The Scourge of God

GHTED

e milices, also with the exception of the Marquis du Chaila, who had remained behind with

Buscarlet, the former on his own horse, the pa

riably brings, and when, from the caps of the purple mountains, the soft evening air descends, passing over cornfields and meadows and woods after it has left the sterile and basaltic summits until, when it reaches the valleys, its breath is

den by the dragoons, by the rattle of chain and bridle, the occasional neigh of the animals, and by var

nts, the voices of the men, the songs of the birds of night. The sound of the deep booming of a bell not far off which swelled and rose in the summer calm, as sometimes it rang v

e in the troop behind the leaders, "the tocsin from some village ch

oared himself at the top of his voice: "Who amon

"It is Frugéres. The place is close at hand.

their turn silenced or drowned by still more

es yelled. "There is a fire-

but that the words were distinguishable. "The fanatics have attacke

o de Peyre and said hurr

time to save some. Also to trap these mountain

Ensisheim and had himself taken orders from Turenne and Condé. A moment later every man who was mounted was spurring toward the

muttered as he rode by Martin's side down the dusty road. The

the words of one by whose side he would have been accounted obscure and humble. "He may. I never will. O

al below. Also great pieces of the copings were falling from the summit, and sometimes a pinnacle or gargoyle fell too. And once as they drew near there came a smothered clang, followed a

ages long since past, also the shouts and cries of many voices. Yet none of those shouts were derisive, none scornful or contemptuous. Instead, the shouts

move below the tower. We have them. De Peyre, give t

f; now that they had reached the burning church, not a living soul was to be seen. Truly it savoured of the miraculous. Yet, ere many months had passed--indeed, but a few weeks--these soldiers, and others too who were soon to join them, learned that no foe against whom they had ever been opposed possessed so thoroughly the art of sudden disappearance as did these fanatics, known later as the Camisards. For, trained in their mountain homes to every physical feat--to

this second night

lone, encountered nothing that offered resistance either to their onrush or their gleaming blades. Nothing but the dea

round him, while some rushed into the church on foot, their long swords in their hands, ready to be thrust through any breast t

wever. Even these jugglers can not disappear when they are surrounded. And," he added, striking one white-gloved hand into the palm of anot

More difficult to keep it.

er to Buscarlet: "This is murder, not justice. C

ever escaped. "Yet be sure their time will come." Then, lo

me the beads of perspiration, even as his leader had done a moment before. "I know him well; am of the next parish

recognised that they were face to face with an awakened fury, with a vengeance that had slum

rk on her lover's intolerance, but who, since she had become that lover's wife, had herself carried on the system. Born a Protestant, she had seen that the king's mind became more sunken in superstition as he grew near his end, and that, to keep that mind under her subjection, the

agez ces chiens des Huguenots, saccagez les, c'est la volonté du roi," her minister, Louvois, wrote. "Drive out ce

r their victims, to the lamp-posts on the town and village bridges, to the fuel in

ror of ever meeting their father's or brother's glances again, they took their own lives. They need not have feared those glances, for, the jails being soon full to overflowing, hundreds of male Protestants were hudd

and forests and vineyards to which they had been born the heirs and to the enjoyment of which they had looked forward for the rest of their lives. Or they were skilled mechanics and artisans who could gain a livelihood wherever they found themselves. But for the poorer sort there was no flight possible; if they left France they must die of hunger in other lands. They had no money, could speak no tongue but their own, often knew no trade by which they could earn their bread; understood nothing beyond the breeding of cattle and the arts of husbandry. Yet they, too, fled from persecution, though in a different manner. High up in the gloomy and, to strangers, inaccessible plateaux of the Cévennes--a region of sterile mountains on which for six months in the year the snow sometimes falls unceasingly, while for the other six the heat is almost the heat of the tropics--they sought a refuge. Here in this mountainous region, which covers an extent of one hundred and twenty miles, they found a home, here worshipped God in their own fashion and unmolested, which was all they asked, yet saw

a conflict of horrible cruelty and bloodshed which the passage of years alone extinguished. For now that war of retaliation had commenced which two of L

* *

he dead priest and pointing to something white that gleame

o had taken the most prominent part among his fellows re

it t

apparently, whether either Busc

score of men to be denounced to the monster, Baville.

Will he? Doubtless some day, but not now. For a surety not before these wolves hav

hat the white-gloved hands were opened and clenched again twice, as though