And, in truth, everything seemed to justify her fears. The mountaineers, too inferior in number, were giving way.
There was a regular hand-to-hand encounter. The Cossacks, leaping up the ascent, fought in the path; one sword-thrust, better directed than the others, reached the back of the old woman's head; she felt the touch of the cold steel just in the nape of her neck.
"Oh! the wretches!" she shrieked, falling back, and supporting herself with her two hands at her back.
Doctor Lorquin himself had just been knocked against the sleigh. Frantz and the rest, surrounded by twenty Cossacks, could not run to their assistance. Louise felt a hand laid upon her shoulder; it was the hand of the fool, still bestriding his tall horse.
At this supreme moment, the poor child, mad with fear, uttered a cry of agony; at the same moment she caught sight of something shining in the dark, the pistols of Lorquin, and, quick as lightning, snatching them from the doctor's belt, she fired both shots at once, scorching the beard of Yégof, whose pale face was lit up by the flash, and shattering the skull of a Cossack who was leaning towards her, his white eyes distended with desire.
In another instant, she seized Catherine's whip, and, standing up, pale as a corpse, she lashed the flanks of the horse, who set off at full gallop. The sleigh flew wildly along; it swayed to the right and left. All of a sudden, there was a violent shock; Catherine, Louise, and all rolled in the snow down the steep descent of the ravine. The horse suddenly stopped short, thrown back upon his haunches, his mouth covered with bloody foam.
Rapid as this fall had been, Louise had seen some shadows pass like the wind behind the trees. She had heard a terrible voice, that of Divès, shout: "Forward! Stab, stab!"
It was but a vision, one of those confused apparitions such as pass before our eyes at our last hour; but as she arose, no doubt remained in the poor girl's mind; a sharp conflict was raging at twenty paces from her, behind a ridge of trees, and Marc was shouting lustily: "Courage, lads! no quarter!"
Then she saw a dozen Cossacks climbing up the opposite side of the mountain, through the bushes, like hares, and above, in the broad light of the moon, Yégof crossing the valley at his utmost speed, like a frightened bird. Several shots were sent after him, but the fool escaped them all, and, drawing himself up to his full height in his spurs, he turned round, brandishing his lance with a defiant air, and uttering a loud hurrah in the shrill tone of a heron who has just escaped from the talons of the eagle, and wings his rapid flight through the air.