t ... is
worth two, any day."

"Pass me one of them rifles," said the gardener's son. "I know my way
about with 'em."

Duvauchel began to laugh:

"You too, sonnie? You want one? You'll see, the babes at the breast will
be rising up next, like the others. Lord, but it makes my blood boil to
think that they're in France!"

All followed the captain, who allotted them a post along the parapet.
The women busied themselves in placing ammunition within reach of the
marksmen.

Marthe was left alone with her husband. She saw that the scene had
stirred him. In the way in which those decent folk realized their duty
and performed it without being compelled to, simply and spontaneously,
there was that sort of greatness which touches a man to the very depths
of his soul.

She said to him:

"Well, Philippe?"

His face was drawn; he did not reply.

She continued:

"Well, go.... What are you waiting for? No one will notice your
flight.... Be quick.... Take the opportunity while it's here...."

They heard the captain addressing his lieutenant:

"Keep down your head, Fabregues, can't you? They'll see you, if you're
not careful...."

Marthe seized Philippe's arm and, bending towards him:

"Now confess that you can't go ... that all this upsets your notions ...
and that your duty is here ... that you feel it."

"There they are! There they are!" said a voice.

"Yes," said Captain Daspry, searching the road through the orifice of a
loop-hole, "yes, there they are!... At six hundred yards, at most ...
It's the vanguard.... They are skirting the pool and they haven't a
notion that ..."

A sergeant came to tell him that the enemy had hoisted a gun on the
slope of the pass. The officer was alarmed, but old Morestal began to
laugh:

"Let them bring up as many guns as they please!... They can only take up
positions which we command and which I have noted. A few good marksmen
are enough to keep them from placing a battery."

And, turning to his son, he said to him, quite naturally, as though
nothing had ever parted them:

"Are you coming, Philippe? We'll demolish them between us."

Captain Daspry interfered:

"Don't fire! We are not discovered yet. Wait till I give the order....
There'll be time enough later...."

Old Morestal had moved away.

Philippe walked resolutely towards the gate that led to the garden, to
the open country. But he had not taken ten steps, when he stopped. He
seemed to be vaguely suffering; a