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Indeed, goaded on by the song and dance Simon was making, Black barked twice as hard.

The officer grabbed the ring of the trapdoor. Two of the sturdiest grenadiers, seeing he couldn’t budge it, rushed to his aid, though without any greater success.

“You can see they’re holding the trapdoor down from the inside,” said Simon. “Fire! Through the trapdoor, my friends, fire!”

“Hey!” cried Madame Plumeau. “You’ll break my bottles!”

“Fire!” Simon repeated. “Fire!”

“Shut up, you loudmouth!” said the officer. “And you, bring an ax or two and start on the floorboards. Now, let there be a squad standing by. Watch out! And fire into the trapdoor as soon as it’s open.”

The groan of wooden boards and a sudden jolt told the National Guards that some kind of movement had just been accomplished down below. Soon afterward, an underground noise was heard that sounded like an iron portcullis clanging shut.

“Courage!” said the officer to the sappers who came running.

The man with the ax struck into the floorboards. Twenty rifle barrels were pointed downward in the direction of the hole he hacked out, which grew wider second by second. But no one was to be seen through it. The officer lit a torch and threw it into the cellar. But the cellar was empty. The trapdoor was whipped back and this time yielded without the slightest resistance.

“Follow me!” cried the officer, bravely rushing down the stairs.

“Forward! Forward!” cried the National Guards, hurling themselves after their officer.

“Ah! Mother Plumeau,” said Tison, “you’ve been lending your cellar to aristocrats!”

A wall had been knocked down. Numerous feet had scuffed the damp soil, and a sort of ditch, three feet wide and five feet high, similar to a trench, had been carved out in the direction of the rue de la Corderie.

The officer ventured into the mouth of the ditch, determined to pursue the aristocrats to the center of the earth if he had to; but he had scarcely taken three or four steps when he was stopped by an iron grille.

“Halt!” he said to the men pushing him from the rear. “You can’t go any further. It’s blocked off.”

“What’s happened?” chirped the municipal officers, who had come running to hear the latest after locking up the prisoners again. “Let’s have a look.”

“Cripes!” said the officer, reemerging. “There is a conspiracy all right: the aristocrats were hoping to abduct the Queen during her promenade—probably with her connivance.”

“Blast!” cried one of the municipal officers. “Someone go get citizen Santerre and alert the Commune.”

“Soldiers,” said the officer, “stay in the cellar and kill anyone who pops up.”

Having given this order, the officer went back upstairs to write up his report.

“Aha!” blared Simon, rubbing his hands with glee. “Aha! Who’s going to say I’m mad now? Good old Black! Black is a tremendous patriot, Black has saved the Republic. Come here, Black, here boy!”

The vile man made eyes at the poor dog, only to give him a swift kick in the backside as soon as he was within range, sending Black flying twenty feet away.

“Oh! How I love you, Black!” he crowed. “You’ll cause your mistress’s head to roll yet. Here boy, here Black, come on boy.”

But this time Black did not oblige and opted instead for the way back to the dungeon, yelping.

27

THE MUSCADIN

The events we have just recounted were still roughly two hours old when Lorin was to be found pacing around Maurice’s room, while Agesilaus polished his master’s boots in the antechamber. To make conversation easier the door was left open, and in his travels Lorin would stop by the door and fire questions at the officieux.

“And you say, citizen Agesilaus, that your master went out this morning?”

“For God’s sake! Yes!”

“At the usual time?”

“Ten minutes earlier, ten minutes later, I couldn’t tell you.”

“And you haven’t seen him since?”

“No, citizen.”

Lorin set off again and circled the room three or four times before perching once more by the door.

“Did he have his sword with him?” he asked.

“Oh! When he goes to the section,