El Dorado
by
Baroness Orczy
Part 8 out of 8
"Did you turn into the drive?"
"Only a little way, citizen. We thought we had best report first
that all is safe."
"You saw no one?"
"No one."
"The chateau, then, lies some distance from the gates?"
"A league or more, citizen. Close to the gates there are
outhouses and stabling, the disused buildings of the home farm, I
should say."
"Good! We are on the right road, that is clear. Keep ahead with
your men now, but only some two hundred metres or so. Stay!" he
added, as if on second thoughts. "Ride down to the other coach and
ask the prisoner if we are on the right track."
The rider turned his horse sharply round. Marguerite heard-the
clang of metal and the sound of retreating hoofs.
A few moments later the man returned.
"Yes, citizen," he reported, "the prisoner says it is quite right.
The Chateau d'Ourde lies a full league from its gates. This is
the nearest road to the chapel and the chateau. He says we should
reach the former in half an hour. It will be very dark in there,"
he added with a significant nod in the direction of the wood.
Chauvelin made no reply, but quietly stepped out of the coach.
Marguerite watched him, leaning out of the window, following his
small trim figure as he pushed his way past the groups of mounted
men, catching at a horse's bit now and then, or at a bridle,
making a way for himself amongst the restless, champing animals,
without the slightest hesitation or fear.
Soon his retreating figure lost its sharp outline silhouetted
against the evening sky. It was enfolded in the veil of vapour
which was blown out of the horses' nostrils or rising from their
damp cruppers; it became more vague, almost ghost-like, through
the mist and the fast-gathering gloom.
Presently a group of troopers hid him entirely from her view, but
she could hear his thin, smooth voice quite clearly as he called
to citizen Heron.
"We are close to the end of our journey now, citizen," she heard
him say. "If the prisoner has not played us false little Capet
should be in our charge within the hour."
A growl not unlike those that came from out the mysterious depths
of the forest answered him.
"If he is not," and Marguerite recognised the harsh tones of
citizen Heron--"if he is not, then two corpses will be rotting in
this wood tomorrow for the wolves to feed on, and the prisoner
will be on his way back to Paris with me."
Some one laughed. It might have been one of the troopers, more
callous than his comrades, but to Marguerite the laugh had a
strange, familiar ring in it, the echo of something long since
past and gone.
Then Chauvelin's voice once more came clearly to her ear:
"My suggestion, citizen," he was saying, "is that the prisoner
shall now give me an order--couched in whatever terms he may think
necessary--but a distinct order to his friends to give up Capet to
me without any resistance. I could then take some of the men with
me, and ride as quickly as the light will allow up to the chateau,
and take possession of it, of Capet, and of those who are with
him. We could get along faster thus. One man can give up his
horse to me and continue the journey on the box of your coach.
The two carriages could then follow at foot pace. But I fear that
if we stick together complete darkness will overtake us and we
might find ourselves obliged to pass a very uncomfortable night in
this wood."
"I won't spend another night in this suspense--it would kill me,"
growled Heron to the accompaniment of one of his choicest oaths.
"You must do as you think right--you planned the whole of this
affair--see to it that it works out well in the end."
"How many men shall I take with me? Our advance guard is here, of
course."
"I couldn't spare you more than four more men--I shall want the
others to guard the prisoners."
"Four men will be quite sufficient, with the four of the advance
guard. That will leave you twelve men for guarding your
prisoners, and you really only need to guard the woman--her life
will answer for the others."
He had raised his voice when he said this, obviously intending
that Marguerite and Armand should hear.
"Then I'll ahead," he continued, apparently in answer to an assent
from his colleague. "Sir Percy, will you be so kind as to
scribble the necessary words on these tablets?"
There was a long pause, during which Marguerite heard plainly the
long and dismal cry of a night bird that, mayhap, was seeking its
mate. Then Chauvelin's voice was raised again.
"I thank you," he said; "this certainly should be quite effectual.
And now, citizen Heron, I do not think that under the circumstances
we need fear an ambuscade or any kind of trickery--you hold the
hostages. And if by any chance I and my men are attacked, or if
we encounter armed resistance at the chateau, I will despatch a
rider back straightway to you, and--well, you will know what to do."
His voice died away, merged in the soughing of the wind, drowned
by the clang of metal, of horses snorting, of men living and
breathing. Marguerite felt that beside her Armand had shuddered,
and that in the darkness his trembling hand had sought and found
hers.
She leaned well out of the window, trying to see. The gloom had
gathered more closely in, and round her the veil of vapour from
the horses' steaming cruppers hung heavily in the misty air. In
front of her the straight lines of a few fir trees stood out dense
and black against the greyness beyond, and between these lines
purple tints of various tones and shades mingled one with the
other, merging the horizon line with the sky. Here and there a
more solid black patch indicated the tiny houses of the hamlet of
Le Crocq far down in the valley below; from some of these houses
small lights began to glimmer like blinking yellow eyes.
Marguerite's gaze, however, did not rest on the distant landscape--
it tried to pierce the gloom that hid her immediate surroundings;
the mounted men were all round the coach--more closely round her
than the trees in the forest. But the horses were restless, moving
all the time, and as they moved she caught glimpses of that other
coach and of Chauvelin's ghostlike figure, walking rapidly through
the mist. Just for one brief moment she saw the other coach, and
Heron's head and shoulders leaning out of the window. If is
sugar-loaf hat was on his head, and the bandage across his brow
looked like a sharp, pale streak below it.
