The Marseillais lowered their pikes, raised their hatchets, and loaded their guns, while the frightened crowd dispersed, leaving the two friends to contend alone against this storm of blows. They regarded each other with a last sad, yet sublime smile, while calmly awaiting their destruction from the whirlwind of iron and flame which threatened them, when all at once the door of the house against which they were leaning opened, and a swarm of young people, attired in the habits of those termed "Muscadins," or "Fops," each wearing a sword and brace of pistols in his girdle, rushed upon the Marseillais, and were instantly engaged in a terrific contest.
"Hurrah! hurrah!" cried Maurice and Lorin, simultaneously, animated by this unexpected relief, without reflecting that to fight in the ranks of the new-comers was to confirm Simon's accusation,—"Hurrah!"
But if they were forgetful of their own safety, another thought for them. A short young man, about five-and-twenty years of age, with blue eyes, who fought without any intermission, with infinite science and valor, with a heavy sword which any one would have thought his delicate and feminine hand incapable of wielding, perceiving that Maurice and Lorin, instead of escaping by the door which he seemed to have left open for that purpose, remained fighting by his side, turned to them and said in a low voice,—
"Fly directly through this door; pay no attention to what we do here, or you will uselessly compromise yourselves."
Then, seeing the two friends hesitate, he suddenly cried, addressing himself to Maurice, "Away! no patriots among us, Citizen Lindey; we are aristocrats here!"
At these words, united to the audacity which would induce a man publicly to accuse himself of what at this period must lead to certain death, the crowd uttered a loud shout.
But the fair young man and two or three of his friends, without evincing any symptoms of alarm, pushed Maurice and Lorin into the alley, and closed the door behind them. They then threw themselves into the mêlée, which was now considerably augmented by the approach of the fatal cart.
Maurice and Lorin, thus miraculously saved, regarded each other in amazement. The outlet seemed to have been designed for the express purpose of their escape. They entered a court, and at the end discovered a small private door which opened into Rue Saint Germain l'Auxerrois.
At this moment a detachment of gendarmes issued from Pont-au-Change, who had soon swept the quay, although, from the cross-street where our two friends had concealed themselves, they heard for an instant the noise of an obstinate struggle. These gendarmes preceded the cart which conducted the hapless Héloïse to the scaffold.