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

to a chair, his own tricolour scarf wound loosely round his mouth, she could not altogether suppress a cry of horror.

“What is to become of him?”

He shrugged his broad shoulders.

“I wonder!” he said lightly.

Then he rose to his feet, and went on with quaint bashfulness:

“I wonder,” he said, “how I dare stand thus before your ladyship!”

And in a moment she was in his arms, laughing, crying, covered herself now with coal-dust and with grime.

“My beloved!” she exclaimed with a shudder of horror. “What you must have gone through!”

He only laughed like a schoolboy who had come through some impish adventure without much harm.

“Very little, I swear!” he asserted gaily. “But for thoughts of you, I have never enjoyed anything so much as this last phase of a glorious adventure. After our clever friend here ordered the real Rateau to be branded, so that he might know him again wherever he saw him, I had to bribe the veterinary who had done the deed, to do the same thing for me. It was not difficult. For a thousand livres the man would have branded his own mother on the nose; and I appeared before him as a man of science, eager for an experiment. He asked no questions. And, since then, whenever Chauvelin gazed contentedly on my arm, I could have screamed for joy!”

“For the love of Heaven, my lady!” he added quickly, for he felt her soft, warm lips against his branded flesh; “don’t shame me over such a trifle! I shall always love that scar, for the exciting time it recalls and because it happens to be the initial of your dear name.”

He stooped down to the ground and kissed the hem of her gown.

After which he had to tell her as quickly and as briefly as he could, all that had happened in the past few days.

“It was only by risking the fair Theresia’s life,” he said, “that I could save your own. No other spur would have goaded Tallien into open revolt.”

He turned and looked down for a moment on his enemy, who lay pinioned and helpless, with hatred and baffled revenge writ plainly on the contorted face and pale, rolling eyes.

And Sir Percy Blakeney sighed, a quaint sigh of regret.

“I only regret one thing, my dear M. Chambertin,” he said after a while. “And that is, that you and I will never measure wits again after this. Your damnable revolution is dead⁠ ⁠… I am glad I was never tempted to kill you. I might have succumbed, and in very truth robbed the guillotine of an interesting prey. Without any doubt, they will guillotine the lot of you, my good M. Chambertin. Robespierre tomorrow; then his friends, his sycophants, his imitators⁠—you amongst the rest⁠ ⁠… ’Tis a pity! You have so often amused me. Especially after you had put a brand on Rateau’s arm, and thought you would always know him after that. Think it all out, my dear sir! Remember our happy conversation in the warehouse down below, and my denunciation of citoyenne Cabarrus⁠ ⁠… You gazed upon my branded arm then and were quite satisfied. My denunciation was a false one, of course! ’Tis I who put the letters and the rags in the beautiful Theresia’s apartments. But she will bear me no malice, I dare swear; for I shall have redeemed my promise. Tomorrow, after Robespierre’s head has fallen, Tallien will be the greatest man in France and his Theresia a virtual queen. Think it all out, my dear Monsieur Chambertin! You have plenty of time. Someone is sure to drift up here presently, and will free you and the two soldiers, whom I left out on the landing. But no one will free you from the guillotine when the time comes, unless I myself⁠ ⁠…”

He did not finish; the rest of the sentence was merged in a merry laugh.

“A pleasant conceit⁠—what?” he said lightly. “I’ll think on it, I promise you!”

VII

And the next day Paris went crazy with joy. Never had the streets looked more gay, more crowded. The windows were filled with spectators; the very roofs were crowded with an eager, shouting throng.

The seventeen hours of agony were ended. The tyrant was a fallen, broken man, maimed, dumb, bullied and insulted. Aye! He, who yesterday was the Chosen of the People, the Messenger of the Most High, now sat, or rather lay, in the tumbril, with broken jaw, eyes closed, spirit already wandering on the shores of the Styx; insulted, railed at, cursed⁠—aye, cursed!⁠—by every woman, reviled by every child.

The end came at four in the afternoon, in the midst of acclamations from a populace drunk with gladness⁠—acclamations which found their echo in the whole of France, and have never ceased to reecho to this day.

But of all that tumult, Marguerite and her husband heard but little. They lay snugly concealed the whole of that day in the quiet lodgings in the Rue de l’Anier, which Sir Percy had occupied during these terribly anxious times. Here they were waited on by that asthmatic reprobate Rateau and his mother, both of whom were now rich for the rest of their days.

When the shades of evening gathered in over the jubilant city, whilst the church bells were ringing and the cannons booming, a market gardener’s cart, driven by a worthy farmer and his wife, rattled out of the Porte St. Antoine. It created no excitement, and suspicion was far from everybody’s mind. The passports appeared in order; but even if they were not, who cared, on this day of all days, when tyranny was crushed and men dared to be men again?

Colophon

The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel
was published in 1922 by
Baroness Orczy.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Vince Rice,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2006 by
Richard Scott and Colin Choat
for
Project Gutenberg Australia
and on digital scans available at
Google Books.

The cover page is adapted