I looked away from them with tear-dimmed eyes down at that mob of savages. She had spoken truly--after all, their power for evil was limited to that: they could destroy the future, but they could not touch the past. And I remembered that I also had a past which was very sweet--a past not long as men count time, spanning indeed but a few short hours--and yet to memory an eternity! “What are those men about?” asked a voice at my elbow, and Mlle. de Chambray pointed down at a group which had drawn a little apart from the rest. They stood near the foot of the tower and seemed to be staring up at us, though in the darkness I could not be certain. Suddenly one of them whirled about his head some object which burst into a ring of flame. Then he hurled it up toward us. “The fools!” said M. le Comte, with a laugh, “what can they hope to accomplish?” As though in answer to the words there came from beneath our feet a rending crash, a sharp report, and a stream of acrid smoke poured up the stairway from the room below. CHAPTER XIII. THE UNFOLDING OF THE DRAMA. INSTINCTIVELY I had caught my companion to me to shield her from the shock, and we stood an instant so with bated breath. Then a fierce chorus of exulting yells startled us back to action. “A grenade!” cried M. le Comte, and started for the stair. But Pasdeloup hurled himself before him down the stair, through that choking cloud of smoke. We were at his heels, and when we reached the floor below I saw him tearing down the tinder-dry tapestry, which was blazing fiercely. In a moment we had stamped out the flames upon the torn and splintered floor. “They must not do that a second time,” said M. le Comte when the danger was past. “I thought the windows were shuttered.” Pasdeloup went quickly to the window through which the bomb had come. “This shutter is swinging loose,” he said, and leaned coolly out to secure it. A chorus of hoarse yells greeted him and a spatter of musket shots. I heard the bullets clipping the stones about him; but he heeded them not at all and pulled the heavy shutter into place and secured it with careful deliberation. “We must look to the others,” he said calmly when that was done, and himself made the circuit of the other windows to assure himself that the shutters were in place. “Bring down the candle, Tavernay,” said M. le Comte. “We must see what damage has been done here.” Not until it blazed up from the spark which Pasdeloup struck into it did I suspect that he was injured. Then, as the flame burned clearly, I perceived a smear of blood across his face. “Not wounded, Pasdeloup?” cried M. le Comte, whose eyes had been caught by the same red stain.