rney found himself in an automobile with many men whom he
scarcely knew. Other vehicles were before and behind theirs. In one of
them was Freya with the nuns and the priest.

A faint streak was whitening the sky, marking the points of the roofs.
Below, in the deep blackness of the streets, the renewed life of
daybreak was slowly beginning. The first laborers going to their work
with their hands in their pockets, and the market women returning from
market pushing their carts, turned their heads, following with interest
this procession of swift vehicles almost all of them with men in the
box seat beside the conductor. To the working-folk, this was perhaps a
morning wedding.... Perhaps these were gay people coming from a
nocturnal fiesta.... Several times the cortege slackened its speed,
blocked by a row of heavy carts with mountains of garden-stuff.

The _maitre_, in spite of his emotions, recognized the road that the
automobile was following. In the _place de la Nation_ he caught
glimpses of the sculptured group, _le Triomphe de la Republique_,
piercing the dripping mistiness of dawn; then the grating of the
enclosure; then the long _cours de Vincennes_ and its historic
fortress.

They went still further on until they reached the field of execution.

Upon getting down from the automobile, he saw an extensive plain
covered with grass on which were drawn up two companies of soldiers.
Other vehicles had arrived before them. Freya detached herself from the
group of persons descending from the automobile, leaving behind the
nuns and the officers who were escorting her.

The light of daybreak, blue and cold as the reflection of steel, threw
into relief the two masses of armed men who formed a narrow passageway.
At the end of this impromptu lane there was a post planted in the
ground and beyond that, a dark van drawn by two horses, and various men
clad in black.

The woman's approach was signalized by a voice of command, and
immediately sounded the drums and trumpets at the head of the two
formations. There was a rattle of guns; the soldiers were presenting
arms. The martial instruments delivered the triumphal salute due to the
presence of the head of a state, a general, a flag-raising.... It was
an homage to Justice, majestic and severe,--a hymn to Patriotism,
implacable in defense.

Recalling the white woman with deep bosom and hollow eyes that she had
seen over the head of the President of the Council, the spy for a