Bavois looked with all his eyes, but from where he was standing he could discover only a confused group of moving figures.

“I would like to see the poor man,” he said, sadly.

“Come nearer, my good fellow; fear nothing!”

He stepped forward, and by the flickering light of the candle which Marie-Anne held, he saw a spectacle which moved him more than the horrors of the bloodiest battle-field.

The baron was lying upon the ground, his head supported on Mme. d’Escorval’s knee.

His face was not disfigured; but he was pale as death itself, and his eyes were closed.

At intervals a convulsive shudder shook his frame, and a stream of blood gushed from his mouth.  His clothing was hacked—­literally hacked in pieces; and it was easy to see that his body had sustained many frightful wounds.

Kneeling beside the unconscious man, Abbe Midon, with admirable dexterity, was stanching the blood and applying bandages which had been torn from the linen of those present.

Maurice and one of the officers were assisting him.  “Ah! if I had my hands on the scoundrel who cut the rope,” cried the corporal, in a passion of indignation; “but patience.  I shall have him yet.”

“Do you know who it was?”

“Only too well!”

He said no more.  The abbe had done all it was possible to do, and he now lifted the wounded man a little higher on Mme. d’Escorval’s knee.

This change of position elicited a moan that betrayed the unfortunate baron’s intense sufferings.  He opened his eyes and faltered a few words—­they were the first he had uttered.

“Firmin!” he murmured, “Firmin!” It was the name of the baron’s former secretary, a man who had been absolutely devoted to his master, but who had been dead for several years.  It was evident that the baron’s mind was wandering.  Still he had some vague idea of his terrible situation, for in a stifled, almost inaudible voice, he added: 

“Oh! how I suffer!  Firmin, I will not fall into the hands of the Marquis de Courtornieu alive.  You shall kill me rather—­do you hear me?  I command it.”

This was all; then his eyes closed again, and his head fell back a dead weight.  One would have supposed that he had yielded up his last sigh.

Such was the opinion of the officers; and it was with poignant anxiety they drew the abbe a little aside.

“Is it all over?” they asked.  “Is there any hope?”

The priest sadly shook his head, and pointing to heaven: 

“My hope is in God!” he said, reverently.

The hour, the place, the terrible catastrophe, the present danger, the threatening future, all combined to lend a deep solemnity to the words of the priest.

So profound was the impression that, for more than a minute, these men, familiar with peril and scenes of horror, stood in awed silence.

Maurice, who approached, followed by Corporal Bavois, brought them back to the exigencies of the present.