They took their places at the long table, huddling among the famished and the fever-racked, while the scullions brought in pails the revolting food. Anxious to learn the position of Cramoisin, Nicole was about to question her neighbor, an abbé whose kindly look encouraged her, when Cramoisin, suddenly appearing at her shoulder, exclaimed:
"Eh, Nicole, my dear, if you want to know what I am doing here, ask me. I'll tell you. I am the secretary of the Conspiration. I keep a list of all the good conspirators and I see that they are rewarded. I bring good luck. I've been here but a week and we've guillotined forty!"
"You know him?" the priest asked as the bully swaggered down the line, and Nicole perceived the slight movement with which he drew away.
"He is our bitterest enemy."
"Pardon," he murmured, regarding her with compassion.
"We expect death," she answered quietly.
"What he says is true," he added in a whisper. "Since he has been here they have taken forty of us. He makes out the lists every night. We live at his pleasure."
"Does he live among us?" she asked, with a quickened interest.
Again Cramoisin returned, strutting with bombastic gestures, crying to the room: