gh trumped-up charges they are to be hurried away to death--"

"You question the justice of the people's Tribunal?" interrupted Judge
Forget-Not shrilly, with obvious play at the mob.

"Hell's bells!" replied the indignant Thunderer. "I established this
Tribunal. Did not I as Minister of Justice set it in being, and shall
I not speak when crimes are done in its name!"

... In the death chamber Henriette and Maurice were trying to kiss
each other good-by. The guards had separated them. Vaudrey was going
in one death cart, Henriette in another....

He had silenced the querulous Forget-Not, was waking the echoes with
the same thunders that had nerved France to resist the foe. "I ask for
their lives not only, but for MERCY and JUSTICE to wipe out the
tyranny and cruelty that are befouling all of us. I ask for a
regenerated nation, purged of these vile offences."

Robespierre was sinisterly serious now.

The group of judges sat amazed.

"Give Danton a hearing!" was the murmur among the sansculottes, half
awed by his old witchery.

The impassioned orator swung upon them, his old supporters.

"My heart--my brain--my soul--my very life! Do they mean anything to
you--to France?"

"YES! YES!" shouted the answering mob, caught by the personal appeal.

Alarmed at the swiftly changing tide, the Chief Judge sought the
Dictator's eye. The orator's eyes were far away, his frame was
convulsed by emotion as he cried: "My very life--everything--I owe to
one of these victims!" The mob identified its cause with Danton's,
submerged their personalities with his own!

[Illustration: DANTON AND MEN RIDE TO THE RESCUE PAST THE CORRUPT AND
DEGENERATE ORGY OF THE "FEAST OF REASON."]

Robespierre answered Forget-Not's look. He indicated the speaker by a
slight motion of the head, then drew his right hand across the throat,
played with the lace ruffles--and smiled! Forget-Not understood. Not
then--but later, only a little later--would come the time to snuff out
this disturber!

Danton turned from the mob, swinging the peroration to the judges in
the one impassioned cry of "JUSTICE!" Lion-like he glanced from those
mean, denying souls to the rabble, and held out his hands.

Like an avalanche, the "Mountain" swept down from benches to hall and
on, on toward the judges. Murder was in their eyes. A word from the
Thunderer would have sealed Forget-Not's fate.

"His wish! Give Danton his wish!" they roared.

Like a monkey the man Forg