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

high priest of a new religion. We are but thy servants, thy handmaids, thy worshippers.”

All this charlatanism was precious incense to the limitless vanity of the despot. His impatience vanished, as did his momentary terror. He became kind, urbane, condescending. At the last, the old hag almost prostrated herself before him, and clasping her wrinkled hands together, she said in tones of reverential entreaty:

“In the name of thyself, of France, of the entire world, I adjure thee to lend ear to what the spirits have revealed this day. Beware the danger that comes to thee from the scarlet flower. Set thy almighty mind to compass its destruction. Do not disdain a woman’s help, since the spirits have proclaimed that through a woman thou shalt be saved. Remember! Remember!” she adjured him with ever-growing earnestness. “Once before, the world was saved through a woman. A woman crushed the serpent beneath her foot. Let a woman now crush that scarlet flower beneath hers. Remember!”

She actually kissed his feet; and he, blinded by self-conceit to the folly of this fetishism and the ridicule of his own acceptance of it, raised his hand above her head as if in the act of pronouncing a benediction.

Then without another word he turned to go. The young negro brought him his hat and cloak. The latter he wrapped closely round his shoulders, his hat he pulled down well over his eyes. Thus muffled and, he hoped, unrecognisable, he passed with a firm tread out of the room.

III

For awhile the old witch waited, strainer her ears to catch the last sound of those retreating footsteps; then, with a curt word and an impatient clapping of her hands, she dismissed her attendants, the negro as well as her neophytes. These young women at her word lost quickly enough their air of rapt mysticism, became very human indeed, stretched out their limbs, yawned lustily, and with none too graceful movements uncurled themselves and struggled to their feet. Chattering and laughing like so many magpies let out of a cage, they soon disappeared through the door in the rear.

Again the old woman waited silent and motionless until that merry sound too gradually subsided. Then she went across the room to the dais, and drew aside the curtain which hung behind it.

“Citizen Chauvelin!” she called peremptorily.

A small figure of a man stepped out from the gloom. He was dressed in black, his hair, of a nondescript blonde shade and his crumpled linen alone told light in the general sombreness of his appearance.

“Well?” he retorted drily.

“Are you satisfied?” the old woman went on with eager impatience. “You heard what I said?”

“Yes, I heard,” he replied. “Think you he will act on it?”

“I am certain of it.”

“But why not have named Theresia Cabarrus? Then, at least, I would have been sure⁠—”

“He might have recoiled at an actual name,” the woman replied, “suspected me of connivance. The Chosen of the people of France is shrewd as well as distrustful. And I have my reputation to consider. But, remember what I said: ‘tall, dark, beautiful, a stranger in this land!’ So, if indeed you require the help of the Spaniard⁠—”

“Indeed I do!” he rejoined earnestly. And, as if speaking to his own inward self, “Theresia Cabarrus is the only woman I know who can really help me.”

“But you cannot force her consent, citizen Chauvelin,” the sybil insisted.

The eyes of citizen Chauvelin lit up suddenly with a flash of that old fire of long ago, when he was powerful enough to compel the consent or the cooperation of any man, woman or child on whom he had deigned to cast an appraising glance. But the flash was only momentary. The next second he had once more resumed his unobtrusive, even humbled, attitude.

“My friends, who are few,” he said, with a quick sigh of impatience; “and mine enemies, who are without number, will readily share your conviction, Mother, that citizen Chauvelin can compel no one to do his bidding these days. Least of all the affianced wife of powerful Tallien.”

“Well, then,” the sybil argued, “how think you that⁠—”

“I only hope, Mother,” Chauvelin broke in suavely, “that after your séance today, citizen Robespierre himself will see to it that Theresia Cabarrus gives me the help I need.”

Catherine Théot shrugged her shoulders.

“Oh!” she said drily, “the Cabarrus knows no law save that of her caprice. And as Tallien’s fiancée she is almost immune.”

“Almost, but not quite! Tallien is powerful, but so was Danton.”

“But Tallien is prudent, which Danton was not.”

“Tallien is also a coward; and easily led like a lamb, with a halter. He came back from Bordeaux tied to the apron-strings of the fair Spaniard. He should have spread fire and terror in the region; but at her bidding he dispensed justice and even mercy instead. A little more airing of his moderate views, a few more acts of unpatriotic clemeney, and powerful Tallien himself may become ‘suspect.’ ”

“And you think that, when he is,” the old woman rejoined with grim sarcasm, “you will hold his fair betrothed in the hollow of your hand?”

“Certainly!” he assented, and with an acid smile fell to contemplating his thin, talon-like palms. “Since Robespierre, counselled by Mother Théot, will himself have placed her there.”

Whereupon Catherine Théot ceased to argue, since the other appeared so sure of himself. Once more she shrugged her shoulders.

“Well, then, if you are satisfied⁠ ⁠…” she said.

“I am. Quite,” he replied, and at once plunged his hand in the breast-pocket of his coat. He had caught the look of avarice and of greed which had glittered in the old hag’s eyes. From his pocket he drew a bundle of notes, for which Catherine immediately stretched out a grasping hand. But before giving her the money, he added a stern warning.

“Silence, remember! And, above all, discretion!”

“You may rely on me, citizen,” the sybil riposted quietly. “I am not likely to blab.”

He did not place the notes in her hand, but threw them down on the table with a