Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

The Archbishop repeated this strange story to the Abbé Lagarde who had left the room to bring a warm shawl for the old man, and they consulted earnestly for a moment in low tones.

  “Yes,” Philip heard the Abbé say, “it is certainly an invention. They have come purely and simply to arrest you.”

  “And you consent to accompany me?” asked the Archbishop.

  “I do not consent — I ask the privilege,” replied the Abbé Lagarde.

  “Allons! En route!” said the Captain.

  “Will you not permit me to say adieu to my unhappy sister?” asked the Archbishop, mildly.

  “There is no time for that sort of stuff,” sneered the Captain, motioning a file of soldiers to enter.

  “Shame!” cried Philip from the window, and the next moment could have bitten off his tongue — for the Captain walked over and examined him with sinister coolness.

  “Who the devil are you? An unfrocked priest?” he demanded. With an insulting gesture he laid his hand on the blue blouse — and started back hastily; he had felt the revolver underneath.

  “Arrest that man!” he cried to the soldiers. Instantly Philip was surrounded by bayonets and marched out between a double line of troops.

  The Archbishop had profited by the diversion to bid his sister farewell. He now re-entered, accompanied by the Abbé Lagarde, and followed the Captain down to where his carriage was standing. Citizen Révol jumped up beside the coachman, and his comrade Journeaux placed himself at the head of the Federal battalion which was standing at attention in the court. As the drums rolled another file of soldiers appeared conducting Philip.

  “Put him in with Darboy!” cried Révol from the box — and Philip was hustled into the carriage, the door was slammed, and the cortege started. As they drove out of the porte cochère they passed a group of women gathered at the entrance. Some were kneeling on the sidewalk — all were weeping., One, a girl elegantly dressed, held up her hands imploringly. Philip recognized Ynès Falaise. Monseigneur Darboy’s pale face bent benignly. He raised his hands in benediction, Captain Révol sneered and cursed the driver; the carriage rolled swiftly away toward the Place Dauphine.

  CHAPTER XIV. RAOUL RIGAULT.

  IT was a long drive to the Préfecture of Police, and Monseigneur Darboy looked terribly ill and worn. Nevertheless he had nothing but words of encouragement for his companions, and before long he remembered that Philip had something urgent to communicate.

  “My son,” he said, “you wished to speak with me on a matter of life and death.” Philip at once told his story. Monseigneur Darboy listened as attentively as if he were safe and at ease in his own residence, only when Philip had finished he sighed heavily and said in a weak patient voice:

  “Alas! my son, you see how little I can do for my friends at present. And perhaps — but the event is in God’s hands — if I can help you I will. Believe that. And in case things should go very wrong with me — they may detain me, you know, in spite of their promise to the contrary, but I do not think they will, — if then it should happen that I am prevented from doing what you wish, here is the Abbé Lagarde. He at least can be in no danger. As soon as he returns from the Préfecture of Police, perhaps to-day, let us hope to-morrow at the latest, he will go himself and lay your case and that of the ladies whom you are so nobly protecting, before the American Minister.”

  Landes, touched to the depths of his troubled heart by the Archbishop’s dignity and unselfish sweetness, knelt and humbly asked his blessing. The touch of those gentle old hands on his head brought him a sense of peace, but Monseigneur Darboy was overcome by weakness and the excitement of his arrest, his face grew deathly white, he sank back on the Abbé’s shoulder and closed his eyes; his thin hands trembled. The younger men watched him anxiously in silence for some time, then Philip spoke again, in a low voice, to the Abbé Lagarde.

  “I shall probably be shot before the American Minister can interfere, even if you should return to see him this evening. I have Mademoiselle de Brassac’s diamonds in my pocket. They are about all the fortune she has. Will you take charge of them, my father?”

  “Yes,” said the Abbé.

  Philip made a little bag of the gardener’s bandanna, dropped the diamonds in, and tied the corners as best he could. It was so large that when crumpled together it made a good hiding-place for the beautiful stones, whose presence in its folds it was hard to detect. The Abbé’s sad face relaxed an instant with a faint smile at the incongruity, as he placed the clumsy cotton kerchief in the bosom of his soutane.

