"What do you want with me?"
"Are you the Citoyen Dossonville?"
"I am."
"The Nation summons you to appear before the bar of the popular justice!"
"At eleven o'clock at night? The justice of the people never sleeps, then?"
"Be quick!"
Dossonville lifted himself to an upright position, restoring his pillow to its rightful function of cloak.
"I will not bother about my other possessions now," he cried sarcastically. "Citoyennes and citoyens, to the pleasure of seeing you again, or not, as you prefer. Now for the justice of the people!"
Under the lightness of his manner, his mind worked with the desperation of an animal at bay. Of what he was approaching he knew nothing. Yet as he advanced along the reverberant corridors, his mind assembled a dozen stratagems to meet either a whirlwind of assassins or the travesty of a trial. His eye, meanwhile alert for every detail, enveloped each portion of the journey at a glance, running the walls as a wild animal tracks his cage.
Gradually his waiting ear distinguished a muffled hum, a buzz of voices, increasing in volume until out of it escaped the piercing shriek of a woman.