gs, and furious stamping
of feet, to which the stentorian voice of the quarryman put a term by
roaring: "Silence!"

"Silence! silence!" repeated the crowd. "Hear the blaster!"

"If the Devourers are cowards enough not to dare to show themselves,
after a second volley of stones, there is a door down there which we can
break open, and we will soon hunt them from their holes."

"It would be better to draw them out, so that none might remain in the
factory," said the little old man with the ferret's face, who appeared
to have some secret motive.

"A man fights where he can," cried the quarryman, in a voice of thunder;
"all, right, if we can but once catch hold. We could fight on a sloping
roof, or on the top of a wall--couldn't we, my Wolves?"

"Yes, yes!" cried the crowd, still more excited by those savage words;
"if they don't come out, we will break in."

"We will see their fine palace!"

"The pagans haven't even a chapel," said the bass voice. "The curate has
damned them all!"

"Why should they have a palace, and we nothing but dog-kennels?"

"Hardy's workmen say that kennels are good enough for such as you." said
the little man with the ferret's face.

"Yes, yes! they said so."

"We'll break all their traps."

"We'll pull down their bazaar."

"We'll throw the house out of the windows."

"When we have made the mealy-mouthed chits sing," cried Ciboule, "we
will make them dance to the clatter of stones on their heads."

"Come, my Wolves! attention!" cried the quarryman, still in the same
stentorian voice; "one more volley, and if the Devourers do not come
out, down with the door!"

This proposition was received with cheers of savage ardor, and the
quarryman, whose voice rose above the tumult, cried with all the
strength of his herculean lungs: "Attention, my Wolves. Make ready! all
together. Now, are you ready?"

"Yes, yes--all ready!"

"Then, present!--fire!" And, for the second time, a shower of enormous
stones poured upon that side of the Common Dwelling-house which was
turned towards the fields. A part of these projectiles broke such of the
windows as had been spared by the first volley. To the sharp smashing
and cracking of glass were joined the ferocious cries uttered in chorus
by this formidable mob, drunk with its own excesses: "Death to the
Devourers!"

Soon these outcries became perfectly frantic, when, through the broken
windows, the assailants perceived women running in terror, some wi