ns of the Seille, the rays of the
moon were streaming like a river of pale light. The clumps of trees, the
gloomy rocks, looked, here and there, like islets and tongues of land,
emerging from a luminous sea; and, according to the bends of the Viorne
one could now and again distinguish detached portions of the river,
glittering like armour amidst the fine silvery dust falling from the
firmament. It all looked like an ocean, a world, magnified by the
darkness, the cold, and their own secret fears. At first the gentlemen
could neither hear nor see anything. The quiver of light and of distant
sound blinded their eyes and confused their ears. Granoux, though he
was not naturally poetic, was struck by the calm serenity of that winter
night, and murmured: "What a beautiful night, gentlemen!"

"Roudier was certainly dreaming," exclaimed Rougon, rather disdainfully.

But the marquis, whose ears were quick, had begun to listen. "Ah!" he
observed in his clear voice, "I hear the tocsin."

At this they all leant over the parapet, holding their breath. And light
and pure as crystal the distant tolling of a bell rose from the plain.
The gentlemen could not deny it. It was indeed the tocsin. Rougon
pretended that he recognised the bell of Beage, a village fully a league
from Plassans. This he said in order to reassure his colleagues.

But the marquis interrupted him. "Listen, listen: this time it is the
bell of Saint-Maur." And he indicated another point of the horizon to
them. There was, in fact, a second bell wailing through the clear night.
And very soon there were ten bells, twenty bells, whose despairing
tollings were detected by their ears, which had by this time grown
accustomed to the quivering of the darkness. Ominous calls rose from all
sides, like the faint rattles of dying men. Soon the whole plain seemed
to be wailing. The gentlemen no longer jeered at Roudier; particularly
as the marquis, who took a malicious delight in terrifying them, was
kind enough to explain the cause of all this bell-ringing.

"It is the neighbouring villages," he said to Rougon, "banding together
to attack Plassans at daybreak."

At this Granoux opened his eyes wide. "Didn't you see something just
this moment over there?" he asked all of a sudden.

Nobody had looked; the gentlemen had been keeping their eyes closed in
order to hear the better.

"Ah! look!" he resumed after a short pause. "There, beyond the Viorne,
near that black mass."