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MEYERSDALE COMMERCIAL, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 1929
Page Seven
Orcz
WN Service
Copyright Baroness Orcz zy
THE STORY
CHAPTER I—The Scarlet Pimper-
nel, known during the Freneh revolu-
tion as the most intrepid adventurer
in Europe, is an Englishman. His
identity is unknown, but in England
he is hailed as a hero. In France he
is feared and hated by the terrorists
as a spy, as he has rescued many un-
fortunates from the guillotine and
brought them safely into England. His
recent rescue of the Tournon-d’Agen-
ays makes him the toast of the hour
and he is the topic of conversation at
a party given by Sir Percy Blakeney,
popular London dandy (who is the
Scarlet Pimpernel) and his beautiful
wife, Marguerite. Lady Alicla Nugget
coaxes Sir Andrew Ffoulkes to tell of
the latest adventure of the Scarlet
Pimpernel.
CHAPTER IL.—The failure of Lauzet,
one of the French terrorists, chief of
the section in which the Scarlet Pim-
pernel has recently been operating, to
prevent the escape of the Tournon-d’
Agenavs brings the condemnation of
the government upon him, and he plans
with Armand Chauvelin, the bitterest
enemv of the Scarlet Pimpernel, to lay
a trap for the English spy. Chauvelin
has given up a high position to devote
his entire time to the work of cap-
turing English spies operating in
France—in particular, the Scarlet Pim-
pernel.
CHAPTER IIT.—Lauzet causes the
arrest of the Deseze family, father,
mother, and little daughter, on a
charge of treason, and has it noised
about the small city of Moisson, home
of the Deseze family, that the prison-
ers are being taken to Paris under a
feeble escort. In reality six picked
men, armed to the teeth, are to be
concealed in the coach with the pris-
oners. Lauzet and Chauvelin hope to
lure the Scarlet Pimpernel into an at-
tack on the coach and eapture him.
The vehicle is driven by Charles-Marie,
a half-wit, who is known to have no
fight in him.
CHAPTER IV.—The coach leaves
Moisson in a downpour of rain. That
morning the small city is crowded with
farmers and drovers bringing their cat-
tle to market. Chauvelin and Tauzet
make their final dispositions for the
capture of the bold Englishman and
his band. Captain Raffet is in ch: ge
>f the party. He expects “ha.
to be made in a forest t n
the coach has to journey, %._ _
his preparations accordinglys i
mor spreads that Lauzet has arranged
to capture the Scarlet Pimpernel (for
whose arrest a reward of 10,000 livres
has been offered by the government),
and he (Lauzet) will pocket the re-
ward. Feeling that in some way they
have been outwitted by the official, and
that they should share in the reward,
a part of youths, inflamed with wine,
set out in pursuit of the coach. A drov-
er from Aincourt is particularly loud
in his denunciation of Lauzet, and
drives the cart carrying the pursuers.
CHAPTER VI—Captain Raffet pro-
ceeds slowly, he and the soldiers in
a high state of tension. Late in the
evening a halt is made. The approach
of a cart apparently filled with royster-
ing youths is something of a surprise,
Then to Raffet’s astonishment, a band
of men whom he recognizes as citizens
of Moisson, attack the soldiers, the
leader shouting that Raffet has cheat-
ed them. The soldiers overcome their
assailants, and Raffet, enraged at the
attack, orders them to be taken back
to the nearest city, prisoners.
AM
CHAPTER VIL—Captain Raffet is
preparing to resume the journey to
Paris when he hears piteous cries and
appeals ror help. The men from Mois-
son tell him they found Chauvelin and
Lauzet on the road, beat them, and
tied them up.
fet supposes, which he has heard.
‘Leaving three soldiers to guard the
Deseze family, the captain and the rest
of the troopers hasten to the scene of
the uproar. They find and release the
officials. Chauvelin alone sees in the
incident the work of the Scarlet Pim-
pernel, in fact, is confident he recog-
nized him among the attacking party.
