evese saw this, rallied in their turn, and for a moment seemed to be
holding their own. But three or four of their doughtiest fighters lay
stark in the kennel, they had no longer a leader, they were poorly armed
and hastily collected; and devoted as they were, it needed little to
renew the panic and start them in utter rout. Basterga saw this, and
when his men still hung back, neglecting the golden opportunity, he
rushed forward, almost alone, until he stood conspicuous between the two
bands--the one hesitating to come on, the other hesitating to fly.

"Savoy!" he thundered, "Ville gagnee! The city is ours! Cowards, come
on!" And waving his halberd above his head, he beckoned to his followers
to advance.

Had they done so, had they charged on the instant, they had changed all
for him, and perhaps all for Geneva. But they hung a moment, and the
next, as in shame they drew themselves together for the charge, their
champion stooped forward with a shrill scream. The next instant he
received full on his nape a heavy iron pot, that descending with
tremendous force from a window above him, rolled from him broken into
three pieces.

He went down under the blow as if a sledge-hammer had struck him; and so
sudden, so dramatic was the fall--his armour clanging about him--that
for an instant the two bands held their hands and stood staring, as
indifferent crowds stand and gaze in the street. A dozen on the
patriots' side knew the house from which the _marmite_ fell, and marked
it; and half as many saw at the small window whence it came the grey
locks and stern wrinkled face of an aged woman. The effect on the
burghers was magical. As if the act symbolised not only the loved ones
for whom they fought, but the dire distress to which they were come,
they rushed on the foreign men-at-arms with a spirit and a fury hitherto
unknown. With a ringing shout of "Mere Royaume! Mere Royaume!"--raised
by those who knew the old woman, and taken up by many who did not--they
swept the foe, shaken by the fall of their leader, along the narrow
Tertasse, pressed on them, and, still shouting the new war-cry, entered
the gateway along with them.

"Mere Royaume! Mere Royaume!" The name rang savagely in the groining of
the arch, echoed dully in the obscurity in which the fierce struggle
went on. And men struck to its rhythm, and men died to it. And men who
heard it thus and lived never forgot it, nor ever went back in their
minds to that night without