Orphans of the Storm Part 21

"They-have-put-her-head-in-the crossboard-and--oh, oh!--fastened-it-down!

"The-executioner-is-all-ready." Pierre was gesticulating like a madman. He seemed to be raising despairing hands to high Heaven, in token of helplessness.

Above--around--everywhere, he looked for succor; found none. A glance from Henriette's doomed form to Louise's bitter anguish converts him into a maniac.

"HE'S ASKING THE MASTER FOR THE SIGNAL TO PULL THE ROPE!"

Pierre shouts the words in a fury that is rapidly growing uncontrollable.

Spectators for the first time notice his strange actions. But neither the expectant executioner nor the self-important master of ceremonial looks down, or distinguishes the cry in the babel of savage sounds.

The wild youth now disengages himself from Louise's clutch. With his right hand he pulls a dagger from his hip pocket. Look! As the master's signalling hand is upraised high and begins to lower, the boy leaps up the steps of the guillotine, and attacks the executioner whose fingers are already on the death rope....

Ride on yet more fiercely, O Danton and ye fierce Cavalrymen--ride on, e'en past the barrier, if Jacques-Forget-Not and his men do not stay thee. Yes, thank G.o.d! there may yet be time, should this maniac with the dagger provide sufficient respite!

... The brawny butcher is too astonished to defend himself. His nerveless fingers are no longer on the rope; he stands like a stalled ox in front of his homicidal a.s.sailant. With the rapidity of lightning Pierre plunges his long Provencal dirk in the executioner's side. The butchered butcher falls with a single bawling outcry and a groan. The crowd is thunderstruck, and the pinioned de Vaudrey is wild with joy.

Though bound and helpless, he tries to leap up to his prostrate Henriette.

But the master of ceremonial, at first too panic-stricken to intervene, now summons the sansculotte guards from the ground below.

Up the steps on the double-quick they rush with fixed bayonets. As the huge victim falls back into the arms of his a.s.sistant, the bayoneting soldiers corner the dirk-waving Pierre.

The brief contest is quite unequal. In less time than it takes to tell it, one of the men plunges his bright, long steel in Pierre's side.

The latter falls like a lump of clay on the scaffold flooring. Several of the bayonets speed toward the inert lump, with the intent on the part of their owners to fling the body contemptuously from the scaffold to the floor.

But a more refined cruelty speaks: "Save him for the guillotine!" The soldiers leave the crumpled-up, desperately wounded Pierre, dooming him yet to taste La Guillotine's embrace. They subdue de Vaudrey and truss him up anew.

The roars of the crowd die down. Comparative order is again restored.

The master of ceremonial, having recovered the habit of command, orders Jean, the remaining executioner, to complete the stricken one's job.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HENRIETTE SAVED FROM THE GUILLOTINE'S KNIFE.]

Fortunately for our heroine under the knife, the second executioner is slow and awkward. He has seen butchery come quite too close to his own flesh! Still somewhat unnerved, he prepares himself for the task with clumsy movements and halting fingers. The master bids him hurry--Jean takes his time, he's not going to bungle the job....

As the supreme moment nears, it is well that we should note what is happening with Danton and his Centaurs--

CHAPTER XXIX

DANTON'S RIDERS

About half way of the journey through the City, Jacques-Forget-Not and his men take up a stand in front of the onrushing cavalry.

They wave orders and prohibitions.

They yell to the hors.e.m.e.n to draw rein.

Resistlessly the troopers keep their careering course--the talk and gestures are but as the East Wind to tensed Danton, stern-set Captain, and the rest.

Forget-Not's tribe escape the deadly horse hoofs by quick side jumps.

Within the next few minutes--even while the head executioner is making the little victim ready--Danton and his riders reach the barrier on the Guillotine side of Paris. Orders had already been received to close the gates at the cavalry's approach.

"Quick! there is not a moment to lose," yells the Jacobin commander as he sights the oncoming host. He hastens to deploy his soldiers with spears and pikes across the barrier, whilst the keepers bring the heavy gates to.

The barred gates and the opposing fighters threaten to dash Danton's every hope of saving by reprieve his "dear one of treasured memory."

Indeed, as we have seen, but for frenzied Pierre's maniacal slaughter of the headsman, the fatal blow would now be falling! Neither Danton nor his men, of course, know that. Theirs to struggle on, to confront and conquer fortune, never to despair! Within those iron souls is no such thought as "Defeat."

