rdered before me, and did not try to, save
him."

A threatening murmur rose around him; his words had been overheard. That
was all that was needed to excite the young man.

"Ah! is that the way of it?" he cried, carrying his hand to one of his
holsters.

But with a movement rapid as thought, Cadoudal seized his hand, and,
while Roland struggled vainly to free himself from this grip of iron, he
shouted: "Fire!"

Twenty shots resounded instantly, and the bishop fell, an inert mass.

"Ah!" cried Roland. "What have you done?"

"Forced you to keep your promise," replied Cadoudal; "you swore to see
all and hear all without offering any opposition."

"So perish all enemies of God and the king," said Sabre-tout, in a
solemn voice.

"Amen!" responded the spectators with one voice of sinister unanimity.

Then they stripped the body of its sacerdotal ornaments, which they
flung upon the pile of wood, invited the other travellers to take their
places in the diligence, replaced the postilion in his saddle, and,
opening their ranks to give passage to the coach, cried: "Go with God!"

The diligence rolled rapidly away.

"Come, let us go," cried Cadoudal, "we have still twelve miles to do,
and we have lost an hour here." Then, addressing the executioners, he
said: "That man was guilty; that man is punished. Human justice and
divine justice are satisfied. Let prayers for the dead be said over his
body, and give him Christian burial; do you hear?" And sure of being
obeyed, Cadoudal put his horse to a gallop.

Roland seemed to hesitate for a moment whether to follow him or not;
then, as if resolving to accomplish a duty, he said: "I will go to the
end."

Spurring his horse in the direction taken by Cadoudal he reached the
Chouan leader in a few strides. Both disappeared in the darkness, which
grew thicker and thicker as the men left the place where the torches
were illuminating the dead priest's face and the fire was consuming his
vestments.

CHAPTER XXXIV. THE DIPLOMACY OF GEORGES CADOUDAL

The feeling that Roland experienced as he followed Georges Cadoudal
resembled that of a man half-awakened, who is still under the influence
of a dream, and returns gradually from the confines which separate night
from day. He strives to discover whether the ground he walks on is that
of fiction or reality, and the more he burrows in the dimness of his
brain the further he buries himself in doubt.

A man existed for whom Rola