“Then how on earth can you possibly know it?” “I do not know when the execution will begin, or when it will end—I only know that it will be _going on_ at nine o’clock to-morrow morning. Out of the twenty-one who are to suffer death, one will be guillotined exactly at that hour. Whether he will be the first whose head falls, or the last, I cannot tell.” “And pray who may this man be, who is to die exactly at nine o’clock? Of course, prophetically knowing so much, you know that?” “I _do_ know it. I am the man whose death by the guillotine will take place exactly at the hour I have mentioned.” “You said just now, Duprat, that you never joked. Do you expect me to believe that what you have just spoken is spoken in earnest?” “I repeat that I never joke, and I answer that I expect you to believe me. I know the hour at which my death will take place to-morrow, just as certainly as I know the fact of my own existence to-night.” “But how? My dear friend, can you really lay claim to supernatural intuition, in this eighteenth century of the world, in this renowned Age of Reason?” “No two men, Marigny, understand that word, supernatural, exactly in the same sense: you and I differ about its meaning; or, in other words, differ about the real distinction between the doubtful and the true. We will not discuss the subject: I wish to be understood, at the outset, as laying claim to no superior intuitions whatever; but I tell you, at the same time, that even in this Age of Reason, I have reason for what I have said. My father and my brother both died at nine o’clock in the morning, and were both warned very strangely of their deaths. I am the last of my family: I was warned last night, as they were warned; and I shall die by the guillotine, as they died in their beds, at the fatal hour of nine.” “But, Duprat, why have I never heard of this before? As your eldest and, I am sure, your dearest friend, I thought you had long since trusted me with all your secrets?” “And you shall know this secret: I only kept it from you till the time when I could be certain that my death would substantiate my words, to the very letter. Come—you are as bad supper-company as I am: let us slip away from the table unperceived, while our friends are all engaged in conversation. Yonder end of the hall is dark and quiet—we can speak there uninterruptedly, for some hours to come.” He led the way from the supper-table, followed by Marigny. Arrived at one of the darkest and most retired corners of the great hall of the prison, Duprat spoke again— “I believe, Marigny,” he said, “that you are one of those who have been ordered by our tyrants to witness my execution, and the execution of my brethren, as a warning spectacle for an enemy to the Jacobin cause?”