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

broad back under a tattered blue jersey. He heard the thump of heavy soles upon the stone flooring below, and a moment or two later the weird, sepulchral sound of a churchyard cough. Then the light disappeared. For a second or two the darkness appeared more impenetrably dense; then one or two narrow streaks of daylight showed the position of the outside door. Something prompted him to call:

“Is that you, citizen Rateau?”

It was foolish, of course. And the very next moment he had his answer. A voice⁠—the mocking voice he knew so well⁠—called up to him in reply:

“At your service, dear M. Chambertin! Can I do anything for you?”

Chauvelin swore, threw all prudence to the winds, and ran down the stairs as fast as his shaking knees would allow him. Some three steps from the bottom he paused for the space of a second, like one turned to stone by what he saw. Yet it was simple enough: just the same tiny light, the grimy hand holding the tallow candle, the shaggy head with the greasy red cap⁠ ⁠… The figure in the gloom looked preternaturally large, and the flickering light threw fantastic shadows on the face and neck of the colossus, distorting the nose to a grotesque length and the chin to weird proportions.

The next instant Chauvelin gave a cry like an enraged bull and hurled his meagre person upon the giant, who, shaken at the moment by a tearing fit of coughing, was taken unawares and fell backwards, overborne by the impact, dropping the light as he fell and still wheezing pitiably whilst trying to give vent to his feelings by vigorous curses.

Chauvelin, vaguely surprised at his own strength or the weakness of his opponent, pressed his knee against the latter’s chest, gripped him by the throat, smothering his curses and wheezes, turning the funeral cough into agonised gasps.

“At my service, in truth, my gallant Pimpernel!” he murmured hoarsely, feeling his small reserve of strength oozing away by the strenuous effort. “What you can do for me? Wait here, until I have you bound and gagged, safe against further mischief!”

His victim had in fact given a last convulsive gasp, lay now at full length upon the stone floor, with arms outstretched, motionless. Chauvelin relaxed his grip. His strength was spent, he was bathed in sweat, his body shook from head to foot. But he was triumphant! His mocking enemy, carried away by his own histrionics, had overtaxed his colossal strength. The carefully simulated fit of coughing had taken away his breath at the critical moment; the surprise attack had done the rest; and Chauvelin⁠—meagre, feeble, usually the merest human insect beside the powerful Englishman⁠—had conquered by sheer pluck and resource.

There lay the Scarlet Pimpernel, who had assumed the guise of asthmatic Rateau once too often, helpless and broken beneath the weight of the man whom he had hoodwinked and derided. And now at last all the intrigues, the humiliations, the schemes and the disappointments, were at an end. He⁠—Chauvelin⁠—free and honoured: Robespierre his grateful servant.

A wave of dizziness passed over his brain⁠—the dizziness of coming glory. His senses reeled. When he staggered to his feet he could scarcely stand. The darkness was thick around him; only two streaks of daylight at right angles to one another came through the chinks of the outside door and vaguely illumined the interior of the dilapidated storeroom, the last step or two of the winding stairway, the row of empty barrels on one side, the pile of rubbish on the other, and on the stone floor the huge figure in grimy and tattered rags, lying prone and motionless. Guided by those streaks of light, Chauvelin lurched up to the door, fumbled for the latch of the wicket-gate, and finding it pulled the gate open and almost fell out into the open.

III

The Rue de la Planchette was as usual lonely and deserted. It was a second or two before Chauvelin spied a passerby. That minute he spent in calling for help with all his might. The passerby he quickly dispatched across to the Arsenal for assistance.

“In the name of the Republic!” he said solemnly.

But already his cries had attracted the attention of the sentries. Within two or three minutes, half a dozen men of the National Guard were speeding down the street. Soon they had reached the house, the door where Chauvelin, still breathless but with his habitual official manner that brooked of no argument, gave them hasty instructions.

“The man lying on the ground in there,” he commanded. “Seize him and raise him. Then one of you find some cord and bind him securely.”

The men flung the double doors wide open. A flood of light illumined the storeroom. There lay the huge figure on the floor, no longer motionless, but trying to scramble to his feet, once more torn by a fit of coughing. The man ran up to him; one of them laughed.

“Why, if it isn’t old Rateau!”

They lifted him up by his arms. He was helpless as a child, and his face was of a dull purple colour.

“He will die!” another man said, with an indifferent shrug of the shoulders.

But, in a way, they were sorry for him. He was one of themselves. Nothing of the aristo about asthmatic old Rateau!

They had succeeded in propping him up and sitting him down upon a barrel. His fit of coughing was subsiding. He had breath enough now to swear. He raised his head and encountered the pale eyes of citizen Chauvelin fixed as if sightlessly upon him.

“Name of a dog!” he began; but got no farther. Giddiness seized him, for he was weak from coughing and from that strangling grip round his throat, after he had been attacked in the darkness and thrown violently to the ground.

The men around him recoiled at sight of citizen Chauvelin. His appearance was almost deathlike. His cheeks and lips were livid; his hair dishevelled; his eyes of an unearthly paleness. One hand, clawlike and