The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel (8 page)

He had spoken now fairly clearly and very pompously. Bibot, somewhat impressed and remembering Marat’s admonitions, said very civilly:

“Tell me your business then, citizen, and show me your passports. If everything is in order you may go your way.”

“But you know me, citizen Bibot?” queried the other.

“Yes, I know you—unofficially, citizen Durand.”

“You know that I and the citizens here are the carriers for citizen Legrand, the market gardener of Barency?”

“Yes, I know that,” said Bibot guardedly, “unofficially.”

“Then, unofficially, let me tell you, citizen, that unless we get to Barency this evening, Paris will have to do without cabbages and potatoes to-morrow. So now you know that you are acting at your own risk and peril, citizen, by detaining us.”

“Your passports, all of you,” commanded Bibot.

He had just caught sight of Marat still sitting outside the tavern opposite, and was glad enough, in this instance, to shelve his responsibility on the shoulders of the popular “Friend of the People.” There was general searching in ragged pockets for grimy papers with official seals thereon, and whilst Bibot ordered one of his men to take the six passports across the road to citizen Marat for his inspection, he himself, by the last rays of the setting winter sun, made close examination of the six men who desired to pass through the Porte Montmartre.

As the spokesman had averred, he—Bibot—knew every one of these men. They were the carriers to citizen Legrand, the Barency market gardener. Bibot knew every face. They passed with a load of fruit and vegetables in and out of Paris every day. There was really and absolutely no cause for suspicion, and when citizen Marat returned the six passports, pronouncing them to be genuine, and recognising his own signature at the bottom of each, Bibot was at last satisfied, and the six bibulous carriers were allowed to pass through the gate, which they did, arm in arm, singing a wild curmagnole, and vociferously cheering as they emerged out into the open.

But Bibot passed an unsteady hand over his brow. It was cold, yet he was in a perspiration. That sort of thing tells on a man’s nerves. He rejoined Marat, at the table outside the drinking booth, and ordered a fresh bottle of wine.

The sun had set now, and with the gathering dusk a damp mist descended on Montmartre. From the wall opposite, where the men sat playing cards, came occasional volleys of blasphemous oaths. Bibot was feeling much more like himself. He had half forgotten the incident of the six carriers, which had occurred nearly half an hour ago.

Two or three other people had, in the meanwhile, tried to pass through the gates, but Bibot had been suspicious and had detained them all.

Marat having commended him for his zeal took final leave of him. Just as the demagogue’s slouchy, grimy figure was disappearing down a side street there was the loud clatter of hoofs from that same direction, and the next moment a detachment of the mounted Town Guard, headed by an officer in uniform, galloped down the ill-paved street.

Even before the troopers had drawn rein the officer had hailed Bibot.

“Citizen,” he shouted, and his voice was breathless, for he had evidently ridden hard and fast, “this message to you from the citizen Chief Commissary of the Section. Six men are wanted by the Committee of Public Safety. They are disguised as carriers in the employ of a market gardener, and have passports for Barency! … The passports are stolen: the men are traitors—escaped aristocrats—and their spokesman is that d—d Englishman, the Scarlet Pimpernel.”

Bibot tried to speak; he tugged at the collar of his ragged shirt; an awful curse escaped him.

“Ten thousand devils!” he roared.

“On no account allow these people to go through,” continued the officer. “Keep their passports. Detain them!… Understand?”

Bibot was still gasping for breath even whilst the officer, ordering a quick “Turn!” reeled his horse round, ready to gallop away as far as he had come.

“I am for the St. Denis Gate—Grosjean is on guard there!” he shouted. “Same orders all round the city. No one to leave the gates!… Understand?”

His troopers fell in. The next moment he would be gone, and those cursed aristocrats well in safety’s way.

“Citizen Captain!”

The hoarse shout at last contrived to escape Bibot’s parched throat. As if involuntarily, the officer drew rein once more.

“What is it? Quick!—I’ve no time. That confounded Englishman may be at the St. Denis Gate even now!”