  “Have you any message for Mademoiselle de Brassac, my son?” he asked.

  “Tell her that I love her,” said Philip, earnestly.

  The Abbé bowed in silence.

  At that moment the coupé stopped in the Place Dauphine and Révol sprang from his place beside the coachman and opened the carriage door. The Abbé Lagarde stepped out and assisted the Archbishop to descend, then Philip crept out of the coupé and stood quietly before the Captain.

  Now the Citizen Captain Révol had no idea that Philip was a prize. He did not know his name and did not care to know it, but he did know that he carried concealed arms and was found hobnobbing with priests, and that was enough to make him doubly a “suspect.” Still, in Révol’s eyes Philip was of small importance compared with Monseigneur Darboy the Archbishop of Paris, so when Philip stepped before him he was curtly told to follow in the rear.

  The gate on the side of the Place Dauphine was closed, but Révol ordered it to be opened, and, followed by the three prisoners and two armed guards, he entered the court. The court was crowded with men who vociferated and gesticulated and filled the yard with an indescribable tumult. They watched the Archbishop with hostile or indifferent eyes until a jailer appeared and Révol handed over the prisoners to him.

  The jailer, a weak-eyed little ruffian with a long scar across his cheeks, grinned impudently at the two priests and motioned them to follow him. Through corridor after corridor and salon after salon where repairs were in progress, they passed in single file, the jailer leading. Then they entered a long suite of rooms which were filled with men, smoking, drinking, and disputing in loud harsh voices, but who paid them not the slightest attention. The room beyond was empty, except for heaps of new military clothing which lay in carefully arranged piles on some long tables. The jailer paused in this room and motioned Philip to stop.

  “Your turn will come,” he grinned, “but the Church must not be kept waiting.” Then, bowing ironically to the Archbishop, he opened the door and ushered him into the room beyond. As he did not close the door behind him, Philip, leaning against a table piled high with uniforms of the National Guard, could See into the room. The jailer returned and winked as he passed.

  “They will send for you in a moment. Climb up on that table and you will see the fun!” he said, and disappeared, slamming the door behind him.

  Philip clambered to the top of one of the tables and looked through the half-closed door into the cabinet of the Préfet of Police.

  At the farther end of the room, almost opposite the door by which the Archbishop and the Abbé Lagarde had entered, stood a huge arm-chair on a raised step. In the middle of this chair, before a large table covered with green cloth, sat a small man writing. On his head he wore a military cap, heavy with gold bands, but his uniform was sombre and edged with silver. His cold shallow eyes were raised once or twice, but he took no notice of the Archbishop, who had entered with his hat under his arm and now stood before the green-covered table. All around the room lounged the creatures of the Préfet of Police, some sitting on the long benches, others standing and conversing in low tones. Most of them wore some sort of uniform, and all affected broad crimson sashes edged with gilt.

  Suddenly Raoul Rigault raised his head, adjusted the glasses on his nose, and with a violent gesture demanded brutally who those people were.

  “The Archbishop,” cried somebody from the other side of the room.

  “Ah!” cried Rigault, “are
you the Citizen Darboy? C’est bien! It is our turn now!”

  The Archbishop advanced a step or two. “May I know why I am arrested?” he asked mildly.

  Rigault threw himself back in his arm-chair, and waved his hand: “For eighteen hundred years you priests have brutalized us with your superstitions. It is time for that to stop. Your Chouans massacred our brothers. All right, — everybody has his turn. This time it is we who have the power. We will use it. Oh, we won’t burn you à la Torquemada, — we are too humane. But we will shoot you!”

  The Archbishop raised his shocked face to the inflamed face of Raoul Rigault. Then he looked sorrowfully at the others, who had risen from their seats and now crowded around the two priests.

  “But listen, my children,” — he began gently.

  These words raised a tempest of howls and jeers. From every corner cries, groans, hisses, impossible to describe, filled the air. The old man shrank back and raised his hand to his forehead.

  “What!” shouted Rigault, thumping the table with his clenched fist; “you are smiling, citizen! I repeat that you will be shot, and in two days we will see whether you will smile.” Then he turned on the Abbé Lagarde. “You there, — who are you?”

