That awful cry, Yvonne heard it as she was being dragged through the noisome crowd. It mingled in her ear with the other awful sounds—the oaths and blasphemies which filled the air with their hideousness. It died away just as a formidable crash against the entrance door suddenly silenced every cry within.
"All hands up!" came with a peremptory word of command from the doorway.
"Mercy on us!" murmured the woman Lemoine, who still had Yvonne by the hand, "we are undone this time."
There was a clatter and grounding of arms—a scurrying of bare feet and sabots upon the floor, the mingled sounds of men trying to fly and being caught in the act and hurled back: screams of terror from the women, one or two pitiable calls, a few shrill cries from frightened children, a few dull thuds as of human bodies falling.... It was all so confused, so unspeakably horrible. Yvonne was hardly conscious. Near her some one whispered hurriedly:
"Put the aristos away somewhere, maman Lemoine ... the whole thing may only be a scare ... the Marats may only be here about the aristos ... they will probably leave you alone if you give them up ... perhaps you'll get a reward.... Put them away till some of this row subsides ... I'll talk to commandant Fleury if I can."
Yvonne felt her knees giving way under her. There was nothing more to hope for now—nothing. She felt herself lifted from the ground—she was too sick and faint to realise what was happening: through the din which filled her ears she vainly tried to distinguish her father's voice again.
V
A moment or two later she found herself squatting somewhere on the ground. How she got here she did not know—where she was she knew still less. She was in total darkness. A fusty, close smell of food and wine gave her a wretched feeling of nausea—her head ached intolerably, her eyes were hot, her throat dry: there was a constant buzzing in her ears.
The terrible sounds of fighting and screaming and cursing, the crash of broken glass and overturned benches came to her as through a partition—close by but muffled.
In the immediate nearness all was silence and darkness.