In exitu Israel

by S. Baring-Gould

'What of him? He is not dead, you know. That was poor Adolphe they buried.'

'Pooh!'

Dancing above the sea of heads was a face stiffened in death, with the mouth crammed full of blood-sodden hay.

Madame Berthier gazed wildly at it for a full minute, following it with her eyes.

Then she uttered a scream, so piercing that it was heard in the hall by Bailly and the electors.

'Who have killed him? Show me the murderers!'

'Madame,' said the butcher, 'you have been his murderer. You have killed them both.'

She turned with another cry, thrust her hands into her dishevelled grey hair, and starting forwards, fell down the steps, struck her head against the stones in falling, and would have been trodden to death by the raging crowd, in their eagerness to approach the corpse of Berthier, had not Percenez sprung to her assistance, stooped and raised her in his arms.

'Help me, friend,' he said to a guard, 'let us place her in safety.'