b

 
 THE WHITE TERROR 
 
 A ROMANCE OF THE 
 
 FRENCH REVOLUTION 
 
 AND AFTER 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE PROVENAL OF 
 
 FELIX GRAS 
 
 AUTHOR OF THE REDS OF THE MIDI AND THE TERROR 
 BY 
 
 CATHARINE A. JANVIER 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 1900
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1899, 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 
 
 All rights reserved.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 PROLOGUE I 
 
 I. THE COMING OF THE WHITE TERROR TO 
 
 AVIGNON 21 
 
 ii. ADELINE'S PERIL 29 
 
 III. SOME RAGGED REGIMENTS . ... 38 
 
 IV. A STORY OF TWO COWARDS ... 45 
 
 V. THE ARRIVAL AT MALEMORT ... 54 
 
 VI. AT THE HOUSE OF MONSIEUR RANDOULET 65 
 
 VII. THE PARTING AT MALEMORT ... 76 
 
 VIII. LA PATINE AND OLD PASCAL ... 85 
 
 IX. STRANGE FLITTINGS IN THE NIGHT . . 93 
 
 X. THE VISIT TO PASCAL AND LA PATINE . IO2 
 
 XI. BRAVE MARGAN Ill 
 
 XII. THE AFFAIR OF VALMY . . . . I2O 
 
 XIII. THE BATTLE OF JEMAPPES . . .13! 
 
 XIV. HOW FRENCHMEN FOUGHT FOR FRANCE 14! 
 
 XV. THE FLIGHT FROM THE GENDARMES . I 54 
 
 XVI. IN THE CROWS' CHAPEL . . . . 1 62 
 
 XVII. A PERILOUS WALKTHROUGH THE FOREST 17! 
 
 XVIII. AT PEIRE-AVON /ARM . . . . 182 
 
 XIX. IN THE CAVE WITH THE TWO HOLES . 191 
 
 XX. THE EDGE OF THE STORM . . . 2OI 
 
 XXI. ON THE DEVIL'S DYKE .... 209 
 
 XXII. BEFORE THE REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL 2l8 
 
 203S-
 
 iv l)e toi)ite terror 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXIII. A LIFE LAID DOWN .... 22<S 
 XXIV. THE BURNING OF BEDOIN . . .231 
 XXV. WHITE TERROR REIGNS . . . 240 
 
 XXVI. THE COMPANIONS OF JEHU . . . 249 
 
 xxvii. A DARK NIGHT'S WORK . . . 257 
 
 XXVIII. THE SERPENT AND THE WREN . . 265 
 
 XXIX. THE DEVIL SERVES THE MASS . .273 
 
 XXX. A SACRILEGIOUS SACRAMENT . . 280 
 
 XXXI. WITHIN CONSECRATED WALLS . . 289 
 
 XXXII. A MIDNIGHT CONFERENCE . . . 299 
 
 XXXIII. BY FAIR MEANS OR BY FOUL . . 308 
 
 XXXIV. THE LORD BISHOP OF AVIGNON . .316 
 
 XXXV. A PRAYER TO SAINT URSULA . . 326 
 
 XXXVI. THE PRICE OF VICTORY . . . 336 
 
 XXXVII. ASH-WEDNESDAY EVE .... 344 
 
 XXXVIII. THE VEIL OF SAINT URSULA . . -355 
 
 XXXIX. SLOW-PASSING YEARS .... 363 
 
 XL. ONCE MORE WHITE TERROR REIGNS . 370 
 
 XLI. SANCTUARY 380 
 
 XLII. A GRENADIER OF THE EMPEROR'S 
 
 GUARD 390 
 
 XLIII. INTO A DESERT LAND .... 399 
 XLIV. THE RETREAT FROM MOSCOW . . 406 
 XLV. " FAREWELL, PASCALET !". . . 412 
 XLVI. THE WHITE FLAG OF SHAME . . 420 
 XLVII. " AFTER ALL STRIVING PEACE" . 428
 
 THE WHITE TERROR 
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 WHEN I went back, after the holidays, to the 
 little seminary of La Sainte Garde in which, 
 without any regard to how / felt about it, my 
 parents were bent upon keeping me shut up for 
 my mind's improvement I no longer ranked as 
 a new boy. All of a sudden I had become an 
 oldster; and on top of that, my advanced rating 
 making me eligible to the high office, my com- 
 rades gave me another push upward in the 
 world by electing me game-master of the 
 school. 
 
 This was an eagerly coveted position that 
 carried with it both honours and privileges. I 
 was the custodian of the rackets, of the bowls 
 and pins, and of the weighted balls which 
 we use in our great Provencal game of boules. 
 These 1 dealt out at the beginning of our play- 
 time, and collected again and took charge of 
 when our play-time came to an end. The re- 
 sponsibilities of my office gave it dignity; but 
 its especial charm lay in the fact that it provided
 
 2 l)e tObite terror 
 
 me with a delightful den that was all my own. 
 I alone had a key to the little room in which our 
 play-gear was kept, and whenever I pleased I 
 could hide away there arid lock the door against 
 the world. Many and many a time, whilst my 
 school-fellows were tussling painfully with the 
 dead languages, I was stowed away at my ease 
 in my snug retreat where no ushers nor 
 other objectionable creatures could bother me 
 munching comfortably at a juicy leek or a fat 
 red onion that I had filched from the steward's 
 stores. And after my feast I could enjoy in per- 
 fect safety my reed pipe charged with potato- 
 skins or even sometimes, and this was the 
 height of my guilty pleasures, with the fag-end 
 of a real cigar! Ah, but it was a fine place, that 
 little room ! 
 
 But more honours were in store for me. 
 Presently I was appointed sacristan of our school 
 Brotherhood of Saint Louis Gonzaga. That was 
 a position worth having for in discharging its 
 duties I got out of a good two hours of school 
 work every day! In the morning I left Vergil 
 behind me while I served the mass with Mon- 
 sieur 1'Abbe Jan; and in the evening I threw 
 aside Lhomond's grammar that 1 might go and 
 light the candles on the altar of Saint Louis 
 Gonzaga in readiness for the gathering there of 
 our little Brotherhood. Moreover, with the ease- 
 ments of this office went most pleasing emolu-
 
 Prologue 
 
 ments. As we were forbidden to carry matches 
 in our pockets (I will not assert that the order 
 was obeyed scrupulously) 1 had a good excuse 
 for going every evening to the kitchen to light 
 the spill with which 1 then went onward to 
 light the altar candles; and seldom was it, the 
 cook being a kindly creature, that I failed to 
 carry away with me from the kitchen a little 
 gift a half dozen of olives, a handful of nuts, a 
 juicy apple that later made a feast for me in 
 my den. 
 
 And then came the climax of my good for- 
 tune. Seeing how well and faithfully I dis- 
 charged my various duties and knowing noth- 
 ing about my secret feasts on the cook's presents 
 and on my stolen leeks and onions, or about my 
 still more criminal pipe-smoking our head 
 master, Monsieur 1'Abbe Flechaire, made me a 
 monitor. Now that was something like ! Being 
 a monitor was almost the same thing as being 
 an usher for in the usher's absence the monitor 
 was clothed with his authority in the matter of 
 keeping order, and that gave him a fine chance 
 to make things lively for the other boys ! But 
 he also had bothersome duties among which 
 were teaching their catechism to the boys under 
 him, seeing to it that they said their prayers duly 
 and properly, and even endeavouring to promote 
 their moral welfare by preaching sermons to 
 them.
 
 terror 
 
 Twice a week the whole school was taken 
 out for a tramp in the country, and during 
 the walk each of us monitors had especial 
 charge of ten or a dozen of the smaller boys. 
 These were the occasions on which our ser- 
 mons were preached. At a signal from Mon- 
 sieur 1'Abbe Flechaire, we monitors would 
 clap our hands: and at that our boys would 
 stop their games and gather around us, each 
 little group being well separated from all the 
 others. Then we would tell our beads to- 
 gether, and when our prayers were finished 
 the sermon "the lecture" was our school 
 name for it would be preached: a little talk 
 about the saint of that particular day, or about 
 the chief feast of that particular week, or about 
 any other suitable religious matter that God 
 was pleased at the moment to put into our 
 small minds. 
 
 But I found it very difficult and so, I don't 
 doubt, did the other preachers to hold my 
 audience. Sometimes the- little fellows would 
 listen to me and sometimes they wouldn't. 
 Generally they wouldn't. All about us, there 
 on the countryside, were interesting creatures 
 which flew or jumped or crawled birds and 
 butterflies, excited crickets, long processions of 
 earnestly laborious ants. You see, sermons 
 even better ones than mine were plentiful in 
 the Seminary ; but we had only two half holi-
 
 Prologue 
 
 days a week to spend out in the fields with the 
 good little beasts of God ! 
 
 And so while I preached away, seated on a 
 big stone and trying my best to look like the 
 cure in his pulpit, it usually happened that I 
 found myself preaching in the desert! One of 
 my little auditors would be giving his whole 
 soul to the goings on of a goldfinch ; another 
 would be lost in wonder because the sound of 
 the axe-blows of a wood-cutter across the ravine 
 came to his ears so long after the sight of the 
 blows came to his eyes; another, with his hand 
 in his pocket, would be counting his marbles 
 in a word, they all would be looking anywhere 
 but at me, and would be thinking of anything 
 but my sermon : while they sucked their lungs 
 full of the sharp pure air, sweet with the smell 
 of the wild herbs thyme and sage and lavender 
 that were crushed beneath their feet, and 
 thought only of getting away from me and my 
 preaching and at play again on that great beau- 
 tiful open countryside. And yet 1 preached 
 most instructively and told many edifying things 
 about the doings of the greatest saints in Para- 
 dise! 
 
 My self-esteem being hurt by the persistently 
 wandering wits of my disciples, the thought one 
 day occurred to me that I might secure their at- 
 tention by bribery. On this thought I acted. I 
 told them that if they really would listen to my
 
 tOljite Bettor 
 
 sermon to the end, would listen to every word 
 of it, I then would go on and tell them a story; 
 not a made-up story, but the true history of a 
 dear old man who lived in my own village of 
 Malemort, and about those who had been his 
 enemies and his friends. That there might be 
 no doubt as to the quality of my wares I gave 
 them a sketch of the beginning of my story out 
 of hand telling them that Pascalet (as old Pas- 
 cal was called when he was a boy) was the son 
 of a wretchedly poor peasant named Pascal, and 
 of his wife La Patine, who lived in the time of 
 the great Revolution in our village of Malemort : 
 which in those days was owned, as were all the 
 people in it, by the Marquis d'Ambrun, it being 
 a part of his estate of La Garde ; that the Mar- 
 quis's game-keeper, a wicked creature named 
 Surto, tried to murder Pascalet; that Pascalet 
 managed to escape from him and get safe to 
 Avignon ; that there he enlisted in the famous 
 Marseilles Battalion and went on with it to Paris ; 
 and that afterwards he fought gallantly in the 
 French army through the Great Napoleon's wars. 
 Well, when 1 had told them that, I saw that 
 I had hitched my donkey to the right post at 
 last! So eager were they for the story that they 
 clustered about me like a covey of partridges 
 and begged that I would begin my sermon right 
 away. And they listened to it loyally. The 
 birds and the butterflies flew about us unnoticed.
 
 prologue 
 
 The crickets and the ants did not attract a single 
 wandering glance. My disciples sat still as little 
 angels, telling their beads with downcast eyes 
 and then listening to my little sermon with a 
 devout attention most edifying to behold. And 
 I kept my promise as exactly as they kept theirs. 
 When my sermon was finished I went on and 
 to the watchful eyes of Monsieur 1'Abbe Fle- 
 chaire, who was seated out of ear-shot, I seemed 
 still to be preaching to tell them the story that 
 was their agreed upon reward. 
 
 Pascalet and his father and mother, I told 
 them, were the very poorest of the poor living 
 miserably upon black bread made of beans and 
 acorns, and not getting near enough even of 
 that, and dwelling in a wretched little cabin: 
 that seemed all the more wretched because it 
 was close by the Chateau de la Garde, the splen- 
 did home of the Marquis and the Marquise and 
 their daughter the little Comtessine Adeline. 
 This little girl was just about Pascalet's age, and 
 she was the only person in Malemort excepting 
 his own father and mother and the kind-hearted 
 cure, Monsieur Randoulet who ever was good 
 to him. 
 
 And then I told that one day Pascalet caught 
 the game-keeper, Surto, kissing the Marquise, 
 and heard him promise her that he would mur- 
 der the Marquis her husband. That was why 
 Surto tried to kill Pascalet. But Pascalet man-
 
 8 ftlje fcObite terror 
 
 aged to get to the house of the good cure and so 
 was safe. 
 
 But of course he wouldn't be safe long in 
 Malemort with Surto about; and so the kind M. 
 Randoulet sent him away by night to Avignon 
 after giving him a suit of new clothes, and 
 three silver crowns, and a letter to a priest in 
 Avignon, Canon Jusserand, that was to make 
 everything all right for him. Things went 
 crookedly, though, and the Canon would not 
 have anything to do with him; and then, when 
 he was all lonely and despairing, a soldier of 
 the National Guard named Vauclair befriended 
 him getting him enrolled as a soldier in the 
 Guard, too, and giving him houseroom in his 
 own home. Vauclair's wife, Lazuli a woman 
 who was just as good as good bread was as 
 kind to Pascalet as her husband was. She was 
 almost like a mother to him though he was a 
 trifle too old to be her son and took as good 
 kind care of him as she did of her own little 
 boy, Clairet. And so, although it looked at 
 first as though he hadn't, Pascalet fell on his 
 feet when he came to Avignon, after all. 
 
 When I got that far in my story, telling it 
 with a good deal more detail than I have told it 
 here, I had to stop short. All the other moni- 
 tors had finished their sermons, and suddenly I 
 saw that Monsieur 1'Abbe Flechaire was coming 
 toward us evidently to find out why in the
 
 prologue 
 
 world my sermon lasted so long. And if he had 
 found out that I was not preaching at all, but 
 was telling a story that had for its hero a Red of 
 the Revolution, there certainly would have been 
 a terrible spilling of fat in the fire! 
 
 Three days later, when we took our next 
 country walk, my story went on again and we 
 all were in such a hurry to get to it that it really 
 did seem as though we were tempted away 
 from our religious duties by the devil himself. 
 As for our beads, we did not tell the half of 
 them; and when it came to my sermon I made 
 it not much more than three words long. But, 
 to speak frankly, aves and paters were not a 
 bit to my liking in those days and story-tell- 
 ing was. 
 
 I made my hearers shudder finely by telling 
 them that Surto tracked Pascalet to Avignon, 
 and caught him there, and shut him down in a 
 vault to be starved to death ; and then cheered 
 them by adding that the Comtessine Adeline 
 opened the trap door and got him out of the 
 vault and helped him to get safe away. And 
 after that Pascalet, along with Vauclair, left the 
 National Guard and enlisted in the Marseilles 
 Battalion and away they went to Paris to be- 
 siege King Louis Capet in his castle and to tear 
 down his throne. As for Adeline, Surto was in 
 such a rage with her for having helped Pascalet 
 to escape that he gave her into the hands of a
 
 tOl)itc terror 
 
 she-dragon named La Jacarasse to be carried off 
 to Paris and killed. 
 
 Some of the little boys fairly cried at the 
 thought of Adeline being killed, but I soon con- 
 soled them by telling that Lazuli snatched her 
 from the claws of La Jacarasse, and hid her away 
 in safety in Paris in the house of a kind-hearted 
 joiner named Planchot where Pascalet lived 
 also, and where he and Adeline fell in love with 
 each other. And while they were falling in love 
 with each other the Marseilles Battalion Pasca- 
 let fighting in it bravely, and Planchot helping 
 too and killing a lot of people with his joiner's 
 axe took the King's castle and made the King 
 a prisoner; and a little later, during the Terror, 
 Surto murdered the Marquis d'Ambrun, and then 
 he and the Marquise, Adeline's wicked mother, 
 took possession of the fortune that belonged to 
 Adeline herself. 
 
 It was hard on Adeline to lose her fortune, 
 but presently she lost something that she valued 
 a great deal more and that was Pascalet. One 
 day some of the men of the Battalion coaxed 
 him to go on a spree with them ; and when he 
 got over it and was sober again he was ashamed 
 to go back and face Lazuli and Adeline. With- 
 out telling anybody what he meant to do, he 
 enlisted in the Army of the Revolution and was 
 sent off all in a moment to the frontier; and not 
 until he was clear away from Paris with his reg-
 
 prologue 
 
 iment did Adeline and the others know what 
 had become of him. Vauclair did not get the 
 news for a long while, for he had started for the 
 South again with the Battalion leaving Lazuli 
 and Adeline to follow him by the coach. 
 
 And then my story took a blood-curdling 
 turn that made the boys all over goose-flesh. 
 Surto and La Jacarasse found out that Adeline 
 was hidden in Planchot's house, and tried to 
 steal her away from there to murder her; and 
 while they did not succeed in their attempt, both 
 she and Lazuli fell for a while into the clutches 
 of a worse villain still. This was a man named 
 Calisto des Sablees, a foundling whom the Comte 
 de la Vernede had adopted and brought up al- 
 most as his own son and who had rewarded 
 his benefactor by murdering him and taking 
 possession of his property and of his honourable 
 name. Being a very clever scoundrel, this 
 Calisto played a double game with La Jacarasse 
 and Surto: pretending to help them to carry off 
 Adeline from Planchot's house, but really man- 
 aging matters so that he succeeded in making 
 her, along with Lazuli and little Clairet, take 
 refuge in the house in the Rue de Bretagne which 
 had been his master's and which he had begun 
 to call his own. 
 
 Calisto's game was a large one. He had se- 
 cured to himself his master's property, which 
 carried with it his master's name and title, and
 
 terror 
 
 so counted upon being a great nobleman when 
 the troublous times should have passed by. But 
 he knew that his position would be a great deal 
 stronger were he married to a lady of undoubted 
 rank having also a fortune of her own. There- 
 fore he was determined to marry the Comtessine 
 Adeline d'Ambrun. That was why he sheltered 
 Adeline from Surto. But while the Terror lasted 
 he professed himself the most ferocious of sans- 
 culottes, and so managed both to run with the 
 hare and to hold with the hounds. Marat was 
 his friend, and from Marat he obtained death 
 warrants against Surto and La Jacarasse, to be 
 used when he wanted to get rid of them ; against 
 the Marquise, that he might terrify her into giv- 
 ing him her written permission to marry Adeline, 
 and later get rid of her also; and even against 
 Adeline, that he might have ready a threat that 
 would compel her by foul means to marry him 
 in case fair means failed. 
 
 Just as I had come to this most exciting point 
 in my story, and while all my hearers were 
 crowding close about me and listening eagerly, 
 Monsieur 1'Abbe Flechaire tapped on his breviary 
 as a signal that the sermons should end. It was 
 hard on all of us, but the signal had to be obeyed. 
 Had our little circle held together, Monsieur 
 1'Abbe certainly would have guessed that some- 
 thing was wrong and would have come to hear 
 what I was preaching about and a pretty kettle
 
 prologue 13 
 
 of fish that would have been ! And so we scat- 
 tered to our play. 
 
 But one by one my boys came back to me, 
 begging that I would tell just a little more. 
 They even offered me presents, of tops and mar- 
 bles if I would go on. But I held out firmly 
 against their entreaties and their bribes, telling 
 all of them that not another word of the story 
 would they have from me until we took our 
 next walk. And so you may be sure that I had 
 a very eager audience clustered about me at ser- 
 mon time on the day when that walk came off. 
 
 I remember very well that it was Thursday 
 in All-Saints' week, and that the d'ay was cloudy 
 and raw. Monsieur 1'Abbe FLechaire had taken 
 us up the side of the mountain of Saint Gens, 
 close to the Fountain of Vaucluse, and had 
 halted us for our prayers and sermons in a wood 
 of evergreen-oak where we were sheltered from 
 the nipping wind by a deep ravine. All my 
 boys were around me in an instant, in a snug 
 corner well off from the other groups, and then 
 away we dashed into our prayers and out of 
 them in a jiffy fairly gulping our paters, and 
 "scamping" our aves at the rate of five, four, 
 three, to the ten! As for my sermon, I let it 
 slip altogether starting off with my story the 
 moment that what we were pleased to call our 
 devotions were at an end. 
 
 But my congregation that day included an
 
 14 l)c tDI)ite terror 
 
 unusual and a dangerous member. This was a 
 molly-coddle of a boy whom we called "the 
 Fifi " partly because he wasn't much bigger 
 than a wren, and partly because he had a wren's 
 little hopping ways and also a good deal of a 
 wren's pertness. "The Fifi" belonged to my 
 group of boys, but usually in our walks he stuck 
 close to Monsieur 1'Abbe Flechaire who found 
 the little sneak useful in keeping order in the 
 school because of his habit of tale-telling, and 
 who therefore made a prime favourite of him. 
 Had we not been so eager to get on with our 
 story we would have realized the peril of per- 
 mitting "the Fifi" to listen to it; but neither I 
 nor the other fellows ever gave a thought to him 
 and so away we went to perdition as hard as 
 we could go! 
 
 In a thrilling fashion I told how Adeline and 
 Lazuli and little Clairet managed to escape by 
 night from the house in the Rue de Bretagne, 
 and found shelter once more under the wings 
 of the good Planchots; and how, after a while, 
 in spite of Calisto and Surto and La Jacarasse, 
 they succeeded in getting safe away from Paris 
 on the very day that the King was executed 
 in the kind charge of a good carrier named Jean 
 Caritous, who had been sent by Vauclair to 
 bring them back in his cart to Avignon. I told 
 what a good fellow this Caritous was, and ho^w 
 he was in love with a beautiful girl named
 
 prologue 15 
 
 Genevieve, the daughter of another Avignon 
 carrier; and how he broke off his intended mar- 
 riage because he found that her father, old Bas- 
 tian, had stolen a cargo of treasure gold and 
 silver vessels and ornaments from the churches 
 in Provence that the Government officers in 
 Marseilles had entrusted to him to carry up to 
 the Paris mint. For Jean Caritous was an honest 
 man who would not take with his wife such a 
 thieves' dowry. 
 
 And then, coming back to the main story, I 
 told how Calisto found out what had gone with 
 Adeline, and came down to Avignon in search 
 of her after he had turned over the Marquise 
 her mother and Surto and La Jacarasse to the 
 guillotine and how, when he discovered where 
 she was sheltered, he denounced the good Vau- 
 clair and Lazuli as traitors who were harbouring 
 an Aristocrat; and then, that plan failing to 
 catch her for him, how he got General Jourdan 
 "Chop-head" to order a search for Aristocrats 
 to be made in every house in Avignon feeling 
 sure that by that means he would find Adeline 
 and get her again into his power. 
 
 There was a general shudder at this turn in 
 my story, but my hearers grew more comfortable 
 again as I went on to tell how Vauclair and La- 
 zuli although they were driven almost crazy by 
 grief at the thought of being looked upon as 
 traitors still were too much for Calisto. I told
 
 1 6 l)e tDljite terror 
 
 how they dressed Adeline in boy's clothes in 
 the very suit that she had made with her own 
 hands, and that good Monsieur Randoulet, the 
 cure of Malemort, had given to Pascalet and 
 so let her work for a while in that disguise with 
 a rope-maker in Avignon; and how, on the 
 dreadful night when the search for Aristocrats 
 was made, Jean Caritous hid her under his cart 
 in his wagon-shed and so kept her safe. And 
 then I told how she and Lazuli and little Clairet 
 escaped from Avignon : how, in the grey dawn 
 of the morning following that vain search, Cari- 
 tous hid them in the lading of his cart and so 
 got them out of the city, and then went onward 
 with them toward Malemort the little out-of- 
 the-way village in the mountains where they 
 knew that the good Monsieur Randoulet would 
 care for them, and where they hoped to be safe 
 from harm. And I told how Vauclair, having 
 in this way provided for the welfare of his dear 
 ones, proved that he was no traitor, but a brave 
 patriot, by enlisting again in the Marseilles Bat- 
 talion and going off once more to the wars. In 
 company with the other recruits for the Battalion, 
 he also started for Avignon on that same morn- 
 ing; and I told how he and his fellow-soldiers 
 stopped to rest on the heights above the Rhone 
 westward, and how in the morning light he 
 saw the cart far away on the other side of the 
 city, so far that it looked no bigger than an ant
 
 Prologue 
 
 going briskly along the highway and bearing 
 those dear ones of his to peace and safety. 
 
 While I told all this my hearers listened 
 breathlessly. Their hearts quaked as they heard 
 about Adeline's perils, and beat warm again 
 when her safety once more seemed to be as- 
 sured. Impatient to know what was coming 
 next, they pressed close upon me. All around 
 me were wide open, eager, wondering eyes! 
 
 And then, suddenly, I became aware that 
 those searching eyes were not looking at me, 
 but beyond me; and in the same instant as 
 though the Gorgon's head were just over my 
 shoulder the eager and wondering look faded 
 out of them and in its place came a stony look 
 of frozen fear. I turned to see what direful 
 cause had produced this change so instantaneous 
 and so horrifying; and, turning, 1 also saw the 
 Gorgon's head and I also was turned to stone. 
 For there, among the oaks behind me, almost 
 at my elbow brought thither softly by that 
 despicable sneak of a " Fifi " stood in awful 
 majesty Monsieur 1'Abbe Flechaire! 
 
 As a cat lifts and carries a kitten but with 
 a snatching roughness of which no cat would 
 be guilty he grabbed me by my collar, raised 
 me into the air, and holding me at arm's length 
 (Ai! Ai! Ai! but it was horrible!) carried me 
 sprawling and kicking away! All the school 
 beheld my humiliating tragedy! All saw my
 
 i8 l)c 'tDljite terror 
 
 disgraceful transportation through space that 
 ended in my being plumped down hard upon 
 an isolated rock and bidden to remain upon that 
 bad eminence, kneeling, until it was time for 
 us to go home! "Stay there on your bended 
 knees, sacrilegious little wretch that you are!" 
 cried Monsieur 1' Abbe, speaking not in Provencal 
 but in formal French, so great was his indigna- 
 tion. " Stay there on your bended knees, and 
 do not dare to utter a single word! " 
 
 And I stayed there with the look of a rep- 
 robate Little Samuel remonstrantly at prayer! 
 
 It was pretty bad, that punishment that in 
 an instant changed me from a centre of flatter- 
 ingly acute interest to a centre of ribald ridicule 
 but very much worse was to come. When 
 we had been marched back to the school again 
 I was haled by Monsieur 1'Abbe before the 
 Principal, and in that dread presence the sum of 
 my evil doing was revealed. And then Fate 
 fairly laid me by the heels! Solemnly the Princi- 
 pal passed sentence upon me: I was to do five 
 thousand lines out of school hours; I was to 
 lose my position as game-master, and along 
 with it the use of my beloved den; I was to be 
 deprived of my office of sacristan of the Brother- 
 hood, and with that went (though the Principal 
 did not know it) its valuable emoluments; and, 
 finally, I was warned that if I told even one 
 single word more of my profane story to a single
 
 Prologue 19 
 
 one of my companions I would be expelled from 
 the school! 
 
 Well, I lived through it, that frightful sen- 
 tence and even managed to be fairly cheerful 
 under it after the shuddering tremors of its first 
 shock had passed away. I did not take so very 
 long to do my five thousand lines, for I used one 
 of the extraordinary pen-holders that we had a 
 way of making out of reeds tied together 
 affairs into which we stuck three or four sepa- 
 rate pens, and so contrived to write three or four 
 lines at a time. And while I never quite got 
 over the loss of my den, I still was able what 
 with poaching and begging to have an onion or 
 an apple, or a handful of almonds or olives, now 
 and then. But from the hardness of that clause 
 of my sentence which forbade me to finish my 
 story there was neither escape nor easement. 
 In face of the Principal's warning, I dared not 
 go on with it. The consequences of disobedi- 
 ence were too terrible for me to defy them 
 bold though my young spirit was! And so my 
 companions never knew the end of Pascalet's 
 and Adeline's adventures ; though they did 
 know, of course, that Pascalet had lived through 
 them because I could tell them that he still 
 was living in my own village of Malemort: an 
 old, old man whom everybody loved. 
 
 And now, at last, here is the end of my his- 
 tory and 1 write it in no dread of punishment.
 
 &l)ite terror 
 
 for the worthy Principal has been for these ten 
 years past dead and buried (God rest him !) 
 and his writ no longer runs. Just where I left 
 off all those years ago I begin again starting 
 afresh from that break in my history which came 
 when I looked over my shoulder and saw among 
 the oak branches the Gorgon's head apparition 
 of Monsieur I' Abbe Flechaire! 
 
 FELIX GRAS.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE COMING OF THE WHITE TERROR TO AVIGNON 
 
 IN the grey dawn of morning, the morning 
 following upon that fierce night when all the city 
 was turned upside down in the search for Aris- 
 tocrats, a monster went raging like a hungry 
 wolf through the streets of Avignon. House 
 after house he entered and ransacked, only to 
 emerge from each in turn empty handed and 
 still more furious. " I'll have hen I'll have her! 
 She shall be mine!" he cried. "Tell me where 
 she is hidden ? Tell me, or the whole city shall 
 burn!" It was Calisto des Sablees, mad with 
 anger because Adeline had slipped through the 
 meshes he had woven around her. 
 
 But his search, like the great search of the night 
 before, was useless. Adeline was gone, even Joy 
 was gone his own good old servant whom 
 Vauclair had put with his own dear ones in the 
 way of safety. And finding his plans frustrated 
 and his hopes broken, Calisto's gall burst and 
 he became as one possessed. Like the fox who 
 bites his spine crushed by the hunter's bullet, he 
 dragged out his hair and tore himself with his 
 nails. He howled in his blind rage, he cursed 
 his ill-luck with a savage bitterness, with great 
 oaths he swore to avenge himself with fire and 
 sword. And at last, with his hands clinched
 
 incite error 
 
 and grinding his teeth, he set off for the Pope's 
 Palace to try conclusions with the man whom 
 he believed to be the author of his misfortunes: 
 Jourdan Chop-head, the commandant of Avi- 
 gnon. 
 
 Past the guards he rushed without a word. 
 They dared not stop him. They knew the pow- 
 er that was behind him that he was the shadow 
 of Marat the Death. Without knocking, he burst 
 in upon the commandant. Even Jourdan. the 
 terrible Jourdan Chop-head, felt a momentary 
 shiver of fear that made him grasp his pistol hur- 
 riedly as he beheld Calisto's furious face and 
 heard him cry in a voice broken by passion : 
 " It is you who have hidden her. Tell me where 
 she is!" 
 
 "Citizen, you do not know to whom you 
 are speaking. Remember that I am General 
 Jourdan." 
 
 " I do know to whom I am speaking it is 
 to a friend of the Aristocrats! " 
 
 " And that is why they call me ' Chop-head,' 
 I suppose," Jourdan answered, with a smile that 
 did not seem to come easily. 
 
 " They may call you what they please. It is 
 you who have saved the daughter of the Mar- 
 quis d'Ambrun. Tell me, I say, where she is ? " 
 
 " I don't know what you are talking about," 
 Jourdan answered coldly. "What I do know 
 is that last night we arrested five hundred Aris- 
 tocrats men and women and children, a round 
 half thousand of them. Go and look if the 
 daughter of your ci-devant Marquis is in the lot. 
 As for me, ! do not care a fig what becomes of 
 her or of you."
 
 Coming of llie tCH)itc terror to Qlmgnon 23 
 
 "She is not among the prisoners, and you 
 know it you who have rescued her! " 
 
 "Citizen, do you want to be bled? You 
 are very near to it! " 
 
 " And you, do you want to lose your head ? 
 It is shaky on your shoulders just now! " 
 
 " 1 have told you to remember that you are 
 speaking to General Jourdan." 
 
 " I am speaking to a traitor! " Calisto shout- 
 ed. And he looked Jourdan full in the eyes as 
 he added : "And I can prove what I say ! " 
 
 The General paled a little, but answered in a 
 strong voice: "I arrest you. You are a mur- 
 derer and a robber." As he spoke he levelled 
 his pistol at Calisto's head. 
 
 For answer Calisto drew his own pistol 
 and raised it; and so they stood for an instant, 
 each facing a black muzzle ready to spit out 
 death. 
 
 But it was only for an instant that they held 
 their threatening positions. Suddenly the drums 
 in the courtyard and the drums at the gateway 
 burst out together in a tremendous rattle with 
 the generale, and in the same moment the tocsin 
 began to ring on all the Avignon bells. Out- 
 side, in the stone-paved passageways, was a 
 buzz of excited voices and a great trampling of 
 feet. Commotion was everywhere. The whole 
 Palace was astir. 
 
 The two men lowered their pistols. " We'll 
 settle this matter later," said Jourdan grimly; 
 "and I'll catch you without running after you, 
 all in good time." 
 
 " When you please," Calisto answered; and 
 as he spoke a dozen soldiers burst into the room
 
 24 l)c tDl)itc terror 
 
 in a disorderly crowd all in great excitement 
 and all shouting at once. 
 
 " They are here! " 
 
 ' ' Twenty thousand of them ! " 
 
 "All our men are dead!" 
 
 " They have crossed the Durance! " 
 
 " We must run for it! " 
 
 "Silence, you fools!" cried Jourdan sharply. 
 " Now let some one of you with a scrap of sense 
 in his head tell me what all this is about" 
 
 "I was there!" panted out breathlessly a 
 National Guard a big fellow all covered with 
 sweat and dust. 
 
 "Oh, you 'were there,' were you? Very 
 well, then, speak up and let the rest of you 
 hold your tongues." 
 
 "It was this way," the National Guard went 
 on, speaking with a dry throat huskily and pant- 
 ing out his words: "As you ordered, General, 
 we were patrolling our bank of the Durance, on 
 the lookout for the Federalist army. About 
 dawn their vanguard showed on the other side 
 of the river, near Bonpas. We shouted to them 
 that they might stay where they were that 
 Avignon was not going to be ordered about by 
 Marseilles; and the only answer they gave us 
 was a volley that stretched out six of our men 
 under the willows. We did the best we could, 
 General. Not counting the boys' battalion, there 
 were only a hundred and fifty of us and there 
 must have been twenty thousand of them. We 
 sheltered ourselves behind the dyke and cracked 
 away at them, trying to keep them from getting 
 possession of the rope-ferry and the more that 
 we shot at them the more they came on, crowd-
 
 Coming of tl)c iDljite terror to Qtaignon 25 
 
 ing down to the water side like ants pouring 
 out of a hill." 
 
 "Who commands them ?" Jourdan inter- 
 rupted. 
 
 " They say, General, that it is the citizen 
 Rebecqui." 
 
 "Rebecqui? my friend Rebecqui? and 
 where could he have got together such an army 
 as you say this is ? " 
 
 ''I don't know, General. All I know is 
 what I heard. They say that all sorts of people 
 are in it. They say that the whole of the Mar- 
 seilles Battalion is there the Battalion that went 
 up to Paris last year." 
 
 "That's a lie," Jourdan struck in. "The 
 Marseilles Battalion was disbanded long ago, 
 and it cannot have been reorganised because 
 almost every man who was in it has joined the 
 Republican army and is fighting foreigners on 
 the frontier." 
 
 " Well, maybe you're right, General. This 
 crowd don't look like good Reds the sort those 
 Marseilles boys were. We could see priests 
 among them, and some of our men said they 
 recognised nobles they knew along with the 
 priests. They have the look of a crowd got 
 together to undo all the good work of our beau- 
 tiful Revolution a lot of priests and nobles and 
 deserters and stuff like that. Well, anyhow, 
 there they were over on the other side of the 
 river, and for all our shouting they kept coming 
 on pouring down to the river bank like a 
 swarm of ants, just as 1 have said, and going 
 straight for the ferry-boat in spite of our fire. 
 And then one of our men did a good thing and it
 
 26 l)e tOljite terror 
 
 was n't a man either, it was a boy : little Viala, 
 only twelve years old, his little hide still full of 
 his mother's 'milk as you might say. Well, that 
 little chap, seeing the enemy getting hold of the 
 boat, jumped up from where we lay under cover 
 and made a dash into the open to the post where 
 the cable of the ferry was made fast. Out came 
 his sword it was longer than he was and he 
 went to chopping at the rope with both hands. 
 In an instant there was a storm of bullets upon 
 him. We could hear them cutting through the 
 leaves above us with a patter-patter like the nuts 
 falling from a shaken almond tree. And then, 
 all of a sudden, we saw his hands go up in the 
 air, and saw him spinning around like a top. 
 'They've hit me,' he cried, 'but I'm dying 
 for liberty ! ' and down he fell in a heap on the 
 stones of the Durance. 
 
 "That shamed us, and we broke cover and 
 ran down to him to bring him in. But he was 
 dead before we got to him, that glorious boy 
 lying there with his heart's blood glowing in the 
 sunshine. And we saw that there was nothing 
 left for the rest of us but to run for it seeing that 
 there were not enough of us to stand off such a 
 crowd. So back we came to tell you what has 
 happened. But we brought little Viala along 
 with us. We bedded him on laurels and so 
 fetched him home that young glory of Avignon 
 who died that the Republic and the Revolution 
 may live ! " 
 
 " Order my horse ! " cried Jourdan. 
 
 "It's useless for you to go, General," said 
 the soldier. " You can't stop them. There are 
 thousands and thousands of them. Don't go! "
 
 Coming of tlje tOtjite terror to &mgnon 27 
 
 Jourdan was very pale and his hands were 
 shaking. " Order my horse ! " he cried again, 
 and as he spoke he began to snatch up from the 
 table his pistols and papers and everything that 
 he could lay hands on. 
 
 " I tell you it's no use, General," repeated 
 the soldier. "It's death for you to go. It's 
 certain death it's just the same as jumping into 
 the Rhone." 
 
 But Jourdan, still calling for his horse, dashed 
 out of the room and down into the courtyard. 
 In five minutes he was mounted and ready to 
 get away. The gendarmes and National Guards 
 pressed around him, trembling with eagerness 
 to be led against the enemy more than ready 
 to die, if by dying they could check the Fed- 
 eralist advance. Without a word to them he 
 spurred his horse and galloped off. But it was 
 not toward the advancing Federalists that Jour- 
 dan galloped ! No, his back was turned to the 
 enemy, and away he went as fast as his horse 
 could carry him across fields and through by- 
 ways to Sorgues. Late that night he reached 
 a friendly farm-house ; and there he staid, hid- 
 den in a hayloft, through all the time that the 
 White Terror reigned in Avignon. 
 
 For it was the White Terror that began that 
 day. Overpowered completely, Avignon fell 
 into the possession of that strange army which 
 set forth from Marseilles a small body of orderly 
 Reds whose purpose was to march to Paris to 
 avenge the death of the Marseilles deputy, Bar- 
 baroux, executed with the Girondists, and to 
 bring the Convention once more into line with 
 Republican doctrines and which became before
 
 28 |)c tOljite terror 
 
 it reached Avignon a turbulent horde of Whites, 
 bent upon destroying the Republic and upon 
 restoring the tyrant to his throne. In that short 
 march the Federalist force commanded by Re- 
 becqui was completely swamped by the sudden 
 gathering around it of a far greater body of anti- 
 patriots : dogs of nobles, deserters, malcontents, 
 and camp-followers who cared only for plunder 
 and for blood. It was the most curious of all 
 the sudden, irrational, impossible, transforma- 
 tions which took place even in those times of 
 accomplished irrational impossibilities in France. 
 
 The White Terror reigned when that cut- 
 throat horde had Avignon in its grasp. In the 
 White quarter in the Rue du Limas, about the 
 Porte du Rhone, in the Rue Fustarie the anti- 
 patriot sneaks came swarming together as they 
 realized the change that was upon them ; every 
 man with his knife hidden but ready, and all 
 eager for their work to begin. Presently it did 
 begin, and Avignon was in the murderers' hands. 
 Rebecqui and his men, the honest Federals, were 
 powerless to maintain order. Patriots were in 
 flight. Ruffians were kniving the people. The 
 scum of nobility was on top again. The men 
 of the Revolution were under heel! 
 
 The Federalists left Marseilles shouting "Vive 
 la patrie ! Vive la Republique ! -" and they entered 
 Avignon shouting "Vive 1'etranger ! Vive le 
 roi!" Oh the pity of it ! Oh the shame! No 
 wonder that Rebecqui, the brave Federalist com- 
 mander broken-hearted and despairing because 
 he could not hold in check this legion of devils 
 flung himself into the Rhone!
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 . ADELINE'S PERIL 
 
 UNDISMAYED by the danger from which Jour- 
 dan Chophead frankly had run away, Calistokept 
 his wits about him. He knew that the coming 
 of the Whites meant a quick flight or a quick 
 turning of coats for all the Reds who wanted to 
 keep their heads on their shoulders ; and, as he 
 was far too clever to turn his coat prematurely, 
 it was obvious that he must be off from Avignon 
 without delay. But even in his hurry he stopped 
 to make sure of the safety of what so far had been 
 his winnings in the big game. 
 
 Having seen to it that a horse would be in 
 waiting for him at the post-house, he went on 
 quickly to the house in the Rue du Limas of the 
 Canon Jusserand the priest to whom this bas- 
 tard, who claimed the Comte de la Vernede as 
 his father, in reality owed his existence; and he 
 was not surprised, being arrived there, to find 
 that that wide-awake prelate already had doffed 
 his red cap and had resumed his breviary. And 
 then, together, this worthy couple carefully hid 
 away the papers and the valuables of the Comte 
 de la Vernede, and along with them the treasure 
 that Calisto had stolen from the family of the 
 Marquis d'Ambrun the whole making a very 
 pretty provision against a rainy day ! 
 
 29
 
 30 lje tDl)ite terror 
 
 Grass was not growing under their feet while 
 they attended to this matter; and the moment 
 that it was finished Calisto was off. Mounted 
 on his horse, away he galloped from Avignon 
 going out by the gate of Saint Lazare, and along 
 the very same white road over which Jean Cari- 
 tous in the dawn of that same morning had car- 
 ried Adeline and Lazuli and old Joy in his cart. 
 But among the many evil powers with which 
 the master of all evil had dowered him, Calisto 
 did not possess the witches' power of divination. 
 Unconscious that only a few leagues separated 
 him from those whom he so longed to snare, he 
 galloped sharply along the road; and when he 
 came to where it branched, at Le Pontet, he 
 bore to the left, for Paris, and followed no farther 
 the innocents on their safe way to Malemort. 
 
 Yet as he galloped on, away from them, he 
 was in truth pursuing them. In his mind al- 
 ready was formed a fresh scheme for their cap- 
 ture. Before the Convention, in Paris, he would 
 denouncejourdan Chop-head as a coward and a 
 traitor; he would sound such an alarm in the 
 Convention that presently the whole South 
 would be ravaged with fire and sword in beat- 
 ing down the White anti-patriots; and in that 
 time of battling and of wild commotion would 
 come his opportunity for then, surely, every 
 secret hiding-place would be discovered, and 
 somewhere or another Adeline certainly would 
 be found ! 
 
 Meanwhile, safely out of reach of this devil 
 who was ready to fire a whole country-side in 
 order to catch them, the little company in the 
 cart of Jean Caritous gladly journeyed onward.
 
 QibeUne's Peril 31 
 
 In spite of all that they had gone through during 
 the dreadful night just passed, and in spite of 
 the dangers which at any moment might be 
 upon them, Lazuli and Adeline and old Joy and 
 little Clairet were very happy as they sat to- 
 gether under the cart-tilt. They laughed and 
 chattered as though dangers had no existence; 
 so joyful were they because they were free again, 
 and were journeying in the gay July sunshine 
 to where they would be. 
 
 " Oh, how enchanting! " cried Adeline, clap- 
 ping her hands. "I shall see my village of 
 Malemort and my Chateau de la Garde!" 
 
 "Gently, gently, darling," said Lazuli. 
 "Going to" the Chateau may not be safe for us. 
 We may have to keep in hiding even in Male- 
 mort." 
 
 " But cannot we go to see La Patine Pas- 
 calet's mother ?" 
 
 "That we will know when we see 
 Monsieur Randoulet. We must do what the 
 good priest tells us to do. He is prudent, and 
 he will know what is best." 
 
 " If I never am to see my own mother 
 again," Adeline went on, "I would like to take 
 Pascalet's mother to live with me. And then, 
 when Pascalet comes home again She 
 stopped suddenly. They all were looking at 
 her, smiling, and on the face of Caritous was a 
 broad grin. 
 
 "You talk about your Pascalet," said Cari- 
 tous with a laugh, as his desire for teasing got 
 the better of him. " You talk about your Pas- 
 calet, but I'll be bound that last night when 
 you were curled up in the tray under the cart,
 
 32 I)e tDIjite terror 
 
 while the sans-culottes were close beside you 
 your teeth were just chattering with fear and 
 you never once thought about him. Eh, my 
 pretty, isn't that so ? " 
 
 "Indeed it isn't," Adeline answered ear- 
 nestly. " It isn't so at all," and as she spoke 
 she looked straight into Jean's eyes. 
 
 " Come, come now. Do you mean to say 
 you were thinking about Pascalet even while 
 the gendarmes were there right beside the 
 cart?" 
 
 " I am always thinking about him and 
 most of all when I am in danger." 
 
 "Well, if that's so, you certainly had a 
 right to think about him last night, for if ever 
 you were in danger in your life you were in 
 danger then. Let me tell you just what hap- 
 pened, Lazuli. So far you've only heard about 
 it in scraps and by fits and starts. Now here's 
 the whole story from beginning to end: 
 
 " You see, it had got along to two o'clock 
 in the morning, and I'd pretty much come to 
 the conclusion that our house wouldn't be 
 searched at all. I had tucked Adeline away in the 
 tray under the cart, hiding her well under a lot 
 of horse-blankets, and had left the little dog 
 watching beside her. My mother had taken her 
 lamp and gone off to bed, and I'd just lighted 
 my lantern and was going off myself to sleep in 
 the hayloft. And just then bang! bang! bang! 
 came three thumping knocks at our door. 
 
 "I went to the door in a hurry for the 
 quicker I was the less it would look as if I had 
 something to hide and when 1 had unbarred 
 and opened it I found four big red-faced gen-
 
 &bdine 1 s peril 33 
 
 darmes standing outside. All four of them had 
 their skins full of wine. Their legs went all 
 crooked, and so did their talk. In they stag- 
 gered, almost tumbling over each other, and 
 struck across the courtyard to the shed where 
 the cart was. There they pulled up, right be- 
 side it, and the least drunken of the lot said: 
 'Listen to me, Jean Caritous!' and there he 
 stopped short. 
 
 " ' What do you want with me?' I asked, 
 and began to move on, for I was dreadfully 
 anxious to get them away from near the cart. 
 
 " ; Listen to me here, 'said the fellow, 'we 
 needn't go any farther for what I have to say.' 
 
 " 'I don't know what you have to say,' I 
 answered, ' but, whatever it is, come along and 
 say it in the house.' 
 
 "'Don't want no house,' he mumbled. 
 ' Want to stay right here.' Then he caught me 
 by the shoulder and leaned back against the 
 cart to steady himself, and went on : ' See here, 
 Jean we're good friends, ain't we ? ' 
 
 "'Yes, of course we are,' says I. 'But 
 what's that got to do with it ? What do you 
 want with me, anyway?' 
 
 " ' Want to know somethin' right here,' says 
 he. ' Now just you say out whether you want 
 to give her up or not ? ' 
 
 " ' But I haven't got anybody to give up,' 
 says I, and I was so flabbergasted that if any of 
 'em had been sober my looks would have given 
 the whole thing away. 
 
 " 'That's all right,' says he. ' But we know 
 all about it, an' we mean to do the right thing 
 by you. If you want to give her up, just say
 
 34 
 
 so, and that's th' end of it. But if you don't, 
 you've only to say so and we'll fix it for you. 
 We'll get our claws on her you not bein' sup- 
 posed to know nothin' about "it and fetch her 
 along. And then the other fellow may go 
 scratch himself ! ' 
 
 " He gave me a drunken wink as he spoke, 
 and they all of them looked at me with drunken 
 grins. As for me, I couldn't make head or tail 
 of this queer talk. 
 
 " ' But I haven't anybody to give up, I tell 
 you,' says I. 'You may hunt the house from 
 garret to cellar and you won't find a soul in it 
 only my old mother, who's asleep in bed.' 
 
 "'No, no no huntin' here,' says he. 
 'You're all right, Jean. You're good patriot, 
 you are. No huntin' here. But you've got 
 good wine about the place, and you've got a 
 good deal more than four crowns. But some 
 wine and four crowns and that's only one apiece 
 for us will do it, Jean. That's all we ask. So 
 don't you waste time making a pious fraud of 
 yourself, but just say the word.' 
 
 " ' Say what word ? ' says I, and I really was 
 at my wits' end to know what they were driv- 
 ing at. 
 
 ''Oh, come off!' says he. 'You know 
 what the word is, and you know where the girl 
 is and so do we. We'll catch her for you 
 here's the rag to keep her mouth shut and the 
 rope to keep her still and after that the other 
 fellow can hunt for her till he's tired! ' 
 
 " ' What other fellow ?' says I. And if ever 
 a man was puzzled 1 was then. They might as 
 well have been talking Greek.
 
 Sideline's JJeril 35 
 
 "Suddenly the drunkest one of the lot 
 lurched himself up in front of me. He was so 
 drunk that he swayed about like the top of a 
 cypress when the mistral is blowing. ' Y' know 
 all 'bout it,' says he. ' Y ' know jushashwell 
 ash we do! ' And with that he gave a sudden 
 heavy lurch, tried to steady himself and didn't, 
 and then with a long stagger down he went 
 right under the cart. As he fell he fairly got his 
 hand on the hay where Adeline was hidden 
 an inch farther and he'd have touched her with 
 his hand! And he might have found her, any- 
 how, if it hadn't been for the little dog. The 
 dog went for him like a little devil and it only 
 looked as if I was trying to keep him from being 
 bitten when I jerked him by his legs and so got 
 him safe away. And just wasn't I in a state of 
 mind! I believed that I was in for a fight with 
 them, and without saying anything 1 got my 
 hands on the cross-bar of the cart. 
 
 " And then the least drunk one, the one who 
 had been doing the talking, let in some daylight. 
 ' See here, Jean,' says he, 'you know as well as 
 we do that Tiston, Cazat's son, is after Genevieve 
 and means to marry her before Saint Magdalen's 
 day. Are you the man to let him do that ? 
 Just speak up and we'll fix him for you and fix 
 her too ! Give us a drink and four crowns only 
 a crown apiece, Jean and we'll fetch her right 
 here now. We can do it easy on a night like 
 this. And when we've fetched her here the 
 game's in your hands! ' 
 
 " Then, at last, I did understand and as that 
 rotten hound spoke Genevieve's name I seemed 
 to feel the sweat break out upon me, and my
 
 36 lje tOI)ite 
 
 heart stood still. Why, for a minute, I felt so 
 weak that little Clairet,there,might have knocked 
 me down! But I remembered that the first 
 thing to be done was to save Adeline, and with 
 that I pulled myself together and took up the 
 talking again. 
 
 " ' Well/ says I, ' come along and have the 
 drink, anyway. This isn't a thing to settle off- 
 hand. We'll talk about it while we're warming 
 our insides.' 
 
 "They were ready enough for that, you may 
 be sure; and so I led'them across the courtyard 
 and into the kitchen, and then 1 got out a bottle 
 of Cartagena brandy strong enough to eat the 
 lining out of a copper pot! ' We're all friends,' 
 says I, filling a cup of the stuff for each of them 
 and before I could make a show of filling a 
 cup for myself they'd taken it off. It began to 
 get in its work on them almost the minute it 
 was down! 'We're all friends,' says I, filling 
 up for them again ; and as they guzzled I went 
 on : ' And we're all good patriots friends of the 
 Revolution and haters of the Tyrant. Well, now, 
 among friends, among patriots, one can speak 
 out one's mind freely, eh ?' 
 
 ' ' ' Cershingly one can, ' said the least drunken 
 fellow which wasn't saying much, for the Car- 
 tagena had made them all pretty near blind. 
 
 " 'Then I will speak my mind,' says I, 'and 
 here it is: You are the four dirtiest hounds that 
 God ever made and as to your offer, I spit it 
 back into your four faces at once ! ' 
 
 " ' Didn't I tellyousho ? ' said the talking one. 
 ' Didn't I tell you hish noshuns wash too nish 
 for our game?' and he fell to blubbering. As
 
 feline's fJcril 37 
 
 for the others, they were too far gone to know 
 what it all was about. 
 
 " ' Too nice! ' says I, with a bang of my fist 
 on the table. ' Yes, I am too nice! And as for 
 you four, you are blackguards from the word 
 go it would serve you right if the Tyrant were 
 back on his throne again and you were back 
 where you were before the Revolution came 
 and had to beg your bread from door to door! ' 
 
 " At that the talking one fell to weeping as if 
 his heart would break, and said between his 
 sobs: 'He's right Jean Caritoush ish right! 
 We're badsh we can be! Itsh too bad we're 
 sho bad! ' and then he put down his head and 
 sobbed. 
 
 " Well, I didn't want the show to go on all 
 night; and so, as I was sure that there was 
 nothing more to fear from the fellows, I gave 
 them another drink all round and then bundled 
 them out of doors. It was like rolling logs to 
 move them. They went down like nine-pins as 
 they struck the night air! But I can tell you 
 that I drew a long breath when at last I had 
 them fairly out into the street again, and the 
 door barred behind them with Adeline still 
 safe under the cart, and my dear old mother still 
 safe in her bed upstairs! "
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 SOME RAGGED REGIMENTS 
 
 As Caritous told his story his auditors by 
 turns shivered and laughed over it, and it was 
 punctuated by their exclamations in its more 
 thrilling parts. When it was finished, Lazuli 
 and old Joy flung themselves upon Adeline and 
 hugged her and kissed her with all their might. 
 
 "My own dear one." cried Lazuli, "how 
 awful it would have been had that drunken 
 wretch found you when he tumbled down ! " 
 
 "What did the gendarmes want with you, 
 Adeline?" asked Clairet, his eyes as big as 
 saucers. 
 
 " Can such things be! " exclaimed Joy, clasp- 
 ing her thin old hands. 
 
 " But, really, 1 wasn't very much frightened, 
 you know," said Adeline, trying to reassure 
 them. "Just hearing Jean's voice all the time 
 was a comfort to me; and then I felt sure, some- 
 how, that he and Vauclair never would let them 
 carry me off." 
 
 "Had you eaten up all the jam, Adeline ?" 
 asked the puzzled Clairet. " Was that why the 
 gendarmes wanted to carry you off?" 
 
 "And I was thinking' too. as I have told 
 you, about my Pascalet who would come from 
 the ends of the earth to save me. No, I was not 
 
 38
 
 Some ftaggefc Hegiments 39 
 
 badly frightened and, anyhow, what is past is 
 past, so don't let us talk any more about it. I 
 am only full of happiness now here with you 
 who are so dear to me and out among the lovely 
 fields of the good God. 
 
 " Ah, but it is good to be in the country 
 again," Adeline went on. " Look at that har- 
 vester over there. See how his sickle glitters 
 in the sunshine, and look at his binder following 
 him, with her big straw hat to keep off the sun. 
 How happy she must be! See how she hugs 
 up the sheaf as though she were lifting her baby 
 for a kiss. See how her brown hands twist the 
 straw rope around it, and how she lays the sheaf 
 on the stubble and ties it while she steadies it 
 with her knee. Yes, they must be very happy, 
 those poor peasants. Nobody envies them 
 except me! Ah, how happy I would be were I 
 that woman, and were Pascalet that man! " 
 
 "Good Heaven!" cried old Joy in horror. 
 "Whatever can you be thinking about, Made- 
 moiselle la Comtessine, to say such things! " 
 
 "Joy, never call me Mademoiselle la Com- 
 tessine again. Calisto called me that, and 1 hate 
 to hear it. It makes me think of him." 
 
 Joy crossed herself as if a thunder-storm had 
 broken over them. "Don't say his wicked 
 name, Mademoiselle. Hearing it makes me feel 
 as if in another minute he'd be jumping up from 
 behind that hedge. And, listen! Just speaking 
 it has brought ill luck. They are ringing the 
 tocsin in Avignon!" 
 
 Very faintly they could hear the alarm that 
 was sounded on the far-away bells. Down the 
 wind it came to them, a low clear whisper of
 
 40 Stye tt)l)ite terror 
 
 distant sound. Presently, with the tinkling 
 whisper came the sharper sound of musketry 
 and the boom of cannon. 
 
 "What on earth can it be, Jean?" asked 
 Adeline. 
 
 "God only knows," Jean answered. 
 
 "But here are some fellows who are likely 
 soon to have a hand in it, whatever it is." 
 
 As he spoke, there came around a bend of 
 the road ahead of them, under a cloud of dust, a 
 hundred or more National Guards. They were 
 well armed, all with guns and swords, and 
 were swinging along rapidly toward Avignon. 
 As they neared the cart Jean hailed them : 
 " Hello, comrades! where are you bound ? " 
 
 " Vive la Montagne! " shouted the marching 
 men. 
 
 " Oh, it's that way, is it ? So you are going 
 to join the Federalist army ? " 
 
 "Down with the Aristocrats! Down with 
 the Federalists!" shouted the whole company. 
 
 " But if you are neither Aristocrats nor Fed- 
 eralists, what are you and where do you come 
 from ? " Jean asked. 
 
 "We are the patriots of Vedenes,'' a ser- 
 geant answered. "We are hurrying to the res- 
 cue of the Avignon Montagnards. Vive la Mon- 
 tagne! Vive la Convention !" And in another 
 moment the whole company had passed. 
 
 But while the cloud of dust they raised still 
 showed down the road, another cloud of dust 
 came in sight up the road; and before long Jean 
 and the others could make out another body of 
 men coming toward them which proved to be, 
 as it drew nearer, a force of four or five hundred :
 
 Some ftaggeb ftegimcnts 41 
 
 with mounted officers, beating drums, some 
 pieces of cannon a regular little army. These 
 men also were marching rapidly. Presently 
 they were passing the cart. 
 
 "Hello, there, comrades! Where are you 
 going at such a pace ?" Jean called out. 
 
 ' ' Vive la Plaine ! Vive les Federalistes ! Down 
 with the Convention ! " they cried, as they swept 
 onward. 
 
 "Then you're off to join the Federalists, are 
 you ?" Jean asked. 
 
 "We're off to make the Avignon Monta- 
 gnards behave themselves!" one of the men 
 answered grimly. And away went the col- 
 umn, with cries of "Hurrah for the Comtat!" 
 " Hurrah for Carpentras ! " " Hurrah for the 
 Pope!" 
 
 "If those fellows catch up with the other 
 fellows," said Jean, " there'll be trouble. They 
 don't seem to have the same ideas! " 
 
 And then they saw still a third company 
 coming toward them a little poor company of 
 not more than thirty men, but few of whom 
 were armed. But small though this company 
 was, there were two parties in it one from 
 the village of Bausset, and one from the hamlet 
 of La Roque-sur-Pernes. Chance had brought 
 them together on the road to Avignon, and 
 without asking questions they had joined forces. 
 Poor starved peasants they were, the whole of 
 them. A few of them had guns. Most of them 
 had only pitchforks. But every man Jack of 
 them, intent upon pilfering, carried a bag. 
 
 "And what party do you hold with, com- 
 rades ? " Jean called out as he came abreast of
 
 42 l)e tOljite terror 
 
 them and much to his astonishment he got 
 two very different replies. 
 
 " Vive la Plaine! " cried the wolf-hunters of 
 La Bausset. 
 
 " Vive la Montagne! " cried the bean-eaters 
 of La Roque-sur-Pernes. 
 
 More astonished than Jean were the men by 
 whom these clashing war-cries were uttered. 
 The poor devils really had been thinking more 
 of plunder than of politics, and it had not oc- 
 curred to either party to sound the other as to 
 its political faith. But being thus apprised that, 
 however friendly they might be as robbers, as 
 patriots they were enemies, they suddenly drew 
 apart from each other and began an angry war 
 of words and in another minute or two had 
 passed on to blows. With their fists and their 
 feet and their sticks they went at each other. 
 But, luckily, they were too poor for powder, and 
 the few who had guns could use them only as 
 clubs. 
 
 The cart had passed on, the travellers stand- 
 ing up in it and looking back at this sudden 
 strange conflict. Caritous put what they all 
 were feeling into words. " It twists one's 
 heart," he said, "to see those poor starving 
 devils going on like that." 
 
 " We ought to go back and separate them," 
 cried Adeline. "Just see how they are pound- 
 ing each other! " 
 
 " Yes," Jean answered, "they are pounding 
 hard but if we tried to stop them they'd pound 
 us harder," and he cracked his whip over the 
 backs of the horses that they might hurry away 
 from the pitiful sight.
 
 Some ftaggcb fUgimcnts 43 
 
 "But see here," put in Lazuli, "we cant 
 leave them trying to kill each other. It isn't 
 Christian." 
 
 "I tell you," Caritous replied, "that we 
 can't stop them ! Whoever tried to would get 
 a whack on his head. They're just senseless 
 wild beasts in a hungry rage." 
 
 "Caritous! my dear Caritous!" Adeline 
 said earnestly, clasping her hands in entreaty. 
 "Stop the horses! Stop the horses for just a 
 moment and let me go back to them. You'll 
 see that I'll make the poor things listen to reason 
 and behave themselves." 
 
 Jean's good heart was not less moved than 
 the women's hearts were by this sad senseless 
 fighting. His wits were working to find some 
 way of stopping it, and at Adeline's appeal his 
 resolution was formed, 
 
 "I think that I can stop them," he said, 
 drawing the rein and bringing the horses to a 
 halt. " But if I do it you'll all have to go hun- 
 gry until we get to Malemort. " 
 
 At that the three women cried out that they 
 were willing to go hungry that day and the next 
 day too if only he would bring the fight to an 
 end. Clairet alone protested and Adeline 
 silenced his protests with a big apple that kind 
 mother Caritous had slipped into her pocket 
 when she was coming away. 
 
 "Very well," said Caritous. "Now you 
 will see what you will see," and he opened the 
 locker of the cart and took out from it three 
 great loaves of home-made bread covered with 
 a mouth-watering crust. With the loaves under 
 his arm, off he went down the road. 
 
 4
 
 44 t)e tDliite terror 
 
 By this time the fight had become serious. 
 A half dozen of the hungry weak creatures had 
 been knocked into the ditch, and> most of the 
 others were losing their thin blood from their 
 broken heads. But all of them who could stand 
 were at it still. 
 
 As Jean drew near them he began to slice 
 off big chunks of bread which he threw into the 
 thick of the crowd. " What are you fighting 
 about, any way ?" he called out. "Aren't we 
 all brothers in these days ? You are just making 
 asses of yourselves fighting like that among 
 yourselves, instead of all going together to fight 
 against the tyrants! " 
 
 While he spoke, the fight ended. As the 
 poor devils saw the chunks of bread falling 
 among them they let go of each other and 
 eagerly snatched ' at the food for their teeth 
 were long with hunger, and many a day had 
 passed since a chance to eat bread had come to 
 them. For most of them the chance to eat such 
 bread as that was never had come at all! 
 
 Jean stepped backward toward the cart 
 slowly, cutting more chunks of bread and scat- 
 tering them along the road. After him trailed 
 the whole starving company. As each man 
 seized his piece he sat down by the roadside to 
 eat it. By the time that Jean got back to the cart 
 they all were seated in a straggling double line, 
 friends and enemies together, their fight forgot- 
 ten in their joy that they had found food.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 A STORY OF TWO COWARDS 
 
 As the cart went on again through the hot 
 sunshine the cigales were rasping out their pierc- 
 ing buzz from every tree. The day was ad- 
 vancing, and Malemort still was far off, hidden 
 in the flanks of Mont Ventour. Yet close above 
 them, as it seemed, towered the great mountain. 
 They could see the black lines of its fearfully 
 deep ravines and the great black masses of its 
 forests, and high over all its bare summit capped 
 with clouds. 
 
 On they went, crossing the green streams of 
 the Sorgues and the marsh lands of Entraigues. 
 Ahead of them they caught glimpses of the bell- 
 towers of Monteux; and far beyond Monteux, 
 looming up like a great stone heap, was the 
 Papal city of Carpentras where, unlike all other 
 cities in Christendom, there were no bell-towers 
 at all! 
 
 While they were crossing that level country 
 they fell in with another little army: a company 
 of three hundred or more, all well armed with 
 guns and swords. 
 
 "We needn't ask where those mincing- 
 looking fellows, with their stealthy side-looks, 
 are going," Jean said as he cracked his whip 
 angrily. 
 
 45
 
 46 lje iX)l)ile terror 
 
 " Who are they, Jean ? " asked Lazuli. 
 
 "And what are they wearing on their 
 breasts ? " added Adeline. " It looks like a red 
 field-poppy." 
 
 "They are the Whites of Monteux," Jean 
 answered. " And if you'll look closer you'll 
 see that what they're wearing is a red fleur- 
 de-lys." 
 
 "So it is!" exclaimed Lazuli. "And, see, 
 they all of them have a holy image stuck in 
 their hats." 
 
 "That's their great sa : /nt, Saint Gens. For 
 the Monteux folks he's about the only saint in 
 Paradise. In fact, -according to their notions, he 
 takes the lead of the good God ! They never 
 dream of praying to anybody but Saint Gens 
 the Ploughman. He's good enough for them, 
 they say! And now listen to what they'll 
 answer when I ask them where they're off to." 
 And Jean called out: "Hello, comrades! Where 
 are you bound ? To help the Montagnards in 
 Avignon ? " 
 
 "Hurrah for Saint Gens! Hurrah for the 
 Pope! Down with the Montagnards! Hurrah 
 for Saint Gens!" the Monteux men roared in 
 chorus, and roared in so droll a way that Jean 
 fairly burst out laughing. But this was unlucky, 
 for his laughter went down the wrong way with 
 the roarers, and they angrily clustered around 
 the cart shaking their fists at Jean while they 
 roared still louder for their great Saint Gens. In 
 a moment one of them had clambered up on the 
 shafts, and with his bare sword at Jean's breast 
 cried out in a sputtering rage: "You Avignon 
 thief! Just you cry 'Hurrah for Saint Gens!'
 
 Stern of too QTottwr&s 47 
 
 and be quick about it or I'll run my sword 
 into you and make you spew out your dirty 
 soul! " 
 
 But Jean Caritous was not the man to take 
 orders from anybody, least of all from a parcel 
 of miserable Aristocrats! He had his hand on 
 his club in an instant; and in another instant 
 there would have been some very lively fighting, 
 had not old Joy who knew the canticles of all 
 the saints and saintesses in Paradise suddenly 
 been moved to put a spoke in his wheel by pip- 
 ing up in her thin old voice: 
 
 " Honour to Saint Gens we bring 
 Let us all together sing 
 That pure song to his glory 
 Which artlessly pleads 
 The magnificent story 
 Of all his good deeds ! " 
 
 "Bravo! Bravo!" cried all the Holy-wafer- 
 eaters of Monteux together; and the angriest of 
 the lot the one who had his sword at Jean's 
 breast fairly was melted to tears. Back went 
 his sword into its scabbard, and in another in- 
 stant he was hugging old Joy in thanks for her 
 canticle about his beloved great Saint Gens. 
 And so the danger passed, and the cart went 
 safely onward. For a long while those in it 
 could hear behind them the Monteux men 
 singing 
 
 " A 1'ounour de Sant Gent 
 Canten toutis ensen 
 Aquen pious cantico 
 Que conto sans facoun 
 L'istori magnifico 
 De si santis acioun! "
 
 48 lK tOljite (lerror 
 
 "Well!" said Jean, "did you ever see a 
 man in such a temper about nothing as that 
 fellow was! " 
 
 "I never saw a man nearer to having a 
 sword run through him, my dear Jean," Lazuli 
 answered, in a voice that trembled a little. 
 
 "Nonsense, Lazuli! You don't suppose I'd 
 have let him, do you ? " 
 
 " You might have stopped that one, but you 
 couldn't have stopped them all. If Joy hadn't 
 blessedly taken to singing, you'd have been 
 dead by this time, Jean! " 
 
 " Nonsense! " said Jean again. And added: 
 "It's plain you don't know anything about the 
 Monteux folks, Lazuli. Talk about the cowards 
 of Avignon! All I've got to say is, when you 
 want to get hold of a real coward you've got to 
 go to Carpentras or Monteux." 
 
 "But even cowards are dangerous when 
 there are three hundred of them against one 
 man," Lazuli insisted. 
 
 "No, they're not," Jean answered "at 
 least, not when they're that kind of cowards. 
 I tell you that if I'd shown fight, and given one 
 or two of them a taste of my stick, off they'd 
 all have scampered like the hares they are ! 
 You don't believe me, Lazuli I can see that in 
 your looks. Now I'll just tell you a story that'll 
 prove what I say is true. Here we are now 
 coming into Carpentras, and I couldn't have a 
 better place to tell it because it is something 
 that I saw when I came here two years ago 
 with Jourdan Chop-head's army to lay siege to 
 Carpentras in form. But I must say," Jean 
 added, "that one of our Avignon men don't
 
 3, Gtorn of (Etoo Coraarbs 49 
 
 show up very well in my story. In fact, there 
 was a pair of cowards that day." 
 
 " Well, I'm sorry that one of them was from 
 Avignon," said Lazuli. " But go on with your 
 story, Jean." And as the cart entered Carpentras 
 by the Monteux gate Jean began: 
 
 " It was this way, you see. Our army was 
 camped on the stony hill that we crossed less 
 than half a league back, and we were waiting 
 to be ordered to the assault; and we were to 
 make the assault on'this very gate that we have 
 just come through. But General Jourdan didn't 
 want to make it until he knew a little more: 
 and so he called for a volunteer who would take 
 his life in his hands as a spy and find out if the 
 enemy had cannon posted at that gate, and also 
 if they had made any extra preparations against 
 an attack on that side. Well, he hadn't one 
 volunteer, but a hundred; and among them all 
 he chose a little silk-weaver named Agricola, 
 who went by the nickname of ' Shuttle-Griccy ' 
 a little chap from the Rue du Crucifix who 
 could outtalk and outbrag any six men in our 
 whole army. He set up to be a great wrestler, 
 among other things, and according to his own 
 account he'd had bouts with all the stevedores 
 on the Avignon quays and had thrown every 
 one of them ! What Shuttle-Griccy had to say 
 about himself never was small! 
 
 " Well, early in the morning this little chap 
 he wasn't much taller than a well-grown cab- 
 bage buckled on his sword, and loaded him- 
 self with his gun, and two braces of pistols, and 
 with his red sash dangling away he went; and 
 all of us who could find room in them climbed
 
 50 I)c tOljite terror 
 
 up into trees to watch him and see how he got 
 along. He started out all right getting down 
 into a deep ditch that ran in a straight line from 
 the Monteux gate right down through our camp, 
 and away he went along the bottom of it with 
 his gun and his pistols and his sword. The 
 ditch was dry dug to mark the line between 
 two estates and about halfway between us and 
 the town there was a break in it, left to make a 
 crossing-place for carts. Shuttle-Griccy would 
 have to mount this break, and then go down 
 into the ditch again ; and, of course, until he 
 was over it he couldn't see anything on the other 
 side. 
 
 "Now as luck would have it and luck does 
 some queer things now and then! the Carpen- 
 tras folks had the same notion that we had; 
 and, at the very moment that we started our 
 man to spy on them, they started one of their 
 men to spy on us. And he took to the ditch 
 too! So there the two of them were each of 
 them creeping toward the other, and neither of 
 them having the least notion in the world that 
 the other fellow was anywheres around! 
 
 "From where we were, up in the trees, we 
 could see the whole thing. Lord, but it was 
 funny to watch them getting nearer and nearer 
 that way with the certainty that when they did 
 meet they were bound to go off with a bang! 
 ' Well, it won't be our Avignon Shuttle-Griccy 
 who'll turn tail!' our men kept saying; but as 
 for me I kept my mouth shut for I couldn't 
 help thinking to "myself that our silk- weaver 
 would be more likely to have real grit if he had 
 a shorter tongue. And yet, while we could not
 
 Slort} of tt)0 (JTouwrbs 51 
 
 help laughing, we were worried about our man 
 too tor he was too far away for us to warn him 
 or help him, and when the shooting time came 
 there was a big chance that he might get killed. 
 But we just had to let him take care of himself 
 while we sat there watching with all our eyes. 
 
 " At last, just as if they'd settled it all before- 
 hand, the two men got to the opposite sides of 
 the break in the ditch at the same moment. 
 We lost sight of the other man then ; but we 
 knew he was crawling up his side of the bank 
 just as our man was crawling up our side, and 
 we knew that in another minute they'd have 
 their noses pointing straight at each other across 
 the cart track not six feet apart! Our hearts 
 got right up into our mouths, I can tell you! 
 There would be shooting, that was dead sure; 
 and even if our man killed the other man the 
 chances were that our man would be killed too 
 and Shuttle-Griccy, for all his big talking, was 
 too good a little fellow to be done to death like 
 that. And then the meeting came! At the 
 very instant Shuttle-Griccy got his head above 
 the top of the bank we saw the other man's 
 head come up and the next instant Shuttle- 
 Griccy rolled over backward and came tumbling 
 down into the ditch again, and the head of the 
 other fellow went out of sight on his side! 
 
 "We all gave a yell together at that, being 
 clear taken aback and lost in surprise! Could 
 they have killed each other ? we wondered. If 
 they had, how had they done it ? for neither of 
 them had fired, and we had seen no flash of a 
 sword. For about ten seconds we were the 
 most puzzled lot of men you ever saw!
 
 52 |K to bite terror 
 
 "Well, it wasn't long before we found that 
 our man wasn't dead, anyway. Shuttle-Griccy 
 hadn't much more than got to the bottom of the 
 ditch, all in a bundle, than he had his legs un- 
 tangled and was up on them, and was coming 
 back toward our camp on a dead run and then 
 we saw the other fellow going it for all he was 
 worth the other way, along the ditch back to 
 the town! 
 
 "But the best of the whole joke was that 
 while they were running away from each other 
 that way, with a solid wall of earth between 
 them, they took to banging off their guns 
 and pistols backwards the ditch was full of 
 smoke where they ran, and we could see the 
 dust flying from the bank between them where 
 it was struck by the balls ! In all the days of my 
 life I never shall laugh as I laughed then! 
 
 " They never stopped running, those two, 
 until they were safe home. We saw the other 
 fellow rush in through the city gate, and a mo- 
 ment later Shuttle-Griccy came bolting into our 
 camp and yelled out, as well as he could yell 
 anything with his wind all gone: 'To arms! 
 To arms! The enemy is on us! There are ten 
 thousand of them running down that ditch to 
 attack our camp!' And then, all of a sudden, 
 as he found everybody roaring out laughing, he 
 caught on to the fact that he had made an ass of 
 himself, and before the whole army had proved 
 himself to be a coward! 
 
 " Well, I'm bound to confess that we made 
 things so hot for Shuttle-Griccy that he died of 
 it. He got such a roasting about his fight with 
 the ten thousand that his head went down and
 
 3, Stort] of &u)o (Coioarbs 53 
 
 he never held it up again. All his brag was 
 knocked clean out of him. He fell into a low 
 way and got thin and miserable. After a while 
 he fairly took to his bed and I'll be shot if the 
 poor little humbug wasn't dead inside of a 
 
 "Poor Shuttle-Griccy!" exclaimed Adeline. 
 " It was cruel to be so hard on him ! " 
 
 "But who in the world ever would have 
 thought," said Jean, ','that serving a man out as 
 he deserved to be served out would have killed 
 him ? I'm sorry, of course; but I don't see that 
 we were to blame." 
 
 "You might have known," said Lazuli, 
 "that in one way what he did was not his 
 fault. Courage is a gift from God and if you 
 haven't it, you haven't it. The poor man 
 couldn't help being a coward." 
 
 "That's true enough," Jean answered. 
 "But being a coward, and knowing it, what 
 business had he to be always bragging about his 
 being a brave man ? " 
 
 "No matter how much he bragged, you had 
 no right to drive him to his death-bed." 
 
 "Oh, if we'd known that our fun would 
 make him turn up his toes, we'd have let up on 
 him, of course. But we're a wicked lot in this 
 world, Lazuli. What most of us enjoy most is 
 other people's worries and pains! " 
 
 And being delivered of this moral sentiment, 
 Jean Caritous gave a conclusive crack with his 
 whip and the cart came out from Carpentras 
 and was off on the old Malemort road.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE ARRIVAL AT MALEMORT 
 
 As they went onward, Adeline was thrilled 
 with delight at every turn by the sight of famil- 
 iar things. The trees, the farms, the hills, the 
 mountains, all were dear to her because they 
 were a part of the land where she was born. 
 
 "See," she cried, "there's the farm of La Lego. 
 My foster-mother lived there, dear kind Rouseto 
 God rest her soul! And there's the hill of 
 Pie-Marin. Many a time I've been to the very 
 top of it. I used to go up there with my foster- 
 brother to gather broom-flowers. And over 
 there, on that slope, under that pine tree, is the 
 cave of the Fourteen Robbers. Ah, how good 
 it is to see all these home places again! " 
 
 Lazuli was comforted by Adeline's happi- 
 ness, and just then she needed comforting for 
 sharp pricks of longing were hurting her sore 
 heart. Only a few hours had passed since 
 her Vauclair had left her, but already she felt 
 as if months had wasted since he had gone 
 away. But Lazuli was no weakling; and there 
 was other comfort for her, too. When the pain 
 of her longing grew very sharp she would take 
 her Clairet in her arms and hug him close to her 
 breast as she kissed him. And she would say 
 to herself: "My Vauclair is right and I am 
 
 54
 
 Qlrritwl at Xftalemorl 55 
 
 wrong to want him back again. He has gone 
 to his duty, and I am glad that he has gone. 
 Country and Liberty are first of all ! " And then 
 the flash of her eyes would dry the rising tears. 
 
