CHAPTER IX
THE PROCONSUL
I
From round the angle of the house Martin-Roget and Chauvelin werealready speeding along at a rapid pace.
"What does it all mean?" queried the latter hastily.
"The Englishman--with the wench on his back? have you seen him?"
"Malediction! what do you mean?"
"Have you seen him?" reiterated Fleury hoarsely.
"No."
"He couldn't have passed you?"
"Impossible."
"Then unless some of us here have eyes like cats that limb of Satan willget away. On to him, my men," he called once more. "Can you see him?"
The darkness outside was intense. The north-westerly wind was whistlingdown the narrow street, drowning the sound of every distant footfall: ittore mercilessly round the men's heads, snatching the bonnets from offtheir heads, dragging at their loose shirts and breeches, adding to theconfusion which already reigned.
"He went this way ..." shouted one.
"No! that!" cried another.
"There he is!" came finally in chorus from several lusty throats. "Justcrossing the bridge."
"After him," cried Fleury, "an hundred francs to the man who first layshands on that devil."
Then the chase began. The Englishman on ahead was unmistakable with thatburden on his shoulder. He had just reached the foot of the bridge wherea street lanthorn fixed on a tall bracket on the corner stone hadsuddenly thrown him into bold relief. He had less than an hundred metresstart of his pursuers and with a wild cry of excitement they started inhis wake.
He was now in the middle of the bridge--an unmistakable figure of agiant vaguely silhouetted against the light from the lanthorns on thefurther end of the bridge--seeming preternaturally tall and misshapenwith that hump upon his back.
From right and left, from under the doorways of the houses in theCarrefour de la Poissonnerie the Marats who had been left on guard inthe street now joined in the chase. Overhead windows were thrownopen--the good burghers of Nantes, awakened from their sleep, forgetfulfor the nonce of all their anxieties, their squalor and their miseries,leaned out to see what this new kind of din might mean. Fromeverywhere--it almost seemed as if some sprang out of the earth--men,either of the town-guard or Marats on patrol duty, or merely idlers andnight hawks who happened to be about, yielded to that primeval instinctof brutality which causes men as well as beasts to join in a pursuitagainst a fellow creature.
Fleury was in the rear of his posse. Martin-Roget and Chauvelin, walkingas rapidly as they could by his side, tried to glean some informationout of the commandant's breathless and scrappy narrative:
"What happened exactly?"
"It was the man Paul Friche ... with the aristo wench on his back ...and another man carrying the ci-devant aristo ... they were the Englishspies ... in disguise ... they knocked over the lamp ... and gotaway...."
"Name of a...."
"No use swearing, citizen Martin-Roget," retorted Fleury as hotly as hisagitated movements would allow. "You and citizen Chauvelin areresponsible for the affair. It was you, citizen Chauvelin, who placedPaul Friche inside that tavern in observation--you told him what todo...."
"Well?"
"Paul Friche--the real Paul Friche--was taken to the infirmary somehours ago ... with a cracked skull, dealt him by your Englishman, I'veno doubt...."
"Impossible," reiterated Chauvelin with a curse.
"Impossible? why impossible?"
"The man I spoke to outside Le Bouffay...."
"Was not Paul Friche."
"He was on guard in the Place with two other Marats."
"He was not Paul Friche--the others were not Marats."
"Then the man who was inside the tavern?..."
"Was not Paul Friche."
" ... who climbed the gutter pipe ...?"
"Malediction!"
And the chase continued--waxing hotter every minute. The hare had gainedslightly on the hounds--there were more than a hundred hot on the trailby now--having crossed the bridge he was on the Isle Feydeau, andwithout hesitating a moment he plunged at once into the network ofnarrow streets which cover the island in the rear of La Petite Hollandeand the Hotel de le Villestreux, where lodged Carrier, therepresentative of the people. The hounds after him had lost some groundby halting--if only for a second or two--first at the head of thebridge, then at the corners of the various streets, while they peeredinto the darkness to see which way had gone that fleet-footed hare.
"Down this way!"
"No! That!"
"There he goes!"
