CHAPTER VII
THE FRACAS IN THE TAVERN
I
Yvonne had settled herself in a corner of the tap-room on a bench andhad tried to lose consciousness of her surroundings.
It was not easy! Glances charged with rancour were levelled at herdainty appearance--dainty and refined despite the look of starvation andof weariness on her face and the miserable state of her clothing--andnot a few muttered insults waited on those glances.
As soon as she was seated Yvonne noticed that the old man and thecoarse, fat woman behind the bar started an animated conversationtogether, of which she was very obviously the object, for the twoheads--the lean and the round--were jerked more than once in herdirection. Presently the man--it was George Lemoine, the proprietor ofthe Rat Mort--came up to where she was sitting: his lank figure was bentso that his lean back formed the best part of an arc, and an expressionof mock deference further distorted his ugly face.
He came up quite close to Yvonne and she found it passing difficult notto draw away from him, for the leer on his face was appalling: his eyes,which were set very near to his hooked nose, had a horrible squint, hislips were thick and moist, and his breath reeked of alcohol.
"What will the noble lady deign to drink?" he now asked in an oily,suave voice.
And Yvonne, remembering the guide's admonitions, contrived to smileunconcernedly into the hideous face.
"I would very much like some wine," she said cheerfully, "but I amafraid that I have no money wherewith to pay you for it."
The creature with a gesture of abject humility rubbed his greasy handstogether.
"And may I respectfully ask," he queried blandly, "what are theintentions of the noble lady in coming to this humble abode, if she hathno desire to partake of refreshments?"
"I am expecting friends," replied Yvonne bravely; "they will be herevery soon, and will gladly repay you lavishly for all the kindness whichyou may be inclined to show to me the while."
She was very brave indeed and looked this awful misshapen specimen of aman quite boldly in the face: she even contrived to smile, though shewas well aware that a number of men and women--perhaps a dozenaltogether--had congregated in front of her in a compact group aroundthe landlord, that they were nudging one another and pointingderisively--malevolently--at her. It was impossible, despite allattempts at valour, to mistake the hostile attitude of these people.Some of the most obscene words, coined during these last horrible daysof the Revolution, were freely hurled at her, and one woman suddenlycried out in a shrill treble:
"Throw her out, citizen Lemoine! We don't want spies in here!"
"Indeed, indeed," said Yvonne as quietly as she could, "I am no spy. Iam poor and wreched like yourselves! and desperately lonely, save forthe kind friends who will meet me here anon."
"Aristos like yourself!" growled one of the men. "This is no place foryou or for them."
"No! No! This is no place for aristos," cried one of the women in avoice which many excesses and many vices had rendered hoarse and rough."Spy or not, we don't want you in here. Do we?" she added as with armsakimbo she turned to face those of her own sex, who behind the men hadcome up in order to see what was going on.
"Throw her out, Lemoine," reiterated a man who appeared to be an oracleamongst the others.
"Please! please let me stop here!" pleaded Yvonne; "if you turn me out Ishall not know what to do: I shall not know where to meet myfriends...."
"Pretty story about those friends," broke in Lemoine roughly. "How do Iknow if you're lying or not?"
From the opposite angle of the room, the woman behind the bar had beenwatching the little scene with eyes that glistened with cupidity. Nowshe emerged from behind her stronghold of bottles and mugs and slowlywaddled across the room. She pushed her way unceremoniously past hercustomers, elbowing men, women and children vigorously aside with a deftplay of her large, muscular arms. Having reached the forefront of thelittle group she came to a standstill immediately in front of Yvonne,and crossing her mighty arms over her ponderous chest she eyed the"aristo" with unconcealed malignity.
"We do know that the slut is lying--that is where you make the mistake,Lemoine. A slut, that's what she is--and the friend whom she's going tomeet ...? Well!" she added, turning with an ugly leer toward the otherwomen, "we all know what sort of friend that one is likely to be, eh,mesdames? Bringing evil fame on this house, that's what the wench isafter ... so as to bring the police about our ears ... I wouldn't trusther, not another minute. Out with you and at once--do you hear?... thisinstant ... Lemoine has parleyed quite long enough with you already!"
