Oh, had she known that he was pressing her letter on his heart and offering her the last sigh which he thought he must soon yield! At last the coach stopped amid the howling, groaning and clamor. Almost instantly around it rose an immense turbulence, weapons swaying like a steel wheat-field shaken by the breeze.
Precipitated from the box, the three Lifeguards disappeared as if dropped into a gulf. Then there was such a back-wave of the crowd that the retiring rear ranks broke against the terrace front.
Andrea was shrouded in anguish; she could hear and see nothing; breathless and with outstretched arms, she screamed inarticulate sounds into the midst of the dreadful concert of maledictions, blasphemy and death cries.
She could no longer understand what went on: the earth turned, the sky grew red, and a roar as of the sea rang in her ears.
She fell, half dead, knowing only that she lived from her feeling suffering.
A sensation of coolness brought her round: a woman was putting to her forehead a handkerchief dipped in river water. She remembered her as having fainted when the royal coach came into sight, without guessing what sympathy attached her to this mistress of her husband's brother—for this was Catherine Billet.
"Are they dead?" was her first question.
Compassion is intelligent: they around her understood that she asked after the three Lifeguardsmen.
"No, all three are saved."
"The Lord be praised! Where are they?"