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

“Have I not proved my willingness, citizen?” she retorted, with a smile. “Think you ’tis pleasant to give up my life, my salon, my easy, contented existence, and become a mere drudge in your service?”

“A drudge,” he broke in with a chuckle, “who will soon be greater than a Queen.”

“Ah, if I thought that!⁠ ⁠…” she exclaimed.

“I am as sure of it as that I am alive,” he replied firmly. “You will never do anything with citizen Tallien, citoyenne. He is too mean, too cowardly. But bring the Scarlet Pimpernel to his knees at the chariot wheel of Robespierre, and even the crown of the Bourbons would be yours for the asking.”

“I know that, citizen,” she rejoined dryly; “else I were not here.”

“We hold all the winning cards,” he went on eagerly. “Lady Blakeney is in our hands. So long as we hold her, we have the certainty that sooner or later the English spy will establish communication with her. Catherine Théot is a good jailer, and Captain Boyer upstairs has a number of men under his command⁠—veritable sleuthhounds, whose efficiency I can guarantee and whose eagerness is stimulated by the promise of a magnificent reward. But experience has taught me that that accursed Scarlet Pimpernel is never so dangerous as when we think we hold him. His extraordinary histrionic powers have been our undoing hitherto. No man’s eyes are keen enough to pierce his disguises. That is why, citoyenne, I dragged you to England; that is why I placed you face to face with him, and said to you, ‘That is the man.’ Since then, with your help, we hold the decoy. Now you are my coadjutor and my help. In your eyes I place my trust; in your wits, your instinct. In whatever guise the Scarlet Pimpernel presents himself before you⁠—and he will present himself before you, or he is no longer the impudent and reckless adventurer I know him to be!⁠—I feel that you at least will recognise him.”

“Yes; I think I should recognise him,” she mused.

“Think you that I do not appreciate the sacrifice you make⁠—the anxiety, the watchfulness to which you so nobly subject yourself? But ’tis you above all who are the lure which must inevitably attract the Scarlet Pimpernel into my hands.”

“Soon, I hope,” she sighed wearily.

“Soon,” he asserted firmly. “I dare swear it! Until then, citizeness, in the name of your own future, and in the name of France, I adjure you to watch. Watch and listen! Oh, think of the stakes for which we are playing, you and I! Bring the Scarlet Pimpernel to his knees, citoyenne, and Robespierre will be as much your slave as he is now the prey to a strange dread of that one man. Robespierre fears the Scarlet Pimpernel. A superstitious conviction has seized hold of him that the English spy will bring about his downfall. We have all seen of late how aloof he holds himself. He no longer attends the Committees. He no longer goes to the Clubs; he shuns his friends; and his furtive glance is forever trying to pierce some imaginary disguise, under which he alternately fears and hopes to discover his arch-enemy. He dreads assassination, anonymous attacks. In every obscure member of the Convention who walks up the steps of the tribune, he fears to find the Scarlet Pimpernel under a new, impenetrable mask. Ah, citoyenne! what influence you would have over him if through your agency all those fears could be drowned in the blood of that abominable Englishman!”

“Now, who would have thought that?” a mocking voice broke in suddenly, with a quiet chuckle. “I vow, my dear M. Chambertin, you are waxing more eloquent than ever before!”

Like the laughter of a while ago, the voice seemed to come from nowhere. It was in the air, muffled by the clouds of Mother Théot’s perfumes, or by the thickness of doors and tapestries. Weird, yet human.

“By Satan, this is intolerable!” Chauvelin exclaimed; and paying no heed to Theresia’s faint cry of terror, he ran to the main door. It was on the latch. He tore it open and dashed out upon the landing.

From here a narrow stone staircase, dank and sombre, led downwards as well as upwards, in a spiral. The house had only the two stories, perched above some disused and dilapidated storage-rooms, to which a double outside door and wicket gave access from the street.

The staircase received its only light from a small window high up in the roof, the panes of which were coated with grime, so that the well of the stairs, especially past the first-floor landing, was almost in complete gloom. For an instant Chauvelin hesitated. Never a coward physically, he yet had no mind to precipitate himself down a dark staircase when mayhap his enemy was lying in wait for him down below.

Only for an instant however. The very next second had brought forth the positive reflection: “Bah! Assassination, and in the dark, are not the Englishman’s ways.”

Scarce a few yards from where he stood, the other side of the door, was the dry moat which ran round the Arsenal. From there, at a call from him, a dozen men and more would surge from the ground⁠—sleuthhounds, as he had told Theresia a moment ago, who were there on the watch and whom he could trust to do his work swiftly and securely⁠—if only he could reach the door and call for help. Elusive as that accursed Pimpernel was, successful chase might even now be given to him.

Chauvelin ran down half a dozen steps, peered down the shaft of the staircase, and spied a tiny light, which moved swiftly to and fro. Then presently, below the light a bit of tallow candle, then a grimy hand holding the candle, an arm, the top of a shaggy head crowned by a greasy red cap, a