The Scourge of God

EXO

the Basses Alpes lifted their heads eastward, the gray light turned into daffodil an

ur to sleep. I pray Heaven you may

"I thought--nay, I knew--that they would rise at last and throw off the hideous yoke under which they bowed. Yet I deemed it would but be to release those of our religion who suffered, to prevent others fr

know of what they spoke. Some who have been long leagues away from this lonely valley shut in by these mountains--men who know that on all sides and on all her frontiers France is sore beset. Crippled by her fre

fresh terrors to spring into his mind; for at those words he started in his chair and regarded the younger one st

, ay, les Anglais! Thank God, it is not known, and never will be known,

y. "But one thing he will most assuredly know ere long, when he begins to mak

than before, clasping his hands frenziedly as thou

. For a certainty, s

rors of the wheel, the flames, to have your head upon this bridge as others' heads have been, that you will

while I saw him done to death. And, thus thinking, became resolved. Henceforth no power on earth, no horror of awful de

! it will b

me to that. I am a Protestant; here, in your own land, a Huguenot. Yet I am not one of th

ght, no religion other than her own; has dragooned Huguenots into Roman Catholicism since the day the Revocation was pronounced, has hung and b

murder. Would have sa

t flee from here at once. Escape out of

His children's her

to act upon the old man's mind, to clear his brain so clouded with the awful events of the past night,

part toward a distant kinsman can demand that you should sacrifice your own life, at the least your liberty. Moreover, remember, he or his descendants ma

nd all doubt that he who was rig

f a century ago. Where may he not have gone to in all that long passage of years? The Huguenots are everywhere--in England, Germany, Scotland, the Americas, Swi

there came a look telling of deep reflection--reflection that brought with it an acknowledg

hat those who were deemed the Prince and Princess de Rochebazon have passed away, yet also he knew that for years they usurped, although unwillingly,

ace was still the look of perplexity that had been there

here in these mountains they are doubly so; few gentlemen of France acknowledge themselves as such; all fear the court too much; if you found him, if he consented, would he be allowed to return to what is his p

pposed. Also he recalled her words: "You may seek yet you will never find, or, finding whom you seek, will never prevail." Rem

nt had put aside for him during years of saving? Was he now to throw his life away in seeking for a shadow,

haila; on the contrary, he had longed to render help to the unfortunate wretch, though it had been beyond his power to do so. But--but--if he should remain in the Cévennes, still seeking for a man who, in sober truth, might for years have lain in his grave or might be, if still alive, at the o

er, he must abandon his search for the last of the de Rochebazons. This tempest which had arisen could not las

dy. Now eat, drink something; it will restore you. Then after that some rest." Whereupon he pointed to the table on which were still the remains of the last night's little feast over which th

let whispered. "Never after the doings of the nigh

e the end, as it has been the beginning, on our--on the Protestant--side. When Baville, the persecutor, hears that the harryings and the burnings and the murders--for that was a murder we witne

hook his head signif

son, he will not stop them. He is the Scourge of God; sweeps before him all who

the morning sun, that sun's rays streamed down. Also they knew that the villagers were awake, if they had slept at all. Already they were calling

hey are my people. I must be among them. Give them counsel. Oh, God be t

no attempt to prevent him, since he knew any such attempt

ck, did those men come? By their garb they are of the mountains--goa

tier road guarded. Where, therefore, should those whose homes are desolate flee to, whose loved ones have been slaughtered, where but to the mountains? There

the hills. Behind the hedge over which grew the honeysuckle and convolvuli in such rich profusion, the hedge on to which the doomed man had fallen, and on one of the stakes of which his leg had been broken by the fall, they saw his body lying. Near it also they observed other bodies which had been dragged from the smo

scarlet asked, turning his eyes aw

Baville) is there. Be sure more soldiers will come with them; we shall be put to fire and sword. And for those who are not slain--that!" And the man pointed to the post on the apex of the br

let whispered to M

ied, calmly as usual. Then as

ch I am no longer permitted to enter--the church whose keys hav

ou. I st

g place for them; that if they would not be ridden down or burned in their beds, or hung as carrion on the bridge where when boys they had played, or taken to the jails of Alais and N?mes and Uzès, the

ople of God had fled into the deserts of the East to escape the tyranny of Pharaoh and of Ahab, even as the Covenanters had fled into the Pentla

other lands where they might do so unmolested, the refusal had turned them at last into rebels, if not against the king, at least agains

in all Languedoc, and ere long it flamed fier