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Now then "allons enfants de la patri-i-i-e." The crowd in a high state of excitement had pushed open the great gates of La Rodière — these were never bolted these days — and marched up the stately avenue bordered by a double row of gigantic elms which seemed to be waving and nodding their majestic crowns at sight of the motley throng. Ahead of them all marched the musicians, blowing with renewed gusto into their brass trumpets or sending forth into the frosty atmosphere prolonged rolls of drums. Only the fiddler was not in his usual place. He had dropped back on the other side of the gate in order to fit a fresh length of catgut on his violin to replace a broken one. But he was not missed at this juncture, for the other musicians appeared bent on proving the fact that a fiddle was not of much value as a noise-maker when there were trumpets and drums in the orchestra.

Up the crowd marched and mounted the perron steps to the front door of the mansion. They pulled the chain and the bell responded with a loud clang — once, twice and three times. They were themselves making such a noise, shouting and singing, that probably poor old Paul, rather scared but trying to be brave, did not actually hear the bell. However, he did hear it after a time and with shaking knees and trembling voice went to get his orders from Monsieur le Marquis. By this time those in the forefront of the crowd had tugged so hard at the bell-pull that it snapped and came down with a clatter on the marble floor of the perron; whereupon they set to with their fists and nearly brought the solid front door down with their hammerings and their kicks. They didn't hear Paul's shuffling footsteps coming down the great staircase, nor yet his drawing of the bolts, so that when after a minute or two, while they were still hammering and kicking, the door was opened abruptly, the foremost in the ranks tumbled over one another into the hall. This caused great hilarity. Hurrah! Hurrah! This was going to be a wonderful afternoon's holiday! Onward children of la patrie, the day of glory has certainly arrived. Striving, pushing, laughing, singing, waving arms and stamping feet the bulk of the crowd made its way up the grand staircase. Poor old Paul! As well attempt to stem the course of an avalanche as to stop this merry jostling crowd from going where it listed. Some of them indeed wandered into the reception-rooms to right and left of the hall, the larger and smaller dining-rooms, the library, the long gallery and so on, but they found nothing worth destroying.

Upstairs the rest of the merry party, after wandering from room to room, arrived in the grand salon where close on four years ago now the remains of the late Marquis de la Rodière had rested for three days before being removed for interment in Paris. On that occasion they had all come to a halt, awed in spite of themselves, by the somewhat eerie atmosphere of the place, the dead flowers, the torn laces, the smell of guttering candles and of stale incense. The crowd to-day, more jaunty than they were then, had also come to a halt, but only for a few moments. They stared wide-eyed at the objects ranged against the walls, the gilded consols, the mirrors, the crystal sconces and the chairs, and presently they spied the platform whereon in the happy olden days the musicians used to stand playing dance music for Monsieur le Marquis and his guests. The spinet was still there and the desk of the conductor, and a number of stands in gilded wood which were used for holding the pieces of music.

Amid much excitement and laughter the musicians were called up to mount the platform. This they were quite willing to do, but where was the leader, the fiddler with the grimy face and toothless mouth whose stentorian voice would have raised the dead? A small group who had wandered up to the window saw him stumping up the avenue. They gave a warning shout, the window was thrown open, and cries of "Allons! hurry up!" soon galvanised him into activity. He was lame, and dragged his left leg, but the infirmity did not appear to worry him. As soon as he had reached the perron he started scraping his fiddle. He was met at the foot of the staircase by an enthusiastic throng who carried him shoulder high, and dropped him down all of a heap on the musicians' platform. And a queer sight did this vagabond orchestra look up there in their rags and tatters, unwashed, unkempt, wielding their ramshackle fiddles and trumpets and drumsticks.

The musicians struck up "Sur le Pont d'Avignon," the only dance tune they knew, and that one none too well.

"Sur le pont d'Avignon, On y danse, on y danse, Sur le pont d'Avignon, On y danse tout en rond."

