“We are safe, all of us, Pierre,” Barbaroux answered. “And now”—and he turned to Michel Tellier with sudden thunder in his voice—“this man whom you would have betrayed is our guide, let me tell you, whom we lost last night. Speak, man, in your defence, if you can. Say what you have to say why justice shall not be done upon you, miserable caitiff, who would have sold a man’s life for a few pieces of silver!”
The wretched peasant’s knees trembled, and the perspiration stood upon his brow. He heard the voice as the voice of a judge. He looked in the stern eyes of the Girondins, and read only anger and vengeance. Then he caught in the silence the sound of his wife weeping, for at Pierre’s appearance she had broken into wild sobbing, and he spoke out of the base instincts of his heart.
“He was her lover,” he muttered. “I swear it, citizens.”
“He lies!” cried the man at the barrier, his face transfigured with rage. “I loved her, it is true, but it was before her old father sold her to this Judas. For what he would have you believe now, my friends, it is false. I, too, swear it.”
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 voice deep and solemn.
“He is not fit to live!” they answered in chorus.
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,” said the young man solemnly, his breath coming quick and fast.