A bitter groan went right through the room, like the wail of condemned spirits in torment. But not one of the Chouans moved. How could they when a woman's life was the price that would have to be paid now for the success of their scheme.
Only a heartrending cry rose from Constance de Plélan's lips:
"In Heaven's name, Oncle Armand," she entreated, "let the man fire! Think you I should not be glad to die? Blue-Heart, has your courage forsaken you? What is one life when there is so much at stake? O God!" she added in a fervent prayer, "give them the strength to forget everything save their duty to our King!"
But not a sound—not a movement came in response to her passionate appeal. Through the open casement a confused murmur of voices could be distinctly heard some distance away, up the side-road which ran from Dreux. The Emperor's carriage was obviously being held up. One, if not more, of the spanking bays had gone dead lame while trotting across Blue-Heart's well-laid carpet. The rough, stained hands of the Chouans opened and closed till their thick knuckles cracked in an agony of impotence.
V
How long the torture of this well-nigh intolerable suspense lasted not one of those present could have told. The twilight gradually faded into gloom; darkness like a huge mantle slowly enveloped those motionless, kneeling figures in the coffee-room of "The Farmer's Paradise."
But if some semblance of hope had crept into the hearts of the Chouans at sight of the beneficent darkness, it was soon dispelled by the trenchant warning which came like a blow from a steel-hammer from the police agent's lips:
"If I hear the slightest movement through the darkness, one flutter, one creak, even a sigh—I shall fire," he had said, as soon as the gloom of the night had begun to creep into the more remote corners of the room. And even through the darkness the over-strained ears of the kneeling Chouans caught the sound of a metallic click—the cocking of the pistol which threatened Constance de Plélan's life. And so they remained still—held more securely on their knees by that one threat than by the pressure of giant hands.
An hour went by. Through the open window the sound of the murmur of voices had given place to renewed clanking of metal chains, to pawing of the ground by high-mettled horses, to champing of bits, to snorting, groaning and creaking, as the heavy travelling chaise once more started on its way.
After that it seemed like eternity.