CHAPTER VIIL.—Chauvelin orders
the driver of the cart which had
brought the party from Moisson to be
brought to him. The lout, Charles-
Marie,” appears, in a pitiable state of
fear, explaining that he was ordered,
by a “drover from Aincourt,” to leave
the coach and drive the cart back to
Mantes, the “drover” promising to look
after the horses of the coach,
CHAPTER IX.—Chauvelin realizes
now that he has been outwitted, that
the “drover” is the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Hastening to the coach he finds the
soldiers left as guards tied to trees.
The coach, of course, with the Desezes,
has disappeared.. Chauvelin, Lauzet,
and the sorely discomfited Raffet, make
their way to the city of Epone, to find
themselves the laughing stock of the
countryside. The Scarlet Pimpernel
has scored again. A few days later
- coach, with the saddles ang bridles
of Raffet’s troopers, which the attack-
ers had carried off, is found abandonea.
Chauvelin Tealizes that pursuit fg
hopeless, the fugitives having a clear
field for their escape to England.
CHAPTER X.—In London the prince
of Wales, one of the few who knows
the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel,
recounts the story of the rescue to ga
party of his intimates, among them
Sir Percy Blakeney. The latter, how.
ever, affects to see little of the hero-
ic in the adventure, to the indignation
of the ladies, to whom, of course, the
Scarlet Pimpernel is a hero, and even
little Mademoiselle Deseze, pathetically
unconscious of the deep debt of grati-
tude she owes him, joins in the chorus
of feminine reproof, with her “Fie, Sir
Percy!”
It is their cries, Raf- |
. grim.
{
An Adventure
the Scarlet
Pimpernel
Doe Baroness
CHAPTER VII
The Catchers Caught
Raffet, in the meanwhile, had called o
one of the men of the gendarmerie to
him. “Ride, citizen soldier!” he com-
manded, “as fast as you can to Epone.
You will find the citizen commissary
and his friend from Paris at the post-
ing inn. Tell them just what has oc-
curred and that I am sending the pack
The Courier Had Ridden Away.
of miscreants back to Mantes for pun-
ishment. Tell them also that this
senseless piece of folly has not left
us anprepared for attack by the Eng-
lish spies, though we have not much
more hope in that direction now. We
_| shall be.endthe.road again in a quaz-
ter of an hour, but will have to walk
| the horses practically all the way, so
do not expect to be in Epone for an-
other two hours at the least.”
| Comparative silence felk upon the
| Scene, where a brief while ago deaf-
| ening shouts and tumultuous melee
| bad roused the woodland echoes. Only
| the prisoners now were heard groan-
‘ing and cursing. The courier had
ridden away bearing the unwelcome
news to Lauzet and his friend from
Paris; the men who were not busy
with the prisoners were looking to
their horses or their accoutrements,
while Raffet stood by, observant and
And suddenly, right out of the
darkness, there came the sound of
agonizing calls for help.
“What was that?” Raffet queried,
straining his ears to listen.
“Help! Help!” came from the dis-
tance. And then again, “Help! Hi!”
and “Curse you, why don’t you come?”
And with it all the now familiar sound
of men fighting and shouting. Not so
very far away, either. A couple of
hundred meters perhaps, just the oth-
er side of the bend. Were it not for
the thicket and the darkness, a man
could cut his way through to where
those shouts came from in a couple
of minutes.
“Help! Help!”
One of the prisoners broke into a
harsh laugh. “It’s Citizen Lauzet, I'll
wager,” he said, “and his friend from
Paris.”
“Citizen Lauzet?” Raffet exclaimed.
“What in h—1 do you mean?”
“Well!” Paul, the washerwoman’s
som, replied, still laughing and forget-
ting his sorry plight in the excellence
of the joke, “We found those two am-
bling on the bridle path, on their way
to Epone, ready, no doubt, to seize
the largest share of reward for the
capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel.”
“Great God!”
“And so we seized them both,”
Francois the mercer rejoined, “and did
to them what you are doing now to
us; gave them a good hiding, then
bound them together with ropes and
threw them in the bottom of the cart.”
