Read El Dorado: An Adventure of the Scarlet Pimpernel Page 28
CHAPTER XXIII. THE OVERWHELMING ODDS
At half-past ten that same evening, Blakeney, still clad in a workman'stattered clothes, his feet bare so that he could tread the streetsunheard, turned into the Rue de la Croix Blanche.
The porte-cochere of the house where Armand lodged had been left on thelatch; not a soul was in sight. Peering cautiously round, he slippedinto the house. On the ledge of the window, immediately on his left whenhe entered, a candle was left burning, and beside it there was a scrapof paper with the initials S. P. roughly traced in pencil. No onechallenged him as he noiselessly glided past it, and up the narrowstairs that led to the upper floor. Here, too, on the second landingthe door on the right had been left on the latch. He pushed it open andentered.
As is usual even in the meanest lodgings in Paris houses, a smallantechamber gave between the front door and the main room. When Percyentered the antechamber was unlighted, but the door into the inner roombeyond was ajar. Blakeney approached it with noiseless tread, and gentlypushed it open.
That very instant he knew that the game was up; he heard the footstepsclosing up behind him, saw Armand, deathly pale, leaning against thewall in the room in front of him, and Chauvelin and Heron standing guardover him.
The next moment the room and the antechamber were literally alive withsoldiers--twenty of them to arrest one man.
It was characteristic of that man that when hands were laid on himfrom every side he threw back his head and laughed--laughed mirthfully,light-heartedly, and the first words that escaped his lips were:
"Well, I am d--d!"
"The odds are against you, Sir Percy," said Chauvelin to him inEnglish, whilst Heron at the further end of the room was growling like acontented beast.
"By the Lord, sir," said Percy with perfect sang-froid, "I do believethat for the moment they are."
"Have done, my men--have done!" he added, turning good-humouredly to thesoldiers round him. "I never fight against overwhelming odds. Twenty toone, eh? I could lay four of you out easily enough, perhaps even six,but what then?"
But a kind of savage lust seemed to have rendered these men temporarilymad, and they were being egged on by Heron. The mysterious Englishman,about whom so many eerie tales were told! Well, he had supernaturalpowers, and twenty to one might be nothing to him if the devil was onhis side. Therefore a blow on his forearm with the butt-end of a bayonetwas useful for disabling his right hand, and soon the left arm with adislocated shoulder hung limp by his side. Then he was bound with cords.
The vein of luck had given out. The gambler had staked more than usualand had lost; but he knew how to lose, just as he had always known howto win.
"Those d--d brutes are trussing me like a fowl," he murmured withirrepressible gaiety at the last.
Then the wrench on his bruised arms as they were pulled roughly back bythe cords caused the veil of unconsciousness to gather over his eyes.
"And Jeanne was safe, Armand," he shouted with a last desperate effort;"those devils have lied to you and tricked you into this ... Sinceyesterday she is out of prison... in the house... you know...."