sture of taking aim at her, he disappeared, without waiting for
her reply.

No sooner was he gone than a voice, which seemed to issue from the lake,
called, in a muffled tone: "Madame, madame!"

The postilion and the two women shuddered, for several corpses were
floating near them. A Blue, hidden behind a tree, cautiously appeared.

"Let me get up behind the coach, or I'm a dead man. That damned cider
which Clef-des-Coeurs would stop to drink cost more than a pint of
blood. If he had done as I did, and made his round, our poor comrades
there wouldn't be floating dead in the pond."

* * * * *

While these events were taking place outside the chateau, the leaders
sent by the Vendeans and those of the Chouans were holding a council
of war, with their glasses in their hands, under the presidency of
the Marquis de Montauran. Frequent libations of Bordeaux animated the
discussion, which, however, became more serious and important at the
end of the meal. After the general plan of military operations had been
decided on, the Royalists drank to the health of the Bourbons. It was at
that moment that the shot which killed Merle was heard, like an echo of
the disastrous war which these gay and noble conspirators were about to
make against the Republic. Madame du Gua quivered with pleasure at the
thought that she was freed from her rival; the guests looked at each
other in silence; the marquis rose from the table and went out.

"He loved her!" said Madame du Gua, sarcastically. "Follow him, Monsieur
de Fontaine, and keep him company; he will be as irritating as a fly if
we let him sulk."

She went to a window which looked on the courtyard to endeavor to see
Marie's body. There, by the last gleams of the sinking moon, she caught
sight of the coach being rapidly driven down the avenue of apple-trees.
Mademoiselle de Verneuil's veil was fluttering in the wind. Madame
du Gua, furious at the sight, left the room hurriedly. The marquis,
standing on the portico absorbed in gloomy thought, was watching about
a hundred and fifty Chouans, who, having divided their booty in the
gardens, were now returning to finish the cider and the rye-bread
provided for the Blues. These soldiers of a new species, on whom the
monarchy was resting its hopes, dispersed into groups. Some drank the
cider; others, on the bank before the portico, amused themselves by
flinging into the lake the dead bodies of the Blues, to which t