'Well! here are the Wolves, that will eat your quiet workmen.'
'The Wolves will eat no one here,' said Agricola, looking full at the quarryman, who approached him with a threatening air; 'they can only frighten little children.'
'Oh! you think so,' said the quarryman, with a savage sneer. Then raising his weapon, he shook it in Agricola's face, exclaiming: 'Is that any laughing matter?
'Is that?' answered Agricola, with a rapid movement, parrying the stone sledge with his own hammer.
'Iron against iron—hammer against hammer—that suits me,' said the quarryman.
'It does not matter what suits you,' answered Agricola, hardly able to restrain himself. 'You have broken our windows, frightened our women, and wounded—perhaps killed—the oldest workman in the factory, who at this moment lies bleeding in the arms of his son.' Here Agricola's voice trembled in spite of himself. 'It is, I think, enough.'
'No; the Wolves are hungry for more,' answered the blaster; 'you must come out (cowards that you are!), and fight us on the plain.'
'Yes! yes! battle!—let them come out!' cried the crowd, howling, hissing, waving their sticks and pushing further into the small space which separated them from the door.
'We will have no battle,' answered Agricola: 'we will not leave our home; but if you have the misfortune to pass this,' said Agricola, throwing his cap upon the threshold, and setting his foot on it with an intrepid air, 'if you pass this, you attack us in our own house, and you will be answerable for all that may happen.'
'There or elsewhere we will have the fight! the Wolves must eat the Devourers. Now for the attack!' cried the fierce quarryman, raising his hammer to strike Agricola.
But the latter, throwing himself on one side by a sudden leap, avoided the blow, and struck with his hammer full at the chest of the quarryman, who staggered for a moment, but instantly recovering his legs, rushed furiously on Agricola, crying: 'Follow me, Wolves!'
CHAPTER V. THE RETURN.
As soon as the combat had begun between Agricola and the blaster, the general fight became terrible, ardent, implacable. A flood of assailants, following the quarryman's steps, rushed into the house with irresistible fury; others, unable to force their way through this dreadful crowd, where the more impetuous squeezed, stifled, and crushed these who were less so, went round in another direction, broke through some lattice work, and thus placed the people of the factory, as it were, between two fires. Some resisted courageously; others, seeing Ciboule, followed by some of her horrible companions, and by several of the most ill-looking ruffians, hastily enter that part of the Common-Dwelling house in which the women had taken refuge, hurried in pursuit of this band; but some of the hag's companions, having faced about, and vigorously defended the entrance of the staircase against the workmen, Ciboule, with three or four like herself, and about the same number of no less ignoble men, rushed through the rooms, with the intention of robbing or destroying all that came in their way. A door, which at first resisted their efforts, was soon broken through; Ciboule rushed into the apartment with a stick in her hand, her hair dishevelled, furious, and, as it were, maddened with the noise and tumult. A beautiful young girl (it was Angela), who appeared anxious to defend the entrance to a second chamber, threw herself on her knees, pale and supplicating, and raising her clasped hands, exclaimed: 'Do not hurt my mother!'
'I'll serve you out first, and your mother afterwards,' replied the horrible woman, throwing herself on the poor girl, and endeavoring to tear her face with her nails, whilst the rest of the ruffianly band broke the glass and the clock with their sticks, and possessed themselves of some articles of wearing apparel.
Angela, struggling with Ciboule, uttered loud cries of distress, and still attempted to guard the room in which her mother had taken refuge; whilst the latter, leaning from the window, called Agricola to their assistance. The smith was now engaged with the huge blaster. In a close struggle, their hammers had become useless, and with bloodshot eyes and clinched teeth, chest to chest, and limbs twined together like two serpents, they made the most violent efforts to overthrow each other. Agricola, bent forward, held under his right arm the left leg of the quarryman, which he had seized in parrying a violent kick; but such was the Herculean strength of the leader of the Wolves, that he remained firm as a tower, though resting only on one leg. With the hand that was still free (for the other was gripped by Agricola as in a vise), he endeavored with violent blows to break the jaws of the smith, who, leaning his head forward, pressed his forehead hard against the breast of his adversary.
