"Odd's life, no," replied Blakeney, with a laugh."Only as far as Lille--not Paris for me...beastly uncomfortable place Paris, just now...eh, Monsieur Chaubertin...beg pardon...Chauvelin!""Not for an English gentleman like yourself, Sir Percy,"rejoined Chauvelin, sarcastically, "who takes no interest in the conflict that is raging there.""La! you see it's no business of mine, and our demmed government is all on your side of the business.Old Pitt daren't say 'Bo' to a goose.You are in a hurry, sir," he added, as Chauvelin once again took out his watch; "an appointment, perhaps....I pray you take no heed of me....My time's my own."He rose from the table and dragged a chair to the hearth.
Once more Marguerite was terribly tempted to go to him, for time was getting on; Desgas might be back at any moment with his men.Percy did not know that and...oh! how horrible it all was--and how helpless she felt.
"I am in no hurry," continued Percy, pleasantly, "but, la! I don't want to spend any more time than I can help in this God-forsaken hole! But, begad! sir," he added, as Chauvelin had surreptitiously looked at his watch for the third time, "that watch of yours won't go any faster for all the looking you give it.You are expecting a friend, maybe?""Aye--a friend!"
"Not a lady--I trust, Monsieur l'Abbe," laughed Blakeney;"surely the holy church does not allow?...eh?...what!
But, I say, come by the fire...it's getting demmed cold."He kicked the fire with the heel of his boot, making the logs blaze in the old hearth.He seemed in no hurry to go, and apparently was quite unconscious of his immediate danger.He dragged another chair to the fire, and Chauvelin, whose impatience was by now quite beyond control, sat down beside the hearth, in such a way as to command a view of the door.Desgas had been gone nearly a quarter of an hour.
It was quite plane to Marguerite's aching senses that as soon as he arrived, Chauvelin would abandon all his other plans with regard to the fugitives, and capture this impudent Scarlet Pimpernel at once.
"Hey, M.Chauvelin," the latter was saying arily, "tell me, Ipray you, is your friend pretty? Demmed smart these little French women sometimes--what? But I protest I need not ask," he added, as he carelessly strode back towards the supper-table."In matters of taste the Church has never been backward....Eh?"But Chauvelin was not listening.His every faculty was now concentrated on that door through which presently Desgas would enter.
Marguerite's thoughts, too, were centered there, for her ears had suddenly caught, through the stillness of the night, the sound of numerous and measured treads some distance away.
It was Desgas and his men.Another three minutes and they would be here! Another three minutes and the awful thing would have occurred: the brave eagle would have fallen in the ferret's trap!
She would have moved now and screamed, but she dared not; for whilst she heard the soldiers approaching, she was looking at Percy and watching his every movement.He was standing by the table whereon the remnants of the supper, plates, glasses, spoons, salt and pepper-pots were scattered pell-mell.His back was turned to Chauvelin and he was still prattling along in his own affected and inane way, but from his pocket he had taken his snuff-box, and quickly and suddenly he emptied the contents of the pepper-pot into it.
Then he again turned with an inane laugh to Chauvelin,--"Eh? Did you speak, sir?"
Chauvelin had been too intent on listening to the sound of those approaching footsteps, to notice what his cunning adversary had been doing.He now pulled himself together, trying to look unconcerned in the very midst of his anticipated triumph.
"No," he said presently, "that is--as you were saying, Sir Percy--?""I was saying," said Blakeney, going up to Chauvelin, by the fire, "that the Jew in Piccadilly has sold me better snuff this time than I have ever tasted.Will you honour me, Monsieur l'Abbe?"He stood close to Chauvelin in his own careless, DEBONNAIREway, holding out his snuff-box to his arch-enemy.
Chauvelin, who, as he told Marguerite once, had seen a trick or two in his day, had never dreamed of this one.With one ear fixed on those fast-approaching footsteps, one eye turned to that door where Desgas and his men would presently appear, lulled into false security by the impudent Englishman's airy manner, he never even remotely guessed the trick which was being played upon him.
He took a pinch of snuff.
Only he, who has ever by accident sniffed vigorously a dose of pepper, can have the faintest conception of the hopeless condition in which such a sniff would reduce any human being.
Chauvelin felt as if his head would burst--sneeze after sneeze seemed nearly to choke him; he was blind, deaf, and dumb for the moment, and during that moment Blakeney quietly, without the slightest haste, took up his hat, took some money out of his pocket, which he left on the table, then calmly stalked out of the room!
