For Love of a Bedouin Maid

by Voleur

For a few moments, St. Just remained standing at a distance he judged safe from the fateful water cart. He was still trembling violently. Then, realizing that the explosion would occur too late to achieve its object, he elbowed his way through the seething mob and, when clear of it, made a dash for the end of the road. This he gained without impediment, but, no sooner had he done so, than he found himself grasped firmly by the arms and surrounded by a party of men, who turned the corner of the street just when he reached it.

Before he had even time to make a protest, still less to free himself, the First Consul's carriage dashed by at a rapid trot, and he caught a glimpse of Buonaparte, who was laughing at some sally of his aide-de-camp.

"Forward!" shouted the leader of the men who had seized St. Just.

But, before the order could be obeyed, and almost at the same instant, there was a roar like thunder when the electric fluid strikes a building, and two of the party were hurled violently against the shutters of a house hard by. Then a wave of blinding smoke, accompanied by a fetid stench of sulphurous gas, swept up the street, almost stifling St. Just and those who had arrested him. Then, a howl of rage went up, with threats and execrations for the perpetrators of the deed, mingled with the groans of the injured, the shrieks of the terror-stricken women and the clatter of the falling bricks. The whole air was full of dust, and the din was deafening. Nobody understood exactly what had happened, or who had caused it; only that a terrible explosion had occurred and that much havoc had been wrought by it. The babble and confusion were indescribable and panic had seized on all the crowd, men, women and children fleeing in all directions.

Then the leader of the party in whom St. Just had, by this time, recognized the agent Vipont, gave his attention to his two men who had been knocked down and had remained motionless where they had fallen. One had had his head crushed in by a piece of iron from the exploded water cart. He was a ghastly sight, his face battered out of recognition, and his blood and brains scattered about the trottoir.

The other had come so violently into contact with the shutter he had been thrown against, that the hook in it had been forced through his forehead and deep into his brain. Both men were stone dead, of course.

The horse belonging to the market cart that had been forced purposely into collision with the pretended water cart, had had one of its legs torn off, and the blood was streaming from it. It had also suffered other injuries, and portions of the shattered cart lay on it. The look of anguish in the poor creature's eyes was piteous to behold; it seemed to be appealing to those about it to end its sufferings; but none heeded it. All were too much occupied in tending their injured fellow creatures.

Vipont and his police were thus engaged, and also on the lookout for those who had caused the outrage. Presently they found St. Regent. He was lying near the dying horse. He had been hurled some yards, and the fall had rendered him insensible, but the only outward injury he had sustained seemed to be the loss of three fingers from his left hand. They picked him up and took charge of him, but whether because he was found so near the scene of the disaster, or that they had received some information, or merely because he had been injured, St. Just had no means of judging.

Round the exploded water cart was a yawning hole, and lying half in it was the mangled carcass of the horse of one of Buonaparte's dragoons, blown almost all to pieces. Its rider had escaped with a broken leg. Many of the houses about were more or less in ruins, while all in the vicinity of the explosion had their windows broken.

"To the Temple," said the police agent to his men. "When we have safely lodged our prisoners, it will be time enough to render assistance here."