of this strange organisation, or at least the aims which the man
of the death's-head chose to claim for it.

"Let us never forget, comrades, who we are--that our Order is the
avenger of the wrongs of the people. Give me each your sufferings that I
may treasure them in the common treasury. Give me the tears that have
been shed, the deaths, the starvations, the griefs, the insults, the
cruelties, that I may heap them one upon another in a secret place,
whence, on a day which I see rising very bright out of the days of this
generation, we shall thrust them out all bleeding and dreadful to fly
forth together swift as eagles for the hearts of the rich. Hugues de la
Tour, what wrongs have you to tell?"

"Admiral," cried the young man hoarsely, after drinking a gulp from a
bottle, his eyes bloodshot, and swinging his knife, "I have suffered
till my blood runs like a current of fire against all who are in ease. I
hate the King, the Church, the rich, the judges, the strong, the fair.
My father was a noble of the Court, my mother a Huguenot, and wedded to
him by the rite of the Reformed Religion, his own pretended faith. With
this excuse he threw her off. He denied her the name of wife and us of
his children. His servants pushed her from his door. She died in a
garret at Dijon. I took my little sister by the hand, and travelling to
my father's door in Versailles awaited his entry into his carriage. We
caught his skirts and cried, "Our father!" With his own hands he threw
us to the pavement. For years I felt, brothers, what you have
felt--cold, hunger, and disdain--but I hoarded the thought of 'Justice'
as the friend of the wronged.

"I at length petitioned the magistrature. My papers were unheeded. I
appealed to the Minister. The Minister was silent. I found a way of
presenting our griefs and claims to the King himself. For answer, a
sealed warrant empowered the monster of our life to throw us into
prison. There my poor sister died; I escaped. Join me to your
galley-oars. I hate all monarchs, decrees, nobles, priests, courtiers.
Crime is justice, justice is the system of crime!"

"Very good, Hugues la Tour," commended the Admiral, "you shall have your
hands full of true justice."

"I," shouted a violent man of haggard countenance, "was a cultivator of
Auvergne. By incredible hardship I made myself owner of a plot of
ground. My woman and I lived scantily on our daily black bread and
'pepperpot'; we spent nothing; we had no co