CHAPTER XIV.

THE HOMEWARD RIDE.

In his haste to inform his mother of our splendid victory, Victorin

passed the command of the troops to one of the oldest chiefs. We changed

our tired horses for two fresh ones which were always led by the reins

ready for Victorin's use, and he and I rode rapidly towards Mayence.

The night was serene; the moon shone superbly among myriads of

stars--those unknown worlds where we shall proceed to live when we leave

this world. Strange! In the very midst of the ineffable bliss that I

experienced at the triumph of our army, a triumph that insured the peace

and prosperity of Gaul; in the very midst of the pleasurable thoughts of

soon again seeing your mother and you, my son, after a hard day's

fighting; in the very midst of all these pleasing emotions a sudden fit

of profound melancholy came over me, a painful presentiment saddened my

heart.

In the fulness of my gratitude to the gods, I had raised my eyes to

heaven in order to thank them for our success. The moon shed its

brilliant light upon our path. I know not for what reason, but that

moment my thoughts traveled back to our ancestors, and I recalled with

sad piety all the glorious, the touching and the terrible deeds that

they had done, and upon which also the sacred luminary of Gaul shed its

never-ceasing light generations and generations ago. The sacrifice of

Hena; the journey of Albinik the mariner and his wife Meroe to Caesar's

camp, across a region that was heroically given up to the flames by our

fathers during their war with the Romans; the nocturnal expeditions of

Sylvest the slave to the secret meetings of the Sons of the Mistletoe

and to the palace of Faustina, his escape and flight from the circus of

Orange where he came near being devoured by ferocious beasts; and

finally the bold insurrections, the formidable revolts, the signal for

which was ever given by the courses of the moon, as prearranged by our

venerable druids; all these events that lay in the distant past rose at

that moment before my mind like pale phantoms of the past.

The merry voice of Victorin drew me from my meditations:

"What are you dreaming about? How can you, one of the vanquishers in

this fair day's battle, be as mute as one of the vanquished?"

"Victorin, I was thinking of days that are no more--of events that took

place during the centuries that have rolled by--"

"A curious thought!" replied the young general; and giving a loose to

his exuberant feelings he proceeded to say: "Let us leave the past to

the empty cups and the departed sweethearts! As for me, I am thinking

first of all of my mother's joy when she will learn of our victory;

next, my thoughts run, and they run strongly, upon the burning black

eyes of Kidda the Bohemian girl, who is waiting for me. When I left her

this morning, at the close of the protracted banquet to which she drew

me by a ruse, she made an appointment with me for this evening. This

will be a well rounded day, Schanvoch! A battle in the morning, and, in

the evening, a festive supper with a charming sweetheart on my knees!

Ah! It is pleasurable to be a soldier and twenty years of age!"

"Listen, Victorin. So long as the cares of battle lay upon your mind, I

saw you wise, thoughtful and grave, as becomes a Chief of Gaul, and at

all points worthy of your mother and yourself--"

"And by the beautiful eyes of Kidda, am I not still worthy of myself

when my thoughts turn to her after battle?"

"Do you know, Victorin, that Douarnek's mission to you in the name of

the whole army is an evidence of the proud independence that animates

our soldiers, whose free will alone made you a general? Do you realize

that such words, pronounced by such men, are not, and will not be

vain--and that it will be fatal to forget them?"

"Why, Schanvoch! It was a whim of veterans who grieve over their lost

youth--old men's words, censuring pleasures that their age can no longer

taste."

"Victorin, you affect an indifference that your heart does not share. I

saw you touched, deeply affected by the language of that old

soldier--and also by the attitude of his comrades."

"One feels so happy on the evening of a battle won, that everything

pleases. Besides, although his words were peevish enough, did they not

betoken the army's affection for me?"

"Do not deceive yourself, Victorin! The army's affection for you

ebbed--it returned at floodtide with to-day's great victory. But, be

careful! Fresh acts of imprudence will furnish the basis for fresh

calumnies, started by those who would wish to undo you--"

"And who wishes to undo me?"

"A chief always has rivals who envy him secretly; and you will not have

every day a triumph on the battle field to confound those envious souls

with. Thanks to the gods, the utter annihilation of these barbarous

hordes insures the peace of our beloved Gaul for many a year to come!"

"All the better, Schanvoch! All the better! Becoming again one of Gaul's

most obscure citizens, and hanging my sword, that will have become

useless, beside that of my father, I shall then be free to empty

innumerable cups without restraint, and to make love to all the Bohemian

girls of the universe!"

"Victorin! Be careful, I repeat! Remember the words of the old soldier!"

"The devil take the old soldier and his foolish harangue! At this hour I

think only of Kidda! Ah! Schanvoch, if you only saw her dance with her

short skirt and her silvery corsage!"

"Be careful! Both the camp and the town have their eyes upon those

Bohemian dancers! Your friendly relations with them will make a scandal!

Take my advice! Be reserved in your conduct; at any rate, veil your

amours in secrecy and obscurity!"

"Obscurity? Secrecy? No hypocrisy! I love to display to the eyes of all,

the sweethearts that I am proud of! And I am even prouder of Kidda than

of to-day's victory!"

"Victorin! Victorin! Be careful, or that woman will be fatal to you!"

"Oh! Schanvoch! If you heard Kidda sing and dance, accompanying herself

with a tambourine--Oh! If you heard and saw her you would become as

crazily in love with her as I am! But," added the young general breaking

off the thread of his delighted description, and pointing ahead of him,

"look at yonder torches! Heaven be praised! It is my mother! In her

anxiety to know the issue of the day she must have ridden out towards

the battle field! Oh, Schanvoch! I am young, impetuous, ardent after

pleasures, that never leave me. I enjoy them with the delight of

intoxication--and yet, I swear to you by my father's sword, I would

exchange all my future pleasures for the happiness that I am about to

experience when my mother will press me to her heart!"

Saying this, the young general gave the reins to his horse and without

waiting for me rode forward to meet Victoria, who was, indeed,

approaching. When I reached the group, they had both alighted. Victoria

held Victorin in a close embrace, and was saying to him in accents

impossible to describe:

"My son, I am a happy mother!"

It was only then that I perceived by the light of the torches of

Victoria's escort that her right hand was bandaged. Victorin inquired

with anxiety:

"Are you wounded, mother?"

"Only slightly," answered Victoria. And addressing me she extended her

hand affectionately, saying:

"Brother, you are with us! My heart overflows with joy!"

"But who gave you the wound?"

"The Frankish woman whom Ellen and Sampso brought to my house after your

departure--"

"Elwig!" I cried horrified. "Oh! The accursed creature! She has approved

herself worthy of her race!"

"Schanvoch," Victoria said to me gravely, "we must not curse the dead.

She whom you call Elwig lives no more--"

"Mother!" cried Victorin with increased anxiety. "Dear mother! Are you

certain the wound is slight?"

"Here, my son; I shall let you see it!"

And in order to reassure Victorin, she unwound the bandage in which her

right hand was wrapped.

"You can see for yourself," she added. "I cut myself only in two places

in the palm of my hand as I sought to disarm the woman."

Indeed, the wounds that my foster-sister exhibited were two long but by

no means deep cuts. They were in no respect serious.

"And Elwig was armed?" I inquired, seeking to recollect the events of

the previous evening. "Where could she have found a weapon? Unless last

evening, before starting to swim after us, she picked up her knife from

the beach and hid it under her clothes."

"And how and when did the woman try to stab you, mother? Were you alone

with her?"

"I asked Schanvoch to have Elwig brought to me at noon; I wanted to see

her and give her my help. Ellen and Sampso brought her to me. I happened

to be speaking with Robert, the chief of our reserves; we were

considering measures for the defense of the camp and town in the event

of our army's defeat. Elwig was taken to a contiguous apartment, and

Schanvoch's wife and sister-in-law left the stranger alone while I sent

for an interpreter to help us understand each other. At the close of my

conversation with Robert on military matters, he asked me for some help

for the widow of an old soldier. That took me to the chamber where Elwig

was waiting for me. I went in for some silver pieces which I kept in a

little casket in which were also several Gallic jewels, necklaces and

bracelets that I inherited from my mother--"

"If the casket was open," I cried, the savage cupidity of Neroweg's

sister flashing through my mind, "Elwig, like the true daughter of a

race of thieves, must have wished to seize some of the precious

articles."

"And that was how it happened, Schanvoch. When I entered, the young

Frankish woman was holding in her hand a gold necklace of exquisite

workmanship. She was contemplating it greedily. The moment she saw me

she dropped the necklace at her feet, and crossing her arms over her

breast she looked at me for a moment in silence and with a savage

expression. Her pale face became red with shame and rage. She then gave

me a somber look, and pronounced my name. I supposed she asked whether I

was Victoria. I nodded my head affirmatively and said: 'Yes, I am

Victoria.' I had hardly uttered the words when Elwig threw herself at my

feet. Her forehead almost touched the floor, as if she humbly implored

my protection. The woman must doubtlessly have profited by the movement

to draw her knife from under her clothes without my perceiving it. I

stooped down to raise her, when she suddenly leaped up, and with eyes

that shot fire sought to stab me, while saying 'Victoria!' 'Victoria!'

in a tone of rooted hatred."

Although the danger was over, Victorin shuddered at the report that his

mother was making; he approached her, gently took the wounded hand

between his own, and kissed it tenderly and lovingly.

"When I saw Elwig's knife raised over me," added Victoria, "my first and

involuntary movement was to parry the blow and try to seize the knife,

while I cried aloud to Robert for help. Robert rushed in and saw me

struggling with Elwig. I was cut in the hand and my blood flowed. Robert

believed me dangerously wounded, drew his sword, seized Elwig by the

throat, and despatched her before I had time to stay his hand. I deplore

the death of the Frankish woman--she came voluntarily to my house."

