The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy (best historical biographies .txt) 📗

yet, good old Guidal! Bad beginnings oft make splendid ends!”

Then once again the dice rattled in the boxes; those who stood around pressed closer round the gamesters; hot, avid faces, covered with sweat and grime, peered eagerly down upon the table.

“Eight and eleven⁠—nineteen!”

“Twelve and zero! By Satan! Curse him! Just my luck!”

“Four and nine⁠—thirteen! Unlucky number!”

“Now then⁠—once more! I’ll back Merri! Ten assignats of the most worthless kind! Who’ll take me that Merri gets the wench in the end?”

This from one of the lookers-on, a tall, cadaverous-looking creature, with sunken eyes and broad, hunched-up shoulders, which were perpetually shaken by a dry, rasping cough that proclaimed the ravages of some mortal disease, left him trembling as with ague and brought beads of perspiration to the roots of his lank hair. A recrudescence of excitement went the round of the spectators. The gamblers sitting round a narrow deal table, on which past libations had left marks of sticky rings, had scarce room to move their elbows.

“Nineteen and four⁠—twenty-three!”

“You are out of it, Desmonts!”

“Not yet!”

“Twelve and twelve!”

“There! What did I tell you?”

“Wait! wait! Now, Merri! Now! Remember I have backed you for ten assignats, which I propose to steal from the nearest Jew this very night.”

“Thirteen and twelve! Twenty-five, by all the demons and the ghouls!” came with a triumphant shout from the last thrower.

“Merri has it! Vive Merri!” was the unanimous and clamorous response.

Merri was evidently the most popular amongst the three gamblers. Now he sprawled upon the bench, leaning his back against the table, and surveyed the assembled company with the air of an Achilles having vanquished his Hector.

“Good luck to you and to your aristo!” began his backer lustily⁠—would, no doubt, have continued his song of praise had not a violent fit of coughing smothered the words in his throat. The hand which he had raised in order to slap his friend genially on the back now went with a convulsive clutch to his own chest.

But his obvious distress did not apparently disturb the equanimity of Merri, or arouse even passing interest in the lookers-on.

“May she have as much money as rumour avers,” said one of the men sententiously.

Merri gave a careless wave of his grubby hand.

“More, citizen; more!” he said loftily.

Only the two losers appeared inclined to scepticism.

“Bah!” one of them said⁠—it was Desmonts. “The whole matter of the woman’s money may be a tissue of lies!”

“And England is a far cry!” added Guidal.

But Merri was not likely to be depressed by these dismal croakings.

“ ’Tis simple enough,” he said philosophically, “to disparage the goods if you are not able to buy.”

Then a lusty voice broke in from the far corner of the room:

“And now, citizen Merri, ’tis time you remembered that the evening is hot and your friends thirsty!”

The man who spoke was a short, broad-shouldered creature, with crimson face surrounded by a shock of white hair, like a ripe tomato wrapped in cotton wool.

“And let me tell you,” he added complacently, “that I have a cask of rum down below, which came straight from that accursed country, England, and is said to be the nectar whereon feeds that confounded Scarlet Pimpernel. It gives him the strength, so ’tis said, to intrigue successfully against the representatives of the people.”

“Then by all means, citizen,” concluded Merri’s backer, still hoarse and spent after his fit of coughing, “let us have some of your nectar. My friend, citizen Merri, will need strength and wits too, I’ll warrant, for, after he has married the aristo, he will have to journey to England to pluck the rich dowry which is said to lie hidden there.”

“Cast no doubt upon that dowry, citizen Rateau, curse you!” broke in Merri, with a spiteful glance directed against his former rivals, “or Guidal and Desmonts will cease to look glum, and half my joy in the aristo will have gone.”

After which, the conversation drifted to general subjects, became hilarious and ribald, while the celebrated rum from England filled the close atmosphere of the narrow room with its heady fumes.

II

Open to the street in front, the locality known under the pretentious title of “Cabaret de la Liberté” was a favoured one among the flotsam and jetsam of the population of this corner of old Paris; men and sometimes women, with nothing particular to do, no special means of livelihood save the battening on the countless miseries and sorrows which this Revolution, which was to have been so glorious, was bringing in its train; idlers and loafers, who would crawl desultorily down the few worn and grimy steps which led into the cabaret from the level of the street. There was always good brandy or eau-de-vie to be had there, and no questions asked, no scares from the revolutionary guards or the secret agents of the Committee of Public Safety, who knew better than to interfere with the citizen host and his dubious clientele. There was also good Rhine wine or rum to be had, smuggled across from England or Germany, and no interference from the spies of some of those countless Committees, more autocratic than any ci-devant despot.

It was, in fact, an ideal place wherein to conduct those shady transactions which are unavoidable corollaries of an unfettered democracy. Projects of burglary, pillage, rapine, even murder, were hatched within this underground burrow, where, as soon as evening drew in, a solitary, smoky oil-lamp alone cast a dim light upon faces that liked to court the darkness, and whence no sound that was not meant for prying ears found its way to the street above. The walls were thick with grime and smoke, the floor mildewed and cracked; dirt vied with squalor to make the place a fitting abode for thieves and cutthroats, for some of those sinister night-birds, more vile even than those who shrieked with satisfied lust at sight of the tumbril, with its daily load of unfortunates for the guillotine.

On this occasion the project that was being hatched was one of the