quite hidden from view, yet could contrive to get within three
yards of where Chauvelin stood, giving orders to his men.

"Now," he was saying in a low and peremptory whisper, "where
is the Pere Blanchard's hut?"

"About eight hundred meters from here, along the footpath,"
said the soldier who had lately been directing the party, "and
half-way down the cliff."

"Very good.  You shall lead us.  Before we begin to descend the cliff,
you shall creep down to the hut, as noiselessly as possible, and
ascertain if the traitor royalists are there?  Do you understand?"

"I understand, citoyen."

"Now listen very attentively, all of you," continued
Chauvelin, impressively, and addressing the soldiers collectively,
"for after this we may not be able to exchange another word, so
remember every syllable I utter, as if your very lives depended on
your memory.  Perhaps they do," he added drily.

"We listen, citoyen," said Desgas, "and a soldier of the Republic
never forgets an order."

"You, who have crept up to the hut, will try to peep inside.
If an Englishman is there with those traitors, a man who is tall above
the average, or who stoops as if he would disguise his height, then
give a sharp, quick whistle as a signal to your comrades.  All of
you," he added, once more speaking to the soldiers collectively, "then
quickly surround and rush into the hut, and each seize one of the men
there, before they have time to draw their firearms; if any of them
struggle, shoot at their legs or arms, but on no account kill the tall
man.  Do you understand?"

"We understand, citoyen."

"The man who is tall above the average is probably also strong
above the average; it will take four or five of you at least to
overpower him."

There was a little pause, then Chauvelin continued,--

"If the royalist traitors are still alone, which is more than
likely to be the case, then warn your comrades who are lying in wait
there, and all of you creep and take cover behind the rocks and
boulders round the hut, and wait there, in dead silence, until the
tall Englishman arrives; then only rush the hut, when he is safely
within its doors.  But remember that you must be as silent as the wolf
is at night, when he prowls around the pens.  I do not wish those
royalists to be on the alert--the firing of a pistol, a shriek or call
on their part would be sufficient, perhaps, to warn the tall personage
to keep clear of the cliffs, and of the hut, and," he added
emphatically, "it is the tall Englishman whom it is your duty to
capture tonight."

"You shall be implicitly obeyed, citoyen."

"Then get along as noiselessly as possible, and I will follow you."

"What about the Jew, citoyen?" asked Desgas, as silently like
noiseless shadows, one by one the soldiers began to creep along the
rough and narrow footpath.

"Ah, yes; I had forgotten about the Jew," said Chauvelin, and,
turning towards the Jew, he called him peremptorily.

"Here, you. . .Aaron, Moses, Abraham, or whatever your
confounded name may be," he said to the old man, who had quietly stood
beside his lean nag, as far away from the soldiers as possible.

"Benjamin Rosenbaum, so it please your Honour," he replied humbly.

"It does not please me to hear your voice, but it does please
me to give you certain orders, which you will find it wise to obey."

"So it please your Honour. . ."

"Hold your confounded tongue.  You shall stay here, do you
hear? with your horse and cart until our return.  You are on no
account to utter the faintest sound, or to even breathe louder than
you can help; nor are you, on any consideration whatever, to leave
your post, until I give you orders to do so.  Do you understand?"

"But your Honour--" protested the Jew pitiably.

"There is no question of `but' or of any argument," said
Chauvelin, in a tone that made the timid old man tremble from heat to
foot.  "If, when I return, I do not find you here, I most solemnly
assure you that, wherever you may try to hide yourself, I can find
you, and that punishment swift, sure and terrible, will sooner or
later overtake you.  Do you hear me?"

"But your Excellency. . ."

"I said, do you hear me?"

The soldiers had all crept away; the three men stood alone together
in the dark and lonely road, with Marguerite there, behind the hedge,
listening to Chauvelin's orders, as she would to her own death sentence.

"I heard your Honour," protested the Jew again, while he tried
to draw nearer to Chauvelin, "and I swear by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
that I would obey your Honour most absolutely, and that I would not
move from this place until your Honour once more deigned to shed the
light of your countenance upon your humble servant; but remember, your
Honour, I am a poor man; my nerves are not as strong as those of a
young soldier.  If midnight marauders should come prowling round this
lonely road, I might scream or run in my fright!  And is my life to be
forfeit, is some terrible punishment to come on my poor old head for
that which I cannot help?

The Jew seemed in real distress; he was shaking from head to foot.
Clearly he was not the man to be left by himself on this lonely road.
The man spoke truly; he might unwittingly, in sheer terror, utter the
shriek that might prove a warning to the wily Scarlet Pimpernel.

Chauvelin reflected for a moment.

"Will your horse and cart be safe alone, here, do you think?"
he asked roughly.

"I fancy, citoyen," here interposed Desgas, "that they will be
safer without that dirty, cowardly Jew than with him.  There seems no
doubt that, if he gets scared, he will either make a bolt of it, or
shriek his head off."

"But what am I to do with the brute?"

"Will you send him back to Calais, citoyen?"

"No, for we shall want him to drive back the wounded presently,"
said Chauvelin, with grim significance.

There was a pause again--Desgas waiting for the decision of
his chief, and the old Jew whining beside his nag.

"Well, you lazy, lumbering old coward," said Chauvelin at
last, "you had better shuffle along behind us.  Here, Citoyen Desgas,
tie this handkerchief tightly round the fellow's mouth."

Chauvelin handed a scarf to Desgas, who solemnly began winding
it round the Jew's mouth.  Meekly Benjamin Rosenbaum allowed himself
to be gagged; he, evidently, preferred this uncomfortable state to
that of being left alone, on the dark St. Martin Road.  Then the three
men fell in line.

"Quick!" said Chauvelin, impatiently, "we have already wasted
much valuable time."

And the firm footsteps of Chauvelin and Desgas, the shuffling
gait of the old Jew, soon died away along the footpath.

Marguerite had not lost a single one of Chauvelin's words of
command.  Her every nerve was strained to completely grasp the
situation first, then to make a final appeal to those wits which had
so often been called the sharpest in Europe, and which alone might be
of service now.

Certainly the situation was desperate enough; a tiny band of
unsuspecting men, quietly awaiting the arrival of their rescuer, who
was equally unconscious of the trap laid for them all.  It seemed so
horrible, this net, as it were drawn in a circle, at dead of night, on
a lonely beach, round a few defenceless men, defenceless because they
were tricked and unsuspecting; of these one was the husband she
idolised, another the brother she loved.  She vaguely wondered who the
others were, who were also calmly waiting for the Scarlet Pimpernel,
while death lurked behind every boulder of the cliffs.

For the moment she could do nothing but follow the soldiers
and Chauvelin.  She feared to lose her way, or she would have rushed
forward and found that wooden hut, and perhaps been in time to warn
the fugitives and their brave deliverer yet.

For a second, the thought flashed through her mind of uttering
the piercing shrieks, which Chauvelin seemed to dread, as a possible
warning to the Scarlet Pimpernel and his friends--in the wild hope
that they would hear, and have yet time to escape before it was too
late.  But she did not know if her shrieks would reach the ears of the
doomed men.  Her effort might be premature, and she would never be
allowed to make another.  Her mouth would be securely gagged, like
that of the Jew, and she, a helpless prisoner in the hands of
Chauvelin's men.

Like a ghost she flitted noiselessly behind that hedge: she
had taken her shoes off, and her stockings were by now torn off her
feet.  She felt neither soreness nor weariness; indomitable will to
reach her husband in spite of adverse Fate, and of a cunning enemy,
killed all sense of bodily pain within her, and rendered her instincts
doubly acute.

