"Besieged!" he cried, "why shed blood any longer? You are taken. Surrender. Remember that we are four thousand five hundred against nineteen, that is to say, more than two hundred to one. Surrender."
"Let us put an end to this sentimentality," replied the Marquis de Lantenac.
And twenty bullets answered Cimourdain.
The retirade did not reach as high as the arched roof; this allowed the besieged to shoot over it, but it also allowed the besiegers to scale it.
"Attack the retirade!" cried Gauvain. "Is there any one willing to scale the retirade?"
"I am," said Sergeant Radoub.
CHAPTER X.
RADOUB.
Then the assailants were dumfounded at what took place. Radoub had entered through the breach at the head of the attacking column, with six others, and, out of these six men of the Prussian battalion, four had already fallen. After he had cried: "I am!" he was seen not to advance but to retreat, and bending down, stooping, crawling almost between the legs of the combatants, he reached the opening of the breach and went out. Was this flight? would such a man flee? what could it mean?
When outside the breach, Radoub, still blinded by the smoke, rubbed his eyes as if to put aside the horror and the darkness, and by the light of the stars looked at the wall of the tower. He gave a nod of satisfaction, as if to say, "I was not mistaken."
Radoub had noticed that the deep cleft made by the explosion of the mine, reached above the breach to the loophole in the first story, the iron grating of which had been broken through and displaced by a cannon ball. The network of broken bars was hanging, half torn away, and a man would be able to creep through.
A man could creep through, but could he climb up
