That was the signal.  He himself quickly jumped aside, and as the Republicans rushed in, there came, from the darkness of the yard, a stream of fire and a hail of bullets, which swept through the gaping porch with a roar as of thunder.  The doorway vomited death.  The national guards, exasperated by their long wait, eager to shake off the discomfort weighing upon them in that dismal court-yard, had fired a volley with feverish haste.  The flash of the firing was so bright, that, through the yellow gleams Macquart distinctly saw Rougon taking aim.  He fancied that his brother’s gun was deliberately levelled at himself, and he recalled Felicite’s blush, and made his escape, muttering:  “No tricks!  The rascal would kill me.  He owes me eight hundred francs.”

In the meantime a loud howl had arisen amid the darkness.  The surprised Republicans shouted treachery, and fired in their turn.  A national guard fell under the porch.  But the Republicans, on their side, had three dead.  They took to flight, stumbling over the corpses, stricken with panic, and shouting through the quiet lanes:  “Our brothers are being murdered!” in despairing voices which found no echo.  Thereupon the defenders of order, having had time to reload their weapons, rushed into the empty square, firing at every street corner, wherever the darkness of a door, the shadow of a lamp-post, or the jutting of a stone made them fancy they saw an insurgent.  In this wise they remained there ten minutes, firing into space.

The affray had burst over the slumbering town like a thunderclap.  The inhabitants in the neighbouring streets, roused from sleep by this terrible fusillade, sat up in bed, their teeth chattering with fright.  Nothing in the world would have induced them to poke their noses out of the window.  And slowly, athwart the air, in which the shots had suddenly resounded, one of the cathedral bells began to ring the tocsin with so irregular, so strange a rhythm, that one might have thought the noise to be the hammering of an anvil or the echoes of a colossal kettle struck by a child in a fit of passion.  This howling bell, whose sound the citizens did not recognise, terrified them yet more than the reports of the fire-arms had done; and there were some who thought they heard an endless train of artillery rumbling over the paving-stones.  They lay down again and buried themselves beneath their blankets, as if they would have incurred some danger by still sitting up in bed in their closely-fastened rooms.  With their sheets drawn up to their chins, they held their breath, and made themselves as small as possible, while their wives, by their side, almost fainted with terror as they buried their heads among the pillows.