"Now, sir," said Morgan, "you have just ten minutes in which to make your peace with God." The old chapel altar, though mutilated, was still standing. The condemned went to it and knelt down. In the meantime the Companions tore a slip of paper into twelve parts, one of which bore the tracing of a dagger. The twelve pieces were then placed in the hat of the messenger who had arrived just in time to witness this act of vengeance. Then, before the condemned man had finished his prayers, each monk drew a slip in turn. The one to whom the function of executioner had fallen said never a word; he merely took the dagger from the table and tested the point with his finger. The ten minutes having passed, the young man rose. "I am ready," he said. Then without hesitation or delay, firm and erect, the monk who had drawn the fatal slip walked straight to him and plunged the dagger into his heart. A cry of agony, then the thud of a body falling upon the pavement, and all was over. The condemned man was dead, the blade of the dagger had pierced his heart. "Thus perish all the members of our holy order who are false to their oaths," said Morgan. And all the monks responded in chorus: "Amen!" CHAPTER VI DIANE DE FARGAS Just as the unfortunate Lucien de Fargas was drawing his last breath in the subterranean chapel of the Chartreuse of Seillon, a post-chaise stopped before the inn of the Dragon at Nantua. This inn of the Dragon had a certain reputation in Nantua and its suburbs, a reputation which it owed to the well-known opinions of its proprietor, René Servet. Without knowing why, Master René Servet was a royalist. Thanks to the distance which stretched between Nantua and all the great centres of civilization, thanks also to the mild temperament of its inhabitants, Master René Servet had passed through the Revolution without being in the least molested for his opinions, well-known though they were. It must be confessed, though, that the worthy man had done all in his power to invite persecution. Not only had he retained the name of the Dauphin for his inn, but on the tail of the fantastic fish on his sign-board, a tail which protruded insolently from the water, he had drawn the profile of the poor little prince, who had remained shut up for four years and who had died, shortly after the Thermidorean reaction, in the prison of the Temple. Therefore all those who for sixty miles round the inn of the Dragon--and their number was great--shared the opinions of René Servet, did not fail to patronize his inn, and would not have consented to go elsewhere. It was not astonishing, therefore, that a post-chaise having to stop at Nantua should leave its passengers rather at the aristocratic inn of the Dragon than at its democratic rival, the Boule d'Or.