Books: The Reign Of Terror
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G. A. Henty >> The Reign Of Terror
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"I arranged it all, Jeanne. I have the responsibility of your being
here."
"And to an equal extent you would have had the responsibility of
our being anywhere else. So it is of no use letting that trouble
you. Now, as to the sailors, you know I have made the acquaintance
of some of the women in our street. Some of them are sailors' wives,
and possibly through them I may be able to hear about ships. At
anyrate I could try."
"Perhaps you could, Jeanne; but be very, very careful what questions
you put, or you might be betrayed."
"I don't think there is much fear of that, Harry. The women are
more outspoken than the men. Some of them are with what they call
the people; but it is clear that others are quite the other way.
You see trade has been almost stopped, and there is great suffering
among the sailors and their families. Of course I have been very
careful not to seem to have more money than other people; but
I have been able to make soups and things - I have learned to be
quite a cook from seeing Louise at work - and I take them to those
that are very poor, especially if they have children ill, and I
think I have won some of their hearts."
"You win everyone's heart who comes near you, Jeanne, I think,"
Harry said earnestly.
Jeanne flushed a rosy red, but said with a laugh:
"Now, Harry, you are turning flatterer. We are not at the chateau
now, sir, so your pretty speeches are quite thrown away; and now
I shall go and take Virginie's place and send her in to you."
And so another month went by, and then the old nurse quietly
passed away. She was buried, to the girls' great grief, without
any religious ceremony, for the priests were all in hiding or had
been murdered, and France had solemnly renounced God and placed
Reason on His throne.
In the meantime Jeanne had been steadily carrying on her work among
her poorer neighbours, sitting up at night with sick children, and
supplying food to starving little ones, saying quietly in reply to
the words of gratitude of the women:
"My grandmother has laid by savings during her long years of
service. She will not want it long, and we are old enough to work
for ourselves; besides, our brother Henri will take care of us. So
we are glad to be able to help those who need it."
While she worked she kept her ears open, and from the talk of the
women learned that the husbands of one or two of them were employed in
vessels engaged in carrying on smuggling operations with England.
A few days after the death of Louise one of these women, whose
child Jeanne had helped to nurse through a fever and had brought
round by keeping it well supplied with good food, exclaimed:
"Oh, how much we owe you, mademoiselle, for your goodness!"
"You must not call me mademoiselle," Jeanne said, shaking her head.
"It would do you harm and me too if it were heard."
"It comes so natural," the woman said with a sigh. "I was in service
once in a good family before I married Adolphe. But I know that
you are not one of those people who say there is no God, because I
saw you kneel down and pray by Julie's bed when you thought I was
asleep. I expect Adolphe home in a day or two. The poor fellow
will be wild with delight when he sees the little one on its feet
again. When he went away a fortnight ago he did not expect ever
to see her alive again, and it almost broke his heart. But what
was he to do? There are so many men out of work that if he had
not sailed in the lugger there would have been scores to take his
place, and he might not perhaps have been taken on again."
"He has been to England, has he not?" Jeanne asked.
"Yes; the lugger carries silks and brandy. It is a dangerous trade,
for the Channel is swarming with English cruisers. But what is he
to do? One must live."
"Is your husband in favour of the new state of things?" Jeanne
asked.
"Not in his heart, mademoiselle, any more than I am, but he holds
his tongue. Most of the sallors in the port hate these murdering
tyrants of ours; but what can we do?"
"Well, Marthe, I am sure I can trust you, and your husband can help
me if he will."
"Surely you can trust me," the woman said. "I would lay down my
life for you, and I know Adolphe would do so too when he knows what
you have done for us."
"Well, then, Marthe, I and my sister and my brother Henri are anxious
to be taken to England. We are ready to pay well for a passage,
but we have not known how to set about it."
"I thought it might be that," Marthe said quietly; "for anyone who
knows the ways of gentlefolk, as I do, could see with half an eye
that you are not one of us. But they say, mademoiselle, that your
brother is a friend of Robespierre, and that he is one of the
committee here."
"He is only pretending, Marthe, in order that no suspicion should
fall upon us. But he finds that the sailors distrust him, and he
cannot get to speak to them about taking a passage, so I thought
I would speak to you, and you can tell me when a boat is sailing
and who is her captain."