"You pity her, mother!" cried Victorin. "That creature thievish and

savage like the rest of her kith! You pity her! I feel certain that she

followed Schanvoch only in order to find an opportunity to introduce

herself into your house, cut your throat and then rob you!"

"I pity her for being born of such a stock," answered Victoria sadly. "I

pity her for having harbored murder in her heart."

"Believe me," I said to my foster-sister. "That woman's death is a just

punishment; besides it puts an end to a life that was soiled with crimes

at which nature shudders. May it have pleased the gods that, like Elwig,

her brother Neroweg lost his life to-day, and that his stock may be

extinguished in him. I will otherwise regret all my life that I did not

finish the man when I had a chance. I have a presentiment that his

descendants will be fatal to mine."

Victoria gave me a look of astonishment at hearing me utter these words,

the sense of which she could not comprehend.

But Victorin turned her thoughts and mine into other channels,

exclaiming:

"Hesus be blessed, mother! This was a happy day for Gaul! You escaped a

grave danger, and our arms are victorious! The Franks are driven from

our frontier!--"

Victorin broke off; he seemed to listen to a sound in the distance; with

flashing eyes he resumed:

"Do you hear, mother? Do you hear the song that the wind carries to our

ears?"

We all remained silent; and repeated in chorus by thousands of voices

tremulous with the joy of triumph, the following refrain reached us

across the stillness of the night:

"This morning we said:--

'How many are there of these barbarians?'

This evening we say:--

'How many were there of these blood-thirsty Franks!'"

PART II.

DOMESTIC TRAITORS.

CHAPTER I.

GATHERING SHADOWS.

Several years have elapsed since I wrote for you, my child, the account

that closed with the great battle of the Rhine.

The utter annihilation of the Frankish hordes and the simultaneous

destruction of their establishment on the other side of the river, freed

Gaul of the perpetual fear that she stood in, of a threatened invasion

of barbarians. Perhaps from their retreat in the woods of northern

Germany the Franks are now only awaiting a favorable opportunity to

swoop down again upon Gaul. But for all the joy of this deliverance, I

now resume my narrative after having experienced years of bitter sorrow.

Great misfortunes have befallen me across this interval. I have seen a

frightful intrigue of hypocrisy and malice unfold before my eyes. Since

then an incurable sadness has taken possession of my soul. I left the

borders of the Rhine for Brittany; here I established myself with your

second mother and you, my son, at the identical place that long ago was

the cradle of our family--near the sacred stones of Karnak, the

witnesses of the heroic sacrifice of our ancestress Hena.

Only yesterday, as I was returning from the fields with you--from a

soldier I have become a field laborer like our fathers in the days of

their independence--only yesterday I pointed out to you, on the border

of the stream, two hollow willow trees; they were old. Their age must

now be more than three hundred years. They are so very, very old that

they no longer put forth but a few straggling leaves. You asked me to

tie a rope between the two trees for you to swing yourself. You noticed

with surprise that I grew sad at your request, and that I suddenly

became pensive.

It occurred to me how, nearly three hundred years ago, by a strange

coincidence it occurred to Sylvest and his sister Syomara to tie a rope

between those identical trees in order to disport themselves. Nor were,

alas! those recollections the only ones that those two centenarian

trunks brought back to my mind. I said to you:

"Look at those two trees with sadness and veneration, my son. One of our

ancestors, Guilhern, the son of Joel, the brenn of the tribe of Karnak,

died an atrocious death bound to one of them; Guilhern's son, a lad a

little older than yourself and named Sylvest, was tied to the other

willow to die the same death as his father. An unexpected accident

snatched him from the frightful fate."[3]

"And what was their crime?" you asked me.

"The crime of the father and of his son was to have tried to escape from

bondage, so as not to be forced to cultivate under a master's whip, with

the slave's collar on their necks and chains to their feet, the fields

that were their own patrimony. They wished to escape cultivating those

fields for the benefit of the Romans who had robbed them of them."

My answer astonished you still more, my child--you who always lived

happy and free, who until now have known no other grief than that of the

loss of your dear mother, of whom you have preserved only a vague

memory. You were barely four years and two months old a short time after

the victory that Gaul won over the Franks on the border of the Rhine.

You will remember that I broke off our conversation, and that I relapsed

into one of those fits of melancholy that I find it impossible to

overcome every time I recall the terrible domestic catastrophes that

befell us on the Rhine. But I always regain courage when I remember the

duty imposed upon me by our ancestor Joel, who lived nearly three

hundred years ago in the same place where we are now again established

after our family's having experienced innumerable vicissitudes.

When you will be old enough to read these pages, my son, you will

understand the cause of these mortal fits of sadness in which you have

often seen me steeped, despite your second mother's tenderness, whom I

could not cherish too dearly. Yes, when you will have read the last and

solemn words of Victoria, the Mother of the Camps, dreadful words, you

will then understand that, however painful may be to me the past that

will throw a shadow over my path until death, the future that is perhaps

in store for Gaul by the mysterious will of Hesus, must fill me with

still greater anguish--and you will share my anguish, my son, when you

reflect over the wise and profound observation of our ancestor Sylvest:

"Alas, every time the nation is wounded the family bleeds."

Aye, if Victoria was endowed with the science of foreseeing the future,

as so many of our venerable female druids have been before her; if ever

her redoubtable prophecies are verified--then, woe is Gaul! Woe is our

race! Woe is our family! A longer period of even more cruel sufferings

will lie before our country under the yoke of the Rome of the Bishops

than it experienced under the yoke of the Rome of the Caesars and the

Emperors!

As I said before, I now resume the thread of my narrative where I

dropped it several years ago.

After an extensive conversation on the events of the day, Victorin and

his mother returned to Mayence, where they arrived late in the evening.

Pretending great fatigue and some pain from the light wound that he

received, the young general retired. The moment he reached his house he

threw off his armor, and wrapping himself in his cloak repaired to the

Bohemian girls.

"That woman will be fatal to you," were my words to the young general on

our way from the battle field. Alas! My foresight was destined to prove

true. By the way of these creatures, keep in mind, my son, a

circumstance with which I later became acquainted; you will presently

appreciate its importance--those Bohemian girls came to Mayence two days

after the arrival of Tetrik in the same town, and they arrived from

Gascony, the department that he governed.

This discovery, together with many others, imparted to me such accurate

information on certain facts that I am enabled to describe them the same

as if I had been present.

As I said, Victorin left his house at night to keep his assignation with

Kidda, the Bohemian girl. He had met her only the previous evening for

the first time. She made a deep impression upon him. He was young,

handsome, bright and generous. That very day he had won a glorious

battle. He was well aware of the easy morals of those strolling singers,

who, in effect, were nothing but courtesans. He felt certain that he

would possess the object of this latest whim. How great must his

surprise have been when Kidda said to him with well simulated firmness,

sadness and repressed passion:

"Victorin, I shall not speak to you of my virtue; you will laugh at the

virtue of a strolling Bohemian singer. But you may believe me when I say

that long before I saw you, your glorious name had reached me. Your

renown for valor and goodness made my heart beat, unworthy of you as

that heart is, seeing that I am a poor, degraded creature. Believe me,

Victorin," she added with tears in her eyes, "if I were pure, you would

have my love and my life; but I am soiled; I do not deserve your

attention. I love you too passionately, I honor you too much ever to

offer to you the remains of an existence debased by men, who are not

worthy of being compared with you."

So far from cooling, the hypocritical language fired the ardor of

Victorin; it exalted him beyond measure. His sensual whim for the woman

was speedily transformed into a consuming and mad passion. Despite his

protestations of devotion, despite his entreaties, despite his tears--he

actually wept at the feet of the execrable woman--the Bohemian remained

inexorable. Victorin's nature underwent thereupon a marked change. From

mirthful, pleasant and open, it became retired and morose. He grew

somber and taciturn. Both his mother and I were ignorant at the time of

the cause of the change. To our pressing questions the young general

would answer that, being struck by the manifestations of displeasure

that the army had shown towards him, he did not wish to expose himself

to a recurrence of their anger; thenceforth his life was to be austere

and retired. With the exception of a few hours that he consecrated every

day to his mother, Victorin now rarely left his house, and he avoided

the company of his former boon companions. Struck, on their part, by his

sudden change of deportment, the soldiers saw in it only the salutary

effect of the remonstrances made to their young general in their name by

Douarnek. They cherished him more than ever before. I later learned

that, in his self-imposed solitude, the unhappy man habitually drank

himself into utter stupor in order to forget his fatal passion, and that

every evening he repaired to the Bohemian dancer's, only, however, to

find her pitiless as ever.

About a month passed in this manner. Tetrik remained in Mayence in order

to overcome Victoria's repugnance to the idea of having her grandson

acclaimed the heir of his father's office. But Victoria ever answered

the Governor of Gascony, saying:

"Ritha-Gaur, who made himself a blouse of the beard of the kings whom he

shaved, overthrew royalty in Gaul about ten centuries ago. He held that,

under royalty, it is the people and their descendants who are

transmitted by hereditary right, to kings, and that these are rarely

good, and generally bad. More and more enlightened by our venerable

druids, the Gauls have wisely preferred to elect the chief whom they

consider worthiest to govern them. They thus constituted themselves into

a Republic. My grandson is still a child in his cradle; no one can know

whether he will later have the qualities that are necessary for the

government of a great people like ours. To acknowledge this child to-day

as the heir of his father's office is tantamount to restoring the

royalty that we have wisely overthrown. I hate royalty as much as did

Ritha-Gaur."

