the valleys are strewed with the bodies of the
royalists; Cavalier has advanced yonder against the fugitives; Roland
has now probably beaten another column, and Solomon their third
division. But, as Cavalier knows, that several horsemen have fled, he
fears they might make a circuit and fall upon him in the rear, we must
therefore still occupy these heights."

Edmond had not the courage to ask what had taken place in the village
below, but Bertrand began of his own accord. "Now, for once, the hard
hearts have been compelled to taste our vengeance, we have at length
washed our hands in their blood. They will fear us, brother; the
trembling of those that have escaped to-day will teach the others to
tremble too. Like destroying angels, Ravanel and Catinat cut their way
through them, where these stand, not one of the enemy expects mercy. I
have now though been enabled to celebrate a great festival, such a
jubilee as I have ever wished for. But many of our brethren, and our
best lie there below. The despairing peasants have armed themselves
almost in greater numbers than the soldiers. Ah! poor Francois, the
child has been torn by the beasts, Anton, and the flute player,
Stephen, have had their beads smashed, one of the villains threw my
brother, when the poor fellow was already wounded, into the fire, even
the wretched clerk was massacred by our Everard, whereupon I pitched
the rogue head over heels directly into a deep well."

"And the aged priest?" asked Edmond, scarcely audible,

"Him," said one of the troop, "I saw for a long while standing with his
prayer-book in the midst of the tumult on the common; right and left
men and women were slain by his side, so that I thought, now, now this
one or that must strike him. But it was as if they did not see him at
all. I afterwards lost sight of him; surely he must be lying there
among the dead bodies. Do you know anything of him, brother
Christophe?"

A wild looking man, spotted with blood, diminutive and black, his whole
face almost overgrown with bristly hair, said grinning: "The old
grey-headed knave is certainly a sorcerer, for when I had already
killed several of the idolaters, and that he still continued to stand
quietly there, and I was vexed that none of my comrades had ever aimed
at him, in my fury I advanced to hew him down; already I raised my arm,
then the spectre looked quite quietly at me, and his old thin lips
smiled at it, almost as if he would have wept, but