And he laughed--laughed. Such laughter, I hope not to hear again. “Against my father! She thinks, I suppose, that he is stronger than I!” His face was not a pleasant sight to see as he uttered the words. But suddenly it seemed to be transformed and to glow with unearthly beauty. “She is afraid for me!” he said, softly. “And I--I am afraid for her--only for her. And I do not know my father. And, God help me! I do not know my mother!” At that moment the sound of a shot rang out on the night, followed by a cry of mortal agony! Ah, it was again the cry that I had heard two years ago in the “inexplicable gallery.” My hair rose on my scalp and Rouletabille tottered as though the bullet had struck himself. And then he bounded toward the open window, filling the fortress with a despairing burst of anguish: “Mother! Mother! Mother!” CHAPTER XI THE ATTACK OF THE SQUARE TOWER I leaped after him and threw my arms around his body, dreading what he might attempt. There was in that cry, “Mother! Mother! Mother!” such a madness of despair, a call, or rather, an assurance of coming aid so beyond the realization of human strength, that I was obliged to fear that the young fellow had forgotten that he was only a man and had not the power to fly straight out of the window of the tower and to traverse, like a bird or a flash of lightning, the black space which separated him from the crime which had been committed and which he filled with his frightful cries. Quickly, he turned on me, threw me off, and precipitated himself wildly, through corridors, apartments, stairways and courts toward the accursed tower from which had come that same death cry that we both had heard--a moment ago, and also two years before when it had resounded through the “inexplicable gallery.” As for me, I had thus far only had the time to gaze out of the window, rooted to my place by the horror of that cry. I was still there when the door of the Square Tower opened, and in its frame of light, there appeared the form of the Lady in Black. She was standing upright, living and unharmed, in spite of that cry of death, but her pale and ghastly visage reflected a terror like that of death itself. She stretched out her arms toward the night and the darkness cast Rouletabille into them, and the arms of the Lady in Black closed around him and I heard no more only sobs and moans and again the two syllables which the night repeated over and over, “Mother! Mother!” I descended from my tower into the court, my temples throbbing, my heart beating so fast that it almost stifled me. What I had seen on the threshold of the Square Tower had not by any means assured me that nothing terrible had taken place. It was in vain that I attempted to reason with myself and to say: “Nonsense! At the very moment when we believed that all was lost, is not, on the contrary, everything found? Are not the mother and son united?”