 Presently they rounded a turn of the road, 
 and Adeline flung herself on Lazuli's breast quite 
 wild with joy. 
 
 " Lazuli!' Lazuli!" she cried. "At last we 
 are almost home! When we are at the top of 
 this very next hill we shall see Malemort, and 
 the height on which /stands the Chateau de la 
 Garde ! " And then, as she caught Clairet in her 
 arms, she added: "You shall go with me to the 
 Chateau, Clairet, and you shall" have every pear 
 in the garden. Think of that you shall have 
 every single pear! And as for you, Joy," she 
 went on, with her arms about the old woman's 
 neck, "you've worked long enough, and you 
 never shall work any more ! You shall stay with 
 me always and I will take care of you." Had she 
 dared to, Adeline even would have hugged 
 Jean Caritous so full was she of gladness be- 
 cause once more she was among her own peo- 
 ple and close to her own home. 
 
 Old Joy clasped her hands and laughed and 
 cried at the same time; while Clairet capered in 
 the cart and shouted: "Yes, yes, all the pears 
 are for me, and all the apricots, and all the 
 cherries too! " But Lazuli only smiled tenderly, 
 for in her heart were many sad thoughts. 
 
 "Poor child!" she said to herself. "You 
 are happy now, but you will be weeping bitter- 
 ly, presently, when we must part! But in spite 
 of your tears I must leave you. One of us can 
 lie hidden here, but not two. For your own
 
 56 l)e &)l)ite terror 
 
 safety I must leave you before Calisto is on our 
 tracks again. He wants your life and very likely 
 mine too for we know his crime, and he feels 
 he is not safe while we live. He and Surto and 
 La Jacarasse may come here together to rob the 
 Chateau just as they robbed the house in the 
 Rue des Douze Fortes. But whether they come 
 or not, it is certain that they have vow'ed our 
 death." But Lazuli was not to be cast down 
 by dread of danger, and soon her thoughts took 
 a more hopeful turn. " After all," she went on 
 in her mind, "these bad times must pass away. 
 Our brave soldiers will drive off the Germans 
 and the Austrians and all the outsiders who are 
 fighting against us, and then our country will 
 be set in order again with the rascals who are 
 ruling us sent to keep company with the tyrants 
 who ruled us before the rascals came. And 
 then reason will be reason, and justice will be 
 justice, and our land will have peace." 
 
 These were the thoughts that were in Lazu- 
 li' s mind as the cart mounted the long hill slow- 
 ly. Very slowly they went, the horses dripping 
 with sweat under the blazing sun. From the 
 almond trees and the olive trees beside the road 
 the cigales were rasping out their loud shrill 
 song. The radiant hot air was all a-quiver and 
 a-tremble over the distant plains where "the 
 old woman was dancing" with a vengeance as 
 she shook out mirage after mirage. At" last they 
 came to the top of the hill, and Adeline cried 
 eagerly: "I see it! I see it! There is the bell- 
 tower of Malemort, and I begin to see the hill 
 of La Garde! " 
 
 On the hill-crest Jean stopped his horses to
 
 l)e Qlrruml at illalcmort 57 
 
 breathe them, and from there the view was 
 clear. Below, in the hollow between seven 
 green hills, the travellers saw the pretty little 
 town. There, surrounded by her white walls 
 pierced with three gates, Malemort sat like a 
 white wag-tail on a tuft of grass. They were 
 silent, and their eyes filled with te//s, as they 
 gazed on this safe refuge where could be only 
 quiet and deep peace. Far away from great 
 cities and travelled roads, it lay at the foot of 
 the mountain, lost in, the midst of untrodden 
 valleys and lonely woods. Surely, the noise 
 and tumult and horror of the Revolution never 
 could come to disturb the easy-going life of that 
 still little town ! 
 
 Caritous cracked his whip and they went 
 onward, and almost before they knew it were 
 down the hill and through the gate and at a halt 
 beside the fountain where Caritous, as though 
 he had come to a relay house, cracked his whip 
 again. Over the fountain towered a Liberty 
 Tree. 
 
 It was harvest time and few people were in 
 the town only very little children and the old 
 men and women who were care-takers of the 
 hous'es while, the others worked in the fields. 
 At the crack of Jean's whip, and at the sound 
 of bells and wheels, a few shutters opened and 
 a few heads were thrust out for a moment; but 
 after a sour glance or two at the travellers stand- 
 ing in the blazing sunshine the old heads went 
 in again and the shutters were closed. It was 
 comforting to know that no one had recognised 
 Adeline in her boy's clothes; but it was not 
 comforting to stand there pierced by the cruel
 
 58 l)e tDljite terror 
 
 sun-darts, with no other sound than the gurgle 
 of the fountain as the water flowed into its big 
 stone shell. They felt as though they were out- 
 casts in a desert land. 
 
 Jean went on with the cart to the little inn. 
 As he started, Lazuli took Adeline's hand and 
 said briskly: " Now, child, lead us to the house 
 of Monsieur Randoulet" and off they started 
 up the crooked street toward the church. Pres- 
 ently they reached it, and Adeline pointed to 
 the "Curacy door: with the feeling that she 
 was pointing to the home where goodness 
 and charity abode, for at that door, in the dark- 
 ness of night, and in the darkness of fear, Pas- 
 calet had knocked and had found shelter and 
 safety. 
 
 Lazuli knocked and felt her heart sink within 
 her as Pascalet's heart had sunk when no 
 answer came. There was no sound of stirring 
 within. The shutters remained tight closed. 
 The thought came to her that Monsieur Randou- 
 let had fled as so many cures were fleeing in 
 those days yet, surely, there could be no dan- 
 ger for so good a man ! And then, suddenly, 
 her heart gave a bound as she heard the creak- 
 ing of a sash above and she and Adeline looked 
 upward in the hope of seeing the good cure 
 smiling down on them. 
 
 But what they saw was a big coarse red 
 face, with a red nose in the middle of it, and a 
 red cap stuck awry on a tangled shock of hair 
 that matched a shock of tangled beard. And 
 then a drunken voice asked: "Who's there? 
 What do you want ?" 
 
 "We want Monsieur Randoulet," Lazuli
 
 at IHalcmort 59 
 
 answered; and, in spite of herself, she spoke in 
 a trembling voice. 
 
 "Citizen Randoulet don't live here any 
 more," the red-nosed man answered. 
 
 " I mean Monsieur Randoulet, the good cure 
 of Malemort," Lazuli said, trying hard to steady 
 her voice and speak clearly. 
 
 "There's no cure here any more, I tell you," 
 the man grumbled out. And then he shut the 
 window with a bang. 
 
 Bewildered and dismayed, the three women 
 looked at each other for a moment without 
 speaking. Then Adeline began to sob. 
 
 "Well, now," said old Joy. "This is a 
 pretty fix, isn't it! What are we going to do? 
 Must we go back to Avignon ?" 
 
 "Don't talk about going back to Avignon," 
 Lazuli answered. "That isn't to be thought of 
 at all. But we mustn't take to worrying. 
 We've been in worse holes before, and got out 
 of 'em, just as we'll get out of this one. Won't 
 we, Adeline dear?" And as she clasped Ade- 
 line's hand she added: "Now we'll go to the 
 inn and see what Caritous has to say about it. 
 And then we'll get something to eat, and that 
 will put strength in us. All will be right. Don't 
 you fear! " 
 
 "Why can't we go to the Chateau?" Joy 
 asked. "We'd have a roof over our heads 
 there, at any rate and the farmers surely 
 would take care of us if they knew who we 
 were." 
 
 "I'm afraid they wouldn't, Joy," Adeline 
 said sadly. "Don't you know who that man 
 at the window was?"
 
 60 
 
 "I? How should I? I don't know any- 
 body here." 
 
 "Well, I know him. That man was our 
 own farmer up at the Chateau. For a moment 
 I forgot that 1 wasn't myself any longer and I 
 was just going to speak to him when he shut 
 the window." 
 
 "Heaven keep you, child, from letting any- 
 body know who you are ! " cried Lazuli, in alarm. 
 "You can trust nobody in these days. It is 
 hard, very hard, to have things turning out in 
 this way. We thought we had reached para- 
 dise, and yet here we are almost at the mouth 
 of hell." And then, sadly, they walked on to 
 the inn. 
 
 It was a very little inn, standing near the 
 fountain in the quartier des Bugades as unlike 
 as could be to the great inns, thronged every 
 night with travellers, on the Marseilles and Paris 
 road. In that tiny town, on a road leading no- 
 where, it was a wonder if as much as one trav- 
 eller came in a week ; and in the bad season of 
 the year often a whole month would pass with- 
 out any travellers coming at all. But they were 
 good souls who kept it, Aimable and his wife 
 Melio simple folk, as mountain dwellers are apt 
 to be, but as good and as kind as the Apostles 
 themselves. 
 
 The little party entered the kitchen, where 
 the tight-drawn curtains made a cool darkness. 
 Coming from the strong sunlight, they did not 
 at first see that the host was sleeping there. 
 Not until their eyes were accustomed to the 
 shadow did they make him out: a big fat man, 
 with his head down on the table, taking a com-
 
 rritml at ittolctnott 
 
 fortable snooze through the heat of the day. 
 Kind-hearted people sleep like saints. Aimable 
 did not waken when they entered. Just as 
 Lazuli was about to rouse him they heard Jean 
 talking to some one outside; and in another 
 minute he and Melio, the hostess, came in to- 
 gether. 
 
 "Well, here we are, Jean," said Lazuli. 
 "Aren't you surprised to see us so soon again ? " 
 
 "No, I'm not. Monsieur Randoulet isn't 
 living in the curacy a'.iy more," Jean answered. 
 
 " If you knew that, why in the world didn't 
 you tell us ?" Lazuli asked a little sharply. 
 
 "There! there! Gently now!" struck in 
 the innkeeper's wife. " I've only just told him. 
 He's not to blame." She spoke pleasantly, this 
 good Melio : a fine bounce of a woman, who 
 really ran the inn while her husband snored on 
 the fable, or joined his guests in a game of cards. 
 
 "Do you know what has become of him ?" 
 Lazuli asked. " Why he had to go away ?" 
 
 "I'll tell you all about it presently,' Melio 
 answered. "The first thing to do is to give 
 you some food." As she spoke, she drew back 
 the red and white checked curtains and let some 
 light into the room. 
 
 " I'm afraid that I can't do very well by you," 
 she went on, "for the hearth's stone cola. Who 
 ever would expect any body to come at this 
 time of day! But there's plenty of good fresh 
 bread, and there's honey from the comb, and 
 there are the nice little spicy cheeses they bring 
 down from the mountain. You won't starve, 
 anyway. There's enough, such as it is and 
 my man, here, will draw you some wine."
 
 62 
 
 She bustled over to her husband and began 
 to shake him. " Aimable, you sleepy-head, 
 wake up!" she cried. "Here are some good 
 people come from ever so far who want some- 
 thing to eat and drink in a hurry! Wake up, I 
 say." 
 
 The innkeeper grunted, yawned, stretched 
 himself, half rose and then 'down he flopped 
 again on the table with his head on the other 
 arm. 
 
 Melio gave him a harder shaking. "Was 
 there ever such a man ! " she exclaimed. 
 " Wake up, I say. Here are travellers come, 
 and you've got to draw some wine for them. 
 Rouse up and hurry, you lazy-boots! If you 
 keep on this way, there'll be time to kill a 
 donkey with fisticuffs before they're served. 
 Get awake! get awake!" 
 
 Slowly the sleepy-head arose, rubbing his 
 eyes and making sleepy excuses for himself ; 
 and then picked up the jug and slowly went off 
 with it to the cellar. When he had left the 
 room Melio laid a finger on her lips and said in 
 a low voice: " Not a word before my man as to 
 what you have come here for. Talk of anything 
 you please, so long as you don't talk of Monsieur 
 le Cure. As soon as you have had something to 
 eat I will take you to where the good priest is 
 living but my taking you there mustn't be 
 known." 
 
 "Don't you trust your own man?" Lazuli 
 asked. 
 
 ' ' My own man ? Well, you see, he's just 
 the best fellow in the world but he's got a 
 mighty loosely hung tongue, and if he get's only
 
 l)e &rriai at Utaiemort 63 
 
 a drop in him his tongue will wag! He 
 wouldn't do any harm himself, but his talking 
 might do a good deal now that we have these 
 new laws about ' suspects.' Here in Malemort 
 all of us, Red and White, think the world of 
 Monsieur Randoulet; but if it got about that 
 strangers had come to see him there's no telling 
 what might happen. Somebody might talk 
 about it in Carpentras, and from Carpentras the 
 talk might go on to Avignon, and then there 
 might be trouble here. No, before my man 
 since he can't hold his tongue you must hold 
 yours. But I know who you are and what you 
 want Caritous has told me and I'll do all I can 
 for you. With me you're safe." 
 
 While she talked, Melio opened the press 
 and brought forth a white table-cloth which 
 filled the room with a fresh smell of lavender as 
 she shook out its folds. She spread the table 
 with it, set out yellow earthenware cups and 
 plates with blue lines around their edges, and 
 then brought out a great loaf, well baked, and 
 the little cheeses and a long dish in which the 
 honey-comb lay oozing in its sweetness. She 
 placed the jug of wine on the table, and added 
 last of all another jug fresh-filled with cool water 
 from the well. 
 
 But only Jean and Clairet did justice to the 
 meal. In spite of Jean's urgent advice to follow 
 his good example, the women were too much 
 worried to do more than nibble at their food. 
 However Jean and Clairet managed between 
 them pretty well to clear the table and Clairet 
 had to be fairly dragged away from the honey 
 or he would have eaten it all!
 
 64 l)e iXtyite terror 
 
 "Now then," said Jean, snapping to his 
 knife, " we must be up and off. Are you ready, 
 hostess, to take us to see that good man ? " 
 
 " I'm all ready," Melio answered, " and I've 
 sent my chatterbox to the stable to look after 
 the horses, and so he's safe out of the way. 
 And this is a good time to go, for nearly every- 
 body's off at the harvesting in the fields. All 
 the same, we had better not talk. Now, come 
 along."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 AT THE HOUSE OF MONSIEUR RANDOULET 
 
 FOLLOWING Melio's lead, they went out into 
 the deserted streets and through them until they 
 came to a steep and narrow lane. At the mouth 
 of the lane Melio stopped and silently pointed 
 up it to a little house a wretched little ruin of 
 a house with but a single window. She gave a 
 nod of her head, as much as to say "that's it " 
 and then turned and went back to the inn. 
 
 "Good heavens! What a poverty-stricken 
 place!" Lazuli said under her breath as they 
 walked the few steps up the lane to this miser- 
 able dwelling. She did not knock, but raised 
 the latch by the latchstring and opened the crazy 
 door. Before them was a little square lobby, up 
 from which went a dark stair a rope fastened 
 to the wall at one side serving for a balustrade. 
 In a trembling voice Lazuli called softly: "Is 
 any one up there ?" 
 
 Clip-clop came the sound of sabots, as Jane- 
 toun, the Cure's old servant, crossed the upper 
 floor to the head of the stair; and then, in her 
 harsh voice, Janetoun called down through the 
 darkness : ' ' What do you want ? " 
 
 "Monsieur le Cure Randoulet," Lazuli an- 
 swered : speaking in a still lower voice as she 
 uttered the Cure's name. 
 
 65
 
 66 dClje tOtyite terror 
 
 " Who are you?" 
 
 "You don't know me." 
 
 " What do you want ? " 
 
 " To ask a favour." 
 
 Then lighter steps were heard above, and 
 Monsieur Randoulet's kind voice called down : 
 " Here I am, good woman. Come up the stair." 
 He had heard what Lazuli said, and when he 
 found that help** of some sort was needed he 
 shut his breviary and hurried to give it. 
 
 As old Janetoun heard so many footsteps on 
 the ricketty stair she clasped her head in her 
 hands and exclaimed: "Heavens and earth! 
 Who can they be, and wherever am 1 going to 
 find seats for them ? They'll just have to stand 
 on their own legs! " 
 
 As the visitors came up, one after the 
 other, Monsieur Randoulet welcomed each of 
 them; and when they all were in the little 
 kitchen he said cordially: " Sit down, friends. 
 Sit down and rest yourselves. You must be 
 tired it is so hot outside." 
 
 "It's all very well to say 'sit down,'" 
 grumbled Janetoun ; " but what are four people 
 to sit on when there's only a bench with a 
 broken leg and three chairs ? " 
 
 "That's more than we need, my good 
 woman," said Caritous. "We haven't come 
 here to settle ourselves until the silk-worms are 
 full-grown." 
 
 "You are welcome to stay as long as you 
 will," Monsieur Randoulet said warmly. "You 
 can see for yourselves that my house is a very 
 little one, but to honest folk it is open all day 
 and all night too! "
 
 &t il)e fjottse of fftonsieur Hanboulet 67 
 
 Poor Monsieur Randoulet, the change that 
 had come to him was a sad one fit to bring 
 tears to the eyes of those who had known him 
 as he dwelt in pontifical state, in his comfort- 
 able curacy in former times! And he had 
 changed sadly with his new sad surroundings. 
 His long curly gray hair had thinned and had 
 turned white, falling scantily over his shoulders 
 as the snow comes down from the crest of Mont 
 Ventour. His plump rosy cheeks had lost their 
 plumpness and their rbsiness and were pale and 
 wrinkled, and his comfortably rounded paunch 
 over which his robe had stretched smoothly 
 had so fallen away that his robe fell in 
 deep folds everywhere. His hands still were 
 beautifully white and smooth, but they had lost 
 their chubbiness and were lean and wrinkled 
 and long. Only his eyes remained unchanged: 
 they flashed as of old and, as of old, the flash 
 was tempered by the sweetest benignity. But 
 for his shining eyes and his gentle voice, Adeline 
 would not have recognized him. On his side, 
 naturally, there was no recognition. The 
 thought did not enter his mind that the boy 
 before him was Mademoiselle la Comtessine 
 d'Ambrun. 
 
 " Well, good friends," he began in his kindly 
 voice, " what can I do for you ? I am 
 
 "Monsieur Randoulet," Lazuli interrupted, 
 "it is for the sake of this child that we have 
 come to you. You do not know her, and I 
 don't wonder. She is 
 
 And then old Janetoun broke in with a gasp: 
 "It's Mademoiselle Adeline the Comtessine! 
 Oh Monsieur Randoulet, it's she for sure! She's
 
 68 l)e tOtjite terror 
 
 wearing the very clothes that she made herself 
 to be given to one of your poor people, and that 
 you gave to little Pascalet. It's she! It's she!" 
 And the old woman made to Adeline the same 
 reverent courtesy that she had been used to 
 make to her in the old days. 
 
 Monsieur Randoulet was so utterly aston- 
 ished that for a moment he was unable to 
 speak, then tears came to his eyes, and he said, 
 brokenly: ''Mademoiselle! You! What mis- 
 fortune has overtaken you that you come to me 
 dressed in those clothes which you made with 
 your own charitable hands ?" 
 
 Adeline flushed painfully, without replying, 
 and Lazuli answered for her: "Monsieur le 
 Cure, this child's story is a long one and a sad 
 one. Every possible misfortune has happened 
 to her since she went away from here a year 
 ago. And now she has come back here trusting 
 to you for help." 
 
 "All the help that I can give her," Monsieur 
 Randoulet answered earnestly, "she shall have. 
 All that I possess, and all of the little that re- 
 mains of my life and strength, are hers. I am as 
 poor, now, as the Prophet Job; but while I live 
 she shall share my water and my bread to the 
 last drop and the last crumb. That may not be 
 for long. For me nothing remains but to ask 
 God in his mercy to forgive me my sins^and to 
 take me to Him in His bright Paradise! " 
 
 " Rather may God long preserve you on this 
 earth, to console and to guard people as unhappy 
 as we are!" Adeline answered in her sweet 
 clear voice, and added: "Monsieur le Cure, we 
 greatly need your help."
 
 Sit tl)e tjouse 0f monsieur Uanbotilet 69 
 
 "Yes, Monsieur le Cure," said Lazuli, "we 
 need your help in hiding this poor child away 
 from those who seek her life. But, to make it 
 all clear to you, I must tell you what has hap- 
 pened to her in this dreadful year. Shall I tell 
 you now ? I warn you that I shall not soon be 
 done." 
 
 " Go on, my daughter," Monsieur Randoulet 
 answered, with a warm note of sympathy in his 
 gentle voice. " The calls upon my time are few 
 now; but even were '.hey many I would listen 
 to you willingly for as long as you please." 
 
 And then, beginning with their meeting in 
 the stage-coach when La Jacarasse was carrying 
 off the Cpmtessine to Paris, Lazuli told of Ade- 
 line's perils from that day onward in Paris and 
 in Avignon perils which still continued, since 
 Calisto still was searching for her; and inter- 
 woven necessarily with this narrative was much 
 about Pascalet and her own Vauclair. 
 
 Save for a question now and then, Monsieur 
 Randoulet let her tell her story in her own 
 way. But his tears fell as he listened ; and old 
 Janetoun kept up at first such a series of groans 
 and exclamations that she had to be silenced. 
 After that she listened quietly, standing in a 
 corner and from time to time wringing her old 
 hands. 
 
 "And now, Monsieur le Cure," Lazuli ex- 
 claimed indignantly, when at last she had fin- 
 ished, " what do you think of all this ? How 
 is it possible that a God who is just and good 
 can leave the breath in such wretches as La Ja- 
 carasse and Surto and Calisto ? And how is it 
 possible that the men of the Convention, sent
 
 70 l)e tittle 
 
 there by the people to put an end to tyranny, 
 have become tyrants themselves ? They are 
 worse than tyrants! In the name of Liberty 
 and Fraternity they rule over us. yet they make 
 use of monsters who only care to rob and kill! 
 In a pretty state of topsy-turveydom things are 
 now when we, the loyal Liberals and good 
 Republicans, are treated as 'suspects'; when 
 innocent people like this child here with the 
 very clothes on her back showing how kind and 
 charitable she is must hide themselves for fear 
 of these unchained murderers' knives ! Oh how, 
 I say, can a wise and a merciful God let such 
 things be! " 
 
 Speaking very quietly and calmly, Monsieur 
 Randoulet made answer to Lazuli's outburst. 
 " My daughter," he said, " I believe that all that 
 has happened had to happen. I believe that 
 God has willed it to happen because He is just 
 and righteous. The great ones of the earth, 
 the kings and the rich men in power, long 
 enough have been suffered to drain the blood 
 from the veins of the people. God wished to 
 put an end to that injustice, and he raised the 
 mighty tempest of the Revolution. When a 
 fierce wind blows through the orchards both the 
 
 reen fruit and the ripe fruit are torn from the 
 ranches; and both, falling, are sorely bruised. 
 So, also, the rushing storm of the Revolution, 
 beating upon the unjust, has not spared the just 
 wholly. 
 
 "Do not blame man for this. Man is the 
 instrument of the Most High but not a perfect 
 instrument. Wrong has been done by these 
 men of the Convention whom you would curse;
 
 &t tl)e $anse of ittonaiettr Uanboiilet 71 
 
 but they have done, they are doing, more right 
 than wrong. They are making over our un- 
 just laws into just laws. They are gathering 
 armies to defend and to protect our land. The 
 kings, the emperors, all the tyrants of the whole 
 world, are banded together to destroy us. 
 What is worse, for it is the shame of -our coun- 
 try, the sons of France not only have deserted 
 her in her peril, but are fighting against her. 
 With the strangers who come to spoil our land 
 come also Frenchmei? the runaway nobles 
 come back to claim again their rights which 
 were the people's wrongs. It is just that the 
 heads of those rotten nobles should be cast 
 down into the bloody mire. If injustice is done 
 also, we must not complain. No, no, my 
 daughter, repine not! The tempest of Almighty 
 God is blowing through the land. His will be 
 done! His scales will weigh the guilty, and 
 they will not escape. Those who seek to kill 
 this innocent child that they may keep safely 
 their stolen gain will come to their reckoning. 
 They, and such as they, will perish by the fiery 
 sword of God! " 
 
 Monsieur Randoulet was silent for a moment 
 when he had ended this impassioned utterance; 
 and then, speaking in a quieter tone, continued: 
 "And now for you, my dear children, from this 
 time forth my house is your home. All that is 
 mine is yours. I regret only that I have so little 
 to offer you but I have fallen, as many others 
 have fallen, upon evil times." 
 
 " I knew that we had knocked at a door that 
 would open wide to us," Lazuli answered, in a 
 voice that trembled because Monsieur Ran-
 
 72 l)e tBbite terror 
 
 doulet's warm charity touched her to the very 
 heart. " But it is not for all of us that I ask ref- 
 uge only for this dear persecuted child. And 
 it is enough that you shelter her ; she must not 
 be a burden on you too. Only this morning, 
 Monsieur le Cure, my husband left me that he 
 might go off to fight for the Republic in the 
 army of the Pyrenees. But he did not leave me 
 quite in poverty. Mite by mite, we have saved 
 up some sous ; and all that he saved he gave to 
 me for our baby and for our Adeline. ' Keep 
 it all,' he said, 'for you'll need it for yourself 
 and the children. As for me, never fear but I'll 
 find wells enough for my thirst and crusts 
 enough for my hunger. Why, just fighting for 
 country and for liberty is food and drink for a 
 man in these days ! ' Not a sou would he take, 
 my brave good man, my patriot not a single 
 sou! And so, Monsieur le Cure, what my 
 Vauclair left with me for Adeline I leave here 
 with you." 
 
 And then, as she fumbled in her pocket, 
 Lazuli fairly broke down sobbing and weeping 
 like the Magdalen at the thought of leaving 
 Adeline, and of Monsieur Randoulet's goodness, 
 and of the hurt of her parting with her Vauclair. 
 Still in tears, she drew out a handkerchief knot- 
 ted at the corner; and when the knot was loos- 
 ened laid upon the table a little heap of silver 
 coin. 
 
 All this so moved Jean Caritous that sud- 
 denly he burst out crying too big tears roll- 
 ing down his nose while his hand went to 
 his pocket under the skirt of his blouse. 
 "Don't mind my going on this way, please,
 
 lit ttye peruse of iHonsicnr ttanboulct 73 
 
 Monsieur le Cure," he said. " I'm no cry-baby, 
 but somehow you're so good and so kind, and 
 you say such beautiful things, that it's more than 
 I can stand ! And you sha'n't take the bread out 
 of your own mouth to fee.d our little dear if I 
 can help it. I've carted her from Paris to Avi- 
 gnon, and I've carted her from Avigncffi here, and 
 every hour that I've been with her I've grown 
 to be more fond of her until now she's come 
 to be dearer to me than the light of my own 
 eyes. And so, Monsteur le Cure, I'll just leave 
 with you for her what I have in my bag. I 
 wish there was more to leave. But I'll manage 
 to send some more later on." As Jean pulled 
 out his purse his tears streamed down upon his 
 blouse, and his big coarse hands so shook that 
 he had trouble in untying the thong. But he 
 got it loose at last, and poured out upon the 
 table a little stream of silver pieces beside La- 
 zuli' 's offering. 
 
 Monsieur Randoulet, rising, pushed away 
 the silver spread out on the table before him. 
 'Of what are you thinking!" he exclaimed. 
 "Take it back! I do not need it. There are 
 still, thank God, charitable folk about us here 
 who will not let us suffer for lack of food. Take 
 it back, I say." 
 
 Adeline also had risen. Clasping Lazuli in 
 her arms she said brokenly: "Do you mean then 
 to leave me, and to give me your last sou ? No, 
 no, dear Lazuli, that must not be. You must 
 stay with me here, where we shall need little, and 
 we will make our home in my Chateau de la 
 Garde. In the Chateau there is room for all of 
 us and to spare."
 
 74 f)e tDl)ite terror 
 
 While this talk went on Janetoun scarcely 
 could contain herself. She had the peasant's 
 love for money, and she knew how bitterly 
 money was needed just then. Adeline's speech 
 was too much for her, and she broke out 
 sharply : " Mademoiselle la Comtessine, I'm 
 sorry to have to tell you that you haven't got 
 any Chateau. This new government has got 
 its claws on it. It isn't any longer yours at 
 all. They are quite right, this Dame Lazuli and 
 this man, in wanting to leave here for you a 
 few sous." 
 
 "Come, come, Janetoun," said Monsieur 
 Randoulet, "where there's enough for two 
 there's enough for three. We do not need that 
 money. We can get along without it, never 
 fear." 
 
 "That's all very well for you to say, Mon- 
 sieur le Cure," Janetoun answered ; " but 1 who 
 make the pot boil know what goes into the pot. 
 Many a time I split a clove of garlic so that I can 
 make our broth with it for two days, and I cut 
 our bread into wafer slices to make one loaf last 
 as long as two." As she spoke, she was sidling 
 toward the table, with her apron held up by the 
 corners, devouring the money with her sharp 
 old eyes. 
 
 Jean Caritous settled the matter in his own 
 way. With one of his big hands he swept the 
 money off the table into the other, and then 
 flung the whole of it into Janetoun's apron. 
 Her eyes gleamed as it jingled there. In an in- 
 stant, tightly clutching her apron, she had van- 
 ished behind the curtain of the alcove. 
 
 "Janetoun! Janetoun!" Monsieur Randou-
 
 Sit tlje Ijonse of Blonsienr ftanboulet 75 
 
 let called after her, "this won't do at all! Bring 
 back that money. These good folks need it 
 themselves!" But she paid no attention to his 
 order. They could hear the rustling she made 
 about the bed as she hid away her lean treasure 
 safely in the straw.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE PARTING AT MALEMORT 
 
 LAZULI'S heart was heavy, for at last the mo- 
 ment had come when she and Adeline must 
 part. Very tenderly she took the young girl in 
 her arms. 
 
 "My darling child," she said, " I must leave 
 you now, but you know that it is not of my 
 own wish that I go. It is for your safety. 
 You can be safely hidden here alone, but if Clai- 
 ret and Joy and I staid in Malemort, it would be 
 to your peril. That wretch who is tracking you 
 surely would find you again. And so we are 
 going away from you to Malaucene, where my 
 own people are. There I shall stay until these 
 cruel times are ended, and then I will come for 
 you again. And do not fear that I shall not find 
 you, for I am leaving you in kind and holy 
 guard. You will be close in my heart all the 
 time, and I am sure I shall be close in yours. 
 And when the better times come, as they surely 
 will come, Vauclair and I will care for you for 
 we look upon you as our own dear child. If 
 what Janetoun says is true, if your house and 
 your lands have been taken away from you, 
 you still shall not want for a home. Never fear 
 but that we will work for you, just as we shall 
 work for our own Clairet." 
 76
 
 l]c parting at Ittaiemort 77 
 
 At this mention of his own name the bewil- 
 dered thoughts in Clairet's little head took form 
 in speech, and he piped up suddenly: " I won't 
 give my sister Adeline to Monsieur le Cure! " 
 and with an outburst of tears he caught Adeline 
 in his little arms. 
 
 Too broken for words, Adeline pressed the 
 child to her breast and covered him with kisses. 
 Then she embraced the others old Joy, so 
 stunned with all these strange doings that she 
 was speechless; big Je*n Caritous, who fairly 
 blubbered like a child; and at last Lazuli again. 
 Close-clasped they held each other, weeping 
 until at last, gently loosening the poor child's 
 hold, Lazuli turned to go. That she might not 
 see them leaving her, Adeline bent down over 
 the table, sobbing, her face in her hands. But 
 she could hear, though she could not see, and 
 the simple words of parting cut her like knives. 
 
 " Good-bye, good friends," said Monsieur 
 Randoulet in his kind voice. "God care for 
 you on your journey. Take shelter early. Do 
 not let nightfall overtake you on the road." 
 
 "Thank you. Monsieur le Cure. We shall 
 be prudent. Do not fear for us," Lazuli an- 
 swered. " And you, I trust you to watch over 
 my dear child. The bundle on the table has her 
 own clothes in it her right dress as a girl. If 
 she sorrows too bitterly you must get word 
 to me, and I will manage somehow to come to 
 her. You will promise to get word to me, Mon- 
 sieur ?" 
 
 "I promise, my daughter. God be with all 
 of you. Adessias!" And the door closed. 
 Outside, for a moment, was the sharp clicking
 
 78 l)c tofjite terror 
 
 of Jean's hob-nailed shoes on the cobble-stones. 
 Then all was still. 
 
 Old Janetoun, come back from hiding the sil- 
 ver in Monsieur le Cure's straw mattress, saw the 
 bundle lying on the table and was more inter- 
 ested in it than in the sobbing girl to whom it 
 belonged. Like all of her sex, Janetoun was 
 full of curiosity. Presently she had her hands 
 upon the bundle, feeling it searchingly; and 
 then, as she could make nothing of it that way, 
 she loosened the string and opened it. All that 
 she found was a plain little black frock and some 
 linen, and she threw the garments down on the 
 table with a sniff that seemed to say: " Well, is 
 that all!" 
 
 But as the frock fell upon the table there was 
 a clear jingling sound, not to be mistaken, that 
 made the covetous old creature snatch it up 
 again and search in the pocket eagerly. And 
 there she found three silver crowns the very 
 three crowns that Pascalet had received when 
 he enlisted in the army of the Republic, and that 
 he had sent by William the Patriot to Vauclair! 
 At that instant Monsieur Randoulet turned, and 
 saw her with the bundle open before her. 
 "What are you doing there, Janetoun?" he 
 asked. 
 
 " Only looking at this old frock, and the tat- 
 ters that are with it, Monsieur." 
 
 " They must be hidden away carefully, Jane- 
 toun. Mademoiselle Adeline has come here 
 dressed as a boy, and as a boy she must for the 
 present remain. But that dress must be kept 
 safely in case she should need it again." 
 
 "Certainly, Monsieur," Janetoun answered
 
 Qllje parting at Ulakmort 79 
 
 submissively. "I will put it away most care- 
 fully- Your orders shall be obeyed." As she 
 spoke, she began to fold up the little frock again 
 when Monsieur Randoulet caught the glint 
 of the silver pieces only partly hidden in her 
 hand. 
 
 "What's that in your hand, Janetcun?" he 
 asked. 
 
 " That ? Oh, nothing worth speaking about. 
 Just a piece or two of money that 1 found. 
 Nothing at all." 
 
 "Where did you find it?" Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet went on, in a tone most unusually and 
 most uncomfortably stern. 
 
 " It was in the pocket of this old frock, Mon- 
 sieur! " 
 
 As Adeline heard this, and realized suddenly 
 that Janetoun had taken possession of those 
 precious three crowns which had come from 
 Pascalet, her first impulse was to spring upon 
 the old woman and snatch them away from her. 
 She half rose and then, ashamed of her impulse, 
 she dropped her head into her hands again and 
 said piteously : " Oh please don't take my three 
 crowns from me! " 
 
 "Give back to Mademoiselle her money! 
 Give it back to her instantly !" cried Monsieur 
 Randoulet with such energy that he fairly made 
 old Janetoun jump. 
 
 "No, no, Monsieur le Cure," said Adeline, 
 her head still in her hands, " let Janetoun keep 
 it. I did wrong in asking for it back again." 
 
 "You did right in asking for it, my child, 
 for it is yours. Do not think for a moment that 
 I would even dream of allowing to be taken
 
 8o l)c tt)l)ite 
 
 away from you what is your own. God knows 
 that the day may come soon when you will need 
 those three crowns." 
 
 "It is not as money, Monsieur, that I am 
 thinking of them," sighed Adeline. "They 
 have another value to me. They are more to 
 me than all the money in the world! " 
 
 Monsieur Randoulet did not pry into Ade- 
 line's mystery. Stroking her head gently he 
 said: " Well, they are safe now. See, Janetoun 
 has put them back into the pocket of your frock 
 again, and there they shall stay safely. And 
 now dry your eyes, my daughter, and we will 
 take a little walk together before the setting of 
 the sun. A walk in these quiet fields in harvest 
 time, here in your own birthplace, will take the 
 fever out of your blood and give you rest." 
 
 The thought of a walk in the fields in full 
 harvest time, and in these dear fields of her own, ' 
 acted like magic upon Adeline. She stood up 
 instantly, and smiling through her tears ex- 
 claimed: "And may we walk toward La 
 Garde ? " 
 
 "Certainly, my child, if you wish to." 
 
 "You are very good to take me there, 
 Monsieur le Cure. I long to see my own home 
 again." 
 
 "I cannot take you to see it quite as you 
 mean, my child. We can only walk round 
 about it. You forget that no one must know 
 who you are. God keep you from being recog- 
 nised and you might be if we went to the 
 Chateau." 
 
 Adeline's face clouded for a moment, and 
 then brightened again. " But we may go to
 
 l)e parting at ittaletnort 81 
 
 the hut of La Garde where the Pascals live 
 may we not ? " 
 
 " We had better not do that either, to-day," 
 Monsieur Randoulet answered. "To-day we 
 will take no risks, and by what happens we 
 will know what will be safe to do later. And 
 now let us be off." 
 
 As he spoke, Monsieur Randoulet picked up 
 his breviary, and then they went out together 
 into the little town. Presently they passed in 
 front of the church, where the Cure paused for 
 a moment, and crossed himself. 
 
 "See, my child," he said sadly, "my 
 church is closed to me. I no longer am permit- 
 ted to say mass there. The clubs meet in the 
 church, and what was my own house has been 
 turned into a prison. Alas! alas! Oh God that 
 such a change should come! " 
 
 With his little clerk beside him the good 
 Cure went on in sad silence out through the 
 gate of St. Felix and then, to Adeline's delight, 
 upward by the Pramari road toward La Garde. 
 Her heart thrilled as she trod again that stony 
 road over which she had passed so often 
 sometimes on foot, sometimes riding, some- 
 times in the great coach. Every flower, every 
 bush, every tree, even the very stones of that 
 road, were dear to her! She could have kissed 
 the field poppies on the roadside, glowing rich 
 red in the rays of the sun, and the other flowers 
 which she gathered. The blackberries which 
 she plucked from the hedge-tangle had the 
 sweet taste of home. And through the hedges 
 she peered eagerly, hoping to catch a glimpse 
 of the hut in which her Pascalet had lived.
 
 82 |)c tOljite 
 
 Monsieur le Cure had opened his breviary 
 and was reading it almost aloud. He walked 
 very slowly, that he might not stumble against 
 the stones or into the ruts of the rough road. 
 From time to time he looked up to heaven and 
 crossed himself on his lips with his thumb. 
 The last prayer in his service he said aloud, 
 kneeling on the stony ground. 
 
 They were high up on the hillside, far 
 above the village. Adeline, who had run on 
 ahead, stopped in the road and waited for him 
 to finish his prayer and join her again; and 
 while she waited gazed out over the great plain, 
 that had the look of being flecked with gold- 
 dust as it lay in the light of the low-hanging 
 sun. Suddenly, with the skip of a little kid, 
 she mounted the roadside bank and clapped her 
 hands in delight as she exclaimed: "1 see 
 them! Look, Monsieur le Cure! Look!" 
 
 "What is it, my child?" Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet asked as he came toward her. " What 
 do you see that makes you so happy ? " 
 
 "There! there !" Adeline answered, point- 
 ing eagerly. "There on the road beyond the 
 village, a long way off. Don't you see ? " 
 
 "See what, my child?" M. Randoulet 
 asked as he mounted the bank and stood be- 
 side her, and shading his eyes with his hand 
 from the nearly level sun-rays looked in the 
 direction in which she pointed. 
 
 " It is the cart, Monsieur. It is Jean's cart. 
 Lazuli and Clairet are in it, and dear old Joy ! " 
 
 "Truly, I do see a cart," said Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet slowly. " Do you think it is Jean's ? " 
 
 " I am sure of it. See, it is covered, and it
 
 l]e parting at iUaiemort 83 
 
 has two horses, and as the sun strikes it you 
 can see it is blue. Oh yes, it certainly is his! " 
 And Adeline stood watching the distant cart, 
 her heart throbbing with both joy and sorrow 
 as she thought of the dear ones who were leav- 
 ing her and as she wondered if ever she would 
 see them again. Then the cart dipped in among 
 the almond trees around the base of the hill of 
 Serre; showed again for a moment and then 
 was gone ! 
 
 As she turned with' a long sigh, Monsieur 
 Raridoulet laid his hand on her arm gently. 
 ' ' Come child, " he said. ' ' Since you so long to 
 see Pascal's hut we will, at least, walk past it. 
 But we cannot stop there, and we must go on 
 quickly, for the sun will soon be down. Re- 
 member," he added warningly, " we are only 
 to say good day in passing. We cannot stop 
 to talk; and, above all, you must not give the 
 least sign of who you are." 
 
 From the road they turned into a narrow 
 path that wound up among the olive trees. 
 Long shadows lay about them. The goats, 
 tethered here and there beside the grass-grown 
 faces of the terraces, bleated as they came near 
 for goat bedtime was at hand and the people 
 from the village soon would be coming to take 
 the creatures home. Below the orchards were 
 the harvest fields, where work for the day was 
 almost at an end. A few peasants still were 
 tying and shocking the last sheaves. More 
 were under the oaks, getting together their 
 coats and water-bottles and wallets. Some 
 already had started for the village in little 
 groups : the panniered ass ahead, the man with
 
 84 hc &l)ite terror 
 
 his sickle on his shoulder following, behind him 
 his wife, the children leading the goat in the 
 rear all going down the narrow pathways in 
 single file through the level sun-rays. 
 
 Adeline's heart beat faster and'faster as they 
 drew near and nearer to the hut of La Garde 
 her Pascalet's home! Through the olive vistas 
 she could see, rising from among the great elms 
 and oaks, the red-tiled roof and turrets of the 
 Chateau. From time to time the harsh cry of 
 the white peacocks there sounded through the 
 silence of sunset. Over the trees she saw the 
 pigeons flying backward and forward before 
 settling for the night flashing out red-gold 
 in the sunshine, turning to blue-black in the 
 shadows, and then flashing out red-gold again 
 as they whirled once more into the sunshine 
 and came in sweeping curves to perch on the 
 glazed tiles roofing the pigeon-tower. As they 
 sat there, beating their wings in the last blood- 
 red sun-rays, it seemed as though the high 
 shining peak of the tower had burst into a flut- 
 ter of flame. 
 
 And so, surrounded by these home sights 
 which filled her heart with mingled joy and 
 sorrow, and with an undercurrent of sweet 
 thoughts about her Pascalet, she went onward 
 with Monsieur Randoulet toward the hut of La 
 parde.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 LA PATINE AND OLD PASCAL 
 
 " GOD be with you, La Ratine!" Monsieur 
 Randoulet called out cordially, as they passed 
 in front of the open door of the hut and saw 
 Pascalet's mother bending over the fire-place 
 within. But he walked on without stopping, 
 leading Adeline by the hand. 
 
 This was not at all to La Ratine's liking. Her 
 life was a lonely one up there on the hillside, 
 where rarely a soul came near her, and she 
 dearly loved a chance to talk. Leaving her pot 
 to boil itself, she bustled to the doorway, crying 
 out: "Dear! Dear! Is that you, Monsieur le 
 Cure ? Why, how fast you walk ! Surely you 
 can stop for a moment. Just think how long it 
 is since I've laid eyes on you! " 
 
 Monsieur Randoulet halted, but answered 
 over his shoulder without turning: " It's getting 
 late, my good Ratine. I must hurry home. I 
 no longer have twenty-year legs, you know. 
 It does not do for me to go stumbling along 
 these rough paths after dark." 
 
 But La Ratine, who was not to be put off 
 with excuses, came toward them. "And so," 
 she said, looking at Adeline, "you have caught 
 a little clerk." 
 
 "Yes, I have caught a little clerk," Monsieur
 
 86 l)e &)l)Ue terror 
 
 Randoulet answered. As he spoke he put his 
 arm on Adeline's shoulder and drew her toward 
 him; seeking in that way, under cover of a 
 caress, to hide her face. 
 
 La Patine came closer. "What a dear little 
 boy he is! " she said. " But he is as pale and 
 delicate looking as a young lady." And then 
 she sighed sadly and added: "Whenever 1 see 
 a boy of about that age, a nice boy like this one, 
 it seems to me that I see my own Pascalet! Ah 
 me, who knows where that poor innocent is 
 now!" 
 
 "God is guarding him," Monsieur Randou- 
 let answered. " He will send him safe back to 
 you. Some day when you least are expecting 
 him, back he will come proud as Artaban and 
 gay and well!" 
 
 "God grant it!" La Patine said reverently, 
 and as she spoke she stroked Adeline's cheek. 
 The young girl thrilled with her touch and 
 longed to kiss her rough old hand. "Tell me, 
 my pretty boy, do you know how to sing the 
 mass?" she asked. 
 
 " It does not make much difference whether 
 he knows or not," Monsieur Randoulet inter- 
 posed quickly, fearful that Adeline's voice would 
 betray her. "There is no mass to sing, now. 
 God's home no longer is for God's servants. It 
 is the home of those who hearken not to his 
 word." 
 
 La Patine looked affectionately at Adeline 
 this boy who made her think of her own Pasca- 
 let. She fumbled in her pocket for something 
 that she might give to him. There was little in 
 her pocket only two acorns and a nut and a
 
 a fJatine anb (2Mb Pascal 87 
 
 dry bean. She had found them and was treasur- 
 ing them against some day when she should 
 have no other food. But she was shy about 
 making her poor little gift; and presently Mon- 
 sieur Randoulet moved on with Adeline and 
 said: "Well, well. Good-bye, La Ratine. We 
 shall see you another day." 
 
 Then she plucked up courage, and drawing 
 the nut from her pocket said: " Here, my pretty 
 boy. This is all that I have to give you, this 
 single nut. But it is a good nut. So here it is 
 for you." 
 
 "Thank you! " said Adeline in a trembling 
 voice and then she and Monsieur Randoulet 
 walked on. 
 
 La Ratine stood watching them, puzzled 
 until a hissing sound inside the hut made her 
 run quickly to the fire-place to safeguard her 
 over-boiling pot of vetches. But as she lifted 
 the pot off the fire she muttered to herself, still 
 puzzled: " Surely I've seen that face somewhere, 
 and surely I've heard that voice! " 
 
 Adeline and Monsieur Randoulet hurried 
 downward along the stony path. Far off, at 
 the end of the great plain, the sun was setting. 
 Only half of it remained above the horizon 
 arching like a huge fiery bridge over the crest of 
 the Cevennes. 
 
 Among the olive-trees, coming home from 
 his gleaning, they met La Ratine's husband, old 
 Pascal. All day long, hungry and thirsty, he 
 had gleaned in the hot sunshine behind the 
 binders. On his shoulder was the poor little 
 sheaf that he had gathered the few grains 
 which he had saved from the ants and the field-
 
 terror 
 
 mice and the birds. It was a very lean sheaf, 
 but from it would be made the best bread of his 
 year. As he came close to Monsieur Randoulet 
 and his little clerk he stepped out from the path 
 to make way for them, holding his cap in his 
 hand and bending his head reverently as he said: 
 "Good evening to you, Monsieur le Cure to 
 you and your company." 
 
 " God be with you, Father Pascal ! " Monsieur 
 Randoulet answered, and they passed on. 
 
 Adeline longed to call " Adessias! "after him, 
 but the sight of his scarred old face had brought 
 such a lump into her throat that she could not 
 speak. For those scars were the traces of the 
 cruel whip-strokes which her own brother and 
 Surto had given the poor old man only a year 
 before ! The pity of it wrung her heart. 
 
 In silence they went onward hurrying 
 through the olive orchards, and hurrying still 
 faster when they came out on the wide Pramari 
 road. Dark was upon them, and Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet was eager to get home before darkness 
 fell. 
 
 " But surely. Monsieur," Adeline said, "there 
 is no danger here from the bad people of the 
 Revolution ?" 
 
 "Do not call the Revolutionists bad, my 
 child," the Cure answered. " The Revolution is 
 necessary and right, and there is nothing to fear 
 from those who are loyal to its principles: they 
 are carrying out the commandment of God! 
 Whom I fear are others of a very different sort: 
 the men who are seeking to destroy God's good 
 work, to undo what the Revolutionists have 
 done. There are many of these men like Surto
 
 ct fJcitine anb QMb fJascal 
 
 and Calisto des Sablees, who were Aristocrats 
 yesterday and who will be Aristocrats again to- 
 morrow if the wind turns that way; men who 
 take advantage of these troublous times to fur- 
 ther their own ends by any sort of crime. Them 
 I fear greatly, and the more because the honest 
 men of the country are not here to x stay their 
 hands. You must remember, my child, that 
 almost every patriot who can carry a gun is fight- 
 ing on our frontiers. The flower and the strength 
 of France is at war with the foreigners who seek 
 to conquer us only the feeble and the old remain 
 at home. That is why we are at the mercy of 
 these criminals who oppress us hypocrites who 
 shelter themselves under liberty caps, cowards 
 who hide away in the forests that they may not 
 have to fight against our country's enemies. 
 Aristocrats who bide their time. These prowl 
 by night like wolves, robbing and murdering; 
 these serve the cause of the Tyrant to whom we 
 owe every one of the many bitter troubles which 
 are weighing us down to-day; these are the pur- 
 suers of such innocents as you and Lazuli ; these 
 are they who are ready to drown France in blood 
 in order to set up the' Tyrant again and to bring 
 us once more under the heel of a despot ruling 
 by brute force! But let us not blame, for the 
 sins of these wretches, the patriots of the Con- 
 vention whom God has commissioned to give 
 back to the people their liberty and their rights; 
 let us not condemn the Revolutionists because 
 with the great rights they have won for us we 
 must suffer for a season a few wrongs.'' 
 
 As Monsieur Randoulet ceased speaking they 
 passed through the gate of Saint Felix, and pres-
 
 9 f)e tOfyite terror 
 
 ently were come safely to the forlorn little house 
 again. Janetoun was awaiting them anxiously, 
 knowing all the perils which might beset them 
 after nightfall in those dangerous times. She 
 was the very soul of faithfulness, this old woman, 
 in spite of her grasping nature and her rough 
 tongue. To save her master, she would have 
 faced bravely the National Knife. 
 
 "Well, this is a pretty time o' day to be 
 coming home! " she said crossly. 
 
 "There, there, Janetoun, don't scold us," 
 Monsieur Randoulet answered. "The wolves 
 haven't eaten us. Here we are." 
 
 "No, the wolves haven't eaten you," the old 
 woman grumbled, "but it's more by good luck 
 than good management that they haven't. 
 What's the good of being out at night when 
 you don't have to ? it's bad enough when your 
 holy duties call you abroad! '' 
 
 Monsieur Randoulet laid his finger on his 
 lips and frowned. "We will not talk about 
 those matters," he said. And as Janetoun 
 stopped short he added : " Are your chick-peas 
 well cooked and ready for us ? " 
 ' ' ' I don't know how well cooked they are, but 
 they're ready for you," she answered sourly : and 
 as she spoke she poured the reddish soup from 
 the pot into a dish in which were slices of black 
 bread. 
 
 ' Let us thank God we have good teeth, my 
 child! " Monsieur Randoulet said with a smile to 
 Adeline. But before Adeline could answer him 
 Janetoun broke in with: "Good teeth, indeed, 
 Monsieur le Cure! So that's the way you talk 
 about my cooking! And those peas soaked in
 
 a Ratine anb (JMb pascal 91 
 
 lye and boiled in rain water! Why, they'll fairly 
 melt in your mouth! " 
 
 And so they did, and Monsieur Randoulet and 
 Adeline made a good meal upon them, washed 
 down with cool water fresh from the well. It 
 all was in sharp contrast with the old curacy, 
 where both larder and cellar always had been 
 well filled and where there had been always 
 the fragrance of incense mingled with an ap- 
 petizing kitchen smell. But there was enough 
 of wholesome food to stay their hunger, and it 
 was sweetened by Monsieur Randoulet's gentle 
 gaiety and the kind words coming from his good 
 heart. 
 
 Tired out after her sleepless night and her 
 long day of journeying and excitement, Ade- 
 line's eyes were blinking before she fairly had 
 finished her simple meal. " Now you must be 
 off to sleep, my child," the Cure said. "But 
 first we will pray." Standing, and the others 
 standing with him, he said the prayer, "Pater 
 noster qui es in coeli " to which, when it was 
 ended, Adeline and Janetoun together said 
 " Amen! " And then he made with his thumb 
 upon Adeline's forehead the sign of the cross. 
 "Sleep soundly, my child," he said. "To- 
 morrow we will take another walk in the fields 
 among God's beautiful flowers." 
 
 Adeline kissed his kind hand, and as he left 
 them and went behind the white curtains into 
 his little alcove Janetoun spread a mattress upon 
 the floor. " That's for you, Mademoiselle," she 
 said shortly. " As for me, I'll sleep in my big 
 armchair." And without another word she "blew 
 out the light. 
 
 7
 
 9 2 
 
 Feeling her way in the dark, Adeline stretched 
 herself upon the mattress. But no sooner was 
 she at rest than the sleep which had been weigh- 
 ing upon her vanished and she was wide 
 awake. For a few" minutes there were little 
 sounds about her Monsieur Randoulet moving 
 in his alcove, Janetoun settling herself in her chair 
 then all was silent save their regular breathing 
 telling that they slept. The church clock struck 
 the hour. From the street came a faint sound 
 of footsteps. Then, for a long while, silence. 
 As she grew used to the very faint light she 
 could see dimly the white curtains of the alcove, 
 and then the shadowy figure of Janetoun asleep 
 in her chair. Ten o'clock struck eleven mid- 
 night! "Oh heavens," said the poor child to 
 herself, "shall I never fall asleep! " 
 
 She tried not to think but thoughts went 
 racing through her mind: of Lazuli and Clairet 
 and Caritous and old Joy; of Calisto and Surto 
 and La Jacarasse setting her to shivering with 
 fright; and then came a sweet vision of herself 
 and Pascalet Pascalet come back from the wars 
 and living with her in the Chateau de la Garde. 
 This comforting vision brought to her mind her 
 visit that afternoon to Pascalet's mother, and 
 she remembered the nut that La Patine had 
 given her. Slipping her hand gently into the 
 pocket of her jacket she found the nut and 
 brought it to her lips and kissed it. It made 
 company for her; it soothed her; at last she 
 felt herself dropping away into sleep.
 
 * 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 STRANGE FLITTINGS IN THE NIGHT 
 
 SUDDENLY Adeline was wide awake again 
 startled by hearing Monsieur Randoulet moving 
 in his alcove. A moment later she heard Jane- 
 toun moving also; and dimly saw the old 
 woman rising from her chair, stretching herself, 
 and then tying up her petticoat and setting her 
 cap straight as though morning had come. 
 But Adeline knew that morning had not come. 
 Only a little while before she had heard the 
 clock strike twelve. What could it mean ? she 
 wondered. But she did not speak nor move: 
 
 In a few minutes Monsieur Randoulet came 
 out from his alcove dressed but dressed in so 
 extraordinary a costume that Adeline said to 
 herself: "I am not seeing straight because of 
 the darkness or else it is a dream ! '' For the 
 good Cure, instead of wearing his coat and his 
 neat knee-breeches, was dressed in woman's 
 clothes! He took a big staff from the corner, 
 and Janetoun threw a shawl over his shoulders; 
 and then the two, without speaking, tip-toed to 
 the door, opened it softly, and as softly closed it 
 behind them. She heard them creeping down 
 the stair; heard the outer door very softly opened 
 and closed again; and then all was still! With 
 a little gasp, she drew the covers over her head 
 
 93
 
 94 
 
 and lay trembling full of fear at finding herself 
 thus strangely alone. 
 
 " Where can they have gone ? " she thought. 
 " No one came for them. No one called. And 
 why was he dressed as a woman ? What was 
 the big stick for ? Are they leaving me ? Do 
 they want to forsake me ? Oh, no, no that is 
 not possible! Had they been like that, Lazuli 
 would not have left me with them. And 
 Monsieur Randoulet is a very saint he never 
 would let me come to harm ! And yet - 
 And then the poor child cried out in the dark- 
 ness: "O God, have mercy on me!" and fell 
 to shaking again with fear. 
 
 The clock struck one then, an age later, 
 two. The hours seemed interminable. From 
 time to time she pushed the covers from about 
 her head to see if day were coming and drew 
 them up again quickly that she might shut away 
 the darkness from her eyes. She tried to think 
 out what she should do should daylight come 
 and find her still forsaken. But she could come 
 to no conclusion. At first she planned to go to 
 La Patine telling about the friendship that was 
 between herself and Pascalet, and for Pascalet's 
 sake asking shelter. But that project had to be 
 given up when she remembered how poor they 
 were, La Patine and Pascal; how, no matter 
 how hard she worked, she still would be a 
 burden upon them. Then the better thought 
 came to her that she would go to Malaucene, to 
 Lazuli and Joy. It was not so very far, she re- 
 flected. She could walk there in a day ; or, at 
 most, in a day and a night. Her only dread was 
 that she might lose her way and she tried to
 
 Strange .f linings in tljc Mgl)t 95 
 
 remember all that she had heard Lazuli say and 
 had heard Caritous say about the road. 
 
 And then, suddenly, as she lay thinking, she 
 heard in the intense silence the very gentle open- 
 ing of the outer door. Footsteps sounded on 
 the stairs so mingled with the thumping of her 
 own heart that a whole crowd of people seemed 
 to be ascending. Her head went under the cov- 
 ers again as the door of the room opened, and 
 she lay rigid. In another instant she heard Mon- 
 sieur Randoulet say in a very low voice: " The 
 child never has wakened at'all! " And to this 
 ]anetoun answered in a gruff whisper: "Young 
 folks sleep like logs." 
 
 Adeline's fear was gone, but her wonder 
 remained. Since their belief that she was asleep 
 seemed to be a relief to them, she did not speak ; 
 but her mind was employed busily in trying to 
 solve the mystery of their night-time flitting and 
 of Monsieur Randoulet's strange disguise. Try 
 as she might, she could make neither head 
 nor tail of it all; and while she racked her 
 brain over these strange doings Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet quietly went back to his alcove again, 
 and Janetoun settled herself again in her chair. 
 To Adeline's simple and straightforward mind 
 the thought did not occur that good deeds 
 sometimes must be done in deep secrecy: and 
 because what she had seen was so unaccount- 
 able a flock of evil suspicions assailed her which 
 she could not drive away though she grew 
 angry with herself because she harboured them. 
 
 Then, in the silence, she heard Monsieur 
 Randoulet moving in his bed as one who can- 
 not sleep, and presently heard him murmuring
 
 96 Stye tOl)ite (terror 
 
 very softly: "Our Father who art in Heaven, 
 hallowed be Thy name " and so onward to 
 the end of that first and all-inclusive Christian 
 prayer. That sufficed to still all her doubts and 
 to give her peace. With a long sigh, her tense 
 mind and rigid body relaxed and a holy calm 
 came into and possessed her heart. Her weari- 
 ness asserted itself. In another moment, smiling 
 at the angels, she fell into a deep sweet sleep. 
 
 When she awoke, broad daylight had come 
 and Janetoun was at work setting the house in 
 order for the day. Through her half-opened 
 eyes she saw Monsieur Randoulet sitting at the 
 open window reading his breviary. From out- 
 side came a great chirping and twittering from 
 a swallow's nest under the eaves where a brood 
 of little swallows, almost fledged, were getting 
 their breakfasts. What with the going and 
 coming of the father and mother, and the talk 
 of all the family, it seemed as though she were 
 hearing the clatter of a whole town of birds. 
 Only the sturdy sleep of youth and innocence 
 could have gone on amidst such noises, and the 
 noises that Janetoun was making too. All the 
 doubts and terrors of the night were forgotten 
 as Adeline looked upon the Cure's kind good 
 face, and heard his kindly greeting when he saw 
 that she was awake at last, and had his morning 
 blessing before Janetoun gave her her morning 
 meal. 
 
 The day passed quietly. They remained in 
 the house until late in the afternoon, when M. 
 Randoulet took her for a walk. Again they 
 passed by the hut of La Patine, and again La 
 Patine was sorely disappointed because they
 
 Strange ^littings in the 2Cigl)t 97 
 
 would not stop and give her a chance to wag 
 her tongue with them and was only partly 
 consoled by the promise that they would come 
 and pay her a good long visit soon. Returning, 
 they had their supper of soup and bread ; and 
 when Janetoun had settled matters for the night 
 they disposed themselves as before: Adeline on 
 her mattress, Monsieur Randoulet in his alcove, 
 and Janetoun in her chair. 
 
 Adeline fell asleep, but with a haunting 
 memory of the strange, doings of the previous 
 night that disposed her to waken easily. When 
 she had been asleep for some hours, as it seemed 
 to her, her wakening came. Again she heard 
 Monsieur Randoulet and Janetoun stirring; 
 again dimly saw the Cure emerge from his 
 alcove in woman's dress with his big staff in 
 his hand; again saw Janetoun throw the shawl 
 over his shoulders ; and again saw them softly 
 steal away together into the night. A shiver 
 of fear ran through her because of the strange- 
 ness of it all ; but she was sure that they would 
 come back to her, and so escaped the agony of 
 dread which had racked her the night before. 
 With a little prayer now and then, that soothed 
 and comforted her, she waited through the 
 hours of their absence; and fell asleep calmly 
 when at last they returned. Again she slum- 
 bered until Janetoun and the swallows waked 
 her, long after broad day had come; and again, 
 as she opened her eyes, she saw Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet seated at the window reading his breviary 
 the swallows whirling outside in the sun- 
 shine making a flashing of light that seemed 
 like a halo about the holy man's head.
 
 98 (Ije toljite (terror 
 
 So the days went by peacefully, and the 
 nights strangely, until near a month had passed. 
 Adeline grew accustomed to Monsieur Randou- 
 let's and Janetoun's night-flittings, and while 
 she did not cease to wonder about them they 
 no longer caused her anxiety or fear. One 
 regret she had, and mat was a keen one : that 
 the Cure did not take her to pay the promised 
 visit to La Patine whose gentle-heartedness 
 made her think of Lazuli, and with whom she 
 longed to talk about Pascalet. But she did not 
 venture to ask that this visit which she so 
 yearned for might be paid. 
 
 One night their ordinary routine was broken 
 in upon. After they had prayed together, as 
 usual, Monsieur Randoulet paused before going 
 into his alcove and said to Adeline: " My child, 
 almost a month has passed since you came here, 
 and in all that time you have not heard the holy 
 mass. To-morrow will be the Feast of Our Lady 
 of August, and you shall go with me to the 
 service that I shall hold. Now sleep soon, and 
 soundly, for your sleep must be short." 
 
 This promise so delighted Adeline that she 
 skipped for gladness like a little kid. "Oh 
 thank you, Monsieur," she exclaimed ; and she 
 would have gone on eagerly to ask questions 
 had not Monsieur Randoulet retired into his 
 alcove, and had not Janetoun promptly put out 
 the light. Her excitement kept her from obey- 
 ing the Cure's injunction to go to sleep quickly; 
 and at midnight she waked of her own accord 
 as she did usually when the others arose to 
 go upon their mysterious expeditions. But, as 
 usual, she lay silent. Presently she dimly saw
 
 Strange .flittinge in tl)c Xigl)t 99 
 
 Monsieur Randoulet come out from his alcove, 
 but wearing his own priestly dress not 
 woman's clothes. And then her shoulder was 
 grasped and she was shaken roughly, and a 
 rough voice said: "Come now, get up at 
 once! " 
 
 Adeline jumped up with a scream ; and then, 
 recognising Janetoun's voice, but still startled, 
 asked fearfully: "What is it? What is the 
 matter?" 
 
 "There is nothing to frighten you, my 
 child," Monsieur Randoulet said gently. "But 
 you must get up now and come with us. Don't 
 you remember what 1 told you before you went 
 to sleep ? We are going to the holy mass of 
 our Lady of August. Get up, my child." 
 
 Being thus reassured, and fully awake, Ade- 
 line hurriedly began to put on her jacket. But 
 Monsieur Randoulet stopped her. "No," he 
 said, "you need not be dressed as a boy to- 
 night. Put on your frock. It will be safe. We 
 shall be back again before dawn." 
 
 "At this rate, we'll never get off at all!" 
 Janetoun grumbled, as she went to the chest to 
 bring out Adeline's bundle. But with the old 
 woman's help while Monsieur Randoulet knelt 
 in the alcove, reciting his credo and saying his 
 morning prayer the young girl slipped so 
 quickly into her frock that she was ready when 
 the Cure rose from his knees. 
 
 Together they went out softly into the star- 
 lit night; groping their way through the narrow 
 streets dark as pockets but easily making out 
 their path by the star-shine when they had come 
 out upon the open country-side. Adeline did
 
 tDI)ite terror 
 
 not venture for some time to ask any questions, 
 but in her heart she wondered greatly where 
 they could be going: for she knew that outside 
 of the village there was not even a chapel, still 
 less a church, for miles and miles. This puzzle 
 held by her as they went onward, silently, 
 through the quiet fields. The roadside crickets 
 chirped at a great rate. Off in the valleys night- 
 ingales were singing. Now and then from a 
 farmhouse came the barking of a dog. Once 
 they heard the dismal hooting of an owl. At 
 last, when they turned from the broad path that 
 they had been following into a narrow rough 
 way leading up the hillside of the Castelnau, 
 her curiosity got the better of her discretion. 
 " Is the church far off?" she asked. 
 
 "No talking!" Janetoun said in a cross 
 whisper. 
 
 " We'll soon be there now, my child," Mon- 
 sieur Randoulet answered, speaking in a very 
 low tone. 
 
 Up the steep ascent they went in single file, 
 the Cure leading and Janetoun in the rear, be- 
 tween thickets of thorny dwarf-oaks and tufts 
 of flowery broom. The higher that they mount- 
 ed the narrower became the path, and the 
 thicker the tangle through which it ran. At 
 last it stopped short, in front of a clump of 
 bushes overgrowing a long-ruined and forgotten 
 sheep-fold. The roof covering one end of the 
 ruin still remained. This was the church! 
 
 In the sheltered corner, on the stone where 
 of old the shepherds had spread salt for their 
 sheep, a candle was burning, and before this 
 improvised altar knelt a group of peasants, more
 
 Strange Sittings in 
 
 women than men, waiting for the mass to be- 
 gin. As Monsieur Randoulet entered the ruin 
 one of the women arose, and from a basket 
 brought out a bottle of wine, a slice of white 
 bread, and a tall glass goblet. These she placed 
 upon the altar. And then, with old Janetoun 
 serving as his clerk, the good Cure said the 
 mass of our Lady of August in the midst of that 
 little flock of faithful ones, before that strange 
 altar around which through the centuries flocks 
 of another sort had gatKered to receive their dole 
 of salt. 
 
 Quickly, but with all reverence, the service 
 was concluded; and when it was ended the 
 candle was extinguished and the little congre- 
 gation vanished away silently into the darkness 
 of the night. Back again down the narrow 
 path, and thence through the fields and the 
 olive orchards, Monsieur Randoulet and Adeline 
 and Janetoun returned to Malemort. Far off 
 over the mountain tops the pale light of dawn 
 was glimmering as they entered safely their poor 
 little home.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE VISIT TO PASCAL AND LA PATINE 
 
 BEFORE she lay down to rest, in the grey 
 dawn, Monsieur Randoulet told Adeline that he 
 would take her that day to pay the visit to La 
 Patine to which she had been looking forward 
 so eagerly ; and this delightful promise, and the 
 excitement following her strange night, kept 
 sleep from her eyes. But she was not weary. 
 The thought of a long visit to Pascalet's mother, 
 and of the talk that they surely would have to- 
 gether about Pascalet, gave her sweet rest 
 through the exquisite solace that filled her heart. 
 
 She lay quite still upon her little bed, 
 watching the window brightening in the dawn. 
 Presently the swallows woke up, and she heard 
 their drowsy twitterings, then she saw the 
 old birds fly away, foraging for a breakfast for 
 their little ones, as the first sun-ray fell upon 
 their nest beneath the eaves. Because of the 
 loving thoughts that filled her heart, making 
 peace and happiness there, her love went out 
 to those happy little birds. 
 
 As the daylight filled the room she saw a 
 big bundle upon the table wrapped up in Jane- 
 toun's apron, and fell to wondering what it was. 
 Then she remembered that Janetoun had gone 
 about among the little congregation the night
 
 l)c bisit to Pascal anb a Ratine 103 
 
 before, while the last prayer was being said, as 
 though making stfme sort of a collection. What 
 she had collected no doubt was in the apron, 
 Adeline thought but that did not explain what 
 was there. 
 
 In a moment or two her curiosity was satis- 
 fled. When the swallows began to twitter, but 
 before the noise they made had aroused Mon- 
 sieur Randoulet, Janetoun stirred in her chair, 
 stretched herself a little, sat up slowly and 
 then went quickly to the table and untied her 
 apron. That Adeline should be awake, and 
 watching her, evidently did not cross her mind. 
 The bundle being opened, Adeline saw a little 
 heap of vegetables, a great loaf of white bread, 
 a melon, and a bottle of wine. These the old 
 woman took hurriedly to the cupboard and 
 there stowed away. "She moved very softly, 
 but not so softly but that Monsieur Randoulet 
 was aroused. Looking out between the cur- 
 tains he saw what she was doing, and said 
 sharply: "Janetoun, you have been levying 
 tribute upon my poor people again. I have told 
 you that you must not do that." 
 
 Janetoun was disconcerted by the Cure's 
 discovery, but answered crossly: " It's all very 
 well for you to give your orders. But it is I, 
 not you, who must keep the pot boiling." 
 
 " I have told you," Monsieur Randoulet re- 
 peated, "that you must ask nothing from these 
 poor people." 
 
 " Poor people, indeed! "Janetoun grumbled. 
 " And what are you ? Can anybody be poorer 
 than you are now ? Anyway, I a>n't make you 
 soup out of stones! "
 
 104 be tOliitc terror 
 
 Giving up the argument, Monsieur Randoulet 
 arose and came to his seat beside the window 
 and betook himself to his breviary while be- 
 hind him the swallows flew back and forth, 
 casting flying shadows upon his open book. In 
 silence Janetoun went on with her morning 
 work. 
 
 Soon, when the morning meal was finished, 
 the Cure and Adeline set off for the hut of La 
 Garde; taking with them some of the tribute 
 that Janetoun had levied, stowed in a leather 
 wallet, to serve for their midday meal. 
 
 Adeline was filled with happiness, for it 
 seemed to her that this visit to Pascalet's mother 
 was almost the same thing as a visit to Pascalet 
 himself. And her heart was still more glad- 
 dened because she was carrying a present to La 
 Patine that, for a while at least, would make 
 her life and old Pascal's life easier. From the 
 moment that the visit was planned, the child 
 had cast about in her mind for some way of 
 helping these poor people who had only black 
 bread 'to live upon, and not enough even of 
 that; and the good thought had occurred to her 
 that she would give them her precious three 
 crowns. After all, they were Pascalet's three 
 crowns: and who could have a better right to 
 them than his own father and mother ? There- 
 fore she hid her little treasure in the pocket of 
 her jacket and set forth with Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet joyfully : glad because of the happy day 
 that was before her, and glad because of the 
 good that she could do to these poor people 
 whom she loved. 
 
 Remembering the old times, it seemed
 
 <l)c tlisit to JJascnl anb a JJatitte 105 
 
 strange to her, ds they went upon their way, 
 that nowhere were there any signs that this 
 great feast day the Feast of Our Lady of August 
 was being observed! No bells were ringing. 
 The church was closed. Instead of clustering in 
 the village in holiday dress, the people were at 
 work as usual. As they passed through the 
 fields the harvesting was going on. At the 
 threshing floors the men were swinging their 
 flails and the women were winnowing the grain. 
 But Monsieur Randoulet was too broad-minded 
 to take offence at an infraction of the merely 
 human commandments of the church. As they 
 passed the groups of workers he had kindly 
 words for all of them, and asked with interest 
 how the harvest was coming on. The answers 
 to his greetings and to his questions also were 
 kindly. But Adeline had another shock in hear- 
 ing them address him as "Citizen Randoulet" 
 for the phrase "Monsieur le Cure" had no 
 place in those strange new times. 
 
 What talk took place was no more than the 
 interchange of greetings, and of questions and 
 answers, as they walked on rapidly. Monsieur 
 Randoulet did not wish to seem to be hiding 
 Adeline; but neither did he wish the villagers 
 to come to close quarters with her. The risk of 
 her being recognised, in her boy's dress, was 
 not great; but still it was a risk that had to be 
 guarded against. Naturally, there had been a 
 good deal of talk as to who this boy could be 
 whom Citizen Randoulet had picked up. Some 
 said that he was an emigre's son ; others said 
 that he was a bastard of the Avignon Legate. 
 But as no one knew anything certainly, and as
 
 106 |)c tiOljite terror 
 
 the people of Malemort for the most part were 
 well-disposed toward their late Cure, they were 
 content as we say here in Provence to let the 
 water run. 
 
 Having left the grain fields and entered the 
 olive orchards, Monsieur Randoulet and Adeline 
 met no one until they were come to the hut of 
 La Garde where they found Pascal and La Pa- 
 tine hard at work threshing out the little harvest 
 of wheat that they had gleaned. Very meagre 
 was their harvest, poor souls ! But, such as it 
 was, they were beating out the grain threshing 
 is too large a word for what they were doing 
 on a broad flat stone: Pascal with a stick, La 
 Patine with one of her sabots, and it was pitiful 
 to see how careful they were to pick up each 
 single grain that happened to fall from their little 
 threshing-floor to the ground ! A whole tragedy 
 of starvation was told in their eagerness to save 
 each tiny scrap of food! 
 
 La Patine, who was not a dull woman, un- 
 derstood the meaning of the sorrowful smile 
 on Monsieur Randoulet's face as he watched 
 them, and was grateful for it. "We must be 
 careful, Monsieur le Cure," she said. "We 
 poor people cannot afford* to let even a grain 
 be lost." 
 
 " But it makes me sad, La Patine, to see you 
 going down on your knees and searching for 
 those single grains when I think of the many 
 great granaries which are heaping full." 
 
 " Well, after all, Monsieur le Cure, those great 
 granaries are all filled with many single grains. 
 They must be gathered and saved, one at a time. 
 And my old grandmother God rest her soul!
 
 t)isit to JJascal an& a JJatine 107 
 
 used to say that one grain of wheat was worth 
 more than a whole loaf of bread, than very many 
 loaves of bread, and that to waste it was a sin : 
 because when you had eaten the bread that was 
 the end of it; but from the wheat grain you 
 could grow a spear of wheat, and from the spear 
 a sheaf, and from the sheaf a shock and so on 
 until you grew enough to feed the whole world 
 until the heavens fall." 
 
 "You are right, La Ratine. Who throws a 
 handful of wheat into the fire is more of a spend- 
 thrift than one who throws a handful of gold 
 into the sea! " 
 
 "And my grandmother used to tell me, 
 Monsieur," La Ratine went on, "that in the old 
 times the spears of wheat were much fuller and 
 much longer than they are now. Why, she said 
 that in the old times, in the very old times, the 
 spears were the length of the whole blade and 
 a strange story she had to tell about the way in 
 which they became small! " 
 
 While Monsieur Randoulet only smiled at 
 La Ratine's simplicity, Adeline always eager to 
 hear a story broke in with: "And what was 
 it that made the spears of wheat become small, 
 La Ratine?" 
 
 "Well, I only know what my old grand- 
 mother told me about it, and what she told was 
 this: Once upon a time there was a woman 
 who went with her husband to gather in their 
 crops. They had a field of wheat as red as gold, 
 and every blade was covered thick with grain 
 from the top to the very ground. The woman 
 had brought her baby with her, and she laid 
 him on a woolen cloth in a nice shady place 
 8
 
 io8 l)e toljite terror 
 
 under an olive tree, while she followed her hus- 
 band with his sickle, and bound up the sheaves. 
 After a while the baby began to cry, and the 
 woman went to him thinking that he was cry- 
 ing because he was hungry. But the baby 
 was crying because he had soiled himself and 
 the woolen cloth on which he lay. And what 
 do you think that spendthrift woman did ? She 
 stripped one of the long beautiful blades from its 
 root in the ground to within a handbreadth of 
 its top, and used the blessed bearded grains as a 
 brush to make things clean again. Now it hap- 
 pened that the good God was passing that way 
 just then ; and when he saw what the woman 
 was doing he scolded her well for her wicked 
 wastefulness. And then the woman who 
 didn't know that it was the good God who was 
 scolding her told him shortly to mind his own 
 business and she would mind hers. And the 
 good God said no more to her and passed on. 
 But the next year, when the wheat grew again, 
 it grew no more along the whole length of the 
 blade. Only so much grew at the top of the 
 blade, a mere hand-breadth, as the woman had 
 left there as it has grown ever since, and as it 
 grows now. And then there was a famine in 
 the land, the first famine that ever was known ; 
 and from that time onward there never has been 
 wheat enough in the world for all the hungry 
 mouths. For the good God does not forget, and 
 in that way he punished that wasteful woman 
 for her sin ! " 
 
 La Ratine was interested in her own story, but 
 she was still more interested in Adeline's face 
 and she was cudgelling her brains to find out
 
 t)isit to pascal anb a flatine 109 
 
 where she had seen this boy, and where she 
 had heard his familiar voice. But she could 
 make nothing of it all, and was beginning to 
 think that she would venture on a plain ques- 
 tion when another matter intervened that 
 diverted her thoughts. 
 
 Adeline also had given to the curious folk- 
 story a divided interest. While listening to it 
 she had been gazing very intently at the lower 
 slope of the hill below La Garde. Her look 
 grew more and more Anxious, and just as the 
 story ended she went pale suddenly and cried 
 out: " The gendarmes! The gendarmes! " 
 
 "Nonsense!" exclaimed Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet. "There is nothing to bring the gen- 
 darmes here. You must be mistaken, child!" 
 But he rose hurriedly, and with a troubled 
 face looked in the direction toward which Adeline 
 pointed. 
 