“Name of a dog!”
“And no doubt,” came a high-pitched
voice from among the group of pris-
oners, “the English spies have found
them and—
“Malediction!” But Raffet got no
further. Astonishment not unmixed
with terror rendered him speechless.
The Scarlet Pimpernel! Ye Gods!
And the chief of section and his friend
at the mercy of that fiend! Even now
his straining ears seemed to perceive
through those calls for help a triumph-
ant battle cry in a barbaric tongue.
“Here!” he cried to the troopers.
“Two of you are sufficient to bring
these rascals along; and you, corporal,
and two men come with me. Citizen
Lauzet and his friends are being mur-
dered even now.”
He hurried down the road followed
by the corporal and two men of the
gendarmerie, while those that were
left behind saw to it that the perpe-
trators of all this additional outrage
and of all this potber were duly start-
ed on their way.
To them Raffet shouted a final:
“Three of you remain to guard the
prisoners and make ready for an im-
mediate start when We return.” Then
he disappeared rourd the bend in the
road.
The shouting had ceased as Raffet
and his troopers hurried along. In-
deed, at first he might have thought
that his ears had deceived him, had
not that agonized call for help still ris-
en insistently through the gloom. He
searched the darkness, and suddenly a
sight greeted him by the roadside
which caused the hair to stand up
on his head. At first this seemed
nothing but a bundle lying half in and
half out of the ditch in the mud, with
the drip-drip from the trees making
a slimy puddle around it. It was from
this bundle that the calls for help and
the curses proceeded.
It was appalling! Almost unbeliev-
able for there were the chief of sec-
tion in the rural division of the de-
partment of Seine et Oise, Citizen
Lauzet, and his friend from Paris
whom Captain Raffet knew as Citizen
Chauvelin, a man who stood high in
the estimation of the government, and
they were lying in a muddy puddle
in the ditch like a pair of calves tied
together for market. Raffet might
have disbelieved his eyes, had it not
been for the language which Citizen
Lauzet used all the while that the
rope which bound him was being cut
by the corporal.
“Thank the Lord,” Raffet exclaimed
fervently, “that you are safe!”
“I'll bave ’em flayed alive, the ras-
cals!” Lauzet exclaimed in a voice
rendered feeble and hoarse with much
shouting, as well as with rage. “The
guillotine is too mild a death for such
miscreants. They attacked me, eciti-
zen captain, would you believe it?
Me! Chief of section in the rural
gendarmerie! Have you ever heard
of such an outrage? They shouted at
us from behind. My friend and I
were riding along quite slowly, and
we had just turned into the bridle
path from the road. We heard the
cart and all the shouting, but we
thought that they were just a pack
of drunken oafs returning from mar-
ket. So we paid no heed; not even
when anon we heard that on the road
the cart had drawn up and, chancing
to glance back at the moment, 1 saw
those louts jumping helter skelter out
of the cart. And the next moment
they were on us, thedot of them. Ten
or a dozen of them they were, the
rogues!”
“The miserable scoundrels!” Raffet
ejaculated ferventiy.
“They dragged us out of our sad-
dles,” Lauzet continued, “they beat us
about the head.”
“Name of a name!”
“And all the while they kept on
shouting, ‘Traitor! Traitor! Give up
the English spy to us’ In vain did
We cry and protest. They would not
hear us, and what could we do against
a dozen of them? Then finally they
bound us with ropes, wound our cra-
vats about our mouths so that we
could scarcely breathe, and lifted us
into that Jjolting cart, where we lay
more dead than alive while it was
driven by a lout at breakneck speed.”
“Have no fear, citizen,” Raffet put
in forcefully, “their punishment shall
be exemplary.”
“lI have no fear,” Lauzet retorted
dryly, “for I'll see to their punish-
ment myself. The scamps, the limbs
of Satan! But I'll teach them! There
we lay, citizen captain, at the bottom
of the cart, my friend Citizen Chauve-
lin, who wore the tricolor scarf of of-
fice around his middle, and I, chief
commissary of the district, and those
ruffians actually dared to wipe their
shoes on us! So we drove for a kilo-
meter and a half through the forest.
