In the Reign of Terror Part 17

"You can do her no good, Jeanne, dear," Harry said gently. "You could not help her, and it would only add to her misery if Virginie and you were also in their hands. Besides, we can be of more use outside. Trust to me, Jeanne; I will do all in my power to save her, whatever the risk."

"You could not save our father and mother," Jeanne said with a quivering lip.

"No, dear; but I would have saved them had there been but a little time to do so. This time I hope to be more successful. Courage, Jeanne! Do not give way; I depend on your clear head to help me.

Besides, till we can get her back, you have to fill Marie's place and look after Virginie."

The appeal was successful, and Jeanne burst into a pa.s.sion of tears. Harry did not try to check them, and in a short time the sobs ceased and Jeanne raised her head again.

"I feel better now," she said. "Come, Virginie, and dry your eyes, darling; we shall have plenty of time to cry afterwards. Are we to go home, Harry? Have they taken Louise?"

"I do not know, Jeanne; that is the first thing to find out, for if they have, it will not be safe for you to return. Let us push on now, so that if she has not been taken we shall reach home before her. We will place ourselves at the corner of your street and wait for an hour; she may spend some time in looking for us, but if she does not come by the end of that time I shall feel sure that it is because she cannot come, and in that case I must look out for another place for you."

They hurried on until they were nearly home, the brisk walk having, as Harry had calculated it would do, had the effect of preventing their thoughts from dwelling upon Marie's capture. They had not been more than a quarter of an hour at their post when Harry gave an exclamation of satisfaction as he saw Louise Moulin approaching.

The two girls hurried to meet her.

"Thank G.o.d you are both safe, dears!" she exclaimed with tears streaming down her cheeks. "I thought of you in the middle of it all; but I was sure that Monsieur Sandwith would see what was being done and would get you away."

"And you, Louise," said Harry, who had now come up, "how did you get away? I have been terribly anxious, thinking that they might seize you too, and that would have been dreadful."

"So they would have done," the old woman said; "but when that evil man looked away for a moment, mademoiselle whispered, 'Fly, Louise, for the children's sake!' and I slipped away into the crowd without even stopping to think, and ran into a shop; and it was well I did, for he shouted to them to seize me too, but I was gone, and as I don't think he noticed me before, they could not find me; and as soon as they had all moved away I came out. I looked for you for some time, and then made up my mind that Monsieur Sandwith had come on home with you."

"So I did, you see," Harry said; "but I did not dare to go in until we knew whether you had been taken too. If you had not come after a time we should have looked for another lodging, though I knew well enough that you would not tell them where you lived."

"No, indeed," the old woman said. "They might have cut me in pieces without getting a single word from me as to where I lived. Still they might have found out somehow, for they would have been sure to have published the fact that I had been taken, with a description of me. Then the neighbours would have said, 'This description is like Louise Moulin, and she is missing;' and then they would have talked, and the end of it would have been you would have been discovered. Will you come home with us, Monsieur Sandwith?"

"I will come after it's dark, Louise. The less my visits are noticed the better."

"This is awful!" Harry said to himself as he turned away. "The marquis and his wife ma.s.sacred, Ernest and Jules murdered, Marie in prison, Victor mad with fever, Jeanne and Virginie with no one to trust to but me, my people at home in a frightful state of mind about me. It is awful to think of. It's enough to drive a fellow out of his senses. Well, I will go and see how Victor is going on.

The doctor thought there was a change yesterday. Poor fellow! If he comes to his senses I shall have hard work to keep the truth about Marie from him. It would send him off again worse than ever if he had an idea of it."

"And how is your patient to-day, madame?" he asked, as Victor's nurse opened the door to him.

"He is quieter, much quieter," she replied. "I think he is too weak to rave any longer; but otherwise he's just the same. He lies with his eyes open, talking sometimes to himself, but I cannot make out any sense in what he says. The doctor has been here this morning, and he says that he thinks another two days will decide. If he does not take a turn then he will die. If he does, he may live, but even then he may not get his reason again. Poor young fellow! I feel for him almost as if he were my son, and so does Jacques."