 La Patine and Pascal went on quietly with 
 their work. "I never have seen a gendarme 
 about here yet," said La Patine; and added: 
 " Robbers don't come prowling around the 
 houses of the poor." 
 
 "No, I am not mistaken, Monsieur," Ade- 
 line answered. " Look where 1 am pointing. 
 Look carefully. Do you see that olive-tree 
 that one higher than the rest, near the wall ? 
 Well, the gendarme 1 saw is on the path that 
 comes out beside that tree. You will see him 
 in a moment, now. There! There he comes! 
 Look!" 
 
 "Yes, yes. I see him!" Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet said excitedly. And then added, in a 
 much calmer tone: " But he is not a gendarme,
 
 QTmor 
 
 my child, and we have nothing to fear. He is 
 a soldier not a National Guard, though; and 
 not wearing a uniform that I know at all." 
 
 " A soldier! " cried La Patine, starting to her 
 feet. "A soldier! And coming here! It's my 
 Pascalet! It's my own Pascalet come home 
 from the wars! " 
 
 At this old Pascal also jumped up. But 
 when he had taken a look at the oncoming 
 soldier he said in tones of conviction: "No, 
 that's not our boy. He's too tall. And he 
 hasn't our boy's walk." 
 
 "Pedasa!" exclaimed La Patine. "He's 
 been growing since he went away." 
 
 "Oh, if it were Pascalet! " cried Adeline. 
 
 " It seems to me that he has only one arm," 
 said Monsieur Randoulet. " Yes, 1 am sure he 
 has only one arm. And I think he has a band- 
 age about his head, too." 
 
 Adeline saw that Monsieur Randoulet was 
 right, and gave a gasp that was almost a sob ; 
 while La Patine burst out: "Oh Mother of 
 Heaven ! My boy to come back to me with only 
 one arm ! " And she hid her face in her hands. 
 
 "I tell you it isn't our boy," old Pascal said 
 with energy. " Look at him for yourself." 
 
 The man, coming onward at a good pace, 
 had drawn close enough for them to see him 
 plainly. La Patine took her head out of her 
 hands for another look and exclaimed: "God 
 be praised ! Look at the big beard of him ! It 
 isn't my Pascalet at all! " And Adeline gave a 
 long thankful sigh. 
 
 Then they waited in silence while the man 
 came on.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 BRAVE MARGAN 
 
 " GREETING to you! " said the soldier as he 
 joined them. " Fraternity or Death! " 
 
 For all that he had a pock-marked face like 
 a honey-comb, he was a fine-looking fellow, 
 well set up and strong. He wore a cocked hat, 
 a green uniform turned up with red, and white 
 gaiters. His right sleeve hung empty, and 
 under his cocked hat was a bandage across one 
 eye. A soldier he looked, every inch of him 
 but a soldier who never would fight again ! 
 
 " I think you must have mistaken your 
 way, friend," Monsieur Randoulet said when 
 they all had answered his greeting. " The path 
 that you are on leads nowhere. This is the 
 end of it." 
 
 " Mistaken my way, Citizen ? Not a bit of 
 it! Isn't this the hut of La Garde? " 
 
 "Why of course it is," La Ratine answered. 
 
 " And perhaps you're La Ratine ? " 
 
 " You've said it." 
 
 " And this is your good man ? " 
 
 "That's my Pascal." 
 
 "Well then, my marching orders were 
 right, and so am I. And now for the other 
 side. I am Margan of Marseilles your son's 
 comrade. He and I went up to Paris together
 
 tD bite terror 
 
 in the Marseilles Battalion ; and then we went 
 off together to fight foreigners in Holland a 
 God-forgotten country in the north, where 
 there's snow all the year round. And here am 
 I, now, come to give you news of how your 
 youngster's getting on." 
 
 " He's not dead, then! " cried La Ratine. 
 
 "Dead! Well, 1 should say he wasn't! He's 
 as bright as a sword-blade and as lively as an 
 eel!" 
 
 "But why didn't he come? Oh, my little 
 Pascalet, I'll never see you again ! " and La Ratine 
 broke forth into sobs. 
 
 "Sit down, good soldier," said Pascal, "and 
 tell us what you have to tell about our boy." 
 
 " But first you must have some refreshment, " 
 put in Monsieur Randoulet. "A cool drink 
 will comfort you after your hot walk." 
 
 "Pecaire!" exclaimed La Patine. "I've 
 nothing to give you but water! " 
 
 " But we have something better than water 
 in our wallet," Monsieur Randoulet answered 
 and as he spoke he brought forth the bottle of 
 red wine that Janetoun had captured at the mass. 
 In a moment it was opened; and in another 
 moment Margan was giving it a long kiss that 
 left it only half full! 
 
 "Ha! that's something worth swallowing! " 
 the soldier said as he set down the bottle and 
 wiped his mouth with the back of his one re- 
 maining hand. "That's not like the slops and 
 soapsuds we got to drink up there in the North ! " 
 
 " And you've brought us news of our boy ?" 
 said La Patine eagerly. 
 
 "Yes, and fresh news, too. Why, it's onlv
 
 Bt;at)e Margcm 113 
 
 a month since I was talking to him, nose to 
 nose, just as I'm talking to you now! We've 
 been together, that boy and 1, all through this 
 past year ever since the day that he enlisted 
 in our Battalion in Avignon. We went up to 
 Paris together, and we took King Capet prisoner 
 together; and when that job was finished we 
 went off together as volunteers to fight for the 
 Republic up in the north. For six months we 
 fought Austrians and Germans in that vile Hol- 
 land. And we'd have been at it together yet if 
 our General hadn't turned traitor. It's to him, 
 that dirty dog of a Dumouriez, that 1 owe the 
 loss of my arm and my eye! " 
 
 "Pecaire! how it must have hurt!" ex- 
 claimed La Patine. "And my Pascalet was 
 he wounded too ? " 
 
 "Not a bit of it! He's always in the thick 
 of the fighting, and yet he always manages to 
 come out with a whole skin. It looks as if he 
 knew how to frighten the bullets away ! Many 
 a time we fellows have said, ' When the smoke 
 clears away there'll be nothing of Pascalet left 
 but scraps!' and then the smoke would drift 
 off, and there would be Pascalet as lively as a 
 flea! And very likely a bullet hole through his 
 hat, and his coat torn by bayonets and slashed 
 by swords. Some of our fellows swear that he's 
 bewitched! " 
 
 "Oh holy Mother of Heaven ! My boy don't 
 know what he's doing. They'll kill him for me, 
 sure ! What did he ever go into those armies 
 for away off there?" And again La Patine 
 began to sob. 
 
 "I'd be glad to be there myself, all the same,"
 
 n4 l) &l)ite ffterror 
 
 said Margan. "If I'd only lost my eye I'd be 
 at it yet. fighting for the Republic with the rest 
 of them. But with my right arm gone, Sarni- 
 pabienne! what can I do ? If it had been the 
 left arm, I'd have stuck to my trade. You see, 
 that devil of a cannon ball passed me on the 
 wrong side. And it went in a hurry, I can tell 
 you! Why, Pascalet said to me 'Your arm's 
 gone, Margan ! ' almost before I knew it my- 
 self." 
 
 " But how did you and Pascalet get into the 
 army of the North at all ? " asked Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet. " How was it that you didn't stay in 
 the Marseilles Battalion, and come home with 
 it when it Came home ? " 
 
 " Well, you see, it was just a sudden notion 
 that took hold of us when our heads were a bit 
 askew. We enlisted on the very day that the 
 Battalion started for home again. The afternoon 
 before that day, when we'd got our marching 
 orders and eveVything was settled, some of us 
 went off on a spree Pascalet and I and one or 
 two more. We went it hard sampling one 
 dram-shop after another until we saw hens with 
 three heads everywhere! By the time that 
 night caught us we were all tangled up in the 
 thick of Paris and didn't know which way to 
 turn. We did manage to get back to the bar- 
 racks at last, somehow or other, but Pascalet 
 drifted off from us and got lost. We didn't 
 know that he had not come back with us till 
 the next morning; indeed we didn't know till 
 the next morning that we'd got back ourselves. 
 
 "Well, the next morning Vauclair came 
 hunting for him it was Vauclair, you know,
 
 Brcttie ittargan 115 
 
 who picked him up in Avignon when he was 
 driven out from here, and he loved the boy 
 dearly. Vauclair gave it to us hot for taking 
 him off with us that way, and when I found 
 what had come of it 1 felt pretty bad myself- 
 and I made up my mind that as I'd helped to 
 lose him I wouldn't leave Paris until I'd found 
 him again. And so I went off to hunt for him, 
 and I let the Battalion march without me while 
 I hunted Paris high and low. I hunted and I 
 hunted without finding. him. Along in the after- 
 noon I got all tired out, and went into a bar- 
 rack that I happened to be passing to sit down 
 and rest myself. And all of a sudden I heard 
 Pascalet's voice I was sure it was his voice 
 singing the 'Marseillaise.' Round I turned like 
 a flash and, sure enough, there he was! The 
 hugging that I gave him was near to cracking 
 the ribs of him; and then I found what he was 
 doing there that he had joined that morning 
 one of the new battalions of the Army of the 
 North. 
 
 " ' Come right along back with me to where 
 you belong,' says I, 'and. come home with the 
 rest of us to Marseilles.' 
 
 " 'No,' says he, like the brave patriot that 
 he is, ' no, Margan, I've enlisted in the army of 
 the Republic, and if you dare to say another 
 word about my deserting you're a dead man! ' 
 and he ups with his gun ! 
 
 "' Right you are,' says I, 'and wrong I am! 
 Vive la Revolution! Vive la Republique! In- 
 stead of my taking you back to Marseilles, you 
 shall take me off to fight along with you for 
 Liberty!' And with that I enlisted in the same
 
 u6 |]c tOhite terror 
 
 battalion and within another hour Pascalet and 
 I were off together for the northern frontier. 
 
 "What a march it was that we made to the 
 Army of the North! In the early evening the 
 brigade of which we were a part got away from 
 Paris, Pascalet and I shouting out the ' Marseil- 
 laise.' The other fellows of our own battalion 
 Parisians, Normans, Bretons at first only 
 opened their mouths to laugh at us. But it 
 didn't take long for the tune of our song to get 
 into their heads and the fire of it into their bones, 
 and we all were roaring it out together before 
 we'd gone half a league. Through the darkness 
 we marched singing; and when a thunder-storm 
 came banging over us with rain by the bucket- 
 ful that drenched us through we fairly outroared 
 the thunder with our 'Marseillaise'! Not until 
 toward morning when we were pretty well 
 dead beat with wet and cold did we call a halt. 
 And even then, chilled and drenched and hungry 
 and tired out though we were, every little while 
 a hoarse voice would croak: 
 
 ' Aux armes citoyens! Formez vos bataillons! ' 
 
 We made our halt under the lea of a stiff little 
 hill close to the road side, along with a battalion 
 of Maine-and-Loire men who led us on the 
 march. We all were wet as frogs together, and 
 when at last the sun came up we all gave a 
 shout of joy. As for our breakfast, we made it 
 mainly on shouting ' Vive la Republique! ' that 
 really did seem filling, somehow and on the sun- 
 shine that set our jackets to smoking and made 
 us warm once more. There were eighty in our 
 battalion, and as many more of the Maine-and-
 
 jBratic ittargatt 117 
 
 Loire men, and for the lot of us we hadn't above 
 a dozen loaves of bread all told. So we munched 
 our little scraps slowly, to make the most of 
 them, and drank water from the pools that were 
 everywhere but oh how good a clove of garlic 
 would have tasted then ! 
 
 " While we waited for our order to march 
 again, three young fellows on horseback came 
 galloping down on us along with a pack of 
 hounds. They were going out coursing, and 
 pulled up to a walk as they passed us. ' Hello, 
 draggle-tails, where do you come from ? ' one 
 of them called out as they rode by. ' Vive la 
 Revolution ! ' we shouted in answer. ' Chicken- 
 stealing looks to be your business,' the fellow 
 said, and he and one of his comrades struck 
 spurs in their horses and were off with a laugh. 
 But the third, a handsome lad, pulled up short 
 and his eyes filled with tears. Off came his hat 
 in a handsome bow to us, and ' Vive la Nation ! ' 
 he cried in a voice that rang true. ' I'll join you, 
 if you'll let me, comrades,' he cried; and with 
 that we all gave him a rousing cheer. And he 
 did join us. Our lieutenant enrolled him right 
 there; and when we got on to Arras the munici- 
 pality saw to his being armed and equipped. 
 And he was only one of a good many who en- 
 listed with us as we went onward glad of the 
 chance to go along and fight for holy Liberty. 
 When we joined Dumouriez at last we were 
 more than three thousand strong. 
 
 "1 never shall forget our march up to the 
 General's quarters all of us storming out the 
 ' Marseillaise ' at the tops of our voices, and the 
 men of the Army of the North shouting ' Vive
 
 n8 [)e tOI)ite terror 
 
 la Republique! ' and cheering us as we came on! 
 We marched past the General, and counter- 
 marched, and formed up while he made a 
 speech to us. 
 
 "'Boys,' says the General, 'you've come 
 at just the right time! To-morrow you shall 
 taste Prussian plums. They are over in that 
 village in front of us, the Prussians are, and the 
 woods are full of them. I haven't counted 'em, 
 but I'll not be far out if I say that there are forty- 
 five thousand of 'em and now that you've got 
 here we're about eighteen thousand strong. 
 And that's just about right for one soldier of 
 the Republic ought to be able to account for 
 three of the hirelings of the Prussian King! ' and 
 then the General cried 'Vive la Republique!' 
 and we cried ' Vive la Republique! ' and every- 
 body cheered. 
 
 "Well, I can tell you it just made us proud 
 to be talked to that way, and joyful that our 
 chance to fight for Liberty was to come so soon. 
 We hugged each other all round, as if we hadn't 
 met for years; and then we went to hugging 
 the soldiers we didn't know at alias if they'd 
 been our long lost brothers; and we shouted 
 and yelled! The fine young fellow who'd left 
 his hunting to join us was wilder than anybody, 
 he was so glad. He was a good one, he was. 
 He gave his horse to the General; and although 
 he was a gentleman born and had a lot of yellow- 
 boys in his pockets he munched black bread 
 with us, and at night lay down with us on the 
 hare's mattress, without ever saying a word! 
 He took a great fancy to your Pascalet, and he 
 seemed to like me too. 'Pierre Jacques,' he
 
 iJrooe iftargon 119 
 
 told us to call him, and we did; but some of 
 the other recruits said that that wasn't his name, 
 and that he was the son of a ci-devant noble. 
 But that didn't matter to us for our ' Pierre 
 Jacques' had no part nor lot with the nobles 
 any more. The star of the Republic guided 
 him, and the sun of Liberty lighted up his beau- 
 tiful soul ! "
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE AFFAIR OF VALMY 
 
 "OuR General hadn't lied to us," Margan 
 went on, "when he told us we were to taste 
 Prussian plums that day. The Prussians were 
 ready for us and we were ready for them, and 
 while the dawn was breaking our drums beat 
 the pas de charge and at it we started, singing 
 the ' Marseillaise.' 
 
 "I saw that there was hot work ahead of 
 us, and before it began I turned to Pascalet and 
 said: ' See here, Kiddy, we're going to the bum- 
 ble-bee's high mass again and this time we've 
 got to handle not a few fellows in King Capet's 
 castle but the whole army of the King of Prus- 
 sia. He's as bad a tyrant as Capet was, and a 
 better fighter. Do your best, my Pascalet and 
 remember that we've got to show these north- 
 ern volunteers that the Reds of the Midi don't 
 back down ! ' And that brave little fellow an- 
 swered: Mf you see me doing any backing 
 down, Margan, blow my brains out ! ' And then 
 a devil of a cannonading began that put a stop 
 to any more talk. 
 
 ""We had been eating some bits of bread 
 but we had to stop biting bread and take to 
 biting cartridges; and cartridges are not belly- 
 filling, I can tell you. The cannon were bang-
 
 Affair of 
 
 ing away at us at a great rate. We could hear 
 the balls whizzing over us, hissing like angry 
 snakes, and we could see the branches of trees 
 falling but the gunners had not got our range. 
 As far as we could see, off in front of us, the 
 ground was just black with Prussians. Their 
 base was a village that they were holding, and 
 right into the 1 thick of them we had to go and 
 take that village. If we didn't, it would be the 
 other way about and then there would be no 
 Army of the North to hold the frontier, and the 
 King of Prussia would come marching into 
 France, and on he would march to Paris and set 
 up the tumbled-down throne again. And then 
 well, then it would be good-bye to Revolu- 
 tion and Republic and all! 
 
 " So we ragglety-bobtails stood to our work 
 though the gunners had got our range and the 
 musket-ball bees were buzzing around us and 
 did what we could for France. Go back we 
 wouldn't, and go ahead we couldn't, for our or- 
 der to charge did not come. So we just bit 
 our cartridges and fired and fired into the black 
 heap of Prussians out there in front of us on the 
 plain. 
 
 "And then, suddenly, through the whirl- 
 winds of smoke and the whirlwinds of dust 
 ploughed up by the balls, we saw General Du- 
 mouriez on horseback right in front of the bat- 
 tle ; and we saw that our line was wavering, and 
 that the General was trying to steady it and to 
 lead a charge. But the line broke, in spite of 
 him, and our red-plumed boys began to go the 
 wrong way. And then what we had taken to 
 be a line of pine woods, far off on the plain,
 
 tDljite terror 
 
 suddenly became a line of Prussian reserves 
 that came forward to the blare of trumpets, 
 bringing the whole Prussian army along with it, 
 on the heels of our flying boys. Well, it did 
 look just then as though we'd lost everything 
 the battle and our honour, too! 
 
 "It was more than we fellows could stand. 
 We didn't care what happened to us if only 
 we could save the day. So down went all our 
 heads together, under the storm of balls and 
 bullets, and like so many butting billy-goats we 
 went into the fight at a double quick, our drums 
 beating the pas de charge. Like a wedge our 
 brigade jammed itself in between the runaways 
 and the oncoming black battalions: and then 
 General Dumouriez, who was crying with shame 
 over it all, found that he had some men behind 
 him whom he could lead! It was hot work 
 that he led us to! From the Prussian line came 
 a hurricane of bullets and cannon-balls and grape 
 that levelled everything trees, bushes, horses, 
 men, all went down together, as though a great 
 scythe had swept over the plain ! 
 
 "But when the red-haired Prussians, the 
 slaves of the Prussian King, saw us coming 
 charging on at them through everything, roar- 
 ing out the 'Marseillaise' they halted, formed 
 up their lines, and met us with a still more 
 deadly fire. But this fire only made us hurry 
 forward so that we might come to grips with 
 them. 'Never mind the Prussian plums,' I 
 called out to Pascalet, who was just ahead of 
 me. ' Have your pitchfork ready this is our 
 threshing-floor, and we're going to toss the 
 straw! ' Pascalet's face was one black grime of
 
 Affair of balmj 123 
 
 powder and smoke. He never answered me a 
 word, for at that moment we were in on the 
 Prussian line. But he did what I told him to 
 do. 'Tremblez, tyrans, et vous, perfides!' he 
 yelled and he tossed on his bayonet a Prussian 
 gunner who must have weighed three times as 
 much as he weighed himself! 
 
 " And then the straw began to fly, I can tell 
 you! We were in a fury of killing, and we killed 
 and killed ! They tried to run from us but the 
 big heavy louts were no match for our nimble- 
 ness, and they stumbled over each other in their 
 clumsy way. When they stood up to us we 
 spitted them in the breast; when they were 
 down we gave it to them in the back or the 
 belly or the buttocks, just as it chanced and on 
 we went, leaving behind us a sheet of dead and 
 wounded spread over the plain. 
 
 "And what we were doing brought the 
 others up to the collar and made them pull their 
 pound. Our own runaways, seeing Dumou- 
 riez dashing on at the head of us raggle-tails, 
 were shamed out of their panic. General Kel- 
 lermann, another good fellow, got them re- 
 formed; and at the head of them waved his 
 sword and shouted out the ' Marseillaise ' and 
 with heads down and fixed bayonets they 
 charged the Prussians on a full run, like so many 
 wolves! 
 
 "Well, amongst us all, we settled the mat- 
 ter. But we got so twisted up in doing it that 
 our right wing was our left wing by the time 
 we were through. That didn't make any dif- 
 ference, though. At the end of the battle, when 
 the multitude of Prussians was scampering in 
 9
 
 124 ftlje tXH)ite terror 
 
 , 
 
 all directions, and a multitude more of them 
 lay dead or wounded on the ground, our two 
 wings met in the village of Valmy the Repub- 
 lican soldiers with their plumed cocked-hats, 
 and we raggle-tails in red liberty caps and 
 just how we all got there we didn't any of us 
 know! But there we were where the Prus- 
 sians had been and we marched through the 
 village roaring out the ' Marseillaise ' fit to 
 shake down the village walls! " 
 
 " And my Pascalet? What became of him 
 in all that killing?" La Ratine asked in a trem- 
 bling voice. 
 
 "Pascalet? Well, when the fight was 
 over, he wasn't around anywhere, that I could 
 see, and I was in a real stew about him. He 
 wasn't with us, and that seemed to mean that 
 he had been knocked over for good or was ly- 
 ing somewhere wounded only some of our 
 fellows said that they certainly had seen him 
 alive after the Prussians broke; and that was 
 hopeful, for the firing about came to an end 
 then. But he had to be looked for, and back I 
 went through the dusk to look for him on the 
 bloody field. It was bad there, among the 
 wounded in the twilight. I got up on a bit of 
 wall and shouted 'Pascalet! Pascalet!' For 
 answer, there came through the gloom from that 
 field covered with the dead and wounded a 
 sort of shivering groan that fairly froze the mar- 
 row in my bones! And there was a quiver- 
 ing of the ground, as it looked, as the poor 
 wounded fellows tried to raise themselves a lit- 
 tle and call for help and then fell back again. 
 And then, as the dusk got deeper, I saw com-
 
 Affair of baling 125 
 
 ing toward me from where the dead were piled 
 thickest what looked like a giant and with my 
 teeth chattering I called ' Pascalet! Pascalet!' 
 again. 
 
 "'Hello, Margan! Is that you? Come 
 here and help me. I'm about done up.' It 
 was Pascalet's voice, and when I got to him it 
 was Pascalet sure enough. But he looked like 
 some queer monster, because he had a man on 
 his back. 'Give us a hand,' says he. 'I've 
 got Jacques Pierre on my back, and he's more 
 of a load than I can manage.' ' You're a good 
 one, Pascalet,' says I. 'No I'm not,' says he. 
 ' I saw Jacques Pierre go down, and when the 
 fight was over I went to hunt for him, just as 
 anybody'd have done. And I found him, and 
 I don't think he's badly hurt. But there's a 
 lot of him to carry! Just take his shoulders, 
 will you ? I'll take his legs, for that's the 
 light end of him and I'm pretty near beat. Be- 
 tween us it won't take long to get him into 
 camp.' And it didn't and when we'd doused 
 him with cold water he opened his eyes 
 and presently was all right again. Nothing 
 much had happened to him just a bullet-graze 
 on his skull that had stunned him. He was as 
 good as anybody next morning, and was off 
 chasing Prussians with the rest of us at dawn. 
 
 "And what a chase that was! The Prus- 
 sians were just like wild-oats in a field the 
 more you pulled up, the more there were to 
 pull! They had run off in all directions and 
 were hiding everywhere. We found those 
 green-coats in ditches, in barns and sheep-folds, 
 behind hedges, in the beds of streams in all
 
 126 |)e tOliite terror 
 
 sorts of places we found 'em : and wherever we 
 found 'em we killed 'em off like flies. At last 
 we had finished with them and from the good 
 field of the Republic those weeds were gone! " 
 
 The sun had been moving while Margan 
 had been talking and the little party no longer 
 was in the shade. "Hello!" he exclaimed. 
 "This won't do. The sun's coming round "- 
 and he rolled the stone on which he had been 
 sitting into the shade again. The others fol- 
 lowed his example, and Monsieur Randoulet 
 took advantage of the interruption to bring out 
 the melon from the wallet of stores. " Before 
 you take up the thread of your story again, 
 Citizen Margan," he said, "let me give you a 
 slice of watermelon." 
 
 " Indeed I will," Margan answered heartily. 
 "And to wet my whistle that way won't put 
 back the story, either.- It will help it along." 
 And between his bites into the juicy pink flesh 
 of the melon, and to the sound of the general 
 munching, on he went again with what he had 
 to tell. 
 
 "Well, friends, when there wasn't a single 
 slave of the King of Prussia left within our reach, 
 over we marched into Belgium where, as we 
 were told, our emigrant Aristocrats were getting 
 together an army that was to invade us and 
 bring our holy Revolution to an end. And this 
 that we were told was true. A pack of miser- 
 ables, who called themselves the flower of the 
 French nobility dukes, marquises, counts, 
 barons: may they all perish in the thunder of 
 God! had gone whining like beggars to all the 
 courts in Europe, and of all the tyrants had asked
 
 lje Affair of almn 127 
 
 for armies to help them to invade their own land 
 of France. What is more, these cowardly rene- 
 gades had managed so well being backed by 
 the traitor Capet, who paid for the job with his 
 head that they had at their heels in Belgium 
 such an army of Austrians as I don't believe ever 
 before marched out under the cape of the sun ! 
 Forty thousand of them, there must have been; 
 and forty thousand horses, and how many thou- 
 sand cannon I really don't know! There were 
 generals and commandants and captains of this 
 host: that was made up, as I say, of forty thou- 
 sand men, and forty thousand guns, and forty 
 thousand bayonets, and forty thousand swords 
 every one of them brand new: sharpened, 
 shining, glittering! 
 
 ' ' Our army was of another sort. At Valmy, 
 half of us had no bayonets to our muskets and 
 half of us had no swords. Half of us went bare- 
 foot, and the rest of us had cracked sabots that 
 wouldn't stick to our feet. And many a time 
 our bellies were empty when we lay down to 
 sleep in the mud or on the bare stones. But we 
 didn't care! Though we went hungry, we had 
 a flame that fed us: our faith in Liberty! 
 Though our arms were poor and shabby, we 
 had a weapon more terrible than red-hot can- 
 non balls and glittering swords: our 'Mar- 
 seillaise ' ! 
 
 "Well, over we went into Belgium, and 
 through Belgium we went hunting for that ter- 
 rible army of Austrians. But we couldn't find 
 it! Our generals, to hearten us up, kept say- 
 ing : ' We'll meet them to-morrow ' only it kept 
 on being ' to-morrow, ' until we got sick and tired
 
 128 |)e tXHjite terror 
 
 ,i**w. 
 
 of marching to that fight that never came off ! 
 To tell the truth, we almost lost heart over it. 
 Some of our fellows said: 'There can't be any 
 army for us to fight. An army isn't a pin you 
 can't lose it in the grass!' But others took a 
 blacker view of the matter, and said gloomily : 
 ' We are betrayed ! ' 
 
 ''Our Pascalet was among the few who 
 never lost heart nor courage. He kept up the 
 spirits of the doubters, and when any man talked 
 about our being betrayed he would give that 
 man a shaking that brought him back to reason ; 
 and then he would burst out with 
 
 ' Allons, enfants de la Patrie, 
 Le jour de gloire est arrive! ' 
 
 And all together we would take up the glo- 
 rious song, and our hearts would swell again 
 with hope. 
 
 "One morning we were grunting worse 
 than ever. For three days we had been march- 
 ing through a forest. As we fell in, at dawn, 
 cold and hungry, to keep on with our march 
 you could hear from one end of our line to the 
 other only growls. It seemed as though we 
 never were going to get out from among those 
 endless trees ! But when we had formed for the 
 march General Dumouriez forced our column 
 and called out to us v as he waved his sword: 
 ' Citizen soldiers of the Republic ! The sun shall 
 not set before you have seen the army of the 
 Austrian tyrant! Vive la Nation! ' 
 
 "Those words, you may be sure, put fresh 
 life into us. All together, in a great roar, we 
 shouted: 'Vive Dumouriez! Vive la Nation!'
 
 Affair of balmg 129 
 
 and swung forward, still cheering, eager to 
 lessen the distance between us and the enemy. 
 And presently, just as the sun rose, we came 
 out into the open and that miserable forest at 
 last was left behind! 
 
 "But what we saw before us dashed our 
 hopes again. Below, out in front of us, stretch- 
 ing away to the horizon, was what seemed to 
 , be the ocean with little waves upon its surface 
 which caught the sunlight and sent bright 
 flashes into our eyes. 'The sea!' we cried. 
 ' We are at the end of the earth ! We have 
 missed the Austrians! Back we must go 
 through the forest for another three chill nights 
 and days ! ' Utter discouragement settled down 
 upon us. Even Pascalet had not the heart to 
 strike up the 'Marseillaise.' Only our comrade 
 Jacques Pierre who was a northern man, you 
 know didn't seem disheartened a bit; and as 
 he listened to our growls and groans he only 
 grinned. And Jacques Pierre was right to grin 
 that way, for we were a pack of fools! 
 
 "As the sun rose higher above the hills, and 
 the heat of his rays grew stronger, all of a sud- 
 den a new picture was before our wondering 
 eyes. Like a cloud of smoke melting away and 
 vanishing, what had seemed like the glittering 
 waves of the ocean were dissolved in the sun- 
 shine and before us was a great marshy plain 
 across which the Austrians, horse and foot and 
 artillery, were marching toward the hills near 
 Jemappes where they were to make their stand. 
 And then, in a flash, we understood the mistake 
 that we had made. The layer of thick mist, 
 rising just a little higher than the head of a man
 
 error 
 
 on horseback, had hidden everything but the 
 glistening bayonet-tips and the glistening crests 
 of the cavalrymen's helmets and these, sway- 
 ing regularly with the regular motion of the 
 march, had seemed to us numskulls the spark- 
 ling wavelets of the sea! "
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE BATTLE OF JEMAPPES 
 
 "WELL," Morgan went on, "if ever there 
 was a lot of delighted men it was us just then. 
 We were not permitted to make a noise for 
 we were under cover of the wood and the ene- 
 my had not seen us and so we could not take 
 to yelling the 'Marseillaise,' as we wanted to. 
 But we stuck our red caps on our bayonets and 
 waved them about, and danced silent rigadoons 
 together until, presently, the order came for 
 us to march back into the wood again, to some 
 marble quarries, that we might lie hidden there. 
 
 "Back we went to the great marble quar- 
 ries, and there we lay snugly out of sight like 
 so many wolves in a den. Then we had our 
 breakfast of bread, and precious dry and hard it 
 was! The men all growled over it and said we 
 might as well be eating stones. Pascalet man- 
 aged it better than the rest of us, for he has 
 jaws and teeth fit to crack steel. ' What are 
 you growling about ? ' he asked. ' To-morrow 
 we'll have bayonets for breakfast, and they'll be 
 harder still!' And the notion of having "bayo- 
 nets-for breakfast set us all to laughing, and to 
 longing for the next day to come. 
 
 " To fill in the time, for it was dull work 
 waiting idly, we cleaned up our muskets and 
 
 131
 
 132 l)c iDI)itc terror 
 
 pistols and sharpened our swords ; and we 
 watched General Dumouriez and General Kel- 
 lermann and the two deputies from the Con- 
 vention sitting together with a map spread out 
 in front of them, planning how the battle was 
 to be fought. It was comfortable down there 
 in the deep quarries, dry and warm the best 
 camp we'd made on the whole march. And yet 
 when night came though we were used to 
 sleeping anyhow and anywhere we couldn't 
 sleep at all! Every minute somebody would 
 be asking: 'Isn't it almost daylight? Isn't it 
 time to start ? ' 
 
 "Well, from the time that we turned back 
 into the wood until we started out again we 
 had twenty hours of waiting. I tell you it did 
 us good when at last we got the order to fall 
 in ! We laughed and joked over what was 
 coming, and some of us took to dancing a faran- 
 dole! Pascalet, coming from the farandole 
 country, ought to have been in that; but he 
 wasn't, and when I hunted around for him I 
 found him standing on one side looking as glum 
 as you please. 'What's the matter?' says I. 
 'Oh, nothing,' says he. 'Yes there is,' says I. 
 'What is it?' 'It's nothing, I tell you,' says 
 he and then we fell in, and the column began 
 to move. It was the dusk of very early morn- 
 ing. Our drums were silent. As quietly as 
 possible we marched toward the position to 
 which we had been assigned. 
 
 "To make Pascalet tell me what was. the 
 matter with him, I pretended to be angry with 
 him and made a show of joining the next rank. 
 We always had marched side by side, like
 
 Dattlc of Ictnappes 133 
 
 brothers, and he couldn't stand that. As I 
 stepped away from him he put his hand on my 
 shoulder and said: 'Stay with me, Margan.' 
 
 " 'Then speak up,' said I. 'I don't know 
 you. Pascalet, when you're like this.' 
 
 "I took my place beside him again, and as 
 we marched on together he said to me in a 
 voice so low that only I could hear him : ' Mar- 
 gan, I'm not afraid of death. I'd give my life 
 twenty times over, if I could, for the Republic 
 and for Liberty.' 
 
 " ' Well, nobody doubts that,' said I. ' But 
 what's the matter with you ? Has anybody 
 said anything to hurt you ? ' 
 
 "'No, no. It's nothing of that kind,' he 
 answered. He was quiet for a minute, and 
 then he went on: 'See here, Margan, it's an 
 easy thing for a sword to split your head open, 
 or a musket bullet to make a hole through you, 
 or a cannon ball to knock you to bits. I've 
 been thinking that something like that may be 
 going to happen to me that in the next couple 
 of hours or so I may be killed.' 
 
 "'Well,' said 1, 'you won't be the only 
 one. And, anyway, what's to be done about 
 it ? When a man's dead, he's dead and that's 
 all there is about it. It's a kind of sickness 
 there's no cure for.' 
 
 " 'I'm not laughing,' said he. 'If I die, if 
 my life goes out for our just Revolution, I want 
 you to do something for me, Margan. Will you? ' 
 
 " 'Speak up,' said I. 'I'll do anything you 
 want me to do always supposing I don't 
 sneeze out my little butterfly of a soul ahead of 
 yours.'
 
 134 t) tOIjite 
 
 " ' Please don't make fun,' said the poor 
 boy, with a long sigh. ' I'm in earnest, Mar- 
 gan. I'm very much in earnest. I want you 
 to promise me that if I die, and you get home 
 all right, you'll go and see my mother.' 
 
 " ' Why, of course I will,' said I. And then 
 I gave him a slap on the shoulder and said : 
 'Cheer up, youngster! Something tells me 
 you're not going to die to-day.' 
 
 " ' But that's that's not all I want you to 
 do for me, Margan,' he went on in a queer sort 
 of way. 
 
 "'Well, out with the rest of it,' said I. 
 ' I'll do whatever you want.' 
 
 "'When I'm when I'm dead,' said he, 
 ' here in this pocket over my heart you'll find a 
 bright medal of Notre Dame de bon secours. 
 I want you to take it, and to take great care of 
 it; and when you go home I want you to give 
 it to one whom I love, to one who perhaps 
 loves me whose face always is before my 
 eyes as clear as when I saw her, the bird-song 
 of whose sweet voice always is ringing in my 
 ears as plain as when I heard her ! ' 
 
 " ' But who is she ? ' I asked. 
 
 " ' Oh,' said he, ' you can't possibly mistake 
 her. She's the very best and the most beauti- 
 ful girl in all the world ! She's the flower of 
 the world! She's an angel from Paradise. 
 She's as dazzling as Liberty! And you'll say to 
 her, please: "Poor Pascalet, when he died for 
 his country, was thinking of you. He was 
 thinking of you when he shed his last drop of 
 blood. He told me to bring to you, that you 
 might keep it in memory of him, this medal of
 
 l)e Battle of Jfemapjics 135 
 
 Notre Dame de bon secours the only thing 
 that he owned in all the world! " 
 
 " 'Now see here, Pascalet,' said I, 'do you 
 think I'm a wizard ? She's the most beautiful 
 and the best, and a flower and an angel, and as 
 dazzling as Liberty! That's all very well. But 
 that's the way they all are all the girls who 
 make us fall head over heels in love with 'em. 
 If you want me to do this for you, you've got to 
 tell me your girl's name.' 
 
 "All the time that we were talking we were 
 going forward at a good pace, and by that time 
 we were down on the great mist-covered plain, 
 that we had taken for the sea the day before, 
 and were marching through the mist ourselves. 
 
 " Pascalet did not answer me, and to make 
 him give me something that I could go by I said 
 to him, short and sharp: 'I don't believe you 
 know her name yourself ! ' 
 
 " He turned red and said: ' Vauclair will tell 
 you who it is.' 
 
 ' ' ' But where am I to find Vauclair ? ' I asked. 
 ' Don't you suppose that Vauclair's off on the 
 frontier too fighting the foreigners along with 
 all the other good Reds of the Midi ? ' 
 
 " ' If you can't find Vauclair,' he said, 'Vau- 
 clair's wife, Lazuli, will tell you. She rescued 
 us both from misfortune and took us home to 
 live with her. And she guessed our child-love 
 when she saw us playing with the fire that's 
 burning in me now, and that will burn in me 
 always while I live.' 
 
 "Then I gave him a cut that I was sure 
 would bring the truth out of him. ' Oh,' said I, 
 ' I see how it is you're ashamed to tell me her
 
 terror 
 
 name. It's some good-for-nothing baggage in 
 Paris ' 
 
 "'Hush! Hush! Margan!' he exclaimed. 
 ' You must not talk that way. I will tell you 
 her name. It is Adeline, and she is the daugh- 
 ter of the Marquis d'Ambrun.' And as he got it 
 out at last he took a step ahead of me so that I 
 could not see his burning cheeks. 
 
 "At that very moment the sun came up 
 above the hills and as though the sun had set 
 the world on fire there burst upon us a hellish 
 cannonade! All the batteries began an awful 
 fire upon us: belching out round-shot and grape 
 and flashings and thunderings without a single 
 stop, until we were in the very thick of a rain 
 of lead and iron! As we stood there in the 
 centre of the plain, with the cannon blazing 
 away at us, it seemed as if every stone and tree 
 and bush, even the very tufts of grass, on all the 
 mountains and hills round about us were loaded 
 with powder and shot and all were going off 
 together to sweep us away from the face of the 
 earth ! 
 
 " Tangled up as we were in the fog, it was 
 more than we could stand. Our battalions 
 shivered, wavered, broke! An awful confusion 
 was upon us. Through the fog we ran without 
 knowing where we were running. We tram- 
 pled over our own wounded whose shrieks 
 and howls made things a thousand times worse. 
 Our two squadrons of cavalry, in the van, lost 
 their heads and came crashing back right through 
 our ranks. We didn't know where to turn nor 
 what to do. We couldn't see our generals. We 
 heard no orders. The rain of lead and iron fell
 
 Battle of Jfemappes 137 
 
 faster and foster. It looked as if it was going to 
 be the very ruin of ruin as if our army of the 
 Republic was to be wiped out for good and all! 
 And Pascalet was gone from beside me. I called 
 to him 'Pascalet! Pascalet!' There was no 
 answer and all around me the ground was cov- 
 ered with dead and dying men! " 
 
 Margan stopped in his story suddenly and 
 exclaimed: "Why, what's the matter with the 
 boy?" As he spoke, Adeline gave a gasping 
 cry and fell over sidewise in a dead faint on 
 Monsieur Randoulet's knees. 
 
 "Water! Quick, water!" cried Monsieur 
 Randoulet, as he raised her tenderly in his 
 arms. 
 
 " Here's something that will do more good 
 than water," said Margan and drew a flask 
 from his pocket and held it to Adeline's lips. 
 The strong stuff revived her in a moment. Her 
 eyes opened, the colour returned to her face, and 
 she sat erect again. Then her memory partly 
 came back, and she asked brokenly: "But 
 but he was not killed, the brave Pascalet?" 
 
 ' ' Not a bit of it ! " Margan answered. ' ' And, 
 what is more, it was he who got us out of our 
 scrape." 
 
 Being assured by Adeline's quick revival that 
 her fainting was not a serious matter, the mem- 
 bers of the little party settled down again their 
 mouths as wide open as horse-collars to listen 
 to the rest of the story of the battle; and Mar- 
 gan, having put his flask back into his pocket, 
 went on : 
 
 "I thought, just as the boy here thought, 
 that our Pascalet had swallowed a bullet the
 
 138 be tOtjite (Terror 
 
 wrong way for I couldn't see him anywhere. 
 And things were in a devil of a mess generally. 
 Our line was wavering; and our officers, in- 
 stead of steadying us, were giving us orders at 
 cross purposes our captain ordering us to lie 
 down, and our major waving his sword and 
 ordering us to charge. With the mist blinding 
 us, and with death all around us, it was more 
 than any soldiers could stand. In another min- 
 ute or two we should have broken our ranks 
 and run for it and if we had done that I don't 
 believe a man of us would have pulled through 
 alive. And then, suddenly, our courage, our 
 patriotism, every bit of go that was in us, came 
 to the top as we heard heard it above the in- 
 fernal roar of the firing a voice that we knew 
 storming out: 
 
 ' Aliens, enfants de la Patrie 
 Le jour de gloire est arrive! 
 Centre nous de la tyrannic 
 L'etendard sanglant est leve ! ' 
 
 "Just as though our Hymn of the Revolution 
 had magic in it, as those words rang out the 
 mist rose from about us and we could see what 
 we were doing and where we were. And there, 
 right in front of us, singing the glorious ' Mar- 
 seillaise,' we saw our Pascalet his bayonet at 
 a charge, his head down like an angry bull, 
 going off at "a run to capture all the Prussians 
 with his own two hands! That settled things 
 for us. Off we went after him by tens, by 
 hundreds, by thousands. In an instant our 
 whole division, thundering out the 'Marseillaise,' 
 was streaming along toward the nearest hill that
 
 l)e Settle of Jemappes 139 
 
 was spitting out at us fire and iron and death! 
 Bent close to the ground, we rushed onward 
 the balls whistling over us as the wind whistles 
 over a field of ripe wheat when the ears are 
 heavy and hang low. Our whole army caught 
 our song and our spirit and came on with us. 
 Like a league-long wave, our line of battle surged 
 across the plain and up the hillside with a great 
 roar of 
 
 ' Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons! ' 
 
 "Up the hillside, a resistless tide, this roar- 
 ing wave mounted higher and higher dashing 
 up the steep slopes, plunging over the walls, 
 crushing fiat the bushes until it came full and 
 strong against the fiery barriers that were thun- 
 dering forth iron death. Over those barriers 
 we poured standing upright, at last, after our 
 charge of near half a league and down on the 
 other side of them we rushed like wolves into 
 the enemy's close-pressed ranks. And then 
 such a killing began as never was seen ! They 
 were packed together, the Prussians, like bee's 
 in a swarm. We were against them and among 
 them, in such a jumble that you could not tell 
 whether we were killing them or hugging them. 
 It was so thick that when you had spitted a 
 man with your bayonet you scarcely could get 
 it out of him again until we unshipped our 
 bayonets and took to stabbing with them at 
 short arm. That answered. Down went the 
 Prussians all around us in heaps of dead flesh. 
 Presently they all were dead or running and 
 the battery was ours! 
 
 " It was that way along the whole line.
 
 i4 b* tDljite terror 
 
 Everywhere the Prussians gave way before us 
 for who could withstand the soldiers of the Re- 
 public ? and in less than two hours we had 
 carried all the fortified hills and were holding 
 the centre of the Prussian position, the village 
 of Jemappes. And that meant that at a single 
 gulp in just about as long as it takes to yoke 
 the oxen and plough a long furrow we'd con- 
 quered Belgium! "
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 HOW FRENCHMEN FOUGHT FOR FRANCE 
 
 MARGAN paused for a moment, while a buzz 
 of talk went up from the little company. Then 
 he went on again: 
 
 "Te! 1 clean forgot to tell you that, in the 
 thick of it all, a beast of a garde-de-corps wiped 
 out my eye with a pistol shot. Things like that 
 happen in a battle, you know. It was lucky 
 that he did not wipe off the top of my head! 
 
 "As for Pascalet, I kept track of him pretty 
 well while the fighting was going on, and I 
 saw that he came through it all right. Every 
 now and then I heard him shouting out a bit of 
 the ' Marseillaise ' by way of keeping the bat- 
 talion up to its work, I suppose and then I'd 
 say to myself: ' Aha, the little cock still is cock- 
 a-doodling. No need to worry about him yet!' 
 And while I had both my eyes on duty I'd take 
 a look at him, when the chance came, and every 
 time I saw that he was doing his work with a 
 will going at it in as tearing a hurry as a goat 
 among the grape-vines in May-time! 
 
 "After the battle we came together on the 
 little Place of Jemappes. There he saw that my 
 eye was gone and, Lord, but he was in a tak- 
 ing! He made me come with him to the foun- 
 tain, and there he washed my hurt and then 
 
 141
 
 142 l)e tOI)ite terror 
 
 bound it up with a poultice of some sweet- 
 smelling plant that he found on the hillside 
 something that he knew about that would do 
 me good, he said; and it did. Why, a doctor 
 couldn't have done a better job! " 
 
 " Poor, poor Margan! " exclaimed La Patine. 
 
 " How dreadfully it must have hurt you!" 
 said Adeline. 
 
 "Oh, well," Margan answered, "I did have 
 a headache in the night. But we had to go to 
 fighting again the next day, and I didn't have 
 time to feel it or to think about it. You see, the 
 whole country was full of broken divisions of 
 Prussians and Austrians, and we had to hunt 
 them out and thrash the whole of them and to 
 take all the forts and all the towns where they 
 tried to make a stand. And we did it with a 
 whizz! On we went from victory to victory 
 until all the forces of the enemy were conquered 
 or scattered, all their generals dead or prisoners, 
 and we had the whole country flying the Re- 
 publican red, white and blue. 
 
 "But for all our victories," Margan went 
 on, speaking slowly and gravely, "we came 
 near to being ruined by a black misfortune. 
 Just because of our victories, I suppose, Dumou- 
 riez had his head turned to say no worse of 
 him and thought that he could do what he 
 pleased. That man, whom we had carried on 
 the palms of our hands, whom we would have 
 followed to the end of the earth against our 
 country's enemies, fancied that he could use us 
 for his own purposes that he could conquer 
 Holland with us, and then march us to Paris 
 and sweep out the Convention and make himself
 
 )otD .frenchmen fon^t for France 143 
 
 I don't know what: King or Emperor, perhaps; 
 or perhaps the power that would put back the 
 Tyrant on his throne. Madness it all was, and 
 worse than madness it was a crime! 
 
 "Well, as long as he led us against our 
 honest enemies he had no trouble with us. 
 Into Holland we followed him. shouting ' Vive 
 la Republique!' and all of us as pleased as we 
 could be. But one dismal day he plumped us 
 down into the middle of a Dutch swamp; and 
 there he kept us, with never a shot fired at any- 
 body for days and weeks and what was the 
 meaning of it we did not know! 'I don't un- 
 derstand it,' says I to Pascalet. 'Here every- 
 body's grumbling and everybody has a right 
 to grumble, for Dumouriez isn't Dumouriez any 
 more! ' 
 
 "'A Republican can't be a traitor!' says 
 Pascalet back to me, short and sharp. ' It's all 
 right, Margan.' But that wasn't the way that I 
 felt about it, and it wasn't the way that most of 
 us felt about it and, as the end showed, we were 
 right and Pascalet was wrong. 
 
 ' '' Well, one day, four Deputies from the Con- 
 vention came riding into our camp we were 
 camped in a village called Bois Saint-Amand 
 to make Dumouriez talk things out with them ; 
 for, it seems, the folks in Paris had got wind of 
 what he meant to do. It was about nightfall 
 when they came into camp, and Dumouriez had 
 them brought straight to his tent where he 
 was ready for them, with a lot of officers who 
 were of his mind. The next thing those four 
 Deputies knew, they were prisoners; and the 
 next thing after that, they were handed over, as
 
 144 l)e tOfyite 
 
 prisoners, to the Austrian General as Dumou- 
 riez and the Austrian had arranged between 
 them in advance! Think of it! Think of the 
 shame of it! After Valmy, after Jemappes, the 
 soldiers of the Republic to be betrayed! But, 
 God be praised! it isn't easy to chew nettles; 
 and, even when you have chewed 'em, they 
 swallow hard! Dumouriez found out the truth 
 of that saying before he was a much older man ! 
 
 "As soon as the four Deputies had been sent 
 across our lines to the enemy, the order was 
 given that we were to break camp and march 
 at once. It was cloudy, and as dark as pitch, 
 but we knew our' business and presently we 
 were in marching order and in line. Dumou- 
 riez and his staff passed up our line, to head the 
 march, and some of our men swore there were 
 Austrians with him. But that could have beeri 
 no more than guess-work for though they 
 passed within twenty paces of us I could see 
 only a black huddle of men and horses showing 
 faintly against the black sky. But about what 
 the General said when he got to the head of the 
 column there was no guess-work. In the still- 
 ness of that black night we heard every one of 
 his black words. ' Soldiers of France,' he cried. 
 ' Follow your General who always has led you 
 to victory! He leads you now to deliver your 
 country! Long live France! Down with the 
 Convention ! ' 
 
 "Thunders of hell! When I heard that 
 traitor shouting out his treason I couldn't hold 
 myself in! 'Vive la Republique!' I shouted 
 and all the army shouted it after me in a mighty 
 roar that fairly shook the black clouds.
 
 fjoto .frenchmen -fought for France 145 
 
 "In the lull of silence following that great 
 shout, our brave Jacques Pierre called out in a 
 tone of bitter contempt that cut through the 
 darkness like a knife: 'A fig for Dumouriez!' 
 Again the army took up the cry, and ' A fig 
 for Dumouriez! ' went rolling down our line. 
 
 " Dumouriez was in a frenzy. Stammering 
 with rage, he shouted : ' If the man who said 
 that is not afraid of death, let him tell his name! ' 
 
 " For a moment there was a silence so deep 
 that our breathing seemed to jar on it. Then, in 
 a full strong voice, our comrade answered: 'It 
 was I who said "A fig for Dumouriez!" I, 
 Jacques Pierre Cambronne, a volunteer of the 
 Republic in the Maine-et-Loire Battalion!' and 
 as he spoke he brought his piece to his shoulder 
 and fired at the traitor General in the dark! 
 
 "In an instant there was a crackle of mus- 
 ketry. I was firing at Dumouriez, so was Pas- 
 calet, so were a score more! But there was no 
 taking aim in that pocket of darkness, and as 
 the plum was not ripe that was to finish him he 
 got safe away. We heard a rush of galloping 
 horses, then the sound of hoof-beats growing 
 fainter and fainter, then only the buzz of our 
 own angry talk. That was the last of him. 
 We never again laid eyes on that traitor who 
 had tried to lead us out of the bright road of 
 glory into treason's foul and crooked path! 
 
 "The whole of that dismal night we spent 
 in cursing Dumouriez and in bemoaning our 
 shame; and then, for breakfast, we fought the 
 Austrians who thought that they could make 
 mincemeat of us because we had lost our General; 
 and who did not give up thai notion until we
 
 146 l)* 4t)i)ite terror 
 
 pretty well had made mince-meat of them! We 
 showed them that soldiers of the Republic, with 
 a general or without one, cannot be conquered: 
 because their fight is made against tyrants for 
 holy Liberty and for the brotherhood of men! 
 
 "If it had not been for our strong faith in 
 the cause we were fighting for we never could 
 have got ourselves out of the hole in which Du- 
 mouriez left us. There we were in front of the 
 Austrian and Prussian armies who had new 
 recruits coming up all the while to take the place 
 of the men we killed for them, and who had a 
 plenty of ammunition, and who were never 
 short of food. As for us, we were in want of 
 everything. For days together there would not 
 be enough bread to go round among us. Some 
 of us were hungry all the time. Worse than 
 that, we were short of ammunition not many 
 powder-sausages for our cannon, and no balls 
 at all. Why, we fought ever so many battles 
 just with our muskets and bayonets and with 
 never a cannon shot fired! That we were 
 hungry did not make much difference; but it 
 played the very devil with us to have our poor 
 cannon fairly crying for food ! 
 
 "By the same token, it was along of the 
 hunger of our cannon that I got rid of my arm. 
 It happened this way : We were under the walls 
 of Valenciennes we'd got out of Holland by 
 that time and the Austrians had batteries every- 
 where. From all of them they blazed away -at 
 us at their ease, and not a gun could we serve 
 back at them. All that we had to answer with 
 was little lead peas from our muskets and for 
 all the good they did they might as well have
 
 fjoro .frenchmen .fought for France 147 
 
 been real peas, and boiled ones at that! Our 
 men were pretty nearly desperate. Some of 
 them tore their hair, some wept in their rage, 
 some shook their fists in the face of Heaven ! 
 But what good did that do ? On came the storm 
 of Austrian balls ! 
 
 " Then it was that Pascalet had a wild devil 
 of an idea. 'Friends,' he cried, 'we've got 
 faith in what we're fighting for, and we've got 
 courage and strength for our fight. But we 
 haven't cannon balls, and we've got to have 'em 
 and I'm going to show you how they can be 
 had. Mark my words, in an hour or two the 
 Austrians will be running away! ' 
 
 "We all thought, of course! that he had gone 
 clean crazy. But he hadn't. Standing his mus- 
 ket, bayonet down, in the earth, away he ran to 
 a sandy slope into which the Austrian cannon- 
 balls were dropping like hail. And what did 
 that little rascal do but grub three balls out of 
 the sand and come running back with 'em to 
 our dumfounded cannoneers! 'Here,' says he 
 'here's something to feed your cannon with. 
 Feed 'em, and crack away! ' 
 
 "'Vive Pascalet! Vive Pascalet!' we all 
 roared together, while the gunners rammed 
 down the Austrian balls into their guns and then 
 sent them flying back into the Austrian lines! 
 
 " Well, you may be sure that when Pascalet 
 had shown us how to play that game he was 
 not left to play it alone. Off we went to the 
 sand hill, with a skip and a jump each of us in 
 a hurry to dig our potatoes to feed our guns! It 
 was lively work, I can tell you! As we would 
 be grubbing up one ball, down would plump
 
 148 l)c tOljite terror 
 
 another close beside it, half blinding us with the 
 dust that it sent flying. But we didn't mind a 
 little thing like that! ' Vive la Republique! ' we 
 shouted and on we went with our game! I 
 tell you, I fairly cried like a baby as I saw how 
 all of a sudden our men had got back their fight- 
 ing spirit and were just dancing with eager- 
 ness to follow in the wake of the cannon-balls 
 and rush the Austrian line! 
 
 " My one eye got so full of tears that I couldn't 
 see to do my digging. I tried to put up my 
 hand to wipe my tears away, and I hadn't any 
 hand! It wasn't there any longer and my arm 
 was gone too! 'This is as strong as pepper! ' 
 says I, but what I was saying 1 scarcely knew. 
 Then, in a dim sort of way, I saw Pascalet, his 
 face all over dust and streaked with sweat, 
 standing beside me; and from ever so far off, as 
 it seemed, I heard him say : ' Margan your 
 arm!' 
 
 "Then things got clearer. ' Holy Saint Per- 
 lipopette!' says I. 'It's gone! A cannon ball 
 must have sliced it off! ' 
 
 "And that was just what had happened! 
 One of those cursed Austrian balls had cut it off 
 close to the shoulder and so quickly that I 
 didn't feel it go! I did feel something, to be 
 sure a sharp rap, as it seemed to me, as if one 
 of my comrades had hit against me by accident, 
 but that was all. 
 
 " Well, I don't mind telling you that I was a 
 sort of flabbergasted. It takes a man's breath 
 away, a little, to lose his arm like that without 
 knowing anything about it! But it gave me 
 something fresh to think about, and put a stop
 
 fjoro fencljmen bought for France 149 
 
 to my tears. 'Well,' says I to Pascalet, 'here's 
 a pretty go! ' 
 
 " Pascalet was more cut up about it, I think, 
 than I was. But he wanted to make things 
 pleasant for me, and so he said: ' Well, it's only 
 an arm, Margan. It's lucky it wasn't your head ! ' 
 And he talked away to comfort me while the 
 balls came bouncing down all around us and 
 set to work to plug me up, so as to stop the 
 blood that was pouring out of me in a stream. 
 The best that he could do was to pack dry sand 
 from the hillside on my stump, and that did stop 
 the bleeding. At least, 1 think it did. Just as 
 he was finishing, and I was trying to say ' Thank 
 you,' all of a sudden I seemed to tumble down 
 into darkness and then I didn't know anything 
 at all! 
 
 "An hour, two hours, I don't know how 
 long after that, I felt something cool on my face 
 and found that my wits were coming back to 
 me. I opened my eye, and the first thing I 
 saw with it was that kind little mug of Pascalet's. 
 The Austrians had cleared out, the battle was 
 over, and that good little youngster had come 
 back to find if anything was left of me and 
 Cambronne, another good fellow, had come with 
 him to lend a hand. 
 
 " ' Margan ! Margan ! ' he cried. ' It's all right. 
 We've whipped the Austrians! ' 
 
 " ' Vive la Republique! ' I said back to him, 
 and tried to put out my right arm and get up. 
 It was queer to find that I hadn't any! Pascalet 
 and Cambronne had to help me up between 
 them, and when I was on my legs 1 saw that I 
 still had something to be thankful for. ' I'm
 
 tOI}ite terror 
 
 blind of one eye,' says I, ' and one arm 's gone. 
 But I've got my two legs left to stand and fight 
 on! Vive la Republique! ' You see I thought 
 that with a good pair of legs, and a good eye, 
 and a good arm, I still might go on fighting for 
 holy Liberty. But, pecaire! they wouldn't 
 have me any longer in the ranks! I begged and 
 prayed to stay, and Pascalet begged and prayed 
 for me saying that my left arm was worth 
 more than any ten right arms he'd ever seen. 
 But it wasn't any good. I had to clear out. My 
 fighting for Liberty was at an end ! 
 
 "Pascalet and Cambronne bore me com- 
 pany, sadly, to the cart full of wounded men in 
 which I was sent to Paris. We hugged all 
 around though my hug was a poor one and 
 we parted with full hearts." Margan paused, 
 and then choked a little as he added: " It will 
 be a long hunt that anybody will have before 
 finding any two comrades as true to each other 
 and as close to each other as Pascalet and me! " 
 
 Margan was silent for near a minute. Then, 
 in a light tone that was a little forced, he went 
 on: "Well, all that is over and done with. 
 They got my stump in good order in Paris, and 
 then on I came to Avignon. The first thing I did 
 in Avignon was to go to Vauclair's house in the 
 Place du Grand Paradis. A pretty state of things 
 I found there! The house was empty, and 
 sacked, and half in ruin. There was no Vau- 
 clair, no Lazuli, no sign of the girl that Pascalet 
 thinks such a heap of and sent the message to. 
 I was brought up with a round turn and didn't 
 know what to do with myself until the notion 
 came into my head that I'd walk on out here
 
 tyom .frenchmen bought for France 151 
 
 and give you news of your boy. Like enough 
 he'll be coming back to you himself before long. 
 The war up there is ended by this time. Our 
 soldiers of the Republic saw the heels of the last 
 Austrian, and I have heard that our army is on 
 its way back to Paris. There's a good chance 
 that Pascalet will be with you for the chestnut- 
 ting at Martinmas or for the Calends of Christ- 
 mas, anyway." 
 
 "Truly, do you think he will come back to 
 us ? " asked La Patine, in a quavering voice that 
 told how deep was her feeling. 
 
 "I'm as sure of his coming back to you as 
 I'm sure of the five fingers on my left hand!" 
 Margan answered heartily. 
 
 "And oh," cried Adeline, "if he comes at 
 Christmas time we'll all lay the yule log together 
 on Christmas Eve! " 
 
 "It will be a fine day," sighed old Pascal, 
 ' ' that brings home again my boy who got into 
 trouble and had to go away all along o' me ! " 
 The simple old man fell to crying as he spoke; 
 and, as his strong emotion sent his blood to his 
 head, the scars left by the Vicomte's whip-lash 
 on his poor old face stood out with a ghastly 
 distinctness. Adeline's heart went chill as she 
 saw those cruel scars, and knew that the whip 
 which had made them had been in her own 
 brother's hand! 
 
 "Well, well," said Margan kindly, "that 
 fine day is coming, and is coming soon. It 
 won't be long before you have your Pascalet 
 back again from the wars, safe and sound. 
 
 "And now, friends," he went on, "I must 
 be marching. I've got the Grande Combe to cross
 
 15 2 t)e tDljit* terror 
 
 before nightfall, and must be off. So good-bye 
 to you all." 
 
 " But you must not leave us without break- 
 ing bread with us," said Monsieur Randoulet; 
 "and you must have, too, another sup of wine 
 before you go." 
 
 "As to the drink," Margan answered, "you 
 may be sure I'm not for refusing it; but the 
 bread, by your leave, I'll put in my pocket and 
 make my supper on it as I go along." 
 
 Adeline opened the wallet and brought out 
 for him a good chunk of sweet bread, and as 
 many almonds as his pocket would hold giv- 
 ing him gladly all her own share, for it seemed 
 to her that in a way she was giving food to Pas- 
 calet himself. Monsieur Randoulet handed him 
 the bottle, and with a nod to the company he 
 kissed it long and lovingly standing straight 
 as a cock, with his nose in the air and his eyes 
 fixed on the blue sky. " That was to our good 
 luck, and to our meeting soon again," he said as 
 he put down the bottle. " And now I'm off." 
 
 They all embraced him and kissed him on 
 the cheek La Ratine and Adeline weeping like 
 Magdalens, because it seemed to them that they 
 were kissing Pascalet and then Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet walked with him a little way to set him 
 on his road. 
 
 " You go down by this path," said Monsieur 
 Randoulet, "into the valley of the Nesque, and 
 you follow the dry bed of the river through the 
 gorge below the Crows' Chapel." 
 
 "The Crows' Chapel, Monsieur. What is 
 that?" 
 
 "It is a cave, high up the mountain side.
 
 frenchmen ^ouglit for France 153 
 
 Our country people have given it that name. 
 There, at the mouth of the gorge, you turn to 
 the left passing an old tower on a little hill at 
 the foot of the mountain and leaving on your 
 right, high up among the rocks, the village of 
 Venasque. You will know it by the pointed 
 belfry of its church tower, to which you will 
 see if your eyes are sharp wolves' heads nailed 
 fast. There, at the entrance to the Grande Combe, 
 the valley will open out wide before you ; and 
 you will go on through La Grande Combe to 
 Senanque. About midway you will come to the 
 Dripping Rock. Since the world began that 
 rock never has ceased to drip; and the drops of 
 water, ever falling, have hollowed out from the 
 hard stone a little basin to which all the birds of 
 the mountains come to slake their thirst. But 
 hurry past it, do not let night catch you there." 
 
 "Yes, yes," Marga'n answered, "I under- 
 stand. There are wolves." 
 
 " No, I do not warn you against the wolves. 
 Worse than wolves are there the Whites! " 
 
 "Oh, if it's only the Whites I don't mind. 
 Let 'em come!" and with these words Margan 
 was off at a good pace down the steep path.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE FLIGHT FROM THE GENDARMES 
 
 MONSIEUR RANDOULET came back to the 
 others. For a while they were silent as they 
 turned over in their minds all that Margan had 
 told. The Cure was the first to speak. ' ' Well, " 
 he said, "we didn't bring our wallet of food 
 along just to look at. We brought it to eat 
 and we'd better eat it now." 
 
 At his word Adeline brought out what was 
 left of the loaf and divided it into four portions, 
 of which she kept the smallest for herself. She 
 had no desire to eat. An exquisite emotion filled 
 her a joy that she scarcely could control. But 
 there was a touch of bitterness in it because she 
 was forced to keep it to herself; because she 
 could not ask for sympathy in the glad thoughts 
 of Pascalet which filled her heart. And also, 
 because of the intensity of her happiness, a 
 shadow of dread hung over her: as though joy 
 so great must be paid for promptly with pain. 
 
 As they finished their little repast the sun 
 was edging down toward the plain. Monsieur 
 Randoiilet put the empty bottle back into the 
 wallet, and then rose from his stone seat. Fil- 
 lipping the dust from his breeches with his fin- 
 gers, he said: "Come, child, now we must go 
 home to Janetoun." 
 154
 
 flight from tljc (Senbarmcs 155 
 
 As he spoke, they all heard, from far off 
 among the olive-trees, a sound as of some one 
 calling. La Patine. who had gone back to the 
 threshing of her little harvest, stopped pounding 
 the wheat ears with her sabot and listened in- 
 tently. " I think some one is calling you, Mon- 
 sieur le Cure," she said. 
 
 Presently the calling came again, nearer and 
 louder. They all heard the words: " Monsieur 
 Randoulet! "" 
 
 "That's Janetoun,'' said the Cure; and he 
 stood on lip-toe, the better to see down the 
 path. 
 
 "Yes, it is," said La Patine. "I can see 
 her now. She's got a bundle. Goodness, 
 what a hurry she's in!" 
 
 "Ah," sighed Adeline, "she's bringing us 
 bad news! " 
 
 " Most likely some dying man has sent for 
 me," said Monsieur Randoulet. He walked 
 quickly down the path; and the old woman, 
 seeing him, came stumbling still faster to meet 
 him. "Softly! softly, Janetoun!" he called 
 out to her. "Don't run like that. And with a 
 bundle, too! You'll make yourself ill." 
 
 Janetoun did not try to answer. She kept 
 what little breath she had left in h$r until she 
 was come close to him ; and then she panted 
 out: " The gendarmes! They're here! They've 
 come for Adeline, and for you too! " 
 
 "Impossible!" exclaimed Monsieur Randou- 
 let. "Who told you ?" 
 
 "No one told me," Janetoun gasped out. 
 "I saw them. I saw them coming along the 
 Carpentras road. They are at the inn. Melio,
 
 156 lje tOljit* terror 
 
 the innkeeper's wife, came to warn me that 
 they've come for you and Adeline. Hurry! 
 Hurry! You've barely time to get away! " 
 
 Monsieur Randoulet, speechless, raised his 
 clasped hands for an instant in supplication to 
 heaven. Then, with Janetoun panting behind 
 him, he hurried back along the path. As he 
 neared the little group of anxious watchers he 
 called to Adeline: "The gendarmes are search- 
 ing for us, my child. My good Janetoun has 
 brought us warning. We must get away from 
 here, and into hiding, at once." 
 
 "It is Calisto who is seeking me again," 
 cried Adeline. " I am sure of it! " 
 
 "Yes, yes," exclaimed Janetoun, "that is 
 the name. That's the very name, Calisto, that 
 Melio said! He's got twelve gendarmes with 
 him, and an old man with a red cap. And 
 they've come to arrest Monsieur Randoulet and 
 you! " 
 
 Adeline turned very white as Janetoun spoke, 
 but she did not lose either her courage or her 
 strength. Taking Monsieur Randoulet's hand 
 in hers, and kissing it, she said: "Monsieur 
 Randoulet, kind and good friend, you must not 
 and you shall not suffer for my sake. I shall go 
 alone into the mountains. Perhaps the wolves 
 there will settle all for me! " 
 
 " Hush, my child," the Cure answered. " i 
 know my duty, and I shall do it. Those who 
 make a prisoner of you must also make a pris- 
 oner of me." And then, turning to Janetoun, he 
 added: "Tell me, do those who are searching 
 for her know that Adeline is here, at the hut of 
 La Garde?"
 
 lje .ligl)t from itye (Senbarmes 157 
 
 "No but they are looking for her every- 
 where and are questioning everybody. They 
 are certain to learn that you passed along the 
 Pramari Road. They are very likely to learn 
 that you came on up here." 
 
 " Yes. But who can tell them that it is Ade- 
 line who is with me ? Everybody believes that 
 she is a boy." 
 
 "Not now. Not any longer. This Calisto 
 knows all about her being in boy's clothes. He 
 told the innkeeper's wife that it was a girl in 
 boy's clothes they were looking for. And he 
 said that she was Mademoiselle la Comtessine 
 d'Ambrun." 
 
 Old Pascal and his wife, listening to this talk, 
 stared in wonder. And when Janetoun plumped 
 out that the pretty boy they had grown to be so 
 fond of was their own Comtessine, down they 
 both went to her on their knees. 
 
 But there was no time to talk with them 
 about this wonder. Monsieur Randoulet knew 
 that Janetoun was right, and that for himself and 
 Adeline the only chance for safety was in instant 
 flight. 
 
 " Get up," he said to the kneeling peasants. 
 "Get up and give us charity. We are God's 
 poor a priest and a Comtessine who ask alms 
 of you to help them to save their lives. If you 
 have a loaf, give it to us : for we must get away, 
 this instant, into the mountains; and if we are 
 happy enough to escape death at the hands of 
 the Whites and at the fangs of the wolves, we 
 must not die for want of food." 
 
 La Patine was on her feet and off into the 
 hut before he had ceased speaking. In a mo-
 
 158 
 
 ment she had pulled down the last of her black 
 loaves from where it was hung to a rafter, that 
 the rats might not reach it and had come back 
 with it in her hands. " Here is all that we have, 
 Monsieur le Cure," she said, ''and I give it to 
 you with my whole heart." 
 
 "God himself will return it to you," Mon- 
 sieur Randoulet answered, and turned away 
 from her that she might not see his tears. 
 
 Adeline flung herself into La Ratine's arms 
 and pressed close against her heart. But it was 
 only for an instant that their embrace lasted. 
 Down the mountain side, far below the olive- 
 trees, Monsieur Randoulet had caught a flashing 
 glimpse of armed horsemen on the Pramari 
 Road. He seized Adeline's hand and drew her 
 quickly on toward the narrow path which led 
 on into the fastnesses of the mountains. There 
 was not a moment to lose! 
 
 Old Janetoun, still panting, walked with 
 them for a few steps as she said farewell. She 
 put the bundle that she had brought into Ade- 
 line's hands, saying, "This is your frock, 
 Mademoiselle;" and she believed that still in 
 the bundle were Adeline's three silver crowns. 
 Then the honest old soul gave to Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet, knotted fast in a handkerchief, the little 
 sum which Lazuli and Jean Caritous had left 
 with her. The thought of what would happen 
 to herself, thus left moneyless, never crossed 
 her mind. Then she turned back sadly toward 
 the. hut; and by the time that she was come to 
 it the fugitives had disappeared among the thick- 
 growing bushes and trees. Strong gusts of 
 wind were beginning to blow through the for-
 
 QTl)e -fligljt from tl)e <>en5arnus 159 
 
 est, and the low-hanging sun was sinking into 
 a mass of black clouds touched here and there 
 by an angry red. After that long hot day a 
 storm was rising. Far away, down the wind, 
 was the growl of thunder. Old Pascal wel- 
 comed the storm. "It will give them a chance, " 
 he said. " Monsieur le Cure, who knows every 
 foot of the country side, can find his way in the 
 dark. These strangers cannot follow him. Yes, 
 it will give them a chance! " 
 
 Old Pascal was right. Calisto and the gen- 
 darmes, when they reached the hut and found 
 that those for whom they searched had vanished, 
 wasted no time in words. In a moment they 
 had scattered and were beating through the 
 bushes and trees hurriedly and eagerly, be- 
 cause of the thickening darkness and the rising 
 storm. Had they known it, only a few steps 
 away from them, down in the valley of the 
 Nesque, Monsieur Randoulet and Adeline were 
 crouching close against a rock fearful to move 
 lest they should be seen. Visibly the anger of 
 God showed itself in the black cloud, swollen 
 with rain and hail, that rose above Mont Ven- 
 tour. From the mountains sounded faintly the 
 dismayed barking of foxes and the deeper howls 
 of wolves. But Calisto, a fiercer beast than any 
 wolf, was not put back from his cruel work by 
 the storm and the darkness. From a little 
 height he directed the searchers, shouting to 
 them to do their work well. The searched-for 
 ones could see him, his figure outlined black 
 against the sky, and could hear his words: 
 "Zou! Zou! Z6u! Stick your swords into all 
 the bushes and draw them out red!" It
 
 160 |)e tOljite terror 
 
 seemed to those hunted ones that he certainly 
 must see them also. They crouched closer; 
 and still closer as they heard the tread of horses 
 coming directly toward them down the ravine. 
 God himself seemed to have loosed the furies of 
 hell upon them. They were desperate. With 
 clasped hands they knelt together. All hope 
 left them. Together they murmured: "Our 
 Father who art in Heaven, Thy will be done! " 
 
 They prayed, and it seemed as though a 
 wrathful God heard and disdained their prayer! 
 At that instant the whole mountain side was 
 aglare with a tremendous flash of lightning 
 so vivid that for an instant the black ravine of 
 the Nesque was as light as day. Calisto and his 
 men saw them, and with a shout came rushing 
 toward them while the thunder crashed in a 
 deafening peal ! 
 
 But that dazzling flash, which seemed to 
 bring their ruin, brought their salvation. In the 
 darkness that succeeded it for black night by 
 this time was upon them their pursuers for a 
 moment were at fault. Monsieur Randoulet 
 saw his opportunity and seized it. In spite of 
 his age and his feebleness, he raised Adeline 
 half dead with fear in his arms, and bore her 
 away rapidly down the ravine. He knew the 
 ground thoroughly. Often had he wandered 
 there, reading his breviary. Among the bushes, 
 and between the fragments of rock which en- 
 cumbered the dry bed of the torrent, he steered 
 a true course. While the gendarmes still 
 were fumbling in the darkness about the spot 
 where he and Adeline had been revealed by the 
 flash of lightning, he was come safely to the foot
 
 f)e .flight from tlje cnbarmes 161 
 
 of the steep slope leading upward to the Crows' 
 Chapel the deep hollow in the mountain side 
 high up among the wild crags above the Nesque. 
 
 To carry Adeline up that steep ascent was 
 impossible. He laid her down gently on the 
 perfumed lavender growing there, and stood 
 panting beside her listening the while to the 
 distant shouts of the gendarmes. They seemed 
 to have gone the other way along the ravine. 
 That meant, for the moment at least, safety. 
 Presently Adeline sighed gently, and then spoke: 
 ' ' Are you here, Monsieur Randoulet ? Have we 
 got away from them ? " And then she heard 
 the distant shouting of the gendarmes, and gave 
 a frightened little cry. 
 
 "Courage, my child !" the Cure answered. 
 "They have missed us and here we are at the 
 foot of the path leading up to the Crows' Chapel. 
 If once we can get up there we may be saved. 
 I know a hidden way among those rocks that 
 even the goats have never found." 
 
 "I can be strong unto death, Monsieur le 
 Cure," Adeline answered. "All that I ask of 
 God is that he will not let me fall into the hands 
 of that murderer. Come, let us start at once. 
 You will see how strong I am." As she spoke, 
 she got upon her feet and began tq mount the 
 ascent rapidly catching at the tufts of thyme 
 and lavender growing beside the path. Mon- 
 sieur Randoulet followed her, but slowly and 
 with shortening breath. About them the light- 
 ning played in vivid flashes, and the roar of the 
 thunder echoed from side to side of the ravine 
 and set the whole mountain to trembling be- 
 neath their feet.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 IN THE CROWS' CHAPEL 
 
 AT last they reached the top of the long slope, 
 wearied and breathless, and paused for a mo- 
 ment before they pressed on through the tan- 
 gled growth which screened the mouth of the 
 Crows' Chapel. As they halted, great drops of 
 rain began to fall, and in the wind was a sudden 
 chill the chill that comes, in our mountains, 
 before a cloud-burst. But they were safe at last, 
 and Monsieur Randoulet raised his hands grate- 
 fully toward heaven as he exclaimed: " Oh God, 
 I thank thee for this deliverance! " 
 
 "Qui vive?" came in a rough voice from 
 among the bushes and as they turned in fright 
 toward the sound a flash of lightning showed 
 them a man in a cocked hat, a gendarme they 
 took him for, standing half hidden among the 
 branches ir>the mouth of the cave. 
 
 " Qui vive ? " the man repeated and by an- 
 other lightning-flash they saw that he covered 
 them with a pistol. 
 
 " We are honest people, and we mean you 
 no harm," Monsieur Randoulet said firmly. " If 
 you also are honest, you will let us enter and 
 shelter ourselves here from the storm." 
 
 " I am the Revolution! " the man answered. 
 " I abhor priests! 1 abhor Aristocrats! If you 
 162
 
 Stt t\)e (STrotDS 1 (Eljctpel 163 
 
 are of these, and advance another step, I'll kill 
 you as I would kill a dog! " 
 
 "Well then, wretch, kill me as you would 
 kill a dog," Monsieur Randoulet exclaimed. " I 
 am a priest a priest of the most high God! " 
 
 "And I," exclaimed Adeline, "am an Aris- 
 tocratforsaken and miserable. I wish to die. 
 Kill me, and you will save me from worse than 
 death!" 
 
 Monsieur Randoulet held aside the branches 
 as he spoke and advanced into the thicket, Ade- 
 line following him closely. At that instant came 
 a flash of lightning so vivid that the mountain 
 side was all ablaze with it, and Adeline and the 
 Cure and the dark gendarme could see each 
 other as plainly as though it had been broad day. 
 
 " Monsieur Randoulet! " exclaimed the gen- 
 darme. And Adeline and the Cure cried out to- 
 gether " Margan! " 
 
 "Well, come now," said Margan, stuffing 
 his pistol back into his sash, " why didn't you 
 say it was you ? " 
 
 " Who could imagine that you could be here, 
 Margan ? " Monsieur Randoulet answered. 
 