It always took a few seconds to decide, during which the man on aheadwith his burden on his shoulder had time mayhap to reach the end of astreet and to turn a corner and once again to plunge into darkness andout of sight. The street lanthorns were few in this squalid corner ofthe city, and it was only when perforce the running hare had to cross acircle of light that the hounds were able to keep hot on the trail.
"To the bridges for your lives!" now shouted Fleury to the men nearestto him. "Leave him to wander on the island. He cannot come off it,unless he jumps into the Loire."
The Marats--intelligent and ferociously keen on the chase--had alreadygrasped the importance of this order: with the bridges guarded thatfleet-footed Englishman might run as much as he liked, he was bound tobe run to earth like a fox in his burrow. In a moment they had dispersedalong the quays, some to one bridge-head, some to another--theEnglishman could not double back now, and if he had already crossed tothe Isle Gloriette, which was not joined to the left bank of the riverby any bridge, he would be equally caught like a rat in a trap.
"Unless he jumps into the Loire," reiterated Fleury triumphantly.
"The proconsul will have more excitement than he hoped for," he addedwith a laugh. "He was looking forward to the capture of the English spy,and in deadly terror lest he escaped. But now meseems that we shallrun our fox down in sight of the very gates of la Villestreux."
Martin-Roget's thoughts ran on Yvonne and the duc.
"You will remember, citizen commandant," he contrived to say to Fleury,"that the ci-devant Kernogans were found inside the Rat Mort."
Fleury uttered an exclamation of rough impatience. What did he, what didanyone care at this moment for a couple of aristos more or less when thenoblest game that had ever fallen to the bag of any Terrorist was sonear being run to earth? But Chauvelin said nothing. He walked on at abrisk pace, keeping close to commandant Fleury's side, in the immediatewake of the pursuit. His lips were pressed tightly together and ahissing breath came through his wide-open nostrils. His pale eyes werefixed into the darkness and beyond it, where the most bitter enemy ofthe cause which he loved was fighting his last battle against Fate.
II
"He cannot get off the island!" Fleury had said awhile ago. Well! therewas of a truth little or nothing now between the hunted hare andcapture. The bridges were well guarded: the island swarming with hounds,the Marats at their posts and the Loire an impassable barrier all round.
And Chauvelin, the most tenacious enemy man ever had, Fleury keen on areward and Martin-Roget with a private grudge to pay off, all within twohundred yards behind him.
True for the moment the Englishman had disappeared. Burden and all, thegloom appeared to have swallowed him up. But there was nowhere he couldgo; mayhap he had taken refuge under a doorway in one of the narrowstreets and hoped perhaps under cover of the darkness to allow hispursuers to slip past him and then to double back.
Fleury was laughing in the best of humours. He was gradually collectingall the Marats together and sending them to the bridge-heads under thecommand of their various sergeants. Let the Englishman spend the nighton the islands if he had a mind. There was a full company of Marats hereto account for him as soon as he attempted to come out in the open.
The idlers and night hawks as well as the municipal town guard continuedto run excitedly up and down the streets--sometimes there would come alusty cry from a knot
of pursuers who thought they spied the Englishmanthrough the darkness, at others there would be a call of halt, andfeverish consultation held at a street corner as to the best policy toadopt.
The town guard, jealous of the Marats, were pining to lay hands on theEnglish spy for the sake of the reward. Fleury, coming across theirprovost, called him a fool for his pains.
"My Marats will deal with the English spies, citizen," he said roughly,"he is no concern of yours."
The provost demurred: an altercation might have ensued when Chauvelin'ssuave voice poured oil on the troubled waters.
"Why not," he said, "let the town guard continue their search on theisland, citizen commandant? The men may succeed in digging our rat outof his hole and forcing him out into the open all the sooner. YourMarats will have him quickly enough after that."
To this suggestion the provost gave a grudging assent. The reward whenthe English spy was caught could be fought for later on. For the noncehe turned unceremoniously on his heel, and left Fleury cursing him fora meddlesome busybody.
"So long as he and his rabble does not interfere with my Marats,"growled the commandant.
"Will you see your sergeants, citizen?" queried Chauvelin tentatively."They will have to keep very much on the alert, and will requireconstant prodding to their vigilance. If I can be of any service...."