She heard nothing save the soft and measured footsteps of Percy's
enemies on in front; she saw nothing but--in her mind's eye--that
wooden hut, and he, her husband, walking blindly to his doom.

Suddenly, those same keen instincts within her made her pause
in her mad haste, and cower still further within the shadow of the
hedge.  The moon, which had proved a friend to her by remaining hidden
behind a bank of clouds, now emerged in all the glory of an early
autumn night, and in a moment flooded the weird and lonely landscape
with a rush of brilliant light.

There, not two hundred metres ahead, was the edge of the
cliff, and below, stretching far away to free and happy England, the
sea rolled on smoothly and peaceably.  Marguerite's gaze rested for an
instant on the brilliant, silvery waters; and as she gazed, her heart,
which had been numb with pain for all these hours, seemed to soften
and distend, and her eyes filled with hot tears: not three miles away,
with white sails set, a graceful schooner lay in wait.

Marguerite had guessed rather than recognized her.  It was the
DAY DREAM, Percy's favourite yacht, and all her crew of British
sailors: her white sails, glistening in the moonlight, seemed to
convey a message to Marguerite of joy and hope, which yet she feared
could never be.  She waited there, out at sea, waited for her master,
like a beautiful white bird all ready to take flight, and he would
never reach her, never see her smooth deck again, never gaze any more
on the white cliffs of England, the land of liberty and of hope.

The sight of the schooner seemed to infuse into the poor,
wearied woman the superhuman strength of despair.  There was the edge
of the cliff, and some way below was the hut, where presently, her
husband would meet his death.  But the moon was out: she could see her
way now: she would see the hut from a distance, run to it, rouse them
all, warn them at any rate to be prepared and to sell their lives
dearly, rather than be caught like so many rats in a hole.

She stumbled on behind the hedge in the low, thick grass of
the ditch.  She must have run on very fast, and had outdistanced
Chauvelin and Desgas, for presently she reached the edge of the cliff,
and heard their footsteps distinctly behind her.  But only a very few
yards away, and now the moonlight was full upon her, her figure must have
been distinctly silhouetted against the silvery background of the sea.

Only for a moment, though; the next she had cowered, like some
animal doubled up within itself.  She peeped down the great rugged
cliffs--the descent would be easy enough, as they were not
precipitous, and the great boulders afforded plenty of foothold.
Suddenly, as she grazed, she saw at some little distance on her left,
and about midway down the cliffs, a rough wooden construction, through
the wall of which a tiny red light glimmered like a beacon.  Her very
heart seemed to stand still, the eagerness of joy was so great that it
felt like an awful pain.

She could not gauge how distant the hut was, but without hesitation
she began the steep descent, creeping from boulder to boulder, caring
nothing for the enemy behind, or for the soldiers, who evidently had
all taken cover since the tall Englishman had not yet appeared.

On she pressed, forgetting the deadly foe on her track,
running, stumbling, foot-sore, half-dazed, but still on. . .When,
suddenly, a crevice, or stone, or slippery bit of rock, threw her
violently to the ground.  She struggled again to her feet, and started
running forward once more to give them that timely warning, to beg
them to flee before he came, and to tell him to keep away--away from
this death-trap--away from this awful doom.  But now she realised that
other steps, quicker than her own, were already close at her heels.
The next instant a hand dragged at her skirt, and she was down on her
knees again, whilst something was wound round her mouth to prevent her
uttering a scream.

Bewildered, half frantic with the bitterness of disappointment,
she looked round her helplessly, and, bending down quite close to her,
she saw through the mist, which seemed to gather round her, a pair of keen,
malicious eyes, which appeared to her excited brain to have a weird,
supernatural green light in them. She lay in the shadow of a great boulder;
Chauvelin could not see her features, but he passed his thin, white fingers
over her face.

"A woman!" he whispered, "by all the Saints in the calendar."

"We cannot let her loose, that's certain," he muttered to himself.
"I wonder now. . ."

Suddenly he paused, after a few moment of deadly silence, he gave forth
a long, low, curious chuckle, while once again Marguerite felt, with a
horrible shudder, his thin fingers wandering over her face.

"Dear me! dear me!" he whispered, with affected gallantry,
"this is indeed a charming surprise," and Marguerite felt her
resistless hand raised to Chauvelin's thin, mocking lips.

The situation was indeed grotesque, had it not been at the
same time so fearfully tragic: the poor, weary woman, broken in
spirit, and half frantic with the bitterness of her disappointment,
receiving on her knees the BANAL gallantries of her deadly enemy.

Her senses were leaving her; half choked with the tight grip
round her mouth, she had no strength to move or to utter the faintest
sound.  The excitement which all along had kept up her delicate body
seemed at once to have subsided, and the feeling of blank despair to
have completely paralyzed her brain and nerves.

Chauvelin must have given some directions, which she was too
dazed to hear, for she felt herself lifted from off her feet: the
bandage round her mouth was made more secure, and a pair of strong
arms carried her towards that tiny, red light, on ahead, which she had
looked upon as a beacon and the last faint glimmer of hope.




CHAPTER XXIX            TRAPPED



She did not know how long she was thus carried along, she had
lost all notion of time and space, and for a few seconds tired nature,
mercifully, deprived her of consciousness.

When she once more realised her state, she felt that she was placed with
some degree of comfort upon a man's coat, with her back resting against
a fragment of rock.  The moon was hidden again behind some clouds,
and the darkness seemed in comparison more intense.  The sea was
roaring some two hundred feet below her, and on looking all round
she could no longer see any vestige of the tiny glimmer of red light.

That the end of the journey had been reached, she gathered
from the fact that she heard rapid questions and answers spoken in a
whisper quite close to her.

"There are four men in there, citoyen; they are sitting by the
fire, and seem to be waiting quietly."

"The hour?"

"Nearly two o'clock."

"The tide?"

"Coming in quickly."

"The schooner?"

"Obviously an English one, lying some three kilometers out.
But we cannot see her boat."

"Have the men taken cover?"

"Yes, citoyen."

"They will not blunder?"

"They will not stir until the tall Englishman comes, then they
will surround and overpower the five men."

"Right.  And the lady?"

"Still dazed, I fancy.  She's close beside you, citoyen."

"And the Jew?"

"He's gagged, and his legs strapped together.  He cannot move or scream."

"Good.  Then have your gun ready, in case you want it.
Get close to the hut and leave me to look after the lady."

Desgas evidently obeyed, for Marguerite heard him creeping away along
the stony cliff, then she felt that a pair of warm, thin, talon-like
hands took hold of both her own, and held them in a grip of steel.

"Before that handkerchief is removed from your pretty mouth,
fair lady," whispered Chauvelin close to her ear, "I think it right to
give you one small word of warning.  What has procured me the honour
of being followed across the Channel by so charming a companion, I
cannot, of course, conceive, but, if I mistake it not, the purpose of
this flattering attention is not one that would commend itself to my
vanity and I think that I am right in surmising, moreover, that the
first sound which your pretty lips would utter, as soon as the cruel
gag is removed, would be one that would prove a warning to the cunning
fox, which I have been at such pains to track to his lair."

