For a second no one moved. For a second the old noble's presence and fearlessness imposed on the vilest; and they stared at him, cowed by his eye. Then he stirred. With a quiet gesture, as of a man saluting before a duel, he caught up the hilt of his sword, and presented the lower point. "Well," he said with bitter scorn in his tone, "you have come to do it. Which of you will go to hell for the rest? For I shall take one."
That broke the spell. With a howl, a dozen ruffians sprang up the stairs. I saw the bright steel flash once, twice; and one reeled back, and rolled down under his fellows' feet. Then a great bar swept up and fell on the smiling face, and the old noble dropped without a cry or a groan, under a storm of blows that in a moment beat the life out of his body.
It was over in a moment, and before I could interfere. The next, a score of men leaped over the corpse and up the stairs, with horrid cries--I after them. To the right and left were locked doors, with panels Wätteau-painted; they dashed these in with brutal shouts, and, in a twinkling, flooded the splendid rooms, sweeping away, and breaking, and flinging down in wanton mischief, everything that came to hand--vases, statues, glasses, miniatures. With shrieks of triumph, they filled the salon that had known for generations only the graces and beauty of life; and clattered over the shining parquets that had been swept so long by the skirts of fair women. Everything they could not understand was snatched up and dashed down; in a moment the great Venetian mirrors were shattered, the pictures pierced and torn, the books flung through the windows into the street.
I had a glimpse of the scene as I paused on the landing. But a glance sufficed to convince me that the fugitives were not in these rooms, and I sprang on, and up the next flight. Here, short as had been my delay, I found others before me. As I turned the corner of the stairs I came on three men, listening at a door; before I could reach them one rose. "Here they are!" he cried. "That is a woman's voice! Stand back!" And he lifted a crowbar to beat in the door.
"Hold!" I cried in a voice that shook him, and made him lower his weapon. "Hold! In the name of the Committee, I command you to leave that door. The rest of the house is yours. Go and plunder it."
The men glared at me. "Sacré ventre!" one of them hissed. "Who are you?"
"The Committee!" I answered.
He cursed me, and raised his hand. "Stand back!" I cried furiously, "or you shall hang!"
"Ho! ho! An aristocrat!" he retorted; and he raised his voice. "This way, friends--this way! An aristocrat! An aristocrat!" he cried.
At the word a score of his fellows came swarming up the stairs. I saw myself in an instant surrounded by grimy, pocked faces and scowling eyes,--by haggard creatures sprung from the sewers of the town. Another second and they would have laid hands on me; but desperate and full of rage I rushed instead on the man with the bar, and, snatching it from him before he guessed my intention, in a twinkling laid him at my feet.