The fleeting figure turned as though stung, then dashed wildly into the darkness. Louison, with a bound, sprang after her, but suddenly clapping her hand to her forehead, turned and broke past Barabant, who heard only, as she shot on toward the Bastille, the words:
"The man with the lantern!"
XII
THE MASSACRE OF THE PRISONS
The next morning Nicole and Geneviève, having breakfasted at noon near the Temple, where the throng collected daily to insult the ears of the royal family, returned slowly toward the Tuileries through the hushed and apprehensive city.
Toward three o'clock the long-awaited tocsin sounded from the other side of the river, then the chance burst of a musket and the assembling roll of drums. But this time, in contrast to the night of the 9th of August, there came no spontaneous outpouring into the streets. As the tocsin continued to disturb the air with its violent voice, timid faces appeared at the windows, searching with anxious glances the streets, the opposite walls, in doubt of their neighbors; even the air, as though to discover the reason of the uproar.
The streets were emptied; small groups wavered in the entrances, waiting for the first rumors to guide them. As the two girls hesitated, a woman appeared, running toward them, dragging a child at either side. From window and doorway a clamor of questions arose, while many, running into the street, surrounded her and sought to stop her progress. But the woman, resisting all entreaties, cleft the crowd and disappeared, repeating frantically:
"They are massacring the prisoners!"
The street grew noisy with exclamation and conjecture, while those above, in the windows, screamed down for the rumors that flew from lip to lip. A little later another messenger arrived,—a waif of the slums, to whom the marks of poverty and vice had given the semblance of an incongruous manhood. The boy came romping down the street, bare-legged, disheveled, brandishing a knife. At times he flung up his hands and screamed in childish treble: