Partly he was wrong, partly he was right. An awful penalty awaited him for his misdeeds as well as through his misdeeds, though how the blow was to be struck he had not truly divined.
"Who," he asked, still standing on the platform of his carriage with his richly-embroidered sleeping gown around him, "are there besides the Marseillais? Are--there--any--strangers?"
"Strangers. Nay, nay! Strangers. Bon Dieu! Does Monsieur think strangers seek Marseilles now, when even we, the Marseillais, flee from it? When we leave our houses, our goods, sometimes our own flesh and blood, behind? Who should be there?"
"The commerce is great," he replied. "To all parts of the world go forth ships laden with merchandise. All traffic, all commerce cannot be stopped, even by such a scourge as this!"
"Not stopped!" the man replied. "Monsieur, you do not know. It is impossible that monsieur should understand. There are no ships; they lie out at sea. They will not approach. None, except the galleys. Their cargo counts not."
For a moment the Duke made no reply, while his eyes wandered from that group of fugitives to the people gazing forth from the inn window; to, also, his own servants looking paralysed with fear as they stood about, all having left the berceuse temporarily and crossed to the other side of the road so as not to be too near to the infected ones; then he said:
"There left Paris some weeks ago--many weeks now--two gangs of--of emigrant convicts for--for the New World. One cordon was of men, the other of--of women. Have they, are--are they there in that great pest house?" And he drew in his breath as he awaited the reply.
"The men are there."
"My God!" he whispered.
"They arrived yesterday."