The Scarlet Pimpernel (33 page)

"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."