"'Precisely. For what other purpose should we trouble to collect them?'
"'Then I have a word to say.'
"For now the truth was out, and my suspicions were confirmed, and indignation had followed in their train.
"The companions stared at me—puzzled by my vehemence; but I quickly made them understand. The burning sentences flowed like red-hot lava from my lips. The speech which I delivered was not the speech which I had prepared. It was an infinitely greater speech.
"'Yes, I have a word to say to you; and that word is this. You have deceived, deluded, fooled me, you have inveigled me by your fair words into a companionship of which I find myself at once ashamed.'
"A murmur was arising, but I quelled it.
"'Silence! I have not finished. I have but begun. By your nods and your winks and your mysterious words you led me to believe that in joining you I was joining the mightiest revolutionary society that the world had ever seen. Heaven knows that I shrink from no revolutionary enterprise. Heaven knows that I am willing to adopt strong measures to raise the money which such enterprises need. And I thought that you were raising money for such a purpose, and that I was helping you to raise it. But what do I find? I find that you plunder—plunder the poor and weak and helpless—not for a cause, but for yourselves. I thought to be taking part with you in a high political conspiracy, and I find myself—I, moi qui vous parle, find myself—sitting and drinking in a den of thieves.'
"There was a further murmur; but this, too, I quelled.
"'Silence! I have nearly done. It remains for me to shake the dust from off my feet. It remains for me to say that I resign my membership, that I repudiate you, that I sever my connection with you, that I denounce you——'
"But I got no further. It was the word 'denounce,' unfortunately chosen, with its suggestion of betrayal to the police, that spurred the companions to action. Their numbers gave them courage; their knives flashed; as a single man they leapt at me.