If the rascals had had the wit to make at once for the right-hand stairs, where we stood with two or three of Bezers’ men who had kept their saddles, I think they might easily have disposed of us, encumbered as we were, by the horses; and then they could have attacked the handful on the gallery on both flanks.  But the mob had no leaders, and no plan of operations.  They seized indeed two or three of the scattered troopers, and tearing them from their horses, wreaked their passion upon them horribly.  But most of the Switzers escaped, thanks to the attention the mob paid to the houses and what was going forward on the galleries; and these, extricating themselves joined us one by one, so that gradually a little ring of stern faces gathered about the stair-foot.  A moment’s hesitation, and seeing no help for it, we ranged ourselves with them; and, unchecked as unbidden, sprang on three of the led horses.

All this passed more quickly than I can relate it:  so that before our feet were well in the stirrups a partial silence, then a mightier roar of anger at once proclaimed and hailed the re-appearance of the Vidame.  Bigoted beyond belief were the mob of Paris of that day, cruel, vengeful, and always athirst for blood; and this man had killed not only their leader but a priest.  He had committed sacrilege!  What would they do?  I could just, by stooping forward, command a side view of the gallery, and the scene passing there was such that I forgot in it our own peril.

For surely in all his reckless life Bezers had never been so emphatically the man for the situation—­had never shown to such advantage as at this moment when he stood confronting the sea of faces, the sneer on his lip, a smile in his eyes; and looked down unblenching, a figure of scorn, on the men who were literally agape for his life.  The calm defiance of his steadfast look fascinated even me.  Wonder and admiration for the time took the place of dislike.  I could scarcely believe that there was not some atom of good in this man so fearless.  And no face but one no face I think in the world, but one—­could have drawn my eyes from him.  But that one face was beside him.  I clutched Marie’s arm, and pointed to the bareheaded figure at Bezers’ right hand.

It was Louis himself:  our Louis de Pavannes, But he was changed indeed from the gay cavalier I remembered, and whom I had last seen riding down the street at Caylus, smiling back at us, and waving his adieux to his mistress!  Beside the Vidame he had the air of being slight, even short.  The face which I had known so bright and winning, was now white and set.  His fair, curling hair—­scarce darker than Croisette’s—­hung dank, bedabbled with blood which flowed from a wound in his head.  His sword was gone; his dress was torn and disordered and covered with dust.  His lips moved.  But he held up his head, he bore himself bravely with it all; so bravely, that I choked, and my heart seemed bursting as I looked at him standing there forlorn and now unarmed.  I knew that Kit seeing him thus would gladly have died with him; and I thanked God she did not see him.  Yet there was a quietness in his fortitude which made a great difference between his air and that of Bezers.  He lacked, as became one looking unarmed on certain death, the sneer and smile of the giant beside him.