"Upon my word ... I shouldn't like to say."
"Dash it all! But then one saw nothing but that devil in the front line.... There was no holding him...."
"Yes," chuckled the adjutant, "he has a way of his own of deserting in the face of the enemy!... He charges straight at them, the beggar!"
But Mme. Morestal grew frightened:
"A man wounded! I will go and prepare some bandages, get out the medicine-chest.... We have all that's wanted.... Will you come, Marthe?"
"Yes, mother," replied Marthe, without budging.
She did not remove her eyes from her husband and tried to read on Philippe's face the feelings that stirred him. She had first of all seen him go back to the drawing-room and cross the entrance-hall, as though he were thinking of the way out through the garden, which was still free. The sudden arrival of the riflemen pushed him back; and he talked to several of them in a low voice and gave them some bread and a flask of brandy. Then he returned to the terrace. His inaction, in the midst of the constant traffic to and fro, was obviously irksome to him. Twice he consulted the drawing-room clock; and Marthe guessed that he was thinking of the hour of the train and the time which he would need to reach Langoux Station. But she did not alarm herself. Every second was weaving bonds around him that tied him down without his knowing it; and it seemed to Marthe as though events had no other object than to make her husband's departure impossible.
The resistance, meanwhile, was being organized. Swiftly, the riflemen brought the bags of plaster, which the captain at once ordered to be placed between every pair of balusters. Each of the bags was of the height and width corresponding with the dimensions of the intervals and left an empty space, a loop-hole, on either side. And old Morestal had even had the forethought to match the colour of the sacking with that of the parapet, so that it might not be suspected in the distance that there was a defence behind which sharpshooters lay hidden.
On either side of the terrace, the wall surrounding the garden was the object of similar cares. The captain ordered the soldiers to set out bags at the foot of the wall so as to make the top accessible from the inside.