"You cannot pass here," the officer in charge said, as Cuthbert produced his permit, "the island is still in the hands of the Communists, and the fire from their barricade across the bridge sweeps the street twenty yards farther on, and it would be certain death to show yourself there; besides, they are still in force beyond the Hotel de Ville. You can, of course, work round by the left, but I should strongly advise you to go no farther. There is desperate fighting going on in the Place de la Bastille. The insurgent batteries are shelling the Boulevards hotly, and, worst of all, you are liable to be shot from the upper windows and cellars. There are scores of those scoundrels still in the houses; there has been no time to unearth them yet, and a good many men have been killed by their fire." "Thank you, sir. I will take your advice," Cuthbert said. He found, indeed, that there was no seeing anything that was going on in the way of fighting without running great risks, and he accordingly made his way back to the Trocadero. Here he could see that a number of fires had broken out at various points since morning, even in the part of the town occupied by the troops; and though some of these might be caused by the Communists' shell it was more probable that they were the work of the incendiary. He had, indeed, heard from some of the citizens to whom he had spoken while at work at the pumps, that orders had been issued that all gratings and windows giving light to cellars, should be closed by wet sacks being piled against them, and should then be covered thickly with earth, as several women had been caught in the act of pouring petroleum into the cellars and then dropping lighted matches down upon it. These wretches had been shot instantly, but the fresh fires continually springing up showed that the work was still going on. It was strangely silent in the streets. With the exception of the sentries at every corner there were few persons indeed abroad. Many were looking from the windows, but few, indeed, ventured out. They knew not what orders had been given to the sentries and feared arrest were they to stir beyond their doors. Moreover, the occasional crash of a shell from the insurgent batteries, the whistling of bullets, and the frequent discharge of musket shots still kept up by groups of desperate Communists who had taken refuge in the houses, was sufficient alone to deter them from making any attempt to learn what was going on. But in the absence of footfalls in the street and of the sound of vehicles, the distant noises were strangely audible. The rustle of the flames at the Hotel de Ville and the great fires across the river, the crash of the falling roofs and walls, the incessant rattle of distant musketry, and the boom of cannon, formed a weird contrast to the silence that prevailed in the quarter. Cuthbert felt that he breathed more freely when he issued out again into the Champs Elysees.