“See?” exclaimed Ombreval; “yonder at last comes the great man we are awaiting—the Commissioner of that rabble they call the National Convention. Now we shall know what fate is reserved for us.”
“But what can they do?” she asked.
“It is the fashion to send people of our station to Paris,” he replied, “to make a mock of us with an affair they call a trial before they murder us.”
She sighed.
“Perhaps this gentleman is more merciful,” was the hope she expressed.
“Merciful?” he mocked. “Ma foi, a ravenous tiger may be merciful before one of these. Had your father been wise he had ordered the few of us that remained to charge those soldiers when they entered, and to have met our end upon their bayonets. That would have been a merciful fate compared with the mercy of this so-called Commissioner is likely to extend us.”
It seemed to be his way to find fault, and that warp in his character rendered him now as heroic—in words—as he had been erstwhile scornful.
Suzanne shuddered, brave girl though she was.
“Unless you can conceive thoughts of a pleasanter complexion,” she said, “I should prefer your silence, M. d'Ombreval.”
He laughed in his disdainful way—for he disdained all things, excepting his own person and safety—but before he could make any answer they were joined by the Marquis and his son.