Now while they hesitated, a soft delicious harmony of female voices
suddenly rose, and seemed to come and run round the walls. The men
looked at one another in astonishment; for the effect was magical. The
staircase being enclosed on all sides with stone walls and floored with
stone, they were like flies inside a violoncello; the voices rang above,
below, and on every side of the vibrating walls. In some epochs spirits
as hardy as Raynal's, and wits as quick as Riviere's, would have fled
then and there to the nearest public, and told over cups how they had
heard the dames of Beaurepaire, long since dead, holding their revel,
and the conscious old devil's nest of a chateau quivering to the ghostly
strains.
But this was an incredulous age. They listened, and listened, and
decided the sounds came from up-stairs.
"Let us mount, and surprise these singing witches," said Edouard.
"Surprise them! what for? It is not the enemy--for once. What is the
good of surprising our friends?"
Storming parties and surprises were no novelty and therefore no treat to
Raynal.
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