gleam through the chinks of the hut; she ran up to it and fell against
its
wooden walls, which she began to
hammer with clenched fists in an
almost maniacal
frenzy, while she shouted,--
"Armand! Armand! for God's sake fire! your leader is near!
he is coming! he is betrayed! Armand! Armand! fire in Heaven's name!"
She was seized and thrown to the ground. She lay there moaning, bruised,
not caring, but still half-sobbing, half-shrieking,--
"Percy, my husband, for God's sake fly! Armand!
Armand! why don't you fire?"
"One of you stop that woman screaming," hissed Chauvelin, who hardly
could
refrain from
striking her.
Something was thrown over her face; she could not breathe, and
perforce she was silent.
The bold
singer, too, had become silent, warned, no doubt, of
his
impending danger by Marguerite's
frantic shrieks. The men had
sprung to their feet, there was no need for further silence on their
part; the very cliffs echoed the poor, heart-broken woman's screams.
Chauvelin, with a muttered oath, which boded no good to her,
who had dared to upset his most cherished plans, had
hastily shouted
the word of command,--
"Into it, my men, and let no one escape from that hut alive!"
The moon had once more emerged from between the clouds: the
darkness on the cliffs had gone, giving place once more to brilliant,
silvery light. Some of the soldiers had rushed to the rough,
woodendoor of the hut,
whilst one of them kept guard over Marguerite.
The door was
partially open; on of the soldiers pushed it further,
but within all was darkness, the
charcoal fire only
lighting with a dim,
red light the furthest corner of the hut. The soldiers paused
automatically at the door, like machines
waiting for further orders.
Chauvelin, who was prepared for a
violent onslaught from
within, and for a
vigorousresistance from the four fugitives, under
cover of the darkness, was for the moment paralyzed with astonishment
when he saw the soldiers
standing there at attention, like sentries on
guard,
whilst not a sound proceeded from the hut.
Filled with strange,
anxious foreboding, he, too, went to the
door of the hut, and peering into the gloom, he asked quickly,--
"What is the meaning of this?"
"I think, citoyen, that there is no one there now," replied
one of the soldiers imperturbably.
"You have not let those four men go?" thundered Chauvelin,
menacingly. "I ordered you to let no man escape alive!--Quick, after
them all of you! Quick, in every direction!"
The men,
obedient as machines, rushed down the rocky incline
towards the beach, some going off to right and left, as fast as their
feet could carry them.
"You and your men will pay with your lives for this blunder,
citoyen
sergeant," said Chauvelin viciously to the
sergeant who had
been in
charge of the men; "and you, too, citoyen," he added turning
with a snarl to Desgas, "for disobeying my orders."
"You ordered us to wait, citoyen, until the tall Englishman
arrived and joined the four men in the hut. No one came," said the
sergeant sullenly.
"But I ordered you just now, when the woman screamed, to rush
in and let no one escape."
"But, citoyen, the four men who were there before had been
gone some time, I think. . ."
"You think?--You?. . ." said Chauvelin, almost choking with
fury, "and you let them go. . ."
"You ordered us to wait, citoyen," protested the
sergeant,
"and to implicitly obey your commands on pain of death. We waited."
"I heard the men creep out of the hut, not many minutes after
we took cover, and long before the woman screamed," he added, as
Chauvelin seemed still quite
speechless with rage.
"Hark!" said Desgas suddenly.
In the distance the sound of
repeated firing was heard.
Chauvelin tried to peer along the beach below, but as luck would have
it, the fitful moon once more hid her light behind a bank of clouds,
and he could see nothing.
"One of you go into the hut and strike a light," he stammered at last.
Stolidly the
sergeant obeyed: he went up to the
charcoal fire
and lit the small
lantern he carried in his belt; it was
evident that
the hut was quite empty.
"Which way did they go?" asked Chauvelin.
"I could not tell, citoyen," said the
sergeant; "they went
straight down the cliff first, then disappeared behind some boulders."
"Hush! what was that?"
All three men listened attentively. In the far, very far
distance, could be heard
faintly echoing and already dying away, the
quick, sharp
splash of half a dozen oars. Chauvelin took out his
handkerchief and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
"The
schooner's boat!" was all he gasped.
Evidently Armand St. Just and his three companions had managed
to creep along the side of the cliffs,
whilst the men, like true
soldiers of the well-drilled Republican army, had with blind
obedience, and in fear of their own lives, implicitly obeyed
Chauvelin's orders--to wait for the tall Englishman, who was the
important capture.
They had no doubt reached one of the creeks which jut far out
to see on this coast at intervals; behind this, the boat of the DAY
DREAM must have been on the
lookout for them, and they were by now
safely on board the British
schooner.
As if to
confirm this last supposition, the dull boom of a gun
was heard from out at sea.
"The
schooner, citoyen," said Desgas, quietly; "she's off."
It needed all Chauvelin's nerve and presence of mind not to
give way to a
useless and undignified
access of rage. There was no
doubt now, that once again, that
accursed British head had completely
outwitted him. How he had contrived to reach the hut, without being
seen by one of the thirty soldiers who guarded the spot, was more than
Chauvelin could
conceive. That he had done so before the thirty men
had arrived on the cliff was, of course, fairly clear, but how he had
come over in Reuben Goldstein's cart, all the way from Calais, without
being sighted by the various patrols on duty was impossible of
explanation. It really seemed as if some
potent Fate watched over
that
daring Scarlet Pimpernel, and his astute enemy almost felt a
superstitious
shudder pass through him, as he looked round at the
towering cliffs, and the
loneliness of this outlying coast.
But surely this was reality! and the year of grace 1792:
there were no fairies and hobgoblins about. Chauvelin and his thirty
men had all heard with their own ears that
accursed voice singing "God
save the King," fully twenty minutes AFTER they had all taken cover
around the hut; by that time the four fugitives must have reached the
creek, and got into the boat, and the nearest creek was more than a
mile from the hut.
Where had that
daringsinger got to? Unless Satan himself had
lent him wings, he could not have covered that mile on a rocky cliff
in the space of two minutes; and only two minutes had elapsed between
his song and the sound of the boat's oars away at sea. He must have
remained behind, and was even now hiding somewhere about the cliffs;
the patrols were still about, he would still be sighted, no doubt.
Chauvelin felt
hopeful once again.
One or two of the men, who had run after the fugitives, were
now slowly
working their way up the cliff: one of them reached
Chauvelin's side, at the very moment that this hope arose in the
astute diplomatist's heart.