hem!" wailed the woman. "They are beside
themselves; they appear like different beings. The soldiers are saying
that they are going to resume their march at daybreak. There is a
great battle on, and they are going to win it; but it is necessary that
everyone of them should fight in it. . . . My poor, sick husband just
can't stand it any longer. So many humiliations . . . and my little girl
. . . . My little girl!"

The child was her greatest anxiety. She had her well hidden away, but
she was watching uneasily the goings and comings of some of these
men maddened with alcohol. The most terrible of them all was that fat
officer who had patted Georgette so paternally.

Apprehension for her daughter's safety made her hurry restlessly away,
saying over and over:

"God has forgotten the world. . . . Ay, what is ever going to become of
us!"

Don Marcelo was now tinglingly awake. Through the open window was
blowing the clear night air. The cannonading was still going on,
prolonging the conflict way into the night. Below the castle the
soldiers were intoning a slow and melodious chant that sounded like a
psalm. From the interior of the edifice rose the whoopings of brutal
laughter, the crash of breaking furniture, and the mad chase of
dissolute pursuit. When would this diabolical orgy ever wear itself
down? . . . For a long time he was not at all sleepy, but was gradually
losing consciousness of what was going on around him when he was roused
with a start. Near him, on the same floor, a door had fallen with a
crash, unable to resist a succession of formidable batterings. This
was followed immediately by the screams of a woman, weeping, desperate
supplications, the noise of a struggle, reeling steps, and the thud of
bodies against the wall. He had a presentiment that it was Georgette
shrieking and trying to defend herself. Before he could put his feet to
the floor he heard a man's voice, which he was sure was the Keeper's;
she was safe.

"Ah, you villain!" . . .

Then the outbreak of a second struggle . . . a shot . . . silence!

Rushing down the hallway that ended at the stairway Desnoyers saw
lights, and many men who came trooping up the stairs, bounding over
several steps at a time. He almost fell over a body from which escaped a
groan of agony. At his feet lay the Warden, his chest moving like a pair
of bellows, his eyes glassy and unnaturally distended, his mouth covered
with blood. . . . Near him glistened a kitchen