"Do not doubt it, citizen Chauvelin," he called out loudly in his
harsh, raucous voice, "I shall know what to do; the wolves will
have their meal to-night, and the guillotine will not be cheated
either."
Armand put his arm round his sister's shoulders and gently drew
her hack into the carriage.
"Little mother," he said, "if you can think of a way whereby my
life would redeem Percy's and yours, show me that way now."
But she replied quietly and firmly:
"There is no way, Armand. If there is, it is in the hands of
God."
CHAPTER XLVI
OTHERS IN THE PARK
Chauvelin and his picked escort had in the meanwhile detached
themselves from the main body of the squad. Soon the dull thud of
their horses' hoofs treading the soft ground came more softly--
then more softly still as they turned into the wood, and the
purple shadows seemed to enfold every sound and finally to swallow
them completely.
Armand and Marguerite from the depth of the carriage heard Heron's
voice ordering his own driver now to take the lead. They sat
quite still and watched, and presently the other coach passed them
slowly on the road, its silhouette standing out ghostly and grim
for a moment against the indigo tones of the distant country.
Heron's head, with its battered sugar-loaf hat, and the soiled
bandage round the brow, was as usual out of the carriage window.
He leered across at Marguerite when he saw the outline of her face
framed by the window of the carriage.
"Say all the prayers you have ever known, citizeness," he said
with a loud laugh, "that my friend Chauvelin may find Capet at the
chateau, or else you may take a last look at the open country, for
you will not see the sun rise on it to-morrow. It is one or the
other, you know."
She tried not to look at him; the very sight of him filled her
with horror--that blotched, gaunt face of his, the fleshy lips,
that hideous bandage across his face that hid one of his eyes!
She tried not to see him and not to hear him laugh.
Obviously he too laboured under the stress of great excitement.
So far everything had gone well; the prisoner had made no attempt
at escape, and apparently did not mean to play a double game. But
the crucial hour had come, and with it darkness and the mysterious
depths of the forest with their weird sounds and sudden flashes of
ghostly lights. They naturally wrought on the nerves of men like
Heron, whose conscience might have been dormant, but whose ears
were nevertheless filled with the cries of innocent victims
sacrificed to their own lustful ambitions and their blind,
unreasoning hates.
He gave sharp orders to the men to close tip round the carriages,
and then gave the curt word of command:
"En avant!"
Marguerite could but strain her ears to listen. All her senses,
all her faculties had merged into that of hearing, rendering it
doubly keen. It seemed to her that she could distinguish the
faint sound--that even as she listened grew fainter and fainter
yet--of Chauvelin and his squad moving away rapidly into the
thickness of the wood some distance already ahead.
Close to her there was the snorting of horses, the clanging and
noise of moving mounted men. Heron's coach had taken the lead;
she could hear the creaking of its wheels, the calls of the driver
urging his beasts.
The diminished party was moving at foot-pace in the darkness that
seemed to grow denser at every step, and through that silence
which was so full of mysterious sounds.
The carriage rolled and rocked on its springs; Marguerite, giddy
and overtired, lay back with closed eyes, her hand resting in that
of Armand. Time, space and distance had ceased to be; only Death,
the great Lord of all, had remained; he walked on ahead, scythe on
skeleton shoulder, and beckoned patiently, but with a sure, grim
hand.
There was another halt, the coach-wheels groaned and creaked on
their axles, one or two horses reared with the sudden drawing up
of the curb.
"What is it now?" came Heron's hoarse voice through the darkness.
"It is pitch-dark, citizen," was the response from ahead. The
drivers cannot see their horses' ears. They wait to know if they
may light their lanthorns and then lead their horses."
"They can lead their horses," replied Heron roughly, "but I'll
have no lanthorns lighted. We don't know what fools may be
lurking behind trees, hoping to put a bullet through my head--or
yours, sergeant--we don't want to make a lighted target of
ourselves--what? But let the drivers lead their horses, and one
or two of you who are riding greys might dismount too and lead the
way--the greys would show up perhaps in this cursed blackness."
While his orders were being carried out, he called out once more:
"Are we far now from that confounded chapel?"
"We can't be far, citizen; the whole forest is not more than six
leagues wide at any point, and we have gone two since we turned
into it."
"Hush!" Heron's voice suddenly broke in hoarsely. What was that?
Silence, I say. Damn you--can't you hear?"
There was a hush--every ear straining to listen; but the horses
were not still--they continued to champ their bits, to paw the
ground, and to toss their heads, impatient to get on. Only now
and again there would come a lull even through these sounds--a
second or two, mayhap, of perfect, unbroken silence--and then it
seemed as if right through the darkness a mysterious echo sent
back those same sounds--the champing of bits, the pawing of soft
ground, the tossing and snorting of animals, human life that
breathed far out there among the trees.
"It is citizen Chauvelin and his men," said the sergeant after a
while, and speaking in a whisper.
"Silence--I want to hear," came the curt, hoarsely-whispered
command.
Once more every one listened, the men hardly daring to breathe,
clinging to their bridles and pulling on their horses' mouths,
trying to keep them still, and again through the night there came
like a faint echo which seemed to throw back those sounds that
indicated the presence of men and of horses not very far away.
"Yes, it must be citizen Chauvelin," said Heron at last; but the
tone of his voice sounded as if he were anxious and only half
convinced; "but I thought he would be at the chateau by now."
"He may have had to go at foot-pace; it is very dark, citizen
Heron," remarked the sergeant.
"En avant, then," quoth the other; "the sooner we come tip with
him the better."