"Adolphe will manage all that for you, never fear," the woman
said. "I know that many a poor soul has been hidden away on board
the smuggler's craft and got safely out of the country; but of
course it's a risk, for it is death to assist any of the suspects.
Still the sailors are ready to run the risk, and indeed they haven't
much fear of the consequences if they are caught, for the sailor
population here are very strong, and they would not stand quietly
by and see some of their own class treated as if they had done
some great crime merely because they were earning a few pounds by
running passengers across to England. Why they have done it from
father to son as far as they can recollect, for there has never
been a time yet when there were not people who wanted to pass from
France to England and from England to France without asking the
leave of the authorities. I think it can be managed, mademoiselle,
especially, as you say, you can afford to pay, for if one won't take
you, another will. Trade is so bad that there are scores of men
would start in their fishing-boats for a voyage across the Channel
in the hope of getting food for their wives and families."
"I was sure it was so, Marthe, but it was so difficult to set about
it. Everyone is afraid of spies, and it needs some one to warrant
that we are not trying to draw them into a snare, before anyone
will listen. If your husband will but take the matter up, I have
no doubt it can be managed."
"Set your mind at ease; the thing is as good as done. I tell you
there are scores of men ready to undertake the job when they know
it is a straightforward one."
"That is good news indeed, Jeanne," Harry said, when the girl
told him of the conversation. "That does seem a way out of our
difficulties. I felt sure you would be able to manage it, sooner
or later, among the poor people you have been so good to. Hurry it
on as much as you can, Jeanne. I feel that our position is getting
more and more dangerous. I am afraid I do not play my part sufficiently
well. I am not forward enough in their violent councils. I cannot
bring myself to vote for proposals for massacre when there is any
division among them. I fear that some have suspicions. I have been
asked questions lately as to why I am staying here, and why I have
come. I have been thinking for the last few days whether it would
not be better for us to make our way down to the mouth of the river
and try and bribe some fishermen in the villages there who would
not have that feeling against me that the men here have, to take
us to sea, or if that could not be managed, to get on board some
little fishing-boat at night and sail off by ourselves in the hopes
of being picked up by an English cruiser."
Harry indeed had for some days been feeling that danger was
thickening round him. He had noticed angry glances cast at him by
the more violent of the committee, and had caught sentences expressing
doubt whether he had really been Robespierre's secretary. That
evening as he came out from the meeting he heard one man say to
another:
"I tell you he may have stolen it, and perhaps killed the citizen
who bore it. I believe he is a cursed aristocrat. I tell you I shall
watch him. He has got some women with him; the maire, who saw the
paper, told me so. I shall make it my business to get to the bottom
of the affair, and we will make short work with him if we find
things are as I believe."
Harry felt, therefore, that the danger was even more urgent than
he had expressed it to Jeanne, and he had returned intending to
propose immediate flight had not Jeanne been beforehand with her
news. Even now he hesitated whether even a day's delay might not
ruin them.
"Have you told me all, Harry?" Jeanne asked.
"Not quite all, Jeanne. I was just thinking it over. I fear the
danger is even more pressing than I have said;" and he repeated
the sentence he had overheard. "Even now," he said, "that fellow
may be watching outside or making inquiries about you. He will hear
nothing but praise; but that very praise may cause him to doubt
still more that you are not what you seem."
"But why can we not run away at once?" Virginie said. "Why should
we wait here till they come and take us and carry us away and kill
us?"
"That is what I was thinking when I came home, Virginie; but the
risk of trying to escape in a fishing-boat by ourselves would be
tremendous. You see, although I have gone out sailing sometimes on
the river in England, I know very little about it, and although we
might be picked up by an English ship, it would be much more likely
that we should fall into the hands of one of the French gunboats.
So I look upon that as a desperate step, to be taken only at the
last moment. And now that Jeanne seems to have arranged a safe plan,
I do not like trying such a wild scheme. A week now, and perhaps
all might be arranged; but the question is - Have we a week? Have
we more than twenty-four hours? What do you think, Jeanne?"
