Nevertheless, a
spent ball after ricocheting grazed the cheek of one of the insurgents
and left a mark on it."

This graze, this unexpected wound, satisfied the audience. Which cheek,
right or left, had been grazed, and how was it that a bullet, a spent
one, even, could strike a cheek without piercing it? These points
supplied material for some long discussions.

"Meantime," continued Rougon at the top of his voice, without giving
time for the excitement to abate; "meantime we had plenty to do
upstairs. The struggle was quite desperate."

Then he described, at length, the arrival of his brother and the four
other insurgents, without naming Macquart, whom he simply called "the
leader." The words, "the mayor's office," "the mayor's arm-chair,"
"the mayor's writing table," recurred to him every instant, and in the
opinion of his audience imparted marvellous grandeur to the terrible
scene. It was not at the porter's lodge that the fight was now being
waged, but in the private sanctum of the chief magistrate of the town.
Roudier was quite cast in to the background. Then Rougon at last came to
the episode which he had been keeping in reserve from the commencement,
and which would certainly exalt him to the dignity of a hero.

"Thereupon," said he, "an insurgent rushes upon me. I push the mayor's
arm-chair away, and seize the man by the throat. I hold him tightly,
you may be sure of it! But my gun was in my way. I didn't want to let
it drop; a man always sticks to his gun. I held it, like this, under the
left arm. All of a sudden, it went off--"

The whole audience hung on Rougon's lips. But Granoux, who was opening
his mouth wide with a violent itching to say something, shouted: "No,
no, that isn't right. You were not in a position to see things, my
friend; you were fighting like a lion. But I saw everything, while I was
helping to bind one of the prisoners. The man tried to murder you; it
was he who fired the gun; I saw him distinctly slip his black fingers
under your arm."

"Really?" said Rougon, turning quite pale.

He did not know he had been in such danger, and the old almond
merchant's account of the incident chilled him with fright. Granoux, as
a rule, did not lie; but, on a day of battle, it is surely allowable to
view things dramatically.

"I tell you the man tried to murder you," he repeated, with conviction.

"Ah," said Rougon in a faint voice, "that's how it is I heard the bullet
whiz past my ear!"

A