'Here has been warm work, by St. Marco!' cried Bertrand, waving a
torch over the ground; 'the balls have torn up the earth here with a
vengeance.' 'Aye,' replied Ugo, 'they were fired from that redoubt, yonder, and
rare execution they did. The enemy made a furious attack upon the great
gates; but they might have guessed they could never carry it there; for,
besides the cannon from the walls, our archers, on the two round towers,
showered down upon them at such a rate, that, by holy Peter! there was
no standing it. I never saw a better sight in my life; I laughed,
till my sides aked, to see how the knaves scampered. Bertrand, my good
fellow, thou shouldst have been among them; I warrant thou wouldst have
won the race!' 'Hah! you are at your old tricks again,' said Bertrand in a surly tone.
'It is well for thee thou art so near the castle; thou knowest I have
killed my man before now.' Ugo replied only by a laugh, and then gave
some further account of the siege, to which as Emily listened, she was
struck by the strong contrast of the present scene with that which had
so lately been acted here.
The mingled uproar of cannon, drums, and trumpets, the groans of the
conquered, and the shouts of the conquerors were now sunk into a silence
so profound, that it seemed as if death had triumphed alike over the
vanquished and the victor. The shattered condition of one of the towers
of the great gates by no means confirmed the VALIANT account just given
by Ugo of the scampering party, who, it was evident, had not only made
a stand, but had done much mischief before they took to flight; for this
tower appeared, as far as Emily could judge by the dim moon-light
that fell upon it, to be laid open, and the battlements were nearly
demolished.
While she gazed, a light glimmered through one of the lower
loop-holes, and disappeared; but, in the next moment, she perceived
through the broken wall, a soldier, with a lamp, ascending the narrow
staircase, that wound within the tower, and, remembering that it was the
same she had passed up, on the night, when Barnardine had deluded her
with a promise of seeing Madame Montoni, fancy gave her somewhat of
the terror she had then suffered. She was now very near the gates, over
which the soldier having opened the door of the portal-chamber, the lamp
he carried gave her a dusky view of that terrible apartment, and she
almost sunk under the recollected horrors of the moment, when she had
drawn aside the curtain, and discovered the object it was meant to
conceal. 'Perhaps,' said she to herself, 'it is now used for a similar purpose;
perhaps, that soldier goes, at this dead hour, to watch over the corpse
of his friend!' The little remains of her fortitude now gave way to the
united force of remembered and anticipated horrors, for the melancholy
fate of Madame Montoni appeared to foretell her own. She considered,
that, though the Languedoc estates, if she relinquished them, would
satisfy Montoni's avarice, they might not appease his vengeance, which
was seldom pacified but by a terrible sacrifice; and she even thought,
that, were she to resign them, the fear of justice might urge him either
to detain her a prisoner, or to take away her life.