A roar of cruel laughter was the answer. Then, "He that is not with me is against me!" the giant quoted impiously. And they jeered again. On that, I take no credit for what I did. In such moments of exaltation men are not accountable, and, for another thing, I knew that they would not listen, that I risked nothing. And trembling with rage I flung back their words. "I am against you!" I cried. "I would rather die here with these, than live with you! You stain the earth! You pollute the air! You are fiends----" No more, for with a shrill laugh the man next me, a mere lad, half-witted, I think, and the same who had cursed them, sprang by me and rushed on the pike-points. Half a dozen met in his breast before our eyes--before our eyes--and with a wild scream he flung up his arms and was borne back against the side-wall dead and gushing blood. Instinctively I had covered Denise's face that she might not see. And it was well; for at that--there was a kind of mercy in it, and let me tell it quickly--the wretches tasting blood broke loose, and rushed on us. I saw St. Alais thrust his mother behind him, and almost with the same movement fling himself on the pikes; and I, pushing Denise down into the angle of the wall--though she clung to me and prayed to me--killed the first that came at me with Froment's pistol, and the next also, with the other barrel at point blank distance--feeling no fear, but only passion and rage. The third bore me down with his pike fixed in my shoulder, and for a moment I saw only the sky, and his scowling face black against it; and shut my eyes, expecting the blow that must follow. But none did follow. Instead a weight fell on me, and I began to struggle, and a whole battle, it seemed to me, was fought over me--in that horrible slaughterhouse alley, where they dragged men from women's arms, and forced them, screaming, to the wall, and stabbed them to death without pity; and things were done of which I dare not tell! CHAPTER XXV. BEYOND THE SHADOW. I thank Heaven that I saw little more than I have told. A score of feet trampled on me as the murderers stumbled this way and that, and bruised me and covered me with blood that was not my own. And I heard screams of men in the death-throe, ear-piercing shrieks of women--shrieks that chilled the blood and stopped the breath--mad laughter, sounds of the pit. But to rise was to court instant death, and, though I had no hope and no looking forward, my momentary passion had spent itself and I lay quiet. Resistance was useless. At last I thought the end had come. The body that pressed on me, and partly hid me, was abruptly dragged away; the light came to my eyes, and a voice cried, briskly: "Here is another! He is alive!"