The riders put their horses to a walk. It was getting late in the afternoon, and the sun, crimson and cheerless, was setting in a sea of slate-coloured mist. A blustering wind from the south-west blew intermittent rain showers into the faces of the two solitary wayfarers. They had ridden hard all day--a matter of over thirty miles from Evreux--and one of them, at any rate, a middle-aged, stoutish, official -looking personage, showed signs both of fatigue and of growing ill-temper. The other, younger, more slender, dressed in colourless grey from head to foot, his mantle slung lightly from his shoulders, his keen eyes fixed straight before him, appeared moved by impatience rather than by the wind or the lateness of the hour.

   The rain and the rapidly falling dusk covered the distant hills and the valley beyond with a mantle of gloom. To right and left of the road the coppice, still dressed in winter garb, already was wrapped in the mysteries of the night.

   "I shall not be sorry to see the lights of Mantes," said M. Gault, the commissary of police of Evreux, to his companion. "I am getting saddle-sore, and this abominable damp has got into my bones."

   The other sighed with obvious impatience.

   "I would like to push on to Paris to-night," he said. "The moon will be up directly, and I believe the rain-clouds will clear. In any case the night will not be very dark, and I know every inch of the way."

   "Another six hours or more in the saddle!" growled the commissaire. "No, thank you!"

   "I thought you were anxious about those escaped prisoners of yours," observed the Man in Grey.

   "So I am," retorted M. Gault.

   "And that you desired Monsieur le Ministre to hear of the escape through your lips, before rumour hath played havoc with the event," continued the other tartly.

   "So I do--so I do!" grunted the commissary. "But those damned Chouans only got away last night from Evreux, where they should never have been brought. They were apprehended at Caen; the outrage, which you were able to avert, had been planned and was discovered at Caen; the knaves should have been tried and hanged at Caen. Instead of which," continued M. Gault wrathfully, "they were marched to Evreux, on their way to Paris. At Evreux we had neither the facilities nor the personnel to guard such a ruse' gang adequately--they gave us the slip--"

   "And," interrupted the Man in Grey, in his iciest manner, "the men who planned to murder the Emperor are now at large, free to concoct a further outrage, which, this time, may prove successful!"

   "Through no fault of mine!" protested the commissary.

   "That will be for the Minister to decide," concluded the Man in Grey.

   But even this thinly-veiled threat failed to instill new vigour into M. Gault. Alarmed at the possible effects upon his future career of what might be deemed official negligence, he had wished to place his excuses personally before His Majesty's Minister of Police, ere the latter could hear through outside sources that the desperate gang of malefactors who had planned the affair of the infernal machine against the Emperor's life had escaped from Evreux, and that such astute and reckless criminals as Blue-Heart and White-Beak were again at large. In spite of M. Gault's anxiety, however, to be the first to gain the Minister's ear, his whole middle-aged, over-indulged person protested against any prolongation of what had become torturing fatigue.

   "You are young, Monsieur Fernand," he added dolefully. "You do not realise--Malediction! What was that?" he ejaculated, as his horse gave a sudden jump to one side and nearly unseated him. The animal had shied at something not at present visible to its rider. It was still retreating, with ears set back, nostrils quivering, its body trembling with fright, so that M. Gault had the greatest difficulty alike to keep his seat and soothe the poor beast.

   "I wonder what the brute shied at," he said.

   But already the Man in Grey had dismounted. He led his horse across the road, and then to a spot where, on the farther side of the intervening ditch, a large, dark mass lay huddled, only vaguely discernible in the gloom. He peered with anxious eyes into the darkness; then he called to the commissary.

   "I pray you hold my horse, Monsieur Gault," he said peremptorily.

   "What is it?" queried the latter as--still with some difficulty--he brought his horse alongside the other and gathered up the reins which Fernand had thrown to him.

   "That is just what I wish to ascertain," replied the Minister's agent simply.

