Through? Yes, through, the way was clear before them! The fight with
its screams and curses died away behind them. The horses swayed and all
but sank under them. But Badelon knew it no time for mercy; iron-shod
hoofs rang on the road behind, and at any moment the pursuers might be on
their heels. He flogged on until the cots of the hamlet appeared on
either side of the way; on, until the road forked and the Countess with
strange readiness cried "The left!"--on, until the beach appeared below
them at the foot of a sharp pitch, and beyond the beach the slow heaving
grey of the ocean.
The tide was high. The causeway ran through it, a mere thread lipped by
the darkling waves, and at the sight a grunt of relief broke from
Badelon. For at the end of the causeway, black against the western sky,
rose the gateway and towers of Vrillac; and he saw that, as the Countess
had said, it was a place ten men could hold against ten hundred!
They stumbled down the beach, reached the causeway and trotted along it;
more slowly now, and looking back. The other women had followed by hook
or by crook, some crying hysterically, yet clinging to their horses and
even urging them; and in a medley, the causeway clear behind them and no
one following, they reached the drawbridge, and passed under the arch of
the gate beyond.
There friendly hands, Carlat's foremost, welcomed them and aided them to
alight, and the Countess saw, as in a dream, the familiar scene, all
unfamiliar: the gate, where she had played, a child, aglow with lantern-
light and arms. Men, whose rugged faces she had known in infancy, stood
at the drawbridge chains and at the winches. Others blew matches and
handled primers, while old servants crowded round her, and women looked
at her, scared and weeping. She saw it all at a glance--the lights, the
black shadows, the sudden glow of a match on the groining of the arch
above. She saw it, and turning swiftly, looked back the way she had
come; along the dusky causeway to the low, dark shore, which night was
stealing quickly from their eyes. She clasped her hands.
"Where is Badelon?" she cried. "Where is he? Where is he?"
One of the men who had ridden before her answered that he had turned
back.
"Turned back!" she repeated. And then, shading her eyes, "Who is
coming?" she asked, her voice insistent. "There is some one coming. Who
is it? Who is it?"
Two were coming out of the gloom, travelling slowly and painfully along
the causeway. One was La Tribe, limping; the other a rider, slashed
across the forehead, and sobbing curses.
"No more!" she muttered. "Are there no more?"