Then, of course, prudence went to the winds.  He hit out to the right and left.  Knocked two of those recreants down, and already was prepared to seize Esther in his arms, make a wild dash for the door, and run with her, whither only God knew, when Rateau, that awful consumptive reprobate, crept slyly up behind him and dealt him a swift and heavy blow on the skull with his weighted stick.  Kennard staggered, and the bandits closed upon him.  Those on the floor had time to regain their feet.  To make assurance doubly sure, one of them emulated Rateau’s tactics, and hit the Englishman once more on the head from behind.  After that, Kennard became inert; he had partly lost consciousness.  His head ached furiously.  Esther, numb with horror, saw him bundled out of the room.  Rateau, coughing and spluttering, finally closed the door upon the unfortunate and the four brigands who had hold of him.

Only Merri and that awful Rateau had remained in the room.  The latter, gasping for breath now, poured himself out a mugful of water and drank it down at one draught.  Then he swore, because he wanted rum, or brandy, or even wine.  Esther watched him and Merri, fascinated.  Poor old Lucienne was quietly weeping behind her apron.

“Now then, my wench,” Merri began abruptly, “suppose you sit down here and listen to what I have to say.”

He pulled a chair close to him and, with one of those hideous leers which had already caused her to shudder, he beckoned her to sit.  Esther obeyed as if in a dream.  Her eyes were dilated like those of one in a waking trance.  She moved mechanically, like a bird attracted by a serpent, terrified, yet unresisting.  She felt utterly helpless between these two villainous brutes, and anxiety for her English lover seemed further to numb her senses.  When she was sitting she turned her gaze, with an involuntary appeal for pity, upon the bandy-legged ruffian beside her.  He laughed.

“No!  I am not going to hurt you,” he said with smooth condescension, which was far more loathsome to Esther’s ears than his comrades’ savage oaths had been.  “You are pretty and you have pleased me.  ’Tis no small matter, forsooth!” he added, with loud-voiced bombast, “to have earned the good-will of citizen Merri.  You, my wench, are in luck’s way.  You realise what has occurred just now.  You are amenable to the law which has decreed you to be suspect.  I hold an order for your arrest.  I can have you seized at once by my men, dragged to the Conciergerie, and from thence nothing can save you—­neither your good looks nor the protection of citizen Merri.  It means the guillotine.  You understand that, don’t you?”

She sat quite still; only her hands were clutched convulsively together.  But she contrived to say quite firmly: 

“I do, and I am not afraid.”

Merri waved a huge and very dirty hand with a careless gesture.

“I know,” he said with a harsh laugh.  “They all say that, don’t they, citizen Rateau?”