'Are you ready? We must make a rush before the next assault.'
A lane opened in the throng to afford passage for the wounded. Isabel shrank back, but Louis drew her on hastily, till they had attained the very foot of the barricade, where a space was kept clear, and there was a cry 'Au large, or we shall fire.'
'Let us pass, citizens,' said Louis, hastily rehearsing the French he had been composing. 'You make not war on women. Let me take this young lady to her mother.'
Grim looks were levelled at them by the fierce black-bearded men, and their mutterings of belle made her cling the closer to her guardian.
'Let her pass, the poor child!' said more than one voice.
'Hein!—they are English, who take the bread out of our mouths.'
'If you were a political economist,' said Louis, gravely, fixing his eyes on the shrewd-looking, sallow speaker, I would prove to you your mistake; but I have no time, and you are too good fellows to wish to keep this lady here, a mark for the Garde Nationale.'
'He is right there,' said several of the council of chiefs, and a poissarde, with brawny arms and a tall white cap, thrusting forward, cried out, 'Let them go, the poor children. What are they doing here? They look fit to be set up in the church for waxen images!'
'Take care you do not break us,' exclaimed Louis, whose fair cheek had won this tribute; and his smile, and the readiness of his reply, won his admission to the first of the steps up the barricade.
'Halte la!' cried a large-limbed, formidable-looking ruffian on the summit, pointing his musket towards them; 'none passes here who does not bring a stone to raise our barricade for the rights of the Red Republic, and cry, La liberte, l'egalite, et la, fraternite, let it fit his perfidious tongue as it may.'