Gaston Leroux

“ Then there was the curious spectacle of Rouletabille standing on the hangman’s stool, the fatal rope hanging above his head, his legs crossed, his elbow on his knees in that eternal attitude which Art has always given to human thought, his fists under his jaws, his eyes fixed—all around him, all those young men intent on his silence, not moving a muscle, turned into statues themselves that they might not disturb the statue which thought and thought. ”

“ You have done the dirty work for the police.”
Rouletabille tried vainly to protest, to explain, to say that his revolver shot, on the contrary, had saved the revolutionaries. But no one cared to listen and no one believed him.
“Here is the priest, monsieur,” said the gentleman of the Neva.
“One second! These are my last words, and I swear to you that after this I will pass the rope about my neck myself! But listen to me! Listen to me closely! Natacha Féodorovna was the most precious recruit you had, was she not?” ”

“ Rouletabille understood at last that hanging him in the room where judgment had been pronounced was rendered impossible by the violence of the prisoner just executed. Not only the rope and the ring-bolt had been torn away, but part of the beam had splintered.
“There is nothing more,” replied Rouletabille. ”