He paused a moment, while the steel-like grasp seemed to tighten round
her waist; then he resumed in the same hurried whisper:--

"Inside that hut, if again I am not mistaken, your brother,
Armand St. Just, waits with that traitor de Tournay, and two other men
unknown to you, for the arrival of the mysterious rescuer, whose
identity has for so long puzzled our Committee of Public Safety--the
audacious Scarlet Pimpernel.  No doubt if you scream, if there is a
scuffle here, if shots are fired, it is more than likely that the same
long legs that brought this scarlet enigma here, will as quickly take
him to some place of safety.  The purpose then, for which I have
travelled all these miles, will remain unaccomplished.  On the other
hand it only rests with yourself that your brother--Armand--shall be
free to go off with you to-night if you like, to England, or any other
place of safety."

Marguerite could not utter a sound, as the handkerchief was
would very tightly round her mouth, but Chauvelin was peering through
the darkness very closely into her face; no doubt too her hand gave a
responsive appeal to his last suggestion, for presently he continued:--

"What I want you to do to ensure Armand's safety is a very simple thing,
dear lady."

"What is it?" Marguerite's hand seemed to convey to his, in response.

"To remain--on this spot, without uttering a sound, until I
give you leave to speak.  Ah! but I think you will obey," he added,
with that funny dry chuckle of his as Marguerite's whole figure seemed
to stiffen, in defiance of this order, "for let me tell you that if
you scream, nay! if you utter one sound, or attempt to move from
here, my men--there are thirty of them about--will seize St. Just, de
Tournay, and their two friends, and shoot them here--by my
orders--before your eyes."

Marguerite had listened to her implacable enemy's speech with
ever-increasing terror.  Numbed with physical pain, she yet had
sufficient mental vitality in her to realize the full horror of this
terrible "either--or" he was once more putting before her;
"either--or" ten thousand times more appalling and horrible, that the
one he had suggested to her that fatal night at the ball.

This time it meant that she should keep still, and allow the
husband she worshipped to walk unconsciously to his death, or that she
should, by trying to give him a word of warning, which perhaps might
even be unavailing, actually give the signal for her own brother's
death, and that of three other unsuspecting men.

She could not see Chauvelin, but she could almost feel those
keen, pale eyes of his fixed maliciously upon her helpless form, and
his hurried, whispered words reached her ear, as the death-knell of
her last faint, lingering hope.

"Nay, fair lady," he added urbanely, "you can have no interest
in anyone save in St. Just, and all you need do for his safety is to
remain where you are, and to keep silent.  My men have strict orders
to spare him in every way.  As for that enigmatic Scarlet Pimpernel,
what is he to you?  Believe me, no warning from you could possibly
save him.  And now dear lady, let me remove this unpleasant coercion,
which has been placed before your pretty mouth.  You see I wish you to
be perfectly free, in the choice which you are about to make."

Her thoughts in a whirl, her temples aching, her nerves
paralyzed, her body numb with pain, Marguerite sat there, in the
darkness which surrounded her as with a pall.  From where she sat she
could not see the sea, but she heard the incessant mournful murmur of
the incoming tide, which spoke of her dead hopes, her lost love, the
husband she had with her own hand betrayed, and sent to his death.

Chauvelin removed he handkerchief from her mouth.  She certainly
did not scream: at that moment, she had no strength to do anything
but barely to hold herself upright, and to force herself to think.

Oh! think! think! think! of what she should do.  The
minutes flew on; in this awful stillness she could not tell how fast
or how slowly; she heard nothing, she saw nothing: she did not feel
the sweet-smelling autumn air, scented with the briny odour of the
sea, she no longer heard the murmur of the waves, the occasional
rattling of a pebble, as it rolled down some steep incline.  More and
more unreal did the whole situation seem.  It was impossible that she,
Marguerite Blakeney, the queen of London society, should actually be
sitting here on this bit of lonely coast, in the middle of the night,
side by side with a most bitter enemy; and oh! it was not possible
that somewhere, not many hundred feet away perhaps, from where she
stood, the being she had once despised, but who now, in every moment
of this weird, dreamlike life, became more and more dear--it was not
possible that HE was unconsciously, even now walking to his doom,
whilst she did nothing to save him.

Why did she not with unearthly screams, that would re-echo
from one end of the lonely beach to the other, send out a warning to
him to desist, to retrace his steps, for death lurked here whilst he
advanced?  Once or twice the screams rose to her throat--as if my
instinct: then, before her eyes there stood the awful alternative: her
brother and those three men shot before her eyes, practically by her
orders: she their murderer.

Oh! that fiend in human shape, next to her, knew human--female--nature well.
He had played upon her feelings as a skilful musician plays upon an instrument.
He had gauged her very thoughts to a nicety.

She could not give that signal--for she was weak, and she was
a woman.  How could she deliberately order Armand to be shot before
her eyes, to have his dear blood upon her head, he dying perhaps with
a curse on her, upon his lips.  And little Suzanne's father, too! he,
and old man; and the others!--oh! it was all too, too horrible.

Wait! wait! wait! how long?  The early morning hours sped
on, and yet it was not dawn: the sea continued its incessant mournful
murmur, the autumnal breeze sighed gently in the night: the lonely
beach was silent, even as the grave.

Suddenly from somewhere, not very far away, a cheerful, strong
voice was heard singing "God save the King!"




CHAPTER XXX             THE SCHOONER



Marguerite's aching heart stood still.  She felt, more than
she heard, the men on the watch preparing for the fight.  Her senses
told her that each, with sword in hand, was crouching, ready for the
spring.

The voice came nearer and nearer; in the vast immensity of
these lonely cliffs, with the loud murmur of the sea below, it was
impossible to say how near, or how far, nor yet from which direction
came that cheerful singer, who sang to God to save his King, whilst he
himself was in such deadly danger.  Faint at first, the voice grew
louder and louder; from time to time a small pebble detached itself
apparently from beneath the firm tread of the singer, and went rolling
down the rocky cliffs to the beach below.

Marguerite as she heard, felt that her very life was slipping
away, as if when that voice drew nearer, when that singer became
entrapped. . .

She distinctly heard the click of Desgas' gun close to her. . . .

No! no! no! no!  Oh, God in heaven! this cannot be! let Armand's
blood then be on her own head! let her be branded as his murderer!
let even he, whom she loved, despise and loathe her for this, but God!
oh God! save him at any cost!

With a wild shriek, she sprang to her feet, and darted round
the rock, against which she had been cowering; she saw the little red
gleam through the chinks of the hut; she ran up to it and fell against
its wooden walls, which she began to hammer with clenched fists in an
almost maniacal frenzy, while she shouted,--
"Armand!  Armand!  for God's sake fire! your leader is near!
he is coming! he is betrayed!  Armand!  Armand! fire in Heaven's name!"

She was seized and thrown to the ground.  She lay there moaning, bruised,
not caring, but still half-sobbing, half-shrieking,--

"Percy, my husband, for God's sake fly!  Armand!
Armand! why don't you fire?"

"One of you stop that woman screaming," hissed Chauvelin, who hardly
could refrain from striking her.

Something was thrown over her face; she could not breathe, and
perforce she was silent.

The bold singer, too, had become silent, warned, no doubt, of
his impending danger by Marguerite's frantic shrieks.  The men had
sprung to their feet, there was no need for further silence on their
part; the very cliffs echoed the poor, heart-broken woman's screams.

Chauvelin, with a muttered oath, which boded no good to her,
who had dared to upset his most cherished plans, had hastily shouted
the word of command,--

"Into it, my men, and let no one escape from that hut alive!"

The moon had once more emerged from between the clouds: the
darkness on the cliffs had gone, giving place once more to brilliant,
silvery light.  Some of the soldiers had rushed to the rough, wooden
door of the hut, whilst one of them kept guard over Marguerite.

