The words came out of the smoke. The speaker was Buton. As he spoke, he stepped forward, swinging the ponderous bar he carried, his huge hairy arms bare to the elbow. "Yet there is one thing you must do," he said.
"What?"
"You must put on the tricolour. They will not dare to touch that."
He spoke with a simple pride, which at the moment I found unintelligible. I understand it better now. Nay, on the morrow, it was no riddle to me, though an abiding wonder.
The priest sprang at the idea. "Good," he said. "Buton has hit it! They will respect that."
And before I could speak he had detached the large rosette which he wore on his soutane, and was pinning it on my breast.
"Now yours, Buton," he continued; and taking the smith's--it was not too clean--he fixed it on Mademoiselle's left shoulder. "There," he said eagerly, when it was done. "Now, M. le Vicomte, take her up. Quick, or we shall be stifled. Buton and I will go before you, and our friends here will follow you."
Mademoiselle was beginning to come to herself with sighs and sobs, when I raised her in my arms; and we were all coughing with the smoke. This in the passage outside was choking; had we delayed a minute longer we could not have passed out safely, for already the flames were beginning to lick the door of the next room, and dart out angry tongues towards us. As it was, we stumbled down the stairs in some fashion, one helping another; and checked for an instant by the closed door at the bottom, were glad to fall when it was opened pell-mell in the kitchen, where we stood with smarting eyes, gasping for breath.
It was the grand kitchen of the Château that had seen many a feast prepared, and many a quarry brought home; but for Mademoiselle's sake I was glad that her face was against my breast, and that she could not see it now. A great fire, fed high with fat and hams, blazed on the hearth, and before it, instead of meat, the carcases of three dogs hung from the jack, and tainted the air with the smell of burning flesh. They were M. le Marquis' favourite hounds, killed in pure wantonness. Below them the floor, strewn with bottles, ran deep in wasted wine, out of which piles of shattered furniture and staved casks rose like islands. All that the rioters had not taken they had spoiled; even now in one corner a woman was filling her apron with salt from a huge trampled heap, and at the battered dressoir three or four men were plundering. The main body of the peasants, however, had retired outside, where they could be heard fiercely cheering on the flames, shouting when a chimney fell or a window burst, and flinging into the fire every living thing unlucky enough to fall into their hands. The plunderers, on seeing us, sneaked out with grim looks like wolves driven from the prey. Doubtless, they spread the news; for while we paused, though it was only for a moment, in the middle of the floor, the uproar outside ceased, and gave place to a strange silence in the midst of which we appeared at the door.
The glare of the burning house threw a light as strong as that of day on the scene before us; on the line of savage frenzied faces that confronted us, and the great pile of wreckage that stood about and bore witness to their fury. But for a moment the light failed to show us to them; we were in the shadow of the wall, and it was not until we had advanced some paces that the ominous silence was broken, and the mob, with a howl of rage, sprang forward, like bloodhounds slipped from the leash. Low-browed and shock-headed, half-naked, and black with smoke and blood, they seemed more like beasts than men; and like beasts they came on, snapping the teeth and snarling, while from the rear--for the foremost were past speech--came screams of "Mort aux Tyrans! Mort aux Accapareurs!" that, mingling with the tumult of the fire, were enough to scare the stoutest.