to Voban's house. It was level with the ground, a crumpled heap of
ruins. I passed Lancy's house, in front of which I had fought with
Gabord; it too was broken to pieces.

As I turned away I heard a loud noise, as of an explosion, and I
supposed it to be some magazine. I thought of it no more at the
time. Voban must be found; that was more important. I must know
of Alixe first, and I felt sure that if any one guessed her
whereabouts it would be he: she would have told him where she was
going, if she had fled; if she were dead, who so likely to know,
this secret, elusive, vengeful watcher? Of Doltaire I had heard
nothing; I would seek him out when I knew of Alixe. He could not
escape me in this walled town. I passed on for a time without
direction, for I seemed not to know where I might find the barber.
Our sentries already patrolled the streets, and our bugles were
calling on the heights, with answering calls from the fleet in
the basin. Night came down quickly, the stars shone out in the
perfect blue, and, as I walked along, broken walls, shattered
houses, solitary pillars, looked mystically strange. It was
painfully quiet, as if a beaten people had crawled away into the
holes our shot and shell had made, to hide their misery. Now and
again a gaunt face looked out from a hiding-place, and drew back
again in fear at sight of me. Once a drunken woman spat at me and
cursed me; once I was fired at; and many times from dark corners
I heard voices crying, "Sauvez-moi--ah, sauvez-moi, bon Dieu!"
Once I stood for many minutes and watched our soldiers giving
biscuits and their own share of rum to homeless French peasants
hovering round the smouldering ruins of a house which carcasses had
destroyed.