CHAPTER VIII.

THE FLIGHT.

Salaun Lebrenn, his son, and their friend, the witnesses to the massacre, stood shuddering with terror, when they were suddenly aroused by the cries of several voices: "And now for Tilly!" "Death to Tilly!" "To the sack of his house!" "Death to the traitors!" "Death to the friends of the French!"

"Vengeance and reprisals!" howled the most infuriated of the mob. "To Tilly's house! to Tilly's house! Sack the house of Tilly!"

The three Frenchmen, who were, until then, wedged in the compact mass of the mob, and compelled, despite themselves, to witness the sight of the popular fury, succeeded by dint of vigorous efforts in cleaving their way in a diagonal line across the press, and finally freed themselves entirely, while the mass of people took the direction of the house of Monsieur Tilly.

Madam Tremblay and Abbot Boujaron, faithful to the recommendations of Monsieur Tilly, kept the curtains of the windows closed, and abstained from showing their faces. Standing near one of the embrasures, and slightly parting the curtain, the Abbot sought to obtain a glimpse of what went on upon the street, and cast furtive looks upon the square.

"Abbot!--no imprudence!" cried the Marchioness.

Mademoiselle Plouernel sat steeped in revery at the opposite end of the parlor. Her mind dwelt indignantly upon the odious designs that her own family had dared to plot, and in which so ignoble a role was assigned to her. She remained an utter and indifferent stranger to all that was happening within and without the house.

"Well, Abbot," inquired Madam Tremblay, "do you see anything on the square?"

"Marchioness!" cried the Abbot, turning pale and stepping back from the window, "we are lost! A mob of men armed with pikes and axes is just turning into the square. They yell: 'Death to the French!' Listen! Listen! Do you hear them? The mob is running this way, howling and vociferating!"

Indeed, at that moment, a formidable clamor that drew ever nearer was heard on the square, and distinctly could be made out the furious cries:

"Death to Tilly!" "Death to the French!" "Sack the house!"

"They are coming to murder Tilly!" stammered the Abbot, livid with terror. "It is done for us! We are lost!"

"Abbot, you are losing your senses," replied the Marchioness endeavoring to allay her own alarm. "Matters are not at such an extremity."

"Madam, do you not hear those furious cries: 'Vengeance and reprisals!'" asked Mademoiselle Plouernel. "These people are coming to take vengeance upon us for the atrocities committed by the troops of your master, at the instigation of your infamous Catholic clergy!"

The danger grew ever more threatening. Hurried steps were heard in the house, where the frightened servants were running about crying out to one another and precipitately and noisily closing and bolting the main door on the ground floor. The door, though thick and strong, and studded with iron nails, could not long resist the assailants. Already it shook under the repeated blows of axes and the butts of muskets, while a volley of stones, thrown from the street, broke with a crash the window-panes in the parlor. The shattered windows allowed the clamor from without to reach the parlor with distinctness. "My sister was violated and disemboweled by the soldiers of Louis XIV," cried the butcher in his stentorian voice; "Vengeance and reprisals! French women are housed in Tilly's residence! Fire upon the door and windows! We will get in! Massacre and fury!"

The sound of a discharge of musketry fire followed almost instantly upon the butcher's words. The house seemed to rock to its very foundations. The fusilade continued uninterrupted. At the same time the main door, already half broken down, was attacked with renewed blows of axes, and a lever was applied to its hinges.

Suddenly the ceiling of the parlor shook with the vibrations of heavy blows given with iron maces and by dint of which the main street door finally fell in with a great crash. The vociferations of the assailants, who irrupted into the house, reached the ears of the Abbot, the Marchioness and Mademoiselle Plouernel. They stood petrified with terror. At that instant a little door, that communicated with, and was concealed by the drapery of the parlor flew open.

"The assassins are here!" stammered the Marchioness, almost dead with fright. "We are lost! Mercy! Mercy!"

"We are saved!" cried Bertha of Plouernel, as she recognized in the new arrivals Serdan and his two friends. "These are our liberators!"

The uproar and the distinct rush of hurrying and tumultuous steps announced that the assailants were mounting the staircase. Serdan ran to the principal door of the parlor, closed and double barred it. "Mademoiselle," he said hurrying back to the young lady and pointing to her the issue through which he had just entered, "flee by that door--the corridor leads to a concealed staircase."

Already the parlor door cracked under the repeated blows from without. Bertha, seized with a sort of vertigo, followed Serdan mechanically; the Abbot pushed the Marchioness before him, and disappeared after the two women in the corridor. The hall was left empty.

The parlor door, attacked with heavy axes, was rent and dashed into splinters, giving a passage to the butcher, who rushed in followed by his band. The Frenchwomen had vanished, but he saw the little door through which they escaped hurriedly closed. He ran forward to open it, or break it down with his fists. It resisted his efforts. Not having had time to bolt the little door from the inside, Nominoe had placed his back against it, and held it closed with his feet firmly planted against the side-walls. Finding himself unable to force his passage, the butcher called out for a hatchet in order to break down the obstacle that now barred his progress.

