The Elusive Pimpernel Baroness Orczy (read more books txt) 📖

before that given hour, that he will be on the ramparts at the Angelus tomorrow,” said Chauvelin emphatically.

Collot shrugged his broad shoulders.

“Is the man mad?” he asked with an incredulous laugh.

“Yes, I think so,” rejoined the other with a smile.

“And having caught your hare,” queried Collot, “how do you propose to cook him?”

“Twelve picked men will be on the ramparts ready to seize him the moment he appears.”

“And to shoot him at sight, I hope.”

“Only as a last resource, for the Englishman is powerful and may cause our half-famished men a good deal of trouble. But I want him alive, if possible⁠ ⁠…”

“Why? a dead lion is safer than a live one any day.”

“Oh! we’ll kill him right enough, Citizen. I pray you have no fear. I hold a weapon ready for that meddlesome Scarlet Pimpernel, which will be a thousand times more deadly and more effectual than a chance shot, or even a guillotine.”

“What weapon is that, Citizen Chauvelin?”

Chauvelin leaned forward across the table and rested his chin in his hands; instinctively Collot too leaned towards him, and both men peered furtively round them as if wondering if prying eyes happened to be lurking round. It was Chauvelin’s pale eyes which now gleamed with hatred and with an insatiable lust for revenge at least as powerful as Collot’s lust for blood; the unsteady light of the tallow candles threw grotesque shadows across his brows, and his mouth was set in such rigid lines of implacable cruelty that the brutish sot beside him gazed on him amazed, vaguely scenting here a depth of feeling which was beyond his power to comprehend. He repeated his question under his breath:

“What weapon do you mean to use against that accursed spy, Citizen Chauvelin?”

“Dishonour and ridicule!” replied the other quietly.

“Bah!”

“In exchange for his life and that of his wife.”

“As the woman told you just now⁠ ⁠… he will refuse.”

“We shall see, Citizen.”

“You are mad to think such things, Citizen, and ill serve the Republic by sparing her bitterest foe.”

A long, sarcastic laugh broke from Chauvelin’s parted lips.

“Spare him?⁠—spare the Scarlet Pimpernel!⁠ ⁠…” he ejaculated. “Nay, Citizen, you need have no fear of that. But believe me, I have schemes in my head by which the man whom we all hate will be more truly destroyed than your guillotine could ever accomplish: schemes, whereby the hero who is now worshipped in England as a demigod will suddenly become an object of loathing and of contempt.⁠ ⁠… Ah! I see you understand me now⁠ ⁠… I wish to so cover him with ridicule that the very name of the small wayside flower will become a term of derision and of scorn. Only then shall we be rid of these pestilential English spies, only then will the entire League of the Scarlet Pimpernel become a thing of the past when its whilom leader, now thought akin to a god, will have found refuge in a suicide’s grave, from the withering contempt of the entire world.”

Chauvelin had spoken low, hardly above a whisper, and the echo of his last words died away in the great, squalid room like a long-drawn-out sigh. There was dead silence for a while save for the murmur in the wind outside and from the floor above the measured tread of the sentinel guarding the precious hostage in No. 6.

Both men were staring straight in front of them. Collot d’Herbois incredulous, half-contemptuous, did not altogether approve of these schemes which seemed to him wild and uncanny: he liked the direct simplicity of a summary trial, of the guillotine, or of his own well stage-managed “Noyades.” He did not feel that any ridicule or dishonour would necessarily paralyze a man in his efforts at intrigue, and would have liked to set Chauvelin’s authority aside, to behead the woman upstairs and then to take his chances of capturing the man later on.

But the orders of the Committee of Public Safety had been peremptory: he was to be Chauvelin’s help⁠—not his master, and to obey in all things. He did not dare to take any initiative in the matter, for in that case, if he failed, the reprisals against him would indeed be terrible.

He was fairly satisfied now that Chauvelin had accepted his suggestion of summarily sending to the guillotine one member of every family resident in Boulogne, if Marguerite succeeded in effecting an escape, and, of a truth, Chauvelin had hailed the fiendish suggestion with delight. The old abbé with his nephew and niece were undoubtedly not sufficient deterrents against the daring schemes of the Scarlet Pimpernel, who, as a matter of fact, could spirit them out of Boulogne just as easily as he would his own wife.

Collot’s plan tied Marguerite to her own prison cell more completely than any other measure could have done, more so indeed than the originator thereof knew or believed.⁠ ⁠… A man like this d’Herbois⁠—born in the gutter, imbued with every brutish tradition, which generations of jailbirds had bequeathed to him⁠—would not perhaps fully realize the fact that neither Sir Percy nor Marguerite Blakeney would ever save themselves at the expense of others. He had merely made the suggestion, because he felt that Chauvelin’s plans were complicated and obscure, and above all insufficient, and that perhaps after all the English adventurer and his wife would succeed in once more outwitting him, when there would remain the grand and bloody compensation of a wholesale butchery in Boulogne.

But Chauvelin was quite satisfied. He knew that under present circumstances neither Sir Percy nor Marguerite would make any attempt to escape. The ex-ambassador had lived in England: he understood the class to which these two belonged, and was quite convinced that no attempt would be made on either side to get Lady Blakeney away whilst the present ferocious order against the breadwinner of every family in the town held good.

Aye! the measures were sound enough. Chauvelin was easy in his mind about that. In another twenty-four hours he would hold the man completely in his power who had so boldly outwitted