All at once there was a furious rush, with the noise of trampling, shuffling feet, and smothered oaths and the sound of labored breathing.  Sambuc and his two companions had thrown themselves on Goliah, and notwithstanding their superiority in numbers they found it no easy task to overpower the giant, to whom his peril lent tenfold strength.  The panting of the combatants, the straining of sinews and cracking of joints, resounded for a moment in the obscurity.  The revolver, fortunately, had fallen to the floor in the struggle.  Cabasse’s choking, inarticulate voice was heard exclaiming:  “The cords, the cords!” and Ducat handed to Sambuc the coil of thin rope with which they had had the foresight to provide themselves.  Scant ceremony was displayed in binding their hapless victim; the operation was conducted to the accompaniment of kicks and cuffs.  The legs were secured first, then the arms were firmly pinioned to the sides, and finally they wound the cord at random many times around the Prussian’s body, wherever his contortions would allow them to place it, with such an affluence of loops and knots that he had the appearance of being enmeshed in a gigantic net.  To his unintermitting outcries Ducat’s voice responded:  “Shut your jaw!” and Cabasse silenced him more effectually by gagging him with an old blue handkerchief.  Then, first waiting a moment to get their breath, they carried him, an inert mass, to the kitchen and deposited him upon the big table, beside the candle.

“Ah, the Prussian scum!” exclaimed Sambuc, wiping the sweat from his forehead, “he gave us trouble enough!  Say, Silvine, light another candle, will you, so we can get a good view of the d——­d pig and see what he looks like.”

Silvine arose, her wide-dilated eyes shining bright from out her colorless face.  She spoke no word, but lit another candle and came and placed it by Goliah’s head on the side opposite the other; he produced the effect, thus brilliantly illuminated, of a corpse between two mortuary tapers.  And in that brief moment their glances met; his was the wild, agonized look of the supplicant whom his fears have overmastered, but she affected not to understand, and withdrew to the sideboard, where she remained standing with her icy, unyielding air.

“The beast has nearly chewed my finger off,” growled Cabasse, from whose hand blood was trickling.  “I’m going to spoil his ugly mug for him.”

He had taken the revolver from the floor and was holding it poised by the barrel in readiness to strike, when Sambuc disarmed him.

“No, no! none of that.  We are not murderers, we francs-tireurs; we are judges.  Do you hear, you dirty Prussian? we’re going to try you; and you need have no fear, your rights shall be respected.  We can’t let you speak in your own defense, for if we should unmuzzle you you would split our ears with your bellowing, but I’ll see that you have a lawyer presently, and a famous good one, too!”