Still hoping to overcome the resolution of the Mother of the Camps by

his persistence, Tetrik prolonged his stay in Mayence--at least I was

long under the impression that such was the only reason for his

postponing his departure. Nor did Tetrik seem to be less surprised at

the unaccountable change that came over Victorin. The latter, although

plunged in brooding sadness, still preserved his affection for me. I

even thought that more than once he was on the point of opening his

heart to me and of confiding to me what he there kept hidden. Later,

however, he ceased calling at my house as he formerly used to, and

seemed even to avoid meeting me. His features, once so handsome and

open, were no longer the same. Pale with suffering, worn by excessive

and solitary indulgence in wine, their expression gradually assumed a

sinister aspect. At times a sort of dementia seemed to speak out of his

alternately fixed and wandering gaze.

About five weeks after the great battle of the Rhine, Victorin resumed

his visits to my house. The turn was marked, both in point of suddenness

and assiduity. Noticeable was the circumstance that the hours which he

chose for his visits were those during which Sampso and my wife were

home alone, I being at Victoria's writing the letters which she

dictated. Ellen received the son of my foster-sister with her wonted

affability. At first I imagined that, sorry at having kept himself away

from me without cause and by a mere whim, he sought to bring about a

reconciliation by means of my wife. I believed this all the more seeing

that, despite his persistence in seeking to avoid me, he never spoke of

me to Ellen except in terms of deep affection. Sampso was usually

present at the conversations between her sister and Victorin. Only once

did she leave them alone, and then, when she returned she was struck by

the painful expression on my wife's face and the visible embarrassment

shown by Victorin, who speedily took his departure.

"What is the matter, Ellen?" asked Sampso.

"Sister, I conjure you, never again leave me alone with Victoria's son.

May it please the gods that I am mistaken! But to judge from some broken

words that Victorin let drop, to judge by the expression of his face, I

imagine that he is moved by a guilty love for me--and yet he is aware of

my devotion to Schanvoch!"

"Sister!" exclaimed Sampso, "Victorin's excesses have ever shocked me,

but latterly he seems to have changed. The sacrifice of his unregulated

pleasures doubtlessly costs him much; notwithstanding the young

general's changed conduct is praised by everyone, they all comment on

his profound sadness. I can not believe him capable of thinking of

dishonoring your husband, who loves Victorin as if he were his own

child, and who even saved his life in battle. You must be mistaken,

Ellen! No! Such baseness is not possible!"

"I only hope you are right, Sampso; nevertheless, I must conjure you not

to leave me alone with Victorin if he comes again. At any rate, I mean

to tell all to Schanvoch."

"Be careful, Ellen. If, as I believe, you are mistaken, you would but

raise a frightful and unjustified suspicion in your husband's breast.

You know how attached he is to Victoria and her son. Only imagine

Schanvoch's despair at such a revelation! Ellen, follow my advice,

receive Victorin once more alone. Should your suspicions grow into

certainty, then, hesitate no longer--reveal Victorin's treachery to

Schanvoch. It would otherwise be imprudent on your part to awaken in him

suspicions that may be wholly baseless. An infamous hypocrite, however,

should be unmasked, when there is no longer any doubt as to his

purpose."

Ellen promised her sister to follow her advice. But Victorin never

returned. I learned all these details only later. This happened in the

course of the fifth or sixth week after the great battle of the Rhine,

and exactly eight days before the catastrophe that it is my duty, my

son, to relate to you.

On that fateful day I spent the early part of the evening near Victoria

conferring with her upon an urgent mission on which I was to depart on

that very evening, and which might keep me several days from home.

Although Victorin promised his mother to be present at the conference,

the purpose of which was known to him, he remained away. I did not

wonder at his absence. For some time, and without it being possible for

me to fathom his whimsical conduct, he had avoided all opportunity of

encountering me. Victoria said to me pathetically when I left her at the

usual hour:

"Private feelings must be hushed before interests of state. I have

spoken to you fully on the subject of the mission that I have charged

you with, Schanvoch. And now the mother will unbosom her private grief.

I had this morning a sad conversation with my son. I vainly implored him

to confide to me the cause of the secret sorrow that is consuming him.

He answered me with a distressful smile:

"'Mother, one time you reproached me with my levity and my too strong

taste for pleasures--those days are now far behind--I now live in

solitude and meditation. My lodging, where formerly the joyful din of

song and revelry by torch light used to keep the night astir, is now

lonely, silent and somber--like myself. Our scrupulous soldiers feel

edified at my conversion, and now no longer reproach me with too much

love for joy, wine and women! What more do you want, mother?'

"'I want much more,' I replied to him, unable to restrain my tears. 'I

want to see you happy as in the past. You suffer, my son; you suffer a

pain that you conceal from me. The consciousness of a wise and

thoughtful life, as becomes the chief of a great people, imparts to his

face a grave yet serene expression. Your face, however, is haggard,

sinister, pale, like that of a man distracted and in despair--'"

"And what did Victorin say to that?"

"Nothing. He relapsed into the gloomy brooding in which I find him so

often plunged, and from which he emerges only to cast wandering looks

about. I then showed him his child, whom I held in my arms. He took it,

kissed it several times with great tenderness, put it back into its

cradle, and left abruptly without saying a word. I believe he wished to

hide his tears from me. I saw that he wept. Oh! Schanvoch, my heart

breaks when I think of the future that seemed to me so rosy for Gaul,

for my son and for me!"

I sought to console Victoria by joining her in conjecturing the cause of

her son's mysterious grief. The hour grew late. I was to travel all that

night in order to fulfil my mission as promptly as possible. I left my

foster-sister's and proceeded home in order to embrace your mother and

you, my son, before starting on my journey.

CHAPTER II.

THE CATASTROPHE.

When I reached home, my son, I found your mother Ellen and her sister

Sampso seated near your cradle. The moment Sampso saw me she cried:

"You arrive in time, Schanvoch, to help me convince Ellen that her fears

are groundless--she is weeping--"

"What ails you, Ellen? What afflicts you?"

She dropped her head, made no answer, and continued weeping.

"She does not dare to admit to you the cause of her affliction,

Schanvoch; my sister weeps because you are about to depart."

"What?" I asked Ellen in a tone of tender reproach, "you who are always

so brave even when I leave for battle, are now timorous and tearful when

I am only going on a peaceful journey that will not keep me away more

than a few days--a journey into Gaul, where peace reigns! Ellen, your

apprehensions are groundless."

"That is exactly what I have been repeating to my sister. Your journey

does not expose you to any danger; and if you depart to-night it is

because the matter is urgent."

"Yes, indeed! Why, it must be a positive pleasure to journey in the

manner that I am about to do--on a mild summer's night, across the

smiling fields of our own beautiful country that is to-day so calm and

peaceful!"

"I know all that," said Ellen in a tremulous voice. "My alarm is

senseless; and yet this journey fills me with dread."

And stretching her arms towards me imploringly:

"Schanvoch, my beloved husband, do not depart; I conjure you--do not

depart--"

"Ellen," I replied sadly, "for the first time in my life I am compelled

to answer you with a refusal--"

"I beg you, stay near me!"

"I would sacrifice everything to you, my duty excepted. The mission with

which I am charged by Victoria is important--I promised to fulfil it. I

must keep my word."

"Well, then, go," answered my wife amid a paroxysm of sobs, "and let my

fate come upon me; it is your will!"

"Sampso, what fate does she mean?"

"Alas! Since this morning my sister has been a prey to gloomy

presentiments. She admitted them to be as unaccountable as I considered

them myself, and yet she is unable to overcome them. She says she feels

certain that she will never see you again--or that some grave peril

threatens you during your journey."

"Ellen, my beloved wife," I said, clasping her to my heart, "need I tell

you that, short as our separation may be, it is always hard for me to be

away from you? Would you add to that sorrow, the even greater one of

having to leave you in such a desolate state?"

"Pardon me," answered Ellen making a strong effort over herself. "You

are right; such weakness is unworthy of the wife of a soldier. See; I

have stopped weeping. I am calm; your words have reassured me; I am

ashamed of my timorous terrors; but in the name of our child who is now

asleep in his cradle, do not go away annoyed at me. Let your good-bye

caresses be tender as ever; I shall need that; yes, I shall need that in

order to recover the courage that I am deficient in to-day."

Despite her apparent resignation, my wife seemed to suffer so much under

the restraint that she imposed upon herself, that for a moment I thought

of requesting Victoria to transfer the commission to Captain Marion, to

the end that I might remain at home. One consideration held me back from

putting the thought into execution; the time was too short. Seeing that

the journey had to be undertaken that same night, Captain Marion could

not possibly start on the spot. It would take hours in order to post the

captain upon a matter of which he knew absolutely nothing, and which

demanded promptness for success. Yielding to my duty, and, I must also

say, convinced of the idleness of Ellen's fears, I decided to depart. I

clasped her in my arms, and recommending her to the tender care of

Sampso, I mounted my horse and rode off.

It was ten o'clock at night. A rider was to serve as my escort and

messenger in case I had occasion to write to Victoria on the road. The

rider was chosen for me by Captain Marion, to whom I applied for a

reliable man; I found him ready, waiting for me at one of the gates of

Mayence, and we trotted forth together. Although the moon was not to

rise until late, the night was luminous by the light of the stars. I

noticed, although without attaching at the time any importance to the

circumstance, that, despite the mildness of the season, my traveling

companion had on a heavy coat the hood of which fell down deep over his

casque, so that even in full daylight it would have been difficult for

me to see the man's face. Although a simple soldier like myself, instead

of riding beside me, he allowed me to ride ahead of him without

exchanging a word. On any other occasion, and being like all Gauls of a

chatty disposition, I would not have accepted this mark of exaggerated

deference; it would have deprived me of the conversation of a companion

during a long ride. But I was saddened by the condition in which I had

left my wife, and as despite myself, my mind insisted upon turning upon

the sad forebodings that alarmed her, the sense of sadness grew upon me

in the measure that the distance separating us increased; consequently I

did not regret being left to my reflections during a part of the night.

