Adventure, August 3, 1919 — page 60: what you’re looking at

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

tt. FS Mas ~~ , ") a stable gate. It had long since ceased to be kept locked and bared. Pillaged and ransacked by order of the Committee of Public Safety, there was nothing left inside the park walls worth keeping under lock and key. me Henri slipped stealthily through the gates and made his way along the drive. Every stone, every nook and cranny of his former home was familiar to him, and he turned into a shed where in former times wheelbarrows. and garden tools were wont to be kept. Now it was full of débris, lumber of every sort. A more safe or secluded spot could not be imagined. Henri crouched in the farthermost corner of the shed. Then from his belt he de- tached a small dark lantern, opened its shutter and with the aid of the tiny, dim light read the contents of the letter. For a long while after that he remained quite still—as still as a man who has received a stunning blow-.on the head and has partly lost consciousness. The blow was indeed a staggering one. Lucile Cla- mette, with the invincible power of her own helplessness, was demanding the surrender of a weapon which had been a safeguard for the Montorguetls all this while. The papers which compromised a number of influentia] members of the Committee of Public Safety had been the most perfect arms of defense against persecution and spoilation. And now these were to be given up. Oh, there could be no question of that! Even before consulting with his father, Henri knew that the papers would have to be given up. They were clever, those revo- lutionaries. The thought of holding inno- cent children as hostages could onlv have originated in minds attuned to the villainies of devils, But it was unthinkable that the children should suffer. After a while the young man roused himself from the torpor into which the suddenness of this awful blow had plunged him. By the light of the lantern he scribbled a few words on a scrap of paper torn from his pocketbook. My pear Lucite: As you say, our debt to your father and to you all never could be adequately repaid. You and the children shall never sufler whilst we have the power to save-you. You will find the papers in the receptacle you know of inside the chimney of what used to by my mother's boudoir. You will find the receptacle unlocked. One day before Adventure Ae ie *s there for you. With Gentes eee goo lives to po dk ind the persecution © fends. God guard you all. He signet pry: Gees with his H. de M. Then he crept back to the and dropped the message into the iis of the tree, A quarter of an hour later Henri d Montorgueil was wending his way to the hiding-place which had sheltered him and his father for so long. Silence and darkness soon held undisputed sway once more around the hollow tree. Even the rain had ceased its gentle pattering. From far away came the sound of a church bell striking the hour of ten. Then nothing more. A few more minutes of absolute silence; then something dark and furtive began to move out of the long grass which bor- dered the roadside—something that in movement was almost like a snake, It dragged itself along close to the ground, making no sound as it moved. Soon it reached the hollow tree, rose to the height of a man and flattened itself against the tree trunk. Then it put out a hand, felt for the hollow receptacle and groped for the missive which Henri de Montorgueil had dropped in there a while ago. The next moment a tiny ray of light gleamed through the darkness like a star. A small, almost fragile of a man, dressed in the mud-stained clothes of a country yokel, had turned up the shutter of a small lantern. By its flickering light he deciphered the letter which Henri de Montorgueil had written to Lucile Clamette. “One day before the term you name I myself will place the papers there for you.” A sigh of satisfaction, quickly suppressed, came through his thin, colorless lips, and the light of the lantern caught the flash of triumph in his pale, inscrutable eyes. Then the light was extinguished. Im- penetrable darkness swallowed up that slender, mysterious figure again. Vv aN SIX days had gone by since Chauvelin NY) had delivered his. cruel “either—or” to poor little Lucile Clamette; three since he had found Henri de Montorgueil’s reply to the girl's appeal in the hollow of ss SOME NS .com| it’s