Orphans of the Storm Part 18

With a smile Forget-Not records the death sentence given by his compliant fellow judges, in his book. Chevalier de Vaudrey is hustled back to the rear of the hall.

Poor trembling Henriette is next. The horrors of Maurice's condemnation and the thought of her little lost sister nearby, rack her with a stinging pain in which is commingled little thought of self.

"You sheltered this aristocrat?" questions the Judge.

"Of course--I--love him!"

"The penalty for sheltering an emigre is death!" replies Forget-Not shrilly, again playing to the Jacobins.

But Henriette is thinking of the suffering Louise. She strives to direct the Judge's attention to the blind girl.

"She might hear!" says Henriette softly. "Please--not so loud!"

The Judge turns the pages of his book in studied indifference.

"Please--my sister--we have just met after a long time--she--she is blind!" The little voice breaks off in sobs.

The idea strikes her that, if they can only see the helpless creature, they will have pity. She calls:

"Louise, stand up--they want to see you!"

The cripple Pierre aids Louise to her feet. She stands there alone, a picture of abject misery.

"You see!" cries Henriette. "Blind--no one to care for her!"

The dandified dictator of France fixes fishy eyes on the little person in the dock. One affected hand has raised a double lorgnette through which he peers at her. He muses, strokes a long nostril with his forefinger, recollects something which causes him to curl his lip:

Henriette's door slam on the obscure Maximilian Robespierre finds its re-echo to day at the gates of Death. Ah, yes, he has placed the girl of the Faubourg lodging now!

"You were an inmate of the prison for fallen women?" he asks coldly.

The clear, unashamed blue eyes would have told innocence if the words had not.

"Yes, Monsieur, but I was not guilty."

Robespierre's delicate hand pa.s.ses in the faintest movement across his throat and toys with the neck ruffle underneath it.

His lips frame a dreadful word though he does not speak it. A nod to Jacques-Forget-Not completes the by-play.

The servant imitates the master's gesture. This time, the drawing of the hand across the throat is more decisive.

Jacques speaks the word that his master did not vocalize. The other judges confirm it.

"GUILLOTINE!"

Henriette is borne shrieking out to the death chamber--"One hour with her--only one hour--then I will go with him!"

But she and the Vaudrey are already being taken out together by the attendants.

CHAPTER XXV

THE VOICE OF DANTON

We have explained that Danton took little part in the Government after the repelling of the foreign foe and the commencement of the Terror.

He had no sympathy with the excesses of his former colleagues, but on the other hand was subject to strange la.s.situdes or inhibitions that oft paralyzed his spirit except at the supreme hour.

Saving France had been his real job.

Among these petty and mean minds seeking power or pelf or the repayment of some ancient grudge, Danton had nothing to do! He loved his frontier fighters--men who, the same as himself, dared all for France.

They were somewhat like our cowboys of the Western plains. Born to the saddle; recruited for the northern cavalry; supremely successful in whirlwind charges and hara.s.sing flank attacks that drove back Brunswick's legions, they were now quartered on well-deserved furlough within the city.

The old lion of Danton's nature woke again, his indomitable spirit rea.s.serted itself whenever he went to their yard and roused them by his patriotic eloquence.

Alas! within the tribunal and on the execution place at the other side of the city, was that going on which shamed patriotism and mocked liberty.

"La Guillotine"--that fiendish beheading instrument that a deputy named Doctor Guillotin had devised--was become Robespierre's private engine to tyrannize France.

It stood in a great suburban place, on a scaffolding led up to by a flight of steps: a tall ma.s.sive upright with high cross piece--uglier than the gallows. A brightly gleaming, triangular knife, about the size of a ploughshare, worked up and down in the channels.

The knife was first raised to the top of the upright, and held there by a lever. The master of the ceremonial raised right hand in token to the executioners to be ready.

As he dropped his hand in a down-sweeping gesture, one of these villains pulled the rope which released the lever. Down fell the heavy knife across the neck opening of a body board to which the victim was strapped. Below the contraption was a huge basket.

A cordon of soldiery guarded the place, keeping back the crowds. The brawny executioners--naked to the waist, like butchers in a stockyard--daily performed their office.

On this day of Henriette and Maurice's sentence, they were giving it a preliminary trial. "The trigger's been slipping--not working well,"

the head fellow explained to the master of ceremonies. Back and forth the terrible guillotine knife hissed and whistled until they p.r.o.nounced its action perfect....

Danton and three of his friends had an errand at the Government that day that took them past the death chamber. A little frightened face amongst the condemned drew his notice.

"Killing aristocrats, yes!" he was thinking. "But these poor huddled folk are not the public foe. Would I might summon the legions to put an end to slaughter--but that Robespierre has inflamed all France with the l.u.s.t of blood!"

He was startled from the reflection by the woe-begone, distrait little thing who seemed hypnotized by terror. The tall man bent down and peered at the girl.

Like the other condemned, her hands had just been pinioned behind her.

She stood forlorn and helpless.

Horror froze him.... The Child who had saved his life from the spada.s.sins--the dear little face the memory of which he had always treasured! He asked her a mute question, she mutely nodded.

So black-hearted murder was to snuff her out too--yes, and that young man nearby, Maurice de Vaudrey whom he knew.