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 CHAPTER XXXVI

AT BAY

In obedience to his mistress, Bartoletti had endeavoured to secure the few weak fastenings of the house, but his hands shook so, that without Fleurette's aid not a bolt would have been pushed nor a key turned. The black girl, however, seconded his efforts with skill and coolness, so that Hippolyte's summons to surrender was addressed to locked doors and closed windows. The Coromantee was now so inflamed with rum as to be capable of any outrage, and since neither his band nor himself were possessed of firearms, nothing but Célandine's happy suggestion about the concealed powder restrained him from ordering a few faggots to be cut, and the building set in a blaze. Advancing with an air of dignity, that would at any other time have been ludicrous, and which he would certainly have abandoned had he known that the Marquise covered his body with her pistol the while, he thumped the door angrily, and demanded to know why "dis here gentleman comin' to pay compliment to buckra miss," was not immediately admitted; but receiving no answer, proceeded at once to batter the panels with an iron crowbar, undeterred by the expostulations of Fleurette, who protested vehemently, first, that her mistress was engaged with a large party of French officers; secondly, that she lay sick in bed, on no account to be disturbed; and lastly, that neither she nor ma'amselle were in the house at all.

The Coromantee of course knew better. Shouting a horrible oath, and a yet more hideous threat, he applied his burly shoulders to the entrance, and the whole wood