It was at this point that the outburst of laughter rose to such a high pitch that the thrifty housewives down below were tempted to abandon their loot. What had caused the uproar was the sudden appearance of the ci-devant Marquis through what seemed to be a hole in the wall. As a matter of fact this was a door masked by tapestry which gave first on a vestibule and thence on a small boudoir where Madame la Marquise had been sitting with François and Cécile, and with poor Marie huddled up in a corner like a frightened rabbit, all fully expecting that the tumultuous crowd would soon tire, and content itself as it had done four years ago with breaking a few windows, carrying off what portable furniture there was left in the salon, and ending its unpleasant visitation in the cellar and the larder, where there was little enough to tempt its greed.

François de la Rodière was for facing the rabble with a riding-whip. For a time his sister was able to restrain him from such a palpable act of folly, but presently the sound of ribald laughter coming from the grand salon where his father had once lain in state, surrounded by flowers and ecclesiastical appurtenances, so outraged him that he lost all control over himself and all sense of prudence. He shook off Cécile's detaining hand, and strode out of the room. Madame la Marquise had offered no protest or advice, she was one of those women, the product of generations of French high-born ladies who, entrenched as it were in their own dignity, never gave a single thought to such a matter as a social upheaval. "It will all pass away," was their dictum, "God will punish them all in His own time!" So she turned a deaf ear to the rioting of the rabble, and went on with her crochet work with perfect serenity.

Cécile, on the other hand, was all for conciliation. She knew her brother's violent temper and genuinely feared for his safety should he provoke the crowd, who at present seemed good-tempered enough, either by word or gesture. She followed him into the vestibule, and saw him take a riding-whip off the wall and throw open the narrow door which gave on the grand salon. The moment he did that the uproar in the salon which had been deafening up to now suddenly died down. Complete silence ensued, but only for a few seconds; the next moment François had closed the door behind him and at once the hubbub in the next room rose louder than ever and there came a terrific outburst of hilarious shouting and laughter and vigorous clapping of hands. Cécile stood there listening, terrified and undecided, longing to go to her brother's assistance, yet feeling the futility of any intervention on her part should the crowd turn ugly. For a moment they appeared distinctly amused, for the laughter went on louder than ever, and it was accompanied by the measured stamping of feet, the clapping of hands and the strains of dance music. What was going on in there? Cécile, terrified at first, felt a little more reassured. She couldn't hear her brother's voice, and apparently the people were enjoying themselves, for they were dancing and laughing and the music never ceased. At last anxiety got the better of prudence. Tentatively she in her turn opened the communicating door, and exactly the same thing happened that had greeted François de la Rodière's appearance in the crowded salon. Absolute silence for a few seconds, and then a terrific, uproarious shout.

What Cécile saw did indeed turn her almost sick with horror, for there was her brother in the middle of the room, dishevelled, with his necktie awry and his cheeks the colour of ashes, in the centre of a ring made up of the worst type of ragamuffins and cinderwenches she had ever seen, all holding hands and twirling round and round him to the tune of a wild rigaudon. His riding-whip was lying broken in half across the threshold at Cécile's feet. The crowd had seized upon him directly they were aware of his presence, torn the whip out of his hand, broken it and thrown it on the floor. They had dragged him and pushed him to the centre of the room, formed a ring round him, shouted injurious epithets and made rude gestures at him; and the more pale he got with rage, the more helpless he found himself, the louder was their laughter and the wilder their dance.

Cécile felt as if she were paralysed. She couldn't move, her knees were shaking under her, and before she could recover herself two women had seized her, one by each hand, and dragged her across the room, where she was thrust into the centre of another ring of uproarious females who danced and capered round her, holding hands and laughing at her obvious terror. It was all like a terrible nightmare. Cécile, trying in vain to control herself, could only put her hands up to her face so as to hide from the mocking crowd the blush of indignation and shame that flooded her cheeks at the sound of the obscene words that men and women, apparently all in right good-humour, flung at her, while they danced what seemed to the poor girl like a saraband of witches. Suddenly she heard a cry:

"Make her dance, Jacques! Make the aristo step it with you! I'll warrant she has never danced the rigaudon with such a handsome partner before."

