Tumult was at its height, in the little group of magistrates, officials and policemen. Every one was giving orders:
“Execute him!... The law must take its course!... We have no right to delay! It would be cowardice!... Execute him!”
“But the man’s dead!”
“That makes no difference!... The law must be obeyed!... Execute him!”
The chaplain protested, while two warders and Prasville kept their eyes on Gilbert. In the meantime, the assistants had taken up the corpse again and were carrying it to the guillotine.
“Hurry up!” cried the executioner, scared and hoarse-voiced. “Hurry up!... And the other one to follow.... Waste no time....”
He had not finished speaking, when a second report rang out. He spun round on his heels and fell, groaning:
“It’s nothing . . . a wound in the shoulder.... Go on.... The next one’s turn!”
But his assistants were running away, yelling with terror. The space around the guillotine was cleared. And the prefect of police, rallying his men, drove everybody back to the prison, helter-skelter, like a disordered rabble: the magistrates, the officials, the condemned man, the chaplain, all who had passed through the archway two or three minutes before.
In the meanwhile, a squad of policemen, detectives and soldiers were rushing upon the house, a little old-fashioned, three-storied house, with a ground-floor occupied by two shops which happened to be empty. Immediately after the first shot, they had seen, vaguely, at one of the windows on the second floor, a man holding a rifle in his hand and surrounded with a cloud of smoke.