"Ah! say 'no' at once, and I will leave the Bastile and will myself carry my own dispatches." Baisemeaux bowed his head, took the keys, and unaccompanied, except by the minister, ascended the staircase.

The higher they advanced up the spiral staircase, the more clearly did certain muffled murmurs become distinct appeals and fearful imprecations.
"What is that ?" asked Fouquet.
"That is your Marchiali," said the governor; "this is the way these madmen scream." And he accompanied that reply with a glance more pregnant with injurious allusion, as far as Fouquet was concerned, than politeness.

The latter trembled; he had just recognized in one cry more terrible than any that had preceded it, the king's voice.

He paused on the staircase, snatching the bunch of keys from Baisemeaux, who thought this new madman was going to dash out his brains with one of them.

"Ah!" he cried, "M.