"I do not see what is best to do yet," Jeanne said, looking steadily
in the fire. "It is a terrible thing to have to decide; but I see
we must decide." She sat for five minutes without speaking, and
then taking down her cloak from the peg on which it hung she said;
"I will go round to Marthe Pichon again and tell her we are all
so anxious for each other, that I don't think we can judge what is
really the best. Marthe will see things more clearly and will be
able to advise us."
"Yes, that will be the best plan."
It was three-quarters of an hour before she returned.
"I can see you have a plan," Harry said as he saw that there was
a look of brightness and hope on Jeanne's face.
"Yes, I have a plan, and a good one; that is to say, Marthe has. I
told her all about it, and she said directly that we must be hidden
somewhere till her husband can arrange for us to sail. I said, of
course, that was what was wanted, but how could it be managed? So
she thought it over, and we have quite arranged it. She has a sister
who lives in a fishing-village four miles down the river. She will
go over there to-morrow and arrange with them to take us, and will
get some fisher-girls' dresses for us. She says she is sure her
sister will take us, for she was over here yesterday and heard
about the child getting better, and Marthe told her all sorts of
nonsense about what I had done for it. She thinks we shall be quite
safe there, for there are only six or seven houses, and no one but
fishermen live there. She proposes that you shall be dressed up in
some of her husband's clothes, and shall go out fishing with her
sister's husband. What do you think of that, Harry?"
"Splendid, Jeanne! Can the husband be trusted too?"
"Oh, yes, she says so. He is an honest man, she says; and besides,
they are very poor, and a little money will be a great help to them.
She says she would not propose it unless she was quite, quite sure
of them, for if anything happened to us she would be a wretched
woman all her life."
"Thank God," Harry said fervently, "that one sees daylight at last!
I have felt so helpless lately! Dangers seemed to be thickening
round you, and I could do nothing; and now, Jeanne, you have found
a way out for us where I never should have found one for myself."
"It is God who has done it, not me," Jeanne said reverently. "I did
not begin to go about among the poor people here with any thought
of making friends, but because they were so poor and miserable; but
He must have put it into my heart to do it, in order that a way of
escape might be made for us."
CHAPTER XIII In the Hands of the Reds
The next morning Harry went out, as usual, immediately after
breakfast, for a walk for two or three hours. This he did partly
to allow the girls to tidy the rooms, an office which had naturally
fallen to them since the commencement of their old nurse's illness;
partly because in active exercise he found some relief from the
burden of his anxieties. To-day he felt more anxious than ever. The
conversation with Marthe Pichon had afforded good grounds of hope
that in a day or two a fair prospect of escape would be open to them;
but this only seemed to make the present anxiety all the sharper.
The woman had promised to get disguises, and make the arrangements
with her friends at the village below during the course of the day,
and by night, if all went well, they might start. He told himself
that he had no reason for supposing that the vague suspicions which
were, he knew, afloat would suddenly be converted into action. He
determined to take his place that afternoon with the committee as
usual, and endeavour to allay their doubts by assuming a violent
attitude. He felt, however, that the day would be more trying than
any he had passed, and that he would give a great deal if the next
twenty-four hours were over. Scarcely heeding where he walked he
was out longer than usual, and it was nearly three hours after he
started before he approached the town again by the road along the
river bank. Just when he came to the first houses a woman, who was
standing there knitting, came up to him.
"You are the citizen who lives with his two sisters next door to
La Mere Pichon, are you not?"
Harry assented hurriedly, with a strange presentiment of evil.
"La Mere Pichon bids me tell you," the woman said, "that half an
hour after you started this morning six men, with an official with
the red scarf, came to the house and arrested your sisters and
carried them off. They are watching there for your return."
Harry staggered as if struck with a blow.
"Poor young man," the woman said compassionately, seeing the ghastly
pallor of his face, "but I pity you. The street is furious that
these wretches should have carried off that sweet young creature,
who was so good to everyone; but what could we do? We hissed the men,
and we would have pelted them had we not been afraid of striking
your sisters. When they had gone La Mere Pichon said to some of
us, 'The best thing we can do for that angel is to save her brother
from being caught also. So do one of you post yourself on each
road leading to the house, and warn him in time. He generally walks
beyond the town. I heard one of his sisters say so.' So some of
us came out on all the roads, and two remained, one at each end of
the street, in case we should miss you. La Mere said, whoever met
you was to tell you to be on this road, by the river, just outside
the town, after dark, and she would bring you some clothes, and
take you where you would be safe; but till then you were to go away
again, and keep far from the town. Do you understand?" she asked,
laying her hand on his arm, for he seemed dazed and stupid with
the shock he had received.