   He jumped lightly over the ditch and approached the huddled mass. This proved to be the body of a young man with fair hair and beard, dressed in rough peasant's clothes. The linen blouse he wore was smeared round about his shoulders with stains of a dull crimson colour, whilst the dead leaves beneath him were soiled in the same way. In a moment, Fernand had passed his slim, experienced hand over the face of the man, over his body and his feet, which were bare. These were cold and rigid, but the stains upon the blouse and upon the bed of dead leaves were yet dank to the touch.

   "What is it?" queried the commissary again, more impatiently.

   "Murder!" replied the Man in Grey laconically.

   "The high roads are not safe," remarked M. Gault sententiously. "And even in this district, where those satane' Chouans do not ply their nefarious trade, the police seem unable to ensure the safety of peaceable travellers."

   He gave an involuntary shiver and gazed anxiously behind him.

   "I pray you, Monsieur Fernand," he said, "do not let us linger here. This is an affair for the local police, and we must get to Mantes before dark."

   "You need not linger, Monsieur le Commissaire," rejoined the Man in Grey. "I pray you, tie my horse to the nearest tree and continue your journey, if you have a mind."

   He had risen to his feet and appeared to be examining the ground closely all round the spot where lay the body of the murdered man. M. Gault uttered one of his favourite oaths. Indeed, he had no mind to continue his journey alone, with those murdering footpads lurking in the woods and the road to Mantes lonely and unsafe.

   "What are you looking for now, Monsieur Fernand?" he queried sharply. "Surely, the police of Mantes can deal with the affair. Are you looking for traces of the miscreants?"

   "No," replied the other, "I am looking for the murdered man's boots."

   "The murdered man's boots!" exclaimed the commissary crossly. "Why, the fellow is just a rough peasant, and no doubt he walked barefoot."

   "No doubt," agreed the Man in Grey.

   Nevertheless, he continued his search and even plunged into the thicket, only to emerge therefrom in a minute or two, as the darkness made it impossible to distinguish anything that might be hidden in the undergrowth.

   "I don't know why you should be so obstinate about those boots!" growled the commissary.

   But to this remark the Man in Grey vouchsafed no reply. He had resumed his mount and was already in the saddle.

   "I am going on to Paris," he said briefly.

   Poor M. Gault heaved a doleful sigh.

   "To Paris!" he ejaculated pitiably. "But I--"

   "You'll stay at Mantes," enjoined the Minister's agent emphatically, "and there await my orders or those of Monsieur le Ministre. You are on no account to leave your post," he added sternly, "on pain of instant dismissal and degradation."

   With that he put his horse to a sharp trot, heedless whether the unfortunate commissary followed him or not.

   The Man in Grey was sitting, travel-stained and weary, in the dressing-room of M. le Duc d'Otrante, Minister of Police to His Imperial Majesty. He had ridden all night, only halting now and again to give his horse a rest, as he could not get a change of mount during the whole distance between Mantes--where he had obtained a fresh horse, and where he left M. Gault comfortably installed in the best hotel of the place--and Paris, where he arrived an hour after daybreak, stiff, aching in every limb, scarcely able to tumble out of the saddle.

   But he would not wait even to change his clothes or get a little rest. Within a quarter of an hour of his arrival in the capital he was knocking at the monumental gateway of M. Ic Duc's magnificent palace. Obviously he was a privileged person as far as access to the all-powerful Minister was concerned, for no sooner had his name been mentioned to. M. le Duc's confidential valet than he was ushered into the great man's presence.

   The police agent had the power of concise and rapid diction. Within a very few minutes the Minister was in possession of all the facts connected with the mysterious murder of the unknown person on the highway to Mantes.

   "The man's clothes were rougher and more shabby than his physical condition suggested," Fernand remarked in conclusion. "His hands were not those of a peasant; his feet were quite clean though the roads were muddy. Clearly, then, his boots had been taken off by the murderers, presumably in the hope that some valuables might have been concealed inside them. At once my mind jumped to thoughts of a written message--sent by you, Monsieur le Ministre, perhaps. At any rate, I left old Gault at Mantes and rode another sixty kilometres to ascertain as quickly as possible what my conjectures were worth."

