A Tatter of Scarlet Part 26

But the welcome I had from the household of Deventer made up for all this enveloping suspicion. Here, at least, I stood clear. I was re-established in my own conceit, in my position a most valuable a.s.set.

Was I not a martyr to duty, a prisoner on parole, one castaway among wild and dangerous people, because I had ventured out by night to join the Deventer defence?

Jack Jaikes had evidently done his part well. He had given me the rough side of his tongue, but had permitted the Deventers to understand that in the morning hours he had held converse with a hero and martyr to duty.

Mrs. Deventer came over and graciously kissed me, and I verily believe that I might have kissed all three girls--yes, even Hannah--under the eye maternal, without a reprimand.

Hugh was more comrade-like than he had been for a long time, and linked arms with me in the good old St. Andre way as we stood by the fire-place. Dennis Deventer came in smiling.

"Now our family is more like itself again. Angus me boy, and how did ye leave my good friend the commander of the forces?"

I told him that Keller Bey was well but much worried by the cares of office. At this he laughed a little mischievously, and burst out in one of his usual phrases:

"St. Patrick's Day and a fine morning to be whittling s.h.i.+llalahs. But Keller Bey has not seen the first green of his wild oat-sowing. Let him wait till his lambs begin to frolic. Then I do not envy him his task. As for me, Jack Jaikes and I are making this place so strong that they might blow it piece by piece about our ears without making us surrender."

Presently I found myself at luncheon at the Deventers' table. Nothing appeared to have changed, except that the young apprentices were no longer to be seen, and indeed there was no external service of any kind.

We cut and poured out at the sideboard for ourselves. Mrs. Deventer was the only one waited upon, Rhoda Polly bringing her what she wanted.

The discussion grew as loud as ever, but hushed instantly when a messenger appeared at the door, cap in hand and a little breathless, to report the situation of the various posts, or to request instructions.

Sometimes Dennis merely bade the messenger to "Ask Jack Jaikes!" More often he reeled off a detailed and technical explanation which the apprentice understood though I did not. Or again he would dash a few lines on the leaf of a note-book, indicate a design sketchily, and send the lad off again as fast as he could clatter down the stairs.

I could not help being struck with admiration of the Chief's method and science. Keller Bey was a leader of men, but I could not help seeing, apart from his indubitable personal magnetism, how things were bungled for lack of those very qualities of science and method. It went well in Chateau Schneider. No need for speech or lifted hand. Silence fell like a spell whenever the runner appeared in that ever-open doorway. And while the master of men launched his commands there was not even the ordinary clatter of knives and forks. Everyone seemed to feel the importance of the decision to be given. All were proud of the giver, though the moment before and the moment after they would be refuting his arguments, denying his statements, and generally a.s.saulting his positions in a Donnybrook of sound and fury, without the least apparent reverence for the grey hairs to which he often appealed with mock pathos.

I took care not to see any of the defences of the workshops, or those about the Chateau. These had been wholly reorganised since the attempts of January, and were now nearing completion on a far more serious scale.

I had to go back and I should a.s.suredly be questioned. If I did not answer I might doubtless be suspected. Therefore it was arranged that when the time came for me to go Jack Jaikes should blindfold me and lead me out by the main fortified entrance of the works, which was immediately in front of a large post of National Guards.

I was longing to get Rhoda Polly by herself and hear the news from her own lips, but Dennis was so eager for more and more detailed gossip about this one and that other among the members of the Commune, that he detained me a long while. He did not fish for secrets nor ask me to divulge any of Keller's plans. I think he felt himself too strong and sure for that.

He was, moreover, genuinely interested in the men, and wishful to know how they conducted themselves in their new spheres. He was specially amused at my account of the staffing of the Post-Office-Without-Letters, and when he heard the names he instantly baptized it "The Bureau of the Incompetents"--a sobriquet which afterwards got abroad and became a saying, so that many of those who had earned the name left the place to escape from it.

At last Rhoda Polly and I did manage to take refuge up on the roof behind our favourite chimney-stack at a place where the parapet was almost breast high. It was comfortable hiding and quite secluded--the fortifications of the Chateau roof being long perfected, and indeed only to be used as a watch-tower or as a last line of defence.

Rhoda Polly told me how she had sent three messengers to Alida, of whom only one had been faithful to his trust. She had had to enlist Jack Jaikes in the business, and between them they had called up lads from the town, butchers' boys and such-like, known to the foreman from the Clyde. To each of these she had perforce to commit her letter, taking care that it should contain nothing compromising in case of capture. But only one ever returned with an answer, and he a little bare-footed rascal of a boot-black, from whom nothing had been expected. He had even brought back a letter from Alida, telling her friend that they were well but that for safety's sake Linn and she, with the two Tessier maids, had been taken into the main building of Gobelet, where at least they should be farther from the road and have men to protect them.

Alida went on to say that Linn went about as usual, but evidently grieved for her husband in silence. She herself was occupied in learning Latin from Mr. Cawdor, and already could read in a book called "Caesar"

and in another by an author named Sall.u.s.t.

I saw the letter as Rhoda Polly turned it over, and noted that not a word of inquiry was wasted upon myself. My name was not once mentioned.

The Lady Alida had taken dire offence at my flight, and this was in spite of the fact that Rhoda Polly had mentioned that I was with Keller Bey in the city of Aramon.

