needed. He could not know of the orders which Chauvelin had given for his
capture, and even now, perhaps . . .

But before all these horrible thoughts had taken concrete form in her
brain, she heard the grounding of arms outside, close to the door, and
Desgas’ voice shouting “Halt!” to his men.

Chauvelin had partially recovered; his sneezing had become less
violent, and he had struggled to his feet. He managed to reach the door
just as Desgas’ knock was heard on the outside.

Chauvelin threw open the door, and before his secretary could say a
word, he had managed to stammer between two sneezes—

“The tall stranger—quick!—did any of you see him?”

“Where, citoyen?” asked Desgas, in surprise.

“Here, man! through that door! not five minutes ago.”

“We saw nothing, citoyen! The moon is not yet up, and . . .”

“And you are just five minutes too late, my friend,” said Chauvelin,
with concentrated fury.

“Citoyen . . . I . . .”

“You did what I ordered you to do,” said Chauvelin, with impatience. “I
know that, but you were a precious long time about it. Fortunately,
there’s not much harm done, or it had fared ill with you, Citoyen
Desgas.”

Desgas turned a little pale. There was so much rage and hatred in his
superior’s whole attitude.

“The tall stranger, citoyen—” he stammered.

“Was here, in this room, five minutes ago, having supper at that table.
Damn his impudence! For obvious reasons, I dared not tackle him alone.
Brogard is too big a fool, and that cursed Englishman appears to have
the strength of a bullock, and so he slipped away under your very
nose.”

“He cannot go far without being sighted, citoyen.”

“Ah?”

“Captain Jutley sent forty men as reinforcements for the patrol duty:
twenty went down to the beach. He again assured me that the watch has
been constant all day, and that no stranger could possibly get to the
beach, or reach a boat, without being sighted.”

“That’s good.—Do the men know their work?”

“They have had very clear orders, citoyen: and I myself spoke to those
who were about to start. They are to shadow—as secretly as possible—any
stranger they may see, especially if he be tall, or stoop as if he
would disguise his height.”

“In no case to detain such a person, of course,” said Chauvelin,
eagerly. “That impudent Scarlet Pimpernel would slip through clumsy
fingers. We must let him get to the Père Blanchard’s hut now; there
surround and capture him.”

“The men understand that, citoyen, and also that, as soon as a tall
stranger has been sighted, he must be shadowed, whilst one man is to
turn straight back and report to you.”

“That is right,” said Chauvelin, rubbing his hands, well pleased.

“I have further news for you, citoyen.”

“What is it?”

“A tall Englishman had a long conversation about three-quarters of an
hour ago with a Jew, Reuben by name, who lives not ten paces from
here.”

“Yes—and?” queried Chauvelin, impatiently.

“The conversation was all about a horse and cart, which the tall
Englishman wished to hire, and which was to have been ready for him by
eleven o’clock.”

“It is past that now. Where does that Reuben live?”

“A few minutes’ walk from this door.”

“Send one of the men to find out if the stranger has driven off in
Reuben’s cart.”

“Yes, citoyen.”

Desgas went to give the necessary orders to one of the men. Not a word
of this conversation between him and Chauvelin had escaped Marguerite,
and every word they had spoken seemed to strike at her heart, with
terrible hopelessness and dark foreboding.

She had come all this way, and with such high hopes and firm
determination to help her husband, and so far she had been able to do
nothing, but to watch, with a heart breaking with anguish, the meshes
of the deadly net closing round the daring Scarlet Pimpernel.

He could not now advance many steps, without spying eyes to track and
denounce him. Her own helplessness struck her with the terrible sense
of utter disappointment. The possibility of being of the slightest use
to her husband had become almost _nil_, and her only hope rested in
being allowed to share his fate, whatever it might ultimately be.

For the moment, even her chance of ever seeing the man she loved again,
had become a remote one. Still, she was determined to keep a close
watch over his enemy, and a vague hope filled her heart, that whilst
she kept Chauvelin in sight, Percy’s fate might still be hanging in the
balance.

Desgas had left Chauvelin moodily pacing up and down the room, whilst
he himself waited outside for the return of the man whom he had sent in
search of Reuben. Thus several minutes went by. Chauvelin was evidently
devoured with impatience. Apparently he trusted no one: this last trick
played upon him by the daring Scarlet Pimpernel had made him suddenly
doubtful of success, unless he himself was there to watch, direct and
superintend the capture of this impudent Englishman.

About five minutes later, Desgas returned, followed by an elderly Jew,
in a dirty, threadbare gaberdine, worn greasy across the shoulders. His
red hair, which he wore after the fashion of the Polish Jews, with the
corkscrew curls each side of his face, was plentifully sprinkled with
grey—a general coating of grime, about his cheeks and his chin, gave
him a peculiarly dirty and loathsome appearance. He had the habitual
stoop, those of his race affected in mock humility in past centuries,
before the dawn of equality and freedom in matters of faith, and he
walked behind Desgas with the peculiar shuffling gait which has
remained the characteristic of the Jew trader in continental Europe to
this day.

Chauvelin, who had all the Frenchman’s prejudice against the despised
race, motioned to the fellow to keep at a respectful distance. The
group of the three men were standing just underneath the hanging
oil-lamp, and Marguerite had a clear view of them all.

“Is this the man?” asked Chauvelin.

“No, citoyen,” replied Desgas, “Reuben could not be found, so
presumably his cart has gone with the stranger; but this man here seems
to know something, which he is willing to sell for a consideration.”

“Ah!” said Chauvelin, turning away with disgust from the loathsome
specimen of humanity before him.

The Jew, with characteristic patience, stood humbly on one side,
leaning on a thick knotted staff, his greasy, broad-brimmed hat casting
a deep shadow over his grimy face, waiting for the noble Excellency to
deign to put some questions to him.

“The citoyen tells me,” said Chauvelin peremptorily to him, “that you
know something of my friend, the tall Englishman, whom I desire to
meet. . . . _Morbleu!_ keep your distance, man,” he added hurriedly, as
the Jew took a quick and eager step forward.

“Yes, your Excellency,” replied the Jew, who spoke the language with
that peculiar lisp which denotes Eastern origin, “I and Reuben
Goldstein met a tall Englishman, on the road, close by here this
evening.”

“Did you speak to him?”

“He spoke to us, your Excellency. He wanted to know if he could hire a
horse and cart to go down along the St. Martin Road, to a place he
wanted to reach to-night.”

“What did you say?”

“I did not say anything,” said the Jew in an injured tone, “Reuben
Goldstein, that accursed traitor, that son of Belial . . .”

“Cut that short, man,” interrupted Chauvelin, roughly, “and go on with
your story.”

“He took the words out of my mouth, your Excellency; when I was about
to offer the wealthy Englishman my horse and cart, to take him
wheresoever he chose, Reuben had already spoken, and offered his
half-starved nag, and his broken-down cart.”

“And what did the Englishman do?”

“He listened to Reuben Goldstein, your Excellency, and put his hand in
his pocket then and there, and took out a handful of gold, which he
showed to that descendant of Beelzebub, telling him that all that would
be his, if the horse and cart were ready for him by eleven o’clock.”

“And, of course, the horse and cart were ready?”

“Well! they were ready in a manner, so to speak, your Excellency.
Reuben’s nag was lame as usual; she refused to budge at first. It was
only after a time and with plenty of kicks, that she at last could be
made to move,” said the Jew with a malicious chuckle.

“Then they started?”

“Yes, they started about five minutes ago. I was disgusted with that
stranger’s folly. An Englishman too!—He ought to have known Reuben’s
nag was not fit to drive.”

“But if he had no choice?”

“No choice, your Excellency?” protested the Jew, in a rasping voice,
“did I not repeat to him a dozen times, that my horse and cart would
take him quicker, and more comfortably than Reuben’s bag of bones. He
would not listen. Reuben is such a liar, and has such insinuating ways.
The stranger was deceived. If he was in a hurry, he would have had
better value for his money by taking my cart.”

“You have a horse and cart too, then?” asked Chauvelin, peremptorily.

“Aye! that I have, your Excellency, and if your Excellency wants to
drive . . .”

“Do you happen to know which way my friend went in Reuben Goldstein’s
cart?”

Thoughtfully the Jew rubbed his dirty chin. Marguerite’s heart was
beating well-nigh to bursting. She had heard the peremptory question;
she looked anxiously at the Jew, but could not read his face beneath
the shadow of his broad-brimmed hat. Vaguely she felt somehow as if he
held Percy’s fate in his long, dirty hands.

