“I would rather perish than conquer as you are conquering,” said Gerard. Then, seeing the naked and bloody corpses of his men, he cried out, “Murdered basely, in cold blood!”
“That was how you murdered Louis XVI., monsieur,” said the marquis.
“Monsieur,” replied Gerard, haughtily, “there are mysteries in a king’s trial which you could never comprehend.”
“Do you dare to accuse the king?” exclaimed the marquis.
“Do you dare to fight your country?” retorted Gerard.
“Well, well,” cried Merle, gaily, “a pretty time to quarrel at the moment of your death.”
“True,” said Gerard, coldly, turning to the marquis. “Monsieur, if it is your intention to put us to death, at least have the goodness to shoot us at once.”
“Ah! that’s like you, Gerard,” said Merle, “always in a hurry to finish things. But if one has to travel far and can’t breakfast on the morrow, at least we might sup.”
Gerard sprang forward without a word towards the wall. Pille-Miche covered him, glancing as he did so at the motionless marquis, whose silence he took for an order, and the adjutant-major fell like a tree. Marche-a-Terre ran to share the fresh booty with Pille-Miche; like two hungry crows they disputed and clamored over the still warm body.
“If you really wish to finish your supper, captain, you can come with me,” said the marquis to Merle.
The captain followed him mechanically, saying in a low voice: “It is that devil of a strumpet that caused all this. What will Hulot say?”
“Strumpet!” cried the marquis in a strangled voice, “then she is one?”
The captain seemed to have given Montauran a death-blow, for he re-entered the house with a staggering step, pale, haggard, and undone.
Another scene had meanwhile taken place in the dining-room, which assumed, in the marquis’s absence, such a threatening character that Marie, alone without her protector, might well fancy she read her death-warrant in the eyes of her rival. At the noise of the volley the guests all sprang to their feet, but Madame du Gua remained seated.
“It is nothing,” she said; “our men are despatching the Blues.” Then, seeing the marquis outside on the portico, she rose. “Mademoiselle whom you here see,” she continued, with the calmness of concentrated fury, “came here to betray the Gars! She meant to deliver him up to the Republic.”