El Dorado, Baroness Orczy [read the beginning after the end novel .TXT] 📗

solemnly, “and I know that we shan’t get a bath for at least a week afterwards.”

“Certainly you won’t, you sybarite!” asserted Sir Percy with a laugh.

“After a week soot might become permanent,” mused Sir Andrew, wondering what, under the circumstance, my lady would say to him.

“If you are both so fastidious,” retorted Blakeney, shrugging his broad shoulders, “I’ll turn one of you into a reddleman, and the other into a dyer. Then one of you will be bright scarlet to the end of his days, as the reddle never comes off the skin at all, and the other will have to soak in turpentine before the dye will consent to move.⁠ ⁠… In either case⁠ ⁠… oh, my dear Tony!⁠ ⁠… the smell.⁠ ⁠…”

He laughed like a schoolboy in anticipation of a prank, and held his scented handkerchief to his nose. My Lord Hastings chuckled audibly, and Tony punched him for this unseemly display of mirth.

Armand watched the little scene in utter amazement. He had been in England over a year, and yet he could not understand these Englishmen. Surely they were the queerest, most inconsequent people in the world. Here were these men, who were engaged at this very moment in an enterprise which for cool-headed courage and foolhardy daring had probably no parallel in history. They were literally taking their lives in their hands, in all probability facing certain death; and yet they now sat chaffing and fighting like a crowd of third-form schoolboys, talking utter, silly nonsense, and making foolish jokes that would have shamed a Frenchman in his teens. Vaguely he wondered what fat, pompous de Batz would think of this discussion if he could overhear it. His contempt, no doubt, for the Scarlet Pimpernel and his followers would be increased tenfold.

Then at last the question of the disguise was effectually dismissed. Sir Andrew Ffoulkes and Lord Anthony Dewhurst had settled their differences of opinion by solemnly agreeing to represent two over-grimy and overheated coal-heavers. They chose two certificates of safety that were made out in the names of Jean Lepetit and Achille Grospierre, labourers.

“Though you don’t look at all like an Achille, Tony,” was Blakeney’s parting shot to his friend.

Then without any transition from this schoolboy nonsense to the serious business of the moment, Sir Andrew Ffoulkes said abruptly:

“Tell us exactly, Blakeney, where you will want the cart to stand on Sunday.”

Blakeney rose and turned to the map against the wall, Ffoulkes and Tony following him. They stood close to his elbow whilst his slender, nervy hand wandered along the shiny surface of the varnished paper. At last he placed his finger on one spot.

“Here you see,” he said, “is the Villette gate. Just outside it a narrow street on the right leads down in the direction of the canal. It is just at the bottom of that narrow street at its junction with the towpath there that I want you two and the cart to be. It had better be a coal-car by the way; they will be unloading coal close by there tomorrow,” he added with one of his sudden irrepressible outbursts of merriment. “You and Tony can exercise your muscles coal-heaving, and incidentally make yourselves known in the neighbourhood as good if somewhat grimy patriots.”

“We had better take up our parts at once then,” said Tony. “I’ll take a fond farewell of my clean shirt tonight.”

“Yes, you will not see one again for some time, my good Tony. After your hard day’s work tomorrow you will have to sleep either inside your cart, if you have already secured one, or under the arches of the canal bridge, if you have not.”

“I hope you have an equally pleasant prospect for Hastings,” was my Lord Tony’s grim comment.

It was easy to see that he was as happy as a schoolboy about to start for a holiday. Lord Tony was a true sportsman. Perhaps there was in him less sentiment for the heroic work which he did under the guidance of his chief than an inherent passion for dangerous adventures. Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, on the other hand, thought perhaps a little less of the adventure, but a great deal of the martyred child in the Temple. He was just as buoyant, just as keen as his friend, but the leaven of sentiment raised his sporting instincts to perhaps a higher plane of self-devotion.

“Well, now, to recapitulate,” he said, in turn following with his finger the indicated route on the map. “Tony and I and the coal-cart will await you on this spot, at the corner of the towpath on Sunday evening at nine o’clock.”

“And your signal, Blakeney?” asked Tony.

“The usual one,” replied Sir Percy, “the seamew’s cry thrice repeated at brief intervals. But now,” he continued, turning to Armand and Hastings, who had taken no part in the discussion hitherto, “I want your help a little further afield.”

“I thought so,” nodded Hastings.

“The coal-cart, with its usual miserable nag, will carry us a distance of fifteen or sixteen kilometres, but no more. My purpose is to cut along the north of the city, and to reach St. Germain, the nearest point where we can secure good mounts. There is a farmer just outside the commune; his name is Achard. He has excellent horses, which I have borrowed before now; we shall want five, of course, and he has one powerful beast that will do for me, as I shall have, in addition to my own weight, which is considerable, to take the child with me on the pillion. Now you, Hastings and Armand, will have to start early tomorrow morning, leave Paris by the Neuilly gate, and from there make your way to St. Germain by any conveyance you can contrive to obtain. At St. Germain you must at once find Achard’s farm; disguised as labourers you will not arouse suspicion by so doing. You will find the farmer quite amenable to money, and you must secure the best horses you can get for our own use, and, if possible, the powerful mount