The peasants had the advantage of their pursuers by about twenty
minutes.
Poor simple creatures!
They might easily have made their escape. They had only to disperse,
to scatter; but, unfortunately, the thought never once occurred to the
majority of them. A few ran across the fields and gained their homes
in safety; the others, frantic and despairing, overcome by the strange
vertigo that seizes the bravest in moments of panic, fled like a flock
of frightened sheep.
Fear lent them wings, for did they not hear each moment shots fired at
the laggards?
But there was one man, who, at each of these detonations, received, as
it were, his death-wound--this man was Lacheneur.
He had reached the Croix d'Arcy just as the firing at Montaignac began.
He listened and waited. No discharge of musketry replied to the first
fusillade. There might have been butchery, but combat, no.
Lacheneur understood it all; and he wished that every ball had pierced
his own heart.
He put spurs to his horse and galloped to the crossroads. The place was
deserted.
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