   "Describe the man to me," said the Minister

   "Age under thirty," replied Fernand; "short,. square beard, fair hair slightly curled-"

   "Hector Duroy," broke in the Minister.

   "Then he was your messenger?"

   "Yes! He started for Evreux early yesterday morning. I wished him to meet you there."

   "To tell me what, Monsieur le Ministre?"

   "That the Emperor left Versailles incognito yesterday in response to the usual request from the ex-Empress. You know how he literally flies to do her behests."

   "Alas!" said the Man in Grey with something of a sigh. "But I don't understand," he added inquiringly, "if the Emperor has gone to Malmaison--"

   "Not to Malmaison this time," interposed M. le Duc. "The ex-Empress is at Chartres, staying at the Hotel National, and she desired the Emperor to go to her there. This time she seems to have pleaded family imbroglios. She is always ready with a pretext whenever she desires to see him; and with him, as you know, her slightest whim is law. Enough that he set out for Chartres this morning, in the strictest incognito, accompanied only by one of his valets--Gerbier, I think. Fortunately he apprised me yesterday of his project. I begged him to let me send an escort to guard him, but--well! you know what he is. The future Empress is already on her way to France; the Emperor, naturally, guards very jealously the secret of his continued visits to Josephine. Curtly enough he forbade me to interfere. But, knowing you to be at Evreux, I sent a courier to you, telling you what had occurred and suggesting that perhaps you could send a posse across to Chartres to keep watch quietly and discreetly while the Emperor was there. He will be there to-night, of course," concluded the Minister with a weary sigh, "and no doubt he will return tomorrow. But these incognito visits of his are always a terror to me, and this time--"

   "This time," concluded Fernand as the Minister paused, hardly daring to put into words all the anxiety which he felt, "the courier whom you dispatched to me was waylaid and murdered, and your message, which, I imagine, gave some details of the Emperor's movements, is in the hands of a band of Chouans."

   "Chouans?" exclaimed the Minister. "What makes you think--"

   "Some of the rascals whom we arrested at Caen in connection with the affair of the infernal machine, and who were being conveyed to Paris in accordance with your instructions, escaped from Evreux prison the night before last. The commissary of police and I were on our way to report the matter to you when we came across the body of the murdered man in the woods outside Mantes."

   "Malediction!" ejaculated the Duc d'Otrante; and though during his arduous service he had been faced with many and varied dangers which threatened at different times the life of his Imperial master, his cheeks became almost livid now, when the vista of horrible possibilities was thus suddenly conjured up before his mind. Then he continued more calmly:

   "Which of the villains have escaped, did you say?"

   "The Marquis de Trevargan, for one," replied the Man in Grey.

   "And the Marquise?"

   "No. We had not arrested her yet. She was not directly named in the affair, and we can always lay our hands on her, if occasion demands."

   "Anyone else?"

   "Those two villains they call Blue-Heart and White-Beak, the most daring and infamous scoundrels in the whole crowd."

   "One of them was paid by Mademoiselle de Plelan to murder you," remarked the Minister drily.

   To this, however, the Man in Grey made no reply; only his cheeks--always colourless--became a shade more ashen in hue. M. le Duc d'Otrante, who knew something and guessed a great deal of this single romantic episode in the life of his faithful agent, smiled somewhat maliciously.

   "The last we heard of the Plelans, mother and daughter," he said, "was that Madame had joined some relatives in the south, but that the beautiful Constance had remained at Evreux. She is a niece, remember, of Monsieur de Trevargan, and France does not hold another conspirator quite so astute and so daring as either of these two. De Trevargan is a model of caution and Constance de Plelan is recklessness personified; but both will stake their all for the Cause of those degenerate Bourbons--"

   "And both are at large," added the Man in Grey somewhat impatiently; "while the Emperor is travelling without escort upon the high roads."

   "Do you suppose that Constance de Plelan had anything to do with the escape of the Chouan prisoners at Evreux?"