Despite all her resolutions Yvonne was terribly frightened. While thehideous old hag talked and screamed and waved her coarse, red armsabout, the unfortunate young girl with a great effort of will, keptrepeating to herself: "I am not frightened--I must not be frightened. Heassured me that these people would do me no harm...." But now when thewoman had ceased speaking there was a general murmur of:
"Throw her out! Spy or aristo we don't want her here!" whilst some ofthe men added significantly: "I am sure that she is one of Carrier'sspies and in league with his Marats! We shall have those devils in herein a moment if we don't look out! Throw her out before she can signal tothe Marats!"
Ugly faces charged with hatred and virulence were thrust threateninglyforward--one or two of the women were obviously looking forward tojoining in the scramble, when this "stuck-up wench" would presently behurled out into the street.
"Now then, my girl, out you get," concluded the woman Lemoine, as withan expressive gesture she proceeded to roll her sleeves higher up herarm. She was about to lay her dirty hands on Yvonne, and the poor girlwas nearly sick with horror, when one of the men--a huge, coarse giant,whose muscular torso, covered with grease and grime showed almost nakedthrough a ragged shirt which hung from his shoulders in strips--seizedthe woman Lemoine by the arm and dragged her back a step or two awayfrom Yvonne.
"Don't be a fool, _petite mere_," he said, accompanying this admonitionwith a blasphemous oath. "Slut or no, the wench may as well pay yousomething for the privilege of staying here. Look at that cloak she'swearing--the shoe-leather on her feet. Aren't they worth a bottle ofyour sour wine?"
"What's that to you, Paul Friche?" retorted the woman roughly, as with avigorous gesture she freed her arm from the man's grasp. "Is this myhouse or yours?"
"Yours, of course," replied the man with a coarse laugh and a stillcoarser jest, "but this won't be the first time that I have saved youfrom impulsive folly. Yesterday you were for harbouring a couple ofrogues who were Marats in disguise: if I hadn't given you warning, youwould now have swallowed more water from the Loire than you would careto hold. But for me two days ago you would have received the goodspinched by Ferte out of Balaze's shop, and been thrown to the fishes inconsequence for the entertainment of the proconsul and his friends. Youmust admit that I've been a good friend to you before now."
"And if you have, Paul Friche," retorted the hag obstinately, "I paidyou well for your friendship, both yesterday and the day before, didn'tI?"
"You did," assented Friche imperturbably. "That's why I want to serveyou again to-night."
"Don't listen to him, _petite mere_," interposed one of two out of thecrowd. "He is a white-livered skunk to talk to you like that."
"Very well! Very well!" quoth Paul Friche, and he spat vigorously on theground in token that henceforth he divested himself from anyresponsibility in this matter, "don't listen to me. Lose a benefit oftwenty, perhaps forty francs for the sake of a bit of fun. Very well!Very well!" he continued as he turned and slouched out of the group tothe further end of the room, where he sat down on a barrel. He drew thestump of a clay pipe out of the pocket of his breeches, stuffed it intohis mouth, stretched his long legs out before him and sucked away at hispipe with complacent detachment. "I didn't know," he added with bitingsarcasm by way of a parting shot, "that you and Lemoine had come into afortune recently and that forty or fifty francs are nothing
to you now."
"Forty or fifty? Come! come!" protested Lemoine feebly.
II
Yvonne's fate was hanging in the balance. The attitude of the smallcrowd was no less threatening than before, but immediate action waswithheld while the Lemoines obviously debated in their minds what wasbest to be done. The instinct to "have at" an aristo with all theaccumulated hatred of many generations was warring with the innaterapacity of the Breton peasant.
"Forty or fifty?" reiterated Paul Friche emphatically. "Can't you seethat the wench is an aristo escaped out of Le Bouffay or the entrepot?"he added contemptuously.
"I know that she is an aristo," said the woman, "that's why I want tothrow her out."
"And get nothing for your pains," retorted Friche roughly. "If you waitfor her friends we may all of us get as much as twenty francs each tohold our tongues."
"Twenty francs each...." The murmur was repeated with many a sigh ofsavage gluttony, by every one in the room--and repeated again andagain--especially by the women.
"You are a fool, Paul Friche ..." commented Lemoine.
"A fool am I?" retorted the giant. "Then let me tell you, that 'tis youwho are a fool and worse. I happen to know," he added, as he once morerose and rejoined the group in the centre of the room, "I happen to knowthat you and every one here is heading straight for a trap arranged bythe Committee of Public Safety, whose chief emissary came into Nantesawhile ago and is named Chauvelin. It is a trap which will land you allin the criminal dock first and on the way to Cayenne or the guillotineafterwards. This place is surrounded with Marats, and orders have beenissued to them to make a descent on this place, as soon as papaLemoine's customers are assembled. There are two members of the accursedcompany amongst us at the present moment...."
