Adventure, August 3, 1919 — page 58: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

~~ 48 “My ——!” ejaculated Lebel and wiped the cold sweat from his brow. “Yes, you'll all want help from some- where,” retorted Chauvelin coolly. ‘From above or from below, if the people get to know what miscreants you are. I do be- lieve,” he added with a vicious snap of his thin lips, “that they would cheat the guillotine of you and in the end drag you out of the tumbrils and tear you to pieces limb from limb!” Once more that look of furtive terror crept into the commissary’s bloodshot eyes. “Thank the Lord,” he muttered, “that we were able to get hold of the weneh Clamette!” “At my suggestion,” retorted Chauvelin curtly. “I always believe in threatening the weak if you want to coerce the strong. The Montorgueils can not resist the wench’s appeal. Even if they do at first, we can apply the screw by clapping one of the young ones in jail. Within a week we shall have those papers, Citizen Lebel. And, if in the meanwhile no one commits a further blunder, we can close the trap on the Montorgueils without further trouble.” Lebel said nothing more, and after a while Chauvelin went back to the desk, picked up the letter which poor Lucile had written and watered with her tears, folded it deliberately and slipped it into the inner pocket of his coat. “What are you going to do?” queried Lebel anxiously. “Drop this letter into the hollow tree by the side of the stable gate at Montor- gueil,”’ replied Chauvelin simply. “What?” exclaimed the- other. self?” “Why, of course! Think you I would entrust such an errand to another living soul?” ’ Your- Ii SEVERAL hours later, when the two children had had their dinner and had settled down to play in the garden and father had been cozily tucked up for his afternoon sleep, Lucile called her brother Etienne to her. The boy had not spoken to her since that terrible time spent in the presence of those two awful men. He had eaten no dinner, only sat glowering, staring straight out before him, from time to time throwing a look of burn- ing reproach upon his sister, Now, when Adventure she called to him, he tried to run away and vas baltwey np Hcretainn Gethre ahie could seize hold “Etienne, mon petit!” she implored as her arms closed around his shrinking figure. “Let me go, Lucile!” the boy pleaded obstinately. “Mon pelit, listen to me!" she pleaded. “All is not lost, if you will stand by me.” “All is lost, Lucile!” Etienne cried, striving t© keep back a flood of passionate tears. “Honor is lost. Your treachery has disgraced us all. If M, Je Marquis and M. le Vicomle are brought to the guillotine, their blood will be upon our heads.” “Upon mine alone, my little Etienne,” she said sadly. “But God alone can judge me. It was a terrible alternative: M. le Marquis—or you and Valentine and little Josephine and poor father, who is so help- less! But don’t let us talk of it all, All is not lost, I am sure. The last time that I spoke with M. le Marguis—it was in February¥ do you remember?—he was full of hope and, oh, so kind! Well, he told me then that, if ever I or any of us here were in such grave trouble that we did not know where to tum, one of us was to put on our very oldest clothes, look as like a barefooted beggar as we could and then go to Paris to a place called the Cabaret de la Liberté, in the Rue Christine. There we are to ask for the Citizen Rateau, and we are to tell him all our troubles, whatever they are. Well, we are in such trouble now, mon petit, that we don’t know where to turn. Put on the very oldest clothes, little one, and run barefooted into Paris, find the Citizen Rateau and tell him just what has happened: the letter which they have forced me to write, the threats which they held over me if I did not write it—everything. Dost hear?” Already the boy’s eyes were glowing. The thought that he individually could do something to retrieve the awful shame of his sister’s treachery spurred him to ac- tivity. It needed no persuasion on Lucile’s part to induce him to go. She made him put on some old clothes and stuffed a piece of bread and cheese into his breeches pocket. It was close upon eight kilometers to Paris, but that rum was one of the happiest which Etienne had ever made. And he did it barefooted, too, feeling neither fatigue nor soreness, despite the hardness of the comicbooks.com . ~ —- — > } i he ee ee