darkness of the wretched room. Meanwhile
the continuous murmur of men's voices outside the door could be heard
mingled with the clatter of weapons; the summons for admission was
repeated, and again repeated, as if those without had no mind to be kept
waiting long.

"Patience! patience! I am opening!" he cried. Still keeping his face to
her, he unlocked the door and called on the men to enter. "He is in the
straw, M. le Maire!" he said, in a tone of triumph, his eyes still on
his wife. "Cursed Girondin! He will give you no trouble, I will answer
it! But first give me my five crowns, M. le Maire. My five crowns!"

He felt, craven as he was, so much fear of his wife that he did not turn
to see the men enter, and he was taken by surprise when a voice at his
elbow--a voice he did not know--answered, "Five crowns, my friend? For
what, may I ask?"

In his eagerness and greed he suspected nothing, but that on some
pretext or other they were trying to filch from him his dues. "For what?
For the Girondin!" he answered rapidly. Then at last he did turn and
found that half a dozen men had entered, that more were entering. But to
his astonishment, they were all strangers--men with stern, gloomy faces,
and armed to the teeth. There was something so formidable, indeed, in
their appearance that he stepped back, and his voice faltered as he
added: "But where is the mayor, gentlemen? I do not see him."

No one answered, but in silence the last of the men--they were eleven in
all--entered and bolted the door behind him. Michel Tellier peered at
them in the gloom with growing alarm, nay, with growing terror. In
return the tallest of the strangers, he who had entered first and seemed
to command the others, looked round him keenly. And it was he who at
length broke the silence. "So you have a Girondin here, have you?" he
said, his voice curiously sweet and sonorous.

"I was to have five crowns for him," Michel muttered dubiously.

"Oh!" and then, "Petion," the spokesman continued to one of his
companions, "can you kindle a light? It strikes me that we have hit upon
a dark place."

The man addressed took something from his pouch. For a moment there was
silence, broken only by the sharp sound of the flint striking the steel.
Then a slow-growing glare lit up the dark interior, and disclosed the
group of cloaked strangers standing about the door, the light gleaming
back from their trailing sabres and great horse-pistols. Michel
trembled.