Frantz and the others flung themselves on the wall to cover the sledge.
Two seconds after, nothing was heard but the clashing of lances and bayonets, cries of rage answering to imprecations; nothing seen under the shadow of the old oak, through whose branches some pale rays of light still glimmered, but horses rearing on their hind legs, wildly tossing their manes, madly striving to leap over the meadow wall, and above, veritably savage faces, with gleaming eyes, uplifted arms, hurling furious blows, advancing, retreating, and uttering wild shouts fit to make the hair stand erect upon your head.
Louise, as pale as death, and the old farm-mistress, with her long thin gray locks, were standing up in the straw.
Doctor Lorquin stood before them, parrying the blows with his sword, and all the while he was warding them off he kept shouting: "Lie down! Death and destruction! keep down, will you?"
But they did not hear him.
Louise, in the midst of this tumult, of these savage shouts, thought of nothing but shielding Catherine; and the old farm-mistress—judge of her terror!—had just recognised Yégof, on a tall, bony horse—Yégof, his tin crown on his head, his matted beard, his lance in hand, and his long sheepskin floating from his shoulders. She saw him there as plainly as if it had been broad daylight; yes, it was he whose sinister face she beheld ten paces off, with its flaming eyes, darting forth his long blue lance and striving to reach her. What should she do? Submit, yield to her fate? Thus it is that the firmest natures feel themselves forced to bow before an inflexible destiny. The old woman believed herself doomed beforehand; she believed herself foredoomed, and gazed on all those ferocious men, yelling and leaping like so many hungry wolves, aiming and receiving blows in the soft clear moonlight. She saw some struck down, and their horses, the bridle hanging over their neck, escaping into the meadow. She saw the uppermost windows in the keeper's house open on the left, and old Cuny, in his shirt-sleeves, level his gun, without daring to fire into the mêlée. She saw all these with singular clearness, and kept saying to herself: "The fool has returned: whatever happens, he will hang my head to his saddle. It must end as it did in my dream!"
And, in truth, everything seemed to justify her fears. The mountaineers, too inferior in number, were giving way.
There was a regular hand-to-hand encounter. The Cossacks, leaping up the ascent, fought in the path; one sword-thrust, better directed than the others, reached the back of the old woman's head; she felt the touch of the cold steel just in the nape of her neck.