An officer of savage and insolent mien advanced alone towards the chariot and addressed to the women some words in the Latin tongue which the soldiers received with roars of revolting laughter. My mother, calm, pale, and terrible, exhorted the young women around her to maintain their self-control. Then the Roman, adding a word or two, closed with an obscene gesture. Margarid happened at that moment to have in her hand a heavy axe. So straight at the officer's head she hurled it, that he reeled and fell. His fall was the signal for the attack. The legionaries pressed forward to the capture of the chariot. Then the women rushed to the scythes, which on each side defended the cart, and plied them with such vigor and harmony, that the Romans, seeing a great number of their men killed or disabled, conceived a wholesome fear for such terrible arms, so intrepidly plied. They suspended the attack, and, applying their long lances after the fashion of crow-bars, succeeded, without approaching too near, in shattering the handles of the scythes. This safeguard demolished, a new attack commenced. The issue was not doubtful. While the scythes were falling under the blows of the soldiers, my mother hurriedly said a few words to Martha and Henory. The two, with a look of pride and determination on their faces, ran towards the cover which sheltered the children. Margarid also spoke to the young childless women, and they, as well as the young girls, took and piously kissed her hands. At that moment, the last scythes fell. Margarid seized a sword in one hand and a white cloth in the other. She stepped to the front of the chariot, waved the white cloth, and threw away the sword, as if to announce to the enemy that all the women wished to give themselves up. The soldiers, at first astonished at the proposed surrender, answered with laughs of ironical consent. Margarid seemed to be awaiting a signal. Twice she impatiently cast her eyes toward the shelter, where the two women had gone. Evidently, as the signal she seemed to wait for was not given, she was trying to distract the enemy's attention, and again waved her cloth, pointing alternately to the town of Vannes and to the sea.