"We can do better!" exclaimed one of the assailants. "Let us discharge our muskets against the door. The balls will pierce the wood and kill the man. Death to the traitors! Death to the French!"

Three muskets were lowered and fired.

While these incidents were following one another with the rapidity of thought, the fugitives had crossed the corridor and descended the steps of a masked staircase that led to a little inside yard, which opened upon a narrow lane, into which a number of dark and vaulted passages, common in The Hague, ran out. Serdan, being long familiar with the entrances to Monsieur Tilly's residence, and bent upon endeavoring to snatch Mademoiselle Plouernel from the frightful peril that threatened her, the means of escape offered by these devious passages, of which the assailants knew nothing, occurred to him. Through the same secret passages the servants of Monsieur Tilly's household now took flight.

"Monsieur," said Bertha to Salaun in a fainting voice, "I implore you, acquaint me with the name of the man to whom I owe my life and honor! Give me the name of my generous deliverer!"

"Nominoe Lebrenn, my son, a mariner of the port of Vannes as is his father, mademoiselle."

At that moment the detonations of the shots, fired upon the door which Nominoe defended, resounded through the narrow corridor which the fugitives had just left. The reverberations were immediately followed by the distant and expiring cry of the young mariner: "Adieu, father! Flee! Flee!"

"Unhappy boy! They have killed him!" cried Salaun Lebrenn in a heartrending voice. "They have killed my dear Nominoe!"

Leaving Mademoiselle Plouernel to the care of Serdan, who just returned after exploring the lane, Salaun Lebrenn re-ascended the flight of stairs and ran to his son's aid.

"Come! Come, mademoiselle," said Serdan. "The lane is deserted. Night is upon us. I answer for your safety the moment we have entered the first vaulted passage."

Mademoiselle Plouernel did not seem to hear the words of her guide. She stood motionless; her eyes roamed about bewildered; she murmured to herself: "I am the cause of his death. They killed him! They killed my liberator! Woe is me!"

"Make haste, madam; cross the yard, then the alley and enter into the first passage to your right; then wait for me there," said Serdan to the Marchioness and the Abbot, whose terror inspired them with the strength to follow Serdan's instructions.

Serdan himself speedily joined them, sustaining, in fact carrying Mademoiselle Plouernel, who had lost consciousness.

As Salaun Lebrenn was rushing to the assistance of his son, he ran in the corridor against the butcher. "Wretch! You killed my son!" he cried; and seizing the tall fellow by the throat threw him down. The two men struggled on the floor. The obstruction of the narrow passage by the two combatants impeded the advance of the butcher's companions. That instant a ruddy glow projected itself into the corridor. It was the first flickering flames of the conflagration that the men who remained in the parlor had started. Salaun Lebrenn leaped up; the butcher, finding himself free, fled back through the parlor, before escape from the fire were too late. The Breton discovered his son lying prone and bathed in his own blood. He took him on his shoulder, hastened to the masked staircase, to the yard, to the alley, and, only then considering himself safe, laid down his precious burden, ignorant as yet whether his son lived or was dead. God be praised! Salaun Lebrenn felt the heart of Nominoe beat.

Mademoiselle Plouernel having returned to consciousness, she could be supported by Serdan to a carriage, and conveyed, together with the Marchioness and the Abbot, to the port of Delft. Before leaving The Hague the young girl had at least the consolation to know that, although serious, the wounds received by Nominoe were not mortal. The guide to whom Serdan entrusted the three fugitives inquired, upon his arrival in Delft, after any outgoing vessel. A captain of Hamburg, a neutral city whose merchant vessels had, consequently, nothing to fear from the French, the English or the Dutch squadrons, agreed to convey the three passengers to Havre-de-Grace. That same day the vessel set sail for France, where it calculated to arrive safely after a short passage.

* * * * *

On the same day of the double murder of the De Witts the Assembly of the States of Holland despatched a courier to the young Prince of Orange, then encamped with his army at Alpen on the banks of the Rhine, between Leyden and Woerden. The courier arrived as the Prince was about to sit down to table. He opened one of the two despatches brought to him, read it and said: "Gentlemen, I have good news to announce to the friends of Fagel, who is greatly endeared to me. He was appointed yesterday Grand Pensionary of Holland in consequence of the resignation of John De Witt. Let us drink to the health of Grand Pensionary Fagel."

The Prince thereupon opened the second despatch and read it. His face remained impassive; not the least emotion did his features betray. He refolded the despatch, and sitting down where the cover was laid for him, remarked: "I learn that both De Witts were yesterday massacred at The Hague by the populace. May God pardon them, if it is true that they betrayed the fatherland!" And turning to his chaplain, the Prince added with unction: "You will order prayers to be read for the repose of the souls of the two De Witts. May God be merciful unto them!"

* * * * *

These were the only words that the young Prince vouchsafed to the memory of Cornelius and John De Witt.