Sir Percy paused for a moment or two, a deep frown between his brows. His keen intellect, alive to all those swift tragedies which he had devoted his life to countermine, was already at work envisaging the immediate future, the personages of the coming drama, husband, wife, invalid daughter; then the perquisition, the arrest, summary condemnation and slaughter of three helpless innocents.
“I can’t help being sorry for the man,” he said after awhile, “though he is an obstinate fool! but it is the wife and daughter whom we cannot allow those savage beasts to capture and to kill. I caught sight of them. The girl is pathetic, frail and crippled. I couldn’t bear—”
He broke off abruptly. No need to say more, of course; they understood one another these men who had braved death so often together for love of humanity and for love of sport. Blakeney silent, one firm, slender hand clutched upon the table, was working out a problem of how to rescue three helpless people from that certain deathtrap which was already laid for them. The other two waited in equal silence for orders. The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel! pledged to help the innocent and to save the helpless! One to command, nineteen to obey: the two who were here in this filthy, dark attic-room were the chief’s most trusted officers; but the others were not far away!
Seventeen others! scattered about the countryside, disguised, doing menial work in order to keep in touch with the population, spying, hiding in woods or huts; all of them under orders from their chiefs, and prepared for the call from him.
“Tony,” Blakeney said at last, “you’d better find Hastings and Stowmaries at once and they must pass the word round to the others. I want three of them—they can draw lots for that—to go to the Four Oaks and there to remain until I can send Ffoulkes to them with full instructions. When you’ve done that, I want you and Ffoulkes to spend the night in and about Les Amandiers, and gather what you can of the projects of those brigands by keeping your ears open. I’ll keep in touch with you from time to time.”
“You think,” Ffoulkes put in, “that we’ll have trouble with the Frontenacs?”
“Not with the ladies, of course,” Blakeney replied. “We’ll get them safely out of the way before the perambulating army of jackals arrives. With God’s help we ought to have time enough to gather a few valuables together. The trouble will be with that obstinate, tiresome man. I feel sure he won’t move until the soldiers are hammering at his door. Anyway I shall know my way in and about the château by tomorrow morning, and will then get into touch with you both at Les Amandiers.”
He rose: a tall, straight figure on whom the filthy clothes of a vagabond woodcutter sat with strange incongruity. But even in this strange garb which was grotesque as well as degrading, there was an extraordinary dignity in the carriage of the head, the broad shoulders, the firm, long Anglo-Saxon limbs, but above all in the flash of the eyes beneath their heavy lids and in the quiet, low-toned voice so obviously accustomed to be heard and obeyed. The two others were ready on the instant to act according to instructions; to act without argument or question. The fire of excitement was in their eyes: the spirit of adventure, of sport for sport’s sake had them in its grip.
“Do I go with you now, Blakeney?” Ffoulkes asked, as his chief had remained for a moment standing, as if following a train of thought.
“Yes,” Blakeney replied. “And by the way, Ffoulkes, and you too, Tony, while you are at Les Amandiers try and find out about this girl Fleurette the old innkeeper spoke about. He said that the girl would cry her eyes out if anything happened to the Frontenacs. You remember?”
“I do. He also said that she was as pretty a wench as could be found in Dauphiné,” Ffoulkes put in with a smile.
“Her father is named Armand,” Blakeney rejoined.
“And the lieutenant called him a tiger, rather enigmatically I thought.”
“This Fleurette sounds an engaging young person,” Lord Tony commented with a smile.
“And should be a useful one in our adventure,” Blakeney concluded. “Find out what you can about her.”
He was the last to leave the room. Ffoulkes and Lord Tony had already gone down the stone staircase, feeling their way through the darkness. But Sir Percy Blakeney stood for a minute or two longer, erect, silent, motionless. Not Sir Percy Blakeney, that is, the elegant courtier, the fastidious fop, the spoilt child of London society, but the daring adventurer, ready now as so often before, to throw his life in the balance to save three innocent people from death. Would he succeed? Nay! that he did not doubt. Not for a moment. He would save the Frontenacs as he had saved scores of helpless men, women and children before, or leave his bones to moulder in this fair land where his name had become anathema to the tigers that fed on the blood of their kindred. The true adventurer! Reckless of risks and dangers, with only the one goal in view: Success.
Sport? Of course it was sport! grand, glorious, maddening sport! Sport that made him forget every other joy in life, every comfort, every beatitude. Everything except the exquisite wife who in far-off England waited patiently, with deadly anxiety gnawing at her heart, for news of the man she worshipped.
