Claude rose and addressed his companions, eighty-four in number, in the following words:
“You all know Albin and I were like brothers. I liked him at first for sharing his rations with me, afterwards because he cared for me. Now I never have sufficient, though I spend the pittance I earn in bread. It could make no possible difference to the inspector, Monsieur D——, that we should be together; but he chose to separate us simply from a love of tormenting, for he is a bad man. I asked again and again for Albin to be sent back, without success; and when I gave him a stated time, the 4th of November, I was thrust into a dungeon. During that time I became his judge, and sentenced him to death on November the 4th. In two hours he will be here, and I warn you I intend to kill him. But have you anything to say?”
There was a dead silence. Claude then continued telling his comrades, the eighty-one thieves, his ideas on the subject.
That he was reduced to a fearful extremity, and compelled by that very necessity to take the law into his own hands. He knew full well he could not take the inspector’s life without sacrificing his own; but as the cause was a just one, he would bear the consequences, having come to this conclusion after two months’ calm reflection. If they considered resentment alone hurried him on to such a step, they were at once to say so, and to state their objections to the sentence being carried out.
One voice alone broke the silence which followed, saying—
“Before killing the inspector, Claude ought to give him a chance of relenting.”
“That is but just,” said Claude, “and he shall have the benefit of the doubt.”
Claude then sorted the few things a poor prisoner is allowed, and gave them to the comrades he mostly cared for after Albin, keeping only the pair of scissors. He then embraced them all; some could not withhold their tears at such a moment. Claude continued calmly to converse during this last hour, and even gave way to a trick he had as a boy, of extinguishing the candle with a breath from his nose. Seeing him thus, his companions afterwards owned, they hoped he had abandoned his sinister idea.
One young convict looked at him fixedly, trembling for the coming event.
“Take courage, young fellow,” said Claude, gently, “it will be but the work of a minute.”