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Updated: May 22, 2025
A vast, sullen roar went up instantly, and then, mingled with the clang of the tomtom and the tumult of the people, rang out a harsh rattle of alarm-drums that swelled and spread until every oval watch-turret on the town walls was sounding the tocsin announcing to the subjects of Rao Khan the escape of the hated Englishmen. "Now for it," cried Canaris. "Don't be scared.
As yet torpedoes were hardly known, so the lookout took it for a large fish, and simply watched with interest its playful movements. Not until it came so close that no guns could be brought to bear, did any suspicion of danger enter the lookout's mind. Then there was the roll of the alarm-drums; while the men rushed to the side, and poured a fierce fire from small-arms on the mysterious object.
Not that I would have a grudge against such wrathful ones on that account: they are well enough for laughter to me! Impatient must they now be, those big alarm-drums, which find a voice now or never! Myself, however, and my fate we do not talk to the Present, neither do we talk to the Never: for talking we have patience and time and more than time.
The call of the tocsin and alarm-drums is answered by the noise of barring shutters and bolting doors. The citoyen Dupont senior has secreted himself in his shop; Remacle the porter is barricaded in his lodge. Little Joséphine holds Mouton tremblingly in her arms. The widow Gamelin bemoans the dearness of victuals, cause of all the trouble.
Only half-dressed, and without having saved the least thing, the inhabitants of the house assembled themselves in the market-place, where an innumerable crowd of people streamed together, and began to work the fire-engines; whilst church bells tolled violently, and the alarm-drums were beaten wildly and dully up and down the streets.
Like a sweet echo of his thoughts, Élodie's voice sighed in his ear: "Do you remember, Évariste, how, at sight of the green fields, you wanted to be a country justice in a village? Yes, that would be happiness." But above the rustling of the trees and the girl's voice, he could hear the tocsin and alarm-drums, the distant tramp of horses, and rumbling of cannon along the streets.
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