   "I imagine that she was the prime mover," replied Fernand calmly; and even the Minister's sharp, probing eyes failed to detect the slightest sign of emotion in the grave face of the police agent at this significant mention of Constance de Plelan's name in connection with the recent Chouan affair. "No doubt she gave Monsieur de Trevargan and his gang all the help they required from outside, and shelter afterwards. But time is getting on, Monsieur le Ministre," he continued eagerly, "and the Emperor, you say, is on his way--"

   "He left Versailles at six o'clock this morning," rejoined the Minister. "He will be at Chartres by nightfall."

   "He will never reach Chartres," announced the Man in Grey, "if--as I believe--Blue-Heart and his gang waylay him on the road."

   "That is just what is in my mind," assented the Minister with a shudder. "It is close on seven o'clock now, and I can have a posse of police on the way within half an hour; but whether they can reach the Emperor in time to be of service is very doubtful. According to arrangement, he will have left Versailles an hour ago. He is travelling in his private berline, harnessed with his four bays, which, as you know, fly over the ground with almost unbelievable swiftness. He will get relays on the way and proceed with undiminished speed. Our men have not the horses wherewith to cover the ground at such a rate."

   "Let me have a horse out of your stables, Monsieur le Ministre," rejoined the Man in Grey. "I'll cover the ground fast enough."

   "You, Fernand!" exclaimed M. le Duc. "What can you do--by yourself?"

   "I don't know. I can always take short cuts and gain ground that way. I know every inch of the district. I can overtake the Emperor's berline and warn him that assassins are on his track; He has a postilion, I presume, and Gerbier is with him, you say. Well! with the coachman, we should be four of us to divert a musket-shot from the most precious life in France."

   "But, my good Fernand," argued the Minister, "I cannot even tell you which road the Emperor has taken. As you know, he can either go by the main Paris-Chartres road--which, of course, is the more direct, but also the more public--or he can go by way of Houdan and--"

   "Both roads converge at Maintenon, and I can intercept him there by cutting across fields and meadows, if you will give me your swiftest horse, Monsieur le Ministre. If you don't know which road the Emperor is taking," he continued with unanswerable logic, "the Chouans do not know it either. They also would have to waylay him somewhere past Maintenon."

   "Unless they are in full force and patrol both roads--" suggested the Minister.

   "They would hardly have had time to make such elaborate arrangements. Moreover, both roads are very open and moderately frequented. It is only after Malmaison that the single road strikes through the woods and becomes very lonely, especially at nightfall. A horse, Monsieur le Ministre!" entreated the Man in Grey, his keen, deep-set eyes glowing with ardour and enthusiasm. "A horse! Ten years of my life for the swiftest horse in your stables!"

   The Minister said nothing more. He, too, was a man of energy and of action; he, too, at this hour, was filled with passionate fervour for the Cause which he was destined so soon to betray, and he knew how to appreciate the ardent spirit which irradiated the entire personality of this insignificant little Man in Grey. At once he rang the bell and gave the necessary orders. Within twenty minutes Fernand was again in the saddle. Fatigue and weariness both had fallen from him like a discarded mantle. He had no time to feel tired now. Ahead, the berline harnessed with the four swift bays was thundering down the Chartres road, and the most valuable life in France was threatened by a band of assassins, shrewd enough to have planned a desperate coup. Somewhere on the broad highway the murderers were lurking, and the Emperor--unguarded, unsuspecting--might even at this hour be falling into their hands.

   On! On, Fernand! The four splendid bays from the Imperial stables have two hours' start of you! In the streets of Paris, the life of the great city is running its usual course. Men are hurrying to business, women to their marketing, soldiers or officials to their duties. One and all pause for an instant as the hoofs of a powerful grey strike showers of glowing sparks from out the stones of the pavements, and a horse and rider thunder past at breakneck speed on the way to Versailles.

   Just before the main Paris-Chartres road plunges into the woods, about a kilometre from Maintenon, where two narrow roads which lead, the one to Houdan and the other to Dreux, branch off from the diligence route, there stood in this year of grace 1810 an isolated inn by the wayside. The house itself was ugly enough; square and devoid of any engaging architectural features, it was built of mottled brick, but it nestled at the cross roads on the margin of the wood and was flanked by oak and chestnut coppice, interspersed here and there with a stately beech or sycamore, and its dilapidated sign bore the alluring legend, "The Farmer's Paradise."

