itoyen Bibot exceedingly; he laughed
until his sides ached, and the tears streamed down his cheeks.

"Nay, nay!" he said at last, "those aristos weren't in the cart; the
driver was not the Scarlet Pimpernel!"

"What?"

"No! The captain of the guard was that damned Englishman in disguise,
and everyone of his soldiers aristos!"

The crowd this time said nothing: the story certainly savoured of the
supernatural, and though the Republic had abolished God, it had not
quite succeeded in killing the fear of the supernatural in the hearts of
the people. Truly that Englishman must be the devil himself.

The sun was sinking low down in the west. Bibot prepared himself to
close the gates.

"EN AVANT the carts," he said.

Some dozen covered carts were drawn up in a row, ready to leave town,
in order to fetch the produce from the country close by, for market the
next morning. They were mostly well known to Bibot, as they went through
his gate twice every day on their way to and from the town. He spoke
to one or two of their drivers--mostly women--and was at great pains to
examine the inside of the carts.

"You never know," he would say, "and I'm not going to be caught like
that fool Grospierre."

The women who drove the carts usually spent their day on the Place de la
Greve, beneath the platform of the guillotine, knitting and gossiping,
whilst they watched the rows of tumbrils arriving with the victims the
Reign of Terror claimed every day. It was great fun to see the aristos
arriving for the reception of Madame la Guillotine, and the places close
by the platform were very much sought after. Bibot, during the day,
had been on duty on the Place. He recognized most of the old hats,
"tricotteuses," as they were called, who sat there and knitted, whilst
head after head fell beneath the knife, and they themselves got quite
bespattered with the blood of those cursed aristos.

"He! la mere!" said Bibot to one of these horrible hags, "what have you
got there?"

He had seen her earlier in the day, with her knitting and the whip of
her cart close beside her. Now she had fastened a row of curly locks to
the whip handle, all colours, from gold to silver, fair to dark, and she
stroked them with her huge, bony fingers as she laughed at Bibot.

"I made friends with Madame Guillotine's lover," she said with a coarse
laugh, "he cut these off for me from the heads as they rolled down. He
has promised me some more to-morrow, but I don'