"Something is going on," said the spy to herself, "and what does it mean that to-day the commissaries are not in the anteroom, and that they let these women carry on their chattering entirely unwatched?"
"Madame has been reading?" asked Tison, subjecting every object upon the table before which the ladies were sitting, to a careful scrutiny. "Madame has been reading," she repeated; "I heard paper rattling, and I see no book."
"You are under a mistake," replied Madame Elizabeth, "we have not been reading, we have been sewing; but supposing we were reading, is there any wrong in that? Have they made any law that forbids that?"
"No," answered Tison, "no--I only wondered how people could rattle paper and there be none there, but all the same--the ladies of course have a right to read, and we must be satisfied with that."
And she went out, looking right and left like a hound on the scent, and searching every corner of the room.
"I must see what kind of officials we have here to-day," said Tison to herself, slipping through the little side-door and through the corridor; "I shouldn't wonder if it were Toulan and Lepitre again, for every time when they two--right!" she ejaculated, looking through the outer door, "right! it is they, Toulan and Lepitre. I must see what Simon's wife has to say to that."
She slipped down the broad staircase, and passed through the open door into the porter's lodge. Madame Simon, one of the most savage of the knitters, had shortly returned from the guillotine, and was sitting upon her rush chair, busily counting on a long cotton stocking which she held in her hand.
"How many heads to-day?" asked Tison.
Madame Simon slowly shook her head, decorated with a white knit cap.
"It is hardly worth the pains," she said dismally,--"the machine works badly, and the judges are neglectful. Only five cars to-day, and on every one only seven persons." "What!" cried Tison, "only thirty-five heads to-day in all?"
"Yes, only thirty-five heads," repeated Madame Simon, shaking her head; "I have just been counting on my stocking, and I find only thirty-five seam-stitches, for every seam-stitch means a head. For such a little affair we have had to sit six hours in the wet and cold on the platform. The machine works too slowly, I say--altogether too slowly. The judges are easy, and there is no more pleasure to be derived from the executions."
"They must be stirred up," said Tison with a fiendish look; "your husband must speak with his friend, citizen Marat, and tell him that his best friends the knitters, and most of all, Simon's wife, are dissatisfied, and if it goes on so, the women will rise and hurry all the men to the guillotine. That will stir them up, for they do respect the knitters, and if they fear the devil, they fear yet more his proud grandmother, and every one of us market-women and knitters is the devil's grandmother."
"Yes, they do respect us and they shall," said Madame Simon, setting her glistening needles in motion again, and working slowly on the stocking; "I will myself speak with citizen Marat, and believe me, I will fire him up, and then we shall have better play, and see more cars driven up to the guillotine. We must keep our eyes well open, arid denounce all suspicious characters."
"I have my eyes always open," cried Tison, with a coarse laugh, "and I suspect traitors before they have committed any thing. There, for example, are the two officials, Toulan and Lepitre, do you have confidence in them?"
"I have no confidence in them whatever, and I have never had any confidence in them," answered Madame Simon, with dignity, and setting her needles in more rapid motion. "In these times you must trust nobody, and least of all those who are so very earnest to keep guard over the Austrian woman; for a true republican despises the aristocracy altogether too much to find it agreeable to be with such scum, and shows it as much as he can, but Toulan is always wanting to be there. Wait a moment, and I will tell you how many times Toulan and Lepitre have kept guard the present month."
She drew a little memorandum-book from her reticule, which hung by black bands from her brown hairy arm, and turned over the leaves.
"There, here it is," she said.
"To-day is the 20th of February, and the two men have already kept guard eight times the present month. That is three times as many as they need to do. Every one of the officials who were appointed to keep guard in the Temple is obliged to serve only once a week, and both of these traitors are now here for the eighth time. And my husband is so stupid and so blinded that he believes this prattler Toulan when he tells him he comes here merely to be with citizen Simon; but they cannot come round me with their talk; they cannot throw dust in my eyes. I shall keep them open, wide open, let me tell you."
"They are not sitting inside in the antechamber to-day," whispered Tison, "but outside on the landing, and they have closed the door of the anteroom, so that the Austrian has been entirely alone and unobserved these hours."
"Alone!" cried the knitter, and her polished needles struck so violently against each other that you could hear them click. "My husband cannot be to blame for that; Toulan must have talked him into it, and he must have a reason for it; he must have a reason, and if it is only from his having pity upon her, that is enough and more than enough to bring him under suspicion and to build an accusation upon. He must be removed, say I. There shall no such compassionate worms as he creep into the Temple. I will clear them out--I will clear them out with human blood!"
She looked so devilish, her eyes glared so with such a cruel coldness, and such a fiendish smile played upon her pale, thin lips, that even Madame Tison was afraid of her, and felt as if a cold, poisonous spider was creeping slowly over her heart.
"They are sitting still outside, you say?" asked Madame Simon, after a pause.