he sky, the crowning display of the horrid _fete_.

"Bravo!" exclaimed Maurice, as at the end of the play, when the lights
are extinguished and darkness settles on the stage.

Again Jean, in stammering, disconnected sentences, besought him to be
quiet. No, no, it was not right to wish evils to anyone! And if they
invoked destruction, would not they themselves perish in the general
ruin? His sole desire was to find a landing place so that he might no
longer have that horrid spectacle before his eyes. He considered it best
not to attempt to land at the Pont de la Concorde, but, rounding
the elbow of the Seine, pulled on until they reached the Quai de la
Conference, and even at that critical moment, instead of shoving the
skiff out into the stream to take its chances, he wasted some precious
moments in securing it, in his instinctive respect for the property of
others. While doing this he had seated Maurice comfortably on the
bank; his plan was to reach the Rue des Orties through the Place de la
Concorde and the Rue Saint-Honore. Before proceeding further he climbed
alone to the top of the steps that ascended from the _quai_ to explore
the ground, and on witnessing the obstacles they would have to surmount
his courage was almost daunted. There lay the impregnable fortress of
the Commune, the terrace of the Tuileries bristling with cannon, the
Rues Royale, Florentin, and Rivoli obstructed by lofty and massive
barricades; and this state of affairs explained the tactics of the
army of Versailles, whose line that night described an immense arc,
the center and apex resting on the Place de la Concorde, one of the two
extremities being at the freight depot of the Northern Railway on the
right bank, the other on the left bank, at one of the bastions of
the ramparts, near the gate of Arcueil. But as the night advanced
the Communards had evacuated the Tuileries and the barricades and the
regular troops had taken possession of the quartier in the midst
of further conflagrations; twelve houses at the junction of the Rue
Saint-Honore and the Rue Royale had been burning since nine o'clock in
the evening.

When Jean descended the steps and reached the river-bank again he found
Maurice in a semi-comatose condition, the effects of the reaction after
his hysterical outbreak.

"It will be no easy job. I hope you are going to be able to walk,
youngster?"

"Yes, yes; don't be alarmed. I'll get there somehow, alive or dead."

It was not