“But I do not want to see any fighting,” said Euphrosyne, turning upon the stairs to descend. “Tell Mademoiselle Raymond that I cannot bear to see fighting.”
“There is no fighting yet, mademoiselle, indeed: and many say there will not be any. Indeed you must see such a fine sight as this. You can see the Commander-in-chief galloping about the square, with his two trompettes at his heels.”
Euphrosyne turned again, and ran up to the top, without once stopping. There she was hastily introduced to Monsieur Pascal, and placed by the gouvernante where she could see everything.
By this time it had become a question whether the Commissary and his suite could get away. They were making every effort to do so; but it was clear that their road would have been blockaded if the Commander-in-chief and his trompettes had not ridden round and round the party of soldiers which escorted them, clearing a passage by the power of a voice and a presence which always prevailed. Meantime, a huge body of people, which filled all the streets in the northern quarter, was gaining ground, pressing forwards against the peaceable opposition of the town’s-people, and the soldiers, commanded by Moyse. The clamour of voices from that quarter was prodigious, but there were no shots. The wharves were covered with gentlemen, ladies, children, servants, and baggage, all being precipitated by degrees into boats, and rowed away, while more were perpetually arriving.
“Is not this admirable?” said Monsieur Pascal. “The secret has actually been kept that the Commissary is on his way to the water side. See! the cultivators are pressing on in this direction. They think he is here. If they knew where he was, they might catch him. As it is, I believe he will escape.”
“Oh! are they coming here? Oh, my poor grandfather!” cried Euphrosyne, turning very pale.
“Fear nothing,” said Afra. “They will presently learn that there is nothing to come here for. Will they not, Monsieur Pascal?”
“No doubt: and if not, there is nothing to fear, I believe. Not a shot has been fired yet, but from the alarm gun.”
“Oh, how it echoed from the Haut-du-Cap!” cried Afra. “I wonder what the cultivators understood by it. See! my father’s barge! There is fighting there, surely.”
As Hédouville and his suite approached the wharf, the Governor’s barge, which had lain at a little distance from the shore, began to press in, among the crowd of other boats, at a signal from one of the trompettes. The other boats, which were taking in terrified women and children, resisted this movement, and refused, at such a moment, its usual precedence to the Governor’s barge. There was a hustling, a struggling, a shrieking, an uproar, so loud as to reach the ears and understandings of the insurgents. The word spread that the Commissary was escaping them. They broke through their opponents, and began a rush to the wharves. Not a few shots were now fired; but the young ladies scarcely heeded them in the excitement of this decisive moment.