"Now, then!" cried the marquis. "Get back there, dogs!" The two blades shot out. A man fell; another, touched in the shoulder, screamed, and leaped over the balustrade; the rest fell away, one man on another, with shrieks and groans. François caught a lad climbing on the outside of the gilded rail, and, with a laugh, threw him on the heads of those below. A joy unknown before possessed the thief—the lust of battle, the sense of competency. He took in the whole scene, heart, mind, and body alive as never before.
"Sang de St. Denis! You are a gallant man. But we are lost. They will be on our backs in a moment; I hear them." Amid a terrible din, stones and sticks flew. A pebble struck the marquis in the face. "Dame!" he cried, furious, and darted down a step or two, the quick rapier mercilessly stabbing here and there. One madder than the rest set a torch to a priceless tapestry. It flared up, lighting the great space and the stair, and doing in the end no harm. Despard, terrified, was pushed forward to the edge of the fallen bodies on the staircase.
"Surrender!" he called out in a shriek of fear, for here before him were the two men he most dreaded on earth. The noise was indescribable. The butcher beat with the iron gauntlet on a shield beside him; then he threw the steel glove at François. It flew high. There was a cry from the space behind. The little boy screamed shrilly, "They have killed my mama!"
François looked behind him. There was now light enough, and too much. He saw the woman lying, a convulsed, tumbled heap, on the stair. The marquis glanced behind him, and lost his cool quietude. He ran down the stair, stabbing furiously. A half-dozen dead and wounded lay before him. In an instant he was back again beside François, his face bleeding from the stones and sticks thrown at him. François was standing, tall and terrible in his anger, a pistol in his hand.
"Shall I kill him, monsieur?"
"By Heaven, yes!"
The pistol resounded terribly in the vaulted space, and the brute who had thrown the gauntlet, swaying, screamed shrilly, and tumbled—dead.
"Give me your hand!" cried the marquis. "Thank you, monsieur; the devil hath a recruit. Now follow me. Let us kill and die. To hell with this rabble!"
"Wait," cried François, and, running down the steps, put out a long arm and caught Despard. He hauled him savagely after him, calling out, "Hold the stair a moment!" In an instant he was on the landing above, with his prey. His sword he let fall, and set a pistol to Despard's head. The terror of the trapped Jacobin was pitiful. He prayed for life. He would let them all go; he would—he would. François swung him round to face the suddenly silenced mob. "Keep still, or I will scatter your brains, fool! Tell them to go! Tell them to go, or, sang de Dieu! thou art a dead man!"
Pierre screamed out his orders: "Go—go—all of you. I order—go!"