And yet that sound had been harmless enough: just a peal of laughter, merry and inane—nothing more. It came faintly echoing from beyond the heavy portière. Yet it had unnerved the most ruthless despot in France. He looked about him, scared and mystified. Nothing had been changed since he had gone wandering into Elysian fields. He was still in a stuffy, curtained room; there was the dais on which he had sat; the two women still chanted their weird lament; and there was the old necromancer in her shapeless, colourless robe, coolly setting down the crystal globe upon its carved stand. There was the blackamoor, grinning and mischievous, the metal vessel, the oil lamp, the threadbare carpet. What of all this had been a dream? The clouds and the trumpets, or that peal of human laughter with the quaint, inane catch in it? No one looked scared: the girls chanted, the old hag mumbled vague directions to her black attendant, who tried to look solemn, since he was paid to keep his impish mirth in check.
"What was that?" Robespierre murmured at last.
The old woman looked up.
"What was what, O Chosen One?" she asked.
"I heard a sound——" he mumbled. "A laugh. . . . Is any one else in the room?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"People are waiting in the antechamber," she replied carelessly, "until it is the pleasure of the Chosen One to go. As a rule they wait patiently, and in silence. But one of them may have laughed." Then, as he made no further comment but still stood there silent, as if irresolute, she queried with a great show of deference: "What is thy next pleasure, O thou who art beloved of the people of France?"
"Nothing . . . nothing!" he murmured. "I’ll go now."
She turned straight to him and made him an elaborate obeisance, waving her arms about her. The two girls struck the ground with their foreheads. The Chosen One, in his innermost heart vaguely conscious of ridicule, frowned impatiently.
"Do not," he said peremptorily, "let any one know that I have been here."