"No, no!"
"Do as I tell thee. Be still." She caught the boy to her, and fell
into a chair, sobbing. The marquis called to the quaking majordomo:
"Take those two candelabra. Set them at the foot of the staircase--the
foot." The old servant obeyed without words. The marquis went by him.
He seemed to have forgotten Francois, who glanced at Mme. Renee and
followed the master of the house.
There had been a moment's lull outside. The double stairway swept down
to a landing, and then in one noble descent to the great deserted hall,
where the faded portraits of lord and lady looked down among armor and
trophies of war and chase.
"Put those lights there--and there. Get two more--quick! Set them on
the brackets below. One must see. Put out the lights in the
drawing-room. What, you here yet, Master Thief? What the devil are you
doing here? The deuce!" As he spoke they were standing together on the
broad landing, before them the great stair which led down to the
illuminated hall below. The marquis had meant to meet these people
outside; he was quiet, cool, the master of many resources. Surprised at
the suddenness of the outbreak, he still counted, with the courage of
habit, on his personal influence and address. As the marquis spoke, the
roar without broke forth anew. A shower of stones clattered on door and
wall and window with sharp crash and tinkle of breaking glass. It was
followed by an indescribable tumult--shouts, laughter, the shrill voices
of women, a multitudinous appeal to fear, ominous, such as no man could
hear unmoved. The animal we call a mob was there--the thing of moods,
like a madman, now destructive, now as a brute brave, now timid as a
house-fly.
They beat on the great doors, and of a sudden seemed to discover that
the servants, in flying, had not secured them. The doors gave way, and
those in front were hurled into the hall by the pressure of those
behind. In an instant it was half full of peasants armed with all
manner of rude weapons. A dozen had torches of sheep's wool wrapped
about pitchforks and soaked with tar. Their red flames flared up, with
columns above of thick smoke. There were women, lads. None had
muskets. Some looked about them, curious. Those without shouted and
pressed to get in; but this was no longer easy. A few of the boldest
began to move up the lower steps of the great staircase. At the landing
above, in partial obscurity, stood the marquis and Francois. On the
next rise behind them were Mme. Renee and her boy, unnoticed, unwilling
to be left alone. The stairway and all above it were darker than the
red-lighted hall, where ravage was imminent. A man struck with a
butcher's mallet a suit of armor. It rang with the blow, and fell with
clang and rattle, hurting a boy, who screamed. The butcher leaped on
the pedestal and yelled, waving one of the iron gauntlets. They who
hesitated, leaderless, at the foot of the dark ascent turned at the
sound of the tumbled past.