They now surrounded the first carriage, shouting furiously, and shattering the windows with their sabres.
“Minister Roberjot! Are you Minister Roberjot?” asked a dozen wild, howling voices.
Roberjot’s grave and threatening face, illuminated by the glare of the torch, appeared immediately in the aperture of the window. “Yes, I am Roberjot,” he said, loudly; “I am the ambassador of France, and here is the passport furnished me by the ambassador of the Elector of Mentz.”
He exhibited the paper, but the hussars took no notice of it; four vigorous arms dragged Roberjot from the carriage, and before he had time to stretch out his hand toward his pistols, the sabres of the hussars fell down upon his head and shoulders.
A terrible yell was heard, but it was not Roberjot who had uttered it; it was his wife, who appeared with pale and distorted features in the coach door, hastening to her beloved husband, to save him or to die with him.
But two stout arms kept her back—the arms of the valet de chambre who, perceiving that his master was hopelessly lost, wanted to protect at least his mistress from the murderous sabres of the hussars.
“Let me go, let me go; I will die with him!” she cried; but the faithful servant would not loosen his hold, and, unable to reach her husband, she had to witness his assassination by the hussars, who cut him with their sabres until he lay weltering in his gore.
“He is dead!” shrieked his wife, and her wail aroused Roberjot once more from his stupor. He opened his eyes and looked once more at his wife.
“Sauvez! sauvez!” he shouted, in a voice full of anguish. “Oh!—”
“What! not dead yet?” roared the hussars, and they struck him again.