"At least," Sylvia, who had heard his words, said, "you will be a noble one--noble as I shall ever esteem you, though now I know that your hand signed the condemnation of my lover; that in your stern, rigid sense of honour you found the means of communicating with M. Tallard, of obtaining his confirmation of the sentence. Ah!" she continued, "that one so loyal as you should serve so evil a master."
"Duty before all, mademoiselle," De Violaine answered. "When Louis gave me my first brevet, when I vowed fidelity to him and France, there was no more noble king in Europe, in the whole world. There was no master less cruel to his subjects, no matter what their faith was."
Now, on this night, however, De Violaine was not there, but, instead, on the battlement of the Citadel directing all preparations to be made for resisting the siege. For already the English artillery which had come up the Meuse was disembarked and most of it dragged up the hill upon which the Citadel stood, as were also forty-eight huge mortars invented by the great engineer C[oe]horn (who was now present with the force), as well as several Seville mortars, the bombs from which could blow to pieces the walls and doors of fortresses. And, ominous sign for those within the Citadel! the fuses were all lighted.
Behind these lay the troops of General Ingoldsby and Brigadier Stanley, as well as four companies of the Grenadiers, while, to protect them from being taken in the rear, were the dragoons and Bevill's old regiment, the Cuirassiers.
Afar off the autumn dawn was coming now; away towards where the Rhine lay, the eyes of those three watchers could see the darkness of the night changing to grey, and, swiftly, the grey to a pale daffodil that told of the dayspring which was at hand; then, next, a fleck of flame shot like a barbed arrow above the daffodil that was changing to pink and opal; the rim of the sun was seen to be swiftly mounting behind. At this moment, clearly on the still, cold morning air a trumpet rang out beneath the Citadel; another answered from below the Chartreuse across the river; a moment later the C[oe]horns had belched forth their bombs and the six and twelve pounders of the artillery had made their first discharge.