"Lack of evidence!" repeated Danton. "They are capable of manufacturing that when needed."
"I confess I thought it possible that the popularity of the army with the people had something to do with it."
Danton smiled pityingly.
"I tell you that there is something behind it all. I cannot account for Robespierre's sudden change. It was he who directed your acquittal. There is something behind all this. He works in the dark, and secretly. Tournay, I mistrust that man as much as I hate him," and he began to smoke violently.
"Why do you not crush him, Jacques?" asked Tournay coolly.
"Ay, that's the question I often ask myself," said Danton, lifting up his mighty arm and looking at it, smiling grimly the while as if he were thinking of Robespierre's sallow face and puny body.
"If you don't crush him, he will sting you to death," added Tournay impressively, as he rose to go.
Danton doubled up his arm once more till the muscles swelled into great knots upon it. "Ha, ha," he laughed, "I don't fear that, Tournay; he's too much of a coward to lay hands upon me."
"Do you never fear for your own safety when you see so many falling beneath the hand of this man who rules France?" asked Tournay.
Danton started at the words "rules France."