The door was partially open; on of the soldiers pushed it further,
but within all was darkness, the charcoal fire only lighting with a dim,
red light the furthest corner of the hut.  The soldiers paused
automatically at the door, like machines waiting for further orders.

Chauvelin, who was prepared for a violent onslaught from
within, and for a vigorous resistance from the four fugitives, under
cover of the darkness, was for the moment paralyzed with astonishment
when he saw the soldiers standing there at attention, like sentries on
guard, whilst not a sound proceeded from the hut.

Filled with strange, anxious foreboding, he, too, went to the
door of the hut, and peering into the gloom, he asked quickly,--

"What is the meaning of this?"

"I think, citoyen, that there is no one there now," replied
one of the soldiers imperturbably.

"You have not let those four men go?" thundered Chauvelin,
menacingly.  "I ordered you to let no man escape alive!--Quick, after
them all of you!  Quick, in every direction!"

The men, obedient as machines, rushed down the rocky incline
towards the beach, some going off to right and left, as fast as their
feet could carry them.

"You and your men will pay with your lives for this blunder,
citoyen sergeant," said Chauvelin viciously to the sergeant who had
been in charge of the men; "and you, too, citoyen," he added turning
with a snarl to Desgas, "for disobeying my orders."

"You ordered us to wait, citoyen, until the tall Englishman
arrived and joined the four men in the hut.  No one came," said the
sergeant sullenly.

"But I ordered you just now, when the woman screamed, to rush
in and let no one escape."

"But, citoyen, the four men who were there before had been
gone some time, I think. . ."

"You think?--You?. . ." said Chauvelin, almost choking with
fury, "and you let them go. . ."

"You ordered us to wait, citoyen," protested the sergeant,
"and to implicitly obey your commands on pain of death.  We waited."

"I heard the men creep out of the hut, not many minutes after
we took cover, and long before the woman screamed," he added, as
Chauvelin seemed still quite speechless with rage.

"Hark!" said Desgas suddenly.

In the distance the sound of repeated firing was heard.
Chauvelin tried to peer along the beach below, but as luck would have
it, the fitful moon once more hid her light behind a bank of clouds,
and he could see nothing.

"One of you go into the hut and strike a light," he stammered at last.

Stolidly the sergeant obeyed: he went up to the charcoal fire
and lit the small lantern he carried in his belt; it was evident that
the hut was quite empty.

"Which way did they go?" asked Chauvelin.

"I could not tell, citoyen," said the sergeant; "they went
straight down the cliff first, then disappeared behind some boulders."

"Hush! what was that?"

All three men listened attentively.  In the far, very far
distance, could be heard faintly echoing and already dying away, the
quick, sharp splash of half a dozen oars.  Chauvelin took out his
handkerchief and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.

"The schooner's boat!" was all he gasped.

Evidently Armand St. Just and his three companions had managed
to creep along the side of the cliffs, whilst the men, like true
soldiers of the well-drilled Republican army, had with blind
obedience, and in fear of their own lives, implicitly obeyed
Chauvelin's orders--to wait for the tall Englishman, who was the
important capture.

They had no doubt reached one of the creeks which jut far out
to see on this coast at intervals; behind this, the boat of the DAY
DREAM must have been on the lookout for them, and they were by now
safely on board the British schooner.

As if to confirm this last supposition, the dull boom of a gun
was heard from out at sea.

"The schooner, citoyen," said Desgas, quietly; "she's off."

It needed all Chauvelin's nerve and presence of mind not to
give way to a useless and undignified access of rage.  There was no
doubt now, that once again, that accursed British head had completely
outwitted him.  How he had contrived to reach the hut, without being
seen by one of the thirty soldiers who guarded the spot, was more than
Chauvelin could conceive.  That he had done so before the thirty men
had arrived on the cliff was, of course, fairly clear, but how he had
come over in Reuben Goldstein's cart, all the way from Calais, without
being sighted by the various patrols on duty was impossible of
explanation.  It really seemed as if some potent Fate watched over
that daring Scarlet Pimpernel, and his astute enemy almost felt a
superstitious shudder pass through him, as he looked round at the
towering cliffs, and the loneliness of this outlying coast.

But surely this was reality! and the year of grace 1792:
there were no fairies and hobgoblins about.  Chauvelin and his thirty
men had all heard with their own ears that accursed voice singing "God
save the King," fully twenty minutes AFTER they had all taken cover
around the hut; by that time the four fugitives must have reached the
creek, and got into the boat, and the nearest creek was more than a
mile from the hut.

Where had that daring singer got to?  Unless Satan himself had
lent him wings, he could not have covered that mile on a rocky cliff
in the space of two minutes; and only two minutes had elapsed between
his song and the sound of the boat's oars away at sea.  He must have
remained behind, and was even now hiding somewhere about the cliffs;
the patrols were still about, he would still be sighted, no doubt.
Chauvelin felt hopeful once again.

One or two of the men, who had run after the fugitives, were
now slowly working their way up the cliff: one of them reached
Chauvelin's side, at the very moment that this hope arose in the
astute diplomatist's heart.

"We were too late, citoyen," the soldier said, "we reached the
beach just before the moon was hidden by that bank of clouds.  The
boat had undoubtedly been on the look-out behind that first creek, a
mile off, but she had shoved off some time ago, when we got to the
beach, and was already some way out to sea.  We fired after her, but
of course, it was no good.  She was making straight and quickly for
the schooner.  We saw her very clearly in the moonlight."

"Yes," said Chauvelin, with eager impatience, "she had shoved off
some time ago, you said, and the nearest creek is a mile further on."

"Yes, citoyen!  I ran all the way, straight to the beach,
though I guessed the boat would have waited somewhere near the creek,
as the tide would reach there earliest.  The boat must have shoved off
some minutes before the woman began to scream."

"Bring the light in here!" he commanded eagerly, as he once
more entered the hut.

The sergeant brought his lantern, and together the two men
explored the little place: with a rapid glance Chauvelin noted its
contents: the cauldron placed close under an aperture in the wall, and
containing the last few dying embers of burned charcoal, a couple of
stools, overturned as if in the haste of sudden departure, then the
fisherman's tools and his nets lying in one corner, and beside them,
something small and white.

"Pick that up," said Chauvelin to the sergeant, pointing to
this white scrap, "and bring it to me."

It was a crumpled piece of paper, evidently forgotten there by
the fugitives, in their hurry to get away.  The sergeant, much awed by
the citoyen's obvious rage and impatience, picked the paper up and
handed it respectfully to Chauvelin.

"Read it, sergeant," said the latter curtly.

"It is almost illegible, citoyen. . .a fearful scrawl. . ."

"I ordered you to read it," repeated Chauvelin, viciously.

The sergeant, by the light of his lantern, began deciphering
the few hastily scrawled words.

        "I cannot quite reach you, without risking your lives
and endangering the success of your rescue.  When you receive
this, wait two minutes, then creep out of the hut one by one,
turn to your left sharply, and creep cautiously down the
cliff; keep to the left all the time, till you reach the first
rock, which you see jutting far out to sea--behind it in the
creek the boat is on the look-out for you--give a long, sharp
whistle--she will come up--get into her--my men will row you
to the schooner, and thence to England and safety--once on
board the DAY DREAM send the boat back for me, tell my men
that I shall be at the creek, which is in a direct line
opposite the `Chat Gris' near Calais.  They know it.  I shall
be there as soon as possible--they must wait for me at a safe
distance out at sea, till they hear the usual signal.  Do not
delay--and obey these instructions implicitly."

