Calmly Eva said: “There is no occasion for alarm or outcry; control yourself. Experience in similar cases seems to show that flight only goads the people on to plundering and destruction. If they have the temerity to enter here, I shall face their leaders and deal with them. That is the right and natural thing. I shall stay; but I shall force no one to stay with me.” Susan was quite calm at once, and her tone was dry: “You are very much in error, if you think I tremble for myself. If you stay, it goes without saying that I stay too. Let us not waste another word.” And she gave her mistress the garment which a gesture had demanded. Then were heard hurrying steps and cries, the whir of the motor, and the barking of dogs. Monsieur Labourdemont strode wildly up and down in the ante-room. The sergeant of gendarmes addressed his men from the stairs. With equanimity Eva sat down at her toilet table, and let Susan arrange her hair. The roar of the sea came through the open window. The heavy dragging noise was suddenly interrupted by the rattle of rifle fire. A brief silence ensued. Labourdemont knocked at the door of the sleeping chamber. There wasn’t another minute to be lost, he called out, with a lump of terror in his throat. “Tell him what is needful,” Eva commanded. Susan went out, and returned shortly with a sombre smile on her lips. Eva’s glance questioned her. “Panic,” Susan said, and shrugged her shoulders. “Naturally. They don’t know what to do.” Again cries were heard; they were frightened and confused. A light flickered; muffled commands followed. Loud cries burst into the silence, then the howling of hundreds. Next came a sudden crash, as though a wooden door had been broken down. Crackling of flames swallowed the barking of the dogs, and was itself silenced by piercing cries, hisses, roars. A pillar of fire arose without; the chamber was crimson in the glow. Susan stood crimson in its midst; her eyes were glassy, and her face a rigid mask. Eva went to the window. Trees and bushes were steeped in glow. The centre of the fire was not to be seen. The space in front of the castle was deserted. The guards had vanished; seeing the hopelessness of facing the superior forces of the mutineers, they had fled; nor was a single one of Eva’s servants to be seen. Uncertain shadows rolled forward, hissing in the glow and the darkness. Shots sounded from all directions. The clash of shards resounded; they were stoning the hothouses. Suddenly from the right and from the left, surging about the house, masses of men burst out of the fiery twilight, that was momently transformed into yellow brilliancy. It was a wild throng of arms and rumps and heads, a raging mass, impetuously driving forward, whose roaring and growling and whistling shook the very air. “Leave the window!” Susan murmured, in rough beseeching.