"There is your father, Jeanne--go, fetch him home!" And suddenly, as his daughter leaped lightly out of the boat and kissed him on both cheeks, the colour flushing to her face and her bosom heaving, Pere Felix felt himself no more ashamed and outcasted. "Father," said Jeanne, "I have found such a nest of logs--fine burning wood. You are just in time to cut it into faggots for me. Then I can go and bring away the rest while you are at work." "Felix, you are just in time for dinner," his wife cried out at sight of him. "There is roast lamb and green peas from Les Cabannes. You old gourmand, I'll wager you knew and came home on purpose!" No, Pere Felix had not known, but he certainly did come on purpose and on purpose he meant to stay. CHAPTER XXXI THE BLACK BAND The first Commune of Aramon had fallen. Its place was taken by a Committee of Public Safety sitting at the Riding School. Of these the chiefs were Georges Barres, the Catalan, who called himself "of Perpignan"; Chanot, the cadet of a good house, just released from a term of imprisonment (which he described as being for political offences); Auroy, the proprietor of an hotel by no means of the highest class, and Chardon, whose knowledge of the world extended as far as New Caledonia. They were a crew of desperadoes who had been employed chiefly in labourers' work at the factories. They knew no handicraft--at least none sufficiently well to pass the eye of such foremen as worked for Dennis Deventer. And, in addition, they were lazy in working hours, given to obscene conversation and to drinking pure alcohol out of pocket flasks. So it may be well believed that they were not popular with the oversmen at the works, and when they fell under Jack Jaikes' rebuke he was apt to chastise them with whips of scorpions. At the same time, desperate and careless though they were, and backed by the majority of the unthinking younger men of the National Guard, they had some qualms as to disturbing Keller Bey in his fastness of the Mairie. He had still a number of faithful defenders, and like an old lion of the Atlas he would certainly sell his life dearly. So Barres and the Committee of Public Safety laid aside his case for the moment. They had other matters which pressed. Their "rapine and pillage" adherents desired to begin work. On the outskirts were many villas and houses of summer resort which promised loot. Barres had preached so much, that (though with no great good-will) he was now driven to a little practice. Yet he knew instinctively that in France offences against property are far longer remembered and far more severely dealt with than crimes against persons--shooting and assassination not excluded. Still, he had to satisfy his followers, and in the bosom of the committee there were already experts--the ex-political prisoner Chanot and the traveller to the coasts of Cayenne were not at their first essay in "personal expropriation."