Four months had gone by since that day, and the Scarlet Pimpernel
was hardly ever out of France now; the massacres in Paris and in
the provinces had multiplied with appalling rapidity, the
necessity for the selfless devotion of that small band of heroes
had become daily, hourly more pressing. They rallied round their
chief with unbounded enthusiasm, and let it be admitted at once
that the sporting instinct--inherent in these English gentlemen--
made them all the more keen, all the more eager now that the
dangers which beset their expeditions were increased tenfold.

At a word from the beloved leader, these young men--the spoilt
darlings of society--would leave the gaieties, the pleasures, the
luxuries of London or of Bath, and, taking their lives tn their
hands, they placed them, together with their fortunes, and even
their good names, at the service of the innocent and helpless
victims of merciless tyranny. The married men--Ffoulkes, my Lord
Hastings, Sir Jeremiah Wallescourt--left wife and children at a
call from the chief, at the cry of the wretched. Armand--
unattached and enthusiastic--had the right to demand that he
should no longer be left behind.

He had only been away a little over fifteen months, and yet he
found Paris a different city from the one he had left immediately
after the terrible massacres of September. An air of grim
loneliness seemed to hang over her despite the crowds that
thronged her streets; the men whom he was wont to meet in public
places fifteen months ago--friends and political allies--were no
longer to be seen; strange faces surrounded him on every side--
sullen, glowering faces, all wearing a certain air of horrified
surprise and of vague, terrified wonder, as if life had become