“Citizen Captain,” gasped Bibot, his breath coming and going like that of a man fighting for his life. “Here! …at this gate!…not half an hour ago…six men…carriers…market gardeners…I seemed to know their faces….”

“Yes! yes! market gardener’s carriers,” exclaimed the officer gleefully, “aristocrats all of them…and that d—d Scarlet Pimpernel. You’ve got them? You’ve detained them? … Where are they? … Speak, man, in the name of hell! …” “Gone!” gasped Bibot. His legs would no longer bear him. He fell backwards on to a heap of street debris and refuse, from which lowly vantage ground he contrived to give away the whole miserable tale.

“Gone! half an hour ago. Their passports were in order!…I seemed to know their faces! Citizen Marat was here…. He, too—”

In a moment the officer had once more swung his horse round, so that the animal reared, with wild forefeet pawing the air, with champing of bit, and white foam scattered around.

“A thousand million curses!” he exclaimed. “Citizen Bibot, your head will pay for this treachery. Which way did they go?”

A dozen hands were ready to point in the direction where the merry party of carriers had disappeared half an hour ago; a dozen tongues gave rapid, confused explanations.

“Into it, my men!” shouted the officer; “they were on foot! They can’t have gone far. Remember the Republic has offered ten thousand francs for the capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel.”

Already the heavy gates had been swung open, and the officer’s voice once more rang out clear through a perfect thunder-clap of fast galloping hoofs:

“Ventre a terre! Remember!—ten thousand francs to him who first sights the Scarlet Pimpernel!”

The thunder-clap died away in the distance, the dust of four score hoofs was merged in the fog and in the darkness; the voice of the captain was raised again through the mist-laden air. One shout…a shout of triumph…then silence once again.

Bibot had fainted on the heap of debris.

His comrades brought him wine to drink. He gradually revived. Hope came back to his heart; his nerves soon steadied themselves as the heavy beverage filtrated through into his blood.

“Bah!” he ejaculated as he pulled himself together, “the troopers were well-mounted…the officer was enthusiastic; those carriers could not have walked very far. And, in any case, I am free from blame. Citoyen Marat himself was here and let them pass!”

A shudder of superstitious terror ran through him as he recollected the whole scene: for surely he knew all the faces of the six men who had gone through the gate. The devil indeed must have given the mysterious Englishman power to transmute himself and his gang wholly into the bodies of other people.

More than an hour went by. Bibot was quite himself again, bullying, commanding, detaining everybody now.

At that time there appeared to be a slight altercation going on, on the farther side of the gate. Bibot thought it his duty to go and see what the noise was about. Someone wanting to get into Paris instead of out of it at this hour of the night was a strange occurrence.

Bibot heard his name spoken by a raucous voice. Accompanied by two of his men he crossed the wide gates in order to see what was happening. One of the men held a lanthorn, which he was swinging high above his head. Bibot saw standing there before him, arguing with the guard by the gate, the bibulous spokesman of the band of carriers.

He was explaining to the sentry that he had a message to deliver to the citizen commanding at the Porte Montmartre.

“It is a note,” he said, “which an officer of the mounted guard gave me. He and twenty troopers were galloping down the great North Road not far from Barency. When they overtook the six of us they drew rein, and the officer gave me this note for citizen Bibot and fifty francs if I would deliver it tonight.”

“Give me the note!” said Bibot calmly.

But his hand shook as he took the paper; his face was livid with fear and rage.

The paper had no writing on it, only the outline of a small scarlet flower done in red—the device of the cursed Englishman, the Scarlet Pimpernel.

“Which way did the officer and the twenty troopers go,” he stammered, “after they gave you this note?”

“On the way to Calais,” replied the other, “but they had magnificent horses, and didn’t spare them either. They are a league and more away by now!”

All the blood in Bibot’s body seemed to rush up to his head, a wild buzzing was in his ears….

And that was how the Due and Duchesse de Montreux, with their servants and family, escaped from Paris on that third day of Nivose in the year I of the Republic.

Being the deposition of citizeness Fanny Roussell, who was brought up, together with her husband, before the Tribunal of the Revolution on a charge of treason—both being subsequently acquitted.