There was a long pause, whilst Chauvelin frowned impatiently at the
stooping figure before him: at last the Jew slowly put his hand in his
breast pocket, and drew out from its capacious depths a number of
silver coins. He gazed at them thoughtfully, then remarked, in a quiet
tone of voice,—

“This is what the tall stranger gave me, when he drove away with
Reuben, for holding my tongue about him, and his doings.”

Chauvelin shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

“How much is there there?” he asked.

“Twenty francs, your Excellency,” replied the Jew, “and I have been an
honest man all my life.”

Chauvelin without further comment took a few pieces of gold out of his
own pocket, and leaving them in the palm of his hand, he allowed them
to jingle as he held them out towards the Jew.

“How many gold pieces are there in the palm of my hand?” he asked
quietly.

Evidently he had no desire to terrorise the man, but to conciliate him,
for his own purposes, for his manner was pleasant and suave. No doubt
he feared that threats of the guillotine, and various other persuasive
methods of that type, might addle the old man’s brains, and that he
would be more likely to be useful through greed of gain, than through
terror of death.

The eyes of the Jew shot a quick, keen glance at the gold in his
interlocutor’s hand.

“At least five, I should say, your Excellency,” he replied
obsequiously.

“Enough, do you think, to loosen that honest tongue of yours?”

“What does your Excellency wish to know?”

“Whether your horse and cart can take me to where I can find my friend
the tall stranger, who has driven off in Reuben Goldstein’s cart?”

“My horse and cart can take your Honour there, where you please.”

“To a place called the Père Blanchard’s hut?”

“Your Honour has guessed?” said the Jew in astonishment.

“You know the place?”

“I know it, your Honour.”

“Which road leads to it?”

“The St. Martin Road, your Honour, then a footpath from there to the
cliffs.”

“You know the road?” repeated Chauvelin, roughly.

“Every stone, every blade of grass, your Honour,” replied the Jew
quietly.

Chauvelin without another word threw the five pieces of gold one by one
before the Jew, who knelt down, and on his hands and knees struggled to
collect them. One rolled away, and he had some trouble to get it, for
it had lodged underneath the dresser. Chauvelin quietly waited while
the old man scrambled on the floor, to find the piece of gold.

When the Jew was again on his feet, Chauvelin said,—

“How soon can your horse and cart be ready?”

“They are ready now, your Honour.”

“Where?”

“Not ten mètres from this door. Will your Excellency deign to look?”

“I don’t want to see it. How far can you drive me in it?”

“As far as the Père Blanchard’s hut, your Honour, and further than
Reuben’s nag took your friend. I am sure that, not two leagues from
here, we shall come across that wily Reuben, his nag, his cart and the
tall stranger all in a heap in the middle of the road.”

“How far is the nearest village from here?”

“On the road which the Englishman took, Miquelon is the nearest
village, not two leagues from here.”

“There he could get fresh conveyance, if he wanted to go further?”

“He could—if he ever got so far.”

“Can you?”

“Will your Excellency try?” said the Jew simply.

“That is my intention,” said Chauvelin very quietly, “but remember, if
you have deceived me, I shall tell off two of my most stalwart soldiers
to give you such a beating, that your breath will perhaps leave your
ugly body for ever. But if we find my friend the tall Englishman,
either on the road or at the Père Blanchard’s hut, there will be ten
more gold pieces for you. Do you accept the bargain?”

The Jew again thoughtfully rubbed his chin. He looked at the money in
his hand, then at his stern interlocutor, and at Desgas, who had stood
silently behind him all this while. After a moment’s pause, he said
deliberately,—

“I accept.”

“Go and wait outside then,” said Chauvelin, “and remember to stick to
your bargain, or by Heaven, I will keep to mine.”

With a final, most abject and cringing bow, the old Jew shuffled out of
the room. Chauvelin seemed pleased with his interview, for he rubbed
his hands together, with that usual gesture of his, of malignant
satisfaction.

“My coat and boots,” he said to Desgas at last.

Desgas went to the door, and apparently gave the necessary orders, for
presently a soldier entered, carrying Chauvelin’s coat, boots, and hat.

He took off his soutane, beneath which he was wearing close-fitting
breeches and a cloth waistcoat, and began changing his attire.

“You, citoyen, in the meanwhile,” he said to Desgas, “go back to
Captain Jutley as fast as you can, and tell him to let you have another
dozen men, and bring them with you along the St. Martin Road, where I
daresay you will soon overtake the Jew’s cart with myself in it. There
will be hot work presently, if I mistake not, in the Père Blanchard’s
hut. We shall corner our game there, I’ll warrant, for this impudent
Scarlet Pimpernel has had the audacity—or the stupidity, I hardly know
which—to adhere to his original plans. He has gone to meet de Tournay,
St. Just and the other traitors, which for the moment, I thought,
perhaps, he did not intend to do. When we find them, there will be a
band of desperate men at bay. Some of our men will, I presume, be put
_hors de combat_. These royalists are good swordsmen, and the
Englishman is devilish cunning, and looks very powerful. Still, we
shall be five against one at least. You can follow the cart closely
with your men, all along the St. Martin Road, through Miquelon. The
Englishman is ahead of us, and not likely to look behind him.”

Whilst he gave these curt and concise orders, he had completed his
change of attire. The priest’s costume had been laid aside, and he was
once more dressed in his usual dark, tight-fitting clothes. At last he
took up his hat.

“I shall have an interesting prisoner to deliver into your hands,” he
said with a chuckle, as with unwonted familiarity he took Desgas’ arm,
and led him towards the door. “We won’t kill him outright, eh, friend
Desgas? The Père Blanchard’s hut is—an I mistake not—a lonely spot upon
the beach, and our men will enjoy a bit of rough sport there with the
wounded fox. Choose your men well, friend Desgas . . . of the sort who
would enjoy that type of sport—eh? We must see that Scarlet Pimpernel
wither a bit—what?—shrink and tremble, eh? . . . before we finally . .
.”—he made an expressive gesture, whilst he laughed a low, evil laugh,
which filled Marguerite’s soul with sickening horror.

“Choose your men well, Citoyen Desgas,” he said once more, as he led
his secretary finally out of the room.

CHAPTER XXVII.
ON THE TRACK

Never for a moment did Marguerite Blakeney hesitate. The last sounds
outside the “Chat Gris” had died away in the night. She had heard
Desgas giving orders to his men, and then starting off towards the
fort, to get a reinforcement of a dozen more men: six were not thought
sufficient to capture the cunning Englishman, whose resourceful brain
was even more dangerous than his valour and his strength.

Then a few minutes later, she heard the Jew’s husky voice again,
evidently shouting to his nag, then the rumble of wheels, and noise of
a rickety cart bumping over the rough road.

Inside the inn, everything was still. Brogard and his wife, terrified
of Chauvelin, had given no sign of life; they hoped to be forgotten,
and at any rate to remain unperceived: Marguerite could not even hear
their usual volleys of muttered oaths.

She waited a moment or two longer, then she quietly slipped down the
broken stairs, wrapped her dark cloak closely round her and slipped out
of the inn.

The night was fairly dark, sufficiently so at any rate to hide her dark
figure from view, whilst her keen ears kept count of the sound of the
cart going on ahead. She hoped by keeping well within the shadow of the
ditches which lined the road, that she would not be seen by Desgas’
men, when they approached, or by the patrols, which she concluded were
still on duty.

Thus she started to do this, the last stage of her weary journey,
alone, at night, and on foot. Nearly three leagues to Miquelon, and
then on to the Père Blanchard’s hut, wherever that fatal spot might be,
probably over rough roads: she cared not.

The Jew’s nag could not get on very fast, and though she was weary with
mental fatigue and nerve strain, she knew that she could easily keep up
with it, on a hilly road, where the poor beast, who was sure to be
half-starved, would have to be allowed long and frequent rests. The
road lay some distance from the sea, bordered on either side by shrubs
and stunted trees, sparsely covered with meagre foliage, all turning
away from the North, with their branches looking in the semi-darkness,
like stiff, ghostly hair, blown by a perpetual wind.

Fortunately, the moon showed no desire to peep between the clouds, and
Marguerite hugging the edge of the road, and keeping close to the low
line of shrubs, was fairly safe from view. Everything around her was so
still: only from far, very far away, there came like a long, soft moan,
the sound of the distant sea.

