"Stay!" he cried, with the old gesture of command. "Stay! There is one man here who is not of us! Let him pass first, and go!" And he pointed to me. "He has no part with us. I swear it!"
A roar of cruel laughter was the answer. Then, "He that is not with me is against me!" the giant quoted impiously. And they jeered again.
On that, I take no credit for what I did. In such moments of exaltation men are not accountable, and, for another thing, I knew that they would not listen, that I risked nothing. And trembling with rage I flung back their words. "I am against you!" I cried. "I would rather die here with these, than live with you! You stain the earth! You pollute the air! You are fiends----"
No more, for with a shrill laugh the man next me, a mere lad, half-witted, I think, and the same who had cursed them, sprang by me and rushed on the pike-points. Half a dozen met in his breast before our eyes--before our eyes--and with a wild scream he flung up his arms and was borne back against the side-wall dead and gushing blood.
Instinctively I had covered Denise's face that she might not see. And it was well; for at that--there was a kind of mercy in it, and let me tell it quickly--the wretches tasting blood broke loose, and rushed on us. I saw St. Alais thrust his mother behind him, and almost with the same movement fling himself on the pikes; and I, pushing Denise down into the angle of the wall--though she clung to me and prayed to me--killed the first that came at me with Froment's pistol, and the next also, with the other barrel at point blank distance--feeling no fear, but only passion and rage. The third bore me down with his pike fixed in my shoulder, and for a moment I saw only the sky, and his scowling face black against it; and shut my eyes, expecting the blow that must follow.
But none did follow. Instead a weight fell on me, and I began to struggle, and a whole battle, it seemed to me, was fought over me--in that horrible slaughterhouse alley, where they dragged men from women's arms, and forced them, screaming, to the wall, and stabbed them to death without pity; and things were done of which I dare not tell!
CHAPTER XXV.
[BEYOND THE SHADOW.]
I thank Heaven that I saw little more than I have told. A score of feet trampled on me as the murderers stumbled this way and that, and bruised me and covered me with blood that was not my own. And I heard screams of men in the death-throe, ear-piercing shrieks of women--shrieks that chilled the blood and stopped the breath--mad laughter, sounds of the pit. But to rise was to court instant death, and, though I had no hope and no looking forward, my momentary passion had spent itself and I lay quiet. Resistance was useless.
At last I thought the end had come. The body that pressed on me, and partly hid me, was abruptly dragged away; the light came to my eyes, and a voice cried, briskly: "Here is another! He is alive!"