Martin-Roget with his colleague Chauvelin turned into the Place from the quay--they walked rapidly and kept their mantles closely wrapped under their chin, for the afternoon had turned bitterly cold. It was then close upon five o"clock--a dark, moonless, starless night had set in with only a suspicion of frost in the damp air; but a bl.u.s.tering north-westerly wind blowing down the river and tearing round the narrow streets and the open Place, caused pa.s.sers-by to m.u.f.fle themselves, shivering, yet tighter in their cloaks.
Martin-Roget was talking volubly and excitedly, his tall, broad figure towering above the slender form of his companion. From time to time he tossed his mantle aside with an impatient, febrile gesture and then paused in the middle of the Place, with one hand on the other man"s shoulder, marking a point in his discourse or emphasising his argument with short staccato sentences and brief, emphatic words.
Chauvelin--placid and impenetrable as usual--listened much and talked little. He was ready to stand still or to walk along just as his colleague"s mood demanded; in the darkness, and with the collar of a large mantle pulled tightly up to his ears, it was impossible to guess by any sign in his face what was going on in his mind.
They were a strange contrast these two men--temperamentally as well as physically--even though they had so much in common and were both the direct products of that same social upheaval which was shaking the archaic dominion of France to its very foundations. Martin-Roget, tall, broad-shouldered, bull-necked, the typical self-educated peasant, with square jaw and flat head, with wide bony hands and spatulated fingers: and Chauvelin--the aristocrat turned demagogue, thin and frail-looking, bland of manner and suave of speech, with delicate hands and pale, almost ascetic face.
The one represented all that was most brutish and sensual in this fight of one caste against the other, the thirst for the other"s blood, the human beast that has been brought to bay through wrongs perpetrated against it by others and has turned upon its oppressors, lashing out right and left with blind and l.u.s.tful fury at the crowd of tyrants that had kept him in subjection for so long. Whilst Chauvelin was the personification of the spiritual side of this b.l.o.o.d.y Revolution--the spirit of cool and calculating reprisals that would demand an eye for an eye and see that it got two. The idealist who dreams of the righteousness of his own cause and the destruction of its enemies, but who leaves to others the accomplishment of all the carnage and the bloodshed which his idealism has demanded, and which his reason has appraised as necessary for the triumph of which he dreams. Chauvelin was the man of thought and Martin-Roget the man of action. With the one, revenge and reprisals were selfish desires, the avenging of wrongs done to himself or to his caste, hatred for those who had injured him or his kindred. The other had no personal feelings of hatred: he had no personal wrongs to avenge: his enemies were the enemies of his party, the erstwhile tyrants who in the past had oppressed an entire people.
Every man, woman or child who was not satisfied with the present Reign of Terror, who plotted or planned for its overthrow, who was not ready to see husband, father, wife or child sacrificed for the ultimate triumph of the Revolution was in Chauvelin"s sight a noxious creature, fit only to be trodden under heel and ground into subjection or annihilation as a danger to the State.
Martin-Roget was the personification of sans-culottism, of rough manners and foul speech--he chafed against the conventions which forced him to wear decent clothes and boots on his feet--he would gladly have seen every one go about the streets half-naked, unwashed, a living sign of that downward levelling of castes which he and his friends stood for, and for which they had fought and striven and committed every crime which human pa.s.sions let loose could invent. Chauvelin, on the other hand, was one of those who wore fine linen and buckled shoes and whose hands were delicately washed and perfumed whilst they signed decrees which sent hundreds of women and children to a violent and cruel death.
The one trod in the paths of Danton: the other followed in the footsteps of Robespierre.
II
Together the two men mounted the outside staircase which leads up past the lodge of the concierge and through the clerk"s office to the interior of the stronghold. Outside the monumental doors they had to wait a moment or two while the clerk examined their permits to enter.
"Will you come into my office with me?" asked Chauvelin of his companion; "I have a word or two to add to my report for the Paris courier to-night. I won"t be long."
"You are still in touch with the Committee of Public Safety then?" asked Martin-Roget.
"Always," replied the other curtly.
