The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel

The League of the Scarlet
Pimpernel
by Baroness Orczy

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Title: The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel

Author: Baroness Orczy
Release Date: June, 2004 [EBook #5805] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on September 4,
2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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THE LEAGUE OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL
BY BARONESS ORCZY AUTHOR OF "FLOWER O' THE LILY,"
"LORD TONY'S WIFE," "THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL," ETC.

CONTENTS
I SIR PERCY EXPLAINS II A QUESTION OF PASSPORTS III
TWO GOOD PATRIOTS IV THE OLD SCARECROW V A FINE
BIT OF WORK VI HOW JEAN PIERRE MET THE SCARLET
PIMPERNEL VII OUT OF THE JAWS OF DEATH VIII THE
TRAITOR IX THE CABARET DE LA LIBERTE X "NEEDS
MUST--" XI A BATTLE OF WITS

I

SIR PERCY EXPLAINS
It was not, Heaven help us all! a very uncommon occurrence these days:
a woman almost unsexed by misery, starvation, and the abnormal
excitement engendered by daily spectacles of revenge and of cruelty.
They were to be met with every day, round every street corner, these
harridans, more terrible far than were the men.
This one was still comparatively young, thirty at most; would have
been good-looking too, for the features were really delicate, the nose
chiselled, the brow straight, the chin round and small. But the mouth!
Heavens, what a mouth! Hard and cruel and thin-lipped; and those eyes!
sunken and rimmed with purple; eyes that told tales of sorrow and, yes!
of degradation. The crowd stood round her, sullen and apathetic; poor,
miserable wretches like herself, staring at her antics with lack-lustre
eyes and an ever-recurrent contemptuous shrug of the shoulders.
The woman was dancing, contorting her body in the small circle of
light formed by a flickering lanthorn which was hung across the street
from house to house, striking the muddy pavement with her shoeless
feet, all to the sound of a be-ribboned tambourine which she struck now
and again with her small, grimy hand. From time to time she paused,
held out the tambourine at arm's length, and went the round of the
spectators, asking for alms. But at her approach the crowd at once
seemed to disintegrate, to melt into the humid evening air; it was but
rarely that a greasy token fell into the outstretched tambourine. Then as
the woman started again to dance the crowd gradually reassembled, and
stood, hands in pockets, lips still sullen and contemptuous, but eyes
watchful of the spectacle. There were such few spectacles these days,
other than the monotonous processions of tumbrils with their load of
aristocrats for the guillotine!
So the crowd watched, and the woman danced. The lanthorn overhead
threw a weird light on red caps and tricolour cockades, on the sullen
faces of the men and the shoulders of the women, on the dancer's weird
antics and her flying, tattered skirts. She was obviously tired, as a poor,
performing cur might be, or a bear prodded along to uncongenial
buffoonery. Every time that she paused and solicited alms with her

tambourine the crowd dispersed, and some of them laughed because
she insisted.
"Voyons," she said with a weird attempt at gaiety, "a couple of sous for
the entertainment, citizen! You have stood here half an hour. You can't
have it all for nothing, what?"
The man--young, square-shouldered, thick-lipped, with the look of a
bully about his well-clad person--retorted with a coarse insult, which
the woman resented. There were high words; the crowd for the most
part ranged itself on the side of the bully. The woman backed against
the wall nearest to her, held feeble, emaciated hands