rain. The red leaves were blown in millions by the wind. The little
houses on either side the road were dark, for the dwellers in them dared
not show any light that might be a star to allure to them the footsteps
of their foes. Bernadou sat with his arms on the table, and his head
resting on them. Margot nursed her son. Reine Allix prayed.

Suddenly in the street without there was the sound of many feet of
horses and of men, the shouting of angry voices, the splashing of quick
steps in the watery ways, the screams of women, the flash of steel
through the gloom. Bernadou sprang to his feet, his face pale, his blue
eyes dark as night. "They are come!" he said, under his breath. It was
not fear that he felt, nor horror; it was rather a passion of love for
his birthplace and his nation--a passion of longing to struggle and to
die for both. And he had no weapon!

He drew his house-door open with a steady hand, and stood on his own
threshold and faced these his enemies. The street was full of them, some
mounted, some on foot; crowds of them swarmed in the woods and on the
roads. They had settled on the village as vultures on a dead lamb's
body. It was a little, lowly place; it might well have been left in
peace. It had had no more share in the war than a child still unborn,
but it came in the victors' way, and their mailed heel crushed it as
they passed. They had heard that arms were hidden and francs-tireurs
sheltered there, and they had swooped down on it and held it hard and
fast. Some were told off to search the chapel; some to ransack the
dwellings; some to seize such food and bring such cattle as there might
be left; some to seek out the devious paths that crossed and recrossed
the fields; and yet there remained in the little street hundreds of
armed men, force enough to awe a citadel or storm a breach.