The air was keen and full of brine; after that enforced period of
inactivity, inside the evil-smelling, squalid inn, Marguerite would
have enjoyed the sweet scent of this autumnal night, and the distant
melancholy rumble of the waves; she would have revelled in the calm and
stillness of this lonely spot, a calm, broken only at intervals by the
strident and mournful cry of some distant gull, and by the creaking of
the wheels, some way down the road: she would have loved the cool
atmosphere, the peaceful immensity of Nature, in this lonely part of
the coast: but her heart was too full of cruel foreboding, of a great
ache and longing for a being who had become infinitely dear to her.

Her feet slipped on the grassy bank, for she thought it safest not to
walk near the centre of the road, and she found it difficult to keep up
a sharp pace along the muddy incline. She even thought it best not to
keep too near to the cart; everything was so still, that the rumble of
the wheels could not fail to be a safe guide.

The loneliness was absolute. Already the few dim lights of Calais lay
far behind, and on this road there was not a sign of human habitation,
not even the hut of a fisherman or of a woodcutter anywhere near; far
away on her right was the edge of the cliff, below it the rough beach,
against which the incoming tide was dashing itself with its constant,
distant murmur. And ahead the rumble of the wheels, bearing an
implacable enemy to his triumph.

Marguerite wondered at what particular spot, on this lonely coast,
Percy could be at this moment. Not very far surely, for he had had less
than a quarter of an hour’s start of Chauvelin. She wondered if he knew
that in this cool, ocean-scented bit of France, there lurked many
spies, all eager to sight his tall figure, to track him to where his
unsuspecting friends waited for him, and then, to close the net over
him and them.

Chauvelin, on ahead, jolted and jostled in the Jew’s vehicle, was
nursing comfortable thoughts. He rubbed his hands together, with
content, as he thought of the web which he had woven, and through which
that ubiquitous and daring Englishman could not hope to escape. As the
time went on, and the old Jew drove him leisurely but surely along the
dark road, he felt more and more eager for the grand finale of this
exciting chase after the mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel.
 The capture of the audacious plotter would be the finest leaf in
 Citoyen Chauvelin’s wreath of glory. Caught, red-handed, on the spot,
 in the very act of aiding and abetting the traitors against the
 Republic of France, the Englishman could claim no protection from his
 own country. Chauvelin had, in any case, fully made up his mind that
 all intervention should come too late.

Never for a moment did the slightest remorse enter his heart, as to the
terrible position in which he had placed the unfortunate wife, who had
unconsciously betrayed her husband. As a matter of fact, Chauvelin had
ceased even to think of her: she had been a useful tool, that was all.

The Jew’s lean nag did little more than walk. She was going along at a
slow jog trot, and her driver had to give her long and frequent halts.

“Are we a long way yet from Miquelon?” asked Chauvelin from time to
time.

“Not very far, your Honour,” was the uniform placid reply.

“We have not yet come across your friend and mine, lying in a heap in
the roadway,” was Chauvelin’s sarcastic comment.

“Patience, noble Excellency,” rejoined the son of Moses, “they are
ahead of us. I can see the imprint of the cart wheels, driven by that
traitor, that son of the Amalekite.”

“You are sure of the road?”

“As sure as I am of the presence of those ten gold pieces in the noble
Excellency’s pockets, which I trust will presently be mine.”

“As soon as I have shaken hands with my friend the tall stranger, they
will certainly be yours.”

“Hark, what was that?” said the Jew suddenly.

Through the stillness, which had been absolute, there could now be
heard distinctly the sound of horses’ hoofs on the muddy road.

“They are soldiers,” he added in an awed whisper.

“Stop a moment, I want to hear,” said Chauvelin.

Marguerite had also heard the sound of galloping hoofs, coming towards
the cart, and towards herself. For some time she had been on the alert
thinking that Desgas and his squad would soon overtake them, but these
came from the opposite direction, presumably from Miquelon. The
darkness lent her sufficient cover. She had perceived that the cart had
stopped, and with utmost caution, treading noiselessly on the soft
road, she crept a little nearer.

Her heart was beating fast, she was trembling in every limb; already
she had guessed what news these mounted men would bring. “Every
stranger on these roads or on the beach must be shadowed, especially if
he be tall or stoops as if he would disguise his height; when sighted a
mounted messenger must at once ride back and report.” Those had been
Chauvelin’s orders. Had then the tall stranger been sighted, and was
this the mounted messenger, come to bring the great news, that the
hunted hare had run its head into the noose at last?

Marguerite, realising that the cart had come to a standstill, managed
to slip nearer to it in the darkness; she crept close up, hoping to get
within earshot, to hear what the messenger had to say.

She heard the quick words of challenge—

“Liberté, Fraternité, Egalité!” then Chauvelin’s quick query:—

“What news?”

Two men on horseback had halted beside the vehicle.

Marguerite could see them silhouetted against the midnight sky. She
could hear their voices, and the snorting of their horses, and now,
behind her, some little distance off, the regular and measured tread of
a body of advancing men: Desgas and his soldiers.

There had been a long pause, during which, no doubt, Chauvelin
satisfied the men as to his identity, for presently, questions and
answers followed each other in quick succession.

“You have seen the stranger?” asked Chauvelin, eagerly.

“No, citoyen, we have seen no tall stranger; we came by the edge of the
cliff.”

“Then?”

“Less than a quarter of a league beyond Miquelon, we came across a
rough construction of wood, which looked like the hut of a fisherman,
where he might keep his tools and nets. When we first sighted it, it
seemed to be empty, and at first we thought that there was nothing
suspicious about it, until we saw some smoke issuing through an
aperture at the side. I dismounted and crept close to it. It was then
empty, but in one corner of the hut, there was a charcoal fire, and a
couple of stools were also in the hut. I consulted with my comrades,
and we decided that they should take cover with the horses, well out of
sight, and that I should remain on the watch, which I did.”

“Well! and did you see anything?”

“About half an hour later, I heard voices, citoyen, and presently, two
men came along towards the edge of the cliff; they seemed to me to have
come from the Lille Road. One was young, the other quite old. They were
talking in a whisper, to one another, and I could not hear what they
said.”

One was young, the other quite old. Marguerite’s aching heart almost stopped
beating as she listened: was the young one Armand?—her brother?—and the old one
de Tournay—were they the two fugitives who, unconsciously, were used as a
decoy, to entrap their fearless and noble rescuer.

“The two men presently went into the hut,” continued the soldier,
whilst Marguerite’s aching nerves seemed to catch the sound of
Chauvelin’s triumphant chuckle, “and I crept nearer to it then. The hut
is very roughly built, and I caught snatches of their conversation.”

“Yes?—Quick!—What did you hear?”

“The old man asked the young one if he were sure that was the right
place. ‘Oh, yes,’ he replied, ‘’tis the place sure enough,’ and by the
light of the charcoal fire he showed to his companion a paper, which he
carried. ‘Here is the plan,’ he said, ‘which he gave me before I left
London. We were to adhere strictly to that plan, unless I had contrary
orders, and I have had none. Here is the road we followed, see . . .
here the fork . . . here we cut across the St. Martin Road . . . and
here is the footpath which brought us to the edge of the cliff.’ I must
have made a slight noise then, for the young man came to the door of
the hut, and peered anxiously all round him. When he again joined his
companion, they whispered so low, that I could no longer hear them.”

“Well?—and?” asked Chauvelin, impatiently.

“There were six of us altogether, patrolling that part of the beach, so
we consulted together, and thought it best that four should remain
behind and keep the hut in sight, and I and my comrade rode back at
once to make report of what we had seen.”

“You saw nothing of the tall stranger?”

“Nothing, citoyen.”

“If your comrades see him, what would they do?”

“Not lose sight of him for a moment, and if he showed signs of escape,
or any boat came in sight, they would close in on him, and, if
necessary, they would shoot: the firing would bring the rest of the
patrol to the spot. In any case they would not let the stranger go.”

“Aye! but I did not want the stranger hurt—not just yet,” murmured
Chauvelin, savagely, “but there, you’ve done your best. The Fates grant
that I may not be too late . . .”

“We met half a dozen men just now, who have been patrolling this road
for several hours.”

“Well?”

“They have seen no stranger either.”

