A sort of panic seized upon the mob as it discovered its own losses, and for a moment it drew back in terror before this mysterious and fearful weapon, which slew, and slew--silent, untiring. A sudden stillness fell upon them as they contemplated that bloody stair--a stillness broken only by those groans and curses. Then some one shouted a sharp command, and a cloud of black smoke puffed into our faces, and the odor of burning straw. As I touched him on the arm, Pasdeloup, whose attention had been wholly concentrated on the stair, wheeled upon me, his club ready to strike. “Come!” I shouted in his ear. “Come!” And I motioned to the stair behind us. “M. le Comte,” he demanded, “where is he?” “He is safe,” I answered. “So are the women. Save yourself!” He glanced at the thickening smoke and sniffed the air with distended nostrils. “They are going to burn us out,” he said; and even as he spoke a tongue of yellow flame licked the bottom of the stair. Then the wounded wretches stretched upon it understood the fate in store for them. Their shrieks redoubled; but now there were prayers mingled with the curses. My heart turned sick within me as I looked at them. “Come!” I urged, and plucked at my companion’s sleeve. This time he nodded, and I sprang up the stair. He followed at my heels. “Here we are,” I said, and paused at the open window. He motioned me to precede him. I sprang to the sill, seized the cord and slid to the ground so rapidly that it burnt into my fingers; but I scarcely felt the pain. In a moment Pasdeloup stood beside me. “This way,” he said; and without an instant’s hesitation led the way toward a thicket near the tower. We plunged into it without stopping to look back and pushed our way forward until we came to a little eminence bare of trees. Here we paused to take breath. The dawn was just tinging the eastern sky, but across the cold, grey light there burst suddenly a mighty finger of flame. It was the tower, blazing like a monster torch; and I shuddered as I thought of the fate of the wretches who had perished there. CHAPTER XVI. THE TRAGEDY. PASDELOUP did not so much as glance at the blazing tower. He was gazing at the woods about us, scanning each thicket with eyes preternaturally bright. It was still too dark for me to discern anything in the smudge of shadow beneath the trees, but my companion seemed to labor under no such disability. I knew of course that he was searching for some trace of his master. “He said that he would wait for us at the edge of the wood,” I told him, “straight westward from the tower.” “We came that way,” said Pasdeloup gruffly. “It was there I thought to find him, but he was not there. I will go back again. Wait here for me.” In an instant he had disappeared beneath the trees so quietly that I did not hear so much as the rustle of a leaf. He melted into the forest; became a part of it.