assembled in the streets. The proclamation had been
read just as the men were leaving the public houses, preparing to go
home for the night.

They brought the news to the women, who, at home, were setting the soup
and bread on the table for their husbands' supper. There was no thought
of going to bed or of sleeping that night. The bread-winner in every
family and all those dependent on him for daily sustenance were
trembling for their lives.

Resistance to the barbarous order would have been worse than useless,
nor did the thought of it enter the heads of these humble and ignorant
fisher folk, wearied out with the miserable struggle for existence.
There was not sufficient spirit left in this half-starved population
of a small provincial city to suggest open rebellion. A regiment of
soldiers come up from the South were quartered in the Chateau, and the
natives of Boulogne could not have mustered more than a score of disused
blunderbusses between them.

Then they remembered tales which Andre Lemoine had told, the fate of
Lyons, razed to the ground, of Toulon burnt to ashes, and they did not
dare rebel.

But brothers, fathers, sons trooped out towards Gayole, in order to
have a good look at the frowning pile, which held the hostage for their
safety. It looked dark and gloomy enough, save for one window which gave
on the southern ramparts. This window was wide open and a feeble light
flickered from the room beyond, and as the men stood about, gazing at
the walls in sulky silence, they suddenly caught the sound of a loud
laugh proceeding from within, and of a pleasant voice speaking quite
gaily in a language which they did not understand, but which sounded
like English.

Against the heavy oaken gateway, leading to the courtyard of the prison,
the proclamation written on stout parchment had been pinned up. Beside
it hung a tiny lantern, the dim light of which flickered in the evening
breeze, and brought at times into sudden relief the bold writing and
heavy signature, which stood out, stern and grim, against the yellowish
background of the paper, like black signs of approaching death.

Facing the gateway and the proclamation, the crowd of men took its
stand. The moon, from behind them, cast fitful, silvery glances at the
weary heads bent in anxiety and watchful expectancy: on old heads and
young heads, dark, curly heads and heads grizzled with age, on backs
bent with toil, and hands rough and gnarled like seasoned timb