d no longer strong, but she has a great
heart. 'I will go,' she said. 'God bless thee, my son! There will no
harm happen; for if this be true which we are told, thy father is in
Semur.'

There then occurred one of those incidents for which calculation never
will prepare us. My mother's words seemed, as it were to open the
flood-gates; my wife came up to me with the light in her face which I
had seen when we left our own door. 'It was our little Marie--our
angel,' she said. And then there arose a great cry and clamour of
others, both men and women pressing round. 'I saw my mother,' said one,
'who is dead twenty years come the St. Jean.' 'And I my little Rene,'
said another. 'And I my Camille, who was killed in Africa.' And lo, what
did they do, but rush towards the gate in a crowd--that gate from which
they had but this moment fled in terror--beating upon it, and crying
out, 'Open to us, open to us, our most dear! Do you think we have
forgotten you? We have never forgotten you!' What could we do with
them, weeping thus, smiling, holding out their arms to--we knew not
what? Even my Agnes was beyond my reach. Marie was our little girl who
was dead. Those who were thus transported by a knowledge beyond ours
were the weakest among us; most of them were women, the men old or
feeble, and some children. I can recollect that I looked for Paul
Lecamus among them, with wonder not to see him there. But though they
were weak, they were beyond our strength to guide. What could we do with
them? How could we force them away while they held to the fancy that
those they loved were there? As it happens in times of emotion, it was
those who were most impassioned who took the first place. We were at our
wits' end.

But while we stood waiting, not knowing what to do, another sound
suddenly came from the walls, which made them all silent in a moment.
The most of us ran to this point and that (some taking flight
altogether; but with the greater part anxious curiosity and anxiety had
for the moment extinguished fear), in a wild eagerness to see who or
what it was. But there was nothing to be seen, though the sound came
from the wall close to the Mont St. Lambert, which I have already
described. It was to me like the sound of a trumpet, and so I heard
others say; and along with the trumpet were sounds as of words, though I
could not make them out. But those others seemed to understand--they
grew calmer--they ceased to weep. They raised their f