made a
complete confession of his crime, and he calmly repeated it without
changing a word. He explained that if he had deposited his bomb at the
entrance of the Duvillard mansion it was to give his deed its true
significance, that of summoning the wealthy, the money-mongers who had so
scandalously enriched themselves by dint of theft and falsehood, to
restore that part of the common wealth which they had appropriated, to
the poor, the working classes, their children and their wives, who
perished of starvation. It was only at this moment that he grew excited;
all the misery that he had endured or witnessed rose to his clouded,
semi-educated brain, in which claims and theories and exasperated ideas
of absolute justice and universal happiness had gathered confusedly. And
from that moment he appeared such as he really was, a sentimentalist, a
dreamer transported by suffering, proud and stubborn, and bent on
changing the world in accordance with his sectarian logic.

"But you fled!" cried the judge in a voice such as would have befitted a
grasshopper. "You must not say that you gave your life to your cause and
were ready for martyrdom!"

Salvat's most poignant regret was that he had yielded in the Bois de
Boulogne to the dismay and rage which come upon a tracked and hunted man
and impel him to do all he can to escape capture. And on being thus
taunted by the judge he became quite angry. "I don't fear death, you'll
see that," he replied. "If all had the same courage as I have, your
rotten society would be swept away to-morrow, and happiness would at last
dawn."

Then the interrogatory dealt at great length with the composition and
manufacture of the bomb. The judge, rightly enough, pointed out that this
was the only obscure point of the affair. "And so," he remarked, "you
persist in saying that dynamite was the explosive you employed? Well, you
will presently hear the experts, who, it is true, differ on certain
points, but are all of opinion that you employed some other explosive,
though they cannot say precisely what it was. Why not speak out on the
point, as you glory in saying everything?"

Salvat, however, had suddenly calmed down, giving only cautious
monosyllabic replies. "Well, seek for whatever you like if you don't
believe me," he now answered. "I made my bomb by myself, and under
circumstances which I've already related a score of times. You surely
don't expect me to reveal names and compromise comrades?"

F