A	>>	B	>>	C	>>	D	>>	E
F	>>	G	>>	H	>>	I	>>	J
K	>>	L	>>	M	>>	N	>>	O
P	>>	R	>>	S	>>	T	>>	U
V	>>	W	>>			X	>>	Z

Booth Tarkington - "Alice Adams"

B. M. Bower - "Jean of the Lazy A"

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - "Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre Buch 4"

Jack London - "Love of Life And Other Stories"

El Dorado

B >> Baroness Orczy >> El Dorado




At last, in the beginning of '94 he persuaded Blakeney to allow
him to join the next expedition to France. What the principal aim
of that expedition was the members of the League did not know as
yet, but what they did know was that perils--graver even than
hitherto--would attend them on their way.

The circumstances had become very different of late At first the
impenetrable mystery which had surrounded the personality of the
chief had been a full measure of safety, but now one tiny corner
of that veil of mystery had been lifted by two rough pairs of
hands at least; Chauvelin, ex-ambassador at the English Court, was
no longer in any doubt as to the identity of the Scarlet
Pimpernel, whilst Collot d'Herbois had seen him at Boulogne, and
had there been effectually foiled by him.

Four months had gone by since that day, and the Scarlet Pimpernel
was hardly ever out of France now; the massacres in Paris and in
the provinces had multiplied with appalling rapidity, the
necessity for the selfless devotion of that small band of heroes
had become daily, hourly more pressing. They rallied round their
chief with unbounded enthusiasm, and let it be admitted at once
that the sporting instinct--inherent in these English gentlemen--
made them all the more keen, all the more eager now that the
dangers which beset their expeditions were increased tenfold.

At a word from the beloved leader, these young men--the spoilt
darlings of society--would leave the gaieties, the pleasures, the
luxuries of London or of Bath, and, taking their lives tn their
hands, they placed them, together with their fortunes, and even
their good names, at the service of the innocent and helpless
victims of merciless tyranny. The married men--Ffoulkes, my Lord
Hastings, Sir Jeremiah Wallescourt--left wife and children at a
call from the chief, at the cry of the wretched. Armand--
unattached and enthusiastic--had the right to demand that he
should no longer be left behind.

He had only been away a little over fifteen months, and yet he
found Paris a different city from the one he had left immediately
after the terrible massacres of September. An air of grim
loneliness seemed to hang over her despite the crowds that
thronged her streets; the men whom he was wont to meet in public
places fifteen months ago--friends and political allies--were no
longer to be seen; strange faces surrounded him on every side--
sullen, glowering faces, all wearing a certain air of horrified
surprise and of vague, terrified wonder, as if life had become
one awful puzzle, the answer to which must be found in the brief
interval between the swift passages of death.

Armand St. Just, having settled his few simple belongings in the
squalid lodgings which had been assigned to him, had started out
after dark to wander somewhat aimlessly through the streets.
Instinctively he seemed to be searching for a familiar face, some
one who would come to him out of that merry past which he had
spent with Marguerite in their pretty apartment in the Rue St.
Honore.

For an hour he wandered thus and met no one whom he knew. At times
it appeared to him as if he did recognise a face or figure that
passed him swiftly by in the gloom, but even before he could fully
make up his mind to that, the face or figure had already disappeared,
gliding furtively down some narrow unlighted by-street, without
turning to look to right or left, as if dreading fuller recognition.
Armand felt a total stranger in his own native city.

The terrible hours of the execution on the Place de la Revolution
were fortunately over, the tumbrils no longer rattled along the
uneven pavements, nor did the death-cry of the unfortunate victims
resound through the deserted streets. Armand was, on this first
day of his arrival, spared the sight of this degradation of the
once lovely city; but her desolation, her general appearance of
shamefaced indigence and of cruel aloofness struck a chill in the
young man's heart.

It was no wonder, therefore, when anon he was wending his way
slowly back to his lodging he was accosted by a pleasant, cheerful
voice, that he responded to it with alacrity. The voice, of a
smooth, oily timbre, as if the owner kept it well greased for
purposes of amiable speech, was like an echo of the past, when
jolly, irresponsible Baron de Batz, erst-while officer of the
Guard in the service of the late King, and since then known to be
the most inveterate conspirator for the restoration of the
monarchy, used to amuse Marguerite by his vapid, senseless plans
for the overthrow of the newly-risen power of the people.

