Жюльетта Бенцони - Marianne

'What's up with you, yelling yer 'ead of like that? I'll make you shut up!'

As the ruffian came in sight, Jolival flung himself on the ground and began rolling about like someone writhing in extreme agony, shouting once more at the top of his voice.

'Hurry,' Marianne cried urgently, having finally understood what was happening. 'He's ill! I don't know what's the matter.'

Requin swore violently as he struggled to open the gate. Before he could do so, Jason was on him. With a spring like a wild beast, the American leapt for his back and bore him down beneath his weight, at the same time locking his left arm under the man's chin, abruptly choking him. Requin gave a strangled gasp and lost consciousness. Jason gave him a swinging blow with his fist for good measure then, taking possession of the bunch of keys, he opened the gate and made straight for Marianne, sweeping her up in his arms like a feather.

'Let's get out of here,' he said kicking aside the recumbent Requin who blocked his way. 'Stow that behind bars and lock him in, then give me the key. We'll drop it in the sewer. This rat will be coming round in ten minutes and we must make the most of them.'

'What if we was to strangle him?' Gracchus Hannibal suggested sweetly. 'It'd be no great loss and make things easier for us.'

Jason laughed.

'I should have done so a moment ago, but as I didn't, let him be. I can't kill an unconscious man.'

Still carrying Marianne, who had slid her arms instinctively round his neck, he made for the hole in the wall. He had to put her down to pass through it because the crack was only a small one. Behind him came Arcadius, endeavouring to recover some of the spring in legs rusty with captivity. Gracchus-Hannibal brought up the rear, taking the trouble to put back the displaced stones when he had passed through.

'You never know,' he remarked prudently.

Jolival laughed.

'Are you hoping to have business here again?' he said clapping the boy affectionately on the back. 'You certainly came to our rescue, son, and I hope one day that I'll be able to repay you. I owe you more than my life!'

'Go on,' the boy muttered awkwardly, 'it wasn't worth mentioning.'

'You think not? I think so!' Jolival said meaningfully.

On the other side of the wall was a short passage and then the sewer. Marianne's nostrils were filled with the foul stench. Jason had taken her up in his arms again, remarking that in a moment they would have to go through the water and there was no need for two of them to get wet.

For a short distance, they followed the narrow ledge which ran alongside the black waters. Arcadius went first to light the way, armed with a torch which he had thrust into the brazier before leaving the prison, but following directions given him by the American. The cold, which had been not unbearable in the underground caverns, grew more biting as they went towards the outside world, but Marianne did not feel it. Clinging to Jason's neck, she no longer felt any of her old loathing and distrust of him. What he had done that night had wiped out at one go all the accumulated hatred and bitterness she thought she had felt for him and instead, there was a warm feeling of trust which made her for a moment forget her terrors. If it had not been for the threat hanging over the man she loved, she would have felt a simple, almost child-like happiness in the feeling of being carried in those strong arms, which could never know weakness.

Jason had now plunged into the evil-smelling water right up to his waist and was holding her as high as he could to keep her above the stream. She saw his tanned seaman's face close to her own, with its fierce profile and the stern lips with their mocking twist. From time to time, he looked at her and smiled as if to encourage her, with a gentleness that relaxed all his features. In spite of the unpleasant stench all around them, he still gave off a faint agreeable scent of tobacco, of good leather and eau-de-Cologne which Marianne found comforting.

'Be brave,' he said at last. 'We're nearly there.'

Then they were out in the main sewer and he was able to get up again on to the narrow footway. A strong current of icy air blew in on them from a black opening beyond which gleamed the river. Jason set Marianne gently on her feet and bent to take the torch from Arcadius's chilled fingers and help him climb on to the ledge. Young Gracchus was up already. A few more steps and they were out in the open. Jolival breathed in with rapture.

'Ah! How good it is!' he said joyfully. 'I had not realized how much I missed the air of Paris!'

He was soaking wet and frozen and his teeth were chattering, but he did not seem to notice it.