"I understand," he said in a low voice. "Thank you all for your
warning. Yes, I will be here this evening."
So saying he turned and moved away, walking unsteadily as if he
were drunk. The woman looked after him pityingly, and then, shaking
her head and muttering execrations against the "Reds," she made
her way home to tell Mere Pichon that she had fulfilled her mission.
Harry walked on slowly until some distance from the town, and then
threw himself down on a bank by the road and lay for a time silent
and despairing. At last tears came to his relief, and his broad
shoulders shook with a passion of sobbing to think that just at
the moment when a chance of escape was opened - just when all the
dangers seemed nearly past - the girls should have fallen into
the hands of the enemy, and he not there to strike a blow in their
defence. To think of Jeanne - his bright, fearless Jeanne - and
clinging little Virginie, in the hands of these human tigers. It
was maddening! But after a time the passion of weeping calmed down,
and Harry sat up suddenly.
"I am a fool," he said as he rose to his feet; "a nice sort of fellow
for a protector, lying here crying like a girl when I had begun to
fancy I was a man; wasting my time here when I know the only hope
for the girls is for me to keep myself free to help them. I need
not lose all hope yet. After Marie has been saved, why shouldn't
I save my Jeanne? I am better off than I was then, for we have
friends who will help. These women whose hearts Jeanne has won will
aid if they can, and may get some of their husbands and brothers
to aid. The battle is not lost yet, and Jeanne will know I shall
move heaven and earth to save her."
Harry's fit of crying, unmanly as he felt it, had afforded him an
immense relief, for he hardly knew himself how great the strain
had been upon him of late, and with a more elastic step he strode
away into the country, and for hours walked on, revolving plan
after plan in his mind for rescuing the girls. Although nothing
very plausible had occurred to him he felt brighter in mind, though
weary in body, when, just after nightfall, he again approached the
spot where he had that morning received so heavy a blow. He was
not disheartened at the difficulty before him, for he knew that he
should have some time yet to hit upon a a plan, and the jails were
so crowded with prisoners that he might fairly reckon upon weeks
before there was any actual necessity for action. Marthe Pichon
was waiting for him.
"Ah, Monsieur," she began, "but this is a terrible day! Oh, if I
had but known a day or two earlier they could have moved in time,
and now they are in the power of those wolves; but we will try
to save them. We have been talking it over. We will all go to the
tribunal, and we will take our husbands and our children with us,
and we will demand their release. We will not let them be murdered.
And now here are the clothes, but you need not put them on now.
There will be a boat here in a few minutes. We have told some of
the sailors how they misjudged you, and they are sorry, now it is
too late, that they would not listen when you spoke to them. However,
they will do all they can for you. I have sent a message by a boy
to my sister to say that I shall be down this evening, so they will
be expecting us. Ah, here is the boat!"
The splash of oars was heard, and a boat rowed along close to the
bank.
"Is that you, Pierre?"
"It is us, sure enough, Mere Pichon. Is all right?"
"Yes, we are both here."
In another minute the boat was rowed alongside, and Harry and the
woman got on board. There were few words spoken as the two men rowed
vigorously down stream. In three quarters of an hour some lights
were seen on the opposite bank, and the boat was headed towards
them and soon reached a little causeway.
"I shall not be more than twenty minutes," Mere Pichon said as she
got out.
"All right, we will wait!" was the reply, and mounting the causeway
La Mere Pichon led the way to the farthest cottage in the little
fishing-village. A light was burning within, and lifting the latch
she entered, followed by Harry. A fisherman and his wife were
sitting by the fire.
