Plouernel was fairly cornered. He could not think of escaping by the window and the roof--one movement by Victoria would send him rolling to the street below. To break down the door was no less perilous; the two speakers in the garret, and soon all the inhabitants of the house, would run to the young woman"s call. And, finally, to attempt to kill her was an expedient as fraught with danger as the other two. He would have to brave two shots at close range and by a sure hand.
Victoria sat down in such a manner as to place her worktable between herself and the Count, and keeping the pistol still in her hand, said:
"Count of Plouernel, you are the head of one of those families which have the honor of tracing their origin back to the early times of conquest. The further you go back in the centuries the more crimes you take to your account, and the more terrible should be the punishment reserved to you. The representatives of these families will pay, like you, Neroweg, Count of Plouernel, the debt of blood."
Victoria was uttering these words in a voice of fierce exaltation when her brother John, who had another key to the door, suddenly entered. His sister"s last words to Plouernel fell upon his ear. The Count, at the unexpected apparition of the young artisan, fell back defiantly, and involuntarily clapped his hand again to his dagger.
"John, lock the door," cried Victoria quickly. "This man"s name is Neroweg, Count of Plouernel!"
The Count put on a bold front, and said, in an attempt to brazen it out with the young workman, who, he knew, shared the sentiments of his sister with regard to the sons of Neroweg: "Go on, citizen, do your business as purveyor of the scaffold."
Unmoved by the insult, John cast a cold look in the Emigrant"s direction and said to his sister:
"How comes the fellow here?"
"He was evidently fleeing from the men sent to arrest him. He climbed to the roof of the next house, and forced his way in by breaking the window."
"So," said John to the Count, "you are an Emigrant, and denounced? They want you for judgment?"
"The marauder has the impudence to question me!" answered the Count with a burst of sardonic laughter. "A switch for the rascal!"
"Count of Plouernel," returned John Lebrenn imperturbably, "I am of a different opinion from my sister on the nature of the punishment to be meted out to you. The Revolution, in abolishing royalty, n.o.bility and clergy, has already chastised the crimes of the enemies of the people: The evil your race has done to ours is expiated. Count of Plouernel, the conquered have taken their revenge upon the conquerors, the nation has re-entered upon her sovereignty. The Republic is proclaimed; justice is done!"
"Blood of G.o.d!" exclaimed Plouernel, "the beggar has the insolence to grant me grace in the name of the people!"
"Count of Plouernel, your judges and not I will grant you grace, if you merit it," answered John, controlling himself under the goading flings of the Emigrant. "If it were for me to say, you would remain in France unmolested, like so many other ex-n.o.bles. I would leave you in peace, I swear it before G.o.d! in spite of all the wrong your family has heaped upon mine. I would have pardoned you, Count of Plouernel, and I shall tell you why I would have shown myself thus clement: A century or more ago, one of my forefathers, Nominoe, said to Bertha of Plouernel, who loved him with a love as pa.s.sionate as his own, "I experience I know not what emotions at once sad and tender, in loving in you a descendant of that race which, from infancy, I have been taught to execrate. You are in my eyes, Bertha, an angel of pardon and concord. In you, I absolve your ancestors; instead of making you party to their iniquities, I transfer to them your virtues. You ransom the evil ones of your race, as Christ, they say, ransomed the world by his divine grace."
"It is in memory of these words of my ancestor Nominoe," proceeded Lebrenn, "that I would have pardoned you, Count of Plouernel, in making you share, not in the crimes of your stock, but in the virtues of that young girl and in the qualities of another of your blood, a Protestant and republican in his time, Colonel Plouernel, the friend of the great Coligny and of my ancestor Odelin, the armorer of La Roch.e.l.le."
"You lie," cried the Count of Plouernel, furiously. "Never did woman or maid of the house of Plouernel dishonor herself with love for a va.s.sal!
As to Colonel Plouernel, a turn-coat and a Protestant, he is the shame of our family; as such, he may, indeed, have played the part of friend to a base plebeian."
"Accordingly, I would have pardoned, Count, the evil done by your family to mine," John Lebrenn continued unperturbed. "But though I have the right to show myself generous to my personal enemy, my duty as a citizen forbids me to furnish asylum to an enemy of the nation and the Republic, to a monarchist conspirator."
"O, the hypocrite!" exclaimed the Count. "All the while pretending a generosity which would be an insult to me, the clown wants to gratify his hatred by sending me to the scaffold!"
"I have told you that duty prevents my affording asylum to an enemy of the Republic; but I am not an informer, I would not deliver up even my personal enemy when he has sought shelter under my roof. Leave this place. Go down the stairs softly, and you may gain the street. The gate is not locked. If you were not under the shadow of a capital accusation, I would chastise you as you deserve for your insults. So, out of here!
my ex-gentleman."
