Marguerite's aching heart stood still. She felt, more than she heard, the men on the watch preparing for the fight. Her senses told her that each, with sword in hand, was crouching, ready for the spring.
The voice came nearer and nearer; in the vast immensity of these lonely cliffs, with the loud murmur of the sea below, it was impossible to say how near, or how far, nor yet from which direction came that cheerful singer, who sang to God to save his King, whilst he himself was in such deadly danger. Faint at first, the voice grew louder and louder; from time to time a small pebble detached itself apparently from beneath the firm tread of the singer, and went rolling down the rocky cliffs to the beach below.
Marguerite as she heard, felt that her very life was slipping away, as if when that voice drew nearer, when that singer became entrapped . . .
She distinctly heard the click of Desgas' gun close to her. . . .
No! no! no! no! Oh, God in heaven! this cannot be! let Armand's blood then be upon her own head! let her be branded as his murderer! let even he, whom she loved, despise and loathe her for this, but God! oh God! save him at any cost!
With a wild shriek, she sprang to her feet, and darted round the rock, against which she had been cowering; she saw the little red gleam through the chinks of the hut; she ran up to it and fell against its wooden walls, which she began to hammer with clenched fists in an almost maniacal frenzy, while she shouted,—
“Armand! Armand! for God's sake fire! your leader is near! he is coming! he is betrayed! Armand! Armand! fire in Heaven's name!”
She was seized and thrown to the ground. She lay there moaning, bruised, not caring, but still half-sobbing, half-shrieking,—
“Percy, my husband, for God's sake fly! Armand! Armand! why don't you fire?”
“One of you stop that woman screaming,” hissed Chauvelin, who hardly could refrain from striking her.
Something was thrown over her face; she could not breathe, and perforce she was silent.
The bold singer, too, had become silent, warned, no doubt, of his impending danger by Marguerite's frantic shrieks. The men had sprung to their feet, there was no need for further silence on their part; the very cliffs echoed the poor, heart-broken woman's screams.
Chauvelin, with a muttered oath, which boded no good to her, who had dared to upset his most cherished plans, had hastily shouted the word of command,—
“Into it, my men, and let no one escape from that hut alive!”
The moon had once more emerged from between the clouds: the darkness on the cliffs had gone, giving place once more to brilliant, silvery light. Some of the soldiers had rushed to the rough, wooden door of the hut, whilst one of them kept guard over Marguerite.
The door was partially open; one of the soldiers pushed it further, but within all was darkness, the charcoal fire only lighting with a dim, red light the furthest corner of the hut. The soldiers paused automatically at the door, like machines waiting for further orders.
Chauvelin, who was prepared for a violent onslaught from within, and for a vigorous resistance from the four fugitives, under cover of the darkness, was for the moment paralyzed with astonishment when he saw the soldiers standing there at attention, like sentries on guard, whilst not a sound proceeded from the hut.
Filled with strange, anxious foreboding, he, too, went to the door of the hut, and peering into the gloom, he asked quickly,—
“What is the meaning of this?”
“I think, citoyen, that there is no one there now,” replied one of the soldiers imperturbably.
“You have not let those four men go?” thundered Chauvelin, menacingly. “I ordered you to let no man escape alive!—Quick, after them all of you! Quick, in every direction!”
The men, obedient as machines, rushed down the rocky incline towards the beach, some going off to right and left, as fast as their feet could carry them.
“You and your men will pay with your lives for this blunder, citoyen sergeant,” said Chauvelin viciously to the sergeant who had been in charge of the men; “and you, too, citoyen,” he added, turning with a snarl to Desgas, “for disobeying my orders.”
“You ordered us to wait, citoyen, until the tall Englishman arrived and joined the four men in the hut. No one came,” said the sergeant sullenly.
“But I ordered you just now, when the woman screamed, to rush in and let no one escape.”
“But, citoyen, the four men who were there before had been gone some time, I think . . .”
“You think?—You? . . .” said Chauvelin, almost choking with fury, “and you let them go . . .”
“You ordered us to wait, citoyen,” protested the sergeant, “and to implicitly obey your commands on pain of death. We waited.”
“I heard the men creep out of the hut, not many minutes after we took cover, and long before the woman screamed,” he added, as Chauvelin seemed still quite speechless with rage.
“Hark!” said Desgas suddenly.
In the distance the sound of repeated firing was heard. Chauvelin tried to peer along the beach below, but as luck would have it, the fitful moon once more hid her light behind a bank of clouds, and he could see nothing.
“One of you go into the hut and strike a light,” he stammered at last.
Stolidly the sergeant obeyed: he went up to the charcoal fire and lit the small lantern he carried in his belt; it was evident that the hut was quite empty.
“Which way did they go?” asked Chauvelin.
“I could not tell, citoyen,” said the sergeant; “they went straight down the cliff first, then disappeared behind some boulders.”
“Hush! what was that?”
All three men listened attentively. In the far, very far distance, could be heard faintly echoing and already dying away, the quick, sharp splash of half a dozen oars. Chauvelin took out his handkerchief and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
“The schooner's boat!” was all he gasped.