"No," retorted Fleury curtly, "you and citizen Martin-Roget had best tryand see the proconsul and tell him what we have done."
"He'll be half wild with terror when he hears that the English spy is atlarge upon the island."
"You must pacify him as best you can. Tell him I have a score of Maratsat every bridge head and that I am looking personally to everyarrangement. There is no escape for the devil possible save by drowninghimself and the wench in the Loire."
III
Chauvelin and Martin-Roget turned from the quay on to the PetiteHollande--the great open ground with its converging row of trees whichends at the very apex of the Isle of Feydeau. Opposite to them at thefurther corner of the Place was the Hotel de la Villestreux. One or twoof the windows in the hotel were lighted from within. No doubt theproconsul was awake, trembling in the remotest angle of his lair, withthe spectre of assassination rampant before him--aroused by thecontinued disturbance of the night, by the feverishness of this man-huntcarried on almost at his gates.
Even through the darkness it was easy to perceive groups of peopleeither rushing backwards and forwards on the Place or congregating ingroups under the trees. Excitement was in the air. It could be felt andheard right through the soughing of the north-westerly wind which causedthe bare branches of the trees to groan and to crackle, and the deadleaves, which still hung on the twigs, to fly wildly through the night.
In the centre of the Place, two small lights, gleaming like eyes in themidst of the gloom, betrayed the presence of the proconsul's coach,which stood there as always, ready to take him away to a place ofsafety--away from this city where he was mortally hated anddreaded--whenever the spectre of terror became more insistent thanusual, and drove him hence out of his stronghold. The horses were pawingthe frozen ground and champing their bits--the steam from their nostrilscaught the rays of the carriage lamps, which also lit up with a feebleflicker the vague outline of the coachman on his box and of thepostilion rigid in his saddle.
The citizens of Nantes were never tired of gaping at the carriage--ahuge C-springed barouche--at the coachman's fine caped coat ofbottle-green cloth and at the horses with their handsome harness set offwith heavy brass bosses: they never tired of bandying words with thesuccessive coachmen as they mounted their box and gathered up the reins,or with the postilions who loved to crack their whips and to appearsmart and well-groomed, in the midst of the squalor which reigned in theterror-stricken city. They were the guardians of the mighty proconsul:on their skill, quickness and presence of mind might depend his preciouslife.
Even when the shadow of death hangs over an entire community, there willbe some who will stand and gape and crack jokes at an uncommon sight.
And now when the pall of night hung over the abode of the man-tiger andhis lair, and wrapped in its embrace the hunted and the hunters, therestill was a knot of people standing round the carriage--between it andthe hotel--gazing with lack-lustre eyes on the costly appurtenanceswherewith the representative of a wretched people loved to surroundhimself. They could only see the solid mass of the carriage and of thehorses, but they could hear the coachman clicking with his tongue andthe postilion cracking his whip, and these sights broke the absolutedreary monotony of their lives.
It was from behind this knot of gaffers that there rose gradually atumult as of a man calling out in wrath and lashing himself into a fury.Chauvelin and Martin-Roget were just then crossing La Petite Hollandefrom one bank of the river to the other: they were walking rapidlytowards the hotel, when they heard the tumult which presently culminatedin a hoarse cry and a volley of oaths.
"My coach! my coach at once.... Lalouet, don't leave me.... Curse youall for a set of cowardly oafs.... My coach I say...."
"The proconsul," murmured Chauvelin as he hastened forward, Martin-Rogetfollowing closely on his heels.
By the time that they had come near enough to the coach to distinguishvaguely in the gloom what was going on, people came rushing to the samespot from end to end of the Place. In a moment there was quite a crowdround the carriage, and the two men had much ado to push their waythrough by a vigorous play of their elbows.
"Citizen Carrier!" cried Chauvelin at the top of his voice, trying todominate the hubbub, "one minute ... I have excellent news for you....The English spy...."
"Curse you for a set of blundering fools," came with a husky cry fromout the darkness, "you have let that English devil escape ... I knew it... I knew it ... the assassin is at large ... the murderer ... my coachat once ... my coach.... Lalouet--do not leave me."
