At this moment St. Just caught sight of the pretended blind beggar who, earlier in the evening, had handed him the note. The man passed close to him and, in passing whispered rapidly in his ear, "Keep faith, and hope."
Then he disappeared amongst the crowd, and the police party began to move away, St. Just held firmly by a police agent on each side, and St. Regent, insensible and in happy ignorance of what had happened to him, borne by two men on a litter they had improvised.
CHAPTER V.
His captors marched St. Just along at a brisk pace and in a short time, they reached the Place de la Bastille, whose name achieved the double purpose of keeping alive the memories of the horrors that had been perpetrated within the grim fortress that had stood there, and of signalizing the triumph of democracy.
Continuing their way, they gained the prison that had been the last abiding place of the ill-fated Louis Capet. St. Just had often passed it, but had little thought he should ever find himself a prisoner within its walls; but that had been in the days when his honor was unsullied and he was glowing with the ardor of a young soldier, confident in his ability to cut his way to fortune with his sword. Alas how utterly had his hopes been falsified!
Vipont pulled vigorously at the bell, which answered his appeal with a strident clangor that made St. Just's heart thrill. It seemed to ring out the death-knell of his freedom, if not indeed his life. A wicket in the heavy gates was opened, and a man in uniform appeared behind it.
"A prisoner," said Vipont curtly. Then the party stepped inside and the little door was closed behind them.
They crossed the court—it had been the garden during the imprisonment of the Royal family—and the moon was shedding her rays upon the very tree under which the hapless monarch had been wont to take his daily exercise; causing the leaves to shimmer with a silver light as they were stirred by the gentle breeze. St. Just glanced up at the black facade, now dimly outlined against the dark wintry sky, and the gruesome thought flashed on him that, perhaps, he too was doomed to pace each day up and down, up and down, beneath that selfsame tree until that morning when he should be told that his last hour had come, and be hurried to the scaffold.
Vipont's party marched on with him and halted at a door, which, at the summons of the warder who had admitted them to the prison, was opened.
They entered the building, and then St. Just was escorted down a narrow passage to a flight of steps. These the man descended, and the others followed, emerging at the bottom on another passage, along which the jailer led the way, the rest of the party keeping close behind him, their footsteps echoing along the sunken corridor with thuds that reminded the prisoner of the blows he had heard at nights when the executioner and his assistants were setting up the scaffold, from which in the cold, gray morning some poor devil was to take his last look on the world. This reflection and the searching cold and damp, that seemed to pierce his very bones, and the mouldy smell that permeated the place, sent a shiver through St. Just that, despite his efforts to repress it, was visible to all.