The Scourge of God. John Bloundelle-Burton

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СКАЧАТЬ Will not be foolhardy. Now eat, drink something; it will restore you. Then after that some rest." Whereupon he pointed to the table on which were still the remains of the last night's little feast over which the poor old man had tried to make so merry. "Here is some of your famous trout left," he said, struggling to speak cheerfully, "and another bottle of the Crépi. Come, let us refresh ourselves."

      "I feel as though I shall never eat again," Buscarlet whispered. "Never after the doings of the night-never! Oh, the horror of it, the horror of it!"

      "Still cheer up," the other said, uttering words of hope which he knew could have but little likelihood of being verified, yet striving thereby to soften the old man's mental agony. "This may be the end, as it has been the beginning, on our-on the Protestant-side. When Baville, the persecutor, hears that the harryings and the burnings and the murders-for that was a murder we witnessed last night-are not to be on his part alone, he may pause. Nay, even Louis, beset in every way, at every frontier, his treasury drained, may himself give orders to stop these persecutions."

      But Buscarlet only shook his head significantly, doubtingly.

      "With that woman at his side, by his elbow, never!" he exclaimed. "Nay, nay, my son, he will not stop them. He is the Scourge of God; sweeps before him all who love God. He will never stop them. If he desired to do so, she would not let him."

      By now it was full daylight. Over the pastor's little garden with its quaint, old-time flowers, among them many a sweet Provence rose opening to the morning sun, that sun's rays streamed down. Also they knew that the villagers were awake, if they had slept at all. Already they were calling to each other, while some of them gathered in small groups and discussed the events of the past night. Also all asked what would be the end of it.

      "I can not sleep," Buscarlet said; "it is impossible. Let me go forth. They are my people. I must be among them. Give them counsel. Oh, God be thanked, there was not one of us in this hamlet who assisted in the work."

      And he went out feebly through the window, Martin making no attempt to prevent him, since he knew any such attempt must be futile. Instead, therefore, he walked by his side.

      "Whence," he asked, "since none in the village took part in the attack, did those men come? By their garb they are of the mountains-goatherds, shepherds. Is it there the persecutions have been most felt?"

      "It is there," the other answered, "that those who have been most persecuted have fled. We may not quit our unhappy country. Every port is barred, every frontier road guarded. Where, therefore, should those whose homes are desolate flee to, whose loved ones have been slaughtered, where but to the mountains? There none can follow them or, following, can not find. Those mountains are full of caverns made by Nature, God-given as a last resort of the outcast and wretched."

      They reached the open place by the bridge as he finished speaking; they stood outside the still burning remains of what had been Du Chaila's house-the house seized by him from the man he had caused to be hanged on the bridge, in front of the window from which the widow and orphans looked daily until they too fled into the hills. Behind the hedge over which grew the honeysuckle and convolvuli in such rich profusion, the hedge on to which the doomed man had fallen, and on one of the stakes of which his leg had been broken by the fall, they saw his body lying. Near it also they observed other bodies which had been dragged from the smouldering ruins, one being that of his valet, another that of his man cook, a third that of an ecclesiastic named Roux who had acted as his secretary. Also they learned that two friends of the dead man, themselves missionaries back from Siam, had been allowed to depart after being found hidden under a cartload of straw.

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