as the marquis de gemosac's step was already on the stairs, barebone was spared the necessity of agreeing in words to the inevitable.
a moment later the old man hurried into the room. he had not even waited to remove his coat and gloves. a few snow-flakes powdered his shoulders.
“ah!” he cried, on perceiving barebone. “good—you are safe!” he turned to speak to some one who was following him up the stairs with the slower steps of one who knew not his way.
“all is well!” he cried. “he is here. give yourself no anxiety.”
and the second comer crossed the threshold, coming suddenly out of the shadow of the staircase. it was dormer colville, white with snow, his face grey and worn. he shook hands with barebone and bowed to juliette, but the marquis gave him no time to speak.
“i go down into the town,” he explained, breathlessly. “the streets are full. there is a crowd on the market-place, more especially round the tobacconist's, where the newspapers are to be bought. no newspapers, if you please. the paris journals of last sunday, and this is friday evening. nothing since that. no bordeaux journal. no news at all from paris: absolute silence from toulouse and limoges. 'it is another revolution,' they tell each other. something has happened and no one knows what. a man comes up to me and tugs at my sleeve. 'inside your walls, monsieur le marquis, waste no time,' he whispers, and is gone. he is some stable-boy. i have seen him somewhere. i! inside my walls! here in gemosac, where i see nothing but bare heads as i walk through the streets. name of god! i should laugh at such a precaution. and while i am still trying to gather information the man comes back to me. 'it is not the people you have to fear,' he whispers in my ear, 'it is the government. the order for your arrest is at the gendarmerie, for it was i who took it there. monsieur albert was arrested yesterday, and is now in la rochelle. madame de chantonnay's house is guarded. it is from madame i come.' and again he goes. while i am hesitating, i hear the step of a horse, tired and yet urged to its utmost. it is dormer colville, this faithful friend, who is from paris in thirty-six hours to warn us. he shall tell his story himself.”
“there is not much to tell,” said colville, in a hollow voice. he looked round for a chair and sat down rather abruptly. “louis bonaparte is absolute master of france; that is all. he must be so by this time. when i escaped from paris yesterday morning nearly all the streets were barricaded. but the troops were pouring into the city as i rode out—and artillery. i saw one barricade carried by artillery. thousands must have been killed in the streets of paris yesterday—”
“—and, bon dieu! it is called a coup-d'etat,” interrupted the marquis.
“that was on tuesday,” explained colville, in his tired voice—“at six o'clock on tuesday morning. yesterday and wednesday were days of massacre.”
“but, my friend,” exclaimed the marquis, impatiently, “tell us how it happened. you laugh! it is no time to laugh.”
“i do not know,” replied colville, with an odd smile. “i think there is nothing else to be done—it is all so complete. we are all so utterly fooled by this man whom all the world took to be a dolt. on tuesday morning he arrested seventy-eight of the representatives. when paris awoke, the streets had been placarded in the night with the decree of the president of the republic. the national assembly was dissolved. the council of state was dissolved. martial law was declared. and why? he does not even trouble to give a reason. he has the army at his back. the soldiers cried 'vive l'empereur' as they charged the crowd on wednesday. he has got rid of his opponents by putting them in prison. many, it is said, are already on their way to exile in cayenne; the prisons are full. there is a warrant out against myself; against you, barebone; against you, of course, monsieur le marquis. albert de chantonnay was arrested at tours, and is now in la rochelle. we may escape—we may get away to-night—”
he paused and looked hurriedly toward the door, for some one was coming up the stairs—some one who wore sabots. it was the servant, marie, who came unceremoniously into the room with the exaggerated calm of one who realises the gravity of the situation and means to master it.
