With the idea of copying the letter, she had seated herself at the table and was looking for a pen when she changed her mind. A copy would not do without the tsar's letter as well. She knew Napoleon well enough to be sure he would be unwilling to believe it. She looked at the sleeping man, her eyes full of trouble and remorse for what she was about to do. She did not like the idea of stealing his correspondence but it was the only way. She must take the tsar's letter.
Without more ado, she thrust the letter into her pocket, snuffed out the candles and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her. To cross the landing to the yellow salon, recover her cloak and hurry downstairs, dragging it around her as she went, was the work of a moment.
A minute or two later she was scurrying past the drowsy sentries, who barely opened an eye in time to glimpse a flash of white satin vanishing into the night, then drowsed again and troubled themselves no further in the matter.
Marianne was possessed now with a feverish haste. She had to wake Jolival, get Jason out of his prison and leave Odessa somehow before daylight. When Richelieu woke, he would know at once who had stolen his letter and would be bound to make a search for her. If she was to warn the emperor, she must first make good her escape.
Marianne picked up her skirts and ran as fast as she could toward the Hotel Ducroux.
Chapter 11
Death of a Witch
FROM the moment when he was shaken awake by an excited Marianne from the chair where he had fallen asleep while waiting for her to return, Jolival knew that this was going to be a memorable night. Fortunately, he was not a man who ever found much difficulty in dragging himself out of the mists of sleep and it did not take long for Marianne to put him in possession of the facts.
He watched her dubiously for a moment as she waved the two letters under his nose, one the order of release, signed Richelieu, the other a letter from the tsar which had come into her hands somewhat less honorably. Then he asked a question or two which very readily convinced him that there was no time to lose if they did not wish to find their stay in Odessa uncomfortably prolonged. Complimenting Marianne briefly on her prompt action, he began to struggle into his coat.
'If I have it right,' he said, 'the first thing we have to do is to get Beaufort and his men out of the castle. But what then?'
Knowing Marianne, he had put this last question in a tone of perfect innocence, but she replied without a shadow of hesitation.
'Surely the tsar's letter told you that. Wake up, Jolival! We must reach the emperor on the march into Russia and see that he knows of the danger threatening him at home.'
Busy stuffing shirts into a big leather valise, Jolival only grunted.
'You talk as if this were Paris and we had only to travel as far as Fontainebleau or Compiegne. Have you any idea of the size of this country?'
'I think so. In any case, its size does not seem to have daunted the soldiers of the Grand Army, so there is no reason why I should let it frighten me. The emperor is marching on Moscow. So to Moscow we will go.'
She had folded Alexander's letter again and now put it, apart from the other paper, into an inner pocket in the dress of smooth, dark woolen cloth which she had donned in place of the dress she had worn that evening.
Jolival went to the table and picked up the paper authorizing the release of Jason and the crew of the
'And what of him?' he asked gently. 'Do you expect to persuade him to travel halfway across Russia with us? Have you forgotten his reaction in Venice when you asked him to sail with us to Constantinople? He has no more cause to love Napoleon now than he had then.'
Marianne's green eyes met her friend's squarely, with a determination in them that was new.
'He will have no choice,' she said crisply. 'Richelieu agreed to release him but he would not hear of letting the brig go. The harbor here is too well guarded for him to repeat his exploit in February. And he can scarcely swim home.'
'No. But he might take a passage in any vessel sailing through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles.'
Marianne made an impatient movement and Jolival recognized that it would be useless to persist. Besides, they both had more important things to do than stand there arguing. They hurried on with their preparations for departure, and as two o'clock was striking from the nearby church Marianne and her friend left the Hotel Ducroux. Each was carrying a single large valise containing their money, a few clothes and their most precious possessions. Everything else had been left behind as too cumbersome for fugitives to take with them. They had also left money, in the shape of a gold coin, on the table in Marianne's sitting room, to pay for their lodging. The things they had left behind would have more than covered such charges as they had incurred, but the affair of the 'stolen' diamond was still fresh in Marianne's mind and not for anything would she have left a dubious reputation behind her. It would be bad enough when the police came looking for her, as they surely would, on the grounds of tampering with the governor's private correspondence.
Almost running down the steep streets that skirted the barracks, the two of them reached the harbor in a very few minutes. At this time of night it was quiet and all but deserted. Only a gypsy violin wailed somewhere behind the closed shutters, making a weird background to the sounds of cats quarreling over a pile of fishheads. Already, the dark walls of the castle were looming over the fugitives.
'I hope they'll agree to set them free at this hour of night,' Jolival ventured to say uneasily.
Marianne put out her hand peremptorily to silence him. Then she was hurrying toward the sentry, who stood leaning half-asleep against his box, keeping his balance with the ease of long practice. She shook him fiercely and when the man at last opened one sleepy eye, waved the paper under his nose so that he could make out the governor's signature by the light of the guttering lamp above his head.
It was unlikely that the man could read but the imperial arms on the paper were enough, together with the young lady's energetic pantomime indicating clearly that she wished to enter the castle and be taken to the commandant.
Little as she cared to admit it, Marianne was at least as uneasy as Jolival. The commandant might easily refuse to release his prisoners in the middle of the night and if he were a difficult man or a stickler for the rules he could equally well insist on having the order confirmed. But it seemed that the gods were on Marianne's side that night.
The sentry made no difficulty about hurrying into the citadel, taking the paper with him. Not only that, but he summoned no replacement and the two visitors were able to follow him into the courtyard which was as dark as the bottom of a well. No sound came from the guardroom and it seemed as though everyone were asleep. Now that the war with Turkey was over, everyone could relax.
Marianne and Jolival were left alone for a moment, standing close together at the foot of the stairs leading up to the commandant's quarters. Both their hearts were thudding and the same thought was in both their minds: were they going to see their friends appear or a posse of soldiers to escort them to the commanding officer for further questioning?
But that night the commandant was delightfully if energetically engaged with a pair of pretty Tatar girls whose company he had not the smallest wish to abandon, even for a moment. He opened his door a crack at the sentry's knock, cast a glance over the paper which the man held out to him while still standing rigidly to attention, cursed fluently but, recognizing the governor's signature and the fact that there seemed to be no fault to be found with the document, gave the order to release the men from the American ship at once. It did not occur to him that there was anything more he needed to know.
Only too glad to be rid of lodgers who had proved remarkably expensive and uncooperative, he hurried into his office, not even pausing to put on his clothes, and in that state of nature put his hand to the order without more ado. Then he barked some orders at the soldier, adding that he did not wish to be disturbed again that night, and hastened back to his private paradise.
The soldier clattered down again to the courtyard and, making a sign to the two foreigners to follow him,
