The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy [most popular novels .TXT] 📗

must report at once at his section. Are you perchance on the side of the rebels?”

At this point, Marguerite opens her eyes. Through the widely open door she sees the small, sable-clad figure of Chauvelin, his pale face distorted with rage to which he obviously dare not give rein; and beside him a short, stoutish man in cloth coat and cord breeches, and with the tricolour scarf around his waist. His round face appears crimson with choler and in his right hand he grasps a heavy malacca stick, with a grip that proclaims the desire to strike. The two men appear to be defying one another; and all around them are the vague forms of the soldiers silhouetted against a distant window, through which the crimson afternoon glow comes peeping in on a cloud of flickering dust.

“Now then, citizen soldiers!” Barras resumes, and incontinently turns his back on Chauvelin, who, white to the lips, raises a final and menacing word of warning.

“I warn you, citizen Barras,” he says firmly, “that by taking these men away from their post, you place yourself in league with the enemy of your country, and will have to answer to her for this crime.”

His accent is so convinced, so firm, and fraught with such dire menace, that for one instant Barras hesitates.

“Eh bien!” he exclaims. “I will humour you thus far, citizen Chauvelin. I will leave you a couple of men to wait on your pleasure until sundown. But, after that⁠ ⁠…”

For a second or two there was silence. Chauvelin stands there, with his thin lips pressed tightly together. Then Barras adds, with a shrug of his wide shoulders:

“I am contravening my duty in doing even so much; and the responsibility must rest with you, citizen Chauvelin. Allons, my men!” he says once more; and without another glance on his discomfited colleague, he strides down the stairs, followed by Captain Boyer and the soldiers.

For a while the house is still filled with confusion and sounds: men tramping down the stone stairs, words of command, click of sabres and muskets, opening and slamming of doors. Then the sounds slowly die away, out in the street in the direction of the Porte St. Antoine. After which, there is silence.

Chauvelin stands in the doorway with his back to the room and to Marguerite, his claw-like hands intertwined convulsively behind him. The silhouette of the two remaining soldiers are still visible; they stand silently and at attention with their muskets in their hands. Between them and Chauvelin hovers the tall, ungainly figure of a man, clothed in rags and covered in soot and coal-dust. His feet are thrust into wooden shoes, his grimy hands are stretched out each side of him; and on his left arm, just above the wrist, there is an ugly mark like the brand seared into the flesh of a convict.

Just now he looks terribly distressed with a tearing fit of coughing. Chauvelin curtly bids him stand aside; and at the same moment the church clock of St. Louis, close by, strikes seven.

“Now then, citizen soldiers!” Chauvelin commands.

The soldiers grasp their muskets more firmly, and Chauvelin raises his hand. The next instant he is thrust violently back into the room, loses his balance, and falls backward against a table, whilst the door is slammed to between him and the soldiers. From the other side of the door there comes the sound of a short, sharp scuffle. Then silence.

Marguerite, holding her breath, hardly realised that she lived. A second ago she was facing death; and now⁠ ⁠…

Chauvelin struggled painfully to his feet. With a mighty effort and a hoarse cry of rage, he threw himself against the door. The impetus carried him further than he intended, no doubt; for at that same moment the door was opened, and he fell up against the massive form of the grimy coalheaver, whose long arms closed round him, lifted him off the floor, and carried him like a bundle of straw to the nearest chair.

“There, my dear M. Chambertin!” the coalheaver said, in exceedingly light and pleasant tones. “Let me make you quite comfortable!”

Marguerite watched⁠—dumb and fascinated⁠—the dexterous hands that twined the length of rope round the arms and legs of her helpless enemy, and wound his own tricolour scarf around that snarling mouth.

She scarcely dared trust her eyes and ears.

There was the hideous, dust-covered mudlark with bare feet thrust into sabots, with ragged breeches and tattered shirt; there was the cruel, mud-stained face, the purple lips, the toothless mouth; and those huge, muscular arms, one of them branded like the arm of a convict, the flesh still swollen with the searing of the iron.

“I must indeed crave your ladyship’s forgiveness. In very truth, I am a disgusting object!”

Ah, there was the voice!⁠—the dear, dear, merry voice! A little weary perhaps, but oh! so full of laughter and of boyish shamefacedness! To Marguerite it seemed as if God’s own angels had opened to her the gates of Paradise. She did not speak; she scarce could move. All that she could do was to put out her arms.

He did not approach her, for in truth he looked a dusty object; but he dragged his ugly cap off his head, then slowly, and keeping his eyes fixed upon her, he put one knee to the ground.

“You did not doubt, m’dear, that I would come?” he asked quaintly.

She shook her head. The last days were like a nightmare now; and in truth she ought never to have been afraid.

“Will you ever forgive me?” he continued.

“Forgive? What?” she murmured.

“These last few days. I could not come before. You were safe for the time being⁠ ⁠… That fiend was waiting for me⁠ ⁠…”

She gave a shudder and closed her eyes.

“Where is he?”

He laughed his gay, irresponsible laugh, and with a slender hand, still covered with coal-dust, he point to the helpless figure of Chauvelin.

“Look at him!” he said. “Doth he not look a picture?”

Marguerite ventured to look. Even at sight of her enemy bound tightly with ropes