A couple of them lifted and spun the chair to its legs, so that the old man’s skull jerked against the head-rail with a clack like that of a mill-hopper. He did not seem to notice the blow. His eyes, ever since they had alighted on this new influx of brigands, had been set like a fish’s--wondering and unwinking. Now they slowly travelled, taking in Crépin, Citizen Thibaut, the escort, until they stopped--actually, it appeared, with a click--at Michel. His mouth puckered, and, like a ring blown by a smoker, a wavering “O!” issued from it. “Your _ci-devant_ servant?” said Crépin, grimly. The old man nodded his head. “Michel. But, yes--it is Michel.” “Thou owest him compensation for that long tyranny of service.” “I owe him nothing.” “And me, citizen? Dost thou remember the Abbaye St Germain and the killings of September?” I struck in with the question. I was willing, I think, for the girl’s sake, to identify myself with a past incident. He looked at me bitterly, but with no recognition in his eyes. “I deplore the cursed fortune,” he cried in grief, “that preserved me but for this!” “How now, old fool!” said Crépin, with impatience. “Thou shalt go free when Michel has revealed to me thy secret place of hoarding.” M. de Lâge gave the crying snarl of a wolf. “Let him go--the ingrate and the traitor! What, Michel! dost thou mangle the hand that gave thee soft litter for thy couch and honest bread for thy belly? Look, Michel!--the white garlands on the walls there! Dost thou remember how thou wrought’st them to pleasure thy mistress--to win her from the depression she suffered in the sombre oak and its long history of gloom? There they cling unfinished,--thy solemn rebuke, Michel. Thy attachment to her was the one reality, thou wouldst say, in a world of shadows, and yet the blatant fanfare of those shadows was all that was needed to win thee from the reality. And what is the price of thy kiss, Judas?” The man hung his head. “Not your life, monsieur,” he muttered. “Nay; but only that which makes my life endurable. And the forfeit--what is that?” “_My_ life, monsieur.” De Lâge drew in his breath with a cruel sound. “_Hélas!_” he cried. “You will have to pay the penalty! the faithful servant will have to pay the penalty!” Crépin uttered an exclamation and strode forward. “You have been stripped?” said he. “Of all, monsieur, of all. There have been others here before you this morning--fine _sans-culotte_ preachers of equality and the gospel of distribution, whose practice, nevertheless, is to enrich the poor at the expense of the wealthy. They were brave fellows by their own showing; yet they must truss me here before they dared brandish the fruits of their robbery before my eyes!” Suddenly he was straining and screaming in his bonds, his face like a map of some inhuman territory of the passions, branched with veins for rivers of blood.