Beneath in the courts and quadrangles, swarming through the towers and clambering perilously on the roofs, surged the press of the furious populace.  It was all that Duke John and his officers could do to keep the prisoners in ward, and to prevent them from being torn limb from limb (as had perhaps been fittest), and tossed alive into the flaming funeral pyre of Castle Machecoul, which, lighted by a hundred hands, presently began to flame like a volcano to the skies.

For the hour that comes to every evil-doer had come to Gilles de Retz.  And in that hour, as it shall ever be, the devil in whom he trusted had forsaken him.

But the Lady Sybilla stood on the garden tower that in happier days had been her pleasaunce, and beheld.  And as she watched she kissed the golden crucifix of the child Margaret.  And her heart rejoiced because the lives of the innocent as well as the death of the guilty had been given her for her portion.

“And now, O Lord, I am ready to pay the price!” she said.

CHAPTER LX

HIS DEMON HATH DESERTED HIM

The soldiers of the Duke of Brittany stood with bared swords and deadly pikes around the Marshal de Retz and those of his servants who had been taken—­that is to say, round Poitou, Clerk Henriet, Blanquet, and Robin Romulart.  About them surged ever more fiercely the angry populace, drunk with the hot wine of destruction, having been filled with inconceivable fury by that which they had seen in the round tower wherein stood the filled bags of little charred remains.

“Tear the wolves into gobbets!  Kill them!  Burn them!  Send them quick to Hell!” So ran the cry.

And twice and thrice the villagers of the Pays de Retz charged desperately as men who fight for their lives.

“Stand to it, men!” cried Pierre de l’Hopital.  “Gilles de Retz shall have fair trial!

“But I shall try him!” he added, under his breath.

Never was seen such a sight as the procession which conducted Gilles de Retz to the city of Nantes.  The Duke had sent for his whole band of soldiers, and these, in ordered companies, marched in front and rear.  A triple file guarded the prisoners, and even their levelled pikes could scarce beat back the furious rushes of the populace.

It was like a civil war, for the assailants struck fiercely at the soldiers—­as if in protecting him, they became accessory to the crimes of the hated marshal.

“Barbe Bleu!  Barbe Bleu!” they cried.  “Slay Barbe Bleu!  Make his beard blood-red.  He hath dipped it often in the life-blood of our children.  Now we will redden it with his own!”

So ran the tumult, surging and gathering and scattering.  And ever the pikes of the guard flashed, and the ordered files shouldered a path through the press.

“Make way there!” cried the provost marshals.  “Make way for the prisoners of the Duke!”