"Good!" muttered the Baron to Jean. "The first step is a success!" The driver of their tumbril swore roundly, but nothing could be done except drive back a block or two and proceed through a very narrow street, scarcely more than an alley. Meanwhile the crowd had forsaken them, and had hastened on to the guillotine, lest it be too late for the first of the day's executions. The last tumbril would doubtless arrive in good time without their assistance! The narrow alley into which they now turned was lined with rickety wooden houses, and Jean noticed that De Batz watched one of these narrowly, so he also kept his eye upon it. They had almost reached it when suddenly, out from it rushed ten or fifteen men, all shouting, swearing, lunging at each other with knives and bludgeons, apparently engaged in a fierce dispute that could only be settled by drawing blood. They surged about the tumbril, while the astonished driver sought to clear the way by flourishing his whip, and shouting for a free passage. In the midst of all this confusion, Jean presently felt a knife inserted between the cords that bound his wrists, and in a second his hands were free. Then he saw that De Batz had likewise been released from his fetters. In the midst of the greatest racket he heard the Baron whisper: "Slip down! Get among them!" Fortunately they were both seated at the rear end of the cart. Before Jean realised it, he was down and in the midst of the noisy group shouting and struggling like the rest. If the other inmates of the cart realised what was happening, they were either too apathetic to care, or too glad that even a few might escape, to make any outcry. The struggling, fighting men, gradually ceased their blows and pretending to be appeased, gathered into a group, carefully concealing in their midst the Baron and Jean. The wrathful driver of the tumbril shook his fist at them, swore to have them all arrested later, gathered up his reins, and the cart lumbered heavily away, while he remained entirely in ignorance of the fact that his load was lighter by two! When it had disappeared, they all hurried into the house from whence the men had issued. "Oh!" sobbed Jean, now that the terrible tension was relieved, "if we could only have saved the rest! It seems horrible that they should go on to what we have escaped!" "It could not be done," said De Batz. "It was an awful risk even for _one_, and for _two_ a still greater peril. But had there been more,--why all would have perished! You yourself would not have been saved, had I not given my men a sign." The men now gathered about their leader, who congratulated them on the successful outcome of the plot.