At that moment Constant, Napoleon's confidential valet, entered the room to collect Napoleon's hat, cloak and sword. Turning to him Roger asked quickly, 'Who has the First Consul upstairs with him?'
Constant, who knew Roger well, replied with a grin, 'A new one: Madame Duchatel. She is Madame Bonaparte's reader, and a real beauty. She is only twenty but as clever as they make them, and very discreet. No doubt she docs not want to upset her old husband who is no use to her. But she has been skilfully angling for our master ever since she has been here.'
'I have got to see him,' Roger said tersely. 'It is a matter of life and death: a matter that may seriously affect his own future.'
For a moment Constant hesitated, then he shrugged, 'In that case .. . but God help you if he does not regard the matter as so serious as you seem to think.' Then he waved Rustem aside.
Roger ran up the stairs, knocked twice hard on the door, waited a moment then, although no reply came, threw it open and marched in.
Napoleon, wearing only a shirt, stood near the hearth on which there was a blazing fire that gave the only light in the room. Obviously he had only just jumped out of bed. Lying there was a beautiful girl with golden hair, cornflower blue eyes, a perfectly shaped aquiline nose. Her mouth, half open in surprise, showed too that she had lovely teeth. After one glance at Roger she hurriedly turned over so that her back was to him. Meanwhile, Napoleon, scowling like thunder, snarled:
'What is the meaning of this? How dare you force your way in here? Who gave you permission to disturb mc? This abuse of your position is unforgivable! Here and now I deprive you of your appointment as an A.D.C.; and of your rank of Colonel. Get out! Get out! D'you hear me?'
Roger did not attempt to check the flow of vituperation that followed, but stood his ground. When it had ceased he said in a tired, hoarse voice, 'Consul, I come upon the matter of d'Enghien. Unless you intervene before dawn they mean to shoot him. He is innocent. I know it. I swear it.' Then, in a spate of words he gave his reasons for his belief.
'Damn you!' roared Napoleon before he had finished. 'I have heard all this before, and I don't give a hoot for it. This is no affair of yours but a matter of State, and to preserve the peace the Prince must die.'
'A few hours back Monsieur de Talleyrand said the same to me,' Roger retorted. 'Yet if it is not my affair it certainly is yours. Do you permit this to happen 'twill be murder! Murder! Murder! And your name will stink in the nostrils of all Europe as a result of it. For your own sake you have got to give me a reprieve that I can carry to Vincennes before it is too late. You must. If you refuse you will never live this down. For the rest of your life you will regret it.'
For a moment Napoleon considered; then, his mood completely changed, he shook his head and said quickly, 'No, Breuc. You have ever advised me soundly and I appreciate that you have broken in on me only on account of what you believe to be my best interests. But it cannot be. I am determined to make an example of this Bourbon Prince as a deterrent to others.'
From the way he spoke Roger knew that further argument was useless; so he replied, 'Very well then. I will return to Vincenncs, tell Savary that I have seen you and that by word of mouth you have sent me to order a stay of the Prince's execution. There is still a chance that by doing so I may save you from your own folly.' Then he turned on his heel and left the room.
Outside the Palace he wearily mounted his tired horse and again set out on the ten-mile ride through the southern suburbs of Paris to Vincennes, which lay right on the other side of the city. He had covered no more than a quarter of the distance and was already reeling with fatigue in the saddle when, while trotting along a dark, tree-lined road, the faint light that lit the scene grew dimmer until he found himself staring ahead into impenetrable darkness.
For a moment he thought that, for the first time in his life, he must have fainted. But almost immediately a new light dawned about him. It was not bright but clear and he found himself looking down on a wide expanse of sea upon which the sun was setting. He knew immediately that it was in the tropics for, in the distance, he could see a palm-fringed island. Close in to it there was a ship from which a cloud of smoke was ascending. She was on fire and sinking. Nearer, but some way off, there was a longboat in which the seamen were rowing desperately. Still nearer several men were swimming and one man held a slender sword clenched between his teeth.
Suddenly, immediately beneath him he saw Georgina struggling in the water. As clearly as if she had in fact been only a few feet from him he heard her shout, 'Save me Roger! Oh, save me!'
The strange psychic link that several times before, when one or other of them was faced with an emergency, had enabled them to communicate although hundreds of miles apart, had functioned once again. He felt as certain as he had ever felt of anything that the intangible spirit that gave him being and purpose had been transported to the West Indies and that at that moment Georgina was actually on the point of drowning.
In his deep consciousness he knew that physically he could not aid her, but that by joining the power of his will to hers he might give her the additional strength to keep herself afloat until she was rescued. No thought of their quarrel or her betrayal of him entered his mind. He was conscious only of his h'fe-long love for her. Calling silently on God to help him. he threw out the very essence of himself to buoy her up in her struggle to survive.
Next moment he found himself diving right on to her. He felt no impact but in some miraculous way they seemed to have become one. She had gone under but swiftly surfaced. Her arms flailed the water with new strength. Turning, she struck out vigorously for the shore. While still some distance from it his sight began to blur. Swiftly the vision faded. In earthly time it had lasted only for a few seconds. During that time he had lost control of his horse and plunged headlong from the saddle. In rapid succession he felt blows on his head, shoulder and ankle. The horse trotted on leaving him lying in the road unconscious.
23
Overwhelmed
When Roger came to, he dimly realized that he was in bed and that strangers were grouped round him. As his mind cleared his gaze focused on the face of a youngish man who was hurting him abominably by doing something to his head, then on a portly woman holding a basin of water. At the end of the bed stood an older man and with him a rather plain young woman.
Several hours later he learned that he had lain in the road unconscious for a long time, been found by two workmen in the dawn and carried into the house of a couple named Boutheron. They had called in their doctor to dress his wounds and the girl was their daughter Heloise. Still later he learned the full extent of his injuries. The back of his skull had been cracked, it was thought by a blow from a rear hoof of his horse as he fell from it; he had dislocated his left shoulder and sprained his left ankle.
The doctor declared that he ought not to be moved for some time and the Boutherons, who were prosperous bourgeois, said they were perfectly willing to look after him until he was out of danger. In due course, when he was able to tell them about himself, they declared themselves delighted and honoured to have as their guest an A.D.C. of the idolized First Consul.
His memory of the vision he had had of Georgina returned to him in his first spell of full consciousness, and as he lay there through the following days he spent many hours thinking about it, hoping that she had survived but tortured by the thought that she might be dead and that he would never see her again.
At first his head pained him too much for him to think coherently for long, but as he grew stronger he spent an hour each night attempting to solve the question by the only means which offered a chance that he might do so. Long since, they had solemnly promised one another that if one of them died he or she would appear to the other. Although fearing the result he forced himself to concentrate on willing her to come to him if she was dead; and when, after a week, his efforts proved abortive, he felt more hope that she was still alive. But he could feel no real certainty that she was as, although he was a convinced believer in survival, he could not dismiss the possibility that others, who did not believe in it, might be right.