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- Author: Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy
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Chauvelin sighed, perplexed and troubled. He looked round the little room, then went up to a small side table which stood against the wall and on which were two or three quill pens and an ink-well, also some loosely scattered sheets of paper. These he turned over with a careless hand and presently came across a closely written page. —— “Citizen Chauvelin:—In consideration of a further sum of one million francs...”
It was the beginning of the letter!... only a few words so far... with several corrections of misspelt words... and a line left out here and there which confused the meaning... a beginning made by the unsteady hand of that drunken fool... an attempt only at present....
But still... a beginning.
Close by was the draft of it as written out by Chauvelin, and which Sir Percy had evidently begun to copy.
He had made up his mind then.... He meant to subscribe with his own hand to his lasting dishonour... and meaning it, he slept!
Chauvelin felt the paper trembling in his hand. He felt strangely agitated and nervous, now that the issue was so near... so sure!...
“There's no demmed hurry for that, is there... er... Monsieur Chaubertin?...” came from the slowly wakening Sir Percy in somewhat thick, heavy accents, accompanied by a prolonged yawn. “I haven't got the demmed thing quite ready...”
Chauvelin had been so startled that the paper dropped from his hand. He stooped to pick it up.
“Nay! why should you be so scared, sir?” continued Sir Percy lazily, “did you think I was drunk?... I assure you, sir, on my honour, I am not so drunk as you think I am.”
“I have no doubt, Sir Percy,” replied Chauvelin ironically, “that you have all your marvellous faculties entirely at your command.... I must apologize for disturbing your papers,” he added, replacing the half-written page on the table, “I thought perhaps that if the letter was ready ...”
“It will be, sir... it will be... for I am not drunk, I assure you.... and can write with a steady hand... and do honour to my signature....”
“When will you have the letter ready, Sir Percy?”
“The 'Day-Dream' must leave the harbour at the turn of the tide,” quoth Sir Percy thickly. “It'll be demmed well time by then... won't it, sir?...”
“About sundown, Sir Percy... not later...”
“About sundown... not later...” muttered Blakeney, as he once more stretched his long limbs along the narrow bed.
He gave a loud and hearty yawn.
“I'll not fail you...” he murmured, as he closed his eyes, and gave a final struggle to get his head at a comfortable angle, “the letter will be written in my best cali... calig.... Lud! but I'm not so drunk as you think I am. ...”
But as if to belie his own oft-repeated assertion, hardly was the last word out of his mouth than his stertorous and even breathing proclaimed the fact that he was once more fast asleep.
With a shrug of the shoulders and a look of unutterable contempt at his broken-down enemy, Chauvelin turned on his heel and went out of the room.
But outside in the corridor he called the orderly to him and gave strict commands that no more wine or brandy was to be served to the Englishman under any circumstances whatever.
“He has two hours in which to sleep off the effects of all that brandy which he had consumed,” he mused as he finally went back to his own quarters, “and by that time he will be able to write with a steady hand.”
Chapter XXXIII: The English Spy
And now at last the shades of evening were drawing in thick and fast. Within the walls of Fort Gayole the last rays of the setting sun had long ago ceased to shed their dying radiance, and through the thick stone embrasures and the dusty panes of glass, the grey light of dusk soon failed to penetrate.
In the large ground-floor room with its window opened upon the wide promenade of the southern ramparts, a silence reigned which was oppressive. The air was heavy with the fumes of the two tallow candles on the table, which smoked persistently.
Against the walls a row of figures in dark blue uniforms with scarlet facings, drab breeches and heavy riding boots, silent and immovable, with fixed bayonets like so many automatons lining the room all round; at some little distance from the central table and out of the immediate circle of light, a small group composed of five soldiers in the same blue and scarlet uniforms. One of these was Sergeant Hebert. In the centre of this group two persons were sitting: a woman and an old man.
The Abbe Foucquet had been brought down from his prison cell a few minutes ago, and told to watch what would go on around him, after which he would be allowed to go to his old church of St. Joseph and ring the Angelus once more before he and his family left Boulogne forever.
The Angelus would be the signal for the opening of all the prison gates in the town. Everyone to-night could come and go as they pleased, and having rung the Angelus, the abbe would be at liberty to join Francois and Felicite and their old mother, his sister, outside the purlieus of the town.
The Abbe Foucquet did not quite understand all this, which was very rapidly and roughly explained to him. It was such a very little while ago that he had expected to see the innocent children mounting up those awful steps which lead to the guillotine, whilst he himself was looking death quite near in the face, that all this talk of amnesty and of pardon had not quite fully reached his brain.
But he was quite content that it had all been ordained by le bon Dieu, and very happy at the thought of ringing the dearly-loved Angelus in his own old church once again. So when he was peremptorily pushed into the room and found himself close to Marguerite, with four or five soldiers standing round them, he quietly pulled his old rosary from his pocket and began murmuring gentle “Paters” and “Aves” under his breath.
Beside him sat Marguerite, rigid as a statue: her cloak thrown over her shoulders, so that its hood might hide her face. She could not now have said how that awful day had passed, how she had managed to survive the terrible, nerve-racking suspense, the agonizing doubt as to what was going to happen. But above all, what she had found most unendurable was the torturing thought that in this same grim and frowning building her husband was there... somewhere... how far or how near she could not say... but she knew that she was parted from him and perhaps would not see him again, not even at the hour of death.
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