Jean tried to say:  “Don’t make me suffer more than need be!” but his voice stuck in his throat.

One of the Vengeurs cast a look in the direction of the Pont-au-Change and saw that the federes were losing ground.  Shouldering his musket, he said: 

“Let’s clear out of the bl—­y place, by God!”

The men hesitated; some began to slink away.

At this the cantiniere shrieked: 

“Bl—­sted hounds!  Then I’ll have to do his business for him!”

She threw herself on Jean Servien and spat in his face; she abandoned herself to a frantic orgy of obscenity in word and gesture and clapped the muzzle of her revolver to his temple.

Then he felt all was over and waited.

A thousand things flashed in a second before his eyes; he saw the avenues under the old trees where his aunt used to take him walking in old days; he saw himself a little child, happy and wondering; he remembered the castles he used to build with strips of plane-tree bark...  The trigger was pulled.  Jean beat the air with his arms and fell forward face to the ground.  The men finished him with their bayonets; then the woman danced on the corpse with yells of joy.

The fighting was coming closer.  A well-sustained fire swept the Quai.  The woman was the last to go.  Jean Servien’s body lay stretched in the empty roadway.  His face wore a strange look of peacefulness; in the temple was a little hole, barely visible; blood and mire fouled the pretty hair a mother had kissed with such transports of fondness.

THE END