Then presently the cart drew up and
all these louts jumped down like a
pack of puppies and ran away up the
hill with shouts that would wake the
dead. The last I remember, for in
the jolting and my cramped positon
I had partly lost consciousness, was
that my friend and I were lifted out
of the cart as unceremoniously as we
had been thrust into it. We were
then thrown into the ditch by the
. roadside, in the mud, just where you
ultimately found us, and our cravats
were loosened from round our mouths.
Immediately we started screaming for
help, but there was such a din going
on up the road that we felt the sound
of our voices could not possibly reach
you. Fortunately in the end, you did
hear us, or maybe we should have per-
ished of cold and inanition.”
“Malediction!” Raffet swore vi-
ciously. “And you might have been at
tacked by those cursed English spies
while you lay helpless here. We
thought we heard them, and their bat-
tle cry, and hurried to your assist-
ance.”
Chauvelin showed no emotion. As
soon as the rope that held him had
been severed he had sat up on a brok-
en tree stump, staring straight out be-
fore him into the mist, and meditative-
ly stroking his sore wrists and arms.
When first those abominable louts
had thrust him and Lauzet in the bot-
tom of the cart and he lay there
bound and gagged, nursing his stupen-
dous wrath and hopes of revenge, he
had become aware that the driver,
who still sat aloft just above him, had
suddenly turned and, leaning over, had
peered into his face. It had only been
a brief glance; the next moment the
man was sitting up quite straight
again, and all that Chauvelin saw of
him was his back, with the great
breadth of shoulders and a general
look of power and tenacity. But it
was the brief vision of that glance
that Chauvelin now was striving
to |
recapture. The blue-gray eyes with
their heavy lids that could not be dis-
guised, and the mocking glance which
had seemed to him like rasping metal
against his exacerbated nerves. And
suddenly he called to Raffet, “The
driver and the cart, where are they?”
CHAPTER VIII
Charles-Marie
The captain’s sharp eyes searched
the mist that was rising in the valley.
“The driver seems to be on the
box,” he said. “I shall want him to
drive these rascals back to Mantes.”
“Send him to me at once,” Chau-
velin broke in curtly.
Raffet gave the necessary orders, al-
though inwardly he chafed at this new
delay. The prisoners slowly contin-
ued their way, and Chauvelin waited,
expectant. For what? He could not
have told you. He certainly did not
expect to be brought face to face with
his old enemy. And yet. . . . But
whatever vague hopes he might have
entertained were dissipated soon
enough by an exclamation from Raf-
fet.
“Charles-Marie! What in a, dog's
name are you doing here?”
And a weak, querulous voice rose
in reply. “He told me I was to run
along and drive the cart back to
Mantes for him. He—"
“He?” queried Raffet
“Who?”
“I don’t know, Citizen Captain,” re-
plied Charles-Marie.
“Who ordered you to leave the dili-
gence and your horses?”
“I don’t know, Citizen Captain,” pro-
tested the unfortunate Charles-Marie,
“It’s God’s truth. I don’t know.”
“You must know why you are not
sitting on the box of the diligence.”
“Yes. I know that, for I scrambled
down as soon as I saw Gaspard fall
on you, Citizen Captain.”
“Why did you scramble down?”
“Because the horses were restive,
At the first pistol shot they started
rearing and I had a mighty task to
hold them. Fortunately, some one
came and gave me a hand with them.”
“What do you mean by ‘some one
came’? Who was it?”
“He was a drover from Aincourt,
Citizen Captain, and so he knew all
about horses; and how could I keep
four terrified horses quiet all by my-
self?”
“You miserable fool !”
“All very well, Citizen Captain, but 1
never was a fighting man, and I didn’t
like those pistol shots all about me.
One of them might have caught me, I
say, and it was only right I should
find cover somewhere, lest indeed 1
be hit by mistake.”