Thus, the rider following me, we traveled away from the town.

We had ridden about two hours without exchanging a word; the moon due in

the sky towards midnight began to show her disk behind a hill that

bounded the horizon. We had arrived at a crossing where four highways,

built by the Romans, met. I slackened Tom-Bras's pace in order to

ascertain the road I was to take, when suddenly my traveling companion

raised his voice behind me and cried:

"Schanvoch, ride back home at full tilt--a horrible crime is being

committed at this hour in your house!"

At these words I quickly turned in my saddle. By the glamour of the

rising moon I could see the rider give a stupendous bound with his

horse, clear the hedge that lined the road, and vanish in the shadow of

the forest that we had been skirting for some time. Struck dumb with

terror, I remained motionless for a moment; when, yielding to an impulse

of curiosity and anguish, I thought of dashing after the rider and

compelling an explanation of his words, it was too late. The moon was

not yet far up enough to justify my pursuing the fugitive through the

wood, which, moreover, was unknown to me. Besides, the rider had too

much the lead of me. I listened intently for a moment, and I could hear

in the profound stillness of the night the rapid gallop of the man's

horse. He was far away. It seemed to me that he resumed the road to

Mayence through the forest, consequently by a shorter route. For a

moment I hesitated what to do. But recalling my wife's unaccountable

forebodings and comparing them with the rider's words, I turned my

horse's head and dashed back to the city.

"If," I thought to myself, "by some unconceivable accident the

announcement to which I hearkened was as ill founded as Ellen's

forebodings, with which, however, it strangely coincided; if my alarm

turns out to be vain, I shall take a fresh horse at the camp and

immediately resume my journey, which will have been delayed by three

hours."

With voice and heels I urged on the rapid course of my horse Tom-Bras,

and I rode headlong towards Mayence. In the measure that I approached

the place where I left my wife and child, the gloomiest thoughts crowded

upon me. What crime could it be that was being committed in my house?

Was it to a friend, or was it to an enemy that I owed the revelation? At

times I imagined the rider's voice was not unknown to me, yet I could

not remember where I had heard it before. That which, above all, added

fuel to my anxiety was the mysterious accord between the announcement

just made to me and the presentiments that alarmed Ellen. The rising

moon aided the swiftness of my course as it lighted the road. Trees,

fields, houses vanished behind me with giddy swiftness. I consumed less

than an hour in covering the same route that I had just spent two hours

over. At last I reached the gates of Mayence. I felt Tom-Bras trembling

under me, not for want of ardor or courage, but because his strength was

spent. Seeing a soldier mounting guard, I said:

"Did you see a rider enter town this night?"

"About a quarter of an hour ago," the soldier answered, "a rider wrapped

in a hooded mantle went by at a gallop. He rode towards the camp."

"It is he," I said to myself, and resumed my course at the risk of

seeing Tom-Bras expire under me. There could be no doubt; my traveling

companion made a short cut through the forest, but why did he proceed to

the camp, instead of entering the town? A few moments later I arrived

before my house. I leaped down from my horse that neighed gladly as he

recognized the place. I ran to the door and knocked hard. No one opened

to me, but I heard muffled cries within. Again I knocked with the handle

of my sword, but in vain. The cries grew louder; I thought I heard

Sampso's voice--I tried to break down the door--impossible. Suddenly the

window of my wife's room was thrown open. I ran thither sword in hand.

At the instant when I arrived at the casement, the shutters were pulled

open from within. I rushed through the passage and found myself face to

face with a man. The darkness prevented me from recognizing him. He was

in the act of fleeing from Ellen's room, whose heartrending cries then

reached my ears. To seize the man by the throat at the moment when he

put his foot upon the window sill in order to escape, to throw him back

into the pitch dark room, and to strike him several times with my sword

while I cried: 'Ellen, here I am!'--all this happened with the

swiftness of thought. I drew my sword from the body that lay at my feet

and was about to plunge it again into the carcass--my rage was

uncontrollable--when I felt two arms clasp me convulsively. I thought

myself attacked by a second adversary and forthwith ran the other body

through. The arms that had been thrown around my neck immediately

loosened their hold, and at the same time I heard these words pronounced

by an expiring voice:

"Schanvoch--you have killed me--thanks, my friend--it is sweet to me to

die at your hands--I would not have been able to survive my shame--"

It was Ellen's voice.

My wife had run, dumb with terror, to place herself under my protection.

It was her arms that had clasped me. I heard her fall upon the floor. I

remained thunder-struck. My sword dropped from my hand; for several

seconds the silence of death reigned in the room that was perfectly dark

except for a beam of pale light that fell from the moon through the

lattice of one of the shutters that the wind had blown to. The shutter

was suddenly thrown open again from without, and by the light of the

moon I saw a tall and slender woman, clad in a short red skirt and a

silvery corsage, resting with her knee upon the outer window sill and

leaning her head into the room say:

"Victorin, handsome Tarquin of a new Lucretia, quit the house; the night

is far advanced. I saw you enter the door at midnight, the hour agreed

upon, the husband being away. You shall now leave your charmer's house

by the window, the passage of lovers. You kept your promise--now I am

yours. Come, my cart awaits us. Venus will protect us!"

"Victorin!" I cried horrified, believing myself the sport of a frightful

nightmare. "It was he--I killed him!"

"The husband!" exclaimed Kidda, the Bohemian, leaping back. "It must be

the devil that brought him back!"

And she vanished.

Immediately afterwards I heard the sound of a cart's wheels and the

clinking of the bell of the mule that drew it rapidly away, while from

another direction, from the quarter of the camp, I heard a distant roar

that drew steadily nearer and resembled the hubbub of a tumultuous mob.

My stupor was followed by a distressful agony lighted by a faint ray of

hope--perhaps Ellen was not dead. I ran to the inside chamber; it was

closed from within. I knocked and called Sampso at the top of my voice.

She answered me from another room, in which she had been locked up. I

set her free, crying aloud:

"I struck Ellen with my sword in the dark--the wound may not be

mortal;--run for the druid Omer--"

"I shall run to him on the spot," answered Sampso without asking me any

questions.

She rushed to the house door which was bolted from within. As she opened

it I saw a mob of soldiers advancing over the square where my house was

situated and which was close to the entrance of the camp. Several

soldiers carried torches; all uttered loud and threatening cries in

which the name of Victorin constantly recurred.

I recognized the veteran Douarnek at the head of the mob. He was

brandishing his sword.

"Schanvoch," he cried the moment he recognized me, "the rumor has just

run over the camp that a shocking crime was committed in your house!"

"And the criminal is Victorin!" cried several voices drowning mine.

"Death to the infamous fellow!"

"Death to the infamous fellow, who violated the wife of his friend!"

"Just as he violated the wife of the tavern-keeper on the Rhine, who

killed herself in despair."

"The cowardly hypocrite pretended to have mended his ways!"

"To dishonor a soldier's wife! The wife of Schanvoch, who loved the

debauche as if he were his own son!"

"And who, moreover, saved his life in battle!"

"Death! Death to the wretch!"

I found it impossible to dominate the furious cries with my voice;

Sampso vainly sought to cross the crowd.

"For pity's sake, let me pass!" Sampso implored them. "I wish to fetch a

physician druid. Ellen still breathes; her wound may not be mortal! Let

me bring her help!"

Her words only served to redouble the indignation and fury of the

soldiers. Instead of opening a passage for my wife's sister, they drove

her back as they crowded towards the door. A compact and enraged mass

stood there brandishing their swords, shaking their fists and

vociferating:

"Death! Death to Victorin!"

"He slew Schanvoch's wife after doing violence to her!"

"She has died as the tavern-keeper's wife on the Rhine!"

"Victorin!" thundered Douarnek. "You will not this time escape

punishment for your crimes!"

"We shall be your executioners!"

"Death! Death to Victorin!"

"It is impossible to break through the crowd and fetch a physician for

my sister--she is lost!" Sampso cried out to me wringing her hands,

while I vainly strove to make myself heard by the delirious crowd.

"I shall try to get out by the window," said Sampso.

Saying this the distracted girl rushed into the mortuary chamber, and I,

making superhuman efforts to prevent the infuriated soldiers from

invading my house in search of the general, for whose blood they

thirsted, cried out to them:

"Withdraw! Leave me alone in this house of mourning! Justice has been

done! Withdraw, comrades, withdraw!"

An ever heightening tumult drowned my words. I saw Sampso issuing from

your mother's room carrying you, my son, in her arms. She was sobbing

aloud and said:

"Brother, there is no hope! Ellen is rigid--her heart has stopped

beating--she is dead!"

"Dead! Oh, dead! Hesus, have pity upon me!" I moaned and leaned against

the wall of the vestibule; I felt my strength leaving me. Suddenly,

however, a thrill ran through my frame. From mouth to mouth these words

began to circulate among the soldiers:

"Here is Victoria! Here comes our mother!"

As the words were uttered the crowd swayed back from the entrance of my

house to make room for my foster-sister. Such was the respect that the

august woman inspired in the army, that silence speedily succeeded the

tumultuous clamors of the soldiers. They realized the terrible position

of that mother, who, attracted by the cries for justice and vengeance

uttered against her own son, accused of an infamous crime, approached

the scene in all the majesty of her maternal grief.

