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"Here we are; come in quick," replied Hache. He was a bold-looking, black-haired man, red-faced, unshaven, and battered with the effects of brandy-drinking. They turned into a grimy old-iron shop. A woman sitting in a corner fixed her eyes upon them like a watch-dog.
For answer several pikes were thrown in; he stepped back beyond their reach, calmly fronting the fierce faces. "Tell me what you want. I am ready to do your will." There was a short period of indecision outside. A muscular man in a carmagnole swinging a formidable axe pushed forward and the others fell back at his rough order. "I arrest you, citizen Répentigny," said Hache, for it was he.
A stifled struggle with its fastenings were heard from the bundle in the corner. "Bring him over," order the Admiral. Gougeon and Hache went over, lifted the bundle, and deposited it in the centre of the group, where the candle rays brought out amidst it the lines of a face. A woollen gag was across the mouth, the eyes were bloodshot and fear-distorted, but the features were unmistakable.
They brought in the Big Hog from his hunting, and he is in the mess, too. At the end they all followed Madame Veto home, shouting everything to vex us patriots. I am a patriot," he added winking. "It is an outrage on the nation. We must go to Versailles. We must bring the Big Hog into our bosoms, away from the Bad Hogs. Do you see?" "I am in it," cried Hache.
Having gazed at them all round and grunted to his own satisfaction and to that of Hache, he dived again into the box, where he fumbled around a large lump covered with linen, and at length drew out a shining article a golden soleil, or sun-shaped stand for displaying the Host at the mass. Beside it was a finely embossed chalice of silver. His eyes and those of Hache were lost in wonder.
A hoarse, long groan was the reply. Femme Gougeon came over to him, and putting her glittering eyes just over his, caught his neck with her left hand, and stretching her right up to Gougeon said "A knife!" "No," the Admiral exclaimed peremptorily. "What would you do with the blood? To the rats with him rather, like the others. Hache, the trap."
The Admiral sat wrapped in his brown cloak. "I caught him!" shouted Hache hilariously; "I caught him myself." "Who is he?" the Admiral asked. "The sheep that followed me. They have followed me ever since the breaking of Bec and Caron. This one was the worst. He follows you along like a lizard under a wall; but I caught him, I caught him!"
They stumbled through, climbed a dark stair, and entered a room where the traveller, without speaking to a man who lay there on a bench, locked the door, and Hache dropped the box on the table with a thud, shaking off a cap and bottle which were on it. The man on the bench started at the noise, and got up on his elbow, his eyes opening with an effort. "Great God, the Admiral!" he exclaimed.
A hundred deputies of the Assembly in their carriages came next. The advance guard, which was formed of a detachment of the brigands, set out two hours earlier. In front of them Hache and Motte danced in triumph, carrying the pallid heads of Des Huttes and de Varicourt aloft on their pikes. They stopped a moment at Sèvres in front of the shop of an unfortunate hairdresser.
The yellow light of the dip threw their shadows into the recesses and shed its flicker on their faces. Gougeon sat picking at the candle-grease in his apathetic way. Hache cheerfully threw himself on a long box. The Admiral stood wrapped in his cloak, melodramatic as usual. Femme Gougeon pushed into the centre.
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