ux Station. But she did not alarm herself. Every second was
weaving bonds around him that tied him down without his knowing it; and
it seemed to Marthe as though events had no other object than to make
her husband's departure impossible.

The resistance, meanwhile, was being organized. Swiftly, the riflemen
brought the bags of plaster, which the captain at once ordered to be
placed between every pair of balusters. Each of the bags was of the
height and width corresponding with the dimensions of the intervals and
left an empty space, a loop-hole, on either side. And old Morestal had
even had the forethought to match the colour of the sacking with that of
the parapet, so that it might not be suspected in the distance that
there was a defence behind which sharpshooters lay hidden.

On either side of the terrace, the wall surrounding the garden was the
object of similar cares. The captain ordered the soldiers to set out
bags at the foot of the wall so as to make the top accessible from the
inside.

But a sound of shouting recalled the captain to the drawing-room. The
gardener's son came tumbling down from his observatory, yelling:

"Saboureux's Farm is on fire! You can see the smoke! You can see the
flames!"

The captain leapt out on the terrace.

The smoke was whirling above the barn. Gleams kindled, faint as yet and
hesitating. And, suddenly, as though set free, the flames shot up in
angry spirals. The wind at once beat them down again. The roof of the
house took fire. And, in a few minutes, it was a violent flare,
accompanied by the quick blaze of the rotten beams, the dry thatch, the
trusses of hay and straw heaped up by the hundred in the barn and in the
sheds.

"To work!" shouted the captain, gleefully. "The Col du Diable is blocked
by the flames.... They'll last for quite fifteen or twenty minutes ...
and the enemy have no other road...."

His excitement communicated itself to the men. Not one of them broke
down beneath the weight of the bags, heavy though these were. The
captain posted the non-commissioned officers at regular intervals, so
that his orders could be passed on from the terrace to every end of the
property.

Lieutenant Fabregues came up. The materials were beginning to fall short
and the lofty wall remained inaccessible to the marksmen in several
places.

Mme. Morestal behaved like a heroine:

"Take the furniture, captain, the chairs, the tables. Break them up, if
necessary.... Burn them