Then they heard iron on the paving stones--the dragoons charged for the second time. One horse, furious and shaking his mane like the steed in the Apocalypse, jumped over the unhappy Savoyard, who felt the chill of a lance piercing his chest as he fell on Billet and Pitou.
The whirlwind rushed to the end of the street, where it engulfed itself in terror and death! Nothing but corpses strewed the ground. All fled by the adjacent streets. The windows banged to. A lugubrious silence succeeded the cheers and the roars of rage.
For an instant Billet waited, held by the prudent peasant; then, feeling that the danger went farther away, he rose on one knee while the other, like the hare in her form, pricked up his ear only without raising his head.
"I believe you are right, Master," said the young man; "we have arrived while the soup is hot."
"No: the young exquisite is dead, but the Savoyard is only in a swoon, I reckon. Help me get him on my back. We cannot leave so plucky a fellow here to be butchered by these cursed troopers."
Billet used language going straight to Pitou's heart; he had no answer but to obey. He took up the warm and bleeding body and loaded it like a bag of meal on to the robust farmer's back. Seeing St. Honore Street looked clear and deserted, he took that road to the Palais Royale with his man.
The street appeared void and lonesome to Billet and his friend because the cavalry in chase of the Hyers, had gone through the market and scattered after them in the side streets; but as the pair got nearer the Palais Royale, calling out in a hoarse voice by instinct "Revenge!" men began to appear in doorways, up cellars, out of alleys, from the carriage gateways, mute and frightened at the first, but, when assured that the horse-soldiers had gone on, forming the procession anew, they repeated in a low tone, but soon in a loud one: "Revenge!"
Pitou marched behind the farmer, carrying the Savoyard's cap.
Thus the mournful and ghastly cortege arrived on Palais Royale Place, where a concourse, drunk with wrath, were holding council and soliciting the French troops to help them against the foreign ones.
"What are these men in uniform?" inquired Billet, in front of a company, standing under arms, to bar the road from the Palace main doors to Chartres Street.