"Then there is the signature, citoyen," added the sergeant, as
he handed the paper back to Chauvelin.

But the latter had not waited an instant.  One phrase of the
momentous scrawl had caught his ear.  "I shall be at the creek which
is in a direct line opposite the `Chat Gris' near Calais": that phrase
might yet mean victory for him.
"Which of you knows this coast well?" he shouted to his men
who now one by one all returned from their fruitless run, and were all
assembled once more round the hut.

"I do, citoyen," said one of them, "I was born in Calais, and
know every stone of these cliffs."

"There is a creek in a direct line from the `Chat Gris'?"

"There is, citoyen.  I know it well."

"The Englishman is hoping to reach that creek.  He does NOT
know every stone of these cliffs, he may go there by the longest way
round, and in any case he will proceed cautiously for fear of the
patrols.  At any rate, there is a chance to get him yet.  A thousand
francs to each man who gets to that creek before that long-legged
Englishman."

"I know of a short cut across the cliffs," said the soldier,
and with an enthusiastic shout, he rushed forward, followed closely by
his comrades.

Within a few minutes their running footsteps had died away in the distance.
Chauvelin listened to them for a moment; the promise of the reward was
lending spurs to the soldiers of the Republic.  The gleam of hate and
anticipated triumph was once more apparent on his face.

Close to him Desgas still stood mute and impassive, waiting
for further orders, whilst two soldiers were kneeling beside the
prostrate form of Marguerite.  Chauvelin gave his secretary a vicious
look.  His well-laid plan had failed, its sequel was problematical;
there was still a great chance now that the Scarlet Pimpernel might
yet escape, and Chauvelin, with that unreasoning fury, which sometimes
assails a strong nature, was longing to vent his rage on somebody.

The soldiers were holding Marguerite pinioned to the ground,
though, she, poor soul, was not making the faintest struggle.
Overwrought nature had at last peremptorily asserted herself, and she
lay there in a dead swoon: her eyes circled by deep purple lines, that
told of long, sleepless nights, her hair matted and damp round her forehead,
her lips parted in a sharp curve that spoke of physical pain.

The cleverest woman in Europe, the elegant and fashionable
Lady Blakeney, who had dazzled London society with her beauty, her wit
and her extravagances, presented a very pathetic picture of tired-out,
suffering womanhood, which would have appealed to any, but the hard,
vengeful heart of her baffled enemy.

"It is no use mounting guard over a woman who is half dead,"
he said spitefully to the soldiers, "when you have allowed five men
who were very much alive to escape."

Obediently the soldiers rose to their feet.

"You'd better try and find that footpath again for me, and
that broken-down cart we left on the road."

Then suddenly a bright idea seemed to strike him.

"Ah! by-the-bye! where is the Jew?"

"Close by here, citoyen," said Desgas; "I gagged him and tied
his legs together as you commanded."

From the immediate vicinity, a plaintive moan reached
Chauvelin's ears.  He followed his secretary, who led the way to the
other side of the hut, where, fallen into an absolute heap of
dejection, with his legs tightly pinioned together and his mouth
gagged, lay the unfortunate descendant of Israel.

His face in the silvery light of the moon looked positively
ghastly with terror: his eyes were wide open and almost glassy, and
his whole body was trembling, as if with ague, while a piteous wail
escaped his bloodless lips.  The rope which had originally been wound
round his shoulders and arms had evidently given way, for it lay in a
tangle about his body, but he seemed quite unconscious of this, for he
had not made the slightest attempt to move from the place where Desgas
had originally put him: like a terrified chicken which looks upon a
line of white chalk, drawn on a table, as on a string which paralyzes
its movements.

"Bring the cowardly brute here," commanded Chauvelin.

He certainly felt exceedingly vicious, and since he had no
reasonable grounds for venting his ill-humour on the soldiers who had
but too punctually obeyed his orders, he felt that the son of the
despised race would prove an excellent butt.  With true French
contempt of the Jew, which has survived the lapse of centuries even to
this day, he would not go too near him, but said with biting sarcasm,
as the wretched old man was brought in full light of the moon by the
two soldiers,--

"I suppose now, that being a Jew, you have a good memory for
bargains?"

"Answer!" he again commanded, as the Jew with trembling lips
seemed too frightened to speak.

"Yes, your Honour," stammered the poor wretch.

"You remember, then, the one you and I made together in Calais,
when you undertook to overtake Reuben Goldstein, his nag and
my friend the tall stranger?  Eh?"

"B. . .b. . .but. . .your Honour. . ."

"There is no `but.'  I said, do you remember?"

"Y. . .y. . .y. . .yes. . .your Honour!"
"What was the bargain?"

There was dead silence.  The unfortunate man looked round at
the great cliffs, the moon above, the stolid faces of the soldiers,
and even at the poor, prostate, inanimate woman close by, but said nothing.

"Will you speak?" thundered Chauvelin, menacingly.

He did try, poor wretch, but, obviously, he could not.  There was no doubt,
however, that he knew what to expect from the stern man before him.

"Your Honour. . ." he ventured imploringly.

"Since your terror seems to have paralyzed your tongue," said
Chauvelin sarcastically, "I must needs refresh your memory.  It was
agreed between us, that if we overtook my friend the tall stranger,
before he reached this place, you were to have ten pieces of gold."

A low moan escaped from the Jew's trembling lips.

"But," added Chauvelin, with slow emphasis, "if you deceived
me in your promise, you were to have a sound beating, one that would
teach you not to tell lies."

"I did not, your Honour; I swear it by Abraham. . ."

"And by all the other patriarchs, I know.  Unfortunately, they
are still in Hades, I believe, according to your creed, and cannot
help you much in your present trouble.  Now, you did not fulful your
share of the bargain, but I am ready to fulfil mine.  Here," he added,
turning to the soldiers, "the buckle-end of your two belts to this
confounded Jew."

As the soldiers obediently unbuckled their heavy leather
belts, the Jew set up a howl that surely would have been enough to
bring all the patriarchs out of Hades and elsewhere, to defend their
descendant from the brutality of this French official.

"I think I can rely on you, citoyen soldiers," laughed
Chauvelin, maliciously, "to give this old liar the best and soundest
beating he has ever experienced.  But don't kill him," he added drily.

"We will obey, citoyen," replied the soldiers as imperturbably
as ever.

He did not wait to see his orders carried out: he knew that he
could trust these soldiers--who were still smarting under his
rebuke--not to mince matters, when given a free hand to belabour a
third party.

"When that lumbering coward has had his punishment," he said
to Desgas, "the men can guide us as far as the cart, and one of them
can drive us in it back to Calais.  The Jew and the woman can look
after each other," he added roughly, "until we can send somebody for
them in the morning.  They can't run away very far, in their present
condition, and we cannot be troubled with them just now."

Chauvelin had not given up all hope.  His men, he knew, were
spurred on by the hope of the reward.  That enigmatic and audacious
Scarlet Pimpernel, alone and with thirty men at his heels, could not
reasonably be expected to escape a second time.

But he felt less sure now: the Englishman's audacity had
baffled him once, whilst the wooden-headed stupidity of the soldiers,
and the interference of a woman had turned his hand, which held all
the trumps, into a losing one.  If Marguerite had not taken up his
time, if the soldiers had had a grain of intelligence, if. . .it was a
long "if," and Chauvelin stood for a moment quite still, and enrolled
thirty odd people in one long, overwhelming anathema.  Nature, poetic,
silent, balmy, the bright moon, the calm, silvery sea spoke of beauty
and of rest, and Chauvelin cursed nature, cursed man and woman, and
above all, he cursed all long-legged, meddlesome British enigmas with
one gigantic curse.

