Part 2 — XIV THE LAST ON THE LIST

As Nicole, in the hall of the Porte-Libre, stopped aghast at this apparition of their enemy, Cramoisin perceived her, and scuttling hurriedly forward, cried in triumph:

"Bonjour, Nicole. What luck, eh? Well, aren't you going to say good day?"

"Bonjour," she answered hastily.

"And Barabant, too," he cried. "Better still, and so glad to see me! Bonjour, Barabant."

"Ah, it's you, hypocrite!" Barabant answered scornfully.

There was a movement of incredulity and alarm among the prisoners, who hastened to withdraw from them. Cramoisin, as though whipped across the face, fell back, scowling and cursing, while Nicole, seizing Barabant's arm, cried:

"Barabant, what have you done?"

"Nicole," he answered, "do you remember what Goursac said when they arrested him?"

"No."

"'They are liberating me.' Well, I too wish to be free. I have lived like a dog for months. That is ended. I will not cringe before this bully, who will send us to-morrow to the guillotine."

"Then you are determined to die?"

"Yes."

"So be it."

They took their places at the long table, huddling among the famished and the fever-racked, while the scullions brought in pails the revolting food. Anxious to learn the position of Cramoisin, Nicole was about to question her neighbor, an abbé whose kindly look encouraged her, when Cramoisin, suddenly appearing at her shoulder, exclaimed:

"Eh, Nicole, my dear, if you want to know what I am doing here, ask me. I'll tell you. I am the secretary of the Conspiration. I keep a list of all the good conspirators and I see that they are rewarded. I bring good luck. I've been here but a week and we've guillotined forty!"

"You know him?" the priest asked as the bully swaggered down the line, and Nicole perceived the slight movement with which he drew away.

"He is our bitterest enemy."

"Pardon," he murmured, regarding her with compassion.

"We expect death," she answered quietly.

"What he says is true," he added in a whisper. "Since he has been here they have taken forty of us. He makes out the lists every night. We live at his pleasure."

"Does he live among us?" she asked, with a quickened interest.

Again Cramoisin returned, strutting with bombastic gestures, crying to the room:

"I am the friend of Fouquier. Fouquier promised me to-day that in two more weeks we could put out a sign, 'To let.' Isn't he kind to us, though? He's very sympathetic, is Fouquier. And I am his friend—I, Eugène Franz Cramoisin. He honors me with his confidence. Eat in peace. I'll speak to him about you. Don't worry."

He swaggered on, vaunting his intimacy, loudly assuring them he brought good luck.

Nicole anxiously repeated her question.

"He keeps up the farce of being a prisoner," her neighbor answered.

"Where does he lodge?"

"Near you, where the new arrivals are put."

"Sangdieu!" rose again the voice of Cramoisin, who, farther down, had halted at the side of a woman. "The herring is rotten. Do you not see it? Come, you must complain."

"It is all I need," came the faint answer. "I am not hungry."

"Bah, you aristocrats, you haven't the courage of dogs!" He returned to another: "And you, young man, they treat you badly, eh? Shall I complain to Fouquier?"

The youth, who had imprudently met his eye, instantly dropped his head; but Cramoisin, amid the jeers of the turnkeys, with a pretense of listening for his answer, exclaimed:

"What's that you say? Robespierre is a scoundrel?"

"I said nothing!"

"Then you thought it, and thoughts are offenses!"

Arrived opposite Barabant, he planted himself with folded arms and cried:

"Well, Citoyen Barabant, the food's good, eh?"

Pushing back his plate, Barabant likewise folded his arms and answered with a sneer:

"Do you think so?"

"To me it is delicious!"

"That's not astonishing,—it's the food of swine!"

A murmur rumbled over the hall, rising to weak cries of protests:

"No."

"He slanders it."

"We don't think so, citoyen."

Others implored Barabant to be silent, trembling at his rash speech, that would suffice to empty the prison. Under pretense of upbraiding him, they surrounded him, beseeching him to have a thought of their danger. Yielding to their terror, Barabant remained silent; but when, after the meal, they had dispersed to their rooms, he exclaimed:

"Ah, that did me good! I feel I am a man again. Nicole, to-night I shall sleep soundly for the first time in months, knowing that after to-morrow I may sleep more soundly."

Waiting barely long enough to assure herself of his unconsciousness, Nicole withdrew from his side and stole down the corridor, seeking until she found under a door a slit of light.

At her soft entrance Cramoisin started up in alarm from the desk where he had been preparing his list, and placed the chair between them.

"I am not come to harm you," she said disdainfully. Still for a moment he eyed her in doubt, before he was reassured. He grumbled:

"What do you want?"

From where she was she could see the list, and at its head the one name she dreaded to find.

"Read, if you wish," he said indifferently. "It will give you pleasure."

There were ten names in all, Barabant's being the first, and hers was not of the number.

"I have something to ask of you."

"Ask."