 "You told me that there was a cave here- 
 abouts," Margan explained, "and .when I saw 
 the storm coming I remembered about it. Says 
 I to myself: ' I'll get the good of that cave for the 
 night and keep dry there. That'll be better than 
 getting lost in these big mountains and soaked 
 in weather that is the curse of God ! ' And so I 
 cast about for the path, and found it and here 
 I am. But why you two are here, who could 
 have a good roof to shelter you, is more than I 
 can understand! "
 
 164 l)e tttyite terror 
 
 " I will make that clear to you, and more 
 beside." Monsieur Randoulet answered. " 1 did 
 not tell you our secret this afternoon. Then 
 there was no need for it. There is a need for it 
 now. She whom you saw with me dressed as 
 a boy, she who is beside you now, is the girl to 
 whom Pascalet sent his message Adeline, the 
 daughter of the murdered Marquis d'Ambrun. 
 Her unhappy mother has deserted her. She is 
 pursued by her father's servant, who was his 
 murderer, and by another like him, who seek to 
 kill her and so to gain possession of her estates. 
 Against these the good Vauclairs gave her shel- 
 ter while they could ; then, being no longer able 
 to protect her, Vauclair's brave wife Lazuli 
 brought her to Malemort and gave her into my 
 care. Here we thought that she would be hid- 
 den and in safety. But we were wrong. Bare- 
 ly had you left us this afternoon when we had 
 warning that the gendarmes were come to Male- 
 mort in search of her. They followed her to 
 the hut of La Garde. They almost had their 
 hands upon her. Only by the grace of God did 
 we escape from them and get safely here." 
 
 "And do you mean to say," Margan burst 
 out, "that these are men of the Revolution 
 who are persecuting the girl whom Pascalet, a 
 good Revolutionist, loves with his whole heart 
 whom he lives for, and for whom he would 
 die ? " 
 
 " So they call themselves, my good Margan, 
 but they are false to their name the name that 
 they have taken as a cloak under which they 
 may undo what the Revolution has done. They 
 are traitors who, as I verily believe, are paid by
 
 165 
 
 the Aristocrats to bring the cause of holy Liberty 
 into disrepute to cast discredit on our new 
 gospel, written in paraphrase of the older gos- 
 pel, that we call ' The Rights of Man ' ! " 
 
 "But what's the Convention doing?" cried 
 Margan angrily. "Are guillotines so scarce 
 that they can't kill off this vermin of spies?" 
 
 " Do not cast stones at the Convention. The 
 Convention is sublime for it is France, it is the 
 Republic, it is our all. Should the Convention 
 fall, everything would fall. Then the kings of 
 Europe would march conquering against us. 
 Then the mire of Paris would spread over all 
 France. Then the dogs of Aristocrats and their 
 foul following would rise out of the earth like 
 serpents and scorpions. All would be lost. On 
 the ruins of the Republic once more would rise 
 a tyrant's throne! Oh holy Convention! Oh 
 glorious Convention ! Oh vengeful arm of God ! 
 Finish to the full your work of justice! " 
 
 Under the great arch of the cavern of which 
 a whole mountain peak was the keystone with 
 the lightning playing about him, Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet stood erect, commanding: speaking in a 
 vibrant voice which rose above the roar of the 
 tempest and which only the volleying thunder 
 drowned. The storm was upon (them in its 
 wildest fury. A mighty and a rushing wind 
 tore through the forest, uprooting huge oaks and 
 rending away branches with a snapping like 
 musketry. The cloud-burst had filled the bed 
 of the Nesque with a tumultuous torrent which 
 swept tree-trunks and rocks before it. The 
 heavens were aflame with lightning, and the 
 crashing thunder shook the great mountain to
 
 1 66 J)e toljite terror 
 
 its base. The solid earth seemed to be crum- 
 bling before devouring water and devouring 
 fire. 
 
 But the very fury of the tempest carried it 
 soon away from them. Onward it swept across 
 the mountain tops toward the dark Luberon. 
 Presently the clouds thinned a little, and then 
 broke suddenly and in the rifts shone stead- 
 fastly the placid stars. Between the claps of 
 distant thunder they listened anxiously for the 
 sound of voices, but heard only the gurgling of 
 water in the gorge below them and the sough- 
 ing of the wind. Then they knew that their 
 pursuers had been turned backward had fled 
 before the wrath of God ! 
 
 "We must leave you now, Margan," said 
 Monsieur Randoulet. " This is our opportunity. 
 Before daylight comes we must be in a sure hid- 
 ing place," where we will be safe from those wild 
 beasts of men." 
 
 " But you are not going to leave me at all. 
 I am going with you," Margan answered; and 
 added: " Uo you think that I am going to let 
 you go off by yourselves ?" 
 
 "No, no, Margan. You have your own 
 furrow to plough. What you offer us from 
 your good heart we cannot take. Remember, 
 too, that we are out of danger now." 
 
 "All the same, I'm going along with you," 
 said Margan sturdily. "I shall make sure that 
 you really do get safe away from that dog of the 
 devil who is following you, and then I'll come 
 back and give him the dressing that he deserves. 
 But where are you heading for ? Why not come 
 on with me to Marseilles ? That's the town for
 
 tl)e (Erotos 1 (Cljupcl 167 
 
 you. It's crammed with good honest folks as 
 full as it will hold!" 
 
 "No, no town is safe for us," Monsieur 
 Randoulet answered. "In the great labyrinth 
 of the city of Paris those who are seeking this 
 unhappy girl found her; in the town of Avignon 
 they found her again; to-day they once more 
 have found her in the little village of Malemort. 
 Our only chance of safety is here in the moun- 
 tains among the wolves and foxes. Here we 
 may hope that she will not be tracked and found. 
 1 have in mind a refuge for her a lonely farm- 
 house not far from the village of Bedoin, high 
 up on the slope of Mont Ventour. Good people 
 live there who will shelter us and protect us. 
 But we must hasten, now while the way is open 
 to us. Our chance for safety lies in getting to 
 that haven before the coming of the dawn. 
 Come, my little Adeline, we must be off! " 
 
 "Monsieur le Cure," said the poor girl sadly, 
 " I wish most that I might die! " 
 
 " Die ? That is a wicked word and not the 
 word that I expected from a brave girl like you. 
 Courage, my child! We must submit to the 
 will of God. Who knows what He may have 
 in store for you ? He may be saving you now, 
 in order that some day you may save Pascalet. 
 Come, we will start at once." 
 
 "Forgive me, Monsieur. It was wicked in 
 me to have that thought. I am ready." 
 
 "Yes, and so am I," said Margan. "I will 
 go with you, at least, until we are in sight of 
 Bedoin. I am in no hurry to get to Marseilles. 
 The bowl of bouilleabaisse that I meant to sup 
 to-morrow on the Cannebiere will wait for me
 
 1 68 l)e tOfyite terror 
 
 as it has waited for many a long day. A 
 pretty thing it would be for Pascalet to hear 
 that I had let his Adeline go off without me into 
 the loneliness of these mountains and into the 
 darkness of this night." 
 
 " If you insist upon going with us," said 
 Monsieur Randoulet, hesitatingly, " it is not for 
 me to refuse your offer. But 
 
 " All right, then, Monsieur," Margan struck 
 in, "off we go together. I'll carry the little 
 one's bundle; and I'd carry that loaf of bread, 
 too, if only I had another hand." 
 
 "As to the bread," said Monsieur Randou- 
 let, " perhaps I had better break it, that we each 
 may eat a piece as we go along." 
 
 But breaking the bread was easier said than 
 done. Even with a stone Monsieur Randoulet 
 could not crack it; and when he flung it against 
 the side of the cavern with all his strength it 
 bounded back like a ball! 
 
 "Ouh!" cried Margan. "We had loaves 
 like that up in the Dutch country of marshes, 
 where we waded in mud to our thighs. We 
 took our swords and our bayonets to it but 
 here we have neither bayonet nor sword." 
 
 "We do not need it now," Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet said, " and our time is too precious to be 
 wasted." 
 
 "March, then!" Margan cried cheerily, and 
 they set off down the steep slope digging their 
 heels into the hillside and sending a hail of little 
 stones, loosened by the rain, slithering down 
 into the foaming torrent which filled the bed of 
 the Nesque. Their way still was down the val- 
 ley of the Nesque, but the walking was difficult
 
 3n tl)e Croas 1 (tljapd 169 
 
 because they no longer could follow the bed of 
 the stream. As best they could, they forced a 
 passage through the bushes growing on the 
 mountain side coming now and again to a 
 ravine down which a little torrent poured to join 
 the greater one below. Across these streams 
 Monsieur Randoulet carried Adeline, while Mar- 
 gan walked beside the Cure steadying and 
 supporting him. And so, at last, they came to 
 the bridge at Methamis and crossed the river. 
 Thence onward the way was easier through 
 the forest of Blauvac, and between the hills of 
 Villes and of Mormoiron and as dawn was 
 breaking they came in sight of the village of 
 Bedoin. 
 
 Hidden away in the forest which in those 
 days covered the whole slope of Mont Ventour, 
 this village was a refuge for the persecuted for 
 " suspects," for Moderates, for Whites. It was 
 a forlorn place, built on the sides of a crusty little 
 conical hill, crowned by a great church and a 
 graveyard. A wall surrounded it, and outside 
 of one of its gates was planted a liberty Tree. 
 But for all that the village had a reputation for 
 tolerant friendliness, they gave it a wide berth 
 passing on by the Moustier (where, as they 
 learned later, mass was said every night, and 
 where was a regular place of meeting for the 
 many fugitives hidden in the mountains round- 
 about) and so to the top of the hill beyond. 
 
 "And now, Margan," said Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet, stopping short, "you must leave us. 
 Day is breaking, and we are within two gun- 
 shots of the end of our journey the farm of 
 Peire-Avon in the mouthof-the Combe de Cur- 
 I
 
 i7 l)e tOljite 
 
 mier. You must leave us while the shadows 
 still shelter you and be off on your way to Mar- 
 seilles." 
 
 " I shall stay by you until I see you safe at 
 the end of your road," said Margan positively. 
 
 "No, if you wish to please us, you will leave 
 us now. I want to be sure that you are safely 
 out of this forest before daylight comes. If you 
 were to meet a party of deserters, or a party of 
 Aristocrats, as very well might happen, your 
 uniform of a soldier of the Republic would be 
 your death-warrant. For our sakes, I ask you 
 to hurry away." 
 
 "Well, since you put it that way," said Mar- 
 gan slowly, "I suppose I must go. But 1 want 
 you to understand that I'm not running away 
 because of these bags of wind! " 
 
 "To be prudent is not to be cowardly," 
 Monsieur Randoulet answered. "Good-bye to 
 you and God be with you in all your ways! " 
 
 The two men embraced warmly, and then 
 Adeline came forward and put up her pretty 
 cheek to be kissed by the big Marseilles. 
 "Should you see Pascalet," she whispered in 
 his ear as she stood on tip-toe, "you will tell 
 him, will you not, that we are hidden here in 
 the Combe de Curmier?" 
 
 "Yes, that I will, my pretty little one!" 
 Margan answered heartily. But he added to 
 himself: " If ever I do see him!" and turned 
 from Adeline quickly to hide from her the tears 
 in his one eye. And then, with a wave of his 
 hand to them, he was off.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 A PERILOUS WALK THROUGH THE FOREST 
 
 FOR a moment or two Monsieur Randoulet 
 and Adeline stood watching Margan's tall figure 
 stalking away in the early morning twilight 
 through the cool shadows of the forest ; then 
 they turned their backs on him, and by another 
 path went on toward the Combe de Curmier. 
 
 It was a lucky thing for Margan that he had 
 taken the Cure's advice and had left them when 
 he did. They were separated from him by only 
 a little distance when they heard the sound of 
 many voices singing together, off ahead of them 
 among the trees. The sound grew louder and 
 clearer, and presently they could distinguish the 
 words : 
 
 " Let us, adoring, praise 
 
 God whose strong arm 
 Virtue and innocence 
 
 Shields from all harm. 
 Our sweet Saint Genevieve ' 
 
 Knew his kind care 
 Let us through her to Him 
 
 Make now our prayer! " 
 
 ' ' It must be people returning from the mass, " 
 said Monsieur Randoulet. But he spoke doubt- 
 ingly, and looked about him for a thicket that 
 might serve them for a hiding-place. However, 
 there was no time for hiding. In another mo- 
 12 171
 
 i7 2 lK tobite terror 
 
 ment the singers rounded a bend in the path but 
 a few steps away, and the next instant Adeline 
 and the priest were in the midst of a crowd of 
 ill-looking young men all armed in one way or 
 another, and all wearing red fleur-de-lys in their 
 hats and red crosses on their breasts. 
 
 And it was no mass that this ruffian party of 
 Whites had come from ! They were returning 
 from robbing the house of the tax-gatherer of 
 Caromb ; and because the poor tax-gatherer had 
 fought bravely in defense of the money of the 
 Republic they had brought him along with them 
 his hands tied behind him, and a rope made 
 fast to one of his ankles as though he were a pig 
 being taken to market. The tax-gatherer had 
 lapsed into the silence of despair, but the sight 
 oi' the good priest gave him a little heart again 
 and he fell on his knees among his captors and 
 began afresh his entreaties. ' ' If not for my own 
 sake," he cried, "grant me mercy for the sake 
 of my three little children who have no mother! 
 The oldest of them is only nine years old! 
 What will become of them without me ? 
 Mercy, oh mercy! " 
 
 But his captors save to cuff him into silence 
 paid no attention to him. Crowding around 
 Adeline and Monsieur Randoulet, brandishing 
 their clubs and shouting "Vive le roi!" and 
 "Down with the Republic! " they asked threat- 
 eningly: "Who are you? Whence do you 
 come?" 
 
 "We are honest travellers," Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet. "I am the Cure of Malemort. We 
 ask nothing from you. Let us pass on in 
 peace."
 
 01 perilous iDalk through tfye forest 173 
 
 "The Cure of Malemort," cried one of the 
 crowd. " Why, he's a Blue! " 
 
 " He's not. He's a Red! " shouted another. 
 
 " I am neither a Blue nor a Red," said Mon- 
 sieur Randoulet. "I am, as every one of you is, 
 a servant of the omnipotent God! " 
 
 At that a brutal-looking fellow, who seemed 
 to be the captain of that vile company, pressed 
 forward exclaiming: " You are one of the rascal 
 turncoat priests who took the oath to the Re- 
 public! You'll come along with us and we'll 
 give you the hanging that you deserve! " 
 
 Before Monsieur Randoulet could make any 
 reply, Adeline sprang in front of him and cried: 
 "Lou Mourre, how dare you! You shall not 
 harm a hair of his head! I, Adeline d'Ambrun, 
 forbid you! " 
 
 The man shrank back, instinctively obeying 
 this word of strong command. But Monsieur 
 Randoulet, laying his hand on Adeline's shoul- 
 der, said gently: "Hush, my child. I must 
 speak to these men, I have a proposal to make 
 to them." And then, turning to the others, 
 went on: "Listen! Hang me, if you will. My 
 death will injure no one. But, in exchange for 
 my life, promise me that you will set this poor 
 man free; and promise me that you( will take 
 Adeline d'Ambrun safely to the farm of Peire- 
 Avon where she may rest secure until peace 
 comes back among men. In the name of hu- 
 manity and of brotherhood, grant me what I 
 ask!" 
 
 "Didn't I say that he was a Blue?" called 
 out one of the company. "Now you see I'm 
 right. If he wasn't a Blue he wouldn't try to
 
 174 l)e tt)l)itc terror 
 
 save the tax-gatherer's life. Let's up with 'em 
 both on the same tree! " 
 
 "Silence!" cried the captain. "I am the 
 one to give orders here. For the sake of my 
 mistress the Comtessine he shall finish his work. 
 Let him loose, to follow his road and may he 
 never have the ill-luck to fall in with us again! " 
 
 "But first we'll search him," said the man 
 who carried on his shoulder the bag of money 
 stolen from the tax-gatherer. " His pockets are 
 not likely to be empty, and he may have papers 
 about him that we ought to see." 
 
 To this reasonable suggestion no one object- 
 ed, and the search was made quickly and thor- 
 oughly. They found no papers; but they did 
 find the handkerchief into which Janetoun had 
 knotted the silver left by Lazuli and Jean Cari- 
 tous, and this, and the loaf of hard bread, they 
 took with a laugh. Then off they went pay- 
 ing no heed to Monsieur Randoulet's entreaties 
 to take him and to hang him in the poor tax- 
 gatherer's place. As suddenly as they came, they 
 went again into the forest singing all together: 
 
 " Let us, adoring, praise 
 God whose strong arm 
 Virtue and innocence 
 Shields from all harm ! " 
 
 Monsieur Randoulet knelt down in the leaf- 
 strewn path and prayed: "My Lord God, have 
 pity on them and forgive them what they do ! 
 I forgive them freely for the wrong which they 
 have committed in taking from me the money 
 and the bread. I, thy priest, in thy holy name 
 which is blessed forever, absolve them from that
 
 perilous tDalk tljrauglj the forest 175 
 
 sin! " As he spoke, he made with two fingers 
 the sign of the cross in the direction whence 
 came, fainter and fainter, the sound of the holy 
 song. 
 
 "That man was Lou Mourre, our swineherd 
 at La Garde," said Adeline. " It was he who 
 gave Pascalet a savage beating one day, long 
 ago, when the hungry little fellow tried to snatch 
 a cabbage stalk from our pigs." 
 
 "Yes, I remember him now," Monsieur 
 Randoulet answered; "and 1 remember that he 
 always was harsh and cruel. The poor tax- 
 gatherer! There is no hope for him!" And 
 Monsieur Randoulet's lips moved in prayer as 
 they walked on toward the farm of Peire-Avon. 
 
 Daylight had come. The starlings and the 
 linnets and all the other little birds of the forest 
 were flying out from the clumps of holm oak 
 and were off, singing, to the plains. Far away 
 sounded the barking of a hound, telling of a 
 hunter come early to the chase. Now and again, 
 through the openings between the trees, the 
 peak of Mont Ventour was visible tinted like 
 a may-flower by reflections from the rosy 
 clouds. 
 
 " Hark! " said Monsieur Randoulet, stopping 
 short. "I think I hear the sound of iheep-bells. 
 We are close to the farm now." 
 
 They stood still, listening. In the leaves 
 above them they heard the soft thrill that comes 
 at sunrise. Then the chatter of a jay, grating 
 harshly on that deep forest silence. And then, 
 with the clearness of a clarion, sounded the 
 crowing of a cock. A moment later a dog 
 barked sharply, and when the barking ceased
 
 176 l)C tOtjite terror 
 
 they heard the creaking of a pulley and the 
 splash of a bucket in a well. 
 
 " Come on," said Monsieur Randoulet cheer- 
 ily. "Here we are at last." But, instead of 
 following the path, he approached the farm- 
 house cautiously through the thick bushes. 
 Adeline followed him closely, warding off the 
 back-springing branches with her upraised 
 arms. From the wet leaves the rain-drops came 
 down on them in little showers. 
 
 In a few minutes they were standing just 
 within the edge of the forest and saw close in 
 front of them, surrounded by a high stone wall 
 pierced by a single arched gateway, the great 
 farm-house: a large and comfortable building 
 roofed with red tiles and having above its roof 
 a massive stone pigeon-house as big as a church 
 bell-tower. Although the sun still was behind 
 the mountains, the little rosy clouds which told 
 of his coming had signalled to the living things 
 of the farm establishment that it was time to 
 wake up. Already the chickens and the pigeons 
 were picking up their breakfasts; on the well- 
 curb stood the peacock, as motionless as though 
 he were made of enamelled bronze; from the 
 long low sheep-fold into which the sheep had 
 been penned because of the furious storm came 
 a low tinkling of bells. Presently a shepherd 
 lad came out from the farm-house; and the 
 sheep, recognising his footsteps, set up a pro- 
 digious baa-ing: an anxious chorus in which 
 were blended the deep bass-notes of the rams, 
 the trembling higher notes of the ewes, and the 
 clear treble of the lambs. When the door of 
 the fold was opened, out they came in a hurry
 
 & perilous tOalk tbrottgli U)e forest 177 
 
 eager to nibble at the fresh grass and with the 
 shepherd lad following them moved toward the 
 edge of the forest where Adeline and Monsieur 
 Randoulet were hidden among the trees. 
 
 All was so peaceful that the Cure no longer 
 hesitated. Coming out from the bushes, with 
 Adeline close behind him, he advanced toward 
 the shepherd, saying: "God be with you, little 
 friend." 
 
 For a moment the boy was startled. Then, 
 with a smile, he said: "Good morning, Mon- 
 sieur le Cure. The Master will be glad to see 
 you, though he'll wonder how you got here at 
 this time of day from Malemort." 
 
 " How do you know we come from Male- 
 mort ? " 
 
 "Why, Monsieur, don't you know me? 
 I'm Cadoche, your own Janetoun's nephew. 
 It would be a pretty thing if I didn't know 
 where you came from our own Cure! " 
 
 " Cadoche ? So you are. But how you've 
 grown! You are quite a man," and Monsieur 
 Randoulet laid his hand kindly on the lad's 
 shoulder. 
 
 "Yes, Monsieur, I'm almost grown up, 
 now," the lad answered, much flattered by 
 Monsieur Randoulet's recognition of his manli- 
 ness. " Why, only yesterday what do you 
 think? I killed a hare!" 
 
 "Oh, come now, not really a hare. No 
 doubt it was a leveret." 
 
 " No, Monsieur, it was not a leveret. It 
 was a hare. A nine-pound hare! It is in the 
 house now. Tell the Master to show it to 
 you! "
 
 1 78 l)e tOljite 
 
 " Well, well, we will go and see this won- 
 derful hare," and smiling kindly at the boy 
 Monsieur Randoulet and Adeline went on to- 
 ward the farm-house. 
 
 "I remember Cadoche very well," Adeline 
 said, a little hesitatingly. "He and Pascalet 
 made their first communion together. He is 
 wearing the very same suit of clothes that he 
 wore that day." 
 
 " How can you know that, child ?" 
 
 " Very easily, Monsieur. I made those 
 clothes myself, and you gave them to him. 1 
 knew them at once, although now they are all 
 in rags. They are just like the clothes that I 
 made for Pascalet the clothes that I have on 
 now. Suppose the people here notice that ? 
 It makes me feel ashamed!" And tears began 
 to trickle down Adeline's cheeks, and she flushed 
 a little, as she thought of her far-off Pascalet and 
 of what these strange people might say. 
 
 " Come, my child, this will never do! You 
 must not get foolish fancies into your head, and 
 you must not show yourself to these good 
 people with tears in your eyes. They will not 
 notice your clothes, I promise you and this 
 very day you may put on your frock again, for 
 I shall tell them who you are." 
 
 Monsieur Randoulet's words comforted Ade- 
 line and soothed her. They halted for a few 
 moments outside the arched gateway, while she 
 dried her eyes and grew calm again ; then they 
 entered the court-yard and crossed it to the farm- 
 house door. As is the custom in Provence in 
 summer, the door was open and in the doorway 
 hung a curtain to keep out flies. The Cure
 
 01 fjerilotts tOalk t^rongl) tl)e .forest 179 
 
 raised the curtain, and said as they entered what 
 was at once the kitchen and the living-room : 
 " God be with you, Mestre Toni, and with all 
 your house! " 
 
 In the room the whole farm family was at 
 breakfast: Mestre Toni; his wife, Jeanne-Marie; 
 five sons and two daughters. The eldest son, 
 Marius, was a man of thirty years; the young- 
 est, little Dodo, the nestling, was not yet twelve. 
 The father and his sons were seated, the mother 
 and her daughters were standing, at the long 
 table on which were a big loaf of bread and a 
 little barrel of anchovies and a jug of water all 
 of them "killing the worm," as our Provencal 
 saying goes, before beginning the work of the 
 day. 
 
 ""Monsieur le Cure!" exclaimed Jeanne- 
 Marie. "Good day to you! Good day to 
 you! " 
 
 "Monsieur Randoulet!" exclaimed Mestre 
 Toni. " Adessias, Monsieur. Why, where did 
 you come from so early ? Surely not from 
 Malemort! But wherever you come from, you 
 are welcome! " and he rose from the table and 
 held out cordially his big hard hand. 
 
 "Yes, we have come from Malemort, my 
 good Toni," Monsieur Randouletf answered. 
 "We have been walking almost the whole 
 night long." 
 
 " Then I'm afraid that trouble of some sort 
 is brewing. But sit down, sit down and have 
 some breakfast. You must be starving! Jeanne- 
 Marie, bring plates." As Mestre Toni spoke he 
 moved up a little on the long bench on which 
 he and his sons were seated^ and motioned to
 
 i8o he tDhite error 
 
 his sons to move down. Into the space thus 
 made Monsieur Randoulet and Adeline squeezed 
 themselves their backs to the wall. In front 
 of them was the huge chimney-place, high 
 enough for a man to stand upright within it 
 and wide enough to hold a whole tree-trunk. 
 Against the rear wall stood the dresser, covered 
 with shining vessels, and beside it the cupboard 
 of waxed walnut wood its iron lock and hinges 
 shining like silver, and the great copper cal- 
 drons on its top as bright as the setting sun. 
 In the front wall was a glazed window, hung 
 with. a blue and white checked curtain, through 
 which and through the open doorway the morn- 
 ing light streamed in. 
 
 "Indeed I shall sit down very gladly," said 
 Monsieur Randoulet, "and so will this poor 
 child. We both are tired out after our long 
 walk, and hungry too." 
 
 Adeline cast down her eyes before all these 
 peasants who stared at her. She had said good 
 day when she entered, but in so low a voice 
 that no one had heard her. She sat absolutely 
 silent not daring even to glance at her lively 
 little neighbour, Dodo: a little scamp no higher 
 than a cabbage stalk who gave himself the airs 
 of a man. 
 
 "Monsieur le Cure," said Mestre Toni, "in 
 good time you will tell us why you have come 
 here, and if you need our aid. If you do, you 
 shall have it that you know well. But the 
 first thing for you to do is to eat your breakfast. 
 Now then, who will cut the bread for these 
 guests of ours ? " 
 
 "I will," cried little Dodo, jumping up from
 
 & perilous tXJnlk ttirottgli tl]e .forest 181 
 
 his place. "I will, with my new knife." He 
 seized the sweet big loaf, almost as big as he 
 was himself, and made over it as he had seen 
 his father do the sign of the cross. Then he 
 cut two great chunks from it and laid them be- 
 fore Monsieur Randoulet and Adeline. 
 
 But the Cure did not touch his portion, nor 
 the toothsome anchovy that was set before him 
 smelling deliciously with its touch of vinegar, 
 and lying in olive-oil as clear as moonlight. 
 Shaking his head sadly, because of the sorrow 
 that was in his heart, he turned to Mestre Toni 
 and said: " Before I break bread with you, my 
 poor Toni, I must speak. You must know whv 
 we are come here. Listen ! The times are bad. 
 are full of dangers for us all. This child and I 
 are in peril. We are obliged to hide ourselves." 
 
 " I understand," Mestre Toni answered. " I 
 understand quite well. You are, as the saying 
 goes nowadays, 'suspects.'" 
 
 "Yes, friend, in part you are right. But 
 with this poor child the matter is far worse. 
 This innocent creature is condemned to death ! "
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 AT PEIRE-AVON FARM 
 
 As Monsieur Randoulet spoke these words, 
 sadly and gravely, there was a momentary si- 
 lence and the eyes of the whole family were 
 turned upon Adeline. It seemed impossible 
 that the death sentence could have been pro- 
 nounced upon one so innocent and so young. 
 
 Mestre Toni was the first to speak. "Are 
 you in earnest, Monsieur ! " he asked in aston- 
 ishment. " Is this really true ? " 
 
 "Yes, it is really true," Monsieur Randoulet 
 answered sorrowfully. "But I have more to 
 tell you. This poor child is not a boy, but a 
 girl. She is the daughter of the Marquis d'Am- 
 brun, who was lord of Malemort. A detach- 
 ment of gendarmes, led by a murderer, is search- 
 ing for her. Only last evening they were close 
 upon us. In the darkness and the storm we 
 escaped from them, and all night long we have 
 been walking among the mountains. We do 
 need your help, if you can give it without dan- 
 ger to yourself. What we ask of you is a safe 
 hiding-place." 
 
 The women shivered and went white as 
 
 Monsieur Randoulet spoke, but Mestre Toni 
 
 kept both his courage and his presence of mind. 
 
 Speaking quite calmly, he said: "Run, Dodo, 
 
 182
 
 farm 183 
 
 and throw down some hay to the horses and 
 mules and as you come away lock the stable 
 door," and as the little fellow went off nimbly 
 to execute his order he added to the Cure: 
 "There are four gendarmes asleep in the hay- 
 loft. They are searching the mountains for de- 
 serters ancl stopped here for the night. But 
 don't be uneasy. The key will be turned on 
 them in a moment and they will not trouble you. 
 We have them here often, and as I always treat 
 them well they do us no harm." 
 
 For all that Mestre Toni spoke so quietly and 
 so easily, Monsieur Randoulet was alarmed not 
 for his own safety, but for the safety of his host. 
 Rising from the table, and taking Adeline's hand, 
 he said earnestly : " My good Toni, this will not 
 do. We shall compromise you. We must leave 
 you at once! " 
 
 "What do you mean!" cried the farmer, 
 with a bang of his big fist on the table. " Don't 
 you know me well ? Do you think that I'm 
 going to let you go wandering off into the forest 
 again you and that innocent child ? Oh no, 
 that is not the wood I'm made of! If a whole 
 brigade of gendarmes was at the door we'd 
 stand them off me and my five sons! Do you 
 see that row of guns hanging in (;he chimney- 
 throat ? With pepper-pots like that all handy 
 we're not afraid of gendarmes ! " And then, 
 more quietly, he added: "But there's no need 
 for fighting now. Those fellows in the hayloft 
 did not get here until midnight, and unless I 
 wake them they'll snore away till noon. Long 
 before that time you'll be in a place that all the 
 gendarmes in France might look for without
 
 1 84 l)e tOljite terror 
 
 finding. So sit down, Monsieur le Cure, and 
 eat your breakfast in peace. When you have 
 finished it comfortably, Dodo will lead you to 
 the hiding-place I'm talking about." 
 
 "Why, where is Dodo?" Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet asked, as he took his place again at the 
 table. ' ' What's become of him ? " 
 
 " He's doing what I sent him to do," Mestre 
 Toni answered. " He's up in the big pear tree 
 beside the threshing-floor watching that no 
 strangers surprise us until you are safe away." 
 
 " But he'll lose his breakfast,'' said the kind- 
 hearted Cure in a tone of remonstrance and 
 regret. 
 
 "Oh no he won't. He took a big piece of 
 bread along with him, and he'll eat it very com- 
 fortably up there among the birds. Presently, 
 when you have finished your meal, and when 
 he has made sure up there that no one is coming, 
 he will lead you to where you are to be hidden 
 the Cave of Two Holes. There, with the 
 good souls, three poor nuns from Avignon, al- 
 ready in hiding, you will spend the day. When 
 night comes I wi'H fetch you back here again, to 
 sup and to sleep." 
 
 "But is not the danger by night as great 
 as the danger by day?" asked Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet. 
 
 " It is greater," the farmer answered, "but 
 not here for us and for you. As I have told you, 
 when the gendarmes come I treat them well, 
 and they deal with me kindly. At night, if they 
 stop here to rest, I put them in the hayloft 
 where some of them are now. They do not 
 enter the house. In the morning I give them a
 
 .farm 185 
 
 good breakfast and they go. As for the others, 
 they fancy that I side with them and they let me 
 alone. But I am fortunate. For most people 
 living in lonely places, and for all people unlucky 
 enough to be overtaken by darkness in the forest, 
 the night is full of peril. Bands of deserters, 
 bands of Aristocrats, are abroad then pillaging 
 and burning and killing in the King's name. 
 They call themselves the ' Companies of Jehu ' 
 this rabble; and they claim to be Royalists or 
 Papalists. But it is not the King nor the Pope, 
 but the devil, whom they serve as they go, 
 gun in hand, knife in teeth, with rosaries about 
 their necks, doing evil as does the hail! It is 
 more than I can understand why they all are not 
 swept from the earth by the thunder of God!" 
 
 "Not two hours ago, "said Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet, " we met with one of these companies. 
 They had been robbing the tax-office at Caromb 
 and were dragging away with them the tax- 
 gatherer, bound as they should have been bound 
 themselves." 
 
 " By this time he is a dead man," said Ma- 
 rius. " They have strung him up to an oak, and 
 under him have lighted a fire." 
 
 " Impossible ! " exclaimed Monsieur Randou- 
 let, and his horror was so great thfit he turned 
 very pale. 
 
 "No, Monsieur," Marius answered, "it is not 
 impossible it is the terrible truth. That is what 
 these wretches do. Lucky are the unfortunates 
 who are hanged before the fire begins to blaze! 
 While the fire burns they dance around it, shout- 
 ing ' Hurrah for the King! Hurrah for the Aus- 
 trians! Down with the Republic!' and then
 
 1 86 $t)* tOljite terror 
 
 fall to yelling like the fiends that they are. Often 
 have we heard their cries and later have found 
 the half-charred body of a man swinging from 
 an oak-branch above the still-smouldering em- 
 bers of a fire!" 
 
 "And they come, "exclaimed Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet, "out of the earth's rottenness! Those 
 whom we met this morning were commanded 
 by a cruel brute who once was the swineherd 
 at La Garde ! Yet even he was not wholly given 
 over to evil. At the command of his young 
 mistress here, the Comtessine, he suffered us to 
 go free. " And then, as he remembered another 
 phase of the encounter, the Cure added: "What 
 little money I had about me was taken. You 
 will have to suffer us to be your debtors, my 
 good Toni, for our food." 
 
 "You forget, Monsieur," interrupted Ade- 
 line, " I still have my three crowns. With those 
 we can pay the good Mestre Toni at least, we 
 can pay him in part." 
 
 "There, that is enough," said Mestre Toni 
 very decidedly. " Money is not a thing to be 
 talked about here! " and with that he shut his 
 knife with a snap. When the master of a Pro- 
 vencal household shuts his knife it means that 
 the meal is ended, and at that sign all who were 
 seated at the table arose. 
 
 "And now," he went on, "you and this 
 pretty boy-lady must be going, Monsieur. It is 
 not that I wish to get rid of you, as you well 
 know; but with those four gendarmes asleep in 
 the hayloft, it is only prudent that you should be 
 hidden away before they wake up. Dodo, here, 
 will lead you to the cave; and you must be sure
 
 2tt f)eire-Qlt)0n farm 187 
 
 not to venture out of it until I come for you to- 
 night." 
 
 Never in nil his good life had Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet been in hiding! Tears came to his eyes, 
 and in his heart he cried : " My God, what have 
 1 done to offend thee that I must hide myself in 
 caverns with the foxes and the wolves!" But 
 he set a strict guard upon his lips and uttered 
 no complaining word. 
 
 Presently they were off Dodo, called down 
 from his watch-perch, leading them and carry- 
 ing a fat wallet stuffed with food for their mid- 
 day meal. Up they went along a steep and 
 stony path through a thick growth of beeches. 
 The wild mint and the flowering broom, grow- 
 ing near by, filled the air with an aromatic per- 
 fume as the strong rays of the sun by this time 
 well risen above the mountains fell on them 
 hotly. Now and again a covey of partridges 
 would fly up suddenly, with a loud br-r-r-r! 
 Off on the left of the path rose the great crest of 
 Mont Ventour, bare rock against the sky. Lower 
 down, the mountain was clad with a growth of 
 big trees oak and beech and ash and larch. 
 Here and there upon its flanks were wide spaces 
 overspread with box and thyme and lavender 
 and wild flowers smelling sweet. Along the 
 pathway among the leaves which gave cover 
 also to sleeping vipers bloomed white violets. 
 
 To Adeline the flowers were a delight her 
 friends, her little sisters who were smiling on 
 her. She ran hither and thither gathering them 
 here a gillyflower, there a bunch of white vio- 
 lets, yon a branch of wild-roses whose delicate- 
 ly gay pink blossoms seemed like laughing baby
 
 1 88 l)e tObite terror 
 
 faces. Monsieur Randoulet and Dodo, walk- 
 ing on steadily, drew farther and farther away 
 from her. At last a turn in the path hid them 
 from her altogether, and a little thrill of fear 
 went through her as she realized suddenly that 
 she was alone. She hurried on after them 
 and her thrill of fear became terror as she saw, 
 through an opening in the forest that gave her 
 a glimpse down the mountain side, a man with 
 a gun on his shoulder coming rapidly up the 
 path. In an instant she was off at a run; and 
 in a few moments had overtaken the others. 
 "A man is following us!" she panted. "A 
 man with a gun ! " 
 
 They all stood still, listening intently. At 
 first they heard nothing. Then, as the man 
 came to a rocky part of the path, they heard 
 through the silence of the forest the sound of 
 footsteps and the rattle of little stones. The 
 forest about them was open. There were no 
 bushes which would serve as a hiding-place. 
 They could only hurry on hoping either to dis- 
 tance their pursuer, or to come to some cover 
 that would shelter them while he passed them 
 by. But the forest was more and more open as 
 they ascended, and in a few minutes they left it 
 altogether and came to a part of the path which 
 curved around one of the peaks of the mountain 
 following a narrow ledge, just wide enough 
 to walk on, with a sheer wall of bare rock rising 
 above it and a sheer drop of a hundred feet or 
 more to the ravine below. To look into that 
 dark depth made Adeline's head swim. With 
 closed eyes she followed Monsieur Randoulet, 
 holding fast to his hand. Their feet sent stones
 
 QVt JJeire-QltJon .form 189 
 
 from the path rattling down into the gulf. In a 
 minute or two they heard the sound of other 
 stones falling, and knew that the man was 
 close behind them. 
 
 "Dodo," said Monsieur Randoulet, "you 
 and Adeline must go on without me. Take her 
 to the cave quickly. I shall stand guard here." 
 
 " Do not send me away from you," Adeline 
 entreated. " I will meet this danger with you," 
 and she kept a tight hold upon the Cure's hand. 
 
 "You must obey me, and instantly !" said 
 Monsieur Randoulet, in a tone of severe com- 
 mand that Adeline never had heard him use. 
 As he spoke, he stood at the outer edge of the 
 path and held fast above her head to a projecting 
 rock. "Go on!" he said sternly. In another 
 instant she had passed him. Then she went 
 onward, holding Dodo's hand. 
 
 Monsieur Randoulet gave his soul into God's 
 keeping and waited. The footsteps were com- 
 ing very close to him. He did not believe that 
 he had many more minutes to live. Suddenly 
 the man coming on around the curving path 
 began to sing : 
 
 " Turn the wheel, my gossip Jane, 
 Spin away! j 
 
 Turn the wheel, my gossip Jane, 
 Night and day! " 
 
 Monsieur Randoulet's tight-drawn heart-strings 
 relaxed as he heard this old country-side song. 
 " A man bent upon evil does not sing songs 
 like that!" he thought. He was right. In 
 another moment he was face to face with 
 Marius, the farmer's eldest son!
 
 i9 
 
 "Why, Monsieur Randoulet!" exclaimed 
 Marius. "What are you doing here alone ? 
 Where are the others?" And then, as he saw 
 how pale the Cure was, he added: "I do be- 
 lieve I've frightened you! " 
 
 "You have," Monsieur Randoulet answered 
 simply. "I thought that you were a White. 
 I sent the others on ahead and waited here. " 
 
 There was a tone of respect in Marius's voice 
 as he answered: " Whites are not dangerous by 
 day, Monsieur. They prowl by night along 
 with the other wild beasts. Now I will tell 
 Dodo.that there is no cause for fear," and he put 
 his fingers in his mouth and whistled sharply 
 fwice. "Dodo must have been crazy," he 
 added, as they walked on together, "to bring 
 you by this path. We call it ' the Devil's Dyke' 
 it is the worst of all." 
 
 "Then there are others?" said the Cure, 
 sighing thankfully. 
 
 "Certainly. There are two others one 
 over the mountain top and the other down 
 there in the ravine. The little scamp should be 
 spanked for bringing you this way." 
 
 Dodo undoubtedly did deserve a spanking 
 for his bit of mischief it was just that and he 
 certainly would have got one had not Monsieur 
 Randoulet begged him off. As it was, Marius 
 gave him such a talking-to that he was a very 
 sober and crestfallen little lad for the rest of 
 the walk !
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 IN THE CAVE WITH THE TWO HOLES 
 
 THEY all went on together a little farther, 
 and then Marius halted the party where a thick 
 clump of terebinth and a big black bunchy juni- 
 per grew together on the mountain side a little 
 above the path. "Here we are! " he said. 
 
 "Where are we?" asked Monsieur Ratt- 
 doulet blankly. 
 
 "At the mouth of the Cave with Two 
 Holes, Monsieur." 
 
 " But I do not see even one hole! " 
 
 "It is here, Monsieur hidden by the tere- 
 binth. Show them the way in, Dodo." 
 
 "Wait a moment," said Monsieur Randou- 
 let. "Now that 1 know where the entrance is, 
 let me try to find it for myself." But he could 
 not find it, though he searched about the tere- 
 binth and the juniper carefully. 
 
 With a laugh, Dodo opened out (the thick- 
 growing branches of the juniper and, stepping 
 in among them, disappeared! 
 
 "It is a safe hiding-place, Monsieur," said 
 Marius. "The entrance to the cave is there 
 under the branches; and as the juniper is an 
 evergreen the opening always is concealed. No 
 one knows about the cave save ourselves, and 
 one or two people in Bedoin, and the wild 
 
 191
 
 192 l)e tOljile terror 
 
 creatures of the forest. As my father told you, 
 all the gendarmes in France might come here 
 and search for it in vain. And there is plenty 
 of room down there. You go a little way along 
 a narrow passage, and then you come to a large 
 cavern that is dimly lighted from this opening; 
 beyond it, at the end of another passage, is a 
 still larger cavern that is lighted by a hole high 
 up in its vault a hole on the bare peak of the 
 mountain that cannot be reached from the out- 
 side by anything but a bird. And now, Mon- 
 sieur, if you please, we will go in." 
 
 Marius led the way, holding the branches 
 aside for Adeline and helping her to descend 
 through the narrow opening which they so well 
 concealed. Monsieur Randoulet followed. In- 
 side they found Dodo waiting for them. To- 
 gether they passed through the dimly lighted 
 outer cavern, and the passage beyond it, and so 
 came to the well-lighted inner cavern where 
 they found the three nuns who, as the farmer 
 had told them, were in hiding there. These 
 holy women, who were refugees from the Ursu- 
 line Convent in Avignon, very gladly welcomed 
 as companions in their prison-like retreat a con- 
 secrated priest and when the secret of her dis- 
 guise was revealed to them a sweet young 
 girl as pure and as lovely as the saints in Para- 
 dise. 
 
 Dodo deposited the wallet of food on a rude 
 mass of rock in the centre of the cavern that 
 served for a table, and then the brothers turned 
 to go away. 
 
 "Stop, Marius," said Monsieur Randoulet, 
 " you are forgetting your gun."
 
 In the Glaoe roitf) tl^e mo ^olcs 193 
 
 "I am not forgetting it, Monsieur. I am 
 leaving it here for you." 
 
 " For me ? What need have I for a gun ? " 
 
 " Guns have their uses, Monsieur and es- 
 pecially in these bad times. Keep it here, and 
 should you go out from the cave I beg of you 
 always to carry it with you. You would find 
 out your need for it in a hurry should you chance 
 to meet a gendarme! " 
 
 " But 1 would not use it even though I did 
 meet a gendarme. God preserve me from the 
 sin of killing a man! " 
 
 " You need not kill any one, Monsieur. But 
 a gun, even an empty gun, is a good thing to 
 frighten people with. Should you go out from 
 the cave, carry it with you that is my last 
 word. And now good-bye until evening." 
 
 Monsieur Randoulet made no reply aloud, 
 but as Marius left the cave he exclaimed in his 
 heart: "A gun! Holy Mary! How wicked is 
 man! How cruel! But in my hands, at least, 
 this gun will do no harm. It will not be the 
 Cure Randoulet who will kill a fellow man!" 
 Then he stood the gun in a corner of the cave 
 and turned to talk with the three nuns. 
 
 They had had a hard time of it, these poor 
 Sisters. The youngest of them, Sistpr Margai, 
 had been the turkeyherd at Peire-Avon as a 
 child; and when they escaped from Avignon 
 she led the others Sister Dorothy and Sister 
 Scholastica to the shelter of her old home. For 
 three nights they had walked in dread, and for 
 three days they had lain hidden in the bushes or 
 among the growing grain. Their black habits 
 and their black veils were torn by the briers,
 
 194 l)c t01)ile terror 
 
 their white coifs were soiled and limp, their 
 leather belts from which their rosaries hung 
 were fretted by the twigs and thorns. Sister 
 Dorothy, whom the others called Mother Doro- 
 thy, was an old woman. But for the help that 
 they had given her she could not have accom- 
 plished this hard journey. Even with that help 
 it had made her suddenly much older, and all of 
 them had reached the haven of the farm-house 
 haggard and worn. For more than two months 
 they had been in hiding, sleeping in the farm- 
 house and spending their days in the cave. The 
 kindness of the farm-people had done much to 
 restore their cheerfulness, and their coifs were 
 spotless again but the carefully darned rents in 
 their veils and in their habits matched outwardly 
 the scars that were in their hearts. Against the 
 wall of the cave they had fastened up a picture 
 of the blessed Magdalen in her hermitage-cavern 
 of the Sainte Baume not two days' journey from 
 the cavern in which they were lying hid and 
 to this great Provencal Saint, to whom the earth 
 had given shelter as to themselves, they made 
 their daily prayers. 
 
 For a while Saint Mary of Magdala was for- 
 gotten when Monsieur Randoulet told them that 
 his young companion was not a boy but a girl, 
 and" that this girl was the Comtessine d'Ambrun. 
 In a moment they had ranged themselves before 
 her and were making her profound courtesies 
 and formal compliments. They were her ser- 
 vants, they said; and gave effect to this declara- 
 tion by waiting upon her when, at noon-time, 
 they ate their midday meal. When they found 
 that the bundle that she had brought with her
 
 3n tl)c (toe toil!) tl)c STtoa ^oles 195 
 
 contained her frock, they packed Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet off to the outer cave and delightedly 
 dressed her in it taking a lively interest in its 
 still pretty trimming of Paris lace. At night 
 when Dodo came for them, he was mightily as- 
 tonished to find that the boy whom he had 
 scared so well on the Devil's Dyke was a girl! 
 
 Dodo did not venture to repeat that trick. 
 He led them by the safe path in the valley, to 
 which they descended by a safe and not very 
 difficult way. It was a pleasant path, bordered 
 by thyme and box and lavender and, wild-flow- 
 ers, and overhung by many trees. The two 
 journeys that they took along it daily were the 
 delight of the cave-dwellers, the brightest break 
 in their dull lives. Adeline and the nuns sighed 
 for the freedom of that sweet solitude in the 
 hours of sunshine, and found very tantalizing 
 the glimpses that they had of it in the morning 
 and the evening dusk. "Ah," Sister Scholas- 
 tica would say, "if only we could spend our 
 days in this flowery woodland, where all is 
 peace and tranquility and where there are no 
 men! It is like a beautiful convent made by 
 God's own hands!" 
 
 They never could be made to understand, 
 these poor nuns, why it was that the}' had been 
 compelled to run away from Avignon and hide 
 themselves. They only knew that one day 
 some of their friends had come to their convent 
 saying "La Guillotine has come! You must 
 run away from her this instant! " and had hur- 
 ried them off. "La Guillotine," they thought, 
 must be some wicked woman. But everything 
 was hazy and uncertain in their minds.
 
 i9 6 l)e tDtyite terror 
 
 Monsieur Randoulet tried to explain matters 
 to them, but quite in vain. The Revolution was 
 a hopeless mystery that they could not pene- 
 trate. They could see no reason why the poor 
 should not keep on starving in quiet, as they 
 always had done; why, suddenly, they should 
 make such a fuss about it. Still less could they 
 understand how the King could have been cast 
 into prison, and thence brought out again to 
 have his head cut off. What were people do- 
 ing, they asked, that such things were suffered 
 to be ? WJiere were the estrapados and the 
 racks, the prisons, the galleys, the gallows? 
 Those were what was wanted when starving 
 wretches, daring to become troublesome, showed 
 their teeth and took to snapping with them 
 like hunger-driven wolves! Nor could they un- 
 derstand why, since it had been done for centu- 
 ries, the King and his nobles were committing 
 wrong in treating the serfs of the soil as though 
 they were beasts and worse than beasts. They 
 could not grasp even the rudiments of Monsieur 
 Randoulet's meaning when he told them that 
 God Himself had breathed Holy Liberty into the 
 handful of clay out of which He made man. No 
 matter how much Monsieur Randoulet explained 
 and expounded, in the end it always was the 
 same. The Sisters rested firm in their convic- 
 tion that their good King and their good nobles 
 could do no wrong. 
 
 Sometimes these talks went on in the even- 
 ings at the farm-house the nuns busy with 
 their needlework, the farm women with their 
 spinning and then Mestre Toni would take 
 part in them. He was one of those sound and
 
 Jn tlje (Have nrill) tl)e roo fjoles 197 
 
 true and temperate Republicans who were the 
 very salt of the Republican faith of whom, alas, 
 so "many were sent to the guillotine precisely be- 
 cause they were so good and charitable and truly 
 wise ! What Monsieur Randoulet said, he agreed 
 with; and he had much of the same sort to say 
 for himself. It annoyed him that the good Sis- 
 ters were so dull of understanding; and one 
 evening., when they were even more than usu- 
 ally obdurate, he blurted out suddenly: "You 
 think that they can do no wrong, these over-lords 
 of ours ? Now let me tell you what one of them 
 did to me, to me myself, when I was living in 
 Malemort. Just listen to my story, and when I 
 have finished it I shall be glad to hear what you 
 have to say! This happened not more than 
 twenty years ago, and everybody at Malemort 
 still remembers it and can tell you that it is 
 true." 
 
 "I, for one, remember it very well," said 
 Monsieur Randoulet, who knew what was com- 
 ing, "and you may believe every word that 
 Mestre Toni says." 
 
 " Well," continued Mestre Toni, "what hap- 
 pened to me was this: My people, working hard 
 for the money, had managed to save enough to 
 buy a little bit of waste land up there behind the 
 chateau of Saint Felix: the chateau belonging to 
 the Bishop of Carpentras, to which he and his 
 canons used to come with certain of their friends 
 whom we won't talk about to amuse them- 
 selves. Naturally enough, this fine lot did not 
 like having anybody close to their walled in- 
 closure. They wanted to be alone up there; 
 and so, one fine day, what does the Bishop do
 
 198 l)e iDljite terror 
 
 but send word to me that each time I wanted to 
 work on my bit of land I must get his leave to 
 come there! That was much more than 1 could 
 swallow, and I sent back word to him that if he 
 wanted to buy my land I would have it valued 
 and he could take it at the valuer's price; but 
 that until he did buy it it was mine, and that 
 while it was mine I should work on it when I 
 pleased. 
 
 "Well, I thought that settled the matter, 
 and two or three days later I put my hoe on my 
 shoulder and went up to hoe the vetches I had 
 planted on my land. As 1 went along up the 
 Saint Felix road I met a woman I knew. She 
 began to giggle when she saw me and asked: 
 ' Are you going to hoe your vetches, Toni ?' 
 
 " ' Yes,' says 1. ' They need hoeing badly.' 
 
 "'You'd better go back home,' says she, 
 ' the crows have eaten them all up,' and she fell 
 to giggling again. But I only laughed at her 
 and went on. 
 
 " A little farther up the road I met one of my 
 neighbours who was carrying to Monsieur le 
 Marquis to whom they belonged by right 
 the tongue and the jowls of a pig he had just 
 killed. When he saw me he took to snigger- 
 ing and called out: ' Going to hoe your vetches, 
 eh Toni ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes,' says I. 
 
 "'No you're not,' says he. 'No you're 
 not the crows have gobbled the whole of 
 'em ! ' And he gave me a queer sort of look and 
 passed on. 
 
 " Well, I concluded that he and the woman 
 were trying to put some sort of a joke on me,
 
 Jn tl)c Gtave toitl) tl)e STroo Ijoks 199 
 
 and I hurried along to my vetches, thinking that 
 when I saw them I'd know what the joke was. 
 And I did know what it was but the joke was 
 not one that made me laugh! What do you 
 think ? When I got to my piece of land I found 
 a gang of masons at work on a nine-foot wall 
 that inclosed it completely and made it a part 
 of the inclosure of the Bishop's chateau! Well, 
 I was in a fury ! I raged and I menaced ! The 
 masons laughed at me and went on with their 
 work. They were good-natured fellows or I 
 should have fared worse. I heard later that they 
 had been ordered to stone me off my own land ! 
 
 " Nor is that the whole of the wrong which 
 was done me. That evening there came to my 
 house in the village a halberdier who brought 
 to me an order from the Bishop to leave Male- 
 mort before the following daybreak. I and all 
 my family must go, and instantly, the fellow 
 said, or I would be put in the strapado and my 
 tongue would be pierced with a red-hot iron 
 because, he explained, I had used menaces 
 against the Bishop and because in my anger I 
 had taken the name of the Lord in vain ! There 
 was nothing for me but obedience. Remon- 
 strance with that scoundrel Bishop only would 
 have made matters worse. In the night we left 
 Malemort, carrying as we could what we most 
 valued with us my wife heavy with child. By 
 God's blessing, Monsieur de St. Croix, who 
 owned this farm, took pity on us and gave us 
 shelter here and here, ever since, we have 
 remained. 
 
 " And now, Mother Dorothy, what have you 
 to say that is good of an over-lord like that ? "
 
 l)c tatyite terror 
 
 asked Mestre Toni in conclusion, at the same 
 time bringing his fist down on the table with a 
 thunderous bang! 
 
 But Mother Dorothy did not venture to say 
 anything; and until Monsieur Randoulet and 
 the farmer began to talk again there was only 
 the click-clack of the winder and the roun-roun 
 of Jeanne-Marie's wheel. 
 
 Often, though for in that quiet nook among 
 the mountains it was hard to realize that over 
 France a tempest was raging the evening talk 
 was of a lighter sort. The farmer and his sons 
 would tell stories of hunting expeditions into 
 the mountains; the good Sisters would wander 
 through rather pointless anecdotes of their placid 
 life in the convent; late in the evening spin- 
 ning slowly, or altogether stopping her wheel 
 Jeanne-Marie would bring out from her pack 
 of country-side lore some grisly legend as that 
 of the hell-hound Dog of Cambaud which 
 would send the young folks to bed with creeps 
 down their backs and staring eyes! 
 
 So the days lengthened into weeks, and the 
 weeks into months; and while the quiet life at 
 Peire-Avon now and then was disturbed, it 
 never was interrupted, by the rumour of the 
 mighty tempest which was crashing and rend- 
 ing over the length and breadth of France.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE EDGE OF THE STORM 
 
 * 
 
 FROM time to time Marius, the eldest son, 
 went down from the mountains to Carpentras 
 to sell some of the farm produce or a batch of 
 sheep and lambs. There he would hear what 
 was going on in the world and would bring 
 back news of it. But it was not easy for the 
 dwellers at Peire-Avon to believe in the stories 
 of horrors which he brought back with him, 
 and still less easy to believe that these stories 
 had any meaning for themselves. Even when 
 Marius brought the news that Maignet, the ter- 
 rible Auvergnat, had come down to Avignon 
 they did not feel that this was a matter which 
 concerned them it all was so hazy and seemed 
 so far away. 
 
 To be sure, Maignet's red record was not 
 made then. It was he who set up the Revolu- 
 tionary Tribunal in Orange that did its work 
 without proces-verbaux or juries; that in less 
 than two months between the ist Messidor 
 and the I7th Thermidor of the year II sent 
 three hundred and thirty-two persons to the 
 guillotine. It was he who arrested the famous 
 Jourdan Chop-head and denounced him of all 
 things in the world for a man with such a nick- 
 name! for "moderation," and so brought him 
 under the knife.
 
 tt) bite terror 
 
 From his next visit to Carpentras Marius 
 came back pale and trembling. At supper he 
 sat silent, unable to eat. To the questions 
 which were put to him was he ill ? was he in 
 trouble ? had he been robbed ? he made no 
 answer. From time to time his eyes would rest 
 on Monsieur Randoulet and Adeline, and then 
 he would grow still paler and would shake as 
 though a fever had him in its grasp. 
 
 His mother followed him to his bed-room, 
 taking with her a cup of good borage-tea that 
 she made him drink piping hot; and then, sit- 
 ting on his bed-side, she got the truth out 
 of him. 
 
 "We are lost, mother!" he said in a low 
 and frightened voice. "The end has come 
 for us!" 
 
 "How are we lost? You are wandering, 
 my child." 
 
 "No, mother, it is the truth. To-day I saw 
 posted up on the church door in Carpentras a 
 list of the 'Suspects.' In that list are the names 
 of Monsieur Randoulet and Adeline. Their de- 
 nunciation is signed by one Calisto. It declares 
 that they are known to have fled toward Bedoin, 
 and that they probably are hidden in some 
 farm-house on Mont Ventour." 
 
 " But we know all this, my son. Even our 
 good nuns are 'suspects.' Don't be frightened 
 for so little. No one will come after any of 
 them here." 
 
 " But there is more, and worse, mother. It 
 seems that a company of Whites, the other 
 night, came out from the forest and seized two 
 loads of ammunition going forward to the army
 
 9Tl)e (bge of tlje Storm 203 
 
 and tumbled them into the waters of the Ouveze. 
 Then they went on to Sarrians and robbed the 
 tax-office. Then they came to Bedoin where 
 they robbed the tax-office, and tore down and 
 trampled in the mud the decrees of the Conven- 
 tion, and cut down the Tree of Liberty outside 
 the Porte Saint Jean." 
 
 " Yes, we heard about that. But what has 
 it got to do with us ? " 
 
 " It has a great deal to do with us. When 
 that wolf-hound of a Maignet heard about it he 
 fell into one of his wild rages and swore a dread- 
 ful vengeance. He has given orders that all the 
 people of Bedoin shall be arrested, that the town 
 shall be destroyed utterly, that the very ground 
 on which it stood shall be left forever waste. 
 And all this is to be done, mother," Marius went 
 on in a trembling voice, "this very night! A 
 detachment of gendarmes is on its way to Bedoin 
 now, and with it is a whole battalion from the Ar- 
 deche. They are to arrest every one; they are 
 to search the town; then they are to burn it. 
 After that they are to search all the farm-houses 
 round about. They will come here, mother 
 and what will happen then ? We are lost, 1 tell 
 you! We are lost!" 
 
 Jeanne-Marie had turned as pale as her son. 
 She left him hurriedly, and went back to the 
 kitchen to tell the dreadful news. 
 
 "Well, how's the boy?" asked Monsieur 
 Randoulet. 
 
 "The boy wouldn't go badly, Monsieur, if 
 things went well." 
 
 " What do you mean by that?" asked Mes- 
 tre Toni.
 
 204 t)e tDtyite terror 
 
 "I mean," burst out Jeanne-Marie, "that 
 the gendarmes, and a whole army along with 
 them, will be here to-morrow. I mean that the 
 whole country-side is to be searched. I mean 
 that everybody in Bedoin is to be arrested and 
 cast into prison, and that the town is to be burned 
 to the ground!" 
 
 All the women shrieked together, and Mestre 
 Toni sprang to his feet with a bound. " Male- 
 diction of God!" he exclaimed. "What sort 
 of justice is this ? Are we, the good people, to 
 pay for the sins of the bad ? What is that Con- 
 vention at Paris doing that such things should 
 be ? " 
 
 "Peace, Mestre Toni!" said Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet in a tone grave and solemn. "Peace! 
 Do not blame the Convention ! The Convention 
 is patriotic and just. In its justice it abolished 
 the laws of the Tyrant; in its patriotism it is 
 guarding the frontiers of France against strangers 
 in league with her own traitor sons. It has 
 done its duty, even, when in its passion it 
 drenched the scaffold with the impure blood of 
 Aristocrats. Its one error and this error may 
 prove to be its ruin has been in sitting in Paris: 
 that royal city, that tyrant city, that city of anti- 
 patriots and cowards! Paris is a torch which 
 lights the world but it is a torch set in a muck- 
 bed where swarm the foulest of the foul ! There 
 thrive such creatures as Surto and Calisto, who 
 slay and plunder. There thrive such creatures 
 as Hebert and Henriot and their like, who dread 
 the honest patriotism of the Girondists and who 
 have sent Danton the patriot Danton who led 
 our Marseillais to the storming of the Tyrant's
 
 (Eoge of tt)e Storm 205 
 
 castle to the guillotine. Think of it, Danton! 
 He who, a sprig of thyme in his mouth, pro- 
 claimed the Republic; who abolished thos v e laws 
 of the Tyrant under which a bishop could con- 
 fiscate the poor man's scrap of ground ; who 
 was the very soul of our holy Revolution ! They 
 laid him where they had laid Louis Capet, on 
 the very same plank; with the very same knife 
 that had beheaded the Tyrant they beheaded that 
 great patriot! " 
 
 For a moment Monsieur Randoulet was silent. 
 Then, with his hands clasped and raised toward 
 heaven, and in a tone still more impassioned, he 
 continued: "Oh Lord my God, thou who art 
 the Father of all; thou who orderest the stars in 
 the firmament and biddest to swell the tides of 
 the sea; thou whose eyes are lightning, whose 
 voice is thunder, whose frowning is the tempest; 
 thou who art the source and the beginning of all 
 life, from the life of man even unto the life of the 
 smallest earth-grown herb; thou, oh holy and 
 merciful God, show thy pity to us and give us 
 thy help! If even as the roses need thy dew 
 and thy rain the Tree of Liberty, overthrown 
 by the wicked, needs the blood of man to make 
 it rise again and put forth new branches, take to 
 the last drop the red stream that is in my veins. 
 Willingly, that good may come, will I go to the 
 guillotine as to thine altar blessing thy name 
 because thou art thyself Justice, who holdest in 
 thine hand the balance of Equality! " 
 
 The women sighed heavily. Mestre Toni, in 
 a sad tone but with firmness, said simply: " You 
 are right, Monsieur. If the bread of bitterness 
 is to be our portion, we will eat it. If we must
 
 206 l)e tOhite QTerror 
 
 burn the harvest to rid the earth of evil weeds, 
 so shall it be!" 
 
 The children Adeline and Dodo and Ca- 
 doche came in from the sheep-fold in a state of 
 great excitement. "There's something wrong 
 over at Bedoin," said Dodo eagerly. "We 
 heard the drums beating the alarm." 
 
 "And I," said Cadoche, "thought I heard 
 people shrieking. But I couldn't be sure." 
 
 " I didn't hear anything at all," said Adeline. 
 "I was inside the sheep-fold playing with the 
 lambs." 
 
 "Well, we'll find out what it means in the 
 morning," said Mestre Toni. "Now be off to 
 bed, the whole lot of you. It's time for every- 
 body to be asleep." 
 
 The household obeyed him the boys going 
 off to the hayloft, Adeline and the nuns to the 
 mattresses which were laid for them in the gran- 
 ary, and the farm women to their beds. But 
 Mestre Toni and Monsieur Randoulet staid in the 
 kitchen, keeping watch and guard. 
 
 Nothing came to disturb them. From time 
 to time the deep silence of the mountains was 
 broken by the barking of a fox or the hooting of 
 an owl; and about midnight they heard the 
 drums beating again in Bedoin, and a confused 
 murmur as of wails and cries. Later, they heard 
 cries clearer and more distinct, as though from 
 people fleeing toward the forest pursued by the 
 gendarmes. Mestre Toni drew the inference 
 that the ravaging of the village was completed 
 and that the gendarmes were beginning the 
 search of the outlying farm-houses. It would 
 not do, he said, for Monsieur Randoulet and the
 
 of ilK Storm 207 
 
 rest to wait until dawn, as usual, to go to their 
 hiding-place; they must get away and be safely 
 hidden while yet it was black night. 
 
 Adeline and the Sisters were roused out of 
 sleep, and the good Jeanne-Marie whom dread 
 had kept wakeful was called to get together a 
 supply of food that would last them all for three 
 or four days, in case the search should be so hot 
 that they could not safely be sent for at night to 
 come back to the farm. Dodo also was waked, 
 to go along with them and carry the bag of 
 food. To the provisions Mestre Toni added a 
 gourd full of powder and a handful of ballsbut 
 against taking these Monsieur Randoulet re- 
 belled. " Keep your powder and your balls, my 
 good Toni," he said, " I have no use for them." 
 
 " But you have a gun, Monsieur. And what 
 good will your gun do you, when once you have 
 fired it, unless you can load it again ?" 
 
 " But never shall I fire that gun! I am will- 
 ing to carry it, because 1 may frighten some one 
 with it; but fire it, 1 tell you, I never shall!" 
 Yet in the end, as the easiest way to quiet Mes- 
 tre Toni's importunity, he slipped the balls into 
 his pocket and carried the gourd along. 
 
 As though the good Cure felt the shadow of 
 evil approaching him, he lingered behind the 
 others and made his parting with the farmer a 
 very serious one. " In case we never meet 
 again, my good Toni," he said, as he held the 
 farmer's hand in a tight clasp, "1 want you to 
 know that I thank you from my heart for your 
 great charity. And, believe me, what you have 
 rendered unto us God will render again unto 
 you."
 
 2o8 
 
 "Do not talk about our not meeting again, 
 Monsieur," the farmer answered. "It is true 
 that for two or three days, very likely, we shall 
 not see each other. I shall not send for you 
 until this pest of gendarmes has passed away 
 and you may come again in safety. But then 
 you will come back to us once more, and all will 
 be well." 
 
 "God grant that it may be as you say. And 
 may He, whatever happens to us, always guard 
 and protect you!" And Monsieur Randoulet 
 slowly relinquished his grasp of the farmer's 
 hand, and then hurried to catch up with the 
 others on the path. The night was dark, al- 
 though the stars were shining, and very still. 
 They went on upward through the forest in 
 silence, save that the nuns murmured softly 
 their prayers. From time to time came faintly 
 the sound of shrieks or of hoarse shouts from 
 the direction of Bedoin.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 ' ON THE DEVIL'S DYKE 
 
 DAWN was close at hand when they reached 
 the terebinth and juniper, and through the thick- 
 growing branches groped their way into the 
 cave. Being inside, Monsieur Randoulet lighted 
 the candle that he had carried with him and led 
 the way to the inner cavern ; and there Dodo 
 put the' bag of food on the rock table and turned 
 to go. 
 
 Monsieur Randoulet, with tears in his eyes, 
 embraced the little fellow and kissed him. 
 " You are a good boy, Dodo," he said. " You 
 have helped those who are in trouble, and for 
 that God will reward you. The Whites stole 
 everything from me. I have nothing to give 
 you 1 wish I had. Stop, though! I have a 
 little picture of Saint Maximin. Perhaps you 
 would like that," and he pulled the leaden balls 
 and the little gourd of gunpowder from his 
 pocket and gave them to Sister Scholastica to 
 hold while he searched for the picture. 
 
 " 1 have three crowns," said Adeline, and she 
 laid her precious three crowns on the rock. But 
 Dodo turned his head away quickly, as though 
 the sight of the silver hurt his eyes. " Thank 
 you! Thank you!" he said. "Indeed I don't 
 want anything at all." 
 
 209
 
 210 iftljc uJIjite terror 
 
 "And here is my rosary," said Sister Doro- 
 thy. 
 
 "And here is a little leaden image of the 
 Virgin," said Sister Margai. 
 
 " Oh how unhappy I am ! " exclaimed Sister 
 Scholastica. " 1 have nothing at all that I can 
 give to this good little boy who has been so kind 
 to us ! " 
 
 "Indeed, indeed, I do not want anything," 
 Dodo repeated. 
 
 " Will you not take my picture of Saint Max- 
 imin ?" asked Monsieur Randoulet. 
 
 Dodo shook his head. 
 
 "Nor Mother Dorothy's rosary ? " 
 
 Dodo shook his head. 
 
 "Nor Adeline's three crowns ?" 
 
 Dodo shook his head most emphatically. 
 
 "Well then, take the little leaden Virgin." 
 
 "Yes, take it," said Sister Margai eagerly, 
 and she put the image into Dodo's hand and 
 kissed him. "Don't you remember," she added, 
 " how you used to want this very image, long 
 ago when I was the turkeyherd here at the 
 farm ? Well, now it is yours! " 
 
 Dodo did not refuse this offering. He seemed 
 to be thinking very earnestly, his eyes fixed 
 upon Sister Scholastica standing there with her 
 hands full of powder and balls. " I am so sorry, 
 Dodo," Sister Scholastica repeated, "that I have 
 nothing to give you." 
 
 " Perhaps," said Dodo, insinuatingly, "you 
 will give me a little powder from the gourd ?" 
 
 "That I will!" said Sister Scholastica, de- 
 lighted to give the boy anything; and before 
 Monsieur Randoulet could stop her she had un-
 
 ttje SDetrirs 
 
 corked the gourd and had filled with powder 
 Dodo's outstretched hand. 
 
 "But what do you want with powder?" 
 asked the Cure. 
 
 " To load my pistol." 
 
 "You have a pistol? Surely you do not 
 want to kill anybody ?" 
 
 "Oh no, Monsieur. I want to get the 
 eaglets that are in the nest on the very top of 
 the Combe de Curmier. With my pistol I can 
 keep away the old birds. Now I shall have the 
 eaglets for sure! And this is the very time for 
 it when the old birds fly out from their nest in 
 the early day ! " Chuckling with delight, Dodo 
 said " Adessias," and was gone! 
 
 They were silent for a moment after he had 
 left them, and then Mother Dorothy said shortly: 
 " That boy will go climbing into some dreadful 
 place and get killed! " 
 
 " Sister Scholastica would have done better 
 had she thought a little before giving him the 
 powder," said Sister Margai, primly. 
 
 Poor Sister Scholastica was covered with 
 confusion and did not say a word. 
 
 " I know where the nest is," said Adeline. 
 "I heard Dodo talking to Cadoche about it yes- 
 terday. It is in a very dreadful place, just as 
 Mother Dorothy says. It is up on the precipice 
 above the Devil's Dyke that awful path along 
 which we came that first day. Dodo never can 
 climb up there. He will tumble down into the 
 gulf and be killed!" 
 
 Monsieur Randoulet was very seriously per- 
 turbed. In a way he felt that he was respon- 
 sible for the peril into which the boy was going;
 
 l)c totjite terror 
 
 that he should have prevented the gift of gun- 
 powder which made the eaglet-hunting possible. 
 He walked backward and forward in the cave 
 uneasily, while the shadows thinned as the 
 morning light came pale through the opening 
 high above him. He tried to read his breviary: 
 but his mind ran neither on the Lord nor on the 
 Saints of the Lord but on little Dodo, whom he 
 seemed to see dropping backward from the face 
 of that great precipice, and flashing downward, 
 and lying mangled on the cruel rocks below. 
 
 At last he could stand inaction no longer. 
 He felt that it was his duty to go after the boy 
 and to try to save him no matter what the 
 peril to himself might be. In spite of the en- 
 treaties of the nuns and of Adeline not to take 
 so great a risk at the very moment when the 
 gendarmes were scouring the mountains he 
 shouldered the gun that had stood for so long 
 in its corner and went out from the cave. 
 
 Full day had come, and as he stepped put 
 from the branches of the juniper he was fairly 
 dazzled by the brilliant May sunshine. But the 
 sunshine, of which for so long he had seen so 
 little, was delightful; and he gave a sigh of 
 happiness as he breathed the fresh sweet air. 
 For a minute or two he stood quite still, listen- 
 ing. But only the soft noises of the forest were 
 about him, and he went on toward the Devil's 
 Dyke quite at his ease. As he walked, he 
 prayed in his heart that Dodo might be turned 
 back by a wholesome fear from his dangerous 
 enterprise; and then the comforting thought 
 came to him: "After all, he forgot to ask for 
 ball. It would do him no good to charge his pis-
 
 (2!ht tl)c Eletrirs Dtjke 213 
 
 tol with powder alone. " But with this thought, 
 suddenly, came another thought : ' ' Why was he 
 so eager to have the little leaden image of the 
 Virgin ? " And in an instant the Cure perceived 
 the whole of Dodo's naughty scheme. Cut with 
 a knife into little pieces, the leaden Virgin would 
 serve to charge the pistol very well indeed! In 
 point of fact, that was precisely what Dodo had 
 done with his Virgin as soon as he was fairly 
 outside of the cave! 
 
 Very anxiously Monsieur Randoulet listened 
 as he began the passage of the Devil's Dyke. 
 The curve of the path around the mountain pre- 
 vented him from seeing along it for more than 
 a few feet. He listened for some sound of 
 Dodo's scramblings, and so earnestly that he 
 did not think at all about gendarmes. The nest, 
 as Adeline had explained to him, was above the 
 path at a point where a fig-tree grew out from 
 a crevice in the rock and overhung the precipice. 
 There the path was at its narrowest, a ledge but 
 a few inches wide. A couple of rods above it 
 was another ledge that joined the path farther 
 along, toward the farm-house. It was broader 
 than the path, and a stranger would be apt to 
 follow it until he found that it ended in the air! 
 
 The Cure came in sight of the outgrowing 
 fig-tree, and gave a sigh of thankfulness because 
 Dodo was not visible and then drew a quick 
 breath, as he thought that Dodo already might 
 be lying dead in the gulf below! He paused 
 uncertain as to whether he should search farther 
 for the boy or should return at once to the cave. 
 While he stood irresolute, a little stone came 
 rattling down the mountain side and shot past
 
 2i4 l)e tOI)ite STcrror 
 
 him into the chasm. He looked up quickly. On 
 the ledge above him, watching him fixedly, stood 
 a gendarme! 
 
 Monsieur Randoulet did not know about the 
 false path, but he did know that for him to turn 
 back and to make for the shelter of the cave 
 would be to betray those who were hidden 
 there. Escape down the mountain side was 
 possible only for a bird: yet, involuntarily, he 
 ghmced downward and a fresh terror seized 
 him as he saw another gendarme coming up the 
 valley. To go ahead was his only course. The 
 upper path, where the first gendarme stood 
 watching him, must join the path on which he 
 was, he reasoned if he could reach that junc- 
 tion first, and get on past it, there was a chance 
 that he might reach the cover of the thick 
 woods. Once in the woods, he very well might 
 lie hidden until nightfall. Then, without endan- 
 gering the others, he might be able to get back 
 to the cave. And so, as fast as he dared to walk 
 in that perilous path, he hastened onward, his 
 heart beating hard and sweat pouring from him. 
 In a minute or two he came to the out-jutting 
 mass of rock where the fig-tree grew and where 
 the path was but a span wide. Holding fast to 
 the knobs and crevices of the rock, he rounded 
 the projecting rock and found himself face to 
 'ace with a third gendarme! 
 
 Had he been alone, this gendarme cum- 
 bered with his gun and his sword and his big 
 boots with their long spurs would not have 
 been very dangerous. He had slung his mus- 
 ket over his shoulder by its strap, and was 
 holding fast to the mountain side for dear life
 
 <>n tfye UDemi's Hlgke 215 
 
 as he slowly worked his way along the ledge. 
 He was not used to work of that sort, and he 
 was a badly scared man. But he was a worse 
 scared man when Monsieur Randoulet old in- 
 stincts reviving in him took advantage of a 
 better bit of standing room to unsling his own 
 gun and to level it. The gendarme went pale 
 as death at that. As he tightened his grip upon 
 the rock he gasped in a frightened voice: "The 
 Law! " 
 
 "For whom are you searching?" asked 
 Monsieur Randoulet. 
 
 In the same gasping and frightened voice the 
 man answered: "For the Cure of Malemort 
 and for the daughter of the ci-devant Marquis 
 d'Ambrun." 
 
 "I am the Cure of Malemort!" Monsieur 
 Randoulet answered. 
 
 " I arrest you!" said the gendarme, his in- 
 stinct of duty for an instant getting the better of 
 his fears. Then he turned still whiter, as he 
 realized what was likely to result from his 
 words. 
 
 Monsieur Randoulet's finger was upon the 
 trigger of his piece. He had but to twitch that 
 linger and the gendarme, who sought to lead 
 him to a prison out of which he would go to the 
 guillotine, would be a dead man crashing down 
 into the chasm with a bullet through his heart. 
 But Monsieur Randoulet, a true priest of God, 
 was not of those who manned the racks of the 
 Inquisition and did to death their fellow crea- 
 tures in the name of the Most High. His instinc- 
 tive act of self-defense was checked as he remem- 
 bered the stern Commandment: Thou Shalt not
 
 216 l)e tOI)ite terror 
 
 Kill! In another moment he lowered his piece 
 from his shoulder, and said in the tone of a man 
 who utters his own death-warrant: " I give my- 
 self up to the Law!" 
 
 At that instant there was a burst of smoke 
 among the branches of the fig-tree above them, 
 the sound of a shot that went echoing along the 
 mountain sides and the gendarme, with the 
 point of his cocked hat shot away and his face 
 torn and bloody, fell sidewise along the face of 
 the rock with a shriek, caught for a moment on 
 the ledge, went over it, and then stopped again 
 as by sheer chance he grasped a juniper stump, 
 and so hung above the abyss. 
 
 Looking up into the fig-tree Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet saw Dodo perched among the branches, 
 his still-smoking pistol in his hand. "Run! 
 Run, Monsieur!" cried Dodo. "The blessed 
 Virgin has saved you ! He can't hold on for a 
 minute. You can get safe away ! " 
 
 But while Dodo was speaking Monsieur 
 Randoulet had stepped cautiously and quickly 
 to where his enemy was dangling above the 
 jaws of death. The man was utterly panic- 
 stricken so lost in his desperate fear that he 
 had not heard Dodo's voice, and was sure that 
 the Cure had fired upon him. His wound, how- 
 ever, was not a serious one. Dodo's blessed 
 Virgin had given him a good peppering, but had 
 done him no great harm. 
 
