Boulaye - and, opening them, he passed out. His appearance was
greeted by a storm of execration. A sudden shot rang out, and the
bullet, striking the wall immediately above him, brought down a
shower of plaster on his head. It had been fired by a demoniac who sat astride the great gates
waving his discharged carbine and yelling such ordures of speech as it had never been the most
noble Marquis's lot to have stood listening to. Bellecour never flinched. As calmly as if nothing
had happened, he leant over the parapet and called to his men below

"Hold, there! Of what are you dreaming slumberers. Shoot me that
fellow down."

Their guns had been discharged, but one of them, who had now completed
his reloading, levelled the carbine and fired. The figure on the
gates seemed to leap up from his sitting posture, and then with a
scream he went over, back to his friends without.

The fired stables were burning gaily by now, and the cheeriest
bonfire man could have desired on a dark night, and in the courtyard
it was become as light as day.

The Marquis on the balcony was taking stock of his defences and
making rapid calculations in his mind. He saw no reason why, so
well protected by those stout oaken gates they should not - if they
were but resolute - eventually beat back the mob. And then, even as
his courage was rising at the thought, a deafening explosion seemed
to shake the entire Chateau, and the gates - their sole buckler,
upon whose shelter he had been so confidently building - crashed open,
half blown away by the gunpowder keg that had been fired against it.

He had a fleeting glimpse of a stream of black fiends pouring through