Part 26 (1/2)

But the welcome I had from the household of Deventer made up for all this enveloping suspicion. Here, at least, I stood clear. I was re-established in my own conceit, in my position a most valuable a.s.set.

Was I not a martyr to duty, a prisoner on parole, one castaway among wild and dangerous people, because I had ventured out by night to join the Deventer defence?

Jack Jaikes had evidently done his part well. He had given me the rough side of his tongue, but had permitted the Deventers to understand that in the morning hours he had held converse with a hero and martyr to duty.

Mrs. Deventer came over and graciously kissed me, and I verily believe that I might have kissed all three girls--yes, even Hannah--under the eye maternal, without a reprimand.

Hugh was more comrade-like than he had been for a long time, and linked arms with me in the good old St. Andre way as we stood by the fire-place. Dennis Deventer came in smiling.

”Now our family is more like itself again. Angus me boy, and how did ye leave my good friend the commander of the forces?”

I told him that Keller Bey was well but much worried by the cares of office. At this he laughed a little mischievously, and burst out in one of his usual phrases:

”St. Patrick's Day and a fine morning to be whittling s.h.i.+llalahs. But Keller Bey has not seen the first green of his wild oat-sowing. Let him wait till his lambs begin to frolic. Then I do not envy him his task. As for me, Jack Jaikes and I are making this place so strong that they might blow it piece by piece about our ears without making us surrender.”

Presently I found myself at luncheon at the Deventers' table. Nothing appeared to have changed, except that the young apprentices were no longer to be seen, and indeed there was no external service of any kind.

We cut and poured out at the sideboard for ourselves. Mrs. Deventer was the only one waited upon, Rhoda Polly bringing her what she wanted.

The discussion grew as loud as ever, but hushed instantly when a messenger appeared at the door, cap in hand and a little breathless, to report the situation of the various posts, or to request instructions.

Sometimes Dennis merely bade the messenger to ”Ask Jack Jaikes!” More often he reeled off a detailed and technical explanation which the apprentice understood though I did not. Or again he would dash a few lines on the leaf of a note-book, indicate a design sketchily, and send the lad off again as fast as he could clatter down the stairs.

I could not help being struck with admiration of the Chief's method and science. Keller Bey was a leader of men, but I could not help seeing, apart from his indubitable personal magnetism, how things were bungled for lack of those very qualities of science and method. It went well in Chateau Schneider. No need for speech or lifted hand. Silence fell like a spell whenever the runner appeared in that ever-open doorway. And while the master of men launched his commands there was not even the ordinary clatter of knives and forks. Everyone seemed to feel the importance of the decision to be given. All were proud of the giver, though the moment before and the moment after they would be refuting his arguments, denying his statements, and generally a.s.saulting his positions in a Donnybrook of sound and fury, without the least apparent reverence for the grey hairs to which he often appealed with mock pathos.

I took care not to see any of the defences of the workshops, or those about the Chateau. These had been wholly reorganised since the attempts of January, and were now nearing completion on a far more serious scale.

I had to go back and I should a.s.suredly be questioned. If I did not answer I might doubtless be suspected. Therefore it was arranged that when the time came for me to go Jack Jaikes should blindfold me and lead me out by the main fortified entrance of the works, which was immediately in front of a large post of National Guards.

I was longing to get Rhoda Polly by herself and hear the news from her own lips, but Dennis was so eager for more and more detailed gossip about this one and that other among the members of the Commune, that he detained me a long while. He did not fish for secrets nor ask me to divulge any of Keller's plans. I think he felt himself too strong and sure for that.

He was, moreover, genuinely interested in the men, and wishful to know how they conducted themselves in their new spheres. He was specially amused at my account of the staffing of the Post-Office-Without-Letters, and when he heard the names he instantly baptized it ”The Bureau of the Incompetents”--a sobriquet which afterwards got abroad and became a saying, so that many of those who had earned the name left the place to escape from it.

At last Rhoda Polly and I did manage to take refuge up on the roof behind our favourite chimney-stack at a place where the parapet was almost breast high. It was comfortable hiding and quite secluded--the fortifications of the Chateau roof being long perfected, and indeed only to be used as a watch-tower or as a last line of defence.

Rhoda Polly told me how she had sent three messengers to Alida, of whom only one had been faithful to his trust. She had had to enlist Jack Jaikes in the business, and between them they had called up lads from the town, butchers' boys and such-like, known to the foreman from the Clyde. To each of these she had perforce to commit her letter, taking care that it should contain nothing compromising in case of capture. But only one ever returned with an answer, and he a little bare-footed rascal of a boot-black, from whom nothing had been expected. He had even brought back a letter from Alida, telling her friend that they were well but that for safety's sake Linn and she, with the two Tessier maids, had been taken into the main building of Gobelet, where at least they should be farther from the road and have men to protect them.

Alida went on to say that Linn went about as usual, but evidently grieved for her husband in silence. She herself was occupied in learning Latin from Mr. Cawdor, and already could read in a book called ”Caesar”

and in another by an author named Sall.u.s.t.

I saw the letter as Rhoda Polly turned it over, and noted that not a word of inquiry was wasted upon myself. My name was not once mentioned.

The Lady Alida had taken dire offence at my flight, and this was in spite of the fact that Rhoda Polly had mentioned that I was with Keller Bey in the city of Aramon.

CHAPTER XXVIII

STORM GATHERING

On my return I was, as I had expected, put to the question, with lenience by Keller Bey, but with biting irony and something like personal dislike by the Procureur Raoux. Then stood apparent all the man's bitter nature, mordantly distilled from years of poverty and hatred of the well-to-do.