derates."

"Oh! Never mind about the others. I am not bargaining about them. Let
them look after themselves."

"Every time we get a batch of them, one or the other denounces you."

"Under torture, I know," rejoined de Batz placidly, holding his podgy
hands to the warm glow of the fire. "For you have started torture in
your house of Justice now, eh, friend Heron? You and your friend the
Public Prosecutor have gone the whole gamut of devilry--eh?"

"What's that to you?" retorted the other gruffly.

"Oh, nothing, nothing! I was even proposing to pay you three thousand
five hundred livres for the privilege of taking no further interest in
what goes on inside this prison!"

"Three thousand five hundred!" ejaculated Heron involuntarily, and this
time even his eyes lost their cruelty; they joined issue with the mouth
in an expression of hungering avarice.

"Two little zeros added to the thirty-five, which is all you would get
for handing me over to your accursed Tribunal," said de Batz, and, as if
thoughtlessly, his hand wandered to the inner pocket of his coat, and
a slight rustle as of thin crisp paper brought drops of moisture to the
lips of Heron.

"Leave me alone for three weeks and the money is yours," concluded de
Batz pleasantly.

There was silence in the room now. Through the narrow barred window
the steely rays of the moon fought with the dim yellow light of the oil
lamp, and lit up the pale face of the Committee's agent with its lines
of cruelty in sharp conflict with those of greed.

"Well! is it a bargain?" asked de Batz at last in his usual smooth, oily
voice, as he half drew from out his pocket that tempting little bundle
of crisp printed paper. "You have only to give me the usual receipt for
the money and it is yours."

Heron gave a vicious snarl.

"It is dangerous, I tell you. That receipt, if it falls into some cursed
meddler's hands, would send me straight to the guillotine."

"The receipt could only fall into alien hands," rejoined de Batz
blandly, "if I happened to be arrested, and even in that case they
could but fall into those of the chief agent of the Committee of General
Security, and he hath name Heron. You must take some risks, my friend.
I take them too. We are each in the other's hands. The bargain is quite
fair."

For a moment or two longer Heron appeared to be hesitating whilst de
Batz watched him with keen intentness. He had no doubt himself as to the
issue. He had tried most