“Yet he is on ahead somewhere, in a cart or else . . . . Here! there is
not a moment to lose. How far is that hut from here?”

“About a couple of leagues, citoyen.”

“You can find it again?—at once?—without hesitation?”

“I have absolutely no doubt, citoyen.”

“The footpath, to the edge of the cliff?—Even in the dark?”

“It is not a dark night, citoyen, and I know I can find my way,”
repeated the soldier firmly.

“Fall in behind then. Let your comrade take both your horses back to
Calais. You won’t want them. Keep beside the cart, and direct the Jew
to drive straight ahead; then stop him, within a quarter of a league of
the footpath; see that he takes the most direct road.”

Whilst Chauvelin spoke, Desgas and his men were fast approaching, and
Marguerite could hear their footsteps within a hundred yards behind her
now. She thought it unsafe to stay where she was, and unnecessary too,
as she had heard enough. She seemed suddenly to have lost all faculty
even for suffering: her heart, her nerves, her brain seemed to have
become numb after all these hours of ceaseless anguish, culminating in
this awful despair.

For now there was absolutely not the faintest hope. Within two short
leagues of this spot, the fugitives were waiting for their brave
deliverer. He was on his way, somewhere on this lonely road, and
presently he would join them; then the well-laid trap would close, two
dozen men, led by one whose hatred was as deadly as his cunning was
malicious, would close round the small band of fugitives, and their
daring leader. They would all be captured. Armand, according to
Chauvelin’s pledged word, would be restored to her, but her husband,
Percy, whom with every breath she drew she seemed to love and worship
more and more, he would fall into the hands of a remorseless enemy, who
had no pity for a brave heart, no admiration for the courage of a noble
soul, who would show nothing but hatred for the cunning antagonist, who
had baffled him so long.

She heard the soldier giving a few brief directions to the Jew, then
she retired quickly to the edge of the road, and cowered behind some
low shrubs, whilst Desgas and his men came up.

All fell in noiselessly behind the cart, and slowly they all started
down the dark road. Marguerite waited until she reckoned that they were
well outside the range of earshot, then, she too in the darkness, which
suddenly seemed to have become more intense, crept noiselessly along.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE PÈRE BLANCHARD’S HUT

As in a dream, Marguerite followed on; the web was drawing more and
more tightly every moment round the beloved life, which had become
dearer than all. To see her husband once again, to tell him how she had
suffered, how much she had wronged, and how little understood him, had
become now her only aim. She had abandoned all hope of saving him: she
saw him gradually hemmed in on all sides, and, in despair, she gazed
round her into the darkness, and wondered whence he would presently
come, to fall into the death-trap which his relentless enemy had
prepared for him.

The distant roar of the waves now made her shudder; the occasional
dismal cry of an owl, or a sea-gull, filled her with unspeakable
horror. She thought of the ravenous beasts—in human shape—who lay in
wait for their prey, and destroyed them, as mercilessly as any hungry
wolf, for the satisfaction of their own appetite of hate. Marguerite
was not afraid of the darkness, she only feared that man, on ahead, who
was sitting at the bottom of a rough wooden cart, nursing thoughts of
vengeance, which would have made the very demons in hell chuckle with
delight.

Her feet were sore. Her knees shook under her, from sheer bodily
fatigue. For days now she had lived in a wild turmoil of excitement;
she had not had a quiet rest for three nights; now, she had walked on a
slippery road for nearly two hours, and yet her determination never
swerved for a moment. She would see her husband, tell him all, and, if
he was ready to forgive the crime, which she had committed in her blind
ignorance, she would yet have the happiness of dying by his side.

She must have walked on almost in a trance, instinct alone keeping her
up, and guiding her in the wake of the enemy, when suddenly her ears,
attuned to the slightest sound, by that same blind instinct, told her
that the cart had stopped, and that the soldiers had halted. They had
come to their destination. No doubt on the right, somewhere close
ahead, was the footpath that led to the edge of the cliff and to the
hut.

Heedless of any risks, she crept quite close up to where Chauvelin
stood, surrounded by his little troop: he had descended from the cart,
and was giving some orders to the men. These she wanted to hear: what
little chance she yet had, of being useful to Percy, consisted in
hearing absolutely every word of his enemy’s plans.

The spot where all the party had halted must have lain some eight
hundred mètres from the coast; the sound of the sea came only very
faintly, as from a distance. Chauvelin and Desgas, followed by the
soldiers, had turned off sharply to the right of the road, apparently
on to the footpath, which led to the cliffs. The Jew had remained on
the road, with his cart and nag.

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
Père Blanchard’s hut?”

“About eight hundred mètres 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 to-night.”

“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 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 even to 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 head 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 old 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 how far from the edge of the cliff she was; 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 mètres 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 recognised her. It was the _Day
Dream_, Percy’s favourite yacht, with old Briggs, that prince of
skippers, aboard, 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 gazed, she
saw at some little distance on her left, and about midway down the
cliffs, a rough wooden construction, through the walls 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, and after a few seconds 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.

“Dear me! dear me!” he whispered, with affected gallantry, “this is
indeed a charming surprise,” and Marguerite felt her resistless hand
raised to Chauvelin’s thin, mocking lips.

The situation was indeed grotesque, had it not been at the same time so
fearfully tragic: the poor, weary woman, broken in spirit, and half
frantic with the bitterness of her disappointment, receiving on her
knees the _banal_ gallantries of her deadly enemy.

Her senses were leaving her; half choked with the tight grip round her
mouth, she had no strength to move or to utter the faintest sound. The
excitement which all along had kept up her delicate body seemed at once
to have subsided, and the feeling of blank despair to have completely
paralysed her brain and nerves.

Chauvelin must have given some directions, which she was too dazed to
hear, for she felt herself lifted from off her feet: the bandage round
her mouth was made more secure, and a pair of strong arms carried her
towards that tiny, red light, on ahead, which she had looked upon as a
beacon and the last faint glimmer of hope.

CHAPTER XXIX.
TRAPPED

She did not know how long she was thus carried along, she had lost all
notion of time and space, and for a few seconds tired nature,
mercifully, deprived her of consciousness.

When she once more realised her state, she felt that she was placed
with some degree of comfort upon a man’s coat, with her back resting
against a fragment of rock. The moon was hidden again behind some
clouds, and the darkness seemed in comparison more intense. The sea was
roaring some two hundred feet below her, and on looking all round she
could no longer see any vestige of the tiny glimmer of red light.

That the end of the journey had been reached, she gathered from the
fact that she heard rapid questions and answers spoken in a whisper
quite close to her.

“There are four men in there, citoyen; they are sitting by the fire,
and seem to be waiting quietly.”

“The hour?”

“Nearly two o’clock.”

“The tide?”

“Coming in quickly.”

“The schooner?”

“Obviously an English one, lying some three kilometres out. But we
cannot see her boat.”

“Have the men taken cover?”

“Yes, citoyen.”

“They will not blunder?”

“They will not stir until the tall Englishman comes, then they will
surround and overpower the five men.”

“Right. And the lady?”

“Still dazed, I fancy. She’s close beside you, citoyen.”

“And the Jew?”

“He’s gagged, and his legs strapped together. He cannot move or
scream.”

“Good. Then have your gun ready, in case you want it. Get close to the
hut and leave me to look after the lady.”

Desgas evidently obeyed, for Marguerite heard him creeping away along
the stony cliff, then she felt that a pair of warm, thin, talon-like
hands took hold of both her own, and held them in a grip of steel.

“Before that handkerchief is removed from your pretty mouth, fair
lady,” whispered Chauvelin close to her ear, “I think it right to give
you one small word of warning. What has procured me the honour of being
followed across the Channel by so charming a companion, I cannot, of
course, conceive, but, if I mistake not, the purpose of this flattering
attention is not one that would commend itself to my vanity, and I
think that I am right in surmising, moreover, that the first sound
which your pretty lips would utter, as soon as the cruel gag is
removed, would be one that would perhaps prove a warning to the cunning
fox, which I have been at such pains to track to his lair.”

He paused a moment, while the steel-like grasp seemed to tighten round
her wrist; then he resumed in the same hurried whisper:—

“Inside that hut, if again I am not mistaken, your brother, Armand St.
Just, waits with that traitor de Tournay, and two other men unknown to
you, for the arrival of the mysterious rescuer, whose identity has for
so long puzzled our Committee of Public Safety—the audacious Scarlet
Pimpernel. No doubt if you scream, if there is a scuffle here, if shots
are fired, it is more than likely that the same long legs that brought
this scarlet enigma here, will as quickly take him to some place of
safety. The purpose then, for which I have travelled all these miles,
will remain unaccomplished. On the other hand it only rests with
yourself that your brother—Armand—shall be free to go off with you
to-night if you like, to England, or any other place of safety.”

