Page:Weird Tales volume 33 number 04.djvu/29

 the roots. She was taken on the eve of her escape; Mardochée was taken, too—had he not said, 'l'Américain, I have seen to that'?—her world was broken into little bits and the bits were ground to powder in the cruel mills of the Gods of Desolation. There was a frantic feeling in her breast beside her heart, she was choking, stifling, dying. "Pardi', she swoons!" she heard a man exclaim as a wave of blackness flooded over her.

"Eh bien, then bring her out of it. Thrust a pin in her!"

There was a fumbling in the crowd, the rustling of clothing as a pin was sought, then a bitter, piercing pain in her left leg as the pointed wire was inserted to the head. She tried to writhe away, to cry out, to plead for pity from the torture, but she could neither move nor speak nor make the smallest sound.

"Tiens, mon commissaire, I think that she has died of a heart failure," the man who stabbed her with the pin told Henriot. "She does not respond to my tickling."

Rough hands were on her wrists, she felt her eyelids drawn back and knew a light flashed in her pupils, even though she saw no light. Then another hand thrust underneath her fichu, her outraged virgin bosom felt the pressure of cold fingers just above her heart. The hand was withdrawn slowly, as if loath to leave her tender flesh, and: "B'en oui, elle est morte. A coup sûr!"

"Bring the candle. Give it here!"

She heard the lantern rattle as the candle was removed from it, felt her sandal torn without unlacing from her left foot, then, excruciatingly, a searing, branding pain against her first and second toes.

Again she tried to scream, to draw away from the intolerable torment; once more she found herself unable so much as to flutter an eyelid or bend toe or finger.

"Vraiment, elle est morte." It was Henriot speaking, and his voice was softer than it had been. She felt his breath against her cheek as he knelt down beside her, heard him murmur, "Ohé, my little Suzon, I am sorry! I would have sent you to the chopper, but only because I loved you. You were so beautiful, so lovely—and so far above me. If I could not have you, I could not bear that any other should" A sob, deep retching, almost strangling, broke his whisper, and if she could have moved she would have winced beneath the impact of his twisted, flaccid lips as he pressed a kiss against her mouth. "Adieu, petite compagne," he breathed, "adieu pour l'eternite!"

"Eh bien, it seems the chopper has been cheated," remarked a policeman. "The trench is still open at the cimetière de la Madeleine; only ten were chopped today. Shall we"

"Non!" Henriot denied. "I will not have her buried in the common fosse. Let a three-year concession be opened"

"The citizen commissaire forgets that graves cost money, even three-year graves," a guardsman cut in dryly. "Who will pay for the concession?"

"Here," Henriot thrust a crumpled wad of assignats into the fellow's hand, "see thou to it! Some of you stand guard by her; you others, come with me. I have some more arrests to make, but I will have a wagon sent for her."

was packing in his lodgings. Most of his things had been transferred to Susette's little house, but