"Let it down, child!" And when Anne, to soothe her, had obeyed and let the great pot down until the fire licked its sides, "Is it full?" Madame asked.
"Half-full, mother."
"It will do." And for a time the woman in the bed was silent.
Outside there was noise enough. The windows in the room looked into the Corraterie, from which side no more than passing sounds of conflict rose to them; the pounding of running feet, sharp orders, a shot, and then another. But the landing without the bedroom door looked down by a high-set window into the narrow Tertasse; and from this, though the door was shut, rose an inferno of noise, the clash of steel, the cries of the wounded, the shouts of the fighters. The townsfolk, rallying from their first alarm, were driving the enemy out of the Rue de la Cité, penning him into the Tertasse, and preparing to carry that street.
On a sudden there came, not a cessation of the uproar, but a change in its character. It was as if the current of a river were momentarily stayed and pent up; and then with a mighty crashing of timbers and shifting of pebbles, and a din as of the world's end, began to run the other way. Anne's face turned a shade paler; so appalling was the noise, she would fain have stopped her ears. But her mother sat up.
"What is it?" she asked eagerly. "What is it?"
"Dear mother, do not fret! It must be——"
"Go and see, child! Go to the window in the passage, and see!" Madame Royaume persisted.
Anne had no wish to go, no wish to see. She pictured her lover in the mêlée whence rose those appalling cries; and gladly would she have hidden her head in the bedclothes and poured out her heart in prayer for him. But Madame persisted, and she yielded, went into the passage and opened the small window. With the cold air entered a fresh volume of sound. On the walls and timbered gables opposite her—and so near that she could well-nigh touch them with her extended arm—strange lights played luridly; and here and there, at dormers on a level with her, pale faces showed and vanished by turns.
She looked down. For a moment, in the confusion, in the medley of moving forms, she could discern little or nothing. Then, as her eyes became more accustomed to the sight, she made out that the tide of conflict was running inward into the town, a sign that the invaders were gaining the mastery.