“the town is on fire,” she explained, curtly; “they have begun on the gendarmerie. doubtless they have heard that these gentlemen are to be arrested, and it is to give other employment to the gendarmes. but the cavalry has arrived from saintes, and i come upstairs to ask monsieur to come down and help. it is my husband who is a fool. holy virgin! how many times have i regretted having married such a blockhead as that. he says he cannot raise the drawbridge. to raise it three feet would be to gain three hours. so i came to get monsieur,” she pointed at barebone with a steady finger, “who has his wits on the top always and two hands at the end of his arms.”
“but it is little use to raise the drawbridge,” objected the marquis. “they will soon get a ladder and place it against the breach in the wall and climb in.”
“not if i am on the wall who amuse myself with a hayfork, monsieur le marquis,” replied marie, with that exaggerated respect which implies a knowledge of mental superiority. she beckoned curtly to loo and clattered down the stairs, followed by barebone. the others did not attempt to go to their assistance, and the marquis de gemosac had a hundred questions to ask colville.
the englishman had little to tell of his own escape. there were so many more important arrests to be made that the overworked police of monsieur de maupas had only been able to apportion to him a bungler whom colville had easily outwitted.
“and madame st. pierre lawrence?” inquired the marquis.
“madame quitted paris on tuesday for england under the care of john turner, who had business in london. he kindly offered to escort her across the channel.”
“then she, at all events, is safe,” said the marquis, with a little wave of the hand indicating his satisfaction. “he is not brilliant, monsieur turner—so few english are—but he is solid, i think.”
“i think he is the cleverest man i know,” said dormer colville, thoughtfully. and before they had spoken again loo barebone returned.
he, like marie, had grasped at once the serious aspect of the situation, whereas the marquis succeeded only in reaching it with a superficial touch. he prattled of the political crisis in paris and bade his friends rest assured that law and order must ultimately prevail. he even seemed to cherish the comforting assurance that providence must in the end interfere on behalf of a legitimate succession. for this old noble was the true son of a father who had believed to the end in that king who talked grandiloquently of the works of seneca and tacitus while driving from the temple to his trial, with the mob hooting and yelling imprecations into the carriage windows.
the marquis de gemosac found time to give a polite opinion on john turner while the streets of gemosac were being cleared by the cavalry from saintes, and the gendarmerie, burning briskly, lighted up a scene of bloodshed.
“we have raised the drawbridge a few feet,” said barebone; “but the chains are rusted and may easily be broken by a blacksmith. it will serve to delay them a few minutes; but it is not the mob we seek to keep out, and any organised attempt to break in would succeed in half an hour. we must go, of course.”
he turned to colville, with whom he had met and faced difficulties in the past. colville might easily have escaped to england with mrs. st. pierre lawrence, but he had chosen the better part. he had undertaken a long journey through disturbed france only to throw in his lot at the end of it with two pre-condemned men. loo turned to him as to one who had proved himself capable enough in an emergency, brave in face of danger.
“we cannot stay here,” he said; “the gates will serve to give us an hour's start, but no more. i suppose there is another way out of the chateau.”
“there are two ways,” answered the marquis. “one leads to a house in the town and the other emerges at the mill down below the walls. but, alas! both are lost sight of. my ancestors—”
“i know the shorter one,” put in juliette, “the passage that leads to the mill. i can show you the entrance to that, which is in the crypt of the chapel, hidden behind the casks of wine.”
she spoke to barebone, only half-concealing, as marie had done, the fact that the great respect with which the marquis de gemosac was treated was artificial, and would fall to pieces under the strain of an emergency—a faint echo of the old regime.
“when you are gone,” the girl continued, still addressing barebone, “marie and i can keep them out at least an hour—probably more. we may be able to keep them outside the walls all night, and when at last they come in it will take them hours to satisfy themselves that you are not concealed within the enceinte.”
she was quite cool, and even smiled at him with a white face.
“you are always right, mademoiselle, and have a clear head,” said barebone.