Marguerite could not utter a sound, as the handkerchief was wound very
tightly round her mouth, but Chauvelin was peering through the darkness
very closely into her face; no doubt too her hand gave a responsive
appeal to his last suggestion, for presently he continued:—

“What I want you to do to ensure Armand’s safety is a very simple
thing, dear lady.”

“What is it?” Marguerite’s hand seemed to convey to his, in response.

“To remain—on this spot, without uttering a sound, until I give you
leave to speak. Ah! but I think you will obey,” he added, with that
funny dry chuckle of his as Marguerite’s whole figure seemed to
stiffen, in defiance of this order, “for let me tell you that if you
scream, nay! if you utter one sound, or attempt to move from here, my
men—there are thirty of them about—will seize St. Just, de Tournay, and
their two friends, and shoot them here—by my orders—before your eyes.”

Marguerite had listened to her implacable enemy’s speech with
ever-increasing terror. Numbed with physical pain, she yet had
sufficient mental vitality in her to realise the full horror of this
terrible “either—or” he was once more putting before her; an
“either—or” ten thousand times more appalling and horrible, than the
one he had suggested to her that fatal night at the ball.

This time it meant that she should keep still, and allow the husband
she worshipped to walk unconsciously to his death, or that she should,
by trying to give him a word of warning, which perhaps might even be
unavailing, actually give the signal for her own brother’s death, and
that of three other unsuspecting men.

She could not see Chauvelin, but she could almost feel those keen, pale
eyes of his fixed maliciously upon her helpless form, and his hurried,
whispered words reached her ear, as the death-knell of her last faint,
lingering hope.

“Nay, fair lady,” he added urbanely, “you can have no interest in
anyone save in St. Just, and all you need do for his safety is to
remain where you are, and to keep silent. My men have strict orders to
spare him in every way. As for that enigmatic Scarlet Pimpernel, what
is he to you? Believe me, no warning from you could possibly save him.
And now dear lady, let me remove this unpleasant coercion, which has
been placed before your pretty mouth. You see I wish you to be
perfectly free, in the choice which you are about to make.”

Her thoughts in a whirl, her temples aching, her nerves paralyzed, her
body numb with pain, Marguerite sat there, in the darkness which
surrounded her as with a pall. From where she sat she could not see the
sea, but she heard the incessant mournful murmur of the incoming tide,
which spoke of her dead hopes, her lost love, the husband she had with
her own hand betrayed, and sent to his death.

Chauvelin removed the handkerchief from her mouth. She certainly did
not scream: at that moment, she had no strength to do anything but
barely to hold herself upright, and to force herself to think.

Oh! think! think! think! of what she should do. The minutes flew on; in
this awful stillness she could not tell how fast or how slowly; she
heard nothing, she saw nothing: she did not feel the sweet-smelling
autumn air, scented with the briny odour of the sea, she no longer
heard the murmur of the waves, the occasional rattling of a pebble, as
it rolled down some steep incline. More and more unreal did the whole
situation seem. It was impossible that she, Marguerite Blakeney, the
queen of London society, should actually be sitting here on this bit of
lonely coast, in the middle of the night, side by side with a most
bitter enemy: and oh! it was not possible that somewhere, not many
hundred feet away perhaps, from where she stood, the being she had once
despised, but who now, in every moment of this weird, dreamlike life,
became more and more dear—it was not possible that _he_ was
unconsciously, even now walking to his doom, whilst she did nothing to
save him.

Why did she not with unearthly screams, that would re-echo from one end
of the lonely beach to the other, send out a warning to him to desist,
to retrace his steps, for death lurked here whilst he advanced? Once or
twice the screams rose to her throat—as if by instinct: then, before
her eyes there stood the awful alternative: her brother and those three
men shot before her eyes, practically by her orders: she their
murderer.

Oh! that fiend in human shape, next to her, knew human—female—nature
well. He had played upon her feelings as a skilful musician plays upon
an instrument. He had gauged her very thoughts to a nicety.

She could not give that signal—for she was weak, and she was a woman.
How could she deliberately order Armand to be shot before her eyes, to
have his dear blood upon her head, he dying perhaps with a curse on
her, upon his lips. And little Suzanne’s father, too! he, an old man;
and the others!—oh! it was all too, too horrible.

Wait! wait! wait! how long? The early morning hours sped on, and yet it
was not dawn: the sea continued its incessant mournful murmur, the
autumnal breeze sighed gently in the night: the lonely beach was
silent, even as the grave.

Suddenly from somewhere, not very far away, a cheerful, strong voice
was heard singing “God save the King!”

CHAPTER XXX.
THE SCHOONER

Marguerite’s aching heart stood still. She felt, more than she heard,
the men on the watch preparing for the fight. Her senses told her that
each, with sword in hand, was crouching, ready for the spring.

The voice came nearer and nearer; in the vast immensity of these lonely
cliffs, with the loud murmur of the sea below, it was impossible to say
how near, or how far, nor yet from which direction came that cheerful
singer, who sang to God to save his King, whilst he himself was in such
deadly danger. Faint at first, the voice grew louder and louder; from
time to time a small pebble detached itself apparently from beneath the
firm tread of the singer, and went rolling down the rocky cliffs to the
beach below.

Marguerite as she heard, felt that her very life was slipping away, as
if when that voice drew nearer, when that singer became entrapped . . .

She distinctly heard the click of Desgas’ gun close to her. . . .

No! no! no! no! Oh, God in heaven! this cannot be! let Armand’s blood
then be upon her own head! let her be branded as his murderer! let even
he, whom she loved, despise and loathe her for this, but God! oh God!
save him at any cost!

With a wild shriek, she sprang to her feet, and darted round the rock,
against which she had been cowering; she saw the little red gleam
through the chinks of the hut; she ran up to it and fell against its
wooden walls, which she began to hammer with clenched fists in an
almost maniacal frenzy, while she shouted,—

“Armand! Armand! for God’s sake fire! your leader is near! he is
coming! he is betrayed! Armand! Armand! fire in Heaven’s name!”

She was seized and thrown to the ground. She lay there moaning,
bruised, not caring, but still half-sobbing, half-shrieking,—

“Percy, my husband, for God’s sake fly! Armand! Armand! why don’t you
fire?”

“One of you stop that woman screaming,” hissed Chauvelin, who hardly
could refrain from striking her.

Something was thrown over her face; she could not breathe, and perforce
she was silent.

The bold singer, too, had become silent, warned, no doubt, of his
impending danger by Marguerite’s frantic shrieks. The men had sprung to
their feet, there was no need for further silence on their part; the
very cliffs echoed the poor, heart-broken woman’s screams.

Chauvelin, with a muttered oath, which boded no good to her, who had
dared to upset his most cherished plans, had hastily shouted the word
of command,—

“Into it, my men, and let no one escape from that hut alive!”

The moon had once more emerged from between the clouds: the darkness on
the cliffs had gone, giving place once more to brilliant, silvery
light. Some of the soldiers had rushed to the rough, wooden door of the
hut, whilst one of them kept guard over Marguerite.

The door was partially open; one of the soldiers pushed it further, but
within all was darkness, the charcoal fire only lighting with a dim,
red light the furthest corner of the hut. The soldiers paused
automatically at the door, like machines waiting for further orders.

Chauvelin, who was prepared for a violent onslaught from within, and
for a vigorous resistance from the four fugitives, under cover of the
darkness, was for the moment paralyzed with astonishment when he saw
the soldiers standing there at attention, like sentries on guard,
whilst not a sound proceeded from the hut.

Filled with strange, anxious foreboding, he, too, went to the door of
the hut, and peering into the gloom, he asked quickly,—

“What is the meaning of this?”

“I think, citoyen, that there is no one there now,” replied one of the
soldiers imperturbably.

“You have not let those four men go?” thundered Chauvelin, menacingly.
“I ordered you to let no man escape alive!—Quick, after them all of
you! Quick, in every direction!”

The men, obedient as machines, rushed down the rocky incline towards
the beach, some going off to right and left, as fast as their feet
could carry them.

