e. Let him wait!"

As the governor of the prison left the public prosecutor's room, under
the archway of the passage into the hall he met Monsieur Camusot, who
was going there. He exchanged a few hurried words with the examining
judge; and after telling him what had been done at the Conciergerie
with regard to Jacques Collin, he went on to witness the meeting of
_Trompe-la-Mort_ and Madeleine; and he did not allow the so-called
priest to see the condemned criminal till Bibi-Lupin, admirably
disguised as a gendarme, had taken the place of the prisoner left in
charge of the young Corsican.

No words can describe the amazement of the three convicts when a warder
came to fetch Jacques Collin and led him to the condemned cell! With one
consent they rushed up to the chair on which Jacques Collin was sitting.

"To-day, isn't it, monsieur?" asked Fil-de-Soie of the warder.

"Yes, Jack Ketch is waiting," said the man with perfect indifference.

Charlot is the name by which the executioner is known to the populace
and the prison world in Paris. The nickname dates from the Revolution of
1789.

The words produced a great sensation. The prisoners looked at each
other.

"It is all over with him," the warder went on; "the warrant has been
delivered to Monsieur Gault, and the sentence has just been read to
him."

"And so the fair Madeleine has received the last sacraments?" said la
Pouraille, and he swallowed a deep mouthful of air.

"Poor little Theodore!" cried le Biffon; "he is a pretty chap too. What
a pity to drop your nut" (eternuer dans le son) "so young."

The warder went towards the gate, thinking that Jacques Collin was at
his heels. But the Spaniard walked very slowly, and when he was getting
near to Julien he tottered and signed to la Pouraille to give him his
arm.

"He is a murderer," said Napolitas to the priest, pointing to la
Pouraille, and offering his own arm.

"No, to me he is an unhappy wretch!" replied Jacques Collin, with the
presence of mind and the unction of the Archbishop of Cambrai. And he
drew away from Napolitas, of whom he had been very suspicious from the
first. Then he said to his pals in an undertone:

"He is on the bottom step of the Abbaye de Monte-a-Regret, but I am the
Prior! I will show you how well I know how to come round the beaks. I
mean to snatch this boy's nut from their jaws."

"For the sake of his breeches!" said Fil-de-Soie with a smile.

"I mean to win his soul to heave