isfying thought that
where he had failed at least no one else had succeeded.

Whether that meddlesome English adventurer, who called himself the
Scarlet Pimpernel, had planned the rescue of King Louis or of Queen
Marie Antoinette at any time or not--that he did not 'know; but on one
point at least he was more than ever determined, and that was that
no power on earth should snatch from him the golden prize offered by
Austria for the rescue of the little Dauphin.

"I would sooner see the child perish, if I cannot save him myself," was
the burning thought in this man's tortuous brain. "And let that accursed
Englishman look to himself and to his d----d confederates," he added,
muttering a fierce oath beneath his breath.

A winding, narrow stone stair, another length or two of corridor, and
his guide's shuffling footsteps paused beside a low iron-studded door
let into the solid stone. De Batz dismissed his ill-clothed guide and
pulled the iron bell-handle which hung beside the door.

The bell gave forth a dull and broken clang, which seemed like an echo
of the wails of sorrow that peopled the huge building with their weird
and monotonous sounds.

De Batz--a thoroughly unimaginative person--waited patiently beside the
door until it was opened from within, and he was confronted by a tall
stooping figure, wearing a greasy coat of snuff-brown cloth, and holding
high above his head a lanthorn that threw its feeble light on de Batz'
jovial face and form.

"It is even I, citizen Heron," he said, breaking in swiftly on the
other's ejaculation of astonishment, which threatened to send his name
echoing the whole length of corridors and passages, until round every
corner of the labyrinthine house of sorrow the murmur would be borne
on the wings of the cold night breeze: "Citizen Heron is in parley with
ci-devant Baron de Batz!"

A fact which would have been equally unpleasant for both these worthies.

"Enter!" said Heron curtly.

He banged the heavy door to behind his visitor; and de Batz, who seemed
to know his way about the place, walked straight across the narrow
landing to where a smaller door stood invitingly open.

He stepped boldly in, the while citizen Heron put the lanthorn down on
the floor of the couloir, and then followed his nocturnal visitor into
the room.

CHAPTER VI. THE COMMITTEE'S AGENT

It was a narrow, ill-ventilated place, with but one barred window that
gave on the courtyard. An evil-smelling la