my companions, "and
yet some of us may be very sorry to leave it."

"Not I, at least," cried the other, resolutely. "The basket beneath
the guillotine will be an easier couch than I have slept on these three
months."

CHAPTER XXXVI. THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE

"It will go hard with Moreau to-day," said the elder of the two
prisoners, a large, swarthy-looking Breton, in the dress of a sailor;
"the Consul hates him."

"Whom does he not hate," said the younger, a slight and handsome
youth--"whom does he not hate that ever rivalled him in glory? What love
did he bear to Kleber or Desaix?"

"It is false," said I, fiercely. "Bonaparte's greatness stands far
too high to feel such rivalry as theirs. The conqueror of Italy and of
Egypt--"

"Is a Corsican," interrupted the elder.

"And a tyrant," rejoined the other, in the same breath.

"These words become you well," said I, bitterly. "Would that no stain
lay on my honor, and I could make you eat them."

"And who are you that dare to speak thus?" said the younger; "or how
came one like you mixed up with men whose hearts were in a great cause,
and who came to sell their lives upon it?"

"I tell you, boy," broke in the elder, in a slow and measured tone,
"I have made more stalwart limbs than thine bend, and stronger joints
crack, for less than thou hast ventured to tell us; but sorrow and
suffering are hard masters, and I can bear more now than I was wont to
do. Let us have no more words."

As he spoke, he leaned his head upon his hand, and turned towards the
wall; the other, too, sat down in a comer of the cell, and was silent.
And thus we remained for hours long.

The dreary stillness, made more depressing by the presence of the
two prisoners, whose deep-drawn breathings were the only sounds they
uttered, had something unspeakably sad and melancholy in it, and more
than once I felt sorry for the few words I had spoken, which separated
those whose misfortunes should have made them brothers.

A confused and distant hum, swelling and falling at intervals, now
filled the air, and gradually I could distinguish the shouts of people
at a distance. This increased as it came nearer; and then I heard the
tramping noise of many feet, and of a great multitude of people passing
in the street below, and suddenly a wild cheer broke forth, "Vive le
Consul!" "Vive Bonaparte!" followed the next instant by the clanking
sound of a cavalry escort, while the cry grew louder and louder,