Marianne, however, had no time to waste on savouring the joys of her recovered freedom. Time was short. The Riders of the Shadows had a long start and if by ill luck the Emperor should leave Malmaison too early – she dared not frame the rest of her thoughts in words but clung to Jason's arm.

'Can you find me a carriage! Quickly – very quickly.'

'I have one waiting a little way off, at the quai de Billy, near the place de la Conference.[7] Where do you want to go?'

'I must go to Malmaison, of course!'

He made a movement of protest.

'Not that again! The Emperor is well guarded. It will take more than a few fanatics to put him in danger. I mean to take you somewhere safe – and dry! And tomorrow, I will take you away—'

'Tomorrow, yes, I will go with you, but tonight, I implore you to let me save him! I know – I can feel that he is in danger.'

She felt the American's wet arm stiffen under her hand. He drew himself up and his eyes moved away from her to the darkly moving waters of the Seine.

'He—' he said with a rather bitter emphasis, 'how you speak of him! I thought you hated him?'

'I do not hate him any more. No more than I hate you any more now. You have acted like a friend, a true friend and that wipes out everything. Tomorrow, I tell you I will go with you because I shall have nothing more to do here and because I am tired of being continually in what you call all kinds of impossible scrapes. Perhaps, in your country, I may find peace.'

'I shall do everything in the world to help you,' he said gently. 'If it is in my power, you shall be happy.'

'Then if you really want my happiness,' she said eagerly, 'do as I ask you, Jason. Let me go to Malmaison. But quickly, I implore you, quickly! We are wasting so much time and every minute counts.'

A tremor ran through him when she spoke his name for the first time and Marianne's woman's intuition told her she had touched him. She was about to return to the attack when he suddenly bent over her and laying his hands on her shoulders, looked deep into her eyes.

'Tomorrow,' he said earnestly, 'you will go with me? You promise?'

'Yes. I promise.'

'Come then. I will take you there myself. We'll drive the horses into the ground, if need be, but we'll get there. Follow us, gentlemen. We'll talk as we go. There are dry clothes in the carriage.'

His voice rang suddenly joyful. Seizing Marianne by the hand, he ran with her along the dark river bank. Arcadius and young Pioche followed hard on their heels without further questions. They passed the buildings of the soap works and then those of the Depot des Marbres and then, as they came to the place de la Conference the shape of a carriage rose before them against the faint light of a lantern hung outside the shed where the fire-wagon was kept. It was then Arcadius leaned towards the boy who was running steadily beside him. He was chilled to the bone in his wet clothes but had lost none of his usual good humour for all that.

'Your name is really Gracchus-Hannibal?'

'Yes, monsieur, why?'

'Because my name is Arcadius!' was the apparently illogical answer. 'Do you know that together we represent Athens, Rome and Carthage? My boy, we have just created an alliance that not even the maddest historian ever dreamed of. And when you add to that the collaboration of America, you must admit the world has never seen a league like ours.'

'Yes, monsieur,' Gracchus-Hannibal said meekly, making no attempt to understand. 'But perhaps we'd better hurry on a bit. They're waving to us—'

'Quite right,' Arcadius said cheerfully. 'We have still to set the seal on our glory by saving the new Caesar! And a Corsican Caesar into the bargain!'

Once past the vineyards of the Cote de St-Cloud, the road to Malmaison stretched on, dreary and all but deserted and bounded on either side only by waste ground and disused quarries. The snow had dwindled to a few isolated patches, like spilt milk on the dark landscape. Shortly before the bridge, they had come down the route de la Reine to the Boulogne crossroads and there they had parted from Gracchus-Hannibal who declared his intention of going to spend the night with his grandmother, a washerwoman in the route de la Revolt.

'Come and see me tomorrow at my hotel,' Jason Beaufort had called down to him from the box. 'We must have a talk together, you and I. About eleven.'

'Very well monsieur! I'll be there.'

He was about to leap out with a cheery goodnight to those whose saviour he had been when Marianne suddenly pulled him back and kissed him warmly on both cheeks.

'Thank you Gracchus. We are friends forever now.'

The darkness hid the deep blush which spread over the boy's face but as they moved on, Marianne heard him singing at the top of his voice.