And the squad of mounted men, the two coaches, the drivers and the
advance section who were leading their horses slowly restarted on
the way. The horses snorted, the bits and stirrups clanged, and
the springs and wheels of the coaches creaked and groaned dismally
as the ramshackle vehicles began once more to plough the carpet of
pine-needles that lay thick upon the road.
But inside the carriage Armand and Marguerite held one another
tightly by the hand.
"It is de Batz--with his friends," she whispered scarce above her
breath.
"De Batz?" he asked vaguely and fearfully, for in the dark he
could not see her face, and as he did not understand why she
should suddenly be talking of de Batz he thought with horror that
mayhap her prophecy anent herself had come true, and that her mind
wearied and over-wrought--had become suddenly unhinged.
"Yes, de Batz," she replied. "Percy sent him a message, through
me, to meet him--here. I am not mad, Armand," she added more
calmly. "Sir Andrew took Percy's letter to de Batz the day that
we started from Paris."
"Great God!" exclaimed Armand, and instinctively, with a sense of
protection, he put his arms round his sister. "Then, if Chauvelin
or the squad is attacked--if--"
"Yes," she said calmly; "if de Batz makes an attack on Chauvelin,
or if he reaches the chateau first and tries to defend it, they
will shoot us ... Armand, and Percy."
"But is the Dauphin at the Chateau d'Ourde?"
"No, no! I think not."
"Then why should Percy have invoked the aid of de Batz? Now,
when--"
"I don't know," she murmured helplessly. "Of course, when he
wrote the letter he could not guess that they would hold us as
hostages. He may have thought that under cover of darkness and of
an unexpected attack he might have saved himself had he been
alone; but now--now that you and I are here-- Oh! it is all so
horrible, and I cannot understand it all."
"Hark!" broke in Armand, suddenly gripping her arm more tightly.
"Halt !" rang the sergeant's voice through the night.
This time there was no mistaking the sound; already it came from
no far distance. It was the sound of a man running and panting,
and now and again calling out as he ran.
For a moment there was stillness in the very air, the wind itself
was hushed between two gusts, even the rain had ceased its
incessant pattering. Heron's harsh voice was raised in the
stillness.
"What is it now?" he demanded.
"A runner, citizen," replied the sergeant, "coming through the
wood from the right."
"From the right?" and the exclamation was accompanied by a volley
of oaths; "the direction of the chateau? Chauvelin has been
attacked; he is sending a messenger back to me. Sergeant--sergeant,
close up round that coach; guard your prisoners as you value your
life, and--"
The rest of his words were drowned in a yell of such violent fury
that the horses, already over-nervous and fidgety, reared in mad
terror, and the men had the greatest difficulty in holding them
in. For a few minutes noisy confusion prevailed, until the men
could quieten their quivering animals with soft words and gentle
pattings.
Then the troopers obeyed, closing up round the coach wherein
brother and sister sat huddled against one another.
One of the men said under his breath:
"Ah! but the citizen agent knows how to curse! One day he will
break his gullet with the fury of his oaths."
In the meanwhile the runner had come nearer, always at the same
breathless speed.
The next moment he was challenged:
"Qui va la?"
"A friend!" he replied, panting and exhausted. "Where is citizen
Heron?"
"Here!" came the reply in a voice hoarse with passionate excitement.
"Come up, damn you. Be quick!"
"A lanthorn, citizen," suggested one of the drivers.
"No--no--not now. Here! Where the devil are we?"
"We are close to the chapel on our left, citizen," said the sergeant.
The runner, whose eyes were no doubt accustomed to the gloom, had
drawn nearer to the carriage.
"The gates of the chateau," he said, still somewhat breathlessly,
"are just opposite here on the right, citizen. I have just come
through them."
"Speak up, man!" and Heron's voice now sounded as if choked with
passion. "Citizen Chauvelin sent you?"
"Yes. He bade me tell you that he has gained access to the
chateau, and that Capet is not there."
A series of citizen Heron's choicest oaths interrupted the man's
speech. Then he was curtly ordered to proceed, and he resumed his
report.
"Citizen Chauvelin rang at the door of the chateau; after a while
he was admitted by an old servant, who appeared to be in charge,
but the place seemed otherwise absolutely deserted--only--"
"Only what? Go on; what is it?"
"As we rode through the park it seemed to us as if we were being
watched, and followed. We heard distinctly the sound of horses
behind and around us, but we could see nothing; and now, when I
ran back, again I heard. There are others in the park to-night
besides us, citizen."
There was silence after that. It seemed as if the flood of
Heron's blasphemous eloquence had spent itself at last.
"Others in the park!" And now his voice was scarcely above a
whisper, hoarse and trembling. "How many? Could you see?"
"No, citizen, we could not see; but there are horsemen lurking
round the chateau now. Citizen Chauvelin took four men into the
house with him and left the others on guard outside. He bade me
tell you that it might be safer to send him a few more men if you
could spare them. There are a number of disused farm buildings
quite close to the gates, and he suggested that all the horses be
put up there for the night, and that the men come up to the
chateau on foot; it would be quicker and safer, for the darkness
is intense."
Even while the man spoke the forest in the distance seemed to wake
from its solemn silence, the wind on its wings brought sounds of
life and movement different from the prowling of beasts or the
screeching of night-birds. It was the furtive advance of men, the
quick whispers of command, of encouragement, of the human animal
preparing to attack his kind. But all in the distance still, all
muffled, all furtive as yet.
"Sergeant!" It was Heron's voice, but it too was subdued, and
almost calm now; "can you see the chapel?"
"More clearly, citizen," replied the sergeant. "It is on our
left; quite a small building, I think."
