"Thanks again."
The next moment the door of the human furnace flung open upon his eyes the horrid spectacle of dead and living: of the living more horrible than the dead.
"One step more!"
The butchers, but five deep, seeing a man borne to them by their comrades, relaxed their tension; those farthest away even lowering their dripping blades.
"There, citoyens, steady me one moment."
With a sudden powerful lunge Dossonville threw the two guards back and leaped headlong into the gauntlet, pierced it, bounded across the open, and dove headlong into the friendly crowd, disappearing like an enormous fish, with only an eddy in the crowd to show his passage.
XIV
GOURSAC AS ACCUSER
For two days, while the massacre ran its course, Paris, in terror of a few hundred assassins, was silent and empty. Bands of marauders scoured the streets, robbing and pillaging under pretext of the right of search. No shops were opened, all industry was suspended, while the law-abiding occupied themselves with fortifying their doors against immediate assault.