'The Wolf will break the Devourer's teeth, and he shall devour no more,' said the quarryman.
'You are no true Wolf,' answered the smith, redoubling his efforts; 'the true Wolves are honest fellows, and do not come ten against one.'
'True or false, I will break your teeth.'
'And I your paw,' said the smith, giving so violent a wrench to the leg of the quarryman, that the latter uttered a cry of acute pain, and, with the rage of a wild beast, butting suddenly forward with his head, succeeded in biting Agricola in the side of the neck.
The pang of this bite forced Agricola to make a movement, which enabled the quarryman to disengage his leg. Then, with a superhuman effort, he threw himself with his whole weight on Agricola, and brought him to the ground, falling himself upon him.
At this juncture, Angela's mother, leaning from one of the windows of the Common Dwelling-house, exclaimed in a heart-rending voice: 'Help, Agricola!—they are killing my child!'
'Let me go—and on, my honor—I will fight you tomorrow, or when you will,' said Agricola, panting for breath.
'No warmed-up food for me; I eat all hot,' answered the quarryman, seizing the smith by the throat, whilst he tried to place one of his knees upon his chest.
'Help!—they are killing my child!' cried Angela's mother, in a voice of despair.
'Mercy! I ask mercy! Let me go!'' said Agricola, making the most violent efforts to escape.
'I am too hungry,' answered the quarryman.
Exasperated by the terror which Angela's danger occasioned him, Agricola redoubled his efforts, when the quarryman suddenly felt his thigh seized by the sharp teeth of a dog, and at the same instant received from a vigorous hand three or four heavy blows with a stick upon his head. He relaxed his grasp, and fell stunned upon his hand and knee, whilst he mechanically raised his other arm to parry the blows, which ceased as soon as Agricola was delivered.
'Father, you have saved me!' cried the smith, springing up. 'If only I am in time to rescue Angela!'
'Run!—never mind me!' answered Dagobert; and Agricola rushed into the house.
Dogabert, accompanied by Spoil-sport, had come, as we have already said, to bring Marshal Simon's daughters to their grandfather. Arriving in the midst of the tumult, the soldier had collected a few workmen to defend the entrance of the chamber, to which the marshal's father had been carried in a dying state. It was from this post that the soldier had seen Agricola's danger. Soon after, the rush of the conflict separated Dagobert from the quarryman, who remained for some moments insensible. Arrived in two bounds at the Common Dwelling-house, Agricola succeeded in forcing his way through the men who defended the staircase, and rushed into the corridor that led to Angela's chamber. At the moment he reached it, the unfortunate girl was mechanically guarding her face with both hands against Ciboule, who, furious as the hyena over its prey, was trying to scratch and disfigure her.
To spring upon the horrible hag, seize her by her yellow hair with irresistible hand, drag her backwards, and then with one cuff, stretch her full length upon the ground, was for Agricola an achievement as rapid as thought. Furious with rage, Ciboule rose again almost instantly; but at this moment, several workmen, who had followed close upon Agricola, were able to attack with advantage, and whilst the smith lifted the fainting form of Angela, and carried her into the next room, Ciboule and her band were driven from that part of the house.
After the first fire of the assault, the small number of real Wolves, who, as Agricola said, were in the main honest fellows, but had the weakness to let themselves be drawn into this enterprise, under the pretext of a quarrel between rival unions, seeing the excesses committed by the rabble who accompanied them, turned suddenly round, and ranged themselves on the side of the Devourers.
'There are no longer here either Wolves or Devourers,' said one of the most determined Wolves to Olivier, with whom he had been fighting roughly and fairly; 'there are none here but honest workmen, who must unite to drive out a set of scoundrels, that have come only to break and pillage.'
'Yes,' added another; 'it was against our will that they began by breaking your windows.'
