Never once did he raise his voice or indulge in gesture. He spoke in even, monotonous tones, like one who is reciting a lesson; and he sat straight in front of the fire, his elbow on his knee, his chin resting in his hand and his eyes fixed upon the flames.
Chauvelin had listened in perfect silence. The scorn, the resentful anger, the ill-concealed envy of the fallen man for the successful upstart had died out of his glance. Martin-Roget"s story, the intensity of feeling betrayed in that absolute, outward calm had caused a chord of sympathy to vibrate in the other"s atrophied heart. How well he understood that vibrant pa.s.sion of hate, that longing to exact an eye for an eye, an outrage for an outrage! Was not his own life given over now to just such a longing?--a mad aching desire to be even once with that hated enemy, that maddening, mocking, elusive Scarlet Pimpernel who had fooled and baffled him so often?
VI
Some few moments had gone by since Martin-Roget"s harsh, monotonous voice had ceased to echo through the low raftered room: silence had fallen between the two men--there was indeed nothing more to say; the one had unburthened his over-full heart and the other had understood.
They were of a truth made to understand one another, and the silence between them betokened sympathy.
Around them all was still, the stillness of a mist-laden night; in the house no one stirred: the shutter even had ceased to creak; only the crackling of the wood fire broke that silence which soon became oppressive.
Martin-Roget was the first to rouse himself from this trance-like state wherein memory was holding such ruthless sway: he brought his hands sharply down on his knees, turned to look for a moment on his companion, gave a short laugh and finally rose, saying briskly the while:
"And now, citizen, I shall have to bid you adieu and make my way back to Bath. The nags have had the rest they needed and I cannot spend the night here."
He went to the door and opening it called a loud "Hallo, there!"
The same woman who had waited on him on his arrival came slowly down the stairs in response.
"The man with the horses," commanded Martin-Roget peremptorily. "Tell him I"ll be ready in two minutes."
He returned to the room and proceeded to struggle into his heavy coat, Chauvelin as before making no attempt to help him. He sat once more huddled up in the ingle-nook hugging his elbows with his thin white hands. There was a smile half scornful, but not wholly dissatisfied around his bloodless lips. When Martin-Roget was ready to go he called out quietly after him:
"The _Hollandia_ remember! At Portishead on the last day of the month.
Captain K U Y P E R."
"Quite right," replied Martin-Roget laconically. "I"m not like to forget."
He then picked up his hat and riding whip and went out.
VII
Outside in the porch he found the woman bending over the rec.u.mbent figure of his guide.
"He be azleep, Mounzeer," she said placidly, "fast azleep, I do believe."
"Asleep?" cried Martin-Roget roughly, "we"ll soon see about waking him up."
He gave the man a violent kick with the toe of his boot. The man groaned, stretched himself, turned over and rubbed his eyes. The light of the swinging lanthorn showed him the wrathful face of his employer.
He struggled to his feet very quickly after that.
"Stir yourself, man," cried Martin-Roget savagely, as he gripped the fellow by the shoulder and gave him a vigorous shaking. "Bring the horses along now, and don"t keep me waiting, or there"ll be trouble."
"All right, Mounzeer, all right," muttered the man placidly, as he shook himself free from the uncomfortable clutch on his shoulder and leisurely made his way out of the porch.
"Haven"t you got a boy or a man who can give that lout a hand with those _sacre_ horses?" queried Martin-Roget impatiently. "He hardly knows a horse"s head from its tail."
"No, zir, I"ve no one to-night," replied the woman gently. "My man and my son they be gone down to Watchet to "elp with the cargo and the pack-"orzes. They won"t be "ere neither till after midnight. But," she added more cheerfully, "I can straighten a saddle if you want it."
"That"s all right then--but...."
He paused suddenly, for a loud cry of "Hallo! Well! I"m ..." rang through the night from the direction of the rear of the house. The cry expressed both surprise and dismay.
"What the ---- is it?" called Martin-Roget loudly in response.
"The "orzes!"
"What about them?"
To this there was no reply, and with a savage oath and calling to the woman to show him the way Martin-Roget ran out in the direction whence had come the cry of dismay. He fell straight into the arms of his guide, who promptly set up another cry, more dismal, more expressive of bewilderment than the first.
"They be gone," he shouted excitedly.
"Who have gone?" queried the Frenchman.
"The "orzes!"
"The horses? What in ---- do you mean?"
"The "orzes have gone, Mounzeer. There was no door to the ztables and they be gone."
"You"re a fool," growled Martin-Roget, who of a truth had not taken in as yet the full significance of the man"s jerky sentences. "Horses don"t walk out of the stables like that. They can"t have done if you tied them up properly."
"I didn"t tie them up," protested the man. "I didn"t know "ow to tie the beastly nags up, and there was no one to "elp me. I didn"t think they"d walk out like that."
"Well! if they"re gone you"ll have to go and get them back somehow, that"s all," said Martin-Roget, whose temper by now was beyond his control, and who was quite ready to give the lout a furious thrashing.
"Get them back, Mounzeer," wailed the man, ""ow can I? In the dark, too.
Besides, if I did come nose to nose wi" "em I shouldn"t know "ow to get "em. Would you, Mounzeer?" he added with bland impertinence.
"I shall know how to lay you out, you _satane_ idiot," growled Martin-Roget, "if I have to spend the night in this hole."
He strode on in the darkness in the direction where a little glimmer of light showed the entrance to a wide barn which obviously was used as a rough stabling. He stumbled through a yard and over a miscellaneous lot of rubbish. It was hardly possible to see one"s hands before one"s eyes in the darkness and the fog. The woman followed him, offering consolation in the shape of a seat in the coffee-room whereon to pa.s.s the night, for indeed she had no bed to spare, and the man from Chelwood brought up the rear--still e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. cries of astonishment rather than distress.
"You are that careless, man!" the woman admonished him placidly, "and I give you a lanthorn and all for to look after your "orzes properly."
"But you didn"t give me a "and for to tie "em up in their stalls, and give "em their feed. Drat "em! I "ate "orzes and all to do with "em."
"Didn"t you give "em the feed I give you for "em then?"
"No, I didn"t. Think you I"d go into one o" them narrow stalls and get kicked for my pains."
"Then they was "ungry, pore things," she concluded, "and went out after the "ay what"s just outside. I don"t know "ow you"ll ever get "em back in this fog."
There was indeed no doubt that the nags had made their way out of the stables, in that irresponsible fashion peculiar to animals, and that they had gone astray in the dark. There certainly was no sound in the night to denote their presence anywhere near.
"We"ll get "em all right in the morning," remarked the woman with her exasperating placidity.