"Ah! my dear Coquet!" cried the child seizing his mane, "you come in the nick of time! and did you recognize me, poor fellow, in spite of these clothes, which you never saw? You were terribly frightened during that horrid battle, weren't you? You ran off at once, before they raised the bridge, and you were eating dry thistles here instead of your oats! Let us be off! we will both of us sup when we have time!"
As he chattered thus to his horse, Mario rearranged the stirrups, which had suffered somewhat in the bushes. Then, having mounted, he rode away like an arrow.
We will leave him for the moment and return to Briantes, where the plight of the besieged garrison causes us some anxiety.
[L]
When Mario and Aristandre arrived at Briantes, not a quarter of an hour had elapsed since the bandits had made their sudden appearance there.
Lauriane was about sitting down to supper when she heard confused outcries and the report of firearms in the direction of the village—we might say, according to the custom in the province, the bourg, since the little settlement was fortified in very ancient times; but the old Gallo-Roman stone wall was demolished to the level of the ground in many places, and it was a long time since the people had ceased to incur the expense of maintaining gates.
These noises, which the people in the château and those at the farm-house as well, supposed at first to be caused by villagers turning out to hunt some creature that had stolen into their enclosures, speedily assumed a more alarming character.
Everyone seized upon the first weapon that came to hand, and the farmers, brandishing their flails, hurried to the tower of the huis. But they were instantly forced back and their efforts paralyzed by the people from the village, who, rushing from all directions, came together at the approaches to the bridge, and in their terror overturned and trampled on the men who were running to their assistance.
And yet the attacking party consisted of only about fifty men, followed by a number of women and children; but it will be remembered that the marquis had ordered out and despatched to the attack on Brilbault all the stout and intrepid men in his little fief, so that the population surprised by the brigands consisted at that moment of women and children, crippled old men, or weak, half-grown boys.
The sight of the horrible masks worn by the bandits produced the effect they had anticipated. A general panic seized the peasants, and fear afforded them only so much strength as was necessary to prevent the loyal retainers from the château from going forth to meet the foe.