"Then dismount, and walk all round it. See that there are no
windows or door in the rear."
There was a prolonged silence, during which those distant sounds
of men moving, of furtive preparations for attack, struck
distinctly through the night.
Marguerite and Armand, clinging to one another, not knowing what
to think, nor yet what to fear, heard the sounds mingling with
those immediately round them, and Marguerite murmured under her
breath:
"It is de Batz and some of his friends; but what can they do?
What can Percy hope for now?"
But of Percy she could hear and see nothing. The darkness and the
silence had drawn their impenetrable veil between his unseen
presence and her own consciousness. She could see the coach in
which he was, but Heron's hideous personality, his head with its
battered hat and soiled bandage, had seemed to obtrude itself
always before her gaze, blotting out from her mind even the
knowledge that Percy was there not fifty yards away from her.
So strong did this feeling grow in her that presently the awful
dread seized upon her that he was no longer there; that he was
dead, worn out with fatigue and illness brought on by terrible
privations, or if not dead that he had swooned, that he was
unconscious--his spirit absent from his body. She remembered that
frightful yell of rage and hate which Heron had uttered a few
minutes ago. Had the brute vented his fury on his helpless,
weakened prisoner, and stilled forever those lips that, mayhap,
had mocked him to the last?
Marguerite could not guess. She hardly knew what to hope.
Vaguely, when the thought of Percy lying dead beside his enemy
floated through her aching brain, she was almost conscious of a
sense of relief at the thought that at least he would be spared
the pain of the final, inevitable cataclysm.
CHAPTER XLVII
THE CHAPEL OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE
The sergeant's voice broke in upon her misery.
The man had apparently done as the citizen agent had ordered, and
had closely examined the little building that stood on the left--a
vague, black mass more dense than the surrounding gloom.
"It is all solid stone, citizen," he said; "iron gates in front,
closed but not locked, rusty key in the lock, which turns quite
easily; no windows or door in the rear."
"You are quite sure?"
"Quite certain, citizen; it is plain, solid stone at the back, and
the only possible access to the interior is through the iron gate
in front."
"Good."
Marguerite could only just hear Heron speaking to the sergeant.
Darkness enveloped every form and deadened every sound. Even the
harsh voice which she had learned to loathe and to dread sounded
curiously subdued and unfamiliar. Heron no longer seemed inclined
to storm, to rage, or to curse. The momentary danger, the thought
of failure, the hope of revenge, had apparently cooled his temper,
strengthened his determination, and forced his voice down to a
little above a whisper. He gave his orders clearly and firmly,
and the words came to Marguerite on the wings of the wind with
strange distinctness, borne to her ears by the darkness itself,
and the hush that lay over the wood.
"Take half a dozen men with you, sergeant," she beard him say,
"and join citizen Chauvelin at the chateau. You can stable your
horses in the farm buildings close by, as he suggests and run to
him on foot. You and your men should quickly get the best of a
handful of midnight prowlers; you are well armed and they only
civilians. Tell citizen Chauvelin that I in the meanwhile will
take care of our prisoners. The Englishman I shall put in irons
and lock up inside the chapel, with five men under the command of
your corporal to guard him, the other two I will drive myself
straight to Crecy with what is left of the escort. You
understand?"
"Yes, citizen."
"We may not reach Crecy until two hours after midnight, but
directly I arrive I will send citizen Chauvelin further
reinforcements, which, however, I hope may not necessary, but
which will reach him in the early morning. Even if he is
seriously attacked, he can, with fourteen men he will have with
him, hold out inside the castle through the night. Tell him also
that at dawn two prisoners who will be with me will be shot in the
courtyard of the guard-house at Crecy, but that whether he has got
hold of Capet or not he had best pick up the Englishman in the
chapel in the morning and bring him straight to Crecy, where I
shall be awaiting him ready to return to Paris. You understand?"
"Yes, citizen."
"Then repeat what I said."
"I am to take six men with me to reinforce citizen Chauvelin now."
"Yes."
"And you, citizen, will drive straight back to Crecy, and will
send us further reinforcements from there, which will reach us in
the early morning."
"Yes."
"We are to hold the chateau against those unknown marauders if
necessary until the reinforcements come from Crecy. Having routed
them, we return here, pick up the Englishman whom you will have
locked up in the chapel under a strong guard commanded by Corporal
Cassard, and join you forthwith at Crecy."
"This, whether citizen Chauvelin has got hold of Capet or not."
"Yes, citizen, I understand," concluded the sergeant
imperturbably; "and I am also to tell citizen Chauvelin that the
two prisoners will be shot at dawn in the courtyard of the
guard-house at Crecy."
"Yes. That is all. Try to find the leader of the attacking
party, and bring him along to Crecy with the Englishman; but
unless they are in very small numbers do not trouble about the
others. Now en avant; citizen Chauvelin might be glad of your
help. And--stay--order all the men to dismount, and take the
horses out of one of the coaches, then let the men you are taking
with you each lead a horse, or even two, and stable them all in
the farm buildings. I shall not need them, and could not spare
any of my men for the work later on. Remember that, above all,
silence is the order. When you are ready to start, come back to
me here."
The sergeant moved away, and Marguerite heard him transmitting the
citizen agent's orders to the soldiers. The dismounting was
carried on in wonderful silence--for silence had been one of the
principal commands--only one or two words reached her ears.
"First section and first half of second section fall in, right
wheel. First section each take two horses on the lead. Quietly
now there; don't tug at his bridle--let him go."
And after that a simple report:
"All ready, citizen!"
