Satan in person entered this cold and muddy court disguised in the appearance, form and face of an apothecary of the neighborhood, named Mende. He set up a table, lighted by two lanterns. Upon it he placed glasses, pitchers, jugs, and bottles. What was the infernal beverage that was contained in these mysterious receptacles? No one knows; but its effect is well-known. All those who drank of that diabolical liquor were seized with a sudden fever that raged through their veins--the lust of blood and murder. After that they needed only to be shown the door, and they hurled themselves into the cells. The massacre lasted all night. All night cries, shrieks and moans echoed through the darkness. They killed them all, men and women. It took a long time, for, as we have said, the executioners were drunk and poorly armed. However, the task was finished after a time. As soon as the victims were killed they were thrown, dead and wounded together, into the pit of the Trouillasse Tower, a distance of some sixty feet down. The men were thrown first, and then the women. At nine o'clock in the morning, after the massacre had lasted twelve hours, a voice cried out from the depths of the sepulchre: "For God's sake, come and finish me!" One man, the armorer Bouffier, leaned over the hole; the others did not dare. "Who called?" they asked him. "It was Lami," he replied, drawing back. "Well," asked the assassins, "what do you see down there?" "A queer marmalade," he replied; "all pell-mell, men and women, priests and pretty girls. It is enough to make one die of laughing." At that moment cries of grief and shouts of triumph made themselves heard, and the name of Fargas was repeated by a thousand voices. It was indeed the count whom they were bringing to Jourdan Coupe-Tête. He had just been found hidden in a cask in the Hôtel Palais-Royal. He was half naked, and covered with such immense quantities of blood that they did not know but what he would fall dead when they loosened their grip. CHAPTER XI BROTHER AND SISTER The executioners, who might have been thought weary, were only drunk. Even as the sight of wine seemingly gives strength to a drunkard, so does the sight of blood revive the forces of the assassin. All these cut-throats, who were lying in the courtyard half asleep, opened their eyes and jumped to their feet at the name of Fargas. He, far from being dead, had received only some slight wounds. But when he found himself in the presence of these fiends, believing his death to be inevitable, and having but the one idea of making it as swift and painless as possible, he threw himself upon the man who was nearest to him, and bit him so savagely in the cheek that the man thought of nothing but putting an end to the horrible pain. He instinctively thrust out his hand, and his knife, coming in contact with the count's breast, was buried into it up to the hilt. The count fell dead without a cry.