Part 26 (1/2)
”If you dare touch me, I'll kill you!”
It was ludicrous, of course A er The very next moment Rateau had seized her hand and quietly taken away the knife Merri shook hi
”Whew!” he ejaculated ”What a vixen! But,” he added lightly, ”I like her all the better for that-eh, Rateau? Give me a wench with a temperament, I say!”
But Esther, too, had recovered herself She realised her helplessness, and gathered courage from the consciousness of it! Now she faced the infamous villain more calmly
”I will never marry you,” she said loudly and firuillotine There is no shame attached to death So now you may do as you please-denounce me, and send me to follow in the footsteps of my dear father, if you wish But whilst I ah er upon me, it will be because I a touch And now I have said all that I will ever say to you in this life If you have a spark of humanity left in you, you will, at least, let me prepare for death in peace”
She went round to where poor old Lucienne still sat, like an insentient log, panic-stricken She knelt down on the floor and rested her arht of the lamp fell full upon her, her pale face, andabout her at this moment to inflame a man's desire She looked pathetic in her helplessness, and nearly lifeless through the intensity of her pallor, whilst the look in her eyes was almost maniacal
Merri cursed and swore, tried to hearten hi on his friend But Rateau had collapsed-whether with excitees of disease, it were is, his violet-circled eyes staring out with a look of hebetude and overwhelue Merri looked around hiely weird and uncanny; even the tablecloth, dragged half across the table, looked somehow like a shroud
”What shall we do, Rateau?” he asked tremulously at last
”Get out of this infernal place,” replied the other huskily ”I feel as if I were in ue, you miserable coward! You'll make the aristo think that we are afraid”
”Well?” queried Rateau blandly ”Aren't you?”
”No!” replied Merri fiercely ”I'll go now becausebecausewell! because I have had enough to-day And the wench sickensher, but just now I feel as if I should never really want her So I'll go! But, understand!” he added, and turned once o nigh her again ”Understand that to-ain for my answer In the meanwhile, you may think matters over, and, maybe, you'll arrive at a more reasonable frame of mind You will not leave these rooms until I set you free My men will remain as sentinels at your door”
He beckoned to Rateau, and the two men went out of the rooht Esther remained shut up in her apartht she heard theof men outside her door Once or twice she tried to listen to what they said But the doors and walls in these houses of old Paris were too stout to allow voices to filter through, save in the guise of a confused htened but for the fact that in oneon the third floor in the house opposite the light of a lalimmer of hope Jack Kennard was there, on the watch He had theopen and sat beside it until a very late hour; and after that he kept the light in, as a beacon, to bid her be of good cheer
In theto catch the sentinels asleep or absent But, having climbed the five stories of the house wherein she dwelt, he arrived on the landing outside her door and found there half a dozen ruffians squatting on the stone floor and engaged in playing hazard with a pack of greasy cards That wretched consumptive, Rateau, ith theard, ale round his head, appeared upon the landing
”Go back to bed, citizen,” the odious creature said, with a raucous laugh ”We are taking care of your sweetheart for you”
Never in all his life had Jack Kennard felt so abjectly wretched as he did then, sothat he could do, save to return to the lodging, which a kind friend had lent him for the occasion, and from whence he could, at any rate, see the s behind which his beloved atching and suffering
When he went a few o, he had left the porte cochere ajar Now he pushed it open and stepped into the dark passage beyond A tiny streak of light filtrated through a suide Kennard to the foot of the narrow stone staircase which led to the floors above Just at the foot of the stairs, on the ht He paused, puzzled, quite certain that the paper was not there five o when he went out Oh! it may have fluttered in froht But, even so, with that mechanical action peculiar to most people under like circumstances, he stooped and picked up the paper, turned it over between his fingers, and saw that a feords were scribbled on it in pencil The light was too dim to read by, so Kennard, still quite mechanically, kept the paper in his hand and went up to his rooht of the lamp, he read the feords scribbled in pencil:
”Wait in the street outside”
Nothing e was obviously not intended for hie excitement possessed him If it should be! If! He had heard-everyone had-of the encies that were at work, under cover of darkness, to aid the unfortunate, the innocent, the helpless He had heard of that legendary English gentleilance of the Committees, and snatched their intended victims out of their murderous clutches, at times under their very eyes
If this should be! He scarce dared put his hope into words He could not bring himself really to believe But he went He ran downstairs and out into the street, took his stand under a projecting doorway nearly opposite the house which held the woainst the wall, he waited
After , and the sky of an inky blackness-he felt so numb that despite his will a kind of trance-like drowsiness overcaer stand on his feet; his knees were shaking; his head felt so heavy that he could not keep it up It rolled round froer controlled it And it ached furiously Everything around hiiant, was for the entle, pattering utter helped to lull Kennard's senses into so off to sleep when sohing-fah in these squalid Paris streets
But Kennard ide awake now; nu of all his muscles, and super-keenness of his every sense He peered into the darkness and strained his ears to hear The sound certainly appeared to come from the house opposite, and there, too, it see Men! More than one or two, surely! Kennard thought that he could distinguish at least three distinct voices; and there was that weird, racking cough which proclaimed the presence of Rateau
Now theA minute or two later they had passed down the street Their hoarse voices soon died away in the distance Kennard crept cautiously out of his hiding-place Message or mere coincidence, he now blessed that mysterious scrap of paper Had he reht really have dropped off to sleep and not heard theseaway There were three of theht four But, anyway, the nus outside the door of his beloved had considerably dirapple with them, even if there were still three of thelish, and master of the art of self-defence; and they, a mere pack of drink-sodden brutes! Yes! He was quite sure he could do it Quite sure that he could force his way into Esther's rooms and carry her off in his arms-whither? God alone knew And God alone would provide
Just for a moment he wondered if, while he was in that state of somnolence, other bandits had coht he quickly disth in himself, and could not rest now till he had tried once ; was satisfied that the street was deserted