Cautiously we approached the corner, sword in hand. Whatever it was, however formidable, we must have it out--we could run no risk of being taken in the rear. The great, draped bed loomed through the darkness, sinister and threatening. The sounds came from within it. As I stared with starting eyes I fancied I could see the curtains quiver, as though the Thing behind them was trembling with eagerness to spring upon us. “A light! We must have a light!” cried M. le Comte, stamping his feet in an agony of impatience. “God’s blood! What is it, Tavernay?” Gripping my teeth to restrain their chattering, I advanced to the bed and jerked down the rotting curtains. They fell in a suffocating shower of dust; yet even then I could see nothing of what lay behind. But the noise had ceased. Then suddenly beside me rose a phantom, which, even as I drew back my arm to strike, seized my wrist and held it in a grip of steel. “Not so fast, monsieur,” said a hoarse voice. “Pasdeloup!” I cried. “Pasdeloup! Was it you, then?” But Pasdeloup had already turned to his master. “I have a rope, M. le Comte,” he said simply. “A rope! A rope! But where did you get it, Pasdeloup?” “From the bed. Oh, I had trouble enough loosening those knots! They had been tightened by I know not what weight! The people who lay in that bed were giants! And at the end I thought it would be too late. But it is not--it is not! Come--there is yet a chance!” He started for the stair, and at the same instant there came from below a crash of falling stone and a chorus of exultant yells. “They have broken through!” said M. le Comte. “They will be upon us in a moment! Tavernay, to you I confide my wife, and to you, Pasdeloup! Hasten! Hasten! I will keep them back;” and he took his station at the stair-head. Without a word Pasdeloup threw the rope to me, sprang to the corner where the bed stood, and with a single jerk ripped off one of the heavy posts, tipped with iron; then pushing his master aside, roughly and yet tenderly, he seized for himself the post of danger from which there could be no retreat. “Go, messieurs!” he cried. “Go quickly! There is yet time!” We stood uncertain. It seemed such a cowardly thing to run away, leaving this man to face that frenzied mob--to abandon him, to permit him to lay down his life for us--such a cowardly thing! He glanced around to see us still standing there. “Not gone!” he cried furiously. “Body of God! Are we all to die, then--and the women, too? Fools! Cowards!” “He is right,” said M. le Comte hoarsely. “He is right, Tavernay--it is cowardice holds us here! We must go if we would save the women. Pasdeloup,” he said, “I thank thee. I honor thee. Thou art a better man than I!” “Go, monsieur!--go!” urged Pasdeloup. “I am paying my debt. My life has been yours any time these twenty years. It is nothing. Go!”