his, who always distrusted him most when his eyes were most affected, would have certainly disbelieved every word of the friendly speech he had just made, and would have assumed it as a matter of fact that his visit to the head jailer had some specially underhand business at the bottom of it.
“How am I getting on?” said the jailer, shaking his head. “Overworked, friend — overworked. No idle hours in our department. Even the guillotine is getting too slow for us!”
“Sent off your batch of prisoners for trial this morning?” asked Lomaque, with an appearance of perfect unconcern.
“No; they’re just going,” answered the other. “Come and have a look at them.” He spoke as if the prisoners were a collection of pictures on view, or a set of dresses just made up. Lomaque nodded his head, still with his air of happy, holiday carelessness. The jailer led the way to an inner hall; and, pointing lazily with his pipe-stem, said: “Our morning batch, citizen, just ready for the baking.”
In one corner of the hall were huddled together more than thirty men and women of all ranks and ages; some staring round them with looks of blank despair; some laughing and gossiping recklessly. Near them lounged a guard of “Patriots,” smoking, spitting, and swearing. Between the patriots and the prisoners sat, on a rickety stool, the second jailer — a humpbacked man, with an immense red mustache — finishing his breakfast of broad beans, which he scooped out of a basin with his knife, and washed down with copious draughts of wine from a bottle. Carelessly as Lomaque looked at the shocking scene before him, his quick eyes contrived to take note of every prisoner’s face, and to descry in a few minutes Trudaine and his sister standing together at the back of the group.
“Now then, Apollo!” cried the head jailer, addressing his subordinate by a facetious prison nickname, “don’t be all day starting that trumpery batch of yours. And harkye, friend, I have leave of absence, on business, at my Section this afternoon. So it will be your duty to read the list for the guillotine, and chalk the prisoners’ doors before the cart comes tomorrow morning. ‘Ware the bottle, Apollo, to-day; ‘ware the bottle, for fear of accidents with the death-list tomorrow.”
“Thirsty July weather, this — eh, citizen?” said Lomaque, leaving the head jailer, and patting the hunchback in the friendliest manner on the shoulder. “Why, how you have got your batch huddled up together this morning! Shall I help you to shove them into marching order? My time is quite at your disposal. This is a holiday morning with me!”
“Ha, ha, ha! what a jolly dog he is on his holiday morning!” exclaimed the head jailer, as Lomaque — apparently taking leave of his natural character altogether in the exhilaration of an hour’s unexpected leisure — began pushing and pulling the prisoners into rank, with humorous mock apologies, at which not the officials only, but many of the victims themselves — reckless victims of a reckless tyranny — laughed heartily. Persevering to the last in his practical jest, Lomaque contrived to get close to Trudaine for a minute, and to give him one significant look before he seized him by the shoulders, like the rest. “Now, then, rearguard,” cried Lomaque, pushing Trudaine on, “close the line of march, and mind you keep step with your young woman there. Pluck up your spirits, citoyenne! one gets used to everything in this world, even to the guillotine!”
While he was speaking and pushing at the same time, Trudaine felt a piece of paper slip quickly between his neck and his cravat. “Courage!” he whispered, pressing his sister’s hand, as he saw her shuddering under the assumed brutality of Lomaque’s joke.
Surrounded by the guard of “Patriots,” the procession of prisoners moved slowly into the outer courtyard, on its way to the revolutionary tribunal, the humpbacked jailer bringing up the rear. Lomaque was about to follow at some little distance, but the head jailer hospitably expostulated. “What a hurry you’re in!” said he. “Now that incorrigible drinker, my second in command, has gone off with his batch, I don’t mind asking you to step in and have a drop of wine.”
“Thank you,” answered Lomaque; “but I have rather a fancy for hearing the trial this morning. Suppose I come back afterward? What time do you go to your Section? At two o’clock, eh? Good! I shall try if I can’t get here soon after one.” With these words he nodded and went out. The brilliant sunlight in the courtyard made him wink faster than ever. Had any of his old enemies been with him, they would have whispered within themselves, “If you mean to come back at all, Citizen Lomaque, it will not be soon after one!”
On his way through the streets, the chief agent met one or two police office friends, who delayed his progress; so that when he arrived at the revolutionary tribunal the trials of the day were just about to begin.
The principal article of furniture in the Hall of Justice was a long, clumsy, deal table, covered with green baize. At the head of this table sat the president and his court, with their hats on, backed by a heterogeneous collection of patriots officially connected in various ways with the proceedings that were to take place. Below the front of the table, a railed-off space, with a gallery beyond, was appropriated to the general public — mostly represented, as to the gallery, on this occasion, by women, all sitting together on forms, knitting, shirt-mending, and baby-linen-making, as coolly as if they were at home. Parallel with the side of the table furthest from the great door of entrance was a low platform railed off, on which the prisoners, surrounded by their guard, were now assembled to await their trial. The sun shone in brightly from a high window, and a hum of ceaseless talking pervaded the hall cheerfully as Lomaque entered it. He was a privileged man here, as at the prison; and he made his way in by a private door, so as to pass to the prisoners’ platform, and to walk round it, before he got to a place behind the president’s chair. Trudaine, standing with his sister on the outermost limits of the group, nodded significantly as Lomaque looked up at him for an instant. He had contrived, on his way to the tribunal, to get an opportunity of reading the paper which the chief agent had slipped into his cravat. It contained these lines:
“I have just discovered who the citizen and citoyenne Dubois are. There is no chance for you but to confess everything. By that means you may inculpate a certain citizen holding authority, and may make it his interest, if he loves his own life, to save yours and your sister’s.”
Arrived at the back of the president’s chair, Lomaque recognised his two trusty subordinates, Magloire and Picard, waiting among the assembled patriot officials, to give their evidence. Beyond them, leaning against the wall, addressed by no one, and speaking to no one, stood the superintendent, Danville. Doubt and suspense were written in every line of his face; the fretfulness of an uneasy mind expressed itself in his slightest gesture — even in his manner of passing a handkerchief from time to time over his face, on which the perspiration was gathering thick and fast already.
“Silence!” cried the usher of the court for the time being — a hoarse-voiced man in top-boots with a huge saber buckled to his side, and a bludgeon in his hand. “Silence for the Citizen President!” he reiterated, striking his bludgeon on the table.
The president rose and proclaimed that the sitting for the day had begun; then sat down again.
The momentary silence which followed was interrupted by a sudden confusion among the prisoners on the platform. Two of the guards sprang in among them. There was the thump of a heavy fall — a scream of terror from some of the female prisoners — then another dead silence, broken by one of the guards, who walked across the hall with a bloody knife in his hand, and laid it on the table. “Citizen President,” he said, “I have to report that one of the prisoners has just stabbed himself.” There was a murmuring exclamation, “Is that all?” among the women spectators, as they resumed their work. Suicide at the bar of justice was no uncommon occurrence, under the Reign of Terror.
“Name?” asked the president, quietly taking up his pen and opening a book.
“Martigne,” answered the humpbacked jailer, coming forward to the table.
“Description?”
“Ex-royalist coachmaker to the tyrant Capet.”
“Accusation?”
“Conspiracy