As soon as the door had closed behind Marguerite, there came fromsomewhere in the room the sound of a yawn, a grunt and a volley ofoaths.
The flickering light of the tallow candles had failed to penetrate intoall the corners, and now from out one of these dark depths, a certainsomething began to detach itself, and to move forward towards the tableat which Chauvelin had once more resumed his seat.
"Has the damned aristocrat gone at last?" queried a hoarse voice, as aburly body clad in loose-fitting coat and mud-stained boots and breechesappeared within the narrow circle of light.
"Yes," replied Chauvelin curtly.
"And a cursed long time you have been with the baggage," grunted theother surlily. "Another five minutes and I'd have taken the matter in myown hands.
"An assumption of authority," commented Chauvelin quietly, "to whichyour position here does not entitle you, Citizen Collot."
Collot d'Herbois lounged lazily forward, and presently he threw hisill-knit figure into the chair lately vacated by Marguerite. His heavy,square face bore distinct traces of the fatigue endured in the pasttwenty-four hours on horseback or in jolting market waggons. His tempertoo appeared to have suffered on the way, and, at Chauvelin's curt anddictatorial replies, he looked as surly as a chained dog.
"You were wasting your breath over that woman," he muttered, bringing alarge and grimy fist heavily down on the table, "and your measures arenot quite so sound as your fondly imagine, Citizen Chauvelin."
"They were mostly of your imagining, Citizen Collot," rejoined the otherquietly, "and of your suggestion."
"I added a touch of strength and determination to your mildmilk-and-water notions, Citizen," snarled Collot spitefully. "I'd haveknocked that intriguing woman's brains out at the very first possibleopportunity, had I been consulted earlier than this."
"Quite regardless of the fact that such violent measures wouldcompletely damn all our chances of success as far as the capture ofthe Scarlet Pimpernel is concerned," remarked Chauvelin drily, witha contemptuous shrug of the shoulders. "Once his wife is dead, theEnglishman will never run his head into the noose which I have socarefully prepared for him."
"So you say, Chauvelin; and therefore I suggested to you certainmeasures to prevent the woman escaping which you will find adequate, Ihope."
"You need have no fear, Citizen Collot," said Chauvelin curtly, "thiswoman will make no attempt at escape now."
"If she does..." and Collot d'Herbois swore an obscene oath.
"I think she understands that we mean to put our threat in execution."
"Threat?... It was no empty threat, Citizen.... Sacre tonnerre! if thatwoman escapes now, by all the devils in hell I swear that I'll wield theguillotine myself and cut off the head of every able-bodied man or womanin Boulogne, with my own hands."
As he said this his face assumed such an expression of inhuman cruelty,such a desire to kill, such a savage lust for blood, that instinctivelyChauvelin shuddered and shrank away from his colleague. All throughhis career there is no doubt that this man, who was of gentle birth,of gentle breeding, and who had once been called M. le Marquis deChauvelin, must have suffered in his susceptibilities and in his pridewhen in contact with the revolutionaries with whom he had chosen to casthis lot. He could not have thrown off all his old ideas of refinementquite so easily, as to feel happy in the presence of such men as Collotd'Herbois, or Marat in his day--men who had become brute beasts, moreferocious far than any wild animal, more scientifically cruel than anyfeline prowler in jungle or desert.
One look in Collot's distorted face was sufficient at this moment toconvince Chauvelin that it were useless for him to view the proclamationagainst the citizens of Boulogne merely as an idle threat, even if hehad wished to do so. That Marguerite would not, under the circumstances,attempt to escape, that Sir Percy Blakeney himself would be forcedto give up all thoughts of rescuing her, was a foregone conclusionin Chauvelin's mind, but if this high-born English gentleman had nothappened to be the selfless hero that he was, if Marguerite Blakeneywere cast in a different, a rougher mould--if, in short, the ScarletPimpernel in the face of the proclamation did succeed in dragging hiswife out of the clutches of the Terrorists, then it was equally certainthat Collot d'Herbois would carry out his rabid and cruel reprisalsto the full. And if in the course of the wholesale butchery of theable-bodied and wage-earning inhabitants of Boulogne, the headsmanshould sink worn out, then would this ferocious sucker of blood put hisown hand to the guillotine, with the same joy and lust which he hadfelt when he ordered one hundred and thirty-eight women of Nantes tobe stripped naked by the soldiery before they were flung helter-skelterinto the river.
A touch of strength and determination! Aye! Citizen Collot d'Herbois hadplenty of that. Was it he, or Carriere who at Arras commanded mothers tostand by while their children were being guillotined? And surely it wasMaignet, Collot's friend and colleague, who at Bedouin, because the RedFlag of the Republic had been mysteriously torn down over night, burntthe entire little village down to the last hovel and guillotined everyone of the three hundred and fifty inhabitants.
