The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy (the little red hen read aloud .txt) 📗

was, for the lights were scanty and burnt dim in the open air. The others only heard⁠—received this arrow-shot aimed at their idol⁠—with for the most part a kind of dull resentment. The women were more loudly indignant. One or two young devotees gave a shrill cry or so of passionate indignation.

“Shame! Treason!”

“Guillotine, forsooth! The enemies of the people all deserve the guillotine!”

And the enemies of the people were those who dared raise their voice against their Chosen, their Fetish, the great, incomprehensible Mystery.

Citizen Rateau was once more rendered helpless by a tearing fit of coughing.

But from afar, down the street, there came one or two assenting cries.

“Well spoken, young man! As for me, I never trusted that bloodhound!”

And a woman’s voice added shrilly: “His hands reek of blood. A butcher, I call him!”

“And a tyrant!” assented the original spokesman. “His aim is a dictatorship, with his minions hanging around him like abject slaves. Why not Versailles, then? How are we better off now than in the days of kingship? Then, at least, the streets of Paris did not stink of blood. Then, at least⁠—”

But the speaker got no father. A hard crust of very dry, black bread, aimed by a sure hand, caught him full in the face, whilst a hoarse voice shouted lustily:

“Hey there, citizen! If thou’lt not hold thy tongue ’tis thy neck that will be reeking with blood o’er soon, I’ll warrant!”

“Well said, citizen Rateau!” put in another, speaking with his mouth full, but with splendid conviction. “Every word uttered by that jackanapes yonder reeks of treason!”

“Shame!” came from every side.

“Where are the agents of the Committee of Public Safety? Men have been thrown into prison for less than this.”

“Shame!”

“Denounce him!”

“Take him to the nearest Section!”

“Ere he wreaks mischief more lasting than words!” cried a woman, who tried as she spoke to give her utterance its full, sinister meaning.

“Shame! Treason!” came soon from every side. Voices were raised all down the length of the tables⁠—shrill, full-throated, even dull and indifferent. Some really felt indignation⁠—burning, ferocious indignation; others only made a noise for the sheer pleasure of it, and because the past five years had turned cries of “Treason!” and of “Shame!” into a habit. Not that they knew what the disturbance was about. The street was long and narrow, and the cries came some way from where they were sitting; but when cries of “Treason!” flew through the air these days, ’twas best to join in, lest those cries turned against one, and the next stage in the proceedings became the approach of an Agent of the Sûreté, the nearest prison, and the inevitable guillotine.

So everyone cried “Shame!” and “Treason!” whilst those who had first dared to raise their voices against the popular demagogue drew together into a closer batch, trying no doubt to gather courage through one another’s proximity. Eager, excited, a small compact group of two men⁠—one a mere boy⁠—and three women, it almost seemed as if they were suffering from some temporary hallucination. How else would five isolated persons⁠—three of them in their first youth⁠—have dared to brave a multitude?

In truth Bertrand Moncrif, face to face as he believed with martyrdom, was like one transfigured. Always endowed with good looks, he appeared like a veritable young prophet, haranguing the multitude and foretelling its doom. The gloom partly hid his figure, but his hand was outstretched, and the outline of an avenging finger pointing straight out before him, appeared in the weird light of the resin torch, as if carved in glowing lava. Now and then the fitful light caught the sharp outline of his face⁠—the straight nose and pointed chin, and brown hair matted with the sweat of enthusiasm.

Beside him Régine, motionless and white as a wraith, appeared alive only by her eyes, which were fixed on her beloved. In the hulking giant with the asthmatic cough she had recognised the man to whom she had ministered earlier in the day. Somehow, his presence here and now seemed to her sinister and threatening. It seemed as if all day he had been dogging her footsteps: first at the soothsayer’s, then he surely must have followed her down the street. Then he had inspired her with pity; now his hideous face, his grimy hands, that croaking voice and churchyard cough, filled her with nameless terror.

He appeared to her excited fancy like a veritable spectre of death, hovering over Bertrand and over those she loved. With one arm she tried to press her brother Jacques closer to her breast, to quench his eagerness and solence his foolhardy tongue. But he, like a fierce, impatient young animal, fought to free himself from her loving embrace, shouted approval to Bertrand’s oratory, played his part of the young propagandist, heedless of Régine’s warnings and of his mother’s tears. Next to Régine, her sister Joséphine⁠—a girl not out of her ’teens, with all the eagerness and exaggeration of extreme youth, was shouting quite as loudly as her brother Jacques, clapping her small hands together, turning glowing, defying, arrogant eyes on the crowd of great unwashed whom she hoped to sway with her ardour and her eloquence.

“Shame on us all!” she cried with passionate vehemence. “Shame on us French women and French men that we should be the abject slaves of such a bloodthirsty tyrant!”

Her mother, pale-faced, delicate, had obviously long since given up all hope of controlling this unruly little crowd. She was too listless, too anemic, had no doubt suffered too much already, to be afraid for herself or for her children. She was past any thought or fear. Her wan face only expressed despair⁠—despair that was absolutely final⁠—and the resignation of silent self-immolation, content to suffer beside those she loved, only praying to be allowed to share their martyrdom, even though she had no part in their enthusiasm.

Bertrand, Joséphine and Jacques had all the ardour of martyrdom. Régine and her mother all its resignation.

III

The Fraternal Supper threatened to end in a free fight,