"Good!" was the response. "Now detail your corporal and two men
to come here to me, so that we may put the Englishman in irons,
and take him at once to the chapel, and four men to stand guard at
the doors of the other coach."
The necessary orders were given, and after that there came the
curt command:
"En avant!"
The sergeant, with his squad and all the horses, was slowly moving
away in the night. The horses' hoofs hardly made a noise on the
soft carpet of pine-needles and of dead fallen leaves, but the
champing of the bits was of course audible, and now and then the
snorting of some poor, tired horse longing for its stable.
Somehow in Marguerite's fevered mind this departure of a squad of
men seemed like the final flitting of her last hope; the slow
agony of the familiar sounds, the retreating horses and soldiers
moving away amongst the shadows, took on a weird significance.
Heron had given his last orders. Percy, helpless and probably
unconscious, would spend the night in that dank chapel, while she
and Armand would be taken back to Crecy, driven to death like some
insentient animals to the slaughter.
When the grey dawn would first begin to peep through the branches
of the pines Percy would be led back to Paris and the guillotine,
and she and Armand will have been sacrificed to the hatred and
revenge of brutes.
The end had come, and there was nothing more to be done.
Struggling, fighting, scheming, could be of no avail now; but she
wanted to get to her husband; she wanted to be near him now that
death was so imminent both for him and for her.
She tried to envisage it all, quite calmly, just as she knew that
Percy would wish her to do. The inevitable end was there, and she
would not give to these callous wretches here the gratuitous
spectacle of a despairing woman fighting blindly against adverse
Fate.
But she wanted to go to her husband. She felt that she could face
death more easily on the morrow if she could but see him once, if
she could but look once more into the eyes that had mirrored so
much enthusiasm, such absolute vitality and whole-hearted
self-sacrifice, and such an intensity of love and passion; if she
Could but kiss once more those lips that had smiled through life,
and would smile, she knew, even in the face of death.
She tried to open the carriage door, but it was held from without,
and a harsh voice cursed her, ordering her to sit still.
But she could lean out of the window and strain her eyes to see.
They were by now accustomed to the gloom, the dilated pupils
taking in pictures of vague forms moving like ghouls in the
shadows. The other coach was not far, and she could hear Heron's
voice, still subdued and calm, and the curses of the men. But not
a sound from Percy.
"I think the prisoner is unconscious," she heard one of the men say.
"Lift him out of the carriage, then," was Heron's curt command;
"and you go and throw open the chapel gates."
Marguerite saw it all. The movement, the crowd of men, two vague,
black forms lifting another one, which appeared heavy and inert,
out of the coach, and carrying it staggering up towards the
chapel.
Then the forms disappeared, swallowed up by the more dense mass of
the little building, merged in with it, immovable as the stone
itself.
Only a few words reached her now.
"He is unconscious."
"Leave him there, then; he'll not move!"
"Now close the gates!"
There was a loud clang, and Marguerite gave a piercing scream.
She tore at the handle of the carriage door.
"Armand, Armand, go to him!" she cried; and all her self-control,
all her enforced calm, vanished in an outburst of wild, agonising
passion. "Let me get to him, Armand! This is the end; get me to
him, in the name of God!"
"Stop that woman screaming," came Heron's voice clearly through
the night. "Put her and the other prisoner in irons--quick!"
But while Marguerite expended her feeble strength in a mad,
pathetic effort to reach her husband, even now at this last hour,
when all hope was dead and Death was so nigh, Armand had already
wrenched the carriage door from the grasp of the soldier who was
guarding it. He was of the South, and knew the trick of charging
an unsuspecting adversary with head thrust forward like a bull
inside a ring. Thus he knocked one of the soldiers down and made a
quick rush for the chapel gates.
The men, attacked so suddenly and in such complete darkness, did
not wait for orders. They closed in round Armand; one man drew
his sabre and hacked away with it in aimless rage.
But for the moment he evaded them all, pushing his way through
them, not heeding the blows that came on him from out the
darkness. At last he reached the chapel. With one bound he was
at the gate, his numb fingers fumbling for the lock, which he
could not see.
It was a vigorous blow from Heron's fist that brought him at last
to his knees, and even then his hands did not relax their hold;
they gripped the ornamental scroll of the gate, shook the gate
itself in its rusty hinges, pushed and pulled with the unreasoning
strength of despair. He had a sabre cut across his brow, and the
blood flowed in a warm, trickling stream down his face. But of
this he was unconscious; all that he wanted, all that he was
striving for with agonising heart-beats and cracking sinews, was
to get to his friend, who was lying in there unconscious,
abandoned--dead, perhaps.
"Curse you," struck Heron's voice close to his ear. "Cannot some
of you stop this raving maniac?"
Then it was that the heavy blow on his head caused him a sensation
of sickness, and he fell on his knees, still gripping the ironwork.
Stronger hands than his were forcing him to loosen his hold; blows
that hurt terribly rained on his numbed fingers; he felt himself
dragged away, carried like an inert mass further and further from
that gate which he would have given his lifeblood to force open.
And Marguerite heard all this from the inside of the coach where
she was imprisoned as effectually as was Percy's unconscious body
inside that dark chapel. She could hear the noise and scramble,
and Heron's hoarse commands, the swift sabre strokes as they cut
through the air.
Already a trooper had clapped irons on her wrists, two others held
the carriage doors. Now Armand was lifted back into the coach,
and she could not even help to make him comfortable, though as he
was lifted in she heard him feebly moaning. Then the Carriage
doors were banged to again.
