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.

At the entrance of one of the roads stood the cabriolet which had brought M.d'Escorval and the abbe.
At last M.Lacheneur saw the fugitives approaching in the distance.