But the brutal soldiers, led by a swaggering young lieutenant of the Brandenburg infantry, were obdurate and commenced to roughly ill-treat the women, and cuff them towards the steps.
Uncle François raised his voice in loud protest, but next second a shot rang sharply out, and he fell dead upon the stones, a bullet through his heart, while the brute who had shot him roughly kicked his body aside with a German oath.
Such an action cowed them all.
A silence fell—the grim, terrible silence of those caught in a death-trap, for the women were now held by the enemy, and they knew, alas! too well, what their fate would now be—either dishonour or death.
Chapter Fifteen.
Betrays the Traitor.
The few moments that followed were indeed full of grim horror.
An old peasant woman, standing by Aimée, in her frenzy, spat at one of the German soldiers, whereupon he struck her in the breast with his bayonet, and, with a piercing shriek, the poor thing fell, her thin, bony hands clutching at the stones in her death agony.