ght the man
with the black beard, snatched him out from among the oncoming crowd,
and tore off the black beard and wig. Felix Marchand stood exposed.

A cry of fury rang out from the Orangemen behind, and a dozen men rushed
forward, but Gabriel Druse acted with the instant decision of a real
commander. Seeing that it would be a mistake to arrest Marchand at that
moment, he raised the struggling figure of the wrecker above his head
and, with Herculean effort, threw him up over the heads of the Frenchmen
in front of him.

So extraordinary was the sight that, as if fascinated, the crowd before
and behind followed the action with staring eyes and tense bodies. The
faces of all the contending forces were as concentrated for the instant,
as though the sun were falling out of the sky. It was so great a feat,
one so much in consonance with the spirit of the frontier world, that
gasps of praise broke from both crowds. As though it were a thunderbolt,
the Manitou roughs standing where Marchand was like to fall, instead
of trying to catch him, broke away from beneath the bundle of falling
humanity, and Marchand fell on the dusty cement of the bridge with a
dull thud, like a bag of bones.

For a moment there was no motion on the part of either procession.
Banners drooped and swayed as the men holding them were lost in the
excitement.

Time had only been gained, however. There was no reason to think that
the trouble was over, or that the special constables who had gathered
close behind Gabriel Druse would not have to strike heavy blows for the
cause of peace.

The sudden appearance of a new figure in the narrow, open space between
the factions in that momentary paralysis was not a coincidence. It
was what Jowett had planned for, the factor for peace in which he most
believed.

A small, spare man in a scarlet cassock, white chasuble, and black
biretta, suddenly stole out from the crowd on the Lebanon side of the
bridge, carrying the elements of the Mass. His face was shining white,
and in the eyes was an almost unearthly fire. It was the beloved
Monseigneur Lourde.

Raising the elements before him toward his own people on the bridge, he
cried in a high, searching voice:

"I prayed with you, I begged you to preserve the peace. Last night I
asked you in God's name to give up your disorderly purposes. I thought
then I had done my whole duty; but the voice of God has spoken to me.
An hour ago I carried the elements to a dying