At the extreme end of the Quai de la Mégisserie some pikes and bayonets, bristling in the midst of the crowd, attracted his attention, and he fancied in the centre he could distinguish the uniform of a National Guard, and in the group signs of hostile movements. He ran, his heart oppressed with the dread of impending misfortune, toward the assemblage on the banks of the river.
The National Guard pressed by the company of Marseillais was Lorin. He was very pale, his lips compressed, his eyes menacing; his hand upon the handle of his sword, measuring the place best calculated to strike the blows he fully intended to inflict on his cowardly assailants.
Within two feet from Lorin stood Simon. He was laughing ferociously, and pointing him out to the Marseillais and the populace, saying,—
"Look at him! look well at him! He is one of those that I drove from the Temple yesterday for an aristocrat. He is one of those who favored the correspondence with the carnations. This is an accomplice of the girl Tison, who will pass here presently. Well, do you see?—he walks quietly on the quay while his coadjutor goes to the guillotine; and perhaps she was even more to him than an assistant. She might be his mistress, and he is here to bid her farewell, or to try to save her!"
Lorin was not the man to endure more. He drew his sword. At the same time the crowd opened before a man who charged headlong into the group, whose broad shoulders had already knocked down two or three spectators who were preparing to become actors in this scene.
"Be happy, Simon," said Maurice. "You regretted, no doubt, that I was not with my friend to enable you to turn your new title of Denunciator to full account. Denounce! Simon, denounce! I am here."
"Faith! yes," said Simon, with his hideous sneer; "and your arrival is very apropos. This," continued he, "is the elegant Maurice Lindey, who was accused at the same time as the girl Tison, but was acquitted because he was rich."
"To the lamp-post with them! to the lamp-post!" cried the Marseillais.
"Yes, forsooth, you had better make the attempt!" said Maurice, and advancing a step he pricked one of the foremost of the cut-throats in the forehead, so that the blood from his wound nearly blinded him.
"Have at the murderer!" cried the latter.