In the scuffle, one of the guard fled,--the man who stood next to Deschwanden. A shout of rage burst from the victors, and they turned in pursuit. The man ran towards the great entrance, but it was blocked by an advancing crowd of people; he turned and fled round the quadrangle, with a score of pursuers at his heels. He tried the chapel door, but it was locked, then he doubled and fled towards the new buildings. As he ran up the steps, a dozen hands seized him. With a scream, so piercing that the walls of the great square echoed it again and again, he went down, and was literally hacked to pieces. This man was Beckhard, the gunner, who had produced the greatest havoc among the people by the discharges of the rampart gun near the gate. The excitement of the chase and the murder had arrested the attention of the mob. Madeleine and Nicholas had taken advantage of the incident to equip the corporal in the blue cloak and red cap of the girl, and to arm him with her rifle. 'Join us, quick!' she whispered; then aloud in her shrill tones: 'My friends! our brothers are languishing in these dungeons. Let our first act be their release!' 'To the dungeons!' was answered by the people. 'Lead off the prisoners,' ordered Élie; and the Swiss guard, minus their corporal and their gunner, were marched out of the citadel, which they had defended with so much gallantry. As they appeared in the streets, their turned coats saved them from being massacred by the people, for they were mistaken for prisoners who had just been liberated. Floods of excited besiegers continued to pour into the great court, and the invalids were exposed to imminent danger. Those who had brothers and fathers killed in the siege demanded their blood. They fell upon one of them,--the man Ferrand, who had prevented the governor from blowing up the citadel,--and killed him; then cut off his hands and carried them about on the end of pikes. The butchery of the rest would inevitably have followed, had not the Sieur Marqué, sergeant of the French guard, forced his way, followed by his company, through the mob into the quadrangle, and surrounded the invalids, shouting: 'Pardon, pardon for your comrades, your brothers!' These words met with an instant response, so versatile is a mob, and a lane was opened through the crowd to allow the twenty-two invalids, and eleven little Swiss children belonging to the foreign detachment, to leave the castle, escorted by the French guard, who continued to cry out as they advanced, 'The people have pardoned; open your ranks.' In the meantime, Cholat had hunted out De Launay, who stoutly denied that he was the governor. But Cholat knew him, and dragging him along, he called to Hullin and a couple of grenadiers to assist him in conveying him to the tribunal of the electors, to be by them judged.