Robert Tournay Part 54

In a few minutes they pa.s.sed up the Rue Vaugirard. "Which is the house?"

asked Tournay anxiously.

"There; the small one with the blinds drawn down. Agatha will be anxiously waiting for me, I know. There she is now in the doorway. She sees us! Agatha, quick! Never mind your hat or cloak. Ask no questions.

Now Robert, take us where you will."

Pa.s.sing Edme's arm through his own, and with Agatha on the other side, Tournay conducted the two women rapidly down the street.

At the same moment gendarmes were running in all directions carrying Robespierre's orders.

Two of them hastened to the house of Citizeness Privat. They found her in bed. Awakened from her sleep, she could only give meagre information about her lodgers. There were two of them; one, she thought, was still in the room across the hall. A tall gendarme opened the door and walked in without ceremony. He found the room empty, although a few articles of feminine apparel indicated that it had been occupied recently.

"Hem!" sniffed the tall gendarme, "women!" Then he called in his companions, and they proceeded to examine everything in the hope of finding a clue.

At that moment Robert Tournay, Edme, and Agatha were approaching the Rue d'Arcis.

"It is only a step from here," said Tournay encouragingly as they crossed the bridge St. Michel. "Once there we cannot be safer anywhere in Paris. I know of the place from a fellow prisoner in the Luxembourg."

They pa.s.sed through a narrow pa.s.sageway and underneath some houses, and emerged into the Rue d'Arcis. Crossing the street, and looking carefully in both directions to see if they were un.o.bserved, Tournay struck seven quick low notes with the knocker on the door. They waited in silence for some time; then Tournay repeated the knocking a little louder than before. They waited again and listened intently. Edme's teeth began to chatter with nervous excitement, and Tournay looked once more apprehensively up and down the street.

"Who knocks?" was the question breathed gently through a small aperture in the door.

"From Raphael," whispered Tournay, "open quickly."

"Enter."

The door swung inward on its hinges, and the three fugitives hastened to accept the hospitality offered them.

It was an old man who answered their summons and who closed the door carefully after them. He now stood before them shading with his palm a candle, which the draft, blowing through the large empty corridors, threatened to extinguish altogether. The dancing flame threw grotesque shadows on the wall. As the light played upon the features of the old man, first touching his white beard and then s.h.i.+ning upon his serene brow, Edme thought she looked upon a face familiar to her in the past, but, no sign of recognition appearing in the eyes that met her gaze, she attributed it to fancy.

"Your name is Beaurepaire?" inquired Tournay.

"That is my name," was the old man's answer.

In a few words Colonel Tournay told of his acquaintance with St.

Hilaire, and explained how, had their plan of escape succeeded, they would have come there together. Unfortunately he alone had escaped,--and now came to ask that he and his two companions might remain there in hiding for a few days.

"You came from Raphael," replied Beaurepaire with the dignity of an earlier time. "The length of your stay is to be determined by your own desire."

He led the way along the corridor, down a short flight of steps, through a covered pa.s.sageway, into what appeared to be an adjoining house; Tournay asked no questions, but, with Edme and Agatha, followed blindly.

Their aged conductor ushered them into a large room, which had formerly been a handsome salon; but the few articles of furniture still remaining in it were decrepit and dusty. The once polished floor was sadly marred, and appeared to have remained unswept for years. The room was wainscoted in dark wood to the height of six feet, and upon the wall above it hung portraits of ladies and gentlemen of the house of St. Hilaire. Here they had hung for years before the Revolution, dusty and forgotten.

At the end and along one side of the room ran a gallery which was reached by a short straight flight of stairs, and around this gallery from floor to ceiling were shelves of books.

Beaurepaire mounted the stairs, and looking among the books as if searching for a certain volume, pushed back part of a bookcase and revealed a door. He motioned them to ascend.

"In here," he said, pointing to a small room with low-studded ceiling, "the two ladies can retire. It is the only room in the house suitable for their comfort. You, sir," he continued, looking at Colonel Tournay, "will have to lie here upon the gallery floor. There is only a rug to soften the oak boards, but you are, I see, a soldier. To-morrow I will see what can be done to make the place more habitable."

