"They are beaten!" cried Catinat furiously, who mounted on a great black horse and roared, "After them! destroy them in the name of the Lord! and throw fire and sword into these cottages and idolatrous temples!" Ravanel rode on a small horse at his side and was already stained with blood, for he was ever foremost in the slaughter. Favart, Stephen, Anton, and the diminutive François had nimbly clambered down the mountain. Houses were already seen burning in the distance, the cry of murder from the inhabitants mingled with the rejoicing shouts of the victors and the clashing of arms. Stephen now attempted to take the crucifix, which the youthful Caspar, as leader of the procession carried, but the latter struck him so forcibly on the head with it, that his fair locks were smeared with blood, and the youth without drawing another breath, fell to the ground. When Anton, the shoemaker saw this, he fell furiously upon Caspar: "Tear the cruel idolaters to pieces!" screamed he, and struck Caspar with his short sword, who was on the point of using his weapons on the neck, so that in a moment he was red with a stream of blood. Louison, who saw that her beloved was lost, uttered a piercing shriek of woe, tore the short, stumpy Anton by the hair to the ground, and battered his brains out with the bar of the crucifix, which Caliper had now let fall. A murderous shout of bloodthirstiness rang fearfully through the troops of exasperated rebels, and François was the first to cut down the beautiful Louison, whereupon an indiscriminate massacre raged in every cottage, in every street, upon every little bridge, and in the already burning church, so that the gurgling brook soon rolled in blood-red waves. In the meanwhile Edmond stood gloomy and despairingly above on the steep rock, and saw now distinctly, now obscured by the smoke the streets and houses of the village beneath him. The smoke now rolled away, the royalists had all fled, a short cry and wailing, the inhabitants were all slain, cottages burned right and left, the fire shone through all the trees, and now the flames arose in the church and the peaceful dwelling under his feet, which had hospitably sheltered him that very night, already rolled in columns of smoke, the fire shortly raised the roof, and below was a universal glow of destruction and death, reflected in the bloody, splashing brook, all like a fiery river of hell, where yesterday an Eden had bloomed. The green trees defended themselves from the fiery streams, but they were compelled to bend and yield to its force. The glowing waves burst up to the heavens over the church tower, and as a child, unconsciously smiling, plays even in death, the clock struck the hour once more, and for the last time, and then fell with the tower and the beams of the roof with a loud crash into the abyss of fire and smoke.