ot fail you."

"A coach will be provided for you. You will follow the expedition as
hostage for the good faith of your chief."

"I quite understand."

"H'm! That's brave! You have no fear, citizen St. Just?"

"Fear of what, sir?

"You will be a hostage in our hands, citizen; your life a guarantee that
your chief has no thought of playing us false. Now I was thinking of--of
certain events--which led to the arrest of Sir Percy Blakeney."

"Of my treachery, you mean," rejoined the young man calmly, even
though his face had suddenly become pale as death. "Of the damnable
lie wherewith you cheated me into selling my honour, and made me what I
am--a creature scarce fit to walk upon this earth."

"Oh!" protested Chauvelin blandly.

"The damnable lie," continued Armand more vehemently, "that hath made me
one with Cain and the Iscariot. When you goaded me into the hellish act,
Jeanne Lange was already free."

"Free--but not safe."

"A lie, man! A lie! For which you are thrice accursed. Great God, is it
not you that should have cause for fear? Methinks were I to strangle you
now I should suffer less of remorse."

"And would be rendering your ex-chief but a sorry service," interposed
Chauvelin with quiet irony. "Sir Percy Blakeney is a dying man, citizen
St. Just; he'll be a dead man at dawn if I do not put in an appearance
by six o'clock this morning. This is a private understanding between
citizen Heron and myself. We agreed to it before I came to see you."

"Oh, you take care of your own miserable skin well enough! But you need
not be afraid of me--I take my orders from my chief, and he has not
ordered me to kill you."

"That was kind of him. Then we may count on you? You are not afraid?"

"Afraid that the Scarlet Pimpernel would leave me in the lurch because
of the immeasurable wrong I have done to him?" retorted Armand, proud
and defiant in the name of his chief. "No, sir, I am not afraid of that;
I have spent the last fortnight in praying to God that my life might yet
be given for his."

"H'm! I think it most unlikely that your prayers will be granted,
citizen; prayers, I imagine, so very seldom are; but I don't know, I
never pray myself. In your case, now, I should say that you have not the
slightest chance of the Deity interfering in so pleasant a manner. Even
were Sir Percy Blakeney prepared to wreak personal revenge on you, he
would scarcely be so foolish as to risk the other life which we shall
also h