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

I spoke of just now. You are both excellent horsemen, therefore I selected you amongst the others for this special errand, for you two, with the five horses, will have to come and meet our coal-cart some seventeen kilometres out of St. Germain, to where the first signpost indicates the road to Courbevoie. Some two hundred mètres down this road on the right there is a small spinney, which will afford splendid shelter for yourselves and your horses. We hope to be there at about one o’clock after midnight of Monday morning. Now, is all that quite clear, and are you both satisfied?”

“It is quite clear,” exclaimed Hastings placidly; “but I, for one, am not at all satisfied.”

“And why not?”

“Because it is all too easy. We get none of the danger.”

“Oho! I thought that you would bring that argument forward, you incorrigible grumbler,” laughed Sir Percy good-humouredly. “Let me tell you that if you start tomorrow from Paris in that spirit you will run your head and Armand’s into a noose long before you reach the gate of Neuilly. I cannot allow either of you to cover your faces with too much grime; an honest farm labourer should not look over-dirty, and your chances of being discovered and detained are, at the outset, far greater than those which Ffoulkes and Tony will run⁠—”

Armand had said nothing during this time. While Blakeney was unfolding his plan for him and for Lord Hastings⁠—a plan which practically was a command⁠—he had sat with his arms folded across his chest, his head sunk upon his breast. When Blakeney had asked if they were satisfied, he had taken no part in Hastings’ protest nor responded to his leader’s good-humoured banter.

Though he did not look up even now, yet he felt that Percy’s eyes were fixed upon him, and they seemed to scorch into his soul. He made a great effort to appear eager like the others, and yet from the first a chill had struck at his heart. He could not leave Paris before he had seen Jeanne.

He looked up suddenly, trying to seem unconcerned; he even looked his chief fully in the face.

“When ought we to leave Paris?” he asked calmly.

“You must leave at daybreak,” replied Blakeney with a slight, almost imperceptible emphasis on the word of command. “When the gates are first opened, and the work-people go to and fro at their work, that is the safest hour. And you must be at St. Germain as soon as may be, or the farmer may not have a sufficiency of horses available at a moment’s notice. I want you to be spokesman with Achard, so that Hastings’ British accent should not betray you both. Also you might not get a conveyance for St. Germain immediately. We must think of every eventuality, Armand. There is so much at stake.”

Armand made no further comment just then. But the others looked astonished. Armand had but asked a simple question, and Blakeney’s reply seemed almost like a rebuke⁠—so circumstantial too, and so explanatory. He was so used to being obeyed at a word, so accustomed that the merest wish, the slightest hint from him was understood by his band of devoted followers, that the long explanation of his orders which he gave to Armand struck them all with a strange sense of unpleasant surprise.

Hastings was the first to break the spell that seemed to have fallen over the party.

“We leave at daybreak, of course,” he said, “as soon as the gates are open. We can, I know, get one of the carriers to give us a lift as far as St. Germain. There, how do we find Achard?”

“He is a well-known farmer,” replied Blakeney. “You have but to ask.”

“Good. Then we bespeak five horses for the next day, find lodgings in the village that night, and make a fresh start back towards Paris in the evening of Sunday. Is that right?”

“Yes. One of you will have two horses on the lead, the other one. Pack some fodder on the empty saddles and start at about ten o’clock. Ride straight along the main road, as if you were making back for Paris, until you come to four crossroads with a signpost pointing to Courbevoie. Turn down there and go along the road until you meet a close spinney of fir-trees on your right. Make for the interior of that. It gives splendid shelter, and you can dismount there and give the horses a feed. We’ll join you one hour after midnight. The night will be dark, I hope, and the moon anyhow will be on the wane.”

“I think I understand. Anyhow, it’s not difficult, and we’ll be as careful as may be.”

“You will have to keep your heads clear, both of you,” concluded Blakeney.

He was looking at Armand as he said this; but the young man had not made a movement during this brief colloquy between Hastings and the chief. He still sat with arms folded, his head falling on his breast.

Silence had fallen on them all. They all sat round the fire buried in thought. Through the open window there came from the quay beyond the hum of life in the open-air camp; the tramp of the sentinels around it, the words of command from the drill-sergeant, and through it all the moaning of the wind and the beating of the sleet against the windowpanes.

A whole world of wretchedness was expressed by those sounds! Blakeney gave a quick, impatient sigh, and going to the window he pushed it further open, and just then there came from afar the muffled roll of drums, and from below the watchman’s cry that seemed such dire mockery:

“Sleep, citizens! Everything is safe and peaceful.”

“Sound advice,” said Blakeney lightly. “Shall we also go to sleep? What say you all⁠—eh?”

He had with that sudden rapidity characteristic of his every action, already thrown off the serious air which he had worn a moment ago when giving instructions to Hastings. His usual debonair manner was on him once again, his laziness,