--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