“I have none, and I wish for none,” replied George, in a tone of defiance. “This mockery is but the first step of the guillotine, and I can walk it without assistance.” A renewed call of “Silence!” and a deep murmur through the assembly, was all I heard, as the door of the court opened and closed behind us. As we marched along a low vaulted corridor, the sounds of the court grew fainter and fainter; and at last the echoes of our own steps were the only noises. The room to which we were conducted was a small whitewashed chamber, around which ran a bench of unpainted wood. A deal table stood in the centre, on which was a common-looking earthenware jar of water and some tin goblets. The window was several feet from the ground, and strongly barred with iron. “La salle d'attente is gloomy enough,” said one of my companions, “and yet some of us may be very sorry to leave it.” “Not I, at least,” cried the other, resolutely. “The basket beneath the guillotine will be an easier couch than I have slept on these three months.” CHAPTER XXXVI. THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE “It will go hard with Moreau to-day,” said the elder of the two prisoners, a large, swarthy-looking Breton, in the dress of a sailor; “the Consul hates him.” “Whom does he not hate,” said the younger, a slight and handsome youth--“whom does he not hate that ever rivalled him in glory? What love did he bear to Kléber or Desaix?” “It is false,” said I, fiercely. “Bonaparte's greatness stands far too high to feel such rivalry as theirs. The conqueror of Italy and of Egypt--” “Is a Corsican,” interrupted the elder. “And a tyrant,” rejoined the other, in the same breath. “These words become you well,” said I, bitterly. “Would that no stain lay on my honor, and I could make you eat them.” “And who are you that dare to speak thus?” said the younger; “or how came one like you mixed up with men whose hearts were in a great cause, and who came to sell their lives upon it?” “I tell you, boy,” broke in the elder, in a slow and measured tone, “I have made more stalwart limbs than thine bend, and stronger joints crack, for less than thou hast ventured to tell us; but sorrow and suffering are hard masters, and I can bear more now than I was wont to do. Let us have no more words.” As he spoke, he leaned his head upon his hand, and turned towards the wall; the other, too, sat down in a comer of the cell, and was silent. And thus we remained for hours long. The dreary stillness, made more depressing by the presence of the two prisoners, whose deep-drawn breathings were the only sounds they uttered, had something unspeakably sad and melancholy in it, and more than once I felt sorry for the few words I had spoken, which separated those whose misfortunes should have made them brothers.