"Keep your eyes fixed on me. Pay no attention to what is going on around you."
"I will pray," she said simply.
Just as they entered the street the crowd separated, and the Duke of Guise, followed by several nobles of his party, rode along, shouting:
"Death to all Huguenots! It is the king's command."
"It is the command you and others have put into his mouth, villain!" Philip muttered to himself.
A roar of ferocious assent rose from the crowd, which was composed of citizen soldiers and the scum of Paris. They danced and yelled, and uttered ferocious jests at the dead bodies lying in the road.
Here the work of slaughter was nearly complete. Few of the Huguenots had offered any resistance, although some had fought desperately to the last. Most of them, however, taken by surprise, and seeing resistance useless, had thrown down their arms; and either cried for quarter, or had submitted themselves calmly to slaughter. Neither age nor sex had availed to save them. Women and children, and even infants, had been slain without mercy.
The soldiers, provided with lists of the houses inhabited by Huguenots, were going round to see that none had escaped attack. Many in the crowd were attired in articles of dress that they had gained in the plunder. Ragged beggars wore cloaks of velvet, or plumed hats. Many had already been drinking heavily. Women mingled in the crowd, as ferocious and merciless as the men.
"Break me in this door, friend," an officer, with a list in his hand and several soldiers standing beside him, said to Philip.
The latter did not hesitate. To do so would have brought destruction on himself and those with him; without averting, for more than a minute or two, the fate of those within. Placing himself in front of the door, he swung his heavy hammer and brought it down upon the woodwork. A dozen blows, and the door began to splinter.