ciergerie, informed of the Spanish priest's weak
state, came himself to the prison-yard to observe him; he made him sit
down on a chair in the sun, studying him with the keen acumen which
increases day by day in the practise of such functions, though hidden
under an appearance of indifference.

"Oh! Heaven!" cried Jacques Collin. "To be mixed up with such creatures,
the dregs of society--felons and murders!--But God will not desert His
servant! My dear sir, my stay here shall be marked by deeds of charity
which shall live in men's memories. I will convert these unhappy
creatures, they shall learn they have souls, that life eternal awaits
them, and that though they have lost all on earth, they still may win
heaven--Heaven which they may purchase by true and genuine repentance."

Twenty or thirty prisoners had gathered in a group behind the three
terrible convicts, whose ferocious looks had kept a space of three
feet between them and their inquisitive companions, and they heard this
address, spoken with evangelical unction.

"Ay, Monsieur Gault," said the formidable la Pouraille, "we will listen
to what this one may say----"

"I have been told," Jacques Collin went on, "that there is in this
prison a man condemned to death."

"The rejection of his appeal is at this moment being read to him," said
Monsieur Gault.

"I do not know what that means," said Jacques Collin, artlessly looking
about him.

"Golly, what a flat!" said the young fellow, who, a few minutes since,
had asked Fil-de-Soie about the beans on the hulks.

"Why, it means that he is to be scragged to-day or to-morrow."

"Scragged?" asked Jacques Collin, whose air of innocence and ignorance
filled his three pals with admiration.

"In their slang," said the governor, "that means that he will suffer the
penalty of death. If the clerk is reading the appeal, the executioner
will no doubt have orders for the execution. The unhappy man has
persistently refused the offices of the chaplain."

"Ah! Monsieur le Directeaur, this is a soul to save!" cried Jacques
Collin, and the sacrilegious wretch clasped his hands with the
expression of a despairing lover, which to the watchful governor seemed
nothing less than divine fervor. "Ah, monsieur," _Trompe-la-Mort_ went
on, "let me prove to you what I am, and how much I can do, by allowing
me to incite that hardened heart to repentance. God has given me a power
of speech which produces great changes. I crush men's he