“We must make the best of it, citizens,” he said, “I shall certainly be held up here a day or two, on this stupid business, but it certainly need not detain you. The stagecoach leaves for Lyons at half-past eight if I mistake not. As soon as my calèche is recovered, which I doubt not it will be in a couple of days, I’ll follow you on. You in the meanwhile can proceed to Paris all the way by the stagecoach. It will be perhaps not quite as comfortable as my calèche, but it will serve.”
They demurred a little. The stagecoach would certainly not be as comfortable as Citizen Chauvelin’s luxurious calèche, and perhaps a day or two’s delay would not be very serious.
“It would be fatal,” Chauvelin said emphatically. Orders from Paris such as they had received must be obeyed in the least possible delay, a couple of days idling in Valence, when a stagecoach was available, would certainly be put down to pusillanimity and want of zeal.
He could be eloquent when he liked, could Citizen Chauvelin, and on this occasion he was determined to gain his point—to send these two packing, post-haste, off to Paris, and leave himself free to return to Orange immediately. As to what would happen presently, when those two arrived in Paris and found that they had been hoaxed, that they had not been sent for, and would have to return biting the dust and chewing the cud of their wrath, as to that in truth, Chauvelin had not given a thought. To save his Fleurette, to get her away out of the country, at the cost of his own life if need be, was all he thought about, and while the business of trying and condemning prisoners was at a standstill through the absence of these two men, there was a hundred to one chance that he could accomplish his purpose.
Therefore he put forth all his powers of persuasion—and they were great. He drew lurid pictures of what happened to those who were thought to be guilty of dilatoriness or want of zeal. So much so that he reduced President Legrange and Public Prosecutor Isnard—at no time very valiant heroes—to a state of abject fear, and half an hour later had the satisfaction of bidding them au revoir, in the yard of the posting-inn, they having found seats in the stagecoach to Lyons.
As soon as he had seen the last of them, he made haste to requisition a chaise and the only horses to be had in Valence, to take him forthwith to Orange.
As for his own calèche, he wished the footpads joy in its possession and cared less than nothing what became of his driver or his postilion.
XXIV
Could Citizen Chauvelin have seen his calèche and horses a couple of hours later on the road, he would perhaps not have been quite so complacent as to its fate. After rattling over the cobblestones of Valence and tearing down the high road at maddening speed, it slackened a little for the hill, and worked its way slowly up through the small township of Livron. A quarter of a league or so further, it turned off at the crossroads in the direction of Cest and after another half-hour came to a halt at that small cottage which still nestles to this day, with its tumble-down roof and vine-covered harbour, beside the celebrated Roman ruins at the foot of the hill, not far from the banks of the Drôme.
Three ruffians, grimy from the roots of their hair to their down-at-heel shoes, jumped out of the calèche, dragging after them in the open the driver and postilion lately in the employ of Citizen Chauvelin, Representative of the National Convention on special mission. Whilst thus journeying between Valence and Livron these two poor wretches had been securely pinioned with ropes, but they were not gagged, and they used the freedom left to their tongues, by uttering oaths and protests which appeared vastly to amuse their captors.
The fourth ruffian—for ruffian he was—despite the fact that he had donned a bourgeois’ dress, the better to carry out his coup and pass unnoticed on the road, had in the meanwhile scrambled down from the box.
“Quite successful so far,” he remarked lightly, speaking in English, and rubbing his hands, which were slender and long and firm, contentedly together.
“What shall we do with these?” one of his companions asked, laughing and pointing to the two woebegone prisoners, who had ceased to curse and to protest, chiefly owing to want of breath, but also through astonishment at finding themselves the victims of some kind of foreign brigands whose language they did not understand.
“Poor beggars!” the other said lightly. “We’ll place them in front of an excellent breakfast and I’ll warrant we need not as much as tie their legs to their chairs. Get them inside, Ffoulkes, will you, and I’ll talk to them as soon as Tony and I have seen to the horses.”
“You don’t think the gendarmerie from Valence will be after us, Blakeney, do you?”
“Not they,” Sir Percy replied. “They are very short of horses in these parts, and the best will, I doubt not, be requisitioned by my friend M. Chambertin for his own use. I wonder now,” he added musing, “what he is after, taking
