nchman had my heart, he
would not reign another day. I refuse to be led like a sheep to the
slaughter. He can kill me if he wills, but he cannot force me to kill my
fellow-men. You can go if you like, and do his bloody work. Had I the
power I would serve him as I serve this badge of his!"

Tearing the rosette from his breast, he cast it into the flaming fire.

"Rohan, for God's sake be silent!" cried Marcelle. "You speak like a
madman. It is all my fault. I thought I should bring you good luck by
drawing for you. Won't you forgive me?"

The young fisherman looked sadly into his sweetheart's face, and when he
saw her wet eyes and quivering lips his heart was stirred. He took her
hand and kissed it, but suddenly an ill-favoured face was thrust forward
between the two lovers.

"Isn't it a pity," sneered Mikel Grallon, "to see a pretty girl wasting
herself on a coward, when----"

He did not complete the sentence, for Rohan stretched out his hand and
smote him down. Grallon fell like a log.

A wild cry arose from all the men, the women screamed, even Marcelle
shrank back; and Rohan strode to the door, pushing his way out.

"Hold him! Kill him!" shouted some.

"Arrest him!" cried Corporal Derval.

Rohan hurled his opponents right and left like so many ninepins. They
fell back and gasped. Then, turning his white face for an instant on
Marcelle, her lover passed unmolested out into the darkness.

_II.--In the Cathedral of the Sea_

Along the wild, rugged shore, a little way from Kromlaix, was an immense
cavern of crimson granite, hung with gleaming moss, and washed by the
roaring tides of the sea. Its towering walls had been carved by wind and
water into thousands of beautiful, fantastical forms, and a dim
religious light fell from above through a long, funnel-shaped hole
running from the roof of the cavern to the top of the great cliff.

It was here that Rohan Gwenfern hid from the band of soldiers sent in
pursuit of him. The air was damp and chill, but he breathed it with the
comfort of a hardy animal. He made a bed of dry seaweed on the top of
the precipice leading to the hole in the cliff, where his mother came
and lowered food to him every evening; and Jannedik, a pet goat that
used to follow him everywhere in the days when he was a free man, was
his only companion. Strange and solitary was the life he led, but he
slept as soundly in his bed of seaweed on the wild precipice as he did
in his bed at home.