“but no heart?” she answered in an undertone, under cover of her father's endless talk to colville and with a glance which barebone could not understand.
in a few minutes dormer colville pronounced himself ready to go, and refused to waste further precious minutes in response to monsieur de gemosac's offers of hospitality. no dinner had been prepared, for marie had sterner business in hand and could be heard beneath the windows urging her husband to display a courage superior to that of a rabbit. juliette hurried to the kitchen and there prepared a parcel of cold meat and bread for the fugitives to eat as they fled.
“we might remain hidden in a remote cottage,” barebone had suggested to colville, “awaiting the development of events, but our best chance is 'the last hope.' she is at bordeaux, and must be nearly ready for sea.”
so it was hurriedly arranged that they should make their way on foot to a cottage on the marsh while jean was despatched to bordeaux with a letter for captain clubbe.
“it is a pity,” said marie, when informed of this plan, “that it is not i who wear the breeches. but i will make it clear to jean that if he fails to carry out his task he need not show his face at the gate again.”
the marquis ran hither and thither, making a hundred suggestions, which were accepted in the soothing manner adopted toward children. he assured juliette that their absence would be of short duration; that there was indeed no danger, but that he was acceding to the urgent persuasions of barebone and colville, who were perhaps unnecessarily alarmed—who did not understand how affairs were conducted in france. he felt assured that law and order must prevail.
“but if they have put albert de chantonnay in prison, why should you be safe?” asked juliette. to which the marquis replied with a meaning cackle that she had a kind heart, and that it was only natural that it should be occupied at that moment with thoughts of that excellent young man who, in his turn, was doubtless thinking of her in his cell at la rochelle.
which playful allusion to albert de chantonnay's pretensions was received by their object with a calm indifference.
“when jean returns,” she said, practically, “i will send him to you at the bremonts' cottage with food and clothing. but you must not attempt to communicate with us. you would only betray your whereabouts and do no good to us. we shall be quite safe in the chateau. marie and i and madame maugiron are not afraid.”
at which the marquis laughed heartily. it was so amusing to think that one should be young and pretty and not afraid. in the mean time barebone was sealing his letter to captain clubbe. he had written it in the suffolk dialect, spelling all the words as they are pronounced on that coast and employing when he could the danish and dutch expressions in daily use on the foreshore, which no french official seeking to translate could find in any dictionary.
lao gave his instructions to jean himself, who received them in a silence not devoid of intelligence. the man had been round the walls and reported that nothing stirred beneath them; that there was more than one fire in the town, and that the streets appeared to be given over to disorder and riot.
“it is assuredly a change in the government,” he explained, simply. “and there will be many for monsieur l'abbe to bury on sunday.”
jean was to accompany them to the cottage of an old man who had once lived by ferrying the rare passenger across the gironde. having left them here, he could reach blaye before daylight, from whence a passage up the river to bordeaux would be easily procurable.
the boatman's cottage stood on the bank of a creek running into the gironde. it was a lone building hidden among the low dunes that lie between the river and the marsh. any one approaching it by daylight would be discernible half an hour in advance, and the man's boat, though old, was seaworthy. none would care to cross the lowlands at night except under the guidance of one or two, who, like jean, knew their way even in the dark.
colville and barebone had to help jean to move the great casks stored in the crypt of the old chapel by which the entrance to the passage was masked.
“it is, i recollect having been told, more than a passage—it is a ramp,” explained the marquis, who stood by. “it was intended for the passage of horses, so that a man might mount here and ride out into the mill-stream, actually beneath the mill-wheel which conceals the exit.”
juliette, a cloak thrown over her evening dress, had accompanied them and stood near, holding a lantern above her head to give them light. it was an odd scene—a strange occupation for the last of the de gemosacs. through the gaps in the toppling walls they could hear the roar of voices and the occasional report of a firearm in the streets of the town below. the door opened easily enough, and jean, lighting a candle, led the way. barebone was the last to follow. within the doorway he turned to say good-bye. the light of the lantern flickered uncertainly on juliette's fair hair.
“we may be back sooner than you expect, mademoiselle,” said barebone.
“or you may go—to england,” she answered.