 " Hold fast for a moment longer," said Mon- 
 sieur Randoulet. "With my hand under your 
 shoulder you will be able to get up again into 
 the path." These words gave the gendarme a 
 little courage. His desperate grip, which was
 
 Uje Demi 1 s EDjjke 217 
 
 beginning to loosen, grew firm again. Helped 
 by Monsieur Randoulet's strong grasp given at 
 the immediate peril of his life, for a false move 
 would have sent them down the cliff together 
 the gendarme slowly raised himself to safety ; 
 and then, still helped, crawled along to where 
 the path broadened and he could seat himself 
 with his back against the mountain side. Kneel- 
 ing beside him, the Cure wiped the blood from 
 his face. Presently the man got back his breath 
 and his understanding. Grasping Monsieur 
 Randoulet's shoulder he said: " I arrest you! " 
 "That," said Monsieur Randoulet, as he con- 
 tinued to wipe away the blood, " is your duty."
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 BEFORE THE REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL 
 
 ON hearing the pistol shot, the gendarme in 
 the valley below and the gendarme on the 
 mountain side above hastened to their comrade. 
 Finding him wounded, and finding the gun 
 that Monsieur Randoulet had left in the path, 
 they drew a natural conclusion. " Murderer! 
 Wretch ! " they cried. " How dare you fire on a 
 gendarme of the Nation ? " In a twinkling they 
 had- bound him fast with cords, as a murderer 
 would have been bound. 
 
 One of them put the muzzle of his pistol 
 to the Cure's forehead. "I don't see why I 
 shouldn't blow your head off," he said. "You 
 are one of the gang who cut down the Tree of 
 Liberty. You are of the traitors who are wait- 
 ing for the Austrians to put a Tyrant once more 
 on the throne!" 
 
 "We might as well tumble him over the 
 cliff," said the other, " and so have done with 
 him ! " 
 
 Monsieur Randoulet fearful for Dodo, who 
 was shivering up in the fig-tree, just around a 
 turn in the path made no reply. So long as 
 they thought that he had fired the shot Dodo 
 was safe. Even should they go back and pass 
 beneath the fig-tree, the path there was so diffi- 
 218
 
 jBcfore the Uetjolntionarjj Sribtmal 219 
 
 cult and so dangerous that there was little chance 
 of their looking upward. But they did not go 
 back. They went forward. One of the gen- 
 darmes helped along his wounded comrade; the 
 other walked behind Monsieur Randoulet, pistol 
 in hand. There was no need for a pistol. Car- 
 rying his old gun slung on his back, where the 
 gendarmes had hung it, the good Cure went 
 with them as meekly as a lamb. 
 
 When they got to the end of the Devil's 
 Dyke, instead of keeping on toward the farm- 
 house, they turned into the forest and made 
 directly for Bedoin. Through the openings be- 
 tween'the trees, off across the valley, they could 
 see the little town distinctly; but all was still 
 there ; the drum-beating and the cries and shrieks 
 had ceased. The sun shone out strongly. 
 Threads of gossamer floated in the air waver- 
 ingly, showing against the pale blue sky like 
 star-rays. The only sound was that of their 
 own rustling footsteps and of the buzzing of 
 wild bees about the rosemary blossoms. There 
 was no clicking of .hoes from the fields below 
 in the valley. As they crossed the valley they 
 found it deserted. It seemed like a Sunday. 
 
 As they neared Bedoin pitiful sights met their 
 eyes. Many of the villagers had been arrested 
 and shut up in the great church which crowned 
 the conical hill whereon the village was built; 
 but many more, outcast from their homes, were 
 congregated in miserable groups in the near-by 
 fields. They had brought with them some of 
 their belongings. Here was a little heap of house- 
 furniture, there a little pile of linen; goats and 
 donkeys were tethered to posts ; chickens strayed 
 15
 
 tX)l)itc terror 
 
 around. Most of the women were on their 
 knees, weeping and begging for mercy, their 
 terrified children clinging fast to them. The 
 men, stupefied, stolid, sat with their elbows on 
 their knees and their chins in their hands watch- 
 ing the preparation for their utter ruin. For, 
 coming and going among them, the soldiers of 
 the Fourth Ardeche Battalion were bringing great 
 fagots of holm-oak from the neighbouring hill- 
 sides and were piling these fagots in the houses, 
 in the streets, everywhere making ready for 
 the fire which that evening was to destroy the 
 town. Nothing was to be lett of it. Etedoin 
 the infamous was to be wiped out in flame from 
 the sight of man ! 
 
 But these broken men and women were 
 better off than those which the village still held 
 the "suspects," before whom was a terrible 
 death: a death compared with which the guillo- 
 tine was merciful and a gun-shot grace. As 
 these were passed, with a mere show of trial, 
 before the Revolutionary Tribunal they were 
 dragged up to the crest of the town and thrust 
 into the great church facing the open space 
 known as the Plan de Maudene there to wait 
 for the coming of night-time and the coming of 
 the flames! To make this hellish work of de- 
 struction the more sure, a barrel of gunpowder 
 had been placed in the church, with a slow- 
 match leading down from it to the Portail du 
 Catarin. And then, in the fields around the vil- 
 lage, were the wives and the fathers and the 
 mothers of those who were to die in this horri- 
 ble fashion watching the building of the death- 
 pyre, and unable to lift a hand!
 
 Before the ttctiohttiunarti tribunal 221 
 
 Guarded by the gendarmes, Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet passed through this dismal company. 
 The fagot-carrying soldiers laughed when they 
 saw him. " ftello, Aristo! " cried one, " we're 
 going to boil you!" "So you hadn't wood 
 enough to warm yourself without cutting down 
 the Tree of Liberty, eh ? " said another. " Well, 
 you shall have 'wood and warmth a-plenty 
 now!" Even the villagers cried out against 
 him believing that he really was one of the 
 Whites who had drowned the wagon load of 
 gunpowder and cut down the Bedoin Liberty 
 Tree, and so had brought destruction to their 
 homes. They cursed him as he passed, they 
 threw stones at him ; they tore his clothing. 
 Presently he was bleeding and in rags. Si- 
 lently he went onward, praying in his heart 
 for God's mercy. 
 
 The gendarmes led him into the long and 
 narrow room in which the Revolutionary Tribu- 
 nal was sitting the three judges on a dais, a 
 tightly packed crowd below. As he entered, 
 one of the judges glanced at him sharply and 
 then rose in his place. "Was this man alone 
 when you captured him ?" he called out to the 
 gendarmes. 
 
 " He was quite alone." 
 
 " That cannot be. There must have been a 
 girl with him the daughter of an Aristocrat." 
 
 " He was alone," the gendarme repeated. 
 
 "Citizen," said the President of the Tribunal, 
 addressing his fellow Judge, " we will look after 
 this fellow when his turn comes. Give your 
 vote now for the one before us. He is accused 
 of 'Moderation,' and of having in his posses-
 
 terror 
 
 sion contrary to the decree of the municipality 
 of Carpentras more than half a pound of sugar 
 and more than a quarter of a pound of oil. 
 What is your verdict ?" 
 
 " Death," answered the Judge in an absent- 
 minded tone, as he continued to stare at Mon- 
 sieur Randoulet. 
 
 " Death," said the other Judge. 
 
 " Death," said the President. ' The verdict 
 is unanimous." 
 
 The condemned man uttered a deep groan. 
 In a moment he was hurried away to the church, 
 to die that night in the flames. 
 
 "I demand," said the still-standing Judge, 
 "that this Aristo just brought in by the gen- 
 darmes be tried at once." 
 
 A murmur of approval ran through the 
 crowd. For some reason they believed that 
 this was the very White who had cut down 
 their Liberty Tree and so had brought upon them 
 overwhelming disaster. 
 
 "So be it," said the President; and Mon- 
 sieur Randoulet was brought to the bar between 
 the two gendarmes, the third gendarme, with 
 blood-smeared face, coming forward as a wit- 
 ness. "Of what is he accused?" asked the 
 President. 
 
 "He is a priest," answered the standing 
 Judge, leaning forward with his fists on the 
 table and glaring at Monsieur Randoulet sav- 
 agely. 
 
 " I have taken the oath of allegiance to the 
 Republic, and I have remained true to my oath." 
 
 " Why were you carrying that gun which is 
 slung over your shoulder?"
 
 Before tlje HeDolutioncmj tribunal 223 
 
 " To protect myself against the Whites, who 
 haunt the mountains." 
 
 "You lie!" cried the wounded gendarme. 
 " It was to Tire on the gendarmes of the Nation. 
 Look at my face! " 
 
 " I never have fired a shot at a fellow crea- 
 ture. It is God's command that man shall 
 not harm his fellow men. I have kept thai 
 law." 
 
 "I am the proof that he lies," said the gen- 
 darme, and he thrust himself forward that the 
 judges the better might see his wounds. 
 
 " The proof that I am telling the truth," said 
 Monsieur Randoulet, speaking in a calm voice, 
 "is very easily produced. If you will examine 
 this gun you will find that it still is loaded, and 
 that it has not been fired off for a long, long 
 while." 
 
 One of the gendarmes, thinking to confound 
 him, snatched "the gun trom his shoulder. But 
 the gendarme himself was confounded. The in- 
 side of the barrel was rusty and dusty. When 
 he ran in the ramrod he found the charge in 
 place. He gave a low whistle, and passed the 
 gun on to his comrade who had been wounded. 
 The wounded man, also testing the gun, was 
 lost in amazement. " But if it wasn't you, who 
 was it?" he asked, blankly. 
 
 Monsieur Randoulet evaded this question. 
 " Had it been I who fired upon you, friend," he 
 asked, "why should I have saved you from 
 certain death when you were falling over the 
 precipice ?" 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know!" answered the 
 puzzled gendarme.
 
 224 l)c tOtyite QTerror 
 
 The standing Judge broke in sharply: "Then 
 some one was with you ?" 
 
 " I was walking alone," replied the Cure. 
 
 "Miserable wretch! Will you swear that 
 you do not know where is hidden Adeline, the 
 ci-devant Comtessine d'Ambrun?" 
 
 "I will not swear," Monsieur Randoulet 
 answered. 
 
 " That is enough," said the standing Judge. 
 "That answer settles the matter," and he sat 
 down. 
 
 "Then you confess," said the President, 
 severely, "that you fled into the mountains 
 with the daughter of the ci-devant Marquis 
 d'Ambrun ? " 
 
 Monsieur Randoulet made no reply. 
 
 The President turned toward the Judge who 
 had just seated himself and asked: "Citizen 
 Calisto, what is your verdict ? " 
 
 "Death." 
 
 "Death," said the other Judge, without 
 waiting to be asked. 
 
 " Death," said the President. " The verdict 
 is unanimous."
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 A LIFE LAID DOWN 
 
 A MOMENTARY stir of satisfaction went 
 through the crowd, and then all eyes were 
 fixed on the next in line to come before the 
 judges. But the President, instead of ordering 
 Monsieur Randoulet off to the church, where 
 the other condemned men were, said to him: 
 " Have you anything to reveal that may be of 
 service to the Republic ? The Tribunal permits 
 you to speak." 
 
 "Yes," Monsieur Randoulet answered, 
 speaking slowly and gravely, "I have a reve- 
 lation to make; and, also, I wish to point out 
 to you the yawning chasm into which there is 
 danger that the Republic may plunge." Paus- 
 ing a moment, he continued : " There are hypo- 
 crites, villains, tools of the Tyrant, who traitor- 
 ously profess to serve the Republic to the end 
 that they may destroy her. I, Citizen Randou- 
 let, Cure of Malemort, faithful to the Constitu- 
 tion, can name and deliver up to justice one of 
 these traitors! " 
 
 " Don't listen to that old wind-bag," cried a 
 man in the crowd. -He was not a Bedoin man, 
 but a stranger who had come along with the 
 soldiers for the sake of plunder. Wrapped in a 
 cloth he carried a silver pyx that he had stolen 
 
 225
 
 226 |)e iBIjite terror 
 
 from the church. As he spoke, he inverted the 
 pyx above Monsieur Randoulet's head and show- 
 ered over him the holy wafers that it contained. 
 
 "Let him go on," cried a dozen persons in 
 the crowd, eager to hear the revelation. The 
 President stopped in his work of writing out 
 the formal condemnation and regarded Monsieur 
 Randoulet, covered with the holy wafers, fixedly. 
 Judge Calisto, impatient with this interruption, 
 leaned back in his seat and gnawed his nails 
 savagely. The third Judge took advantage of 
 the lull in the proceedings to lay his head upon 
 the table and go to sleep. 
 
 "This traitor to the Republic," Monsieur 
 Randoulet went on calmly, "is a nobleman's 
 servant. He has murdered his master, and he 
 has stolen his master's money and lands and 
 name. He was of those who plotted to rescue 
 the Tyrant on the day that he was executed. 
 Under menace of death he has compelled a ci- 
 devant Marquise to sign a paper consenting to 
 his marriage with her daughter. By this show- 
 ing, he is at once a murderer, a robber, a traitor, 
 and a coward. Now, to-day, this monster has 
 put on the red cap of Liberty, and in the name 
 of Liberty has denounced as a ' Moderate ' one 
 who has helped to thwart his marriage with the 
 daughter of the Marquise. I can name this 
 Aristocrat in disguise, this tyrant's tool. I can 
 cause his arrest and his execution : for the wretch 
 carries on his person the proof of his crime. A 
 murderer, a robber, a traitor, he is thrice deserv- 
 ing of death!" 
 
 As Monsieur Randoulet ceased speaking he 
 fixed his eyes on Calisto. Those eyes, usually
 
 Cifc ai& Dotnn 227 
 
 so gentle, glowed with a holy anger that made 
 them burn into Calisto's breast. Involuntarily 
 his hand went to his pocket to draw out and to 
 throw away the paper signed by the Marquise 
 d'Ambrun. Then the futility of his action be- 
 came apparent to him. With his hand grasping 
 the paper he sat still, scarcely daring to breathe. 
 
 "Speak," said the President. "Denounce 
 this traitor! " 
 
 " I shall not denounce him," Monsieur Ran- 
 doulet answered, his eyes still fixed upon Calisto. 
 
 " If you refuse to denounce him, you share 
 his crime you become a traitor yourself." 
 
 " 1 dare not cause a fellow creature's death." 
 
 "By denouncing him you may win a par- 
 don for yourself." 
 
 "It is better that I should die, and that this 
 wicked man should have time for such repent- 
 ance as will win for him the pardon of God! " 
 
 The President, out of all patience, brought 
 down his fist on the table with a bang. " Gen- 
 darmes! "he cried, "take this condemned man 
 out of my sight! " 
 
 Calisto drew a long breath of relief. He 
 smiled grimly, as his hand came out of his 
 pocket and fell by his side. The third Judge, 
 aroused from his slumber by the bang on the 
 table, raised his head drowsily and said: "I 
 vote for death ! " 
 
 A chattering broke forth in the crowd as way 
 was made for the condemned man to pass. " If 
 what he says were true," said some, " he would 
 speak out." " We know him," said others 
 "he is not a man to lie. He has his own rea- 
 sons for keeping silence." The wounded gen-
 
 228 l)e tDI)ite terror 
 
 darme looked after the Cure in a state of complete 
 bewilderment. "What /want to know," he 
 said, "is who peppered my face! " 
 
 Before the Tribunal the work of arraigning 
 and condemning went on. By nightfall sixty- 
 three persons had been sentenced to death and 
 shut up in the church of Bedoin. Among them 
 were six nobles, four notaries, two nuns, and 
 six priests. All the rest were hard-working 
 peasants most of whom could not tell for what 
 they had been condemned. These last were the 
 bravest of all. Without trembling, they waited 
 for death. The nobles, arrested the day before 
 in the gorges of Mont Ventour, held themselves 
 aloof even in their extremity from the peasants. 
 With the fear of death marked on their faces, 
 they made a group apart in the choir where, 
 presently, they were joined by the priests and 
 the nuns. Monsieur Randoulet, alone of the 
 priests, remained among the poor the inno- 
 cent martyrs in a cause that was not their 
 own. 
 
 As the hours passed on many of the peasants, 
 perceiving their hopelessness, gave themselves 
 over to angry despair and fell to cursing the 
 nobles and the priests who had led them into 
 the revolt which was ending so miserably. 
 " Would that God had willed, as He might have 
 willed, that I never had laid eyes on you!" 
 shouted an old peasant, shaking his fist at the 
 nobles. "You dragged my plough out of my 
 hand, my good plough that fed my wife and 
 children, and you gave me a knife to kill my 
 brothers with ! And you, you priest, you lied 
 when you told me that the King was the right
 
 ib JDoron 229 
 
 arm of God and that Liberty was the daughter 
 of hell!" 
 
 From the nobles and the priests came no 
 answer to this impassioned cry; but it served to 
 fire the rage of the other peasants who by force 
 or fear had been led by the Aristocrats into their 
 bitter strait. "Wretches!" they howled, "is 
 this what you promised us ? Where is the Aus- 
 trian arm/ that was to bring the King back to 
 us ? Where is the God who was to work a 
 miracle and protect us ? It is you who have 
 brought us into this snake's nest. While a little 
 life is left in our bodies we will pay you for hav- 
 ing befooled us we will pay you "with our 
 hands! We will tear out the tongues that have 
 lied to us! We will choke you to death before 
 we ourselves die! " With yells of hate the half- 
 crazed creatures pushed toward the cowering 
 nobles and priests. In another moment they 
 would have made good their words. 
 
 Hurrying forward, Monsieur Randoulet 
 checked this furious advance. "Brothers!" 
 he cried. "Brothers! The hour of death is 
 the hour of repentance, of forgiveness not the 
 hour of revenge! God is good! God is just! 
 If in true penitence you ask His mercy, He will 
 remit your sins and forgive you. But He com- 
 mands that you also forgive these who have 
 sinned against you; whose falsehoods have led 
 you along the way of error to the gates of 
 death. In sign of your repentance, 1 exhort 
 you to say with me ' Amen ! ' that, in His 
 name, I may absolve you from your sins! " 
 
 Monsieur Randoulet raised his hand in 
 blessing and the peasants wavered. Suddenly
 
 230 l)e tOfyite terror 
 
 from the depths of the choir one of the priests 
 called out: "Trust not in him. He is for- 
 sworn. God denies him ! " 
 
 But the peasants halted. 
 
 " He is a Republican. He has denied his 
 religion." 
 
 The peasants clasped their hands and bowed 
 their heads, waiting for the benediction. 
 
 " He is a ' Blue.' Long live the King! " 
 
 At the words "a 'Blue,'" the peasants 
 raised their heads again and recoiled from the 
 good priest as though he had been a scorpion. 
 To these poor Royalists, a priest who was false 
 to the King seemed a creature utterly execrable. 
 They cursed him and hooted him. But his 
 intervention had saved, for the moment, the 
 lives of those in the choir. Satisfied with that, 
 he withdrew from among the angry peasants 
 and in a corner of the church knelt in prayer to 
 await the death that was coming to all of them 
 so soon. He prayed for his fellow prisoners, 
 and for the peace of his own soul; but most 
 earnestly did he pray for the safety of those 
 whom he had left behind him that morning, 
 hidden in the cave. " Lord! Have mercy upon 
 them, and guard them, and save them ! " he 
 cried from the depths of his tender and troubled 
 heart.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE BURNING OF BEDOIN 
 
 THOSE for whom Monsieur Randoulet, with 
 the shadow of death upon him, thus earnestly 
 prayed, the nuns and Adeline, were torn with 
 anxiety when the cave grew dusky with the 
 gloom of evening and still he did not return. 
 Soon after he had left them they had heard, and 
 had been terrified by, the sound of a shot. 
 Through the long day they had sat huddled 
 together, thrilling with fear. It was worse 
 when night came. God seemed to have for- 
 gotten them. Their prayers became supplicat- 
 ing moans. 
 
 Suddenly the hole in the top of the cave, 
 through which the sweet peace of the stars had 
 been shining like a smile from God, grew blood- 
 red and the stars vanished in the crimson 
 glare. 
 
 "God in heaven! What can be the mean- 
 ing of that ? " cried Adeline in a tone of terror. 
 
 ' It is a sign of death! " moaned Sister Scho- 
 lastica. " It is a sign of death! '' and she buried 
 her face in her hands that she might not see the 
 crimsoned sky. 
 
 But Sister Margai, whose childhood had 
 been spent among those mountains, took the 
 matter more coolly. " You are foolish, Sisters," 
 
 231
 
 232 I)e tOljite (Jcrror 
 
 she said. "It -is only a fire lighted by some 
 shepherd up on the heights of Mont Ventour. 
 The shepherds and the farmers often make sig- 
 nals to each other by lighting fires." 
 
 "Who knows, then," said Mother Dorothy, 
 "if it be not our dear Cure lost in the moun- 
 tains and asking that way for help ? " 
 
 At this suggestion Adeline rose to her feet. 
 "I shall go in search of him," she said. And 
 added, speaking very quietly and very firmly: 
 "In trying to serve' Monsieur Randoulet I am 
 not afraid of gendarmes nor of wolves not 
 even of Calisto himself. " They were in the outer 
 cave. As she spoke, she began to ascend by 
 the narrow passage to the cave's mouth. The 
 Sisters followed her. In another minute they 
 were standing on the open mountain side 
 broadly overlooking the great plain of Provence 
 and the Comtat, and directly overlooking Bedoin. 
 So hellish was the sight before them that horror 
 struck them dumb! The whole of the little hill 
 on which Bedoin was builded was encircled by 
 a mighty girdle of fire ! 
 
 Over the devoted village hung high a black 
 pall of smoke. Below, writhing everywhere like 
 serpents, were huge tongues of flame. For a 
 moment the flames would shoot upward and 
 disclose toppling blackened walls; then they 
 would foil again and hide everything in a devil- 
 ish glare. The smoke was rising higher and 
 higher to the very stars like a black water- 
 spout. In the reflected light of this fury of red 
 flame the seven spines of dark Ventour were 
 bathed in crimson and the intervening gorges 
 were as black leeches wallowing in blood.
 
 turning of JBt'&oin 233 
 
 While they watched, the three gates of the 
 town fell blazing and the outer flames rushed 
 through the openings and charged into the 
 masses of brushwood piled everywhere in the 
 streets. In an instant, it seemed, a vast pillar 
 of flame mounted upward and pierced with 
 a murderous crimson the overhanging black 
 smoke canopy. Then the brushwood within 
 the five hundred houses caught, with a sudden 
 terrible puff of flame ; and after that the doors 
 and window-frames and floors and rafters of the 
 houses themselves and a very mountain of 
 flame ascended with a mighty roar. Higher 
 still rose a whirlwind of flying sparks, that 
 flecked the smoke-blackened heavens with 
 crimson stars and that churned the outer edges 
 of the smoke-cloud into a bloody foam. To 
 the very gates of heaven seemed to be mount- 
 ing the fires of hell! 
 
 In the midst of that glowing furnace, the 
 great church on the crest of the hill remained 
 unconsumed. Its thick walls reddened in the 
 intense heat and fell away in fiery fragments, 
 but their mass stood firm until the barrel of 
 gunpowder did its work. Suddenly there was 
 a dull roar, a quaking of the earth and then 
 through the shattered rose-window and through 
 the shattered windows of the aisles came black 
 clouds of smoke so mighty and so dense that 
 for a time they darkened the furiously glaring 
 flames. 
 
 At that climax of that devil's work there 
 sounded a merry rolling of drums and the 
 watchers on the mountain side saw black shad- 
 ows capering against the dazzling brightness as
 
 234 l)c tOljile 
 
 the destroyers of Bedoin danced about it an 
 exultant farandole! Outside the line of faran- 
 dolers, plainly visible in the fire-glare, were the 
 desolate ones whose homes were vanishing in 
 smoke and flame. 
 
 Spellbound, Adeline and the three nuns stood 
 shivering with horror as they gazed at this most 
 awful spectacle until they^were aroused by a 
 close peril of their own. 
 
 "Look! Look!" Adeline exclaimed in a 
 frightened whisper. "Over there in the 
 bushes! Surely thefe is a man there a man 
 with a gun! " 
 
 They held their breath while they peered 
 into the bushes and listened intently. They 
 saw nothing, but in a moment they distinctly 
 heard a rustling among the branches!! The next 
 instant a man emerged from the bushes and ad- 
 vanced toward them. His figure loomed black 
 against the brightness beyond. He carried a 
 gun on his shoulder. Dazzled by the glare be- 
 hind him, they could not see his face. With a 
 scream they turned to run. 
 
 "Stop! Stop!" cried the man. "Do not 
 be frightened. It is I, Marius!" 
 
 " Oh, how you scared us! " said Sister Mar- 
 gai as Marius joined them. 
 
 " I could not come to you sooner," Marius 
 explained. " All day long the gendarmes have 
 been searching the mountains. It would have 
 betrayed your hiding-place to them had I come 
 before I was quite sure that they were gone." 
 
 "Tell us," asked Mother Dorothy, "what 
 all this means ? And tell us what has become 
 of our dear Cure ? Is he at Peire-Avon ? "
 
 Burning of C^boin 235 
 
 Marius shook his head sadly. " My poor 
 Sisters, my poor Adeline," he said, "I fear that 
 never again will you behold him ! " 
 
 " What do you mean ?" Adeline asked in a 
 tone that thrilled with dread. 
 
 " 1 mean," Marius answered brokenly, "that 
 early to-day the gendarmes found him and car- 
 ried him away prisoner. He he was brought 
 before the Revolutionary Tribunal. By now 
 that holy man has perished off there in those 
 flames of hell!" 
 
 As Marius spoke these awful words Adeline 
 fell into the arms of Mother Dorothy, her teeth 
 clinched and her eyes fixed in a stare of horror. 
 Her senses left her. She grew cold and rigid. 
 She seemed a dead woman as they carried her 
 back into the cave and laid her on a bed of 
 leaves. 
 
 When, after a long while, life came back to 
 her, her reason was gone. The shock of Mon- 
 sieur Randoulet's dreadful death of which, as 
 it seemed to her, she was the cause had turned 
 her brain. She babbled senselessly calling: 
 "Pascalet! Pascalet! Come and save our dear 
 Cure, who is dying for me! " Shivering fits 
 seized her. Sweat poured from her. She half 
 rose, crying: "I see him! I see him! Come 
 quick, Pascalet, and save him from Calisto! Oh, 
 come quick! Come quick!" And she shook 
 her fist at the nuns who were ministering *to 
 her, as though they were the Cure's mur- 
 derers. 
 
 The nuns strove to soothe her, holding her 
 gently in their arms. ''Yes, yes, dear child," 
 said Mother Dorothy. " Pascalet is coming to 
 
 16
 
 236 ai)e incite terror 
 
 save him. Pascalet will be here presently, and 
 he never will leave you again!" 
 
 " He'll never leave me again," Adeline an- 
 swered. " No, he'll never leave me again. 
 Never! " And she laughed shrilly. But her 
 laugh was only with her lips. Her eyes re- 
 mained fixed in a horrified stare. 
 
 Toward morning she grew quieter. Her 
 eyes softened, and the few words that she 
 spoke showed that her reason was coming 
 back to her. As daylight began to thin the 
 shadows in the cave" she grew drowsy; and 
 the nuns, weary from their sad vigil, nodded to 
 each other as much as to say: "It is over, now." 
 And then, suddenly, through the stillness of the 
 early morning came the roll of drums beating 
 the alarm ; and a little later the sound of firing, 
 volley upon volley, crashed upon the sunrise 
 silence. Adeline started up from her bed of 
 leaves with a shriek. Again she grew rigid, 
 and again the fixed look of horror came into her 
 eyes. With a gasp she fell back, swooning. 
 When her long swoon ended her mind was a 
 clouded blank! 
 
 Well might the sound of that firing craze 
 her, for it meant that over in Bedoin the last 
 touch was being put to the devil's work that 
 had stained that night with an immeasurable 
 crime. When morning came, and the village 
 was a smouldering mass of ruins, the great 
 church still stood guard upon the hilltop. The 
 gunpowder had riven its walls, the flames had 
 consumed the wood- work in the belfry and had 
 brought the bell crashing to the ground, but the 
 building was not destroyed. Therefore there
 
 Burning of JU'boin 237 
 
 was a chance that some of those who had been 
 shut up in it before the town was fired still 
 might be alive. Calisto was not a man to leave 
 anything to chance in working out his revenge. 
 He had sworn the death of Monsieur Randoulet 
 who stood between him and Adeline and 
 he meant to make that death sure. Taking 
 with him some men of the Ardeche Battalion, 
 he passed upward along the hot street through 
 the smoke of the ruins and entered the church 
 through the smoke-blackened open doorway. 
 
 Calisto's move was a prudent one. While 
 the sixty-three prisoners in the church had suf- 
 fered all the pain of a most dreadful death, they 
 still were alive. The soldiers found them 
 stretched upon the stone pavement, as they had 
 fallen when the smoke and heat bereft them of 
 consciousness many cruelly wounded by the 
 volley of stones that had been discharged among 
 them by the exploding gunpowder. As the 
 heat died down, and as the fresh morning air 
 came in through the gaping windows, they 
 slowly were reviving, breathing heavily and 
 uttering moans of pain. Monsieur Randoulet 
 had not been hurt by the explosion. He had 
 risen to his feet and was standing in one of the 
 side chapels. Calisto saw him in a moment, 
 and in another moment had seized him and had 
 dragged him outside. To the soldiers he gave 
 the order to bring all the prisoners down to the 
 little open space in front of the Porte St. Jean. 
 There, over the stump of the Liberty Tree, had 
 been set up the guillotine. 
 
 Half supported, half dragged by the soldiers, 
 the miserable prisoners uttering piteous cries
 
 238 l)e toljite QUrror 
 
 and entreaties were brought down through 
 the wreck of Bedoin. Some of them, still stupe- 
 fied by the heat and smoke, walked wonder- 
 ingly, as in a dream. Others, crying out, re- 
 sisted fiercely and had to be driven onward by 
 force. Monsieur Randoulet alone made no re- 
 sistance and uttered no sound. As they were 
 halted, beside the guillotine, he was in the front 
 rank. The executioner, leisurely turning up his 
 sleeves, was standing beside the knife. 
 
 The Cure was the first to mount the scaffold. 
 "The Tree of Liberty has been cut down," he 
 cried in a firm voice, " but in the ground below 
 me its root remains. May my blood water that 
 root. May the Tree of Liberty grow again ; and 
 God grant that it may throw out fresh branches 
 which shall shelter humanity from the injustice 
 of tyrants! " 
 
 Guided, not forced, by the executioner, he 
 took his place. There was an instant of deep 
 silence. Then the drums rolled, the knife fell 
 and the root of the Tree of Liberty was watered 
 with the blood of a just man! 
 
 The six nobles followed. When their heads 
 had fallen the head-basket was full. The execu- 
 tioner coolly carried the basket to a near-by 
 gully and emptied it. Then came the priests, 
 and after them the two nuns. The knife was 
 dulled. To sever the head of the second nun 
 the executioner was compelled to drop it twice. 
 A shiver of horror went through the soldiers on 
 guard, with arms presented, about the scaffold. 
 Their commander, Suchet (he who became a 
 Duke of the Empire under Napoleon, and under 
 Louis XVIII a peer of France) showed a little
 
 Snrning of Britain 239 
 
 mercy. By his order, the remaining prisoners 
 were shot. Ranged against a wall, the soldiers 
 fired volley after volley until all were dead. 
 The sixty-three bodies were thrown into the 
 watercourse that was the common sewer of 
 Bedoin.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 WHITE TERROR REIGNS 
 
 WEEKS and months passed before reason re- 
 turned to Adeline. One morning she awoke 
 smiling, no longer frenzied with fear, no longer 
 shrieking for Pascalet to protect her against Surto 
 and Calisto and La Jacarasse. To her astonish- 
 ment she found herself in a bare little room 
 exquisitely neat and clean. Against the wall 
 hung a holy- water font in which was a spray of 
 blessed olive leaves. Sister Margai was bending 
 over her. "Where am I?" she asked half 
 believing that she dreamed. 
 
 "Dear Adeline," Sister Margai answered, 
 " you are in God's own house. You are in the 
 Convent of Saint Ursula of Avignon. When 
 we came back ourselves we brought you with 
 us. Here you are in safety. Our troubles are 
 over. The evil times are at an end." 
 
 Sister Margai spoke what she believed to be 
 the truth. While Adeline's consciousness had 
 slumbered momentous changes had been worked 
 in France. A new order had been established. 
 The Red Terror had been overthrown. The 
 wave of the Revolution upon which Robespierre 
 had risen had ended by sweeping him away. 
 He who had guillotined the Monarchy in the 
 person of the King, and the Moderate Republic 
 240
 
 terror Reigns 241 
 
 in the persons of the Girondists, and the Demo- 
 cratic Republic in the person of Danton the Just, 
 himself had kissed the block. With him had 
 perished the fierce patriot Saint Just, and 
 Couthon the friend of the poor. 
 
 But with the passing of the Red Terror, the 
 reign of *the White Terror had a clear field. 
 Forth from their hiding-places poured the ver- 
 min of the monarchy dogs of nobles and cant- 
 ing bigots who prayed to their false god that 
 the armies of the stranger might conquer their 
 own land of France. In their wake came compa- 
 nies of thieves and murderers who robbed, 
 who killed, who burned the harvests, who did 
 all in their power to weaken France and give 
 the foreigners an easy victory. The guillotine, 
 that sharp knife of justice, worked in God's 
 sunshine; but these Companies of Jehu with 
 the cross on their breasts and the fleur-de-lys in 
 their hats did their vile work in darkness, as 
 became beasts of prey. 
 
 Calisto, a thief and a murderer, naturally 
 consorted with these murderers and thieves. 
 He was one of the very first when France was 
 shaken by the fall of the knife of the Ninth Ther- 
 midor to whip off his red cap, and with a 
 fleur-de-lys cut from it sewed to his breast to 
 get at the head of a robber company. With 
 them he joined in the shout: "Long live the 
 King! Death to the Republic!" a shout that 
 rang from end to end of France. Had there 
 been but one Calisto, he easily could have been 
 disposed of. But there were men like him 
 everywhere, who in the name of God and the 
 King robbed and murdered and destroyed. In
 
 242 l)e tOljit* terror 
 
 the North, under the leadership of Ribot, they 
 were called Chauffeurs because every Repub- 
 lican who fell into their hands was burned over 
 a slow fire, as in the time of the Inquisition. In 
 Central France, Monetise led the ravagers of the 
 Maine and Loire. In the South, Trestaillon was 
 the chief leader of these infamous battalions. 
 Better were the days of the Red Terror, when 
 though the wheat perished also the tares 
 were uprooted. The tribunals of the Revolution 
 were no more. In their place was ungoverned 
 crime! 
 
 You may go up to the frontiers, brave Reds 
 of the South, to die for France and for Liberty 
 but while you are defending the flag of your 
 country against the foe in front, you are power- 
 less against the foe in your rear. While you 
 fight your glorious battles the Whites are mur- 
 dering your old father and your old mother and 
 are ravishing your sister. If by chance you do 
 not leave your bones on the battle-field, death 
 awaits you at the hands of the Whites when 
 you come back to your own homes. On the 
 frontier the flag of the Revolution still waves 
 defiantly the tri-colour that has struck terror 
 into the breasts of tyrants and that has dazzled 
 the world. But in the heart of France floats the 
 horrible white flag dotted with fleurs-de-lys a 
 ghastly shroud ready to enwrap Justice and Lib- 
 erty and Honour! In the heart of France White 
 Terror reigns! 
 
 To Calisto the turn in the tide was welcome 
 that enabled him to endhissans-culotte masquer-
 
 tt)l)ite terror Eeigns 243 
 
 ading and to be a fine gentleman once more. 
 With his garments of silk he assumed the title 
 that thenceforward he was determined to bear. 
 A clever shuffling of words permitted him to 
 make an essay in nobility that asserted this title 
 without committing him to it. Changing the 
 Provencal Calisto into the French Caliste, and 
 abbreviating the French, he began to sign his 
 name " Cte. de la Vernede." It went very well 
 - in those days when many a Bastian clipped 
 his name into "baron," and many a Marius be- 
 came a "Marquis"! 
 
 But his aspiration to nobility was a matter of 
 the daytime. Other matters engaged his atten- 
 tion at night. That time of anarchy was a good 
 time for turning a dishonest penny, and it also 
 was a good time for paying off old scores. Ca- 
 listo was not the man to let chances in either of 
 these directions slip away; and, also, he was 
 burning with a passionate eagerness to get his 
 grip upon Adeline before that season of lawless- 
 ness should be ended and she should be safe 
 against him under the protection of re-established 
 law. To help him to search for her, and to seize 
 her when she was found, and to help him in his 
 revenges and his robberies, his company of cut- 
 throats was of prime use to him. It was made 
 up of men whom he had selected carefully. So 
 long as there was profit in his service he knew 
 that he could trust them to serve him faithfully 
 and to do him an unpaid villainous service 
 now and then from sheer goodwill. Avignon 
 was the best centre for his search for Adeline 
 and also for his other operations, and therefore 
 to Avignon he came establishing himself in the
 
 244 l)e tOl)ite terror 
 
 house in the Rue du Limas where dwelt Canon 
 Jusserand, who also had whipped off his red 
 cap in a hurry and was wearing his black frock 
 again. There his men came to him by night 
 masked or with blackened faces, heavily armed 
 and thence he sallied forth to his searches or 
 to his robberies or to work his revenge. His 
 score against Jean Caritous was the first that he 
 settled and the story of how he settled it ex- 
 hibits a fair sample of what he and others like 
 him were doing in those times. 
 
 Calisto's men could fight when fighting was 
 necessary, but they preferred that the odds 
 should be on their side. Therefore they watched 
 and waited until the departure of Father Caritous 
 and his other sons with a wagon train for Mar- 
 seilles left Jean and his mother in their home 
 alone. That gave them even more fighting 
 than they wanted, but at least they were sure 
 how the matter would end. And so, in the 
 blackness of night, they came bravely to Jean's 
 door. 
 
 The hour was not late, and Calisto knocked 
 at the door as a neighbour would have knocked 
 a friendly and not too vigorous knock, yet a 
 knock that had in it insistence. The little lou- 
 bet, asleep on guard under the cart, smelt vil- 
 lainy and in an instant was awake and was 
 barking furiously. Jean, just finishing his sup- 
 per, would have opened to such a knock with- 
 out hesitation ; but the barking of the loubet, in 
 whose judgment he reposed a deserved confi- 
 dence, made him waver a little. He went to 
 The door slowly, and asked "Who is there?" 
 before he made any motion to take down the bars.
 
 terror ftngns 245 
 
 The answer came instantly: "Vauclair's 
 friend, Sergeant Berigot. Vauclair's wife is in 
 trouble and it is on her account that I am here." 
 
 But as Caritous did not recognise the voice, 
 and as the loubet was growling angrily, he still 
 did not take down the bars. 
 
 " Don't you remember me ? " continued the 
 man outside. "It was I who sent Vauclair to 
 you to arrange about bringing his wife down 
 from Paris. If you still are his friend, and hers, 
 open to me. They need your help again." 
 Then Caritous, hesitating no longer, took down 
 the bars and opened the door. 
 
 In an instant two men had seized him, while 
 a third clapped a handful of tow over his mouth 
 as he cried out for help. In another instant he 
 was bound as well as gagged. A kick from one 
 of the men got rid of the poor little dog break- 
 ing his ribs, and sending him to gasp out his 
 faithful little life in a corner of the court. Then 
 the door was closed and barred again, and four 
 of the ruffians lifted Caritous and carried him 
 into his own house. With a shriek of terror 
 Mother Caritous greeted the incoming of this 
 masked and armed company, bearing her son 
 bound. Then her distaff fell from her hand and 
 she fainted away. 
 
 Without paying the slightest attention to 
 Mother Caritous, the men seated Jean on a chair 
 in front of the cheerfully blazing fire and re- 
 moved the gag as Calisto held a pistol to his 
 head and said: "Republican dog! It was you 
 who brought from Paris the wife and the child 
 of that other Republican dog, Vauclair; and 
 with them the Comtessine d'Ambrun!"
 
 246 l)e tot)ite terror 
 
 "Yes, I did," Jean answered, trying to peer 
 over the barrel of the pistol to see what had be- 
 come of his mother. "And I did well!" 
 
 " For that alone you deserve death, but you 
 committed still another crime: you carried them 
 away from Avignon and helped them to find a 
 hiding-place in the village of Malemort." 
 
 "Yes, I did," Jean repeated, "and in that 
 also I did well." 
 
 "You served the Republic, brigand that you 
 are!" 
 
 "I did my duty." 
 
 " You committed treason against the King! " 
 
 " The King himself was a traitor! " 
 
 " Well, never mind that. If you will tell me 
 where Lazuli and Adeline are to be found I will 
 give you your life." 
 
 " I couldn't tell you if I wanted to. I don't 
 know. I wouldn't tell you if I did! " 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because you are a murderer, and I don't 
 betray my friends to murderers." 
 
 "You do not know who I am." 
 
 " Yes, I know you through your mask. You 
 are Calisto des Sablees, the bastard of Canon 
 Jusserand. You murdered your master, the 
 Comte de la Vernede, and you stole his estate." 
 
 "Scoundrel! Do you dare, you who in a 
 moment will die, to speak such words to me! " 
 
 ' ' The truth is worse for you than a pistol- 
 shot or a knife thrust. It is I who am killing you. " 
 
 " That is enough. Tell me where Lazuli and 
 Adeline are hidden. Refuse to tell me, and you 
 and your mother shall burn together here in your 
 own house! "
 
 tOI)ite (Eerror Heigns 247 
 
 " Shoot me, burn me, do what you like with 
 me, but do not hurt my mother. Surely you 
 would not hurt my mother? But, to be sure, 
 you never had one. You don't know what a 
 mother is! " 
 
 " Stop your jabber and tell us what we want 
 to know," broke in one of the masked men. 
 "Speak up, and in a hurry. We can't fool 
 away a whole night on you." 
 
 Caritous was startled by the man's voice. 
 Speaking to Calisto he said: "Would you like 
 to make a good bargain with me ?" 
 
 " What is your bargain ?" 
 
 "It is this : If you will promise to let my 
 mother alone 1 will tell you where you can find 
 a big treasure. After that you may kill me as 
 soon as you please." 
 
 "Yes, I will make that bargain. Speak." 
 
 "You promise that you will not hurt my 
 mother ?" 
 
 " Yes, I promise." 
 
 " Well, that man who has just spoken, who 
 is in such a hurry to see me dead, is a robber like 
 yourself. His name is Bastian. He has stolen 
 a lot of treasure from the churches. It is hid- 
 den 
 
 But Bastian threw himself on the bound and 
 helpless man and seized him by the throat. 
 "I'll tear your lying tongue out!" he shouted. 
 And added, to the others : " I would not give him 
 my daughter Genevieve in marriage, and this is 
 how he is trying to revenge himself on me. He 
 is telling rotten lies," and he thrust back the gag 
 into Jean's mouth. Then, that he might torture 
 the son through the mother, he dragged Mother
 
 248 l)e tol)ite terror 
 
 Caritous from where she had fallen to toast her 
 before the fire. With an oath, half of anger and 
 half of fear, he loosed his hold upon her and she 
 fell heavily to the floor. He was balked of his 
 cruelty. Fright and shock had done their work. 
 She was dead. Her son had no time in which 
 to mourn her. Furious that he refused to give 
 up his secret, Calisto seized an axe and with a 
 single blow split open Jean's head. 
 
 Then Jhe pillage began, the best of it being 
 ten bags of crowns which they found hidden 
 under a heap of rubbish beneath the stair. They 
 divided the money hurriedly, and then heaped 
 the furniture in the centre of the room, above 
 the bodies, and fired it. With a shout of " Vive 
 le roi ! " they were off into the blackness of the 
 night. 
 
 The next day the charred bodies of Jean and 
 his mother were taken from the ruins of that 
 hospitable home. In the smouldering stable 
 was a shapeless mass that once had been the 
 famous white-footed horse. In the court-yard 
 was the little dead dog. 
 
 To preserve appearances, the Procureur de la 
 Justice went through the form of an official in- 
 quiry but nothing came of it. The neighbours 
 were careful not to tell that they had heard the 
 furious barking of the dog, that they had heard 
 unusual noises in the house; and most of all 
 were they careful not to tell that they had heard 
 a shout of "Vive le roi! " They were wise in 
 their generation, the neighbours. They had 
 heads of their own which might be split open, 
 and houses of their own which might be burned !
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 THE COMPANIONS OF JEHU 
 
 WHILE the Procureur de la Justice made his 
 abortive inquiry, Calisto promenaded the Place 
 de 1'Horloge dressed in his suit of silk and ele- 
 gantly twirling his gold-headed cane. His 
 henchmen, less elegant, made merry with their 
 loot of silver crowns. They found the proceed- 
 ings of the Procureur vastly amusing and they 
 continued their robbings and their killings with 
 a good heart. 
 
 But Calisto was too much an amateur of 
 such sport not to have a hand in the larger kill- 
 ings which were going on in the South in those 
 days, and too kindly in his nature not to give 
 his men the pleasure of hearing about them 
 when he returned from his jaunts. Moreover 
 his men being of the opinion that killing with- 
 out robbery, save in isolated cases, was a waste 
 of time Calisto, who was a patriot, wished to 
 enforce upon them his own statesmanlike con- 
 viction that the killing off of the King's enemies 
 presently would bring the King to his own 
 again : and so there was a moral to the stories 
 which he told. 
 
 " You think that there is no sense in a kill- 
 ing that isn't paid for," he said. " Now listen 
 to what I am going to tell you, and you will see 
 
 243
 
 250 
 
 that you are wrong. Last week, down at Mar- 
 seilles, I was present at the great executions 
 which took place in Fort Saint Nicholas and 
 Fort Saint Jean. Well, of the one hundred and 
 thirty wretches whose account was settled, no 
 less than eighty were men who had belonged 
 to the infamous Marseilles Battalion those ex- 
 ecrable Reds of the Midi who went up to Paris 
 to besiege the King's castle and who murdered 
 the brave Swiss defenders of our King! Yes, 
 eighty of those brigands perished! Now wasn't 
 that magnificent ? Wasn't that the justice of 
 God ? It is true that there was no money in it, 
 but there was something almost as good as 
 money for those monsters were more to be 
 feared than wolves in a fold. Though they 
 were fettered and shut up in the dungeons of 
 the fort, and though we were armed, we had 
 to lay a regular siege to them ; and they fought 
 like the brigands that they were. Why, one of 
 them a one-armed and one-eyed fellow named 
 Margan managed to snatch an axe from one 
 of our people and went to work with it like a 
 fiend incarnate. He got his back against the 
 wall and cut and slashed with his axe at such a 
 rate that we only got the better of him by pin- 
 ning him through at long range with our bayo- 
 nets. And even then, dying on our bayonets 
 and with his blood spurting out in streams, he 
 defied us by crying 'Vive la Republique!' 
 Now, I put it to you, wasn't it worth while to 
 kill off a hound like that just for the good of the 
 cause and without pay ? 
 
 ' ' Coming back from Marseilles 1 had a hand in 
 another game of the same sort in Tarascon. Shut
 
 (JTompanions of Setyn 251 
 
 up there in King Rene's Castle were thirty more 
 of the brigands not members of that infamous 
 Red Battalion, to be sure, but almost as bad. 
 Some of them belonged in Tarascon, the rest 
 came from Graveson and Barbentane and the 
 other roundabout towns. Of course it was ab- 
 surd to keep alive in a comfortable prison a 
 parcel of scoundrels who ought to be dead and 
 broiling in hell. Some honest friends of mine 
 were quite agreed with me as to what ought to 
 be done, and we set to work and did it posting 
 a proclamation that the prisoners had mutinied 
 and were about to break out from the Castle, 
 and ending it with a call to the loyal Whites of 
 Tarascon to crush the mutineers. In no time 
 we had half a hundred brave fellows together, 
 all belonging to the Companions of Jehu or to 
 the Companions of the Sun. That was as many 
 as we wanted, and away we went to the 
 Castle. It was between nine and ten at nignt, 
 and the full moon gave us almost the light 
 of day. 
 
 " We knocked at the Castle gate, and when 
 the keepers opened to us we clapped pistols to 
 their heads and shut them fast in an out-of-the- 
 way room in their own jail^OThen there was 
 nobody to bother us, and we went at our work 
 comfortably. The brigands were in the two 
 towers overlooking the Rhone, twelve in one 
 tower and eighteen in the other. We got rid 
 of the twelve easily and quickly. They were 
 asleep on a heap of straw. We went in quietly, 
 and before they knew what had happened we 
 had finished them with bayonets and iron bars. 
 Then we carried them, dead or wounded, to 
 17
 
 252 [)e tMljite terror 
 
 the top of the tower and pitched them over the 
 battlements into the Rhone. 
 
 " In the other tower, though, it was another 
 song. The groans and the cries of some of the 
 fellows we were carrying up the stair, and the 
 splashing they made as they struck the water, 
 had waked up the eighteen rascals and had put 
 them on their guard. They twisted the legs off 
 a big table that they had in their room and so 
 armed themselves with clubs, and with the rest 
 of the table they barricaded the door. Then 
 they sung out to us that if we wanted a fight to 
 come on. But we weren't going to risk our 
 skins unless we had to, and we tried a trick on 
 them. The Procureur was with us, and as some 
 of them were likely to know his voice we made 
 him talk. 
 
 " 'It is I, the Procureur du Roi,' he called 
 through the key-hole. ' I am here to let you 
 out of prison and to send you to your homes. 
 Why have you barricaded the door ? Open it, 
 and you shall go free.' 
 
 "'Yes,' a brigand inside answered, 'we 
 shall go free as our brothers have gone into 
 the Rhone!' 
 
 " ' It is precisely to save you from that fate 
 that I, the Procureur du Roi, am here. Open to 
 me. I have come to set you free.' 
 
 ' ' ' You lie, and you know you lie ! ' answered 
 the brigand. ' I know you! ' 
 
 "'And I know you. You are Lieutard 
 of Graveson. You sent your two sons off to 
 fight in the army of the Republic. You deserve 
 death, for you are a traitor to your King! ' 
 
 "'If I deserve death, come and kill me!'
 
 QLtye Companions of Sel)tJ 253 
 
 shouted the insolent brute and then all of the 
 insolent brutes together set to yelling ' Vive la 
 Republique! ' till they drove us almost wild. 
 
 "After that, since they knew what we 
 wanted, there was no use in mincing matters; 
 so we got up axes and tried to smash in the 
 door. But the door was lined with iron and 
 we couldn't smash it in. Our men were furious. 
 'Death to the brigands!' they shouted, while 
 the brigands answered us with ' Death to the 
 Tyrant!' And for a while we yelled at each 
 other through the door that they wouldn't open 
 and that we couldn't break in. 
 
 "Then one of our men, a mason, had a good 
 idea. ' From the floor above,' he said, ' we can 
 take out the keystone of the vault of this room. 
 Then we can throw down burning tow and fire 
 the straw that serves them for a bed and so 
 smoke them out, as you smoke a fox out of his 
 hole!' 
 
 " Up the stair we all scrambled with a shout; 
 and there we found, by a miracle of God, that 
 the keystone was loose and could be lifted out 
 from its setting having been arranged that way 
 of old, so that the prisoners in that chamber 
 could be spied upon from above. K^hen we had 
 indeed the upper hand; and when t.he brigands 
 saw us looking down at them through the hole 
 they changed their tune and went to singing 
 small. They promised to open to us provided 
 we would spare their lives; and we, ready to 
 promise anything, told them that their lives 
 should be spared provided they would come out 
 one by one, stark naked, and with nothing in 
 their hands. And to that they agreed.
 
 254 l)e fcOljite terror 
 
 "So down we went to the door again, and 
 they opened it, and out came the first man. We 
 let him pass quietly, to encourage the others, 
 until our men in the rear could grab him and 
 whisk him up the stair to the roof of the tower. 
 When we got him there we didn't keep him for 
 seed! With a knife at his heart we forced him 
 to shout ' Vive le roi ! ' then in went the knife, 
 in a fashion that took the taste for bread out of 
 him, and over the battlements he went into the 
 Rhone! And so it went with them up the 
 stair and over the battlements until the room 
 below was bare. 
 
 "We hadn't kept careful count of them, as 
 we should have done, but to some of us it 
 seemed that we'd only polished off seventeen ; 
 and while we were talking about it the Pro- 
 cureur said that he was sure that we had missed 
 Lieutard the worst villain of them all. ' I can't 
 be mistaken,' said the Procureur. ' That brigand 
 of a Lieutard looks like nobody but himself. 
 I'd know him anywhere by his big black beard.' 
 
 "Well,' said I, 'it's easy enough to settle 
 the matter. They all came out naked. We 
 can count their shirts. If there are eighteen 
 shirts we'll know for sure that we've finished 
 the eighteen men.' 
 
 " ' Monsieur le Comte is right,' said the Pro- 
 cureur, and down we went and counted the 
 shirts. There were eighteen of them ; and so, 
 although the Procureur was not quite satisfied, 
 we came away. 
 
 " But just as we were turning the corner of 
 the Castle, going toward the church of St. Mar- 
 tha, we heard a voice up in the air above us shout-
 
 l)c (Companions of leljtt 255 
 
 ing ' Vive la Republique! ' and as we looked up 
 in a hurry we saw a big black-bearded naked 
 man standing on the battlements of the tower. 
 The next instant he went flashing down through 
 the moonlight and shot with a great splash into 
 the Rhone ! Back we hurried to the river bank, 
 and in a moment we saw him swimming away 
 strongly toward the Beaucaire shore. Those of 
 us who had guns cracked away at him ; but we 
 could not make him out well in the broken 
 water, and the rush and the swirl of the river 
 swung him about at such a rate that he was not 
 a good mark. After awhile, though, we lost 
 sight of him ; and were sure that one of our balls 
 had hit him and had done for him. We waited 
 awhile, listening; but we heard only the gur- 
 gling murmur of the little whirlpools as they 
 boiled up and broke in that strong current hur- 
 rying on to the sea. At last we turned away 
 and just then what did we hear but ' Long live 
 the Republic! Death to the Tyrant! ' coming in 
 a faint shout from the Beaucaire shore! The 
 next day we went back to the Castle and found 
 out how he had managed to get away from us. 
 Then, in broad daylight, we could see that there 
 was a lot of fresh soot and broken scraps of 
 mortar in the fireplace. What he had d6ne was 
 to strip himself, and then wriggle up the chim- 
 ney to the roof of the tower. And so," said 
 Calisto in moralizing conclusion, "that time 
 the devil took care of his own! " 
 
 " And is that infamous brigand still alive ?" 
 asked Lou Pounchu, one of the worst of Calisto's 
 ruffians. " If he is, let us find him and kill him 
 at once! "
 
 256 l)c bite (Emor 
 
 "He is alive," Calisto answered; "but he 
 will be dead before another daybreak. I shall 
 lead you to him to-night and you will know 
 what to do when you have him in your hands! 
 We will kill him for the good of the cause 
 there will be no chance in his case for robbery. 
 But you shall not come back empty-handed. 
 When we have finished with him we will look 
 in upon our friend Bastian and ask him in a 
 friendly way to give us a share of his swag from 
 the churches. He has not behaved toward us 
 as a good comrade should behave Since Cari- 
 tous told us about his treasure we have not laid 
 eyes on him For him to forsake our company 
 in this fashion is as uncivil as His failure to 
 divide with us is unfair. To-night, then, if you 
 are agreed, we will pay him a friendly call. No 
 doubt we can induce him to apologize to us in 
 a practical way!" 
 
 "No doubt we can!" said Loa Pounchu 
 grimly. And he and the others fingered their 
 knives.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 A DARK NIGHT'S WORK 
 
 GALISTO did not know where the patriot 
 Lieutard was hidden, and he did not intend to 
 take his men in search of him. But he did mean 
 to take them to a killing, and he had told his 
 story with the deliberate purpose of inflaming 
 their minds. There still was one man in Avi- 
 gnon who he believed might be able to tell him 
 where Lazuli and Adeline were hidden, and that 
 was Vauclair's friend Sergeant Berigot. It was 
 to Sergeant Berigot's house that his men were 
 to be led. 
 
 When they came together at the house of 
 Canon Jusserand, after nightfall, Calisto had 
 doffed his fine clothes and was dressed, as were 
 the others, coarsely. Each man wore on the 
 breast of his carmagnole his rough woollen 
 jacket a red cross; and on his hat a rtd fleur- 
 de-lys. All of them were armed with knives 
 and pistols. When they had put on masks, or 
 had blackened their faces, they were ready to 
 start. 
 
 Calisto led them to the Rue du Pont Troue and 
 halted them before a sorry little house of which 
 the door stood ajar as is the custom with the 
 houses of the very poor. There was a light in 
 an upper window, and from the room where the 
 
 257
 
 258 |)c U)l)ite 
 
 light was came the ron-ron of a winder, and the 
 quick click-clack of a silk-weaver's loom. With 
 these sounds came also the fretful whimperings 
 of a sleepy child, and the soft melody of a lul- 
 laby: 
 
 Baby's so sleepy ! 
 
 Baby wants Sleep ! 
 Why won't Sleep come to him ? 
 
 Come, naughty Sleep ! 
 
 " Here we are," said Calisto. " Follow me 
 softly," and he pushed the door open gently and 
 crept up the stair with his men at his heels. In 
 
 spite of their caution, their groping hands and 
 
 gave the alarm. Th 
 the loom and of the winder stopped. So did 
 
 stumbling feet gave the alarm. The sound of 
 
 the lullaby. As Calisto felt in the dark for the 
 door-latch a man's voice cried out sharply: 
 "Who's there?" 
 
 Calisto had found the latch. He flung the 
 door open, and crying "Yield to the King's jus- 
 tice! " tried to rush into the room. But the lit- 
 tle room was crowded so full by the loom and 
 the winder and the cradle that there barely was 
 space to squeeze into it past the partly opened 
 door. His men could not follow him. Being 
 inside, he could not get around the loom to Ser- 
 geant Berigot without shutting the door again 
 and so cutting himself off from his support. He 
 drew his pistol and levelled it at the Sergeant 
 whose wife had flung herself, screaming, upon 
 the cradle to protect the child. 
 
 Sergeant Berigot, who had not served in the 
 National Guard for nothing, kept his wits about 
 him. As Calisto raised the pistol he blew out 
 the light. Taking the chances, Calisto fired in
 
 31 IDork Night's fcOork 259 
 
 the dark. There was a sound of scuffling on 
 the floor that made him believe that he had hit 
 his man. But he had not. Berigot had dropped 
 to the floor and was crawling under the loom. 
 The next instant Calisto's legs were jerked from 
 under him, and in an instant more Berigot had 
 squeezed him through the doorway and had 
 flung him down stairs on the heads of his own 
 men. Then worse happened. In the pitch 
 darkness his men thought that they had got 
 hold of the escaping Sergeant. " I've got him! " 
 cried Lou Pounchu, and he settled his fingers 
 into Calisto's throat in what was meant to be a 
 death-grip. 
 
 Sergeant Berigot himself undeceived them. 
 With his weaver's bar he hammered away from 
 the top of the stair, breaking so many heads 
 that the cowards not venturing in that black 
 pocket to use their pistols, for fear of hitting, 
 each other fairly took to their heels. Down 
 they came with a rush, trampling on Calisto, 
 and down came Berigot, brandishing his bar, 
 after them. He too trampled on Calisto, and 
 fancied that he had been lucky enough to kill 
 one of his assailants. He did not stop to make 
 investigations. On he went after the others, 
 and fairly chased them to the end of thb street. 
 Then, very short of wind, he came back to have 
 a look at the dead man on his stair. 
 
 But, alas, it was no dead man! Calisto was 
 badly bruised, but he was very much alive. He 
 was just leaving the house when he heard the 
 sound of Berigot's returning footsteps. Drawing 
 his other pistol, he hid himself behind the door. 
 And God was not watching ! God was not there !
 
 260 (Jljc ittyite crror 
 
 Berigot entered the house, stepping gingerly 
 in the darkness because of the dead body that 
 he thought was lying there. " Don't be fright- 
 ened, dearie," he called to his wife. " I've driven 
 off the Royalist murderers. We're safe now." 
 And he began to ascend the stair. 
 
 And then, behind him, a voice shouted : 
 " Brigand! Long live the King! " For the sec- 
 ond time a pistol shot shook the little house, 
 and this time it was a shot that killed. The ball 
 struck Berigot between the shoulders. He fell 
 forward on his own stair, dead. 
 
 Having made sure in the darkness that his 
 work was accomplished, Calisto left the house 
 and slowly and painfully made his way toward 
 the Rue du Limas. Presently he met his men 
 grown braver when Berigot's back was turned 
 on them coming back to look for him. It gave 
 them sincere pleasure to learn that Berigot was 
 dead. Their heads were aching from the ham- 
 mering that he had given them with his devil 
 of a weaver's bar. 
 
 "And now," said Rocofort a Rhone porter 
 who had given up porterage for robbery "we'll 
 pay our visit to friend Bastian." 
 
 "Yes," said Lou Pounchu. "We'll go to 
 him really as friends and ask him to divide. 
 And he'd better meet us as friends and make a 
 fair division if he don't, he'll have to cut his 
 stick like the others, and we'll take the whole! " 
 
 Just then there was a noise that made them 
 all shiver. It sounded like the roll of a drum ; 
 and the music of drums with which patrols 
 were apt to be associated was not pleasant in 
 their ears. It drew nearer steadily, and though
 
 01 EDork 3ugl)t'0 iHork 261 
 
 it sounded less and less drum-like, it was a 
 noise that they could not account for and that 
 thrilled them with a lively fear. As it came 
 quite close, they squeezed themselves into a 
 deep doorway; and so waited until the danger, 
 whatever it was, should pass. They were a 
 little ashamed of themselves when there came 
 around the corner a man wheeling a rumbling 
 wheel-barrow. But in another moment, forget- 
 ting their fears and remembering their business 
 duties, they had lined up across the street and 
 Lou Pounchu called sharply: " Halt! Long live 
 the King! " 
 
 " Long live the King!" answered the man 
 with the wheel-barrow. 
 
 All of them recognised the voice. " Why! " 
 exclaimed Rocofort, "it is our good friend Bas- 
 tian ! And what in the world are you wheeling 
 around in your wheel-barrow at this time of 
 night, Bastian ? Is it your church treasure that 
 you have here under the manure ? " 
 
 "Yes," Bastian answered, perceiving that 
 he was caught and must make the best of it. 
 "I was taking it off to hide it in a fresh place, 
 where I was going to bring you to divide it 
 with me. But since we've happened to meet, 
 this way, we might just as well divide it iiow." 
 In truth, Bastian was in a hurry to make the 
 division and so get rid of them. If he could 
 satisfy them with this small part of his treasure, 
 the rest would be safe. 
 
 In a moment they all were crowded close 
 about the wheel-barrow, the covering of manure 
 was scratched away, and each snatched up the 
 biggest piece of silver that he could lay hands
 
 262 (Elje tiOljite terror 
 
 on. ''Stop, comrades, stop!" said Calisto. 
 "We must divide evenly. This is a game at 
 which we must play fair"." And then, turning 
 to Bastian, he added: "You know just what 
 you've got here, Bastian. Sort it out into six 
 parcels of about equal value. Then we'll settle 
 the ownership of each by drawing lots." 
 
 "Into six parcels?" Bastian grumbled. 
 " Don't you mean me to have a share of what 
 is all my own ?" 
 
 " Yes, that's only fair," said the others. 
 "Bastian ought to have a share of his own 
 swag." 
 
 The finest piece of the treasure was a mag- 
 nificent monstrance a great golden sun richly 
 studded with precious stones. By common 
 consent, this was set aside as the share of 
 "Monsieur le Comte." What remained the 
 pyxes and chalices and salvers and basins and 
 ewers was sorted out by Bastian into six little 
 heaps, ranged in a row on the cobble stones of 
 the street and showing dimly as here and there 
 the polished silver caught the reflection of the 
 stars. Then Lou Pounchu turned his back on 
 the heaps, and Rocofort pointed to one of them 
 and asked : ' ' Whose is this one ? " 
 
 " Mine! " Lou Pounchu answered promptly, 
 and there was a little laugh at his eagerness to 
 make sure of his own. The remaining five were 
 disposed of in the same fashion, and then, by 
 way of a joke, Rocofort pointed to Lou Poun- 
 chu's knife, that had dropped beside the wheel- 
 barrow, and asked: "To whom does this be- 
 long ? " Puzzled by the question, Lou Pounchu 
 turned around to see at what Rocofort pointed.
 
 & JUark Night's iDork 263 
 
 "Oh," he answered, entering into the joke, 
 "that belongs to the Republic. She shall have 
 it in her heart!" 
 
 They separated, each with his share of the 
 spoil; and Calisto slowly and painfully-r-for his 
 bones were aching and his monstrance was a 
 heavy load made his way to the house of the 
 Canon Jusserand. Although the hour was late 
 the Canon had not gone to bed. Hearing Ca- 
 listo unlocking the door and locking it again, he 
 came shuffling out in his slippers to meet him 
 and stopped in astonishment when he saw by 
 the light of the lamp in the passage what Ca- 
 listo bore in his arms. With a seemly reverence 
 he bent his knees before the monstrance and 
 very devoutly made the sign of the cross. As 
 he arose he asked in wonier: "How did that 
 holy treasure come into your hands ? " 
 
 "By the will of God," Calisto answered, 
 with an admirable reverence of tone and a com- 
 prehensive disregard of fact. "I was searching, 
 as I am always searching, for the Comtessine 
 and in the house of a Republican brigand I found 
 this sacred vessel. As it was more fit that I 
 should have it than he, I brought it away. The 
 wretch had it hidden in a pile of dung! " 
 
 "Sacrilege!" exclaimed the Canon, raising 
 his eyes to heaven. And then, lowering his 
 eyes, he asked: "And the Comtessine? Did 
 you get news of her ? " 
 
 "No, none," Calisto answered in a melan- 
 choly tone. " I am satisfied that she cannot be 
 in Avignon. She still must be hidden some- 
 where in the mountains, among the wolves." 
 
 " She is not hidden in the mountains," said
 
 264 I) toljite QTerror 
 
 the Canon, speaking slowly and earnestly. 
 "She is here in Avignon. 1 saw her, 1 spoke 
 with her, this very day!" 
 
 Calisto sprang to his feet. "Impossible!" 
 he cried. 
 
 " No, it is not impossible. What I tell you 
 is true. She is in the Convent of Saint Ursula. 
 To-morrow you shall see her for yourself. I 
 will take you with me there to serve the mass." 
 
 Canon Jusserand arose from his seat, knelt 
 again before the monstrance and crossed him- 
 self; and then, without another word, shuffled 
 off to bed!
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 THE SERPENT AND THE WREN 
 
 CALISTO'S delight was so great that it quite 
 confounded him. In a maze he listened to the 
 lessening sound of the Canon's shuffling steps. 
 When he heard them no longer he half fancied 
 that he must be dreaming, and pinched himself 
 and rubbed his eyes. Could it be possible, he 
 asked himself, that Adeline really was found ? 
 That she was there in Avignon, close to him ? 
 That on the coming morning he would see her, 
 perhaps speak to her ? That presently he would 
 bring her away from her convent, and would 
 carry her as his bride to the Chateau de la Ver- 
 nede ? His mind was in a whirl! 
 
 As he grew calmer, and realized that his 
 happiness was founded in very truth, thoughts 
 of his glad future went softly through his mind. 
 Ah, he would be so good to her, so gentle with 
 her! He had had enough of his robber and 
 murderer life. Peace and tranquility in the 
 companionship of that innocent and beautiful 
 young girl would be welcome to him ! Thence- 
 forward his life should be that of a worthy cit- 
 izen and an honourable nobleman. He had 
 promised to join the Royalist army that had 
 proclaimed the King at Carpentras, that was 
 ravaging all the region thereabouts and spilling 
 
 265
 
 266 &\)e 03l)ite terror 
 
 the blood of the Reds in streams. Well, that 
 promise should be cancelled. Others should 
 punish the Reds for their treason. His part in 
 the new order of things should be worthily to 
 maintain the traditions of the nobility upon his 
 own estates. And all was such plain sailing 
 before him. Adeline was safe in a convent, 
 clear away from the malignant influence of the 
 Vauclairs; he had her mother's written com- 
 mand that she should marry him; if she ven- 
 tured to resist that command he had Canon 
 Jusserand, her confessor, to tell her that it was 
 the will of Heaven that she should obey. His 
 position was impregnable. What he wanted 
 he surely would have. Ah, life was opening 
 fairly to him at last! 
 
 Tired out by the galloping of these thoughts 
 through his brain, and sore and weary from his 
 night's work, he went to his bed. But sleep 
 would not come to him. In the darkness his 
 bright hopes left him and in their place came 
 black memories of his crimes: the murder of 
 Berigot that very night; of the prisoners in Mar- 
 seilles and Tarascon the week before; of six 
 peasants at Caromb, whom he had forced to dig 
 their own graves and then had caused to be 
 shot while their wives and children stood close 
 by; of old Bernus de Mazan so old, over ninety 
 years, that he had been carried forth from his 
 home in his big arm-chair. His own son, a 
 priest, had been forced to confess and to absolve 
 him, and then to stand by while Calisto thrust 
 a knife into the old man's heart. And so, from 
 crime to crime, his memory went back to the 
 first of all: when he murdered his kind old
 
 il)e Serpent anb tl)e tOren 267 
 
 master, the Comte de la Vernede. There in 
 the darkness he felt again the hot blood spurt- 
 ing into his face from the three deep stabs that 
 he gave to the man who had been a father to 
 him. No water ever could wash away the taint 
 of that blood and because he was tainted by 
 it, he thought with a shivering groan, never 
 would the Comtessine consent to lay her pure 
 hand in his. 
 
 That dismal conviction changed the current 
 of his thoughts and sent him off into a frenzy of 
 rage against the Vauclairs by whom, as he be- 
 lieved, Adeline had been told of his crime. 
 Forgetting his intended reformation, he was 
 filled with a fierce desire to murder all three of 
 them the father, the mother, the brat of a 
 child. With them well out of the way he be- 
 lieved that he could convince Adeline, Canon 
 Jusserand helping him, that all which they had 
 told her about him was a parcel of lies. "And 
 then," he said to himself, "everything would 
 be well with me. I would prove to her that I 
 had been her mother's friend and confidant; I 
 would show her that I was unselfish by restor- 
 ing to her her chateau and her estates; I would 
 compel her to believe in my virtue by my good 
 conduct as a citizen and by my charity to the 
 poor. She could not but respect me, and tr\en 
 esteem me; in the end, surely, she would give 
 me her love!" 
 
 Day was beginning to break. Out in the 
 street the captains of the Rhone boats were 
 walking to the near-by wharves, shouting morn- 
 ing greetings to each other. Calisto gave over 
 his attempt to sleep and got up moving stiffly 
 
 18
 
 268 l)e tOljite terror 
 
 because of his bruised body, but very light of 
 heart. He had business to transact before going 
 with the Canon to serve the mass in the Con- 
 vent of Saint Ursula a message to send off to 
 inform Lou Pounchu that he would not go out 
 that night with the Verdets. This was one of 
 the larger robber companies. It took its name 
 from the green ribbon worn on the arm of each 
 of its members, and its usual field of action was 
 Lower Provence. By preference, it preyed upon 
 Reds and Moderates; but its members were not 
 rigorously bound by the ties of politics and in a 
 broad-minded way robbed wherever money 
 was to be found. 
 
 Calisto's decision not to go out with the 
 Verdets was based in part in his newly-formed 
 intention to lead the life of a reputable citizen. 
 But for some little time he had been drawing 
 toward that same intention for reasons of another 
 sort With each passing month a certain Gen- 
 eral Bonaparte was becoming more and more of 
 a power in the affairs of France, and that he 
 would use his power in the interest of the 
 Royalists seemed to be utterly improbable. 
 There even were whispers that he would use 
 his power for himself alone; that he would up- 
 set the Directory and make himself the ruler of 
 France. That he could do this if he wanted to 
 do it, the keen-sighted Calisto did not doubt. 
 Already Bonaparte had done a great deal. He 
 had taken Avignon back from the Federalists; 
 he had wrenched Toulon from the Royalists 
 and the English; he had routed five Austrian 
 armies and one Piedmontese army, and had 
 compelled the rulers of Sardinia and Modena
 
 l)e Serpent anb tl)e tOren 269 
 
 and Tuscany and Austria and the Pope himself 
 to sue for peace; he had set up beyond the Alps 
 a new Republic. Such a devil of a man as that 
 obviously could do anything. Therefore it was 
 not all for love that Calisto was disposed to put 
 on the garments of good citizenship. That was 
 a neutral garb. Being clad in it, he could await 
 the outcome of events in safety. If the King 
 came to his own again, well and good. In 
 that case Calisto would be the stanchest of 
 Royalists, and would claim Royal protection in 
 holding his title and his estates. If this man 
 Bonaparte came to the front, then Calisto would 
 be the stanchest of the supporters of what- 
 ever form of government happened to be 
 set up and would claim protection in his 
 estates certainly, and in his title if titles sur- 
 vived. 
 
 Monsieur le Comte de la Vernede was far 
 from being singular in holding fast to this highly 
 practical patriotism. And as we look; through 
 France to-day we see ample proof that his policy 
 was a policy tha{ paid. Many a titled gentle- 
 man who now wears the fleur-de-lys got his 
 title, and his estate to support it, from a grand- 
 father who stole them both. The points may 
 be urged that these Royalist grandsons of thieves 
 are to-day the supporters of religion and of o^ler; 
 and, under any circumstances, that they are not 
 responsible for their grandfathers' crimes. And 
 to these points the answer may be made that 
 in the blood of these respectable rich men is the 
 seed of crime ready to germinate. While their 
 riches stay by them they well may be honest. 
 But let poverty come to pinch them and we need
 
 270 t)e tDt)ite 
 
 not doubt that off they will go, every one of 
 them, to their old trade! 
 
 But no such moral reflections as these 
 troubled Calisto on that morning which followed 
 the night of Sergeant Berigot's murder. His 
 face was set forward, and the murder of poor 
 Berigot was a thing already of the past. Light 
 of heart, he sent off the servant with his mes- 
 sage to Lou Pounchu; and then set himself to 
 dressing in his finest suit of silk, to making his 
 person elegant with powder and pomade, 
 that he might be ready betimes to go with 
 Canon Jusserand to serve the mass. The thought 
 of the happiness so soon to come to him thrilled 
 him with delight. Already he felt Adeline's 
 hand in his as he led her over the threshold of 
 the Chateau de la Vernede in the forest of 
 Aramon. There she would be his very own; 
 there this lily of virtue would hide the dung- 
 heap of his crimes! He was impatient to be off 
 to the convent. He chafed at each moment of 
 delay. 
 
 But Monsieur le Chanoine Jusserand was 
 sleeping like a saint! He had no reason for ris- 
 ing especially early that morning, and he slum- 
 bered on as slumbers one whose conscience is 
 at ease. In point of fact, it was at ease. That 
 fanatic for King and Pope was satisfied with 
 his own doings. Acting in perfect good faith, 
 when the Pope's Legate ruled in Avignon, he 
 had presided over the tribunal which condemned 
 poor wretches to have their tongues pierced 
 with red-hot irons, and then to pass on to the 
 galleys, for the sin of taking God's name in vain; 
 which condemned the father of a family to the
 
 l)c Serpent cmb the tXIrcn 271 
 
 strapado or the rack for the crime of walking the 
 streets at night without a lantern. In the same 
 good faith, when the Royalist order came from 
 Coblenz, he had put on the red cap and had 
 helped Maignet that wolf of the Terror to 
 guillotine moderate Republicans and those who 
 were lukewarm for the Pope. Heaven and the 
 Pope himself approved of every means which 
 would restore the country to the King and the 
 Church to its rights again ; therefore he felt that 
 he was doing his duty in furthering excesses of 
 cruelty which would hasten reaction*in favour 
 of his temporal and spiritual lords. And the 
 men of the Terror were so blind that they suf- 
 fered this game to be played ! They suffered a 
 priest who had spit at the banner of the Rights 
 of Man to disguise himself in a red cap and to 
 make tools of them to send the reddest of Reds 
 to the guillotine! 
 
 It was a game that was played not alone in 
 Avignon. By a priest, Jourdan Chop-head was 
 denounced as an Aristocrat and brought to the 
 scaffold. Jourdan Chop-head an Aristocrat! 
 He who got his name because it was believed 
 that he had cut off the head of the Governor of 
 the Bastille ; who led the peasants to the sack- 
 ing of the monks' granaries in Avignon ; who 
 was charged with the massacre of the sixty- 
 three Aristocrats shut up in the tower of La 
 Glaciere! But the priest who compassed Jour- 
 dan's death acted, according to his lights, in 
 good faith and did not consciously commit a 
 sin. 
 
