Lord Tony’s Wife Baroness Orczy (story read aloud .TXT) 📖

“I thought that name was not to be mentioned here,” retorted Chauvelin dryly.

“You are right, citizen,” whispered the other, “it escaped me and.⁠ ⁠…”

Already he had jumped to his feet, his face suddenly pale, his whole manner changed from easy, arrogant self-assurance to uncertainty and obvious dread. He moved to the window, trying to subdue the sound of his footsteps upon the uneven floor.

“Are you afraid of eavesdroppers, citizen Roget?” queried Chauvelin with a shrug of his narrow shoulders.

“No. There is no one there. Only a lout from Chelwood who brought me here. The people of the house are safe enough. They have plenty of secrets of their own to keep.”

He was obviously saying all this in order to reassure himself, for there was no doubt that his fears were on the alert. With a febrile gesture he unfastened the shutters, and pushed them open, peering out into the night.

“Hallo!” he called.

But he received no answer.

“It has started to rain,” he said more calmly. “I imagine that lout has found shelter in an outhouse with the horses.”

“Very likely,” commented Chauvelin laconically.

“Then if you have nothing more to tell me,” quoth Martin-Roget, “I may as well think about getting back. Rain or no rain, I want to be in Bath before midnight.”

“Ball or supper-party at one of your duchesses?” queried the other with a sneer. “I know them.”

To this Martin-Roget vouchsafed no reply.

“How are things at Nantes?” he asked.

“Splendid! Carrier is like a wild beast let loose. The prisons are overfull: the surplus of accused, condemned and suspect fills the cellars and warehouses along the wharf. Priests and suchlike trash are kept on disused galliots up stream. The guillotine is never idle, and friend Carrier fearing that she might give out⁠—get tired, what?⁠—or break down⁠—has invented a wonderful way of getting rid of shoals of undesirable people at one magnificent swoop. You have heard tell of it no doubt.”

“Yes. I have heard of it,” remarked the other curtly.

“He began with a load of priests. Requisitioned an old barge. Ordered Baudet the shipbuilder to construct half a dozen portholes in her bottom. Baudet demurred: he could not understand what the order could possibly mean. But Foucaud and Lamberty⁠—Carrier’s agents⁠—you know them⁠—explained that the barge would be towed down the Loire and then up one of the smaller navigable streams which it was feared the royalists were preparing to use as a way for making a descent upon Nantes, and that the idea was to sink the barge in midstream in order to obstruct the passage of their army. Baudet, satisfied, put five of his men to the task. Everything was ready on the 16th of last month. I know the woman Pichot, who keeps a small tavern opposite La Sécherie. She saw the barge glide up the river toward the galliot where twenty-five priests of the diocese of Nantes had been living for the past two months in the company of rats and other vermin as noxious as themselves. Most lovely moonlight there was that night. The Loire looked like a living ribbon of silver. Foucaud and Lamberty directed operations, and Carrier had given them full instructions. They tied the calotins up two and two and transferred them from the galliot to the barge. It seems they were quite pleased to go. Had enough of the rats, I presume. The only thing they didn’t like was being searched. Some had managed to secrete silver ornaments about their person when they were arrested. Crucifixes and suchlike. They didn’t like to part with these, it seems. But Foucaud and Lamberty relieved them of everything but the necessary clothing, and they didn’t want much of that, seeing whither they were going. Foucaud made a good pile, so they say. Self-seeking, avaricious brute! He’ll learn the way to one of Carrier’s barges too one day, I’ll bet.”

He rose and with quick footsteps moved to the table. There was some ale left in the jug which the woman had brought for Martin-Roget a while ago. Chauvelin poured the contents of it down his throat. He had talked uninterruptedly, in short, jerky sentences, without the slightest expression of horror at the atrocities which he recounted. His whole appearance had become transfigured while he spoke. Gone was the urbane manner which he had learnt at courts long ago, gone was the last instinct of the gentleman sunk to proletarianism through stress of circumstances, or financial straits or even political convictions. The erstwhile Marquis de Chauvelin⁠—envoy of the Republic at the Court of St. James’⁠—had become citizen Chauvelin in deed and in fact, a part of that rabble which he had elected to serve, one of that vile crowd of bloodthirsty revolutionaries who had sullied the pure robes of Liberty and of Fraternity by spattering them with blood. Now he smacked his lips, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and burying his hands in the pockets of his breeches he stood with legs wide apart and a look of savage satisfaction settled upon his pale face. Martin-Roget had made no comment upon the narrative. He had resumed his seat by the fire and was listening attentively. Now while the other drank and paused, he showed no sign of impatience, but there was something in the look of the bent shoulders, in the rigidity of the attitude, in the large, square hands tightly clasped together which suggested the deepest interest and an intentness that was almost painful.

“I was at the woman Pichot’s tavern that night,” resumed Chauvelin after a while. “I saw the barge⁠—a moving coffin, what?⁠—gliding down stream towed by the galliot and escorted by a small boat. The floating battery at La Samaritaine challenged her as she passed, for Carrier had prohibited all navigation up or down the Loire until further notice. Foucaud, Lamberty, Fouquet and O’Sullivan the armourer were in the boat: they rowed up to the pontoon and Vailly the chief gunner of the battery challenged them once