And Chauvelin knew all that. Nay, more! he was himself a member of thatso-called government which had countenanced these butcheries, by givingunlimited powers to men like Collot, like Maignet and Carriere. Hewas at one with them in their republican ideas and he believed in theregeneration and the purification of France, through the medium of theguillotine, but he propounded his theories and carried out his mostbloodthirsty schemes with physically clean hands and in an immaculatelycut coat.
Even now when Collot d'Herbois lounged before him, with mud-bespatteredlegs stretched out before him, with dubious linen at neck and wrists,and an odour of rank tobacco and stale, cheap wine pervading his wholepersonality, the more fastidious man of the world, who had consortedwith the dandies of London and Brighton, winced at the enforcedproximity.
But it was the joint characteristic of all these men who had turnedFrance into a vast butchery and charnel-house, that they all fearedand hated one another, even more whole-heartedly than they hated thearistocrats and so-called traitors whom they sent to the guillotine.Citizen Lebon is said to have dipped his sword into the blood whichflowed from the guillotine, whilst exclaiming: "Comme je l'aime ce sangcoule de traitre!" but he and Collot and Danton and Robespierre, all ofthem in fact would have regarded with more delight still the blood ofany one of their colleagues.
At this very moment Collot d'Herbois and Chauvelin would with utmostsatisfaction have denounced, one the other, to the tender mercies of thePublic Prosecutor. Collot made no secret of his hatred for Chauvelin,and the latter disguised it but thinly under the veneer of contemptuousindifference.
"As for that dammed Englishman," added Collot now, after a slight pause,and with another savage oath, "if 'tis my good fortune to lay hands onhim, I'd shoot him then and there like a mad dog, and rid France onceand forever of this accursed spy."
"And think you, Citizen Collot," rejoined Chauvelin with a shrug of theshoulders, "that France would be rid of all English adventurers by thesummary death of this one man?"
"He is the ringleader, at any rate..."
"And has at least nineteen disciples to continue his traditions ofconspiracy and intrigue. None perhaps so ingenuous as himself, nonewith the same daring and good luck perhaps, but still a number of ardentfools only too ready to follow in the footsteps of their chief. Thenthere's the halo of martyrdom around the murdered hero, the enthusiasmcreated by his noble death... Nay! nay, Citizen, you have not livedamong these English people, you do not understand them, or you would nottalk of sending their popular hero to an honoured grave."
But Collot d'Herbois only shook his powerful frame like some big, sulkydog, and spat upon the floor to express his contempt of this wild talkwhich seemed to have no real tangible purpose.
"You have not caught your Scarlet Pimpernel yet, Citizen," he said witha snort.
"No, but I will, after sundown to-morrow."
"How do y
ou know?"
"I have ordered the Angelus to be rung at one of the closed churches,and he agreed to fight a duel with me on the southern ramparts at thathour and on that day," said Chauvelin simply.
"You take him for a fool?" sneered Collot.
"No, only for a foolhardy adventurer."
"You imagine that with his wife as hostage in our hands, and the wholecity of Boulogne on the lookout for him for the sake of the amnesty,that the man would be fool enough to walk on those ramparts at a givenhour, for the express purpose of getting himself caught by you and yourmen?"
"I am quite sure that if we do not lay hands on him before that givenhour, that he will be on the ramparts at the Angelus to-morrow," saidChauvelin emphatically.
Collot shrugged his broad shoulders.
"Is the man mad?" he asked with an incredulous laugh.
"Yes, I think so," rejoined the other with a smile.
"And having caught your hare," queried Collot, "how do you propose tocook him?"
"Twelve picked men will be on the ramparts ready to seize him the momenthe appears."
"And to shoot him at sight, I hope."
"Only as a last resource, for the Englishman is powerful and may causeour half-famished men a good deal of trouble. But I want him alive, ifpossible..."
"Why? a dead lion is safer than a live one any day."
"Oh! we'll kill him right enough, Citizen. I pray you have no fear. Ihold a weapon ready for that meddlesome Scarlet Pimpernel, which will bea thousand times more deadly and more effectual than a chance shot, oreven a guillotine."
"What weapon is that, Citizen Chauvelin?"
Chauvelin leaned forward across the table and rested his chin in hishands; instinctively Collot too leaned towards him, and both men peeredfurtively round them as if wondering if prying eyes happened to belurking round. It was Chauvelin's pale eyes which now gleamed withhatred and with an insatiable lust for revenge at least as powerful asCollot's lust for blood; the unsteady light of the tallow candles threwgrotesque shadows across his brows, and his mouth was set in such rigidlines of implacable cruelty that the brutish sot beside him gazed on himamazed, vaguely scenting here a depth of feeling which was beyond hispower to comprehend. He repeated his question under his breath:
"What weapon do you mean to use against that accursed spy, CitizenChauvelin?"