As to me, my heart felt like breaking. Victoria, my foster-sister, the

woman in whose behalf my life had been but one continuous day of

devotion--Victoria was about to find in my house the corpse of her son,

slain by me--by me who knew him since his birth, and who loved him like

my own! The thought of fleeing flashed through my mind--I lacked the

physical strength. I remained where I was, supporting myself against the

wall--distracted--vaguely looking before me, unable to stir.

The crowd of soldiers parted; they formed a long passage; and by the

light of the moon and the torches I saw Victoria, clad in her long black

robe and her little grandson in her arms, advancing slowly. She

doubtlessly hoped to soothe the exasperation of the soldiers by

presenting the innocent creature to their sight. Tetrik, Captain Marion

and several other officers, who had notified Victoria of the tumult and

its cause, followed behind her. They seemed to succeed in calming the

seething fury of the troops. The silence grew solemn. The Mother of the

Camps was only a few steps from my house when Douarnek approached her,

and bending his knee said:

"Mother, your son has committed a great crime--we pity you from the

bottom of our hearts. But you will see to it that justice is rendered

us--we demand justice--"

"Yes, yes, justice!" cried the soldiers, whose irritation, after being

checked for a moment, now broke out with renewed violence. The cry broke

forth from all parts: "Justice! Or we will do justice ourselves!"

"Death to the infamous wretch!"

"Death to the man who dishonored his friend's wife!"

"Cursed be the name of Victorin!"

"Yes, cursed--cursed!" repeated a thousand threatening voices. "Cursed

be his name forever!"

Pale, calm and imposing, Victoria stopped for a moment before Douarnek,

who bent his knee as he addressed her. But when the cries of: "Death to

Victorin!" "Cursed be his name!" exploded anew, my foster-sister, whose

virile and beautiful countenance betrayed mortal anguish, stretched out

her arms with the little child in them, as if the innocent creature

implored mercy for its father.

It was then that the cries broke forth with fiercest violence:

"Death to Victorin! Cursed be his name!"

And immediately I perceived my recent traveling companion, recognizable

by his cloak and hood, in which he still kept himself closely wrapped,

push himself with a menacing air toward Victoria, and shaking his fist

at her, cry:

"Yes, cursed be the name of Victorin! Let his stock be uprooted!"

Saying this the man violently tore the child from Victoria's arms, took

it by the two feet, and dashed it with such fury upon the cobble-stones

that its head was instantly shattered. The deed of ferocity was done

with such brutality and swiftness that, although it aroused instant

indignation, neither Douarnek nor any of the soldiers who precipitated

themselves upon the hooded man to save the child were in time. The

innocent child lay dead and bleeding upon the ground. I heard a

heartrending cry escape Victoria, but immediately lost sight of her;

fearing that some sort of danger threatened her life, the soldiers

speedily surrounded and built with their breasts a wall around their

mother. The rumor also reached my ears that, thanks to the tumult which

ensued, the perpetrator of the horrible murder had succeeded in making

his escape. Presently the ranks of the soldiers opened anew amid

mournful silence, and again I perceived Victoria, her face bathed in

tears, holding in her arms the now lifeless and bleeding body of

Victorin's son. At the sight, I cried out from the threshold of my

house to the crowd that was now dumb and in consternation:

"You demand justice? Justice has been done. I, Schanvoch, I have killed

Victorin myself. He is innocent of my wife's death. Now, withdraw. Allow

the Mother of the Camps to enter my house that she may weep over the

bodies of her son and grandson."

Victoria thereupon said to me in a firm voice as she stood at the

threshold of my house:

"You killed my son; you were right to avenge the outrage done to you."

"Yes," I answered her in a hollow voice, "yes, and in the dark I also

killed my wife."

"Come, Schanvoch, join me in closing the eyelids of Ellen and

Victorin."

CHAPTER III.

THE MORTUARY CHAMBER.

Victoria entered the house amidst the religious silence of the soldiers

who stood grouped without. Captain Marion and Tetrik followed her in.

She motioned to them to remain outside of the death room, where she

wished to be left alone with me and Sampso.

At the sight of my wife, lying dead upon the floor, I fell upon my knees

sobbing beside her. I raised her beautiful head, now pale and cold;

closed her eyes; and taking the beloved body in my arms I laid it on my

bed. Again I knelt down, and with my head resting upon the pillow on

which hers reclined, I could no longer restrain my grief. I sobbed and

moaned. I remained there long weeping and disconsolate; I could hear the

suppressed sobs of Victoria.

Finally her voice recalled me to myself; I thought of what she must be

suffering; I looked around. She was seated on the floor near the corpse

of Victorin, whose head rested on her maternal knees.

"Schanvoch," said my foster-sister as she gently brushed back with her

hands the hair that fell over Victorin's forehead, "my son is no more; I

may weep over him, despite his crime. Here he lies dead--dead--dead and

not yet twenty-three years old!"

"Dead--and killed by me--who loved him as my son!"

"Brother, you avenged your honor--you have my pardon and pity--"

"Alas! I struck Victorin in the dark--I struck him in a fit of blind

rage--I struck him without knowing that it was he! Hesus is my witness!

Had I recognized your son, Oh, sister! I would have cursed him, but my

sword would have dropped at my feet--"

Victoria gazed at me in silence. My words seemed to lift a heavy weight

from her heart. She looked relieved at learning that I had killed her

son without knowing him. She reached out her hand to me feelingly, and I

carried it respectfully to my lips. For several minutes we remained

silent. She then said to Ellen's sister:

"Sampso, were you here this fatal night? Speak, I pray you. What

happened?"

"It was midnight," Sampso answered in a voice broken with sobs.

"Schanvoch had left the house two hours before on his journey. I was

lying here beside my sister--I heard a rap at the house door--I threw a

cloak over my shoulders and went to the door to ask who it was. A

woman's voice with a foreign accent answered--"

"A woman's voice?" I asked in a tone of surprise shared by Victoria.

"Are you sure it was a woman's voice that answered you, Sampso?"

"Yes; that was the snare. The voice said to me: 'I come from Victoria

with a very important message for Ellen, the wife of Schanvoch, who left

on a journey two hours ago.'"

At these words of Sampso's, Victoria and I exchanged looks of increasing

astonishment. Sampso proceeded:

"As I could in no way suspect a messenger from Victoria, I opened the

door. Immediately, instead of a woman, a man rushed at me; he violently

pushed me back--and immediately bolted the street door. By the light of

the lamp, which I had placed on the floor, I recognized Victorin. He was

pale--frightful to behold--he seemed to be intoxicated, and could hardly

stand on his feet--"

"Oh! The unhappy boy! The unhappy boy!" I cried. "He was not in his

senses! Only so! Oh, only so! He never could otherwise have attempted

such a crime!"

"Proceed, Sampso," said Victoria with a profound sigh; "proceed with

your account--"

"Without saying a word to me, Victorin pointed to the door of my own

room, the room I always occupied when I did not share my sister's room

during the absence of Schanvoch. In my terror I guessed all. I cried to

Ellen: 'Sister, lock your door!' and I began to call for help as loud as

I could. My cries exasperated Victorin. He seized and threw me into my

room. Just as he was about to lock me in I saw Ellen hurrying out of her

room. She looked pale and frightened; she was almost naked. I afterwards

heard the distressing cries of my sister calling for help--I heard them

struggle--I fainted away. I know not how long I remained in that state.

I regained consciousness when someone knocked at my door and called me

by name. It was Schanvoch. I answered him. He must have opened it for

me--I saw him--"

"And you," Victoria said, turning to me. "How was it that you returned

so suddenly?"

"At about four leagues from Mayence, I was notified that a crime was

being committed in my house."

"And who could have notified you?"

"A soldier; my escort."

"And who was that soldier?" asked Victoria with heightening intensity.

"How did he know of the crime?"

"I know not--he vanished across the forest the instant that he gave me

the sinister information. That soldier got back to town before me--he

was the same man who tore your grandchild from your arms and killed it

at your feet--"

"Schanvoch," resumed Victoria with a shudder and carrying both her hands

to her forehead, "my son is dead--I shall neither accuse nor excuse

him--but a horrible mystery underlies this crime--"

"Listen," I replied, as several circumstances that had slipped my memory

at the first pangs of my grief now came back to my mind. "When I arrived

before the door of my house, I knocked; only the distant sound of

Sampso's cries answered me. A moment later the lower window of my wife's

room was opened. I ran thither. The shutters were being pushed aside to

give passage to a man, while Ellen cried for help. I pushed the man back

into the room, which was dark as a tomb--in the darkness I struck and

killed your son. Almost immediately after I felt two arms thrown around

my neck--I imagined myself attacked by a new assailant--I made another

thrust in the dark--it was Ellen, my beloved wife, whom I killed--"

And my sobs choked me.

"Brother--brother," said Victoria to me, "this has been a fatal night to

us all--"

"Listen further--above all to this," I said to my foster-sister,

controlling my emotion: "At the very moment when I recognized the voice

of my expiring wife, I saw by the light of the moon a woman perched on

the casement of the window--"

"A woman!" cried Victoria.

"It is she probably whose voice deceived me," observed Sampso, "by

announcing to me a message from Victoria."

"I think so too," I replied; "and that woman, doubtlessly the accomplice

of Victorin's crime, called to him, saying it was time to flee, and that

she now was his, seeing he had kept the promise that he made to her."

"A promise?" Again Victoria pondered. "What promise could he have made

to her?"

"To dishonor Ellen--"

My foster-sister shuddered and said:

"I repeat it, Schanvoch, this crime is wrapped in some horrible mystery.

But who may that woman have been?"

"One of the two Bohemian dancers who recently arrived at Mayence.

