to do with the executioner
than I shall."

"Always the prediction," said Montlouis. "You know that I have no faith
in it."

"You are wrong."

"This is sure, my friends," said Pontcalec. "We shall be exiled, we
shall be forced to embark, and I shall be lost on the way. This is my
fate. But yours may be different. Ask to go by a different vessel from
me; or there is another chance. I may fall from the deck, or slip on the
steps; at least, I shall die by the water. You know that is certain. I
might be condemned to death, taken to the very scaffold, but if the
scaffold were on dry ground I should be as easy as I am now."

His tone of confidence gave them courage. They even laughed at the
rapidity with which the deliberations were carried on. They did not know
that Dubois sent courier after courier from Paris to hasten them.

At length the commission declared themselves sufficiently enlightened,
and retired to deliberate in secret session.

Never was there a more stormy discussion. History has penetrated the
secrets of these deliberations, in which some of the least bold or least
ambitious counselors revolted against the idea of condemning these
gentlemen on presumptions which were supported solely by the
intelligence transmitted to them by Dubois; but the majority were
devoted to Dubois, and the committee came to abuse and quarrels, and
almost to blows.

At the end of a sitting of eleven hours' duration, the majority declared
their decision.

The commissioners associated sixteen others of the contumacious
gentlemen with the four chiefs, and declared:

"That the accused, found guilty of criminal projects, of treason, and of
felonious intentions, should be beheaded: those present, in person,
those absent, in effigy. That the walls and fortifications of their
castles should be demolished, their patents of nobility annuled, and
their forests cut down to the height of nine feet."

An hour after the delivery of this sentence, an order was given to the
usher to announce it to the prisoners.

The sentence had been given after the stormy sitting of which we have
spoken, and in which the accused had experienced such lively marks of
sympathy from the public. And so, having beaten the judges on all the
counts of the indictment, never had they been so full of hope.

They were seated at supper in their common room, calling to mind all the
details of the sitting, when suddenly the door opened, and in the shade
appeared the