"Martial?"
"Yes; don't you hear him? Don't you hear him now?"
And at this moment, in spite of the thickness of the two closed doors, the powerful voice of Martial, who called to the children from his room, reached them.
"Indeed, we can't go to him; we are locked in," said Amandine. "They must be doing something wrong to him, as he calls us."
"Oh, as to that, if I could hinder them," exclaimed François, resolutely, "I would, even if they were to cut me to pieces!"
"But our brother does not know that they have double-locked our door, and he will believe that we would not go to his help. Call out to him that we are locked in, François."
The lad was just going to do as his sister bade him, when a violent blow was struck outside the shutter of the window of the room in which the two children were.
"They are coming in by the window to kill us!" cried Amandine, and, in her fright, she threw herself on her bed and hid her head between her hands.
François remained motionless, although he shared his sister's terror. However, after the violent blow we have mentioned, the shutter was not opened, and the most profound silence reigned throughout the house. Martial had ceased calling to the children.
A little assured, and excited by intense curiosity, François ventured to open the window a little way, and tried to look out through the leaves of the blind.