The Greatest Action Adventure Books of Emma Orczy - 56 Titles in One Edition. Emma Orczy
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her teeth chattering, her senses reeling with the horror of all that she had gone through, found some measure of comfort in the old woman's ministrations. A mugful of wine, left over from the midday meal, helped her to regain command over her nerves. Holding her young mistress in her arms, Maria, crooning like a mother over her baby, rocked the half-inert young form into some semblance of sleep.
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And here Diogenes found her a couple of hours later, curled up like a tired child in the arms of the old woman.
He came up on tiptoe, carrying a lanthorn, for now it was quite dark. This he placed on the floor, and then, with infinite caution, he slid into Maria's place and took the beloved form into his own strong arms.
She scarcely moved, just opened her eyes for a second or two, and then nestled closer against his shoulder, with a little sigh, half of weariness, but wholly of content.
She was just dead-tired after all she had gone through, and now she slept just like a baby in his arms; whilst he was as happy as it is possible for any human being to be, for she was safe and well, and nothing could part her from him now. He was satisfied to watch her as she slept, her dear face against his breast, her soft breath coming and going with perfect evenness through her parted lips.
Once he stooped and kissed her, and then she woke, put her arms around his neck, and both forgot for the time being that there was another world save that of Love.
THE END
The Scarlet Pimpernel
CHAPTER I PARIS: SEPTEMBER, 1792
CHAPTER II DOVER: "THE FISHERMAN'S REST"
CHAPTER IV THE LEAGUE OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL
CHAPTER VI AN EXQUISITE OF '92
CHAPTER VII THE SECRET ORCHARD
CHAPTER VIII THE ACCREDITED AGEN
CHAPTER XI LORD GRENVILLE'S BALL
CHAPTER XII THE SCRAP OF PAPER
CHAPTER XIV ONE O'CLOCK PRECISELY!
CHAPTER XVIII THE MYSTERIOUS DEVICE
CHAPTER XIX THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL
CHAPTER XXV THE EAGLE AND THE FOX
CHAPTER XXVIII THE PERE BLANCHARD'S HUT
CHAPTER I
PARIS: SEPTEMBER, 1792
A surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate. The hour, some little time before sunset, and the place, the West Barricade, at the very spot where, a decade later, a proud tyrant raised an undying monument to the nation's glory and his own vanity.
During the greater part of the day the guillotine had been kept busy at its ghastly work: all that France had boasted of in the past centuries, of ancient names, and blue blood, had paid toll to her desire for liberty and for fraternity. The carnage had only ceased at this late hour of the day because there were other more interesting sights for the people to witness, a little while before the final closing of the barricades for the night.
And so the crowd rushed away from the Place de la Greve and made for the various barricades in order to watch this interesting and amusing sight.
It was to be seen every day, for those aristos were such fools! They were traitors to the people of course, all of them, men, women, and children, who happened to be descendants of the great men who since the Crusades had made the glory of France: her old NOBLESSE. Their ancestors had oppressed the people, had crushed them under the scarlet heels of their dainty buckled shoes, and now the people had become the rulers of France and crushed their former masters — not beneath their heel, for they went shoeless mostly in these days — but a more effectual weight, the knife of the guillotine.
And daily, hourly, the hideous instrument of torture claimed its many victims — old men, young women, tiny children until the day when it would finally demand the head of a King and of a beautiful young Queen.
But this was as it should be: were not the people now the rulers of France? Every aristocrat was a traitor,