XI THE MAN WITH THE LANTERN

Then between Nicole and Barabant began one of those subtle conflicts of the sexes in which the one who loves the more unselfishly is foredoomed to defeat. Until the night of the execution Nicole had combated the very thought of love. Her flight at the staircase was the last spark of resistance. She had drunk of the cup, the poison was in her veins. The next morning she resigned herself to the bitter, determined, cost what it might, to have her hour of happiness.

She gave up the struggle against herself, but began another to safeguard her happiness. Her intuitions told her to resist—that the longer he was compelled to woo, the more he would prize her. In her uneasy doubts she had recourse to coquetry, but that coquetry which is unselfish and pathetic, and is nothing but the instinct of self-preservation.

To Barabant, who neither knew the depth of her longings, nor could have understood them had he known, the hesitation and delays of Nicole were incomprehensible. Resolved to meet her with like tactics, he assumed toward her the attitude of a comrade, avoiding all expression of sentiment.

Nicole readily fathomed the artifice. She countered by an equal show of indifference, leaving him always after a moment's conversation. Barabant retaliated by devoting himself anew to Louison.

The manœuver brought Nicole back. It was the one move she had not foreseen. It threw her into a panic of jealousy. Not that she did not understand his motive, but she feared, from his being thrown with Louison, results of which he had no thought. She admitted her mistake and relinquished the struggle. She returned uneasily to him, showing him from time to time, by a word or gesture, that he had only to ask. Barabant, blind to the extent of the change, though instinctively perceiving its import, redoubled his attentions to Louison; treating Nicole always as a comrade, hailing her joyfully, gay and charming in her company, but saying never a word of what she now impatiently sought.

Meanwhile events had been hurrying on the inevitable conflict between the Commune and the Convention. On the 25th of August the news of the treacherous surrender of Longwy to the Prussian army ran through the arteries of Paris as an inflaming poison. The Nation rose from the fall in the fury of its anger and wounded pride. From the windows of the Hôtel de Ville an immense banner rolled its folds over the city, bearing the inspiring inscription:

"The Fatherland is in danger!"

From all sides recruits rushed in to swell the legions of defense. The city, as though the enemy were already at its gates, converted itself into a camp, established posts and sentries, while at all hours the streets shook under the footfall of passing patrols. Searching parties ran from house to house, filling the prisons with suspected aristocrats.

The Convention, urged to abolish the monarchy and establish the Republic, hesitated. Only the Commune was resolute, vociferous, and implacable, shouting for the massacre of the traitors at home before marching against those abroad.

Lafayette deserting, Verdun rumored betrayed, traitors everywhere,—in the army of Brunswick, in the Assembly, in Paris,—nothing but a great example could strike terror in the hearts of aristocrats at home and abroad. What that example was, so clamorously demanded, few doubted who beheld the frenzied crowds that infested the gates of the prisons, gloating over the list of prisoners there exposed.

In the midst of these alarms, to the dismay of Goursac, Javogues took up his residence in the landing below them. Shortly after, Nicole reported another disquieting fact: la Mère Corniche had closed her cellar, refusing admission to all. Occasionally Barabant saw Javogues running the streets at the head of searching parties, in a whirlwind of disheveled forms and rushing torches, while the room of the Marseillais was filled with uncouth figures in secret gathering, of whose character Barabant, knowing the temperament of Javogues, had no doubt.

On the night of the 1st of September Barabant, who had enrolled for the defense of the city, began his patrol at the junction of the Rue St. Antoine and the great, gloomy square where had stood the fortress of the Bastille. The mass of citizens, foreseeing the massacre on the morrow, had retired early, barring the doors, leaving the streets to be swept by restless bands of the lawless: vultures stirred up by the prospect of carrion.

The hours lagged, and the tramp of his step seemed endless to Barabant. His reflections were bitter; for him, the Girondin, it was not simply the massacre of aristocrats, but the fall of his party, that he apprehended.

At twelve Nicole was to join him for the remaining hour. There was still three quarters of an hour before she would come. The increasing sound of voices restored him to the consciousness of his trust.

Soon a party of five emerged, preceded by a small muffled figure gliding with feverish steps ahead, as a flame devours its path. Barabant, following them on his beat, strove to recall the familiar stride of the leader. The patrol approaching him from the opposite direction cried:

"Is it you, Citoyen Sentry?"

The figure advancing assumed human shape.

"Hé, you are alone to-night?"

"Until twelve."

