the same moment, there was a rush for the drawbridge, but we
were too quick for them; it was up and fast before they knew it. Count
Saxe then turned to Mademoiselle Capello, and offering her his hand as
if he were at the king's levee, said:

"Mademoiselle, permit me to conduct you to a place of comfort--I will
not say safety, for all is safe here; the walls are nine feet thick
and our friends, the Russians, have nothing but musketry."

Francezka's face grew very pale, but her eyes did not falter. Her
courage was in truth greater than Madame Riano's, for madame loved
battle; Francezka did not love it, neither did she fear it.

She accepted Count Saxe's hand, and he led her across the courtyard
and up the stairway, where she disappeared within the door, first
making a curtsy to us all as well as to Count Saxe.

My master came down the stairway three steps at a time.

"The Russians are but poor tacticians," he said, "or they would never
have freed us from Peggy Kirkpatrick. As it is, we must not be
captured with this fair girl among us. Fancy what story of it would go
forth to the world. No; we must save her or die with her."

"Yes," repeated Gaston Cheverny, standing near us, "we must save her
or die with her."

For, in spite of Count Saxe's reassuring words to Mademoiselle
Capello, that was really the sum of it. The Russians had begun a heavy
fusillade which, in truth, was no more than hail against our nine feet
of stone walls. Could we but exist without ammunition and food, and
could we do without sleep, we twenty men could laugh at the eight
hundred Russians. But, unluckily, men must eat and sleep. I was
turning this over in my mind while our men were replying briskly out
of the loopholes--and with effect, for soon cries went up to the
heavens; our bullets had found their billets. At the first sight of
blood the Russians howled like hungry wolves. I believe they would
have torn us limb from limb could they have caught us. There is
nothing on earth more horrible, or more terrifying, than a great and
loud cry for blood.

I, Babache, a soldier from my fourteenth year, trembled behind nine
feet of stone, at this yell from the beast in man. Nor is it without
its effect on the most seasoned soldiers. They, the common men, laugh
at it at first, but it soon penetrates to the marrow of their bones,
and they perform miracles of valor under the spur of _fear_--for it is
as often fear as courage that drives a storming pa