"Yvonnet is dizzy."
Anselme shuddered as Martin had done, and repeated the same words to his neighbor, Scharfenstein; and so the word was passed down the ladder, each one in turn removing his sword from between his teeth long enough to say to the man next below,—
"Yvonnet is dizzy."
At last the dreadful intelligence reached the ears of Gabriel, who turned pale and trembled as the others had done when he heard it.
CHAPTER XIX
ARNAULD DU THILL, THOUGH ABSENT, CONTINUES TO EXERT
A FATAL INFLUENCE ON THE DESTINY OF POOR MARTIN-GUERRE
It was a moment of fearful suffering,—a supreme crisis. Gabriel saw that he was threatened by three distinct dangers. Beneath his feet, the roaring sea seemed to be calling to its prey with its mighty voice. Before him twelve terrified men, unable to move either forward or back, barred the road to the third source of danger,—the English pikes and arquebuses which were perhaps waiting for them to show their heads above the battlements.
On all sides, terror and death seemed to threaten the poor beings upon that vibrating ladder.
Fortunately, Gabriel was not the man to waste precious time in hesitating even between two formidable perils, and he made up his mind in an instant.
He never stopped to wonder whether his grasp might not fail, and his brains be dashed out on the rocks below. Clinging closely to the rope that formed one side of the ladder, he raised himself by his hands alone, and passed by the twelve men in front of him one after another.