nd felt a worship almost divine. Accustomed
to live in the atmosphere of glory which surrounded that man, to see
others obey his orders, and to obey them himself with a promptness
and abnegation that were almost Oriental, it seemed amazing to him to
encounter, at the opposite ends of France, two organized powers, enemies
of the power of that man, and prepared to struggle against it. Suppose
a Jew of Judas Maccabeus, a worshipper of Jehovah, having, from his
infancy, heard him called the King of kings, the God of strength, of
vengeance, of armies, the Eternal, coming suddenly face to face with
the mysterious Osiris of the Egyptians, or the thundering Jupiter of the
Greeks.

His adventures at Avignon and Bourg with Morgan and the Company of Jehu,
his adventures in the villages of Muzillac and the Trinite with Cadoudal
and his Chouans, seemed to him some strange initiation in an unknown
religion; but like those courageous neophytes who risk death to learn
the secrets of initiation, he resolved to follow to the end.

Besides he was not without a certain admiration for these exceptional
characters; nor did he measure without a certain amazement these
revolted Titans, challenging his god; he felt they were in no sense
common men--neither those who had stabbed Sir John in the Chartreuse of
Seillon, nor those who had shot the bishop of Vannes at the village of
the Trinite.

And now, what was he to see? He was soon to know, for they had ridden
five hours and a half and the day was breaking.

Beyond the village of Tridon they turned across country; leaving
Vannes to the left, they reached Trefleon. At Trefleon, Cadoudal, still
followed by his major-general, Branche-d'Or, had found Monte-a-l'assaut
and Chante-en-hiver. He gave them further orders, and continued on his
way, bearing to the left and skirting the edges of a little wood which
lies between Grandchamp and Larre. There Cadoudal halted, imitated,
three separate times in succession, the cry of an owl, and was presently
surrounded by his three hundred men.

A grayish light was spreading through the sky beyond Trefleon and
Saint-Nolf; it was not the rising of the sun, but the first rays of
dawn. A heavy mist rose from the earth and prevented the eye from seeing
more than fifty feet beyond it.

Cadoudal seemed to be expecting news before risking himself further.

Suddenly, about five hundred paces distant, the crowing of a cock was
heard. Cadoudal pricked up his ears;