A sansculotte soldier, less brutal than his fellows, had allowed Louise and Pierre to approach one side of the scaffold. They were more privileged than the frantic Picard, who could not get near his young master and mistress. Revolutionary infantry guarded every side of the public square. Intermingled among them were the favored hoodlums of the Jacobin party, execrating the victims and howling with glee whenever the dread axe fell.

Among the riff-raff, Mere Frochard and her precious son Jacques Frochard were conspicuous. For no particular reason they were gloating over the cutting-off of aristocrats, whilst indulging in rough horseplay at the expense of the friends of the condemned. Picard’s quaint look of helpless sympathy excited ready mirth.

“Sniveling over those good-for-nothings, eh?” La Frochard curled her heavy moustachioed lip in scorn.

“We’ll find a way to make that sensitive 179 young man feel something––” she confided to Jacques. A moment later she had pulled over a sansculotte’s bayonet, with which she executed a neat jab into Picard’s anatomy.

Picard leaped in the air like a jumping jack. When he descended to earth and turned to survey the cause of his torment, he faced but an impassive trooper with weapon at parade rest and the grinning countenances of Mere and Jacques Frochard, convulsed with laughter.

Picard decided the vicinity of the guillotine was almost as dangerous for him as for his master. He edged out of range, biding the occasion for a counter-thrust....

Pierre and Louise stood on the other side of the scaffold, the heavy structure of which quite hid the ruffian Frochards and their horseplay with Picard.

Henriette had been borne up the steps of the guillotine a few moments before Pierre and Louise reached the scene. The cripple, terribly excited, was telling Louise of Henriette’s being strapped to the board and shoved toward the knife vent.

“That big murderer is going to kill her!” hissed Pierre.

Louise’s blind features became contorted with agony. Large tear drops fell from her eyes. Both arms were extended toward her sister above, then clawed convulsively at Pierre.

“They-have-put-her-head-in-the crossboard-and––oh, oh!––fastened-it-down!

“The-executioner-is-all-ready.” Pierre was gesticulating like a madman. He seemed to be raising despairing hands to high Heaven, in token of helplessness.

Above––around––everywhere, he looked for succor; found none. A glance from Henriette’s doomed form to Louise’s bitter anguish converts him into a maniac.

“HE’S ASKING THE MASTER FOR THE SIGNAL TO PULL THE ROPE!”

Pierre shouts the words in a fury that is rapidly growing uncontrollable. Spectators for the first time notice his strange actions. But neither the expectant executioner nor the self-important master of ceremonial looks down, or distinguishes the cry in the babel of savage sounds.

The wild youth now disengages himself 181 from Louise’s clutch. With his right hand he pulls a dagger from his hip pocket. Look! As the master’s signalling hand is upraised high and begins to lower, the boy leaps up the steps of the guillotine, and attacks the executioner whose fingers are already on the death rope....

Ride on yet more fiercely, O Danton and ye fierce Cavalrymen––ride on, e’en past the barrier, if Jacques-Forget-Not and his men do not stay thee. Yes, thank God! there may yet be time, should this maniac with the dagger provide sufficient respite!

... The brawny butcher is too astonished to defend himself. His nerveless fingers are no longer on the rope; he stands like a stalled ox in front of his homicidal assailant. With the rapidity of lightning Pierre plunges his long Provencal dirk in the executioner’s side. The butchered butcher falls with a single bawling outcry and a groan. The crowd is thunderstruck, and the pinioned de Vaudrey is wild with joy. Though bound and helpless, he tries to leap up to his prostrate Henriette.

But the master of ceremonial, at first too panic-stricken to intervene, now summons 182 the sansculotte guards from the ground below. Up the steps on the double-quick they rush with fixed bayonets. As the huge victim falls back into the arms of his assistant, the bayoneting soldiers corner the dirk-waving Pierre.

The brief contest is quite unequal. In less time than it takes to tell it, one of the men plunges his bright, long steel in Pierre’s side. The latter falls like a lump of clay on the scaffold flooring. Several of the bayonets speed toward the inert lump, with the intent on the part of their owners to fling the body contemptuously from the scaffold to the floor.

But a more refined cruelty speaks: “Save him for the guillotine!” The soldiers leave the crumpled-up, desperately wounded Pierre, dooming him yet to taste La Guillotine’s embrace. They subdue de Vaudrey and truss him up anew.

The roars of the crowd die down. Comparative order is again restored. The master of ceremonial, having recovered the habit of command, orders Jean, the remaining executioner, to complete the stricken one’s job.

Fortunately for our heroine under the knife, the second executioner is slow and awkward. He has seen butchery come quite too close to his own flesh! Still somewhat unnerved, he prepares himself for the task with clumsy movements and halting fingers. The master bids him hurry––Jean takes his time, he’s not going to bungle the job....

As the supreme moment nears, it is well that we should note what is happening with Danton and his Centaurs––