Listen. Seeing that she received no answer from Victorin, and hearing

the distant but approaching clamors of the soldiers who were angrily

hastening to my house, she leaped down and vanished. A second after the

rumbling of her cart informed me of her flight. In my despair it never

occurred to me to pursue her. I knew I had just killed Ellen near the

cradle of our son--Ellen, my dearly beloved wife!"

I could not continue. Tears and sobs deprived me of speech. Sampso and

Victoria remained silent.

"This is a veritable abyss!" resumed the Mother of the Camps. "An abyss

that my mind can not fathom. My son's crime is great--his intoxication,

so far from excusing, only serves to render the deed all the more

shameful. And yet, Schanvoch, you know not what love this poor child had

for you--"

"Say not so, Victoria," I murmured, hiding my face in my hands. "Say not

so--my despair becomes only more distressing!"

"It is not a reproach that I make, brother," replied Victoria. "Had I

been a witness of my son's crime, I would have killed him with my own

hands, to the end that he cease to dishonor his mother, and Gaul, that

chose him chief. I refer to Victorin's love for you because I believe

that, without his being in a state of inebriety and without some dark

machination, he never would have committed such a misdeed--"

"As for me, sister, I believe I see through this infernal plot--"

"You do? Speak!"

"Before the great battle of the Rhine an infamous calumny was spread

over the camp against Victorin. The army's affection for him was being

withdrawn. Your son's victory regained for him the soldiers' affection.

See how that old calumny becomes to-day a frightful reality. Victorin's

crime cost him his life--and also his son's. His stock is extinct. A new

chief must now be chosen for Gaul. Is this not so?"

"Yes, brother, all that is true."

"Did not that unknown soldier, my traveling companion, know when he

revealed to me that a crime was being committed in my house--did he not

know that unless I arrived in time to kill Victorin myself in the first

access of my rage, your son would certainly be slaughtered by the troops

who would undoubtedly rise in revolt at the first tidings of the

felony?"

"But how," put in Sampso, "was the army apprised so soon of the felony,

seeing that no one left the house?"

Struck by Sampso's observation the Mother of the Camps started and

looked at me. I proceeded:

"Who is the man, Victoria, who tore your grandson from your arms and

dashed his life against the ground? The same unknown soldier! Did he

yield to an impulse of blind rage against the child? Not at all!

Accordingly, he was but the instrument of some ambition that is as

concealed as it is ferocious. Only one man had an interest in the double

murder that has just extinguished your stock--because, once your stock

is extinguished Gaul must choose a new chief--and the man whom I

suspect, the man whom I accuse has long wished to govern Gaul!"

"His name!" cried Victoria, fixing upon me a look of intense agony. "The

name of the man whom you suspect--"

"His name is Tetrik, your relative, the Governor of Gascony."

For the first time since I first expressed my suspicions of her

relative, did Victoria seem to share them. She cast her eyes upon the

corpse of her son with an expression of pitiful sorrow, kissed his icy

forehead several times, and after a moment of profound reflection she

seemed to take a supreme resolution. She rose and said to me in a firm

voice:

"Where is Tetrik?"

"He awaits your orders in the next room, I presume, with Captain Marion.

What are your orders?"

"I wish them both to come in, immediately."

"In this chamber of death?"

"Yes, in this chamber of death. Yes, here, Schanvoch, before the

inanimate remains of your wife, my son and his child. If it was that man

who wove this dark and horrible plot, then, even if he were a demon of

hypocrisy and bloodthirstiness, he can not choose but betray himself at

the sight of his victims--at the sight of a mother between the corpses

of her son and grandson; at the sight of a husband beside the corpse of

his wife. Go, brother. Order them in! Order them in! Then also, we must

at all cost find that unknown soldier, your traveling companion!"

"I have thought of that--" and struck with a sudden thought, I added:

"It was Captain Marion who chose the rider that was to escort me."

"We shall question the captain. Go, brother. Order them in! Order them

in!"

I obeyed Victoria and called in Tetrik and Marion. Both hastened to

answer to the summons.

Despite the grief that rent my heart I had the fortitude to watch

attentively the face of the Governor of Gascony. The moment he stepped

into the room, the first object he seemed to notice was the corpse of

Victorin. Tetrik's features immediately assumed the appearance of

unspeakable anguish; tears flowed copiously down his cheeks; clasping

his hands he dropped on his knees near the body and cried in a voice

that seemed rent with grief:

"Dead at the prime of his age--dead--he, so brave--so generous! The

hope, the strong sword of Gaul. Ah! I forget the foibles of this unhappy

youth before the frightful misfortune that has befallen my country!"

Tetrik could not proceed. Sobs smothered his voice. On his knees and

cowering in a heap, his face hidden in his hands and dropping scalding

tears he remained as if crushed with pain near Victorin's body.

Standing motionless at the door, Captain Marion was the prey of profound

internal sorrow. He indulged in no outbursts of moans; he shed no tears;

but he ceased not to contemplate the corpse of Victoria's grandson with

a pathetic expression, as the little body lay in my son's cradle; and

presently I heard him say in a low voice looking from Victoria to the

innocent victim:

"What a calamity! Ah! poor child! Poor mother!"

Captain Marion then took a few steps forward and said in short and

broken words:

"Victoria--you are to be pitied--I pity you. Victorin loved you--he was

a worthy son--I also loved him. My beard has turned grey, and yet I

found a delight in serving under that young man. He was the first

captain of our age. None of us can replace him. He had but two

vices--the taste for wine and, above all, the pest of profligacy. I

often quarreled with him on that. I was right, you see it! Well, we must

not quarrel with him now. He had a brave heart. I can say no more to

you, Victoria. And what would it boot? A mother can not be consoled. Do

not think me unfeeling because I do not weep. One weeps only when he

can; but I assure you that you have my sympathy from the bottom of my

heart. I could not be sadder or more cast down had I lost my friend

Eustace--"

And taking a few steps, Marion again looked from Victoria to her little

grandson, repeating as his eyes wandered from the one to the other:

"Oh! the poor child! Oh! the poor mother!"

Still upon his knees beside Victorin, Tetrik did not cease sobbing and

moaning. While his grief was as demonstrative as Captain Marion's was

reserved, it seemed sincere. Nevertheless, my suspicions still resisted

the test, and I saw that my foster-sister shared my doubts. Again she

made a violent effort over herself and said:

"Tetrik, listen to me!"

The Governor of Gascony did not seem to hear the voice of his relative.

"Tetrik," Victoria repeated, leaning over to touch the man's shoulder,

"I am speaking to you; answer me."

"Who speaks?" cried the governor as if his mind wandered. "What do they

want? Where am I?"

A moment later he raised his eyes to my foster-sister and cried

surprised:

"You here--here, Victoria? Oh, yes! I was with you shortly ago--I had

forgotten. Excuse me. My head swims. Alas! I am a father--I have a son

almost of the age of this unfortunate boy. More than anyone else, I pity

you!"

"Time presses and the occasion is grave," replied my foster-sister

solemnly while she fastened a penetrating look upon Tetrik in order to

fathom the man's most hidden thoughts. "Private sorrow is hushed before

the public interest. I have my whole life left to weep my son and

grandson; but we have only a few hours to consider the succession of the

Chief of Gaul and of the general of the army--"

"What!" exclaimed Tetrik. "At such a moment as this--"

"I wish that before daylight breaks upon us, I, Captain Marion and you,

Tetrik, my relative, one of my most faithful friends, you, who are so

devoted to Gaul, you, who grieve so bitterly over Victorin--I wish that

we three revolve in our wisdom what man we shall to-morrow propose to

the army as my son's successor."

"Victoria, you are a heroic woman!" cried Tetrik clasping his hands in

admiration. "You match with your courage and patriotism the most august

women who have honored the world!"

"What is your opinion, Tetrik, as to the successor of Victorin? Captain

Marion and myself will speak after you," the Mother of the Camps

proceeded to say without noticing the praises of the Governor of

Gascony. "Yes, whom do you think capable of replacing my son--to the

glory and advantage of Gaul?"

"How can I give you my opinion?" Tetrik replied dejectedly. "How can I

give you advice upon a matter of such gravity, when my heart is racked

with pain--it is impossible!"

"It is possible, since you see me here--between the corpses of my son

and my grandson--ready to give my opinion--"

"If you insist, Victoria, I shall speak, provided I can collect my

thoughts. I am of the opinion that Gaul needs for her chief a wise, firm

and enlightened man, a man who inclines to peace rather than to

war--especially now when we no longer have the neighborhood of the

Franks to fear, thanks to the sword of this young hero, whom I loved and

will eternally mourn--"

At this moment the governor interrupted himself to give renewed vent to

his grief.

"We shall weep later," said Victoria. "Life is long enough, but the

night is short. It will soon be morning."

Tetrik wiped his eyes and proceeded:

"As I was saying, the successor of our Victorin should, above all, be a

man of good judgment, and of long and approved devotion in the service

of our beloved Gaul. Now, then, if I am not mistaken, the only one whom

I can think of who unites these virtues, is Captain Marion, whom we see

here."

"I!" cried the captain raising his two enormous hands heavenward. "I,

the Chief of Gaul! Grief makes you talk like a fool! I, Chief of Gaul!"

"Captain Marion," Tetrik resumed in a dismal accent, "I know that the

shocking death of Victorin and his innocent child has thrown my mind

into disorder and desolation. And yet I believe that at this moment I

speak not like a fool but like a sage--and Victoria will herself be of

my opinion. Although you do not enjoy the brilliant military reputation

of our Victorin, whom we shall never be able to mourn sufficiently, you

have deserved, Captain Marion, the confidence and affection of our

troops by your good and numerous services. Once a blacksmith, you

exchanged the hammer for the sword; the soldiers will see in you one of

their own rank rise to the dignity of chief through his valor and their

own free choice. They will esteem you all the more knowing, above all,

that, although you reached distinction, you never lost your friendship

for your old comrade of the anvil."