“You and your men will pay with your lives for this blunder, citoyen
sergeant,” said Chauvelin viciously to the sergeant who had been in
charge of the men; “and you, too, citoyen,” he added, turning with a
snarl to Desgas, “for disobeying my orders.”

“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 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 sea on
this coast at intervals; behind this, the boat of the _Day Dream_ must
have been on the look-out 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.”
 Some minutes before the woman began to scream! Then Chauvelin’s hopes
 had not deceived him. The Scarlet Pimpernel may have contrived to send
 the fugitives on ahead by the boat, but he himself had not had time to
 reach it; he was still on shore, and all the roads were well
 patrolled. At any rate, all was not yet lost, and would not be, whilst
 that impudent Britisher was still on French soil.

“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 had 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 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, prostrate, 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 fulfil 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.”

As the soldiers obediently unbuckled their heavy leather belts, the Jew
set up a howl that surely would have been enough to bring all the
patriarchs out of Hades and elsewhere, to defend their descendant from
the brutality of this French official.

“I think I can rely on you, citoyen soldiers,” laughed Chauvelin,
maliciously, “to give this old liar the best and soundest beating he
has ever experienced. But don’t kill him,” he added drily.

“We will obey, citoyen,” replied the soldiers as imperturbably as ever.

He did not wait to see his orders carried out: he knew that he could
trust these soldiers—who were still smarting under his rebuke—not to
mince matters, when given a free hand to belabour a third party.

“When that lumbering coward has had his punishment,” he said to Desgas,
“the men can guide us as far as the cart, and one of them can drive us
in it back to Calais. The Jew and the woman can look after each other,”
he added roughly, “until we can send somebody for them in the morning.
They can’t run away very far, in their present condition, and we cannot
be troubled with them just now.”

Chauvelin had not given up all hope. His men, he knew, were spurred on
by the hope of the reward. That enigmatic and audacious Scarlet
Pimpernel, alone and with thirty men at his heels, could not reasonably
be expected to escape a second time.

But he felt less sure now: the Englishman’s audacity had baffled him
once, whilst the wooden-headed stupidity of the soldiers, and the
interference of a woman had turned his hand, which held all the trumps,
into a losing one. If Marguerite had not taken up his time, if the
soldiers had had a grain of intelligence, if . . . it was a long “if,”
and Chauvelin stood for a moment quite still, and enrolled thirty odd
people in one long, overwhelming anathema. Nature, poetic, silent,
balmy, the bright moon, the calm, silvery sea spoke of beauty and of
rest, and Chauvelin cursed nature, cursed man and woman, and, above
all, he cursed all long-legged, meddlesome British enigmas with one
gigantic curse.

The howls of the Jew behind him, undergoing his punishment, sent a balm
through his heart, overburdened as it was with revengeful malice. He
smiled. It eased his mind to think that some human being at least was,
like himself, not altogether at peace with mankind.

He turned and took a last look at the lonely bit of coast, where stood
the wooden hut, now bathed in moonlight, the scene of the greatest
discomfiture ever experienced by a leading member of the Committee of
Public Safety.

Against a rock, on a hard bed of stone, lay the unconscious figure of
Marguerite Blakeney, while some few paces further on, the unfortunate
Jew was receiving on his broad back the blows of two stout leather
belts, wielded by the stolid arms of two sturdy soldiers of the
Republic. The howls of Benjamin Rosenbaum were fit to make the dead
rise from their graves. They must have wakened all the gulls from
sleep, and made them look down with great interest at the doings of the
lords of the creation.

“That will do,” commanded Chauvelin, as the Jew’s moans became more
feeble, and the poor wretch seemed to have fainted away, “we don’t want
to kill him.”

Obediently the soldiers buckled on their belts, one of them viciously
kicking the Jew to one side.

“Leave him there,” said Chauvelin, “and lead the way now quickly to the
cart. I’ll follow.”

He walked up to where Marguerite lay, and looked down into her face.
She had evidently recovered consciousness, and was making feeble
efforts to raise herself. Her large, blue eyes were looking at the
moonlit scene round her with a scared and terrified look; they rested
with a mixture of horror and pity on the Jew, whose luckless fate and
wild howls had been the first signs that struck her, with her returning
senses; then she caught sight of Chauvelin, in his neat, dark clothes,
which seemed hardly crumpled after the stirring events of the last few
hours. He was smiling sarcastically, and his pale eyes peered down at
her with a look of intense malice.

With mock gallantry, he stooped and raised her icy-cold hand to his
lips, which sent a thrill of indescribable loathing through
Marguerite’s weary frame.

“I much regret, fair lady,” he said in his most suave tones, “that
circumstances, over which I have no control, compel me to leave you
here for the moment. But I go away, secure in the knowledge that I do
not leave you unprotected. Our friend Benjamin here, though a trifle
the worse for wear at the present moment, will prove a gallant defender
of your fair person, I have no doubt. At dawn I will send an escort for
you; until then, I feel sure that you will find him devoted, though
perhaps a trifle slow.”

Marguerite only had the strength to turn her head away. Her heart was
broken with cruel anguish. One awful thought had returned to her mind,
together with gathering consciousness: “What had become of Percy?—What
of Armand?”

She knew nothing of what had happened after she heard the cheerful
song, “God save the King,” which she believed to be the signal of
death.

“I, myself,” concluded Chauvelin, “must now very reluctantly leave you.
_Au revoir_, fair lady. We meet, I hope, soon in London. Shall I see
you at the Prince of Wales’ garden party?—No?—Ah, well, _au
revoir!_—Remember me, I pray, to Sir Percy Blakeney.”

And, with a last ironical smile and bow, he once more kissed her hand,
and disappeared down the footpath in the wake of the soldiers, and
followed by the imperturbable Desgas.

CHAPTER XXXI.
THE ESCAPE

Marguerite listened—half-dazed as she was—to the fast-retreating, firm
footsteps of the four men.

All nature was so still that she, lying with her ear close to the
ground, could distinctly trace the sound of their tread, as they
ultimately turned into the road, and presently the faint echo of the
old cart-wheels, the halting gait of the lean nag, told her that her
enemy was a quarter of a league away. How long she lay there she knew
not. She had lost count of time; dreamily she looked up at the moonlit
sky, and listened to the monotonous roll of the waves.

The invigorating scent of the sea was nectar to her wearied body, the
immensity of the lonely cliffs was silent and dreamlike. Her brain only
remained conscious of its ceaseless, its intolerable torture of
uncertainty.

She did not know!—

She did not know whether Percy was even now, at this moment, in the
hands of the soldiers of the Republic, enduring—as she had done
herself—the gibes and jeers of his malicious enemy. She did not know,
on the other hand, whether Armand’s lifeless body did not lie there, in
the hut, whilst Percy had escaped, only to hear that his wife’s hands
had guided the human bloodhounds to the murder of Armand and his
friends.

The physical pain of utter weariness was so great, that she hoped
confidently her tired body could rest here for ever, after all the
turmoil, the passion, and the intrigues of the last few days—here,
beneath that clear sky, within sound of the sea, and with this balmy
autumn breeze whispering to her a last lullaby. All was so solitary, so
silent, like unto dreamland. Even the last faint echo of the distant
cart had long ago died away, afar.

Suddenly . . . a sound . . . the strangest, undoubtedly, that these
lonely cliffs of France had ever heard, broke the silent solemnity of
the shore.

So strange a sound was it that the gentle breeze ceased to murmur, the
tiny pebbles to roll down the steep incline! So strange, that
Marguerite, wearied, overwrought as she was, thought that the
beneficial unconsciousness of the approach of death was playing her
half-sleeping senses a weird and elusive trick.

It was the sound of a good, solid, absolutely British “Damn!”

The sea-gulls in their nests awoke and looked round in astonishment; a
distant and solitary owl set up a midnight hoot, the tall cliffs
frowned down majestically at the strange, unheard-of sacrilege.

Marguerite did not trust her ears. Half-raising herself on her hands,
she strained every sense to see or hear, to know the meaning of this
very earthly sound.

All was still again for the space of a few seconds; the same silence
once more fell upon the great and lonely vastness.

Then Marguerite, who had listened as in a trance, who felt she must be
dreaming with that cool, magnetic moonlight overhead, heard again; and
this time her heart stood still, her eyes large and dilated, looked
round her, not daring to trust to her other sense.