“You abominable coward!” Raffet
rejoined savagely. “But all that does
not explain how you got here.”
“Well, citizen, it was like this: The
drover from Aincourt saw that 1 was
not altogether happy, and he said to
me, ‘There’ll be a lot more fighting
presently, when the English spies
Lome to attack’ I said nothing at
first. All I could do was to groan, for,
as I say, I'm not a fighting man. I
sharply.
went out of the army because I was
too ill to fight, and my mother—"
“Never mind about your mother
now. What happened after that?”
“He said to me, ‘You go and get on
the seat of the cart which is up the
road. It is my cart. You can drive
it back to Mantes and leave it and
my horses at the posting inn, where
they know me. I'll look after these
horses for you, and when the fighting’s
over I'll drive the diligence to Paris.
No one will be any the wiser and I
don’t mind a bit of a fight. I can do
a bit of fighting myself.’ Well,”
Charles-Marie went on dolefully,
“there didn’t seem much harm in that.
I could see he knew all about horses
from the way he handled them; but
I'm no fighting man, and when I was
engaged to drive the diligence from
Moisson to Paris I was not told that
there would be any fighting.”
“So you turned your back on the
diligence, like a coward, and crept
along here—”
“I didn’t creep, citizen. I followed
you when—"
“Pardi!” Raffet broke in with an
oath. “Another of you that will not
escape punishment. If I had my way
the guillotine would be busy in Mantes
for days to come.”
CHAPTER IX
Discomfiture
There was nothing for it now but
to allow Charles-Marie to drive the
cart back to Mantes, since its owner
had probably seized an opportunity
by now of taking to his heels. Poor
Raffet was worn out with the excite-
ment of the past half-hour, and be-
wildered with all the mystery that
confronted him at every turn. Vague-
ly he felt that something sinister lurked
behing this last incident recited to him
by Charles-Marie, but for the moment
he did not connect it with the possi-
ble maneuvers of the English spies.
He thought that chapter of the day's
book of adventure closed. It would
be an extraordinary piece of luck if
in the end they should still come
across the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Chauvelin had not waited to hear
the whole of Charles-Marie’s tale,
Throughout all the adventures which
had befallen him this day, he had seen
the hand of his enemy, the Scarlet
Pimpernel. Now he no longer had
any doubt. Almost at the first words
uttered by Charles-Marie he had
Jumped to his feet, all the stiffness
gone out of his bones; and despite
the darkness, the mud and the rain,
he turned and ran up the slushy road,
round the bend beyond which he had
heard the fight a quarter of an hour
ago, To Lauzet he shouted a
had
‘had
curt, “Come!” and Lauzet had tol
lowed, obecient, understanding, like a
dog, only vaguely scenting danger to
himself, danger more serious than any
that had threatened him during this
eventful day.
Chauveiin ran through the darkness
with Lauzet at his heels. Despite the
cold and rawness of the mist, he was
in a bath of perspiration: though his
veins were on fire, his teeth chattered
with the cold. Lauzet, behind him,
was panting like an apoplectic seal
Soon he fell with a groan by the road-
side. But Chauvelin did not give in.
Stumbling, half dazed, he went round
the bend of the road; then he too fell,
exhausted, by the roadside, exhausted
and trembling as with ague.
The scene which greeted his aching
eyes had finally unnerved him. There,
on the crest of the hill, he saw three
Lorses tethered to neighboring trees,
and beside the horses, bound to the
same trees, three soldiers with their
hats pulled down over their eyes. Of
the diligence there was not a sign,
Chauvelin stared and stared at this
scene. He had not strength enough
to rise, though his every nerve ached
to go up to one of those pinioned fig-
ures by the trees and to ask what had
happened.
Thus Raffet found him five or ten
minutes later. He came with his sol-
diers and a lantern or two. Chauvelin
could not do more at first than point
with trembling finger straight out be-
fore him, and Raffet and the men
swinging their lanterns came on the
spectacle of the three men and the
three horses tied to the forest trees,
the animals. calm as horses are wont
to be when nature and men are silent
- around them; the men inert and half
conscious.
