El Dorado by Baroness Orczy (if you liked this book .txt) 📕

do. I told him then that if he interfered with Capet I would wring his neck with my own hands.”

And his long, talon-like fingers, with their sharp, grimy nails, closed and unclosed like those of feline creatures when they hold the coveted prey.

“Of whom do you speak?” queried Chauvelin curtly.

“Of whom? Of whom but that accursed de Batz? His pockets are bulging with Austrian money, with which, no doubt, he has bribed the Simons and Cochefer and the sentinels⁠—”

“And Lorinet and Lasniere and you,” interposed Chauvelin dryly.

“It is false!” roared Héron, who already at the suggestion was foaming at the mouth, and had jumped up from his chair, standing at bay as if prepared to fight for his life.

“False, is it?” retorted Chauvelin calmly; “then be not so quick, friend Héron, in slashing out with senseless denunciations right and left. You’ll gain nothing by denouncing anyone just now. This is too intricate a matter to be dealt with a sledgehammer. Is anyone up in the Tower at this moment?” he asked in quiet, businesslike tones.

“Yes. Cochefer and the others are still there. They are making wild schemes to cover their treachery. Cochefer is aware of his own danger, and Lasniere and the others know that they arrived at the Tower several hours too late. They are all at fault, and they know it. As for that de Batz,” he continued with a voice rendered raucous with bitter passion, “I swore to him two days ago that he should not escape me if he meddled with Capet. I’m on his track already. I’ll have him before the hour of midnight, and I’ll torture him⁠—yes! I’ll torture him⁠—the Tribunal shall give me leave. We have a dark cell down below here where my men know how to apply tortures worse than the rack⁠—where they know just how to prolong life long enough to make it unendurable. I’ll torture him! I’ll torture him!”

But Chauvelin abruptly silenced the wretch with a curt command; then, without another word, he walked straight out of the room.

In thought Armand followed him. The wild desire was suddenly born in him to run away at this moment, while Héron, wrapped in his own meditations, was paying no heed to him. Chauvelin’s footsteps had long ago died away in the distance; it was a long way to the upper floor of the Tower, and some time would be spent, too, in interrogating the commissaries. This was Armand’s opportunity. After all, if he were free himself he might more effectually help to rescue Jeanne. He knew, too, now where to join his leader. The corner of the street by the canal, where Sir Andrew Ffoulkes would be waiting with the coal-cart; then there was the spinney on the road to St. Germain. Armand hoped that, with good luck, he might yet overtake his comrades, tell them of Jeanne’s plight, and entreat them to work for her rescue.

He had forgotten that now he had no certificate of safety, that undoubtedly he would be stopped at the gates at this hour of the night; that his conduct proving suspect he would in all probability he detained, and, mayhap, be brought back to this selfsame place within an hour. He had forgotten all that, for the primeval instinct for freedom had suddenly been aroused. He rose softly from his chair and crossed the room. Héron paid no attention to him. Now he had traversed the antechamber and unlatched the outer door.

Immediately a couple of bayonets were crossed in front of him, two more further on ahead scintillated feebly in the flickering light. Chauvelin had taken his precautions. There was no doubt that Armand St. Just was effectually a prisoner now.

With a sigh of disappointment he went back to his place beside the fire. Héron had not even moved whilst he had made this futile attempt at escape. Five minutes later Chauvelin re-entered the room.

XX The Certificate of Safety

“You can leave de Batz and his gang alone, citizen Héron,” said Chauvelin, as soon as he had closed the door behind him; “he had nothing to do with the escape of the Dauphin.”

Héron growled out a few words of incredulity. But Chauvelin shrugged his shoulders and looked with unutterable contempt on his colleague. Armand, who was watching him closely, saw that in his hand he held a small piece of paper, which he had crushed into a shapeless mass.

“Do not waste your time, citizen,” he said, “in raging against an empty windbag. Arrest de Batz if you like, or leave him alone an you please⁠—we have nothing to fear from that braggart.”

With nervous, slightly shaking fingers he set to work to smooth out the scrap of paper which he held. His hot hands had soiled it and pounded it until it was a mere rag and the writing on it illegible. But, such as it was, he threw it down with a blasphemous oath on the desk in front of Héron’s eyes.

“It is that accursed Englishman who has been at work again,” he said more calmly; “I guessed it the moment I heard your story. Set your whole army of sleuthhounds on his track, citizen; you’ll need them all.”

Héron picked up the scrap of torn paper and tried to decipher the writing on it by the light from the lamp. He seemed almost dazed now with the awful catastrophe that had befallen him, and the fear that his own wretched life would have to pay the penalty for the disappearance of the child.

As for Armand⁠—even in the midst of his own troubles, and of his own anxiety for Jeanne, he felt a proud exultation in his heart. The Scarlet Pimpernel had succeeded; Percy had not failed in his self-imposed undertaking. Chauvelin, whose piercing eyes were fixed on him at that moment, smiled with contemptuous irony.

“As you will find your hands overfull for the next few hours, citizen Héron,” he said, speaking to his colleague and nodding in the direction of Armand, “I’ll not trouble