This frightful spectacle completely unnerved me.  Sunk in a dull stupor, no longer conscious of what was happening around me, I stood there as if turned to stone, and it was only after some minutes that I realized that I was the subject of a serious discussion between the police and my hosts.  One of the gendarmes declared that he recognised me as a Hamstringer Mauprat.  Patience declared that I was nothing but M. Hubert de Mauprat’s gamekeeper, in charge of his daughter.  Annoyed at the discussion, I was about to make myself known when I saw a ghost rise by my side.  It was Edmee.  She had taken refuge between the wall and the cure’s poor frightened horse, which, with outstretched legs and eyes of fire, made her a sort of rampart with its body.  She was as pale as death, and her lips were so compressed with horror that at first, in spite of desperate efforts to speak, she was unable to express herself otherwise than by signs.  The sergeant, moved by her youth and her painful situation, waited with deference until she could manage to make herself understood.  At last she persuaded them not to treat me as a prisoner, but to take me with her to her father’s chateau, where she gave her word of honour that satisfactory explanations and guarantees would be furnished on my account.  The cure and the other witnesses, having pledged their words to this, we set out all together, Edmee on the sergeant’s horse, he on an animal belonging to one of his men, myself on the cure’s, Patience and the cure afoot between us, the police on either side, and Marcasse in front, still impassive amid the general terror and consternation.  Two of the gendarmes remained behind to guard the bodies and prepare a report.

VIII

We had travelled about a league through the woods.  Wherever other paths had crossed our own, we had stopped to call aloud; for Edmee, convinced that her father would not return home without finding her, had implored her companions to help her to rejoin him.  To this shouting the gendarmes had been very averse, as they were afraid of being discovered and attacked by bodies of the fugitives from Roche-Mauprat.  On our way they informed us that this den had been captured at the third assault.  Until then the assailants had husbanded their forces.  The officer in command of the gendarmes was anxious to get possession of the keep without destroying it; and, above all, to take the defenders alive.  This, however, was impossible on account of the desperate resistance they made.  The besiegers suffered so severely in their second attempt that they found themselves compelled to adopt extreme measures or to retreat.  They therefore set the outer buildings on fire, and in the ensuing assault put forth all their strength.  Two Mauprats were killed while fighting on the ruins of their bastion; the other five disappeared.  Six men were dispatched in pursuit of them in one direction, six in another.