  “Vicar-General of the Archbishop of Paris whom I have the honor to accompany,” replied the Abbé; but Rigault, who probably imagined some affectation in this response, shouted furiously:

  “Here, you! — don’t put on any of your priestly airs with me. You ‘re known as a suspect.”

  “Monsieur the Abbé is truly enough my Vicar-General,” interrupted the Archbishop, “but there was no mandate of arrest against him, and he is at this moment beside me because he consented, at my request, to accompany me. I beg you to allow him to depart.”

  “Ah! ah! ah!” cried Rigault, with savage irony, “the citizen is caged, let him remain caged! Your name?”

  “Ernest — Joseph — Jean — Lagarde.”

  “Good. Allons! Quick, an order of imprisonment for Citizen Lagarde, — and pack both of them off to their cells at once, — separated of course — never leave two priests together! Captain, take them in charge!”

  The captain to whom he spoke was grey-haired and elderly. He had a pleasant face and simple bearing and did not appear to share the fury of the others. While Ferré countersigned the order for imprisonment, the captain, raising his hand slowly to his white moustache, stepped forward and said in a quiet voice: “Citizen Rigault, I am an old soldier: I refuse to accept such a mission.”

  At his words a sort of stupor seemed to fall upon the company, but Rigault, fearing probably that the ominous silence might end in a more favorable feeling toward the prisoners, turned to a lieutenant who stood swaying on his spurred heels near the door. The lieutenant was very drunk, — so drunk that after raising his hand to his cap and hic-coughing, “Avec — plaisir, mon Commandant,” he neither was able to direct the eight soldiers who formed the guard, nor find the door without assistance.

  In the meantime, Philip stood on the table in the next room watching with fast beating heart the cruel scene passing in the cabinet of Raoul Rigault. He was alone and unguarded, but behind him lay the long stretch of apartments filled with troops and secret agents, and in the room in front, he knew only too well, a short shrift awaited him. When Rigault turned furiously on the Abbé Lagarde his heart sank and he crept down from the table and leaned against the pile of clothing. Was there no hope? He stared wildly about for a window. There was one, but it had been closed with iron bars. Then his eyes fell on the piles of uniforms arranged neatly on the tables. Hardly knowing what he was about he seized a pair of trousers and pulled them over his linen ones. They buttoned without difficulty. In a moment he had caught up a tunic of the National Guard, flung it over his shirt, and tucked the long skirts of the blouse into his trousers. He buttoned the tunic to his throat, clasped a belt about his waist, and found a képi which fitted. Through the open door of Rigault’s cabinet he heard the order given for the removal of the prisoners, and the tread of the platoon advancing. In desperation he flung open the door of the room opposite and walked boldly through the crowded hallway which reeked with the smoke and stench of stale tobacco.

  “Where are you going in such a hurry, citizen?” cried a man.

  “They are bringing the Archbishop to prison!” replied Philip; and the people in the room rose and crowded forward to catch a glimpse of Monseigneur Darboy.

  Philip kept straight on until he reached the courtyard now packed to suffocation with a sullen, vicious crowd.

  “Where is the Citizen Darboy?” they cried when he appeared at the door.

  “They are taking him to prison!” shouted Philip, “make way there!” The throng parted and he squeezed his way to the gate. It was locked. For an instant he stood in despair, but he heard the measured tread of the platoon, and then a wild shout from the crowd, as they came in sight. There was no time to be lost. He sprang onto the crossbars of the iron gate, climbed to the top, and dropped to the street uninjured. Every eye was fixed on the Archbishop, who now appeared supported by the Abbé Lagarde; no one saw Philip except the little weak-eyed jailer — and his yells were lost in the roar of the mob. So when the jailer reached the gate and, flinging it open, rushed into the street, Philip had disappeared.

  CHAPTER XV. THE AWAKENING.

  JACK ELLICE awoke with a sense of being more comfortable than he had been for a long time. He turned over and looked out into the studio; the window was open, the sunshine and the blackbird’s song came in together.

