XIII DOSSONVILLE IN PERIL

"The Citoyen Dossonville to the bar! The Citoyen Dos-son-ville!"

The call, resounding along the stone corridors, reached the prisoners huddled in the main hall of the Abbaye.

"The Citoyen Dos-son-ville!"

A turnkey under a snarling torch penetrated the group, drawing one after another to him with rough hand.

"The Citoyen Dossonville! I summon all on peril of their lives to discover to me the Citoyen Dossonville!"

Out of the mass extended a hand with long, accusing forefinger, and a voice exclaimed:

"Over there."

The hand was snatched back, while a fomenting in the crowd showed where the informer was burying himself from recognition.

The turnkey stopped before a figure stretched in sleep, and incredulously thrust his torch into the face. But the sleeper continued to inhale long breaths methodically, until, convinced of the genuineness of the sleep, the turnkey proceeded to wake him with a vigorous thrust of his foot.

Dossonville started to a sitting position, opening his eyes on the suspicious visage above him and the background of fellow-prisoners who, afraid to show too much interest, held themselves at a distance and followed from the corners of their eyes.

"What do you want with me?"

"Are you the Citoyen Dossonville?"

"I am."

"The Nation summons you to appear before the bar of the popular justice!"

"At eleven o'clock at night? The justice of the people never sleeps, then?"

"Be quick!"

Dossonville lifted himself to an upright position, restoring his pillow to its rightful function of cloak.

"I will not bother about my other possessions now," he cried sarcastically. "Citoyennes and citoyens, to the pleasure of seeing you again, or not, as you prefer. Now for the justice of the people!"

Under the lightness of his manner, his mind worked with the desperation of an animal at bay. Of what he was approaching he knew nothing. Yet as he advanced along the reverberant corridors, his mind assembled a dozen stratagems to meet either a whirlwind of assassins or the travesty of a trial. His eye, meanwhile alert for every detail, enveloped each portion of the journey at a glance, running the walls as a wild animal tracks his cage.

Gradually his waiting ear distinguished a muffled hum, a buzz of voices, increasing in volume until out of it escaped the piercing shriek of a woman.

The next moment there burst upon his hearing a hundred cries,—shrieks of terror, shouts of vengeance, cries of pity, commands and groans, drunken and maddened notes,—sharp to the ear, rushing over his mind in a storm of confusion. The gate opened and the volume smote him with the fury of a blast.

He stood in the courtyard, blinking at strange forms and the crossing and recrossing of torches, striving to collect his wits. Two guards had seized him, presenting the points of their reddened swords to his breast.

His eye went to the center of the courtyard, to a table flanked by torches, littered with papers, bottles, and the glint of steel; behind which, installed as judge, Dossonville recognized the huissier Maillard. A score of Marseillais, stained with blood, reeling from sleep or drunkenness, churned about this improvised tribunal, interrupting with their revilings the testimony of the accused, or swaggered back and forth through the gate that led to the mob. Some clustered in corners to drink from the bottles that a wine-merchant constantly renewed; others nonchalantly lighted pipes, stretched their arms and yawned. In the lull between executions Dossonville heard a snore. Amid this carnage one man, stretched on a bench, was unconcernedly asleep.

"There's a man who's not disturbed by trifles," he muttered.

At the slight shift he made, one of his guards pricked him with his sword, crying angrily:

"Move again, and I'll cut you to ribbons!"

"I am become a statue," Dossonville answered coolly. "Only, do not bear too hard. I am ticklish."

Ahead of him, a priest without hope told his beads; while before the tribunal was a man so bowed with years that he had to be supported on either side.

All at once, seeking in the crowd, Dossonville perceived Javogues.

"Aïe! aïe!" he mumbled uneasily at the sight of that gloating face. "What ferocity! He is bound to make sure of me. The animal!"

He turned stoically from the Marseillais to the judges, where, to his amazement, he perceived a movement of clemency toward the accused. Suddenly the voice of Maillard appealed to the crowd:

"Citoyens, whatever the condition or the crimes of this feeble plaything of time, I declare to you that it is unworthy of the Republic to pursue here its vengeance! When nature, for eighty years, has spared one from peril of sickness, shock of accident, and the din of battles, man cannot show himself more pitiless than nature. Citoyens, I demand the handful of years for this venerable man."

An approving murmur saluted this oratorical appeal, broken by the strident voice of Javogues:

"Traitors have no age. If he is an aristocrat, let him die!"

Maillard, encouraged by the cries of dissent, extended his arm over the broken figure and said impressively:

"Whatever this man has been, exists no more. The Republic can take no vengeance here, for it can deprive this man of nothing. Citoyens, let him be acquitted."

"Well said."

"He speaks well."

"Free him!"

"Bravo. Free him!"

The acquitted man, aware of what had happened, was led away by the guards. The priest was put in his place, Dossonville moving nearer.

But now the executioners without the gates, growing impatient, smote the air with their cries:

"More victims!"

"Hurry up!"

"No ceremony with the aristocrat!"

"Hurry up! More! More!"

"Give us more! We want more!"

"Maillard, we are thirsty!"

The judge, addressing the quiet victim, proceeded methodically:

"Jean Marie Latour?"

"I am he."

"Called Brother Francis?"

