After that no need for further disguise or hiding. The presence of the enemy was made known. An instant later the trumpets rang out the "Advance!" Across the stretch of bare land the cavalry of Montrevel were seen riding fast.
"To arms! To arms!" sounded Cavalier's voice on the night air, it rivalling almost in distinctness the clear sounds of the royal trumpeters. "To arms! The tyrants are upon us. To arms! I say," and ere, with one wild shriek in unison from the throats of the Miquelets, the latter sprang from their ambush, the Protestants had leaped from the floors where they had flung themselves and were in the open, face to face with the Pyrenean wolves.
Instantly the whole surface of the earth beneath the bright rays of the moon was changed. Soon no moon was seen. The smoke from countless firelocks covered, obscured her. Smoke dispelled for an instant now and again by volleys of flame belched forth from fusil and carabine, flame that showed Miquelets dashing at huge mountaineers' throats, their long knives in their hands or 'twixt their teeth as they so sprang and clutched; that showed, too, these savage creatures forced to release their grasp, hurled to the earth, their brains clubbed out by butt and stock. Showed also the dragoons in the midst of all, sabring, thrusting, cutting down, overriding ally and foeman indiscriminately, reeling back themselves over their chargers' haunches as, from the windowless apertures of the tower, came hail after hail of bullets from Camisards ensconced therein.
But still the battle raged. Still from the Protestants' throats rang their war cry, "For God and his children!" from those of the royalists, "For God and the King!" from those of the Miquelets, in their hideous shrieking falsetto, "Guerra al Culchielo!" "Guerra al Morté!"
"Save yourself and her," cried Cavalier, rushing back for a moment to the farmhouse kitchen and stumbling over the dead body of the treacherous peasant, Guignon, who had been poniarded by Le Léopard the moment he was certain that the man had betrayed them, "save yourself--and her. There is a backway by the fosse to an ancient passage 'neath the old castle; save yourselves. We are lost, lost! Outnumbered! Save yourselves!"
Then in a moment he saw that neither Martin nor Urbaine were there. Gone! either to destruction or safety, he knew not which, yet gone. And he rushed back to his doomed band; rushed back to see that the tower was in flames, that all of his men who were in it were beyond earthly salvation. Already it seemed to rock beneath the great spouting flames that leaped forth from roofless summit and openings where windows might once have been. Doomed!
Le Léopard came near him at this moment, an awful spectacle--bleeding from a dozen wounds, his vast and iron-gray beard crimson, yet with his eyes glaring as ever. Came near, staggering, reeling, yet able to gasp:
"To the fosse, to the fosse! You can save some that way. To the fosse!"
"Come you also," muttered Cavalier, "Come----"
"I come!" Le Léopard exclaimed. "Nay, never more. See!" and he tore open his rough coat, showing on his breast a hideous gaping wound. And as he did so he reeled more heavily than before, then fell across the body of a dragoon lying close by.