All, on the instant, was panic and wailing and confusion. I have heard it said since that the worst thing the men could have done was to take the church in their flight, and that had they kept aloof the women would not have been disturbed; that, as a fact, and in the event, the church was not sacked. But in such a hell as was Nîmes that morning, with the kennels running blood, and men's souls surprised by sudden defeat, it was hard to decide what was best; and I blame no one.
A rush for the door followed the man's words. It drove me a little farther from Denise; but as she and the group round her held back and let the more timid or selfish go first, I had time to gain her side. She had drawn the hood of her cloak close round her face, and until I touched her arm did not see me. Then, without a word, she clung to me--she clung to me, looking up; I saw her face under the hood, and it was happy. God! It was happy, even in that scene of terror!
After that, Madame St. Alais, though she greeted me with a bitter smile, had no power to repel me. "You are quick, Monsieur, to profit by your victory," she said, in a scathing tone. And that was all. Unrebuked, I passed my arm round Denise, and followed close on Louis and Madame Catinot; while Monsieur le Marquis, after speaking with his mother, followed. As he did so his eye fell on me, but he only smiled, and to something Madame said, answered aloud, "Mon Dieu, Madame; what does it matter? We have thrown the last stake and lost. Let us leave the table!"
She dropped her hood over her face; and even in that moment of fear and excitement I found something tragic in the act, and on a sudden pitied her. But it was no time for sentiment or pity; the pursuers were not far behind the pursued. We were still in the church and some paces from the threshold giving on the alley, when a rush of footsteps outside the great door behind us made itself heard, and the next instant the doors creaked under the blows hailed upon them. It was a question whether they would stand until we were out, and I felt the slender figure within my arm quiver and press more closely to me. But they held--they held, and an instant later the crowd before us gave way, and we were outside in the daylight, in the alley, hurrying quickly down it towards Madame Catinot's house.
It seemed to me that we were safe then, or nearly safe; so glad was I to find myself in the open air and out of the church. The ground fell away a little towards Madame Catinot's, and I could see the line of hastening heads bobbing along before us, and here and there white faces turned to look back. The high walls on either hand softened the noise of the riot. Behind me were M. le Marquis and Madame; and again behind them three or four of M. le Marquis' followers brought up the rear. I looked back beyond these and saw that the alley opposite the church was still clear, and that the pursuers had not yet passed through the church; and I stooped to whisper a word of comfort to Denise. I stooped perhaps longer than was necessary, for before I was aware of it I found myself stumbling over Louis' heels. A backward wave sweeping up the alley had brought him up short and flung him against me. With the movement, as we all jostled one another, there arose far in front and rolled up the passage between the high walls a sound of misery; a mingling of groans and screams and wailing such as I hope I may never hear again. Some strove furiously to push their way back towards the church, and some, not understanding what was amiss, to go forwards, and some fell, and were trodden under foot; and for a few seconds the long narrow alley heaved and seethed in an agony of panic.
Engaged in saving Denise from the crush and keeping her on her feet, I did not, for a moment, understand. The first thought I had was that the women--three out of four were women--had gone mad or given way to a shameful, selfish terror. Then, as our company staggering and screaming rolled back upon us, until it filled but half the length of the passage, I heard in front a roar of cruel laughter, and saw over the intervening heads a serried mass of pike-points filling the end of the passage opposite Madame Catinot's house. Then I understood. The Calvinists had cut us off; and my heart stood still.
For there was no retreat. I looked behind me, and saw the alley by the church-porch choked with men who had reached it through the church; alive with harsh mocking faces, and scowling eyes, and cruel thirsty pikes. We were hemmed in; in the long high walls, which it was impossible to scale, was no door or outlet short of Madame Catinot's house--and that was guarded. And before and behind us were the pikes.
I dream of that scene sometimes; of the sunshine, hot and bright, that lay ghastly on white faces distorted with fear; of women fallen on their knees and lifting hands this way and that; of others screaming and uttering frenzied prayers, or hanging on men's necks; of the long writhing line of humanity, wherein fear, showing itself in every shape, had its way; above all of the fiendish jeers and laughter of the victors, as they cried to the men to step out, or hurled vile words at the women.
Even Nîmes, mother of factions, parent of a hundred quarterless brawls, never saw a worse scene, or one more devilish. For a few seconds in the surprise of this trap, in the sudden horror of finding ourselves, when all seemed well, at grips with death, I could only clutch Denise to me tighter and tighter, and hide her eyes on my breast, as I leaned against the wall and groaned with white lips. O God, I thought, the women! The women! At such a time a man would give all the world that there might be none, or that he had never loved one.
St. Alais was the first to recover his presence of mind and act--if that could be called action which was no more than speech, since we were hopelessly enmeshed and outnumbered. Putting Madame behind him he waved a white kerchief to the men by the door of the church--who stood about thirty paces from us--and adjured them to let the women pass; even taunting them when they refused, and gibing at them as cowards, who dared not face the men unencumbered.