"You are both very good, madame," Harry said, "and my friend is fortunate indeed to have fallen into such good hands. I will sit with him for three or four hours now, and you had better go and get a little fresh air."

"That I will, monsieur. Jacques is asleep. He was up with him all last night, and I had a good night. He would have it so."

"Quite right!" Harry said. "You must not knock yourself up, madame.

You are too useful to others for us to let you do that. Tomorrow night I will take my turn."

CHAPTER IX

Robespierre

After dark Harry presented himself at Louise Moulin's.

"Have you thought of anything, Harry?" was Jeanne's first question.

She was alone, for Louise was cooking, and Virginie had lain down and cried herself to sleep.

"I have thought of a number of things," he replied, for while he had been sitting by Victor's bedside he had turned over in his mind every scheme by which he could get Marie out of prison, "but at present I have fixed upon nothing. I cannot carry out our original plan of seizing Marat. It would require more than one to carry out such a scheme, and the friend whom I relied upon before can no longer aid me."

"Who is it?" Jeanne asked quietly. "Is it Victor de Gisons?"

"What! Bless me, Jeanne!" Harry exclaimed in surprise. "How did you guess that?"

"I felt sure it was Victor all along," the girl said. "In the first place, I never believed that he had gone away. Marie told me she had begged and prayed him to go, and that he had only gone to please her. She seemed to think it was right he should go, but I didn't think so. A gentleman would not run away and leave anyone he liked behind, even if she told him. It was not likely. Why, here are you staying here and risking your life for us, though we are not related to you and have no claim upon you. And how could Victor run away? But as Marie seemed pleased to think he was safe, I said nothing; but I know, if he had gone, and some day they had been married, I should never have looked upon him as a brother. But I felt sure he wouldn't do it, and that he was in Paris still. Then, again, you did not tell us the name of the friend who was working with you, and I felt sure you must have some reason for your silence. So, putting the two things together, I was sure that it was Victor. What has happened to him? Is he in prison too?"

"No, he is not in prison, Jeanne," Harry said, "but he is very ill." And he related the whole circ.u.mstances of Victor's fever.

"I blamed myself awfully at first for having hit him so hard, as you may suppose, Jeanne; but the doctor says he thinks it made no difference, and that Victor's delirium is due to the mental shock and not in any way to the blow on the head. Still I should not like your sister to know it. I am very glad you have guessed the truth, for it is a comfort to talk things over with you."

"Poor Marie!" Jeanne said softly. "It is well she never knew about it. The thought he had got safely away kept her up. And now, tell me about your plans. Could I not take Victor's place and help you to seize Marat? I am not strong, you know; but I could hold a knife, and tell him I would kill him if he cried out. I don't think I could, you know, but he wouldn't know that."

"I am afraid that wouldn't do, Jeanne," Harry said with a slight smile, shaking his head. "It was a desperate enterprise for two of us. Besides, it would never do for you to run the risk of being separated from Virginie. Remember you are father and mother and elder sister to her now. The next plan I thought of was to try and get appointed as a warder in the prison, but that seems full of difficulties, for I know no one who could get me such a berth, and certainly they would not appoint a fellow at my age unless by some extraordinary influence. Then I thought if I let out I was English I might get arrested and lodged in the same prison, and might help her to get out then. From what I hear, the prisoners are not separated, but all live together."

"No, no, Harry," Jeanne exclaimed in a tone of sharp pain, "you must not do that of all things. We have only you, and if you are once in prison you might never get out again; besides, there are lots of other prisons, and there is no reason why they should send you to La Force rather than anywhere else. No, I will never consent to that plan."

