Page:The Inner House.djvu/170

166 mind being full of the Example which was about to be made. As for the immobility of the People's faces, it was something truly wonderful.

"Let the woman Christine," I cried, "mount the scaffold and meet her doom!"

The girl threw herself into the arms of the other woman, and they kissed each other. Then she tore herself away, and the next moment she would have mounted the steps and knelt before the block, but. ..

The confusion which had sprung up in the direction of the Museum increased suddenly to a tumult. Eight and left the people parted, flying and shrieking. And there came running through the lane thus formed a company of men, dressed in fantastic garments of various colors, armed with ancient weapons, and crying aloud, "To the Rescue! To the Rescue!"

Then I sprang to my feet, amazed. Was it possible—could it be possible—that the Holy College of Physicians should be actually defied?

It was possible; more, it was exactly what these wretched persons proposed to dare and to do.

As for what followed, it took but a moment. The men burst into the circle thus armed and thus determined. We all sprang to our feet and recoiled. But there was one who met them with equal courage and defiance. Had there been—but how could there be?—any more, we should have made a wholesome example of the Rebels.

John Lax was this one.

He leaped from the scaffold with a roar like a lion, and threw himself upon the men who advanced, swinging his heavy axe around him as if it had been a walking-stick. No wild beast deprived of its prey could have presented such a terrible appearance. Baffled revenge—rage—the thirst for battle—all showed themselves in this giant as