The howls of the Jew behind him, undergoing his punishment
sent a balm through his heart, overburdened as it was with revengeful
malice.  He smiled.  It eased his mind to think that some human being
at least was, like himself, not altogether at peace with mankind.

He turned and took a last look at the lonely bit of coast,
where stood the wooden hut, now bathed in moonlight, the scene of the
greatest discomfiture ever experienced by a leading member of the
Committee of Public Safety.

Against a rock, on a hard bed of stone, lay the unconscious
figure of Marguerite Blakeney, while some few paces further on, the
unfortunate Jew was receiving on his broad back the blows of two stout
leather belts, wielded by the stolid arms of two sturdy soldiers of
the Republic.  The howls of Benjamin Rosenbaum were fit to make the
dead rise from their graves.  They must have wakened all the gulls
from sleep, and made them look down with great interest at the doings
of the lords of the creation.

"That will do," commanded Chauvelin, as the Jew's moans became
more feeble, and the poor wretch seemed to have fainted away,
"we don't want to kill him."

Obediently the soldiers buckled on their belts, one of them
viciously kicking the Jew to one side.

"Leave him there," said Chauvelin, "and lead the way now
quickly to the cart.  I'll follow."

He walked up to where Marguerite lay, and looked down into her
face.  She had evidently recovered consciousness, and was making
feeble efforts to raise herself.  Her large, blue eyes were looking at
the moonlit scene round her with a scared and terrified look; they
rested with a mixture of horror and pity on the Jew, whose luckless
fate and wild howls had been the first signs that struck her, with her
returning senses; then she caught sight of Chauvelin, in his neat,
dark clothes, which seemed hardly crumpled after the stirring events
of the last few hours.  He was smiling sarcastically, and his pale
eyes peered down at her with a look of intense malice.

With mock gallantry, he stooped and raised her icy-cold hand
to his lips, which sent a thrill of indescribable loathing through
Marguerite's weary frame.

"I much regret, fair lady," he said in his most suave tones,
"that circumstances, over which I have no control, compel me to leave
you here for the moment.  But I go away, secure in the knowledge that
I do not leave you unprotected.  Our friend Benjamin here, though a
trifle the worse for wear at the present moment, will prove a gallant
defender of your fair person, I have no doubt.  At dawn I will send an
escort for you; until then, I feel sure that you will find him
devoted, though perhaps a trifle slow."

Marguerite only had the strength to turn her head away.  Her
heart was broken with cruel anguish.  One awful thought had returned
to her mind, together with gathering consciousness: "What had become
of Percy?--What of Armand?"

She knew nothing of what had happened after she heard the
cheerful song, "God save the King," which she believed to be the
signal of death.

"I, myself," concluded Chauvelin, "must now very reluctantly
leave you.  AU REVOIR, fair lady.  We meet, I hope, soon in London.
Shall I see you at the Prince of Wales garden party?--No?--Ah, well,
AU REVOIR!--Remember me, I pray, to Sir Percy Blakeney.

And, with a last ironical smile and bow, he once more kissed
her hand, and disappeared down the footpath in the wake of the
soldiers, and followed by the imperturbable Desgas.




CHAPTER XXXI            THE ESCAPE



Marguerite listened--half-dazed as she was--to the
fast-retreating, firm footsteps of the four men.

All nature was so still that she, lying with her ear close to
the ground, could distinctly trace the sound of their tread, as they
ultimately turned into the road, and presently the faint echo of the
old cart-wheels, the halting gait of the lean nag, told her that her
enemy was a quarter of a league away.  How long she lay there she knew
not.  She had lost count of time; dreamily she looked up at the
moonlit sky, and listened to the monotonous roll of the waves.

The invigorating scent of the sea was nectar to her wearied
body, the immensity of the lonely cliffs was silent and dreamlike.
Her brain only remained conscious of its ceaseless, its intolerable
torture of uncertainty.

She did not know!--

She did not know whether Percy was even now, at this moment,
in the hands of the soldiers of the Republic, enduring--as she had
done herself--the gibes and jeers of his malicious enemy.  She did not
know, on the other hand, whether Armand's lifeless body did not lie
there, in the hut, whilst Percy had escaped, only to hear that his
wife's hands had guided the human bloodhounds to the murder of Armand
and his friends.

The physical pain of utter weariness was so great, that she
hoped confidently her tired body could rest here for ever, after all
the turmoil, the passion, and the intrigues of the last few
days--here, beneath that clear sky, within sound of the sea, and with
this balmy autumn breeze whispering to her a last lullaby.  All was so
solitary, so silent, like unto dreamland.  Even the last faint echo of
the distant cart had long ago died away, afar.

Suddenly. . .a sound. . .the strangest, undoubtedly, that
these lonely cliffs of France had ever heard, broke the silent
solemnity of the shore.

So strange a sound was it that the gentle breeze ceased to
murmur, the tiny pebbles to roll down the steep incline!  So strange,
that Marguerite, wearied, overwrought as she was, thought that the
beneficial unconsciousness of the approach of death was playing her
half-sleeping senses a weird and elusive trick.

It was the sound of a good, solid, absolutely British "Damn!"

The sea gulls in their nests awoke and looked round in astonishment;
a distant and solitary owl set up a midnight hoot, the tall cliffs
frowned down majestically at the strange, unheard-of sacrilege.

Marguerite did not trust her ears.  Half-raising herself on
her hands, she strained every sense to see or hear, to know the
meaning of this very earthly sound.

All was still again for the space of a few seconds; the same
silence once more fell upon the great and lonely vastness.

Then Marguerite, who had listened as in a trance, who felt she
must be dreaming with that cool, magnetic moonlight overhead, heard
again; and this time her heart stood still, her eyes large and
dilated, looked round her, not daring to trust her other sense.

"Odd's life! but I wish those demmed fellows had not hit quite so hard!"

This time it was quite unmistakable, only one particular pair
of essentially British lips could have uttered those words, in sleepy,
drawly, affected tones.

"Damn!" repeated those same British lips, emphatically.
"Zounds! but I'm as weak as a rat!"

In a moment Marguerite was on her feet.

Was she dreaming?  Were those great, stony cliffs the gates of paradise?
Was the fragrant breath of the breeze suddenly caused by the flutter
of angels' wings, bringing tidings of unearthly joys to her, after
all her suffering, or--faint and ill--was she the prey of delirium?

She listened again, and once again she heard the same very
earthly sounds of good, honest British language, not the least akin to
whisperings from paradise or flutter of angels' wings.

She looked round her eagerly at the tall cliffs, the lonely
hut, the great stretch of rocky beach.  Somewhere there, above or
below her, behind a boulder or inside a crevice, but still hidden from
her longing, feverish eyes, must be the owner of that voice, which
once used to irritate her, but now would make her the happiest woman
in Europe, if only she could locate it.

"Percy!  Percy!" she shrieked hysterically, tortured between doubt
and hope, "I am here!  Come to me!  Where are you?  Percy! Percy!. . ."

"It's all very well calling me, m'dear!" said the same sleepy,
drawly voice, "but odd's life, I cannot come to you: those demmed
frog-eaters have trussed me like a goose on a spit, and I am weak as a
mouse. . .I cannot get away."

And still Marguerite did not understand.  She did not realise
for at least another ten seconds whence came that voice, so drawly, so
dear, but alas! with a strange accent of weakness and of suffering.
There was no one within sight. . .except by that rock. . .Great
God!. . .the Jew!. . .Was she mad or dreaming?. . .