Chauvelin had by this time succeeded in pushing his way to the forefrontof the crowd: Martin-Roget, tall and powerful, had effectually made away for him. Through the dense gloom he could see the misshapen form ofthe proconsul, wildly gesticulating with one arm and with the otherclinging convulsively to young Lalouet who already had his hand on thehandle of the carriage door.
With a quick, resolute gesture Chauvelin stepped between the door andthe advancing proconsul.
"Citizen Carrier," he said with calm determination, "on my oath there isno cause for alarm. Your life is absolutely safe.... I entreat you toreturn to your lodgings...."
To emphasise his words he had stretched out a hand and firmly graspedthe proconsul's coat sleeve. This gesture, however, instead of pacifyingthe apparently terror-stricken maniac, seemed to have the effect offurther exasperating his insensate fear. With a loud oath he torehimself free from Chauvelin's grasp.
"Ten thousand devils," he cried hoarsely, "who is this fool who dares tointerfere with me? Stand aside man ... stand aside or...."
And before Chauvelin could utter another word or Martin-Roget come tohis colleague's rescue, there came the sudden sharp report of a pistol;the horses reared, the crowd was scattered in every direction, Chauvelinwas knocked over by a smart blow on the head whilst a vigorous drag onhis shoulder alone saved him from falling under the wheels of the coach.
Whilst confusion was at its highest, the carriage door was closed towith a bang and there was a loud, commanding cry hurled through thewindow at the coachman on his box.
"_En avant_, citizen coachman! Drive for your life! through the Savenaygate. The English assassins are on our heels."
The postilion cracked his whip. The horses, maddened by the report, bythe pushing, jostling crowd and the confused cries and screams around,plunged forward, wild with excitement. Their hoofs clattered on the hardroad. Some of the crowd ran after the coach across the Place, shoutinglustily: "The proconsul! the proconsul!"
Chauvelin--dazed and bruised--was picked up by Martin-Roget.
"The cowardly brute!" was all that he said between his teeth, "h
e shallrue this outrage as soon as I can give my mind to his affairs. In themeanwhile...."
The clatter of the horses' hoofs was already dying away in the distance.For a few seconds longer the rattle of the coach was still accompaniedby cries of "The proconsul! the proconsul!" Fleury at the bridge head,seeing and hearing its approach, had only just time to order his Maratsto stand at attention. A salvo should have been fired when therepresentative of the people, the high and mighty proconsul, was abroad,but there was no time for that, and the coach clattered over the bridgeat breakneck speed, whilst Carrier with his head out of the window washurling anathemas and insults at Fleury for having allowed the paidspies of that cursed British Government to threaten the life of arepresentative of the people.
"I go to Savenay," he shouted just at the last, "until that assassin hasbeen thrown in the Loire. But when I return ... look to yourselfcommandant Fleury."
Then the carriage turned down the Quai de la Fosse and a few minuteslater was swallowed up by the gloom.
IV
Chauvelin, supported by Martin-Roget, was hobbling back across thePlace. The crowd was still standing about, vaguely wondering why it hadgot so excited over the departure of the proconsul and the rattle of acoach and pair across the bridge, when on the island there was still anassassin at large--an English spy, the capture of whom would be one ofthe great events in the chronicles of the city of Nantes.
"I think," said Martin-Roget, "that we may as well go to bed now, andleave the rest to commandant Fleury. The Englishman may not be capturedfor some hours, and I for one am over-fatigued."
"Then go to bed an you desire, citizen Martin-Roget," retorted Chauvelindrily, "I for one will stay here until I see the Englishman in the handsof commandant Fleury."
"Hark," interposed Martin-Roget abruptly. "What was that?"
Chauvelin had paused even before Martin-Roget's restraining hand hadrested on his arm. He stood still in the middle of the Place and hisknees shook under him so that he nearly fell prone to the ground.
"What is it?" reiterated Martin-Roget with vague puzzlement. "It soundslike young Lalouet's voice."
Chauvelin said nothing. He had forgotten his bruises: he no longerhobbled--he ran across the Place to the front of the hotel whence thevoice had come which was so like that of young Lalouet.