"Do not allow either of the prisoners out again, on peril of your
lives!" came with a vigorous curse from Heron.
After which there was a moment's silence; whispered commands came
spasmodically in deadened sound to her ear.
"Will the key turn?"
"Yes, citizen."
"All secure?"
"Yes, citizen. The prisoner is groaning."
"Let him groan."
"The empty coach, citizen? The horses have been taken out."
"Leave it standing where it is, then; citizen Chauvelin will need
it in the morning."
"Armand," whispered Marguerite inside the coach, "did you see
Percy?"
"It was so dark," murmured Armand feebly; "but I saw him, just
inside the gates, where they had laid him down. I heard him
groaning. Oh, my God!"
"Hush, dear!" she said. "We can do nothing more, only die, as he
lived, bravely and with a smile on our lips, in memory of him."
"Number 35 is wounded, citizen," said one of the men.
"Curse the fool who did the mischief," was the placid response.
"Leave him here with the guard."
"How many of you are there left, then?" asked the same voice a
moment later.
"Only two, citizen; if one whole section remains with me at the
chapel door, and also the wounded man."
"Two are enough for me, and five are not too many at the chapel
door." And Heron's coarse, cruel laugh echoed against the stone
walls of the little chapel. "Now then, one of you get into the
coach, and the other go to the horses' heads; and remember,
Corporal Cassard, that you and your men who stay here to guard
that chapel door are answerable to the whole nation with your
lives for the safety of the Englishman."
The carriage door was thrown open, and a soldier stepped in and
sat down opposite Marguerite and Armand. Heron in the meanwhile
was apparently scrambling up the box. Marguerite could hear him
muttering curses as he groped for the reins, and finally gathered
them into his hand.
The springs of the coach creaked and groaned as the vehicle slowly
swung round; the wheels ploughed deeply through the soft carpet of
dead leaves.
Marguerite felt Armand's inert body leaning heavily against her
shoulder.
"Are you in pain, dear?" she asked softly.
He made no reply, and she thought that he had fainted. It was
better so; at least the next dreary hours would flit by for him in
the blissful state of unconsciousness. Now at last the heavy
carriage began to move more evenly. The soldier at the horses'
heads was stepping along at a rapid pace.
Marguerite would have given much even now to look back once more
at the dense black mass, blacker and denser than any shadow that
had ever descended before on God's earth, which held between its
cold, cruel walls all that she loved in the world.
But her wrists were fettered by the irons, which cut into her
flesh when she moved. She could no longer lean out of the window,
and she could not even hear. The whole forest was hushed, the
wind was lulled to rest; wild beasts and night-birds were silent
and still. And the wheels of the coach creaked in the ruts,
bearing Marguerite with every turn further and further away from
the man who lay helpless in the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre.
CHAPTER XLVIII
THE WANING MOON
Armand had wakened from his attack of faintness, and brother and
sister sat close to one another, shoulder touching shoulder. That
sense of nearness was the one tiny spark of comfort to both of
them on this dreary, dreary way.
The coach had lumbered on unceasingly since all eternity--so it
seemed to them both. Once there had been a brief halt, when
Heron's rough voice had ordered the soldier at the horses' heads
to climb on the box beside him, and once--it had been a very
little while ago--a terrible cry of pain and terror had rung
through the stillness of the night. Immediately after that the
horses had been put at a more rapid pace, but it had seemed to
Marguerite as if that one cry of pain had been repeated by several
others which sounded more feeble and soon appeared to be dying
away in the distance behind.
The soldier who sat opposite to them must have heard the cry too,
for he jumped up, as if wakened from sleep, and put his head out
of the window.
"Did you hear that cry, citizen?" he asked.
But only a curse answered him, and a peremptory command not to
lose sight of the prisoners by poking his head out of the window.
"Did you hear the cry?" asked the soldier of Marguerite as he made
haste to obey.
"Yes! What could it be?" she murmured.
"It seems dangerous to drive so fast in this darkness," muttered
the soldier.
After which remark he, with the stolidity peculiar to his kind,
figuratively shrugged his shoulders, detaching himself, as it
were, of the whole affair.
"We should be out of the forest by now," he remarked in an
undertone a little while later; "the way seemed shorter before."
Just then the coach gave an unexpected lurch to one side, and
after much groaning and creaking of axles and springs it came to a
standstill, and the citizen agent was heard cursing loudly and
then scrambling down from the box.
The next moment the carriage-door was pulled open from without,
and the harsh voice called out peremptorily:
"Citizen soldier, here--quick!--quick!--curse you!--we'll have one
of the horses down if you don't hurry!"
The soldier struggled to his feet; it was never good to be slow in
obeying the citizen agent's commands. He was half-asleep and no
doubt numb with cold and long sitting still; to accelerate his
movements he was suddenly gripped by the arm and dragged
incontinently out of the coach.
Then the door was slammed to again, either by a rough hand or a
sudden gust of wind, Marguerite could not tell; she heard a cry of
rage and one of terror, and Heron's raucous curses. She cowered
in the corner of the carriage with Armand's head against her
shoulder, and tried to close her ears to all those hideous sounds.
Then suddenly all the sounds were hushed and all around everything
became perfectly calm and still--so still that at first the
silence oppressed her with a vague, nameless dread. It was as if
Nature herself had paused, that she might listen; and the silence
became more and more absolute, until Marguerite could hear
Armand's soft, regular breathing close to her ear.
The window nearest to her was open, and as she leaned forward with
that paralysing sense of oppression a breath of pure air struck
full upon her nostrils and brought with it a briny taste as if
from the sea.