 It was the men of the Convention who 
 sinned. Blindly they gave themselves as tools
 
 272 ' l)e tOliitc terror 
 
 to fanatical priests the Gregoires, the Jusse- 
 rands, the Sieyes who gained their ends by 
 professing a creed which 'they hated; who re- 
 mained always the venomous nettles of the In- 
 quisition that they always had been! The men 
 of the Revolution, too blind to see the trick 
 that was put upon them, perished with the 
 Revolution. The grave that they dug for the 
 Tyrant was their own grave also; the banner of 
 the Rights of Man which they had raised was 
 their dazzling shroud. They died, but the ban- 
 ner whicfi was their shroud did not rot with 
 them. It has survived, glorious and imperish- 
 able being woven with a warp of Reason and 
 a woof of Justice, as were the Commandments 
 given on Mount Sinai amidst lightning and 
 thunder by the hand of God.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 THE DEVIL SERVES THE MASS 
 
 AT daybreak, when the shuttles of the early- 
 rising silk-weavers began to clatter in their 
 looms, Canon Jusserand awoke from his saintly 
 slumber, crossed himself, joined his hands 
 meetly, and devoutly recited his angelus. 
 While he dressed he mumbled prayers to all the 
 saints in Paradise: for the peace of his own soul, 
 for the well-being of his holy father the Pope, 
 for the speedy uplifting to power of Louis XVII, 
 his king. Being dressed, he knelt before his 
 ivory crucifix and implored most holy Christ to 
 aid the army of the outland allies of the Royal- 
 ists to conquer the army of the Republic; to 
 sound, if need be, the trumpet of the Last Judg- 
 ment to scatter the Republican battalions as the 
 chaff of the threshing-floors is scattered by the 
 blast of the mistral. Then, rising from his 
 knees and again crossing himself, he kissed his 
 scapulary and his medals and went forth from 
 his room. 
 
 In the passage outside he found Calisto im- 
 patiently awaiting him. " Oh," said the Canon, 
 in a tone of surprise, "are you up already? 
 Well, well, I understand. Your brain is quite 
 turned by the thought of seeing the little Com- 
 tessine!" 
 
 273
 
 274 lje tOl)ite Scrror 
 
 "And well it may be," Calisto answered. 
 "This is an eventful day for me. I swore to 
 her mother that I would take the Comtessine 
 to myself and that I would guard and cherish 
 her. That promise begins to be fulfilled to- 
 day." 
 
 "Let us now go to the convent," said the 
 Canon. " And thank God that you have found 
 her at last." 
 
 As they left the house they covered their 
 mouths with their hands to guard against breath- 
 ing freely the tainted air that rose from the foul 
 streets and mingled with the still low-lying 
 morning mist. They walked rapidly, and in a 
 little while had covered the short distance be- 
 tween the Rue du Limas and the Rue Annanelle 
 and were come to the Convent of St. Ursula. 
 The Canon knocked at the garden portal, the 
 little gate through which the lay Sisters came 
 and went, and through which the service of the 
 convent was carried on. It was Sister Margai, 
 one of the lay Sisters, who opened to them 
 after first peeping through a grating to make 
 sure that she was opening to their own almoner 
 come to say the morning mass. 
 
 Sister Margai stood aside as they entered, and 
 bowed before the Canon's hastily bestowed 
 blessing. Calisto followed the priest, his eyes 
 downcast, his hands slipped into his sleeves 
 and folded upon his breast in proper ecclesiasti- 
 cal style. As he passed Sister Margai he bowed 
 slightly, and his lips moved as though in prayer. 
 Then the door was locked and bolted behind 
 them, and in the faint light of early morning 
 they walked along the garden path. Behind
 
 lic Demi Semes tl)e ittass 275 
 
 them came Sister Margai, her gown rustling 
 softly, her bunch of keys jingling a little, and 
 her olive-pit rosary making a faint rattling as it 
 swung against her knees. 
 
 As they walked up the path they heard the 
 murmuring of voices alternating with what 
 sounded like a sighing groan; and this, as they 
 drew close to the convent, resolved itself in the 
 words of the morning prayer, the Litany of the 
 Saints. A single voice uttered the invocation: 
 
 "Santa Maria, Mater Dei!" 
 Then all the nuns answered together: 
 
 " Ora pro nobis! " 
 And then the single voice: 
 
 " Santa Maria Magdalena! " 
 And then the voices: 
 
 "Ora pro nobis!" 
 
 It was the recurrent "Ora pro nobis! " which 
 had the sound of a sighing groan a deep-drawn 
 cry in which were blended the hoarse and qua- 
 vering voices of old women and the clear sweet 
 voices of young girls. A thrill went through 
 Calisto's heart as he listened. It sec-med to him 
 that among those girl voices he could distin- 
 guish the voice of Adeline! But his thoughts 
 just then were not wholly sentimental. From 
 the moment that he had entered the garden he 
 had been scanning closely the convent windows 
 and the convent walls. The sound of that sweet 
 voice only made his examination the keener. If 
 that voice could not be his by the fair means of 
 asking, he was resolved to make it his by the 
 foul means of force! 
 
 With these thoughts in his mind, he was 
 disappointed because they did not enter the
 
 276 $l)c tOI)itc (Terror 
 
 convent as he had counted upon but passed 
 along at the side of it and entered the chapel by 
 an outer door. There Sister Margai, bowing to 
 another benediction, left them, and they went 
 into the silent, incense-scented oratory alone. 
 Canon Jusserand dipped the tips of his fingers 
 into the font beside the entrance and offered the 
 holy water to Calisto who accepted it, on the 
 same hand that a few hours before had mur- 
 dered Sergeant Berigot, and crossed himself with 
 a becoming grace. 
 
 They went on into the sacristy half kneel- 
 ing as they passed before the altar and there 
 found the vestments for the mass duly laid out. 
 While the priest robed himself, to a muttered 
 accompaniment of prayers, Calisto went back- 
 ward and forward between the sacristy and the 
 sanctuary making a show of arranging the 
 altar, but in reality peering about him keenly 
 with his snake-like black eyes. The darkness 
 of the chapel disconcerted him. The only light 
 very faint, the sun barely being risen came 
 through a single high-up window, and even 
 this light was dimmed by the richly coloured 
 glass. Unless Adeline sat in the very front row 
 of chairs he would not see her. He was not 
 sure that he could see her even then. He was 
 surprised, also, that the nuns should so delay 
 their coming. While in the sacristy, he fancied 
 that he heard the sound of soft footsteps and a 
 little rattling of rosaries ; but when he hurried to 
 the sanctuary, as though to set the missals in 
 order, the seats still were bare. 
 
 Much more to his astonishment, the seats 
 were bare when the Canon bearing the chalice
 
 2Tl)c EDcml Semes tl)c ilTasa 277 
 
 and the paten motioned to him to follow and 
 told him to ring the bell. "The church is 
 empty,'' he remonstrated. But as the Canon 
 motioned to him imperatively to do as he was 
 bid, he picked up the bell and rang it as they 
 entered the sanctuary. Instantly there came, 
 seemingly from the empty nave, a bustle of 
 little noises chairs slightly moved, suppressed 
 coughs, the rattle of rosaries and then a soft 
 murmur, as of many voices in whispered prayer. 
 Calisto could not at all understand whence these 
 sounds came. Nor could he turn his head to 
 investigate into them as he knelt, facing the 
 altar, in the rear of Canon Jusserand, and made 
 the responses while that worthy priest said the 
 Introit and the Confiteor and went on with the 
 mass. Even when he was free to rise and to 
 look about him the puzzle continued. His eyes, 
 searching the deep shadows of the nave, assured 
 him that not a human being was in the church 
 beside themselves. 
 
 So intent was he upon resolving this mys- 
 tery that he forgot his duties. Suddenly he 
 realized that the priest had finished the reading 
 of the Epistle and was waiting for him to move 
 the Missal before the reading of the Gospel 
 should begin. Hurriedly he performed this 
 office carrying the Missal across, with the 
 due genuflection, to the Canon's left. At the 
 first words of the Gospel there was the sound 
 of movement again: and then he discovered 
 whence the sounds came. 
 
 In the side of the church was a large grating 
 over which was drawn a black curtain a cur- 
 tain of thin fabric through which he could dis-
 
 278 l)c tDI)ite 
 
 cern, faintly and confusedly against dim light 
 coming from windows in" the wall beyond, 
 the standing figures of the nuns. To distin- 
 guish individuals was impossible. Old and 
 young, all were alike there mere vague shades. 
 He perceived that even were the curtain drawn 
 it would be almost impossible for him to recog- 
 nise Adeline. The faint light, coming from be- 
 hind, cast the faces of all the nuns into shadow. 
 When they knelt, their heads were bowed upon 
 their hands. Still, rigid, they seemed less like 
 living women than bowed statues in marble 
 carved above a tomb. 
 
 Again he forgot his duties. When the mo- 
 ment for the Offertory came the priest was com- 
 pelled to recall his wandering attention by a 
 loud " Ahem! " and to signal to him vigorously, 
 at the Elevation, that he must ring his bell. At 
 the tinkling of the bell the Sisters prostrated 
 themselves, and remained prostrate until that 
 portion of the rite was ended and the Mother 
 Superior signalled to them to rise. 
 
 The light behind the curtain had grown 
 much brighter as the sun, rising above the 
 house tops, shone full upon the windows be- 
 yond. The individual figures of the nuns could 
 be distinguished plainly, and Calisto scanned 
 them with a very eager gaze. But he only 
 could see that some were short and some tall. 
 Adeline might be among them, or she might 
 not. He could not in the least be sure. He 
 was growing rather desperate as his -hope of 
 seeing her faded away. His thoughts went 
 back to the possibility of breaking into the con- 
 vent and carrying her off by force. He was
 
 l)e Etetril Seroes tl)e iUass 279 
 
 glad to perceive, in the stronger light, that the 
 grating in the wall of the chapel was not of iron 
 but of wood. That tended to simplify matters. 
 Getting into the chapel would be easy. Still 
 easier would it be to break through that old 
 wooden grating. And then the way into the 
 convent would be clear! 
 
 A loud "Ahem!" from Canon Jusserand 
 once more aroused him. The Canon was mo- 
 tioning to him to take the candlestick and the 
 napkin. At the same moment there was a soft 
 rustling, accompanied by a sudden increase of 
 light, as the curtain covering the grating was 
 drawn aside; and then the sound of a bolt shot 
 back and the creaking of a rusty hinge. A little 
 door in the centre of the grating had been 
 opened that the nuns might receive the Sacra- 
 ment. Bearing the sacred elements, the Canon 
 went from the altar to this opening. Calisto 
 followed him, carrying the candle and the nap- 
 kin in his hands.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 A SACRILEGIOUS SACRAMENT 
 
 THE black-veiled nuns were ranged in a line, 
 ready to advance to the opening in the grating. 
 At the head of the line was the Mother Superior, 
 Sister Dorothy; then came the Sisters in order 
 of age, the very old ones pale and wrinkled and 
 with wax-like hands as thin and as colourless 
 as the hands of the dead; then the lay Sisters; 
 and last of all three young girls wearing worldly 
 dresses and white veils. The veils of all were 
 lifted aside, in readiness for the Sacrament. 
 Through the jessamine-wreathed windows, 
 opening on the garden, a flood of sunshine 
 poured into the room. At last Calisto beheld 
 the face that he longed so eagerly to see: one 
 of the white-veiled young girls was Adeline! 
 
 Standing beside the priest, Calisto held up 
 the napkin of the holy table as each of the nuns 
 received the Sacrament. Unguided by his eyes, 
 fixed upon Adeline, his hand moved awk- 
 wardly. His body swayed a little, and his 
 breath came short. One by one the women 
 knelt in front of the opening in the grating, 
 Adeline last of all. Instinctively, as she took 
 her place, he shrank away a little, fearful lest 
 she should recognise him. But her eyes were 
 downcast: she saw only the hand of the priest 
 280
 
 St Sacrilegious Sacrament 281 
 
 extending the wafer to her above the napkin. 
 She raised her head slightly, but not her eyes, 
 as she opened her rosy lips to receive the angels' 
 bread. Calisto's blood-stained hand almost was 
 touching her beautiful white throat. A shiver 
 went through him, and his hand so trembled 
 the hand which firmly had thrust a knife into 
 his master's quivering flesh that he let the 
 napkin fall. He stood for a moment stupefied 
 his strong fingers close to that delicate throat, 
 as though to seize it in a death-giving grasp. 
 Having received the Sacrament, her eyes still 
 downcast, Adeline passed on. Monsieur Jus- 
 serand went back to the altar. Calisto, bearing 
 the candlestick, followed him automatically. 
 Behind him he heard the creakfng of the hinge 
 and the rattle of the bolt as the door in the grat- 
 ing was closed ; then the soft swish of the cur- 
 tain as it was drawn behind the bars. When 
 he was come to the altar, and turned to look 
 again, all beyond the grating once more was 
 vague and shadowy. He could see only that 
 the nuns were prostrate likeUhe sheaves in a 
 reaped field. 
 
 " Ita missa est," intoned the priest, turning 
 toward the nave with outstretched hands. 
 
 "Deo gracias," responded the murderer. 
 
 And so the mass went on to its end. When 
 the Canon went into the sacristy to disrobe, 
 Calisto remained to extinguish the candles and 
 to set in order the altar. He did this very slow- 
 ly, his eyes fixed on the dimly seen figures of 
 the nuns. As the little procession filed away, 
 passing from the oratory back into the convent, 
 his heart thrilled as he clearly distinguished
 
 282 l)e tOtjite 
 
 against one of the brightly sunlit windows the 
 figure of Adeline. She was walking between 
 the two other young girls, and her more deli- 
 cately elegant form and more graceful carriage 
 made her seem a queen attended by her maids. 
 
 Calisto, blood-stained criminal though he 
 was, felt his soul stirred and softened as he 
 gazed at this pure young creature whom he so 
 deeply loved. He longed to call to her, to tell 
 her that he gave himself to her utterly, soul and 
 body, to do with as she pleased; to promise 
 anything, everything, for a kindly glance from 
 her beautiful eyes, for a kindly touch, for a kind- 
 ly word. For a moment the love for her that 
 tore his heart conquered his wild-beast instincts 
 and made him tender and pitiful! 
 
 But it was only for a moment that this mood 
 lasted. As Adeline disappeared into the con- 
 vent the wild beast was aroused again. In the 
 unreasoning rage of a wild beast whose prey 
 has succeeded in escaping, he flung himself 
 against the grating and shook it violently mad 
 to follow her, to seize her, to make her his own ! 
 The noise that he made recalled him to his 
 senses. He trembled a little as he reflected how 
 much his imprudence might have cost him. He 
 was farther chilled by the sound of talking in the 
 sacristy, and by the thought that whoever was 
 in there with Canon Jusserand might have seen 
 his crazy act. Meekly, with downcast eyes, he 
 turned to the altar and collected the sacred ves- 
 sels; and then, with the devout air of one who 
 has just partaken of the Sacrament, carried them 
 into the sacristy. 
 
 Canon Jusserand was in the act of taking off
 
 21 Sacrilegious Sacrament 283 
 
 his stole, which he kissed as he laid it down. 
 Sister Margai was with him. She had brought 
 a pewter tray on which were two cups of milk 
 and two buttered rolls for the breakfast of the 
 priest and his assistant. There were tears in 
 her eyes, and she was trembling like a reed. 
 Her agitation filled Calisto with alarm. Perhaps 
 she had seen him beating at the bars! But in a 
 moment he was reassured. 
 
 " They have taken him to be a conscript?" 
 the Canon asked. 
 
 "Yes, Monsieur," Sister Margai answered 
 brokenly, "to be a conscript. The gendarmes 
 came and took away our good Pierre. Oh, holy 
 Mother of Heaven! The evil days are coming 
 back again! And they say, Monsieur, that all 
 the young men over sixteen are to go. Ai ! Ai ! 
 Ai! Who's going to pasture our cows ?" And 
 Sister Margai sobbed aloud. 
 
 "It is to General Bonaparte that we owe 
 this, " said the Canon. ' ' Why could he not have 
 staid in Egypt and died there of the plague!" 
 He sighed deeply, and crossed himself with the 
 hand in which he held his buttered roll. 
 
 As Calisto realized that he himself was in 
 peril if a general conscription had been ordered, 
 a fear of a more practical sort possessed him. 
 " Are you sure that your Pierre was taken as a 
 conscript ?" he asked. " May he not have been 
 a deserter ? " 
 
 "No, no. He was not a deserter. He never 
 was in the army at all. Oh, he was such a nice 
 boy. He was no more in the way than if he 
 had been a girl! " 
 
 " Some one must have denounced him, then. 
 19
 
 284 l)e iX)l)ite terror 
 
 There are plenty of those Republican brigands 
 who would be glad to get a convent servant into 
 trouble." 
 
 "No, Monsieur, I don't think that anybody 
 denounced him. You see, the gendarmes are 
 searching one house after the other, and wher- 
 ever they find a man or a poor boy like our 
 Pierre who can serve in the army they just 
 snatch him away. It was dreadful when they 
 came, the gendarmes! The street was full of 
 them, with their bayonets and their guns! Oh 
 our poor Pierre! Oh our poor cows! What 
 will become of them now ! " Sister Margai 
 broke forth into sobs again, and with upraised 
 arms left the sacristy by the little door through 
 which she had come. 
 
 Canon Jusserand and Calisto looked at each 
 other anxiously, but they were silent until the 
 sound of the nun's retreating footsteps had died 
 away. Then the Canon, as he dipped his roll 
 into his cup, said thoughtfully: "This may 
 make trouble. It will be safer for you to re- 
 main here while I find out what the gendarmes 
 are doing." 
 
 " But what will the Sisters say to my stay- 
 ing here ? " 
 
 "I will arrange that. They will make no 
 objections. Now listen. If I find that you may 
 return to the house without danger, I will send 
 for you. But if it is not safe for you to return, 
 you must spend the day here, and in the even- 
 ing I will have a carriage at the garden door to 
 convey you to the Chateau de la Vernede. 
 There you may be safely hidden if necessary, 
 under another name."
 
 Sacrilegious Sacrament 285 
 
 "I want no better name than the one to 
 which I have a legal right. The title deeds 
 which I received from my poor good master 
 before he died give me the right to the name of 
 the Comte de la Vernede." 
 
 " Yes, that is true enough. The title goes 
 with the estate. But we need not bother about 
 names and titles just now. The important mat- 
 ter is to make sure that you are not snapped up 
 as a conscript, to serve in this outlaw army of 
 the Republic against our good Austrian and Ger- 
 man allies who are fighting for our good King. 
 That is why it may be best for you to be off 
 into hiding at the Chateau." 
 
 Calisto did not answer in words, but he 
 shook his head doubtingly. 
 
 " Well, doesn't my plan suit you ?" 
 
 "In one way it suits me very well indeed, 
 but in another way it doesn't suit me at all. If 
 I go off and hide myself at the Chateau, what 
 becomes of my marriage with the Comtessine ? 
 Suppose that some one else wants to marry her ? 
 Suppose she leaves the convent ? " 
 
 " Don't worry about that. You forget that 
 I shall be here, and that nothing can be done 
 without consulting me. I am the director and 
 the confessor of the Comtessine. I shall know 
 all that is going on." 
 
 "And then those Vauclairs! They may 
 come back and take her to live with them again. 
 If she gets into the hands of those brigands 
 there isn't much hope for me! And oh, to leave 
 her at all, to go away from her now that at last 
 I have found her, is bitter hard! " 
 
 "What difference does your going away
 
 286 i)e toljile terror 
 
 make when I tell you that I hold her in my hand 
 like a nestling ? 1 am here to watch over hen 
 to tell her that she is in danger of damnation if 
 she does not obey her mother's command to 
 marry you." 
 
 ""I would rather see her dead than married 
 to another perhaps to some brigand Republi- 
 can ! " 
 
 " She shall belong to you or to no one, never 
 fear. But hush! Here comes Sister Margai 
 again. I hear her sobbing for her lost cow-herd 
 and her unhappy cows." As he spoke, Sister 
 Margai re-entered the sacristy, with upraised 
 arms and in tears. "Well," he continued, ad- 
 dressing the sorrowing Sister, "what is it now ? 
 Have the gendarmes come back again ?" 
 
 "No, no. They're gone, and our Pierre is 
 gone with them. They've gone to search every 
 house in Avignon. We are left desolate we 
 and the cows!" 
 
 "Never mind about the cows now, Sister. 
 Listen, I have something to say to you. I am 
 going out alone. Monsieur le Comte de la Ver- 
 nede, my relative who was good enough to 
 come with me to serve the mass will remain 
 here for a time, possibly for the whole day. 
 You easily will understand that he does not wish 
 to be taken off by the gendarmes to fight for this 
 carrion Republic against our good German and 
 Austrian allies. Therefore he will stay here 
 until it shall be safe for me to send for him. I 
 leave him in your hands. Should he tire of the 
 sacristy, you will permit him to walk in the 
 garden. Tell the reverend Mother Superior that 
 1 have authorized this."
 
 & Sacrilegious Sacrament 287 
 
 "What you have ordered, Father, shall be 
 done," Sister Margai answered, bending her 
 head that the priest might make the sign of the 
 cross over it and crossing herself when this 
 blessing had been conferred. And then turning 
 to Calisto, as the Canon left them, she added : 
 " Monsieur le Comte. I am at your commands." 
 
 "Tell me," Calisto asked, "was I mistaken 
 in believing that Mademoiselle la Comtessine 
 d'Ambrun was with you just now at the holy 
 mass?" 
 
 "No, Monsieur, you were not mistaken. 
 She was with us." 
 
 " How strange! Never did I expect to see 
 her a nun." 
 
 "But she is not a nun, Monsieur; and she 
 never will be one, I assure you." 
 
 "You astonish me. If she is not a nun, 
 and is not to be one, why was she wearing a 
 white veil ? " 
 
 " It was her veil for the Holy Communion, 
 Monsieur." 
 
 "Surely, though, she is here in the convent 
 with the Sisters. She is one of you." 
 
 "No, Monsieur le Comte, you are mistaken. 
 The Comtessine is with us only at the time of 
 our services. She lives in a house in the garden 
 that is not cloistered like the convent." 
 
 "Ah, for the moment, no doubt. But she 
 is not likely to dwell apart from you long. She 
 has no one left to her on earth, poor child! 
 Presently she will join your holy Sisterhood and 
 be at peace." 
 
 "Oh, don't you believe that, Monsieur le 
 Comte. The Comtessine is not alone in the
 
 288 lje toljitc terror 
 
 world. She has " and then, suddenly realiz- 
 ing that she was talking something very like 
 gossip, Sister Margai stopped short. In confu- 
 sion, she hurriedly picked up the breakfast tray 
 and turned to go. 
 
 Calisto detained her. "Has she then any 
 relatives left alive ? " he asked. " 1 thought that 
 in the dreadful days of the Terror all were lost." 
 
 After all, Sister Margai was a woman. What 
 she had to tell was too delightful not to be told. 
 She hurried away with the tray, but paused for 
 an instant on the threshold as she threw these 
 words behind her before she clapped to the 
 door: "Mademoiselle la Comtessine is be- 
 trothed!"
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 WITHIN CONSECRATED WALLS 
 
 SISTER MARGAI'S announcement left Calisto 
 thunderstruck. Adeline betrothed! It seemed 
 impossible ! To whom could her troth be given ? 
 He was in a ferment. The heavy scent of in- 
 cense in the chapel seemed to stifle him. He 
 went hastily to the door opening upon the gar- 
 den that he might breathe the fresh outer air. 
 
 Save for the sparrows flying about in search 
 of their breakfasts, the sunny garden was de- 
 serted. Glancing about him shrewdly, he 
 walked out among the roses. The restful quiet 
 of that sweet place soothed him and he grew 
 calmer. Presently, down at the far end of the 
 convent, he caught sight of two unbarred win- 
 dows which overlooked an adjoining garden, 
 separated from the one in which he was by a 
 high wall. "The home of the Comtessine is 
 behind those unbarred windows," he said to 
 himself and walked softly, keeping close 
 beside the convent, until he was come to the 
 dividing wall. 
 
 Just then a door was opened with a bang 
 that sent the frightened sparrows flying up to 
 the roofs, and that fora moment alarmed Calisto 
 also. In an instant he was at ease again, as 
 there came from the other side of the wall the 
 
 289
 
 290 I) tX)l)ile error 
 
 sound of girlish laughter and gay cries and hand- 
 clappings and running steps and he was almost 
 sure that among the voices he recognised that 
 of the Comtessine. Then there was a pattering 
 sound, as of dancing feet, and the girls' voices 
 sang together a gay round beginning : 
 
 Old Nick is ailing, 
 
 He's complaining to-night. 
 
 It was the round that Adeline and old Joy 
 and little Clairet had sung so often in the garden 
 of the house in the Rue de Bretagne; and as 
 Calisto heard the familiar words he was abso- 
 lutely certain that she whom he was hunting 
 with a wild beast's ardour and eagerness was 
 within a few feet of him, on the other side of 
 that wall. Her nearness, and her inaccessibility, 
 made so maddening a combination that he bit 
 his thin lips and dug his nails into the palms of 
 his hands. For a long while he stood there, 
 listening, in a dull rage. At last a bell rang. 
 Then the gay sounds on the other side of the 
 wall stopped abruptly, there was a little bustle 
 of retreating steps, the door slammed again 
 and then all was still. 
 
 Slowly he returned to the sacristy of the 
 chapel and there seated himself his face in his 
 hands, his elbows on his knees to chew the 
 cud of those bitter words: "The Comtessine is 
 betrothed ! " He was torn and pierced by a sharp 
 pain that he could not explain to himself; that 
 his cruel and unnatural heart did not recognise 
 as the stinging pain of love. This bastard, who 
 was acknowledged by no parent, who possessed 
 no friend, felt his eyes filling with tears. He
 
 tDitljin (Consecrateb tDails 291 
 
 knew not why he wept. He was ashamed of 
 his weakness.' "Can it be I, the Comte de la 
 Vernede," he cried aloud, "who is crying like 
 a baby because the Comtessine is betrothed to 
 some one ? What do I care for that, and what 
 difference does it make ? Now that I have found 
 her, she is mine. I have her here, locked up in 
 a convent, as safe as though she were locked up 
 in a prison. She cannot escape from me. I 
 have her fast. Betrothed ? Yes, she is betrothed, 
 but to me or to Death ! " 
 
 He stood erect as he spoke these words, his 
 eyes, still wet with tears, flashing with anger 
 and almost fell backward as he saw standing 
 directly in front of him, pale and motionless as 
 a statue, the Superior of the convent, Mother 
 Dorothy! He knew that she must have heard 
 every syllable that his lips, giving voice to the 
 thoughts of his black heart,' had uttered. For 
 an instant he was in utter confusion. Then he 
 rallied and before Mother Dorothy had time to 
 speak he had flung himself on his knees before 
 the great crucifix. 
 
 "Oh holy Christ," he cried, "have pity on 
 me ! I am a sinful man made mad by rage. The 
 fire of love that burns in my veins is fire from 
 hell. Have pity on me, my Saint Christ! I 
 sin because I look with longing eyes upon that 
 innocent girl, that virgin of delight, who seeks 
 no spouse but Thee; who desires no wedding 
 garb but the habit of sweet Saint Ursula. For- 
 give my sin, oh my Saint Christ, and take her 
 to Thyself while I, unworthy of her, shall hide 
 away in pain in the forests of La Vernede, as a 
 wounded wolf hides himself in his lair!"
 
 292 l)e tiObite terror 
 
 Calisto arose from before the crucifix and 
 knelt to the Mother Superior, saying pleadingly : 
 " Forgive me, holy and reverend Mother! The 
 Comte de la Vernede is at your feet so shamed 
 that he dares not raise his eyes to yours because 
 in this house of virtue he has suffered to escape 
 from him the cry of his wretched flesh ! Forgive 
 me, holy Mother. My cry of the flesh was 
 wrung from me because I am suffering the tor- 
 tures of the damned. Forgive me! " 
 
 Mother Dorothy's feeling of alarm and horror 
 was changed to a profound pity by this appeal. 
 "Monsieur le Comte," she said soothingly, 
 " my heart bleeds for you in your sorrow. But 
 do not sorrow despairingly. God is good. He 
 is not jealous of His creatures. The Comtessine 
 is bound as yet by no vows. Perhaps God has 
 sent you to our convent to withdraw her from 
 the devil's claws for her heart also 5 hurt and 
 torn." 
 
 Calisto's fears were allayed by Mother Dor- 
 othy's display of so kindly a sympathy. He 
 listened eagerly as she continued: " Sometimes 
 we speak to the Comtessine about becoming a 
 nun. We urge upon her that her relatives all 
 are dead and that she is alone in the world, that 
 the title deeds to her estate have vanished and 
 that she has no home." 
 
 "And what does she answer?" 
 
 "That she is betrothed." 
 
 "To whom ?" 
 
 "That she does not say. But we know. 
 It is to a peasant boy from her own estate. A lad 
 who was with her in Paris in the awful days of 
 the Revolution."
 
 (Eonsccraleb tOaiis 293 
 
 " Ah, the poor Comtessine! " sighed Calisto. 
 "It is evident that she knows nothing of her 
 dead mother's acts and commands. Before that 
 holy woman was led away to the scaffold she 
 confided the title deeds to Ambrun to my keep- 
 ing; and to me she confided also her written 
 command that the Comtessine, her daughter, 
 should be my wife. It is impossible that she 
 should be betrothed to any other than me. Be- 
 fore God, and by the will of her dead mother, I 
 am her affianced husband! " 
 
 "Monsieur le Comte!" exclaimed Mother 
 Dorothy in amazement. "It is God himself 
 who sends you here! Your coming brings 
 peace and happiness to our little Comtes- 
 sine." 
 
 " Yes, reverend Mother; and peace and hap- 
 piness will come to me also. When you found 
 me, just now, in the rage of despair it was be- 
 cause I had heard from the Sister porteress what 
 you have told me: that the Comtessine was be- 
 trothed. I feared that I had lost her, and I be- 
 came as one mad. But now that I know to 
 whom she is betrothed a Republican brigand 
 and am sure of your help in saving her from 
 such a misalliance, my fear is gone. The Com- 
 tessine 
 
 A rumble of wheels in the street, that 
 stopped at the garden door of the convent, cut 
 short his words. In that quiet quarter the sound 
 was a most unusual one. Calisto and Mother 
 Dorothy listened anxiously; and still more anx- 
 iously when there came a loud knocking at the 
 door. By a common impulse they left the sac- 
 risty and went quickly to the door of the chapel
 
 294 i)e tDhite terror 
 
 and then their anxiety was relieved by hear- 
 ing the voice of Canon Jusserand. A moment 
 later the Canon joined them. "The carriage is 
 here," he said to Calisto, "and you must get 
 away at once either to the Chateau de la Garde 
 or to La Vernede." 
 
 "In broad daylight?" Calisto questioned. 
 "Surely, with Avignon alive with gendarmes, 
 that will be to fling myself into the wolfs 
 jaws!" 
 
 "No, this is the very moment to escape. 
 The gates are open, and are not kept. To-night 
 they will be shut and guarded. Decide at once 
 where you will go to La Garde or to La Ver- 
 nede." 
 
 " Unless I can take the Comtessine with me 
 I will not go to either! " 
 
 "What folly! Where can the Comtessine 
 be better off than in this cloistered convent ? 
 Where can she wait more safely for the day 
 when I shall join you together in the sight of 
 God ? " 
 
 " How do I know that I shall find her here 
 when the evil days are past ? She may be spir- 
 ited away by that brigand of a Republican to 
 whom she says she is betrothed." 
 
 "God preserve us from that!" exclaimed 
 Mother Dorothy. " What, a miserable peasant 
 steal away our Comtessine! No such sacrilege 
 as that will be permitted here, Monsieur le 
 Comte, that I promise you! " 
 
 "Better should she die than disobey the 
 command of her sainted mother," added Canon 
 Jusserand. 
 
 "But if I go into hiding," persisted Calisto,
 
 (Consecrated tOuiia 295 
 
 " when can we be married ? Think how long 
 I may have to wait!" 
 
 "How long does a storm last? A day," 
 said the Canon. " How long does a plague 
 last ? A month. At the worst, that Bonaparte 
 will not last a year. He has re-opened the 
 churches, but his fight is not made for our good 
 King. He fights for this carrion of a Republic," 
 and the Canon spat upon the ground. 
 
 Calisto made no answer, but he shook his 
 head as much as to say: " Who claims, claims. 
 Who holds, has!" 
 
 " And, no matter what this Bonaparte does 
 or does not do," continued the Canon, "I will 
 see to it that you shall have what you want. 
 One of these days, or one of these nights, I will 
 carry the Comtessine up to the Chateau de la 
 Garde where the gendarmes are not likely to 
 look for you, or for her either and there 1 will 
 bless your marriage, and so fulfil the wish of 
 the sainted Marquise d'Ambrun." 
 
 "Oh happy Comtessine," exclaimed Sister 
 Dorothy. "Thus shall she be snatched from 
 the claws of that brigand who even now may be 
 fighting with Bonaparte against our good King! 
 And until that bright day comes. I shall guard 
 her well! " 
 
 Calisto looked at Sister Dorothy with a look 
 so piercing and a smile so evil that she shud- 
 dered in the very marrow of her bones. She 
 seemed to hear him say: " You have promised 
 to guard her. Woe be to you if your promise 
 is not kept! " 
 
 Monsieur Jusserand was in boiling oil, so 
 anxious was he to get Calisto away before he
 
 296 l)c tobite terror 
 
 should be snapped up for a conscript by the 
 gendarmes. Seizing him by the arm, he half 
 led half dragged him down the garden to the 
 gate, and there fairly thrust him into the waiting 
 carriage and closed the door with a bang. 
 " Drive Monsieur le Comte to Malemort, to the 
 Chateau de la Garde," he said to the coachman. 
 "Take the road through Pernes, not through 
 Carpentras. It is shorter and safer." And then, 
 as the carriage drove away, he re-entered the 
 convent garden and returned to Mother Dorothy 
 in the sacristy of the chapel. As he walked up 
 the garden path he drew out his snuff-box and 
 took a big pinch of snuff slowly and comfort- 
 ably. He entered the sacristy smiling a satisfied 
 smile. 
 
 Mother Dorothy still was trembling with ex- 
 citement over all these strange happenings, but 
 she grew calmer as Monsieur Jusserand came 
 smiling back to her and then was startled in 
 a different way. In his eyes was a roguish 
 glint such as she had seen there first years and 
 years before, when they both were young he 
 a young abbe and she a young nun. Curious 
 memories thrilled her. As he continued to 
 smile at her, still with the roguish glint in his 
 eyes, she also smiled but blushed a little and 
 cast her own eyes down. 
 
 "Well," said the Canon, "what do you 
 think of him ?" 
 
 " Of whom ?" 
 
 "Of that young man." 
 
 " He seems to be a very worthy and pious 
 young man. A little too quick-tempered, per- 
 haps."
 
 tOitl)itt Olonsccratcb toalls 297 
 
 "Didn't your heart say anything to you 
 when you saw him ?" 
 
 "I do not understand. Why should my 
 heart say anything to me ? " 
 
 Smiling still more roguishly, Canon Jusse- 
 rand drew close to her and gave her a little dig 
 with his elbow as he asked: "Didn't you no- 
 tice his resemblance to somebody whom you 
 know ?" 
 
 Mother Dorothy drew away a little. " What 
 mystery is this, Monsieur J usserand ? " she asked. 
 
 "Come, come. If you looked at him at all 
 you must have seen that he is the very image of 
 me, as 1 was twenty-three years ago." 
 
 "1 do not in the least know what you are 
 talking about, Monsieur," Mother Dorothy an- 
 swered. Her voice shook a little. Her hands 
 were clasped together tightly. Her eyes were 
 fixed upon the floor. 
 
 "Then I will tell you. Twenty-three years 
 ago, when that young man was a little child, he 
 was abandoned may God forgive us tor it! 
 at Les Sablees, in Aramon. By a miracle, that 
 must have been worked by our patron Saint 
 Ursula, he was found by the Comte de la Ver- 
 nede who took him to his Chateau, who 
 adopted him, who bequeathed to him his estate 
 that carries with it a noble title. That is much 
 for an outcast and a foundling. But now he 
 wants more, and it is only just that we should 
 aid him to accomplish this marriage which will 
 give him happiness and which will make his 
 position in life secure." 
 
 In Mother Dorothy's breast were strangely 
 blended feelings, but the dominant feeling was
 
 298 l)c tOi)itc terror 
 
 happiness. At last her mother-instinct, that for 
 years had filled her heart with longing, had 
 been gratified: she had seen her child! For a 
 moment she hid her face in her hands. Then 
 she knelt before the altar to thank God for the 
 joy that He had given her, and for the thousandth 
 time to ask forgiveness for her sin. 
 
 Canon Jusserand softly left her. He was 
 satisfied that he could count upon her helping 
 to bring about the marriage of Calisto and the 
 Comtessine.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 A MIDNIGHT CONFERENCE 
 
 IT was well for Calisto that Canon Jusserand 
 had hurried him away to the Chateau de la 
 Garde. When that worthy priest returned to 
 his home in the Rue du Limas he found the 
 gendarmes in the act of searching it. What 
 was more, they were led by Sergeant Vauclair 
 who had returned the day before from the 
 army and who had brought them to where he 
 believed that Calisto would be found. But be- 
 yond turning the house pretty well upside down, 
 the search produced no result. 
 
 Disconcerted by having led the gendarmes 
 on a wild-goose chase, Vauclair betook himself 
 to his little house in the Place du Grand Paradis 
 and began to put in working order his saws and 
 planes. He was taking up his trade again; and 
 Lazuli come back with Clairet from Malaucene 
 was setting in order once more their disman- 
 tled home. Old Joy no longer was with them. 
 The good old woman had died in Malaucene, 
 peacefully and happily, and they had left her at 
 rest in the little graveyard on the north slope of 
 Mont Ventour. The people living round about 
 the Place du Grand Paradis received them kind- 
 ly having added, as time passed on, a good 
 deal of water to their wine. 
 
 20 2 99
 
 300 t)e tOljite terror 
 
 Indeed, the Red Terror and the White Terror 
 being ended, both Reds and Whites had quieted 
 down amazingly. They were surprised, and 
 they were still more ple'ased, by finding them- 
 selves in peace and quiet once more. And, also, 
 the fact must be acknowledged that the victories 
 which General Bonaparte was winning victo- 
 ries so brilliant that men of all parties were daz- 
 zled by them were making for good citizenship 
 by creating some sort of solidarity in France. 
 Out of these large causes came to the Vauclairs 
 the result that they could live again peacefully 
 among their neighbours. Vauclair had plenty 
 of work to do, and for him and for Lazuli and 
 for Clairet growing to be a fine big boy time 
 slipped away very happily in their comfortable 
 little home. 
 
 Meanwhile, up in the Chateau de la Garde, 
 time did not slip away happily for Calisto. On 
 the contrary, he grew desperately tired of a life 
 in which the only excitement was his dread of 
 the coming of the gendarmes. As the weeks 
 lengthened out into months he became more 
 and more restless, and his head was full of 
 wilder and wilder plans for gaining his ends. 
 The simplest and the most practicable of these 
 was to get his band of ruffians together some 
 dark night, scale the wall of the convent, and 
 carry Adeline off by force. That would be both 
 direct and effective. But he knew that it would 
 be less effective, in the long run, than any plan 
 that would make Adeline come to him willingly. 
 Even at the cost of longer waiting, it was better 
 that she should yield gradually to the pressure 
 that Canon Jusserand and Mother Dorothy were
 
 31 Ulibnigljt (Conference 301 
 
 exercising upon her and the thought occurred 
 to him that this pressure might be greatly in- 
 creased by adding to it the command of the 
 Lord Bishop of Avignon. It would not be diffi- 
 cult, he decided, to enlist the services of that 
 dignitary by a handsome gift toward the resto- 
 ration of his dismantled cathedral; and a word 
 from the Lord Bishop surely would compel Ade- 
 line to obey her mother's written command. 
 
 And so while he meditated plans which 
 sometimes were foul, and which sometimes in 
 a way were fair the time dragged on. The 
 summer passed, the autumn passed, winter was 
 well advanced. Still nothing happened, still he 
 was virtually a prisoner in the lonely Chateau. 
 At last he could stand inaction no longer. At 
 any risk he decided to make a move. He would 
 steal into Avignon by night and see for himself 
 what could be done'there. If nothing could be 
 done, he was ready to fire the convent and burn 
 Adeline to death, and all the nuns along with 
 her, rather than that his maddening waiting 
 should go on and on! 
 
 Therefore there came a knock, one wintry 
 midnight when the mistral was blowing fiercely, 
 at Canon Jusserand's door. The Canon, snug 
 in his warm bed, paid no attention to it. Some 
 dying person wanted absolution, he thought. 
 Well, they must get a younger priest to give it. 
 He would not risk his old body out of doors on 
 a night like that merely because some silk- 
 weaver had the bad taste to choose weather of 
 that sort in which to die. And he settled his 
 night-cap more comfortably and drew the warm 
 covers well about his ears.
 
 302 l)e fyite terror 
 
 But his old servant looked at the matter dif- 
 ferently. It would be mortal sin, she believed, 
 if she failed in any way to help a dying man to 
 receive absolution ; and she slipped on a petti- 
 coat and a shawl and went to her window, 
 which overlooked the street door. The mistral 
 had set to dancing every star in heaven, and by 
 the starlight she saw a man muffled in a cloak 
 raising his hand once more to the knocker. " If 
 I did not know that Monsieur le Comte is at his 
 Chateau," she said to herself, " I would say that 
 it was he for sure." And then she called down: 
 "Who's there?" 
 
 "It is I," Calisto answered. He did not 
 dare to speak his name. The wind was blow- 
 ing hard enough to carry words, like dead leaves, 
 all over Avignon. 
 
 The old woman recognised his voice and 
 hurried down to let him in calling out, as she 
 passed the Canon's door, "It's Monsieur le 
 Comte de la Vernede." 
 
 "Impossible!" the Canon answered from 
 the depths of the bed-clothes. But added, as 
 he roused himself: "If it is he, he's gone stark 
 staring mad! " 
 
 The servant went on down the stairs and 
 opened the door. Calisto, half frozen, entered 
 and along with him a blast of bitter cold wind 
 that blew out the light. " Ugh ! " he said. " It 
 is a night for wolves! " And groping his way 
 past the servant he went up the stair. 
 
 By the time that he had reached the upper 
 landing the Canon had come out to meet him 
 muffled in a wrapper, his feet in slippers, a lamp 
 in his hand. "Unlucky boy! " exclaimed the
 
 & itttfmigtjt Conference 33 
 
 Canon. "What brings you here? Do you 
 want to be seized by the gendarmes ? " 
 
 "I'm sick of the life that I'm leading, that's 
 why I'm here. Haven't you a fire anywhere? 
 I'm" half dead with cold."' 
 
 "This is madness! Sheer madness," the 
 Canon answered. But he led Calisto into his 
 sitting-room, and started a blaze by throwing a 
 fagot on the embers, still alight under the 
 ashes, of his fire. He set the lamp upon the 
 credence where stood the great golden mon- 
 strance from Bastian's wheel-barrow, sparkling 
 in the light. "Yes, this is sheer madness," he 
 repeated. "Talk about the folly of children! 
 Well, what does it all mean?" He settled 
 himself into his big chair and with his elbows 
 on its arms joined the tips of his fingers before 
 his mouth. His lips moved, as though he were 
 reciting a prayer. 
 
 Calisto threw his cloak upon the sofa and 
 drew close to the fire. "I have come to the 
 conclusion," he said, "that there is truth in the 
 proverb that if you want a good drink you must 
 pour it out for yourself ! I had your promise to 
 bring my affair with the Comtessine to a good 
 end, and I relied upon it. You promised me 
 that you either would arrange matters as I 
 wanted them arranged here, or that you would 
 bring the Comtessine to the Chateau and there 
 marry me to her. Months and months have 
 passed, and you have done neither of these 
 things that you promised to do. Waiting has 
 become utterly hateful to me. I am sick and 
 tired of straining my eyes in search of what 
 never comes to me. Waiting longer in that
 
 304 
 
 wolfs solitude was impossible. And so here I 
 am come to pour out for myself the drink that 
 1 must and will have! 
 
 " But you must not suppose, Monsieur le 
 Chanoine," he continued, "that I have for a 
 moment doubted your good faith. I know that 
 the papers and the money which I have left 
 with you are absolutely secure; and I am satis- 
 fied that everything that you could do for me 
 you have done. What I have doubted, and 
 what 1 do doubt, is the part that Mother Dorothy 
 is playing. She knows that you have in your 
 keeping the Comtessine's title deeds, to give 
 them to her if you see fit. It may be that she 
 is working in the interest of her own convent 
 that she is trying to bring the property to the 
 convent by inducing Adeline to become a nun." 
 
 Monsieur Jusserand smiled behind the tips of 
 his fingers and shook his head at this suggestion, 
 but he made no re-ply in words. 
 
 Calisto, growing more excited, continued: 
 " I do not wish to resort to violence. It is my 
 desire to gather the flower without shaking the 
 branch. Most of all. I wish to obey you. But 
 there is a limit to my endurance, and if I find 
 that Mother Dorothy is trying to rob me of my 
 bride if I find that, be assured, Monsieur le 
 Chanoine, that violence, and very terrible vio- 
 lence, will be used. For I am accustomed when 
 any person tries to hinder me to remove that 
 person from my path ! " And Calisto, his eyes 
 blazing, made the gesture of one who stabs. 
 
 Monsieur Jusserand never had seen his Calisto 
 thus given over to rage. The old man was not 
 frightened, but in spite of himself a shiver ran
 
 3, tflibnigbt Conference 305 
 
 through him. He dropped his upraised hands 
 and clasped tightly the arms of his chair. 
 " Come, come," he said, " you are talking fool- 
 ishly. The reverend Mother Dorothy has done 
 her duty by you. I fear that she may even have 
 done a little more than her duty. If nothing has 
 been accomplished, it is the fault of the Comtes- 
 sine herself and of those miserables the Vauclairs. 
 The hold that those creatures have upon her is 
 inexplicable. Vauclair is one of the brigands 
 who went up to Paris with the Marseilles Bat- 
 talion. His wife must be of the same sort. No 
 doubt they wish to marry her to one of their 
 own vile kind and so get their share in plunder- 
 ing her. 
 
 "Indeed," continued Monsieur Jusserand, 
 "lhave just discovered that immediately after 
 her coming to Avignon they contrived to make 
 her give a little house and a scrap of land to the 
 mother of that Pascalet who so sticks in her 
 memory. I have put a stop altogether to her 
 seeing them. The woman Lazuli almost made 
 a scandal because she was refused admittance to 
 the convent. However, 1 arranged the matter 
 quietly though at the cost, I fear, of burdening 
 Sister'Margai's conscience with a few lies. She 
 began by telling the creature that the Comtes- 
 sine was ill. That was true. She worried her- 
 self ill because her friends did not come to see 
 her. Then Sister Margai said that the Comtes- 
 sine was at death's door; and, finally, that she 
 was dead. That settled the matter. But you 
 see, my Calisto, we have been obliged to go 
 pretty far in order to calm the Comtessine's 
 disturbed mind!
 
 306 
 
 "But with it all," the Canon concluded, 
 ''the unhappy girl's head still is full of that dirty 
 peasant Pascalet. His name always is on her 
 lips. In answer to whatever we say to her it 
 always is 'My Pascalet! I shall wait for my 
 Pascalet!'" 
 
 " But what does she say when you speak to 
 her about me the Comte de la Vernede ?" 
 
 "Well, she is not very encouraging. We 
 told her that the Comte de la Vernede was the 
 rich and generous nobleman whom her sainted 
 mother had commanded her to marry." 
 
 " And what did she answer?" 
 
 "That she knew of but one Comte de la 
 Vernede and that he was dead murdered in 
 the prison of the Abbaye. But if there were a 
 living and a true Comte de la Vernede, she went 
 on, or a marquis or a duke or even a prince, she 
 would have none of them. Only her Pascalet 
 should put the wedding-ring on her finger 
 only he! But, after all, she is only a child 
 and this is only childish talk." 
 
 "You think, then, that she may break her 
 promise to her dirty Pascalet?" 
 
 ' ' Think it ? I am sure of it ! Very likely he's 
 dead by this time, anyway. If he isn't, you 
 have only to show yourself, and to tell her how 
 much she will owe to you, to win the game. 
 How can she refuse you you so gallant, so 
 handsome, who generously restore to her her 
 fortune, who are set apart as her husband by 
 her dead mother's command ? And if she still 
 hesitates I am not at the end of my resources. 
 Means stronger than we have used can be em- 
 ployed! "
 
 iltibnigljt Conference 307 
 
 "Yes," Calisto answered, "and I am ready 
 to employ them! " 
 
 "Gently! Gently! You misunderstand me. 
 Marriage is a sacrament that requires common 
 consent. What 1 mean is that she shall hear a 
 higher voice than ours." 
 
 "Whose?" 
 
 "The voice of the Lord Bishop of Avignon. 
 That can be gained easily. To put the matter 
 in train, I already have spoken to him about you. 
 I have told him that you are disposed to make a 
 donation toward supplying his cathedral with 
 the holy vessels which the Revolutionists stole 
 away," and the Canon gave a meaning glance 
 toward the magnificent monstrance. 
 
 " You have uttered what has been my own 
 thought!" Calisto exclaimed delightedly. "I 
 long to consecrate a portion of my wealth to 
 the Church. As for this monstrance, it shall be 
 the first of my gifts. I will take it to the Lord 
 Bishop myself, and offer it to him as I kneel at 
 his feet. Whatever else he needs he shall have. 
 I will give him everything he wants! " 
 
 "Well, we can talk all this over in the 
 morning. Now we will go to bed. You know 
 where your room is. Marianne will give you 
 her lamp. All will come right in time, do not 
 fear. Good night, and God bless you! " 
 
 The Canon called Marianne, and then 
 shuffled away in his slippers to bury himself 
 again in his comfortable bed.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 BY FAIR MEANS OR BY FOUL 
 
 CALTSTO'S brain was in such a ferment that 
 sleep was impossible. Resisting old Marianne's 
 entreaties to go to his bed, he wrapped himself 
 in his cloak and lay down upon the sofa. There 
 he tossed and turned, while his fevered mind 
 burned with longing to gain his end quickly by 
 carrying Adeline away from the convent by 
 force. From time to time the fire would blaze 
 up for a moment, casting a red light upon the 
 ceiling and throwing upon the golden sun of the 
 great monstrance a crimson glow. 
 
 He longed for the sleep that would not come 
 to him. He longed for morning, and cursed the 
 slow flight of time. Time moved the slower 
 because he could not keep track of it. When 
 Jacquemart, up in his tower, pounded on his 
 bell, the mistral flung the sound all over Avi- 
 gnon and made counting the strokes impossible. 
 The furiously blowing wind filled the night 
 with noises, by turns mysterious and violent. 
 In the house were strange creakings and stranger 
 whisperings, and now and again from the chim- 
 ney would come a dull roar. Outside, the shut- 
 ters banged and rattled, and at intervals a great 
 crash would tell of a chimney dashed bodily into 
 the street below. Then would come a moment 
 308
 
 itteans or bg foni 39 
 
 of absolute silence, as though the mistral were 
 pausing to draw a long breath and then a fresh 
 outburst of rattles and crashes and bangs. And 
 so, wildly but very wearily, the night went on. 
 
 At last thin rays of pale light began to show 
 through the cracks in the shutters, and with 
 the coming of dawn the wind died down. The 
 noises caused by the mistral ceased, but other 
 and stranger noises began. Calisto fancied that 
 he heard the hoof-beats of a galloping horse. A 
 little later Jacquemart's bell pealed forth loudly 
 bourn ! bourn ! bourn ! But it was no hour 
 that Jacquemart was striking it was the alarm ! 
 Then there was the sound of windows and 
 doors opened hurriedly, and of shouts and calls. 
 Calisto opened his shutters a very little way and 
 peeped out, listening eagerly to the cries which 
 went from window to window among the 
 neighbours. 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " I don't know. Very likely a fire." 
 
 "No, that's not the way Jacquemart talks 
 when there's a fire. Just hear how he bangs! " 
 
 "I'm afraid that it's another of that Bona- 
 parte's victories," cried an old fanatic from his 
 fourth floor. 
 
 "Heaven grant that it's the coming of our 
 good King! " cried another of the same stripe. 
 
 The matter was set at rest for a moment by 
 a woman who seemed to know all about it. In 
 her shift, with her hair hanging loose, she leaned 
 forth from her window. Clapping her hands 
 she cried loudly: " Long live the King! Long 
 live the Pope! Bonaparte's dead! " 
 
 Royalists and Papalists were thick in that
 
 tOljite error 
 
 quarter of Avignon. The woman's cry was 
 taken up joyfully. From all the windows came 
 glad shouts of " Long live the Pope! Long live 
 the King!" Somebody put out the white flag 
 and in five minutes the ileur-de-lys was every- 
 where. The people came pouring forth from 
 their houses into the street. Some of them 
 caught hands. Then more. Then away they 
 all went in a farandole. The street rang with 
 their cheers. Everybody was shouting " Long 
 live the Pope! Long live the King! " 
 
 Monsieur Jusserand and Marianne, their 
 clothes tumbled on anyway, came running to 
 the window in the thick of an argument. 
 
 " I tell you it's true," cried Marianne. " Bona- 
 parte's dead. I'm going to put out our flag." 
 
 "Softly! Softly!" said the more prudent 
 Canon. "Wait a little with the flag until we 
 make quite sure." 
 
 The big bell of Notre Dame des Doms 
 one of the few bells not sent off to be cast into 
 cannon began to ring loudly, sending over all 
 the city deep sonorous waves of melody. ' ' Ah, " 
 exclaimed Monsieur Jusserand, "if Notre Dame 
 des Doms rings her bell it must be for the 
 triumph of our King! Spread out the white 
 flag, Marianne. Spread out the flag for our 
 King!" And turning to Calisto he went on: 
 "No more running and hiding for you now! 
 Bonaparte is dead ! God be praised for deliver- 
 ing us from that curse of a man ! " 
 
 Calisto was overjoyed. His mind was full 
 of delightful fancies. He saw himself, with his 
 Comtessine, living a life of elegance at his Cha- 
 teau de la Vernede. He saw all his enemies
 
 SB .fair Means or bg fon[ 311 
 
 cast down without his having to raise his hand. 
 The Republican Prefect of Avignon would have 
 to run for his life and in a hurry ! Should he 
 delay, the Rhone that night would be carrying 
 his body to the sea ! The gendarmes of the" Re- 
 public would be replaced by the Garde Royale, 
 commanded by noblemen. Instead of the gen- 
 eral conscription, the army would be made up 
 of peasants and labourers, again with noblemen 
 in every post of command. All these pleasant 
 thoughts went whirling through Calisto's head 
 as he hung out from the window a white silk 
 flag embroidered with fleurs-de-lys ; and like 
 thoughts were in the heads of the others who 
 were putting out flags from the windows round 
 about him. The whole Royalist quarter was 
 draped with the fleur-de-lys to its very ears! 
 Everywhere throughout the quarter rose the 
 shout: "Long live the Pope! Long live the 
 King!" 
 
 But over in the Republican quarter of Avi- 
 gnon Jacquemart's bell and the bell of Notre 
 Dame des Doms were telling a very different 
 story for, as we say in Provence, every man 
 turns the water on his own mill. Over there 
 everybody believed that the bells were ringing 
 for another great victory won by the Republican 
 army. Over there they believed not that Bona- 
 parte was dead, but that he had won another 
 battle greater than Marengo that he had set the 
 tri-colour on the towers of Milan and of Venice 
 and had at his feet the whole of conquered Italy ! 
 The Republicans also got out their flags and also 
 shouted and also danced farandoles but their 
 flag was the red, white and blue, and their
 
 312 fftlje tOljite terror 
 
 shouts were Vive la Republique, and along with 
 their farandoles went the strains of the " Mar- 
 seillaise." 
 
 And so the sun came up and shone blithely 
 on one half of Avignon rejoicing under the 
 fleur-de-lys and the other half under the tri- 
 colour. But the rejoicing under the tri-colour 
 was that which was destined to last. 
 
 "This news fits us, "Canon Jusserand said 
 to Calisto, with a very wrong notion of what 
 the news really was, "as a ring fits the finger. 
 Now you can come with me to the Lord Bishop 
 in perfect safety. Conscriptions are ended, and 
 Republican gendarmes are a thing of the past! 
 Dress yourself in your best. We will go to- 
 gether to the holy mass that his Lordship will 
 celebrate. When the mass is ended we will 
 ask an audience of him, and then present to him 
 our rich offering." 
 
 But even as he spoke, old Marianne who 
 had been out to gossip about the good news 
 with her cronies came tearing up the stair cry- 
 ing out: "We are lost! We are lost!" Out 
 of breath and pale as chalk, she flung herself on 
 the sofa and began to groan. 
 
 "What on earth's the matter with you?" 
 exclaimed Monsieur Jusserand. "Lost? What 
 do you mean ? " 
 
 "Oh! Oh! " moaned Marianne. "The good 
 news is not about our good King at all! It's 
 about that vile Bonaparte. He's won another 
 victory over more emperors. We are lost, I 
 say! We are lost! " 
 
 '"Nonsense!" cried the Canon angrily. 
 " Who has been telling you this trash ? "
 
 Bg fair illcans or bg foui 313 
 
 "Hush! Listen!" said Calisto. "Yes, I'm 
 right! Don't you hear the drums beating the 
 generale ?" 
 
 The Canon listened for a moment ; then, 
 with something very like a curse on his lips, 
 ran to the window and snatched in the white 
 flag. Calisto rolled up the flag hastily and hid 
 it away. Through the open window came 
 clearly the strains of the " Marseillaise " ! They 
 looked out together. They had been no quicker 
 than the others. In all the length of the Rue du 
 Limas not a white flag was to be seen. 
 
 There was an awkward silence, which the 
 Canon broke. " Well, there is no sense in stick- 
 ing here and making owls' eyes at each other. 
 We had better try to find out the whole truth." 
 
 Calisto made no answer. The sudden change 
 in the situation had both frightened and angered' 
 him. With his eyes cast down he listened 
 moodily to the sounds which came in through 
 the open window the shouts from the crowd 
 assembling in the Place du Palais des Papes, the 
 rattle of drums, the strains of the " Marseillaise." 
 
 "Don't lose your head," the Canon con- 
 tinued. "I've told you a dozen times that we 
 must play fast and loose with this Bonaparte 
 until our good King puts him out of the way for 
 good and all. For the moment we must play 
 fast with him. What has happened is more 
 likely to do us good than harm. To-day, in all 
 this excitement, the gendarmes will not bother 
 themselves to hunt for conscripts. You can go 
 in safety with me to the Episcopal Palace; and 
 when we get there we are certain to find the 
 Lord Bishop in a very amiable mood. His
 
 314 1) fotyite terror 
 
 Lordship is a rabid Bonapartist, and he has 
 good reason to be. Not very long ago he was 
 the poor priest of a poor little parish down in 
 the Var one of the priests who had taken the 
 oath to the Republic. They say that down 
 there he entertained Bonaparte very hospitably 
 at his curacy it was when the little Corsican 
 was on his way to Toulon to drive out the 
 English and that a great friendship was struck 
 up between them. Anyhow, when Bonaparte 
 became First Consul he made the poor parish 
 priest of the Var the Lord Bishop of Avignon. 
 And so, you see, his Lordship is certain to be in 
 a good humour to-day if it is true that his patron 
 has won a fresh great victory. Therefore we 
 will go to him as we have planned to go but 
 what we had planned to say to him we will 
 change a little. I shall tell him, of course, that 
 you are a devoted servant of the Church, and 
 that you desire to aid him with your wealth and 
 with your influence in building up again the 
 strength of the Church in Avignon. But 1 shall 
 add that, in spite of your noble birth, you are an 
 enthusiastic supporter of the cause of the First 
 Consul. Do you understand ?" 
 
 " I understand," said Calisto gloomily, "that 
 neither to-day nor to-morrow shall I possess the 
 Comtessine. And 1 also understand," he went 
 on in a savage tone, "that if I chose, and if 
 Mother Dorothy chose to help me, in an hour 
 from now I could have the Comtessine inside of 
 a tight-closed carriage and could be galloping 
 away with her to La Vernede! This Bishop of 
 yours is one of those Liberals who forever are 
 talking about people's rights and the majesty of
 
 ti iHenns or bn fcrnl 3 J 5 
 
 the law that you can't do this, and you mustn't 
 do that, and it's wrong to do the other! He's 
 one of the kind that never can give a square yes 
 or a square no! " 
 
 "You forget how strong is the appeal that 
 we shall make to him. It is a great deal that 
 the Comte de la Vernede should offer his sub- 
 mission to the First Consul. In return for that 
 submission his Lordship cannot refuse you what 
 you ask." 
 
 " Can't he, though ! By your own showing, 
 he's a Liberal he's taken the oath to the Repub- 
 lic. He's a friend of the brigands, and he'll fol- 
 low their ways. Mark my words : he will give 
 the Comtessine to me if she consents to be given. 
 If she don't, he won't. It will be shorter and 
 quicker, now while the way is open, for me to 
 take her for myself by force.'" 
 
 " Listen, my Calisto. It is better to catch a 
 butterfly by luring it with a rose than by clutch- 
 ing it in a grasp that will crush its wings. Let 
 us try the gentle way first. Monseigneur Esteve 
 has the power to make the Comtessine obey her 
 mother's command. Let us endeavour to per- 
 suade him to exert it. Should he fail us well, 
 in that case there may be something in the plan 
 which you propose. Now go and dress yourself 
 for our visit. We should start in half an hour." 
 
 ' ' Will it ever be? " Calisto muttered between 
 his teeth as he left the room. Adeline must 
 know that he was a murderer. Vauclair surely 
 had told her. For an instant a vision of three 
 ghastly wounds flashed before his eyes the, 
 three cruel knife-thrusts that he had given to his 
 kind master the Comte de la Vernede!
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 THE LORD BISHOP OF AVIGNON 
 
 IT was because the Peace of Luneville had 
 been signed that the bells of Avignon were 
 ringing. After the battle of Marengo, the 
 soldiers of the Republic led by Bonaparte had 
 chased the armies of the Emperors through Italy 
 into Austria, and in such fright that they ran like 
 rabbits at the first note of the "Marseillaise"! 
 Then General Moreau, up in the north with 
 the help of Augerau and Macdonald^ and Brune 
 fought an army of Austrians and Emigres and 
 won the battle of Hohenlinden. It was after 
 that great victory that the brave General Brune 
 who came from the Limousine cracked one of 
 the jokes that he was so full of on a prisoner, an 
 Emigre, who came from the same country and 
 spoke the Limousine dialect. "I'll give you 
 your life, you poor wretch who fight against 
 your own country," he said, " on one condition: 
 that you go to your Austrian Emperor and tell 
 him that if he does not instantly bring the keys 
 of his capital to General Bonaparte I, Brune, 
 cadet of Brives-la-Gaillarde, will give my black 
 horse his dinner of oats off your Emperor's own 
 table in your Emperor's own palace! " History 
 is silent as to whether or not the traitor saved 
 his life on these terms. But it is certain that the 
 316
 
 Corb jBisliojj of &trignoti 
 
 very next day the Emperor of Austria sued for 
 peace; and that he sealed it by signing the 
 famous Treaty of Luneville which gave to the 
 French Republic the Rhine frontier and the 
 Ionian Islands, and which erected the Cisalpine 
 Republic and so spread liberty under the tri- 
 colour over the whole of Central Europe! It 
 was for that great treaty that the bells of Avi- 
 gnon were set a-ringing, and for which cannon 
 thundered from the Rocher des Doms! 
 
 The bells still were pealing and the cannon 
 still were booming when Calisto and Monsieur 
 Jusserand followed by old Marianne, carrying 
 the gold monstrance wrapped in a napkin came 
 out into the Rue du Limas on their way to the 
 Bishop's palace. The street was absolutely 
 deserted the discomfited Royalists having 
 hidden away in their holes again but the very 
 houses were shaking with the banging of the 
 cannon and the clatter of the bells and the roar 
 of the near-by crowd. 
 
 Presently, when they were come to the Place 
 du Palais des Papes, they were a part of the 
 crowd themselves and what a crowd it was! 
 All the Reds of Avignon were there, shouting 
 at the top of their lungs; and shouting with 
 them were hundreds of others who were making 
 a demonstration for the sake of prudence and 
 who much more gladly would have cheered for 
 the King. The swarm was so thick that they 
 got through it with the utmost difficulty 
 Calisto, leading, trying to make a way by the 
 vigorous use of his elbows ; the Canon doing his 
 best to follow; Marianne, red as a poppy, her 
 cap all awry, carrying the big monstrance like a
 
 318 l) tXHjite iforror 
 
 baby, lagging along in the rear. Gendarmes 
 were among the multitude; and, although it 
 was quite certain that the very last thing they 
 were thinking about was the conscription, Ca- 
 listo shivered at the sight of them and did his 
 best to give them a wide berth. The constant 
 stops that they were compelled to make added 
 to his nervousness. At each he felt that he was 
 being stopped purposely, and that in another 
 instant he would feel on his shoulder the grip of 
 a gendarme's hand. 
 
 Suddenly he felt some one twitch his coat 
 from behind, and at the same moment a child's 
 voice said "Bonjour, Monsieur Calisto! " He 
 faced about hurriedly, but there was no familiar 
 face among those near him and for an instant he 
 thought that his ears must have played him a 
 trick. Then, looking down, he caught sight of 
 a little boy wriggling away among the legs of 
 the crowd and looking back in evident dread 
 that Calisto might be following him. The little 
 chap wore a red cap and a cockade, quite with 
 the air of a man; but for all that he had grown 
 a good deal in the years that had passed since 
 Calisto had seen him, Calisto knew him for 
 Vauclair's son, Clairet. 
 
 The sight of this child, the son of the man 
 who already had put the gendarmes on his track, 
 sent a thrill of fear through Calisto that made 
 him forget everything but his own safety. His 
 nearest and most secure place of shelter for the 
 moment was the Bishop's palace. Leaving 
 Monsieur Jusserand and old Marianne to look 
 out for themselves, he squirmed his way through 
 the crowd like a viper and with an astonishing
 
 orb Bisljop of "^Ungnon 319 
 
 celerity gained the palace door. Two gendarmes 
 stood guard there drowsily, paying no attention 
 to the many priests and monks who were 
 hurrying past them into the building; but when 
 Calisto joined the ingoing throng one of these 
 drowsy-looking guards clapped a hand on his 
 shoulder and halted him shortly. This was a 
 shivering experience, but Calisto retained his 
 presence of mind. "Do not touch me," he 
 said, " I am the Comte de la Vernede." 
 
 "Can't help who you are. Orders are that 
 only priests or people with priests go in. Stand 
 back! " 
 
 By that time Monsieur Jusserand had come 
 up, Marianne following him. "Monsieur le 
 Comte is in my company," he said to the gen- 
 darme. 
 
 "Then it's all right. Pass, citizen!" And 
 as the Canon and his companions entered the 
 doorway the gendarme resumed his position 
 and his drowsy look. 
 
 All the priests and monks of Avignon most 
 of whom heartily wished Bonaparte in the 
 depths of hell were crowding to pay their 
 compliments to Monseigneur upon his illustri- 
 ous friend's achievement. The ante-room was 
 packed full of them. But it was a silent com- 
 pany, as silent and as grave as though the ante- 
 room had been a church as, indeed, it had a 
 little the flavour of being because of the faint 
 scent of incense from the near-by oratory. 
 Among the black-frocked priests and the 
 brown-gowned and grey-gowned friars Calisto, 
 clad in bright-hued silks set off by gold buttons 
 and fine lace, was a brilliant figure. A little
 
 320 l)e tOl)ite terror 
 
 sigh of admiration went up from the young 
 abbes as they stood on tip-toe to look at him ; 
 when the name of " Monsieur le Comte de la 
 Vernede " was called the older priests and the 
 dignitaries of the religious orders, clustered 
 before the door of the audience chamber, 
 drew back and bowed respectfully to let him 
 pass. 
 
 Monseigheur d'Avignon himself was not a 
 little moved when his usher called this aristo- 
 cratic name. Since he had been raised to the 
 Episcopal chair of the ancient capitol of Christen- 
 dom not a single member of the old nobility 
 had crossed his threshold. From afar they had 
 looked askance upon him knowing that he 
 had been raised from his little parish to his 
 bishopric because of the friendship of the brig- 
 and Bonaparte. Having no liking for a bishop 
 made in that way, they had let him severely 
 alone. 
 
 Therefore his Lordship's cordial smile was 
 very genuine as he came forward to welcome 
 the Comte de la Vernede, and his satisfaction 
 was very genuine as that nobleman kissed his 
 ring. It was a great deal that such a member 
 of the aristocracy should come to him at all; it 
 was more that he should come bringing so mag- 
 nificent a gift; but it was most of all that he 
 should come with congratulations upon the 
 great achievement of General Bonaparte. And 
 his Lordship was pleased, also, that with him 
 should come such a seeming irreconcilable Roy- 
 alist as the Canon Jusserand. Altogether, the 
 incident was a most gratifying one. In the 
 names of the Republic and the First Consul he
 
 Corb Bisljop of QVoignon 3 21 
 
 accepted the congratulations; in his own name 
 and in that of the Church he accepted the 
 splendid monstrance; and ended by inviting 
 his two so-welcome visitors to a private audi- 
 ence later in the day, and to be a part of his 
 suite upon the conclusion of the public recep- 
 tion at the Te Deum that was to be sung in 
 the cathedral. He was perfectly honest in it 
 all, this good Bishop. His own soul was pure 
 and his nature upright and generous. But be- 
 cause he was so ready to believe that others 
 were like himself, because he was so unsus- 
 picious of his kind, a curious thing happened: 
 On the 27th Pluviose of the Year X the people 
 of the Papal City saw in the cortege of the Lord 
 Bishop of Avignon, listening with a seemly de- 
 votion to the Te Deum that was sung in the 
 cathedral church of Notre Dame des Doms, a 
 murderer who also was as thorough a scoundrel 
 as ever the earth had borne! 
 
 Later in the day, at the friendly private audi- 
 ence which Monseigneur gave to Monsieur le 
 Comte de la Vernede and to Monsieur le Cha- 
 noine Jusserand, the more personal matter was 
 brought forward and was dealt with in the most 
 satisfactory way. The written command of the 
 Marquise d'Ambrun that her daughter should 
 marry Calisto des Sablees de la Vernede was 
 produced, and was accepted at its full face 
 value. His Lordship, rightly enough, declared 
 that such a command was final and should be 
 obeyed ; and he promised that he himself would 
 visit the Comtessine in the Ursuline Convent 
 and would endeavour to bring her to repentance 
 and a better mind.
 
 322 QL\)e tOljite terror 
 
 The very next day he fulfilled this promise, 
 and his unannounced arrival at the convent 
 turned that placid but easily excited religious 
 establishment quite upside down. The whole 
 Sisterhood was in commotion when it was 
 known that the Lord Bishop's carriage was be- 
 fore the convent door. The bells were set 
 a-ringing, and there was a lively discussion and 
 a violent clashing of opinions as to how and 
 where he should be received. This discussion 
 came to nothing. While it still was in prog- 
 ress the cause of it had knocked at the little 
 door and had been admitted by the porteress, 
 Sister Margai. In utter confusion and abase- 
 ment, Sister Margai led his lordship along the 
 garden path, absolutely without knowing as 
 she subsequently stated whether she were 
 standing on her head or on her heels! 
 
 Monseigneur Esteve perceived her tribulation, 
 and with a kindly desire to put her at her ease 
 began to talk to her. ' ' Tell me, Sister, " he said, 
 "what is our Comtessine d'Ambrun doing in 
 these days ? " 
 
 This carelessly put question was a searching 
 one. ' ' Monseigneur, " Sister Margai replied with 
 a deep reverence, " I cannot answer you with- 
 out committing the heavy sin of lying! " 
 
 " What can you possibly mean, my child ?" 
 the Bishop said kindly. "Answer me at once. 
 Do not tremble that way. You have nothing to 
 fear." 
 
 "Monseigneur, I have been ordered to say 
 that the Comtessine is dead." 
 
 "That is very extraordinary! Why were 
 you ordered to say that she was dead ? "
 
 l)e Corb Bishop of Qlmgnon 3 2 3 
 
 "Monseigneur, I do not know." 
 " But you have said that she was dead ?" 
 "Monseigneur, I have!" and Sister Margai 
 heaved a very deep and a very sorrowful sigh. 
 
 " My Sister," said the Bishop gravely, "you 
 have committed a great sin. For your penance, 
 I order you to go to whomsoever'you told that 
 the Comtessine was dead and to tell them that 
 you have lied to them and to ask them for for- 
 giveness." 
 
 Monseigneur would have pressed the matter 
 farther, but at that moment they came to the 
 chapel door. Inside the chapel the nuns were 
 in waiting for him. As they caught sight of 
 the little Bishop he was a lean little man, with 
 one shoulder higher than the other they fell 
 prostrate, their faces close to the stone floor. 
 As he said " Benedicat vos!" and made the 
 sign of blessing them, they arose and ranged 
 themselves in two lines. Between these lines 
 he passed on to the altar slowly, extending his 
 hand to right and to left that the Sisters might 
 kiss his ring. The older nuns performed this 
 act of homage with downcast eyes; but the 
 younger ones could not help glancing up at him 
 from under their veils and one light-minded 
 little nun, when he had passed her, whispered 
 to her neighbour : " Mon dieu ! v How little 
 he is! " 
 
 Monseigneur Esteve, who was quick-eared 
 and fond of a joke even at his own expense, 
 turned about briskly. "And also just a trifle 
 hump-backed! " he added; and, with a smile at 
 the poor little nun as she went quite scarlet, 
 passed on to the altar. At the altar he became
 
 324 t)e tOljite terror 
 
 grave again delivering there a short address to 
 the Sisters and then dismissing them. 
 
 These formalities being accomplished, Adeline 
 was brought to him in the bishop's room of the 
 convent and in the presence of the Mother Supe- 
 rior he had a long talk with her. He reasoned 
 with her gravely, as a father might have done, 
 pointing out to her the scandal that would ensue 
 should she disobey her mother's command; and 
 with the coaxing tenderness of a father he 
 stroked her cheeks and patted gently her hands. 
 But neither to his reasoning nor to his coaxing 
 would she in the least yield. To all his urgings 
 she opposed a firm negative. 
 
 Adeline no longer was a child. She was a 
 tall and slender and very beautiful woman, and 
 she had a woman's will. With her beauty was 
 an indefinable charm that compelled not only 
 admiration but respect. The Bishop yielded to 
 this charm, in spite of himself, and found the 
 work cut out for him extremely difficult. At 
 the end of his final appeal she remained unshaken. 
 Her rich sweet voice rang clear as she answered : 
 "Never shall I give my troth to any one but my 
 Pascalet! " As she spoke the words "my Pas- 
 calet" she was transfigured the flush of wild 
 roses was in her cheeks, her eyes flashed like 
 the dawn! 
 
 Monseigneur d'Avignon, a wise man in his 
 generation, for the time being gave up the con- 
 flict. "The world wasn't made in a day," he 
 said to himself; and said aloud to Adeline that 
 he begged her to reflect upon what he had 
 urged upon her, and to be ready to give him a 
 final answer in a fortnight's time. Then, the
 
 l)e orb i3isl)op of QUngnou 325 
 
 nuns buzzing about him, he left the convent 
 and returned to his palace whence he des- 
 patched to the Canon Jusserand a brief report 
 of how his interview with the Comtessine 
 had gone.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 A PRAYER TO SAINT URSULA 
 
 WHEN the Bishop's messenger, Joselet, came 
 to Canon Jusserand's house he found there only 
 old Marianne and a terrible taking he found 
 her in ! Before she had the door fairly open she 
 burst out: "Oh how the seven gendarmes 
 frightened me when they came here last night! 
 I'm all in a tremble over it still! " 
 
 "That's very bad," said Joselet sympathiz- 
 ingly. He was a simple soul, with just about 
 enough wit to come into the house when it 
 rained, and to light and to put out the altar 
 candles. 
 
 "No, it's not so very bad," Marianne an- 
 swered, " for they were after Monsieur le Comte, 
 and they didn't get him." 
 
 "Ah, that's very good," said Joselet. 
 
 "No, it's not very good, for Monsieur le 
 Comte had to crawl out of the cellar window in 
 the dead of night and fly for his life." 
 
 "That's very bad indeed." 
 
 "No, it's not very bad, for the Porte de 
 1'Oulle wasn't shut and he was able to get safe 
 away to his Chateau." 
 
 "That's very good indeed." 
 
 "No, it's not very good, for Monsieur le 
 326
 
 Qt fJrager to Saint Hrsnla 327 
 
 Chanoine had to go off with the gendarmes to 
 the Hotel de Ville and try to smooth things 
 over and make explanations." 
 
 Joselet's slow wits were put completely out 
 of tune by this boxing back and forth of his 
 sympathies. " Heaven for your good luck, and 
 hell for your bad luck," he said shortly. " Here, 
 take this letter and give it to Monsieur le Cha- 
 noine when he returns." And Joselet twisted 
 about on his heel and went away. 
 
 It was Clairet who had brought about Calis- 
 to's midnight flight from Avignon. The little 
 scamp had spent the whole day away from 
 home, doing so much more than his share to 
 help celebrate the Peace of Luneville that when 
 night came he found himself in an awkward 
 dilemma: he was very hungry and wanted his 
 supper; he was in dire fear that his whole day's 
 absence from home would be rewarded with a 
 spanking! Pushed forward by his hunger and 
 pulled backward by his dread, he approached 
 his home slowly. Just on the threshold a bril- 
 liant plan for creating a diversion occurred to 
 him. Instantly he dashed into the house and 
 burst out with : "Mother! Father! Such news! 
 You'll never guess it! I've seen Monsieur 
 Calisto!" 
 
 Clairet's plan worked to a charm. Vau- 
 clair started up from the supper-table as though 
 a thunderbolt had fallen. " Where did you see 
 him?" he exclaimed. "Are you sure that it 
 was he ? " 
 
 "I saw him on the Place du Palais. I'm 
 quite sure that it was he. I called out to him 
 ' Bonjour, Monsieur Calisto,' and he turned
 
 3 28 t)e iX)l)ite 
 
 around and glared at me horribly. Then I ran 
 away. It was he for sure! " 
 
 In spite of Lazuli's entreaties to finish his 
 supper, Vauclair grabbed his hat and dashed off 
 to the Hotel de Ville. ' ' I won't wait a minute ! " 
 he cried. "Murderer and shirking coward that 
 he is, I must start the gendarmes after him this 
 instant! At last I've got him and I've got him 
 fast!" 
 
