The door opened, and half-a-dozen soldiers trooped into the shop.
“Produce your lodgers,” demanded the soldier in command.
“I have but three, citizen soldier. Follow me, they shall be at your service.”
The officer followed my host upstairs; the others remained below. Presently I heard a loud outcry and scuffling of feet above, and a shouted word of command. The soldiers instantly rushed up the stairs.
But no speed of theirs could equal that with which I darted from my hiding-place and out at the open door into the street, thanking Heaven that whatever rats might be caught that night in the Rue d’Agnès I was not one of them.
Chapter Sixteen.
“Vive La Guillotine!”
It was midnight when I got clear of the Auberge ”à l’Irlandois” in the Rue d’Agnès, and being a fine, warm autumn night I was by no means the only occupant of the street. This was fortunate for me, for the guards posted at either end would have been more inquisitive as to a solitary stranger than one of a company of noisy idlers.