CHAPTER XXVII.
The rock was split into two nearly equal parts, exactly over the fissure where the powder had exploded. One of the blocks remained upright, resting against the side of the mountain, but the other, propelled by the severe shock and detached from the main body, had toppled over completely.
MM. Desrioux and de Pommerelle saw, open before them, a large gap, three yards wide, without a single obstruction in it.
They took a few steps forwards, reached the spot where the granite block had stood for so many years, centuries perhaps, and came to a sudden halt.
The ground was giving way beneath their feet; they found themselves on the brink of an abyss some thirty yards deep; the plain was not on the same level as the road blocked up but a few moments previously by the rock.
But they went on, clinging to, and supporting themselves by the side of the mountain, and they then saw that the rock they had displaced not only opened out the horizon to their view, but also afforded them a means whereby they might reach the country just exposed to their gaze. In fact, after having turned a somersault in the air, the top of the rock had fallen on to the plain, whilst its base, resting against the mountain, remained on the spot previously occupied by it. It was exactly like the floor of a bridge which has given away; one of its sides remained fixed to the supports on the right bank of the river, the other was engulfed in the stream.
All the caravan had to do was to slide down an inclined plain of granite, thirty yards long. But, before committing themselves to this descent, and overcoming the very last obstacle which separated them from the plain, MM. Desrioux and Pommerelle looked around them, and were dismayed.
Nothing could be seen on the vast expanse before them but people running in terror in all directions; naked women, raising their hands to heaven and hurrying away with rapid strides; men jostling each other in utter confusion or, stupefied by fear and incapable of movement, throwing themselves down on the ground and seeking to bury themselves in it. The grass of the plain was strewn with arms of every description—lances, arrows, bows, and shields, cast away by the fugitives to render their flight more rapid. In the distance, however, were seen close, compact bodies of men, battalions reforming and being continually reinforced by the accession of stragglers. These soldiers belonged, no doubt, to the victorious army, who, having taken to flight at the commencement of the engagement, were now reappearing to rejoice over the victory of their comrades, and to plunder and massacre the enemies against whom the remainder of their force had so valiantly fought.
But when, after having scanned the distant horizon, MM. Desrioux and de Pommerelle turned their eyes to the foreground of the tableau, their astonishment was converted into stupefaction.
A kind of entrenched camp, with a circular ditch round it, met their eyes. It must have been, a few moments previously, taken by assault, and its defenders put to the sword. More than three hundred dead bodies lay there; some on the ground, some on the sides of the ditch, and others on boxes and baggage heaped up in one corner to serve as ramparts, or scattered far and wide, broken open and smashed to pieces, showing that plunder, as well as massacre, had been going on. Underneath the rock, just where it had fallen, was to be seen, in a perfect lake of blood, a hideous mass of mangled corpses, of detached limbs, and flesh in strips. In the midst of all these corpses a few poor wounded wretches were heaving, struggling, making superhuman efforts to avoid the touch of the bodies on whom death had laid his icy hand, and to escape a living tomb among the dead; the very mountains echoed the piercing shrieks which resounded over this ghastly scene.