Surrounded by the guard of “Patriots,” the procession of prisoners moved slowly into the outer courtyard, on its way to the revolutionary tribunal, the humpbacked jailer bringing up the rear. Lomaque was about to follow at some little distance, but the head jailer hospitably expostulated. “What a hurry you’re in!” said he. “Now that incorrigible drinker, my second in command, has gone off with his batch, I don’t mind asking you to step in and have a drop of wine.” “Thank you,” answered Lomaque; “but I have rather a fancy for hearing the trial this morning. Suppose I come back afterward? What time do you go to your Section? At two o’clock, eh? Good! I shall try if I can’t get here soon after one.” With these words he nodded and went out. The brilliant sunlight in the courtyard made him wink faster than ever. Had any of his old enemies been with him, they would have whispered within themselves, “If you mean to come back at all, Citizen Lomaque, it will not be soon after one!” On his way through the streets, the chief agent met one or two police office friends, who delayed his progress; so that when he arrived at the revolutionary tribunal the trials of the day were just about to begin. The principal article of furniture in the Hall of Justice was a long, clumsy, deal table, covered with green baize. At the head of this table sat the president and his court, with their hats on, backed by a heterogeneous collection of patriots officially connected in various ways with the proceedings that were to take place. Below the front of the table, a railed-off space, with a gallery beyond, was appropriated to the general public--mostly represented, as to the gallery, on this occasion, by women, all sitting together on forms, knitting, shirt-mending, and baby-linen-making, as coolly as if they were at home. Parallel with the side of the table furthest from the great door of entrance was a low platform railed off, on which the prisoners, surrounded by their guard, were now assembled to await their trial. The sun shone in brightly from a high window, and a hum of ceaseless talking pervaded the hall cheerfully as Lomaque entered it. He was a privileged man here, as at the prison; and he made his way in by a private door, so as to pass to the prisoners’ platform, and to walk round it, before he got to a place behind the president’s chair. Trudaine, standing with his sister on the outermost limits of the group, nodded significantly as Lomaque looked up at him for an instant. He had contrived, on his way to the tribunal, to get an opportunity of reading the paper which the chief agent had slipped into his cravat. It contained these lines: “I have just discovered who the citizen and citoyenne Dubois are. There is no chance for you but to confess everything. By that means you may inculpate a certain citizen holding authority, and may make it his interest, if he loves his own life, to save yours and your sister’s.”