The Palace of Slaughter

A human shambles with blood-reeking floor.
            MISS SWANWICK, Esch. Agamemnon


The door was opened at last, but not till full daylight.  It found
Eustacie as ready to rush forth, past all resistance, as she had
been the night before, and she was already in the doorway when her
maid Veronique, her face swollen with weeping, caught her by the
hands and implored her to turn back and listen.

And words about a rising of the Huguenots, a general destruction,
corpses lying in the court, were already passing between the other
maidens and the CONCIERGE.  Eustacie turned upon her servant:
'Veronique, what means it?  Where is he?'

'Alas!  alas!  Ah!  Mademoiselle, do but lie down!  Woe is me!  I
saw it all!  Lie down, and I will tell you.'

'Tell!  I will not move till you have told me where my husband is,'
said Eustacie, gazing with eyes that seemed to Veronique turned to
stone.

'Ah!  my lady--my dear lady!  I was on the turn of the stairs, and
saw all.  The traitor--the Chevalier Narcisse--came on him, cloaked
like you--and--shot him dead--with, oh, such cruel words of
mockery!  Oh!  woe the day!  Stay, stay, dear lady, the place is
all blood--they are slaying them all--all the Huguenots!  Will no
one stop her?--Mademoiselle--ma'm'selle!--'

For Eustacie no sooner gathered the sense of Veronique's words than
she darted suddenly forwards, and was in a few seconds more at the
foot of the stairs.  There, indeed, lay a pool of dark gore, and
almost in it Berenger's black velvet cap, with the heron plume.
Eustacie, with a low cry, snatched it up, continued her headlong
course along the corridor, swiftly as a bird, Veronique following,
and vainly shrieking to her to stop.  Diane, appearing at the other
end of the gallery, saw but for a moment the little figure, with
the cloak gathered round her neck, and floating behind her,
understood Veronique's cry and joined in the chase across hall and
gallery, where more stains were to be seen, even down to the marble
stairs, every step slippery with blood.