Nevertheless the visitors' method of procedure pointed to a raid. Some form of battering ram, presumably the butt of a musket, was hastily applied to the door of the room. A very little hammering, and the portal fell inwards with a crash. As it was fastened on the outside only, the refugee was tickled at this evidence of local zeal. "If these individuals look into this cupboard I fear they will be very ungentle with me," he reflected, a pistol in either hand. "Let me see to it, in that case, that their numbers are somewhat reduced." But he had no need of his weapons; his ruse had been enough for these simple and enthusiastic souls. La Vireville heard a wild rush to the window and the (as he had hoped) convincing sheet; thereafter cries, stampings, curses, and voices proclaiming that the Chouan had escaped by the window, and that the woman Rozel, in league with him, had warned him. "Hardly the way that I should have put it!" thought the fugitive. And from that indictment of complicity to avenging action was but a step. "Arrest her! arrest her!" shouted several voices. And with a fresh rush down the stairs, with noise and loud talking from below, and what La Vireville half took to be a stifled scream, this was evidently accomplished. Five minutes had seen the development of the whole drama. (2) With the loud banging of the cottage door a great and signal silence fell upon the dwelling of the 'fisherman's widow,' even upon the cupboard upstairs and its occupant. For La Vireville was filled in the first place with an access of prudence which urged him to make no sound until he was tolerably sure that the house was really empty; in the second with a certain ironical satisfaction. Into a memory not over well stored with such literature had come the words of the Psalmist concerning such as dug a pit and fell into the midst of it themselves, and he stayed to savour them. Poor Mme. de Guéfontaine! she had paid dearly for her vengeful instincts. Moreover, in spite of the poetical justice which had overtaken her, she might have that revenge even yet. La Vireville was helpless, even in the empty house. Grain d'Orge would certainly not come till dusk, always supposing that he were free to come at all. Before his advent, too, the village authorities might return to search the house; it seemed strange, indeed, that they had not already done so.