"I can hardly blame them, monsieur. For though I myself would risk everything, and some of the others would do so too, it is a terrible thing for men with wives and families to brave the anger of these monsters. They would think nothing of putting us all to death. It isn't the fighting we are afraid of, though the odds are heavy against us, but it's the vengeance they would take afterwards, whether we happened to win or whether we didn't." "I cannot blame them," Harry said. "As you say, even if they succeeded there would be a terrible vengeance for it afterwards. No; if the girls are to be rescued it must be by some other way. I have been quiet so long because I hoped that the intercession of the women would have saved them. As that has failed I must set to work. I have thought of every method, but bribery seems the only chance. Will you speak to the man you know in the prison, and sound him whether it will be possible to carry out any plan in that way?" "I will speak again to him," Adolphe said. "But I have already sounded him, and he said that there were so many guards and jailers that he feared that it would be impossible. But I will try again." The next day, soon after dinner, Adolphe came again, and there was a white scared look upon his face which filled Harry with alarm. "What is it, Adolphe? What is your news?" "Monsieur, I can hardly tell it," Adolphe said in a low awe-stricken voice. "It is too awful even for these fiends." "What is it, Adolphe? Tell me. If they have been murdered I will go straight to Nantes and kill Carrier the first time he leaves his house, though they may tear me to pieces afterwards." "They are not murdered yet," Adolphe said; "but they are to be, and everyone else." And this time the sailor sat down and cried like a child. At last, in answer to Harry's entreaties, he raised his head and told the story. The Revolutionary Committee had that day been down at the wharf, and had taken for the public service four old luggers past service which were lying on the mud, and they had openly boasted that an end was going to put to the aristocrats; that the guillotine was too slow, that the prison must be cleared, and that they were going to pack the aristocrats on board the luggers and sink them. Harry gave a cry of horror, in which the fisherman and his wife joined, the latter pouring out voluble curses against Carrier and the Reds. After his first cry Harry was silent; he sank down on to a low chair, and sat there with his face hidden in his hands for some minutes, while the fisherman and his wife poured question after question upon Adolphe. Presently Harry rose to his feet, and saying to Adolphe, "Do not go away, I shall be back presently, I must think by myself," went out bareheaded into the night. It was half an hour before he returned. "Now, Adolphe," he said, "I can think again. Now, how are they to be saved?" "I cannot say, monsieur," Adolphe said hesitatingly. "It does not seem to me--"