we can carry the poor fellow thither. They will give him
instant help. A leaf of the table will make a litter, and the table cloth
a covering."

"Yes, yes, that is it," said several voices; "let us carry him over at
once."

Jacques, burnt up with brandy, and overcome by his interview with
Cephyse, had again fallen into violent convulsions. It was the dying
paroxysm of the unfortunate man. They were obliged to tie him with the
ends of the cloth, so as to secure him to the leaf which was to serve for
a litter, which two of the guests hastened to carry away. They yielded to
the supplication of Cephyse, who asked, as a last favor, to accompany
Jacques to the Hospital. When the mournful procession quitted the great
room of the eating-house, there was a general flight among the guests.
Men and women made haste to wrap themselves in their cloaks, in order to
conceal their costumes. The coaches, which had been ordered in tolerable
number for the return of the masquerade, had luckily arrived. The
defiance had been fully carried out, the audacious bravado accomplished,
and they could now retire with the honors of war. Whilst a part of the
guests were still in the room, an uproar, at first distant, but which
soon drew nearer, broke out with incredible fury in the square of Notre
Dame.

Jacques had been carried to the outer door of the tavern. Morok and Ninny
Moulin, striving to open a passage through the crowd in the direction of
the Hospital, preceded the litter. A violent reflux of the multitude soon
forced them to stop, whilst a new storm of savage outcries burst from the
other extremity of the square, near the angle of the church.

"What is it then?" asked Ninny Moulin of one of those ignoble figures
that was leaping up before him. "What are those cries?"

"They are making mince-meat of a poisoner, like him they have thrown into
the river," replied the man. "If you want to see the fun, follow me
close," added he, "and peg away with your elbows, for fear you should be
too late."

Hardly had the wretch pronounced these words than a dreadful shriek
sounded above the roar of the crowd, through which the bearers of the
litter, preceded by Morok, were with difficulty making their way. It was
Cephyse who uttered that cry. Jacques (one of the seven heirs of the
Rennepont family) had just expired in her arms! By a strange fatality, at
the very moment that the despairing exclamation of Cephyse announced that
death, another cry ro