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

Mother!” Robespierre exclaimed at last impatiently, and descended hastily from the dais. He approached the old necromancer, seized her by the arm, thrust his head in front of hers in an endeavour to see something which apparently was revealed to her in the crystal globe. “What is it you see in there?” he queried harshly.

But she pushed him aside, gazed with rapt intentness into the globe.

“Red!” she murmured. “Scarlet⁠ ⁠… aye, scarlet! And now it takes shape⁠ ⁠… Scarlet⁠ ⁠… and it obscures the Chosen One⁠ ⁠… the shape becomes more clear⁠ ⁠… the Chosen One appears more dim⁠ ⁠…”

Then she gave a piercing shriek.

“Beware!⁠ ⁠… beware!⁠ ⁠… that which is Scarlet is shaped like a flower⁠ ⁠… five petals, I see them distinctly⁠ ⁠… and the Chosen One I see no more⁠ ⁠…”

“Malediction!” the man exclaimed. “What foolery is this?”

“No foolery,” the old charlatan resumed in a dull monotone. “Thou didst consult the oracle, oh thou, who art the Chosen of the people of France! and the oracle has spoken. Beware of a scarlet flower! From that which is scarlet comes danger of death for thee!”

Wherat Robespierre tried to laugh.

“Someone has filled thy head, Mother,” he said in a voice which he vainly tried to steady, “with tales of the mysterious Englishman who goes by the name of the Scarlet Pimpernel⁠—”

“Thy mortal enemy, O Messenger of the Most High!” the old blasphemer broke in solemnly. “In far-off fogbound England he hath sworn thy death. Beware⁠—”

“If that is the only danger which threatens me⁠—” the other began, striving to speak carelessly.

“The only one, and the greatest one,” the hag went on insistently. “Despise it not because it seems small and remote.”

“I do not despise it; neither do I magnify it. A gnat is a nuisance, but not a danger.”

“A gnat may wield a poisoned dart. The spirits have spoken. Heed their warning, O Chosen of the People! Destroy the Englishman ere he destroy thee!”

“Pardi!” Robespierre retorted, and despite the stuffiness of the room he gave a shiver as if he felt cold. “Since thou dost commune with the spirits, find out from them how I can accomplish that.”

The woman once more raised the crystal globe to the level of her breast. With her elbows stretched out and her draperies falling straight all around her, she gazed into it for a while in silence. Then she began to murmur.

“I see the Scarlet Flower quite plainly⁠ ⁠… a small Scarlet Flower⁠ ⁠… And I see the great Light which is like an aureole, the Light of the Chosen One. It is of dazzling brightness⁠—but over the Scarlet Flower casts a Stygian shadow.”

“Ask them,” Robespierre broke in peremptorily, “ask thy spirits how best I can overcome mine enemy.”

“I see something,” the witch went on in an even monotone, still gazing into the crystal globe “white and rose and tender⁠ ⁠… is it a woman⁠ ⁠… ?”

“A woman?”

“She is tall, and she is beautiful⁠ ⁠… a stranger in the land⁠ ⁠… with eyes dark as the night and tresses black as the raven’s wing⁠ ⁠… Yes, it is a woman⁠ ⁠… She stands between the Light and that blood-red flower. She takes the flower in her hand⁠ ⁠… she fondles it, raises it to her lips⁠ ⁠… Ah!” and the old seer gave a loud cry of triumph. “She tosses it mangled and bleeding into the consuming Light⁠ ⁠… And now it lies faded, torn, crushed, and the Light grows in radiance and in brilliancy, and there is none now to dim its pristine glory⁠—”

“But the woman? Who is she?” the man broke in impatiently. “What is her name?”

“The spirits speak no names,” the seer replied. “Any woman would gladly be thy handmaid, O Elect of France! The spirits have spoken,” she concluded solemnly. “Salvation will come to thee by the hand of a woman.”

“And mine enemy?” he insisted. “Which of us two is in danger of death now⁠—now that I am warned⁠—which of us two?⁠—mine English enemy, or I?”

Nothing loth, the old hag was ready to continue her sortilege. Robespierre hung breathless upon her lips. His whole personality seemed transformed. He appeared eager, fearful, credulous⁠—a different man to the cold, calculating despot who sent thousands to their death with his measured oratory, the mere power of his presence. Indeed, history has sought in vain for the probably motive which drove this cynical tyrant into consulting this pitiable charlatan. That Catherine Théot had certain psychic powers has never been gainsaid, and since the philosophers of the eighteenth century had undermined the religious superstitions of the Middle Ages, it was only to be expected that in the great upheaval of this awful Revolution, men and women should turn to the mystic and the supernatural as to a solace and respite from the fathomless misery of their daily lives.

In this world of ours, the more stupendous the events, the more abysmal the catastrophes, the more do men realise their own impotence and the more eagerly do they look for the Hidden Hand that is powerful enough to bring about such events and to hurl upon them such devastating cataclysms. Indeed, never since the dawn of history had so many theosophies, demonologies, occult arts, spiritualism, exorcism of all sorts, flourished as they did now: the Theists, the Rosicrucians, the Illuminati, Swedenborg, the Count of Saint Germain, Weishaupt, and scores of others, avowed charlatans or earnest believers, had their neophytes, their devotees, and their cults.

Catherine Théot was one of many: for the nonce, one of the most noteworthy in Paris. She believed herself to be endowed with the gift of prophecy, and her fetish was Robespierre. In this at least she was genuine. She believed him now to be a new Messiah, the Elect of God. Nay! she loudly proclaimed him as such, and one of her earliest neophytes, an ex-Carthusian monk named Gerle, who sat in the Convention next to the great man, had whispered in the latter’s ear the insidious flattery which had gradually led his footsteps to the witch’s lair.

Whether his own vanity⁠—which was without limit and probably without parallel⁠—caused him to believe in his own