"Yes."

"Priest?"

"Yes."

"You refused the oath of allegiance to the Nation?"

"I did."

At this a howl more of triumph than of anger burst from the listeners, and the judge, recognizing the hopelessness of the case, said shortly:

"To La Force."

Three men seized him and bore him, unresisting, to the shambles, while two more propelled Dossonville roughly forward.

Hardly was he in position when three piercing shrieks announced the death of the priest. Dossonville, shuddering despite his will, heard a voice cry boisterously:

"Eh, what a squeal the animal gave!"

The guards fell back, guarding his retreat, while Dossonville, disdaining to notice, felt rather than saw the Marseillais take his position at his side.

"Armand Roger Dossonville?"

"The same."

"Lieutenant in the National Guard?"

"Yes."

"You are accused of being in the Tuileries on the tenth day of August and of firing upon the Nation."

"Who accuses me?"

"I accuse you."

"And I."

Dossonville turned, met the angry eyes of Javogues, and seeking the second speaker, recognized one of those who had arrested him. He turned to the tribunal.

"The witnesses are mistaken. I was not at the Tuileries."

His accusers burst into a roar of denunciation, but Maillard, quelling them, said quietly:

"That should not be difficult to prove. With whom were you on the tenth day of August?"

Dossonville nodded his head in assent. Then, seeing the trap into which he was being led, he asked:

"First, does not that register relate that on my arrest I claimed an alibi with the Citoyen Marat and later renounced it at this prison, giving as a reason that I used it as a protection to insure my reaching prison and a trial?"

Javogues broke in furiously:

"Do not listen to him! He prepares some new lie!" Then grasping Dossonville by the collar, he shook his fist in his face. "I swear that if he is acquitted, I myself will cut his throat."

"The Citoyen Javogues," Dossonville continued, without changing the level of his voice, "unfortunately for me, from the day we met has hated me with an obstinate hatred. I adopted the subterfuge only because I believed that otherwise I never could have reached the prison alive. The proof is, I denounced it immediately and explained my reasons. You will find it there. I will now tell you with whom I passed the day."

He waited a moment for quiet, Javogues thundering:

"He lies! He lies! He lies!"

"The man whose testimony I invoke is known to you, Citoyen Maillard. Of his patriotism there can be no question. Unfortunately, he left immediately after for the Army of the Rhone. From ten o'clock of the night of August 9th until ten o'clock of the morning of August 10th I was in the house of the Citoyen Héron."

There was a movement of stupefaction in the assemblage, even Javogues recoiling. But the first words of Maillard fell upon the ears of Dossonville as the sudden fall of a sword.

"The Citoyen Héron did not leave for the frontier. Let the Citoyen Héron be roused and corroborate the accused!"

Two or three threw themselves upon the sleeper to bring him forward. The mind of Dossonville, thus faced with certain defeat, did not give a second to despair, but, with the last instinctive grasping for life, gathered for a supreme effort.

"It is unnecessary," he cried hurriedly. "That night I performed secret services to the Nation that cannot be made public. But my life is at stake; I demand Santerre. Santerre will vouch for me."

But what he said was lost in the chorus:

"Spy!"

"Liar!"

"Traitor!"

"Liar! Liar!"

"Santerre now!"

"Robespierre next!"

"He was nursing Danton, perhaps!"

Dossonville stretched out his hand appealingly, but recognizing, himself, the impossibility of his position, he changed the gesture into one of command, and looking Maillard calmly in the face, said:

"Well, hurry it up then!"

"To La Force!"

Dossonville, wheeling to meet his escorts, found himself face to face with Javogues.

"Ah, traitor," the Marseillais cried, planting himself in his path with folded arms, "have I caught you at last?"

With a sneer, he turned contemptuously on his heel, while Dossonville, seized by his two guards, began the fatal journey. Already from the gates savage faces peered in expectation, while from the courtyard cries of warning arose:

"Another! Another!"

"Make ready, comrades!"

"A tall one this time!"

"Make ready!"

Half-way to the gate, Dossonville stumbled and went down, sprawling. Instantly he was up, but catching at the arms of his guards, who, trying to shake him off, cried:

"Let go, there, or I'll stab you."

"Citoyen," answered Dossonville with an exclamation of pain—"Citoyen, I have turned my ankle. Support me!"

"Come, come, no nonsense!"

"Citoyen, it is because I do not wish to appear to shrink. Remember that I am a Frenchman; I desire only to die bravely. Give me your support."

"Give it to him!" growled the other.

"Citoyen, I thank you; unfortunately, we shall not meet again."

The one who had spoken continued gruffly:

"When you pass through the gate keep your hands behind your back; you'll suffer less."

"Thanks again."

The next moment the door of the human furnace flung open upon his eyes the horrid spectacle of dead and living: of the living more horrible than the dead.

"One step more!"

The butchers, but five deep, seeing a man borne to them by their comrades, relaxed their tension; those farthest away even lowering their dripping blades.

"There, citoyens, steady me one moment."

With a sudden powerful lunge Dossonville threw the two guards back and leaped headlong into the gauntlet, pierced it, bounded across the open, and dove headlong into the friendly crowd, disappearing like an enormous fish, with only an eddy in the crowd to show his passage.