Thus encouraging her child, the Marquise led the way to the bed-chamber they jointly occupied, a plainly-furnished room, of which the only ornament was the Prince-Marshal’s portrait, already mentioned as having occupied the place of honour in Madame’s _boudoir_ at the Hôtel Montmirail. Both women glanced at it as they entered the apartment. Then the Marquise, laying down the oblong box she carried, carefully shaded the night-lamp that burned by her bedside, and peered stealthily from the window to reconnoitre. “Four, six, ten,” said she, calmly, “besides their leader, a tall, big negro, very like Hippolyte. It _is_ Hippolyte. _You_ at least, my friend, will not leave this house alive! I can hardly miss so fair a mark as those broad black shoulders. This of course is the _corps d’élite_. Those at the back of the house I do not regard so much. The kitchen door is strong, and they will do nothing if their champions are repulsed. Courage again, my child! All is not lost yet. Open that box and help me to load my pistols. Strange, that I should have practised with them for years, only to beat Madame de Sabran, and now to-night we must both trust our safety to a true eye and a steady hand!” Pale, tearless, and collected, Cerise obeyed. Her mother, drawing the weapons from their case, wiped them with her delicate handkerchief, and proceeded to charge them carefully, and with a preoccupied air, like a mother preparing medicine for a child. Holding the ramrod between her beautiful white teeth, while her delicate and jewelled fingers shook the powder into the pan, she explained to Cerise the whole mystery of loading and priming the deadly weapons. She would thus, as she observed, always have one barrel in reserve. The younger woman listened attentively. Her lip was steady, though her hand shook, and now that the worst was come she showed that peculiar quality of race which is superior to the common fighting courage possessed indiscriminately by all classes—the passive concentrated firmness, which can take every advantage so long as a chance is left, and die without a word at last, when hope gives place to the resignation of despair. She even pointed out to her mother, that by half closing the shutter, the Marquise, herself unseen, could command the approach to the front door. Then taking a crucifix from her bosom, she pressed it to her lips, and said, “I am ready now, mamma. I am calm. I can do anything you tell me. Kiss me once more, dear, as you used when I was a child. And if we _must_ die, it will not seem so hard to die together.” The Marquise answered by a long clinging embrace, and then the two women sat them down in the gloomy shadows of their chamber, haggard, tearless, silent, watching for the near approach of a merciless enemy armed with horrors worse than death. CHAPTER XXXVI AT BAY