of his incoherent
thoughts, conjuring up scenes of massacre and destruction, the others
madly applauding him, Brissot stole away, and beckoned Gerald to follow
him.

It was daybreak ere they separated, and as Gerald gained his chambers he
tore the white cockade he had long treasured as a souvenir of his days
of Garde du Corps in pieces, and scattered the fragments from his window
to the winds.

CHAPTER VIII. THE DEPOT DE LA PREFECTURE

Gerald had scarcely fallen asleep when he was aroused by a rude crash at
his door, and looking up, saw the room filled with _gendarmerie_ in full
uniform. A man in plain black meanwhile approached the bed where he lay,
and asked if he were called Gerald Fitzgerald.

'A _ci-devant_ Garde du Corps and a refugee too?' said the questioner,
who was the substitute of the Procureur du Roi. 'This is the order to
arrest you, Monsieur,' said he.

'On what charge, may I ask?' said Gerald indolently.

'It is a grave one,' said the other in a solemn voice, while he pointed
to certain words in the warrant.

Gerald started as he read them, and, with a smile of scornful meaning,
said--

'Is it alleged that I poisoned the Count de Mirabeau?'

'You are included among those suspected of that crime.'

'And was he poisoned, then?'

'The report of the surgeons who have examined the body is not
conclusive. There are, however, sufficient grounds for investigation
and inquiry. You will see, sir, that I have told you as much as I
may--perhaps more than I ought.'

Left alone in his chamber that he might dress, Gerald proceeded to make
his preparations with becoming speed. The order committed him to St.
Pelagie, a prison then reserved for those accused of great crimes
against the state. Weighty as such a charge was, he felt in the fact of
an unjust accusation a degree of courageous energy that he had not
known for many a previous day. In the midst of one's self-accusings and
misgivings, an ill-founded allegation brings a certain sense of relief:
if this be the extent of my culpability, I may be proud of my conduct,
is such satisfactory judgment to address to one's own heart. He would
have felt more comfort, it is true, in the reflection, if he did not
remember that it was a frequent artifice of the day to accuse men of
crimes of which they were innocent, to afford time and opportunity to
involve them in some more grounded charge. Many were sent to Vincennes
who were never afterwards heard of;