"Forget my friend Eustace!" said Marion. "Oh! Never!"

"The austerity of your morals is known," Tetrik proceeded to say; "your

excellent judgment, your straightforwardness, your calmness, are,

according to my poor judgment, a guarantee for the future. You have put

into practice Victoria's wise thought that now the days of barren war

are ended, and the hour has come to think of fruitful peace. The task is

arduous, I admit; it can not choose but startle your modesty. But this

heroic woman, who, even at this terrible moment, forgets her maternal

despair in order to turn her thoughts upon our beloved country,

Victoria, I feel certain, in presenting you to the soldiers as her son's

successor, will pledge herself to assist you with her precious counsel.

And now, Captain Marion, if you will hearken to my feeble voice, I

implore you, I beg you in the name of Gaul to accept the reins of

office. Victoria joins me in demanding of you this fresh proof of

self-sacrificing devotion to our common country!"

"Tetrik," answered Marion in a grave voice, "you have ably described the

man who is needed to govern Gaul. There is only one thing to change in

the picture that you have drawn, and that is its name. In the place of

my name, insert your own--it will then be complete--"

"I!" cried Tetrik. "I, Chief of Gaul! I, who in all my life never have

held a sword in my hand!"

"Victoria said it," replied Marion. "The season for war is over, the

season for peace has come. In times of war we need warriors--in times of

peace we need men of peace. You belong to the latter category, Tetrik;

it is your place to govern--do you not think so, Victoria?"

"By the manner in which he has governed Gascony, Tetrik has shown how he

would govern Gaul," answered my foster-sister; "I join you, captain, in

requesting--my relative--to replace my son--"

"What did I tell you?" broke in Captain Marion, addressing Tetrik.

"Would you still refuse?"

"Listen to me, Victoria; listen to me, Captain Marion; listen to me,

Schanvoch," replied the governor turning towards me. "Yes, you also,

Schanvoch, listen to me, you who are as stricken as Victoria. You, who,

in your nervous friendship for this august woman, suspected my

sincerity; I wish you all to believe me. I have received an incurable

wound here, in my heart, by the occurrences of this fatal night; they

have bereft us at once, in the person of our unfortunate Victorin and in

that of his innocent son, of the present and the future support of Gaul.

It was for the purpose of securing and rendering the future certain that

I sought to induce Victoria to propose her grandson to the army as the

heir of Victorin, and that I have made this journey to Mayence. My hopes

are dashed--an eternal sorrow takes their place--"

After stopping for a moment in order to allow his inexhaustible tears to

flow, the governor proceeded:

"My resolution is formed. Not only do I decline the power that is

offered me, but I shall also give up the government of Gascony. The few

years of life left to me shall henceforth be spent with my son in

seclusion and sorrow. At another time I might have been able to render

some service to our country, but that is now past with me. I shall carry

into my retirement a grief that will be rendered less unbearable by the

knowledge that my country's future is in such worthy hands as yours,

Captain Marion, and that Victoria, the divine genius of Gaul, will

continue to watch over our land. And now, Schanvoch," added the Governor

of Gascony turning once more towards me, "have I put an end to your

suspicions? Do you still think me ambitious? Is my language, are my

actions those of a perfidious or treacherous man? Alas! Alas! I never

thought that the frightful misfortunes of this night would so soon

afford me the opportunity to justify myself--"

"Tetrik," said Victoria extending her hand to her relative, "if ever I

could have doubted the loyalty of your heart, I would at this hour

perceive my error--"

"And I admit it freely, my suspicions were groundless," I added in turn.

After all that I had seen and heard, I was, as Victoria, convinced of

her relative's innocence. And still, as my mind ever returned to the

mysterious circumstances that surrounded the events of that night, I

said to Marion, who, silent and pensive, seemed overwhelmed with the

tender that was made to him:

"Captain, yesterday I asked you for a discreet and safe man to serve me

as escort."

"You did."

"Do you know the name of the soldier whom you picked out for me?"

"It was not I who chose him--I do not know his name."

"And who chose him?" asked Victoria.

"My friend Eustace is better acquainted with the soldiers than I am. I

commissioned him to find me a safe man, and to order him to repair after

dark to the town gate, where he was to wait for the rider whom he was to

accompany on the journey."

"And after that," I asked the captain, "did you see your friend Eustace

again?"

"No; he has been mounting guard at the outposts of the camp since last

evening, and he was not to be relieved until this morning."

"But at any rate we could learn from him the name of the rider who

escorted Schanvoch," observed Victoria. "I shall let you know later,

Tetrik, the importance that I attach to that information, and you will

be able to counsel me."

"You must excuse me, Victoria, if I do not acceed to your wishes," the

governor replied with a sigh. "Within an hour, at earliest dawn, I shall

leave Mayence--the sight of this place is too harrowing to me. I have a

humble retreat in Gascony; I shall bury my life there in the company of

my son; he is to-day the only consolation left to me."

"My friend," said Victoria reproachfully, "do you leave me at such a

moment as this? The sight of this place is harrowing to you, you

say--and what about myself? Does not this place recall at every turn

memories that must distress me? And yet I shall leave Mayence only when

Captain Marion will no longer stand in need of whatever counsel he may

think that he may be in need of from me at the start of his government."

"Victoria," put in Captain Marion in a resolute tone, "I have said

nothing during this conversation in which you and Tetrik have disposed

of me. I am not fluent in words, moreover, my heart is too heavy

to-night. I have said little, but I have reflected a good deal. These

are my thoughts: I love the profession of arms; I know how to execute a

general's orders, and I am not altogether unskilful in the management of

troops confided to me. At a pinch I can plan an attack like the one

which completed Victorin's great victory by the destruction of the camp

and reserve forces of the Franks. This is to say, Victoria, that I do

not consider myself more of a fool than others--wherefore I have sense

enough to understand that I am not fit for the government of Gaul--"

"Nevertheless, Captain Marion," Tetrik broke in, "Victoria will agree

with me that the task is not beyond your strength."

"Oh! As to my strength, that is well known," replied Captain Marion

soberly. "Fetch me an ox, and I'll carry him on my back, or fell him

with a blow of my fist. But square shoulders are not all that is wanted

for the chief of a great people. No--no. I am robust--granted. But the

burden of state is too heavy. Therefore, Victoria, do not put such a

weight upon me. I would break down under it--and Gaul will, in turn,

break down under the weight of my weakness. And, moreover, it might as

well be said, I love, after service hours, to go home and empty a pot

of beer in the company of my friend Eustace, and chat with him over our

old blacksmith's trade, or entertain ourselves with furbishing our arms

like skilful armorers. Such am I, Victoria--such have I ever been--and

such I wish to remain."

"And these call themselves men! Oh, Hesus!" cried the Mother of the

Camps indignantly. "I, a woman--I, a mother--I saw my son and grandson

die this very night--and yet I have the necessary fortitude to repress

my grief--and this soldier, to whom the most glorious post that can shed

luster upon a man is offered, dares to answer with a refusal, giving his

love for beer and the polishing of armor as an excuse! Oh! Woe is Gaul,

if the very ones whom she regards as her bravest sons thus cowardly

forsake her!"

The reproach of the Mother of the Camps impressed Captain Marion. He

dropped his head in confusion, remained silent for a moment, and then

spoke:

"Victoria, there is but one strong soul here--it is yours. You make me

ashamed of myself. Well, then," he added with a sigh, "be it as you

will--I accept. But the gods are my witnesses--I accept as a duty and

under protest. If I should commit any asininities as Chief of Gaul, none

will have a right to reproach me. Very well, I accept, Victoria, but

under two imperative conditions."

"What are they?" asked Tetrik.

"This is the first," replied Marion: "The Mother of the Camps shall

remain in Mayence to help me with her advice. I am as new a hand at my

new work as a blacksmith's apprentice who for the first time dips the

iron into the brasier."

"I promised you that I would, Marion," answered my foster-sister. "I

shall remain here as long as you may need my services."

"Victoria, if your spirit should withdraw from me, I would be like a

body without a soul--accordingly, I thank you from the bottom of my

heart. I know that that promise must cost you a good deal, poor woman.

And yet," added the captain with his habitual good nature, "do not run

away with the idea that I am so foolishly vainglorious as to imagine

that it is to the strong bull of a warrior, named Marion, that Victoria

the Great makes the sacrifice of burying her grief in order to guide

him. No--no. It is to our old Gaul that she renders the sacrifice. As a

good son of my country, I am as thankful for the kind act done to my

mother, as if it were done to myself."

"Nobly thought and nobly said, Marion," replied Victoria deeply touched

by these words of the captain. "Nevertheless, your straightforwardness

and sound judgment will soon enable you to dispense with my advice;

then," added she with an expression of profound pain that she strove to

repress, "I shall be able, like you, Tetrik, to retire and bury myself

in some secluded spot with my sorrows."

"Alas," replied the governor, "to weep in peace is the only consolation

for irreparable losses." "But," he proceeded, addressing the captain,

"you referred to two conditions. Victoria has accepted the first; which

is the second?"

"Oh! As to the second, it is as important to me as the first," and the

captain shook his head. "Aye, it is as important as the first--"

"And what is it?" asked my foster-sister. "Explain yourself, Marion."

"I know not," replied the good captain with a naive and embarrassed

mien, "I know not whether I ever spoke to you of my friend Eustace."