My name is Fanny Roussell, and I am a respectable married woman, and as good a patriot as any of you sitting there.

Aye, and I’ll say it with my dying breath, though you may send me to the guillotine…as you probably will, for you are all thieves and murderers, every one of you, and you have already made up your minds that I and my man are guilty of having sheltered that accursed Englishman whom they call the Scarlet Pimpernel…and of having helped him to escape.

But I’ll tell you how it all happened, because, though you call me a traitor to the people of France, yet am I a true patriot and will prove it to you by telling you exactly how everything occurred, so that you may be on your guard against the cleverness of that man, who, I do believe, is a friend and confederate of the devil…else how could he have escaped that time?

Well! it was three days ago, and as bitterly cold as anything that my man and I can remember. We had no travellers staying in the house, for we are a good three leagues out of Calais, and too far for the folk who have business in or about the harbour. Only at midday the coffee-room would get full sometimes with people on their way to or from the port.

But in the evenings the place was quite deserted, and so lonely that at times we fancied that we could hear the wolves howling in the forest of St. Pierre.

It was close on eight o’clock, and my man was putting up the shutters, when suddenly we heard the tramp of feet on the road outside, and then the quick word, “Halt!”

The next moment there was a peremptory knock at the door. My man opened it, and there stood four men in the uniform of the 9th Regiment of the Line… the same that is quartered at Calais. The uniform, of course, I knew well, though I did not know the men by sight.

“In the name of the People and by the order of the Committee of Public Safety!” said one of the men, who stood in the forefront, and who, I noticed, had a corporal’s stripe on his left sleeve.

He held out a paper, which was covered with seals and with writing, but as neither my man nor I can read, it was no use our looking at it.

Hercule—that is my husband’s name, citizens—asked the corporal what the Committee of Public Safety wanted with us poor hoteliers of a wayside inn.

“Only food and shelter for tonight for me and my men,” replied the corporal, quite civilly.

“You can rest here,” said Hercule, and he pointed to the benches in the coffee-room, “and if there is any soup left in the stockpot, you are welcome to it.”

Hercule, you see, is a good patriot, and he had been a soldier in his day…. No! no… do not interrupt me, any of you… you would only be saying that I ought to have known… but listen to the end.

“The soup we’ll gladly eat,” said the corporal very pleasantly. “As for shelter… well! I am afraid that this nice warm coffee-room will not exactly serve our purpose. We want a place where we can lie hidden, and at the same time keep a watch on the road. I noticed an outhouse as we came. By your leave we will sleep in there.”

“As you please,” said my man curtly.

He frowned as he said this, and it suddenly seemed as if some vague suspicion had crept into Hercule’s mind.

The corporal, however, appeared unaware of this, for he went on quite cheerfully:

“Ah! that is excellent! Entre nous, citizen, my men and I have a desperate customer to deal with. I’ll not mention his name, for I see you have guessed it already. A small red flower, what?… Well, we know that he must be making straight for the port of Calais, for he has been traced through St. Omer and Ardres. But he cannot possibly enter Calais city tonight, for we are on the watch for him. He must seek shelter somewhere for himself and any other aristocrat he may have with him, and, bar this house, there is no other place between Ardres and Calais where he can get it. The night is bitterly cold, with a snow blizzard raging round. I and my men have been detailed to watch this road, other patrols are guarding those that lead toward Boulogne and to Gravelines; but I have an idea, citizen, that our fox is making for Calais, and that to me will fall the honour of handing that tiresome scarlet flower to the Public Prosecutor en route for Madame la Guillotine.”

Now I could not really tell you, citizens, what suspicions had by this time entered Hercule’s head or mine; certainly what suspicions we did have were still very vague.

I prepared the soup for the men and they ate it heartily, after which my husband led the way to the outhouse where we sometimes stabled a traveller’s horse when the need arose.

It is nice and dry, and always filled with warm, fresh straw. The entrance into it immediately faces the road; the corporal declared that nothing would suit him and his men better.

They retired to rest apparently, but we noticed that two men remained on the watch just inside the entrance, whilst the two others curled up in the straw.