He was standing right in the middle of the room, immediately beneath thehanging lamp. At his words--spoken with such firm confidence, as one whoknows and is therefore empowered to speak--a sudden change came over thespirit of the whole assembly. Everything was forgotten in the face ofthis new danger--two Marats, the sleuth-hounds of the proconsul--herepresent, as spies and as informants! Every face became morehaggard--every cheek more livid. There was a quick and furtive scurryingtoward the front door.
"Two Marats here?" shouted one man, who was bolder than the rest. "Whereare they?"
Paul Friche, who towered above his friends, stood at this moment quiteclose to a small man, dressed like the others in ragged breeches andshirt, and wearing the broad-brimmed hat usually affected by the Bretonpeasantry.
"Two Marats? Two spies?" screeched a woman. "Where are they?"
"Here is one," replied Paul Friche with a loud laugh: and with his largegrimy hand he lifted the hat from his neighbour's head and threw it onthe ground; "and there," he added as with long, bony finger he pointedto the front door, where another man--a square-built youngster withtow-coloured hair somewhat resembling a shaggy dog--was endeavouring toeffect a surreptitious exit, "there is the other; and he is on the pointof slipping quietly away in order to report to his captain what he hasseen and heard at the Rat Mort. One moment, citizen," he added, and witha couple of giant strides he too had reached the door; his large roughhand had come down heavily on the shoulder of the youth with thetow-coloured hair, and had forced him to veer round and to face theangry, gesticulating crowd.
"Two Marats! Two spies!" shouted the men. "Now we'll soon settle theirlittle business for them!"
"Marat yourself," cried the small man who had first been denounced byFriche. "I am no Marat, as a good many of you here know. Maman Lemoine,"he added pleading, "you know me. Am I a Marat?"
But the Lemoines--man and wife--at the first suggestion of police hadturned a deaf ear to all their customers. Their own safety being injeopardy they cared little what happened to anybody else. They hadretired behind their counter and were in close consultation together, nodoubt as to the best means of escape if indeed the man Paul Friche spokethe truth.
"I know nothing about him," the woman was saying, "but he certainly wasright last night about those two men who came ferreting in here--andlast week too...."
"Am I a Marat, maman Lemoine?" shouted the small man as he hammered hisfists upon the counter. "For ten years and more I have been a customerin this place and...."
"Am I a Marat?" shouted the youth with the tow-coloured hair addressingthe assembly indiscriminately. "Some of you here know me well enough.Jean Paul, you know--Ledouble, you too...."
"Of course! Of course I know you well enough, Jacques Leroux," came witha loud laugh from one of the crowd. "Who said you were a Marat?"
"Am I a Marat, maman Lemoine?" reiterated the small man at the counter.
"Oh! leave me alone with your quarrels," shouted the woman Lemoine inreply. "Settle them among yourselves."
"Then if Jacques Leroux is not a Marat," now came in a bibulous voicefrom a distant comer of the room, "and this compeer here is known tomaman Lemoine, where are the real Marats who according to this fellowFriche, whom we none of us know, are spying upon us?"
"Yes! where are they?" suggested another. "Show 'em to us, Paul Friche,or whatever your accursed name happens to be."
"Tell us where you come from yourself," screamed the woman with theshrill treble, "it seems to me quite possible that you're a Maratyourself."
This suggestion was at once taken up.
"Marat yourself!" shouted the crowd, and the two men who a moment agohad been accused of being spies in disguise shouted louder than therest: "Marat yourself!"
III
After that, pandemonium reigned.
The words "police" and "Marats" had aroused the terror of all thesenight-hawks, who were wont to think themselves immune inside their lair:and terror is at all times an evil counsellor. In the space of a fewseconds confusion held undisputed sway. Every one screamed, waved arms,stamped feet, struck out with heavy bare fists at his nearest neighbour.Every one's hand was against every one else.
"Spy! Marat! Informer!" were the three words that detached themselvesmost clearly from out the babel of vituperations freely hurled from endto end of the room.
The children screamed, the women's shrill or hoarse treble mingled withthe cries and imprecations of the men.
