ed the crowd with a laugh. His crime was that his father had been a
Count. Third came the cart containing Germain, to whom all eyes were
directed. On the seat opposite him was Jude, frantically entreating the
saints, the driver, the guards, and the crowd to take pity on his soul.

"Buy the bulletin of the revolutionary tribunal; judgements of to-day!
The horrible aristocrat Repentigny brought to justice! Here he is! here
is the one who defied the jury!"

"Bodyguard of Capet!"

"Here is the one who killed Bec and Caron!" shrilled Wife Gougeon.

"Long live the Galley-on-Land!"

These cries gradually roused Lecour, and for the first time, putting it
all together and recognising faces, he realised the truth of the
Admiral's boast that he had been pursued all these years by the crew
about him--the organisation of the cave of Fontainebleau. The long-lit
hatred of so many eyes stabbed his heart to the quick. Yet of the inward
Passion of his journey there was no outward appearance. He sat quiet of
visage, clinging to the one underlying thought that he had been able to
free Cyrene. Alas! how long even yet could it be before she would be
riding the same ride?

Suddenly Abbe Jude in front of him lost his frantic gestures and sobbed
violently. Germain put aside his own concerns, and bending over
whispered gently, "Courage, my brother, for a little."

"Admit even now that you are not an aristocrat," cried Hughes from
beside the cart, "and I will move heaven and earth to reprieve you."

But Germain went steadily forward.

The Place de la Revolution, now completely transformed into the Place de
la Concorde, that ornament of Paris, was then unpaved and unfinished. In
the middle stood a plaster statue of Liberty and near it the gaunt
machine of fear--a plank platform reached by a narrow stair having a
single handrail, and, pointing out of it towards the sky a pair of tall
beams between which, on touching a spring, the knife fell on the neck of
the condemned.

From early morning Cyrene had been waiting, racked with fear, at the
house of la Tour on one of the small streets not far from the Place. At
the sound of the shouts which showed that an execution had begun, she
flew there and by despairing force crushed her way through thousands of
spectators, towards the guillotine, on whose platform figures could
already be seen appearing and falling one by one. She moaned and gasped
at each fresh obstacle to her frantic efforts. Her l