supper table.




CHAPTER IV THE LEAGUE OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL



They all looked a merry, even a happy party, as they sat round the
table; Sir Andrew Ffoulkes and Lord Antony Dewhurst, two typical
good-looking, well-born and well-bred Englishmen of that year of grace
1792, and the aristocratic French comtesse with her two children, who
had just escaped from such dire perils, and found a safe retreat at last
on the shores of protecting England.

In the corner the two strangers had apparently finished their game; one
of them arose, and standing with his back to the merry company at the
table, he adjusted with much with much deliberation his large triple
caped coat. As he did so, he gave one quick glance all around him.
Everyone was busy laughing and chatting, and he murmured the words "All
safe!": his companion then, with the alertness borne of long practice,
slipped on to his knees in a moment, and the next had crept noiselessly
under the oak bench. The stranger then, with a loud "Good-night,"
quietly walked out of the coffee-room.

Not one of those at the supper table had noticed this curious and silent
Mammanoeuvre, but when the stranger finally closed the door of the
coffee-room behind him, they all instinctively sighed a sigh of relief.