"What can we do?" queried Martin-Roget excitedly.
"Nothing for the moment but wait. The Englishmen are caught sure enough like rats in their holes."
"Wait!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Martin-Roget with a savage oath, "wait! always wait!
while the quarry slips through one"s fingers."
"It shall not slip through mine," retorted Paul Friche. "I was a steeple-jack by trade in my day: it won"t be the first time that I have climbed the side of a house by the gutter-pipe. _A moi_ Jean-Pierre," he added, "and may I be drowned in the Loire if between us two we do not lay those cursed English spies low."
"An hundred francs for each of you," called Chauvelin l.u.s.tily, "if you succeed."
Yvonne did not think to close the window again. Vigorous shouting and laughter from below testified that that hideous creature Friche and his mate had put their project in immediate execution; she turned and ran down the stairs--feeling now like an animal at bay; by the time that she had reached the bottom, she heard a prolonged, hoa.r.s.e cry of triumph from below and guessed that Paul Friche and his mate had reached the window-sill: the next moment there was a crash overhead of broken window-gla.s.s and of furniture kicked from one end of the room to the other, immediately followed by the sound of heavy footsteps running helter-skelter down the stairs.
Yvonne, half-crazed with terror, faint and sick, fell unconscious over the body of her father.
V
Inside the tap-room commandant Fleury was still at work.
"Your name?"
"Where do you live?"
"Your occupation?"
The low room was filled to suffocation: the walls lined with Marats, the doors and windows which were wide open were closely guarded, whilst in the corner of the room, huddled together like bales of rubbish, was the human cattle that had been driven together, preparatory to being sent for a trial to Paris in vindication of Carrier"s brutalities against the city.
Fleury for form"s sake made entries in a notebook--the whole thing was a mere farce--these wretched people were not likely to get a fair trial--what did the whole thing matter? Still! the commandant of the Marats went solemnly through the farce which Carrier had invented with a view to his own justification.
Lemoine and his wife had protested and been silenced: men had struggled and women had fought--some of them like wild cats--in trying to get away. Now there were only half a dozen or so more to docket. Fleury swore, for he was tired and hot.
"This place is like a pest-house," he said.
Just then came the sound of that l.u.s.ty cry of triumph from outside, followed by all the clatter and the breaking of window gla.s.s.
"What"s that?" queried Fleury.
The heavy footsteps running down the stairs caused him to look up from his work and to call briefly to a sergeant of the Marats who stood beside his chair:
"Go and see what that _sacre_ row is about," he commanded. "In there,"
he added as he indicated the door of the landing with a jerk of the head.
But before the man could reach the door, it was thrown open from within with a vigorous kick from the point of a sabot, and Paul Friche appeared under the lintel with the aristo wench thrown over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, his thick, muscular arms encircling her knees. His scarlet bonnet was c.o.c.ked over one eye, his face was smeared with dirt, his breeches were torn at the knees, his shirt hung in strips from his powerful shoulders. Behind him his mate--who had climbed up the gutter-pipe into the house in his wake--was tottering under the load of the ci-devant duc de Kernogan"s body which he had slung across his back and was holding on to by the wrists.
Fleury jumped to his feet--the appearance of these two men, each with his burden, caused him to frown with anger and to demand peremptorily: "What is the meaning of this?"
"The aristos," said Paul Friche curtly; "they were trying to escape."
He strode into the room, carrying the unconscious form of the girl as if it were a load of feathers. He was a huge, ma.s.sive-looking giant: the girl"s shoulders nearly touched the low ceiling as he swung forward facing the angry commandant.
"How did you get into the house? and by whose orders?" demanded Fleury roughly.
"Climbed in by the window, _pardi_," retorted the man, "and by the orders of citizen Martin-Roget."
"A corporal of the Company Marat takes orders only from me; you should know that, citizen Friche."
"Nay!" interposed the sergeant quickly, "this man is not a corporal of the Company Marat, citizen commandant. As for Corporal Friche, why! he was taken to the infirmary some hours ago with a cracked skull, he...."
"Not Corporal Friche," exclaimed Fleury with an oath, "then who in the devil"s name is this man?"
"The Scarlet Pimpernel, at your service, citizen commandant," came loudly and with a merry laugh from the pseudo Friche.
And before either Fleury or the sergeant or any of the Marats could even begin to realise what was happening, he had literally bounded across the room, and as he did so he knocked against the hanging lamp which fell with a crash to the floor, scattering oil and broken gla.s.s in every direction and by its fall plunging the place into total darkness. At once there arose a confusion and medley of terrified screams, of piercing shrieks from the women and the children, and of loud imprecations from the men. These mingled with the hasty words of command, with quick orders from Fleury and the sergeant, with the grounding of arms and the tramping of many feet, and with the fall of human bodies that happened to be in the way of the reckless adventurer and his flight.
"He is through the door," cried the men who had been there on guard.
"After him then!" shouted Fleury. "Curse you all for cowards and for fools."
The order had no need to be repeated. The confusion, though great, had only been momentary. Within a second or less, Fleury and his sergeant had fought their way through to the door, urging the men to follow.
"After him ... quick!... he is heavily loaded ... he cannot have got far ..." commanded Fleury as soon as he had crossed the threshold.
"Sergeant, keep order within, and on your life see that no one else escapes."
CHAPTER IX
THE PROCONSUL
I
From round the angle of the house Martin-Roget and Chauvelin were already speeding along at a rapid pace.
"What does it all mean?" queried the latter hastily.
"The Englishman--with the wench on his back? have you seen him?"
"Malediction! what do you mean?"
"Have you seen him?" reiterated Fleury hoa.r.s.ely.
"No."
"He couldn"t have pa.s.sed you?"
"Impossible."