At one time and within sight,
three or four houses were being stormed. On every side rose
heart-rending cries, mingled with brutal laughter, with savage jests,
with cries of "To the river!" The most cruel of cities had burst its
bounds and was not to be stayed; nor would be stayed until the Seine ran
red to the sea, and leagues below, in pleasant Normandy hamlets, men, for
fear of the pestilence, pushed the corpses from the bridges with poles
and boat-hooks.
All this Tignonville saw, though his eyes, leaping the turmoil, looked
only to the door at which he had left Mademoiselle a few hours earlier.
There a crowd of men pressed and struggled; but from the spot where he
stood he could see no more. That was enough, however. Rage nerved him,
and despair; his world was dying round him. If he could not save her he
would avenge her. Recklessly he plunged into the tumult; blade in hand,
with vigorous blows he thrust his way through, his white sleeve and the
white cross in his hat gaining him passage until he reached the fringe of
the band who beset the door. Here his first attempt to pass failed; and
he might have remained hampered by the crowd, if a squad of archers had
not ridden up. As they spurred to the spot, heedless over whom they
rode, he clutched a stirrup, and was borne with them into the heart of
the crowd.
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