Hurrah!

One foremost rider has managed to squeeze through the mighty gates before they clang. Danton and the rest of his men face a small army on the closed barrier's City side.

The superb horses would charge against a stone wall if bade to! They charge against the living wall of foot soldiers; kicking, pounding, trampling in the narrow s.p.a.ce, while the riders strike.

Some footmen perish under the hoofs. Others save themselves by leaping, scrambling out over the side parapets. The attack becomes a rout. Hip-hip-hurrah! The lone rider on the guillotine side has succeeded in unloosing the bar. The gates fly open. Danton's cavalry dash madly down the straight and un.o.bstructed road that leads to the Place de la Execution, still a few furlongs distant!

Can they even yet save her? For now it would appear as if the supremely tragical moment might antic.i.p.ate them--by seconds!

During the final furlongs--the executioner now in readiness--Henriette looks up with gaping mouth at the awful knife edge. A terrible cry escapes her. Wracked with agony, she gazes about at the sea of hostile faces--not one stray iota of sympathy in that Dark Hour. Missing is de Vaudrey, missing the loved blind sister! As the down-dropping gesture of Death is again begun by the grim master of ceremonial, Henriette with a low cry of "Louise!" shuts eyes and drops head to receive the stroke!

But the clatter of myriad hoofbeats a.s.sails the Master's ears; the hoa.r.s.e cries of Danton's riders, and the astonished roars of the populace. His hand falters. He turns to look at the tumult. The executioner takes his hand off the rope.

The cavalrymen are dashing down the roadway, from which quick clearance has been made by the sansculotte guards and the loaferish spectators. At their head gallops Danton, the Thunderer of old, thundering at the officials, waving in his free hand a State paper!

In front of the death machine he halts and dismounts--then taking the steps in two bounds, puts the reprieve of Henriette and Maurice in the hands of the master of ceremonial!

The Savior of France--the Organizer of Victory--brings such a show of power at his back and compels such respect that none dare question him. He strides to the guillotine, bades the trembling executioner release Henriette--himself personally unstraps her from the death board. So ensues a scene that would wring even a heart of stone: the delivery of a demented girl from Death's very pa.s.sion and utmost pang!

Danton takes the little form in his arms, looks in her eyes, kisses her and tries to make her understand.

"For the honor of France," he cries to the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude, as he still upholds her swaying figure, "a monstrous injustice is righted.

This girl, and that young patriot," signifying to the attendants that de Vaudrey should be unloosed, "are reprieved by the order of the Revolutionary Tribunal!" The mult.i.tude--caught by Danton's tensely dramatic announcement--applauds, even as it had jeered and mocked a few moments since.

But the girl, kept from falling by his protective left arm, still gazes upon him idiotically. She had died, was it not true ? How then, she lives? What are these crowds, and who is this stranger? The gallant rescuer fears that her reason is gone!

"Release that boy!"

He has seen the wounded Pierre trussed in the far corner of the scaffold, guessed that some wild deed of the lad's stayed the judicial murder. His tones to the officials are sharp, imperative. The outraged superior of the hacked executioner looks around the a.s.semblage for some prop of resistance--finds none--trembles--and is all bows and sc.r.a.pes to do Danton's will. Pierre crawls painfully across the platform. He kisses the hem of his Savior's garment.

Danton has brought Henriette to the ground. He is looking for her friends now. Catching sight of blind Louise starting up the steps, he brings her around and puts the loved sisters in front of one another.... Slowly the light of understanding comes into the eyes of her who had most loved and most suffered. She embraces Louise....

Danton is looking for yet another figure, the affianced of Henriette.

He draws over de Vaudrey, places the latter's right hand within the free hand of Henriette.

"Take her," he says kindly to de Vaudrey. "It is enough for me that I have saved France from this foul blot!..."

... Down in the crowd, too, the fortunes of war have changed. The wicked Frochards, who have been egging on the crowds to jeer the victims, have become distinctly unpopular. It is Picard's turn to jest the Frochards now.

A grenadier offers a little friendly a.s.sistance with the bayonet, p.r.i.c.king the old hag in a tender part as if by accident. She jumps and squeals. Sly Picard watches another chance, shoves forward his friend's bayonet to p.r.i.c.k her again.