An hour passed, and then a flame sprang up from a house and outbuildings in the valley, lighting up the ground around and showing that a great crowd was gathered on the road there.

“How many should you say there were, MacIntosh?”

“I should put them at four or five thousand.”

“Yes, they are certainly not short of four thousand.  What wild looking figures!  They are just the same in appearance as those who attacked Madame de Blenfoix’s chateau.  See, they are lighting torches, and I expect they mean to make an attack at once.  Their guns are with that group in the rear of the others; at any rate they will not be of any use in assisting them to make their way up this road.  They are evidently working themselves up to a state of madness.  There are half a dozen fellows addressing them from various points.”

The men who had been brought down to guard the intrenchments at the head of the road were all armed with muskets, and carried in addition long pikes.  Presently a roar of shouts and yells was heard, and then there was a rush on the part of the crowd towards the foot of the long ascent.

Hector moved to the place where the tenants were posted.

“Do not hurl a single stone down until I give you the word, nor light the cressets; the torches they carry will be quite sufficient for us to make them out, and the attack will be all the more successful if it comes as a surprise.”

Then he returned to the breastwork.  The men here had been posted by MacIntosh eight abreast.  When the head of the column of insurgents were halfway up the hill they opened a scattered fire; they had armed themselves with the muskets they had taken from the troops.

“Their guns will be of little use to them, for few of them can ever have had firearms in their hands before; do not fire a shot, MacIntosh, until I give the order.  It is clear that someone must have told them that we have thrown up this intrenchment today, or they would not have wasted their ammunition.”

Not a shot was fired until the leaders of the peasants were within forty yards.  Up to this time no torches had been shown in the intrenchments, but now these were suddenly brought forward, and Hector, in his helmet and body armour, mounted on to the breastwork.  The head of the column paused on seeing a row of levelled muskets and three rows of pikes forming a hedge of steel.

“My men,” Hector shouted in a loud clear voice, “halt, I beseech you, before harm comes to you!  I know that you have sore grievances, I know that you and your wives and families are well nigh famishing, but how do you think that you will better your condition by assaulting castles and burning down chateaux?  You are but preparing labour for yourselves and heaping up fresh imposts on your own heads, for it is you who will have to rebuild them, it is you who will have to pay for the damage that you have done.  At any rate, none can say