“I lay a trap, Olivier?” stammered Jacques Rennepont. “Never!”
“Battle to the Devourers! or let them join the Wolves!” cried the angry crowd with one voice, as they appeared to invade the house.
“Come!” exclaimed the host. Without giving Olivier time to answer, he seized him by the arm, and opening a window which led to a roof at no very great height from the ground, he said to him: “Make your escape by this window, let yourself slide down, and gain the fields; it is time.”
[Original]
As the young workman hesitated, the host added, with a look of terror:
“Alone, against a couple of hundred, what can you do? A minute more, and you are lost. Do you not hear them? They have entered the yard; they are coming up.”
Indeed, at this moment, the groans, the hisses, and cheers redoubled in violence; the wooden staircase which led to the first story shook beneath the quick steps of many persons, and the shout arose, loud and piercing: “Battle to the Devourers!”
“Fly, Olivier!” cried Sleepinbuff, almost sobered by the danger.
Hardly had he pronounced the words when the door of the large room, which communicated with the small one in which they were, was burst open with a frightful crash.