"We'll mix with the crowd," he said, "and do all that the crowd does. It is for us to see that that unruly crowd does what we want. Mademoiselle de Marny, a thousand congratulations. I entreat you to take hold of my friend Déroulède's hand, and not to let go of it, on any pretext whatever. La! not a difficult task, I ween," he added, with his genial smile; "and yours, Déroulède, is equally easy. I enjoin you to take charge of Mademoiselle Juliette, and on no account to leave her side until we are out of Paris."
"Out of Paris!" echoed Déroulède with a troubled sigh.
"Aye!" rejoined Sir Percy boldly; "out of Paris! with a howling mob at our heels causing the authorities to take double precautions. And above all, remember, friends, that our rallying cry is the shrill call of the sea-mew thrice repeated. Follow it until you are outside the gates of Paris. Once there, listen for it again; it will lead you to freedom and safety at last. Aye! Outside Paris, by the grace of God."
The hearts of his hearers thrilled as they heard him. Who could help but follow this brave and gallant adventurer, with the magic voice and the noble bearing?
"And now en route!" said Blakeney finally, "that ass Santerre will have dispersed the pack of yelling hyenas with his cavalry by now. They'll to the Temple Prison to find their prey; we'll in their wake. À moi, friends! and remember the sea-gull's cry."
Déroulède drew Juliette's hand in his.
"We are ready," he said; "and God bless the Scarlet Pimpernel."
Then the five men, with Juliette in their midst, went out into the street once more.
Chapter XXIX
Père Lachaise
It was not difficult to guess which way the crowd had gone; yells, hoots, and hoarse cries could be heard from the farther side of the river.
Citizen Santerre had been unable to keep the mob back until the arrival of the cavalry reinforcements. Within five minutes of the abduction of Déroulède and Juliette the crowd had broken through the line of soldiers, and had stormed the cart, only to find it empty, and the prey disappeared.
"They are safe in the Temple by now!" shouted Santerre hoarsely, in savage triumph at seeing them all baffled.
At first it seemed as if the wrath of the infuriated populace, fooled in its lust for vengeance, would vent itself agaisnt the commandant of Paris and his soldiers; for a moment even Santerre's ruddy cheeks had paled at the sudden vision of this unlooked for danger.
Then just as suddenly the cry was raised.
"To the Temple!"
"To the Temple! To the Temple!" came in ready response.
The cry was soon taken up by the entire crowd, and in less than two minutes the purlieus of the Hall of Justice were deserted, and the Pont St. Michel, then the Cité and the Pont au Change, swarmed with the rioters. Thence along the north bank of the river, and up the Rue du Temple, the people still yelling, muttering, singing the "Ça ira," and shouting: "À la lanterne! À la lanterne!"
Sir Percy Blakeney and his little band of followers had found the Pont Neuf and the adjoining streets practically deserted. A few stragglers from the crowd, soaked through with the rain, their enthusiasm damped, and their throats choked with the mist, were sulkily returning to their homes.
The desultory group of six sansculottes attracted little or no attention, and Sir Percy boldly challenged every passer-by.
"The way to the Rue du Temple, citizen?" he asked once or twice, or:
"Have they hung the traitor yet? Can you tell me, citizeness?"
A grunt or an oath were the usual replies, but no one took any further notice of the gigantic coal-heaver and his ragged friends.
At the corner of one of the cross-streets, between the Rue du Temple and the Rue des Archives, Sir Percy Blakeney suddenly turned to his followers:
"We are close to the rabble now," he said in a whisper, and speaking in English; "do you all follow the nearest stragglers, and get as soon as possible into the thickest of the crowd. We'll meet again outside the prison--and remember the sea-gull's cry."
He did not wait for an answer, and presently disappeared in the mist.
Already a few stragglers, hangers-on of the multitude, were gradually coming into view, and the yells could be distinctly heard. The mob had evidently assembled in the great square outside the prison, and was loudly demanding the object of its wrath.
The moment for cool-headed action was at hand. The Scarlet Pimpernel had planned the whole thing, but it was for his followers and for those whom he was endeavouring to rescue from certain death, to help him heart and soul.
Déroulède's grasp tightened on Juliette's little hand.
"Are you frightened, my beloved?" he whispered.
"Not whilst you are near me," she murmured in reply.
A few more minutes' walk up the Rue des Archives and they were in the thick of the crowd. Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, Lord Antony Dewhurst, and Lord Hastings, the three Englishmen, were in front; Déroulède and Juliette immediately behind them.
The mob itself now carried them along. A motley throng they were, soaked through with the rain, drunk with their own baffled rage, and with the brandy which they had imbibed.
Every one was shouting; the women louder than the rest; one of them was dragging the length of the rope, which might still be useful.
"Ça ira! ça ira! À la lanterne! À la lanterne! les traîtres!"
And Déroulède, holding Juliette by the hand, shouted lustily with them:
"Ça ira!"
Sir Andrew Ffoulkes turned, and laughed. It was rare sport for these young bucks, and they all entered into the spirit of the situation. They all shouted "À la lanterne!" egging and encouraging those around them.
Déroulède and Juliette felt the intoxication of the adventure. They were drunk with the joy of their reunion, and seized with the wild, mad, passionate desire for freedom and for life . . . Life and love!
So they pushed and jostled on in the mud, followed the crowd, sang and yelled louder than any of them. Was not that very crowd the great bulwark of their safety?
As well have sought for the proverbial needle in the haystack, as for two escaped prisoners in this mad, heaving throng.
The large open space in front of the Temple Prison looked like one great, seething, black mass.
The darkness was almost thick here, the ground like a morass, with inches of clayey mud, which stuck to everything, whilst the spare lanterns, hung to the prison walls and beneath the portico, threw practically no light into the square.
As the little band, composed of the three Englishmen, and of Déroulède, holding Juliette by the hand, emerged into the open space, they heard a strident cry, like that of a sea-mew thrice repeated, and a hoarse voice shouting from out the darkness:
"Ma foi! I'll not believe that the prisoners are in the Temple now! It is my belief, friends, citizens, that we have been fooled once more!"
The voice, with its strange, unaccountable accent, which seemed to belong to no province of France, dominated the almost deafening noise; it penetrated through, even into the brandy-soddened minds of the mulitude, for the suggestion was received with renewed shouts of the wildest wrath.
Like one great, living seething mass the crowd literally bore down upon the huge and frowning prison. Pushing, jostling, yelling, the women screaming, the men cursing, it seemed as if that awesome day--the 14th of July--was to have its sanguinary counterpart to-night, as if the Temple were destined to share the fate of the Bastille.
Obedient to their leader's orders the three young Englishmen remained in the thick of the crowd: together with Déroulède they contrived to form a sturdy rampart round Juliette, effectually protecting her against rough buffetings.