"A spy! a spy!" the fiddler cried in a stentorian voice. "We are betrayed. We shall be massacred! Sauve qui peut!"

And with a sudden stretch of his powerful arms he picked up the little man in black and threw him over his shoulder as if he were a bale of goods and ran with his struggling and kicking burden across the room towards the door. And all the time he continued to shout: "A spy! a spy! We shall be massacred! Remember Paris last September!" And the crowd took up the cry as a crowd will, for are not one hundred humans the counterpart of one hundred sheep? They took up the cry and shouted: "A spy! A spy!" and ran in a body helter-skelter on the heels of the fiddler and his sable-clad load, out of the room across the marble vestibule, down the grand staircase and down below that, through the servants' old quarters, through the kitchen and the pantry, the wash-house and the buttery, and down by the winding staircase which led to the cellar. And behind him there was the crowd, no longer good-tempered now, or intent on holiday-making, but a real rabble this time, and a frightened crowd at that, jostling, pushing, tumbling over one another. An angry crowd is fearsome, but a frightened crowd is worse, for it is ready for anything-bloodshed, carnage, butchery. No one knew that better than the victim of this amazing aggression. He, Chauvelin, had often himself provoked a crowd into committing murder. Now he was utterly helpless; struggle and kick as he might, he was held as in a steel vice over those powerful shoulders, head down, with the blood hammering away in his temples, a wounded fox with a pack of hounds on his trail. What was going to happen to him? Would this enemy throw him to those hounds, who would surely tear him to pieces. At the top of the stairs, outside the grand salon, he had caught sight, but only dimly, of the sergeant flattened against the wall, as scared as any hunted animal. He had tried to shout to him: "The signal! the signal!" but he felt that his voice never reached the soldier's ears.

And still that awful crowd! the women! Nom d'un chien, the women!! Chauvelin could thank his stars that his merciless captor ran so fast that he left those terrifying Mænads at a good distance behind him. But what in the devil's name was going to happen to him? He learned it soon enough. Arrived at the bottom of the stone stairs, the acrid smell of wine and alcohol and dankness struck his nostrils. He raised his head as much as he could, and saw a yawning door ahead of him. Earlier in the afternoon a few among the ragamuffins had found their way down to the cellar. But the cellar was empty of liquor, and they went away, cursing and leaving the door wide open. Chauvelin felt himself carried in through that door and then thrown none too gently down on a heap of dank straw. The next moment he heard that horrible, hideous, hated laugh, the mocking words: "A bientôt, my dear Monsieur Chambertin!" Then the banging to of a heavy door, the pushing of bolts, the clang of a chain and the grating of a rusty key in the lock, and nothing more. He was crouching on a heap of damp straw, in almost total darkness, sore in body, humiliated to the very depths of his soul, burning with rage and the very bitterness of his disappointment.

He could only hear vaguely what went on the other side of the door. Murmurs and shouts, a few hoarse cries. Was that abominable rabble demanding its right to commit the murder for which their sadistic spirits clamoured? Chauvelin was not physically a coward, but he was afraid of a mob, because he had more than once seen one at its worst. Furious. Hysterical. Unchecked. Crawling on hands and knees, he drew close to the door, and cowered there, his ear glued to it. The only word he could distinguish was "Key!" The were demanding the key, and apparently were being refused. Was Sir Percy Blakeney defending the life of his most bitter enemy? Or was it that he himself wished to commit the murder which would rid him for ever of his inveterate foe? Huddled up against the door, his teeth chattering, his knees shaking, Chauvelin was not left long in doubt. The voice of Sir Percy rose and fell. He was talking. Talking and laughing, and soon the crowd forgot its ill-humour and its hysteria; he talked to them and presently they listened. He laughed and they laughed with him. And after a time they allowed themselves to be persuaded. The spy was safe under lock and key, so their friend the fiddler assured them; then why not leave him there? There would always be time later on to give him his deserts. And in the meanwhile would it not be wise to see if there were not more spies about the house and then go back and continue the fun? The music. The dancing. Why not? The day was young yet.

Chauvelin couldn't hear any of that, but he guessed it all. He had seen the Scarlet Pimpernel at that kind of work before. Grimy, sans-culotte, outwardly a real muckworm, but eloquent, persuasive, able by some subtle magic to sway a crowd as no one in Chauvelin's experience had ever done. He could see him in his mind's eye, standing with his back to the cellar door, with massive legs apart and arms outstretched, facing the crowd as he always faced any and every danger that threatened him, full of resource and of impudence. The wretched prisoner was conscious that the crowd had once more been swayed by this daring adventurer, as others had been swayed by him in Boulogne and in Paris, at Asnières and Moisson. Chauvelin saw those scenes pass before his mind's eye as in a dream, and as in a dream he heard the heavy footsteps treading once more the stone steps, but up this time to the floor above. He heard the talking and the laughter growing more and more indistinct and finally dying away altogether. The rabble had gone, but what was to become of him now? Would he be left to die of inanition, shut up in a cellar like a savage dog or cat? No! he felt quite sure that he need not fear that kind of revenge at the hands of the man whom he had pursued with such relentless hate. Instinctively he did pay this tribute to the most gallant foe he had ever pitted his wits against.

What then? He was left wondering. For how long he did not know. Was it for a few minutes of several hours? When presently he heard the rusty key grate once more in the lock, and once more he dragged himself away from the door. A shaft of yellow light from a lantern cut through the gloom of his prison, the door was opened, and that hateful mocking voice said:

"Company for you, my dear Monsieur Chambertin!" And a bundle which turned out to be a man wrapped in a cloak and wearing the uniform of the Gendarmerie Nationale was thrust into the cellar, and landed on the damp straw beside him. The humble sergeant of gendarmerie had fared no better than the powerful and influential member of the Committee of Public Safety.

24 A STRANGE PROPOSAL

After a time Cécile gradually felt as if she had suddenly wakened from an ugly dream, during which every one of her senses had been put to torture. Her eyes, her hears, her nostrils had been outraged by evil smells and ribald words, and the wild antics of King Mob. Then all at once silence, almost peace. The sound of those unruly masses, shouting, singing, stumping, was gradually dying away. A few stragglers, yielding to curiosity, were even now going out of the room. In another remote corner François was struggling to his feet. He appeared dazed and like a man broken in body and spirit. He staggered as far as the tapestried door which led to vestibule and boudoir; as he did so his foot knocked against his broken riding-whip. He stared down at it vacantly, as if he did not know what it was and why it was there, and then passed through the door and closed it behind him.