"What next?" asked Martin, white to the lips.
"What next? This: With their new weapons, the accursed baïonnettes, the soldiers thrust back into the flames those whom the could get at; those whom they could not reach they fired at. We saw them fall back shrieking. Yet in God's mercy their shrieks ceased soon--there were none left."
"But one," exclaimed the man called La Quoite, "a girl, pauvre petite fillette! She escaped so far as to reach the ground unhurt, to escape their blades, although they held them up as she jumped from the window, so that thereby she might be impaled. But they missed her, and, running toward Montrevel, she shrieked for mercy. Poor child, poor child! not more than fifteen--than fifteen!"
"His lackey," struck in Delamer, "had more mercy than the master. He helped her to escape from out the hands of the soldiers."
"Thank God there was a man, a human heart, among them," murmured Martin.
"Ay, yet it availed little. The brigand ordered her to the hangman's hands, also the lackey. The gibbet was prepared. Both would have died but that a Catholic woman, une sœur de la miséricorde, upon her knees--Heaven's blessings light upon her!--besought him by the God whom all worship equally to give them their lives."
"And he yielded?"
"He yielded. He spared these two, though an hour later the lackey was thrown outside the gate of Nîmes, his master bidding him go hang or drown himself, or join his friends, les Protestants, whereby once more he might fall into his hands."
"There is one good piece of news yet to be told," whispered La Quoite, who was a man of fiercer mood than the others. "In the mêlée the soldiers sabred many of the Catholics unwittingly. God be praised!" and he laughed harshly.
And now the end of this day's work had come. Montrevel had left the spot. Behind him went the dragoons and milices. The butchery was over. He should have been well satisfied with his morning.