“Bartoletti!” said the Marquise. “Bar the doors and windows; they can be forced with half-a-dozen strokes, but in war every minute is of value. Hold this rabble in parley as long as you can. I dare not trust you with my pistols, for a weak heart makes a shaking hand, and I think fighting seems less your trade than mine. When you can delay them no longer, arrange your own terms with the villains. It is possible they may spare you for your wife’s sake. Quick, man! I hear them coming now. Cerise, our bedroom has a strong oaken door, and they cannot reach the window without a ladder, which leaves us but one enemy to deal with at a time. Courage, my darling! Kiss me! Again, again! my own! And now. A woman dies but once! Here goes for France, and the lilies on the White Flag!”
Thus encouraging her child, the Marquise led the way to the bed-chamber they jointly occupied, a plainly-furnished room, of which the only ornament was the Prince-Marshal’s portrait, already mentioned as having occupied the place of honour in Madame’s boudoir at the Hôtel Montmirail. Both women glanced at it as they entered the apartment. Then the Marquise, laying down the oblong box she carried, carefully shaded the night-lamp that burned by her bedside, and peered stealthily from the window to reconnoitre.
“Four, six, ten,” said she, calmly, “besides their leader, a tall, big negro, very like Hippolyte. It is Hippolyte. You at least, my friend, will not leave this house alive! I can hardly miss so fair a mark as those broad black shoulders. This of course is the corps d’élite. Those at the back of the house I do not regard so much. The kitchen door is strong, and they will do nothing if their champions are repulsed. Courage again, my child! All is not lost yet. Open that box and help me to load my pistols. Strange, that I should have practised with them for years, only to beat Madame de Sabran, and now to-night we must both trust our safety to a true eye and a steady hand!”
Pale, tearless, and collected, Cerise obeyed. Her mother, drawing the weapons from their case, wiped them with her delicate handkerchief, and proceeded to charge them carefully, and with a preoccupied air, like a mother preparing medicine for a child. Holding the ramrod between her beautiful white teeth, while her delicate and jewelled fingers shook the powder into the pan, she explained to Cerise the whole mystery of loading and priming the deadly weapons. She would thus, as she observed, always have one barrel in reserve. The younger woman listened attentively. Her lip was steady, though her hand shook, and now that the worst was come she showed that peculiar quality of race which is superior to the common fighting courage possessed indiscriminately by all classes—the passive concentrated firmness, which can take every advantage so long as a chance is left, and die without a word at last, when hope gives place to the resignation of despair.
She even pointed out to her mother, that by half closing the shutter, the Marquise, herself unseen, could command the approach to the front door. Then taking a crucifix from her bosom, she pressed it to her lips, and said, “I am ready now, mamma. I am calm. I can do anything you tell me. Kiss me once more, dear, as you used when I was a child. And if we must die, it will not seem so hard to die together.”
The Marquise answered by a long clinging embrace, and then the two women sat them down in the gloomy shadows of their chamber, haggard, tearless, silent, watching for the near approach of a merciless enemy armed with horrors worse than death.
CHAPTER XXXVI
AT BAY
In obedience to his mistress, Bartoletti had endeavoured to secure the few weak fastenings of the house, but his hands shook so, that without Fleurette’s aid not a bolt would have been pushed nor a key turned. The black girl, however, seconded his efforts with skill and coolness, so that Hippolyte’s summons to surrender was addressed to locked doors and closed windows. The Coromantee was now so inflamed with rum as to be capable of any outrage, and since neither his band nor himself were possessed of firearms, nothing but Célandine’s happy suggestion about the concealed powder restrained him from ordering a few faggots to be cut, and the building set in a blaze. Advancing with an air of dignity, that would at any other time have been ludicrous, and which he would certainly have abandoned had he known that the Marquise covered his body with her pistol the while, he thumped the door angrily, and demanded to know why “dis here gentleman comin’ to pay compliment to buckra miss,” was not immediately admitted; but receiving no answer, proceeded at once to batter the panels with an iron crowbar, undeterred by the expostulations of Fleurette, who protested vehemently, first, that her mistress was engaged with a large party of French officers; secondly, that she lay sick in bed, on no account to be disturbed; and lastly, that neither she nor ma’amselle were in the house at all.
The Coromantee of course knew better. Shouting a horrible oath, and a yet more hideous threat, he applied his burly shoulders to the entrance, and the whole wood-work giving way with a crash, precipitated himself into the passage, followed by the rest of the band, to be confronted by Fleurette alone, Bartoletti having fled ignominiously to the kitchen.