VI
Monseigneur the governor, unable to make himself heard, helpless and gravely perturbed, hurried into the Council Room, and after him trooped the city fathers like a flock of scared hens. Confusion at once reigned inside the Town Hall as much as out on the Place—a confusion that could be felt rather than heard, a dull murmur of voices, a scurrying and pattering of feet.
Once more the cannon roared, and the weird sound was followed by a prolonged volley of musket shot.
'They are on us! Sauve qui peut!'
Then, suddenly, far away in the direction of Cantimpré, a huge column of smoke rose to the sky. It was immediately followed by a stupendous report which literally shook the ground beneath the feet of this terror-stricken mass of humanity. A shower of broken glass fell at several points with a loud clatter on to the pavements below, and in absolutely wild and unreasoning terror, the crowd began to push and to jostle, to drive, and shove, and batter anything or any one that came in the way. Men and women in their terror had become like a herd of stampeding beasts, tearing at every obstacle, hurling maledictions and missiles, fighting, pushing, to get back to their homes, hammering at doors that had already been hastily barred and bolted, by those who happened to have found shelter inside the houses close by.
'They are on us! Sauve qui peut!'
This time it was a company of the city guard, who came running helter-skelter from the direction of the Citadel, halbertmen and pikemen, most of them unarmed, others with their steel bonnets set awry upon their heads, not a few leaving a trail of blood behind them as they ran.
'Sauve qui peut!' The deathly call of the runaway soldier, the most awesome sound the ear of man can hear. And over from St. Géry came others running too, the archers from Notre Dame, and on the right there were the gunners from Seille. They were running; like hunted deer, swiftly, panting, their jerkins torn, the slashings of their doublets hanging on them in strips.
They added the final horrible note of hopelessness to the terror and the confusion. From every corner of the city there rose cries of distress, shrill screams from women and children, loud curses from the men. The very air was filled with these dismal sounds, whilst the Unseen which was happening somewhere upon the ramparts of the city, appeared vastly more terrifying than the Seen.
And, far away, the cannon still roared and columns of fire and smoke rose with lurid significance to the sky.