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beneath the planks.
They killed all three of them on the spot with bayonet-thrusts. They
cried out, "Kill us at once! Shoot us! Do not prolong our misery."
The neighboring shop-keepers heard these cries, but dared not open their
doors or their windows, for fear, as one of them said the next day,
"that they should do the same to them."
The execution at an end, the executioners left the three victims lying
in a pool of blood on the pavement of the Passage. One of those
unfortunate men did not die until eight o'clock next morning.
No one had dared to ask for mercy; no one had dared to bring any help.
They left them to die there.
One of the combatants of the Rue Beaubourg was more fortunate. They were
pursuing him. He rushed up a staircase, reached a roof, and from there a
passage, which proved to be the top corridor of an hotel. A key was in
the door. He opened it boldly, and found himself face to face with a man
who was going to bed. It was a tired-out traveller who had arrived at
the hotel that very evening. The fugitive said to the traveller, "I am
lost, save me!" and explained him the situation in three words.
The traveller said to him, "Undress yourself, and get into my bed." And
then he lit a cigar, and began quietly to smoke. Just as the man of the
barricade had got into bed a knock came at the door. It was the solders
who were searching the house. To the questions which they asked him the
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