hat in the
future you and your hell-hounds would be so busy all day 'beating
up game for the guillotine' that the only time you would have at the
disposal of your friends would be the late hours of the night. I saw you
at the theatre a couple of hours ago, friend Heron; I didn't think to
find you yet abed."

"Well, what do you want?"

"Rather," retorted de Batz blandly, "shall we say, what do YOU want,
citizen Heron?"

"For what?

"For my continued immunity at the hands of yourself and your pack?"

Heron pushed his chair brusquely aside and strode across the narrow room
deliberately facing the portly figure of de Batz, who with head slightly
inclined on one side, his small eyes narrowed till they appeared
mere slits in his pockmarked face, was steadily and quite placidly
contemplating this inhuman monster who had this very day been given
uncontrolled power over hundreds of thousands of human lives.

Heron was one of those tall men who look mean in spite of their height.
His head was small and narrow, and his hair, which was sparse and lank,
fell in untidy strands across his forehead. He stooped slightly from the
neck, and his chest, though wide, was hollow between the shoulders. But
his legs were big and bony, slightly bent at the knees, like those of an
ill-conditioned horse.

The face was thin and the cheeks sunken; the eyes, very large and
prominent, had a look in them of cold and ferocious cruelty, a look
which contrasted strangely with the weakness and petty greed apparent
in the mouth, which was flabby, with full, very red lips, and chin that
sloped away to the long thin neck.

Even at this moment as he gazed on de Batz the greed and the cruelty
in him were fighting one of those battles the issue of which is always
uncertain in men of his stamp.

"I don't know," he said slowly, "that I am prepared to treat with you
any longer. You are an intolerable bit of vermin that has annoyed
the Committee of General Security for over two years now. It would
be excessively pleasant to crush you once and for all, as one would a
buzzing fly."

"Pleasant, perhaps, but immeasurably foolish," rejoined de Batz coolly;
"you would only get thirty-five livres for my head, and I offer you ten
times that amount for the self-same commodity."

"I know, I know; but the whole thing has become too dangerous."

"Why? I am very modest. I don't ask a great deal. Let your hounds keep
off my scent."

"You have too many d--d confe