"I do not ask that we be sent to the guillotine together," she said, planning cunningly to avoid one danger. "That would be too great a consolation for you to accord us. Exchange my name for Barabant's."

"Nini," he said, watching her with covetous, blinking eyes. "I don't intend to let you go."

"If you will send me instead," she cried; "if you swear it, swear to spare him, I will give you a secret that will earn you the gratitude of Fouquier."

"You are too pretty," he said, with a smirk; "when one is as pretty as that, one is a patriot."

"You will not accept?"

"What, after this evening?"

"Citoyen," she cried, "he is in a delirium! It was the fever."

"Yes, indeed."

"Citoyen, he admitted to me that it was unjust."

"He shall go. You I'll keep."

"Citoyen Cramoisin," Nicole said coldly, "you can never make me belong to you, if that is your purpose. You are not Javogues, and I killed Javogues. Do you understand?"

Before the fire in her eyes Cramoisin shrank away, mumbling:

"You are more difficult than the women of the aristocrats."

"I give you my secret!" Nicole cried in despair. "Use it for your own good. I did not kill Javogues because he pursued me; I killed him to destroy a tyrant. Place my name there instead of Barabant's, and I will affirm it before the Tribunal. You will have the credit of discovering a plot. Fouquier will reward you."

"Is that your secret?" Cramoisin said contemptuously. "Nothing new in that."

"What! You knew," she cried, "and held back my name?"

"Bah! When one is dead, one is no longer a patriot."

"Citoyen Cramoisin, listen. If you will put my name on the list instead of Barabant's, I'll give you all the money I have."

To her joy, he looked up with a sudden interest.

"How much have you?"

"Twenty livres."

At the mention of this amount, which Nicole had managed to preserve, his eye became eloquent; but suddenly controlling himself, he asked:

"Paper?"

"Gold."

"You have it with you?"

"Yes."

"Let's see it."

"When you agree."

"It is right to be merciful," he said at last, with a sigh. "But I cannot spare him more than one day."

"For a week?" she pleaded.

He shook his head.

"Six days—five?"

"Impossible!"

"Cramoisin, for pity's sake, four?"

"Never, never!"

"Cramoisin, by your hope of salvation!"

"I'll give you three; not another hour."

He stretched out his hand.

"No; erase first."

He took off the name of Barabant and substituted, "The woman Nicole."

"What did you write?"

"The woman Nicole."

"Put the Citoyenne Nicole Barabant."

"What! You are his wife?"

"Put it down."

"There! Give me the money."

"And you will keep Barabant's name until the 10th of Thermidor?" she said solemnly.

"Yes."

"Swear it."

"I swear it."

"On your honor."

"There, on my honor, then! Give me the money."

She gave it to him, and suddenly casting herself on her knees, she cried hysterically:

"Thanks, thanks! You have a heart, I know. You will keep your word. You can pity. You can be merciful. Thanks! Thanks!"

Catching the ugly, cruel hands in hers, she covered them with her kisses and her tears. Then, escaping, she fled down the corridor, returning to bed, but not to sleep.

In the morning Barabant awoke, to find her eyes open and the sunlight in the room.

"How well I slept!" he said, springing up. Going to the window, he spread his hands into the beam of the sun that entered. "That feels good. Tiens, you have a strange look! What is it? You are not afraid?"

"No," she answered, smiling.

"Well, what then?"

"I have something—"

"Why, you're all wrought up," he said, in surprise, as she stopped.

"Barabant, I ask you only because there is no hope of life. Barabant, I—"

"Why, mignonne, what is it? What has happened?"

She threw herself in his arms, sobbing:

"Barabant, I want to be a wife!"

The moments that he held her in stupefaction were moments of agony to her. He put her from him, looking in amazement at the tear-stained face.

"Idiot that I am!" he cried suddenly. "That is what has been tormenting you!"

Waiting only for the accent of his voice, she sprang back, trembling, not daring to look at him.

"Then you will?" she cried, stretching out her hands to him. "Then you will?"

"Of course!"

Into his arms she threw herself, sobbing with the poignant ecstasy of joy, while he listened, still uncomprehending.

"That means so much to you?" he said. "But I always considered you as my wife."

Even in her emotion his simplicity drew from her a smile.

"Since when have you had this idea?"

"From the beginning."

"True?"

"Yes."

"From—"

"From the afternoon of the 10th of August; but I did not realize it then."

The correction summed up all her history.

All at once Barabant, rousing himself from his amazement, said:

"But how are we to be married?"

"Do you remember the abbé next to us?"

"Yes."

"I will ask him."

"Do you think he will do it?" he said doubtfully.

"I know how to convince him."

He kissed her and drew her away from him.

"Shall I go?" she said. "Now?"

"Fly!"

She was away a long time. When she reappeared with the priest she said timidly:

"I have taken very long. I wanted to confess. It did me good. Does that annoy you?"

"No," he said smilingly; and looking at the face of her companion, he said to himself: "She has made him cry."