"Ah, miserable va.s.sal," replied Plouernel, pale with rage. "You dare to threaten me!" And suddenly throwing himself upon Lebrenn, he dealt him a blow that crimsoned the side of his face.
"The fellow now belongs to me," grimly muttered John. He went to the corner where his tools lay, and arming himself with a bar of iron which he found there, tossed to the Count a sword which hung on the wall, saying, as he did so:
"Come, Count of Plouernel; take the weapon, and guard yourself!"
"John," shrieked Victoria in terror, "your bar is no match for his saber. You shall not expose your life so!"
Plouernel drew the sword from its sheath and prepared to defend himself, while Victoria, unable to intervene, shudderingly followed the duel.
"Son of the Nerowegs," cried John, brandishing his bar of iron, "my avenging arm is about to fall upon you."
"I await it," coolly replied the Count, putting himself on his guard.
The robust iron-worker advanced upon his adversary, describing with his weapon a figure-of-eight so l.u.s.ty, so rapid, and to which the vigor of his wrist lent such force that, encountering the sword at the moment when the ex-colonel was about to lunge, the iron bar broke down the latter"s guard, and descended heavily upon his skull. Almost without losing a drop of blood, and without a single cry, the Count dropped in his tracks, and rolled upon the floor like an ox smitten with a sledge.
With a bound Victoria flung herself on her brother"s neck, wrapped him in a convulsive embrace, and, suffocated with emotion, broke into tears, unable to utter a word. Partaking of his sister"s emotion, John pressed her tenderly to his breast; but their embrace ended in a start as they heard a knock at their room door, and the voice of the porter calling: "Citizen John, if you are abed, rise! They are looking for an Emigrant in the house."
The porter had barely uttered these words when John and his sister heard a low moan from the Count of Plouernel. At the same moment the porter called still more loudly, once more knocking at the door.
"The wretch is not dead, and we can not give him up," said the workman to his sister, looking at Plouernel.
"Citizen John, awake!" it was the porter"s voice as he redoubled his knocks. "Here is the commissioner of the Section."
"Who is knocking? Who"s there?" answered the artisan, with a meaning gesture to his sister, and saying to her, softly: "I"ll feign to be waking from a deep sleep. Help me carry the wounded man to your room; for it would be an infamous deed to give up a suffering enemy. I shall say that you are ill in bed, and they will not intrude upon you."
"It is I, James," replied the porter. "You sleep a sound sleep, Citizen John. This is the third time I have pounded at your door."
"Ah, "tis you, Father James. I slept so hard I did not hear you. What do you wish?"
"The commissioner of the Section and his agents are after an Emigrant.
They have already visited three floors; they will doubtless come up to your chamber, as a matter of form. They know well enough that you would never harbor an Emigrant in your place."
"Alright, Father James. I"ll slip on my trousers and open the door in an instant."
While speaking, John had hustled off his cravat, his vest, and his cloak of munic.i.p.al officership. He kept on only his pantaloons, and feigning to be but half dressed in his haste to get out of bed, opened the door at the moment that the commissioner of the Section, the same who the evening before had carried on the search at Desmarais"s, appeared on the landing, followed by his agents and several gendarmes. The magistrate, a friend of Marat"s, knew Lebrenn, and greeted him cordially:
"I regret, Citizen Lebrenn, that you have been awakened. You are one of those in whose abodes there is no reason for searches and seizures."
"No matter, citizen; come in, do your duty. I ask you only not to go into my sister"s room. She is ill."
"I shall go neither into your sister"s room nor yours, Citizen Lebrenn."
"Who is it you seek?"
"An ex-n.o.ble, the Count of Plouernel, formerly a colonel in the Guards.
He was installed in a house next to this, in the rooms of an old huntsman of Louis Capet"s; but warned, no doubt, of our approach, our ex-n.o.ble took to his heels. I first thought he might have escaped by the roofs; but after an inspection of them, I recognized that only a roofer, and an intrepid one at that, would have dared to risk his life on such a slope. To acquit my conscience I came, nevertheless, to inspect the attic of this house. So, good night, Citizen Lebrenn."
The magistrate shook the hand of the young man, who watched the commissioner proceed towards the attic, and then re-entered his own rooms and locked the door.
CHAPTER XVII.
PLANS FOR THE FUTURE.
The day following these events in the lodgings of John Lebrenn, Charlotte Desmarais was again talking with her mother in the parlor of their apartment. The latter, pale and downcast, and her eyes red with weeping, still trembled for the life of her brother, who, scenting the snare in the commissioner"s advice to leave Paris by the St. Victor barrier, had remained snug in his refuge. The lawyer"s wife was saying to her daughter:
"And so you are happy, very happy at your coming marriage, my child?"