Armand was quite glad to meet him, and when de Batz suggested that
a good talk over old times would be vastly agreeable, the younger
man gladly acceded, The two men, though certainly not mistrustful
of one another, did not seem to care to reveal to each other the
place where they lodged. De Batz at once proposed the avant-scene
box of one of the theatres as being the safest place where old
friends could talk without fear of spying eyes or ears.

"There is no place so safe or so private nowadays, believe me, my
young friend," he said "I have tried every sort of nook and
cranny in this accursed town, now riddled with spies, and I have
come to the conclusion that a small avant-scene box is the most
perfect den of privacy there is in the entire city. The voices of
the actors on the stage and the hum among the audience in the
house will effectually drown all individual conversation to every
ear save the one for whom it is intended."

It is not difficult to persuade a young man who feels lonely and
somewhat forlorn in a large city to while away an evening in the
companionship of a cheerful talker, and de Batz was essentially
good company. His vapourings had always been amusing, but Armand
now gave him credit for more seriousness of purpose; and though
the chief had warned him against picking up acquaintances in
Paris, the young man felt that that restriction would certainly
not apply to a man like de Batz, whose hot partisanship of the
Royalist cause and hare-brained schemes for its restoration must
make him at one with the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel.

Armand accepted the other's cordial invitation. He, too, felt
that he would indeed be safer from observation in a crowded
theatre than in the streets. Among a closely packed throng bent
on amusement the sombrely-clad figure of a young man, with the
appearance of a student or of a journalist, would easily pass
unperceived.

But somehow, after the first ten minutes spent in de Batz' company
within the gloomy shelter of the small avant-scene box, Armand
already repented of the impulse which had prompted him to come to
the theatre to-night, and to renew acquaintanceship with the
ex-officer of the late King's Guard. Though he knew de Batz to be
an ardent Royalist, and even an active adherent of the monarchy,
he was soon conscious of a vague sense of mistrust of this
pompous, self-complacent individual, whose every utterance
breathed selfish aims rather than devotion to a forlorn cause.

Therefore, when the curtain rose at last on the first act of
Moliere's witty comedy, St. Just turned deliberately towards the
stage and tried to interest himself in the wordy quarrel between
Philinte and Alceste.

But this attitude on the part of the younger man did not seem to
suit his newly-found friend. It was clear that de Batz did not
consider the topic of conversation by any means exhausted, and
that it had been more with a view to a discussion like the present
interrupted one that he had invited St. Just to come to the
theatre with him to-night, rather than for the purpose of
witnessing Mile. Lange's debut in the part of Celimene.

The presence of St. Just in Paris had as a matter of fact
astonished de Batz not a little, and had set his intriguing brain
busy on conjectures. It was in order to turn these conjectures
into certainties that he had desired private talk with the young
man.

He waited silently now for a moment or two, his keen, small eyes
resting with evident anxiety on Armand's averted head, his fingers
still beating the impatient tattoo upon the velvet-covered cushion
of the box. Then at the first movement of St. Just towards him he
was ready in an instant to re-open the subject under discussion.

With a quick nod of his head he called his young friend's
attention back to the men in the auditorium.

"Your good cousin Antoine St. Just is hand and glove with
Robespierre now," he said. "When you left Paris more than a year
ago you could afford to despise him as an empty-headed windbag;
now, if you desire to remain in France, you will have to fear him
as a power and a menace."

"Yes, I knew that he had taken to herding with the wolves,"
rejoined Armand lightly. "At one time he was in love with my
sister. I thank God that she never cared for him."

"They say that he herds with the wolves because of this
disappointment," said de Batz. "The whole pack is made up of men
who have been disappointed, and who have nothing more to lose.
When all these wolves will have devoured one another, then and
then only can we hope for the restoration of the monarchy in
France. And they will not turn on one another whilst prey for
their greed lies ready to their jaws. Your friend the Scarlet
Pimpernel should feed this bloody revolution of ours rather than
starve it, if indeed he hates it as he seems to do."

His restless eyes peered with eager interrogation into those of
the younger man. He paused as if waiting for a reply; then, as
St. Just remained silent, he reiterated slowly, almost in the
tones of a challenge:

"If indeed he hates this bloodthirsty revolution of ours as he
seems to do."

The reiteration implied a doubt. In a moment St. Just's loyalty
was up in arms.

The Scarlet Pimpernel," he said, "cares naught for your political
aims. The work of mercy that he does, he does for justice and for
humanity."

