“We must not sleep, for the woman might escape.”
Some of them squatted down in the muddy road, the luckier ones managed to lean their backs against the slimy walls.
Twice before the hour of midnight they heard that same quaint and merry laugh proceeding from the lighted room, through the open window. Once it sounded very low and very prolonged, as if in response to a delightful joke.
Anon the heavy gateway of Gayole was opened from within, and half a dozen soldiers came walking out of the courtyard. They were dressed in the uniform of the town-guard, but had evidently been picked out of the rank and file, for all six were exceptionally tall and stalwart, and towered above the sentinel, who saluted and presented arms as they marched out of the gate.
In the midst of them walked a slight, dark figure, clad entirely in black, save for the tricolour scarf round his waist.
The crowd of watchers gazed on the little party with suddenly awakened interest.
“Who is it?” whispered some of the men.
“The citizen-governor,” suggested one.
“The new public executioner,” ventured another.
“No! no!” quoth Pierre Maxime, the doyen of Boulogne fishermen, and a great authority on every matter public or private with the town; “no, no he is the man who has come down from Paris, the friend of Robespierre. He makes the laws now, the citizen-governor even must obey him. 'Tis he who made the law that if the woman up yonder should escape...”