His back was against the pale moonlight, he was half crouching,
trying vainly to raise himself with his arms tightly pinioned.
Marguerite ran up to him, took his head in both her hands. . .
and look straight into a pair of blue eyes, good-natured, even a
trifle amused--shining out of the weird and distorted mask of the Jew.

"Percy!. . .Percy!. . .my husband!" she gasped, faint with the
fulness of her joy.  "Thank God!  Thank God!"

"La! m'dear," he rejoined good-humouredly, "we will both do
that anon, an you think you can loosen these demmed ropes,
and release me from my inelegant attitude."

She had no knife, her fingers were numb and weak, but she
worked away with her teeth, while great welcome tears poured from her
eyes, onto those poor, pinioned hands.

"Odd's life!" he said, when at last, after frantic efforts on
her part, the ropes seemed at last to be giving way, "but I marvel
whether it has ever happened before, that an English gentleman allowed
himself to be licked by a demmed foreigner, and made no attempt to
give as good as he got."

It was very obvious that he was exhausted from sheer physical pain,
and when at last the rope gave way, he fell in a heap against the rock.

Marguerite looked helplessly round her.

"Oh! for a drop of water on this awful beach!" she cried in
agony, seeing that he was ready to faint again.

"Nay, m'dear," he murmured with his good-humoured smile,
"personally I should prefer a drop of good French brandy! an you'll
dive in the pocket of this dirty old garment, you'll find my
flask. . . .  I am demmed if I can move."

When he had drunk some brandy, he forced Marguerite to do likewise.

"La! that's better now!  Eh! little woman?" he said, with a
sigh of satisfaction.  "Heigh-ho! but this is a queer rig-up for Sir
Percy Blakeney, Bart., to be found in by his lady, and no mistake.
Begad!" he added, passing his hand over his chin, "I haven't been
shaved for nearly twenty hours: I must look a disgusting object.  As
for these curls. . ."

And laughingly he took off the disfiguring wig and curls, and
stretched out his long limbs, which were cramped from many hours'
stooping.  Then he bent forward and looked long and searchingly into
his wife's blue eyes.

"Percy," she whispered, while a deep blush suffused her
delicate cheeks and neck, "if you only knew. . ."

"I do know, dear. . .everything," he said with infinite gentleness.

"And can you ever forgive?"

"I have naught to forgive, sweetheart; your heroism, your
devotion, which I, alas! so little deserved, have more than atoned
for that unfortunate episode at the ball."

"Then you knew?. . ." she whispered, "all the time. . ."

"Yes!" he replied tenderly, "I knew. . .all the time. . . .
But, begad! had I but known what a noble heart yours was, my Margot,
I should have trusted you, as you deserved to be trusted, and you
would not have had to undergo the terrible sufferings of the past few
hours, in order to run after a husband, who has done so much that
needs forgiveness."

They were sitting side by side, leaning up against a rock, and
he had rested his aching head on her shoulder.  She certainly now
deserved the name of "the happiest woman in Europe."

"It is a case of the blind leading the lame, sweetheart, is it
not?" he said with his good-natured smile of old.  "Odd's life! but I
do not know which are the more sore, my shoulders or your little feet."

He bent forward to kiss them, for they peeped out through her torn
stockings, and bore pathetic witness to her endurance and devotion.

"But Armand. . ." she said with sudden terror and remorse, as in
the midst of her happiness the image of the beloved brother,
for whose sake she had so deeply sinned, rose now before her mind.

"Oh! have no fear for Armand, sweetheart," he said tenderly,
"did I not pledge you my word that he should be safe?  He with de
Tournay and the others are even now on board the DAY DREAM."

"But how?" she gasped, "I do not understand."

"Yet, `tis simple enough, m'dear," he said with that funny,
half-shy, half-inane laugh of his, "you see! when I found that that
brute Chauvelin meant to stick to me like a leech, I thought the best
thing I could do, as I could not shake him off, was to take him along
with me.  I had to get to Armand and the others somehow, and all the
roads were patrolled, and every one on the look-out for your humble
servant.  I knew that when I slipped through Chauvelin's fingers at
the `Chat Gris,' that he would lie in wait for me here, whichever way
I took.  I wanted to keep an eye on him and his doings, and a British
head is as good as a French one any day."

Indeed it had proved to be infinitely better, and Marguerite's
heart was filled with joy and marvel, as he continued to recount to
her the daring manner in which he had snatched the fugitives away,
right from under Chauvelin's very nose.

"Dressed as the dirty old Jew," he said gaily, "I knew I
should not be recognized.  I had met Reuben Goldstein in Calais
earlier in the evening.  For a few gold pieces he supplied me with
this rig-out, and undertook to bury himself out of sight of everybody,
whilst he lent me his cart and nag."

"But if Chauvelin had discovered you," she gasped excitedly,
"your disguise was good. . .but he is so sharp."

"Odd's fish!" he rejoined quietly, "then certainly the game
would have been up.  I could but take the risk.  I know human nature
pretty well by now," he added, with a note of sadness in his cheery,
young voice, "and I know these Frenchmen out and out.  They so loathe
a Jew, that they never come nearer than a couple of yards of him, and
begad!  I fancy that I contrived to make myself look about as
loathesome an object as it is possible to conceive."

"Yes!--and then?" she asked eagerly.

"Zooks!--then I carried out my little plan: that is to say, at
first I only determined to leave everything to chance, but when I
heard Chauvelin giving his orders to the soldiers, I thought that Fate
and I were going to work together after all.  I reckoned on the blind
obedience of the soldiers.  Chauvelin had ordered them on pain of
death not to stir until the tall Englishman came.  Desgas had thrown
me down in a heap quite close to the hut; the soldiers took no notice
of the Jew, who had driven Citoyen Chauvelin to this spot.  I managed
to free my hands from the ropes, with which the brute had trussed me;
I always carry pencil and paper with me wherever I go, and I hastily
scrawled a few important instructions on a scrap of paper; then I
looked about me.  I crawled up to the hut, under the very noses of the
soldiers, who lay under cover without stirring, just as Chauvelin had
ordered them to do, then I dropped my little note into the hut through
a chink in the wall, and waited.  In this note I told the fugitives to
walk noiselessly out of the hut, creep down the cliffs, keep to the
left until they came to the first creek, to give a certain signal,
when the boat of the DAY DREAM, which lay in wait not far out to
sea, would pick them up.  They obeyed implicitly, fortunately for them
and for me.  The soldiers who saw them were equally obedient to
Chauvelin's orders.  They did not stir!  I waited for nearly half an
hour; when I knew that the fugitives were safe I gave the signal,
which caused so much stir."

And that was the whole story.  It seemed so simple! and Marguerite
could be marvel at the wonderful ingenuity, the boundless pluck and
audacity which had evolved and helped to carry out this daring plan.

"But those brutes struck you!" she gasped in horror, at the
bare recollection of the fearful indignity.

"Well!  that could not be helped," he said gently, "whilst my
little wife's fate was so uncertain, I had to remain here by her side.
Odd's life!" he added merrily, "never fear!  Chauvelin will lose
nothing by waiting, I warrant!  Wait till I get him back to
England!--La!  he shall pay for the thrashing he gave me with
compound interest, I promise you."

Marguerite laughed.  It was so good to be beside him, to hear
his cheery voice, to watch that good-humoured twinkle in his blue
eyes, as he stretched out his strong arms, in longing for that foe,
and anticipation of his well-deserved punishment.

