His pale eyes wandered slowly along the crowd; and such was the power exercised by this extraordinary man, so great the terror that he inspired, that every one there--men, women and children, workers and vagabonds--turned their eyes away, dared not meet his glance lest in it they read an accusation or a threat. Indeed, no one dared to speak. The young rhetorician had disappeared, and every one trembled lest they should be implicated in his escape. He had evidently got away under cover of the confusion and the noise. But his companions were still there--four of them; the woman and the boy and the two girls, crouching like frightened beasts before the obvious fury, the certain vengeance of the people. The murmurs were ominous. "Death! Guillotine! Traitors!" were words easily distinguishable in the confused babbling of the sullen crowd. Robespierre's cruel, appraising glance rested on those four pathetic forms, so helpless, so desperate, so terrified. "Citizens," he said coldly, "did you not hear me ask where your eloquent companion is at this moment?" Régine alone knew that he lay like a log under the table, close to her feet. She had seen him fall, struck by that awful blow from a brutal fist; but at the ominous query she instinctively pressed her trembling lips close together, whilst Joséphine and Jacques clung to her with the strength of despair. "Do not parley with the rabble, citizen," St. Just whispered eagerly. "This is a grand moment for you. Let the people of their own accord condemn those who dared to defame you." And even Couthon, the prudent, added sententiously: "Such an opportunity may never occur again." The people, in truth, were over-ready to take vengeance into their own hands. "À la lanterne, les aristos!" Gaunt, bedraggled forms leaned across the table, shook begrimed fists in the direction of the four crouching figures. With the blind instinct of trapped beasts, they retreated into the shadows step by step, as those threatening fists appeared to draw closer, clutching at the nearest table and dragging it with them, in an altogether futile attempt at a barricade. "Holy Mother of God, protect us!" murmured Mme. de Serval from time to time. Behind them there was nothing but the row of houses, no means of escape even if their trembling knees had not refused them service; whilst vaguely, through their terror, they were conscious of the proximity of that awful asthmatic creature with the wheezy cough and the hideous, toothless mouth. At times he seemed so close that they shut their eyes, almost feeling his grimy hands around their throats, his huge, hairy arms dragging them down to death.