It was not quite so dark; and there was a sense as of open country
stretching out to the limits of the horizon. Overhead a vague
greyish light suffused the sky, and the wind swept the clouds in
great rolling banks right across that light.
Marguerite gazed upward with a more calm feeling that was akin to
gratitude. That pale light, though so wan and feeble, was thrice
welcome after that inky blackness wherein shadows were less dark
than the lights. She watched eagerly the bank of clouds driven by
the dying gale.
The light grew brighter and faintly golden, now the banks of
clouds--storm-tossed and fleecy--raced past one another, parted
and reunited like veils of unseen giant dancers waved by hands
that controlled infinite space--advanced and rushed and slackened
speed again--united and finally tore asunder to reveal the waning
moon, honey-coloured and mysterious, rising as if from an
invisible ocean far away.
The wan pale light spread over the wide stretch of country,
throwing over it as it spread dull tones of indigo and of blue.
Here and there sparse, stunted trees with fringed gaunt arms
bending to prevailing winds proclaimed the neighbourhood of the
sea.
Marguerite gazed on the picture which the waning moon had so
suddenly revealed; but she gazed with eyes that knew not what they
saw. The moon had risen on her right--there lay the east--and the
coach must have been travelling due north, whereas Crecy ...
In the absolute silence that reigned she could perceive from far,
very far away, the sound of a church clock striking the midnight
hour; and now it seemed to her supersensitive senses that a firm
footstep was treading the soft earth, a footstep that drew
nearer--and then nearer still.
Nature did pause to listen. The wind was hushed, the night-birds
in the forest had gone to rest. Marguerite's heart beat so fast
that its throbbings choked her, and a dizziness clouded her
consciousness.
But through this state of torpor she heard the opening of the
carriage door, she felt the onrush of that pure, briny air, and
she felt a long, burning kiss upon her hands.
She thought then that she was really dead, and that God in His
infinite love had opened to her the outer gates of Paradise.
"My love!" she murmured.
She was leaning back in the carriage and her eyes were closed, but
she felt that firm fingers removed the irons from her wrists, and
that a pair of warm lips were pressed there in their stead.
"There, little woman, that's better so--is it not? Now let me get
hold of poor old Armand!"
It was Heaven, of course, else how could earth hold such heavenly
joy?
"Percy!" exclaimed Armand in an awed voice.
"Hush, dear!" murmured Marguerite feebly; "we are in Heaven you
and I--"
Whereupon a ringing laugh woke the echoes of the silent night.
"In Heaven, dear heart!" And the voice had a delicious earthly
ring in its whole-hearted merriment. "Please God, you'll both be
at Portel with me before dawn."
Then she was indeed forced to believe. She put out her hands and
groped for him, for it was dark inside the carriage; she groped,
and felt his massive shoulders leaning across the body of the
coach, while his fingers busied themselves with the irons on
Armand's wrist.
"Don't touch that brute's filthy coat with your dainty fingers,
dear heart," he said gaily. "Great Lord! I have worn that
wretch's clothes for over two hours; I feel as if the dirt had
penetrated to my bones."
Then with that gesture so habitual to him he took her head between
his two hands, and drawing her to him until the wan light from
without lit up the face that he worshipped, he gazed his fill into
her eyes.
She could only see the outline of his head silhouetted against the
wind-tossed sky; she could not see his eyes, nor his lips, but she
felt his nearness, and the happiness of that almost caused her to
swoon.
"Come out into the open, my lady fair," he murmured, and though
she could not see, she could feel that he smiled; "let God's pure
air blow through your hair and round your dear head. Then, if you
can walk so far, there's a small half-way house close by here. I
have knocked up the none too amiable host. You and Armand could
have half an hour's rest there before we go further on our way."
"But you, Percy?--are you safe?"
"Yes, m'dear, we are all of us safe until morning-time enough to
reach Le Portel, and to be aboard the Day-Dream before mine
amiable friend M. Chambertin has discovered his worthy colleague
lying gagged and bound inside the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre.
By Gad! how old Heron will curse--the moment he can open his
mouth!"
He half helped, half lifted her out of the carriage. The strong
pure air suddenly rushing right through to her lungs made her feel
faint, and she almost fell. But it was good to feel herself
falling, when one pair of arms amongst the millions on the earth
were there to receive her.
"Can you walk, dear heart?" he asked. "Lean well on me--it is not
far, and the rest will do you good."
"But you, Percy--"
He laughed, and the most complete joy of living seemed to resound
through that laugh. Her arm was in his, and for one moment he
stood still while his eyes swept the far reaches of the country,
the mellow distance still wrapped in its mantle of indigo, still
untouched by the mysterious light of the waning moon.
He pressed her arm against his heart, but his right hand was
stretched out towards the black wall of the forest behind him,
towards the dark crests of the pines in which the dying wind sent
its last mournful sighs.
"Dear heart," he said, and his voice quivered with the intensity
of his excitement, "beyond the stretch of that wood, from far away
over there, there are cries and moans of anguish that come to my
ear even now. But for you, dear, I would cross that wood to-night
and re-enter Paris to-morrow. But for you, dear--but for you," he
reiterated earnestly as he pressed her closer to him, for a bitter
cry had risen to her lips.
She went on in silence. Her happiness was great--as great as was
her pain. She had found him again, the man whom she worshipped,
the husband whom she thought never to see again on earth. She had
found him, and not even now--not after those terrible weeks of
misery and suffering unspeakable--could she feel that love had
triumphed over the wild, adventurous spirit, the reckless
enthusiasm, the ardour of self-sacrifice.