   The Paris-Chartres road with its intermittent traffic provided the "Paradise" with a few customers--with some, at least, who were not to be scared by the uninviting appearance of the house and its not too enviable reputation. Wayfarers, coming from Houdan or from Dreux on their way to Chartres, were forced to halt here in order to pick up the diligence, and would sometimes turn into the squalid inn for a cup of that tepid, acid fluid which Alain Gorot, the landlord, so grandiloquently termed "steaming nectar." But during the greater part of the day the place appeared deserted. The light-fingered gentry--foot-pads and vagabonds--who were its chief customers, were wont to use it as a meeting-place at night, but during the day they preferred the shelter of the woods, for the police were mostly always at their heels.

   On this cold winter's afternoon, however, quite a goodly company was gathered in the coffee-room. A log fire blazed in the open hearth and lent a semblance of cheeriness and comfort to the bare, ugly room, in which the fumes of rank tobacco and wet, steaming clothes vied with the odour of stale food and wine to create an almost insufferable atmosphere.

   The Paris-Chartres diligence had gone by an hour ago, and had picked up one solitary passenger at the cross roads. Soon after that a hired chaise, coming from Dreux, had driven up to the "Farmer's Paradise." A lady and a gentleman had alighted from it and gone into the house, while the driver sought shelter for his horse in the tumbledown barn at the back of the house and a warm corner for himself in the kitchen.

   It was then three o'clock in the afternoon, and the roads and country around appeared desolate and still. M. le Marquis de Trevargan sat with his niece, Constance de Plelan, at a trestle-table in a corner of the coffee-room. It was they who had driven over from Dreux in the hired chaise. The landlord had served them with soup which, though unpalatable in other ways, was, at any rate, hot and therefore very welcome after the long, cold journey in the narrow, rickety chaise.

   Three or four men--ill-clad, travel-stained and unwashed--were assembled in the opposite corner of the room, talking in whispers, and near the door a couple of farm labourers were settling accounts with mine host, whilst a third, seemingly overcome by papa Gorot's "nectar," was sprawling across the table with arms outstretched and face buried between them-fast asleep.

   Gorot, having settled with the two labourers, shook this lout vigorously by the shoulder.

   "Now, then," he shouted roughly. "Up you get! You cannot stay here all night, you know!"

   The sleeper raised a puckered, imbecile face to the disturber of his peace.

   "Can't I?" he said slowly with the deliberateness of the drunkard. And his head fell down again with a thud upon his arm.

   Gorot swore lustily.

   "Out you get!" he shouted into the man's ear. "You drunken oaf--I'll put you out if you don't go!"

   Once more the sleeper raised his head and stared with dim, bleary eyes at his host.

   "I am not drunk," he said thickly and with comical solemnity. "I am not nearly so drunk as you think I am."

   "We'll soon see about that," retorted Gorot. "Here!" he added, turning to the three ruffians at the farther end of the room. "One of you give me a hand. We'll put this lout the other side of the door."

   There was more than one volunteer for the diverting job. One of the men without more ado seized the sleeper under the armpits. Gorot took hold of his legs, and together they carried him out of the room and deposited him in the passage, where he rolled over contentedly and settled down to sleep in the angle of the door even whilst he continued to mutter thickly:

   "I am not nearly so drunk as you think I am."

   When the landlord returned to the coffee-room he was summarily ordered out again by M. de Trevargan, and he, nothing loth, accustomed as he was to his house being used for every kind of secret machinations and nameless plottings, shuffled out complacently--unastonished and incurious--and retired to the purlieus of the kitchen, leaving his customers to settle their own affairs without interference from himself.

   As soon as the door had closed on Alain Gorot, M. de Trevargan turned to the crowd of ill-clad loafers in the corner.

   "Now that we are rid of that fellow at last," he said with marked impatience, "tell me just what you have done."

