owed,
his eyes gazing straight before him.

"But, Monsieur," again broke in the Swiss, anxiously, "if I may
interrupt, there is need to hasten. There will be a mob. Our guard is
gone."

"So," said Law. "They were afraid?"

"Surely. They fled forthwith when they heard the people below crying out
at the house. They are indeed threatening death to yourself. They cry
that they will burn the house--that should you appear, they will have
your blood at once."

"And are you not afraid?" asked Law.

"I am here. Does not Monsieur fear for himself?"

Law shrugged his shoulders. "There are many of them, and we are but
two," said he. "For yourself, go you down the back way and care for your
own safety. I will go out the front and meet these good people. Are we
quite ready for the journey?"

"Quite ready, as you have directed."

"Have you the two valises, with the one change of clothing?"

"They are here."

"And have you the fifty louis, as I stated?"

"Here in the purse."

"And I think you have also the single diamond."

"It is here."

"Then," said Law, "let us go."

He rose, and scarce looking behind him, even to see that his orders to
the servant had been obeyed, he strode down the vast stairway of the
great hotel, past many precious works of art, between walls hung with
richest tapestries and noble paintings. The click of his heel on a
chance bit of exposed marble here and there echoed hollow, as though
indeed the master of the palace had been abandoned by all his people.
The great building was silent, empty.

"What! Are you, then, here?" he said, seeing the servant had disobeyed
his instructions and was following close behind him. He alone out of
those scores of servants, those hundreds of fawning nobles, those
thousands of sycophant souls who had but lately cringed before him, now
accompanied the late master of France as he turned to leave the house
in which he no longer held authority.

Without, but the door's thickness from where he stood, there arose a
tumult of sound, shouts, cries, imprecations, entreaties, as though the
walls of some asylum for the unfortunate had broken away and allowed its
inmates to escape unrestrained, irreclaimable, impossible to control.

"Down with Jean L'as! Down with Jean L'as!" rose a cadenced, rhythmic
shout, the accord of a mob of Paris beating into its tones. And this
steady burden was broken by the cries of "Enter! Enter! Break down the
door! Kill the monster! Assass