El Dorado: An Adventure of the Scarlet Pimpernel

Therefore he walked along contentedly now, not even looking back to see whether St. Just was following him. He knew that he did.

His thoughts only dwelt on the young enthusiast—in his mind he called him the young fool—in order to weigh in the balance the mighty possibilities that would accrue from the present sequence of events. The fixed idea ever working in the man’s scheming brain had already transformed a vague belief into a certainty. That the Scarlet Pimpernel was in Paris at the present moment Chauvelin had now become convinced. How far he could turn the capture of Armand St. Just to the triumph of his own ends remained to be seen.

But this he did know: the Scarlet Pimpernel—the man whom he had learned to know, to dread, and even in a grudging manner to admire—was not like to leave one of his followers in the lurch. Marguerite’s brother in the Temple would be the surest decoy for the elusive meddler who still, and in spite of all care and precaution, continued to baffle the army of spies set upon his track.

Chauvelin could hear Armand’s light, elastic footsteps resounding behind him on the flagstones. A world of intoxicating possibilities surged up before him. Ambition, which two successive dire failures had atrophied in his breast, once more rose up buoyant and hopeful. Once he had sworn to lay the Scarlet Pimpernel by the heels, and that oath was not yet wholly forgotten; it had lain dormant after the catastrophe of Boulogne, but with the sight of Armand St. Just it had re-awakened and confronted him again with the strength of a likely fulfilment.

The courtyard looked gloomy and deserted. The thin drizzle which still fell from a persistently leaden sky effectually held every outline of masonry, of column, or of gate hidden as beneath a shroud. The corridor which skirted it all round was ill-lighted save by an occasional oil-lamp fixed in the wall.

But Chauvelin knew his way well. Heron’s lodgings gave on the second courtyard, the Square du Nazaret, and the way thither led past the main square tower, in the top floor of which the uncrowned King of France eked out his miserable existence as the plaything of a rough cobbler and his wife.

Just beneath its frowning bastions Chauvelin turned back towards Armand. He pointed with a careless hand up-wards to the central tower.

“We have got little Capet in there,” he said dryly. “Your chivalrous Scarlet Pimpernel has not ventured in these precincts yet, you see.”

Armand was silent. He had no difficulty in looking unconcerned; his thoughts were so full of Jeanne that he cared but little at this moment for any Bourbon king or for the destinies of France.

Now the two men reached the postern gate. A couple of sentinels were standing by, but the gate itself was open, and from within there came the sound of bustle and of noise, of a good deal of swearing, and also of loud laughter.

The guard-room gave on the left of the gate, and the laughter came from there. It was brilliantly lighted, and Armand, peering in, in the wake of Chauvelin, could see groups of soldiers sitting and standing about. There was a table in the centre of the room, and on it a number of jugs and pewter mugs, packets of cards, and overturned boxes of dice.

But the bustle did not come from the guard-room; it came from the landing and the stone stairs beyond.

Chauvelin, apparently curious, had passed through the gate, and Armand followed him. The light from the open door of the guard-room cut sharply across the landing, making the gloom beyond appear more dense and almost solid. From out the darkness, fitfully intersected by a lanthorn apparently carried to and fro, moving figures loomed out ghost-like and weirdly gigantic. Soon Armand distinguished a number of large objects that encumbered the landing, and as he and Chauvelin left the sharp light of the guard-room ‘behind them, he could see that the large objects were pieces of furniture of every shape and size; a wooden bedstead—dismantled—leaned against the wall, a black horsehair sofa blocked the way to the tower stairs, and there were numberless chairs and several tables piled one on the top of the other.

In the midst of this litter a stout, flabby-cheeked man stood, apparently giving directions as to its removal to persons at present unseen.

“Hola, Papa Simon!” exclaimed Chauvelin jovially; “moving out to-day? What?”

“Yes, thank the Lord!—if there be a Lord!” retorted the other curtly. “Is that you, citizen Chauvelin?”

“In person, citizen. I did not know you were leaving quite so soon. Is citizen Heron anywhere about?”

“Just left,” replied Simon. “He had a last look at Capet just before my wife locked the brat up in the inner room. Now he’s gone back to his lodgings.”

A man carrying a chest, empty of its drawers, on his back now came stumbling down the tower staircase. Madame Simon followed close on his heels, steadying the chest with one hand.

