He shook his head; and I saw that he meant nothing, that he could do nothing. And then my soul revolted. "You must! You shall!" I cried fiercely. "You have raised this devil, and you must lay him! Are these the liberties about which you have talked to us? Are these the people for whom you have pleaded? Answer, answer me, what you will do!" I cried. And I shook him furiously.
He covered his face with his hand. "God forgive us!" he said. "God help us!"
I looked at him for the first and only time in my life with contempt--with rage. "God help you?" I cried--I was beside myself. "God helps those who help themselves! You have brought this about! You! You! You have preached this! Now mend it!"
He trembled, and was silent. Unsupported by the passion which animated me, in face of the brute rage of the people, his courage sank.
"Now mend it!" I repeated furiously.
"I cannot get to them," he muttered.
"Then I will make a way for you!" I answered madly, recklessly. "Follow me! Do you hear that noise? Well, we will play a part in it!"
A dozen guns had gone off, almost in a volley. We could not see the result, nor what was passing; but the hoarse roar of the mob intoxicated me. I cried to him to follow, and rushed into the press.
Again he caught and stayed me, clinging to me with a stubbornness which would not be denied. "If you will go, go through the houses! Go through the opposite houses!" he muttered in my ear.
I had sense enough, when he had spoken twice, to understand him and comply. I let him lead me aside, and in a moment we were out of the press, and hurrying through an alley at the back of the houses that faced the St. Alais' mansion. We were not the first to go that way; some of the more active of the rioters had caught the idea before us, and gone by this path to the windows, whence they were firing. We found two or three of the doors open, therefore, and heard the excited cries and curses of the men who had taken possession. However, we did not go far. I chose the first door, and, passing quickly by a huddled, panic-stricken group of women and children--probably the occupants of the house--who were clustered about it, I went straight through to the street door.