   "We carried out your orders," replied one of the men, a grim-looking giant, bearded and shaggy like a frowsy cat. "We strewed more than a kilo of nails, bits of broken glass and pieces of flint across both the roads, at a distance of about a kilometre from here, and then we covered up the lot with a thin layer of earth."

   The others chuckled contentedly.

   "When the sacre' Corsican comes along in his fine chaise," said one of them with a coarse laugh, "he'll have two or three spanking bays dead lame as soon as they have pranced across our beautiful carpet."

   M. de Trevargan turned to his niece.

   "We couldn't think of a better plan," he said, "as we could only muster one musket among us, and that one we owe to your kindness and foresight."

   Constance de Plelan did not reply at once. She took up an old and dilapidated musket from the nook behind her and examined it with deft fingers and a critical eye.

   "It will serve," she said coldly after a while.

   "Serve? Of course it will serve," rejoined M. de Trevargan lightly. "What say you, Blue-Heart?"

   "That I wish you would let me have it, Monsieur le Marquis," answered the old Chouan. "I'd guarantee that I would not miss the accursed Corsican."

   "And I'll not miss him either," said M. de Trevargan, as he rose from the table and stood before his ruffianly followers the very embodiment of power and determination. "And I myself desire to have the honour of ridding France of that pestilential vermin."

   "And now 'tis time we went," he added authoritatively. "Two of you go up the Paris road--and two up the Dreux road. Take cover in the thicket, and as soon as one of you perceives the rumble of wheels in the distance, give the signal. We'll all be on the watch for it and hurry to the spot ere the first of the bays goes lame."

   M. de Trevargan then once more turned to his niece.

   "If we succeed, Constance," he said, and with sudden impulse he took her hand and kissed it almost reverently, "the glory of it will be yours."

   "I only did my duty," she replied coldly. "I am thankful that I happened to be at Evreux, just when you wanted me most."

   "Nay, dear child," he rejoined earnestly. "You must not belittle the services you have rendered to me and to the King. If you had not known how to bribe our warders at Evreux, and how to send us word and succour, we could not have effected our escape. If you had not given us shelter we must certainly have been recaptured. If you had not conveyed me hither, I--in my indifferent state of health--could never have followed the others across country; and if you had not found that old musket for us, we could not have done for the Corsican at this hour, when God Himself is delivering him into our hands. That is so, is it not, my men?" he concluded, turning to his followers.

   "Ay! Ay!" they replied unanimously.

   "God grant you may succeed!" said Constance de Plelan, as she gently disengaged her hand from his.

   "We cannot fail," he declared firmly. "One or more of the Corsican's horses must go dead lame over the carpet of nails and broken glass and flint. The carriage must then halt, and the coachman and postillion will get down to see to the injured beasts. That will be our opportunity. Blue-Heart and the others will fall on the men and I shall hold Napoleon at the end of my musket, and though it may be old, I know how to shoot straight and my aim is not likely to err. And now let us get on," he added peremptorily. "The Corsican's carriage cannot be far off."

   Constance, without another word, handed him his hat and mantle. The latter he fastened securely round his shoulders, leaving his arms free for action. Then he turned to pick up the musket. Blue-Heart and White-Beak were ready to follow. They and the two others strode towards the door, with backs bent and an eager, furtive look on their bearded faces, like feline creatures on the hunt. Constance de Plelan was standing in the middle of the room and her eyes were on the door, when it was suddenly thrown open. The figure of the drunken labourer appeared, clear-cut against the dark passage beyond. In an instant he had stepped into the room, closed the door to be-hind him, and was now standing with his back to it and holding a loaded pistol in his right hand.

   It all happened so quickly that neither M. de Trevargan nor any of the others had time to realise what had occurred; and for an instant they stood as if rooted to the spot, staring at the unexpected apparition. Only Constance de Plelan understood what the presence of this man, here and at this hour, portended. She was gazing at him with fixed, dilated pupils, and her cheeks had become livid.

   "You!" came in a hoarse murmur through her bloodless lips.

   Next moment, however, M. de Trevargan had recovered his presence of mind.

