Carried away by these words, the surrounding serfs rose to their feet, and brandishing their staves, their scythes, their forks and their axes, all responded in chorus with a voice that the echoes of the forest answered back: "Vengeance!" "Justice!"
In the meantime the peasants who had run into the cavern were coming back with terror marked on their faces: "Dead.... They are all dead or dying! Women and children, old and young ... all are dead!"
"All dead!" Caillet repeated in a terrific voice, "the little children! The women! The old men and the young! All dead! Up, Jacques Bonhomme! Up, my Jacques! Let the Jacquerie commence!"
"It shall commence with the castle of Chivry," cried Adam the Devil. "Our seigneur is to be this very day at the castle of Chivry to wed the gorgeous Gloriande ... on the day of the tourney she laughed at Mazurec!... It will now be your turn to laugh at the haughty damosel.... Up, my Jacques, let the Jacquerie commence!"
"Ha! Ha! The belle Gloriande!" Mazurec repeated with a ferocious and semi-delirious laughter. "I shall appear before her with one eye knocked out and my nose crushed! Oh! The gorgeous Gloriande!... What a fright she'll have!... Her husband took my bride.... Up, up, my Jacques! The Jacquerie commences!... War upon the castles!"
The revolted peasants tumultuously followed Caillet, Adam the Devil and Mazurec across the forest crying: "To Chivry.... Up, Jacques.... The Jacquerie commences!"
"Good-bye, hostess!" said Jocelyn rising and preparing to follow Mazurec. "Good-bye, Rufin. Guard with the solicitude of a brother this worthy woman who confides herself to your protection."
"I trust your friend," answered Alison, "because you told me to trust him."
"I swear," put in the student deeply moved, "that you can trust me as fully as you would Jocelyn himself, pretty hostess."
"Good-bye, Rufin; I shall join my brother, disclose to him the bonds that unite us, and battle at his side. Once more, good-bye, Alison. Say to Dame Marcel and to Denise, my betrothed, that if I do not see them again, my last thoughts will have been to them. As to you, Rufin, say to Marcel that the peasants of this province are at work exterminating the seigneurs."