, the hum
of distant talk and laughter, and the rumble of an occasional coach
outside, only seemed to reach this palace of the Sleeping Beauty as the
murmur of some flitting spooks far away.

It all looked so peaceful, so luxurious, and so still, that the keenest
observer--a veritable prophet--could never have guessed that, at this
present moment, that deserted supper-room was nothing but a trap laid
for the capture of the most cunning and audacious plotter those stirring
times had ever seen.

Chauvelin pondered and tried to peer into the immediate future. What
would this man be like, whom he and the leaders of the whole revolution
had sworn to bring to his death? Everything about him was weird and
mysterious; his personality, which he so cunningly concealed, the power
he wielded over nineteen English gentlemen who seemed to obey his every
command blindly and enthusiastically, the passionate love and submission
he had roused in his little trained band, and, above all, his marvellous
audacity, the boundless impudence which had caused him to beard his most
implacable enemies, within the very walls of Paris.

No wonder that in France the SOBRIQUET of the mysterious Englishman
roused in the people a superstitious shudder. Chauvelin himself as he
gazed round the deserted room, where presently the weird hero would
appear, felt a strange feeling of awe creeping all down his spine.

But his plans were well laid. He felt sure that the Scarlet Pimpernel
had not been warned, and felt equally sure that Marguerite Blakeney had
not played him false. If she had . . . a cruel look, that would have
made her shudder, gleamed in Chauvelin's keen, pale eyes. If she had
played him a trick, Armand St. Just would suffer the extreme penalty.

But no, no! of course she had not played him false!

Fortunately the supper-room was deserted: this would make Chauvelin's
task all the easier, when presently that unsuspecting enigma would enter
it alone. No one was here now save Chauvelin himself.

Stay! as he surveyed with a satisfied smile the solitude of the room,
the cunning agent of the French Government became aware of the peaceful,
monotonous breathing of some one of my Lord Grenville's guests, who, no
doubt, had supped both wisely and well, and was enjoying a quiet sleep,
away from the din of the dancing above.

Chauvelin looked round once more, and there in the corner of a sofa,
in the dark angle of the room, his mouth open, his eyes sh