Lorraine, A Romance

She cringed and fell to her knees, screaming and seizing his stirrup.

"Get out, damn you!" roared Von Steyr. "Here--I'll settle this now. Shoot that French dog!"

"My husband, O God!" screamed the woman, struggling in the dust. In a second she had fallen among the horses; a trooper spurred forward and raised his revolver, but the man with the rope around his neck sprang right at him, hanging to the saddle-bow, and tearing the rider with teeth and nails. Twice Von Steyr tried to pass his sabre through him; an Uhlan struck him with a lance-butt, another buried a lance-point in his back, but he clung like a wild-cat to his man, burying his teeth in the Uhlan's face, deeper, deeper, till the Uhlan reeled back and fell crashing into the road.

"Fire!" shrieked Tricasse--"the woman's dead!"

Through the crash and smoke they could see the Uhlans staggering, sinking, floundering about. A mounted figure passed like a flash through the mist, another plunged after, a third wheeled and flew back around the bend. But the rest were doomed. Already the franc-tireurs were among them, whining with ferocity; the scene was sickening. One by one the battered bodies of the Uhlans were torn from their frantic horses until only one remained--Von Steyr--drenched with blood, his sabre flashing above his head. They pulled him from his horse, but he still raged, his bloodshot eyes flaring, his teeth gleaming under shrunken lips. They beat him with musket-stocks, they hurled stones at him, they struck him terrible blows with clubbed lances, and he yelped like a mad cur and snapped at them, even when they had him down, even when they shot into his twisting body. And at last they exterminated the rabid thing that ran among them.

But the butchery was not ended; around the bend of the road galloped more Uhlans, halted, wheeled, and galloped back with harsh cries. The cries were echoed from above and below; the franc-tireurs were surrounded.

Then Tricasse raised his smeared sabre, and, bending, took the dead woman by the wrist, lifting her limp, trampled body from the dust. He began to mutter, holding his sabre above his head, and the men took up the savage chant, standing close together in the road: "'Ça ira! Ça ira!'"

It was the horrible song of the Terror.

"'Que faut-il au Républicain? Du fer, du plomb, et puis du pain!

"'Du fer pour travailler, Du plomb pour nous venger, Et du pain pour nos frères!'"

And the fierce voices sang: "'Dansons la Carmagnole! Dansons la Carmagnole! Ça ira! Ça ira! Tous les cochons à la lanterne! Ça ira! Ça ira! Tous les Prussiens, on les pendra!'"