at Sir Andrew, “I trust you absolutely, and I KNOW that you will bring my dear father safely to England, just as you brought us to-day.”
This was said with so much confidence, such unuttered hope and belief, that it seemed as if by magic to dry the mother’s eyes, and to bring a smile upon everybody’s lips.
“Nay! You shame me, Mademoiselle,” replied Sir Andrew; “though my life is at your service, I have been but a humble tool in the hands of our great leader, who organised and effected your escape.”
He had spoken with so much warmth and vehemence that Suzanne’s eyes fastened upon him in undisguised wonder.
“Your leader, Monsieur?” said the Comtesse, eagerly. “Ah! of course, you must have a leader. And I did not think of that before! But tell me where is he? I must go to him at once, and I and my children must throw ourselves at his feet, and thank him for all that he has done for us.”
“Alas, Madame!” said Lord Antony, “that is impossible.”
“Impossible?—Why?”
“Because the Scarlet Pimpernel works in the dark, and his identity is only known under the solemn oath of secrecy to his immediate followers.”
“The Scarlet Pimpernel?” said Suzanne, with a merry laugh. “Why! what a droll name! What is the Scarlet Pimpernel, Monsieur?”
She looked at Sir Andrew with eager curiosity. The young man’s face had become almost transfigured. His eyes shone with enthusiasm; hero-worship, love, admiration for his leader seemed literally to glow upon his face. “The Scarlet Pimpernel, Mademoiselle,” he said at last “is the name of a humble English wayside flower; but it is also the name chosen to hide the identity of the best and bravest man in all the world, so that he may better succeed in accomplishing the noble task he has set himself to do.”
“Ah, yes,” here interposed the young Vicomte, “I have heard speak of this Scarlet Pimpernel. A little flower—red?—yes! They say in Paris that every time a royalist escapes to England that devil, Foucquier-Tinville, the Public Prosecutor, receives a paper with that little flower designated in red upon it. . . . Yes?”
“Yes, that is so,” assented Lord Antony.
“Then he will have received one such paper to-day?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Oh! I wonder what he will say!” said Suzanne, merrily. “I have heard that the picture of that little red flower is the only thing that frightens him.”
“Faith, then,” said Sir Andrew, “he will have many more opportunities of studying the shape of that small scarlet flower.”
“Ah, monsieur,” sighed the Comtesse, “it all sounds like a romance, and I cannot understand it all.”
“Why should you try, Madame?”
“But, tell me, why should your leader—why should you all—spend your money and risk your lives—for it is your lives you risk, Messieurs, when you set foot in France—and all for us French men and women, who are nothing to you?”
“Sport, Madame la Comtesse, sport,” asserted Lord Antony, with his jovial, loud and pleasant voice; “we are a nation of sportsmen, you know, and just now it is the fashion to pull the hare from between the teeth of the hound.”
“Ah, no, no, not sport only, Monsieur . . . you have a more noble motive, I am sure for the good work you do.”
“Faith, Madame, I would like you to find it then . . . as for me, I vow, I love the game, for this is the finest sport I have yet encountered.—Hair-breath escapes . . . the devil’s own risks!—Tally ho!—and away we go!”
But the Comtesse shook her head, still incredulously. To her it seemed preposterous that these young men and their great leader, all of them rich, probably wellborn, and young, should for no other motive than sport, run the terrible risks, which she knew they were constantly doing. Their nationality, once they had set foot in France, would be no safeguard to them. Anyone found harbouring or assisting suspected royalists would be ruthlessly condemned and summarily executed, whatever his nationality might be. And this band of young Englishmen had, to her own knowledge, bearded the implacable and bloodthirsty tribunal of the Revolution, within the very walls of Paris itself, and had snatched away condemned victims, almost from the very foot of the guillotine. With a shudder, she recalled the events of the last few days, her escape from Paris with her two children, all three of them hidden beneath the hood of a rickety cart, and lying amidst a heap of turnips and cabbages, not daring to breathe, whilst the mob howled, “A la lanterne les aristos!” at the awful West Barricade.
It had all occurred in such a miraculous way; she and her husband had understood that they had been placed on the list of “suspected persons,” which meant that their trial and death were but a matter of days—of hours, perhaps.
Then came the hope of salvation; the mysterious epistle, signed with the enigmatical scarlet device; the clear, peremptory directions; the parting from the Comte de Tournay, which had torn the poor wife’s heart in two; the hope of reunion; the flight with her two children; the covered cart; that awful hag driving it, who looked like some horrible evil demon, with the ghastly trophy on her whip handle!
The Comtesse looked round at the quaint, old-fashioned English inn, the peace of this land of civil and religious liberty, and she closed her eyes to shut out the haunting vision of that West Barricade, and of the mob retreating panic-stricken when the old hag spoke of the plague.
Every moment under that cart she expected recognition, arrest, herself and her children tried and condemned, and these young Englishmen, under the guidance of their brave and mysterious leader, had risked their lives to save them all, as they had already saved scores of other innocent people.
And all only for sport? Impossible! Suzanne’s eyes as she sought those of Sir Andrew plainly told him that she thought that HE at any rate rescued his fellowmen from terrible and unmerited death, through a higher and nobler motive than his friend would have her believe.
“How many are there in your brave league, Monsieur?” she asked timidly.
“Twenty all told, Mademoiselle,” he replied, “one to command, and nineteen to obey. All of us Englishmen, and all pledged to the same cause—to obey our leader and to rescue the innocent.”
“May God protect you all, Messieurs,” said the Comtesse, fervently.
“He had done that so far, Madame.”
“It is wonderful to me, wonderful!—That you should all be so brave, so devoted to your fellowmen—yet you are English!—and in France treachery is rife—all in the name of liberty and fraternity.”
“The women even, in France, have been more bitter against us aristocrats than the men,” said the Vicomte, with a sigh.
“Ah, yes,” added the Comtesse, while a look of haughty disdain and intense bitterness shot through her melancholy eyes, “There was that woman, Marguerite St. Just for instance. She denounced the Marquis de St. Cyr and all his family to the awful tribunal of the Terror.”
“Marguerite St. Just?” said Lord Antony, as he shot a quick and apprehensive glance across at Sir Andrew.
“Marguerite St. Just?—Surely . . .”
“Yes!” replied the Comtesse, “surely you