They joined hands, kneeling before the black-robed figure in the warm room, pervaded with the sunlight that the bars on the window could not arrest. He made them man and wife, and blessed them, and, bending, put out his hands to raise the woman. But almost immediately, with a smile that was of the compassionate master, he ceased his attempts and stole from the room.

"Tell me one thing," Barabant asked.

"What is it?"

"Why did you not ask before?"

"I could not ask. Now it makes no difference."

"But why?"

Again and again, through their solitary afternoon, as they waited, now silent, now questioning each other, he returned to his query without success. At five o'clock, perceiving in her body an involuntary shudder, he said:

"You're not afraid of to-morrow?"

"No. So many others have gone." She had a superstitious idea of God and another world, confused, simple, and sufficient. Thinking of Javogues, she added: "The abbé said I should be saved. Do you believe it?"

"Yes," he answered, respecting her faith. "I shall not fear, either."

"I know," she answered dreamily.

"She does not think of me," he thought. Then wishing to talk of himself, he said:

"It is life that I regret. I ought to have done so much."

"I wanted to give you that," she said at last, feeling in the air the approach of the last hour. "I wanted to die for you. That was my dream. You would have revered my memory and I should have been happy."

"Why do you say that?" he said, frowning. "And what do you mean?"

"I am only an ignorant girl," she said. "I could not long have been your companion."

"You are wrong," he cried vehemently, repeating it several times, "and you do me an injustice."

She yielded, and asked the question that had been on her lips a dozen times:

"Truly, Eugène, you would have married me?"

"Can you doubt it, Nicole?"

"You are good, very good." She smiled, satisfied to bear this promise away with her, but in her heart she was not quite convinced. "You have been very kind."

He was glad at such a moment to own a good action.

"Do you know, it's good to have you," he said slowly, a moment awed by the thought of the morrow. "I do not fear, but I am glad you are to be with me."

"Yes, I know."

All at once she sprang up, trembling from head to foot, crying:

"Do you hear?"

"The bell?"

"It is six."

"What! you are trembling?"

"Kiss me."

She threw herself into his arms, clutching him to her, while he, in bewilderment, said:

"But I don't understand."

"Hold me, Eugène, hold me!" she cried. "Don't let me go!"

She kissed him, holding his head in her hands, and the kiss awakened in him the memory of that first meeting of their lips, in the dark stairway, under the weak torch. He placed his arm about her waist, drawing her gently down the corridor, and believing that her courage at the last had failed her, he whispered as they went:

"Do not fear, little one. I am with you. I'll have courage for us both."

The prisoners assembled in the great hall, listless and dragging their steps, searching among themselves with anxious or mechanical curiosity, seeking to divine the chosen. Soon from the courtyard rumbled the wheels of the arriving cart.

Presently, faint at first, down the distant corridor fell the step of the turnkey, approaching slowly, as though to prolong the cruel suspense. With a crash the gates were flung open, and, flanked by two mastiffs, holding in his hand the fatal roll, the jailer suddenly confronted every eye. Without pause, the monotonous, singing voice opened the long, dreary preamble, finished it, and, rising to a shout, began the list:

"The Citoyenne Nicole Barabant!"

A sigh of relief escaped the girl, and her head fell on the shoulder of Barabant; but her ears, deaf to the cries of sorrow, to the lamentations of mothers and wives, to the screams of astonishment and despair that woke the silent hall, followed anxiously the roll, counting:

"Seven—eight—nine!"

At the tenth she relaxed, and her arms wound about the neck of Barabant in the last long embrace, violent with the pang of parting. Suddenly, with a cry of despair, she tore herself from him,—an eleventh name was being read:

"The Citoyen Eugène—"

Something extraordinary had happened; the jailer had stopped in indecision. Nicole, in the agony of her mind, saw but one face—the mocking face of Cramoisin—against an opposite pillar.

"The Citoyen Eugène Franz Cramoisin!"

The sneer dropped out; the face grew livid. On all sides astounded cries went up:

"Cramoisin?"

"Impossible!"

"Cramoisin arrested!"

Nicole, understanding nothing but that Barabant was saved, hearing only Barabant's voice demanding like a madman to be taken, fell into his arms, crying:

"No, no, it is not a mistake! It is I who have saved you. Barabant! Barabant! It is as I wanted it! Remember me, Barabant! Don't forget me! The abbé will tell you all. Barabant—Barabant!"

They tore her from his arms and swept her away, still stretching out the unavailing fingers, still calling:

"Barabant! Barabant!"

The weeping and the wailing died behind the clashing gates. A woman, catching her in her arms, supported her down the unending corridor, whispering:

"Lean on me. I have no one."

They entered the courtyard and climbed into the chariot, where a few prisoners sadly and indifferently watched their arrival. There presently two turnkeys, laughing boisterously, bore out and dumped beside them the body of Cramoisin, who had fainted.