“Odd’s life! but I wish those demmed fellows had not hit quite so
hard!”

This time it was quite unmistakable, only one particular pair of
essentially British lips could have uttered those words, in sleepy,
drawly, affected tones.

“Damn!” repeated those same British lips, emphatically. “Zounds! but
I’m as weak as a rat!”

In a moment Marguerite was on her feet.

Was she dreaming? Were those great, stony cliffs the gates of paradise?
Was the fragrant breath of the breeze suddenly caused by the flutter of
angels’ wings, bringing tidings of unearthly joys to her, after all her
suffering, or—faint and ill—was she the prey of delirium?

She listened again, and once again she heard the same very earthly
sounds of good, honest British language, not the least akin to
whisperings from paradise or flutter of angels’ wings.

She looked round her eagerly at the tall cliffs, the lonely hut, the
great stretch of rocky beach. Somewhere there, above or below her,
behind a boulder or inside a crevice, but still hidden from her
longing, feverish eyes, must be the owner of that voice, which once
used to irritate her, but which now would make her the happiest woman
in Europe, if only she could locate it.

“Percy! Percy!” she shrieked hysterically, tortured between doubt and
hope, “I am here! Come to me! Where are you? Percy! Percy! . . .”

“It’s all very well calling me, m’dear!” said the same sleepy, drawly
voice, “but odd’s my life, I cannot come to you: those demmed
frog-eaters have trussed me like a goose on a spit, and I am as weak as
a mouse . . . I cannot get away.”

And still Marguerite did not understand. She did not realise for at
least another ten seconds whence came that voice, so drawly, so dear,
but alas! with a strange accent of weakness and of suffering. There was
no one within sight . . . except by that rock . . . Great God! . . .
the Jew! . . . Was she mad or dreaming? . . .

His back was against the pale moonlight, he was half-crouching, trying
vainly to raise himself with his arms tightly pinioned. Marguerite ran
up to him, took his head in both her hands . . . and looked straight
into a pair of blue eyes, good-natured, even a trifle amused—shining
out of the weird and distorted mask of the Jew.

“Percy! . . . Percy! . . . my husband!” she gasped, faint with the
fulness of her joy. “Thank God! Thank God!”

“La! m’dear,” he rejoined good-humouredly, “we will both do that anon,
an you think you can loosen these demmed ropes, and release me from my
inelegant attitude.”

She had no knife, her fingers were numb and weak, but she worked away
with her teeth, while great welcome tears poured from her eyes, onto
those poor, pinioned hands.

“Odd’s life!” he said, when at last, after frantic efforts on her part,
the ropes seemed at last to be giving way, “but I marvel whether it has
ever happened before, that an English gentleman allowed himself to be
licked by a demmed foreigner, and made no attempt to give as good as he
got.”

It was very obvious that he was exhausted from sheer physical pain, and
when at last the rope gave way, he fell in a heap against the rock.

Marguerite looked helplessly round her.

“Oh! for a drop of water on this awful beach!” she cried in agony,
seeing that he was ready to faint again.

“Nay, m’dear,” he murmured with his good-humoured smile, “personally I
should prefer a drop of good French brandy! an you’ll dive in the
pocket of this dirty old garment, you’ll find my flask. . . . I am
demmed if I can move.”

When he had drunk some brandy, he forced Marguerite to do likewise.

“La! that’s better now! Eh! little woman?” he said, with a sigh of
satisfaction. “Heigh-ho! but this is a queer rig-up for Sir Percy
Blakeney, Bart., to be found in by his lady, and no mistake. Begad!” he
added, passing his hand over his chin, “I haven’t been shaved for
nearly twenty hours: I must look a disgusting object. As for these
curls . . .”

And laughingly he took off the disfiguring wig and curls, and stretched
out his long limbs, which were cramped from many hours’ stooping. Then
he bent forward and looked long and searchingly into his wife’s blue
eyes.

“Percy,” she whispered, while a deep blush suffused her delicate cheeks
and neck, “if you only knew . . .”

“I do know, dear . . . everything,” he said with infinite gentleness.

“And can you ever forgive?”

“I have naught to forgive, sweetheart; your heroism, your devotion,
which I, alas! so little deserved, have more than atoned for that
unfortunate episode at the ball.”

“Then you knew? . . .” she whispered, “all the time . . .”

“Yes!” he replied tenderly, “I knew . . . all the time. . . . But,
begad! had I but known what a noble heart yours was, my Margot, I
should have trusted you, as you deserved to be trusted, and you would
not have had to undergo the terrible sufferings of the past few hours,
in order to run after a husband, who has done so much that needs
forgiveness.”

They were sitting side by side, leaning up against a rock, and he had
rested his aching head on her shoulder. She certainly now deserved the
name of “the happiest woman in Europe.”

“It is a case of the blind leading the lame, sweetheart, is it not?” he
said with his good-natured smile of old. “Odd’s life! but I do not know
which are the more sore, my shoulders or your little feet.”

He bent forward to kiss them, for they peeped out through her torn
stockings, and bore pathetic witness to her endurance and devotion.

“But Armand . . .” she said, with sudden terror and remorse, as in the
midst of her happiness the image of the beloved brother, for whose sake
she had so deeply sinned, rose now before her mind.

“Oh! have no fear for Armand, sweetheart,” he said tenderly, “did I not
pledge you my word that he should be safe? He with de Tournay and the
others are even now on board the _Day Dream_.”

“But how?” she gasped, “I do not understand.”

“Yet, ’tis simple enough, m’dear,” he said with that funny, half-shy,
half-inane laugh of his, “you see! when I found that that brute
Chauvelin meant to stick to me like a leech, I thought the best thing I
could do, as I could not shake him off, was to take him along with me.
I had to get to Armand and the others somehow, and all the roads were
patrolled, and everyone on the look-out for your humble servant. I knew
that when I slipped through Chauvelin’s fingers at the ‘Chat Gris,’
that he would lie in wait for me here, whichever way I took. I wanted
to keep an eye on him and his doings, and a British head is as good as
a French one any day.”

Indeed it had proved to be infinitely better, and Marguerite’s heart
was filled with joy and marvel, as he continued to recount to her the
daring manner in which he had snatched the fugitives away, right from
under Chauvelin’s very nose.

“Dressed as the dirty old Jew,” he said gaily, “I knew I should not be
recognised. I had met Reuben Goldstein in Calais earlier in the
evening. For a few gold pieces he supplied me with this rig-out, and
undertook to bury himself out of sight of everybody, whilst he lent me
his cart and nag.”

“But if Chauvelin had discovered you,” she gasped excitedly, “your
disguise was good . . . but he is so sharp.”

“Odd’s fish!” he rejoined quietly, “then certainly the game would have
been up. I could but take the risk. I know human nature pretty well by
now,” he added, with a note of sadness in his cheery, young voice, “and
I know these Frenchmen out and out. They so loathe a Jew, that they
never come nearer than a couple of yards of him, and begad! I fancy
that I contrived to make myself look about as loathsome an object as it
is possible to conceive.”

“Yes!—and then?” she asked eagerly.

“Zooks!—then I carried out my little plan: that is to say, at first I
only determined to leave everything to chance, but when I heard
Chauvelin giving his orders to the soldiers, I thought that Fate and I
were going to work together after all. I reckoned on the blind
obedience of the soldiers. Chauvelin had ordered them on pain of death
not to stir until the tall Englishman came. Desgas had thrown me down
in a heap quite close to the hut; the soldiers took no notice of the
Jew, who had driven Citoyen Chauvelin to this spot. I managed to free
my hands from the ropes, with which the brute had trussed me; I always
carry pencil and paper with me wherever I go, and I hastily scrawled a
few important instructions on a scrap of paper; then I looked about me.
I crawled up to the hut, under the very noses of the soldiers, who lay
under cover without stirring, just as Chauvelin had ordered them to do,
then I dropped my little note into the hut, through a chink in the
wall, and waited. In this note I told the fugitives to walk noiselessly
out of the hut, creep down the cliffs, keep to the left until they came
to the first creek, to give a certain signal, when the boat of the _Day
Dream_, which lay in wait not far out to sea, would pick them up. They
obeyed implicitly, fortunately for them and for me. The soldiers who
saw them were equally obedient to Chauvelin’s orders. They did not
stir! I waited for nearly half an hour; when I knew that the fugitives
were safe I gave the signal, which caused so much stir.”

