One knows, without being told, what demonstrations Silvius made over this letter, how often he re-read it, what other things he did to it, and where he finally bestowed it as he returned to his boat to row back to St. Denis. He scarcely knew what he was doing, as he pulled his boat out into the current, or how disturbed the river was, how heavily the rain came down. So overjoyed was he by the promise contained in the last line of the letter, that he was not cognizant of outward circumstances until he was half-way between St. Ouen and St. Denis. Then he became aware of the work of wind and water. He saw, moreover, that the day was as dark as late evening, and that all signs were growing more threatening every minute.
"The devil!" thought he. "This is not a time for taking chances, now that such prospects await me. I must guard my life and health, and achieve great things during those seven years."
He therefore rowed to an old, abandoned landing, which led to a ruined garden, within whose crumbling walls stood a deserted house of rough gray stone. On Dick's first row up the river, he had been told by the boatman that this house had long been unoccupied.
Making his boat fast to a wooden spile, Dick went through the half unhinged, half opened gate which was partly sunk into the earth, and up the weed-grown garden walk, to the house. The door yielded to his pressure, and he passed through a bare, dark, damp, mouldy corridor, into a room whose windows opened on the garden. Though otherwise empty, this room contained an old oak table, and several rough wooden chairs. Dick sat down and waited for the storm to abate.
The doors and windows creaked, the wind sighed through the corridors and chambers overhead, the rains beat on what glass remained in the casements. But what was that other sound? Surely it was of the footsteps of men. Peering through the window, Dick saw forms approaching through the shrubbery, from a small side gate in the garden wall. These were, doubtless, the last of a party whose foremost members were already in the corridor.
The intruders came cautiously, but as if familiar with the place. Evidently some organized meeting was at hand in this empty house. Dick noticed the chairs and table anew. What were these men? A social club, a gang of thieves, or a band of conspirators? In any one of these cases Dick felt that he would be de trop. Manifestly the men were approaching the room in which he sat. They were already too near the door for him to escape unseen by the corridor. So he slipped into the wide, empty fireplace with which the room was provided, and whose rear was quite in shadow. A moment later three men entered the room.
Each took from beneath his cloak a bundle wrapped in cloth, and laid it on the table, then sat down and waited. Other men arrived, almost immediately, and the number kept increasing at short intervals until perhaps fifteen were gathered. Their conversation so far had consisted of brief remarks about the weather. They now sat in an irregular semicircle, facing the table. The man who had first entered arose and opened the bundles. The gray light of the stormy afternoon disclosed the contents of these bundles as three swords and several pistols.
"Messieurs," said the man who had risen,—an erect, powerful, handsome man of thirty,—"the hour is almost at hand. That all of us may participate in the intention, though but one of us may strike the blow, I am to describe fully the plan agreed upon by the Committee of Three. As each one of us is potentially the chosen arm of the Brotherhood in this honorable deed, it behooves each one to attend every detail as if he were, in fact, already the selected instrument."
The men sat in perfect silence, their eyes fixed upon the speaker, every attitude being that of breathless attention.