“Question them, Citizen Captain,”
Chauvelin commanded feebly.
The men’s statements, however,
were somewhat vague. It seems that
after their comrades had gone off,
some with their captain, others with
the prisoners, the three who were left
behind busied themselves at first with
their horses, examining the saddle
girths and so on, when one of them
spied something moving underneath
the diligence.
“It was getting dark by that time,”
the man explained. “However, I called
to my mates, and we stooped to see
what it was. We were much sur-
prised, you may be sure, to see two
pairs of feet in ragged shoes. We
seized hold of them and pulled. The
feet were attached to two pairs of
legs in tattered stockings and breeches,
Finally there emerged from under-
neath the diligence two ragamuffins
with mud up to their eyes and their
clothing in rags.
“They were a sorry looking pair.
We put them down for two poltroons,
not worth powder and shot, and were
just wondering what we should do
with them when suddenly, without the
slightest warning, they turned on us
like a couple of demons. Not they
ouly, for a third fellow seemed to
have sprung out of the earth behind
us, and come to their aid. A giant he
was.”
“A giant!” Raffet exclaimed, for he
suddenly remembered Citizen
Chauvelin’s warning about the Eng-
lish spy who was tall above the aver-
age.
“Aye!
of an ox.”
No one said anything more for the
moment. There was, indeed, nothing
A giant, with the strength
“Aye! A Giant, With the Strength of
an Ox.”
to say. Reproaches and vituperations
would come later; punishment, too,
perhaps. The soldiers and their cap-
tain hung their heads, brooding and
ashamed.
“Epone is not more than four kilo-
meters, citizen,” Raffet at last ven-
tured to suggest, “and we have the
lanterns.”
And so the procession started, trudg-
ing down the incline in the darkness
and the rain; Chauvelin and Lauzet,
Raffet and his corporal with a couple
of troopers carrying the lanterns. Two
hours later they reached Epone, hun-
gry, tired, spattered with mud up to
their chins.
At Epone Raffet’s courier lost no
time In recounting at full length the
adventures that had befallen him and
his comrades. Thus the story was
all over the district by the time the
laborers of Epone had gone to their
work the following morning, and the
chief of section in the department of
Seine et Oise, Citizen Lauzet, became
the laughing stock of the countryside,
together with his wonderful friend
from Paris. ‘Late that same day a
horseless diligence.
which at first ap-
- leine shall
peared deserted derelict, was
discovered half a dozen kilometers to
the north of the forest of Mezieres,
in the mud of the stream that runs
southward into the Seine. A group
of laborers going to their work were
the first to see it. It had been
dragged into the stream and left axle
deep in the water behind a clump of
tall reeds. The laborers reported
their find to a patrol of Raffet’s
troopers, whom he had sent out to
scour the countryside. The wheels
had sunk deep into the mire, and it
was only after a great deal of exer-
tion that laborers and soldiers to-
gether succeeded in dragging the
coach over the flat bank upon firm
land.
“Truly, fate has been against us,”
Lauzet sighed dolefully. “Satan alone
knows where the English spies and
the prisoners are at this hour.”
“Well on their way to England,”
Chauvelin remarked. “I know ‘em.
With their long purse and their im-
pudence, they’ll work their way to the
coast, aided by fools and traitors.
Such fools and traitors,” he added un-
der his breath, “as helped them last
night in their latest adventure.”
CHAPTER X
“Fie, Sir Percy!”
Little Madeleine Deseze was very
shy. She had been brought by her
father to pay her respects to Mon-
seigneur le Prince de Galles because
maman was too ill to accompany her.
“lI don’t remember much, monseig-
neur,” Madeleine said shyly. “Maman
and I were too frightened to notice
anything. There was so much shout-
ing and fighting. It was terrible.”
“Shall TI tell you what happened,
little one?” his royal highness was
pleased to say.
“Your highness, steaming punch is
served in the yellow drawing room,”
a pleasant voice interposed, with the
assurance of privilege.