"Dishonour and ridicule!" replied the other quietly.
"Bah!"
"In exchange for his life and that of his wife."
"As the woman told you just now... he will refuse."
"We shall see, Citizen."
"You are mad to think such things, Citizen, and ill serve the Republicby sparing her bitterest foe."
A long, sarcastic laugh broke from Chauvelin's parted lips.
"Spare him?--spare the Scarlet Pimpernel!..." he ejaculated. "Nay,Citizen, you need have no fear of that. But believe me, I have schemesin my head by which the man whom we all hate will be more trulydestroyed than your guillotine could ever accomplish: schemes, wherebythe hero who is now worshipped in England as a demi-god will suddenlybecome an object of loathing and of contempt.... Ah! I see youunderstand me now... I wish to so cover him with ridicule that the veryname of the small wayside flower will become a term of derision and ofscorn. Only then shall we be rid of these pestilential English spies,only then will the entire League of the Scarlet Pimpernel become a thingof the past when its whilom leader, now thought akin to a god, will havefound refuge in a suicide's grave, from the withering contempt of theentire world."
Chauvelin had spoken low, hardly above a whisper, and the echo of hislast words died away in the great, squalid room like a long-drawn-outsigh. There was dead silence for a while save for the murmur in thewind outside and from the floor above the measured tread of the sentinelguarding the precious hostage in No. 6.
Both men were staring straight in front of them. Collot d'Herboisincredulous, half-contemptuous, did not altogether approve of theseschemes which seemed to him wild and uncanny: he liked the directsimplicity of a summary trial, of the guillotine, or of his own wellstage-managed "Noyades." He did not feel that any ridicule or dishonourwould necessarily paralyze a man in his efforts at intrigue, and wouldhave liked to set Chauvelin's authority aside, to behead the womanupstairs and then to take his chances of capturing the man later on.
But the orders of the Committee of Public Safety had been peremptory: hewas to be Chauvelin's help--not his master, and to obey in all things.He did not dare to take any initiative in the matter, for in that case,if he failed, the reprisals against him would indeed be terrible.
He was fairly satisfied now that Chauvelin had accepted his suggestionof summarily sending to the guillotine one member of every familyresident in Boulogne, if Marguerite succeeded in effecting an escape,and, of a truth, Chauvelin had hailed the fiendish suggestion withdelight. The old abbe with his nephew and niece were undoubtedlynot sufficient deterrents against the daring schemes of the ScarletPimpernel, who, as a matter of fact, could spirit them out of Boulognejust as easily as he would his own wife.
Collot's plan tied Marguerite to her own prison cell more completelythan any other measure could have done, more so indeed than theoriginator thereof knew or believed.... A man like this d'Herbois--bornin the gutter, imbued with every brutish tradition, which generations ofjail-birds had bequeathed to him,--would not perhaps fully realize thefact that neither Sir Percy nor Marguerite Blakeney would ever savethemselves at the expense of others. He had merely made the suggestion,because he felt that Chauvelin's plans were complicated and obscure,and above all insufficient, and that perhaps after all the Englishadventurer and his wife would succeed in once more outwitting him, whenthere would remain the grand and bloody compensation of a wholesalebutchery in Boulogne.
But Chauvelin was quite satisfied. He knew that under presentcircumstances neither Sir Percy nor Marguerite would make any attempt toescape. The ex-ambassador had lived in England: he understood the classto which these two belonged, and was quite convinced that no attemptwould be made on either side to get Lady Blakeney away whilst thepresent ferocious order against the bread-winner of every family in thetown held good.
Aye! the measures were sound enough. Chauvelin was easy in hismind about that. In another twenty-four hours he would hold the mancompletely in his power who had so boldly outwitted him last year;to-night he would sleep in peace: an entire city was guarding theprecious hostage.
"We'll go to bed now, Citizen," he said to Collot, who, tired and sulky,was moodily fingering the papers on the table. The scraping sound whichhe made thereby grated on Chauvelin's overstrung nerves. He wanted tobe alone, and the sleepy brute's presence here jarred on his own solemnmood.
To his satisfaction, Collot grunted a surly assent. Very leisurely herose from his chair, stretched out his loose limbs, shook himself likea shaggy cur, and without uttering another word he gave his colleague acurt nod, and slowly lounged out of the room.
Chapter XXV: The Unexpected