And still that awful crowd! the women! Nom d'un chien, the women!! Chauvelin could thank his stars that his merciless captor ran so fast that he left those terrifying Mænads at a good distance behind him. But what in the devil's name was going to happen to him? He learned it soon enough. Arrived at the bottom of the stone stairs, the acrid smell of wine and alcohol and dankness struck his nostrils. He raised his head as much as he could, and saw a yawning door ahead of him. Earlier in the afternoon a few among the ragamuffins had found their way down to the cellar. But the cellar was empty of liquor, and they went away, cursing and leaving the door wide open. Chauvelin felt himself carried in through that door and then thrown none too gently down on a heap of dank straw. The next moment he heard that horrible, hideous, hated laugh, the mocking words: "A bientôt, my dear Monsieur Chambertin!" Then the banging to of a heavy door, the pushing of bolts, the clang of a chain and the grating of a rusty key in the lock, and nothing more. He was crouching on a heap of damp straw, in almost total darkness, sore in body, humiliated to the very depths of his soul, burning with rage and the very bitterness of his disappointment.
He could only hear vaguely what went on the other side of the door. Murmurs and shouts, a few hoarse cries. Was that abominable rabble demanding its right to commit the murder for which their sadistic spirits clamoured? Chauvelin was not physically a coward, but he was afraid of a mob, because he had more than once seen one at its worst. Furious. Hysterical. Unchecked. Crawling on hands and knees, he drew close to the door, and cowered there, his ear glued to it. The only word he could distinguish was "Key!" The were demanding the key, and apparently were being refused. Was Sir Percy Blakeney defending the life of his most bitter enemy? Or was it that he himself wished to commit the murder which would rid him for ever of his inveterate foe? Huddled up against the door, his teeth chattering, his knees shaking, Chauvelin was not left long in doubt. The voice of Sir Percy rose and fell. He was talking. Talking and laughing, and soon the crowd forgot its ill-humour and its hysteria; he talked to them and presently they listened. He laughed and they laughed with him. And after a time they allowed themselves to be persuaded. The spy was safe under lock and key, so their friend the fiddler assured them; then why not leave him there? There would always be time later on to give him his deserts. And in the meanwhile would it not be wise to see if there were not more spies about the house and then go back and continue the fun? The music. The dancing. Why not? The day was young yet.
Chauvelin couldn't hear any of that, but he guessed it all. He had seen the Scarlet Pimpernel at that kind of work before. Grimy, sans-culotte, outwardly a real muckworm, but eloquent, persuasive, able by some subtle magic to sway a crowd as no one in Chauvelin's experience had ever done. He could see him in his mind's eye, standing with his back to the cellar door, with massive legs apart and arms outstretched, facing the crowd as he always faced any and every danger that threatened him, full of resource and of impudence. The wretched prisoner was conscious that the crowd had once more been swayed by this daring adventurer, as others had been swayed by him in Boulogne and in Paris, at Asnières and Moisson. Chauvelin saw those scenes pass before his mind's eye as in a dream, and as in a dream he heard the heavy footsteps treading once more the stone steps, but up this time to the floor above. He heard the talking and the laughter growing more and more indistinct and finally dying away altogether. The rabble had gone, but what was to become of him now? Would he be left to die of inanition, shut up in a cellar like a savage dog or cat? No! he felt quite sure that he need not fear that kind of revenge at the hands of the man whom he had pursued with such relentless hate. Instinctively he did pay this tribute to the most gallant foe he had ever pitted his wits against.
What then? He was left wondering. For how long he did not know. Was it for a few minutes of several hours? When presently he heard the rusty key grate once more in the lock, and once more he dragged himself away from the door. A shaft of yellow light from a lantern cut through the gloom of his prison, the door was opened, and that hateful mocking voice said:
"Company for you, my dear Monsieur Chambertin!" And a bundle which turned out to be a man wrapped in a cloak and wearing the uniform of the Gendarmerie Nationale was thrust into the cellar, and landed on the damp straw beside him. The humble sergeant of gendarmerie had fared no better than the powerful and influential member of the Committee of Public Safety.
24 A STRANGE PROPOSAL
After a time Cécile gradually felt as if she had suddenly wakened from an ugly dream, during which every one of her senses had been put to torture. Her eyes, her hears, her nostrils had been outraged by evil smells and ribald words, and the wild antics of King Mob. Then all at once silence, almost peace. The sound of those unruly masses, shouting, singing, stumping, was gradually dying away. A few stragglers, yielding to curiosity, were even now going out of the room. In another remote corner François was struggling to his feet. He appeared dazed and like a man broken in body and spirit. He staggered as far as the tapestried door which led to vestibule and boudoir; as he did so his foot knocked against his broken riding-whip. He stared down at it vacantly, as if he did not know what it was and why it was there, and then passed through the door and closed it behind him.
Pradel and Cécile were alone.
They were both silent. Constrained. She wanted to say something to him, but somehow the words would not come. She knew so little about this man who had, as a matter of fact, saved her reason. At one moment during this wild saraband she had felt as if she were going mad. Then he had come and a sense of security had descended into her soul. But why she should have felt comforted, she couldn't say. She knew that he loved her, at any rate had loved her until that awful hour when he had suffered a terrible outrage at her brother's hands. He couldn't continue to love her after that. Could not. He must hate her and all her family. But if he did, why had he come running all the way from Choisy and stopped this hysterical multitude from doing her bodily harm? There was no ignoring the fact that he had come running along all the way from Choisy, and that he had saved her and maman and François from disaster. Then why did he look so aloof, so entirely indifferent? His face was quite expressionless; only that horrid scar showed up on his pale forehead. She hated the sight of that scar, but couldn't help looking at it and thinking: "How he must hate us all!" Of course, he belonged to the party that deposed the King and proclaimed the Republic; that, in fact, was François's chief grievance against him. She had never heard him discuss politics, and she and maman lived such a secluded life she didn't know much of what went on. She hated all murderers and regicides-oh! regicides above all!-but somehow she didn't believe that Pradel was one of these. Even before the beginnings of this awful revolution he had always spent most of his time-and people said half his private fortune-in doing good to the needy and keeping up the children's hospital in Choisy. Cécile knew all that. She had even done her best in a small way in the past to help him with some of his charitable work when knowledge of it came her way. No, no, a man of that type was no murderer, no regicide. But it was all very puzzling. Especially as he neither spoke nor moved, apparently leaving the initiative to her.
At last she was able to take it. She mastered her absurd diffidence and steadied her voice as best she could.