The night fell and passed. Dawn came and the stronger light of morning, a morning of sunshine and blue sky. The sunlight touched the white sails of a vessel, and a boat, with its oars flashing, came quickly toward the shore where a man and a maid waited hand in hand.
Jacques Sabatier rode back toward Paris. From high ground he looked and saw a white sail far out to sea, then he rode on. But the message he carried was never to be delivered.
Citizen Latour, feared in Paris, powerful in the Convention, greater than Robespierre so some had declared, was a traitor. Justice demanded quick punishment, and the mob, more powerful than Justice, clamored for it. There was proof enough against him; a score of witnesses if necessary. Why hear them all? There was no need for a long trial, and what advocate would have courage sufficient to speak for this prisoner?
Raymond Latour faced his enemies alone, his face still set, full of purpose. No man uttered a word in his favor, no single expression of pity met him. Justice might be tempered with mercy if the prisoner would say where this emigré and this American were to be found. The prisoner did not know. A storm of howls and hisses met the answer, barely silenced by the ringing of the president's bell. Had the prisoner anything to say in his defense? A great silence, unbroken even by the prisoner himself. He had been eloquent for Lucien Bruslart, for himself he had nothing to say. Again a storm of hisses; heads thrust forward, hands flung out that would tear him in pieces could they reach him. Uproar and confusion, a yelled demand for condemnation. Nothing else was possible.
Still with set face, with firm purpose, Raymond Latour waited in the Conciergerie. No friend would come to see him, he knew that. Some of those he had made use of and trusted were not in Paris, some had already proved his enemies, and none dared show sympathy even if they would. He was alone, quite alone, without a single friend.
This day his name was not in the list, nor the next. He wondered a little at the delay, but waited patiently, knowing that there was no uncertainty about the end.
"Raymond Latour."
It was the first on the list to-day. Without a word he walked into the dark passage, noticing none of the others who waited there, some pale and afraid, some as though they were starting upon a journey of pleasure.
"One, two, three tumbrils! The guillotine was hungry this morning. Raymond Latour was in the last tumbril.