"How did it happen, citoyen?" asked the corporal.

"Grospierre was at the gate, keeping good watch," began Bibot,
pompously, as the crowd closed in round him, listening eagerly to his
narrative.  "We've all heard of this meddlesome Englishman, this
accursed Scarlet Pimpernel.  He won't get through MY gate,
MORBLEU! unless he be the devil himself.  But Grospierre was a fool.
The market carts were going through the gates; there was one laden
with casks, and driven by an old man, with a boy beside him.
Grospierre was a bit drunk, but he thought himself very clever; he
looked into the casks--most of them, at least--and saw they were
empty, and let the cart go through."

A murmur of wrath and contempt went round the group of
ill-clad wretches, who crowded round Citoyen Bibot.

"Half an hour later," continued the sergeant, "up comes a
captain of the guard with a squad of some dozen soldiers with him.
`Has a car gone through?' he asks of Grospierre, breathlessly.  `Yes,'
says Grospierre, `not half an hour ago.'  `And you have let them
escape,' shouts the captain furiously.  `You'll go to the guillotine
for this, citoyen sergeant! that cart held concealed the CI-DEVANT
Duc de Chalis and all his family!'  `What!' thunders Grospierre,
aghast.  `Aye! and the driver was none other than that cursed
Englishman, the Scarlet Pimpernel.'"

A howl of execration greeted this tale.  Citoyen Grospierre
had paid for his blunder on the guillotine, but what a fool! oh!
what a fool!

Bibot was laughing so much at his own tale that it was some
time before he could continue.

"`After them, my men,' shouts the captain," he said after a while,
"`remember the reward; after them, they cannot have gone far!'
And with that he rushes through the gate followed by his dozen soldiers."

"But it was too late!" shouted the crowd, excitedly.

"They never got them!"

"Curse that Grospierre for his folly!"

"He deserved his fate!"

"Fancy not examining those casks properly!"

But these sallies seemed to amuse Citoyen Bibot exceedingly;
he laughed until his sides ached, and the tears streamed down his
cheeks.

"Nay, nay!" he said at last, "those aristos weren't in the
cart; the driver was not the Scarlet Pimpernel!"

"What?"

"No!  The captain of the guard was that damned Englishman
in disguise, and everyone of his soldiers aristos!"
The crowd this time said nothing: the story certainly savoured
of the supernatural, and though the Republic had abolished God, it had
not quite succeeded in killing the fear of the supernatural in the
hearts of the people.  Truly that Englishman must be the devil himself.

The sun was sinking low down in the west.  Bibot prepared himself
to close the gates.

"EN AVANT The carts," he said.

Some dozen covered carts were drawn up in a row, ready to
leave town, in order to fetch the produce from the country close by,
for market the next morning.  They were mostly well known to Bibot,
as they went through his gate twice every day on their way to and from
the town.  He spoke to one or two of their drivers--mostly women--and
was at great pains to examine the inside of the carts.

"You never know," he would say, "and I'm not going to be
caught like that fool Grospierre."

The women who drove the carts usually spent their day on the
Place de la Greve, beneath the platform of the guillotine, knitting
and gossiping, whilst they watched the rows of tumbrils arriving with
the victims the Reign of Terror claimed every day.  It was great fun
to see the aristos arriving for the reception of Madame la Guillotine,
and the places close by the platform were very much sought after.
Bibot, during the day, had been on duty on the Place.  He recognized
most of the old hats, "tricotteuses," as they were called, who sat there
and knitted, whilst head after head fell beneath the knife, and they
themselves got quite bespattered with the blood of those cursed aristos.

"He! la mere!" said Bibot to one of these horrible hags,
"what have you got there?"

He had seen her earlier in the day, with her knitting and the
whip of her cart close beside her.  Now she had fastened a row of
curly locks to the whip handle, all colours, from gold to silver, fair
to dark, and she stroked them with her huge, bony fingers as she
laughed at Bibot.

"I made friends with Madame Guillotine's lover," she said with