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Authors: Emmuska Orczy
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there when you lease expect him under a disguise you would scarcely dream of.’
‘Tell me who he is then–since you know him–so that I may duly beware of him.’
‘No,’ rejoined Chauvelin with the same slow deliberation, ‘I will not tell you who he is. Knowledge in this case would be a very dangerous thing.’
‘Dangerous? To whom?’
‘To yourself probably. To me and to the Republic most undoubtedly. No! I will not tell you who the Scarlet Pimpernel is. But take my advice, citizen Martin-Roget,’ he added emphatically, ‘go back to Paris or to Nantes and strive there to serve your country rather than run your head into a noose by meddling with things here in England, and running after your own schemes of revenge.’
‘My own schemes of revenge!’ exclaimed Martin-Roget with a hoarse cry that was like a snarl…It seemed as if he wanted to say something more, but that the words choked him even before they reached his lips. The hot flush died down from his forehead and his face was once more the colour of lead. He took up a log from the corner of the hearth and threw it with a savage, defiant gesture into the fire.
Somewhere in the house a clock struck nine.
V
Martin-Roget waited until the last echo of the gong had died away, then he said very slowly and very quietly:
‘Forgo my own schemes of revenge? Can you even remotely guess, citizen Chauvelin, what it would mean to a man of my temperament and of my calibre to give up that for which I have toiled and striven for the past four years? Think of what I was on that day when a conglomeration of adverse circumstances turned our proposed expedition against the chβteau de Kernogan into a disaster for our village lads, and a triumph for the duc. I was knocked down and crushed all but to death by the wheels of Mlle. de Kernogan’s coach. I managed to crawl in the mud and the cold and the rain, on my hands and knees, hurt, bleeding, half dead, as far as the presbytery of Vertou where the curι kept me hidden at risk of his own life for two days until I was able to crawl farther away out of sight. The curι did not know, I did not know then of the devilish revenge which the duc de Kernogan meant to wreak against my father. The news reached me when it was all over and I had worked my way to Paris with the few sous in my pocket which that good curι had given me, earning bed and bread as I went along. I was an ignorant lout when I arrived in Paris. I had been one of the ci-devant Kernogan’s labourers–his chattel, what?–little better or somewhat worse off than a slave. There I heard that my father had been foully murdered—hung for a crime which I was supposed to have committed, for which I had not even been tried. Then the change in me began. For four years I starved in a garret, toiling like a galley-slave with my hands and muscles by day and at my books by night. And what am I now? I have worked at books, at philosophy, at science: I am a man of education. I can talk and discuss with the best of those d–d aristos who flaunt their caprices and their mincing manners in the face of the outraged democracy of two continents. I speak English—almost like a native–and Danish and German too. I can quote English poets and criticize M. de Voltaire. I am an aristo, what? For this I have worked, citizen Chauvelin–day and night—oh! those nights! how I have slaved to make myself what I now am! And all for that one object—the sole object without which existence would have been absolutely unendurable. That object guided me, helped me to bear and to toil, it cheered and comforted me! To be even one day with the duc de Kernogan and with his daughter! to be their master! to hold them at my mercy!…to destroy or pardon as I choose!…to be the arbiter of their fate!…I have worked for four years: now my goal is in sight, and you talk glibly of forgoing my own schemes of revenge! Believe me, citizen Chauvelin,’ he concluded, ‘it would be easier for me to
‘Tell me who he is then–since you know him–so that I may duly beware of him.’
‘No,’ rejoined Chauvelin with the same slow deliberation, ‘I will not tell you who he is. Knowledge in this case would be a very dangerous thing.’
‘Dangerous? To whom?’
‘To yourself probably. To me and to the Republic most undoubtedly. No! I will not tell you who the Scarlet Pimpernel is. But take my advice, citizen Martin-Roget,’ he added emphatically, ‘go back to Paris or to Nantes and strive there to serve your country rather than run your head into a noose by meddling with things here in England, and running after your own schemes of revenge.’
‘My own schemes of revenge!’ exclaimed Martin-Roget with a hoarse cry that was like a snarl…It seemed as if he wanted to say something more, but that the words choked him even before they reached his lips. The hot flush died down from his forehead and his face was once more the colour of lead. He took up a log from the corner of the hearth and threw it with a savage, defiant gesture into the fire.
Somewhere in the house a clock struck nine.
V
Martin-Roget waited until the last echo of the gong had died away, then he said very slowly and very quietly:
‘Forgo my own schemes of revenge? Can you even remotely guess, citizen Chauvelin, what it would mean to a man of my temperament and of my calibre to give up that for which I have toiled and striven for the past four years? Think of what I was on that day when a conglomeration of adverse circumstances turned our proposed expedition against the chβteau de Kernogan into a disaster for our village lads, and a triumph for the duc. I was knocked down and crushed all but to death by the wheels of Mlle. de Kernogan’s coach. I managed to crawl in the mud and the cold and the rain, on my hands and knees, hurt, bleeding, half dead, as far as the presbytery of Vertou where the curι kept me hidden at risk of his own life for two days until I was able to crawl farther away out of sight. The curι did not know, I did not know then of the devilish revenge which the duc de Kernogan meant to wreak against my father. The news reached me when it was all over and I had worked my way to Paris with the few sous in my pocket which that good curι had given me, earning bed and bread as I went along. I was an ignorant lout when I arrived in Paris. I had been one of the ci-devant Kernogan’s labourers–his chattel, what?–little better or somewhat worse off than a slave. There I heard that my father had been foully murdered—hung for a crime which I was supposed to have committed, for which I had not even been tried. Then the change in me began. For four years I starved in a garret, toiling like a galley-slave with my hands and muscles by day and at my books by night. And what am I now? I have worked at books, at philosophy, at science: I am a man of education. I can talk and discuss with the best of those d–d aristos who flaunt their caprices and their mincing manners in the face of the outraged democracy of two continents. I speak English—almost like a native–and Danish and German too. I can quote English poets and criticize M. de Voltaire. I am an aristo, what? For this I have worked, citizen Chauvelin–day and night—oh! those nights! how I have slaved to make myself what I now am! And all for that one object—the sole object without which existence would have been absolutely unendurable. That object guided me, helped me to bear and to toil, it cheered and comforted me! To be even one day with the duc de Kernogan and with his daughter! to be their master! to hold them at my mercy!…to destroy or pardon as I choose!…to be the arbiter of their fate!…I have worked for four years: now my goal is in sight, and you talk glibly of forgoing my own schemes of revenge! Believe me, citizen Chauvelin,’ he concluded, ‘it would be easier for me to
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