"And for sport," said de Batz with a sneer, "so I've been told."

"He is English," assented St. Just, " and as such will never own
to sentiment. Whatever be the motive, look at the result!

"Yes! a few lives stolen from the guillotine."

"Women and children--innocent victims--would have perished but
for his devotion."

"The more innocent they were, the more helpless, the more
pitiable, the louder would their blood have cried for reprisals
against the wild beasts who sent them to their death."

St. Just made no reply. It was obviously useless to attempt to
argue with this man, whose political aims were as far apart from
those of the Scarlet Pimpernel as was the North Pole from the
South.

"If any of you have influence over that hot-headed leader of
yours," continued de Batz, unabashed by the silence of his friend,
"I wish to God you would exert it now."

"In what way?" queried St. Just, smiling in spite of himself at
the thought of his or any one else's control over Blakeney and his
plans.

It was de Batz' turn to be silent. He paused for a moment or two,
then he asked abruptly:

"Your Scarlet Pimpernel is in Paris now, is he not?"

"I cannot tell you," replied Armand.

"Bah! there is no necessity to fence with me, my friend. The
moment I set eyes on you this afternoon I knew that you had not
come to Paris alone."

"You are mistaken, my good de Batz," rejoined the young man
earnestly; "I came to Paris alone."

"Clever parrying, on my word--but wholly wasted on my unbelieving
ears. Did I not note at once that you did not seem overpleased
to-day when I accosted you?"

"Again you are mistaken. I was very pleased to meet you, for I
had felt singularly lonely all day, and was glad to shake a friend
by the hand. What you took for displeasure was only surprise."

"Surprise? Ah, yes! I don't wonder that you were surprised to see
me walking unmolested and openly in the streets of Paris--whereas
you had heard of me as a dangerous conspirator, eh ?--and as a man
who has the entire police of his country at his heels--on whose
head there is a price--what?"

"I knew that you had made several noble efforts to rescue the
unfortunate King and Queen from the hands of these brutes."

"All of which efforts were unsuccessful," assented de Batz
imperturbably, "every one of them having been either betrayed by
some d--d confederate or ferreted out by some astute spy eager for
gain. Yes, my friend, I made several efforts to rescue King Louis
and Queen Marie Antoinette from the scaffold, and every time I was
foiled, and yet here I am, you see, unscathed and free. I walk
about the streets boldly, and talk to my friends as I meet them."

"You are lucky," said St. Just, not without a tinge of sarcasm.

"I have been prudent," retorted de Batz. "I have taken the
trouble to make friends there where I thought I needed them
most--the mammon of unrighteousness, you know-what?"

And he laughed a broad, thick laugh of perfect self-satisfaction.

"Yes, I know," rejoined St. Just, with the tone of sarcasm still
more apparent in his voice now. " You have Austrian money at your
disposal."

"Any amount," said the other complacently, "and a great deal of it
sticks to the grimy fingers of these patriotic makers of
revolutions. Thus do I ensure my own safety. I buy it with the
Emperor's money, and thus am I able to work for the restoration of
the monarchy in France."

Again St. Just was silent. What could he say? Instinctively now,
as the fleshy personality of the Gascon Royalist seemed to spread
itself out and to fill the tiny box with his ambitious schemes and
his far-reaching plans, Armand's thoughts flew back to that other
plotter, the man with the pure and simple aims, the man whose
slender fingers had never handled alien gold, but were ever there
ready stretched out to the helpless and the weak, whilst his
thoughts were only of the help that he might give them, but never
of his own safety.

De Batz, however, seemed blandly unconscious of any such
disparaging thoughts in the mind of his young friend, for he
continued quite amiably, even though a note of anxiety seemed to
make itself felt now in his smooth voice:

"We advance slowly, but step by step, my good St. Just," he said.
"I have not been able to save the monarchy in the person of the
King or the Queen, but I may yet do it in the person of the
Dauphin."

"The Dauphin," murmured St. Just involuntarily.

That involuntary murmur, scarcely audible, so soft was it, seemed
in some way to satisfy de Batz, for the keenness of his gaze
relaxed, and his fat fingers ceased their nervous, intermittent
tattoo on the ledge of the box.

"Yes ! the Dauphin," he said, nodding his head as if in answer to
his own thoughts, "or rather, let me say, the reigning King of
France--Louis XVII, by the grace of God--the most precious life at
present upon the whole of this earth."

