er
satisfied with himself.

The answer struck him down with an awful terror. "That does not
follow," said the tall man, coolly, "for we are Girondins!"

"You are?"

"Without doubt," the other answered, with majestic simplicity; "or
there are no such persons. This is Petion, and this Citizen Buzot.
Have you heard of Louvet? There he stands. For me, I am Barbaroux."

Michel's tongue seemed glued to the roof of his mouth. He could not
utter a word. But another could. On the far side of the barrier a
sudden rustling was heard, and while all turned to look--but with
what different feelings--the pale face of the youth over whom
Michel had bent in the afternoon appeared above the partition. A
smile of joyful recognition effaced for the time the lines of
exhaustion. The young man, clinging for support to the planks,
uttered a cry of thankfulness. "It is you! It is really you! You are
safe!" he exclaimed.

"We are safe, all of us, Pierre," Barbaroux answered. "And now"--and
he turned to Michel Tellier with sudden thunder in his voice--"this
man whom you would have betrayed is our guide, let me tell you, whom
we lost last night. Speak, man, in your defence, if you can. Say what
you have to say why justice shall not be done upon you, miserable
caitiff, who would have sold a man's life for a few pieces of
silver!"

The wretched peasant's knees trembled, and the perspiration stood upon
his brow. He heard the voice as the voice of a judge. He looked in the
stern eyes of the Girondins, and read only anger and vengeance. Then
he caught in the silence the sound of his wife weeping, for at
Pierre's appearance she had broken into wild sobbing, and he spoke out
of the base instincts of his heart.

"He was her lover," he muttered. "I swear it, citizens."

"He lies!" cried the man at the barrier, his face transfigured with
rage. "I loved her, it is true, but it was before her old father sold
her to this Judas. For what he would have you believe now, my friends,
it is false. I, too, swear it."

A murmur of execration broke from the group of Girondins. Barbaroux
repressed it by a gesture. "What do you say of this man?" he asked,
turning to them, his voice deep and solemn.

"He is not fit to live!" they answered in chorus.

The poor coward screamed as he heard the words, and, flinging himself
on the ground, he embraced Barbaroux's knees in a paroxysm of terror.
But the judge did not look at him. Barbaroux turned, instead, to
Pie