El Dorado | Page 9

as a man who has the
entire police of his country at his heels--on whose head there is a
price--what?"
"I knew that you had made several noble efforts to rescue the
unfortunate King and Queen from the hands of these brutes."
"All of which efforts were unsuccessful," assented de Batz
imperturbably, "every one of them having been either betrayed by some
d--d confederate or ferreted out by some astute spy eager for gain. Yes,
my friend, I made several efforts to rescue King Louis and Queen
Marie Antoinette from the scaffold, and every time I was foiled, and
yet here I am, you see, unscathed and free. I walk about the streets
boldly, and talk to my friends as I meet them."
"You are lucky," said St. Just, not without a tinge of sarcasm.
"I have been prudent," retorted de Batz. "I have taken the trouble to
make friends there where I thought I needed them most--the mammon
of unrighteousness, you know-what?"
And he laughed a broad, thick laugh of perfect self-satisfaction.
"Yes, I know," rejoined St. Just, with the tone of sarcasm still more
apparent in his voice now. " You have Austrian money at your
disposal."
"Any amount," said the other complacently, "and a great deal of it
sticks to the grimy fingers of these patriotic makers of revolutions.
Thus do I ensure my own safety. I buy it with the Emperor's money,
and thus am I able to work for the restoration of the monarchy in
France."

Again St. Just was silent. What could he say? Instinctively now, as the
fleshy personality of the Gascon Royalist seemed to spread itself out
and to fill the tiny box with his ambitious schemes and his far-reaching
plans, Armand's thoughts flew back to that other plotter, the man with
the pure and simple aims, the man whose slender fingers had never
handled alien gold, but were ever there ready stretched out to the
helpless and the weak, whilst his thoughts were only of the help that he
might give them, but never of his own safety.
De Batz, however, seemed blandly unconscious of any such
disparaging thoughts in the mind of his young friend, for he continued
quite amiably, even though a note of anxiety seemed to make itself felt
now in his smooth voice:
"We advance slowly, but step by step, my good St. Just," he said. "I
have not been able to save the monarchy in the person of the King or
the Queen, but I may yet do it in the person of the Dauphin."
"The Dauphin," murmured St. Just involuntarily.
That involuntary murmur, scarcely audible, so soft was it, seemed in
some way to satisfy de Batz, for the keenness of his gaze relaxed, and
his fat fingers ceased their nervous, intermittent tattoo on the ledge of
the box.
"Yes ! the Dauphin," he said, nodding his head as if in answer to his
own thoughts, "or rather, let me say, the reigning King of
France--Louis XVII, by the grace of God--the most precious life at
present upon the whole of this earth."
"You are right there, friend de Batz," assented Armand fervently, "the
most precious life, as you say, and one that must be saved at all costs."
"Yes," said de Batz calmly, "but not by your friend the Scarlet
Pimpernel."
"Why not?"

Scarce were those two little words out of St. Just's mouth than he
repented of them. He bit his lip, and with a dark frown upon his face he
turned almost defiantly towards his friend.
But de Batz smiled with easy bonhomie.
"Ah, friend Armand," he said, "you were not cut out for diplomacy, nor
yet for intrigue. So then," he added more seriously, "that gallant hero,
the Scarlet Pimpernel, has hopes of rescuing our young King from the
clutches of Simon the cobbler and of the herd of hyenas on the watch
for his attenuated little corpse, eh?"
"I did not say that," retorted St. Just sullenly.
"No. But I say it. Nay! nay! do not blame yourself, my over-loyal
young friend. Could I, or any one else, doubt for a moment that sooner
or later your romantic hero would turn his attention to the most pathetic
sight in the whole of Europe--the child-martyr in the Temple prison?
The wonder were to me if the Scarlet Pimpernel ignored our little King
altogether for the sake of his subjects. No, no; do not think for a
moment that you have betrayed your friend's secret to me. When I met
you so luckily today I guessed at once that you were here under the
banner of the enigmatical little red flower, and, thus guessing, I even
went a step further in my conjecture. The Scarlet Pimpernel is in Paris
now in the hope of