"And her master"s name?" queried Martin-Roget.
"Some outlandish Dutch name," replied Chauvelin. "It is spelt K U Y P E R. The devil only knows how it is p.r.o.nounced."
"Well! And does Captain K U Y P E R understand exactly what I want?"
"He says he does. The _Hollandia_ will put into Portishead on the last day of this month. You and your guests can get aboard her any day after that you choose. She will be there at your disposal, and can start within an hour of your getting aboard. Her master will have all his papers ready. He will have a cargo of West Indian sugar on board--destination Amsterdam, consignee Mynheer van Smeer--everything perfectly straight and square. French aristos, _emigres_ on board on their way to join the army of the Princes. There will be no difficulty in England."
"And none in Le Croisic. The man is running no risks."
"He thinks he is. France does not make Dutch ships and Dutch crews exactly welcome just now, does she?"
"Certainly not. But in Le Croisic and with citizen Adet on board...."
"I thought that name was not to be mentioned here," retorted Chauvelin dryly.
"You are right, citizen," whispered the other, "it escaped me and...."
Already he had jumped to his feet, his face suddenly pale, his whole manner changed from easy, arrogant self-a.s.surance to uncertainty and obvious dread. He moved to the window, trying to subdue the sound of his footsteps upon the uneven floor.
III
"Are you afraid of eavesdroppers, citizen Roget?" queried Chauvelin with a shrug of his narrow shoulders.
"No. There is no one there. Only a lout from Chelwood who brought me here. The people of the house are safe enough. They have plenty of secrets of their own to keep."
He was obviously saying all this in order to rea.s.sure himself, for there was no doubt that his fears were on the alert. With a febrile gesture he unfastened the shutters, and pushed them open, peering out into the night.
"Hallo!" he called.
But he received no answer.
"It has started to rain," he said more calmly. "I imagine that lout has found shelter in an outhouse with the horses."
"Very likely," commented Chauvelin laconically.
"Then if you have nothing more to tell me," quoth Martin-Roget, "I may as well think about getting back. Rain or no rain, I want to be in Bath before midnight."
"Ball or supper-party at one of your d.u.c.h.esses?" queried the other with a sneer. "I know them."
To this Martin-Roget vouchsafed no reply.
"How are things at Nantes?" he asked.
"Splendid! Carrier is like a wild beast let loose. The prisons are over-full: the surplus of accused, condemned and suspect fills the cellars and warehouses along the wharf. Priests and suchlike trash are kept on disused galliots up stream. The guillotine is never idle, and friend Carrier fearing that she might give out--get tired, what?--or break down--has invented a wonderful way of getting rid of shoals of undesirable people at one magnificent swoop. You have heard tell of it no doubt."
"Yes. I have heard of it," remarked the other curtly.
"He began with a load of priests. Requisitioned an old barge. Ordered Baudet the shipbuilder to construct half a dozen portholes in her bottom. Baudet demurred: he could not understand what the order could possibly mean. But Foucaud and Lamberty--Carrier"s agents--you know them--explained that the barge would be towed down the Loire and then up one of the smaller navigable streams which it was feared the royalists were preparing to use as a way for making a descent upon Nantes, and that the idea was to sink the barge in midstream in order to obstruct the pa.s.sage of their army. Baudet, satisfied, put five of his men to the task. Everything was ready on the 16th of last month. I know the woman Pichot, who keeps a small tavern opposite La Secherie. She saw the barge glide up the river toward the galliot where twenty-five priests of the diocese of Nantes had been living for the past two months in the company of rats and other vermin as noxious as themselves. Most lovely moonlight there was that night. The Loire looked like a living ribbon of silver. Foucaud and Lamberty directed operations, and Carrier had given them full instructions. They tied the calotins up two and two and transferred them from the galliot to the barge. It seems they were quite pleased to go. Had enough of the rats, I presume. The only thing they didn"t like was being searched. Some had managed to secrete silver ornaments about their person when they were arrested. Crucifixes and such like. They didn"t like to part with these, it seems. But Foucaud and Lamberty relieved them of everything but the necessary clothing, and they didn"t want much of that, seeing whither they were going. Foucaud made a good pile, so they say. Self-seeking, avaricious brute! He"ll learn the way to one of Carrier"s barges too one day, I"ll bet."
He rose and with quick footsteps moved to the table. There was some ale left in the jug which the woman had brought for Martin-Roget a while ago. Chauvelin poured the contents of it down his throat. He had talked uninterruptedly, in short, jerky sentences, without the slightest expression of horror at the atrocities which he recounted. His whole appearance had become transfigured while he spoke. Gone was the urbane manner which he had learnt at courts long ago, gone was the last instinct of the gentleman sunk to proletarianism through stress of circ.u.mstances, or financial straits or even political convictions. The erstwhile Marquis de Chauvelin--envoy of the Republic at the Court of St. James"--had become citizen Chauvelin in deed and in fact, a part of that rabble which he had elected to serve, one of that vile crowd of bloodthirsty revolutionaries who had sullied the pure robes of Liberty and of Fraternity by spattering them with blood. Now he smacked his lips, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and burying his hands in the pockets of his breeches he stood with legs wide apart and a look of savage satisfaction settled upon his pale face. Martin-Roget had made no comment upon the narrative. He had resumed his seat by the fire and was listening attentively. Now while the other drank and paused, he showed no sign of impatience, but there was something in the look of the bent shoulders, in the rigidity of the att.i.tude, in the large, square hands tightly clasped together which suggested the deepest interest and an intentness that was almost painful.
"I was at the woman Pichot"s tavern that night," resumed Chauvelin after a while. "I saw the barge--a moving coffin, what?--gliding down stream towed by the galliot and escorted by a small boat. The floating battery at La Samaritaine challenged her as she pa.s.sed, for Carrier had prohibited all navigation up or down the Loire until further notice.