The youngster--it was undoubtedly he--was standing at the angle of thehotel: above him a lanthorn threw a dim circle of light on his bare headwith its mass of dark curls, and on a small knot of idlers with two orthree of the town guard amongst them. The first words spoken by himwhich Chauvelin distinguished quite clearly were:
"You are all mad ... or else drunk.... The citizen proconsul is upstairsin his room.... He has just sent me down to hear what news there is ofthe English spies...."
V
No one made reply. It seemed as if some giant and spectral hand hadpassed over this mass of people and with its magic touch had stilledtheir turbulent passions, silenced their imprecations and cooled theirardour--and left naught but a vague fear, a subtle sense of awe as whensomething unexplainable and supernatural has manifested itself beforethe eyes of men.
From far away the roll of coach wheels rapidly disappearing in thedistance alone broke the silence of the night.
"Is there no one here who will explain what all this means?" queriedyoung Lalouet, who alone had remained self-assured and calm, for healone knew nothing of what had happened. "Citizen Fleury, are youthere?"
Then as once again he received no reply, he added peremptorily:
"Hey! some one there! Are you all louts and oafs that not one of you canspeak?"
A timid voice from the rear ventured on explanation.
"The citizen proconsul was here a moment ago.... We all saw him, and youcitizen Lalouet were with him...."
An imprecation from young Lalouet silenced the timid voice for thenonce ... and then another resumed the halting narrative.
"We all could have sworn that we saw you, citizen Lalouet, also thecitizen proconsul.... He got into his coach with you ... you ... that is... they have driven off...."
"This is some awful and treacherous hoax," cried the youngster now in atowering passion; "the citizen proconsul is upstairs in bed, I tell you... and I have only just come out of the hotel ...! Name of a name of adog! am I standing here or am I not?"
Then suddenly he bethought himself of the many events of the day whichhad culminated in this gigantic feat of leger-de-main.
"Chauvelin!" he exclaimed. "Where in the name of h----ll is citizenChauvelin?"
But Chauvelin for the moment could nowhere be found. Dazed,half-unconscious, wholly distraught, he had fled from the scene of hisdiscomfiture as fast as his trembling knees would allow. Carriersearched the city for him high and low, and for days afterwards thesoldiers of the Compagnie Marat gave aristos and rebels a rest: theywere on the look-out for a small, wizened figure of a man--the man withthe pale, keen eyes who had failed to recognise in the pseudo-PaulFriche, in the dirty, out-at-elbows _sans-culotte_--the most exquisitedandy that had ever graced the salons of Bath and of London: they weresearching for the man with the acute and sensitive brain who had failedto scent in the pseudo-Carrier and the pseudo-Lalouet his old and archenemy Sir Percy Blakeney and the charming wife of my lord AnthonyDewhurst.
CHAPTER X
LORD TONY
I
A quarter of an hour later citizen-commandant Fleury was at last usheredinto the presence of the proconsul and received upon his truly innocenthead the full torrent of the despot's wrath. But Martin-Roget hadlistened to the counsels of prudence: for obvious reasons he desired toavoid any personal contact for the moment with Carrier, whom fear of theEnglish spies had made into a more abject and more craven tyrant thanever before. At the same time he thought it wisest to try and pacify thebrute by sending him the ten thousand francs--the bribe agreed upon forhis help in the undertaking which had culminated in such a disastrousfailure.
At the self-same hour whilst Carrier--fuming and swearing--was for thehundredth time uttering that furious "How?" which for the hundredth timehad remained unanswered, two men were taking leave of one another at thesmall postern gate which gives on the cemetery of St. Anne. The tallerand younger one of the two had just dropped a heavy purse into the handof the other. The latter stooped and kissed the kindly hand.
"Milor," he said, "I swear to you most solemnly that M. le duc deKernogan will rest in peace in hallowed ground. M. le cure deVertou--ah! he is a saint and a brave man, milor--comes over whenever hecan prudently do so and reads the offices for the dead--over those whohave died as Christians, and there is a piece of consecrated ground outhere in the open which those fiends of Terrorists have not discoveredyet."
"And you will bury M. le duc immediately," admonished the younger man,"and apprise M. le cure of what has happened."
