as
to come to an abrupt termination some feet above the gay marigolds,
coltsfoot, and other spring flowers that smiled by the water-side.
Suddenly he beheld on the rampart a tiny gray and white figure,
fearlessly trotting, or rather dancing, along the summit and the
men around him exclaimed, 'The little moonbeam child!' 'A fairy--a
changeling!'--'They cannot shoot at such a babe!' 'Nor could they
harm her!' 'Hola! little one! _Gare_! Go back to your mother!' 'Do not
disturb yourself, sir; she is safer than you,' were the ejaculations
almost at the same moment, while he sprang forward, horrified at the
peril of such an infant. He had reached the angle between the bridge and
rampart, when he perceived that neither humanity nor superstition were
protecting the poor child; for, as she turned down the remnant of one of
the treacherous little paths, a man in bright steel and deep black had
spurred his horse to the river's brink, and was deliberately taking aim
at her. Furious at such brutality, Berenger fired the pistol he held in
his hand, and the wretch dropped from his horse; but at the same moment
his pistol exploded, and the child rolled down the bank, whence a
piteous wail came up, impelling Berenger to leap down to her assistance,
in the full face of the enemy. Perhaps he was protected for the moment
by the confusion ensuing on the fall of the officer; and when he reached
the bottom of the bank, he saw the little creature on her feet, her
round cap and gray woolen dress stripped half off in the fall, and
her flaxen hair falling round her plump, white, exposed shoulder, but
evidently unhurt, and gathering yellow marigolds as composedly as though
she had been making May garlands. He snatched her up, and she said, with
the same infantine dignity, 'Yes, take me up; the naughty people spoilt
the path. But I must take my beads first.' And she tried to struggle
out of his arms, pointing therewith to a broken string among the marshy
herb-age on which gleamed--the pearls of Ribaumont!

In the few seconds in which he grasped them, and then bore the child up
the embankment in desperate bounds, a hail of bullets poured round
him, ringing on his breastplate, shearing the plume from his hat, but
scarcely even heard; and in another moment he had sprung down, on the
inner side, grasping the child with all his might, but not daring even
to look at her, in the wondrous flash of that first conviction. She
spoke first. 'Put me down, and l