He regained the balcony and jumped from it as the others
turned toward him. At least, it was so that Rouletabille believed
he saw the mysterious struggle go in the half-light, amid most
impressive silence, after that frightened cry of Natacha's. The
whole affair had lasted only a few seconds, and the man was still
hanging over the balcony, when from the bottom of the hall a new
person sprang. It was Matrena Petrovna.
Warned by Koupriane that something would happen that night, and
foreseeing that it would happen on the ground-floor where she was
forbidden to be, she had found nothing better to do than to make
her faithful maid go secretly to the bedroom floor, with orders to
walk about there all night, to make all think she herself was near
the general, while she remained below, hidden in the dining-room.
Matrena Petrovna now threw herself out onto the balcony, crying in
Russian, "Shoot! Shoot!" In just that moment the man was hesitating
whether to risk the jump and perhaps break his neck, or descend less
rapidly by the gutter-pipe. A policeman fired and missed him, and
the man, after firing back and wounding the policeman, disappeared.
It was still too far from dawn for them to see clearly what happened
below, where the barking of Brownings alone was heard.
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