"Bah! Citoyenne Cabarrus will swear that you lied. 'Twill be her word against that of a mudlark!"
"Nay!" Rateau retorted. "'Twill be more than that."
"What then?"
"Will you swear to protect me, citizen, if citizen Tallien—"
"Yes, yes! I'll protect you. . . . And the guillotine has no time to trouble about such muck-worms as you!"
"Well, then, citizen," Rateau went on in a hoarse murmur, "if you will go to the citoyenne's lodgings in the Rue Villedot, I can show you where the Englishman hides the clothes wherewith he disguises himself . . . and the letters which he writes to the citoyenne when . . ."
He paused, obviously terrified at the awesome expression of the other man's face. Chauvelin had allowed the coalheaver's wrist to drop out of his grasp. He was sitting quite still, silent and grim, his thin, claw-like hands closely clasped together and held between his knees. The flickering light of the lantern distorted his narrow face, lengthened the shadows beneath the nose and chin, threw a high light just below the brows, so that the pale eyes appeared to gleam with an unnatural flame. Rateau hardly dared to move. He lay like a huge bundle of rags in the inky blackness beyond the circle of light protected by the lantern; his breath came and went with a dragging, hissing sound, now and then broken by a painful cough.
For a moment or two there was silence in the great disused store-room—a silence broken only by the thunder, dull and distant now, and the ceaseless, monotonous patter of the rain. Then Chauvelin murmured between his teeth:
"If I thought that she . . ." But he did not complete the sentence, jumped to his feet and approached the big mass of rags and humanity that cowered in the gloom. "Get up, citizen Rateau!" he commanded.
The asthmatic giant struggled to his knees. His wooden shoes had slipped off his feet. He groped for them, and with trembling hands contrived to put them on again.