CHAPTER X.
The conspirators, in the mean time, unconscious of the danger which threatened them, were discussing with one another the various topics which were uppermost in their minds. Joubart, who had just joined the party, after listening for a few moments to some remarks from Egal, exclaimed—
"Gentlemen, our situations, our precedents are very different, and our parts are very singular. You are all republicans at all hazards. I am not a republican of that school. And yet at this moment I am going to be more republican than you are. The fact that I am now here is itself a decisive declaration of it. Let us understand one another. Like you, I regard a republican government as the only instrument for the advancement of the general truth which a nation should incorporate in its laws. But I have just come from the chamber, and I fear we are not strong enough, not prepared as yet to accomplish this. I have still misgivings. I am not therefore an absolute republican like yourselves; but I am a politician, and a politician of the highest cast." At these words, smiles were exchanged among the conspirators. "Well, as a politician, I now think it is my duty to refuse the support you are willing to offer me at this hour."
"Well, refuse and play the part of a coward, if you will; that of a traitor you dare not play," exclaimed Bouchon, in his brutal manner.
"There is no need of falling out by the way," said Grandan. "We need Joubart, and he needs us. That little speech will do very well for the chamber; there it would tell. Here we understand one another. Not one of us will risk his head without a probability of success. Joubart has not seen Delevert; else he would know that the mine is well dug, and will and must explode before to-morrow evening. The chiefs of the Cabet, St. Simon, Lébout, Carac, Tuvir, and five others, whose names I must not mention now, have drawn their followers together to act under the orders of the secret council. The council has decreed a permanent sitting until its object is accomplished; and accomplished it will be at all hazards."
"What can keep Madame Georgiana so long?" whispered Labotte to Longchamp. "She promised to be with us by ten o'clock, and bring with her the fair Louise. It is past ten now, and I told the coachman to draw up before the little door in the wall on the Ruelle des Trois Chandelles."
"I am afraid," replied Longchamp, "that you and Bouchon will get into trouble by your intrigues, and draw your friends also into difficulties. Diable! are there no pretty girls in France besides this Louise? and what possessed Bouchon to fall in love with the picture of this American half savage?"
"Hist! hist! Bouchon will hear you. As to his affair, all I can say there is no accounting for taste. Mine is of a different nature. Louise has charms besides those of her person. The happy possessor of that fair devotee will also be entitled to receive an annual revenue of one hundred thousand francs; no trifling consideration. But the girl is not aware that she is heir to such wealth; and, if she were, would not be able to establish her claim without the aid of certain papers, which I alone know where to find."
"Well, there maybe some reason in your passion, but I see none in that of Bouchon. However, let us go in quest of our fair hostess. We can do so without any one being aware of our object."
Before they had time to rise from their seats the door flew open, and Bertram, with Develour and his followers, all armed to the teeth, entered the room. Not a word was spoken by either party for a few seconds. The conspirators were speechless from surprise and momentary fear; while the others executed their movements rapidly and in silence, according to Bertram's orders, who wished to surround them before they would have time to alarm the house. M. Trouvier was the first who recovered from his surprise, and, seizing his pistols, was about to rise from his chair; when Bertram, who had now placed himself behind Malin's chair, with his back to the large mirror, leveled a short rifle at his head, while he said, with his deep guttural voice—
"Down, sir! down to your seat! Let not a man stir from his place, if he wishes to keep his life!"
"What is the reason of this attack?" inquired Trouvier. "Do you come to rob us? If so, we will give you our purses, and free us from the intrusion."
"Your purses," exclaimed Bertram, with a mocking laugh, "would not be heavy to carry. Joubart's poetry and purse are chaff, easily carried away by a breath. Grandan and Egal might furnish better stores, if they had sufficiently gulled the people to entrust them with their money for a common stock. And you, M. Trouvier, with Sotard and Malin, have enough to do to keep your seditious paper afloat; you certainly have nothing to offer except empty promises to pay."
"Betrayed!" groaned Joubart, as he threw himself back in his chair.
"What, then, is your object in coming here?" inquired Trouvier. "Why are we surrounded by armed men hiding their faces beneath masks?"