"You are right there, friend de Batz," assented Armand fervently,
"the most precious life, as you say, and one that must be saved at
all costs."

"Yes," said de Batz calmly, "but not by your friend the Scarlet
Pimpernel."

"Why not?"

Scarce were those two little words out of St. Just's mouth than he
repented of them. He bit his lip, and with a dark frown upon his
face he turned almost defiantly towards his friend.

But de Batz smiled with easy bonhomie.

"Ah, friend Armand," he said, "you were not cut out for diplomacy,
nor yet for intrigue. So then," he added more seriously, "that
gallant hero, the Scarlet Pimpernel, has hopes of rescuing our
young King from the clutches of Simon the cobbler and of the herd
of hyenas on the watch for his attenuated little corpse, eh?"

"I did not say that," retorted St. Just sullenly.

"No. But I say it. Nay! nay! do not blame yourself, my
over-loyal young friend. Could I, or any one else, doubt for a
moment that sooner or later your romantic hero would turn his
attention to the most pathetic sight in the whole of Europe--the
child-martyr in the Temple prison? The wonder were to me if the
Scarlet Pimpernel ignored our little King altogether for the sake
of his subjects. No, no; do not think for a moment that you have
betrayed your friend's secret to me. When I met you so luckily
today I guessed at once that you were here under the banner of the
enigmatical little red flower, and, thus guessing, I even went a
step further in my conjecture. The Scarlet Pimpernel is in Paris
now in the hope of rescuing Louis XVII from the Temple prison."

"If that is so, you must not only rejoice but should be able to
help."

"And yet, my friend, I do neither the one now nor mean to do the
other in the future," said de Batz placidly. "I happen to be a
Frenchman, you see."

"What has that to do with such a question?"

"Everything; though you, Armand, despite that you are a Frenchman
too, do not look through my spectacles. Louis XVII is King of
France, my good St. Just; he must owe his freedom and his life to
us Frenchmen, and to no one else."

"That is sheer madness, man," retorted Armand. "Would you have the
child perish for the sake of your own selfish ideas?"

"You may call them selfish if you will; all patriotism is in a
measure selfish. What does the rest of the world care if we are a
republic or a monarchy, an oligarchy or hopeless anarchy? We work
for ourselves and to please ourselves, and I for one will not
brook foreign interference."

"Yet you work with foreign money!"

"That is another matter. I cannot get money in France, so I get
it where I can; but I can arrange for the escape of Louis XVII is
King of France, my good St. Just; he must of France should belong
the honour and glory of having saved our King."

For the third time now St. Just allowed the conversation to drop;
he was gazing wide-eyed, almost appalled at this impudent display
of well-nigh ferocious selfishness and vanity. De Batz, smiling
and complacent, was leaning back in his chair, looking at his
young friend with perfect contentment expressed in every line of
his pock-marked face and in the very attitude of his well-fed
body. It was easy enough now to understand the remarkable
immunity which this man was enjoying, despite the many foolhardy
plots which he hatched, and which had up to now invariably come to
naught.

A regular braggart and empty windbag, he had taken but one good
care, and that was of his own skin. Unlike other less fortunate
Royalists of France, he neither fought in the country nor braved
dangers in town. He played a safer game--crossed the frontier and
constituted himself agent of Austria; he succeeded in gaining the
Emperor's money for the good of the Royalist cause, and for his
own most especial benefit.

Even a less astute man of the world than was Armand St. Just would
easily have guessed that de Batz' desire to be the only instrument
in the rescue of the poor little Dauphin from the Temple was not
actuated by patriotism, but solely by greed. Obviously there was
a rich reward waiting for him in Vienna the day that he brought
Louis XVII safely into Austrian territory; that reward he would
miss if a meddlesome Englishman interfered in this affair. Whether
in this wrangle he risked the life of the child-King or not
mattered to him not at all. It was de Batz who was to get the
reward, and whose welfare and prosperity mattered more than the
most precious life in Europe.



CHAPTER III
THE DEMON CHANCE

St. Just would have given much to be back in his lonely squalid
lodgings now. Too late did he realise how wise had been the
dictum which had warned him against making or renewing friendships
in France.

Men had changed with the times. How terribly they had changed!
Personal safety had become a fetish with most--a goal so difficult
to attain that it had to be fought for and striven for, even at
the expense of humanity and of self-respect.