 But, as the event proved, Vauclair had not 
 got him fast. Again Calisto slipped away from 
 the gendarmes, and this time hid himself at the 
 Chateau de la Vernede. There, with his peas- 
 ants keeping sharp watch for him, he was safe; 
 and there he went through another season of 
 waiting even more irksome than that which 
 he had passed at La Garde. A whole month 
 dragged slowly on without news coming to him 
 from Avignon. He was in a rage with every- 
 body; but his liveliest rage was against the 
 Bishop, who he believed was playing him 
 false. 
 
 However, Monseigneur d'Avignon was not 
 to blame in the premises. His second visit to 
 Adeline had been as fruitless as his first visit. 
 Equally fruitless had been his third visit. The 
 more that he lectured the Comtessine upon the 
 sin of disobedience, the more vigorously did she 
 assert her intention of obeying only her own 
 heart. She would marry Pascalet, or she would 
 marry nobody. On that she made her stand. 
 
 Mother Dorothy and Canon Jusserand, satis- 
 fied that neither persuasion nor argument would 
 have any effect upon her, resorted to measures 
 of a sterner sort. They shut her up in a cell:
 
 01 Prater to Saint Ursula 
 
 to give her an opportunity, they said, to reflect 
 upon her evil courses, and to pray to Saint Ur- 
 sula to set her in the right way. She was to 
 make a novena, Mother Dorothy told her. 
 When her novena was ended Monseigneur 
 would come to receive her final answer. If the 
 answer was not what they hoped that it would 
 be, she would be sent so Mother Dorothy inti- 
 mated in a closed carnage to La Vernede and 
 there delivered to the husband chosen for her by 
 her sainted mother the Marquise. 
 
 Shut fast in her cell lighted by a single high- 
 up window, bare save for the agonized Christ 
 upon His cross hung against the wall, with only 
 her rosary and her book of hours Adeline's no- 
 vena was one long torture: with the coarser 
 torture imminent of being delivered over at the 
 end of it to a man utterly unknown to her very 
 likely old and cruel and jealous who would 
 make her life as hard as the very stones. But 
 she was resolute. Never, never would she 
 yield, she said to herself again and again. 
 Sooner would she die. Before the crucifix she 
 cast herself in prayer. But the eyes of the ago- 
 nized Christ were turned upward and away 
 from her He did not seem to hear. Then she 
 invoked the grace of sweet Saint Ursula but no 
 grace came. Even her human friends had for- 
 saken her. Lazuli and Vauclair no longer came 
 to see her. She prayed again, this time that 
 these good friends might come to her. They 
 came not. And Pascalet ? Now that there was 
 peace again why did he not come and deliver 
 her ? She prayed for his coming. He did not 
 come. God, the saints, her friends, her lover,
 
 33 be ta3l)it e terror 
 
 seemed all to have deserted her. Creeping into 
 her heart came cold desp^r! 
 
 As this agonizing novena drew close to its 
 end Monsieur Jusserand and Mother Dorothy 
 decided to make one more strong effort to break 
 Adeline's stubborn will. On the last evening of 
 her seclusion the evening preceding the day on 
 which she was to receive the Lord Bishop and 
 give him her final answer the Canon brought 
 to the convent the title deeds to her estate and 
 the written command, signed by her mother, 
 that she should marry Calisto des Sablees de la 
 Vernede. It was his hope that when she saw 
 these papers with her own eyes, and was assured 
 that the title deeds were to be restored to her by 
 the man whom she was to wed, she at last 
 would yield. 
 
 When Canon Jusserand and Mother Dorothy 
 softly entered Adeline's cell they found her on 
 her knees before the crucifix praying, but 
 praying almost hopelessly, to the impassive 
 Christ whose eyes were turned upward and 
 away. They began their attack on the side of 
 worldly interest. They spread out before her 
 the documents which made good her title to the 
 estate of La Garde, and declared with a con- 
 vincing earnestness that on the day of her mar- 
 riage these documents would be surrendered 
 into her keeping. Her answer completely cut 
 the ground from under their feet. Wealth and 
 rank were nothing to her, she said. It was her 
 desire to be one of the people. She wished to 
 be as her Pascalet was. That would please him 
 most when he returned to her. She was sure, 
 she added, in a voice that shook a little, that he
 
 & Draper to Saint Hrsnia 331 
 
 would return to her very soon very soon in- 
 deed, now that the peace was signed. 
 
 Baffled by this reply, that made any attempt 
 at argument hopeless, Canon Jusserand ad- 
 vanced his second line of attack on the side of 
 filial duty by placing in her hand the paper 
 signed by her mother. Adeline tried to read 
 the paper, but at the first glance she saw only 
 the signature; and the sight of her mother's 
 name, written in her mother's hand, so over- 
 came her that her eyes filled with tears and she 
 could not read the words to which that signa- 
 ture was affixed. She pressed the signature to 
 her lips. It seemed as though she heard her 
 mother calling to her. She trembled from head 
 to foot. Then, as she looked at the paper again, 
 she saw another name a name that checked 
 her tears and that made her see clearly. With 
 eyes not tearful, but flashing, she read : 
 
 I, the Marquise Adelaide d'Ambrun, give in marriage my 
 daughter, the Comtessine Adeline d'Ambrun, to the faithful 
 Calisto des Sablees de la Vernede. I believe that my daugh- 
 ter will carry out my wishes, and so will show her obedience 
 to her unhappy mother, ADELAIDE D'AMBRUN. 
 
 As Adeline read these words the whole 
 horror of the situation was clear to her. Her 
 clenched hands, holding the paper, fell to her 
 sides tearing it into two pieces. Her face be- 
 came a dead white. Her breath came in gasps. 
 In a broken voice, shrill with dread, she cried; 
 "That man! That man the Comte de la Ver- 
 nede! That is no Comte de la Vernede! That 
 is Calisto the murderer!" And with a pierc-
 
 33 2 l) tOl)ite Bettor 
 
 ing cry that went ringing through the whole 
 convent she fell to the floor. 
 
 The first care of Canon Jusserand and of 
 Mother Dorothy was to force open Adeline's 
 clenched hands and to secure possession of the 
 torn paper. This being accomplished, they 
 picked her up between them and laid her on 
 her bed. Then Mother Dorothy went out into 
 the passage and called sharply for Sister Margai 
 who, alarmed by the cry that she had heard, 
 came up the stairs two steps at a time. When 
 she saw the Comtessine, dead white, stretched 
 out upon the bed she fell on her knees, with 
 clasped hands, exclaiming: "Oh my Adeline, 
 it was you who gave that dreadful cry it was 
 you, giving yourself up to death! Oh great 
 Saint Ursula of Jesus, have pity on her! " 
 
 "Nonsense ! " said Mother Dorothy. " The 
 child is not dead. She is only in a faint. She 
 must be put to bed at once and well warmed. 
 See to that, Sister Margai, and be quick about 
 it. I will send you vinegar and orange-flower 
 water. " The Mother Superior hurried out of the 
 room. Canon Jusserand, after making the sign 
 of the cross with his thumb upon Adeline's fore- 
 head, followed her, murmuring a prayer. 
 
 Being left alone with the apparently lifeless 
 body, Sister Margai resorted to treatment which 
 though less practical than emotional was 
 effective. "Oh Adeline! Adeline! " she cried, 
 clasping her arms about the neck of the fainting 
 girl. "You cannot be dead! I shall not let 
 you be dead! Wake! Monseigneur d'Avignon 
 is coming! " 
 
 At that name a little tremor went through
 
 31 fhrager to Saint Hrsula 333 
 
 Adeline's rigid body, her eyelids closed for an 
 instant over her staring eyes and then opened 
 naturally. In a voice that was the merest whis- 
 per of sound, she said tremulously: "The mur- 
 derer! The murderer, Monseigneur! Deliver 
 me from him! " 
 
 "My Adeline, there is no murderer here. 
 You are safe with me, with Sister Margai who 
 loves you ! " That Adeline had spoken, although 
 so wildly, comforted Sister Margai greatly. 
 Adeline had had another such attack as that 
 which had overcome her reason once before, 
 the kind-hearted nun concluded; and as she 
 had recovered then, so would she again recover 
 if given rest and care. All the same, Sister 
 Margai was puzzled. It was the shock caused 
 by the burning of Bedoin, and the death as she 
 believed of Monsieur Randoulet in the flames, 
 that had unhinged Adeline's mind that other 
 time. What fresh shock could she have had 
 when only Monsieur Jusserand and Mother Dor- 
 othy were with her ? What had caused her 
 woeful cry ? What had set her to praying to be 
 delivered from a murderer ? Sister Margai had 
 much to think about as she sat in the gather- 
 ing dusk beside Adeline, talking to her sooth- 
 ingly and gently stroking her hands. Her 
 thoughts were so painfully "perplexing that she 
 was glad to have Sister Scholastica come hurry- 
 ing into the room, bringing the vinegar and 
 orange-flower water and bringing also a lamp. 
 She had been sent by Mother Dorothy who 
 herself was engaged with Canon Jusserand in 
 trying to piece together the paper that Adeline 
 had torn. Should the Bishop require sight of it
 
 334 l)e tOljite terror 
 
 again, and find it in two fragments, he might 
 ask awkward questions. 
 
 The tender and soothing ministrations of 
 these two good Sisters, who loved her very 
 dearly, in a little while restored Adeline's mind 
 to its balance and brought back some of her 
 strength again. And then their sympathy, and 
 her own need of unburdening her soul of the 
 sorrow that was crushing her, led her to tell 
 them of the desperate strait in which she was: 
 that she either must consent to be married to a 
 murderer, or must commit the sin of disobeying 
 her dead mother's express command. She told 
 them the whole story and as they heard it the 
 good Sisters also became desperate and gave 
 way to tears and groans. When it was finished, 
 by a common impulse, they fell on their knees 
 and implored the holy Saint Ursula of Jesus, 
 patroness of the convent, to show them a way 
 of escape; to open a door through which her 
 servant might pass and be in safety. 
 
 The Sisters, at least, believed that Saint 
 Ursula heard and completely answered their 
 prayer. To all of them, as they prayed, came 
 the same thought: safety could be reached 
 through the door of Saint Ursula's own con- 
 vent; protection perpetual could be found be- 
 neath the veil which Saint Ursula and her eleven 
 thousand companions, virgins and martyrs, had 
 worn ! To Adeline, although she also accepted 
 it, this answer was at once harrowingly incom- 
 plete and cruel. It was true that beneath the 
 veil of Saint Ursula she would find safety, but 
 for her love it would be a shroud. Death in 
 life was before her, or insufferable dishonour
 
 to Saint Ursula 335 
 
 the shelter of the pure cloister, or the arms 
 of a creature foul with crime. "God and 
 Saint Ursula help me," she whispered. "I 
 choose that which my Pascalet would have me 
 choose! "
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 THE PRICE OF VICTORY 
 
 WHEN the convent bell rang matins Adeline 
 was sleeping so peacefully that Sister Scholastica 
 and Sister Margai did not hesitate to leave her 
 that they might join the other Sisters in the 
 chapel in singing the three anthems and the 
 three psalms. For this Mother Dorothy reproved 
 them ; and in answer was assured that not only 
 had Adeline recovered from her seizure, but that 
 the blessed Saint Ursula had put a high and a 
 holy purpose in her heart. When Monseigneur 
 d'Avignon came to visit her, they added, he 
 would be surprised and edified by finding how 
 willingly she would make her submission to the 
 will of God. 
 
 This good news brought to the reverend 
 Mother Dorothy a profound happiness. Evi- 
 dently, all was going as she wished that it 
 should go. The marriage which she so longed 
 for would take place; and by helping to bring 
 it about she would have atoned, she felt, for 
 the sin of her youth. When the child who had 
 been abandoned in the sand-pits of Aramon 
 should be firmly established as the lord of Ara- 
 mon, then indeed would the erring father and 
 mother of that child have done their duty by 
 him to the full. She turned back into the 
 336
 
 J)rice of bictorri 
 
 337 
 
 chapel and knelt alone at the altar, pouring out 
 her thankfulness to God that he had permitted 
 her at last to set right the wrong that she had 
 done. To her, Adeline's cry that Calisto was a 
 murderer was the mere raving utterance of a 
 disordered mind. With joy and gratitude in 
 her heart the Mother Superior returned to her 
 cell. The other Sisters already had gone back 
 to the boards that served them for beds. Pres- 
 ently the convent was silent again, wrapped in 
 its midnight repose. 
 
 One nun did not sleep, and soon a strange 
 dull noise broke the silence a soft sound, yet 
 penetrating, made by the lashing of tender flesh. 
 No one paid any attention to it. Rarely did a 
 night pass undisturbed by this sound some- 
 times from one cell, sometimes from another, 
 but always the same. It would last while a 
 miserere would be recited. Then it would stop, 
 and silence would come again. That night the 
 sound lasted longer than usual, and it came 
 from the cell of Sister Margai. In that poor 
 nun's breast, very tender and human, Adeline's 
 passionate lamentations for her lost love had 
 wrought havoc stirring up nettle memories of 
 a spring-time over which the winter of the 
 cloister unavailingly had cast its snows. Ade- 
 line's vivid talk of Pascalet had brought vividly 
 into her own mind her little heart-romance 
 when she was the turkey-herd at the farm of 
 Peire-Avon ; had set clearly before her eyes that 
 younger son of Toni's who jollily had kissed 
 her behind the yew-tree once in the long, long 
 ago. To holy Saint Ursula she prayed to hide 
 from her this betraying vision. But Saint Ursula
 
 33 8 l) tObite terror 
 
 heard not her prayer. It was then, prayer fail- 
 ing her, that she exorcised her vision with the 
 seven-knotted scourge. That day, when Mon- 
 seigneur d'Avignon knocked at the gate of the 
 convent, the Sister who opened to him had eyes 
 wan and sunken and a face as pale as the wax 
 of the altar candles and as pure. 
 
 Mother Dorothy, on the contrary, as she 
 hastened to meet the Lord Bishop, had a face so 
 bright with happiness that she seemed suddenly 
 to be younger by a good ten years. So full 
 was she of the glad news that she had for him 
 that she began to tell it before she fairly had 
 risen from kissing his ring. 
 
 "Monseigneur," she said joyfully, "the no- 
 vena has borne good fruit! Saint Ursula herself 
 has touched the heart of the Comtessine. At 
 last she is willing to obey ! " 
 
 "God be praised!" exclaimed the good 
 Bishop earnestly. 
 
 "Yes, Monseigneur," Mother Dorothy con- 
 tinued, "the devil who has been tempting her 
 to disobedience fled from her body last night. 
 In the presence of this your servant, and of the 
 Canon Jusserand, he forsook her but with such 
 wrathful violence that for a time we feared that 
 he had bereft her of her mind." 
 
 "Poor child! Poor innocent child," Mon- 
 seigneur said pityingly. 
 
 "Then it was," Mother Dorothy went on, 
 "that our holy Saint Ursula of Jesus appeared 
 to her and drove the evil spirit utterly away. 
 Suddenly, in an instant, the Comtessine had 
 back again her reason. And then, in the pres- 
 ence of Sister Margai and Sister Scholastica,
 
 Jprice of biclorg 339 
 
 who were caring for her, she holily declared 
 her willingness to submit to the will of God." 
 
 As the Mother Superior set forth these edi- 
 fying facts they were advancing, preceded by 
 Sister Margai, through the corridors of the con- 
 vent, and as she reached her satisfactory conclu- 
 sion they came to the door of Adeline's cell. 
 
 "Benedicatas Domino!" called Sister Mar- 
 gai. 
 
 ' ' Deo gratias ! " came the answer in Adeline's 
 voice, as sweet and as clear as the song of a 
 bird. 
 
 Together the Lord Bishop and the Mother 
 Superior entered the cell. The door behind 
 them was closed. 
 
 Left in perilous proximity to the key-hole. 
 Sister Margai found herself beset by that form 
 of the sin of curiosity which manifests itself in 
 eavesdropping. To combat her temptation she 
 had resort to her rosary telling her beads aloud, 
 with intent to set up the sound of her own voice 
 as a barrier between what she should not hear 
 and her too-eager ears. This system of defense 
 was not wholly effective. She did not hear the 
 words spoken within the cell, but she did hear 
 the tones of the three voices. At first, these 
 were gentle and friendly ; but presently, after a 
 moment of silence, the voice of Mother Dorothy 
 rose shrill and loud and menacing; then the 
 voice of the Bishop interposed to check her out- 
 burst ; and with these evidently conflicting utter- 
 ances came the sound of Adeline's sobs. The 
 Bishop's remonstrances were ineffectual. Mother 
 Dorothy's voice rose louder and shriller never 
 had Sister Margai heard it so fierce and so terri-
 
 340 |)e tOljite terror 
 
 ble. She seemed almost to bark, to howl, in 
 her rage. The Bishop's voice became deeper 
 and sterner. Adeline's voice was raised in a 
 frightened cry. Sister Margai, as a final measure, 
 resolutely put her fingers in her ears. At last 
 the door of the cell opened and the two came 
 out. Sister Margai unstopped her ears, as was 
 her right, and so without sin heard the Lord 
 Bishop say these extraordinary words: "Sister 
 Dorothy, the devil that was cast out from the 
 Comtessine's body surely must have entered 
 into yours!" 
 
 ""Pardon, Monseigneur! " cried the Mother 
 Superior, kneeling before him. 
 
 "Sister,"' the Bishop answered, " when you 
 have done a sufficient penance you will win 
 your pardon from God! " He made the sign of 
 the cross over her and walked on. 
 
 Mother Dorothy arose and followed him and 
 knelt to him again, asking: "Monseigneur, 
 what penance must I do ? " 
 
 Still walking onward, the Lord Bishop said 
 in a tone deep and sad and grave: " You must 
 become the serving-sister of the convent. And 
 you must sew the robe and the veil in which, 
 on this coming Ash Wednesday, the nun 
 Adeline will take upon her Saint Ursula's 
 vows! " 
 
 Leaving her kneeling there, overwhelmed by 
 her shame, Monseigneur d'Avignon passed on 
 and left the convent. Not until she heard the 
 wheels of his departing carriage did the stricken 
 and humbled Sister Dorothy, Mother Superior 
 no longer, rise from her knees. She staggered 
 to her cell, utterly broken by the sentence passed
 
 JJrice of tMctorg 341 
 
 upon her to become the serving-sister of the 
 convent over which for so many years she had 
 ruled! 
 
 Being come again to his palace, the Lord 
 Bishop despatched thence two writings. One of 
 these was a letter to the Canon Jusserand, inform- 
 ing him that there could be no marriage between 
 the Comtessine d'Ambrun and the Comte de la 
 Vernede for the sufficient reason that the Com- 
 tessine, by the grace of God, had decided to 
 profess religion in the Order of Saint Ursula and 
 so would be relieved from obedience to the 
 command of her sainted mother the Marquise. 
 Beyond making Canon Jusserand furiously angry 
 with the brigand of a Republican Bishop who 
 had played him false, this letter produced no im- 
 mediate result. In a little while, conveyed by a 
 trusty messenger, it was on its way to Calisto 
 at La Vernede. 
 
 His Lordship's other writing was a parch- 
 ment, duly signed and sealed, which formally 
 appointed Sister Scholastica to be Mother Supe- 
 rior of the Convent of Saint Ursula in Sister 
 Dorothy's place. This produced a result both 
 immediate and violent. The whole convent 
 fairly was set in a whirl by it. Most of the Sis- 
 ters, quite inconsequently, took to weeping; 
 and they all chattered like so many pies. When 
 the commotion a little had subsided, they car- 
 ried out the command of the Bishop in thei'r own 
 way. They escorted their late Mother Superior 
 from her cell to the chapel; and there, while the 
 convent bell was tolled, they sung the Miserere. 
 and the De profundis quite as though they 
 were conducting her funeral. Then, weeping
 
 342 l)e tObite terror 
 
 over her, they led her to the kitchen and put on 
 her the apron that as serving-sister was her 
 badge of office; and left the poor shamed crea- 
 ture there charged with the duty of making 
 ready a dish of carrots and a dish of greens. 
 They had cried, "The Queen is dead!" but 
 they still had to cry "Long live the Queen!" 
 In the kitchen they left their tears and their long 
 faces. The moment that they were out in the 
 corridor they became all gaiety, chirping with 
 laughter and fairly dancing a " round" that car- 
 ried them to the door of the new Mother Supe- 
 rior's cell. Thence, while the convent bell rang 
 out gaily, they escorted Sister Scholastica to the 
 chapel and sang a Te Deum in her honour and 
 otherwise gave thanks to God. Being thus in- 
 stalled in her new office, Mother Scholastica 
 began her reign by an act of grace: to all the 
 Sisters she granted an hour of recreation in the 
 garden and away they all went to work off 
 some of their surplus high spirits by scampering 
 about in the open air. 
 
 Adeline thankfully went into the garden with 
 the others, eager after her seclusion of more 
 than a week to be again in the blessed sun- 
 shine. But amidst the gaiety of the frolicsome 
 Sisters she was most bitterly sad. She had 
 saved herself, she believed, from worse than 
 death, but her salvation had been won at the 
 cost of breaking her heart. She would not be 
 defiled by the foul love of a murderer, but the 
 sacrifice of the pure love of her Pascalet was the 
 price that she had paid for her deliverance. Sit- 
 ting in a quiet place apart, she gave way to her 
 cruel sorrow. She longed for sympathy, and
 
 je JJrice of bictorg 343 
 
 looked about her for Sister Margai who knew 
 her trouble, and whose tender heart was full of 
 compassion. Sister Margai was not in the gar- 
 den. While the hour of sunshine lasted, Ade- 
 line nourished her grief alone.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 ASH-WEDNESDAY EVE 
 
 SISTER MARGAI was not in the garden because 
 she was ministering, a little tardily, to the wel- 
 fare of her own soul. Monseigneur had ordered 
 her to do penance for the lie that she had con- 
 fessed to him by confessing it also to whom- 
 soever she had told it. The discharge of that 
 penance, as Sister Margai well knew, would in- 
 volve her, and instantly, in very serious trouble 
 with Mother Dorothy. Therefore she made what 
 terms she could with her conscience and put the 
 matter off. To her credit be it said that at the 
 first possible safe moment that is to say, the 
 moment that Mother Dorothy's degradation was 
 accomplished she made use of the liberty that 
 was hers, as a lay Sister, to leave the convent 
 and hurried off to confess her lie to the Vau- 
 clairs. 
 
 Her confession, coupled with her statement 
 that Adeline would be free to see them without 
 restriction until she took the vows, caused a 
 whirlwind of happiness in the little house in the 
 Place du Grand Paradis and Sister Margai found 
 her sin forgiven her because of her bringing of 
 such good news. Lazuli was quite frantic with 
 delight. Vauclair was only a touch less frantic. 
 In an instant they were bustling into their best 
 
 344
 
 345 
 
 clothes. "We will take her her Christmas nou- 
 gat!" cried Lazuli. "And we will tell her," 
 Vauclair added, "that we did not keep Christ- 
 mas because we thought that she was dead ! " 
 Lazuli scraped a few coins together. On their 
 way to the convent they bought the very best 
 nougat that was to be had in the pastry-cook's 
 shop at the corner of the Place du Change. 
 
 It was a tempest of a meeting that they all 
 had in the convent parlor. Adeline flung her- 
 self into Lazuli's arms and cried with happiness 
 on that tender mother-heart. Vauclair, finding 
 her grown to be a tall young lady, dignified and 
 beautiful, felt shyly uncertain whether he should 
 address her with the formal "you" or the fa- 
 miliar "thou" until he also found himself 
 caught close in her arms. Clairet, grown to be 
 a big boy, was confused and a little incensed 
 when this beautiful lady kissed him quite as 
 though he were a little chap of only three or four 
 years old. And when these kisses and em- 
 braces were ended, they immediately were be- 
 gun all over again. It seemed as though they 
 never would have done! 
 
 At last they were able to settle down and to 
 talk coherently; and then Adeline told them of 
 the struggle through which she had passed : of 
 the machinations of the Canon Jusserand and 
 Mother Dorothy to compel her to marry Calisto; 
 of the part that Monseigneur d' Avignon had 
 taken in the matter; of her final escape from the 
 horror that threatened her by promising that 
 in a fortnight's time, on the coming Ash 
 Wednesday, she would take the veil. And 
 as she ended her story she flung herself once
 
 346 
 
 more into Lazuli's arms and sobbed brokenly: 
 "And so never, never may I meet my Pascalet 
 again ! " 
 
 Vauclair could not contain himself. Al- 
 though the holy walls of a convent were about 
 him, and the Blessed Virgin's image in plaster 
 was in the niche close behind him, and a picture 
 of Saint Ursula hung on the wall above his head, 
 his rage had to find vent. " Sacre nom de pas 
 Dieu! " he cried. " I must rid the earth of that 
 accursed creature ! Of him, and of that accursed 
 Canon too!" 
 
 "Hush! Hush, my Vauclair!" exclaimed 
 Lazuli. "What dreadful words for you to be 
 saying here! " 
 
 "Where is he now, this Calisto?" Vauclair 
 asked sharply, giving no heed to Lazuli's re- 
 monstrance. 
 
 "I don't know where he is," Adeline an- 
 swered. "I only know that he knows where I 
 am. In spite of being sheltered here behind 
 bolts and bars, I tremble when I think of him. 
 I feel that my only secure shelter against him is 
 the shelter of Saint Ursula's veil." 
 
 " Poor Pascalet! " sighed Lazuli. 
 
 " My heart dies within me when I think of 
 Pascalet," and Adeline, sobbing, covered her 
 face with her hands. 
 
 " Did you know that he went through Avi- 
 gnon while you were hidden in the cave of Cur- 
 mier, and while I was in Malaucene?" Lazuli 
 asked. 
 
 "No. How could 1 know it? Ah, to think 
 that he was so near!" 
 
 "Yes, he was here," Lazuli continued.
 
 347 
 
 "The neighbours told me about his visit to our 
 house." 
 
 "Those neighbours who were so cruel to 
 you ?" 
 
 " Yes, but they are sorry now. They know 
 now that they were wrong. They told me that 
 he came here with a battalion on its way to join 
 the army of General Bonaparte in Italy. The 
 battalion was halted here for the night. He 
 came to our house and knocked and knocked, 
 and called for all of us by name for you, for 
 me, for Vauclair. He sat on our step, they said, 
 the whole night through hoping, no doubt, 
 that we were gone somewhere on a visit and 
 might at any moment return. At daybreak, 
 when the drums of the battalion beat the as- 
 sembly, they saw him go away. Then he went 
 on to Italy. I feel in my heart that he never will 
 return! " 
 
 "And I feel in my heart," said Adeline very 
 earnestly, "that he surely uill return! I shall 
 pray to Saint Ursula of Jesus, our holy patroness, 
 that I may have sight of him again on earth 
 though it be only through the convent grating 
 and I am sure, I am sure, Lazuli, that sweet 
 Saint Ursula will grant my prayer!" And 
 again Adeline wept upon Lazuli's breast. 
 
 Vauclair's good heart was full of pain for 
 Adeline. As he could not think of anything 
 comforting to say, he attempted a diversion. 
 "Isn't there something in that basket of yours, 
 Lazuli?" he asked. 
 
 "Of course there is," she answered, per- 
 ceiving his kindly purpose, "and I ought to be 
 ashamed of myself for forgetting it." 
 23
 
 348 |)e toljite terror 
 
 "You see," said Vauclair, "we couldn't 
 keep Christmas last year, when we thought that 
 you were dead. And so " 
 
 "And so," Lazuli broke in, "we have 
 brought you your Christmas nougat now. Here 
 it is red nougat and white nougat. It will 
 make you think of our Christmas Eve in Paris, 
 in William the Patriot's house, with the dear 
 Planchots." 
 
 Vauclair's diversion was a success. Adeline, 
 a true Provencale, was quick to smile through 
 her tears. "Oh, how good of you to think of 
 it!" she cried happily. "Come, Clairet," she 
 went on, "one of these bars is for you. I 
 haven't forgotten how fond you are of nougat, 
 you see! " 
 
 But Clairet, in growing to be a big boy, had 
 left his little greedy ways behind him. He 
 reddened and drew back. Adeline could not 
 induce him to accept the bar of nougat. She 
 had to keep the whole of it for herself. 
 
 All too soon, when the convent bell rang for 
 service, Sister Margai came to call Adeline away. 
 But the parting was not a sorrowful one be- 
 cause the Vauclairs were to come again, and as 
 many times as possible, in the course of the re- 
 maining fortnight during which they would not 
 be separated from her by iron bars. 
 
 When the visitors had left the convent, Vau- 
 clair said shortly: " I have business to attend to. 
 I am going to the Hotel de Ville and to the Rue 
 
 du Limas " and so walked off briskly, leaving 
 
 Lazuli and Clairet to go home alone. Lazuli 
 did not try to dissuade him, but she had small 
 hope that he would accomplish anything.
 
 349 
 
 "That clever scoundrel is on his guard," she 
 said to herself. " It will not be to-day, nor yet 
 to-morrow, that he falls into the hands of the 
 gendarmes! " 
 
 Lazuli was right, as she was very apt to be. 
 Calisto was safe in his Chateau; and as Vauclair 
 turned into the Rue du Limas he actually saw 
 without knowing what he saw Canon Jusse- 
 rand's messenger, bearing the Bishop's letter, 
 starting for La Vernede. But Vauclair was con- 
 vinced that the game that he was after was not 
 far away; and he impressed his conviction so 
 strongly upon the Commandant of Gendarmes 
 that the search was continued keenly and widely 
 from that time on. 
 
 It was with a wild outburst of rage that 
 Calisto read the Bishop's letter. But a letter 
 from Canon Jusserand, that accompanied it, not 
 only quieted his rage but filled him with a fierce 
 hope again. "If you still are determined, in 
 spite of all, to marry the Comtessine," Monsieur 
 Jusserand wrote, "you will be helped to ac- 
 complish your purpose. On the eve of Ash 
 Wednesday the convent door will be opened to 
 you, and the Comtessine will be delivered into 
 your hands to do with as you please." Calisto 
 wanted nothing better than that! With Lou 
 Pounchu and Rocofort he arranged his plans. 
 
 At the other end of the line, in Avignon, 
 Canon Jusserand arranged plans with the serv- 
 ing-sister of the convent, Sister Dorothy. They 
 were quite simple. On the eve of Ash Wednes- 
 day she was to procure and to give to him the 
 key of the door, opening upon the Rue Porte- 
 Eveque, of the uncloistered apartment in which
 
 35 
 
 Adeline was housed. Also, the Canon gave 
 some useful information to Lou Pounchu and 
 Rocofort when those worthies, taking advan- 
 tage of the carnival, wandered masked in the 
 vicinity of the convent and made themselves 
 familiar with the ground. Finally, on the eve 
 of the fast, he confessed Adeline and congratu- 
 lated her upon the holy act which she would 
 accomplish on the ensuing day and then re- 
 ceived the key from Sister Dorothy and carried 
 it to his friends in waiting outside. 
 
 Off in the Chateau de la Vernede, that same 
 afternoon, Calisto was putting the finishing 
 touches to the apartment which he had prepared 
 for Adeline's reception. It was a prison, but he 
 had striven to make it a beautiful prison. He 
 had caused it to be fitted with the most sump- 
 tuous furniture that the Chateau contained, the 
 richest carpets and laces and silks, and he had 
 flooded it with balmy perfumes. Against one 
 wall he had raised a little altar, adorned with 
 wax candles and with flowers, on which he had 
 placed the silver image of the Virgin from the 
 house in the Rue de Bretagne the very image 
 before which Adeline and Lazuli had knelt in 
 prayer. This altar was his master-stroke. He 
 had taken infinite pains to make perfect its 
 appointments. Before it he would stand with 
 Adeline while Canon Jusserand performed the 
 sacrament that made them man and wife. 
 
 These preparations being completely fin- 
 ished, Calisto devoted himself to making his 
 own toilet. The sun still was high, he had 
 ample leisure, and he was slow in choosing 
 among the elegant garments which he brought
 
 351 
 
 forth from the wardrobes and strewed about the 
 room. When his choice at last was made, he 
 brought a gold-stoppered bottle from the dress- 
 ing table and scented his linen delicately with 
 essence of jessamine. The subtle perfume 
 seemed to go to his head. His blood leaped 
 through his Veins. His brain seemed to be on 
 fire. 
 
 The waning sunlight recalled him to his 
 senses a little and warned him that he must 
 hurry. On his dressing-table, set in front of a 
 big window that commanded the main avenue 
 leading to the Chateau, he spread out his shav- 
 ing apparatus and the heater and irons for curl- 
 ing his hair. He lathered his face, and shaved 
 the half of it carefully but the other half of his 
 face did not get shaved that day! As he read- 
 justed himself before the mirror he chanced to 
 glance out of the window. Down at the far 
 end of the avenue he saw a sight which made 
 him drop his razor in a hurry, with a shrill cry 
 of fear. Coming up the avenue at a gallop was 
 a squad of mounted gendarmes! 
 
 There was not an instant for him to lose. 
 Just as he was in his shirt sleeves, with one 
 half of his face covered with lather he bolted. 
 Racing down a back stair, through the offices 
 of the Chateau and thence through the chicken- 
 yard, he gained the forest. The gendarmes 
 turned the whole place upside down, and had 
 a regular battue in the forest afterward. But 
 they did not find their game! 
 
 While the gendarmes searched vainly for 
 Calisto in the forest round about Aramon, cer-
 
 35 2 b* iDIjite terror 
 
 tain of his friends waited for him vainly in 
 Avignon. 
 
 Night had come, and everybody was in 
 readiness for the abduction of Adeline save the 
 abductor in chief. Lou Pounchu and Rocofort, 
 wearing the masks and dominos of the Carni- 
 val, were at their post beside the door on the 
 Rue Porte-Eveque, key in hand. Near by, in 
 the shadow cast by the ramparts, was a close 
 carriage drawn by swift horses all in order to 
 go galloping off through the moonlit night to 
 La Vernede. Inside the carriage was Canon 
 Jusserand, ready to perform the marriage cere- 
 mony when they should be come to the Chateau. 
 
 As the time slipped away, and still Calisto 
 came not, the Canon's emotions underwent a 
 series of disagreeable changes shifting from 
 pleased anticipation to nervousness, from nerv- 
 ousness to anger, and from anger to a lively 
 alarm. As for Lou Pounchu and Rocofort, the 
 comments which they passed in whispers upon 
 the situation became constantly of a more and 
 more lurid and vigorous sort. All three of them 
 realized that some untoward accident must have 
 intervened to disarrange their carefully concerted 
 plan ; and they all knew that unless this acci- 
 dent should be set right very quickly their plan 
 must fail. A main factor in their chances of 
 success was the disorder of the last night of the 
 Carnival when the city was gaily turbulent; 
 and when the city gates, carelessly guarded, 
 were open until unusual hours. When quiet 
 came, and when the gates were closed, they 
 could do nothing. Quiet came all too quickly 
 for them. The rattle of drums, beating the
 
 353 
 
 lively measure of the farandole, grew less and 
 less; the roar of voices diminished as the faran- 
 dolers grew weary and went home to bed. 
 Now and again would come an outburst from 
 some belated company of revellers, reeling 
 through one of the near-by streets, chanting the 
 dirge of Carmentran: 
 
 Good-bye, poor soul! 
 Good-bye, poor soul! 
 Good-bye, poor Carmentran ! 
 
 Before long even these scattered noises ceased. 
 The only sound that broke the stillness of the 
 night was the gurgle of the dark waters of the 
 Sorgue which came out from a black archway 
 beneath the houses on the Rue Calade, ran in 
 an open canal along the middle of the Rue An- 
 nanelle, and passed out through an archway 
 beneath the ramparts to the Rhone. A foul 
 stench came up from the canal through which 
 these foul waters ran. All manner of vileness 
 was there, including the dead bodies of ani- 
 mals. Not seldom the bodies of human beings 
 were found there too hacked to pieces beyond 
 recognition. Murderers had a liking for the 
 Sorgue. 
 
 Canon Jusserand knew that farther waiting 
 was useless; that the night was too far ad- 
 vanced to permit the execution of their project, 
 even though Calisto still should come. Very 
 sorrowfully he leaned out from the window of 
 the carriage and ordered the coachman to drive 
 away. The coachman had risen to his feet and 
 was staring hard at the archway through which 
 the Sorgue passed beneath the ramparts. The
 
 354 lje tOljite terror 
 
 Canon also looked down at the archway, and 
 saw two men there pushing at something with 
 poles. "Are they murderers?" he asked in a 
 low tone, while a shiver ran through him. 
 
 "Smugglers, more likely, Monsieur trying 
 to bring in a barrel of brandy." 
 
 "Equally sinners!" responded the Canon, 
 who had a great respect for the law. " We will 
 wait no longer," he added. " Drive home! " 
 
 As the carriage drove away, Lou Pounchu 
 and Rocofort sulkily following it, the convent 
 bell rang matins pealing forth sweetly* joy- 
 fully, triumphantly, upon the stillness of the 
 moonlit night.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 THE VEIL OF SAINT URSULA 
 
 AT daybreak the bell rang gladly again, and 
 then began within the convent a bustle of prep- 
 aration for the Ash-Wednesday services and for 
 the reception into the community of a new Sis- 
 ter. Later, the bustle within had its counter- 
 part in a stir without. A bevy of gay young 
 girls came with a big basket containing a muslin 
 gown and a flowing veil of tulle, all white as 
 the snow on Mont Ventour. After them came 
 the pastry-cook from the Place du Change, 
 bringing two great bags of sugared almonds 
 such as are thrown to the crowd at weddings 
 in Provence. A group, that increased in num- 
 bers rapidly, assembled in waiting for the chapel 
 door to be opened. In the front rank were 
 Lazuli and Vauclair and Clairet in their Sunday 
 clothes. They were the very first to come; 
 and it was well that they came early, for five 
 minutes after the door was opened the nave of 
 the chapel was crammed full. Then came 
 priests, canons, monks, abbes, and a company 
 of little choir-boys in their little purple capes 
 and their white albs. The chapel was like a 
 hive of bees! 
 
 At last, to the accompaniment of a prodi- 
 gious ringing of the convent bell, came his Lord- 
 
 355
 
 35 6 he tObite terror 
 
 ship the Bishop of Avignon. The gorgeous 
 beadle struck his halberd three times on the 
 stone pavement, the congregation knelt to re- 
 ceive the Episcopal blessing. Almost before 
 they knew it, this part of the ceremonies was 
 over for the Lord Bishop, thin and nimble, 
 went up the nave at such a rate that his pursy 
 Vicar General could not keep pace with him ; 
 and he scattered his blessings to left and to right 
 so briskly that they went flying about like little 
 birds! Truly, Monseigneur Esteve was not a 
 show bishop, puffed up with pride in his own 
 dignity. Good man that he was, he followed 
 humbly in the steps of the Apostles. In his See 
 of Avignon he was just what he had been in 
 his little parish in the Var where half the time 
 he had to ring his own bell for the mass, and to 
 light his own altar candles, and to take a hand 
 in bearing the dead to their graves. In a twink- 
 ling he was at the altar, robed and mitred, and 
 was intoning the Magnificat. 
 
 As the incense arose in a sweet-smelling 
 cloud there was a little stir and rustle at the 
 grating and the black curtain was drawn aside. 
 Behind it, surrounded by the black-robed nuns, 
 stood Adeline radiant as the sun. In her white 
 wedding dress, under her shimmering white 
 veil, she was as lovely as Our Lady of Grace! 
 
 Throughout the chapel there was a stir. 
 Every one turned to look at her. A fluttering 
 sigh of admiration arose from the gazing crowd. 
 Lazuli although close to the grating, the closest 
 of all to her could not see her clearly, for La- 
 zuli's eyes were dim with tears. Even Vauclair, 
 the mustachioed sergeant who had done his gal-
 
 ffilje i)dl of Saint Ursttla 
 
 357 
 
 lant share of fighting, had a great lump in his 
 throat and was wiping his eyes with the back 
 of his hand. 
 
 Monseigneur, candle in hand, advanced from 
 the altar to the wicket in the grating and there 
 recited the prayers for the ordination. Adeline 
 stood before him tall and beautiful, and then 
 knelt humbly as he put his stole upon her head. 
 Her sweet voice sounded clearly through the 
 chapel as she answered "Amen!" 
 
 The convent bell had been ringing blithely. 
 The ringing ceased. Then, instead of its gay 
 carillon, the bell tolled dismally. At that instant 
 the Lord Bishop tore away the white veil and 
 the crown of white flowers from Adeline's head 
 and threw tbem aside. From a silver plate held 
 by one of his attendants he took a pair of iron 
 scissors and severed quickly, at the level of her 
 shoulders, the two long plaits of her golden 
 hair. As she heard the crisp sound of cutting 
 she uttered a deep sigh and sank almost fainting / 
 upon her knees. The stillness in the chapel' 
 was broken by a choking sob from Lazuli, who 
 was kneeling, utterly grief-stricken, her face 
 buried in her hands. Vauclair knelt beside her 
 not since his first communion had he been 
 upon his knees weeping silently. In the choir 
 arose the chant of the miserere. To the sound 
 of its desolate lament the black curtain behind 
 the grating was drawn. Monseigneur returned 
 to the altar. The mass went on. 
 
 Little attention was given to the mass. Every 
 one was waiting with unconcealed eagerness for 
 the black curtain to be again drawn aside. La- 
 zuli and Vauclair could not take their eyes from
 
 35 8 bc tDI)ite terror 
 
 the grating. Their hearts were breaking with 
 the thought that when they saw Adeline again, 
 in only a few moments more, she would be 
 clad as a professed nun separated forever from 
 the world ! 
 
 Clairet, being but a child, did not take the 
 matter seriously. He had cried a little, partly 
 because he did not like to see Adeline shut be- 
 hind a grating, but more because his father and 
 mother were crying and he was for keeping 
 them company. But his eyes dried as he 
 watched the conduct of the mass, and with 
 most interest the part that the choir-boys took 
 in it. To be a choir-boy must be very delight- 
 ful, he thought to wear a purple robe, and 
 lace, and a red cap ! And what fun it must be 
 to swing a censer and send the sweet-smelling 
 smoke flying all around! Oh, he would like 
 that best of all ! 
 
 Once more the convent bell rang out joy- 
 fully. To its glad sound the black curtain was 
 drawn back disclosing Adeline standing at the 
 wicket in the grating habited as a nun. Very 
 lovely was her beautiful face under the fine white 
 woollen veil, across her forehead a starched linen 
 band; and the grace of her tall form was not 
 lost wholly beneath the black robe. Beside 
 her stood Mother Scholastica and Sister Margai, 
 whom she had chosen to bear her company at 
 her first communion in Saint Ursula's holy garb. 
 When she and they had partaken, the office be- 
 ing celebrated by the Lord Bishop, the others 
 followed until all had communed. 
 
 All save one! One nun, hidden in a corner, 
 thrilling with a hopeless shame, dared not ap-
 
 &l)e foil 0f Saint Hrsula 359 
 
 proach the holy table. It was Sister Dorothy 
 who all night long had waited impatiently for 
 Calisto's coming, that she might give into his 
 blood-stained hands this pure lily which now, 
 by God's grace delivered from him, bloomed 
 securely in the walled garden of the Lord! 
 
 When the ceremony was over, when Mon- 
 seigneur and his attendants had partaken of the 
 collation served to them by Sister Margai and 
 had departed, when the crowd had left the 
 chapel, the Vauclairs still lingered: for them 
 there still was something more to do. Going 
 to the great door of the convent, they passed to 
 the parlour and there waited for Adeline's com- 
 ing that they might be the first, after those 
 who were become her sisters, to give her words 
 of loving cheer. It was the same room in which 
 so often they had talked with her, but this time 
 she could not come close to them and be clasped 
 in their arms. When she appeared, clad in her 
 habit, the double grating was between them. 
 With their arms extended to the utmost, they 
 barely could touch each others' hands. 
 
 For some moments none of them could 
 speak. Their hearts were very full; and, in 
 addition to her deep feeling, Adeline felt a curious 
 shyness as she stood before her friends in a dress 
 so strange to herself and to them. Lazuli per- 
 ceived this shyness, and dealt with it in a 
 womanly way. " What a charming nun," she 
 cried. " Never would I have believed that the 
 robe of Saint Ursula could be so becoming to 
 you! " 
 
 " Really ? " exclaimed Adeline joyfully. 
 
 "Really!" Lazuli answered. "If only you
 
 360 t) tOfyite terror 
 
 could see yourself you would see how perfectly 
 charming you are!"" 
 
 Adeline was smiling with pleasure. "Is it 
 really the truth that she is telling me, Vauclair ?" 
 she asked. 
 
 Vauclair could not speak easily. The lump 
 was in his throat again. He gave a gulp and 
 answered: ''She is telling you the truth, 
 Madame. You are as lovely as ever. No one 
 could be more beautiful than you are! " 
 
 " Oh Vauclair, how can you speak to me so 
 formally ? Why do you call me ' Madame ' ? 
 Am I not always your Adeline your own 
 child ? " 
 
 "Yes, yes," cried Lazuli, "you are indeed 
 our own child as much our own child as Clai- 
 ret, here, or Pascalet." 
 
 The smile faded from Adeline's face and her 
 eyes filled with tears. ' ' Oh Pascalet ! Pascalet ! " 
 she exclaimed. "What would he say could he 
 see me a nun! But oh, Father in heaven, for- 
 give me for speaking his name! Never more 
 may I think of him save in my prayers. For 
 him I may pray to my sweet Saint Christ that 
 He will guard'him from the perils of war, that 
 He will bring him home in safety to gladden his 
 old mother's heart!" 
 
 "Come, come," said Vauclair. "Before 
 long he'll be back again from the wars, safe and 
 sound. And then I'll bring him here to see you. 
 For that I give you my word." 
 
 " Ahem! " came a little short dry cough that 
 made them all start. It came from behind the 
 curtain, and was uttered by an old and rather 
 particular nun whose business it was to keep the
 
 t)dl of Saint Ursula 361 
 
 talk between the Sisters and their visitors within 
 due bounds. 
 
 Adeline understood the signal and blushed a 
 little. Crushing down the pain that was in her 
 heart, she changed the subject by saying to 
 Clairet: "And you also, Clairet, must come to 
 see me when the others come." 
 
 " Yes, Madame," Clairet answered, speaking 
 shyly and with downcast eyes. 
 
 "What, ' Madame ' from you too? Why, 
 Clairet, I'm your sister your sister Adeline. 
 You must not call me 'Madame'!" Her heart 
 was wrenched as she realized how these her 
 dear friends, whom she loved so tenderly, sud- 
 denly seemed to be far away from her and at 
 the very moment when she needed most their 
 close affection and support. By a quick impulse 
 she grasped the grating as though she would 
 tear it away! In a moment she had conquered 
 herself and was calm again. 
 
 As Clairet was too shy to answer her, she 
 continued: " You must not be afraid of me, my 
 Clairet. Come, look at me! And, see! Even 
 if you have grown to be a big boy I am sure that 
 you still like nice things, and I have some for 
 you. To-day is the great festival of my life. 
 To-day I take the veil that marries me to Jesus ! " 
 Her voice broke into a sob and she trembled. 
 Again she steadied herself, and added while 
 she searched in her unfamiliar dress for her 
 pocket: "You must have some of the sugared 
 almonds that are a part of my wedding feast. 
 Ah, here they are. I brought them on purpose 
 for you." As she spoke, she drew from her 
 pocket a packet tied daintily with white and
 
 362 STlje tttyite terror 
 
 blue ribbons and handed it to Clairet through 
 the bars. 
 
 "Benedicamus Domino" came in a low 
 voice from behind the curtain. It was the sig- 
 nal that the interview must end. 
 
 " Deo gratias," Adeline answered obediently. 
 
 Her hand, outstretched through the grating, 
 met and pressed each of their outstretched hands 
 in turn. "Adessias!" she said. "Adessias!" 
 they answered. And so she left them. 
 
 While they could hear the clicking of her 
 rosary and the sound of her retreating footsteps, 
 they stood listening in sad silence. Then, still 
 with hearts too full for speech, they went home- 
 ward to the Place du Grand Paradis.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 SLOW-PASSING YEARS 
 
 SISTER ADELINE took up the burden of her 
 convent life and bore it bravely. She who, as 
 a child, had shared her bread with little Pascalet, 
 was filled with a sweet spirit of charity that 
 made her zealous to serve with her whole 
 strength and eager to minister to the happiness 
 of those about her. She did her share, and 
 more than her share, of the convent work; she 
 nursed tenderly the sick ; even to Sister Dorothy, 
 at her rough toil in the kitchen, she lent a help- 
 ing hand. In her seemed to live again Saint 
 Ursula's spirit of helpfulness and self-sacrifice. 
 
 Her one concession to herself was her half 
 hour, each Sunday, with the Vauclairs. Never 
 did they fail to come to her, bringing always 
 some little gift a melon, a big pear, a bunch of 
 grapes that was not a trilling gift because it was 
 charged with their love. The visits of these 
 dear friends gave her a deep happiness, and a 
 deeper happiness because she could talk with 
 them about Pascalet. Always they spoke of 
 him cheerfully of his coming back to Avignon 
 a tall and gallant mustachioed soldier whom at 
 first sight they would not know. But always 
 with their cheerful talk went an undercurrent 
 of doubt and dread as they thought of what 
 24 363
 
 364 l)e fcOtjite Serror 
 
 might have happened to him among the many 
 evil chances of war. These talks, independently 
 of the boding thoughts that went with them, 
 left Adeline with a soul so disturbed so thrill- 
 ing with hopeless memories and with still more 
 hopeless longings that she could win her way 
 to calm again only by earnest beseeching in 
 prayer. Always her prayers ended, as did those 
 which she said night and morning, with the 
 appeal: "Sweet Saint Ursula, quench the fire 
 that burns my poor heart, but grant that once 
 more 1 may see him before I die! " 
 
 For the dwellers in the outer world in that 
 stirring epoch time passed quickly; but for 
 Sister Adeline, shut in her convent, striving 
 always to keep a dead hope buried in its grave, 
 the march of those great years was despairingly 
 slow. And with their lingering weariness was 
 pain. Every time that the bells of Avignon 
 rang out for a fresh victory, and they rang often, 
 the hope arose in her heart that they were ring- 
 ing for peace and so for her Pascalet's home- 
 coming. Always this hope was false. As it 
 perished, always would come the cruel under- 
 thought: " Perhaps in that great battle he was 
 killed!" 
 
 But Pascalet was not killed. As a grenadier 
 of the Guard his old luck stood by him and the 
 bullets did him no harm. With the army of 
 Bonaparte he marched triumphant, as he had 
 marched with the army of the Republic ; in his 
 breast burned always the flame for Liberty, 
 Equality, Fraternity; his strong arm helped to 
 carry forward the tri-colour, and with it the 
 Banner of the Rights of Man; his voice in battle
 
 |3eats 365 
 
 rang out the "Marseillaise." He did not forget 
 his Adeline. She had his heart but his honour 
 bade him stand fast by the colours of France. 
 Where the French flag went, he went: over 
 the snowy steeps of Mont Saint Bernard, across 
 the bridge of Arcola, through the burning heat 
 of the Egyptian desert; then back to Europe 
 again, in time to plant the tri-colour on the bell- 
 tower of Marengo at the cost of a desperate 
 sabre-slash across his forehead ; then to Austria 
 where he, who had danced on the day that 
 the Tuileries were stormed in the bed-chamber 
 of the Austrian woman, boiled his bit of meat 
 in Vienna beneath the walls of the Imperial 
 palace; and so onward to the heroic day of 
 Austerlitz when the shadow cast by the Great 
 Army of France extended from the olive-orchards 
 of Italy in the South to the pine-grown slopes 
 of the Urals in the frozen North ! 
 
 And while he marched triumphant the bells 
 of Avignon rang out for the victories that he 
 helped to win and in an Avignon convent one 
 in sore trouble prayed: "Sweet Saint Ursula, 
 quench the fire that burns my poor heart, but 
 grant that once more I may see him before I 
 die! " 
 
 As Adeline bent over her work, in the hours 
 of silence, often did she neglect to recite to her- 
 self her rosary while her thoughts wandered 
 far afield to Pascalet, trying to picture him in 
 her mind. Could she have made her picture 
 true to life she would have been well pleased 
 with it. Her little Pascalet had grown to be 
 tall and strong, as strong as an ash tree on the 
 flanks of Mont Ventour. His face, bronzed by
 
 366 t)e totjite terror 
 
 the sun of Egypt, had become resolute ; and the 
 more resolute because of the gallant scar across 
 his brow. His clear honest black eyes shone 
 with dancing specks of gold. His curly mus- 
 tache had grown bravely, hiding his laughing 
 red lips. Two long tresses of dark hair hung 
 down at the sides of his face to his shoulders. 
 In a word, he had become the very handsomest 
 soldier in the Emperor's Guard! It was not 
 surprising, when he served in Spain, that the 
 maidens of Zaragoza smiled upon him as he 
 passed beneath their balconies ; that they took 
 the rosebuds from between their lips and threw 
 them to him with a kiss! 
 
 But Adeline could not create a true picture 
 of him in her mind; and to create any picture 
 of him that at all satisfied her grew more and 
 more difficult as the months and the years went 
 by with a leaden slowness while the storm of 
 victory tossed him hither and thither about Eu- 
 rope, but never toward his home. 
 
 In that great time the armies of France, 
 which had been the soul of the Revolution, 
 went and came from one end of the continent 
 to the other from the Rhine to the Danube, 
 from the Danube to the Guadalquivir turning 
 up the old world as the soil is turned up by the 
 ploughman as he ploughs among the vines. In 
 a single year Napoleon's white horse quenched 
 his thirst in the grey waters of the Spree, in the 
 muddy waters of the Danube, in the sparklingly 
 clear waters of the Ebro ! 
 
 When Napoleon's gigantic task was accom- 
 plished, when the last cannon had thundered, 
 when the last spark had flashed from the sabres
 
 Sloro-jwssing Wears 367 
 
 of the French cavalry, the Corsican Emperor 
 whose soul was that of a corsair still was 
 unsatisfied. Seated upon his white horse, he 
 looked for an enemy to crush, for a capital to 
 seize, for a crown to strike off. But before him 
 and behind him and around him was only a 
 level plain. From the west to the east the har- 
 vest was complete. Everywhere, duly bound 
 and set in order, lay the reaped sheaves. Be- 
 hind his white horse crouched dukes, arch- 
 dukes, princes, kings, emperors, even he who 
 wore the triple tiara and his white horse 
 switched their faces with his tail. In his saddle- 
 bags were the fourteen sceptres of those who 
 had been kings! 
 
 Then it was that he, the son of the Revolu- 
 tion, he who had been the friend of Robespierre, 
 felt shame of his own origin and turned traitor. 
 Then it was that he took in marriage the daugh- 
 ter of one of his conquered emperors; that upon 
 France the France of the Revolution that had 
 dealt justice to Marie Antoinette he imposed 
 Marie Louise, another Austrian of the tyrant 
 brood, as Empress! 
 
 From that time onward the Great Armv of 
 France, the army, stern and terrible, born of the 
 Republic of 1792, the army of Valmy and Je- 
 mappes no longer fought for Liberty, for Equal- 
 ity, for Fraternity ; no longer bore through the 
 world the Banner of the Rights of Man. From 
 that time onward the Great Army of France was 
 to defend beneath the tri-colour all the bare- 
 footed tramps who had become barons and 
 dukes and princes; and, alas! grown drunk 
 with the fumes of victory and blinded by the
 
 368 1)<> lDI)itc terror 
 
 rays of glory, that army which had crushed a 
 king-tyrant was to perish for an emperor- 
 tyrant! 
 
 Into the huge maelstrom of fighting the 
 youth of France was carried down. Levees en 
 masse came again and again, calling to the col- 
 ours even lads of no more than sixteen years. 
 Clairet did not wait for the conscription. A 
 brave boy and a good patriot, as his father had 
 been before him, he was eager to pay his blood- 
 debt to his mother-land. When the force was 
 massing for the campaign in Russia, off he went 
 as a volunteer. And then, presently, the bells 
 of Avignon rang for new victories for Smo- 
 lensk, where Marshal Ney, the son of a cooper, 
 became a prince; a little later for the fall of Mos- 
 cow. 
 
 In those days the Vauclairs were sad-hearted 
 when they paid their Sunday visits to Adeline, 
 and they were less ready to talk about Pascalet 
 than about their own boy far away in that 
 Russia so cruelly cold. But one Sunday when 
 they came to her not a very long while after 
 the Moscow victory had been celebrated they 
 had little to say even about Clairet, so full were 
 they of matters of importance close at home. 
 
 What had happened no one seemed to know 
 certainly; but it was quite certain that rumours 
 of disaster to the French army were flying about 
 thickly, and that on the strength of these ru- 
 mours the Whites were showing themselves as 
 they had not shown themselves for years. The 
 next day Adeline had further evidence that the 
 order of things was changing. Canon Jusserand. 
 who for a very long time had not entered the con-
 
 Sloro-jiaesing tkars 369 
 
 vent, paid a visit of full two hours to Sister Dor- 
 othy and went away with a smile of satisfac- 
 tion on his old face, as though he had been im- 
 parting to her information of an exceptionally 
 pleasing sort. That night the nuns heard a 
 great shouting in the streets of "Down with 
 the Blues! Long live the King! "
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 ONCE MORE WHITE TERROR REIGNS 
 
 EVEN in her convent shelter Adeline felt the 
 eddying of the whirlwind that then was loosed 
 upon France: that brought into the land con- 
 quering foreign armies, that crushed the tyrant 
 Emperor, that raised the tyrant King to the 
 throne once more, that cast him down again, 
 that brought back the Emperor for the Hundred 
 Days. These great events which convulsed 
 France with passion had their passionate echo 
 in Avignon. In Avignon the Whites once more 
 
 fained the ascendency, and once more White 
 error reigned ! 
 
 News of these great happenings the Vau- 
 clairs brought to Adeline when they paid her 
 their weekly visits. Suddenly this was after 
 the Hundred Days began their visits stopped, 
 and a quick thrill of dread for their safety came 
 into her heart. When a second Sunday passed 
 without their coming to her, her anxiety was 
 more than she could bear. She besought Sister 
 Margai, the lay Sister who was free to go out 
 from the convent, to get news for her of these 
 her friends; and Sister Margai well knowing 
 that the rules of the Order expressly forbade 
 such service, and that in doing it she fell into 
 sin consented to Adeline's request. "Saint 
 370
 
 0>nce more tOI)ite terror fteigus 371 
 
 Ursula will forgive me," she said to herself, 
 "and the confessional will clear my sin away." 
 
 When she was come back again from her 
 mission that was accomplished while she was 
 supposed to be doing the convent marketing 
 the look on her face told that she brought black 
 news. Breaking still another rule of the Order, 
 Adeline drew her within her cell and bolted the 
 door. "What has happened?" she asked 
 eagerly, but with a thrill of fear in her tone. 
 
 1 "Dreadful things have happened!" Sister 
 Margai answered. ' ' The Whites are farandoling 
 away all over the city. The windows and bal- 
 conies are full of white flags. All the poor Reds, 
 all the poor soldiers coming back home from 
 the wars, are being murdered ! " Great drops of 
 sweat were on her forehead. She was very 
 pale. She paused for a moment to fan herself 
 with her apron. Then she added: "Oh poor 
 Lazuli! Oh poor Vauclair!" 
 
 Adeline also was very pale. "What has 
 happened to them?" she asked. "Did you 
 see them ? Answer me, Sister Margai. An- 
 swer me quickly! " 
 
 "No, I did not see them. Their house is 
 locked up and deserted. I knocked, but no one 
 came. And then, as I was corning away back 
 through the Place des Grands Carmes I saw 
 something that was terrible. First I heard what 
 sounded like the shrieks of women and children. 
 Then I saw a lot of men running, carrying the 
 white flag. Then I saw oh God in heaven ! 
 a crowd that filled the whole width of the street: 
 men foaming at the mouth, yelling and howling, 
 their eyes starting out of their heads. Some of
 
 37 2 1)* tObite terror 
 
 them were dragging something along on the 
 ground, and others of them were beating that 
 dragged thing with clubs. They came on, 
 straight toward me, and I was shoved on one 
 side and pushed against the wall. Then I saw 
 the awful thing that they were doing. They 
 were dragging along the body of a dead soldier 
 a soldier they had killed in the Porte Saint- 
 Lazare, just as the poor innocent was coming 
 into the city. The body was being knocked 
 out of all shape as they hammered at it with 
 their clubs. Along where it passed it left a 
 trail of blood. As they beat it they yelled ' To 
 the Rhone! To the Rhone!' And then they 
 began to shout: 'To the Place du Grand Para- 
 dis!' A gentleman seemed to be leading them 
 a gentleman dressed in a fine blue coat with 
 lace cuffs and carrying a yellow cane with a sil- 
 ver handle. He shouted, and the crowd of mur- 
 derers shouted after him : ' Long live the King! ' 
 
 "After they had passed, and I was standing 
 there shaking like a reed, there came hobbling 
 along a horrible little old lame woman. ' Aha, 
 did you see him ? ' she said with a chuckle that 
 froze my blood. ' That's the way they're all to 
 go every one of them, every single one ! We'll 
 revenge our good King! ' 
 
 " ' Who was it ?' 1 asked, all in a tremble. 
 
 "'Don't you know?' said she. 'Why, 
 that's the son of that good-for-nothing jade in 
 the Place du Grand Paradis the one who went 
 up to Paris with her husband to guillotine our 
 good King. Now they're served out for what 
 they did. It's her son, just back from Bona- 
 parte's army, that we've killed! ' "
 
 (Dnce more tOtyite terror tUigns 373 
 
 Adeline gave a cry of horror, but Sister Mnr- 
 gai had more to tell. "The lame little old 
 woman caught sight of the blood-stains on the 
 stones and beat them with her stick. Then she 
 went limping away, crying out: ' I'm off to see 
 what they're doing in the Place du Grand Pa- 
 radis. Our Monsieur le Comte de la Vernede, 
 who's at the head of everything, has promised 
 us that before nightfall the Rhone shall be car- 
 rying the father and the mother, along with the 
 son, beyond the bridge of Trinquetaille. Oh, 
 there's rare sport afoot! And to-morrow we're 
 going to cut the tongue out of one of Bonaparte's 
 generals who's coming here. Rare sport, I say 
 rare sport! ' And she hobbled away." 
 
 "Oh holy saints in heaven! " cried Adeline. 
 " It is Clairet, my dear little Clairet whom they 
 have killed! And it is the false Comte de la 
 Vernede, it is Calisto, who is doing this who 
 is killing the brave soldiers. Oh Sister Margai, 
 pray with me, pray with me to our own Saint 
 Ursula, that Pascalet may not fall into the hands 
 of those murderers! And I, who every day for 
 years have prayed that he might be" brought 
 back here and my eyes given sight of him once 
 more, will pray that he may be kept away from 
 this accursed land away from this Calisto 
 whom God permits to live on in crime! " 
 
 "Ah," said Sister Margai, "if our brave sol- i 
 diers who come back from the wars to be killed 
 in their homes had only Calisto and his wretches 
 to reckon with, the end soon would come. 
 But he is only one of the many evil doers who 
 spread terror throughout the land. In the moun- 
 tains between Malemort and Bedoin is Pastour's
 
 374 lK tOljite terror 
 
 band that mercilessly kills the Reds and plun- 
 ders and burns their homes. Round about 
 Aries is the Syphonier's band, that casts the 
 Reds and the poor soldiers into the Rhone. And 
 Trestaillon's band, over by Mimes, is the worst 
 of all. There are hundreds and thousands of 
 them, and they sack and ravage everywhere, 
 and without pity they throw Reds and soldiers 
 and Huguenots all together into the flames! " 
 
 "Oh Sister Margai," moaned Adeline, 
 "these times are worse than the time of ter- 
 ror that kept us hidden in the cave the time 
 when our good priest Monsieur Randoulet was 
 lost to us." 
 
 "Worse!" echoed Sister Margai. "Indeed 
 they are worse! Our butcher has just come 
 back from the fair at Uzes, and what he told me 
 made my blood run cold. He said that some 
 of Trestaillon's men came murdering to the 
 farm of Chambaud, near Aramon. They found 
 the farmer's wife alone in the house, and they 
 seized her and asked her if she was a good 
 Catholic. The poor woman, ready to drop 
 with fear, said that she was. ' Very well 
 then,' they said, 'prove it by saying your 
 paternoster and your Ave Maria.' They held 
 their knives at her heart, and of course she was 
 too scared to say a word. 'Oh, so you're 
 lying,' they said and in a moment they had 
 stabbed her to death! The farm servant, at 
 work in the garden, heard the noise and came 
 in to see what was the matter. They seized 
 him and asked him if he were a Catholic or a 
 Huguenot. He said that he" was a Huguenot. 
 'Then you shall die for it,' they said, and killed
 
 U5ncc more tOljite terror Ueigns 375 
 
 him too. Then they set fire to the farm-house 
 and came away. 
 
 " Our butcher told me," Sister Margai went 
 on, "that when he was in Uzes he saw Tres- 
 taillon himself his real name's not Trestaillon, 
 it's Dupont and some of his men with him : 
 one named Graffan, and one they call Quatre- 
 taillons, and some more. And our butcher saw 
 them fetch out of the prison at Uzes five Hugue- 
 not Liberals who had been shut up there for 
 their own safety, and drag them along to the 
 front of the Bishop's Palace and there murder 
 them and the King's Sous-prefet all the while 
 looking on ! Then, in mockery, Trestaillon 
 propped them up on their knees, with their 
 faces toward Mimes, and put spectacles on their 
 noses and then jeered at them : ' Do you see 
 help coming from the Card ?' " 
 
 Adeline only partly listened to Sister Mar- 
 gai's stories of horrors. In her heart was bitter 
 grief for the dead Clairet, and bitter dread that 
 already Vauclair and Lazuli might be dead also; 
 and a still keener fear beset her as she thought 
 of her Pascalet's peril should he chance as was 
 only too likely to come back to Avignon in 
 that wild time. And then, suddenly, Jacque- 
 mart began to sound the tocsin, and almost in 
 the same moment they heard a great outcry in 
 the street and shouts of "Death! Death to 
 him ! To the Rhone ! To the Rhone ! " 
 
 They could see nothing. They could only 
 hear. There was the angry roar of a crowd. 
 The trampling of horses' feet. Louder cries 
 of "Death to him!" and "To the Rhone!" 
 Then the shrill singing, in which the voices of
 
 376 l)e tOI]ite terror 
 
 women and children joined, of the song of the 
 White Terror: 
 
 "No one shall we spare! 
 So Trestaillon commands. 
 Our knives make the law! 
 
 Long live the King! 
 All the brigands shall die! 
 Long live the. Queen! " 
 
 Then a strong voice shouted loud above the 
 tumult: "To the Rhone with him! To the 
 Rhone with the sans-culotte who carried the 
 head of our Princesse de Lamballe on his pike!" 
 And then the crowd passed on, and the noises 
 grew fainter and fainter. 
 
 With white faces and with wildly beating 
 hearts the two nuns gazed at each other with 
 wide open terrified eyes. It seemed to them 
 that they had been listening to the cries of 
 devils let loose on earth to do the work of 
 hell! 
 
 And it was the work of hell that was done 
 by that crowd, presently, on the Place of the 
 Porte de 1'Oulle. There, in the broad daylight 
 of an August sun, in the name of the King and 
 in the presence of the King's officers with the 
 King's Prefet at their head, that crowd of thou- 
 sands of Royalists impudent cowards, led by 
 a coward clad in a blue coat and carrying a 
 silver-headed cane compassed the death of a 
 Marshal of France ! And, be it noted, this Mar- 
 shal of France was a valiant soldier of the 
 Empire, who for twenty years had braved the 
 cannon-balls of the Prussians and the Austrians 
 in the defence of his country and of Liberty. 
 He was one of the heroes of Arcola, he was the
 
 (Dnce more tDl)itc terror Ucigns 377 
 
 conqueror of Holland, he was the terror of the 
 foreigner he was Marshal Brune ! 
 
 Yet it did not come easily, this killing. 
 Consent to it was given by the Juge d'lnstruc- 
 tion, one Piot (may his name be held in shame!), 
 a wolf-faced man, who sat on the fender-stone 
 in the Porte de 1'Oulle quietly waiting to draw 
 up a proces-verbal when the crime had been 
 committed; and consent to it was given by the 
 Procureur du Roi, one Verger (may his name be 
 held in shame!), a fox-headed monster, who 
 passed and repassed through the crowd, eager 
 to insult the dead body of the Marshal and to 
 shield his murderers. Vet, in spite of this offi- 
 cial sanction, in spite of this strange mingling 
 of law with lawlessness, no one seemed to have 
 courage enough to attack the brave soldier. 
 Jalles had not the treacherous postillion who 
 forcibly brought him from Orgon to Avignon. 
 Goulier had not the man who snatched away 
 his plume with the sneer: " You are a brigand, 
 unworthy to wear a marshal's plume! " Calisto 
 had not the man who had given currency to 
 the lie that Marshal Brune had carried on a pike 
 the head of the Princesse de Lamballe. In all 
 that horde of Royalists from the Prefet, Saint- 
 Chamans (may his name be held in shame!), to 
 the poorest of the fanatical Royalist shop-keepers 
 and silk-weavers there were to be found but 
 three wretches who were brave enough to com- 
 mit the crime. 
 
 These three were Lou Pounchu, Farge, and 
 Grindon, called Rocofort all of Trestaillon's 
 band. They were the better able to accomplish 
 the work to which they set themselves because
 
 37 8 &!) tDI)ite terror 
 
 they were frequenters of the inn of the Palais 
 Royal, into which Marshal Brune had shut him- 
 self. Knowing the interior arrangement of the 
 house, they knocked a hole through the floor of 
 the room above that in which he was, and so 
 reached him. But before the piercing glance of 
 the hero those who faced him stopped thunder- 
 struck. Lou Pounchu so trembled that his finger 
 could not draw the trigger of his piece. Farge 
 fired his pistol, but aimed so badly that the ball 
 merely grazed the Marshal who, calm as he 
 had been on the bridge of Arcola, said coolly : 
 " What awkwardness! " Barely had he uttered 
 these words when Rocofort, who had stolen 
 behind him, fired a ball into the back of his 
 head and Marshal Brune fell forward, a dead 
 man ! As he fell, the three ran to the window, 
 flourishing their still smoking pieces, and cried 
 to the crowd below: "Justice has been done! 
 Long live the King! " 
 
 The maddened crowd fell to dancing a fa- 
 randole, and at. the same time sang loudly: 
 
 "No one shall we spare ! 
 So Trestaillon commands. 
 Our knives make the law! 
 Long live the King ! " 
 
 Others of the crowd mainly women, Papal- 
 ists, Royalists, rich bourgeois shouted out a 
 doggerel verse that somebody on the spur of 
 the moment improvised: 
 
 " A wide-awake angel 
 Put in his gun 
 The excellent prune 
 That killed Marshal Brune ! "
 
 nee more tDl]itc QTerror fteigns 379 
 
 At the sound of the shots, the Juge d'ln- 
 struction rose from his seat in the Porte de 
 1'Oulle, his portfolio under his arm. Accompa- 
 nied by the Procureur du Roi, and followed by 
 a crowd of thieves and murderers, he entered 
 the inn and went to the room in which the dead 
 body lay. There, with ink that was the scum 
 of lies and hypocrisies, he drew up a false 
 proces-verbal which declared that the Marshal 
 had blown out his brains with his own hand. 
 In the presence of these officers of the law, the 
 crowd rifled the pockets of the dead Marshal, 
 tore off his gold sword-knot, and insulted his 
 body. 
 
 When the proces-verbal was finished, the 
 two officers left the body in the fierce custody 
 of the crowd and then was to be seen a dead 
 Marshal of France dragged shamefully through 
 the streets of Avignon! Papalists, Royalists, 
 emigres, deserters, allies of the Prussian and 
 of the Austrian, robbers, murderers, crowded 
 around the body and larded it with their knives. 
 At last they carried it to the river and there, 
 over the parapet of the bridge that had been the 
 scene of many a gay farandole, they tossed the 
 body of a Marshal of France, mangled but still 
 noble, into the Rhone!
 
 CHAPTER XLI 
 
 SANCTUARY 
 
 TREMBLING with fear, Adeline and Sister Mar- 
 gai had cast themselves on their knees before 
 the crucifix. There they remained, uttering 
 broken prayers, while that foul murder was 
 done. Faintly they could hear the shouts and 
 yells from the crowd. At the sound of the firing 
 they shivered and crossed themselves. Sud- 
 denly, with less volume, the noise grew sharper 
 and clearer. They heard fewer voices, but the 
 voices were drawing nearer to them rapidly. 
 They could make out the trampling of feet. In 
 another moment the crowd had turned the cor- 
 ner and was in their own street. The shouts 
 ceased to be a confused roar and became distinct 
 words: "Kill him! Kill the brigand! To the 
 Rhone with him ! To the Rhone! " 
 
 The two nuns had risen to their feet and 
 were listening breathless, terrified. Their ter- 
 ror was increased tenfold when, along with the 
 shouting, came a violent banging at the convent 
 door. It was an irregular knocking, as though 
 made with clubs or stones, but so loud that it 
 rang through the corridors and set the windows 
 to rattling. With it came a clatter of bolts, as 
 the frightened Sisters fastened themselves into 
 their cells. Adeline turned a dead white, and 
 380
 
 Sanctuarn 381 
 
 again fell upon her knees before the crucifix. She 
 fancied that she heard the voice of Calisto. The 
 dreadful thought came to her that he meant to 
 break into the convent and to carry her off by 
 force ! 
 
 To Sister Margai came another thought: that 
 the one whom the crowd was bent upon killing 
 was beating at the door of their convent in the 
 hope of finding refuge there. She also was a 
 dead white and was shaking with terror. But 
 stronger than her terror was her brave sense of 
 duty. She was the porteress of the convent. 
 It was her duty to respond to that knocking by 
 opening the door. Sister Margai crossed herself 
 and said a little prayer. Then, holding the cross 
 of her rosary in her hand, she went along the 
 corridor past the fast shut doors to the stair, 
 and down the stair to the door. Shaking with 
 fear and upheld by courage, she took down the 
 bar and shot back the bolts. Then she opened 
 the door, saying tremblingly: " Benedicamus 
 Domino! " 
 
 Sister Margai had a glimpse of the howling 
 and roaring crowd over on the other side of the 
 street cut off by the canal of the Sorgue from 
 their prey. But it was only a glimpse. As the 
 door swung open a soldier bloody, dizzy, half- 
 fainting pitched forward bodily into her arms. 
 In an instant she had managed to drag him 
 inside; and then, leaving him lying anyhow, she 
 clapped to the door and made it fast again with 
 bolt and bar. 
 
 For some moments, panting hard, she stood 
 listening. "Will they try to break in?" she 
 thought, in an agony of dread. But the crowd
 
 382 l)e (Dljite terror 
 
 of men as fickle as they were cruel gave up 
 the chase. Had they caught the soldier whom 
 they had been stoning they would have made 
 short work of him not only because of the uni- 
 form that he wore, but because he had raised his 
 voice bravely against the foul murder of Marshal 
 Brune. But since they had not caught him, 
 since the Sisters had seen fit to give him shelter, 
 off they went again hurrying to join their fel- 
 lows who were dragging the Marshal's body 
 about the streets of Avignon before they tossed 
 it into the Rhone. 
 
 Sister Margai would have been not a little 
 embarrassed at finding herself of a sudden alone 
 in the convent vestibule with a strange man, 
 and a soldier at that, had not the poor strange 
 man so evidently and so urgently needed her 
 aid as he lay quite still where she had dropped 
 him, the blood streaming from a gash in his 
 forehead where he had been cut by a stone. 
 Therefore, thinking only of how she could get 
 her broken man mended again, she set herself to 
 ministering to his needs. 
 
 His first need, clearly, was to be lifted out 
 of the heap in which he was lying on the floor 
 and to be laid upon something that would enable 
 him to rest comfortably ; therefore she managed 
 being as strong of body as she was stout of 
 heart to drag him into the convent parlour and 
 to get him upon a straw-covered sofa; where he 
 could bleed as much as he pleased, she thought 
 to herself, without making a mess that wouldn't 
 easily wash up again. He revived a little as 
 she propped his head on the sofa and looked up 
 at her gratefully with a pair of very handsome
 
 Sanctuary 383 
 
 black eyes. "Thank you, holy Sister," he said 
 in a weak voice. " Don't bother about me. I'll 
 be all right again presently." 
 
 " Now do you lie there without stirring till 
 I come back," Sister Margai commanded. "I'll 
 make you as comfortable as it's possible to make 
 you, you poor soul!" And away she dashed 
 for cold water and clean rags, and for orange- 
 flower water to refresh her poor soldier with 
 when she had washed and tied up his wound. 
 All the cell doors still were shut fast and bolted, 
 but her isolation was not painful at all. In a 
 twinkling, with both hands full, she was back 
 again beside her wounded man. 
 
 "Here I am," she said with great cheerful- 
 ness. "Now keep quiet while I wash away 
 all this dreadful blood. Heavens, what a cut 
 it is!" 
 
 The soldier smiled faintly. "I've known 
 worse cuts than this, holy Sister very much 
 worse. Why, this is only a scratch! Give me 
 the basin, please. I'm nearly all right now. I'll 
 wash away the blood myself." 
 