"To compel you not to leave this room for two hours from this time; and, to this end, to tie your hands and feet and fasten you to the chairs which you now occupy," replied Bertram, with the utmost nonchalance, when he saw that the men had by this time managed to place themselves behind nearly every chair around the table.
"Never!" exclaimed Bouchon, who was a large and powerful man—"never will I submit to such disgrace while I can defend myself!"
And, with one bound, he sprang across his chair towards Bertram, but dropped almost on his knees when he felt the iron grasp of the veteran upon his shoulders. And that grasp continued until the burly form was bent like that of a child by a man.
Labotte had risen during the confusion which this scene created, and endeavored to escape by the lower door, while others had sought to leave by the ordinary entrances; but Develour stood a fierce sentinel before the only safe passage for escape, and repulsed the miscreant with a bitterness which would have led him to kill the mercenary wretch, if higher obligations had not interposed.
The other conspirators were also met everywhere by leveled pistols and drawn swords. They finally submitted to their fate, and were bound one by one by Bertram and his attendants. When Père Tranchard pretended to assist in tying Létour, he managed to whisper to him—
"In two hours you will be freed. Take care to remove the deposits from the secret chamber underneath; the secret is betrayed."
As soon as they had secured the prisoners. Bertram and Develour locked the outer doors, and then passed through that over which Develour had stood guard into a smaller chamber without any apparent outlet. Bertram ordered Tranchard to show them the means of egress from that room.
"There are two," replied the père, who had managed to lay hold of a bottle of wine before he left the supper-room, and with which he had fortified his inner man. "One, here to the right, leads into the garden, and the other, to the left, opens on a staircase which brings you into Mademoiselle Develour's boudoir."
"Open the one to the left. Quick, quick! Caleb may need help!" exclaimed Bertram.
The père obeyed by touching a spring, which caused one of the panels to slide aside. They all then rushed up the stairs into the room, into which the reader has been introduced in a previous chapter. But the room was now vacant, the windows open, and not a sign of a human being anywhere. Develour, who had hitherto acted in silence, absorbed in his anxiety for the safety of Louise, now broke forth in bitter reproaches to Bertram—
"This, then, is your boasted wisdom! this the end of all your promises of success! Caleb assured me that in this room I should find her, and receive her safely into my arms. Where is she now? Where is Caleb, and what has become of Filmot? Have I lost both Louise and my friend? But here is another door; let us see what it conceals."
Turning the key, he beheld Madame Georgiana lying upon a sofa reading "Indiana," and making notes to it with a pencil. When Bertram saw who the occupant of the room was, he whispered—
"Speak not; she knows your voice. I will interrogate her."
But, before he had time to say a word, she rose and inquired if they had come to release her?
"Release you from what?"
"From the confinement to which a burly savage, a friend of yours, I suppose, has condemned me." She then began to relate what had taken place in that room a few minutes before their entrance.
"And whither have they gone? and how long ago?"
"They left about ten minutes before you entered; as to whither, I do not know. If you have not met them, they must have left either by the window or through the green panel-door, which opens on a passage by which one can reach the Ruelle."
Bertram then compelled the lady to open the panel-door, and after ordering his men to remain for one hour in the house, and to suffer no one to enter or leave it, he accompanied Develour down to the street. When they reached the pavement, they saw a carriage just turn the Rue des Trois Labres, and a few loiterers looking after it. Bertram inquired of one of them if that carriage had passed the house? He replied that it had halted there for more than an hour; but that, a few minutes ago, two gentlemen came out with a lady and entered the carriage; that the elder of the two had shown a card to the coachman, and told him to drive ventre à terre to the Rue des Terres Fortes.
When Develour heard this, he said, hurriedly, to Bertram—
"I must leave you; my work here is accomplished; though I have but half succeeded. I must now fulfil another duty. Before morning dawns, I shall know where Louise is. Farewell, Bertram, but not for ever. When we meet again, I shall be better able to thank you."
"Nay, nay, we may meet again before to-morrow night. Fear not; all is well which Arabacca counsels; all ends well which he undertakes."
With these words, he turned and went into the house, and Develour hastened to the Rue de Burgoigne.
(To be continued.)