   "Out of the way, you lout!" he cried roughly.

   And he stretched out his hand to grasp the musket, still believing that this was merely a drunken boor who was feeling quarrelsome and who could easily be scared away.
   "If you touch that musket, Monsieur le Marquis," said the man at the door quietly, "I fire."

   Then only did de Trevargan, in his turn, steadily at him. As in a flash, remembrance came to him. He recognised that pale, colourless face, deep-set grey eyes which once before--at the Chateau de Trevargan--had probed his very soul and wrested form him the secret of Darnier's assassination.

   "That accursed police agent!" he muttered bet his teeth. "A moi, Blue-Heart. Let him fire and be damned to him!"

   But even Blue-Heart and White-Beak, those desperate and reckless Chouans, who were always prepared to take any and every risk, and who counted life more cheaply than they did the toss of a coin, paused, awestruck, ere they obeyed; for the Man in Grey, with one of those swift and sudden movments which were peculiar to him, had taken one step ward, seized Constance de Plelan by the wrist, dragged her to him against the door, and was even now holding the pistol to her side.

   "One movement from any of you," he said with the same icy calm; "one word, one step, one gesture, and by the living God, I swear that I will kill her before your eyes!"

   Absolute, death-like silence ensued. M. de Trevargan and the four Chouans stood there, paralysed and rigid. To say that they did not stir, that they did not breathe one word or utter as much as a sigh, would but ill express the complete stillness which fell upon them, as if some hidden and awful petrifying hand had suddenly turned them into stone. Constance de Plelan had not stirred either. She also stood, motionless as a statue, her hand held firmly in a steel-like grasp, the muzzle of the pistol against her breast.

   Fearlessly, almost defiantly, she gazed straight into the eyes of this man who had so reverently worshipped her and whom she had so nearly learned to love.

   "From my soul," he whispered, so low that even she could scarcely hear, "I crave your pardon. From my soul I worship you still. But I would not love you half so dearly, Constance, did I not love my Emperor and France more dearly still."

   "You coward!" came after a moment or two of tense suspense, from the parched lips of M. de Trevargan. "Would you seize upon a woman--?"

   "The Emperor's life or hers," broke in the Man in Grey coldly. "You give me no other choice. What I do, I do, and am answerable for my actions to God alone. So down on your knees every one of you!" he added firmly. "Now! At once! Another movement, another word, and I fire!"

   "Fire then, in the name of Satan, your friend!" cried Constance de Plelan loudly. "Oncle Armand, do not hesitate. Blue-Heart, seize this miscreant! Let him kill me first; but after that you will be five against one, and you can at last rid us of this deadly foe!"

   "Down on your knees!" came in a tone of frigid calm from the police agent. "If, ere I count three, I do not see you kneel--I fire!"

   And even before the words were out of his mouth, the five Chouans dropped on their knees, helpless before this relentless threat which deprived them of every vestige of will-power.
   "Oh, that I had not stayed Blue-Heart's hand that day in the woods!" cried Constance de Plelan with a sigh of fierce regret. "He had you then, as you have us now--"

   "As he and the others would have the Emperor," rejoined the Man in Grey. "If I allowed my heart to stay my hand."

   And that relentless hand of his tightened its grip on Constance de Plelan's wrist, till she felt sick and faint and fell back against the door. She felt the muzzle of the pistol against her side: the hand which held it neither swerved nor quaked. The keen, grey eyes which had once radiated the light of his ineffable love for her held no pity or remorse in them now: they were watching for the slightest movement on the part of the five Chouans.

   Slowly the afternoon light faded into dusk. The figures of the Chouans now appeared like dark and rigid ghosts in the twilight. The ticking of the old clock in the ingle-nook alone broke the deathlike silence of the room. Minute sped after minute while the conspirators remained as if under the ban of some evil fairy, who was keeping them in an enchanted castle in a dreamless trance from which perhaps they would never wake again. Minute sped after minute, and they lost count of time, of place, of very existence.

