Some one in the mob, extending a long crook, hooked a Swiss and drew him into the vortex, amid shouts of laughter. They clapped their hands, laughing like children, and set to work at this new game. A second, a third, five Swiss, were thus fished out of the ranks without resisting.
All at once, from the balcony above, a voice cried:
"Fire!"
As the sea with an immense impulse recoils from an earthquake, there was a vast recoil in the mob, an exact explosion from the machine. The smoke, rushing down the vestibule, swirled into the air and lifted. The officer leaned curiously over the balcony and gave the order to advance. The red ranks moved down and over the inanimate mound; of all those who a moment before had laughed incredulously not one survived.
Outside, the mob broke and fled up the Place du Carrousel, recoiling from the horrid vestibule, where suddenly there formed a bubble of red, that grew larger and trickled over the garden, widening and assuming mass and shape. At times across the red, like a diamond meeting the sun, there ran a brilliant flash. At every flash men stumbled in their flight and pitched forward. Pell-mell into the Rue St. Honoré they ran, routed, but full of anger and enthusiasm.
At this moment the sections of the Marais swept in, gathered them up, and, burning with vengeance at the sight of their wounds, rushed on to the attack. Barabant, who had received a flesh-wound in the hand, had barely time to bind it up before he was swept again into the Carrousel.
Then a vast hurrah burst from them, a shout of relief and of battle. From the quais the guerrilla band of the Marseillais were rolling forward, formidable, grim, and unleashed. Suddenly their ranks parted and two tongues of fire lashed out; in the solid bank of the Swiss two gaps appeared. A frenzy possessed the assaulting mass. It flung itself forward, without method, attacking only with its anger. The Swiss reëntered the vestibule, issuing forth from time to time to deliver a volley.
Barabant, in the midst of the swirl, lost consciousness of his acts, swayed by sudden, unreasoning passion. He fired fast and faster, caught by the infection of his comrades, cursing, exhorting wildly, laughing; but his bullets, without objective, flattened themselves against the death-dealing walls. At times he saw, through the thick smoke, Javogues and his comrades dragging a cannon forward toward the barracks. At another moment there suddenly emerged out of the mêlée the figure of the two bouquetières.