remble from heat to foot. "If, when
I return, I do not find you here, I most solemnly assure you that,
wherever you may try to hide yourself, I can find you, and that
punishment swift, sure and terrible, will sooner or later overtake you.
Do you hear me?"

"But your Excellency . . ."

"I said, do you hear me?"

The soldiers had all crept away; the three men stood alone together
in the dark and lonely road, with Marguerite there, behind the hedge,
listening to Chauvelin's orders, as she would to her own death sentence.

"I heard your Honour," protested the Jew again, while he tried to draw
nearer to Chauvelin, "and I swear by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that I
would obey your Honour most absolutely, and that I would not move from
this place until your Honour once more deigned to shed the light of your
countenance upon your humble servant; but remember, your Honour, I am
a poor man; my nerves are not as strong as those of a young soldier. If
midnight marauders should come prowling round this lonely road, I
might scream or run in my fright! And is my life to be forfeit, is some
terrible punishment to come on my poor old head for that which I cannot
help?"

The Jew seemed in real distress; he was shaking from head to foot.
Clearly he was not the man to be left by himself on this lonely road.
The man spoke truly; he might unwittingly, in sheer terror, utter the
shriek that might prove a warning to the wily Scarlet Pimpernel.

Chauvelin reflected for a moment.

"Will your horse and cart be safe alone, here, do you think?" he asked
roughly.

"I fancy, citoyen," here interposed Desgas, "that they will be safer
without that dirty, cowardly Jew than with him. There seems no doubt
that, if he gets scared, he will either make a bolt of it, or shriek his
head off."

"But what am I to do with the brute?"

"Will you send him back to Calais, citoyen?"

"No, for we shall want him to drive back the wounded presently," said
Chauvelin, with grim significance.

There was a pause again--Desgas waiting for the decision of his chief,
and the old Jew whining beside his nag.

"Well, you lazy, lumbering old coward," said Chauvelin at last, "you
had better shuffle along behind us. Here, Citoyen Desgas, tie this
handkerchief tightly round the fellow's mouth."

Chauvelin handed a scarf to Desgas, who solemnly began winding it round
the Jew's mouth. Meekly Benjamin Rosenbaum allowed himself to be gagged;
he, evidently, preferred this