"Aye! aye! I'll do that, milor, within the hour. Though M. le duc wasnever a very kind master to me in the past, I cannot forget that Iserved him and his family for over thirty years as coachman. I droveMlle. Yvonne in the first pony-cart she ever possessed. I drove her--ah!that was a bitter day!--her and M. le duc when they left Kernogan neverto return. I drove Mlle. Yvonne on that memorable night when a crowd ofmiserable peasants attacked her coach, and that brute Pierre Adetstarted to lead a rabble against the chateau. That was the beginning ofthings, milor. God alone knows what has happened to Pierre Adet. Hisfather Jean was hanged by order of M. le duc. Now M. le duc is destinedto lie in a forgotten grave. I serve this abominable Republic by digginggraves for her victims. I would be happier, I think, if I knew what hadbecome of Mlle. Yvonne."
"Mlle. Yvonne is my wife, old friend," said the younger man softly."Please God she has years of happiness before her, if I succeed inmaking her forget all that she has suffered."
"Amen to that, milor!" rejoined the man fervently. "Then I pray you tellthe noble lady to rest assured. Jean-Marie--her old coachman whom sheused to trust implicitly in the past--will see that M. le duc deKe
rnogan is buried as a gentleman and a Christian should be."
"You are not running too great a risk by this, I hope, my goodJean-Marie," quoth Lord Tony gently.
"No greater risk, milor," replied Jean-Marie earnestly, "than the onewhich you ran by carrying my old master's dead body on your shouldersthrough the streets of Nantes."
"Bah! that was simple enough," said the younger man, "the hue and cry isafter higher quarry to-night. Pray God the hounds have not run the noblegame to earth."
Even as he spoke there came from far away through the darkness the soundof a fast trotting pair of horses and the rumble of coach-wheels on theunpaved road.
"There they are, thank God!" exclaimed Lord Tony, and the tremor in hisvoice alone betrayed the torturing anxiety which he had been enduring,ever since he had seen the last both of his adored young wife and of hisgallant chief in the squalid tap-room of the Rat Mort.
With the dead body of Yvonne's father on his back he had quietly workedhis way out of the tavern in the wake of his chief. He had his orders,and for the members of that gallant League of the Scarlet Pimpernelthere was no such word as "disobedience" and no such word as "fail."Through the darkness and through the tortuous streets of Nantes LordAnthony Dewhurst--the young and wealthy exquisite, the hero of anhundred fetes and galas in Bath, in London--staggered under the weightof a burden imposed upon him only by his loyalty and a noble sense ofself-prescribed discipline--and that burden the dead body of the man whohad done him an unforgivable wrong. Without a thought of revolt he hadobeyed--and risked his life and worse in the obedience.
The darkness of the night was his faithful handmaiden, and theexcitement of the chase after the other quarry had fortunately drawnevery possible enemy from his track. He had set his teeth andaccomplished his task, and even the deathly anxiety for the wife whom heidolised had been crushed, under the iron heel of a grim resolve. Nowhis work was done, and from far away he heard the rattle of the coachwheels which were bringing his beloved nearer and nearer to him.
Five minutes longer and the coach came to a halt. A cheery voice calledout gaily:
"Tony! are you there?"
"Percy!" exclaimed the young man.
Already he knew that all was well. The gallant leader, the loyal andloving friend, had taxed every resource of a boundlessly fertile brainin order to win yet another wreath of immortal laurels for the Leaguewhich he commanded, and the very tone of his merry voice proclaimed thetriumph which had crowned his daring scheme.
The next moment Yvonne lay in the arms of her dear milor. He had steppedinto the carriage, even while Sir Percy climbed nimbly on the box andtook the reins from the bewildered coachman's hands.
"Citizen proconsul ..." murmured the latter, who of a truth thought thathe was dreaming.
"Get off the box, you old noodle," quoth the pseudo-proconsulperemptorily. "Thou and thy friend the postilion will remain here in theroad, and on the morrow you'll explain to whomsoever it may concern thatthe English spy made a murderous attack on you both and left you halfdead outside the postern gate of the cemetery of Ste. Anne. Here," headded as he threw a purse down to the two men--who half-dazed andovercome by superstitious fear had indeed scrambled down, one from hisbox, the other from his horse--"there's a hundred francs for each ofyou in there, and mind you drink to the health of the English spy andthe confusion of your brutish proconsul."
