Amar was silent. The handkerchief had fallen from his head, but the wound bled no longer.
"What shall I do with the handkerchief, monsieur?"
"Do? Burn it. Faugh!" François cast it on the still glowing embers. "Now my clothes and my cloak," said Ste. Luce; "and do not lose any time over that animal."
He washed off the little blood on his clothes, and dressed in haste, saying: "Lucky that his point struck on my breast-bone. 'T is of no moment. The fellow has left me a remembrance. I am sorry I did not have the luck to kill him. Good-by, François. May we meet in better days." He was gone.
François locked the door after him, and went back to his room. He sat down on the floor beside the mattress.
"Now listen, Master Amar. Canst thou hear me? Ah, yes. Well, I have saved thy life. Oh, thou wilt get well,—more 's the pity!—and do some mischief yet. Now if I should kill thee I would be pretty safe. If I go away, and send thee a doctor, I am a lost man. What is that thou art saying? Ah!" and he leaned down to hear the broken whisper. "So thou wilt have my head chopped off. Thou art less afraid than I would be, were I thee. What shall we do, Toto?" and he laughed; somehow the situation had for him its humorous side.
"I can't murder a man," he said. "If ever I kill a man, I trust it may be one who hath not thy eyes and thy one-sided grin. To be haunted by a ghost like thee! The deuce! Not I! Sac à papier! I will take my chance." He sat down, and wrote a short note to a surgeon on the farther side of Paris, one whom he knew to have been much commended to his pupils by Gamel.
"My unforgiving friend," he said, "I shall lock thee in. Thou art too weak to move, and to try will cause thee to bleed. This note will get thee a surgeon in about six hours. I must leave thee. Be quiet, and be good. Here is a flask of eau-de-vie. Art still of a mind to give thy preserver to the guillotine?" The grim head nodded as the red froth leaked out over the lips. "'Yes, yes,' thou sayest. Thou art in a fine state of penitence. I hope we have seen the last of each other. One more chance. Promise me not to be my enemy. I will trust thee. Come, now."
But the Jacobin was past speech. As François knelt beside him, he beckoned feebly.
"What is it?" As he bent lower, a grim smile went over the one movable side of Amar's face, and, raising a feeble hand, he drew it across François's neck.