Suddenly, however, she started: the happy blush left her
cheek, the light of joy died out of her eyes: she had heard a stealthy
footfall overhead, and a stone had rolled down from the top of the
cliffs right down to the beach below.

"What's that?" she whispered in horror and alarm.

"Oh! nothing, m'dear," he muttered with a pleasant laugh,
"only a trifle you happened to have forgotten. . .my friend,
Ffoulkes. . ."

"Sir Andrew!" she gasped.

Indeed, she had wholly forgotten the devoted friend and
companion, who had trusted and stood by her during all these hours of
anxiety and suffering.  She remembered him how, tardily and with a
pang of remorse.

"Aye! you had forgotten him, hadn't you, m'dear?" said Sir
Percy merrily.  "Fortunately, I met him, not far from the `Chat Gris.'
before I had that interesting supper party, with my friend
Chauvelin. . . .  Odd's life! but I have a score to settle with that
young reprobate!--but in the meanwhile, I told him of a very long,
very circuitous road which Chauvelin's men would never suspect, just
about the time when we are ready for him, eh, little woman?"

"And he obeyed?" asked Marguerite, in utter astonishment.

"Without word or question.  See, here he comes.  He was not in
the way when I did not want him, and now he arrives in the nick of
time.  Ah! he will make pretty little Suzanne a most admirable and
methodical husband."

In the meanwhile Sir Andrew Ffoulkes had cautiously worked his
way down the cliffs: he stopped once or twice, pausing to listen for
whispered words, which would guide him to Blakeney's hiding-place.

"Blakeney!" he ventured to say at last cautiously, "Blakeney!
are you there?"

The next moment he rounded the rock against which Sir Percy
and Marguerite were leaning, and seeing the weird figure still clad in
the Jew's long gaberdine, he paused in sudden, complete bewilderment.

But already Blakeney had struggled to his feet.

"Here I am, friend," he said with his funny, inane laugh, "all
alive! though I do look a begad scarecrow in these demmed things."

"Zooks!" ejaculated Sir Andrew in boundless astonishment as he
recognized his leader, "of all the. . ."

The young man had seen Marguerite, and happily checked the
forcible language that rose to his lips, at sight of the exquisite Sir
Percy in this weird and dirty garb.

"Yes!" said Blakeney, calmly, "of all the. . .hem!. . .My
friend!--I have not yet had time to ask you what you were doing in
France, when I ordered you to remain in London?  Insubordination?
What?  Wait till my shoulders are less sore, and, by Gad, see the
punishment you'll get."

"Odd's fish!  I'll bear it," said Sir Andrew with a merry
laugh, "seeing that you are alive to give it. . . .  Would you have
had me allow Lady Blakeney to do the journey alone?  But, in the name
of heaven, man, where did you get these extraordinary clothes?"
"Lud! they are a bit quaint, ain't they?" laughed Sir Percy,
jovially, "But, odd's fish!" he added, with sudden earnestness and
authority, "now you are here, Ffoulkes, we must lose no more time:
that brute Chauvelin may send some one to look after us."

Marguerite was so happy, she could have stayed here for ever,
hearing his voice, asking a hundred questions.  But at mention of
Chauvelin's name she started in quick alarm, afraid for the dear life
she would have died to save.

"But how can we get back?" she gasped; "the roads are full of
soldiers between here and Calais, and. . ."

"We are not going back to Calais, sweetheart," he said, "but
just the other side of Gris Nez, not half a league from here.  The
boat of the DAY DREAM will meet us there."

"The boat of the DAY DREAM?"

"Yes!" he said, with a merry laugh; "another little trick of
mine.  I should have told you before that when I slipped that note
into the hut, I also added another for Armand, which I directed him to
leave behind, and which has sent Chauvelin and his men running full
tilt back to the `Chat Gris' after me; but the first little note
contained my real instructions, including those to old Briggs.  He had
my orders to go out further to sea, and then towards the west.  When
well out of sight of Calais, he will send the galley to a little creek
he and I know of, just beyond Gris Nez.  The men will look out for
me--we have a preconcerted signal, and we will all be safely aboard,
whilst Chauvelin and his men solemnly sit and watch the creek which is
`just opposite the "Chat Gris."'"

"The other side of Gris Nez?  But I. . .I cannot walk, Percy,"
she moaned helplessly as, trying to struggle to her tired feet, she
found herself unable even to stand.

"I will carry you, dear," he said simply; "the blind leading
the lame, you know."

Sir Andrew was ready, too, to help with the precious burden,
but Sir Percy would not entrust his beloved to any arms but his own.

"When you and she are both safely on board the DAY DREAM,"
he said to his young comrade, "and I feel that Mlle. Suzanne's eyes
will not greet me in England with reproachful looks, then it will be
my turn to rest."

And his arms, still vigorous in spite of fatigue and
suffering, closed round Marguerite's poor, weary body, and lifted her
as gently as if she had been a feather.

Then, as Sir Andrew discreetly kept out of earshot, there were
many things said, or rather whispered, which even the autumn breeze
did not catch, for it had gone to rest.

All his fatigue was forgotten; his shoulders must have been
very sore, for the soldiers had hit hard, but the man's muscles seemed
made of steel, and his energy was almost supernatural.  It was a weary
tramp, half a league along the stony side of the cliffs, but never for
a moment did his courage give way or his muscles yield to fatigue.  On
he tramped, with firm footstep, his vigorous arms encircling the
precious burden, and. . .no doubt, as she lay, quiet and happy, at
times lulled to momentary drowsiness, at others watching, through the
slowly gathering morning light, the pleasant face with the lazy,
drooping blue eyes, ever cheerful, ever illumined with a good-humoured
smile, she whispered many things, which helped to shorten the weary
road, and acted as a soothing balsam to his aching sinews.

The many-hued light of dawn was breaking in the east, when at
last they reached the creek beyond Gris Nez.  The galley lay in wait:
in answer to a signal from Sir Percy, she drew near, and two sturdy
British sailors had the honour of carrying my lady into the boat.

Half an hour later, they were on board the DAY DREAM.  The
crew, who of necessity were in their master's secrets, and who were
devoted to him heart and soul, were not surprised to see him arriving
in so extraordinary a disguise.

Armand St. Just and the other fugitives were eagerly awaiting
the advent of their brave rescuer; he would not stay to hear the
expressions of their gratitude, but found the way to his private cabin
as quickly as he could, leaving Marguerite quite happy in the arms of
her brother.

Everything on board the DAY DREAM was fitted with that
exquisite luxury, so dear to Sir Percy Blakeney's heart, and by the
time they all landed at Dover he had found time to get into some of
the sumptuous clothes which he loved, and of which he always kept a
supply on board his yacht.

The difficulty was to provide Marguerite with a pair of shoes,
and great was the little middy's joy when my lady found that she could
put foot on English shore in his best pair.

The rest is silence!--silence and joy for those who had
endured so much suffering, yet found at last a great and lasting
happiness.

But it is on record that at the brilliant wedding of Sir
Andrew Ffoulkes, Bart., with Mlle. Suzanne de Tournay de Basserive, a
function at which H.R.H. the Prince of Wales and all the ELITE of
fashionable society were present, the most beautiful woman there was
unquestionably Lady Blakeney, whilst the clothes of Sir Percy Blakeney
wore were the talk of the JEUNESSE DOREE of London for many days.

It is also a fact that M. Chauvelin, the accredited agent of
the French Republican Government, was not present at that or any other
social function in London, after that memorable evening at Lord
Grenville's ball.



END.