om the windows. Cuthbert remained here for an
hour or two, and then making a detour came out on the Boulevards higher
up.

The Theatre of Porte St. Martin was in flames, as were many other
buildings. A large number of troops with piled arms occupied the centre
of the street, taking their turn to rest before they relieved their
comrades in the work of assault. Presently he saw down a side street a
party of soldiers with some prisoners. He turned down to see what was
going on. The officer in command of the party came up to him.

"Monsieur has doubtless a pass," he said, politely.

Cuthbert produced it.

"Ah, you are English, monsieur. It is well for you that your country
does not breed such wretches as these. Every one of them has been caught
in the course of the last hour in the act of setting houses alight. They
are now to be shot."

"It is an unpleasant duty, monsieur," Cuthbert said.

"It would be horrible at any other time," the officer said. "But we
cannot consider these creatures as human beings. They are wild beasts
and I verily believe the women are worse than the men. There is only one
I would spare, though she is the worst of all. At every barricade where
the fighting has been fiercest for the last four days she has been
conspicuous. The troops got to know her by her red cap and dress. She
has been seen to shoot down men who attempted to retire, and she has led
a charmed life or she would have been killed a thousand times. When she
was taken she had on an old dress over her red one, and a hideous bonnet
in place of the cap. She was caught just as she had dropped a lighted
match into a cellar. The flames flashed up at once, and two soldiers
near ran up and arrested her. She stabbed one, but the other broke her
wrist with a blow from the butt of his musket.

"Then came a curious thing. A man who had been standing in a doorway on
the opposite side of the street ran out and declared that he was a
sharer in her crime. His air was that of a madman, and the men would
have pushed him away, but he exclaimed, 'I am Arnold Dampierre, one of
the leaders of the Commune. This is my wife.' Then the woman said, 'The
man is mad. I have never seen him before. I know Arnold Dampierre
everyone knows him. He does not resemble this man, whose proper place is
a lunatic asylum.' So they contended, and both were brought before the
drumhead Court Martial.

"The man had so wild an air that we should not have believed his story,