With a cry of rage de Landas turned to the serving-men who, appalled by the fury of this combat, were cowering together in a far corner of the room, hardly daring to breathe.
'Here, Jan!' he shouted hoarsely. 'Peter! Nikolas! All of you! Seize that man! Fall on him! Seize him! At him! At him, I say!'
For just the fraction of a second the men shrank away still further into the angle of the room, terrified at the uncontrolled rage which had prompted the monstrous and cowardly command. They hesitated but only for one instant, and during that instant there was breathing time for all. But the next, egged on by de Landas' threatening commands, they gathered themselves together and came forward at a rush.
Gilles at once saw this new, this unexpected source of danger. The utter cowardice of this fresh attack lent him strength and power to act. With one of those swift, masterful gestures of his which were as unexpected as they were unerring, he threw aside his sword and seizing one of the heavy chairs which lay prone close by, he raised it above his head and brandishing it like a gigantic swivel he stood there, towering, menacing, breathing hatred too now against the dastardly foe who could thus outrage every canon of chivalry and of valour.
He struck out with the heavy chair, to right, to left. The varlets paused, really terrified. De Landas egged them on, prodded them with his sword. He had wandered so far now on the broad road of infamy, he was ready to go on to its ignominious end.
'Fall on him, Jan! Nikolas! All of you, you abominable knaves!' he cried huskily. 'Fall on him; or by Satan, I'll have you all hanged to-morrow!'
He beat them with the flat of his sword, kicked them and struck at them with his fist, till they were forced to advance. The heavy chair came down with a crash on the head of one man, the shoulder of another. There were loud curses and louder groans; but numbers were telling in the end. One more assault, one more rush, and they were on him. Then Gilles, as if by instinct, felt the folds of the heavy window curtain behind him.
To gain one second's time, he threw the chair straight at the compact mass of men, disconcerting the attack; then with both hands he seized the curtain, gave it a mighty wrench which brought it down in a heaped up medley of voluminous folds and broken cornice, and threw the whole mass of tangled drapery on his onrushing foes. De Landas, who was in the forefront of the aggressors, was the first to lose his footing. Already weak with loss of blood, he stumbled and fell, dragging one or two of the varlets with him. The edge of the cornice struck du Prêt on the head and completed the swoon which had already been threatening him, whilst Maarege, dazed, uncomprehending, stared about him in a state of semi-imbecility.
The other knaves, paralysed by some kind of superstitious fear, gazed on him open-mouthed while Gilles, still moved only by the blind instinct of self-preservation, extricated himself from his newly-improvised stronghold.
His first instinctive act was to stoop in order to pick up his sword again. A momentary lull—strange and weird in its absolute stillness had succeeded the wild confusion of awhile ago. Gilles staggered as he straightened out his tall figure once more, was at last conscious that even his splendid endurance had been nigh to breaking point. There was a mist before his eyes, through which he could vaguely perceive a cowering group of lacqueys quite close to him, huddled up together almost at his feet in the gloom; others, whose vague forms could be discerned under the fallen tapestry: further on, de Borel, lying helpless beside Herlaer; Maarege still clutching his broken sword; La Broye in a swoon, lying across the upturned desk, and de Landas, half-sitting, half-reclining, on an overthrown chair, obviously struggling against dizziness, his hand outstretched, with convulsed fingers that still threatened and pointed at the hated foe.