The paper had no writing on it, only the outline of a small scarlet flower done in red—the device of the cursed Englishman, the Scarlet Pimpernel.
"Which way did the officer and the twenty troopers go," he stammered, "after they gave you this note?"
"On the way to Calais," replied the other, "but they had magnificent horses, and didn't spare them either. They are a league and more away by now!"
All the blood in Bibot's body seemed to rush up to his head, a wild buzzing was in his ears….
And that was how the Duc and Duchesse de Montreux, with their servants and family, escaped from Paris on that third day of Nivose in the year I of the Republic.
III
TWO GOOD PATRIOTS
Being the deposition of citizeness Fanny Roussell, who was brought up, together with her husband, before the Tribunal of the Revolution on a charge of treason—both being subsequently acquitted.
My name is Fanny Roussell, and I am a respectable married woman, and as good a patriot as any of you sitting there.
Aye, and I'll say it with my dying breath, though you may send me to the guillotine … as you probably will, for you are all thieves and murderers, every one of you, and you have already made up your minds that I and my man are guilty of having sheltered that accursed Englishman whom they call the Scarlet Pimpernel … and of having helped him to escape.