CHAPTER XLIX
THE LAND OF ELDORADO
It seems that in the pocket of Heron's coat there was a
letter-case with some few hundred francs. It was amusing to think
that the brute's money helped to bribe the ill-tempered keeper of
the half-way house to receive guests at midnight, and to ply them
well with food, drink, and the shelter of a stuffy coffee-room.
Marguerite sat silently beside her husband, her hand in his.
Armand, opposite to them, had both elbows on the table. He looked
pale and wan, with a bandage across his forehead, and his glowing
eyes were resting on his chief.
"Yes! you demmed young idiot," said Blakeney merrily, "you nearly
upset my plan in the end, with your yelling and screaming outside
the chapel gates."
"I wanted to get to you, Percy. I thought those brutes had got you
there inside that building."
"Not they!" he exclaimed. "It was my friend Heron whom they had
trussed and gagged, and whom my amiable friend M. Chambertin will
find in there to-morrow morning. By Gad! I would go back if only
for the pleasure of hearing Heron curse when first the gag is
taken from his mouth."
"But how was it all done, Percy? And there was de Batz--"
"De Batz was part of the scheme I had planned for mine own escape
before I knew that those brutes meant to take Marguerite and you
as hostages for my good behaviour. What I hoped then was that
under cover of a tussle or a fight I could somehow or other
contrive to slip through their fingers. It was a chance, and you
know my belief in bald-headed Fortune, with the one solitary hair.
Well, I meant to grab that hair; and at the worst I could but die
in the open and not caged in that awful hole like some noxious
vermin. I knew that de Batz would rise to the bait. I told him in
my letter that the Dauphin would be at the Chateau d'Ourde this
night, but that I feared the revolutionary Government had got wind
of this fact, and were sending an armed escort to bring the lad
away. This letter Ffoulkes took to him; I knew that he would make
a vigorous effort to get the Dauphin into his hands, and that
during the scuffle that one hair on Fortune's head would for one
second only, mayhap, come within my reach. I had so planned the
expedition that we were bound to arrive at the forest of Boulogne
by nightfall, and night is always a useful ally. But at the
guard-house of the Rue Ste. Anne I realised for the first time
that those brutes had pressed me into a tighter corner than I had
pre-conceived."
He paused, and once again that look of recklessness swept over his
face, and his eyes--still hollow and circled--shone with the
excitement of past memories.
"I was such a weak, miserable wretch, then," he said, in answer to
Marguerite's appeal. "I had to try and build up some strength,
when--Heaven forgive me for the sacrilege--I had unwittingly
risked your precious life, dear heart, in that blind endeavour to
save mine own. By Gad! it was no easy task in that jolting
vehicle with that noisome wretch beside me for sole company; yet I
ate and I drank and I slept for three days and two nights, until
the hour when in the darkness I struck Heron from behind,
half-strangled him first, then gagged him, and finally slipped
into his filthy coat and put that loathsome bandage across my
head, and his battered hat above it all. The yell he gave when
first I attacked him made every horse rear--you must remember
it--the noise effectually drowned our last scuffle in the coach.
Chauvelin was the only man who might have suspected what had
occurred, but he had gone on ahead, and bald-headed Fortune had
passed by me, and I had managed to grab its one hair. After that
it was all quite easy. The sergeant and the soldiers had seen
very little of Heron and nothing of me; it did not take a great
effort to deceive them, and the darkness of the night was my most
faithful friend. His raucous voice was not difficult to imitate,
and darkness always muffles and changes every tone. Anyway, it
was not likely that those loutish soldiers would even remotely
suspect the trick that was being played on them. The citizen
agent's orders were promptly and implicitly obeyed. The men never
even thought to wonder that after insisting on an escort of twenty
he should drive off with two prisoners and only two men to guard
them. If they did wonder, it was not theirs to question. Those
two troopers are spending an uncomfortable night somewhere in the
forest of Boulogne, each tied to a tree, and some two leagues
apart one from the other. And now," he added gaily, "en voiture,
my fair lady; and you, too, Armand. 'Tis seven leagues to Le
Portel, and we must be there before dawn."
"Sir Andrew's intention was to make for Calais first, there to
open communication with the Day-Dream and then for Le Portel,"
said Marguerite; "after that he meant to strike back for the
Chateau d'Ourde in search of me."
"Then we'll still find him at Le Portel--I shall know how to lay
hands on him; but you two must get aboard the Day-Dream at once,
for Ffoulkes and I can always look after ourselves."
It was one hour after midnight when--refreshed with food and
rest--Marguerite, Armand and Sir Percy left the half-way house.
Marguerite was standing in the doorway ready to go. Percy and
Armand had gone ahead to bring the coach along.
"Percy," whispered Armand, "Marguerite does not know?"
"Of course she does not, you young fool," retorted Percy lightly.
"If you try and tell her I think I would smash your head."
"But you--" said the young man with sudden vehemence; "can you
bear the sight of me? My God! when I think--"
"Don't think, my good Armand--not of that anyway. Only think of
the woman for whose sake you committed a crime--if she is pure and
good, woo her and win her--not just now, for it were foolish to go
back to Paris after her, but anon, when she comes to England and
all these past days are forgotten--then love her as much as you
can, Armand. Learn your lesson of love better than I have learnt
mine; do not cause Jeanne Lange those tears of anguish which my
mad spirit brings to your sister's eyes. You were right, Armand,
when you said that I do not know how to love!"
But on board the Day-Dream, when all danger was past, Marguerite
felt that he did.
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