Free The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy Page B

him.
    “Ten thousand devils!” he roared.
    “On no account allow these people to go through,” continued the officer. “Keep their passports. Detain them!… Understand?”
    Bibot was still gasping for breath even whilst the officer, ordering a quick “Turn!” reeled his horse round, ready to gallop away as far as he had come.
    “I am for the St. Denis Gate—Grosjean is on guard there!” he shouted. “Same orders all round the city. No one to leave the gates!… Understand?”
    His troopers fell in. The next moment he would be gone, and those cursed aristocrats well in safety’s way.
    “Citizen Captain!”
    The hoarse shout at last contrived to escape Bibot’s parched throat. As if involuntarily, the officer drew rein once more.
    “What is it? Quick!—I’ve no time. That confounded Englishman may be at the St. Denis Gate even now!”
    “Citizen Captain,” gasped Bibot, his breath coming and going like that of a man fighting for his life. “Here! …at this gate!…not half an hour ago…six men…carriers…market gardeners…I seemed to know their faces….”
    “Yes! yes! market gardener’s carriers,” exclaimed the officer gleefully, “aristocrats all of them…and that d—d Scarlet Pimpernel. You’ve got them? You’ve detained them? … Where are they? … Speak, man, in the name of hell! …” “Gone!” gasped Bibot. His legs would no longer bear him. He fell backwards on to a heap of street debris and refuse, from which lowly vantage ground he contrived to give away the whole miserable tale.
    “Gone! half an hour ago. Their passports were in order!…I seemed to know their faces! Citizen Marat was here…. He, too—”
    In a moment the officer had once more swung his horse round, so that the animal reared, with wild forefeet pawing the air, with champing of bit, and white foam scattered around.
    “A thousand million curses!” he exclaimed. “Citizen Bibot, your head will pay for this treachery. Which way did they go?”
    A dozen hands were ready to point in the direction where the merry party of carriers had disappeared half an hour ago; a dozen tongues gave rapid, confused explanations.
    “Into it, my men!” shouted the officer; “they were on foot! They can’t have gone far. Remember the Republic has offered ten thousand francs for the capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel.”
    Already the heavy gates had been swung open, and the officer’s voice once more rang out clear through a perfect thunder-clap of fast galloping hoofs:
    “Ventre a terre! Remember!—ten thousand francs to him who first sights the Scarlet Pimpernel!”
    The thunder-clap died away in the distance, the dust of four score hoofs was merged in the fog and in the darkness; the voice of the captain was raised again through the mist-laden air. One shout…a shout of triumph…then silence once again.
    Bibot had fainted on the heap of debris.
    His comrades brought him wine to drink. He gradually revived. Hope came back to his heart; his nerves soon steadied themselves as the heavy beverage filtrated through into his blood.
    “Bah!” he ejaculated as he pulled himself together, “the troopers were well-mounted…the officer was enthusiastic; those carriers could not have walked very far. And, in any case, I am free from blame. Citoyen Marat himself was here and let them pass!”
    A shudder of superstitious terror ran through him as he recollected the whole scene: for surely he knew all the faces of the six men who had gone through the gate. The devil indeed must have given the mysterious Englishman power to transmute himself and his gang wholly into the bodies of other people.
    More than an hour went by. Bibot was quite himself again, bullying, commanding, detaining everybody now.
    At that time there appeared to be a slight altercation going on, on the farther side of the gate. Bibot thought it his duty to go and see what the noise was about. Someone wanting to get into Paris instead of out of it at this hour of the