Paul Friche had noted that the turn of the tide was against him, longbefore the first naked fist had been brandished in his face. Agile as amonkey he had pushed his way through to the bar, and placing his twohands upon it, with a swift leap he had taken up a sitting position inthe very middle of the table amongst the jugs and bottles, which hepromptly seized and used as missiles and weapons, whilst with hisdangling feet encased in heavy sabots he kicked out vigorously andunceasingly against the shins of his foremost assailants.
He had the advantage of position and used it cleverly. In his right handhe held a pewter mug by the handle and used it as a swivel against hisaggressors with great effect.
"The Loire for you--you blackmailer! liar! traitor!" shouted some of thewomen who, bolder than the men, thrust shaking fists at Paul Friche asclosely as that pewter mug would allow.
"Break his jaw before he can yell for the police," admonished one of themen from the rear, "before he can save his own skin."
But those who shouted loudest had only their fists by way of weapon andPaul Friche had mugs and bottles, and those sabots of his kicked outwith uncomfortable agility.
"Break my jaw, will you," he shouted every time that a blow from the mugwent home, "a spy am I? Very well then, here's for you, Jacques Leroux;go and nurse your cracked skull at home. You want a row," he addedhitting at a youth who brandished a heavy fist in his face, "well! youshall have it and as much of it as you like! as much of it as will bringthe patrols of police comfortably about your ears."
Bang! went the pewter mug crashing against a man's hard skull! Bang wentPaul Friche's naked fist against the chest of another. He was a hardhitter and swift.
The Lemoines from behind their bar shouted louder than the rest, doingas much as their lungs would allow them in the
way of admonishing,entreating, protesting--cursing every one for a set of fools who wereplaying straight into the hands of the police.
"Now then! Now then, children, stop that bellowing, will you? There areno spies here. Paul Friche was only having his little joke! We all knowone another, what?"
"Camels!" added Lemoine more forcibly. "They'll bring the patrols aboutour ears for sure."
Paul Friche was not by any means the only man who was being vigorouslyattacked. After the first two or three minutes of this kingdom ofpandemonium, it was difficult to say who was quarrelling with whom. Oldgrudges were revived, old feuds taken up there, where they hadpreviously been interrupted. Accusations of spying were followed byabuse for some past wrong of black-legging or cheating a confrere. Thetemperature of the room became suffocating. All these violent passionsseething within these four walls seemed to become tangible and to minglewith the atmosphere already surcharged with the fumes of alcohol, oftobacco and of perspiring humanity. There was many a black-eye already,many a contusion: more than one knife--surreptitiously drawn--wasalready stained with red.
IV
There was also a stampede for the door. One man gave the signal. Seeingthat his mates were wasting precious time by venting their wrath againstPaul Friche and then quarrelling among themselves, he hoped to effect anescape ere the police came to stop the noise. No one believed in theplace being surrounded. Why should it be? The Marats were far too busyhunting up rebels and aristos to trouble much about the Rat Mort and itscustomers, but it was quite possible that a brawl would bring a patrolalong, and then 'ware the _police correctionnelle_ and the possibilityof deportation or worse. Retreat was undoubtedly safer while there wastime. One man first: then one or two more on his heels, and those amongthe women who had children in their arms or clinging to their skirts:they turned stealthily to the door--almost ashamed of their cowardice,ashamed lest they were seen abandoning the field of combat.
It was while confusion reigned unchecked that Yvonne--who was cowering,frankly terrified at last, in the corner of the room, became aware thatthe door close beside her--the door situated immediately opposite thefront entrance--was surreptitiously opened. She turned quickly tolook--for she was like a terror-stricken little animal now--one thatscents and feels and fears danger from every quarter round. The door wasbeing pushed open very slowly by what was still to Yvonne an unseenhand. Somehow that opening door fascinated her: for the moment sheforgot the noise and the confusion around her.
Then suddenly with a great effort of will she checked the scream whichhad forced itself up to her throat.
"Father!" was all that she contrived to say in a hoarse and passionatemurmur.
Fortunately as he peered cautiously round the room, M. le duc caughtsight of his daughter. She was staring at him--wide-eyed, her lipsbloodless, her cheeks the colour of ashes. He looked but the ghost nowof that proud aristocrat who little more than a week ago was the centreof a group of courtiers round the person of the heir to the Englishthrone. Starved, emaciated, livid, he was the shadow of his former self,and there was a haunted look in his purple-rimmed eyes which spoke withpathetic eloquence of sleepless nights and of a soul tortured withremorse.
