Girondin!" he
answered, rapidly. Then at last he turned and found that half-a-dozen
men had entered, and that more were entering. To his astonishment,
they were all strangers to him--men with stern, gloomy faces, and
armed to the teeth. There was something so formidable in their
appearance that his voice faltered as he added: "But where is the
mayor, gentlemen? I do not see him."

No one answered, but in silence the last of the men--there were eleven
in all--entered and bolted the door behind him. Michel Tellier peered
at them in the gloom with growing alarm. In return the tallest of the
strangers, who had entered first and seemed to be in command, looked
round keenly. At length this man spoke. "So you have a Girondin here,
have you?" he said, his voice curiously sweet and sonorous.

"I was to have five crowns for him," Michel muttered dubiously.

"Oh! Petion," continued the spokesman to one of his companions, "can
you kindle a light? It strikes me that we have hit upon a dark
place."

The man addressed took something from his pouch. For a moment there
was silence, broken only by the sharp sound of the flint striking the
steel. Then a sudden glare lit up the dark interior, and disclosed the
group of cloaked strangers standing about the door, the light gleaming
back from their muskets and cutlasses. Michel trembled. He had never
seen such men as these before. True, they were wet and travel-stained,
and had the air of those who spend their nights in ditches and under
haystacks. But their pale, stern faces were set in indomitable
resolve. Their eyes glowed with a steady fire, and they trod as kings
tread. Their leader was a man of majestic height and beauty, and in
his eyes alone there seemed to lurk a spark of some lighter fire, as
if his spirit still rose above the task which had sobered his
companions. Michel noted all this in fear and bewilderment; noted the
white head and yet vigorous bearing of the man who had struck the
light; noted even the manner in which the light died away in the dim
recesses of the barn.

"And this Girondin--is he in hiding here?" said the tall man.

"That is so," Michel answered. "But I had nothing to do with hiding
him, citizen. It was my wife hid him in the straw there."

"And you gave notice of his presence to the authorities?" continued
the stranger, raising his hand to repress some movement among his
followers.

"Certainly, or you would not have been here," replied Michel, bett