There was no time to lose: the horses--still very fresh--were frettingto start.
"Where do we pick up Hastings and Ffoulkes?" asked Sir Percy Blakeneyfinally as he turned toward the interior of the barouche, the hood ofwhich hid its occupants from view.
"At the comer of the rue de Gigan," came the quick answer. "It is onlytwo hundred metres from the city gate. They are on the look out foryou."
"Ffoulkes shall be postilion," rejoined Sir Percy with a laugh, "andHastings sit beside me on the box. And you will see how at the city gateand all along the route soldiers of the guard will salute the equipageof the all-powerful proconsul of Nantes. By Gad!" he added under hisbreath, "I've never had a merrier time in all my life--not evenwhen...."
He clicked his tongue and gave the horses their heads--and soon thecoachman and the postilion and Jean-Marie the gravedigger of thecemetery of Ste. Anne were left gaping out into the night in thedirection where the barouche had so quickly disappeared.
"Now for Le Croisic and the _Day-Dream_," sighed the daring adventurercontentedly, "... and for Marguerite!" he added wistfully.
II
Under the hood of the barouche Yvonne, wearied but immeasurably happy,was doing her best to answer all her dear milor's impassioned questionsand to give him a fairly clear account of that terrible chase andflight through the streets of the Isle Feydeau.
"Ah, milor, how can I tell you what I felt when I realised that I wasbeing carried along in the arms of the valiant Scarlet Pimpernel? A wordfrom him and I understood. After that I tried to be both resourceful andbrave. When the chase after us was at its hottest we slipped into aruined and deserted house. In a room at the back there were severalbundles of what looked like old clothes. 'This is my store-house,' milorsaid to me; 'now that we have reached it we can just make long noses atthe whole pack of bloodhounds.' He made me slip into some boy's clotheswhich he gave me, and whilst I donned these he disappeared. When hereturned I truly did not recognise him. He looked horrible, and hisvoice ...! After a moment or two he laughed, and then I knew him. Heexplained to me the role which I was to play, and I did my best to obeyhim in everything. But oh! I hardly lived while we once more emergedinto the open street and then turned into the great Place which wasfull--oh full!--of people. I felt that at every moment we might besuspected. Figure to yourself, my dear milor...."
What Yvonne Dewhurst was about to say next will never be recorded. Mylord Tony had closed her lips with a kiss.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note
Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printererrors have been changed and are listed below. All otherinconsistencies are as in the original.
Characters that could not be displayed directly in Latin-1 aretranscribed as follows:
_ - Italics
The following changes have been made to the text:
Page vii. "Bouffaye" changed to "Bouffay".
Page 27: "down-trodden" changed to "downtrodden".
Page 46: "waste land" changed to "wasteland".
Page 54: "interfence" changed to "interference".
Page 57: "such like" changed to suchlike".
Page 71: "overfull" changed to "over-full'.
Page 80: "were hard to enumerate" changed to "was hard to enumerate".
Page 109: "aqua-marine" changed to "aquamarine".
Page 147: "taff-rail" changed to "taffrail".
Page 163: "Nante's" changed to Nantes".
Page 198: "what reports" changed to "What reports".
Page 204: "plans wth" changed to "plans with".
Page 205: "clawlike" changed to claw-like".
Page 207: "passersby" changed to "passers-by".
Page 228: "fish crashing" change to "fist crashing".
Page 238: "anteroom" changed to "ante-room".
Page 239: "hs pocket" changed to "his pocket".
Page 240: "our of Carrier's" changed to "out of Carrier's".
Page 240: "abominal doggrel" changed to "abominable doggrel".
Page 248: "overbearing" changed to "over-bearing".
Page 252: "cutthroat" changed to "cut-throat".
Page 254: "good dead of" changed to "good deal of".
Page 300: "tried to smoothe" changed to "tried to smooth".
Page 308: "ricketty" changed to "rickety".
Page 315: "Hotel de le Villestreux" changed to "Hotel de laVillestreux".
Page 318: "nighthawks" changed to "night hawks".
Page 318: "lustry" changed to "lusty".
Page 319: "Hotel de le Villestreux" changed to "Hotel de laVilles
treux".
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