they have been made, and we have nothing to change about them. Accept them; if not, woe be unto you! do you consent? we will give up the three children here, to you, and you shall let us all go free and unharmed."
"All of you, yes," replied Cimourdain, "except one."
"Which one?"
"Lantenac."
"Monseigneur! give up monseigneur! never!"
"We must have Lantenac."
"Never!"
"We cannot negotiate, except on this condition."
"Then begin."
Silence ensued.
L'Imânus, after sounding the signal with his horn, went down again; the marquis took the sword in his hand; the nineteen men besieged gathered in silence in the lower hall, behind the retirade, and knelt down; they heard the measured tread of the attacking column advancing towards the tower in the darkness; the sound drew nearer; suddenly, they felt that they were close upon them, at the very mouth of the breach. Then all kneeling down held their guns and their blunderbusses through the cracks in the retirade, and one of them, Grand-Francœur, the priest Turneau, rose, and, a drawn sword in his right hand, a crucifix in his left, said in a solemn voice,—
"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."
All fired at once, and the struggle began.
CHAPTER IX.
TITANS AGAINST GIANTS.
It was indeed frightful.
This hand-to-hand struggle surpassed all that could have been imagined.
To find anything equal to it, one must go back to the great combats of Æschylus or to the carnage of old feudal times; or to those "attacks with short arms," which
