But amidst the confusion, and while Bevill cried, "Stop, all of you. He who attempts to fly shall be shot on the spot," he was able to see at a glance what had happened.
The coach--the driver had doubtless been misdirected, or the horses' heads had not been turned down this side road--stood lower down the lane than those who had occupied it. At the feet of the horses lay the man who was undoubtedly the coachman; by his side knelt the Comtesse de Valorme, looking up at the boors who had attacked the party. Jeanne, her maid, an elderly woman, seemed to have fainted inside the coach; while old Ambroise, who was weeping and shaking all over, stood with a footman close by the side of his mistress.
Now, as Bevill dismounted, Madame de Valorme, looking up at him, exclaimed:
"Ah! The Capitaine Le Blond. Heaven be praised!"
"By his side knelt the Comtesse."
But Bevill had no time to be startled at hearing himself addressed thus, nor to speculate as to whether the Comtesse had discovered his assumed name from the landlord, or had herself searched for it in the register. His attention was otherwise needed.
"You brute dogs!" he exclaimed in the best Dutch he could muster. "So 'tis thus war begins with you--by attacks on women and old men." While, as he spoke, he thrust his discharged pistol back into the right holster and drew out that in the left.
"We are starving," one man said. "You--you--French trample us down, take all--you, who are as bad as the Spaniards were. We retaliate when we can."
"Is there a rope?" Bevill asked, looking down from his seat on the horse and addressing Ambroise and the younger man, the footman. "One used in the coach? If so, fetch it."