“We had better begin to load up the cart,” she called to her husband in a high-pitched querulous voice; “the corridor is getting too much encumbered.”

She looked suspiciously at Chauvelin and at Armand, and when she encountered the former’s bland, unconcerned gaze she suddenly shivered and drew her black shawl closer round her shoulders.

“Bah!” she said, “I shall be glad to get out of this God-forsaken hole. I hate the very sight of these walls.”

“Indeed, the citizeness does not look over robust in health,” said Chauvelin with studied politeness. “The stay in the tower did not, mayhap, bring forth all the fruits of prosperity which she had anticipated.”

The woman eyed him with dark suspicion lurking in her hollow eyes.

“I don’t know what you mean, citizen,” she said with a shrug of her wide shoulders.

“Oh! I meant nothing,” rejoined Chauvelin, smiling. “I am so interested in your removal; busy man as I am, it has amused me to watch you. Whom have you got to help you with the furniture?”

“Dupont, the man-of-all-work, from the concierge,” said Simon curtly. “Citizen Heron would not allow any one to come in from the outside.”

“Rightly too. Have the new commissaries come yet?

“Only citizen Cochefer. He is waiting upstairs for the others.”

“And Capet?”

“He is all safe. Citizen Heron came to see him, and then he told me to lock the little vermin up in the inner room. Citizen Cochefer had just arrived by that time, and he has remained in charge.”

During all this while the man with the chest on his back was waiting for orders. Bent nearly double, he was grumbling audibly at his uncomfortable position.

“Does the citizen want to break my back?” he muttered.

“We had best get along—quoi?”

He asked if he should begin to carry the furniture out into the street.

“Two sous have I got to pay every ten minutes to the lad who holds my nag,” he said, muttering under his breath; “we shall be all night at this rate.”

“Begin to load then,” commanded Simon gruffly. “Here!—begin with this sofa.”

“You’ll have to give me a hand with that,” said the man. “Wait a bit; I’ll just see that everything is all right in the cart. I’ll be back directly.”

“Take something with you then as you are going down,” said Madame Simon in her querulous voice.

The man picked up a basket of linen that stood in the angle by the door. He hoisted it on his back and shuffled away with it across the landing and out through the gate.

“How did Capet like parting from his papa and maman?” asked Chauvelin with a laugh.

“H’m!” growled Simon laconically. “He will find out soon enough how well off he was under our care.”

“Have the other commissaries come yet?”

“No. But they will be here directly. Citizen Cochefer is upstairs mounting guard over Capet.”

“Well, good-bye, Papa Simon,” concluded Chauvelin jovially. “Citizeness, your servant!”

He bowed with unconcealed irony to the cobbler’s wife, and nodded to Simon, who expressed by a volley of motley oaths his exact feelings with regard to all the agents of the Committee of General Security.

“Six months of this penal servitude have we had,” he said roughly, “and no thanks or pension. I would as soon serve a ci-devant aristo as your accursed Committee.”

The man Dupont had returned. Stolidly, after the fashion of his kind, he commenced the removal of citizen Simon’s goods. He seemed a clumsy enough creature, and Simon and his wife had to do most of the work themselves.

Chauvelin watched the moving forms for a while, then he shrugged his shoulders with a laugh of indifference, and turned on his heel.

CHAPTER XIX. IT IS ABOUT THE DAUPHIN

Heron was not at his lodgings when, at last, after vigorous pulls at the bell, a great deal of waiting and much cursing, Chauvelin, closely followed by Armand, was introduced in the chief agent’s office.

The soldier who acted as servant said that citizen Heron had gone out to sup, but would surely be home again by eight o’clock. Armand by this time was so dazed with fatigue that he sank on a chair like a log, and remained there staring into the fire, unconscious of the flight of time.

Anon Heron came home. He nodded to Chauvelin, and threw but a cursory glance on Armand.

“Five minutes, citizen,” he said, with a rough attempt at an apology. “I am sorry to keep you waiting, but the new commissaries have arrived who are to take charge of Capet. The Simons have just gone, and I want to assure myself that everything is all right in the Tower. Cochefer has been in charge, but I like to cast an eye over the brat every day myself.”

