Those persons standing on that portion of the steps within range sidled upwards or else downwards, to be out of the risk of such a danger. They could see in the upward flash of the firelight the sparkle in his great eyes as he glared at the steps, calculating his distance, making resolve to leap, and his heart failing him or his judgment assuring him that to do so were certainly fatal.
A tinkle of a little bell. The priest of S. Donat had hastily donned his surplice, and run and taken the Holy Sacrament, and was coming—he alone with a thought of mercy for the agonised, to obtain for him release, or to administer consolation in death. Before him went a boy with a lantern, ringing the bell.
Then a loud voice from below cried: "Cut the cable!" And then: "It is I—Francis Bonaldi—I, the governor, say it. Enough! Cut the cable!"
A gasp from all that multitude.
The cord had been chopped through before the priest arrived.
CHAPTER XXV.
A HELEBORE WREATH.
The destruction of Le Gros Guillem's body of men at La Roque Gageac was the prelude to the surrender of the citadel of Domme. The small garrison left in charge of that stronghold was panic-stricken when it heard the tidings from La Roque. The whole country was in arms. The citizens had marshalled in the square, and the soldiers, deserting the town, had taken refuge in the castle. Without head, without prospect of relief, hemmed in by the Bishop's troops that arrived from Sarlat and La Roque on one side, menaced from Beynac, where was a royal garrison, on another, and from Fénelon on a third, where the baron was loyal to the French crown as well as a personal enemy of Guillem, the remnant of the Company that had acknowledged Guillem as Captain was fain to capitulate; and the confederate troops under the governor of La Roque were content to accord terms, knowing the danger of driving these freebooters to desperation.