Evidently Armand St. Just and his three companions had managed to creep along the side of the cliffs, whilst the men, like true soldiers of the well-drilled Republican army, had with blind obedience, and in fear of their lives, implicitly obeyed Chauvelin's orders—to wait for the tall Englishman, who was the important capture.
They had no doubt reached one of the creeks which jut far out to sea on this coast at intervals; behind this, the boat of the Day Dream must have been on the look-out for them, and they were by now safely on board the British schooner.
As if to confirm this last supposition, the dull boom of a gun was heard from out at sea.
“The schooner, citoyen,” said Desgas, quietly; “she's off.”
It needed all Chauvelin's nerve and presence of mind not to give way to a useless and undignified access of rage. There was no doubt now, that once again, that accursed British head had completely outwitted him. How he had contrived to reach the hut, without being seen by one of the thirty soldiers who guarded the spot, was more than Chauvelin could conceive. That he had done so before the thirty men had arrived on the cliff was, of course, fairly clear, but how he had come over in Reuben Goldstein's cart, all the way from Calais, without being sighted by the various patrols on duty was impossible of explanation. It really seemed as if some potent Fate watched over that daring Scarlet Pimpernel, and his astute enemy almost felt a superstitious shudder pass through him, as he looked round at the towering cliffs, and the loneliness of this outlying coast.
But surely this was reality! and the year of grace 1792: there were no
fairies and hobgoblins about. Chauvelin and his thirty men had all heard
with their own ears that accursed voice singing “God save the King,”
fully twenty minutes after they had all taken cover around the hut; by
that time the four fugitives must have reached the creek, and got into
the boat, and the nearest creek was more than a mile from the hut.
Where had that daring singer got to? Unless Satan himself had lent him wings, he could not have covered that mile on a rocky cliff in the space of two minutes; and only two minutes had elapsed between his song and the sound of the boat's oars away at sea. He must have remained behind, and was even now hiding somewhere about the cliffs; the patrols were still about, he would still be sighted, no doubt. Chauvelin felt hopeful once again.
One or two of the men, who had run after the fugitives, were now slowly working their way up the cliff: one of them reached Chauvelin's side, at the very moment that this hope arose in the astute diplomatist's heart.
“We were too late, citoyen,” the soldier said, “we reached the beach just before the moon was hidden by that bank of clouds. The boat had undoubtedly been on the look-out behind that first creek, a mile off, but she had shoved off some time ago, when we got to the beach, and was already some way out to sea. We fired after her, but of course, it was no good. She was making straight and quickly for the schooner. We saw her very clearly in the moonlight.”
“Yes,” said Chauvelin, with eager impatience, “she had shoved off some time ago, you said, and the nearest creek is a mile further on.”
“Yes, citoyen! I ran all the way, straight to the beach, though I guessed the boat would have waited somewhere near the creek, as the tide would reach there earliest. The boat must have shoved off some minutes before the woman began to scream.”
Some minutes before the woman began to scream! Then Chauvelin’s hopes had not deceived him. The Scarlet Pimpernel may have contrived to send the fugitives on ahead by the boat, but he himself had not had time to reach it; he was still on shore, and all the roads were well patrolled. At any rate, all was not yet lost, and would not be, whilst that impudent Britisher was still on French soil.
“Bring the light in here!” he commanded eagerly, as he once more entered the hut.
The sergeant brought his lantern, and together the two men explored the little place: with a rapid glance Chauvelin noted its contents: the cauldron placed close under an aperture in the wall, and containing the last few dying embers of burned charcoal, a couple of stools, overturned as if in the haste of sudden departure, then the fisherman's tools and his nets lying in one corner, and beside them, something small and white.
“Pick that up,” said Chauvelin to the sergeant, pointing to this white scrap, “and bring it to me.”
It was a crumpled piece of paper, evidently forgotten there by the fugitives, in their hurry to get away. The sergeant, much awed by the citoyen's obvious rage and impatience, picked the paper up and handed it respectfully to Chauvelin.
“Read it, sergeant,” said the latter curtly.
“It is almost illegible, citoyen . . . a fearful scrawl. . . .”
“I ordered you to read it,” repeated Chauvelin, viciously.
The sergeant, by the light of his lantern, began deciphering the few hastily scrawled words.
[BLANK LINE ABOVE] “I cannot quite reach you, without risking your lives and endangering the success of your rescue. When you receive this, wait two minutes, then creep out of the hut one by one, turn to your left sharply, and creep cautiously down the cliff; keep to the left all the time, till you reach the first rock, which you see jutting far out to sea—behind it in the creek the boat is on the look-out for you—give a long, sharp whistle—she will come up—get into her—my men will row you to the schooner, and thence to England and safety—once on board the Day Dream send the boat back for me, tell my men that I shall be at the creek, which is in a direct line opposite the 'Chat Gris' near Calais. They know it. I shall be there as soon as possible—they must wait for me at a safe distance out at sea, till they hear the usual signal. Do not delay—and obey these instructions implicitly.” [BLANK LINE BELOW]
“Then there is the signature, citoyen,” added the sergeant, as he handed the paper back to Chauvelin.
But the............