He went out again, slamming the door behind him. His heavy footsteps were heard treading the flagstones of the corridor, and gradually dying away in the distance. Armand had paid no heed either to his entrance or to his exit. He was only conscious of an intense weariness, and would at this moment gladly have laid his head on the scaffold if on it he could find rest.

A white-faced clock on the wall ticked off the seconds one by one. From the street below came the muffled sounds of wheeled traffic on the soft mud of the road; it was raining more heavily now, and from time to time a gust of wind rattled the small windows in their dilapidated frames, or hurled a shower of heavy drops against the panes.

The heat from the stove had made Armand drowsy; his head fell forward on his chest. Chauvelin, with his hands held behind his back, paced ceaselessly up and down the narrow room.

Suddenly Armand started—wide awake now. Hurried footsteps on the flagstones outside, a hoarse shout, a banging of heavy doors, and the next moment Heron stood once more on the threshold of the room. Armand, with wide-opened eyes, gazed on him in wonder. The whole appearance of the man had changed. He looked ten years older, with lank, dishevelled hair hanging matted over a moist forehead, the cheeks ashen-white, the full lips bloodless and hanging, flabby and parted, displaying both rows of yellow teeth that shook against each other. The whole figure looked bowed, as if shrunk within itself.

Chauvelin had paused in his restless walk. He gazed on his colleague, a frown of puzzlement on his pale, set face.

“Capet!” he exclaimed, as soon as he had taken in every detail of Heron’s altered appearance, and seen the look of wild terror that literally distorted his face.

Heron could not speak; his teeth were chattering in his mouth, and his tongue seemed paralysed. Chauvelin went up to him. He was several inches shorter than his colleague, but at this moment he seemed to be towering over him like an avenging spirit. He placed a firm hand on the other’s bowed shoulders.

“Capet has gone—is that it?” he queried peremptorily.

The look of terror increased in Heron’s eyes, giving its mute reply.

“How? When?”

But for the moment the man was speechless. An almost maniacal fear seemed to hold him in its grip. With an impatient oath Chauvelin turned away from him.

“Brandy!” he said curtly, speaking to Armand.

A bottle and glass were found in the cupboard. It was St. Just who poured out the brandy and held it to Heron’s lips. Chauvelin was once more pacing up and down the room in angry impatience.

“Pull yourself together, man,” he said roughly after a while, “and try and tell me what has occurred.”

Heron had sunk into a chair. He passed a trembling hand once or twice over his forehead.

“Capet has disappeared,” he murmured; “he must have been spirited away while the Simons were moving their furniture. That accursed Cochefer was completely taken in.”

Heron spoke in a toneless voice, hardly above a whisper, and like one whose throat is dry and mouth parched. But the brandy had revived him somewhat, and his eyes lost their former glassy look.

“How?” asked Chauvelin curtly.

“I was just leaving the Tower when he arrived. I spoke to him at the door. I had seen Capet safely installed in the room, and gave orders to the woman Simon to let citizen Cochefer have a look at him, too, and then to lock up the brat in the inner room and install Cochefer in the antechamber on guard. I stood talking to Cochefer for a few moments in the antechamber. The woman Simon and the man-of-all-work, Dupont—whom I know well—were busy with the furniture. There could not have been any one else concealed about the place—that I’ll swear. Cochefer, after he took leave of me, went straight into the room; he found the woman Simon in the act of turning the key in the door of the inner chamber. I have locked Capet in there,’ she said, giving the key to Cochefer; ‘he will be quite safe until to-night; when the other commissaries come.’

“Didn’t Cochefer go into the room and ascertain whether the woman was lying?”

“Yes, he did! He made the woman re-open the door and peeped in over her shoulder. She said the child was asleep. He vows that he saw the child lying fully dressed on a rug in the further corner of the room. The room, of course, was quite empty of furniture and only lighted by one candle, but there was the rug and the child asleep on it. Cochefer swears he saw him, and now—when I went up—”

“Well?”

“The commissaries were all there—Cochefer and Lasniere, Lorinet and Legrand. We went into the inner room, and I had a candle in my hand. We saw the child lying on the rug, just as Cochefer had seen him, and for a while we took no notice of it. Then some one—I think it was Lorinet—went to have a closer look at the brat. He took up the candle and went up to the rug. Then he gave a cry, and we all gathered round him. The sleeping child was only a bundle of hair and of clothes, a dummy—what?”

