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Behind the latter, and upon even higher ground at a distance of two and three miles, respectively lay the villages of Daix and Hauteville. It was about ten o'clock in the morning that the boys heard the faint boom of a cannon. "Listen, papa," Percy shouted; "there are cannon. The Prussians are attacking the heights, on the other side."
"If we had not bound them," said the executioner, "they would have devoured us!" Then Lahr collapsed and began to pray while the decree for their execution was read to them. Daix continued to struggle, sobbing, and roaring with horror. These men who had killed so freely were afraid to die. Daix shouted: "Help!
The Council of State, such as it then was, consulted under the terms of the Constitution, rendered an opinion in favour of the execution. M. Cresson, counsel for Daix and Lahr, waited upon the President. He was an emotional and eloquent young man. He pleaded for these men, for the wives who were not yet widows, for the children who were not yet orphans, and while speaking he wept.
They understood, and, joyful and terror-stricken, fled into the adjoining casement. Daix and Lahr, however, did not understand. They sat up and gazed about them with wild, frightened eyes. The executioner and his assistants fell upon them and bound them. No one spoke a word. The condemned men began to realise what it all meant and uttered terrible cries.
Captain Barclay came out into the garden, and listened for a while with them. The enemy had taken up positions upon some of the numerous heights surrounding, and were playing upon the batteries at Talant, Fontaine les Dijon, Daix, and Hauteville. The French replied vigorously; and it was evident that they were stronger, in artillery, than were the enemy.
Seine, dashed into the Val Suzon, and after an hour's conflict with the Garibaldians, drove them out and established themselves on the heights of Daix toward two o'clock. Before them were the rugged summits of Talant and Fontaine, the last spurs of the Jura Mountains seen in the blue distances both of them crowned, by old villages, whose outer walls looked down a thousand feet below.
Three Zouaves who happened to be present took their places at the head of the column and, at the double, they went up the hill amidst a storm of shot and shell. The Germans did not await the assault, but fell back upon Daix. The spirit of the Mobilises was now up and, still led by the three Zouaves, they dashed forward.
There are five of them: Nourry, a poor child of seventeen whose father and mother died insane, type of the gamin of Paris that revolutions make a hero and riots a murderer; Daix, blind of one eye, lame, and with only one arm, a bon pauvre of the Bicetre Hospital, who underwent the operation of trepanning three years ago, and who has a little daughter eight years old whom he adores; Lahr, nicknamed the Fireman, whose wife was confined the day after his condemnation, giving life at the moment she received death; Chopart, a bookseller's assistant, who has been mixed up in some rather discreditable pranks of youth; and finally Vappreaux junior, who pleaded an alibi and who, if the four others are to be believed, was not at the Barriere de Fontainebleau at all during the three days of June.
"It is a night attack," Captain Barclay said; "and judging by the sound, they are in earnest. I can hear musketry, as well as artillery." As they listened, it came nearer. "They have taken Daix and Hauteville," Ralph said. "What shall we do, papa? We can't stay here, quiet. It is our plain duty to go down, and report ourselves to General Pelissier."
Twenty-five thousand men, infantry and cavalry, surrounded the scaffold. Two generals were in command. Seven guns commanded the streets which converged to the circus of the Barriere de Fontainebleau. Daix was executed first. When his head had fallen and his body was unstrapped, the trunk, from which a stream of blood was pouring, fell upon the scaffold between the swing-board and the basket.
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