ew his own sword, and
with herculean strength managed to cut down five or six spadassins of
the advance party.

Then he fled to the house where Henriette and also Robespierre lodged,
rushed in and up the stairs. The following company were almost upon
him. Their shouts and cries could be heard below.

Danton plumped into the first door at the left of the stair-head. He
was there when Henriette, who had been momentarily away, returned to
her room.

"The spies--spadassins--they would take my life--" He was wounded. It
was with a difficult hoarseness that he spoke.

The little homekeeper put a warning finger to mouth. Running past him
to the door, she slipped out and closed it. She withdrew to the back
of the hall, and came forward nonchalantly as the assassins reached
the hallway.

Rapier at her throat, the leader put the silent but terrible question.
Henriette's heart jumped. She managed not to show her terror.

"I saw a man going up those stairs three steps at a time!" she lied
superbly, pointing to the floor above.

The company ran up the third-floor stairs on the double jump. As they
vanished, she was inside her rooms again and with the quarry.

Minutes passed. The spadassins searched the top garrets. They sought
the roof, saw escape was impossible that way. Then they clattered down
the stairs. The leader hesitated at Henriette's door.

"Faugh!" he said. "The girl is just a simpleton, she couldn't have
tricked us!"

At his command the men marched down--to encounter unexpectedly a
company of national gendarmes that had been hurriedly summoned to the
scene of the disturbance.

In the porch melee Danton's side had been painfully slashed. Despite
the pain, he recognized his little preserver and thanked her. Still
holding his hand to his side and half-reeling, he moved to go. Now
that all seemed quiet, he proposed to rid her of the compromising
presence of a man in her room.

Henriette seized him with her little arms.

"No, no, you can't go!" she said with a little smile of divine pity.
"Better a little gossip about me than that you should lose your life."
Henriette locked the door!

She strove to carry the disabled giant to the nearest chair. Leaning
heavily on her, he walked with an effort and plumped down on it. One
of his arms was around her. She tried to free it, but it clung. With
hands and knees she crawled out backward from the unconscious
embrace.

It was the work of but a few minutes to wash a