"I thought it seemed too doubtful myself," Harry said. "Of course, if I knew that they would send me to La Force, I might risk it. I could hide a file and a steel saw about me, and might cut through the bars; but, as you say, there is no reason why they should send me there rather than anywhere else. I would kill that villain who arrested her--the scoundrel, after being a guest at the chateau!--but I don't see that would do your sister any good, and would probably end in my being shut up. The most hopeful plan seems to me to try and bribe some of the warders. Some of them, no doubt, would be glad enough to take money if they could see their way to letting her out without fear of detection."

"But you know we thought of that before, Harry, and agreed it would be a terrible risk to try it, for the very first man you spoke to might turn round on you."

"Of course there is a certain risk, Jeanne, anyway. There is no getting a prisoner out of La Force without running some sort of risk; the thing is to fix on as safe a plan as we can. However, we must think it out well before we do try. A failure would be fatal, and I do not think there is any pressing danger just at present.

It is hardly likely there will be any repet.i.tion of the wholesale work of the 2nd of September; and if they have anything like a trial of the prisoners, there are such numbers of them, so many arrested every day, that it may be a long time before they come to your sister. I do not mean that we should trust to that, only that there is time for us to make our plans properly. Have you thought of anything?"

"I have thought of all sort of things since you left us this morning, Harry, but they are like yours, just vague sort of schemes that do not seem possible when you try to work them out. I do not know whether they let you inside the prisons to sell everything to the prisoners, because if they did I might go in with something and see Marie, and find out how she could be got out."

Harry shook his head.

"I do not think anyone would be allowed in like that, but if they did it would only be a few to whom the privilege would be granted."

"Yes, I thought of that, Harry; but one of them might be bribed perhaps to let me take her place."

"It might be possible," Harry said, "but there would be a terrible risk, and I don't think any advantage to compensate for it. Even if you did get to her and spoke to her, we should still be no nearer to getting her out. Still we mustn't be disheartened. We can hardly expect to hit upon a scheme at once, and I don't think either of our heads is very clear to-day; let us think it over quietly, and perhaps some other idea may occur to one of us, I expect it will be to you. Now, good-night; keep your courage up. I rely very much upon you, Jeanne, and you don't know what a comfort it is to me that you are calm and brave, and that I can talk things over to you. I don't know what I should do if I had it all on my own shoulders."

Jeanne made no answer, but her eyes were full of tears as she put her hands into Harry's, and no sound came from her lips in answer to his good-night.

"That girl's a trump, and no mistake," Harry said to himself as he descended the stairs. "She has got more pluck than most women, and is as cool and calm as if she were twice her age. Most girls would be quite knocked over if they were in her place. Her father and mother murdered, her sister in the hands of these wretches, and danger hanging over herself and Virginie! It isn't that she doesn't feel it. I can see she does, quite as much, if not more, than people who would sit down and howl and wring their hands. She is a trump, Jeanne is, and no mistake. And now about Marie. She must be got out somehow, but how? That is the question. I really don't see any possible way except by bribing her guards, and I haven't the least idea how to set about that. I think to-morrow I will tell Jacques and his wife all about it; they may know some of these men, though it isn't likely that they do; anyhow, three heads are better than one."

Accordingly, next morning he took the kind-hearted couple into his counsel. When they heard that the young lady who had been arrested was the fiance of their sick lodger they were greatly interested, but they shook their heads when he told them that he was determined at all hazards to get her out of prison.

"It isn't the risk so much," Jacques said, "that I look at. Life doesn't seem of much account in these days; but how could it be done? Even if you made up your mind to be killed, I don't see that would put her a bit nearer to getting out of prison; the place is too strong to break into or to break out of."

"No, I don't think it is possible to succeed in that sort of way; but if the men who have the keys of the corridors could be bribed, and the guard at the gate put soundly to sleep by drugging their drink, it might be managed."

Jacques looked sharply at Harry to see if he was in earnest, and seeing that he was so, said drily: