El Dorado: An Adventure of the Scarlet Pimpernel. Emma Orczy
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too, there seemed to be an unnecessary number of soldiers: two were doing sentinel outside the guichet, but there were others in a file against the wall.
Heron rapped with his keys against the door of the concierge’s lodge, then, as it was not immediately opened from within, he pushed it open with his foot.
“The concierge?” he queried peremptorily.
From a corner of the small panelled room there came a grunt and a reply:
“Gone to bed, quoi!”
The man who previously had guided de Batz to Heron’s door slowly struggled to his feet. He had been squatting somewhere in the gloom, and had been roused by Heron’s rough command. He slouched forward now still carrying a boot in one hand and a blacking brush in the other.
“Take this lanthorn, then,” said the chief agent with a snarl directed at the sleeping concierge, “and come along. Why are you still here?” he added, as if in after-thought.
“The citizen concierge was not satisfied with the way I had done his boots,” muttered the man, with an evil leer as he spat contemptuously on the floor; “an aristo, quoi? A hell of a place this… twenty cells to sweep out every day… and boots to clean for every aristo of a concierge or warder who demands it.... Is that work for a free born patriot, I ask?”
“Well, if you are not satisfied, citoyen Dupont,” retorted Heron dryly, “you may go when you like, you know there are plenty of others ready to do your work…”
“Nineteen hours a day, and nineteen sous by way of payment.... I have had fourteen days of this convict work…”
He continued to mutter under his breath, whilst Heron, paying no further heed to him, turned abruptly towards a group of soldiers stationed outside.
“En avant, corporal!” he said; “bring four men with you… we go up to the tower.”
The small procession was formed. On ahead the lanthorn-bearer, with arched spine and shaking knees, dragging shuffling footsteps along the corridor, then the corporal with two of his soldiers, then Heron closely followed by de Batz, and finally two more soldiers bringing up the rear.
Heron had given the bunch of keys to the man Dupont. The latter, on ahead, holding the lanthorn aloft, opened one gate after another. At each gate he waited for the little procession to file through, then he re-locked the gate and passed on.
Up two or three flights of winding stairs set in the solid stone, and the final heavy door was reached.
De Batz was meditating. Heron’s precautions for the safe-guarding of the most precious life in Europe were more complete than he had anticipated. What lavish liberality would be required! what superhuman ingenuity and boundless courage in order to break down all the barriers that had been set up round that young life that flickered inside this grim tower!
Of these three requisites the corpulent, complacent intriguer possessed only the first in a considerable degree. He could be exceedingly liberal with the foreign money which he had at his disposal. As for courage and ingenuity, he believed that he possessed both, but these qualities had not served him in very good stead in the attempts which he had made at different times to rescue the unfortunate members of the Royal Family from prison. His overwhelming egotism would not admit for a moment that in ingenuity and pluck the Scarlet Pimpernel and his English followers could outdo him, but he did wish to make quite sure that they would not interfere with him in the highly remunerative work of saving the Dauphin.
Heron’s impatient call roused him from these meditations. The little party had come to a halt outside a massive iron-studded door.
At a sign from the chief agent the soldiers stood at attention. He then called de Batz and the lanthorn-bearer to him.
He took a key from his breeches pocket, and with his own hand unlocked the massive door. He curtly ordered the lanthorn-bearer and de Batz to go through, then he himself went in, and finally once more re-locked the door behind him, the soldiers remaining on guard on the landing outside.
Now the three men were standing in a square antechamber, dank and dark, devoid of furniture save for a large cupboard that filled the whole of one wall; the others, mildewed and stained, were covered with a greyish paper, which here and there hung away in strips.
Heron crossed this ante-chamber, and with his knuckles rapped against a small door opposite.
“Hola!” he shouted, “Simon, mon vieux, tu es la?”
From the inner room came the sound of voices, a man’s and a woman’s, and now, as if in response to Heron’s call, the shrill tones of a child. There was some shuffling, too, of footsteps, and some pushing about of furniture, then the door was opened, and a gruff voice invited the belated visitors to enter.
The atmosphere in this further room was so thick that at first de Batz was only conscious of the evil smells that pervaded it; smells which were made up of the fumes of tobacco, of burning coke, of a smoky lamp, and of stale food, and mingling through it all the pungent odour of raw spirits.
Heron had stepped briskly in, closely followed by de Batz. The man Dupont with a mutter of satisfaction put down his lanthorn and curled himself up in a corner of the antechamber. His interest in the spectacle so favoured by citizen Heron had apparently been exhausted by constant repetition.
De Batz looked round him with keen curiosity with which disgust was ready enough to mingle.
The room itself might have been a large one; it was almost impossible to judge of its size, so crammed was it with heavy and light furniture of every conceivable shape and type. There was a monumental wooden bedstead in one corner, a huge sofa covered in black horsehair in another. A large table stood in the centre of the room, and there were at least four capacious armchairs round it. There were wardrobes and cabinets, a diminutive washstand and a huge pier-glass, there were innumerable boxes and packing-cases, cane-bottomed chairs and what-nots every-where. The place looked like a depot for second-hand furniture.
In the midst of all the litter de Batz at last became conscious of two people who stood staring at him and at Heron. He saw a man before him, somewhat fleshy of build, with smooth, mouse-coloured hair brushed away from a central parting, and ending in a heavy curl above each ear; the eyes were wide open and pale in colour, the lips unusually thick and with a marked downward droop. Close beside him stood a youngish-looking woman, whose unwieldy bulk, however, and pallid skin revealed the sedentary life and the ravages of ill-health.
Both appeared to regard Heron with a certain amount of awe, and de Batz with a vast measure of curiosity.
Suddenly the woman stood aside, and in the far corner of the room there was displayed to the Gascon Royalist’s cold, calculating gaze the pathetic figure of the uncrowned King of France.
“How is it Capet is not yet in bed?” queried Heron as soon as he caught sight of the child.
“He wouldn’t say his prayers this evening,” replied Simon with a coarse laugh, “and wouldn’t drink his medicine. Bah!” he added with a snarl, “this is a place for dogs and not for human folk.”
“If you are not satisfied, mon vieux,” retorted Heron curtly, “you can send in your resignation when you like. There are plenty who will be glad of the place.”
The ex-cobbler gave another surly growl and expectorated on the floor in the direction where stood the child.
“Little vermin,” he said, “he is more trouble than man or woman can bear.”
The boy in the meanwhile seemed to take but little notice of the vulgar insults put upon him by his guardian. He stood, a quaint, impassive little figure, more interested apparently in de Batz, who was a stranger to him, than in the three others whom he knew. De Batz noted that the child looked well nourished, and that he was warmly clad in a rough woollen shirt and cloth breeches, with coarse grey stockings and thick shoes; but he also saw that the clothes were indescribably filthy, as were the child’s hands and face. The golden curls, among which a young and queenly mother had once loved to pass her slender perfumed fingers, now hung bedraggled, greasy, and lank round the little face, from the