There was silence now in the narrow room, while the white-faced clock continued to tick off each succeeding second of time. Heron had once more buried his head in his hands; a trembling—like an attack of ague—shook his wide, bony shoulders. Armand had listened to the narrative with glowing eyes and a beating heart. The details which the two Terrorists here could not probably understand he had already added to the picture which his mind had conjured up.

He was back in thought now in the small lodging in the rear of St. Germain l’Auxerrois; Sir Andrew Ffoulkes was there, and my Lord Tony and Hastings, and a man was striding up and down the room, looking out into the great space beyond the river with the eyes of a seer, and a firm voice said abruptly:

“It is about the Dauphin!”

“Have you any suspicions?” asked Chauvelin now, pausing in his walk beside Heron, and once more placing a firm, peremptory hand on his colleague’s shoulder.

“Suspicions!” exclaimed the chief agent with a loud oath. “Suspicions! Certainties, you mean. The man sat here but two days ago, in that very chair, and bragged of what he would do. I told him then that if he interfered with Capet I would wring his neck with my own hands.”

And his long, talon-like fingers, with their sharp, grimy nails, closed and unclosed like those of feline creatures when they hold the coveted prey.

“Of whom do you speak?” queried Chauvelin curtly.

“Of whom? Of whom but that accursed de Batz? His pockets are bulging with Austrian money, with which, no doubt, he has bribed the Simons and Cochefer and the sentinels—”

“And Lorinet and Lasniere and you,” interposed Chauvelin dryly.

“It is false!” roared Heron, who already at the suggestion was foaming at the mouth, and had jumped up from his chair, standing at bay as if prepared to fight for his life.

“False, is it?” retorted Chauvelin calmly; “then be not so quick, friend Heron, in slashing out with senseless denunciations right and left. You’ll gain nothing by denouncing any one just now. This is too intricate a matter to be dealt with a sledge-hammer. Is any one up in the Tower at this moment?” he asked in quiet, business-like tones.

“Yes. Cochefer and the others are still there. They are making wild schemes to cover their treachery. Cochefer is aware of his own danger, and Lasniere and the others know that they arrived at the Tower several hours too late. They are all at fault, and they know it. As for that de Batz,” he continued with a voice rendered raucous with bitter passion, “I swore to him two days ago that he should not escape me if he meddled with Capet. I’m on his track already. I’ll have him before the hour of midnight, and I’ll torture him—yes! I’ll torture him—the Tribunal shall give me leave. We have a dark cell down below here where my men know how to apply tortures worse than the rack—where they know just how to prolong life long enough to make it unendurable. I’ll torture him! I’ll torture him!”

But Chauvelin abruptly silenced the wretch with a curt command; then, without another word, he walked straight out of the room.

In thought Armand followed him. The wild desire was suddenly born in him to run away at this moment, while Heron, wrapped in his own meditations, was paying no heed to him. Chauvelin’s footsteps had long ago died away in the distance; it was a long way to the upper floor of the Tower, and some time would be spent, too, in interrogating the commissaries. This was Armand’s opportunity. After all, if he were free himself he might more effectually help to rescue Jeanne. He knew, too, now where to join his leader. The corner of the street by the canal, where Sir Andrew Ffoulkes would be waiting with the coal-cart; then there was the spinney on the road to St. Germain. Armand hoped that, with good luck, he might yet overtake his comrades, tell them of Jeanne’s plight, and entreat them to work for her rescue.

He had forgotten that now he had no certificate of safety, that undoubtedly he would be stopped at the gates at this hour of the night; that his conduct proving suspect he would in all probability he detained, and, mayhap, be brought back to this self-same place within an hour. He had forgotten all that, for the primeval instinct for freedom had suddenly been aroused. He rose softly from his chair and crossed the room. Heron paid no attention to him. Now he had traversed the antechamber and unlatched the outer door.

Immediately a couple of bayonets were crossed in front of him, two more further on ahead scintillated feebly in the flickering light. Chauvelin had taken his precautions. There was no doubt that Armand St. Just was effectually a prisoner now.

With a sigh of disappointment he went back to his place beside the fire. Heron had not even moved whilst he had made this futile attempt at escape. Five minutes later Chauvelin re-entered the room.

CHAPTER XX. THE CERTIFICATE OF SAFETY

“You can leave de Batz and his gang alone, citizen Heron,” said Chauvelin, as soon as he had closed the door behind him; “he had nothing to do with the escape of the Dauphin.”