Martin-Roget threw a quick, suspicious glance on his companion. Darkness and the broad brim of his sugar-loaf hat effectually concealed even the outlines of Chauvelin"s face, and Martin-Roget fell to musing over one or two things which Carrier had blurted out awhile ago. The whole of France was overrun with spies these days--every one was under suspicion, every one had to be on his guard. Every word was overheard, every glance seen, every sign noted.
What was this man Chauvelin doing here in Nantes? What reports did he send up to Paris by special courier? He, the miserable failure who had ceased to count was nevertheless in constant touch with that awful Committee of Public Safety which was wont to strike at all times and unexpectedly in the dark. Martin-Roget shivered beneath his mantle. For the first time since his schemes of vengeance had wholly absorbed his mind he regretted the freedom and safety which he had enjoyed in England, and he marvelled if the miserable game which he was playing would be worth the winning in the end. Nevertheless he had followed Chauvelin without comment. The man appeared to exercise a fascination over him--a kind of subtle power, which emanated from his small shrunken figure, from his pale keen eyes and his well-modulated, suave mode of speech.
III
The clerk had handed the two men their permits back. They were allowed to pa.s.s through the gates.
In the hall some half-dozen men were nominally on guard--nominally, because discipline was not over strict these days, and the men sat or lolled about the place; two of them were intent on a game of dominoes, another was watching them, whilst the other three were settling some sort of quarrel among themselves which necessitated vigorous and emphatic gestures and the copious use of expletives. One man, who appeared to be in command, divided his time impartially between the domino-players and those who were quarrelling.
The vast place was insufficiently lighted by a chandelier which hung from the ceiling and a couple of small oil-lamps placed in the circular niches in the wall opposite the front door.
No one took any notice of Martin-Roget or of Chauvelin as they crossed the hall, and presently the latter pushed open a door on the left of the main gates and held it open for his colleague to pa.s.s through.
"You are sure that I shall not be disturbing you?" queried Martin-Roget.
"Quite sure," replied the other curtly. "And there is something which I must say to you ... where I know that I shall not be overheard."
Then he followed Martin-Roget into the room and closed the door behind him. The room was scantily furnished with a square deal table in the centre, two or three chairs, a broken-down bureau leaning against one wall and an iron stove wherein a meagre fire sent a stream of malodorous smoke through sundry cracks in its chimney-pipe. From the ceiling there hung an oil-lamp the light of which was thrown down upon the table, by a large green shade made of cardboard.
Chauvelin drew a chair to the bureau and sat down; he pointed to another and Martin-Roget took a seat beside the table. He felt restless and excited--his nerves all on the jar: his colleague"s calm, sardonic glance acted as a further irritant to his temper.
"What is it that you wished to say to me, citizen Chauvelin?" he asked at last.
"Just a word, citizen," replied the other in his quiet urbane manner. "I have accompanied you faithfully on your journey to England: I have placed my feeble powers at your disposal: awhile ago I stood between you and the proconsul"s wrath. This, I think, has earned me the right of asking what you intend to do."
"I don"t know about the right," retorted Martin-Roget gruffly, "but I don"t mind telling you. As you remarked awhile ago the North-West wind is wont to be of good counsel. I have thought the matter over whilst I walked with you along the quay and I have decided to act on Carrier"s suggestion. Our eminent proconsul said just now that it was the duty of every true patriot to marry an aristo, an he be free and Chance puts a comely wench in his way. I mean," he added with a cynical laugh, "to act on that advice and marry Yvonne de Kernogan ... if I can."
"She has refused you up to now?"
"Yes ... up to now."
"You have threatened her--and her father?"
"Yes--both. Not only with death but with shame."
"And still she refuses?"
"Apparently," said Martin-Roget with ever-growing irritation.
"It is often difficult," rejoined Chauvelin meditatively, "to compel these aristos. They are obstinate...."
"Oh! don"t forget that I am in a position now to bring additional pressure on the wench. That lout Carrier has splendid ideas--a brute, what? but clever and full of resource. That suggestion of his about the Rat Mort is splendid...."
"You mean to try and act on it?"