“Fie, Sir Percy!” exclaimed pretty
Lady Alicia Nugget, “would you spoil
his highness’ story?”
“Rather that than let good punch
spoil with cooling, dear lady,” Sir
Percy retorted with a smile.
“Seize him and garrotte him,” his
highness broke in with a laugh, “as
our gallant hero and his friends
seized and garrotted a chief of sec-
tion, whatever that may be, and his
powerful friend from Paris.”
“Seize him! Garrotte him!” cried
many a pair of charmingly’ rouged
lips.
The next moment Sir Percy Blake-
ney, that prince of dandies, saw him-
self fettered by a number of lovely
arms, while gay voices chirruping like
birds cried, “The story, your high-
ness, we entreat! He cannot inter-
rupt how.”
“l have the story from one who
knows,” his highness resumed with a
smile, “and our little friend Made-
hear it. It was thus.
Our gallant Scarlet Pimpernel, in one
of his happiest disguises as a drover
from Aincourt, did, with the aid of
two of his followers, egg on a number
of young louts into the belief that they
were being cheated out of the reward
due to them for the capture of the
noted English adventurers in their dis-
trict. Full of enthusiasm and excel-
lent wine, they came on the chief of
section, who, I imagine, answers to
our chief constable of a county, to-
gether with g gentleman from Paris
whom some of us have known in the
past. Well, the young louts, eager for
the fray, and always egged on by the
drover from Aincourt, seized and gar-
roted those two worthy gentlemen
and, throwing them into the cart, took
them along with them. In the forest
of Mezieres they came upon the dili-
gence, in which were our little friend
Madeleine and her parents. The vehi-
cle was ostensibly guarded by four
troopers only, but our Scarlet Pimper-
nel and his friends had already ascer-
tained that as a matter of fact there
were half a dozen more men inside the
coach, and that al were armed to the
teeth. Altogether too many for three
men to tackle; ang since the chief
motto of our band of heroes is never
to attempt where they cannot succeed,
stratagem had here to come to the
aid of valor.”
“And what did they do?”
ladies queried breathlessly.
“The drover from Aincourt, our gal-
lant Scarlet Pimpernel,” hig highness
replied, “brought” the cart to a stand-
still about a quarter of a mile from
the crest of the hill where the dili-
gence had come to a halt prepared for
an attack. Then he allowed the louts
to rush the vehicle, and a general
melee ensued. But he and his two
followers in the meantime lifted the
chief of section and his friend out of
the cart and carried them up the road
to a point from which their call for
help would presently be heard. Here
they left them in the ditch, but care-
fully took the gags from their mouths.
“Immediately the two worthy gen-
tlemen started to shout. Nor could
they be blamed, for their plight was
indeed pitiable. At first there was so
much din in the melee at the top of
the hill that their cries could not be
heard. And in the meanwhile one of
our gallant heroes had crept up
through the thicket to the erest of
the hill. Then presently the fighting
ceased. The enthusiastic captain of
gendarmerie heard the cries for help,
accompanied by a good deal of shout-
ing and clash of metal carried on by
the Scarlet Pimpernel himself and his
Second follower. Now do you see
what was the result of this maneuver?”
“No! No!” the ladies exclaimed.
Ang the men, no less enthusiastic and
interested, cried, “Will your highness
proceed ?”’
“The prisoners let out the secret
t the chief of section and his friend
: he :
one of the
ditch, while one or our heroes—the
one who had gone back to the scene
of the fight and mingled with the
crowd—was able to put in a word that
no doubt those two great and worthy
citizens were being attacked and mur-
dered by the English spies. The Eng-
lish spies! You have no conception,
ladies, what magic lies in those three
words for every soldier of the re-
public. They mean hopes of promo-
tion and of big monetary reward. In
an instant the enthusiastic captain had
called to some of his men to follow
him, to go to the rescue of their chief
of section, and incidentally to capture
the Scarlet Pimpernel.