And Cécile was conscious first of a whiff of garlic, then of a clammy hand seizing her own, and finally of a shoulder pressed against her side and of an arm around her waist. With a shudder she looked down and saw the grinning, puckish face and misshapen, dwarfish body of Jacques, the son of the local butcher, whom she had often befriended when he was baited by boys bigger and stronger than himself. He was leering up at her and clinging to her waist, trying to make her foot a measure with him. Now unlike her brother, Cécile de la Rodière was possessed of a good deal of sound common sense. She knew well enough that to try and run one's head against a stone wall could only result in bruises, if not worse. Here they were both of them, she and François, not to mention maman, at the mercy of a couple of hundred people who, though fairly good-tempered at the moment, might soon turn ugly if provoked. She rather felt as if she had been thrust into a cage full of wild beasts and that to humour them was the only chance of safety. She looked about her helplessly, hoping against hope that she might encounter a face that was neither cruel nor mocking, and in her heart prayed, prayed to God to deliver her from this nightmare.

And then suddenly the miracle happened. It was a miracle in very truth, for there un the wide-open doorway was the one man in the world, her world, on whom she could rely, the man who alone next to God could save her from this awful humiliation. Pradel! Simon Pradel! He looked flushed and anxious; he was panting as if he had been running hard for goodness knows how long. His dark, deep-set eyes roamed rapidly round the room till they encountered hers. Thank God! Thank God, that he was here! The scar across his forehead where François had hit him still showed crimson across the pale, damp skin, but his eyes were kind and reassuring. Hers were fastened on him with a look of appeal, and in a moment he was half across the room pushing his way towards her through the crowd.

All at once the crowd saw him. Docteur Pradel! Simon! their Simon! The hero of the hour! A lusty cheer roused the echo of the vast hall at sight of him. Now indeed would the fun be fast and furious! Pradel, in the meanwhile, had reached the centre of the room, he broke through the cordon that surrounded Cécile quite good-naturedly but very firmly he thrust Jacques the butcher's son to one side, took hold of the girl's trembling hand and put his strong arms round her waist.

"Allons," he shouted to the musicians, "put some verve into your playing. 'Tis I will dance the rigaudon with the aristo!"

Nothing loth, the musicians blew their trumpets and beat their drums with renewed vigour:

"Sur le pont d'Avignon, On y danse, on y danse, Sur le pont d'Avignon, On y danse tout en rond!"

A hundred couples were formed and soon they were all of them dancing and singing, not hoarsely or stridently, but just with immense gusto, as if they desired nothing but to enjoy a real jollity.

"Try to smile," Pradel whispered in Cécile's ear. "Be brave! don't show that you are afraid!"

Cécile said: "I am not afraid." And indeed, with her hand in his, she tripped the rigaudon step by step and was no longer afraid. It seemed to her as if with Pradel's nearness the nightmare had become just a dream. Everything now was gay, almost happy. Cruelty and mockery, the desire to humiliate had faded from the faces of the crowd. Everyone was smiling at everybody else. One woman called out loudly across the room to Cécile: "Well chosen, my pretty! Our Simon will make you a fine husband! And you will give France some splendid sons!"

"Smile!" Pradel commanded. "Smile to them and nod! For God's sake, smile!"

And Cécile smiled and nodded while the cry was taken up. "Our Simon and the aristo! And a quiverful of handsome sons! Hurrah! Hurrah!"

In this wild saturnalia even François de la Rodière was forgotten.

It was he who suddenly became aware of a curiously incongruous figure of a man who at this point was working his way unobtrusively through the throng. Short, spare, dressed in sober black from head to foot, he had the tricolour scarf round his waist. No one in the crowd took any notice of him. Only François saw him, and in spite of the tell-tale tricolour scarf which proclaimed the man to be in the service of the revolutionary government, he felt that some sort of rescue from this devil's carnival could be effected through one who at any rate looked as if he had washed and brushed his clothes. François tried to attract his attention, but the man walked quietly on, till he was quite close to the spot where Cécile de la Rodière was still dancing with Simon Pradel. She and her partner had become mere units in the twirling, twisting, whirling crowd. Cécile was trying bravely to keep up the role of good-humour and even gaiety which Pradel had enjoined her to assume. She continued to step it, wondering how all this would end. She saw the little man in black wind his way in and out among the dancers, and she saw the leader of the musicians, the unkept, unshaved, toothless fiddler step down from the platform and, always playing his fiddle, follow on the heels of the little man in black. She was so fascinated by the sight of those two figures in such strange contrast, one to the other, one so spruce and trim, the other so grimy, one so stern and the other grinning all over his face, that she lost step and had to cling with both hands to her partner's arm.