"Of course I do," said Martin-Roget roughly. "I am going over presently to my sister"s house to see the Kernogan wench again, and to have another talk with her. Then if she still refuses, if she still chooses to scorn the honourable position which I offer her, I shall act on Carrier"s suggestion. It will be at the Rat Mort to-night that she and I will have our final interview, and there when I dangle the prospect of Cayenne and the convict"s brand before her, she may not prove so obdurate as she has been up to now."
"H"m! That is as may be," was Chauvelin"s dry comment. "Personally I am inclined to agree with Carrier. Death, swift and sure--the Loire or the guillotine--is the best that has yet been invented for traitors and aristos. But we won"t discuss that again. I know your feelings in the matter and in a measure I respect them. But if you will allow me I would like to be present at your interview with the _soi-disant_ Lady Anthony Dewhurst. I won"t disturb you and I won"t say a word ... but there is something I would like to make sure of...."
"What is that?"
"Whether the wench has any hopes ..." said Chauvelin slowly, "whether she has received a message or has any premonition ... whether in short she thinks that outside agencies are at work on her behalf."
"Tshaw!" exclaimed Martin-Roget impatiently, "you are still harping on that Scarlet Pimpernel idea."
"I am," retorted the other drily.
"As you please. But understand, citizen Chauvelin, that I will not allow you to interfere with my plans, whilst you go off on one of those wild-goose chases which have already twice brought you into disrepute."
"I will not interfere with your plans, citizen," rejoined Chauvelin with unwonted gentleness, "but let me in my turn impress one thing upon you, and that is that unless you are as wary as the serpent, as cunning as the fox, all your precious plans will be upset by that interfering Englishman whom you choose to disregard."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I know him--to my cost--and you do not. But you will, an I am not gravely mistaken, make acquaintance with him ere your great adventure with these Kernogan people is successfully at an end. Believe me, citizen Martin-Roget," he added impressively, "you would have been far wiser to accept Carrier"s suggestion and let him fling that rabble into the Loire for you."
"Pshaw! you are not childish enough to imagine, citizen Chauvelin, that your Englishman can spirit away that wench from under my sister"s eyes?
Do you know what my sister suffered at the hands of the Kernogans? Do you think that she is like to forget my father"s ignominious death any more than I am? And she mourns a lover as well as a father--she mourns her youth, her happiness, the mother whom she worshipped. Think you a better gaoler could be found anywhere? And there are friends of mine--lads of our own village, men who hate the Kernogans as bitterly as I do myself--who are only too ready to lend Louise a hand in case of violence. And after that--suppose your magnificent Scarlet Pimpernel succeeded in hoodwinking my sister and in evading the vigilance of a score of determined village lads, who would sooner die one by one than see the Kernogan escape--suppose all that, I say, there would still be the guard at every city gate to challenge. No! no! it couldn"t be done, citizen Chauvelin," he added with a complacent laugh. "Your Englishman would need the help of a legion of angels, what? to get the wench out of Nantes this time."
Chauvelin made no comment on his colleague"s impa.s.sioned harangue.
Memory had taken him back to that one day in September in Boulogne when he too had set one prisoner to guard a precious hostage: it brought back to his mind a vision of a strangely picturesque figure as it appeared to him in the window-embrasure of the old castle-hall:[1] it brought back to his ears the echo of that quaint, irresponsible laughter, of that lazy, drawling speech, of all that had acted as an irritant on his nerves ere he found himself baffled, foiled, eating out his heart with vain reproach at his own folly.
"I see you are unconvinced, citizen Martin-Roget," he said quietly, "and I know that it is the fashion nowadays among young politicians to sneer at Chauvelin--the living embodiment of failure. But let me just add this. When you and I talked matters over together at the Bottom Inn, in the wilds of Somersetshire, I warned you that not only was your ident.i.ty known to the man who calls himself the Scarlet Pimpernel, but also that he knew every one of your plans with regard to the Kernogan wench and her father. You laughed at me then ... do you remember?... you shrugged your shoulders and jeered at what you call my far-fetched ideas ... just as you do now. Well! will you let me remind you of what happened within four-and-twenty hours of that warning which you chose to disregard? ...
Yvonne de Kernogan was married to Lord Anthony Dewhurst and...."