“Allons! les us have a look at that English spy! …”
“Let us see the Scarlet Pimpernel!”
“Yes! yes! let us see what he is like!”
They shouted and stamped and swarmed round the open window, swinging their lanterns and demanding in a loud tone of voice that the English spy be shown to them.
Faces wet with rain and perspiration tried to peep in at the window. Collot gave brief orders to the soldiers to close the shutters at once and to push away the crowd, but the crowd would not be pushed. It would not be gainsaid, and when the soldiers tried to close the window, twenty angry fists broke the panes of glass.
“I can’t finish this writing in your lingo, sir, whilst this demmed row is going on,” said Sir Percy placidly.
“You have not much more to write, Sir Percy,” urged Chauvelin with nervous impatience, “I pray you, finish the matter now, and get you gone from out this city.”
“Send that demmed lot away, then,” rejoined Sir Percy calmly.
“They won’t go. … They want to see you …”
Sir Percy paused a moment, pen in hand, as if in deep reflection.
“They want to see me,” he said with a laugh. “Why, demn it all … then, why not let em? …”
And with a few rapid strokes of the pen, he quickly finished the letter, adding his signature with a bold flourish, whilst the crowd, pushing, jostling, shouting and cursing the soldiers, still loudly demanded to see the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Chauvelin felt as if his heart would veritably burst with the wildness of its beating.
Then Sir Percy, with one hand lightly pressed on the letter, pushed his chair away and with his pleasant ringing voice, said once again:
“Well! demn it … let ’em see me! …”
With that he sprang to his feet and up to his full height, and as he did so he seized the two massive pewter candlesticks, one in each hand, and with powerful arms well outstretched he held them high above his head.
“The letter …” murmured Chauvelin in a hoarse whisper.
But even as he was quickly reaching out a hand, which shook with the intensity of his excitement, towards the letter on the table, Blakeney, with one loud and sudden shout, threw the heavy candlesticks onto the floor. They rattled down with a terrific crash, the lights were extinguished, and the whole room was immediately plunged in utter darkness.
The crowd gave a wild yell of fear: they had only caught sight for one instant of that gigantic figure—which, with arms outstretched had seemed supernaturally tall—weirdly illumined by the flickering light of the tallow candles and the next moment disappearing into utter darkness before their very gaze. Overcome with sudden superstitious fear, Pierrots and Pierrettes, drummer and trumpeters, turned and fled in every direction.
Within the room all was wild confusion. The soldiers had heard a cry:
“La fenêtre! La fenêtre!”
Who gave it no one knew, no one could afterwards recollect: certain it is that with one accord the majority of the men made a rush for the open window, driven thither partly by the wild instinct of the chase after an escaping enemy, and partly by the same superstitious terror which had caused the crowd to flee. They clambered over the sill and dropped down on to the ramparts below, then started in wild pursuit.
But when the crash came, Chauvelin had given one frantic shout:
“The letter!!! … Collot!! … A moi. … In his hand. … The letter! …”
There was the sound of a heavy thud, of a terrible scuffle there on the floor in the darkness and then a yell of victory from Collot d’Herbois.
“I have the letter! A Paris!”
“Victory!” echoed Chauvelin, exultant and panting, “victory!! The Angelus, friend Hébert! Take the calotin to ring the Angelus!!!”
It was instinct which caused Collot d’Herbois to find the door; he tore it open, letting in a feeble ray of light from the corridor. He stood in the doorway one moment, his slouchy, ungainly form distinctly outlined against the lighter background beyond, a look of exultant and malicious triumph, of deadly hate and cruelty distinctly imprinted on his face and with upraised hand wildly flourishing the precious document, the brand of dishonour for the enemy of France.
“A Paris!” shouted Chauvelin to him excitedly. “Into Robespierre’s hands. … The letter! …”
Then he fell back panting, exhausted on the nearest chair.
Collot, without looking again behind him, called wildly for the men who were to escort him to Paris. They were picked troopers, stalwart veterans from the old municipal guard. They had not broken their ranks throughout the turmoil, and fell into line in perfect order as they followed Citizen Collot out of the room.
Less than five minutes later there was the noise of stamping and champing of bits in the courtyard below, a shout from Collot, and the sound of a cavalcade galloping at breakneck speed towards the distant Paris gate.
XXXIV
The Angelus
And gradually all noises died away around the old Fort Gayole. The shouts and laugher of the merrymakers, who had quickly recovered from their fright, now came only as the muffled rumble of a distant storm, broken here and there by the shrill note of a girl’s loud laughter, or a vigorous fanfare from the brass trumpets.
The room where so much turmoil had taken place, where so many hearts had beaten with torrent-like emotions, where the awesome tragedy of revenge and hate, of love and passion had been consummated, was now silent and at peace.
The soldiers had gone: some in pursuit of the revellers, some with Collot d’Herbois, others with Hébert and the calotin who was to ring the Angelus.
Chauvelin, overcome with the intensity of his exultation and the agony of the suspense which he had endured, sat, vaguely dreaming, hardly conscious, but wholly happy and content. Fearless, too, for his triumph was complete, and he cared not now
