on the other hand," Blondel
continued slowly, and with a deadly look--he had not failed to notice
that Louis winced at the name of Basterga--"and you will find yourself
in the prison of the Two Hundred, destined to share the fate of the
conspirators."

The young man began to shake. "Conspirators?" he cried faintly. The word
brought vividly before him the horrors of the scaffold and the wheel.
"Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! Why did I go to that house to lodge?"

"Do your duty," the Syndic said, "and you need fear nothing."

"But if I cannot--do it?" the youth stammered, his teeth chattering. He
to penetrate to Basterga's room unbidden! He to rob the formidable man
and perhaps be caught in the act! He to deceive him and meet his eye at
meals! Impossible! "But if I cannot--do it?" he repeated, cowering.

"The State knows no such word!" the Syndic returned grimly. "Cannot," he
continued slowly, "means will not. Do your duty and fear nothing. Do it
not, pause, hesitate, breathe but a syllable of that which I have told
you, and you will have all to fear. All!"

He saw too late that it was he himself who had all to fear; that in
taking the lad before him into his confidence, he had placed himself in
the hands of a craven. But he had done it. He had gone too far, moved by
the foolish impulse of the moment, to retreat. His sole chance lay in
showing the lad on which side danger pressed him most closely; on
frightening him completely. And when Louis did not reply:--

"You do not answer me?" Blondel said in his sternest tones. "You do not
reply? Am I to understand that you decline? That you refuse to perform
the task which the State assigns to you? In that case be sure you will
perish with those whom the Two Hundred know to be the enemies of Geneva,
and for whom the rack and the wheel are at this moment prepared."

"No!" Louis cried passionately; he almost fell on his knees in the open
street. "No, no! I will go anywhere, do anything, Messer Syndic! I swear
I will; I am no enemy! No conspirator!"

"You may be no enemy. But you must show yourself a friend!"

"I will! I will indeed."

"And no syllable of this will pass your lips?"

"As I live, Messer Syndic! Nothing! Nothing!"

When he had repeated this several times with the earnestness of extreme
terror, and appeared to have laid to heart such particulars as Blondel
thought he should know, the Syndic dismissed him, letting him go with a
last injunction to be silent and a last t