Finding it, they thought better of it.

A moment and they could be heard beating a retreat.
"Pardieu! they are going!" the guard exclaimed; and he began to shake.
"Ay, but they will return!" Claude answered grimly.

"Have no fear of that! The portcullis is down, and the only way to raise it, is up these stairs.

But it will be hard if, armed as we are now, we cannot baffle them! Has he no pistol ?" Marcadel--that was the soldier's name--felt about the prostrate man, but found none; and bidding him listen and not move for his life--but there was little need of the injunction--Claude passed over to the inner edge of the roof, facing the Corraterie.

Here he raised his voice and shouted the alarm with all the force of his lungs, hoping thus to supplement the cries which here and there had been raised by the Savoyards.
"Aux Armes! Armes!" he cried.