Selfishness--the mere, cold-blooded insistence for self-advancement
--ruled supreme. De Batz, surfeited with foreign money, used it
firstly to ensure his own immunity, scattering it to right and left
to still the ambition of the Public Prosecutor or to satisfy the
greed of innumerable spies.

What was left over he used for the purpose of pitting the
bloodthirsty demagogues one against the other, making of the
National Assembly a gigantic bear-den, wherein wild beasts could
rend one another limb from limb.

In the meanwhile, what cared he--he said it himself--whether
hundreds of innocent martyrs perished miserably and uselessly?
They were the necessary food whereby the Revolution was to be
satiated and de Batz' schemes enabled to mature. The most
precious life in Europe even was only to be saved if its price
went to swell the pockets of de Batz, or to further his future
ambitions.

Times had indeed changed an entire nation. St. Just felt as
sickened with this self-seeking Royalist as he did with the savage
brutes who struck to right or left for their own delectation. He
was meditating immediate flight back to his lodgings, with a hope
of finding there a word for him from the chief--a word to remind
him that men did live nowadays who had other aims besides their
own advancement--other ideals besides the deification of self.

The curtain had descended on the first act, and traditionally, as
the works of M. de Moliere demanded it, the three knocks were
heard again without any interval. St. Just rose ready with a
pretext for parting with his friend. The curtain was being slowly
drawn up on the second act, and disclosed Alceste in wrathful
conversation with Celimene.

Alceste's opening speech is short. Whilst the actor spoke it
Armand had his back to the stage; with hand outstretched, he was
murmuring what he hoped would prove a polite excuse for thus
leaving his amiable host while the entertainment had only just
begun.

De Batz--vexed and impatient--had not by any means finished with
his friend yet. He thought that his specious arguments--delivered
with boundless conviction--had made some impression on the mind of
the young man. That impression, however, he desired to deepen, and
whilst Armand was worrying his brain to find a plausible excuse
for going away, de Batz was racking his to find one for keeping
him here.

Then it was that the wayward demon Chance intervened. Had St. Just
risen but two minutes earlier, had his active mind suggested the
desired excuse more readily, who knows what unspeakable sorrow,
what heartrending misery, what terrible shame might have been
spared both him and those for whom he cared? Those two minutes--
did he but know it--decided the whole course of his future life.
The excuse hovered on his lips, de Batz reluctantly was preparing
to bid him good-bye, when Celimene, speaking common-place words
enough in answer to her quarrelsome lover, caused him to drop the
hand which he was holding out to his friend and to turn back towards
the stage.

It was an exquisite voice that had spoken--a voice mellow and
tender, with deep tones in it that betrayed latent power. The
voice had caused Armand to look, the lips that spoke forged the
first tiny link of that chain which riveted him forever after to
the speaker.

It is difficult to say if such a thing really exists as love at
first sight. Poets and romancists will have us believe that it
does; idealists swear by it as being the only true love worthy of
the name.

I do not know if I am prepared to admit their theory with regard
to Armand St. Just. Mlle. Lange's exquisite voice certainly had
charmed him to the extent of making him forget his mistrust of de
Batz and his desire to get away. Mechanically almost he sat down
again, and leaning both elbows on the edge of the box, he rested
his chin in his hand, and listened. The words which the late M.
de Moliere puts into the mouth of Celimene are trite and flippant
enough, yet every time that Mlle. Lange's lips moved Armand
watched her, entranced.

There, no doubt, the matter would have ended: a young man
fascinated by a pretty woman on the stage--'tis a small matter,
and one from which there doth not often spring a weary trail of
tragic circumstances. Armand, who had a passion for music, would
have worshipped at the shrine of Mlle. Lange's perfect voice until
the curtain came down on the last act, had not his friend de Batz
seen the keen enchantment which the actress had produced on the
young enthusiast.

Now de Batz was a man who never allowed an opportunity to slip by,
if that opportunity led towards the furtherance of his own desires.
He did not want to lose sight of Armand just yet, and here the good
demon Chance had given him an opportunity for obtaining what he wanted.

He waited quietly until the fall of the curtain at the end of Act
II.; then, as Armand, with a sigh of delight, leaned back in his
chair, and closing his eyes appeared to be living the last
half-hour all over again, de Batz remarked with well-assumed
indifference:

"Mlle. Lange is a promising young actress. Do you not think so,
my friend?"

"She has a perfect voice--it was exquisite melody to the ear,"
replied Armand. "I was conscious of little else."

Copyright (c) 2007. fullstories.net. All rights reserved.