Just for the moment no one took any notice of him--every one wasshrieking, every one was quarrelling, and M. le duc, placing a finger tohis lips, stole cautiously round to his daughter. The next instant theywere clinging to one another, these two, who had endured so muchtogether--he the father who had wrought such an unspeakable wrong, andshe the child who was so lonely, so forlorn and almost happy in findingsome one who belonged to her, some one to whom she could cling.
"Father, dear! what shall we do?" Yvonne murmured, for she felt the lastshred of her fictitious courage oozing out of her, in face of this awfullawlessness which literally paralysed her thinking faculties.
"Sh! dear!" whispered M. le duc in reply. "We must get out of thisloathsome place while this hideous row is going on. I heard it all fromthe filthy garret up above, where those devils have kept me these threedays. The door was not locked.... I crept downstairs.... No one ispaying heed to us.... We can creep out. Come."
But at the suggestion, Yvonne's spirits, which had been stunned by theevents of the past few moments, revived with truly mercurial rapidity.
"No! no! dear," she urged. "We must stay here.... You don't know.... Ihave had a message--from my own dear milor--my husband ... he sent afriend to take me out of the hideous prison where that awful Pierre Adetwas keeping me--a friend who assured me that my dear milor was watchingover me ... he brought me to this place--and begged me not to befrightened ... but to wait patiently ... and I must wait, dear ... Imust wait!"
She spoke rapidly in whispers and in short jerky sentences. M. le duclistened to her wide-eyed, a deep line of puzzlement between his brows.Sorrow, remorse, starvation, misery had in a measure numbed his mind.The thought of help, of hope, of friends could not penetrate into hisbrain.
"A message," he murmured inanely, "a message. No! no! my girl, you musttrust no one.... Pierre Adet.... Pierre Adet is full of evil tricks--hewill trap you ... he means to destroy us both ... he has brought youhere so that you should be murdered by these ferocious devils."
"Impossible, father dear," she said, still striving to speak bravely."We have both of us been all this while in the power of Pierre Adet; hecould have had no object in bringing me here to-night."
But the father who had been an insentient tool in the schemes of thatmiserable intriguer, who had been the means of bringing his only childto this terrible and deadly pass--the man who had listened to the lyingcounsels and proposals of his own most bitter enemy, could only groannow in terror and in doubt.
"Who can probe the depths of that abominable villain's plans?" hemurmured vaguely.
In the meanwhile the little group who had thought prudence the betterpart of valour had reached the door. The foremost man amongst themopened it and peered cautiously out into the darkness. He turned back tothose behind him, put a finger to his lip and beckoned to them to followhim in silence.
"Yvonne, let us go!" whispered the duc, who had seized his daughter bythe hand.
"But father...."
"Let us go!" he reiterated pitiably. "I shall die if we stay here!"
"It won't be for long, father dear," she entreated; "if milor shouldcome with his friend, and find us gone, we should be endangering hislife as well as our own."
"I don't believe it," he rejoined with the obstinacy of weakness. "Idon't believe in your message ... how could milor or anyone come to yourrescue, my child?... No one knows that you are here, in this hell inNantes."
Yvonne clung to him with the strength of despair. She too was asterrified as any human creature could be and live, but terror had notaltogether swept away her belief in that mysterious message, in thattall guide who had led her hither, in that scarlet device--thefive-petalled flower which stood for everything that was most gallantand most brave.
She desired with all her might to remain here--despite everything,despite the awful brawl that was raging round her and which sickenedher, despite the horror of the whole thing--to remain here and to wait.She put her arms round her father: she dragged him back every time thathe tried to move. But a sort of unnatural strength seemed to haveconquered his former debility. His attempts to get away became more andmore determined and more and more febrile.
"Come, Yvonne! we must go!" he continued to murmur intermittently andwith ever-growing obstinacy. "No one will notice us.... I heard thenoise from my garret upstairs.... I crept down.... I knew no one wouldnotice me.... Come--we must go ... now is our time."
"Father, dear, whither could we go? Once in the streets of Nantes whatwould happen to us?"
"We can find our way to the Loire!" he retorted almost brutally. Heshook himself free from her restraining arms and gripped her firmly bythe hand. He tried to drag her toward the door, whilst she stillstruggled to keep him back. He had just caught sight of the group of menand women at the front door: their le
ader was standing upon thethreshold and was still peering out into the darkness.
But the next moment they all came to a halt: what their leader hadperceived through the darkness did not evidently quite satisfy him: heturned and held a whispered consultation with the others. M. le ducstrove with all his might to join in with that group. He felt that inits wake would lie the road to freedom. He would have struck Yvonne forstanding in the way of her own safety.
