The next ten minutes were the cruelest of her life. She was under the impression, not that she would be killed—prompt death would be nothing—but made the sport of the mob or dragged away into jail whence she would issue only after a trial handing her over to ignominious death.
As she stepped forth, under the ceiling of steel made by the swords and bayonets of the soldiers, Barnave gathered to cover her. Even as a giddiness made her close her eyes, she caught a glimpse down the flashing vista of a face she remembered. This face seemed to be the centre of the multitudinous eyes of the mob: from his glance would come the cue for her immolation. It was the terrible man who had in a mysterious manner at Taverney Manor raised the veil over the future. He whom she had seen at Sevres on returning from Versailles. He who appeared merely to foretell great catastrophes or to witness their fulfillment.
And yet if Cagliostro, was he not dead in the dungeons of the Pope?
To be assured that her sight did not deceive her, she darted down the tunnel of steel, strong against realities but not against this sinister vision.
It seemed to her that the earth gave way under her tread; that all whirled round her, palace, gardens, trees, the countless people; that vigorous arms seized her and carried her away amid deafening yells. She heard the Lifeguards shouting, calling the wrath upon them to turn it aside from its true aim. Opening her eyes an instant, she beheld Charny between the pair hurled from the box—pale and handsome, as ever, he fought with ten men at once, with the nobleman's smile of scorn and the martyr's light in his gaze. From Charny her eyes went back to the man whose myrmidons ruled the storm and swept her out of the maelstrom. With terror she undoubtedly recognized the magician of Taverney and Sevres.
"You, it is you!" she gasped, trying to repel him with her rigid hands.
"Yes, it is I," he hissed in her ear. "I still need you to push the throne into its last gulf, and so I save you!"
She could support no more, but screaming, she swooned.
Meanwhile the mob, defrauded of the chief morsel, were tearing the Lifeguards to pieces and carrying Billet and Drouet in triumph.