"Yes, and more than once," replied Tetrik. "But what has your friend

Eustace to do with your new functions?"

"What!" cried Captain Marion, "you ask me what my friend Eustace has to

do with me--you might as well ask what has the sheath of the sword to do

with the blade, the hammer with the handle, the bellows with the forge."

"You are, in short, bound together by an old and close friendship; we

know it," said Victoria. "Would you desire, captain, to accord some

favor to your friend?"

"I shall never consent to be separated from him. True enough, he is not

of a gay disposition; he is habitually sullen, often peevish. Still, he

loves me as I do him, and we can not do without each other. Now, then,

it may be considered surprising that the Chief of Gaul should have a

common soldier, a former blacksmith, for his intimate friend and chum.

But as I said to you, Victoria, if I must be separated from my friend

Eustace, the plan falls through--I decline. Only his friendship can

render the burden supportable to me."

"Is not Schanvoch, my foster-brother, who remained a simple horseman in

the army, a close friend of mine?" observed Victoria. "No one is

astonished at a friendship that does honor to us both. It will be so,

Captain Marion, with you and your old blacksmith friend."

"And your elevation, Captain Marion, will redouble your mutual

affection," put in Tetrik. "In his tender affection your friend will

rejoice over your elevation perhaps more than yourself."

"I doubt whether my friend Eustace will greatly rejoice over my

elevation," replied Marion. "Eustace is not ambitious after glory. Far

from it. He loves me, his old companion at the anvil, and not the

captain. But, Victoria, always keep this in mind: The same as to-day you

say to me: 'Marion, you are needed,' never be backward in saying:

'Marion, be gone; you are of no further use; someone else will fill the

place better than you.' I shall understand the slightest hint, and shall

gladly return arm in arm with my friend Eustace to our pot of beer and

our armor. So long, however, as you will say to me: 'Marion, you are

needed,' I shall remain Chief of Gaul"--and smothering a last sigh,

"seeing that you insist that I fill the place."

"And chief you will long remain to the glory of Gaul," put in Tetrik.

"Believe me, captain, you do not know yourself; your modesty blinds you.

But a few hours hence, when Victoria will propose you to the soldiers as

their general, the acclamation of the whole army will inform you of the

high opinion that is entertained for your merits."

"The one who will be most astonished at my merits will be myself,"

replied the good captain naively. "Well, I have made the promise; it is

promised; count with me, Victoria, you have my word. I shall withdraw--I

shall go to my lodging and wait for my good friend Eustace. It is now

dawn; he is due from the advanced posts, where he has been on guard

since yesterday. He will be uneasy if he does not find me in."

"Forget not, captain," I said to him, "to ask your friend for the name

of the soldier whom he chose to escort me."

"I shall remember."

"And now, adieu," said the Governor of Gascony with a smothered voice to

Victoria. "Adieu; the sun will soon be up. Every minute that I spend

here is torture to me--"

"Would you not stay in Mayence at least until the ashes of my two

children are returned to the earth?" Victoria asked the governor. "Will

you not accord that religious homage to the memory of those who have

just preceded us to those unknown worlds, where we shall one day meet

them again? Oh! May it please Hesus that that day be soon!"

"Oh! Our druid faith will always be the consolation of strong souls and

the support of the weak!" answered Tetrik. "Alas! But for the certainty

of meeting again the beings whom we have loved in this world, how much

more dreadful would not their departure in death be to us! Believe me,

Victoria, I shall see long before you, these dear beings whom to-day we

weep. Agreeable to your wishes, I shall render to them to-day, before my

departure, the last homage that is due to them."

Tetrik and Captain Marion withdrew, leaving Victoria, Sampso and myself

alone.

CHAPTER IV.

FUNERAL PYRES.

Left all alone to ourselves, we no longer repressed our tears. In silent

and pious meditation we clad Ellen in her wedding gown, while you, my

child, still slept peacefully.

In order to attend to the supreme interests of Gaul, Victoria had

heroically curbed her grief. After the departure of Tetrik and Marion

she gave way to the overpowering sorrow that heaved her bosom. She

wished to wash the wounds of her son and grandson with her own hands;

with her maternal hands she wrapped them in the same winding cloth. Two

funeral pyres were raised on the border of the Rhine, one destined for

Victorin and his son, the other for my wife Ellen.

Towards noon, two war chariots covered with green and accompanied by

several of our venerated female druids proceeded to my house. The body

of my wife Ellen was deposited on one of the two chariots, on the other

the remains of Victorin and his son.

"Schanvoch," said Victoria to me, "I shall follow on foot the chariot on

which your beloved wife lies. Be merciful, brother, follow on foot the

chariot on which lie the remains of my son and grandson. Before the eyes

of all, you, the outraged husband, will thus be giving a token of pardon

to the memory of Victorin. And I also, will, before the eyes of all,

give token, as a mother, of pardon for the death that, alas! my son but

too fully merited!"

I understood the touching appeal that lay in that thought of mutual

mercy and pardon. It was so done. A deputation of the cohorts and

legions preceded the funeral procession. I followed the hearses

accompanied by Victoria, Sampso, Tetrik and Marion. The chief officers

of the camp joined us. We marched amidst lugubrious silence. The first

outburst of rage against Victorin having spent itself, the army now only

remembered his bravery, his kindness, his openheartedness. The crowds

saw me, the victim of an outrage that cost Ellen's life, give public

token of pardon to Victorin by my following the hearse that carried his

remains; they also saw his mother following the hearse on which Ellen

reposed, and none had any but words of forgiveness and pity for the

memory of the young general.

The funeral convoy was approaching the river bank where the two pyres

were raised, when Douarnek, who marched at the head of one of the

deputations of cohorts, profited by a halt in the procession to approach

me. He said with pronounced sadness:

"Schanvoch, you have my sympathy. Assure Victoria, your sister, that we,

the soldiers, remember only the valor of her glorious son. He has so

long been our beloved son as well. Why did he disregard the frank and

wise words that I carried to him in the name of our whole army, on the

evening after our great battle of the Rhine! Had Victorin taken our

advice and mended his ways, had he reformed, none of these misfortunes

would have happened--"

"Your words, comrade, will be a consolation to Victoria in her grief," I

answered Douarnek. "But do you know whatever became of the hooded

soldier who committed the barbarity of killing Victorin's child?"

"Neither I, nor any of those near me at the time when the abominable

crime was committed, was able to catch the felon. He slipped from us in

the tumult and darkness. He fled towards the outposts of the camp, but

there, thanks to the gods, he met with condign punishment."

"He is dead?"

"Perhaps you know Eustace, the old blacksmith and friend of our brave

Captain Marion? He was mounting guard last night at the outposts. It

seems that Eustace has a sweetheart in town. Excuse me, Schanvoch, if I

mention to you such matters on so sad an occasion, but you asked me, and

I am answering--"

"Proceed, friend Douarnek."

"Well, instead of remaining at his post, and despite the watchword,

Eustace spent a part of the night in Mayence. He was returning at about

an hour before dawn, hoping, as he said to me, that his absence would

have passed unnoticed, when he saw a hooded man running breathlessly

near the posts on the river bank. 'Whither are you running so fast?' he

cried out. 'Those brutes are pursuing me!' was the answer, 'because I

broke the head of Victoria's grandson by dashing it against the

cobble-stones; they want to kill me.' 'And they are right! You deserve

death!' replied Eustace indignantly. Saying this he overtook the

infamous murderer and ran his sword through him. The corpse was found

this morning on the beach with his cloak and hood."

The soldier's death destroyed my last hope of unraveling the mystery

that hung over that fatal night.

The remains of Ellen, Victorin and his son were placed upon the pyres,

amidst the chants of the bards and druids. A sheet of flame rose

skyward. When the chants ceased only two heaps of ashes remained.

The ashes of the pyre of Victorin and his son were piously gathered by

Victoria into a bronze urn, that she placed under a mural tablet bearing

the simple and touching inscription:

HERE REST THE TWO

That same evening the two Bohemian girls left Mayence. Tetrick also took

his departure after having exchanged the most touching adieus with

Victoria. Captain Marion was presented to the troops by the Mother of

the Camps and was acclaimed Chief of Gaul and general of the army. The

choice evoked no surprise; moreover, being presented by Victoria, whose

influence had in a manner increased with the death of her son and

grandson, there was no question of his being accepted. The bravery, the

good judgment, the wisdom of Captain Marion were long known and

appreciated by the soldiers. After his acclamation, the new general

pronounced the following words, which I later found reproduced by a

contemporary historian:

"Comrades, I know that the trade of my youth may be objected to in me.

Let him blame me who wills. Yes, people may twit me all they please with

having been a blacksmith, provided the enemy admits that I have forged

their ruin. But, as to you, my good comrades, never forget that the

chief whom you have just chosen never knew and never will know how to

hold anything but the sword."

CHAPTER V.

ASSASSINATION OF MARION.

Endowed with rare sagacity, a straightforward and firm nature, and ever

solicitous of the advice of Victoria, Marion's government was marked

with wisdom. The army grew ever more attached to him, and gave him

signal proof of its loyalty and admiration up to the day, exactly two

months after his acclamation, when he, in turn, fell the victim of

another horrible crime. I must narrate to you, my son, the circumstances

of this second crime. It is intimately connected, as you will discover,

with the bloody plot that drew in its vortex all whom I loved and

venerated, leaving you motherless, me a widower, and Victoria desolate.

Two months had elapsed since the fatal night when my wife Ellen,

Victorin and his son lost their lives. The sight of my house became

insupportable to me; too many were the cruel recollections that

clustered around it. Victoria induced me to move to her house with

Sampso, who took your mother's place with you.