"Father dear," she contrived finally to say to him, "if you go hence,you will go alone. Nothing will move me from here, because I know thatmilor will come."
"Curse you for your obstinacy," retorted the duc, "you jeopardise mylife and yours."
Then suddenly from the angle of the room where wrangling and fightingwere at their fiercest, there came a loud call:
"Look out, pere Lemoine, your aristos are running away. You are losingyour last chance of those fifty francs."
It was Paul Friche who had shouted. His position on the table was givinghim a commanding view over the heads of the threatening, shouting,perspiring crowd, and he had just caught sight of M. le duc dragging hisdaughter by force toward the door.
"The authors of all this pother," he added with an oath, "and they willget away whilst we have the police about our ears."
"Name of a name of a dog," swore Lemoine from behind his bar, "thatshall not be. Come along, maman, let us bring those aristos along here.Quick now."
It was all done in a second. Lemoine and his wife, with the weight andauthority of the masters of the establishment, contrived to elbow theirway through the crowd. The next moment Yvonne felt herself forciblydragged away from her father.
"This way, my girl, and no screaming," a bibulous voice said in her ear,"no screaming, or I'll smash some of those front teeth of yours. Yousaid some rich friends were coming along for you presently. Well then!come and wait for them out of the crowd!"
Indeed Yvonne had no desire to struggle or to scream. Salvation shethought had come to her and to her father in this rough guise. Inanother moment mayhap he would have forced her to follow him, to leavemilor in the lurch, to jeopardise for ever every chance of safety.
"It is all for the best, father dear," she managed to cry out over hershoulder, for she had just caught sight of him being seized round theshoulders by Lemoine and heard him protesting loudly:
"I'll not go! I'll not go! Let me go!" he shouted hoarsely. "Mydaughter! Yvonne! Let me go! You devil!"
But Lemoine had twice the vigour of the duc de Kernogan, nor did he careone jot about the other's protests. He hated all this row inside hishouse, but there had been rows in it before and he was beginning to hopethat nothing serious would come of it. On the other hand, Paul Frichemight be right about these aristos; there might be forty or fifty francsto be made out of them, and in any case they had one or two things upontheir persons which might be worth a few francs--and who knows? theymight even have something in their pockets worth taking.
This hope and thought gave Lemoine additional strength, and seeing thatthe aristo struggled so desperately, he thought to silence him bybringing his heavy fist with a crash upon the old man's head.
"Yvonne! _A moi!_" shouted M. le duc ere he fell back senseless.
That awful cry, Yvonne heard it as she was being dragged through thenoisome crowd. It mingled in her ear with the other awful sounds--theoaths and blasphemies which filled the air with their hideousness. Itdied away just as a formidable crash against the entrance door suddenlysilenced every cry within.
"All hands up!" came with a peremptory word of command from the doorway.
"Mercy on us!" murmured the woman Lemoine, who still had Yvonne by thehand, "we are undone this time."
There was a clatter and grounding of arms--a scurrying of bare feet andsabots upon the floor, the mingled sounds of men trying to fly and beingcaught in the act and hurled back: screams of terror from the women, oneor two pitiable calls, a few shrill cries from frightened children, afew dull thuds as of human bodies falling.... It was all so confused, sounspeakably horrible. Yvonne was hardly conscious. Near her some onewhispered hurriedly:
"Put the aristos away somewhere, maman Lemoine ... the whole thing mayonly be a scare ... the Marats may only be here about the aristos ...they will probably leave you alone if you give them up ... perhapsyou'll get a reward.... Put them away till some of this row subsides ...I'll talk to commandant Fleury if I can."
Yvonne felt her knees giving way under her. There was nothing more tohope for now--nothing. She felt herself lifted from the ground--she wastoo sick and faint to realise what was happening: through the din whichfilled her ears she vainly tried to distinguish her father's voiceagain.
V
A moment or two later she found herself squatting somewhere on theground. How she got here she did not know--where she was she knew stillless. She was in total darkness. A fusty, close smell of food and winegave her a wretched feeling of nausea--her head ached intolerably, hereyes were hot, her throat dry: there was a constant buzzing in herears.
The terrible sounds of fighting and screaming and cursing, the crash ofbroken glass and overturned benches came to her as through apartition--close by but muffled.
In the immediate nearness all was silence and darkness.