And that was the whole story. It seemed so simple! and Marguerite could
but marvel at the wonderful ingenuity, the boundless pluck and audacity
which had evolved and helped to carry out this daring plan.

“But those brutes struck you!” she gasped in horror, at the bare
recollection of the fearful indignity.

“Well! that could not be helped,” he said gently, “whilst my little
wife’s fate was so uncertain, I had to remain here by her side. Odd’s
life!” he added merrily, “never fear! Chauvelin will lose nothing by
waiting, I warrant! Wait till I get him back to England!—La! he shall
pay for the thrashing he gave me with compound interest, I promise
you.”

Marguerite laughed. It was so good to be beside him, to hear his cheery
voice, to watch that good-humoured twinkle in his blue eyes, as he
stretched out his strong arms, in longing for that foe, and
anticipation of his well-deserved punishment.

Suddenly, however, she started: the happy blush left her cheek, the
light of joy died out of her eyes: she had heard a stealthy footfall
overhead, and a stone had rolled down from the top of the cliffs right
down to the beach below.

“What’s that?” she whispered in horror and alarm.

“Oh! nothing, m’dear,” he muttered with a pleasant laugh, “only a
trifle you happened to have forgotten . . . my friend, Ffoulkes . . .”

“Sir Andrew!” she gasped.

Indeed, she had wholly forgotten the devoted friend and companion, who
had trusted and stood by her during all these hours of anxiety and
suffering. She remembered him now, tardily and with a pang of remorse.

“Aye! you had forgotten him, hadn’t you, m’dear?” said Sir Percy,
merrily. “Fortunately, I met him, not far from the ‘Chat Gris,’ before
I had that interesting supper party, with my friend Chauvelin. . . .
Odd’s life! but I have a score to settle with that young reprobate!—but
in the meanwhile, I told him of a very long, very roundabout road, that
would bring him here by a very circuitous road which Chauvelin’s men
would never suspect, just about the time when we are ready for him, eh,
little woman?”

“And he obeyed?” asked Marguerite, in utter astonishment.

“Without word or question. See, here he comes. He was not in the way
when I did not want him, and now he arrives in the nick of time. Ah! he
will make pretty little Suzanne a most admirable and methodical
husband.”

In the meanwhile Sir Andrew Ffoulkes had cautiously worked his way down
the cliffs: he stopped once or twice, pausing to listen for the
whispered words, which would guide him to Blakeney’s hiding-place.

“Blakeney!” he ventured to say at last cautiously, “Blakeney! are you
there?”

The next moment he rounded the rock against which Sir Percy and
Marguerite were leaning, and seeing the weird figure still clad in the
long Jew’s gaberdine, he paused in sudden, complete bewilderment.

But already Blakeney had struggled to his feet.

“Here I am, friend,” he said with his funny, inane laugh, “all alive!
though I do look a begad scarecrow in these demmed things.”

“Zooks!” ejaculated Sir Andrew in boundless astonishment as he
recognised his leader, “of all the . . .”

The young man had seen Marguerite, and happily checked the forcible
language that rose to his lips, at sight of the exquisite Sir Percy in
this weird and dirty garb.

“Yes!” said Blakeney, calmly, “of all the . . . hem! . . . My friend!—I
have not yet had time to ask you what you were doing in France, when I
ordered you to remain in London? Insubordination? What? Wait till my
shoulders are less sore, and, by Gad, see the punishment you’ll get.”

“Odd’s fish! I’ll bear it,” said Sir Andrew, with a merry laugh,
“seeing that you are alive to give it. . . . Would you have had me
allow Lady Blakeney to do the journey alone? But, in the name of
heaven, man, where did you get these extraordinary clothes?”

“Lud! they are a bit quaint, ain’t they?” laughed Sir Percy, jovially.
“But, odd’s fish!” he added, with sudden earnestness and authority,
“now you are here, Ffoulkes, we must lose no more time: that brute
Chauvelin may send some one to look after us.”

Marguerite was so happy, she could have stayed here for ever, hearing
his voice, asking a hundred questions. But at mention of Chauvelin’s
name she started in quick alarm, afraid for the dear life she would
have died to save.

“But how can we get back?” she gasped; “the roads are full of soldiers
between here and Calais, and . . .”

“We are not going back to Calais, sweetheart,” he said, “but just the
other side of Gris Nez, not half a league from here. The boat of the
_Day Dream_ will meet us there.”

“The boat of the _Day Dream_?”

“Yes!” he said, with a merry laugh; “another little trick of mine. I
should have told you before that when I slipped that note into the hut,
I also added another for Armand, which I directed him to leave behind,
and which has sent Chauvelin and his men running full tilt back to the
‘Chat Gris’ after me; but the first little note contained my real
instructions, including those to old Briggs. He had my orders to go out
further to sea, and then towards the west. When well out of sight of
Calais, he will send the galley to a little creek he and I know of,
just beyond Gris Nez. The men will look out for me—we have a
preconcerted signal, and we will all be safely aboard, whilst Chauvelin
and his men solemnly sit and watch the creek which is ‘just opposite
the “Chat Gris.”’”

“The other side of Gris Nez? But I . . . I cannot walk, Percy,” she
moaned helplessly as, trying to struggle to her tired feet, she found
herself unable even to stand.

“I will carry you, dear,” he said simply; “the blind leading the lame,
you know.”

Sir Andrew was ready, too, to help with the precious burden, but Sir
Percy would not entrust his beloved to any arms but his own.

“When you and she are both safely on board the _Day Dream_,” he said to
his young comrade, “and I feel that Mlle. Suzanne’s eyes will not greet
me in England with reproachful looks, then it will be my turn to rest.”

And his arms, still vigorous in spite of fatigue and suffering, closed
round Marguerite’s poor, weary body, and lifted her as gently as if she
had been a feather.

Then, as Sir Andrew discreetly kept out of earshot, there were many
things said—or rather whispered—which even the autumn breeze did not
catch, for it had gone to rest.

All his fatigue was forgotten; his shoulders must have been very sore,
for the soldiers had hit hard, but the man’s muscles seemed made of
steel, and his energy was almost supernatural. It was a weary tramp,
half a league along the stony side of the cliffs, but never for a
moment did his courage give way or his muscles yield to fatigue. On he
tramped, with firm footstep, his vigorous arms encircling the precious
burden, and . . . no doubt, as she lay, quiet and happy, at times
lulled to momentary drowsiness, at others watching, through the slowly
gathering morning light, the pleasant face with the lazy, drooping blue
eyes, ever cheerful, ever illumined with a good-humoured smile, she
whispered many things, which helped to shorten the weary road, and
acted as a soothing balsam to his aching sinews.

The many-hued light of dawn was breaking in the east, when at last they
reached the creek beyond Gris Nez. The galley lay in wait: in answer to
a signal from Sir Percy, she drew near, and two sturdy British sailors
had the honour of carrying my lady into the boat.

Half an hour later, they were on board the _Day Dream_. The crew, who
of necessity were in their master’s secrets, and who were devoted to
him heart and soul, were not surprised to see him arriving in so
extraordinary a disguise.

Armand St. Just and the other fugitives were eagerly awaiting the
advent of their brave rescuer; he would not stay to hear the
expressions of their gratitude, but found his way to his private cabin
as quickly as he could, leaving Marguerite quite happy in the arms of
her brother.

Everything on board the _Day Dream_ was fitted with that exquisite
luxury, so dear to Sir Percy Blakeney’s heart, and by the time they all
landed at Dover he had found time to get into some of the sumptuous
clothes which he loved, and of which he always kept a supply on board
his yacht.

The difficulty was to provide Marguerite with a pair of shoes, and
great was the little middy’s joy when my lady found that she could put
foot on English shore in his best pair.

The rest is silence!—silence and joy for those who had endured so much
suffering, yet found at last a great and lasting happiness.

But it is on record that at the brilliant wedding of Sir Andrew
Ffoulkes, Bart., with Mlle. Suzanne de Tournay de Basserive, a function
at which H.R.H. the Prince of Wales and all the _élite_ of fashionable
society were present, the most beautiful woman there was unquestionably
Lady Blakeney, whilst the clothes Sir Percy Blakeney wore were the talk
of the _jeunesse dorée_ of London for many days.

It is also a fact that M. Chauvelin, the accredited agent of the French
Republican Government, was not present at that or any other social
function in London, after that memorable evening at Lord Grenville’s
ball.