But the hour struck, the preparations were finished. They set out.

The two processions met in the passage. Vaurheray, on seeing Gilbert, snapped out:

"I say, kiddie, the governor's chucked us!"

nd he added a sentence which nobody, save Prasville, was able to understand:

"Expect he prefers to pocket the proceeds of the crystal stopper."

They went down the staircases. They crossed the prison-yards. An endless, horrible distance.

And, suddenly, in the frame of the great doorway, the wan light of day, the rain, the street, the outlines of houses, while far-off sounds came through the awful silence.

They walked along the wall, to the corner of the boulevard.

A few steps farther

Vaucheray started back: he had seen!

Gilbert crept along, with lowered head, supported by an executioner's assistant and by the chaplain, who made him kiss the crucifix as he went.

There stood the guillotine.

"No, no," shouted Gilbert, "I won,t ... I won't... Help! Help!"

A last appeal, lost in space.

The executioner gave a signal. Vaucheray was laid hold of, lifted, dragged along, almost at a run.

And then came this staggering thing: a shot, a shot fired from the other side, from one of the houses opposite.

The assistants stopped short.

The burden which they were dragging bad collapsed in their arms.

"What is it? What's happened?" asked everybody.

"He's wounded... "

Blood spurted from Vaucheray's forehead and covered his face.

He spluttered:

"That's done it ... one in a thousand! Thank you, governor, thank you.

"Finish him off! Carry him there!" said a voice, amid the general confusion.

"But he's dead!"

"Get on with it... flnish him off!"

Tumult was at its height, in the little group of magistrates, officials and policemen. Every one was giving orders:

"Execute him!... The law must take its course!... We have no right to delay! It would be cowardice!... Execute him!"

"But the man's dead!"

"That makes no difference!... The law must be obeyed!... Execute him!"

The chaplain protested, while two warders and Prasville kept their eyes on Gilbert. In the meantime, the assistants had taken up the corpse again and were carrying it to the guillotine.

"Hurry up!" cried the executioner, scared and hoarse-voiced. "Hurry up! ... And the other one to follow. . . Waste no time... "

He had not finished speaking, when a second report rang out. He spun round on his heels and fell, groaning:

"It's nothing ... a wound in the shoulder... Go on... The next one's turn!"

But his assistants were running away, yelling with terror. The space around the guillotine was cleared. And the prefect of police, rallying his men, drove everybody back to the prison, helter-skelter, like a disordered rabble: the magistrates, the officials, the condemned man, the chaplain, all who had passed through the archway two or three minutes before.

In the meanwhile, a squad of policemen, detectives and soldiers were rushing upon the house, a little o1d-fashioned, three-storied house, with a ground-floor occupied by two shops which happened to be empty. Immediately after the first shot, they had seen, vaguely, at one of the windows on the second floor, a man holding a rifle in his hand and surrounded with a cloud of smoke.