Between the two, they had strapped her unresisting on the board. They lowered it below the razor edge of the knife, so that she lay prone with her neck directly underneath. The finale was to fasten on the neck piece, a round-holed cross board 176 which prevented the head from drawing back....
Alas! what avails it that five miles away––in the heart of the city––the hoofbeats of a company of cavalry resound rhythmically over the flagstones?
Danton and his Northern riders are straining every nerve, galloping their steeds furiously––eyes fixed on the seeming-impossible goal. Rather are they modern centaurs, each rider and steed a unit of undivisible will and energy: Danton a furious resistless hippogriff, fire-striking, fire-exhaling, in unity with his white charger; the lean-jawed, sternly set Captain on his lean galloping Arabian, cyclonic, onrushing like some Spectral Horseman; the rest riding like the Valkyries––as it were, twixt Heaven and earth––their galloping beats scorning the ground as they rush by to the hissing of the cleaved and angry winds.
But what avails it?...
Even on the straightway ’twere a quarter-hour ride to the outer-suburban locality where the guillotine does its dreadful work. Ancient Paris with its tortuous streets delays them. Ahead, are Jacques-Forget-Not––Jacobin 177 troops––barriers––gates.
Poor little Henriette’s golden head!
Is it not fated to drop in the basket long, long before they can appear?