"The powder, the powder!" shrieked twenty terrified voices.
On seeing the governor with the burning match they divined his intention. Two soldiers crossed their bayonets before his breast at the very instant when he opened the ammunition-storeroom door.
"You may kill me," he said, "but you cannot do that so quickly that I shall not have had time to toss this brand into one of the open kegs. Then, all of us, besieged and besiegers, go up!"
The soldiers stopped with the steel at his breast, but he was still their commander and commanded, for he held the lives of all in his hands. His movement rivetted everybody to their place.
The assailants perceived that something extraordinary was going on. They peered into the yard and saw the governor threatening and being threatened.
"Hark to me," said he, "as true as I have death in my grasp for all of you, I will fire the powder if one of you dare step within this yard."
The hearers might fancy the earth quaked beneath their feet.
"What do you want?" several voices gasped with the accent of a panic.
As the assailants could not fully comprehend the extent of Launay's despair and did not believe his speech, they began to enter, Billet at the head. But he suddenly turned pale and trembled, for he had thought of Dr. Gilbert. It little mattered to the farmer whether the Bastile was torn down or blown up; but at any price the arch-revolutionist must live, the pupil of Balsamo, his successor, perhaps, at the head of the Invisibles.
"Stop," shouted Billet, "for the sake of the prisoners!"
Elie and Hullin, and their men, who had not shrank from death on their own behalf, recoiled, white and trembling like he had.
"What do you want?" they demanded of the governor, renewing the question his garrison had put to him.
"Everybody must retire," replied Count Launay. "I will listen to no proposition while there is an intruder inside the Bastile walls."
"But you will take advantage of our withdrawal to repair damages," remonstrated Billet.
"If the capitulation be refused, you will find things in the same condition; you there, I at this door, on the faith of a nobleman!"
"Is there any here who doubt a nobleman?" questioned the count.
"No, no, nobody," rejoined five hundred voices.