“Oh!” he cried--“but is it not a fate to which damnation were Paradise! For me, the gentle Aubriot, who in my material form had shrunk from killing a fly--for me to thus deluge an unhappy land with the blood of martyrs! But I have threshed my conscience with a knotted discipline, and I know--yes, monsieur, I know--what gained me my punishment. A cripple once begged of me a poor two sous. I hesitated, in that I had but the one coin on me, and my nostrils yearned for snuff. I hesitated, and the devil tripped up my feet. I gave the man the piece and asked him a sou in change. For so petty a trifle did I barter my salvation. But heaven was not to be deceived, and its vengeance followed me like a snake through the grass. Ah!” (he jumped erect) “but the blade fell within an ace of thy shoulder!” This was disquieting enough, in all truth. Yet I took comfort from the thought that the madman could avail himself of no more murderous weapon than his hands. “Now, M. Guillotin,” said I, “observe that it is characteristic of you to lie quiescent when you are put away for the night.” “_Nenni, nenni, nenni!_” he answered. “That may have been before the hideous apotheosis of the instrument. Now, possessed as I am, I slash and cut at whoever comes in my way.” _Mon Dieu!_ but this was a wearisome lunatic! and I longed very ardently to be left peacefully to my own reflections. I came forward with a show of extreme fortitude. “This demon of yourself,” I said--“you wish it to be exorcised, that the soil of France may grow green again?” A fine self-sacrificial rapture illumined his wild face. “Let me be hurled into the bottomless pit,” he cried, “that so the Millennium may rise in the east like an August sun!” “Now,” said I, “I will commune with my soul during the night, that perchance it may be revealed to me how the guillotine may guillotine itself.” To my surprise the ridiculous bait took, and the poor wretch sunk down upon his straw and uttered no further word. Crossing the cell to come to my own heap, my foot struck against an iron ring that projected from a flag. For an instant a mad hope flamed up in me, only to as immediately die down. Was it probable that the “Mouse-trap”--into which, I knew, it was the custom to put newly arrived prisoners before their overhauling by the turnkeys and “scenting” by the dogs of the guard--would be furnished with a door of exit as of entrance? Nevertheless, I stooped and tugged at the ring to see what should be revealed in the lifting of the stone. It, the latter, seemed a ponderous slab. I raised one end of it a foot or so with difficulty, and, propping it with the pitcher, looked to see what was underneath. A shallow trough or excavation--that was all; probably a mere pit into which to sweep the scourings of the cell. Leaving it open, I flung myself down upon the mat of straw, and gave myself up to a melancholy ecstasy of reflection.