 "Indeed you won't do any such thing!" 
 Sister Margai said decidedly. "You'll lie per- 
 fectly still, just as you are, and you'll let me 
 attend to it!" And, suiting her action to her 
 words, she began to wash away the blood from 
 his forehead very tenderly refreshing him not 
 more with the cool water than with the kindly 
 touch of her soft hand. As she fingered the 
 torn flesh, setting it in place, it was she, not 
 the soldier, who winced and cried " Ai! " 
 
 The young fellow laughed a little, by way 
 of putting heart into her. " You see," he said,
 
 384 b* tWle terror 
 
 "it's an old wound that that dog of a Royalist 
 has dug open again with his stone. I had a 
 sabre-cut there once that made a good deal of a 
 mess and would have made a worse mess if 
 my head hadn't been so jolly hard! " 
 
 His laugh, and his stronger voice, and the 
 mocking note in his words, united to comfort 
 Sister Margai amazingly. Evidently, he had 
 a lot of life left in him. Fears on his behalf were 
 quite superfluous. All that he needed to make 
 him sound again was a little care. In giving 
 him this care she found a rather perilous self- 
 satisfaction. All blood-stained, 'she had thought 
 him handsome she thought him still handsomer 
 when she had finished her tenderly gentle wash- 
 ing and the blood was gone. A little unruly 
 thrill stirred the heart of this good Sister as she 
 looked from under her eye-lashes at her soldier 
 whose life she had saved: at his fine strong 
 face, set off by long plaits of hair falling to his 
 shoulders and by a strong mustache, and most 
 of all by a pair of dancing black eyes! And 
 how very becoming to him, she thought, was 
 his uniform of a grenadier of the Guard, with 
 its white gaiters and its gallant red epaulettes! 
 Her fingers tingled as she touched him. And 
 her touch was so very gentle as to be danger- 
 ously close to a caress! 
 
 "Sister Margai! Sister Margai! " she said to 
 herself sharply, "this won't do at all! You are 
 giving pain to the good God ! See to it that you 
 punish yourself. To-night, after matins, you 
 must have a dose of the seven-knotted scourge ! " 
 So steadying herself, she set about binding her 
 soldier's wound with fine linen. Now that the
 
 Sanctnarn 385 
 
 blood was gone the scar on his forehead showed 
 plainly. " Mon Dieu!" she cried. ''What a 
 dreadful sword-cut that must have been! The 
 scar goes all the way across! " 
 
 "The Emperor said to me," the soldier 
 answered, his eyes brightening, "that a scar 
 like that is a star of the brave ! " 
 
 "Oh," exclaimed Sister Margai, "to think 
 of that ! To think that the Emperor himself has 
 spoken to you! " She was so overcome by the 
 honour that had been done to her soldier that 
 she finished binding up his wound without 
 uttering another word. He lay quite still as a 
 good child ministered to by its mother while 
 she set the bandage in place closely and firmly, 
 and smiled gratefully as she ended by smoothing 
 back his hair. "Now you shall have a glass of 
 orange-flower water," she said. "It will re- 
 fresh you and do you good." 
 
 As the soldier took the glass from her hand 
 and raised himself on one elbow to drink, he 
 glanced inquiringly around the room. "Thank 
 you," he said as he gave back to her the empty 
 glass, "that was delicious. And now will you 
 tell me, holy Sister, where I am ? What is that 
 double grating, with a black curtain behind it ? 
 Am I by chance in a prison ?" 
 
 "Oh no, no!" Sister Margai answered. 
 "Of course you're not in a prison! You are in 
 God's own house in a convent of cloistered 
 nuns, whom you may not see, but who will 
 take good care of you until you are quite well 
 again and can go on your way! " 
 
 "My good Sister, do you think I mean to 
 sit here until the silk-worms are grown up ?
 
 386 lic toliite QCerror 
 
 You've put me in capital order, and I'm very 
 much obliged to you but now I must be off 
 after those rascals who have murdered my Mar- 
 shal Brune." 
 
 "You want to go back into that crazy 
 crowd? Good heavens, you must be crazy 
 yourself ! You mustn't even dream of such a 
 thing! What you are to do is to stay here 
 quietly until your wound begins to heal. Then, 
 when you are fit to go about again, you can slip 
 away some night and be off safely to your 
 home." 
 
 The soldier was not by any means disposed 
 to accept this programme which Sister Margai 
 so authoritatively laid down for him. But he 
 found when he tried to stand, and suddenly 
 grew dizzy and had to lie down again in a hurry 
 that he should have to accept it, at least in part. 
 The* bleeding from the cut in his forehead had 
 been prodigious, and had left him very weak in- 
 deed. " I believe 1 must rest here a little longer," 
 he said in a grumbling tone. "To think," he 
 added, "that one of the Emperor's marshals 
 should be murdered, and that I shouldn't be 
 able to raise a hand!" 
 
 Sister Margai was able to accept the situation 
 quite resignedly. " Now promise me that you'll 
 be good, that you won't move," she said. " I 
 must go and tell our reverend Mother Superior 
 about your being here but I won't be gone long. 
 Now don't you move! " And off she went to 
 tell her wonderful piece of news. She was very 
 eager to tell it, yet was she also rather anxious 
 about the reception that would be given to it. 
 What she had done, though for the saving of
 
 Sanctuary 387 
 
 human life, was a glaring infraction of a most 
 serious rule! 
 
 Naturally, her report caused a very lively stir 
 in the Sisterhood. " Heavens! " cried a devout 
 old nun. "A man in our convent! " 
 
 "And a soldier! " exclaimed another, cross- 
 ing herself. 
 
 "And a brigand! " snarled Sister Dorothy, 
 shaking her fist. 
 
 But Mother Scholastica, being merciful and 
 abounding in charity, took a broader view of 
 the matter. " God will bless you for what you 
 have done, Sister Margai," she said earnestly; 
 "and what God blesses I cannot ban. There can 
 be no harm in breaking a rule of our convent 
 if in that way a man's life can be saved. And 
 you must continue your ministrations, Sister. If 
 he needs nourishment, give it to him. He must 
 be made strong enough to get on to his home. 
 .Is his home here in Avignon, do you know?" 
 
 "No, I don't think he lives here in Avignon. 
 He's a soldier just come here from the Emperor's 
 army, but I don't think this is his home." 
 
 " Didn't you ask him his name ?" questioned 
 Adeline. 
 
 "Ask him his name! Goodness me! I had 
 enough to do to wash the blood off and bind up 
 his wound. It didn't come into my head that 
 he had a name though I suppose he has." 
 
 Adeline drew Mother Scholastica a little aside 
 and spoke to her eagerly. ' ' Reverend Mother, " 
 she said, " perhaps that soldier may have known 
 little Pascalet and may be able to give me news 
 of him. Will you not take me to the grating 
 that I may ask?"
 
 tt)l)ite 
 
 "Hush, my child," the Mother Superior an- 
 swered, " to-day it is too late we must go now 
 and recite the office for nones. But to-morrow, 
 after the holy mass, during the time for recrea- 
 tion, you shall come with me to the grating. 
 Then we will get him to tell us about himself, 
 and we will ask him for news of the little sol- 
 dier from Malemort." 
 
 Some of the other Sisters had drawn near and 
 heard the Mother Superior's concluding words. 
 At once there was an outcry of ' ' And me too ! " 
 " And me too, Reverend Mother! " " Let us all 
 go and hear what the poor soldier has to tell! " 
 And in the end Mother Scholastica, to whom 
 refusing a favour did not come easily, gave her 
 consent that they all should take part in the ad- 
 venture. "But remember, Sisters," she said, 
 " while you may hear him you may not see 
 him. We shall stand at the grating, but the 
 curtain shall not be drawn. We must not set 
 our great Saint Ursula to weeping up in heaven 
 because the sin of curiosity is rife among her 
 nuns!" 
 
 Just then jingle, jingle-jingle! rang the little 
 bell for nones. Off sped the nuns to their cells 
 to recite the office, scattering like a flock of 
 sparrows frightened by the discharge of a gun. 
 
 Adeline's mind was so full of the soldier 
 from whom she might be able to get news of 
 Pascalet that she sadly bungled her prayers. 
 Nor could she close her eyes the whole night 
 long. Over and over she framed the questions 
 that she would ask in the morning. Over and 
 over she conjured up visions of Pascalet himself. 
 Always her vision was the same: of Pascalet as
 
 Sanctuarj} 389 
 
 she last had seen him, on that far-back day in 
 Paris when he had said good-bye to her at the 
 Planchots' and had gone off to the barracks to 
 draw his pay. She knew that he must have 
 changed greatly, but how he had changed she 
 could not know at all. And so her only certain 
 picture of him was the one that lived in her 
 memory: of a bright-eyed stripling whose 
 laughing face was as smooth as the face of a 
 girl.
 
 CHAPTER XLII 
 
 A GRENADIER OF THE EMPEROR'S GUARD 
 
 WHEN, at last, the morning angelus rang, 
 Adeline was up and dressed in a moment. 
 Then, very quietly, she opened her door a crack 
 and waited for the coming of the porteress. 
 Presently Sister Margai began her morning round 
 knocking at the door of each cell and call- 
 ing "Benedicamus Domino!" and receiving a 
 drowsy "Deo gratias!" in reply. Adeline also 
 answered " Deo gratias! " but opened her door 
 and in a low voice asked hurriedly: "Tell me, 
 Sister, did the soldier say anything to you about 
 Pascalet?" 
 
 "No," Sister Margai answered, "he didn't. 
 But I think it likely he's met him, for that young 
 man seems to have made a point of going to 
 every battle that ever was fought. It's heavenlv 
 to hear him tell about 'em ! You feel as if you 
 were right in 'em yourself ! " And Sister Mar- 
 gai went on down the corridor with her " Bene- 
 dicamus Domino! " rousing the Sisters for the 
 morning service of the mass. 
 
 To Adeline that mass seemed interminable. 
 The worthy Monsieur Peru their almoner in 
 the place of Monsieur Jusserand was a truly 
 holy man, but at all times his slowness was 
 marvellous. On that particular morning it was 
 390
 
 ^ (B>renabier of tl)e (Emperor's marfc 391 
 
 almost miraculous. While he said his " Domi- 
 nus vobiscum " there was time enough to kill a 
 donkey with fisticuffs! Adeline fretted and 
 twisted and turned. It seemed as though he 
 never would get to the end ! 
 
 At last, somehow, he managed to arrive at 
 his " Ita missa est " and the dismissed Sisters 
 hastened thankfully to the refectory and ate their 
 light morning meal in a scamper, being only 
 less eager than Adeline to hear what their soldier 
 had to tell. Then the whole community ex- 
 cepting Sister Dorothy, who refused to have 
 anything whatever to do with "the brigand" 
 flocked in the wake of Mother Scholastica to 
 the convent parlour and ranged themselves, 
 with a soft rustling of robes and a little clicking 
 of rosaries, behind the black curtain that veiled 
 the bars. The Mother Superior's command was 
 stringent that no one but herself should speak 
 to their guest. A flutter went through the 
 gentle-hearted company as this most exciting 
 interview began. 
 
 " God be with you, brave soldier," said Sister 
 Scholastica. " How is your wound to-day ?" 
 
 " God be with you, holy Sister," the soldier 
 answered in a cheerful voice. "My wound is 
 doing very well indeed. You must not worry 
 about it at all." 
 
 " We will pray to God, and to our holy Saint 
 Ursula, to make your cure speedy and to bring 
 you quickly to your own home." 
 
 "Well, I'm not familiar with Saint Ursula, 
 though I dare say she's obliging. But God knows 
 me, and twice he has worked a miracle in my 
 behalf."
 
 39 2 b* tOljite terror 
 
 At this there was a little buzz of admiration 
 among the nuns as they whispered to each 
 other: "Oh, what a worthy soldier!" "Oh, 
 what an excellent young man ! " Adeline's eyes 
 were full of tears and her heart was in a tumult. 
 She was not thinking about the soldier's display 
 of piety; she was thinking only that he might 
 have known, and that in a moment or two 
 more he might be giving her news of her 
 Pascalet! 
 
 "Indeed, I may say counting this last one 
 that God has worked three miracles for me," 
 the soldier continued. He had heard the mur- 
 mur of approval called forth by his pious words 
 and was disposed to intensify the good impres- 
 sion that he was making. " The first one was 
 more than twenty years ago in Paris, and the 
 second was less than three years ago among 
 the snows of Russia, and the third was right 
 here yesterday when your good Sister Margai 
 opened the door just in time to save me from 
 being stoned to death by the assassins of Mar- 
 shal Brune." 
 
 Again there was a buzz of approbation, in 
 the midst of which Mother Scholastica said: 
 "Then you have been in close peril of death 
 three times, and a kind Father in heaven 
 has 
 
 " Three times! " the soldier interrupted. " It 
 is more like a hundred times that I have felt 
 blowing on me the chill wind of death! It is 
 the duty of a grenadier of the Emperor's Guard, 
 you must remember, to meet death a good deal 
 more than half-way; to get into the places 
 where the cannon-balls and the bullets are
 
 01 renabier of tty* (Emperor's (Ewarb 393 
 
 thickest as they were that day at Waterloo 
 when we marched through the fire of eighty 
 thousand Englishmen under Wellington on one 
 side of us and of a hundred thousand Prussians 
 under Blucher on the other side of us, at the 
 battle of Mont Saint Jean. Under that cross-fire 
 we had to go through the famous hawthorn 
 hedge and take the farm-house beyond it by 
 assault. If I didn't die then, my Sisters, I don'"t 
 see how I ever can die. Just let me tell you 
 about it, and you'll think so too. 
 
 "You see, the hedge was a huge one, very 
 high and very wide. In an orchard behind it 
 the English were hidden by thousands, and as 
 we came down on them they fought like lions 
 and tigers for they knew that to kill every man 
 of us was the only way to stop a charge of the 
 grenadiers of the Guard. When we got to 
 within twenty paces or so of the hedge each 
 separate leaf and flower of it seemed to be spit- 
 ting fire at us. Down its whole length was a 
 glare, as dazzling as lightning, that almost 
 blinded us as we halted to pour in a volley and 
 then went on again steadily. Just then I glanced 
 backward, and instantly was filled with shame 
 for up on the hill of La Belle Alliance I saw 
 the Emperor, and he was looking straight at 
 me! I blushed crimson at the thought that he 
 should see me looking the wrong way. Then, 
 along with my comrades, in I went among the 
 hawthorn blossoms with a bound. As we strug- 
 gled through the close-knit thorny branches the 
 fire of the English, in our very faces, was ter- 
 rible. All the same, with that deadly fire whip- 
 ping us like hailstones, each of us managed to
 
 394 i)e toljite SUrror 
 
 pull a sprig of hawthorn and out we came on 
 the other side of the hedge and fell to on the 
 English, every one of us with a spray of haw- 
 thorn blossoms in his mouth. We made short 
 work of them. The killing went on until not 
 one of the enemy in the orchard was left alive! 
 
 "Among the dead bodies which covered 
 the ground we lined up our bayonets bent, 
 our wrists sprained, our flesh torn by the 
 hawthorns, many of us wounded while we 
 shouted ' Long "live the Emperor ! ' and our 
 drums beat victory. But our victory was not 
 to last. Barely were we formed when our 
 commander, General Cambronne, called out to 
 us: 'Now that you have shouted "Long live 
 the Emperor!" my boys, you may shout with 
 me " Long live Death! " for the hour is come 
 to die for our country and for Liberty!' And 
 then we saw on all sides of the orchard, sweep- 
 ing down upon us like a hurricane, black masses 
 of Prussians. The hills around us suddenly 
 were black with them. They seemed to rise up 
 out of the earth. From right to left, from east 
 to west, their black battalions were closing in 
 upon us. We were surrounded, blocked, be- 
 trayed we were lost ! Once again 1 looked 
 over at the hill of La Belle Alliance but there 
 was only a dense cloud of smoke where the 
 great Napoleon had been! 
 
 " Desperately we formed in square about our 
 brave General, who held aloft the tri-colour. 
 From our four fronts blazed out a withering fire 
 upon the oncoming black battalions. The grime 
 of gunpowder, the smears of blood, gave us the 
 look of monsters. And we fought, and fought!
 
 & rcnabicr of t!)c (gmperor's (Buarb 395 
 
 We fought, so furious were we, showing our 
 teeth like wolves ; and we shouted hoarsely the 
 cry that our General had given us: ' Hurrah for 
 Death ! ' The dense black battalions surround- 
 ing us and cutting us to pieces with grape- and 
 round-shotdid not dare to charge us. Pru- 
 dently they kept back from that hawthorn hedge 
 that we had carried so gaily an hour before! 
 
 " In one of those moments of silence which 
 sometimes come in battle when it seems as 
 though the cannon are taking a breathing spell 
 the English general coming down on us from 
 the north cried shrilly: ' Give up the flag! ' 
 
 "At that our General Cambronne, standing 
 breast-deep among dead bodies, raised his 
 sword, opened his mouth wide, as if he wanted 
 to bite the heavens, and in a wild yell shouted 
 But I will not tell you what he shouted. 
 It is not a word to be uttered within convent 
 walls ! 
 
 "And then all the pistols, all the muskets, 
 all the cannon, all the bombards, of the black 
 battalions belched forth at short range so awful 
 a fire from their iron bellies that the flowering 
 hawthorn hedge was mowed down and be- 
 yond it was mowed down the remnant of us 
 who stood around our General and our flag. 
 As for me, I felt a sudden blow in my breast as 
 if a horse had kicked me. It spun me around 
 like a top. Then I fell, my face to the ground! 
 
 " There I was, under a heap of dead bodies, 
 all night. And there I might be still, I suppose, 
 had I not been roused when morning came by 
 a sharp pricking in my hand. My hand stuck 
 out, somehow, from among the dead fellows on
 
 39 6 be tDI)ite terror 
 
 top of me, and as I woke up I felt as though 
 somebody was jabbing a knife into it. ' Ai! ' I 
 cried, as I opened my eyes and turned my head 
 a little and then I made out that a raven was 
 perched on my hand and was pecking at it. 
 He flew away at the sound of my voice, and I 
 managed to crawl out from among the dead 
 people.. As I felt myself, to find out where I 
 was wounded, a piece of iron dropped from my 
 breast where it had lodged under my knapsack 
 straps. It was this that had bowled me over 
 without cutting my flesh. I was very sore and 
 very shaky, but I was not wounded at all. 
 
 "The sun was rising clear from behind the 
 hills of La Belle Alliance and Rossonne. Far off 
 I could see the English and the Prussian bat- 
 talions marching away. At last I got on my 
 feet not being very steady on them and looked 
 about me for my brave General and for the flag. 
 But there was no General, there was no flag 
 both were gone! And then, my Sisters, to tell 
 you the truth I fell to crying like a baby. 
 Around me all my companions were lying dead; 
 my General was wounded or a prisoner; my 
 flag was in the hands of the English; my Em- 
 peror was vanished in a cloud! There seemed 
 nothing left for me but to blow out my brains! " 
 
 " Oh! " sighed all the nuns together, as they 
 heard these desperate words. 
 
 " But the thought came to me," the soldier 
 went on quickly, "of my old mother, and of 
 another very dear to me and for them I lived. 
 Off I started across the hills, and walked all day 
 among dead bodies because 1 went back by 
 Quatre-Bras and Ligny, where the brave Mar-
 
 (Sfrenabier of tlje (Emperor's (Suarb 397 
 
 shal Ney had beaten the English and where the 
 Hmperor had beaten the Prussians. And on 
 and on for thirty days and thirty nights I walked 
 alone. On that long march I, a grenadier of the 
 Hmperor's Guard, have had to beg my bread! 
 When 1 come here to Avignon it is to see mur- 
 dered Marshal Brune, a great soldier of France! 
 Because I tried to protect his dead body from 
 insult, I am stoned by dogs of Aristocrats and 
 would have been killed had I not found refuge 
 here! Oh my Sisters, when I think of all this it 
 is only your presence that keeps me from bel- 
 lowing out : ' Sacre-nom-de-Dieu ! ' ' 
 
 As the soldier undoubtedly had bellowed 
 out precisely those words, all the Sisters uttered 
 a shuddering " Oh! " and fell to crossing them- 
 selves vigorously while the Mother Superior 
 said in a reproving tone: "Brave soldier, do 
 not blaspheme the name of the good God who 
 three times has worked a miracle to save your 
 life!" 
 
 "You are right, my Sister, and I am wrong. 
 It is true that three times God has kept me alive 
 by miracles. And I don't count as a miracle, 
 you must understand, what I have just been 
 telling you about. That was all in the day's 
 work. Now it was another matter in Russia. 
 If ever anybody got a miracle anywhere, 1 got 
 one there! " 
 
 "Will you tell us about it?" Mother Scho- 
 lastica asked. "That is," she added, checking 
 herself, " if talking so much will not tire you 
 and make you feverish. Perhaps you had better 
 rest now." 
 
 Behind the curtain were vehement whisper-
 
 39 8 l) tol)ite terror 
 
 ings of "Oh, don't stop him!" "Please let 
 him go on!" "Do let him tell us about his 
 miracle! " and Adeline, pressing Mother Scho- 
 lastica's hand, begged hardest of all that the 
 soldier might talk on. The soldier, hearing these 
 buzzing tones of entreaty, settled the matter. 
 "There is no danger of my getting feverish," 
 he said briskly, "because already I am well 
 again. This little cut on my head <don't amount 
 to anything. We soldiers of the Great Army 
 have skins that sew themselves together of their 
 own accord!" And to show that he really was 
 well he began to walk up and down the room 
 with firm strides, curling his mustachioes as he 
 walked. Even through the curtain, the nuns 
 could see the outline of his tall and well-knit 
 figure passing and repassing before the win- 
 dows, and they followed his motions with a 
 very eager gaze. 
 
 Mother Scholastica was quite as keen as the 
 others were to hear the story. " Is it possible," 
 she asked, "that you have been in closer peril of 
 death than when" you faced that dreadful haw- 
 thorn hedge ? " 
 
 "You shall judge for yourself. Listen to 
 what happened to me up there in that execrable 
 land of snow."
 
 CHAPTER XLIII 
 
 INTO A DESERT LAND 
 
 " RUSSIA is off at the very end of the earth, 
 my Sisters," the soldier began, "and is an evil 
 region that God only looks on at night. It is a 
 land barren and desolate. Never a good blade 
 of grass grows on its bleak hillsides and endless 
 plains, and there is a town or a hamlet only 
 about once in every thousand leagues. Why, 
 when we marched into that huge wilderness, 
 although there were close to half a million of us, 
 we fairly were lost! 
 
 "But it seemed, to begin with, as if we 
 never would get there at all. For thirteen long 
 weeks we marched on and on across our old 
 battlefields in Germany, where we had stripped 
 the double-headed eagle of his plumes; through 
 Warsaw, where General Murat had hoisted the 
 tri-colour over the Cathedral of Saint John seven 
 years before; and then on into a country over 
 there toward the sunrise that we didn't know at 
 all. Every day we thought that we must come 
 to the end of the world. We crossed rivers 
 and we crossed mountains and we never seemed 
 to get anywhere. Always before us was a land 
 bare and dumb. Where were the Russians ? 
 we asked each other. What had become of 
 the enormous army that we had seen at Auster- 
 
 399
 
 tDljite terror 
 
 litz ? Why did we not fall in with some of 
 those shaggy bearskin-clad lancers on their little 
 red horses who so many times had pestered us ? 
 We stared and we stared but always before us 
 was emptiness. In endless succession we 
 crossed vast bare plains on which not a tree, not 
 even a bush, grew; on which the very grass 
 was thin and dry; over which, ahead of us, the 
 sun rose pale in the morning ; over which, behind 
 us, the sun set red at night always hopelessly 
 the same! Some said: 'We'll end by leaving 
 the sun behind us for good and all!' Others 
 said: 'We'll never find our way home again! ' 
 Everybody grumbled. It was enough to break 
 your heart! Ahead of us, on his white horse, 
 rode the Emperor standing out clear against 
 the sky, around him the flags and the eagles. 
 There was no turning back possible while he 
 led us. We followed him as a shepherd is fol- 
 lowed by his flock. 
 
 "At last, one morning at sunrise, we saw 
 far off on the horizon a long black line. What 
 it was town, forest, army we did not know; 
 but we did know that it was something that 
 broke the endlessly dull sameness of our march. 
 And so the whole four hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand of us gave a shout that made the stars 
 tremble! All day long we marched toward 
 that black line. When night came it seemed to 
 be no nearer to us and when the sunrise came 
 again it was gone! In bitter disappointment 
 we marched on, dumbly following the Emperor 
 and the flags. Late in the day we saw it again, 
 and at first only half believed in it. But that 
 time it was clearer and firmer in its outlines, and
 
 Jnto a JDesert Canb 401 
 
 became more real with each hour of our advance. 
 Walls, towers, domes, uprose against the grey 
 sky of evening. At last we were certain of it. 
 That time it was a real city not a mirage. 
 Without waiting for orders we quickened our 
 pace. We were in a hurry to get to it; for 
 there, at last, the Russians must be. When 
 there came a burst of flame and a thunderous 
 report from the ramparts, and we saw the earth 
 in front of our army ploughed up by cannon- 
 balls, we fairly roared for joy! 
 
 "We embraced each other, we wept with 
 delight. Those cannon-balls were manna to us 
 in our desert. With a good will we could have 
 hugged the cannoneers. At last we had the 
 Russian army in front of us and within reach; 
 no longer were we in utter loneliness, lost at 
 the very end of the world. Then our artillery 
 talked back for a little while to the Russians, 
 and when we had made them our compliments 
 with cannon-shots our bugles sounded the ad- 
 vance and our drums beat the pas-de-charge. 
 Away we went, shouting ' Vive la France! ' and 
 ' Vive 1'Empereur! ' Presently we had sent the 
 enemy flying and Smolensk, the Holy City, 
 was ours! 
 
 " But more than the soldiers whom we had 
 been fighting had fled. Everybody had fled! 
 The city was deserted utterly, as sad and as 
 silent as a grave-yard. Worse than that, we 
 found in it nothing to eat. The Russians had 
 destroyed everything. Not a handful of oats 
 was left for our horses, not a handful of wheat 
 for ourselves. And the country had been cleaned 
 as bare as the town. Grain, hay, everything
 
 42 &tye ttttyite (terror 
 
 that would keep life in men or in horses, had 
 been burned. Our victory had gained for us 
 only an empty city and an empty land! 
 
 "To Moscow! To Moscow!" we shouted 
 and off we started again, with our Emperor 
 and our flags and our eagles in the van. 
 
 " On and on and on we marched. We fol- 
 lowed in the tracks of the retreating enemy 
 who would not make a stand and give us a 
 chance to fight him, who always managed to 
 keep beyond our reach no matter how fast we 
 marched. We passed villages and towns, and 
 found every one of them empty and deserted 
 just as Smolensk had been. The people had 
 fled with everything that they could carry away. 
 What they could not carry away they had 
 burned. The fields had been burned over. We 
 found them black and barren. Always about 
 us smoke filled the air. For three weeks we 
 marched through that abomination of desolation. 
 Then we came to the banks of the river Moscowa, 
 near a village called Borodino, and there the 
 Russians gave us battle again. 
 
 "We fought them there through a whole 
 long day. The rising sun was too late to see 
 the beginning of our fighting, and the setting 
 sun was too early to see its end. But after the 
 sun had left us there was a flash of light of an- 
 other sort when all the sabres of Marshal Ney's 
 fifteen thousand cavalrymen flashed out together 
 as they charged ! Oh, good Sisters, if you could 
 have seen that flash, when those fifteen thou- 
 sand sabres all at once leaped from their scab- 
 bards and dazzled the densely massed battalions 
 on which they fell! Nothing could stand be-
 
 Into a ?Uesert anfc 403 
 
 fore that charge! The Russians cowered, 
 wavered, broke and fled like a frightened herd 
 of bulls ! They abandoned everything artillery, 
 ammunition, the whole of their baggage train. 
 And they left the road before us, straight into 
 Moscow," clear and free ! On we marched along 
 that road for seven days. Always around us 
 was desolation. Always the smoking land was 
 bare. Then we reached, at last, the capital of 
 Russia the only capital in Europe over which 
 had not waved the French flag! 
 
 "We were at the end of our vastly long 
 march, and we held the city to conquer which 
 we had come so far. When we saw the great 
 palaces, and the wonderful Kremlin, and the 
 churches with their gilded domes, we were sure 
 that we should find food in plenty and that our 
 hardships were at an end. But we were wrong. 
 Moscow was as clean-swept as all the towns 
 had been along the road. Everything had been 
 carried off or destroyed. Even the people were 
 gone. We found only a few old men and 
 women, and a few children, who came to us 
 crying for food. To save them from starving 
 we gave them the bread from our own mouths. 
 I can't tell you for how far around the city the 
 land had been laid waste. As far as we could 
 see, the fields were smoking. The smoke hung 
 over the city, nearly suffocating us. We were 
 put on short rations, and were glad to kill and 
 eat our own disabled horses and the few miser- 
 able beasts which the Russians had left behind 
 them. We cooked our lean meals in the open 
 squares of the city. We grenadiers of the 
 Guard were camped on the square before the
 
 44 l)e tOljite terror 
 
 palace of the Senate. When wood ran short we 
 boiled our pots over fires fed with the gilded 
 chairs of the Senators. 
 
 "Then came winter a horrible winter of 
 darkness and bitter cold! The sun showed 
 himself for no more than two hours a day 
 hanging low down on the far horizon, pale, 
 giving out no heat, like a big moon. And with 
 the cold always was hunger. Without sun- 
 light, without warmth, without bread death 
 was not far away ! 
 
 "One night we were wakened from our 
 sleep, as we lay huddled close together for 
 warmth in the palace of the Senate, by what 
 seemed to be volley-firing; and as we opened 
 our eyes we were dazzled by a glare of brilliant 
 red light which poured in through the windows 
 and danced upon the ceiling and walls. We 
 thought that the enemy must be upon us. De- 
 lighted to get to grips with him, we snatched 
 up our arms and rushed out of doors. But the 
 enemy that confronted us was Fire! A great 
 wave of fire thunderously was overwhelming 
 the city. What we had taken for the sound of 
 musketry was the crackling of houses and 
 churches and palaces in the flames. To the 
 heights of heaven that awful conflagration rose ! 
 
 " We had to run for it, and to run fast. All 
 in a jumble infantry, cavalry, artillery we got 
 away, the fire howling after us so close that the 
 backs of our necks were singed. Suddenly we 
 found ourselves in the midst of a tremendous 
 rush of water. On one side of us the enemy 
 had started the fire. On the other side he had 
 turned the river into the streets. We were
 
 3nto a Desert Conb 405 
 
 caught between the two and there went up 
 from that confused and bewildered multitude a 
 great woeful cry. Some of the horses, fairly mad- 
 dened, turned backward and plunged with their 
 riders into the flames. For an instant horse and 
 man would flare up like tow, and then would 
 be a black twisting thing that dwindled to 
 nothing in the blaze. That's the way it must 
 be in the seven throats of hell! 
 
 " The water was up to our waists, and how 
 we got through it and away from the fire I'm 
 sure 1 don't know. But we managed, somehow 
 or other, to do both and at last found ourselves 
 on a little height where the fire could not follow 
 us and where the water could not come. We 
 made no halt. There was nothing to halt for. 
 In the city that so coldly had sheltered us, every- 
 thing was destroyed. Our one chance was 
 to go out again by the road that had brought 
 us into that desert land. Again the Emperor 
 led us, surrounded by his flags and his eagles. 
 By the huge light of burning Moscow we saw 
 him at the head of our column wearing his 
 white coat, seated on his white horse a pale 
 figure cut out against the black sky! "
 
 CHAPTER XLIV 
 
 THE RETREAT FROM MOSCOW 
 
 "ALL that night," the soldier continued, 
 " we went onward. When day came we saw 
 two fires off there on the horizon, and we 
 couldn't tell which was the red burning Mos- 
 cow and which was the red rising sun. Nor 
 did we care. Already we were careless of 
 everything but our own pain. 
 
 " On and on we marched, our flesh whipped 
 blue by the bitter wind. Great clouds came 
 down from the north and discharged upon us 
 their lading of snow. Behind the clouds the 
 pale sun was lost wholly. From the fallen 
 snow came a faint and ghastly light by which 
 we went on our way. Only we had no way. 
 At first the snow was to our ankles, then it 
 was to our calves, then it was to our knees. As 
 it fell it blinded us like needles, blown by the 
 cruel wind that froze our very marrow; and in 
 the strange pale light of it we could not tell 
 when the night was with us and when the day. 
 From time to time one of us, worn out with 
 cold and hunger, would stagger a little and then 
 pitch face downward into the snow. Nobody 
 turned to pick him up. When we had marched 
 on and left him we could hear the howling of 
 406
 
 (l)e UetreiU from iftoscoto 47 
 
 the wolves. But we were not utterly hopeless, 
 because our officers told us that when we got 
 to Smolensk we would find food in plenty, 
 along with shelter from the cold. We were too 
 glad to believe them, and we looked forward to 
 Smolensk as to Paradise. 
 
 "Well, we got to Smolensk and the little 
 black bread that we found there served us for 
 just a single day! Then on we went again for 
 we had to go on, it was our only chance! On 
 we went, 1. say, over that endless white plain 
 under that endless grey sky. More and more of 
 our men staggered out from the ranks, fell into 
 the snow silently, and were left there for the 
 wolves. When our horses died the wolves did 
 not get a chance to eat them we were thankful 
 to eat them ourselves. But they were lean 
 eating having themselves been feeding upon 
 nothing more nourishing than each others' tails 
 and manes. 
 
 "At last we/ reached the banks of a river 
 called the Berezina, and there we had trouble. 
 In September, in good weather, when we were 
 well fed, we had crossed that river as jolly as 
 fish; but late in November, in icy winter, when 
 we were famished, the crossing was another 
 story. To be waist-deep in that ice-cold cur- 
 rent, battling with great masses of floating ice, 
 was a close fight with death for starving men. 
 The Emperor ordered a bridge to be thrown 
 across the river; and from a pine forest growing 
 on its banks we soon got out all the timber that 
 the engineers wanted. But just as we were 
 starting our bridge there came down on us from 
 the bluffs above the river a tremendous hail of
 
 terror 
 
 lead and iron. Guided, as the wolves were, by 
 the trail of dead that we left behind us; the 
 Russians had been following our army in the 
 hope of just such a chance as they had found. 
 There they were, fighting away with us with 
 all the odds on their side! They were at their 
 ease on the heights above us. We were 
 crowded together on the bank of the river, as 
 good a target as need be for their plunging fire. 
 Marshal Ney did his best to dislodge them with 
 his weak cavalry ; and while he fought them we 
 went on with our bridge-building and nice 
 work we had of it: standing in that ghastly cold 
 water, in peril of death from the floating ice, in 
 peril of death from the Russian fire! 
 
 "As for me, I got relieved from duty in a 
 very extraordinary way. I was hammering 
 down a pile which two men held steady against 
 the fierce current, and in order to hammer it 
 I was standing on a beam which two other 
 men held fast. Down the river I saw coming a 
 huge block of ice, heading straight for us. I 
 sung out to the men to dive and let the mass of 
 ice pass over. them. But they were not quick 
 enough. In an instant the saw-like edges of the 
 ice had cut off their heads and the heads were 
 frozen fast to the ice-raft. The beam on which 
 I was standing was broken by the shock and I 
 barely had time to leap on the block of ice 
 and so to be carried down with the heads of my 
 four comrades on the bow of my horrible raft! 
 
 "On 1 was rushed by the swift current 
 helped by the bitter wind. I lost sight of the 
 army very quickly. The sound of the firing 
 grew fainter as I was whirled down the stream.
 
 je Uetreot from XUoscotD 409 
 
 At last my ice-raft grounded, and I got on shore 
 again more dead than alive. I had no arms but 
 a pistol, I had only the clothes that I stood in to 
 protect me against the dreadful cold. ' Keep up 
 your spirit! ' I said to myself. ' A grenadier of 
 the Guard must never give in ! ' And so off I 
 started to catch up with the army. I had not 
 the sound of the firing to guide me. That had 
 stopped, and I concluded that our men had 
 beaten the Russians off. 
 
 "Well, in that wilderness of snow it didn't 
 take long for me to lose myself. Presently I 
 could not tell anything about where I was 
 going, and I just trusted to luck and walked on 
 and on. Now and then I would pull a handful 
 of dry grass from under the snow and chew it 
 to keep down the pangs of hunger; but I got 
 weaker and weaker as I was more and more 
 starved with hunger and with cold. After a 
 while 1 saw what 1 took to be a very big black 
 object a long way off. I fancied it to be as big 
 as the Kremlin in Moscow, as I saw it rising 
 up before me out of the snow. But instead of 
 being big and far away it was small and near 
 to me. Almost in a moment I had come up 
 with it, and it proved to be the dead body of a 
 horse honeycombed by the gnawings of the 
 wolves. Famished, 1 flung myself upon it, 
 hoping to find some scraps of flesh. But it is 
 ill gleaning after the wolves: there was nothing 
 left but skin and bone. 
 
 "With the anguish of death upon me I laid 
 myself down beside the carcass, which at least 
 sheltered me a little from the biting wind. Hope 
 had left me, and I was ready to die, when I saw
 
 410 il)e tOljitc Ccrror 
 
 coming toward me a hairy monster that I took 
 at first to be a bear but that I soon saw was a 
 fur-clad man. He held a long stick, a sort of 
 Cossack's lance, in his hand and was coming 
 straight for me. I still had strength enough to 
 draw my pistol, and with my numb fingers I 
 managed to cock it. Just as I was going to fire, 
 he threw aside the muffling of furs from about 
 his head and I saw the gentle and kindly old 
 face of a Russian pope. With a friendly smile 
 in his blue eyes he pointed with his free hand to 
 the Greek cross that he wore upon his breast, 
 and as he evidently meant me no harm I let my 
 pistol fall upon the snow. And then, all of a 
 sudden, a mist came before my eyes, and what 
 little strength 1 had left oozed out of me, and it 
 seemed to me that I certainly was going to die. 
 1 surely should have died but for the help that 
 that kind old man gave me. From his own 
 body he stripped his fur coat and wrapped me 
 in it and then with his breath and with chafing 
 he strove to warm my hands. 
 
 "Years and years ago, when I was a little 
 lad, the Bishop of Mendes gave me a medal of 
 Notre Dame de Bon Secours, saying to me: 
 ' When you are in dire peril of death, take out 
 this medal and the good Mother will rescue 
 you.' It seemed to me that I never could be in 
 direr peril of death than I was just then, and 
 while the good pope was comforting me I 
 slipped my hand into my pocket and brought 
 out the medal. He took "it from me and kissed 
 it reverently. Then he unslung from his neck 
 a little flask and gave me a drink of a strong 
 cordial that was a veritable elixir of life. As
 
 l)e lletreat from Ifloscoro 411 
 
 that cordial got down into my stomach and 
 warmed me 1 suddenly felt as though I were 
 made over new. And then that blessed old 
 man brought from his wallet a loaf of bread that 
 I simply devoured! I was quite mysef again. 
 My eyes could see clearly and my legs were 
 strong. 
 
 "The good old pope wanted to give me 
 back my miraculous medal but it had worked 
 its miracle for me, and I signed to him to keep 
 it as a token of my thankfulness and goodwill. 
 And so he kissed it again in sign that he ac- 
 cepted it and by way of showing me still 
 more of his goodness and charity he hung the 
 little flask of wonderful cordial about my neck 
 and gave me another loaf of bread out'of his 
 leather bag. He pointed out the way in which 
 I should go in order to find my comrades, and 
 at the last, after he had embraced me, he made 
 the sign of the cross on my forehead with his 
 thumb just exactly as the Bishop of Mendes 
 had done when, so long ago, he gave me the 
 medal on the bridge of Saint-Jean d'Ardieres! 
 
 "Off I went as lively as a cricket and 
 within two hours after that'miraculous meeting I 
 caught up with the army again and was in my 
 place in the van-guard close to the Emperor. 
 My comrades, who were sure that f was dead, 
 made such an outcry over me that the Emperor 
 himself turned and saluted me! Think of that, 
 my Sisters! The Emperor, the Great Napoleon, 
 raised his hand and saluted me! And just 
 didn't the boys shout over it! 'Vive Pascalet! 
 Vive Pascalet"! ' they roared."
 
 CHAPTER XLV 
 
 " FAREWELL, PASCALET ! " 
 
 As Pascalet spoke these words, which sud- 
 denly revealed his identity, a cry rang out be- 
 hind the curtain and Adeline fell fainting into 
 Mother Scholastica's arms. Instantly there was 
 a bustle of confused movement, and with it a 
 bustle of more confused talk. 
 
 ' ' Heavens ! She's fainting ! " 
 
 "Carry her into the chapel and lay her at 
 the feet of Saint Ursula! " 
 
 " Call the Father Confessor! " 
 
 " Great Saint Marys of the Sea, take her soul 
 into your keeping! " 
 
 "We must get her to bed at once! " This 
 last from the practical Sister Margai. 
 
 Hearing all this stir, Pascalet could not re- 
 sist the temptation to raise the curtain a little 
 that he might see what was the matter. What 
 he saw was a nun being borne away in the arms 
 of her cornpanions. For an instant he had a 
 glimpse of a death-pale face so lovely and so 
 beautiful that sight of it set his heart in a whirl. 
 Then she was gone! 
 
 Monsieur Peru was called in from reading his 
 
 breviary in the garden to minister to the welfare 
 
 of this troubled Sister's soul. He was startled 
 
 by finding her in anything but the collapsed 
 
 412
 
 " .farewell, fJascalet ! " 413 
 
 state that the frightened Sister who called him 
 had described. Her faint was past, and the 
 ebbing tide of her life had flowed back strong 
 and full. Her cheeks were a rich red, her beau- 
 tiful large eyes had a flame in them that made 
 the Father Confessor cast his own eyes down. 
 In a tremble of excitement she fell on her knees 
 before him and cried: '' Holy priest of a merci- 
 ful God, hear the confession of the most unhappy 
 of the Sisters of Saint Ursula of Jesus! In my 
 poor heart is a love as piercing as a thorn from 
 the sacred Crown. Since I was a child of fifteen 
 years I have known that love's sweet bitterness, 
 the sting of that dear thorn ! Ah, foolish have I 
 been! I thought that I could hide away from 
 it behind Saint Ursula's veil. I thought that in 
 eating the angel's bread of the Holy Sacrament 
 I would forget the taste of the biead of love. I 
 thought that the cry of my longing flesh would 
 be silenced by the cry of my spirit before the 
 altars. I thought that I should forget my earthly 
 bridegroom when I became the bride of Christ! 
 
 " But oh, my Father, I have forgotten noth- 
 ing, and the thorn ever has sunk deeper and 
 deeper into my heart. To-day all my blood 
 cries out in love-hunger, and my soul chants not 
 holy anthems before the altar but is lost in pas- 
 sionate song. For to-day my earthly bride- 
 groom has come back to me; and what I am 
 forgetting oh help me! help me to grace and 
 mercy ! what I am forgetting is my promise to 
 my God! " 
 
 Monsieur Peru, old and wise and abounding 
 in charity, had learned in the course of his long 
 and good life how to touch aching hearts with
 
 414 l)e tDhite (Terror 
 
 a loving tenderness that gave sure solace to their 
 pain. "My chil^," he said gently, "for every 
 sin there is the mercy of forgiveness. Despair 
 not. To your soul the peace of God will return 
 again, and your heart-hurt will be healed by the 
 balm of prayer." 
 
 "Never! Never!" cried Adeline wildly. 
 "For my pain there is but one balm, for my 
 hurt there is but one cure. In death alone can 
 I find rest and ease! " 
 
 " My daughter," said the good priest, speak- 
 ing very gravely, "do you doubt the infinite 
 goodness of God ? " 
 
 "If His goodness be infinite," Adeline re- 
 sponded quickly, "let Him give me that which 
 will calm my pain; and then let Him cure it by 
 taking me to Himself ! " 
 
 "What is it that will calm your pain, my 
 daughter ? If what you desire may be had by 
 a remission of your rules not of your vows 
 you shall have it. Your rules were prescribed, 
 and may be relaxed, by man. Your vows, be- 
 ing taken of your own choice, are the inflexible 
 will of God." 
 
 "My Father," Adeline said eagerly, while 
 her downcast eyes grew still brighter and her 
 cheeks a warmer crimson, "may Saint Ursula 
 whom I may be setting to weeping in heaven 
 pardon me for what I ask of you; and may 
 God pardon me and send me death quickly 
 when you have granted me my prayer." She 
 paused for a moment and then, hiding her glow- 
 ing face in her hands, continued falteringly: 
 " My earthly bridegroom has come back to me. 
 He is here, close beside me under this very
 
 , fJascalet!" 415 
 
 roof. What I ask is that I may touch for one 
 single moment his dear hand; that I may say to 
 him one single word: 'Farewell!' If that much 
 may be granted to me, dear Father, I give you 
 my promise that with the scourge I will conquer 
 my flesh, and that hence onward until my death 
 I will remain the faithful spouse of Jesus my 
 Lord!" 
 
 Out of the very depths of her heart she had 
 asked for this mercy and she waited in agony 
 for her reply. She had no long suspense. In a 
 moment Monsieur Peru answered her, speaking 
 very gently and tenderly: "My daughter, you 
 may be sure that Saint Ursula is smiling lovingly 
 upon you and that our Lord Jesus blesses you. 
 Dry your eyes and praise God. Without fear 
 of damnation, or even of the pains of purgatory, 
 you may have what you desire. You may 
 touch the hand of him whom you love while 
 you say farewell to him ; but you may neither 
 see him nor be seen by him, nor in any way 
 make yourself known to him and this is rather 
 for his sake than for yours. It would be cruel 
 that the quenching of the flame which is in your 
 heart should be won at the cost of filling his 
 heart with a hopeless fire! " 
 
 Quite overcome by the joy that this permis- 
 sion gave her, Adeline laughed and cried in the 
 same breath and was unable to utter a single 
 word of thanks. To set her at ease Monsieur 
 Peru spoke to her in a lighter tone. "After all, 
 my child," he said, as he drew out his snuff- 
 box, "your scruples, since there is no possibil- 
 ity of sin in this matter, are rather too finely 
 drawn. You are almost as bad," he went oh
 
 416 lje toljite terror 
 
 with a smile, " as that goose of a Sister Margai: 
 who woke me up at four o'clock the other 
 morning to confess what she said was a sin of 
 gluttony and which turned out to be a desire 
 to eat some grapes that she had seen on an 
 arbour but had not even touched! " And with 
 these words he snuffed the snuff into his nostrils 
 and went sneezing away, leaving Adeline radi- 
 antly happy but hardly knowing whether she 
 were dreaming or had heard true. 
 
 Her happy doubts were not long lasting. 
 In a few moments, sent by Monsieur Peru, 
 Mother Scholastica came to her cell and said 
 briskly as she opened the door: "Hurry, Sister, 
 if you want to say good-bye to our soldier. 
 He's going now." And then she stopped short 
 a little surprised by finding Adeline bending 
 over the chest in which she kept her belongings, 
 and the contents of the chest for the most part 
 strewn upon the floor. There was her black 
 trock with its trimming of Paris lace, her fichu, 
 her young girl's cape, and most precious of all 
 the boy's clothes which had been Pascalet's 
 and which later had been her own. All of these 
 garments were folded with an exquisite neat- 
 ness. From them came a delicious odour of 
 lavender. She touched them in the reverent 
 fashion that she would have touched holy relics. 
 Her eyes were soft with tears. As the Mother 
 Superior entered the cell she had unfolded Pas- 
 calet's little carmagnole, the jacket of the pre- 
 cious suit of clothes, and was feeling for some- 
 thing in the pocket. Confused at being come 
 upon when thus employed, she blushed and 
 looked down.
 
 ".farewell, fJascaiet!" 417 
 
 "Are you looking for something, Sister? 
 Can I help you ? " Mother Scholastica asked in a 
 kindly tone that set Adeline at her ease. 
 
 "Thank you, reverend Mother," she an- 
 swered, as she drew from the pocket of the 
 jacket a little object that she held hidden in her 
 hand, " I have just finished. I am ready now." 
 Her voice broke a little as she spoke. Under 
 her white wimple her heart was beating fast. 
 She swayed in her walk, and was thankful to 
 have the" support of Mother Scholastica's arm. 
 Together they went through the corridors to the 
 parlour, and heard as they entered it Pascalet's 
 clear rich voice as he spoke to Sister Margai. 
 But the black curtain was drawn close over the 
 grating, and while Adeline could hear she could 
 not see. 
 
 "Brave soldier," said the Mother Superior, 
 "I have brought to say good-bye to you the 
 Sister who fainted a little while ago. We did 
 not wish you to go away thinking that your 
 story of the wars had made her ill." 
 
 Pascalet brought his hands together with a 
 cheerful clap, and said heartily: " Holy woman 
 of God, that is real thoughtfulness! You don't 
 know how much good you're doing me. I'm 
 just as much obliged to you as I can be and if 
 it wasn't for this confounded grating I'd prove 
 it to you with a good hug! It worried me to 
 think of that poor nun fainting that way. 1 
 should have hated to have gone away without 
 knowing that she was all right again as I do 
 now." 
 
 "Thank you, brave soldier Pascalet," said 
 Adeline, "for your kind thought about me;
 
 4i 8 STlje iX)l)ite terror 
 
 and since you were troubled a little on my ac- 
 count I am very glad that I have come to say 
 good-bye to you. I have a little present for 
 you. With the permission of our reverend 
 Mother, here beside me, I give to you these three 
 little silver crowns. Perhaps you may be 
 pleased to buy with them something that will 
 please your old mother. You must tell her that 
 in the Convent of Saint Ursula of Avignon there 
 is a Sister who night and morning never will 
 fail to pray for her and 'for her handsome boy 
 Pascalet. You must tell her " 
 
 "Forgive me, holy woman," Pascalet inter- 
 rupted, "but why should you give these three 
 crowns to me ? Keep them for your convent." 
 
 "No, no! They are for you. They are 
 yours. Take them. Remember, I am under 
 the vow of poverty, and for me to keep them 
 would be a black sin. Soldier Pascalet, you 
 would not wish me to commit sin ? Come, if 
 you will not take them for yourself, you will 
 not refuse to take them for your old mother ? " 
 
 "Oh, for my mother that is another mat- 
 ter. For her I cannot refuse them. I take them 
 gladly. Ah, my dear old mother! Who knows 
 if 1 shall find her still alive? I was fifteen years 
 old when I left her and that was twenty years 
 ago ! Think of it, for twenty years 1 have not 
 seen my mother! Even if she be living, she 
 will not know me me, her son! " 
 
 As he spoke, Pascalet grasped Adeline's 
 slender hand in his two strong hands and kissed 
 it and wept over it as though it had been the 
 hand of his mother. Burning hot it was as he 
 pressed it and kissed it! Adeline was thrilled
 
 " -faretoeli, flascalet!" 419 
 
 from head to foot by this caress of her Pascalet. 
 She trembled as in a fever as his silky mustache 
 brushed softly against her hand and against her 
 delicate white wrist. At last, reluctantly, he 
 relinquished that burning hand and as it was 
 withdrawn behind the black curtain the three 
 silver crowns fell ringing to the floor at his feet. 
 Then from behind the iron grating that the cur- 
 tain covered came a sweet voice saying: " Fare- 
 well, Pascalet! Forever, farewell!" 
 
 "God keep you, my Sister," Pascalet an- 
 swered; "and may He reward you for all that 
 you have done to me! " 
 
 On the inner side of the grating there was 
 the sound of soft footsteps retreating. Pascalet 
 noticed, with ears trained to the cadence of 
 rhythmic marching, that the footsteps went ir- 
 regularly. But he turned from the grating 
 without giving the matter a second thought. 
 
 Sister Margai had picked up the three crowns. 
 She handed them to him, but she did not ven- 
 ture to look at him nor to speak. To her the 
 whole of that lightly-passing tragedy had been 
 clear and her heart was bursting with pity and 
 with grief. Still without speaking, she unbarred 
 the door and held it open. "Good-bye, dear 
 kind Sister," Pascalet said to her and so stepped 
 across the threshold and was gone. When she 
 had closed the door behind him she burst out 
 crying like a child. Adeline was very dear to 
 her, and she wept for Adeline's unhappy love 
 a love that was hopeless enough to die of !
 
 CHAPTER XLVI 
 
 THE WHITE FLAG OF SHAME 
 
 DUSK was falling as Pascalet came out upon 
 the Rue Annanelle and headed resolutely for the 
 Place du Grand Paradis. He knew the danger 
 that he risked, wearing the uniform of a soldier 
 of the Empire, in walking the streets of Avignon. 
 He knew what was likely to happen to him 
 should he be caught again by the dogs of the 
 nobility, the murderers of Marshal Brune. But 
 he who had dared death for twenty years on the 
 great battlefields of Europe was not to be fright- 
 ened from his purpose by the hounds of the 
 White Terror. To see Vauclair and Lazuli and 
 Clairet again Clairet, almost a man grown by 
 this time he would have fought his wav through 
 an army! Little did he know that Clairet, on 
 the very day of his home-coming, had been 
 slain by Papalists and traitors and cast into the 
 Rhone! And so, with his hand on the loaded 
 pistol stuck in his sash, the dusk favouring him, 
 Pascalet walked on firmly toward the home of 
 his friends. 
 
 The August evening was clear and warm. 
 Up in the elm trees in the little parks the cigales 
 still were singing. Children were playing in 
 the streets. Groups of women sat in the door- 
 ways, fanning themselves with their aprons and
 
 iX)l)ite [a% of Sl)atnc 421 
 
 trying to get a breath of fresh air. Pascalet 
 walked with his head bent down, without look- 
 ing about him that he might not see floating 
 from almost every window the hated fleur- 
 de-lys: the flag of traitors, of the friends of 
 the Germans and Austrians the white flag 
 of shame! Everywhere hung this rag of na- 
 tional dishonour: on the public places, in the 
 streets, even in the little alleys. From the doors 
 and windows of rich and poor were out-thrust 
 its guilty folds! His blood boiled at the thought 
 that it waved above him. Only by a great 
 effort could he keep himself from shouting: 
 " Down with the cowards and traitors! Down 
 with the King! " 
 
 " Isn't that man wearing the uniform of Bona- 
 parte's brigands ?" he heard a woman say as he 
 passed one of the doorway groups. 
 
 "He can't be," another answered. "He 
 wouldn't dare to show himself that way in the 
 streets of Avignon." 
 
 "If he is," said a third, "it won't be long 
 before a patrol will be making him swallow the 
 soup with twelve plums in it! " 
 
 "To think," said a fourth, "that such 
 wretches could be found to fight against our 
 good allies the Germans and the Austrians and 
 the English ! Monsters like that cannot be born 
 of women they must have been brought forth 
 in a pig-sty! " 
 
 Pascalet heard these words without realizing 
 their meaning; without perceiving that the mon- 
 ster these women were talking about was him- 
 self ! 
 
 On the Plan de Lunel he came upon a faran-
 
 422 (Jl)c tOljite terror 
 
 dole made up of children for the most part 
 little tots of three and four years old. They 
 carried white flags, and as they farandoled gaily 
 their shrill little voices piped out: 
 
 " No one shall we spare ! 
 So Trestaillon commands." 
 
 On the Place de 1'Horloge, when he came to 
 it, he found matters still worse. There the 
 Whites of Avignon were assembled in force; 
 and there this poor brave soldier who had 
 risked his life in a hundred battles with foreign 
 foes saw the ladies of the nobility and of the 
 bourgeoisie welcome with hand-clapping and 
 cries of " Vive le roi!" two battalions of Ger- 
 mans and Austrians who had just arrived to oc- 
 cupy the city. Shame and confusion! 
 
 Poor Pascalet saw those good-for-nothing 
 marchionesses and countesses fling themselves 
 upon the necks of the more or less drunken 
 Germans and Austrians smelling of rancid pork 
 the characteristic odour of that red-haired race ! 
 He saw these women putting their hands upon 
 the arms of the soldiers and drawing them into 
 their houses. Following them were the cow- 
 ards who had skulked in caves and in forests 
 when France was in danger. Those identical 
 cowardly deserters carried the. knapsacks and 
 the muskets of the Prussian soldiers and fol- 
 lowed like lackeys their wives linked arm-in- 
 arm with those dirty-beards! Never, since the 
 world was a world, did any nation swallow 
 such shame! 
 
 From everywhere on the Place de 1'Horloge
 
 [je tttyite .flag of Scarce 423 
 
 rose shouts of "Long live the King!" "Long 
 live the Allies! " With these was roared out: 
 
 " No one shall we spare ! 
 So Trestaillon commands. 
 Death to Republicans 
 Who all are rogues." 
 
 Such was the excitement caused by the coming 
 of the foreign soldiers that no one noticed the 
 brave fellow wearing the red epaulettes of the 
 Grand Army of France. That was good luck 
 for him. Had they realized what uniform he 
 wore they would have torn him to pieces and 
 thrown his fragments into the Rhone to keep 
 company with Marshal Brune. 
 
 Confounded by what he saw, his heart filled 
 with rage, Pascalet went by the dark Rue 
 de la Poulasseri toward Vauclair's home. He 
 met no more Austrians or Germans; and the 
 white flag which at first flaunted him every- 
 where was less in evidence as he neared the 
 Place du Grand Paradis. As he walked on rap- 
 idly he said to himself: " What can the Reds of 
 the Midi be thinking about ? Where is the Na- 
 tional Guard? Where is Berigot who, when 
 he crossed himself, used to say : ' In the name 
 of Liberty and Equality and Fraternity! ' ? And 
 Vauclair and Peloux and all the rest of the 
 Marseilles Battalion, surely they cannot all be 
 dead?" 
 
 But these thoughts were forgotten as he 
 came out upon the little Place and looked up 
 eagerly, hoping to see in those well-remem- 
 bered windows a friendly light. Yet he could 
 not see very clearly. In anticipation of this
 
 424 l) tDl)ite 
 
 happy meeting, after a parting of twenty years, 
 tears dimmed his eyes and his heart was beat- 
 ing hard. 
 
 He stopped short, while there went through 
 him a pang of pain keen as that of a knife- 
 thrust. There was no light in the windows 
 because there were no windows! Before him 
 in the dusk was only the charred skeleton of 
 what had been so warm-hearted a, living home. 
 Four blackened and partly fallen walls remained, 
 a curiously-clinging scrap of the tiled roof, a few 
 charred ends of beams. That was all! Stand- 
 ing before that doorway which had opened to 
 give him such generous shelter, he looked 
 through it and through where floors and roof 
 had been right upward to the stars! 
 
 He was overwhelmed ! confounded ! stunned ! 
 As he rallied a little the thought came to him 
 that he might not be in the Place du Grand 
 Paradis at all. But a glance about him sufficed 
 to put that faint hope to flight. There was the 
 chapel of the Violet Penitents where the Patriot 
 Club used to hold its meetings; there was the 
 potter's house; there were the shops of the 
 butcher and the fishmonger; there was every- 
 thing just as he remembered it save the one 
 thing that he remembered best of all ! And then 
 to his bitterness of sorrow was added the bitter- 
 ness of shame. From the distant crowd sounded 
 faintly shouts of ' ' Long live the Allies ! " " Long 
 live the King! " With these hateful cries came 
 the sound of children's voices, near him, sing- 
 ing: 
 
 " No one shall we spare ! 
 So Trestaillon commands."
 
 tOljite flag of Sljame 4 2 5 
 
 His heart full almost to breaking, he turned 
 from that desolate place and walked quickly 
 away through the darkness. Passing across 
 the Place des Grands Carmes, along the Rue 
 de la Carreterie, he went out from the city 
 by the Porte Saint-Lazare : and so found him- 
 self upon the high-road by which he had come 
 up from Malemort to Avignon twenty years 
 before with Monsieur Randoulet's letter in his 
 pocket, along with his fortune of three silver 
 crowns. 
 
 For a while, as he walked onward through 
 the warm quiet of the August night, troubling 
 noises followed him. Faintly he could hear the 
 shouts of the vile creatures who were welcom- 
 ing the white-coated Austrians and the green- 
 coated Germans; less faintly could he hear the 
 shrill voices of the innocent little children sing- 
 ing the foul song that they had been taught: 
 
 1 No one shall we spare ! 
 So Trestaillon commands. 
 Death to Republicans 
 Who all are rogues ! " 
 
 But as he went onward these sounds grew 
 less and less dwindling to the mere hum of 
 gadflies, and ceasing altogether when he had 
 passed the oratory of Paradou. Then he had 
 with him only the croaking of the frogs in the 
 ditches by the roadside and the cheery chirping 
 of the crickets in the fields. These were sooth- 
 ing noises, and as he listened to them he real- 
 ized how weary he was weary with the strain 
 of emotion far more than with bodily fatigue 
 and was glad to seat himself and rest. In deso-
 
 426 t)e tOfyite QTerror 
 
 late sorrow, his head held between his hands, 
 tears dropping from his eyes, he thought of that 
 wrecked home in which Vaudair and Lazuli 
 once had lived. As his mind turned to what 
 probably had happened to them his blood ran 
 cold and then his desire for certain knowledge, 
 and for revenge, aroused in him a mad longing 
 to go back to the Place de 1'Horloge and there 
 to grip by the throat the first Aristocrat that he 
 could lay hands on and to squeeze out of him 
 all that he could tell. The end of it, of course, 
 would be that he would be torn to pieces. But 
 that did not matter much and while they were 
 killing him he could get in some good killing of 
 his own on that traitor crowd ! 
 
 As he raised his head from his hands he was 
 startled by seeing in every direction about him 
 great blazing fires. On the hills of Vedenes, on 
 the garigues of Pernes, on the mountains of 
 Venasque. ricks and farm-houses were burning. 
 The country side was lighted up as though on 
 the eve of St. John. 
 
 Alas, those were the bonfires of the White 
 Terror! All Liberals, all Republicans, all sol- 
 diers who had shielded their country in her dan- 
 ger, all whose sons had served in the army, 
 alike were punished: their farmsteads robbed 
 and burned, their crops destroyed, their vines 
 uprooted, their olive trees and their fruit trees 
 cut down. And the poor patriots themselves, 
 with their wives and sons and daughters, were 
 stabbed to death with pitchforks and thrown 
 into the flames! 
 
 Suddenly Pascalet realized the meaning of 
 these fires as he saw men dancing about a
 
 ite .flag of Shame 427 
 
 near-by burning farm-house and heard them 
 
 singing: 
 
 " No one shall we spare ! 
 So Trestaillon commands. 
 Death to the Republicans 
 Who all are rogues ! " 
 
 As he heard the words of this vile song a 
 shudder of dread seized him. What was being 
 done there before his eyes no doubt was being 
 done elsewhere also. His own old mother 
 might be in danger because her son had fought 
 for twenty years for France! In another mo- 
 ment he was walking on again rapidly toward 
 Malernort. As he went onward the night was 
 riven by cries for help, and was lighted by 
 blazing homes. From Entraigues, from Mon- 
 teux, from Carpentras, rang out the cruel words : 
 
 "So Trestaillon commands."
 
 CHAPTER XLVII 
 
 "AFTER ALL STRIVING PEACE" 
 
 PASCALET had left Carpentras behind him 
 when the sky above the mountains eastward be- 
 gan to brighten with a tender light, as though it 
 were powdered with green gold. Valley and plain 
 still were in darkness, and in deepest silence 
 for even the croakings of the frogs and the chirp- 
 ings of the crickets had died out softly as the 
 stars grew pale suddenly in the ghostly glow of 
 dawn. 
 
 On he went, walking faster and faster as he 
 drew near to the hillsides of Malemort, his 
 heart beating hard ! So soon would he see them 
 his mother, and his brother Lange upon 
 whom, though he was a man grown, he never 
 had laid eyes! Very likely his mother would 
 not know him. How should she know him, 
 after all these twenty years ? But he would 
 make her feel that it was her own Pascalet come 
 back to her! Ah, he would hold her so close 
 in his arms, he would so weep with joy, that 
 she would have no doubt of him! And if she 
 still had doubt, he would go to good Monsieur 
 Randoulet (Alas!) the kind priest he would 
 make her understand that it was her own Pas- 
 calet, at last come home! He walked faster 
 428
 
 all Strioing peace " 429 
 
 and faster. The nearer that he came to the vil- 
 lage the longer seemed the road. 
 
 Day was breaking. He began to see about 
 him, and to recognise with delight the old land- 
 marks which he remembered so well. There 
 was Claude's vineyard. There were Monsieur 
 Jullian's poplars. There was Lou Materoun's 
 olive-orchard. Ancl there, crowned with the 
 great oaks which surrounded the Chateau, was 
 the hill of La Garde. Just below those oaks, 
 hidden among the olive trees, was the hut where 
 his father and his mother had lived in which 
 he himself had been born ! He walked faster 
 faster ! 
 
 Behind him on the road he heard the hoof- 
 beats of a galloping horse. He did not turn 
 his eyes were searching in the dim light for 
 the spire of the village church but as the 
 sound came nearer he drew aside to leave 
 the way clear. He looked up as the horse 
 came abreast of him and started back sud- 
 denly! The rider held a pistol in each hand 
 levelled straight at him, as though to blow 
 out his brains! 
 
 Quick as a cat, he sprang up the roadside 
 bank and whipped out his own pistol and 
 pointed it. " What are you up to ?" he cried. 
 "Go your way, and let me go mine. Or 
 else - " 
 
 "Oiih ! " exclaimed the horseman, as he reined 
 in to a walk. " In this blinking twilight I took 
 you for one of those miserable Royalists. Pray 
 forgive me, good soldier." 
 
 . The man's face had a familiar look to Pasca- 
 let, and his voice had a familiar ring. " You
 
 43 l)e tUl)ite terror 
 
 don't know me," he said, as he came down into 
 the road again, "but I'm pretty sure I know 
 you. Aren't you father Pantalin who used to 
 live at the farm of the Engarrouines, not very 
 far from our poor hut of La Garde ? " 
 
 " Why, you do know me, and that's a fact. 
 Who are you, anyway ? " 
 
 "I am the son of Pascal and of La Ratine. 
 Don't you remember me, Pascalet?" 
 
 "What!" cried the astonished Pantalin. 
 He turned in his saddle, rested a hand on the 
 flank of his horse, and so leaned down and 
 stared at Pascalet hard. "No," he said slowly, 
 "you can't be little Pascalet de la Patine. It's 
 quite impossible!" 
 
 "But why is it impossible?" Pascalet 
 asked. 
 
 "Because poor little Pascalet de la Patine is 
 dead. He died of the plague, off there in Egypt 
 with Bonaparte's army, a good fifteen years ago. 
 Celegre, who was a drummer out there, brought 
 the news. You can't have come to life again 
 after your mother and your brother wearing 
 mourning for you, and having masses said for 
 your soul! " 
 
 "Then my mother, my dear mother, still is 
 alive ? " 
 
 " Your mother! Oh, come now, it isn't 
 right to make fun like that. The poor old 
 woman's had sorrow enough as it is! " 
 
 "But I'm not making fun any more than 
 I'm dead of the plague, or of anything else. I'll 
 prove it to you. Listen now! Don't you re- 
 member one day, close upon thirty years ago, 
 when you and Big Satraman were setting a
 
 "Qlfter all Strhring JJeace" 43 1 
 
 boundary post between your pastures ? Well, 
 I was there, playing about with my pocket full 
 of cigales, watching you. I didn't understand 
 what you were doing, but it seemed to me very 
 interesting. You planted the stone post in the 
 deep hole that you had dug, and at the sides of 
 it you buried some broken glass and the two 
 halves of a tile a tile cracked across carefully, 
 so that the bits would come together again in a 
 perfect joint. When you had quite finished, 
 you turned suddenly on me and gave me a box 
 on the ear that sent me spinning like a top and 
 almost knocked me down; and then, while I 
 still was spinning, Big Satraman gave me just 
 as hard a box on the other ear that sent me 
 spinning the other way! Then you said to me: 
 ' Little man, you are young. As long as you 
 live you'll remember that Big Satraman and I 
 together set this stone!' And 1 do remember 
 it, you see, very well indeed! " 
 
 " Tron-de- pas- goi ! " shouted Pantalin. 
 "Every word of that is true and now I do 
 believe that you didn't die of the plague and 
 that you're Pascalet! Well, that's good news 
 for your old mother. I'm off to be the first to 
 tell her! Hurrah!" and Pantalin slashed his 
 horse into a gallop and away he went like a 
 whirlwind up the road! 
 
 Pascalet followed him almost on a run, his 
 heart very full. Day was coming fast. He 
 began to see clearly. "That's Toni Breca's 
 window," he said to himself. "That's Tou- 
 massoun's chimney." "That's the roof of the 
 townhall." Almost everybody seemed to be 
 still asleep. Smoke came from only a few
 
 43 2 l)e tOljite terror 
 
 chimneys the thin blue smoke that comes from 
 poor people's fires. 
 
 Pantalin dashed through the open gateway 
 of the village and disappeared. Pascalet, fairly 
 running by this time, kept his eyes fixed upon 
 the gateway but not seeing clearly, because 
 his eyes were full of tears. On he went, paying 
 no attention to the dogs that came out from the 
 houses scattered along the roadside and barked 
 at his heels. His sole thought was that his dear 
 old mother was alive, and that in only a very 
 little longer he should have her in his arms! 
 
 And then through the gateway, uncertainly 
 because of the distance and because his eyes 
 were tear-dimmed, he saw something white 
 fluttering. It was not a flag. It was moving 
 and moving toward him. It crossed the Place 
 de la Porte, came through the gateway, came 
 fluttering a strange little ghost of a thing 
 toward him along the Carpentras road. He 
 rubbed the tears from his eyes and saw more 
 clearly. It was a little old woman, all in white, 
 trotting along as fast as ever her thin little old 
 legs could be made to go. And then there came 
 a cry to him that pierced his very heart: " Pas- 
 calet! My Pascalet!" In another moment old 
 Patine in her shift, her thin grey hair stream- 
 ing down her shoulders plunged breathless into 
 his arms! 
 
 As the labourers watered their mules and 
 asses at the gate-fountain, there in the early 
 morning, they saw the strong young son pass 
 by them carrying his old mother in his arms 
 as though she were the little weak child. They 
 held each other clasped tight, without a word
 
 all Stritring fleace " 433 
 
 so sweet and sharp and strong was the joy that 
 thrilled their reunited souls! 
 
 For more than fifty years Pascal de la Patine 
 for so, thenceforward, did the village folk call 
 him was an exemplar of upright living to the 
 whole countryside. He was the joy and the 
 solace, the friend and the counsellor, of three 
 generations. 
 
 A simple peasant, he drew his living /rom 
 the earth and earned it by the sweat of his brow. 
 Through the long days he toiled, but while his 
 body was bowed down his soul ranged high. 
 At daylight he started for his field, and not until 
 dark did he return again seated sidewise on his 
 grey mule. Summer and winter, with his good 
 grey mule helping him, he cultivated the land 
 that Adeline had given to his mother and that 
 later became his own. 
 
 Once in every year, in the glad Christmas 
 time, did Pascal give himself a holiday. Regu- 
 larly, when the last Sunday in Advent came, he 
 put on his best suit of good rough cloth and his 
 well-greased thick leather shoes ; and then, with 
 his pear-tree staff in his hand, off he started be- 
 fore daylight for Malaucene to spend the eight 
 days of the blessed Christmas season with his 
 friends Lazuli and Vauclair. 
 
 When Pascalet to them he always was Pas- 
 calet reached Malaucene, Vauclair took off his 
 apron, put aside his plane, and locked his shop 
 door. Seated through the bright day on the 
 sunny bench sheltered by the garden wall, 
 seated through the evening before a rousing 
 fire, the three would talk and talk together
 
 434 l)e tOI)ite terror 
 
 about old times. Sad talk it would be about 
 the little house that fire had eaten in Avignon, 
 about the little lad who died so cruelly just as 
 he had grown to be a man; but the talk would 
 become glad, and Lazuli would dry her tears 
 and smile again, as it turned upon the good 
 Planchots, and upon the years of quiet comfort 
 there in Malaucene. They were not rich, those 
 good Vauclairs but neither did they fear that 
 the wolf would come snarling at their door. 
 Vauclair was a master-workman and trade was 
 brisk with him. Lazuli, a very Martha, kept 
 their little house as shining as a ring. 
 
 For the Christmas feast with Pascalet out 
 would come the dusty bottles of Muscat de 
 Baume and of the wine of the Popes ; on the 
 spit would turn a turkey smelling deliciously of 
 the truffles of Mont Ventour! But even in the 
 Christmas feast there would be always a note of 
 sadness. When they had drunk to each other, 
 clinking glasses, they would sit silent until 
 their bitter-sweet memories of the two who 
 were not with them, of Clairet and of Adeline, 
 moved them to tears. 
 
 And then, the Christmas holiday being ended, 
 Pascalet would embrace Vauclair and Lazuli, 
 take his pear-tree staff in his hand, and be 
 off again to Malemort saying: "Until next 
 year ! " 
 
 It was while Pascal still was in his pontificat, 
 in his full strength and power, that I had the 
 happiness of hearing him tell the story of his 
 life of his childhood, of his battles in the great 
 wars. He told us freely of his joys and of his 
 griefs, but the mystery of his love for Adeline
 
 "Sifter all Stritring Peace" 435 
 
 he kept always shut within his heart. Did any 
 one speak of her, he had no word to say. 
 
 Poor Adeline ! After that day when she 
 parted for ever from her Pascalet in the convent 
 of the Ursulines when she gave back to him 
 the three silver crowns which she had treasured 
 for twenty years, when her hand and her whole 
 being thrilled with his ardent kisses the end 
 came soon ! She had barred the door of her 
 heart, and only a little while her life lingered 
 behind those bars. Thanking God that He had 
 permitted her once more to be with her Pascalet, 
 she loosed her hold upon a world that held for 
 her no happiness. In the May-time, when the 
 aubepine bloomed white and sweet, she passed 
 away! 
 
 Pascal de la Patine was worthy of this chaste 
 love. God had created him with a heart as loyal 
 as his soul was delicate and pure! 
 
 Even when Pascal had begun to nibble into 
 his ninetieth year his probity was an example to 
 us. He felt the earth calling to him, and over and 
 over again he said to us : " Dear friends, I shall die 
 soon; I certainly shall die soon; and when I die 
 my brother Lange will die too and then who 
 will take care of the mule ? " Then the thought 
 of his good grey mule went from his clouded 
 mind and his complaint changed. Over and 
 over again he said: " 1 am a wicked man! My 
 soul is damned! I merit death! I am a wicked 
 man! " 
 
 One day, having slipped away from those 
 who cared for him, he made his way to the roof 
 of his house. From there we heard him calling: 
 "Look out below! I don't want to hurt any
 
 43 6 lK tOhite terror 
 
 one! I merit death, and death must come to 
 me. But I don't want to hurt anybody. Look 
 out below ! " And there we saw our dear good 
 old Pascal all ready to throw himself into the 
 street ! We saved the old man by calling to him 
 eagerly that he surely would hurt some one if 
 he threw himself down. That appeal touched 
 him. Back he went through the attic window, 
 and presently was down among us, safe and 
 sound. 
 
 We tried for a long while in vain to find out 
 why he believed that his soul was damned and 
 that he deserved to die. But at last out it came : 
 and of all things in the world his crime was 
 that, nearly eighty years before as he marched 
 through Pierrelatte with the Marseilles battalion, 
 he had spitted a hen on his bayonet and had not 
 paid for it ! It was the thought of that theft 
 that had come back to him in his old age and 
 had filled him with remorse ! Argument had no 
 effect upon him. He had stolen that hen, he 
 said, and therefore he was damned and deserved 
 to die! 
 
 At last, as the only way to clear his con- 
 science of this crime, 1 I who am telling you 
 this story harnessed up pur old red horse to 
 our cart and carted the simple good old man 
 over to Pierrelatte to pay his debt. I will not 
 say that I found the man to whom that long- 
 dead hen had belonged. But I did hunt up a 
 very old man, and in Pascal's presence explained 
 to him that we had come to pay for a hen that 
 had been stolen almost eighty years before! He 
 could make nothing of my story. But into his 
 hand I thrust a crown, willy-nilly, and we came
 
 all Strimng peace " 437 
 
 away leaving him bewildered. At any rate, we 
 accomplished what we went for. Feeling that 
 at last his crime was atoned for, dear old Pascal 
 was satisfied and at peace. 
 
 When death had taken this good old man 
 the whole village thronged to his funeral. On 
 our way to the grave-yard, as it chanced, we met 
 the young Comte de la Vernede, Calisto's son, 
 riding up to his Chateau of La Garde. " Who's 
 dead, that such a lot of you are turning out to 
 the funeral ?" he asked. 
 
 " It is Pascal, the son of La Patine." 
 Without raising his hat he spurred his horse 
 and rode on, muttering between his teeth: 
 "One scoundrel Red the less, then!" 
 
 THE END
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 BY ANTHONY HOPE. 
 
 <~THE CHRONICLES OF COUNT ANTONIO. 
 * With photogravure Frontispiece by S. W. Van Schaick. 
 i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
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 Antonio of Monte Velluto, a very Bayard among outlaws. . . . To all tho.'e 
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 mosphere ; is not only a very clever but a very strong story ; in some 
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 Speaker. 
 
 "A very remarkable book, deserving of critical analysis impossible 
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 A 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 BY A. CONAN DOYLE. 
 
 Uniform edition. lamo. Cloth, $1.50 per volume. 
 DUET, WITH AN OCCASIONAL CHORUS. 
 
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 * A Romance of the Life, of a Typical Napoleonic Soldier. 
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 -* * "A notable and very brilliant work of genius." London Speaker. 
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 ** Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life. 
 
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 *T*HE STARK MUNRO LETTERS. 
 
 * Being a Series of Twelve Letters written by STARK MUNRO, 
 M. B., to his friend and former fellow-student, Herbert Swan- 
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