“Pasdeloup!” I cried. “Pasdeloup! Was it you, then?”
But Pasdeloup had already turned to his master.
“I have a rope, M. le Comte,” he said simply.
“A rope! A rope! But where did you get it, Pasdeloup?”
“From the bed. Oh, I had trouble enough loosening those knots! They had been tightened by I know not what weight! The people who lay in that bed were giants! And at the end I thought it would be too late. But it is not—it is not! Come—there is yet a chance!”
He started for the stair, and at the same instant there came from below a crash of falling stone and a chorus of exultant yells.
“They have broken through!” said M. le Comte. “They will be upon us in a moment! Tavernay, to you I confide my wife, and to you, Pasdeloup! Hasten! Hasten! I will keep them back;” and he took his station at the stair-head.
Without a word Pasdeloup threw the rope to me, sprang to the corner where the bed stood, and with a single jerk ripped off one of the heavy posts, tipped with iron; then pushing his master aside, roughly and yet tenderly, he seized for himself the post of danger from which there could be no retreat.
“Go, messieurs!” he cried. “Go quickly! There is yet time!”
We stood uncertain. It seemed such a cowardly thing to run away, leaving this man to face that frenzied mob—to abandon him, to permit him to lay down his life for us—such a cowardly thing!