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

her. A dull cry rose to her throat, and instinctively she put up her hand to her mouth, striving to smother the sound. Horror dilated her eyes, and through her lips one word escaped like a hoarse murmur:

“You!”

He put a grimy finger to his lips. But already she had recovered herself. Here then was the explanation of the mystery which surrounded this monstrous denunciation. The English milor had planned it as revenge for the injury done to his wife.

“Captain!” she cried out shrilly. “Beware! The English spy is at your heels!”

But apparently the captain’s complaisance did not go to the length of listening to the ravings of his fair prisoner. He was impatient to get this unpleasant business over.

“Now then, citoyenne!” was his gruff retort. “En voiture!”

“You fool!” she cried, bracing herself against the grip of the soldiers who were on the point of seizing her. “ ’Tis the Scarlet Pimpernel! If you let him escape⁠—”

“The Scarlet Pimpernel?” the Captain retorted with a laugh. “Where?”

“The coalheaver! Rateau! ’Tis he, I tell you!” And Theresia’s cries became more frantic as she felt herself unceremoniously lifted off the ground. “You fool! You fool! You are letting him escape!”

“Rateau, the coalheaver?” the captain exclaimed. “We have heard that pretty story before. Here, citizen Rateau!” he went on, and shouted at the top of his voice. “Go and report yourself to citizen Chauvelin. Tell him you are the Scarlet Pimpernel! As for you, citoyenne, enough of this shouting⁠—what? My orders are to take you to the Conciergerie, and not to run after spies⁠—English, German, or Dutch. Now then, citizen soldiers!⁠ ⁠…”

Theresia, throwing her dignity to the winds, did indeed raise a shout that brought the other lodgers of the house to their door. But her screams had become inarticulate, as the soldiers, in obedience to the captains impatient orders, had wrapped her cloak about her head. Thus the inhabitants of the dreary old house in the Rue Villedot could only ascertain that the citoyenne Cabarrus who lodged on the third floor had been taken to prison, screaming and fighting, in a manner that no self-respecting aristo had ever done.

Theresia Cabarrus was ignominiously lifted into the coach and deposited by the side of equally noisy Pepita. Through the folds of the cloak her reiterated cry could still faintly be heard:

“You fool! You traitor! You cursed, miserable fool!”

One of the lodgers on the second floor⁠—a young woman who was on good terms with every male creature that wore uniform⁠—leaned over the balustrade of the balcony and shouted gaily down:

“Hey, citizen captain! Why is the aristo screaming so?”

One of the soldiers looked up, and shouted back:

“She has hold of the story that citizen Rateau is an English milor in disguise, and she wants to run after him!”

Loud laughter greeted this tale, and a lusty cheer was set up as the coach swung clumsily out of the courtyard.

A moment or two later, Chauvelin, followed by the two soldiers, came quickly down the stairs. The noise from below had at last reached his ears. At first he too thought that it was only the proud Spaniard who was throwing her dignity to the winds. Then a word or two sounded clearly above the din:

“The Scarlet Pimpernel! The English spy!”

The words acted like a sorcerer’s charm⁠—a call from the vasty deep. In an instant the rest of the world ceased to have any importance in his sight. One thing and one alone mattered; his enemy.

Calling to the soldiers to follow him, he was out of the apartment and down in the vestibule below in a trice. The coach at that moment was turning out of the porte-cochère. The courtyard, wrapped in gloom, was alive with chattering and laughter which proceeded from the windows and balconies around. It was raining fast, and from the balconies the water was pouring down in torrents.

Chauvelin stood in the doorway and sent one of the soldiers to ascertain what the disturbance had all been about. The man returned with an account of how the aristo had screamed and raved like a madwoman, and tried to escape by sending the citizen captain on a fool’s errand, vowing that poor old Rateau was an English spy in disguise.

Chauvelin gave a sigh of relief. He certainly need not rack his nerves or break his head over that! He had good cause to know that Rateau, with the branded arm, could not possibly be the Scarlet Pimpernel!

XXXII Grey Dawn I

Ten minutes later the courtyard and approach of the old house in the Rue Villedot were once more wrapped in silence and in darkness. Chauvelin had with his own hands affixed the official seals on the doors which led to the apartments of citoyenne Cabarrus. In the living room, the body of the unfortunate Moncrif still lay uncovered and unwatched, awaiting what hasty burial the commissary of the section would be pleased to order for it. Chauvelin dismissed the soldiers at the door, and himself went his way.

The storm was gradually dying away. By the time that the audience filed out of the theatre, it was scarcely raining. Only from afar, dull rumblings of thunder could still faintly be heard. Citizen Tallien hurried along on foot to the Rue Villedot. The last hour had been positive torture for him. Although his reason told him that no man would be fool enough to trump up an accusation against Theresia Cabarrus, who was the friend, the Egeria of every influential man in the Convention or the Clubs, and that she herself had always been far too prudent to allow herself to be compromised in any way⁠—although he knew all that, his overwrought fancy conjured up vision which made him sick with dread. His Theresia in the hands of rough soldiery⁠—dragged to prison⁠—he himself unable to ascertain what had become of her⁠—until he saw her at the bar of that awful tribunal, from which there was