nk away, which he did for a few steps, not
losing sight of me, I turned my face towards the river and the town. The
moonlight fell upon the water, white as silver where that line of
darkness lay, shining, as if it tried, and tried in vain, to penetrate
Semur; and between that and the blue sky overhead lay the city out of
which we had been driven forth--the city of the dead. 'O God,' I cried,
'whom I know not, am not I to Thee as my little Jean is to me, a child
and less than a child? Do not abandon me in this darkness. Would I
abandon him were he ever so disobedient? And God, if thou art God, Thou
art a better father than I.' When I had said this, my heart was a little
relieved. It seemed to me that I had spoken to some one who knew all of
us, whether we were dead or whether we were living. That is a wonderful
thing to think of, when it appears to one not as a thing to believe, but
as something that is real. It gave me courage. I got up and went to meet
the patrol which was coming in, and found that great good-for-nothing
Jacques running close after me, holding my cloak. 'Do not send me away,
M. le Maire,' he said, 'I dare not stay by myself with _them_ so near.'
Instead of his money, in which he had trusted, it was I who had become
his god now.

OUTSIDE THE WALLS.

There are few who have not heard something of the sufferings of a siege.
Whether within or without, it is the most terrible of all the
experiences of war. I am old enough to recollect the trenches before
Sebastopol, and all that my countrymen and the English endured there.
Sometimes I endeavoured to think of this to distract me from what we
ourselves endured. But how different was it! We had neither shelter nor
support. We had no weapons, nor any against whom to wield them. We were
cast out of our homes in the midst of our lives, in the midst of our
occupations, and left there helpless, to gaze at each other, to blind
our eyes trying to penetrate the darkness before us. Could we have done
anything, the oppression might have been less terrible--but what was
there that we could do? Fortunately (though I do not deny that I felt
each desertion) our band grew less and less every day. Hour by hour some
one stole away--first one, then another, dispersing themselves among the
villages near, in which many had friends. The accounts which these men
gave were, I afterwards learnt, of the most vague description. Some
talked of wonders they had seen, and were laughed a