hind time, and told
them so.

"Leave that fellow now, Jolly. He's fast enough. Up and fetch the rest.
It's time to be going... time to be going."

Flung aside now that he was pinioned, Leroy sat down on the floor and
looked about him. Near him an elderly man was begging for a cup of
water. They greeted the prayer with jeering laughter.

"Water! By Sainte Guillotine, he asks for water!" The drunken
sans-culottes were intensely amused. "Patience, my friend--patience, and
you shall drink your fill. You shall drink from the great cup."

Soon the porter's lodge was crowded with prisoners, and they were
overflowing into the passage.

Came Grandmaison cursing and swearing at the sluggishness of the Marats,
reminding them--as he had been reminding them for the last hour--that it
was time to be off, that the tide was on the ebb.

Stimulated by him, Jolly--the red-capped giant with the black
mustaches--and some others of the Marat Company, set themselves to tie
the prisoners into chains of twenty, further to ensure against
possible evasion. They were driven into the chilly courtyard, and there
Grandmaison, followed by a fellow with a lantern, passed along the ranks
counting them.

The result infuriated him.

"A hundred and five!" he roared, and swore horribly. "You have been here
nearly five hours, and in all that time you have managed to truss up
only a hundred and five. Are we never to get through with it? I tell you
the tide is ebbing. It is time to be off."

Laqueze, the porter of Le Bouffay, with whose food and wine those
myrmidons of the committee had made so disgracefully free, came to
assure him that he had all who were in the prison.

"All?" cried Grandmaison, aghast. "But according to the list there
should have been nearer two hundred." And he raised his voice to call:
"Goullin! Hola, Goullin! Where the devil is Goullin?"

"The list," Laqueze told him, "was drawn up from the register. But you
have not noted that many have died since they came--we have had the
fever here--and that a few are now in hospital."

"In hospital! Bah! Go up, some of you, and fetch them. We are taking
them somewhere where they will be cured." And then he hailed the elegant
Goullin, who came up wrapped in a cloak. "Here's a fine bathing-party!"
he grumbled. "A rare hundred of these swine!"

Goullin turned to Laqueze.

"What have you done with the fifteen brigands I sent you this evening?"

"But they only reached Nantes to-day,"