man to her spouse, although they
were alone--for it was one of those awful moments when one speaks low in
the middle of a desert--"just look, not a light: not one in these
houses, hamlets, or the town. Night is come, and all within these
dwellings is gloomy as the night without."

"The inhabitants of this valley are going to show themselves worthy of
their brothers," answered Albinik reverently. "They also wish to respond
to the voice of our venerable druids, and to that of the Chief of the
Hundred Valleys."

"Yes; by the terror which is now come upon me, I feel we are about to
see a thing no one has seen before, and perhaps none will see again."

"Meroe, do you catch down there, away down there, behind the crest of
the forest, a faint white glimmer!"

"I do. It is the moon, which will soon be up. The moment approaches. I
feel terror-stricken. Poor women! Poor children!"

"Poor laborers; they lived so long, happy on this land of their fathers:
on this land made fertile by the labor of so many generations! Poor
workmen; they found plenty in their rude trades! Oh, the unfortunates!
the unfortunates! But one thing equals their great misfortune, and that
is their great heroism. Meroe! Meroe!" exclaimed Albinik, "the moon is
rising. That sacred orb of Gaul is about to give the signal for the
sacrifice."

"Hesus! Hesus!" cried the young woman, her cheeks bathed in tears, "your
wrath will never be appeased if this last sacrifice does not calm you."

The moon had risen radiant among the stars. She flooded space with so
brilliant a light that Albinik and his wife could see as in full day,
and as far as the most distant horizon, the country that stretched at
their feet.

Suddenly, a light cloud of smoke, at first whitish, then black,
presently colored with the red tints of a kindling fire, rose above one
of the hamlets scattered in the plain.

"Hesus! Hesus!" exclaimed Meroe. Then, hiding her face in the bosom of
her husband who was kneeling near her, "You spoke truly. The sacred orb
of Gaul has given the signal for the sacrifice. It is fulfilled."

"Oh, liberty!" cried Albinik, "Holy liberty!----"

He could not finish. His voice was smothered in tears, and he drew his
weeping wife close in his arms.

Meroe did not leave her face hidden in her husband's breast any longer
than it would take a mother to kiss the forehead, mouth, and eyes, of
her new born babe, but when she again raised her head and dared to look
abro