The parlor door, attacked with heavy axes, was rent and dashed into splinters, giving a passage to the butcher, who rushed in followed by his band. The Frenchwomen had vanished, but he saw the little door through which they escaped hurriedly closed. He ran forward to open it, or break it down with his fists. It resisted his efforts. Not having had time to bolt the little door from the inside, Nominoë had placed his back against it, and held it closed with his feet firmly planted against the side-walls. Finding himself unable to force his passage, the butcher called out for a hatchet in order to break down the obstacle that now barred his progress.
"We can do better!" exclaimed one of the assailants. "Let us discharge our muskets against the door. The balls will pierce the wood and kill the man. Death to the traitors! Death to the French!"
Three muskets were lowered and fired.
While these incidents were following one another with the rapidity of thought, the fugitives had crossed the corridor and descended the steps of a masked staircase that led to a little inside yard, which opened upon a narrow lane, into which a number of dark and vaulted passages, common in The Hague, ran out. Serdan, being long familiar with the entrances to Monsieur Tilly's residence, and bent upon endeavoring to snatch Mademoiselle Plouernel from the frightful peril that threatened her, the means of escape offered by these devious passages, of which the assailants knew nothing, occurred to him. Through the same secret passages the servants of Monsieur Tilly's household now took flight.
"Monsieur," said Bertha to Salaun in a fainting voice, "I implore you, acquaint me with the name of the man to whom I owe my life and honor! Give me the name of my generous deliverer!"
"Nominoë Lebrenn, my son, a mariner of the port of Vannes as is his father, mademoiselle."
At that moment the detonations of the shots, fired upon the door which Nominoë defended, resounded through the narrow corridor which the fugitives had just left. The reverberations were immediately followed by the distant and expiring cry of the young mariner: "Adieu, father! Flee! Flee!"
"Unhappy boy! They have killed him!" cried Salaun Lebrenn in a heartrending voice. "They have killed my dear Nominoë!"
Leaving Mademoiselle Plouernel to the care of Serdan, who just returned after exploring the lane, Salaun Lebrenn re-ascended the flight of stairs and ran to his son's aid.
"Come! Come, mademoiselle," said Serdan. "The lane is deserted. Night is upon us. I answer for your safety the moment we have entered the first vaulted passage."