"Here, sister Henriette and brother Pierre," Marthe said; "you
have heard from me how a dear angel, who lived next door to me, has
nursed and tended my little Julie, and by blessing of the Virgin
brought her round from her illness; and those wretches, the Reds,
have carried her off to-day with her sister, and you know what it
is to fall into their hands. This is her brother, and I am going
to ask you to give him shelter and let him stay here with you. I
have brought him a suit of clothes with me, and no one will guess
that he is not the son of some comrade of yours. He will pay you
well for sheltering him till we can put him on board Adolphe's
lugger and send him across the water. If it had not been that the
Reds had come to-day I should have brought his sisters with him. I
was just starting to arrange it with you when those wretches came
and took them away, and it may be that they would pay a hundred
crowns to you, and that is not a sum to be earned every day."
"No, indeed," her sister said briskly; "that will buy Pierre a new
boat, and a good one, such as he can go out to sea in; besides, as
you say, after what his sister did for Julie we are bound to help
them. What do you say, Pierre?"
Pierre's face had expressed anything but satisfaction until the
money was mentioned, but it then changed entirely. The times were
bad - his boat was old and unseaworthy - a hundred crowns was a
fortune to him.
"I have risked my life often," he said, "to earn five crowns,
therefore I do not say no to the offer. Monsieur, I accept; for a
hundred crowns I will run the risk of keeping you here, and your
sisters too if they should come, until you can cross the water."
"Very well then," Marthe Pichon said. "That's settled, now I shall
be off at once. They will be watching the street for monsieur, and
to-morrow, when they find he has not come back, they will be asking
questions, so the sooner I am back the better."
"We cannot give you much accommodation, monsieur," the fisherman
said. "There is only the loft upstairs, and, for to-night, the sails
to sleep on; but we will try and make you more comfortable to-morrow."
"I care nothing for comfort," Harry answered, "so make no change
for me. Just treat me as if I were what I shall seem to be - a young
fisherman who has come to work with you for a bit. I will row with
you and help you with your nets. Your sister has promised to send
a boy every day with all the news she can gather. Now, if you have
a piece of bread I will gladly eat it, for I have touched nothing
since breakfast."
"We can do better than that for you," the woman replied, and in a
few minutes some fish were frying over the fire. Fortunately the
long hours he had been on his feet had thoroughly tired Harry out,
and after eating his supper he at once ascended to the loft, threw
himself on the heap of sails, and in a few minutes was sound asleep.
The next morning he dressed himself in the fisherman's clothes with
which he had been provided, and went down stairs.
"You will do," Pierre said, looking at him; "but your hands and face
are too white. But I was tanning my sails yesterday, and there is
some of the stuff left in the boiler; if you rub your hands and
face with that you will do well."
Harry took the advice, and the effect was to give him the appearance
of a lad whose face was bronzed by long exposure to the sea and
air.
"You will pass anywhere now," Pierre said approvingly. "I shall give
out that you belong to St. Nazaire, and are the son of a friend of
mine whose fishing-boat was lost in the last gale, and so you have
come to work for a time with me; no one would ask you any more.
Besides, we are all comrades, and hate the Reds, who have spoilt
our trade by killing all our best customers, so if they come asking
questions here they won't get a word out of anyone."
For ten days Harry lived with the fisherman. Adolphe had returned
in his lugger the day after his arrival there, and came over the
next evening to see him. He said that it would be some little time
before the lugger sailed again, but that if he was ready to start
before she sailed he would manage to procure him a passage in some
other craft. He said that he had already been talking to some of
the sailors on the wharves, and that they had promised to go to
the Tribunal when the girls were brought up before it, and that he
would manage to get news from a friend employed in the prison when
that would be.
Harry frequently went up in a boat to Nantes with Pierre with the
fish they had caught. He had no fear of being recognized, and did
not hesitate to land, though he seldom went far from the boat.
Adolphe was generally there, and he and two or three of his comrades,
who were in the secret, always hailed him as an old acquaintance,
so that had any of the spies of the Revolutionists been standing
there, no suspicion that Harry was other than he seemed would have
entered their minds.
One evening, three weeks after Harry's arrival at the hut, Adolphe
came in with his head bound up by a bandage.
"What is the matter, Adolphe?" Harry exclaimed.
"I have bad news for you, monsieur. I learned this morning that
mesdemoiselles were to-day to be brought before the Tribunal, and
we filled the hall with women and two or three score of sailors.
Mesdemoiselles were brought out. The young one seemed frightened,
but the elder was as calm and brave as if she feared nothing. They
were asked their names, and she said:
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