Edme and Agatha pa.s.sed through the aperture in the wall, the venerable Beaurepaire bowing low before them.

"At daylight I will bring you some food; until then I wish you good repose." He withdrew, and Colonel Tournay was left to stretch himself out upon the gallery floor to get what sleep he could.

It was daylight when he opened his eyes, and looking through the bal.u.s.trade to the room below, saw a loaf of bread, some grapes, and a steaming pitcher of hot milk set on a large mahogany table which stood against the wall. He had evidently been awakened by the entrance of his host, for the figure of Beaurepaire was standing with his back to him, looking out of the window into the courtyard. The colonel kicked aside the rugs which had served him for a bed, and rising to his feet, started to descend.

The figure at the window turned at the sound of the tread upon the stairs, and Tournay stopped short with one hand on the rail. "He has shaved off his flowing beard overnight," was his astonished thought.

Then the next instant he recognized that it was not Beaurepaire, but Father Ambrose, the old priest of La Thierry, who stood before him.

The latter approached with his usual dignity.

"Father Ambrose," exclaimed Tournay in surprise, "how can this be? Who, then, is this Beaurepaire?"

"He is my brother. I have lived here for more than six months. I saw you when you came last night, but waited until now before making myself known. Inform me, my good sir, how fares it with Mademoiselle de Rochefort?"

"You shall see her presently. She and Agatha are in the chamber behind the secret panel. They are doubtless much fatigued from the excitement of yesterday, and we would better let them sleep as long as they can. In the meantime I will eat some of this food, for I am desperately hungry."

"Do so, my son," replied the priest. "I would eat with you, but for the fact that I never break my fast before noon."

Tournay helped himself to a generous slice of bread and a bunch of grapes.

"Tell me," he asked, as he began on the luscious fruit, "how do you obtain the necessities of life? Do you dare venture out to buy them?"

"I have not set my foot outside the door since I first entered. All the communication with the outside world has been held by my brother, who has managed to keep free from suspicion, and who goes and comes in his quiet way as the occasion arises."

A knock upon the door brought Tournay to his feet. He stopped with the pitcher of milk in one hand and looked at Father Ambrose.

"There is no cause for alarm," said the priest; "it is my brother's knock;" and going to the door he drew back the bolt.

Tournay set down the milk jug untasted, with an exclamation of surprise, as he saw Gaillard burst into the room, followed by the old man Beaurepaire. The actor, no longer dressed in the disguise of an old man, was greatly excited.

"Great news, my colonel!" he exclaimed without stopping to explain how he had found his way there. "Robespierre has been arrested by the convention."

Tournay sprang forward and grasped his friend by both shoulders. "At last they have done it!" he cried excitedly. "Gaillard, tell me about it. How was it brought about?"

"Embrace me again, my colonel," exclaimed Gaillard, throwing his arms about Tournay and talking all the time. "It was this way: I heard the cry in the streets that the convention had risen almost to a man and arrested Robespierre and a few of his nearest satellites. At once I ran to the conciergerie to try and see you. Everything was in confusion. The news of Robespierre's arrest had just reached there. 'Can I see Colonel Tournay?' I demanded of the jailer.

"'He is not here,' he answered, turning from me to a dozen other excited questioners.

"'He has not been sent to the guillotine?' I cried, with my heart in my mouth.

"'No; liberated by Robespierre's order last night.'

"'What!' I shouted, thinking the man mad.

"'The order was countermanded fifteen minutes after the citizen colonel had left the prison,' cried the warden in reply. 'Don't ask me any more questions. My head is in a whirl; I cannot think.'

"I, myself, was so excited I could not think; but when I collected my few senses I recollected that St. Hilaire had told you of a place of refuge in case of emergency. 'My little colonel is there,' I said to myself, and flew here on the wind. Everywhere along the way people were congratulating one another. The greatest excitement prevailed. No notice was taken of an old man of eighty running like a lad of sixteen. When I reached your door I took off my wig and beard and put them in my pocket.

Ah, my colonel, we shall wear our own faces; we shall speak our own minds, now that the tyrant himself is in the toils."

"Will they be able to keep him there?" asked Father Ambrose; "he will not yield without a struggle. The Jacobins may try to arouse the ma.s.ses to rescue him."