ritation and disdain. Thereupon
Salvat began his perusal much after the fashion of a schoolboy, hemming
and hawing here and there, occasionally becoming confused, and then
bringing out certain words with wonderful emphasis, which evidently
pleased him. This declaration of his was the usual cry of suffering and
revolt already raised by so many disinherited ones. It referred to all
the frightful want of the lower spheres; the toiler unable to find a
livelihood in his toil; a whole class, the most numerous and worthy of
the classes, dying of starvation; whilst, on the other hand, were the
privileged ones, gorged with wealth, and wallowing in satiety, yet
refusing to part with even the crumbs from their tables, determined as
they were to restore nothing whatever of the wealth which they had
stolen. And so it became necessary to take everything away from them, to
rouse them from their egotism by terrible warnings, and to proclaim to
them even with the crash of bombs that the day of justice had come. The
unhappy man spoke that word "justice" in a ringing voice which seemed to
fill the whole court. But the emotion of those who heard him reached its
highest pitch when, after declaring that he laid down his life for the
cause, and expected nothing but a verdict of death from the jury, he
added, as if prophetically, that his blood would assuredly give birth to
other martyrs. They might send him to the scaffold, said he, but he knew
that his example would bear fruit. After him would come another avenger,
and yet another, and others still, until the old and rotten social system
should have crumbled away so as to make room for the society of justice
and happiness of which he was one of the apostles.

The presiding judge, in his impatience and agitation, twice endeavoured
to interrupt Salvat. But the other read on and on with the imperturbable
conscientiousness of one who fears that he may not give proper utterance
to his most important words. He must have been thinking of that perusal
ever since he had been in prison. It was the decisive act of his suicide,
the act by which he proclaimed that he gave his life for the glory of
dying in the cause of mankind. And when he had finished he sat down
between the gendarmes with glowing eyes and flushed cheeks, as if he
inwardly experienced some deep joy.

To destroy the effect which the declaration had produced--a commingling
of fear and compassion--the judge at once wished to proceed with t