“But how?”
“I must consider it,” said Pasdeloup, with a self-assurance which at another time would have been amusing. “There is no time to be lost;” and he disappeared down the stair leading to the floor below.
My companion looked after him musingly.
“Ah, Tavernay,” he said, “I am beginning to suspect that there are depths in these peasants of which we never dreamed. I have seen them fight like heroes, and I had always thought them cowards. Here to-night I have seen one stand erect, a man, and I had fancied that they could only crawl. When France wins through this peril and shakes off this madness which has her by the throat, there will be such a searching of hearts as the world has never seen!”
A sudden stillness had fallen upon the mob below; no sound rose to the platform save the crackling of the flames. We looked down to see what this strange silence meant, and found that the little groups of people had drawn still farther away from the tower and were watching it with a kind of awed expectancy. Their silence was infinitely more sinister than their shouting. There was something about it—something horrible and threatening—which sent a chill to the marrow. Why should they stand there staring at the tower? What frightful thing was about to happen?
My companion evidently felt the same foreboding, for he gazed down at them with drawn brows.
“What do they mean?” he muttered. “What do they mean?”
He stared a moment longer, then turned to his wife.
“Come hither, my love,” he said, and when she came, drew her to him and held her close.
My heart was full to bursting. In an instant I was beside Charlotte.