During this desperate struggle, which, however, had lasted barely ten minutes, Lauriane and Mercedes at first stood, silent and trembling, on the platform of the tower of the _huisset_. When they saw their people give way, being simultaneously inspired by the courage which fear imparts to the weak when they are not idiots, they ran to the falconets, which were always ready to be discharged. They hurriedly lighted the matches, and held themselves in readiness to fire, encouraging each other, and trying to remember what they had seen Mario and the other young men of the household taught to do by way of practice. But it was not yet possible to fire on the enemy, they were so inextricably mingled with the defenders of the château. But what was Adamas doing at that supreme moment? Adamas was in the bowels of the earth. The reader will remember hearing of a secret passage, by means of which Lucilio's escape was to be effected, in case of need. This passage passed under the moat and led to a sunken road which had been filled with gravel by the freshets of the last few years. Adamas had imagined that to clear the opening would require only a few hours' labor on the part of his ditchers. But the damage was more extensive than he supposed, and in three days they had not succeeded in making the passage practicable. He went every evening to see what had been done during the day, and he was buried there during the battle, making his daily inspection, taking measurements, without the slightest suspicion of the tumult that reigned out-of-doors. When he emerged from his hole, the entrance to which was under the staircase in the turret, he was like a drunken man for some moments and believed that he was dreaming; but, being a man of expedients, he speedily recovered his presence of mind. He arrived just at the moment when the besieged fell back into the courtyard and the enemy were on the point of forcing their way in as well, everyone having lost his head. Active and always well shod, like the true _homme de chambre_ that he was, he gave but one bound to the tower of the _huisset_ and dropped the portcullis in the face of the assailants, and, in fact, on the backs of some of them, so that the base of that instrument of exclusion did not reach the ground. He discovered it in time. "Clindor!" he shouted to the bewildered page, who was preparing to close the gates behind the portcullis, "stay, stay! What's the reason that the portcullis doesn't fall? I still have a foot of it above the groove." Clindor, who was not very brave, although he did his utmost to be, looked and recoiled in horror. "I should think so," he said, "there are three men under it!" "_Numes célestes_! our men! Look, I say, you triple sucking calf!" "No, no, theirs."