The youthful Royalist was the next victim, and the preceding scene with all its horrors was repeated.
Then the Republican, accused of _Modérantisme_, met his fate, then the priest, and then, one by one, the three women, each execution having a similar finale.
Dolores and Coursegol alone were left of all the condemned. They looked at each other, encouraging each other to be brave by signs and glances.
The officer with the death-roll read Dolores' name. Coursegol bowed his head, trembling in every limb. The supreme moment had come. The fainting girl was dragged forward. Her foot was already on the first step of the guillotine platform, when suddenly there was a great commotion in the crowd and a stentorian voice cried out:
At the same instant the throng parted like a wave of the ocean and three men appeared at the foot of the guillotine. Two of them were clerks from Robespierre's bureau, clad in the well-known uniform and wearing the revolutionary cockade. The third was Bridoul. He wore the dress of the terrible Committee of Public Safety. It was he who had uttered the stentorian cry:
The assistant who was dragging Dolores forward paused, astounded. The executioner dropped his arms to his sides and glanced at the three men in speechless amazement. An interruption of the guillotine's deadly work was something that had never yet come his knowledge or experience in the bloody days of the Reign of Terror. He could not comprehend it. The suddenly silenced mob was equally unable to grasp the situation. What could be the matter? Had the flinty and inexorable Robespierre turned fainthearted at last? No! That was impossible! The patriots waited with open mouths for an explanation of this bewildering phenomenon.
As for Dolores, she saw nothing, heard nothing. At the foot of the guillotine steps she had fainted dead away in the assistant's arms.
Coursegol had seen Bridoul and heard his words, but they were as much of an enigma to him as to the rest. How was it that Bridoul was with Robespierre's clerks, and how was it that he wore the dress of the Committee of Public Safety? Coursegol, however, realized one thing--that Bridoul had in some inexplicable way acquired power and had come at the last moment to save Dolores and himself!