Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/326

 clinging to the brink of a frightful precipice, or struggling in dark stormy waters, whence he stretched up his hands imploring her compassion. She thought, even, that it might perhaps have been in her power to prevent some enormous crime, of which the plot would have been revealed, if she had heard his confessions. Therefore, as soon as the morning broke, she summoned Martiniere, made her toilette in haste, and, provided with the casket of jewels, drove away to the house of the goldsmith.

On arriving in the Rue de la Nicase, near Cardillac's habitation, she was astonished to find the street crowded with people, all pressing forward with one intent to the same place, among whom, men, women, and children, shouted, screamed, and raged, as if determined to force their way, and with difficulty held back by the gens d'armes, who now surrounded the house. In this unaccountable hubbub, voices were heard calling aloud—"Tear him in pieces!—tear him limb from limb, the accursed treacherous murderer!" At length Desgrais made his appearance with a numerous posse, and forced a passage through the thick of the multitude. Then, after some interval the house-door breaks open, the figure of a man loaded with chains is brought out, and dragged away, followed by frightful execrations from the raging mob.

At the same moment when de Scuderi, almost overcome with terror and dark apprehensions, perceived this event, a shrill cry of distress struck on his ears. "Drive on—drive on!" cried she to the coachman, who, with a quick and clever turn of his horses, contrived to divide the thick mass of people, and to stop right before the door of Cardillac. There, on the threshold, she finds Desgrais, and at his feet a young girl of extraordinary beauty—with her dress in disorder, her hair dishevelled, and the wildness of despair in her countenance. She clings to the police-officer's knees, and, in a tone of the most heart-rending anguish, exclaims, "he is innocent—he is innocent!" In vain he and her attendants try to stop her cries and raise her from the ground. A