Orphans of the Storm Part 19

Not if Danton could protect and save!

Stern was his voice as he said to the jailer:

"There is some mistake. Keep her--and her friend--until I return!" He was on his heel and striding to the courtroom.

A follower sensed his purpose. He laid hand on Danton's shoulder, saying: "No, Danton--you endanger your own life!"

"What if I do? She must be saved."

As we see him pa.s.s into the Tribunal, let us stop for a moment and watch the procedure in the death chamber. Outside, the tumbrils of death clatter up to receive their load. A functionary calls the names of the condemned whilst a court officer identifies them. Each in turn is bundled off to the carts. The men hesitate over Henriette and Maurice.

"The ex-Minister of Justice," said one, "asked that this case be delayed."

"Her name is here," said the master functionary, a creature of the Dictator. "She goes--"

"We might as well take the other too," said the court officer, pointing to de Vaudrey....

Superbly the Lion of the Revolution faced the judges and the mob, and demanded a hearing. Robespierre uplifted eyebrows and half-smiled, vulpinely. His rapid exchange of looks with the Court seemed to say: "Well, we have got to listen to this crazy man, but be on guard!"

The president, Jacques-Forget-Not, took the cue and acceded to Danton's request.

"A great injustice has been done," cried Danton, "to the innocent and helpless. I ask the lives of Henriette Girard and Citizen de Vaudrey!"

The judges did not need to answer.

A savage cry of "No! No!" swelled from the infuriated "Mountain."

The sansculottes half rose from their benches, shaking minatory fists, yelling, gesticulating. Faces were contorted in fury. The mob--the same that had once acclaimed Danton in chair of state--was not to be balked of blood.

The orator continued: "These sufferers are friends of you who demand their death. The girl once saved _me_--the organizer of your victory--from spada.s.sins. The boy was ever known as the people's benefactor--I have seen him buy loaves to keep you from starving! Now through trumped-up charges they are to be hurried away to death--"

"You question the justice of the people's Tribunal?" interrupted Judge Forget-Not shrilly, with obvious play at the mob.

"h.e.l.l's bells!" replied the indignant Thunderer. "I established this Tribunal. Did not I as Minister of Justice set it in being, and shall I not speak when crimes are done in its name!"

... In the death chamber Henriette and Maurice were trying to kiss each other good-by. The guards had separated them. Vaudrey was going in one death cart, Henriette in another....

He had silenced the querulous Forget-Not, was waking the echoes with the same thunders that had nerved France to resist the foe. "I ask for their lives not only, but for MERCY and JUSTICE to wipe out the tyranny and cruelty that are befouling all of us. I ask for a regenerated nation, purged of these vile offences."

Robespierre was sinisterly serious now.

The group of judges sat amazed.

"Give Danton a hearing!" was the murmur among the sansculottes, half awed by his old witchery.

The impa.s.sioned orator swung upon them, his old supporters.

"My heart--my brain--my soul--my very life! Do they mean anything to you--to France?"

"YES! YES!" shouted the answering mob, caught by the personal appeal.

Alarmed at the swiftly changing tide, the Chief Judge sought the Dictator's eye. The orator's eyes were far away, his frame was convulsed by emotion as he cried: "My very life--everything--I owe to one of these victims!" The mob identified its cause with Danton's, submerged their personalities with his own!

[Ill.u.s.tration: DANTON AND MEN RIDE TO THE RESCUE PAST THE CORRUPT AND DEGENERATE ORGY OF THE "FEAST OF REASON."]

Robespierre answered Forget-Not's look. He indicated the speaker by a slight motion of the head, then drew his right hand across the throat, played with the lace ruffles--and smiled! Forget-Not understood. Not then--but later, only a little later--would come the time to snuff out this disturber!

Danton turned from the mob, swinging the peroration to the judges in the one impa.s.sioned cry of "JUSTICE!" Lion-like he glanced from those mean, denying souls to the rabble, and held out his hands.

Like an avalanche, the "Mountain" swept down from benches to hall and on, on toward the judges. Murder was in their eyes. A word from the Thunderer would have sealed Forget-Not's fate.

"His wish! Give Danton his wish!" they roared.

Like a monkey the man Forget-Not leaped and cowered behind his bar, imploring Robespierre for a sign. The Dictator nodded to yield. But again was there not the very slightest motion of hand past neck, the eyes side-glancing at the Thunderer?

Danton stilled the tempest as Chief Judge Forget-Not wrote the reprieve and the other affrighted Judges confirmed it.

... Outside, the tumbrils were already on their way to the guillotine. Henrietta and de Vaudrey were approaching the gates of death....

CHAPTER XXVI

REPRIEVE OR AGONY

The man Forget-not, directly the paper was signed, rushed past the speaker and out of the hall into the lobbies. He was followed presently by the Court's messenger. There was here some trickery or other that Danton sensed.

He could not stop the Chief Judge leaving, but he pounced on the messenger and yanked the reprieve out of his hand. "I will deliver it!" said Danton. The people applauded the act. Everyone knew that he dared greatly.

Quick as he had been, Jacques-Forget-Not had already given his orders.

"Stop Danton if you can!" had been Jacques' word to the outer guard.

To his inspectors of defences, he had said: "The barriers to the guillotine--close them!" He ran forth to see that the orders were obeyed. None of Robespierre's party wanted to see Danton achieve his errand of mercy--least of all, the vengeful Jacques-Forget-Not!....

The pock-marked Thunderer wasn't stopped beyond the door. His giant strength threw off the minions who would have blocked him. He hastened to the yard where his beloved troopers were quartered.

Henriette and Maurice's route lay past an obscene and sacrilegious rite.

Mocking at religion, the more fanatical had thrown off every vestige of decency and indulged in Baccha.n.a.lian worship of a so-called "G.o.ddess of Reason." This was a lewd female from the Paris half-world, flower-chapleted, flimsily draped, prancing in drunken frenzy atop a table surrounded by her "worshippers."

The Feast of Reason included hundreds of revelers grouped around the open-air tables for the "supper of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity,"

and between long lines of these they were obliged to pa.s.s.