This recalled me to myself; and I followed Lecamus, who stood waiting for me holding the door a little ajar.  He went on strangely, like—­I can use no other words to express it—­a man making his way in the face of a crowd, a thing very surprising to me.  I followed him close; but the moment I emerged from the doorway something caught my breath.  The same feeling seized me also.  I gasped; a sense of suffocation came upon me; I put out my hand to lay hold upon my guide.  The solid grasp I got of his arm re-assured me a little, and he did not hesitate, but pushed his way on.  We got out clear of the gate and the shadow of the wall, keeping close to the little watch-tower on the west side.  Then he made a pause, and so did I. We stood against the tower and looked out before us.  There was nothing there.  The darkness was great, yet through the gloom of the night I could see the division of the road from the broken ground on either side; there was nothing there.  I gasped, and drew myself up close against the wall, as Lecamus had also done.  There was in the air, in the night, a sensation the most strange I have ever experienced.  I have felt the same thing indeed at other times, in face of a great crowd, when thousands of people were moving, rustling, struggling, breathing around me, thronging all the vacant space, filling up every spot.  This was the sensation that overwhelmed me here—­a crowd:  yet nothing to be seen but the darkness, the indistinct line of the road.  We could not move for them, so close were they round us.  What do I say?  There was nobody—­nothing—­not a form to be seen, not a face but his and mine.  I am obliged to confess that the moment was to me an awful moment.  I could not speak.  My heart beat wildly as if trying to escape from my breast—­every breath I drew was with an effort.  I clung to Lecamus with deadly and helpless terror, and forced myself back upon the wall, crouching against it; I did not turn and fly, as would have been natural.  What say I? did not!  I could not! they pressed round us so.  Ah! you would think I must be mad to use such words, for there was nobody near me—­not a shadow even upon the road.

Lecamus would have gone farther on; he would have pressed his way boldly into the midst; but my courage was not equal to this.  I clutched and clung to him, dragging myself along against the wall, my whole mind intent upon getting back.  I was stronger than he, and he had no power to resist me.  I turned back, stumbling blindly, keeping my face to that crowd (there was no one), but struggling back again, tearing the skin off my hands as I groped my way along the wall.  Oh, the agony of seeing the door closed!  I have buffeted my way through a crowd before now, but I may say that I never before knew what terror was.  When I fell upon the door, dragging Lecamus with me, it opened, thank God!  I stumbled in, clutching at Riou with my disengaged hand, and fell upon the floor of the octroi,