"You are lucky." He shifted his musket and laughed. "Mine leaves me alone to-night. We had a bit of a quarrel. I had to break a bottle over her head. And now, the devil take it! I have to stand guard alone." He added angrily: "That's the way with women."

"One moment, citoyen. You saw the party pass just now?"

"Aye. Did you not recognize him?"

"Who?"

"Some one who'll be busy to-night,—the Citoyen Marat." He raised his voice cheerily and sang:

"By to-morrow night there'll be no need of sentries!" he broke off. "It's long, eh, when there's no one to keep you company? The devil take the woman!" He shouldered his musket. "Citoyen, Salut et Fraternité."

He turned on his heel and joined the darkness, while back came the unmusical voice:

The rest lost itself faintly among distant roofs.

Barabant, recommencing his tedious pacing, returned to the Rue St. Antoine, where the sound of light footsteps warned him of the approach of a woman or a child.

"Can it be Nicole?" he thought hopefully, but his spirits fell as the woman came on doubtfully in a wavering line.

"Good evening, citoyenne," he said gallantly. "There are not many of your sex abroad to-night, and alone."

The woman gave the countersign, "The 10th of August."

Barabant, seeing that she was not inclined to enter into a conversation, cried:

"Take pity on the patriot, citoyenne. The hours are dull."

But the woman, with only a slight shake of her head, passed quickly on. Barabant, thus repulsed, grumbled to himself:

"She is neither young nor pretty or she would have stopped." But remembering the sentry he had left, he continued: "Perhaps it is the fair one with the broken head. If it is, she doesn't seem any too eager. No, she's turned away."

Suddenly he drew himself up with an exclamation. He saw the woman halt as with the twinkle of a lantern the figure of a man joined her, while to his astonishment she drew back in evident shrinking from her new companion.

Barabant, who had followed this scene with such intentness as to have become unaware of his surroundings, suddenly bounded back at the touch of a hand on his shoulder.

"What vigilance, Citoyen Barabant! What a model sentry!"

It was Louison who had stolen on him silently, and now stood mocking him. To Barabant the apparition was so in keeping with the strange impression which the girl had made on him that he was too startled to answer immediately.

"Why are you always afraid of me?" Louison said impatiently. "It isn't pleasant to inspire terror."

Barabant excused himself, recounting the scene he had just witnessed; but Louison, not to be put off, returned to her question. "So I inspire you with fear?"

"The expression is exaggerated," Barabant returned evasively.

"Come, frankly, there is something about me that has repelled you?" She continued seeking the answer herself. "Was it the day we went to the flower-market and I pretended anger? That was but play." Her eyes sought his face, as though she could find its expression despite the darkness. All at once she said, "It was at the guillotine?"

"That's true."

"I knew it; but why? I don't understand," she said almost angrily. "What is there about me that gives such an impression? I am not conscious of it."

"First, answer me this," Barabant said, "and frankly. At an execution you have no feeling of pity or horror, have you?"

"No," she answered thoughtfully. "Why?"

"Because it is too evident."

"How do I seem?" she said quickly.

"You seem utterly indifferent to any human suffering."

"That is true," she said slowly.

"It is not only that," Barabant continued, "but—how shall I say it? There seemed to be almost a fascination to you in the spectacle that ordinarily sickens the human heart."

"What!" the girl exclaimed, astonished, "are you not curious to see how a man can die?"

"Curious, yes; but the spectacle is disagreeable to me."

"Why? What is more ordinary and commonplace than death?"

Barabant, in despair of making her understand, remained silent.

"How curious! And when I am at an execution I look different from this?"

"Yes."

"I seem—?"

"Unhuman."

She tossed her head in displeasure and said sharply:

"I do not like that."

"I am frank."

Louison remained thoughtfully silent, perturbed and frowning. Then lifting her head, she said gaily, in quite a different manner:

"Very well, then; I shall take care how you see me in future."

She turned in the direction of the Bastille, and fastening her glance upon the ring of light, said:

"It seems to be going away. Perhaps we shall see the woman now."

"She comes faster this time," Barabant said as the sound of footsteps warned them of her approach.

The next moment a bundle of draperies passed them as a ship scudding before a storm. Louison, watching the woman, closed her hand over Barabant's wrist, allowing an exclamation to escape her. Then, springing forward, she cried:

"Eh, mother! Wait a moment!"

The fleeting figure turned as though stung, then dashed wildly into the darkness. Louison, with a bound, sprang after her, but suddenly clapping her hand to her forehead, turned and broke past Barabant, who heard only, as she shot on toward the Bastille, the words:

"The man with the lantern!"