worse to come! This was
but the commencement of his purgatory.... As he had not known how to
die at the right moment, he must arm himself with courage to expiate
his cowardice!... He must leave the shelter of his cell!... With an
intense effort of will he stretched out his arms, was handcuffed
without a murmur, and, marching between his two jailors, he quitted
the prison.

The bright light of noonday made him blink. On reaching the pavement
he recoiled with a convulsive movement: the jailors pulled him
forward.

It was the crowded hour, when men leave offices and shops for a midday
meal. But the public of these parts, accustomed to such comings and
goings of prisoners and their jailors, paid no attention to this
pitiful trio.

The prisoner seemed so overcome with emotion that, after uttering a
long sigh like a death rattle, he sank, a dead weight, into the arms
of his jailors.

They were forced to support him. They carried him to the courtyard of
the Council of War. Some, whose curiosity was aroused by the unusual
pallor of the prisoner, wished to follow, but the jailors closed the
great doors of the courtyard.

Before leading him to his cell, they dumped their inanimate prisoner
on a chair in the porter's lodge.... The porter brought vinegar. They
rubbed Butler-Vinson's temples with it. A jailor slapped his hands. In
vain! The prisoner showed no signs of life!

"You had better take him to his cell," advised the porter. "Perhaps he
will come to his senses if laid on his palliasse? In any case, run for
the medical officer."

The jailors, who could make nothing of their prisoner's mysterious
condition, transported him to cell 27. They laid him on his palliasse.

* * * * *

"Lieutenant Servin?"

"Commandant?"

"Will you help me to reduce these papers to order? It is half-past
eleven: I want to go to breakfast!"

The lieutenant brought a pile of documents to his superior's table and
rapidly classified them.

His superior, Commandant Dumoulin, had been chief assistant at the
Second Bureau. He had passed long years at his post there. Previous to
that, he had acted as Government Commissioner on the Councils of War
in the various garrisons where he had been stationed.... Some six
months ago Dumoulin had sent in his request to the Minister of War for
a change of billet. His record being an excellent one, the Minister
had appointed him Government Chief-commissioner attached to the