"Hist, Jean Lebeau!--look at me: you recollect me now,--Mart le Roux, _concierge_ to the Secret Council. Ay, I found out who you were long ago --followed you home from the last meeting you broke up. But I did not betray you, or you would have been murdered long since. Beware of the old set--beware of--of--" Here his voice broke off into shrill exclamations of pain. Curbing his last agonies with a powerful effort, he faltered forth, "You owe me a service--see to the little one at home --she is starving." The death-_rale_ came on; in a few moments he was no more. Victor gave orders for the removal of the corpse, and hurried away. The surgeon, who had changed countenance when he overheard the name in which the dying man had addressed De Mauleon, gazed silently after De Mauleon's retreating form, and then, also quitting the dead, rejoined the group he had quitted. Some of those who composed it acquired evil renown later in the war of the Communists, and came to disastrous ends: among that number the Pole Loubinsky and other members of the Secret Council. The Italian Raselli was there too, but, subtler than his French confreres, he divined the fate of the Communists, and glided from it--safe now in his native land, destined there, no doubt, to the funereal honours and lasting renown which Italy bestows on the dust of her sons who have advocated assassination out of love for the human race. Amid this group, too, was a National Guard, strayed from his proper post, and stretched on the frozen ground; and, early though the hour, in the profound sleep of intoxication. "So," said Loubinsky, "you have found your errand in vain, Citizen le Noy; another victim to the imbecility of our generals." "And partly one of us," replied the Medecin des Pauvres. "You remember poor le Roux, who kept the old baraque where the Council of Ten used to meet? Yonder he lies." "Don't talk of the Council of Ten. What fools and dupes we were made by that _vieux gredin_, Jean Lebeau! How I wish I could meet him again!" Gaspard le Noy smiled sarcastically. "So much the worse for you, if you did. A muscular and a ruthless fellow is that Jean Lebeau!" Therewith he turned to the drunken sleeper and woke him up with a shake and a kick. "Armand--Armand Monnier, I say, rise, rub your eyes. What if you are called to your post? What if you are shamed as a deserter and a coward?" Armand turned, rose with an effort from the recumbent to the sitting posture, and stared dizzily in the face of the _Medecin des Pauvres_. "I was dreaming that I had caught by the throat," said Armand, wildly, "the aristo who shot my brother; and lo, there were two men, Victor de Mauleon and Jean Lebeau." "Ah! there is something in dreams," said the surgeon. "Once in a thousand times a dream comes true." CHAPTER V.