rdered a detachment of his company to set about quenching the fire, a
matter in which they succeeded after some two hours of arduous labour.

Meanwhile, leaving the main body bivouacked in the courtyard, he entered
the Chateau with a score of men, and came upon the ten gentlemen still
standing in the shambles that the grand staircase presented. With the
Marquis de Bellecour the Captain had a brief and not over courteous
interview. He informed the nobleman that he was acting under the orders
of a Commissioner, who had heard at Amiens, that evening, of the attack
that was to be made upon Bellecour. Not unnaturally the Marquis was
mistrustful of the ends which that Commissioner, whoever he might be,
looked to serve by so unusual an act. Far better did it sort with
the methods of the National Convention and its members to leave the
butchering of aristocrats to take its course. He sought information
at the Captain's hands, but the officer was reticent to the point of
curtness, and so, their anxiety but little relieved, since it might seem
that they had but escaped from Scylla to be engulfed in Charbydis, the
aristocrats at Bellecour spent the night in odious suspense. Those that
were tending the wounded had perhaps the best of it, since thus their
minds were occupied and saved the torture of speculation.

The proportion of slain was mercifully small: of twenty that had fallen
it was found that but six were dead, the others being more or less
severely hurt. Conspicuous among the men that remained, and perhaps the
bravest of them all was old Des Cadoux. He had recovered his snuff-box,
than which there seemed to be nothing of greater importance in the
world, and he moved from group to group with here a jest and there a
word of encouragement, as seemed best suited to those he addressed.
Of the women, Mademoiselle de Bellecour and her sharp tongued mother,
showed certainly the most undaunted fronts.

Suzanne had not seen her betrothed since the fight upon the stairs. But
she was told that he was unhurt, and that he was tending a cousin of his
who had been severely wounded in the head.

It was an hour or so after sunrise when he sought her out, and they
stood in conversation together--a very jaded pair--looking down from one
of the windows upon the stalwart blue-coats that were bivouacked in the
quadrangle.

Suddenly on the still morning air came the sound of hoof-beats, and as
they looked they espied a man in a cocked hat and