There was silence in the little room for one moment while the angel of sorrow and anguish hovered round these faithful and brave souls, then the Englishman’s cheery voice, so full of spirit and merriment, rang out once more—­he had risen to his full, towering height, and now placed a kindly hand on the old man’s shoulder: 

“It seems to me, my good Lenegre,” he said, “that you and I haven’t many moments to spare if we mean to cheat those devils by saving your neck.  Now, petite maman,” he added, turning to the old woman, “are you going to be brave?”

“I will do anything, milor,” she replied quietly, “to help my old man.”

“Well, then,” said Sir Percy Blakeney in that optimistic, light-hearted yet supremely authoritative tone of which he held the secret, “you and Rosette remain here and wait for the gendarmes.  When they come, say nothing; behave with absolute meekness, and let them search your place from end to end.  If they ask you about your husband say that you believe him to be at his workshop.  Is that clear?”

“Quite clear, milor,” replied petite maman.

“And you, Pere Lenegre,” continued the Englishman, speaking now with slow and careful deliberation, “listen very attentively to the instructions I am going to give you, for on your implicit obedience to them depends not only your own life but that of these two dear women.  Go at once, now, to the Rue Ste. Anne, round the corner, the second house on your right, which is numbered thirty-seven.  The porte cochere stands open, go boldly through, past the concierge’s box, and up the stairs to apartment number twelve, second floor.  Here is the key of the apartment,” he added, producing one from his coat pocket and handing it over to the old man.  “The rooms are nominally occupied by a certain Maitre Turandot, maker of violins, and not even the concierge of the place knows that the hunchbacked and snuffy violin-maker and the meddlesome Scarlet Pimpernel, whom the Committee of Public Safety would so love to lay by the heels, are one and the same person.  The apartment, then, is mine; one of the many which I occupy in Paris at different times,” he went on.  “Let yourself in quietly with this key, walk straight across the first room to a wardrobe, which you will see in front of you.  Open it.  It is hung full of shabby clothes; put these aside, and you will notice that the panels at the back do not fit very closely, as if the wardrobe was old or had been badly put together.  Insert your fingers in the tiny aperture between the two middle panels.  These slide back easily:  there is a recess immediately behind them.  Get in there; pull the doors of the wardrobe together first, then slide the back panels into their place.  You will be perfectly safe there, as the house is not under suspicion at present, and even if the revolutionary guard, under some meddle-some sergeant or other, chooses to pay it a surprise visit, your hiding-place will be perfectly secure.  Now is all that quite understood?”