Then it was that there occurred the strangest of all the strange events of this memorable day. The little man in black was now quite close to her, and the fiddler was immediately behind him and Cécile watched them both, fascinated. All of a sudden the fiddler threw back his head and laughed. Such curious laughter it was, quite merry, but somehow it suggested the merriment of a fool. Cécile stared at the man, for there was something almost eerie about him now, and Pradel too stared at him as amazed, as fascinated as was the girl herself, for the fiddler had thrown down his fiddle. He straightened his back and stretched out his arms till he appeared preternaturally tall, like a Titan or like a Samson about to shatter the marble pillars of the old château and to hurl them down with a thunderous crash in the midst of the revellers.

The little man in black also stared at the fiddler, and very slowly the whole expression of his face underwent a change, from surprise to horror and thence to triumph mixed with a kind of awe. His thin lips curled into a mocking smile and through them there came words spoken in English, a language which Cécile understood. What he said was:

"So, my valiant Scarlet Pimpernel, we meet again at last!" and at the same time he put his hand in his waistcoat pocket and drew out what looked like an ordinary whistle which he was about to put to his mouth when the fiddler, with another outburst of inane laughter, knocked it out of his hand.

"A spy! a spy!" the fiddler cried in a stentorian voice. "We are betrayed. We shall be massacred! Sauve qui peut!"

And with a sudden stretch of his powerful arms he picked up the little man in black and threw him over his shoulder as if he were a bale of goods and ran with his struggling and kicking burden across the room towards the door. And all the time he continued to shout: "A spy! A spy! We shall all be massacred! Remember Paris last September!" And the crowd took up the cry as a crowd will, for are not one hundred humans the counterpart of one hundred sheep? They took up the cry and shouted: "A spy! A spy!" and ran in a body helter-skelter on the heels of the fiddler and his sable-clad load, out of the room across the marble vestibule, down the grand staircase and down below that, through the servants' old quarters, through the kitchen and the pantry, the washhouse and the buttery, and down by the winding staircase which led to the cellar. And behind him there was the crowd, no longer good-tempered now, or intent on holiday-making, but a real rabble this time, and a frightened crowd at that, jostling, pushing, tumbling over one another. An angry crowd is fearsome, but a frightened crowd is worse, for it is ready for anything — bloodshed, carnage, butchery.

Chauvelin felt himself carried in through the cellar door and then thrown none too gently down on a heap of dank straw. The next moment he heard that horrible, hideous, hated laugh, the mocking words: "À bientôt, my dear Monsieur Chambertin!" Then the banging to of a heavy door, the pushing of bolts, the clang of a chain and the grating of a rusty key in the lock, and nothing more. He was crouching on a heap of damp straw, in almost total darkness, sore in body, humiliated to the very depths of his soul, burning with rage and the bitterness of his disappointment.

He heard the talking and the laughter growing more and more indistinct and finally dying away altogether. The rabble had gone, but what was to become of him now? Would he be left to die of inanition, shut up in a cellar like a savage dog or cat? No! he felt quite sure that he need not fear that kind of revenge at the hands of the man whom he had pursued with such relentless hate. Instinctively he did pay this tribute to the most gallant foe he had ever pitted his wits against.

What then? He was left wondering. For how long he did not know. Was it for a few minutes or several hours? When presently he heard the rusty key grate once more in the lock, and once more the drawing of bolts, the clanking of a chain, instinctively he dragged himself away from the door. A shaft of yellow light from a lantern cut through the gloom of his prison, the door was opened, and that hateful mocking voice said:

"Company for you, my dear Monsieur Chambertin!" And a bundle which turned out to be a man wrapped in a cloak and wearing the uniform of the Gendarmerie Nationale was thrust into the cellar, and landed on the damp straw beside him. The humble sergeant of gendarmerie had fared no better than the powerful and influential member of the Committee of Public Safety.