The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel Baroness Orczy (free reads .TXT) 📖

went right through her when she saw those awful men coming nigh her. There was one especially whom she abominated worse than the others, a bandy-legged ruffian, who regarded her with a leer that caused her an almost physical nausea. He did not take part in the perquisition, but sat down in the centre of the room and sprawled over the table with the air of one who was in authority. The others addressed him as “citizen Merri,” and alternately ridiculed and deferred to him. And there was another, equally hateful, a horrible, cadaverous creature, with huge bare feet thrust into sabots, and lank hair, thick with grime. He did most of the talking, even though his loquacity occasionally broke down in a racking cough, which literally seemed to tear at his chest, and left him panting, hoarse, and with beads of moisture upon his low, pallid forehead.

Of course, the men found nothing that could even remotely be termed compromising. Esther had been very prudent in deference to Kennard’s advice; she also had very few possessions. Nevertheless, when the wretches had turned every article of furniture inside out, one of them asked curtly:

“What do we do next, citizen Merri?”

“Do?” broke in the cadaverous creature, even before Merri had time to reply. “Do? Why, take the wench to⁠—to⁠—”

He got no further, became helpless with coughing. Esther, quite instinctively, pushed the carafe of water towards him.

“Nothing of the sort!” riposted Merri sententiously. “The wench stays here!”

Both Esther and Jack had much ado to suppress an involuntary cry of relief, which at this unexpected pronouncement had risen to their lips.

The man with the cough tried to protest.

“But⁠—” he began hoarsely.

“I said, the wench stays here!” broke in Merri peremptorily. “Ah ça!” he added, with a savage imprecation. “Do you command here, citizen Rateau, or do I?”

The other at once became humble, even cringing.

“You, of course, citizen,” he rejoined in his hollow voice. “I would only remark⁠—”

“Remark nothing,” retorted the other curtly. “See to it that the cub is out of the house. And after that put a sentry outside the wench’s door. No one to go in and out of here under any pretext whatever. Understand?”

Kennard this time uttered a cry of protest. The helplessness of his position exasperated him almost to madness. Two men were holding him tightly by his sinewy arms. With an Englishman’s instinct for a fight, he would not only have tried, but also succeeded in knocking these two down, and taken the other four on after that, with quite a reasonable chance of success. That tuberculous creature, now! And that bandy-legged ruffian! Jack Kennard had been an amateur middleweight champion in his day, and these brutes had no more science than an enraged bull! But even as he fought against that instinct he realised the futility of a struggle. The danger of it, too⁠—not for himself, but for her. After all, they were not going to take her away to one of those awful places from which the only egress was the way to the guillotine; and if there was that amount of freedom there was bound to be some hope. At twenty there is always hope!

So when, in obedience to Merri’s orders, the two ruffians began to drag him towards the door, he said firmly:

“Leave me alone. I’ll go without this unnecessary struggling.”

Then, before the wretches realised his intention, he had jerked himself free from them and run to Esther.

“Have no fear,” he said to her in English, and in a rapid whisper. “I’ll watch over you. The house opposite. I know the people. I’ll manage it somehow. Be on the lookout.”

They would not let him say more, and she only had the chance of responding firmly: “I am not afraid, and I’ll be on the lookout.” The next moment Merri’s compeers seized him from behind⁠—four of them this time.

Then, of course, prudence went to the winds. He hit out to the right and left. Knocked two of those recreants down, and already was prepared to seize Esther in his arms, make a wild dash for the door, and run with her, whither only God knew, when Rateau, that awful consumptive reprobate, crept slyly up behind him and dealt him a swift and heavy blow on the skull with his weighted stick. Kennard staggered, and the bandits closed upon him. Those on the floor had time to regain their feet. To make assurance doubly sure, one of them emulated Rateau’s tactics, and hit the Englishman once more on the head from behind. After that, Kennard became inert; he had partly lost consciousness. His head ached furiously. Esther, numb with horror, saw him bundled out of the room. Rateau, coughing and spluttering, finally closed the door upon the unfortunate and the four brigands who had hold of him.

Only Merri and that awful Rateau had remained in the room. The latter, gasping for breath now, poured himself out a mugful of water and drank it down at one draught. Then he swore, because he wanted rum, or brandy, or even wine. Esther watched him and Merri, fascinated. Poor old Lucienne was quietly weeping behind her apron.

“Now then, my wench,” Merri began abruptly, “suppose you sit down here and listen to what I have to say.”

He pulled a chair close to him and, with one of those hideous leers which had already caused her to shudder, he beckoned her to sit. Esther obeyed as if in a dream. Her eyes were dilated like those of one in a waking trance. She moved mechanically, like a bird attracted by a serpent, terrified, yet unresisting. She felt utterly helpless between these two villainous brutes, and anxiety for her English lover seemed further to numb her senses. When she was sitting she turned her gaze, with an involuntary appeal for pity, upon the bandy-legged ruffian beside her. He laughed.

“No! I am not going to hurt you,” he said with smooth condescension, which was far more loathsome to Esther’s ears than his