are only curious. It is difficult to frighten those who are easily astonished; ignorance causes fearlessness. Children have so little claim on hell, that if they should see it they would admire it.
The mother repeated,—
"René! Alain! Georgette!"
René-Jean turned his head; this voice attracted his attention; children have short memories, but their power of recollection is quick; to them the past is but yesterday. René-Jean saw his mother, found it quite natural, and, surrounded as he was by strange objects, feeling a vague need of support, he cried,—
"Mamma!"
"Mamma!" said Gros-Alain.
"Mamma!" said Georgette.
And she held out her little arms.
And the mother shrieked, "My children!"
All three came to the window; fortunately, the fire was not on that side.
"I am too warm," said René-Jean.
He added,—
"It burns."
And he looked at his mother.
"Come, mamma."
"Tum, mamma," repeated Georgette.
The mother with disordered hair, all scratched, and bleeding, had let herself roll through the brambles into the ravine. Cimourdain was there with Guéchamp, as helpless below as Gauvain was above. The soldiers, in despair at being of no use, swarmed around them. The heat was intolerable but no one felt it. They considered the escarpment of the bridge, the height of the arches, the elevation of the stories, the inaccessible windows, and the necessity for prompt action. Three stories to climb; no means of accomplishing it.
Radoub, wounded, with a sword-cut in his shoulder, and one ear torn off, dripping with sweat and blood, came running up; he saw Michelle Fléchard.
"Hold on," said he, "you are the woman who was shot! so you have come back to life again?"
"My children," said the mother.
"You are right," replied Radoub; "we have no time to spend with ghosts."
