The Scourge of God

E BY THE

vert some awful calamity. You are of their faith. They will listen to you,

shuddering. "Not you! You know not what w

Pastor Buscarlet, I will wear the mask no longer. Come. Hark! There is

You know not what you do. Think, think! If these men have risen it is at the worst but Frenchmen against Fren

s the speech of Paris and theirs of the mountains. Hark! they sing of Judah once more--also the

the pastor went with him, running by his side to keep pace

ay that is happening, will not to-night proclaim yourself. Oh, promise me! Remem

hat had yet to be made, the wrong that had to be righted, as he himself had

ows of the thatched houses and seeing the lights in them, with white faces against the mica panes and dark eye

ridges, and for the spits and tongues of flame that belched forth out of musketoons and carabines from the windows of the "house by the bridge," beneath th

per than itself--the hammering of great trees, or tree trunks, on doors, the rumbling of flames escapi

scarlet still holding Martin's hand; ceased and murmured, "Pardon, reverend; I did not see or know in the darkness. Yet begone; seek a safer pla

u--they--do?"

f he resists, slay him. W

Murder must not be done; or, if done, not by ou

. What saith the Scriptures? 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.' So be it! The Papists have shed blood--ou

Buscarlet exclaimed

. What balm is there for our daughters whipped to death through the streets, our sons sent to the galleys without trial, our pastors--your brethren--broken on the wheel, burnt at

sound of a fresh discharge of musketry. The fusileers of De Broglie had fired another

not draw my sword. No use to be mowed down here. Let us g

singing their psalms and hymns of praise, while amid them moved the inspired ones, the prophets--men who were crazed with religious fe

ong confinement in the stocks, was Masip, of whom Buscarlet had spoken. The second was a girl not over sixteen, who screamed, "My back, my back, O God, my back!" if any touched her. She had been thrash

tin and Buscarlet saw a

gher until at last the ends of straw glowed and sparkled, then caught and began to burn. And on the sloping roof was a man crouching, his heels dug tight into the dried straw and reeds to prevent him f

abbé and

ve them! Return evil with good, repay his persecutions

now fast-rising moon. "Nothing. They are doomed. If they stay there they must be burned to death; if they descend it is only to be cau

right. Both me

nge. From the chapel, therefore, in the vicinity--into which they had also broken by now--they fetched the benches on which the worshippers sat, as well as the altar-rails and the pulpit, and piled them up in the old square hall of the house, thereby to add fuel to the flames. A

se was

t breeze, he rushed into the midst of the Camisards, screaming to them to show mercy, begging them to desist, imploring them to fo

e; the servants of the Lord have arisen. Go preach to women and babes; leave us, the priests of men, to deal wit

ctised here in Languedoc--cruelties condemned, indeed, by many of their brother Roman Catholics, so terrible were they--he could yet

pily, to escape with wounds alone. There were none left now in the burning house but the abbé and his man-servant. On the former all eyes were fixed, the crowd drawing farther back from the dwelling to get a fairer view of the roof on which they could see him still crouched, or moving on to the bridge, thereby the better to observe his fate. And they gloated over it--these miserable peasants who had turned at last, these human downtrodden worms who had not been allowed to practis

g. Observe Fleurette lying there at your feet; let him expiate all. Then, after him, the others. There are more to suffer too. Bavill

e all else their psalms were heard telling how Jehoshaphat exhorted the people, how Ja

nd wa

sions in Languedoc, had for sixteen years perpetrated cruelties on the Protestants which, it was said in the dist

pen soon: either he must perish in the flames when the roof fell in, as it would do in a few moments, or he must escape from that r

s he left the side of the house where the rioters were, so those rioters followed below in the road. Compactly, in a mass, all went together, and silently. Their voices, their hymns had ceased; but for their footfalls there

s on that side from the dusts of summer and the snows of winter. Now, on this July night, convolvuli and roses and honeysuckle twined about it, dotting the deep green with many a delicate blossom and emitting swe

yes were turned up to that frantic figure and while the moon's rays glistened on their eyeballs, a piercing shriek broke the stillness and the abbé fell headlong some thirty feet into the hedge, bounding off fr

had never yet spared one, ma

id the silence, from the lips of Pierre Esprit,

ody in this world, yo

have damned myself, will you too d

e the signal

for my mother, burned at N?mes," another, "This for my father, broken at Anduse"; a third, "This fo

ered his body from where they left it, it was pierced

guard each man's life. Now for the prior of St. Maurice, next for the priest of Frugéres. While for those who have

hills encircling the little village rose on

where he had fainted, and Martin Ashurst, white to the lips and endeavouring to