"Well, well, what are you doing here?" she said. "Come, while they are killing him! When they have finished killing him, they will chase us!" The little gypsy's ghastly sang-froid horrified Mario. Reared amid scenes of violence and bloodshed, she hardly knew what fear meant, and had not the faintest conception of pity. But, by virtue of some swift sequence of ideas, Mario thought of Lauriane, and all the resolution of which a child is capable returned to his heart. He ran on once more, and, motioning to Pilar to take the lower road, turned into the road leading to the plateau of Le Chaumois. A few steps farther on he stumbled over an object which lay across the road. It was the second dead body which Aristandre had pointed out to him, but which they had not had time to examine. Feeling the body under him, Mario was bathed in cold perspiration; perhaps it was Adamas! He mustered courage to touch it, and having satisfied himself that the clothes were those of a peasant, he hurried forward. The sight of the pale sky over the bare fields made him breathe more freely; the darkness was stifling him. He took a bee-line across the fields, but a new terror awaited him there. A pale, indistinct form seemed to be flitting over the furrows. It came toward him. He tried to elude it, but it followed him. It was an animal of some sort chasing him. All the old women's tales about the white greyhound, and the imp that cries: "_Robert is dead_!" flashed through his mind. But of a sudden the beast neighed and came near enough to be recognized. It was Mario's dear little horse, which had scented him from afar and came to offer him his help. "Ah! my dear Coquet!" cried the child seizing his mane, "you come in the nick of time! and did you recognize me, poor fellow, in spite of these clothes, which you never saw? You were terribly frightened during that horrid battle, weren't you? You ran off at once, before they raised the bridge, and you were eating dry thistles here instead of your oats! Let us be off! we will both of us sup when we have time!" As he chattered thus to his horse, Mario rearranged the stirrups, which had suffered somewhat in the bushes. Then, having mounted, he rode away like an arrow. We will leave him for the moment and return to Briantes, where the plight of the besieged garrison causes us some anxiety. L When Mario and Aristandre arrived at Briantes, not a quarter of an hour had elapsed since the bandits had made their sudden appearance there. Lauriane was about sitting down to supper when she heard confused outcries and the report of firearms in the direction of the village--we might say, according to the custom in the province, the _bourg_, since the little settlement was fortified in very ancient times; but the old Gallo-Roman stone wall was demolished to the level of the ground in many places, and it was a long time since the people had ceased to incur the expense of maintaining gates.