Santerre withdrew from the front rank, up against the side of the cart, where a rough stable lantern had been fixed. He took the paper from the soldier’s hand, and, hastily tearing it open, he read it by the dim light of the lantern.
As he read, his thick, coarse features expressed the keenest satisfaction.
“You have two more men with you?” he asked quickly.
“Yes, citizen,” replied the man, pointing towards his right; “and the Citizen-Minister said you would give me two more.”
“You’ll take the prisoners quietly across to the Prison of the Temple—you understand that?”
“Yes, citizen; Citizen Merlin has given me full instructions. You can have the cart drawn back a little more under the shadow of the portico, where the prisoners can be made to alight; they can then be given into my charge. You in the meantime are to stay here with your men, round the empty cart, as long as you can. Reinforcements have been sent for, and must soon be here. When they arrive you are to move along with the cart, as if you were making for the Luxembourg Prison. This manoeuvre will give us time to deliver the prisoners safely at the Temple.”
The man spoke hurriedly and peremptorily, and Santerne was only too ready to obey. He felt relieved at thought of reinforcements, and glad to be rid of the responsibility of conducting such troublesome prisoners.
The thick mist, which grew more and more dense, favoured the new manoeuvre, and the constant roll of drums drowned the hastily given orders.
The cart was drawn back into the deepest shadow of the great portico, and whilst the mob were howling their loudest, and yelling out frantic demands for the traitors, Déroulède and Juliette were summarily ordered to step out of the cart. No one saw them, for the darkness here was intense.
“Follow quietly!” whispered a raucous voice in their ears as they did so, “or my orders are to shoot you where you stand.”
But neither of them had any wish for resistance. Juliette, cold and numb, was clinging to Déroulède, who had placed a protecting arm round her.
Santerne had told off two of his men to join the new escort of the prisoners, and presently the small party, skirting the walls of the Palais de Justice, began to walk rapidly away from the scene of the riot.
Déroulède noted that some half-dozen men seemed to be surrounding him and Juliette, but the drizzling rain blurred every outline. The blackness of the night too had become absolutely dense, and in the distance the cries of the populace grew more and more faint.
XXVIII
The Unexpected
The small party walked on in silence. It seemed to consist of a very few men of the National Guard, whom Santerne had placed under the command of the soldier who had transmitted to him the orders of the Citizen-Deputies.
Juliette and Déroulède both vaguely wondered whither they were being led; to some other prison mayhap, away from the fury of the populace. They were conscious of a sense of satisfaction at thought of being freed from that pack of raging wild beasts.
Beyond that they cared nothing. Both felt already the shadow of death hovering over them. The supreme moment of their lives had come, and had found them side by side.
What neither fear nor remorse, sorrow nor joy, could do, that the great and mighty Shadow accomplished in a trice.
Juliette, looking death bravely in the face, held out her hand, and sought that of the man she loved.
There was not one word spoken between them, not even a murmur.
Déroulède, with the unerring instinct of his own unselfish passion, understood all that the tiny hand wished to convey to him.
In a moment everything was forgotten save the joy of this touch. Death, or the fear of death, had ceased to exist. Life was beautiful, and in the soul of these two human creatures there was perfect peace, almost perfect happiness.
With one grasp of the hand they had sought and found one another’s soul. What mattered the yelling crowd, the noise and tumult of this sordid world? They had found one another, and, hand-in-hand, shoulder-to-shoulder, they had gone off wandering into the land of dreams, where dwelt neither doubt nor treachery, where there was nothing to forgive.
He no longer said: “She does not love me—would she have betrayed me else?” He felt the clinging, trustful touch of her hand, and knew that, with all her faults, her great sin and her lasting sorrow, her woman’s heart, Heaven’s most priceless treasure, was indeed truly his.
And she knew that he had forgiven—nay, that he had naught to forgive—for Love is sweet and tender, and judges not. Love is Love—whole, trustful, passionate. Love is perfect understanding and perfect peace.
And so they followed their escort whithersoever it chose to lead them.
Their eyes wandered aimlessly over the mist-laden landscape of this portion of deserted Paris. They had turned away from the river now, and were following the Rue des Arts. Close by on the right was the dismal little hostelry, “La Cruche Cassée,” where Sir Percy Blakeney lived. Déroulède, as they neared the place, caught himself vaguely wondering what had become of his English friend.
But it would take more than the ingenuity of the Scarlet Pimpernel to get two noted prisoners out of Paris today. Even if—
“Halt!”
The word of command rang out clearly and distinctly through the rain-soaked atmosphere.
Déroulède threw up his head and listened. Something strange and unaccountable in that same word of command had struck his sensitive ear.
Yet the party had halted, and there was a click as of bayonets or muskets levelled ready to fire.
All had happened in less than a few seconds. The next moment there was a loud cry:
“À moi, Déroulède! ’tis the Scarlet Pimpernel!”
A vigorous blow from an unseen hand had knocked down and extinguished the nearest street lantern.
Déroulède felt that he and Juliette were being hastily dragged under an adjoining doorway even as the
