The voice of Blue Beard was heard bawling out, "Are you ready yet?"
She again beseeched him to allow her only two minutes more, and then addressed her sister, "Dear Anne, do you see any one coming yet?"
[Original]
"Alas! no, my dearest Fatima," returned her sister, "it is only a flock of sheep."
Again the voice of Blue Beard was heard, and she begged for one minute longer. She then called out for the last time, "Sister Anne, do you see no one coming yet?"
Her sister quickly answered, "I see two men on horseback, but they are still a great way off."
"Thank heaven," exclaimed Fatima, "I shall yet be saved, for it must be my two brothers! My dearest sister, make every signal in your power to hasten them forward, or they will be too late." Blue Beard's patience being now exhausted, he burst open the door in a rage, and made a blow at the wretched Fatima, with the intention of striking off her head; but she sprang close to him and evaded it. Furious at being foiled in his aim, he threw her from him, and then seizing her by the hair of the head, was in the act of striking her a blow with his scymetar, when the noise of persons approaching, with hasty steps, arrested the progress of his sanguinary arm. Blue Beard had not time to conjecture who the intruders might be, when the door opened, and two officers, with their swords drawn, rushed into the apartment.
Struck with terror, the guilty wretch released his wife from his grasp, and without attempting to resist, he tried to effect his escape from the resentment of her brothers; but they pursued and seized him before he had got above twenty paces from the place.