El Dorado - Baroness Orczy (best ebook reader for surface pro TXT) 📗

“Under torture, I know,” rejoined de Batz placidly, holding his podgy hands to the warm glow of the fire. “For you have started torture in your house of Justice now, eh, friend Héron? You and your friend the Public Prosecutor have gone the whole gamut of devilry⁠—eh?”

“What’s that to you?” retorted the other gruffly.

“Oh, nothing, nothing! I was even proposing to pay you three thousand five hundred livres for the privilege of taking no further interest in what goes on inside this prison!”

“Three thousand five hundred!” ejaculated Héron involuntarily, and this time even his eyes lost their cruelty; they joined issue with the mouth in an expression of hungering avarice.

“Two little zeros added to the thirty-five, which is all you would get for handing me over to your accursed Tribunal,” said de Batz, and, as if thoughtlessly, his hand wandered to the inner pocket of his coat, and a slight rustle as of thin crisp paper brought drops of moisture to the lips of Héron.

“Leave me alone for three weeks and the money is yours,” concluded de Batz pleasantly.

There was silence in the room now. Through the narrow barred window the steely rays of the moon fought with the dim yellow light of the oil lamp, and lit up the pale face of the Committee’s agent with its lines of cruelty in sharp conflict with those of greed.

“Well! is it a bargain?” asked de Batz at last in his usual smooth, oily voice, as he half drew from out his pocket that tempting little bundle of crisp printed paper. “You have only to give me the usual receipt for the money and it is yours.”

Héron gave a vicious snarl.

“It is dangerous, I tell you. That receipt, if it falls into some cursed meddler’s hands, would send me straight to the guillotine.”

“The receipt could only fall into alien hands,” rejoined de Batz blandly, “if I happened to be arrested, and even in that case they could but fall into those of the chief agent of the Committee of General Security, and he hath name Héron. You must take some risks, my friend. I take them too. We are each in the other’s hands. The bargain is quite fair.”

For a moment or two longer Héron appeared to be hesitating whilst de Batz watched him with keen intentness. He had no doubt himself as to the issue. He had tried most of these patriots in his own golden crucible, and had weighed their patriotism against Austrian money, and had never found the latter wanting.

He had not been here tonight if he were not quite sure. This inveterate conspirator in the Royalist cause never took personal risks. He looked on Héron now, smiling to himself the while with perfect satisfaction.

“Very well,” said the Committee’s agent with sudden decision, “I’ll take the money. But on one condition.”

“What is it?”

“That you leave little Capet alone.”

“The Dauphin!”

“Call him what you like,” said Héron, taking a step nearer to de Batz, and from his great height glowering down in fierce hatred and rage upon his accomplice; “call the young devil what you like, but leave us to deal with him.”

“To kill him, you mean? Well, how can I prevent it, my friend?”

“You and your like are always plotting to get him out of here. I won’t have it. I tell you I won’t have it. If the brat disappears I am a dead man. Robespierre and his gang have told me as much. So you leave him alone, or I’ll not raise a finger to help you, but will lay my own hands on your accursed neck.”

He looked so ferocious and so merciless then, that despite himself, the selfish adventurer, the careless self-seeking intriguer, shuddered with a quick wave of unreasoning terror. He turned away from Héron’s piercing gaze, the gaze of a hyena whose prey is being snatched from beneath its nails. For a moment he stared thoughtfully into the fire.

He heard the other man’s heavy footsteps cross and re-cross the narrow room, and was conscious of the long curved shadow creeping up the mildewed wall or retreating down upon the carpetless floor.

Suddenly, without any warning he felt a grip upon his shoulder. He gave a start and almost uttered a cry of alarm which caused Héron to laugh. The Committee’s agent was vastly amused at his friend’s obvious access of fear. There was nothing that he liked better than that he should inspire dread in the hearts of all those with whom he came in contact.

“I am just going on my usual nocturnal round,” he said abruptly. “Come with me, citizen de Batz.”

A certain grim humour was apparent in his face as he proffered this invitation, which sounded like a rough command. As de Batz seemed to hesitate he nodded peremptorily to him to follow. Already he had gone into the hall and picked up his lantern. From beneath his waistcoat he drew forth a bunch of keys, which he rattled impatiently, calling to his friend to come.

“Come, citizen,” he said roughly. “I wish to show you the one treasure in this house which your d⁠⸺⁠d fingers must not touch.”

Mechanically de Batz rose at last. He tried to be master of the terror which was invading his very bones. He would not own to himself even that he was afraid, and almost audibly he kept murmuring to himself that he had no cause for fear.

Héron would never touch him. The spy’s avarice, his greed of money were a perfect safeguard for any man who had the control of millions, and Héron knew, of course, that he could make of this inveterate plotter a comfortable source of revenue for himself. Three weeks would soon be over, and fresh bargains could be made time and again, while de Batz was alive and free.

Héron was still waiting at the door, even whilst de Batz wondered what this nocturnal visitation would reveal to him of atrocity and of outrage. He made a final