CHAPTER XVIII.
[ANDROMEDA, PERSEUS BEING ABSENT.]
Little by little--while they fought below--the gloom had thickened, and night had fallen in the room above. But Mademoiselle would not have candles brought. Seated in the darkness, on the uppermost step of the stairs, her hands clasped about her knees, she listened and listened, as if by that action she could avert misfortune; or as if, by going so far forward to meet it, she could turn aside the worst. The women shivering in the darkness about her would fain have struck a light and drawn her back into the room, for they felt safer there. But she was not to be moved. The laughter and chatter of the men in the guard-room, the coming and going of Bigot as he passed, below but out of sight, had no terrors for her; nay, she breathed more freely on the bare open landing of the staircase than in the close confines of a room which her fears made hateful to her. Here at least she could listen, her face unseen; and listening she bore the suspense more easily.
A turn in the staircase, with the noise which proceeded from the guard-room, rendered it difficult to hear what happened in the closed room below. But she thought that if an alarm were raised there she must hear it; and as the moments passed and nothing happened, she began to feel confident that her lover had made good his escape by the window.
Presently she got a fright. Three or four men came from the guard-room and went, as it seemed to her, to the door of the room with the shattered casement. She told herself that she had rejoiced too soon, and her heart stood still. She waited for a rush of feet, a cry, a struggle. But except an uncertain muffled sound which lasted for some minutes, and was followed by a dull shock, she heard nothing more. And presently the men went back whispering, the noise in the guard-room which had been partially hushed broke forth anew, and perplexed but relieved she breathed again. Surely he had escaped by this time. Surely by this time he was far away, in the Arsenal, or in some place of refuge! And she might take courage, and feel that for this day the peril was overpast.
"Mademoiselle will have the lights now?" one of the women ventured.
"No! no!" she answered feverishly, and she continued to crouch where she was on the stairs, bathing herself and her burning face in the darkness and coolness of the stairway. The air entered freely through a window at her elbow and the place was fresher, were that all, than the room she had left. Javette began to whimper, but she paid no heed to her; a man came and went along the passage below, and she heard the outer door unbarred, and the jarring tread of three or four men who passed through it. But all without disturbance; and afterwards the house was quiet again. And as on this Monday evening the prime virulence of the massacre had begun to abate--though it held after a fashion to the end of the week--Paris without was quiet also. The sounds which had chilled her heart at intervals during two days were no longer heard. A feeling almost of peace, almost of comfort--a drowsy feeling, that was three parts a reaction from excitement--took possession of her. In the darkness her head sank lower and lower on her knees. And half an hour passed, while Javette whimpered, and Madame Carlat slumbered, her broad back propped against the wall.
Suddenly Mademoiselle opened her eyes, and saw, three steps below her, a strange man whose upward way she barred. Behind him came Carlat, and behind him Bigot, lighting both; and in the confusion of her thoughts as she rose to her feet the three, all staring at her in a common amazement, seemed a company. The air entering through the open window beside her blew the flame of the candle this way and that, and added to the nightmare character of the scene; for by the shifting light the men seemed to laugh one moment and scowl the next, and their shadows were now high and now low on the wall. In truth they were as much amazed at coming on her in that place as she at their appearance; but they were awake, and she newly roused from sleep; and the advantage was with them.
"What is it?" she cried in a panic. "What is it?"
"If Mademoiselle will return to her room?" one of the men said courteously.