"Fire then, in the name of Satan, your friend!" cried Constance de Plélan loudly. "Oncle Armand, do not hesitate. Blue-Heart, seize this miscreant! Let him kill me first; but after that you will be five against one, and you can at last rid us of this deadly foe!"
"Down on your knees!" came in a tone of frigid calm from the police agent. "If, ere I count three, I do not see you kneel—I fire!"
And even before the words were out of his mouth, the five Chouans dropped on their knees, helpless before this relentless threat which deprived them of every vestige of will-power.
"Oh, that I had not stayed Blue-Heart's hand that day in the woods!" cried Constance de Plélan with a sigh of fierce regret. "He had you then, as you have us now——"
"As he and the others would have the Emperor," rejoined the Man in Grey. "If I allowed my heart to stay my hand."
And that relentless hand of his tightened its grip on Constance de Plélan's wrist, till she felt sick and faint and fell back against the door. She felt the muzzle of the pistol against her side: the hand which held it neither swerved nor quaked. The keen, grey eyes which had once radiated the light of his ineffable love for her held no pity or remorse in them now: they were watching for the slightest movement on the part of the five Chouans.
Slowly the afternoon light faded into dusk. The figures of the Chouans now appeared like dark and rigid ghosts in the twilight. The ticking of the old clock in the ingle-nook alone broke the deathlike silence of the room. Minute sped after minute while the conspirators remained as if under the ban of some evil fairy, who was keeping them in an enchanted castle in a dreamless trance from which perhaps they would never wake again. Minute sped after minute, and they lost count of time, of place, of very existence. They only appeared alive through the one sense of hearing, which had for them become preternaturally acute. In the house, too, every sound was hushed. The landlord and his servants had received their orders from the accredited agent of His Majesty's Minister of Police, and they were not likely to risk life and liberty by disobedience.
Outside, the air was damp and still, so still that through the open casement there could be heard—very far away—the rumble of carriage wheels and the patter of horses' hoofs on the muddy road.
It seemed as if an electrical wave went right through the room at the sound, and the police agent's grip tightened on Constance's wrist. A slight tremor appeared to animate those five marble-like statues who were kneeling on the floor.
The carriage was drawing nearer: it was less than a hundred mètres away. The clang of hoofs upon the road, the rattle of metal chains, the shouts of the postilion, could already be distinctly heard. Then suddenly the carriage had come to stop.