A murmur of execration broke from the group of Girondins. Barbaroux repressed it by a gesture. "What do you say of this man?" he asked, turning to them, his tone deep and solemn.
"He is not fit to live!" they answered with one voice.
The poor coward screamed as he heard the words, and, flinging himself on the ground, he embraced Barbaroux's knees in a paroxysm of terror. But the judge did not look at him. Barbaroux turned, instead, to Pierre Bounat. "What do you say of him?" he asked.
"He is not fit to live," the young man answered solemnly, his breath coming quick and fast.
"And you?" Barbaroux continued, turning and looking with eyes of fire at the wife. And his voice was still more solemn.
A moment before she had ceased to weep, and had stood up listening and gazing, awe and wonder in her face. Barbaroux had to repeat his question before she answered. Then she said, "He is not fit to die."
There was silence for a moment, broken only by the entreaties, the prayers, of the wretch on the floor. At last Barbaroux spoke. "She has said rightly," he pronounced. "He shall live. They have put us out of the law and set a price on our heads; but we will keep the law. He shall live. Yet, hark you," the great orator continued, in tones which Michel never forgot, "if a whisper escape you as to our presence here, or as to our names, or if you wrong your wife from this time forth by word or deed, the life she has saved shall pay for it.
"Remember!" he added, shaking Michel to and fro with a finger, "the arm of Barbaroux of Marseilles is long, and though I be a hundred leagues away, I shall know and I shall punish. So, beware! Now rise, and live!"
The miserable man cowered back to the wall, frightened to the core of his heart. The Girondins conferred a while in whispers, two of their number assisting Pierre to cross the barrier. Suddenly on their talk there broke—and Michel trembled anew as he heard it—a loud knocking at the door. All started and stood listening and waiting. A voice cried: "Open! open! in the name of the law!"
"We have lingered too long," Barbaroux muttered. "I should have thought of this. It is the Mayor of Carhaix come to apprehend our friend."