“And that was the immediate out-
come of the clever stratagem. The
captain divided his forces. Three he
took with him, two were left to bring
the prisoners along, another had been
sent as courier with a message. Three
only were left to guard the diligence.
The gallant Scarlet Pimpernel had
made a clever calculation, Already
by a small ruse he had rid himself of
the cart. Under cover of the dark-
ness his two equally gallant followers
had crept underneath the vehicle,
while he waited in the thicket for the
right time to strike.
“I leave you to guess the rest. The
three remaining soldiers taken una-
wares, the horses unsaddled, the dili-
gence finally driven down the hill by
our hero, while inside the coach his
two followers were doing their best
to assure little Madeleine and her
parents that all was well. Soon they
abandoned the cumbersome diligence
and took to the road. That part of
the story is perhaps less exciting
though no less heroic. The Scarlet
Pimpernel has nineteen followers; it
was their task to be on the road, to
aid the fugitives with disguises, to
help in the great task of reaching the
coast in safety.
“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is
the story,” his highness concluded, ris-
ing. “Let us go and drink some of
my friend Blakeney’s excellent punch.
But after we have drunk our toast for
the king, let us raise our glasses to
our national hero, the Scarlet Pim-
pernel.”
With a courtly bow and a smile he
offered his arm to Marguerite Blake-
ney who, with a glistening tear in her
beautiful eyes, gave his highness a
glance of gratitude.
‘Are you coming, Blakeney?” the
prince said with a merry laugh. “You
must drink our toast, too, remember.
To the gallant Scarlet Pimpernel I”
All the ladies laughed, partly with
gaiety, but also with excitement. Then
with one accord they cried. “Come and
drink, Sir Percy, to the gallant Scarlet
Pimpernel.”
“Ill come, dear ladies,” Sir Percy
said with a sigh, “since his highness
commands, but you'll forgive me if I
cannot drink to that demmed, elusive
shadow.”
Laughing still, the ladies cried, “Fie,
Sir Percy! Jealous again?”
And little Madeleine, with her great
childish gaze fixed upon the hand-
some English gentleman, cried in her
piping little voice “Fie, Sir Percy!”
[THE END.]
- ct
How the Useful Plants
Came to Mankind
By T.E,STEWARD
WNU Service
The Watermelon
O NE becomes convinced that there
is nothing new in the world when
he learns that the watermelon comes
from Africa and grows wild by thou-
sands in the native home of the race
which fancies it most. It is one of
relatively few widely dispersed food
plants that come in the first instance
from the Dark continent.
Even as recent a botanist as the
great Swede, Linnaeus, believed the
watermelon to have come from south-
ern Italy, where he had seen it grow-
ing in abundance. The plant had
spread during the days of ancient civ-
ilizations, and at the opening of the
Christian era was grown in Egypt,
Palestine, Greece, the Roman empire,
and probably in India.
That its origin ‘should have been
shrouded in mystery is not strange
when one remembers that Africa was
little explored until the middle of the
Nineteenth century. In fact Living-
stone, the famous missionary, may
have been the first to establish it as
African. In his travels he found it
growing wild in abundance and estab-
lished beyond a doubt that it was in-
digenous to that land.
The watermelon is one of the food
plants shown in drawings on ancient
Egyptian monuments, proving that
they were familiar with it. This
makes it likely that it was known also
to the ancient Israelites, who carried
on commerce with Egypt and were
carried into captivity in that country.
Spanish and Berber names with
antique characteristics go to show that
it was also grown at the western end
of the Mediterranean in days very
long ago.
Not until the Tenth century A. D.
was this melon introduced into China,
where it goes under the name, “si-
kua,” but the Sanskrit name, “chaya-
pula” indicates its ancient cultivation
in India.
Wild watermelons are frequently
bitter, a character that has been bred
out of the domesticated varieties. The
native negroes burst the melons with
a club and taste the juice, saving the
Sweet ones and leaving the bitter ones
where they lie.
Further proof of its African origin
lies in the fact that scientists have
failed to find the watermelon growing
wild in any other part of the world.
It is on family,
member of the citr
ly