The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy (best fiction books to read .TXT) 📖

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