more than the crowd could bear. A long murmur ran along the
square; the lights were put out; the soldiers, driven back, cried "To
arms!" there was a moment of noise and confusion, and several voices
exclaimed:

"Death to the commissioners! death to the executioners!" Then the guns
of the fort, loaded with grape, were pointed toward the people.

"What shall I do?" asked Waters.

"Strike," answered the same voice which had always spoken.

Pontcalec threw himself on his knees; the assistants placed his head
upon the block. Then the priests fled in horror, the soldiers trembled
in the gloom, and Waters, as he struck, turned away his head lest he
should see his victim. Ten minutes afterward the square was empty--the
windows closed and dark. The artillery and the fusiliers, encamped
around the demolished scaffold, looked in silence on the spots of blood
that incarnadined the pavement.

The priests to whom the bodies were delivered recognized that there were
indeed, as Waters had said, five bodies instead of four. One of the
corpses still held a crumpled paper in his hand.

This paper was the pardon of the other four. Then only was all
explained--and the devotion of Gaston, which he had confided to no one,
was divined.

The priests wished to perform a mass, but the president, Chateauneuf,
fearing some disturbance at Nantes, ordered it to be performed without
pomp or ceremony.

The bodies were buried on the Wednesday before Easter. The people were
not permitted to enter the chapel where the mutilated bodies reposed,
the greater part of which, report says, the quick lime refused to
destroy.

And this finished the tragedy of Nantes.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE END.

A fortnight after the events we have just related, a queer carriage, the
same which we saw arrive at Paris at the commencement of this history,
went out at the same barrier by which it had entered, and proceeded
along the road from Paris to Nantes. A young woman, pale and almost
dying, was seated in it by the side of an Augustine nun, who uttered a
sigh and wiped away a tear every time she looked at her companion.

A man on horseback was watching for the carriage a little beyond
Rambouillet. He was wrapped in a large cloak which left nothing visible
but his eyes.

Near him was another man also enveloped in a cloak.

When the carriage passed, he heaved a deep sigh, and two silent tears
fell from his eyes.

"Adieu!" he murmured, "adieu all my jo