He paused, slightly frowning, evidently a little puzzled.
“I wonder,” he added, “if our friend in there can throw some light upon the matter.”
After which Sir Percy Blakeney and Lord Anthony Dewhurst took the streaming horses out of the shafts, relieved them of their harness and gave them a good rub down, a drink and a feed, while Sir Andrew Ffoulkes and Lord Hastings went into the cottage and busied themselves with their prisoners.
My Lord Stowmaries was for the moment in charge of this untenanted cottage, which was a stronghold as well as a rallying place of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, as it lay perdu, off both the main and the secondary roads. He it was who had prepared food for his chief and his comrades with the assistance of one Amédé Colombe. The cottage consisted of four rooms; unsecurely sheltered against the weather by a cracked roof, and against damp by broken floors. There were a few very rare pieces of furniture in the place, abandoned there by the late owner and his family, worthy farmers whom the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel had conveyed safely out of France when their loyal adherence to their exiled seigneurs had brought them under the ban of the Revolutionary Government.
In one of the rooms the two prisoners were busy for the moment pinching one another to see if they were really awake. After thinking that they were within sight of death at the hands of a band of malefactors, they found themselves sitting at a table in front of an excellent plate of soup, some bread and cheese and a very large mug of excellent wine, while the cords round their bodies had been removed. Anyway, a very pleasant dream. Leaving conjecture to take care of itself, they fell to on this welcome repast with a healthy appetite. The door which gave on the larger room had been left open, and through it the two men could see the band of malefactors falling to, just like themselves, in front of an excellent meal, laughing and talking in that same gibberish language which they did not understand.
“They don’t look to me much like brigands,” the driver remarked presently, speaking with his mouth full, “in spite of their dirty clothes.”
“And that tall one,” the postilion added thoughtfully, “he seems to be their captain. If you ask me I think he is an aristo.”
“Or an English spy.”
The other shook his head.
“Not he. English spies would have murdered us.”
“Then what in the name of hell—”
He got no further, the postilion had gripped him by the arm.
“Nom de nom!” the postilion exclaimed; and expressed further amazement by a prolonged whistle. “If that is not Amédé Colombe.”
“Qui ça Amédé Colombe?” the other asked.
“The son of the grocer over at Laragne. I know, I come from those parts. But what the hell is he doing here?”
Amédé Colombe sitting at the table with his wonderful new friends, caught the sound of his name, and gave an anxious start.
“Do not worry about them, my young friend,” Sir Percy Blakeney said reassuringly. “Before they could do you any harm we shall be many leagues out of the way.”
At which postilion and driver gazed at one another, more puzzled than ever before. Were they really dreaming, or had they actually heard that foreigner speaking their own language?—and perfectly. The driver was inclined to think that the wine which they had been drinking was potent enough to be the cause of an hallucination. Not that this deterred him from pouring himself out another mugful, and drinking it down with much smacking of the lips and sighs of contentment. It was such very excellent wine. Didn’t his friend the postilion agree with him? Why of course, and the filling and refilling of the two mugs continued apace and at a great rate.
“They’ll be blind in a few moments,” Lord Anthony Dewhurst remarked, glancing over his shoulder at the two men.
And he was right in this surmise. In less than a quarter of an hour driver and postilion were blind to the world with arms stretched out across the table, their heads buried in the bend of their elbows, breathing stertorously.
“You are not eating, my friend,” my Lord Stowmaries remarked to Amédé Colombe, who in truth had been sitting, silent, self-absorbed, neither eating nor drinking.
“Friend Amédé does not appreciate your cooking, old man,” Blakeney put in lightly. “It is fairly bad, I confess. Is it not, Monsieur Amédé?”
“It is excellent, milor’,” the young man sighed, “but I ask you, how can I eat or drink when I am in such terrible anxiety?”
“We were just going to discuss the best way—and the quickest—of alleviating your anxiety, mon ami,” Sir Percy rejoined, “all we were waiting for was for those two amiable gentlemen over there to become deaf temporarily as well as blind.”
“It is not for myself that I am anxious, milor’,” the young man said timidly. He was over shy of these wonderful men, who had led him from adventure to adventure, in a manner that had almost addled his poor brain. His unsophisticated mind was still vibrating with the excitement of the unforgettable hour, when throwing disguise aside these strangers had revealed themselves not as revolutionary soldiers at all, but as mysterious beings, whose actions had appeared to him to savour of the supernatural. It took him a long time to understand the situation. It seems that his being in possession of Madame de Frontenac’s valuables was known to the girl Adèle who was nothing but a spy in the pay of the Committee of Public Safety. She had that night spied upon him and the girl he loved, seen the girl hand over the valuables to him, and revealed the fact to the Committee. Had these mysterious strangers not played
