view to easing the woman’s own burden, the only other domestic in the house—­a man named Bas—­being more interested in politics and the meetings of the Club des Jacobins than he was in his master’s ailments.  The man Mole, moreover, appeared to know something of medicine and of herbs and how to prepare the warm baths which alone eased the unfortunate Marat from pain.  He was powerfully built, too, and though he muttered and grumbled a great deal, and indulged in prolonged fits of sulkiness, when he would not open his mouth to anyone, he was, on the whole, helpful and good-tempered.

There must also have been something about his whole wretched personality which made a strong appeal to the “Friend of the People,” for it is quite evident that within a few days Paul Mole had won no small measure of his master’s confidence.

Marat, sick, fretful, and worried, had taken an unreasoning dislike to his servant Bas.  He was thankful to have a stranger about him, a man who was as miserable as he himself had been a very little while ago; who, like himself, had lived in cellars and in underground burrows, and lived on the scraps of food which even street-curs had disdained.

On the seventh day following Mole’s entry into the household, and while the latter was preparing his employer’s bath, Marat said abruptly to him: 

“You’ll go as far as the Chemin de Pantin to-day for me, citizen.  You know your way?”

“I can find it, what?” muttered Mole, who appeared to be in one of his surly moods.

“You will have to go very circumspectly,” Marat went on, in his cracked and feeble voice.  “And see to it that no one spies upon your movements.  I have many enemies, citizen...one especially...a woman....  She is always prying and spying on me....So beware of any woman you see lurking about at your heels.”

Mole gave a half-audible grunt in reply.

“You had best go after dark,” the other rejoined after awhile.  “Come back to me after nine o’clock.  It is not far to the Chemin de Pantin—­ just where it intersects the Route de Meaux.  You can get there and back before midnight.  The people will admit you.  I will give you a ring—­the only thing I possess....  It has little or no value,” he added with a harsh, grating laugh.  “It will not be worth your while to steal it.  You will have to see a brat and report to me on his condition—­his appearance, what? ...  Talk to him a bit....  See what he says and let me know.  It is not difficult.”

“No, citizen.”

Mole helped the suffering wretch into his bath.  Not a movement, not a quiver of the eyelid betrayed one single emotion which he may have felt—­ neither loathing nor sympathy, only placid indifference.  He was just a half-starved menial, thankful to accomplish any task for the sake of satisfying a craving stomach.  Marat stretched out his shrunken limbs in the herbal water with a sigh of well-being.

“And the ring, citizen?” Mole suggested presently.