The Scarlet Pimpernel (31 page)

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.