"The call takes place here, just where you are standing," he explained. Robespierre started, and moved away. His eyes rested on the long line of cells, whose doors were lost in long perspective under the vaulted archway he had noticed on his entrance, and which had seemed so vast through the iron bars of the second gate. He lowered his voice to ask if those cells were occupied. Barassin's reply reassured him; there was no one there just then. Then, indicating a cell opposite Robespierre, the watchman continued, carried away by his subject-- "This is the cell in which the Queen was locked up." He opened a panel in the door that Robespierre might glance within. The Incorruptible hesitated at first, and as he bent over resolutely to look, Barassin found further material for his questionable wit: "It's not such a palace as her Versailles, eh?" Robespierre quickly closed the aperture, on the outside of which he perceived a black cross. "What! a cross?" he exclaimed, staring the while at the sign of redemption. The watchman told him that some prisoner had probably daubed this cross on the panel after the Queen's death. The prisoners always stopped before it to pray, and it was their habit to scribble in that way over the prison walls with pencils, or even nails. "Why, here's your name!" he chuckled, highly amused. Robespierre shuddered. "My name?" Barassin raised his lantern, throwing the light on an inscription in large letters on the wall, under some prison notices. The Incorruptible read-- "We shall be avenged, Robespierre, monster! your turn will come!" The watchman swung his lantern from place to place, lighting up, for the Incorruptible's benefit, other ominous inscriptions addressed to him. "Robespierre, the tyrant!" "Robespierre, the assassin!" The Incorruptible turned pale. He was well accustomed to insult and abuse, no doubt, but these imprecations on the walls, in that gruesome and silent prison, seemed like the last curses of the dead, written in letters of fire and blood! "They must occupy themselves, I suppose!" remarked Barassin, still laughing. The Incorruptible turned away, feeling ill at ease. Again he questioned the man, fixing him the while as if he would fathom the depths of his experience. Did he keep watch every night? He must have witnessed some heart-rending scenes? Was he not disturbed in his sleep, living thus in continual contact with the dread spectre of death? Could he really sleep? Did not the cries of the victims disturb his slumber? Was he not haunted by their solemn leavetakings and their sobs? Citoyen Robespierre could rest assured! Barassin slept soundly enough! Such fancies were very well for women! In the first place, the dead never returned, and then, after all, it was not Barassin who killed the victims, was it?