Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 6, 2025
Those that were tending the wounded had perhaps the best of it, since thus their minds were occupied and saved the torture of speculation. The proportion of slain was mercifully small: of twenty that had fallen it was found that but six were dead, the others being more or less severely hurt. Conspicuous among the men that remained, and perhaps the bravest of them all was old Des Cadoux.
"Why, that since the King is dead, it shall profit us little to cry, 'Long Live the King!" "The King, Monsieur, never dies," said Cadoux sententiously. "Since you put it so, Monsieur," answered La Boulaye, as if convinced, "I'll honour the toast." And with the cry they asked of him he drained his glass.
"Why, then, you should have hanged him out of hand, not tortured him thus," answered Des Cadoux shortly. For a moment it almost seemed as if the pair of them would have fallen a-quarrelling. Their words grew more heated, and then, while they were still wrangling, the executioner came forward to solve matters with the news that the secretary had expired.
"It is ended, old friend," he groaned at last, to Des Cadoux. "I am losing strength, and I shall be done for in a moment. The women," he almost sobbed, "mon Dieu, the women!" Des Cadoux felt his old eyes grow moist, and the odd, fierce mirth that seemed to have hitherto infected him went out like a candle that is snuffed.
He reassured her that there would be no bloodshed, and suggested that the men were dangerous characters whom it might be ill for her to entertain. And so at last he won his way, and she went to do his errand, whilst he reentered the kitchen. He found Des Cadoux by the fire, intent upon drying as much of himself as possible.
The half of those that had held the stairs lay weltering upon them as if in a last attempt to barricade with their bodies what they could no longer defend with their hands. A bare half-score remained standing, and amongst these that gallant old Cadoux, who had by now accounted for a half-dozen sans-culottes, and was hence in high glee, a man rejuvenesced.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking