The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood Part 66

"In your charming and for the most part veracious story there is only one slight mistake, my good friend."

"I do not understand."

"I will tell you. Eugene Chabot, your brother?--yes; your brother.

Well, he could not have written to you as you tell me--"

"But I a.s.sure you--"

"For the simple reason, that, just one week before the seizure of Valetta Joe, Chabot was killed--in a sortie from the enemy's lines."

"Impossible! I--"

"Have been lying throughout and must take the consequences. You have thrust your head into the lion's jaw. Hold!"

Seeing that Hyde had thrust his one hand beneath his blouse, seeking, no doubt, for some concealed weapon, Hobson suddenly struck a bell on the table before him.

Four men rushed in.

"Seize him before he can use his arm! Seize him, and unmask him!"

The ruffians, laying violent hands on Hyde, tore off his blouse and dragged the wig with its elaborate curls from his head. In the struggle he gave a sharp cry of pain. They had touched too roughly the still helpless arm which hung in its sling beneath the blouse.

"Ah! I knew I could not be mistaken. It is you, then, Rupert Gascoigne! I thought I recognised you from the first, although it is years and years since we met."

"Not quite, villain! Cowardly traitor, murderer, despoiler of the dead!"

"What do you mean by that?"

"That I saw you at your craven work just after the Alma; you ought to have been shot then. The world would have been well rid of a miscreant."

"Pretty language, truly, Mr. Gascoigne! I must strive to deserve it."

"What are you going to do with me?"

"I am not sure. Only do not hope for mercy. You know too much. I might make away with you at once--"

"But why spill blood?" he went on, musing aloud. "The guillotine will do your business in due course if I hand you over to the law. That will be best, safest; the most complete riddance, perhaps."

There was a pause.

"You see you are altogether in my power," said Ledantec, "either way.

But I am not unreasonable. I am prepared to spare you--for the present," he said, with an evil smile--"only for the present, and according as you may behave."

"On what conditions will you spare me--for the present?" asked Hyde, elated at the unexpected chance thus given him.

"Tell me how you came to know of this address. Who sent you here?"

"Valetta Joe, the Maltese baker at Kadikoi."

"Describe him to me," asked Ledantec, to try Hyde.

Hyde had seen Joe more than once in his rides through the hut-town, and his answer was perfectly satisfactory.

"Did he send any message?"

"Just what I have told you. I was to let you know of his arrest and of the danger you would run."

Ledantec was deceived by the straightforward and unhesitating way in which Hyde told his story.

"It may be so. At any rate, the warning must not be despised. Whether or not you are to be trusted remains to be seen. But I will keep you safe for a day or two longer and see what turns up. In any case you cannot do much mischief to Cyprienne while shut fast here."

"Cyprienne?" said Hyde, quite innocently.

"I am quite aware of one reason that brought you to Paris, but, as I have said, you cannot well execute your threats so long as we hold you tight."

Hyde shook his head as though these remarks were completely unintelligible. But he laughed within himself at the thought that he had already outwitted both Cyprienne and her accomplice, and that, wherever he was, a prisoner or at large, events would work out her discomfiture without him.

He had no fears for himself. They had promised him at the British Emba.s.sy that he should be sought out if he did not reappear within three days. Besides, the French police had their eyes on the house.

The tables would presently be turned upon his captors in a way that they little expected.

When, therefore, he was led by Ledantec's orders into a little back room dimly lighted by a window looking on to a blank wall, he went like a lamb. But physically he was not particularly comfortable; there were pleasanter ways of spending the day than tied hand and foot to the legs of a bedstead, and Ledantec's farewell speech was calculated to disturb his equanimity.

"Don't make a sound or a move, mind. If you do--" and he produced a glittering knife, with a look that could not be misunderstood.

CHAPTER X.

SUSPENSE.

McKay must have slept for many hours. Daylight was fading, and the den he occupied was nearly dark, when he was aroused by the voices of his Russian fellow-lodgers coming off duty for the night.

They were rough, simple fellows most of them: boorish peasants torn from their village homes, and forced to fight in their Czar's quarrel, which he was pleased to call a holy war. Coa.r.s.e, uncultivated, but not unkindly, and they gathered around McKay, staring curiously at him, and plying him with questions.

His command of their language soon established amicable relations, and presently, when supper was ready, a nauseous mess of _kasha_, or thick oatmeal porridge, boiled with salt pork, they hospitably invited him to partake. He was a prisoner, but an honoured guest, and they freely pressed their flasks of _vodkhi_ upon him when with great difficulty he had swallowed a few spoonfulls of the black porridge.

They talked, too, incessantly, notwithstanding their fatigue, always on the same subject, this interminable siege.

"It's weary work," said one. "I long for home."

"They will never take the place; Father Todleben will see to that. Why do they not go, and leave us in peace?"

"It is killing work: in the batteries day and night; always in danger under this h.e.l.lish fire. This is the best place. You are better off, comrade, than we" (this was to McKay); "for you are safe under cover here, and in the open a man may be killed at any time."

"He has dangers of his own to face," said the under-officer in charge of the barrack, grimly. "Do not envy him till after to-morrow."

McKay heard these words without emotion. He was too wretched, too much dulled by misfortune and the misery of his present condition, to feel fresh pain.