  “Philip,” said Jack, “what time do you have breakfast?” Not receiving any answer he sat up and looked at Philip’s bed. As it was empty and tumbled, Ellice concluded the hour must be rather late, and he stood up and stretched. Then his eye fell on the note which lay folded beside his bed, and he picked it up. By the time he had read it he was very wide awake. A clatter of dishes came from the studio.

  “Joseph,” called Ellice, “where is Monsieur Landes?”

  “I don’t know, Monsieur Ellice, isn’t he with you?”

  “He’s gone! That’s certain!” said Jack to himself. He turned irresolutely back, took a spiritless plunge in the bathtub, dressed hastily, and walked into the studio. The clock pointed to half-past eight; Philip had already been gone two hours and a half. —

  Joseph, who had returned with the milk and cream jugs, eyed Jack with doleful persistence until he responded with an equally doleful nod. “Yes, he has gone away to seek help for us all.”

  “Je m’en doutais,” snivelled Joseph; “ah! Monsieur Philip is so brave — mais — voyons, Monsieur Ellice, nous étions très bien ici!”

  “Yes, I think we were doing well enough as we were, and I wish he had not run the risk just at present.” He took the letter from his pocket and translated it to Joseph, who was now weeping among the cups and saucers.

  “What do you think, Joseph,” demanded Ellice, as the concierge drew his hand across his eyes, “was there any chance of the Turcos seeing him from the rue Notre Dame when he dropped into the Passage Stanislas?”

  Joseph did not know and of course feared the worst, and his melancholy became so oppressive that Ellice sent him out and sat down, turning the letter over helplessly in his hand. Tcherka walked up, rubbing against his legs, demanding her breakfast in loud tones, and Toodles, his nose all caked with soil, came pattering in with an unpleasant-looking bone in his mouth, which he had buried some days before in the garden and had now resurrected. In a few moments the door above opened and the chatter and silvery laughter of girls filled the studio.

  “Good-morning, Monsieur Ellice,” said Jeanne, coming to the edge of the balcony and looking down, “I trust you slept well, — oh, please do take that bone away from Toodles! He will drag the most awful things into the studio. Oh, thank you very much! Bad Toodles! No, there’s no use wagging your tail, for your mistress loves Tcherka, not you at all!”

  “And that is what we do not believe, do we, Toodles?” said Margueri
te, coming out on the balcony. “Good-morning, Monsieur Ellice, — is Monsieur Landes still asleep?”

  “Very well, then, we will put all the cream in Monsieur Ellice’s coffee!” cried Jeanne, leaning over the balcony and speaking to the closed door of Philip’s room,”

  “Monsieur Ellice,” laughed Marguerite, “you look very sad. Are you hungry, and have we kept you waiting?”

  “Listen to Tcherka,” said Jeanne, “listen to the poor darling! She wants her breakfast and she shall have it,” and catching Marguerite’s hand in hers she ran down the stairs to the studio. “Joseph! the milk if you pI” Mademoiselle de Brassac stopped short and looked Jack searchingly in the face.

  “Monsieur Ellice, what is the matter?”

  “Don’t be alarmed—” he began awkwardly.

  “Something has happened to Monsieur Landes?”

  “No, oh no—”

  “Where is he then?”

  “You see—” began Jack.

  “Please tell me at once. Has he been taken?”

  “No — no — not at all,” stammered Ellice— “only — but perhaps you had better read this—” and he gave her the letter, feeling that if it was not the best way of breaking the news to her it was at least none of his choosing. Jeanne and Marguerite read it together.

  “You see, he’s only gone to look for help. He wore my market gardener’s disguise — and, as he says, if it served me it will him. Oh, he’ll come back all right,” said Jack, with a jauntiness that did not deceive anyone.

  “I am the most miserable girl in the world. I make people who are better than I risk their lives for me,” said Mademoiselle de Brassac, turning away.

  “Mais non! — mais non, ma chérie!” said Marguerite, tenderly, “it will not be long before he returns.”

  “We must wait,” answered Jeanne, in a dull voice.

  She took the head of the breakfast table and saw that the others were served, and when the formality had been gone through she sat in her place looking out into the garden. At last Marguerite, frightened by her deathlike color, rose and carried her with gentle decision up to her own room.