CHAPTER XXVIII

STORM GATHERING

On my return I was, as I had expected, put to the question, with lenience by Keller Bey, but with biting irony and something like personal dislike by the Procureur Raoux. Then stood apparent all the man's bitter nature, mordantly distilled from years of poverty and hatred of the well-to-do.

The name of Dennis Deventer set his eyes ablaze, and the idea of his family sitting down to a comfortable meal in spite of their isolation from markets was to him gall and wormwood. He would hardly believe the tale of the National Guards that they had seen me come down the steps of the Chateau already blindfolded and under escort, and that I had so continued till I was pushed out of the main entrance of the works by Jack Jaikes.

How many guns had I seen? The little man shot out the question at me.

"Only those on the roof," I answered readily, "those which had been used in January. They were hooded and protected from rain by waterproof jackets."

"How did you know that?"

"Because I went up there to take the air after dinner, and I leaned my back against one while I smoked."

"Was it a big gun? Three--four-pounder?"

I could not say exactly, but I should think four. I knew nothing about any defensive works within the square of the factory. I had traversed all that part blindfold.

The fierce little man grunted disbelievingly, but desisted when it was obvious that he could make nothing more of me.

"Let Dennis Deventer take care," he snarled, "he speaks smooth words now. Oh, the great things he will do for the workmen, but not for all his promises does he stop that Jacques Jaikes from fortifying and placing guns. Oh, I know more than you or Keller Bey are aware of. I do not go about with my eyes blindfolded. What is the use of a tower of Saint Crispin if a shoemaker may not climb it and spy out the works of his enemy?"

"That will do, Raoux," said Keller Bey, somewhat impatiently. "I shall send for you again when I need you."

He went out slowly, with a lingering, backward look, full of spite and malice, his words and face distilling hatred like the poison-fangs of a viper. I heard him mutter as he pa.s.sed:

"You will send for me when you want me--take care I do not come when you want me least!"

It was indeed time to get away--the Commune of Aramon stood on the verge of a volcano which might blow us into the air any day.

Yet, how could I leave Keller Bey to his fate, and, if I did, how could I face Linn and Alida?

The days pa.s.sed heavily in Aramon, yet with a kind of feverish excitement too--an undercurrent of danger which thrills a swimmer cutting his way through smooth upper waters when he feels the swirl of the undertow. The Commune of Aramon met daily for discussion, and reports of its meetings are still to be found in the little red-covered, tri-weekly sheet, _Le Flambeau du Midi_, of which I possess a set.

They appear to have discussed the most anodyne matters. They gabbled of drainage and water supplies, the suspension of rents and p.a.w.nbrokers'

pledges for six months. They came to sharp words, almost to blows--"Moderates" and "Mountain," as in the old days of 1793--while outside the companies of the Avengers of Marat, the dark young men of the wolf-like prowl, kept their watch and took their sullen counsel.

Provisions showed no visible stoppage. The country about Aramon was an early one--the great market for _primeurs_ being Chateau Renard, only ten miles away. Thither Pere Felix, learned in the arts of restaurant supply, sent a little permanent guard to direct the provisioning of Aramon city.

I think the only man outside Chateau Schneider who saw what was coming upon the new Government was my Hugolatre of a station-master up at the junction. I went to see him every day and he never ceased to urge me to clear out of the town lest worse should befall me.

"They are arming," he said one day in early April, "they are coming nearer. Put your eye to that telescope--no, don't alter it--tell me what you see. A signal post on the railway--semaph.o.r.e you call it! Yes, but did you ever see such a semaph.o.r.e on a railway? With us the stiff arm drops and all is clear. It rises half-way--'_go slowly!_' It stands at right angles to the post--'_stop_--_the way is barred!_' But what do you see yonder? The stiff arms are moving this way and that. You who can Morse out a message on the telegraph apparatus, why cannot you read something infinitely more simple? That is on the other side of the river and tells me that the Government engineers are creeping nearer. There is no railway line where the semaph.o.r.e is. They are signalling to their comrades on this side. The storm is gathering--be very sure. For the present there is no great hurry. Little Dictator Thiers has many irons in the fire. He has no time to read Hugo like me, nor has he time to give much thought to Aramon. But yonder are those who are preparing a path for his feet, and for the feet of his little Breton Moblots when the time comes."

It appeared to me that I ought to look into this myself, but in a way that would not compromise my friend the station-master. So I made my way boldly up into St. Crispin's tower and turned the long spygla.s.s, old as the first Napoleon, upon the semaph.o.r.e ridge. It was wagging away cheerfully, spelling out messages which I could not understand. I went at once to Keller Bey.

"The Government of Versailles is not so far off as you think," I said, "they are watching you from the other side of the river, and I believe talking across the water to the commanders of troops on this side."

And with that I told him of the semaph.o.r.e and of what I had seen from the tower of St. Crispin. He sent instantly for someone who could read semaph.o.r.e messages, and within half an hour a deserter from the engineers quartered at Avignon was brought to him--a small, brown, snippet of a man whom I christened at sight "the runt," but whose real name was Pichon--one of a clan mighty in all the southland of Languedoc.

Keller Bey came with us to witness the trial, and we had not reached the summit when we heard behind us the wheezing, asthmatic breathing of the Procureur Raoux sorely tried by the hasty ascent.