A musket-barrel glittered from the crest of the wall.

A white smoke floated like a plume from the mouth of the musket, and a ball was flattened against a stone within six inches of the two gentlemen.
"_Cordieu!_" cried Athos.

"What, are people assassinated here?
Come down, cowards as you are!" "Yes, come down!" cried Raoul, furiously shaking his fist at the castle.
One of the assailants--he who was about to fire--replied to these cries by an exclamation of surprise; and, as his companion, who wished to continue the attack, had re-seized his loaded musket, he who had cried out threw up the weapon, and the ball flew into the air.

Athos and Raoul, seeing them disappear from the platform, expected they would come down to them, and waited with a firm demeanor.

Five minutes had not elapsed, when a stroke upon a drum called the eight soldiers of the garrison to arms, and they showed themselves on the other side of the ditch with their muskets in hand.