"We want no queen!" shouted some.
"We want no mistress!" roared others; and mingled with those was the
contrary cry, "Long live the queen! Long live our mistress!"
"Hi!" said Marat, full of delight, twisting his bony form up into
all kinds of knots--" hi! this is the way they shout in hell. Satan
himself would like this!"
More and more horrible, more and more wild became the cries of the
rival partisans. Already embittered and exasperated faces were
confronting each other, and here and there clinched fists were seen,
threatening to bring a shouting neighbor to silence by the use of
violence.
The queen, trembling in every limb, had let her head fall
powerlessly on her breast, in order that no one might see the tears
which ran from her eyes over her death-like cheeks.
"0 God," whispered she, "we are lost, hopelessly lost, for not
merely our enemies injure us, and bring us into danger, but our
friends still more. Why must that woman turn to me and direct her
words to me? She wanted to give me a triumph, and yet she has
brought me a new humiliation." Suddenly she shrank back and raised
her head. She had caught the first tones of that sharp, mocking
voice, which had already pierced her heart, the voice of that evil
demon who now occupied the place of the good Princess Lamballe.
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