Heron growled out a few words of incredulity. But Chauvelin shrugged his shoulders and looked with unutterable contempt on his colleague. Armand, who was watching him closely, saw that in his hand he held a small piece of paper, which he had crushed into a shapeless mass.

“Do not waste your time, citizen,” he said, “in raging against an empty wind-bag. Arrest de Batz if you like, or leave him alone an you please—we have nothing to fear from that braggart.”

With nervous, slightly shaking fingers he set to work to smooth out the scrap of paper which he held. His hot hands had soiled it and pounded it until it was a mere rag and the writing on it illegible. But, such as it was, he threw it down with a blasphemous oath on the desk in front of Heron’s eyes.

“It is that accursed Englishman who has been at work again,” he said more calmly; “I guessed it the moment I heard your story. Set your whole army of sleuth-hounds on his track, citizen; you’ll need them all.”

Heron picked up the scrap of torn paper and tried to decipher the writing on it by the light from the lamp. He seemed almost dazed now with the awful catastrophe that had befallen him, and the fear that his own wretched life would have to pay the penalty for the disappearance of the child.

As for Armand—even in the midst of his own troubles, and of his own anxiety for Jeanne, he felt a proud exultation in his heart. The Scarlet Pimpernel had succeeded; Percy had not failed in his self-imposed undertaking. Chauvelin, whose piercing eyes were fixed on him at that moment, smiled with contemptuous irony.

“As you will find your hands overfull for the next few hours, citizen Heron,” he said, speaking to his colleague and nodding in the direction of Armand, “I’ll not trouble you with the voluntary confession this young citizen desired to make to you. All I need tell you is that he is an adherent of the Scarlet Pimpernel—I believe one of his most faithful, most trusted officers.”

Heron roused himself from the maze of gloomy thoughts that were again paralysing his tongue. He turned bleary, wild eyes on Armand.

“We have got one of them, then?” he murmured incoherently, babbling like a drunken man.

“M’yes!” replied Chauvelin lightly; “but it is too late now for a formal denunciation and arrest. He cannot leave Paris anyhow, and all that your men need to do is to keep a close look-out on him. But I should send him home to-night if I were you.”

Heron muttered something more, which, however, Armand did not understand. Chauvelin’s words were still ringing in his ear. Was he, then, to be set free to-night? Free in a measure, of course, since spies were to be set to watch him—but free, nevertheless? He could not understand Chauvelin’s attitude, and his own self-love was not a little wounded at the thought that he was of such little account that these men could afford to give him even this provisional freedom. And, of course, there was still Jeanne.

“I must, therefore, bid you good-night, citizen,” Chauvelin was saying in his bland, gently ironical manner. “You will be glad to return to your lodgings. As you see, the chief agent of the Committee of General Security is too much occupied just now to accept the sacrifice of your life which you were prepared so generously to offer him.”

“I do not understand you, citizen,” retorted Armand coldly, “nor do I desire indulgence at your hands. You have arrested an innocent woman on the trumped-up charge that she was harbouring me. I came here to-night to give myself up to justice so that she might be set free.”

“But the hour is somewhat late, citizen,” rejoined Chauvelin urbanely. “The lady in whom you take so fervent an interest is no doubt asleep in her cell at this hour. It would not be fitting to disturb her now. She might not find shelter before morning, and the weather is quite exceptionally unpropitious.”

“Then, sir,” said Armand, a little bewildered, “am I to understand that if I hold myself at your disposition Mademoiselle Lange will be set free as early to-morrow morning as may be?”

“No doubt, sir—no doubt,” replied Chauvelin with more than his accustomed blandness; “if you will hold yourself entirely at our disposition, Mademoiselle Lange will be set free to-morrow. I think that we can safely promise that, citizen Heron, can we not?” he added, turning to his colleague.

But Heron, overcome with the stress of emotions, could only murmur vague, unintelligible words.

“Your word on that, citizen Chauvelin?” asked Armand.

“My word on it an you will accept it.”

“No, I will not do that. Give me an unconditional certificate of safety and I will believe you.”

“Of what use were that to you?” asked Chauvelin.

“I believe my capture to be of more importance to you than that of Mademoiselle Lange,” said Armand quietly.