Robespierre eyed him a moment or two in astonishment. Then he made an abrupt gesture of impatience.
“Fool that you are! It is suicide you are committing. And for what? For a dream a shadow. Is this like a man, Caron'? Is this—Will you be still, you animal?” he barked at a gaoler who had once before touched him upon the arm. “Do you not see that I am occupied?”
But the man leant forward, and said some words hurriedly into Robespierre's ear, which cast the petulance out of his face and mind, and caused him of a sudden to become very attentive.
“Ah?” he said at last. Then, with a sudden briskness: “Let the Citizen La Boulaye not go forth until I return,” he bade the gaoler; and to Caron he said: “You will have the goodness to await my return.”
With that he turned and stepped briskly across the hall and through the door, which the gaoler, all equality notwithstanding, hastened to open for him with as much servility as ever the haughtiest aristocrat had compelled.
Saving that single gaoler, La Boulaye was alone in the spacious hall of the Conciergerie. From without they heard the wild clamouring and Ca-iraing of the mob. Chafing at this fresh delay, which was as a prolongation of his death-agony, La Boulaye was pacing to and fro, the ring of his footsteps on the stone floor yielding a hollow, sepulchral echo.
“Is he never returning?” he cried at last; and as if in answer to his question, the drums suddenly began to roll, and the vociferations of the rabble swelled in volume and grew shriller. “What is that?” he inquired.
The gaoler, on whose dirty face some measure of surprise was manifested, approached the little grating that overlooked the yard and peered out.
“Sacrenom!” he swore. “The tumbrils are moving. They have left you behind, Citizen.”
But La Boulaye gathered no encouragement, such as the gaoler thought he might, from that contingency. He but imagined that it was Robespierre's wish to put him back for another day in the hope that he might still loosen his tongue. An oath of vexation broke from him, and he stamped his foot impatiently upon the floor.