'Is your husband in favour of the new state of things?' Jeanne asked.
'Not in his heart, mademoiselle, any more than I am, but he holds his tongue. Most of the sallors in the port hate these murdering tyrants of ours; but what can we do?'
'Well, Marthe, I am sure I can trust you, and your husband can help me if he will.'
'Surely you can trust me,' the woman said. 'I would lay down my life for you, and I know Adolphe would do so too when he knows what you have done for us.'
'Well, then, Marthe, I and my sister and my brother Henri are anxious to be taken to England. We are ready to pay well for a passage, but we have not known how to set about it.'
'I thought it might be that,' Marthe said quietly; 'for anyone who knows the ways of gentlefolk, as I do, could see with half an eye that you are not one of us. But they say, mademoiselle, that your brother is a friend of Robespierre, and that he is one of the committee here.'
'He is only pretending, Marthe, in order that no suspicion should fall upon us. But he finds that the sailors distrust him, and he cannot get to speak to them about taking a passage, so I thought I would speak to you, and you can tell me when a boat is sailing and who is her captain.'
'Adolphe will manage all that for you, never fear,' the woman said. 'I know that many a poor soul has been hidden away on board the smuggler's craft and got safely out of the country; but of course it's a risk, for it is death to assist any of the suspects. Still the sailors are ready to run the risk, and indeed they haven't much fear of the consequences if they are caught, for the sailor population here are very strong, and they would not stand quietly by and see some of their own class treated as if they had done some great crime merely because they were earning a few pounds by running passengers across to England. Why they have done it from father to son as far as they can recollect, for there has never been a time yet when there were not people who wanted to pass from France to England and from England to France without asking the leave of the authorities. I think it can be managed, mademoiselle, especially, as you say, you can afford to pay, for if one won't take you, another will. Trade is so bad that there are scores of men would start in their fishing-boats for a voyage across the Channel in the hope of getting food for their wives and families.'
'I was sure it was so, Marthe, but it was so difficult to set about it. Everyone is afraid of spies, and it needs some one to warrant that we are not trying to draw them into a snare, before anyone will listen. If your husband will but take the matter up, I have no doubt it can be managed.'
'Set your mind at ease; the thing is as good as done. I tell you there are scores of men ready to undertake the job when they know it is a straightforward one.'
'That is good news indeed, Jeanne,' Harry said, when the girl told him of the conversation. 'That does seem a way out of our difficulties. I felt sure you would be able to manage it, sooner or later, among the poor people you have been so good to. Hurry it on as much as you can, Jeanne. I feel that our position is getting more and more dangerous. I am afraid I do not play my part sufficiently well. I am not forward enough in their violent councils. I cannot bring myself to vote for proposals for massacre when there is any division among them. I fear that some have suspicions. I have been asked questions lately as to why I am staying here, and why I have come. I have been thinking for the last few days whether it would not be better for us to make our way down to the mouth of the river and try and bribe some fishermen in the villages there who would not have that feeling against me that the men here have, to take us to sea, or if that could not be managed, to get on board some little fishing-boat at night and sail off by ourselves in the hopes of being picked up by an English cruiser.'
Harry indeed had for some days been feeling that danger was thickening round him. He had noticed angry glances cast at him by the more violent of the committee, and had caught sentences expressing doubt whether he had really been Robespierre's secretary. That evening as he came out from the meeting he heard one man say to another:
'I tell you he may have stolen it, and perhaps killed the citizen who bore it. I believe he is a cursed aristocrat. I tell you I shall watch him. He has got some women with him; the maire, who saw the paper, told me so. I shall make it my business to get to the bottom of the affair, and we will make short work with him if we find things are as I believe.'
Harry felt, therefore, that the danger was even more urgent than he had expressed it to Jeanne, and he had returned intending to propose immediate flight had not Jeanne been beforehand with her news. Even now he hesitated whether even a day's delay might not ruin them.
'Have you told me all, Harry?' Jeanne asked.
'Not quite all, Jeanne. I was just thinking it over. I fear the danger is even more pressing than I have said;' and he repeated the sentence he had overheard. 'Even now,' he said, 'that fellow may be watching outside or making inquiries about you. He will hear nothing but praise; but that very praise may cause him to doubt still more that you are not what you seem.'
'But why can we not run away at once?' Virginie said. 'Why should we wait here till they come and take us and carry us away and kill us?'
'That is what I was thinking when I came home, Virginie; but the risk of trying to escape in a fishing-boat by ourselves would be tremendous. You see, although I have gone out sailing sometimes on the river in England, I know very little about it, and although we might be picked up by an English ship, it would be much more likely that we should fall into the hands of one of the French gunboats. So I look upon that as a desperate step, to be taken only at the last moment. And now that Jeanne seems to have arranged a safe plan, I do not like trying such a wild scheme. A week now, and perhaps all might be arranged; but the question is—Have we a week? Have we more than twenty-four hours? What do you think, Jeanne?'
'I do not see what is best to do yet,' Jeanne said, looking steadily in the fire. 'It is a terrible thing to have to decide; but I see we must decide.' She sat for five minutes without speaking, and then taking down her cloak from the peg on which it hung she said; 'I will go round to Marthe Pichon again and tell her we are all so anxious for each other, that I don't think we can judge what is really the best. Marthe will see things more clearly and will be able to advise us.'
'Yes, that will be the best plan.'
It was three-quarters of an hour before she returned.
'I can see you have a plan,' Harry said as he saw that there was a look of brightness and hope on Jeanne's face.
'Yes, I have a plan, and a good one; that is to say, Marthe has. I told her all about it, and she said directly that we must be hidden somewhere till her husband can arrange for us to sail. I said, of course, that was what was wanted, but how could it be managed? So she thought it over, and we have quite arranged it. She has a sister who lives in a fishing-village four miles down the river. She will go over there to-morrow and arrange with them to take us, and will get some fisher-girls' dresses for us. She says she is sure her sister will take us, for she was over here yesterday and heard about the child getting better, and Marthe told her all sorts of nonsense about what I had done for it. She thinks we shall be quite safe there, for there are only six or seven houses, and no one but fishermen live there. She proposes that you shall be dressed up in some of her husband's clothes, and shall go out fishing with her sister's husband. What do you think of that, Harry?'
'Splendid, Jeanne! Can the husband be trusted too?'
'Oh, yes, she says so. He is an honest man, she says; and besides, they are very poor, and a little money will be a great help to them. She says she would not propose it unless she was quite, quite sure of them, for if anything happened to us she would be a wretched woman all her life.'
'Thank God,' Harry said fervently, 'that one sees daylight at last! I have felt so helpless lately! Dangers seemed to be thickening round you, and I could do nothing; and now, Jeanne, you have found a way out for us where I never should have found one for myself.'
'It is God who has done it, not me,' Jeanne said reverently. 'I did not begin to go about among the poor people here with any thought of making friends, but because they were so poor and miserable; but He must have put it into my heart to do it, in order that a way of escape might be made for us.'
CHAPTER XIII
In the Hands of the Reds
The next morning Harry went out, as usual, immediately after breakfast, for a walk for two or three hours. This he did partly to allow the girls to tidy the rooms, an office which had naturally fallen to them since the commencement of their old nurse's illness; partly because in active exercise he found some relief from the burden