Foucaud, Lamberty, Fouquet and O"Sullivan the armourer were in the boat: they rowed up to the pontoon and Vailly the chief gunner of the battery challenged them once more. However, they had some sort of written authorisation from Carrier, for they were allowed to pa.s.s. Vailly remained on guard. He saw the barge glide further down stream. It seems that the moon on that time was hidden by a cloud. But the night was not dark and Vailly watched the barge till she was out of sight. She was towed past Trentemoult and Chantenay into the wide reach of the river just below Chevire where, as you know, the Loire is nearly two thousand feet wide."
Once more he paused, looking down with grim amus.e.m.e.nt on the bent shoulders of the other man.
"Well?"
Chauvelin laughed. The query sounded choked and hoa.r.s.e, whether through horror, excitement or mere impatient curiosity it were impossible to say.
"Well!" he retorted with a careless shrug of the shoulders. "I was too far up stream to see anything and Vailly saw nothing either. But he heard. So did others who happened to be on the sh.o.r.e close by."
"What did they hear?"
"The hammering," replied Chauvelin curtly, "when the portholes were knocked open to let in the flood of water. And the screams and yells of five and twenty drowning priests."
"Not one of them escaped, I suppose?"
"Not one."
Once more Chauvelin laughed. He had a way of laughing--just like that--in a peculiar mirthless, derisive manner, as if with joy at another man"s discomfiture, at another"s material or moral downfall.
There is only one language in the world which has a word to express that type of mirth; the word is _Schadenfreude_.
It was Chauvelin"s turn to triumph now. He had distinctly perceived the signs of an inward shudder which had gone right through Martin-Roget"s spine: he had also perceived through the man"s bent shoulders, his silence, his rigidity that his soul was filled with horror at the story of that abominable crime which he--Chauvelin--had so blandly retailed and that he was afraid to show the horror which he felt. And the man who is afraid can never climb the ladder of success above the man who is fearless.
IV
There was silence in the low raftered room for awhile: silence only broken by the crackling and sizzling of damp logs in the hearth, and the tap-tapping of a loosely fastened shutter which sounded weird and ghoulish like the knocking of ghosts against the window-frame.
Martin-Roget bending still closer to the fire knew that Chauvelin was watching him and that Chauvelin had triumphed, for--despite failure, despite humiliation and disgrace--that man"s heart and will had never softened: he had remained as merciless, as fanatical, as before and still looked upon every sign of pity and humanity for a victim of that b.l.o.o.d.y revolution--which was his child, the thing of his creation, yet worshipped by him, its creator--as a crime against patriotism and against the Republic.
And Martin-Roget fought within himself lest something he might say or do, a look, a gesture should give the other man an indication that the horrible account of a hideous crime perpetrated against twenty-five defenceless men had roused a feeling of unspeakable horror in his heart.
That was the punishment of these callous makers of a ruthless revolution--that was their h.e.l.l upon earth, that they were doomed to hate and to fear one another; every man feeling that the other"s hand was up against him as it had been against law and order, against the guilty and the innocent, the rebel and the defenceless; every man knowing that the other was always there on the alert, ready to pounce like a beast of prey upon any victim--friend, comrade, brother--who came within reach of his hand.
Like many men stronger than himself, Pierre Adet--or Martin-Roget as he now called himself--had been drawn into the vortex of bloodshed and of tyranny out of which now he no longer had the power to extricate himself. Nor had he any wish to extricate himself. He had too many past wrongs to avenge, too much injustice on the part of Fate and Circ.u.mstance to make good, to wish to draw back now that a newly-found power had been placed in the hands of men such as he through the revolt of an entire people. The sickening sense of horror which a moment ago had caused him to shudder and to turn away in loathing from Chauvelin was only like the feeble flicker of a light before it wholly dies down--the light of something purer, early lessons of childhood, former ideals, earlier aspirations, now smothered beneath the pa.s.sions of revenge and of hate.
And he would not give Chauvelin the satisfaction of seeing him wince. He was himself ashamed of his own weakness. He had deliberately thrown in his lot with these men and he was determined not to fall a victim to their denunciations and to their jealousies. So now he made a great effort to pull himself together, to bring back before his mind those memory-pictures of past tyranny and oppression which had effectually killed all sense of pity in his heart, and it was in a tone of perfect indifference which gave no loophole to Chauvelin"s sneers that he asked after awhile:
"And was citizen Carrier altogether pleased with the result of his patriotic efforts?"
"Oh, quite!" replied the other. "He has no one"s orders to take. He is proconsul--virtual dictator in Nantes: and he has vowed that he will purge the city from all save its most deserving citizens. The cargo of priests was followed by one of malefactors, night-birds, cut-throats and such like. That is where Carrier"s patriotism shines out in all its glory. It is not only priests and aristos, you see--other miscreants are treated with equal fairness."
"Yes! I see he is quite impartial," remarked Martin-Roget coolly.
"Quite," retorted Chauvelin, as he once more sat down in the ingle-nook.
And, leaning his elbows upon his knees he looked straight and deliberately into the other man"s face, and added slowly: "You will have no cause to complain of Carrier"s want of patriotism when you hand over your bag of birds to him."
This time Martin-Roget had obviously winced, and Chauvelin had the satisfaction of seeing that his thrust had gone home: though Martin-Roget"s face was in shadow, there was something now in his whole att.i.tude, in the clasping and unclasping of his large, square hands which indicated that the man was labouring under the stress of a violent emotion. In spite of this he managed to say quite coolly: "What do you mean exactly by that, citizen Chauvelin?"