“He assured me that all the orders you sent him last week have been implicitly obeyed. All the roads which converge to this place have been patrolled night and day ever since: and the beach and cliffs have been most rigorously searched and guarded.”

“Does he know where this ‘Pére Blanchard’s’ hut is?”

“No, citoyen, nobody seems to know of it by that name. There are any amount of fishermen’s huts all along the coast, of course … but …”

“That’ll do. Now about tonight?” interrupted Chauvelin, impatiently.

“The roads and the beach are patrolled as usual, citoyen, and Captain Jutley awaits further orders.”

“Go back to him at once, then. Tell him to send reinforcements to the various patrols; and especially to those along the beach—you understand?”

Chauvelin spoke curtly and to the point, and every word he uttered struck at Marguerite’s heart like the death-knell of her fondest hopes.

“The men,” he continued, “are to keep the sharpest possible look-out for any stranger who may be walking, riding, or driving, along the road or the beach, more especially for a tall stranger, whom I need not describe further, as probably he will be disguised; but he cannot very well conceal his height, except by stooping. You understand?”

“Perfectly, citoyen,” replied Desgas.

“As soon as any of the men have sighted a stranger, two of them are to keep him in view. The man who loses sight of the tall stranger, after he is once seen, will pay for his negligence with his life; but one man is to ride straight back here and report to me. Is that clear?”

“Absolutely clear, citoyen.”

“Very well, then. Go and see Jutley at once. See the reinforcements start off for the patrol duty, then ask the captain to let you have half-a-dozen more men and bring them here with you. You can be back in ten minutes. Go—”

Desgas saluted and went to the door.

As Marguerite, sick with horror, listened to Chauvelin’s directions to his underling, the whole of the plan for the capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel became appallingly clear to her. Chauvelin wished that the fugitives should be left in false security waiting in their hidden retreat until Percy joined them. Then the daring plotter was to be surrounded and caught red-handed, in the very act of aiding and abetting royalists, who were traitors to the republic. Thus, if his capture were noised abroad, even the British Government could not legally protest in his favour; having plotted with the enemies of the French Government, France had the right to put him to death.

Escape for him and them would be impossible. All the roads patrolled and watched, the trap well set, the net, wide at present, but drawing together tighter and tighter, until it closed upon the daring plotter, whose superhuman cunning even could not rescue him from its meshes now.

Desgas was about to go, but Chauvelin once more called him back. Marguerite vaguely wondered what further devilish plans he could have formed, in order to entrap one brave man, alone, against two-score of others. She looked at him as he turned to speak to Desgas; she could just see his face beneath the broad-brimmed curèe’s hat. There was at that moment so much deadly hatred, such fiendish malice in the thin face and pale, small eyes, that Marguerite’s last hope died in her heart, for she felt that from this man she could expect no mercy.