   They only appeared alive through the one sense of hearing, which had for them become preternaturally acute. In the house, too, every sound was hushed. The landlord and his servants had received their orders from the accredited agent of His Majesty's Minister of Police, and they were not likely to risk life and liberty by disobedience.

   Outside, the air was damp and still, so still that through the open casement there could be heard--very far away--the rumble of carriage wheels and the patter of horses' hoofs on the muddy road.

   It seemed as if an electrical wave went right through the room at the sound, and the police agent's grip tightened on Constance's wrist. A slight tremor appeared to animate those five marble-like statues who were kneeling on the floor.

   The carriage was drawing nearer: it was less than a hundred metres away. The clang of hoofs upon the road, the rattle of metal chains, the shouts of the postilion, could already be distinctly heard. Then suddenly the carriage had come to stop.

   A bitter groan went right through the room, like the wail of condemned spirits in torment. But not one of the Chouans moved. How could they when a woman's life was the price that would have to be paid now for the success of their scheme.

   Only a heartrending cry rose from Constance de Plelan's lips:

   "In Heaven's name, Oncle Armand," she entreated, "let the man fire! Think you I should not be glad to die? Blue-Heart, has your courage forsaken you? What is one life when there is so much at stake? O God!" she added in a fervent prayer, "give them the strength to forget everything save their duty to our King!"

   But not a sound-not a movement came in response to her passionate appeal. Through the open casement a confused murmur of voices could be distinctly heard some distance away, up the side-road which ran from Dreux. The Emperor's carriage was obviously being held up. One, if not more, of the spanking bays had gone dead lame while trotting across Blue-Heart's well-laid carpet. The rough, stained hands of the Chouans opened and closed till their thick knuckles cracked in an agony of impotence.

   How long the torture of this well-nigh intolerable suspense lasted not one of those present could have told. The twilight gradually faded into gloom; darkness like a huge mantle slowly enveloped those motionless, kneeling figures in the coffee-room of "The Farmer's Paradise."

   But if some semblance of hope had crept into the hearts of the Chouans at sight of the beneficent darkness, it was soon dispelled by the trenchant warning which came like a blow from a steel-hammer from the police agent's lips:

   "If I hear the slightest movement through the darkness, one flutter, one creak, even a sigh--I shall fire," he had said, as soon as the gloom of the night had begun to creep into the more remote corners of the room. And even through the darkness the over-strained ears of the kneeling Chouans caught the sound of a metallic click--the cocking of the pistol which threatened Constance de Plelan's life. And so they remained still-held more securely on their knees by that one threat than by the pressure of giant hands.

   An hour went by. Through the open window the sound of the murmur of voices had given place to renewed clanking of metal chains, to pawing of the ground by high-mettled horses, to champing of bits, to snorting, groaning and creaking, as the heavy travelling chaise once more started on its way.

   After that it seemed like eternity.

   When once again the silent roads gave forth signs of life and movement; when, from the direction of Paris there came the sound of a cavalcade, of a number of horses galloping along at breakneck speed; when after a while it dawned upon these enchanted statues here that a posse of police had arrived at "The Farmer's Paradise," and the men were even now dismounting, almost a sigh of relief rose from five oppressed breasts.

   They knew the game was up; they knew that all that they had staked had been swept aside by the ruthless, unerring hand of the man who had terrorised and cowed and bent them to his will.

   Constance de Plelan was resting against the door in a state of semi-consciousness. Two or three minutes later the landlord, who, acting under the orders given him by the secret agent, had gone to meet the posse of police on the road and guided them to his house, now led them to the back entrance of the coffee-room. The arrest of M. de Trevargan and the Chouans was an easy matter. They were, in fact, too numb and dazed to resist.

   All five were tried for the murder of Hector Duroy, the police messenger, and for an attempted outrage against the person of the Emperor, and all five were condemned to penal servitude for life. At the Restoration, however, M. de Trevargan was publicly absolved of participation in the murder, and honoured by the King for having made such a bold, if unsuccessful, attempt to "remove" the Corsican usurper.

   But Constance de Plelan was never brought to trial. Powerful influences were said to have saved her.

©Blakeney Manor, 2002