In the garden, not thirty feet away, a black mass dotted with the white of human faces was huddled together, shrinking from the gates and apertures that swarmed with axes, scythes, swords, and barbarous faces more pitiless than the steel.
At Nicole's side a mason extended his cutlass toward the priests, bellowing:
"Eh, you fat fellow over there! Wait till they let us in! I'll carve you!"
Another shouted:
"I choose to shave the tall one; I'll make a true monk of him!"
The priests encouraged one another; some knelt, others lifted their arms, their voices, and their eyes serenely above. A few blanched before the approach of martyrdom, while others in whom youth's natural impulse to life was strong calculated the surroundings and weighed the desperate chances of escape.
All at once there was an upheaval in the herd of the besieged, a swaying toward the walls, and a sudden parting that opened a path to the chapel beyond, where a swarm of the populace, who had broken through, was spreading over the steps. From the crowd without a wild shout went up; those at the locked gates, stretching their arms through, strove to prod the victims with their pikes.
On the steps, face to face with their prey, the new assailants hesitated, seeking some pretext before striking. But one, more impatient than the rest, burst from the back and fired point-blank into the herd. The impulse once given, the assassins fell upon their victims, who on their knees welcomed the end.
Forty or fifty of the younger members, revolting at such surrender to death, bounded away to scale the farther walls. A very few passed over and escaped to outer courts before the bandits flung themselves on the fleeing. Then everywhere could be seen bodies clutching at the brim of the wall, tumbling and pitching backward in the horror of the overtaking fate. Arms that grasped liberty suddenly contracted in the convulsions of despair; faces that already looked on life appeared a moment above the wall and fell back with the sharp summons to death.
"Shall we go?" cried Nicole, suffocated.