as he
went.

There stood the guillotine.

"No, no," shouted Gilbert, "I won't... I won't... Help! Help!"

A last appeal, lost in space.

The executioner gave a signal. Vaucheray was laid hold of, lifted,
dragged along, almost at a run.

And then came this staggering thing: a shot, a shot fired from the other
side, from one of the houses opposite.

The assistants stopped short.

The burden which they were dragging had collapsed in their arms.

"What is it? What's happened?" asked everybody.

"He's wounded..."

Blood spurted from Vaucheray's forehead and covered his face.

He spluttered:

"That's done it... one in a thousand! Thank you, governor, thank you."

"Finish him off! Carry him there!" said a voice, amid the general
confusion.

"But he's dead!"

"Get on with it... finish him off!"

Tumult was at its height, in the little group of magistrates, officials
and policemen. Every one was giving orders:

"Execute him!... The law must take its course!... We have no right to
delay! It would be cowardice!... Execute him!"

"But the man's dead!"

"That makes no difference!... The law must be obeyed!... Execute him!"

The chaplain protested, while two warders and Prasville kept their eyes
on Gilbert. In the meantime, the assistants had taken up the corpse
again and were carrying it to the guillotine.

"Hurry up!" cried the executioner, scared and hoarse-voiced. "Hurry up!
... And the other one to follow... Waste no time..."

He had not finished speaking, when a second report rang out. He spun
round on his heels and fell, groaning:

"It's nothing... a wound in the shoulder... Go on... The next one's
turn!"

But his assistants were running away, yelling with terror. The space
around the guillotine was cleared. And the prefect of police, rallying
his men, drove everybody back to the prison, helter-skelter, like a
disordered rabble: the magistrates, the officials, the condemned man,
the chaplain, all who had passed through the archway two or three
minutes before.

In the meanwhile, a squad of policemen, detectives and soldiers were
rushing upon the house, a little old-fashioned, three-storied house,
with a ground-floor occupied by two shops which happened to be empty.
Immediately after the first shot, they had seen, vaguely, at one of
the windows on the second floor, a man holding a rifle in his hand and
surrounded with a cloud of smoke.

Revolver-shots were fired at him, but missed him. He, sta