4.
Marguerite had been instructed to go ahead and wait safely in an apartment Percy had secured, located above an art gallery. Night had fallen, and the passage to the stairs was dimly lit. Marguerite heard footsteps from outside. She froze halfway up the staircas. She could hear a window being forced open below. Percy? Too early. Theives!
There was a sharp sound of something heavy being dropped, and the window slammed shut.
"Lady Blakeney --"
Marguerite jumped. Sir Nicholas de Mimsy Porpington had materialized beside her. He apologized profusely. "Please," she whispered, "see if there's anyone downstairs."
"Not a soul," he said after inspection. "Not a thing missing, either. In fact, there's one more than there was before."
"Stand back, ye broguish rogues! Roguish brogues!" a voice blasted, in English.
"The picture," Porpington whispered.
Marguerite tiptoed over and picked up the painting -- a grassy landscape with a fat gray pony and a short, squat knight. "HERE BE DRAGONS!" the knight roared. He was attempting to mount his horse, but he would get up on one side and fall off the other,winding up facefirst in the grass. "I am Sir Cadogan," the knight yelled, grabbing up his sword and running, "and I shall vanquish -- " The sword he held was far too heavy for him. He fell over. "Ugh."
If he wasn't quiet, he'd wake the whole town...Marguerite decided to try her luck. "Brave Sir Kiddogen--"
"CADOGAN!" he bellowed.
So they could communicate. "Brave and worthy Sir Cadogan, dost thou mistake me for a dragon?" Marguerite whispered. "I am a queen!"
Cadogan threw himself on his knees. "I humbly beg forgiveness, Your Highness!"
"I grant you forgiveness, but I have something to ask of you. You must be very quiet -- there are enemy forces all around. I am wed to a good king -- on a quest to save humanity!"
Cadogan looked dizzy for a moment. "All of it?" But he didn't ponder this for long. "I will do whatever Your Highness asks of me," he decided. "Onward! To fight the evil! To crush the pestilent scourges!" The little knight grabbed his sword and took off at a run toward the side of the painting, and ran into the frame with a resounding thud. "Ugh."
The papers on Chauvelin's desk had said that Leon was to switch prisons the following day. Chauvelin declared this was pure stupidity, protesting, "The pimpernel and the devil knows what else is in our midst!" but he had no proof. After his various failed attempts at Englishman-catching, Chauvelin had been credited with a sort of pimpernel paranoia.
Chauvelin found the commander in charge of Leon already inside the prison. "A slight change of plans," he lied. "Leon is to stay here -- "
"Citizen, behind you !" the commander said.
"Citizen-sergeant, I fail to fully grasp your meaning."
"No -- there!"
"Citizen-sergeant, would you kindly make some sense!"
The other soldiers began to point and shout, in a sea around Chauvelin. He whirled around, to find himself face-to-face with Sir Nicholas de Mimsy Porping ton. "It's a trick!" Chauvelin shouted. "A diversion, you fools!" He was angry at his own inability to understand what was happening, but he knew it was the pimpernel's doing. He rushed to the prisoner's cell, only to find it deserted -- in the confusion, Leon had been carried out by four unidentified guards moments before.
Leon was laying on the bed in the apartment. He did not look well. His cousins were hiding nearby, he told Percy -- in a wine cellar. Percy, Andrew, Dewhurst and Hastings transformed themselves from prison guards to a merchant, a bourgeois, and two workmen. They departed: Dewhurst and Hastings to secure transportation, Percy, Andrew, and Sir Cadogan (who had immediately sworn to serve his king) to find the others. Marguerite dressed Leon's wounds, but she couldn't fight back the fear that he might not last very long in his present condition.
Hours later, by some miracle, they were all safely aboard the Day Dream. Sir Cadogan was very impressed with his own bravery -- he had scared an entire crowd of people who would dare to step near his king. Little Colette Daggauseau decided she liked Sir Cadogan. He kept calling her 'gentle lady.'
Only Sir Percy was slightly dissatisfied. "This is a terrible year, Andrew,"' he said, holding up a bottle of wine he had picked up during the rescue. "What ever were you thinking?"
Porpington knew of a place in England where Sir Cadogan would be at home; and, more importantly, there were people there who could heal Leon. "Everything there will seem very odd to you," he told Marguerite. "It's a big, old castle in the middle of nowhere."
"I'm sure it's lovely," she said. Marguerite couldn't help but notice the somewhat faraway look in his eyes. It was the same look he had when they first passed the guillotine; not a look of horror, but almost wistful. He had later confided to Marguerite how inadequate and unlucky he felt, being a ghost and not even having a properly detached head. Terrible as the guillotine was, it was far more efficient than being hit forty-five times in the neck with a blunt axe. "Nicholas," she said now, "you aren't still thinking about the execution, are you?" But he was. "Nicholas," Marguerite said, "contrary to what you might believe, I think you have an advantage over other ghosts. I daresay there are more than enough headless citizens nowadays. There's no variety. Either one is decapitated, or one isn't. But you're unique, and to be unique is to have real character...I think they'll envy you someday, Nicholas. Why, you're Nearly Headless Nick!"
"Nearly Headless Nick," Porpington repeated to himself. "Why, that's ingenious. I'll have to use it from now on."