It was not till after noon next day that the sound of distant firing broke on the expectant ears of the occupants of the château. It was no guide to events. The afternoon wore on, and still there was nothing to tell them how Fate was balancing her scales. The peasants prayed at their idle posts, and sang the litanies of the Virgin—for it was the vigil of the Assumption—the Marquis and Louis craned their necks out of such portions of the south windows as were not barricaded, but they could see nothing in the leafy country. “News of some kind must have got to Chantonnay by now,” said Gilbert about four o’clock. “I will send out a couple of men.” Louis caught at his arm. “Listen . . . in the avenue! Don’t you hear?” They ran down the stairs and emerged by a little door—the great door was barricaded—into the avenue front. The sentinels there, as eager as themselves, were staring at the two horsemen who were tearing towards them under the trees. One of the riders was swaying in the saddle, and when he got near enough they saw that blood was trickling from his open and gasping mouth. His reins were in the grasp of his companion, in whom, as he pulled up, the cousins recognised one of Forestier’s officers. “Routed!” he cried in a high voice, and the wounded man pitched forward on to his horse’s neck. “What!” cried Gilbert. “My God! it can’t be!” “Utterly!” gasped the rider. “It was that accursed open plain . . . the centre gave first, then the right. All the guns are captured but two . . . we have lost thousands . . . thousands. . . .” He could say no more, but getting off his horse and staggering to the perron, sank down on it and sobbed aloud. Beside him the sentries were laying his companion. Louis stooped over him. “Dead,” he said briefly. “Well, Gilbert?” The Marquis raised his head. “We must hold it _now_,” he said very quietly, and their hands met for an instant. But so thorough had been Gilbert’s dispositions from the first that there was nothing more to do except to be on the alert. At sunset came in another fugitive who reported that Charette, having covered La Rochejaquelein’s retreat, was said to be falling back on Chantonnay. Dusk was falling before a sudden little burst of musketry in the direction of the village warned the defenders. A little later the Marquis, guessing at the presence of sharpshooters on the avenue side—the light was too bad to be sure—gave the order to fire from the Marquise’s bedroom, in which, as the largest room on the first floor, he had ensconced himself. A minute or two afterwards an answering crash of glass along the front of the house showed his surmise to be correct. “What a glazier’s bill!” ejaculated Louis, laughing. “My poor aunt—if she only knew!” He bit at a fresh cartridge, for, happening to be in the room, he was firing with the rest.