nd formed a procession behind him.
Prostrate at his feet, Princess des Boscenos held his legs in a close
embrace, but he went on, stern and impassive, beneath a shower of
handkerchiefs and flowers. Viscountess Olive, clinging to his neck,
could not be removed, and the calm hero bore her along with him,
floating on his breast like a light scarf.

When the court resumed its sitting, which it had been compelled to
suspend, the President called the experts.

Vermillard, the famous expert in handwriting, gave the results of his
researches.

"Having carefully studied," said he, "the papers found in Pyrot's house,
in particular his account book and his laundry books, I noticed that,
though apparently not out of the common, they formed an impenetrable
cryptogram, the key to which, however, I discovered. The traitor's
infamy is to be seen in every line. In this system of writing the
words 'Three glasses of beer and twenty francs for Adele' mean 'I have
delivered thirty thousand trusses of hay to a neighbouring Power! From
these documents I have even been able to establish the composition of
the hay delivered by this officer. The words waistcoat, drawers, pocket
handkerchief, collars, drink, tobacco, cigars, mean clover, meadowgrass,
lucern, burnet, oats, rye-grass, vernal-grass, and common cat's tail
grass. And these are precisely the constituents of the hay furnished
by Count Maubec to the Penguin cavalry. In this way Pyrot mentioned
his crimes in a language that he believed would always remain
indecipherable. One is confounded by so much astuteness and so great a
want of conscience."

Colomban, pronounced guilty without any extenuating circumstances,
was condemned to the severest penalty. The judges immediately signed a
warrant consuming him to solitary confinement.

In the Place du Palais on the sides of a river whose banks had during
the course of twelve centuries seen so great a history, fifty thousand
persons were tumultuously awaiting the result of the trial. Here were
the heads of the Anti-Pyrotist Association, among whom might be seen
Prince des Boscenos, Count Clena, Viscount Olive, and M. de La Trumelle;
here crowded the Reverend Father Agaric and the teachers of St. Mael
College with their pupils; here the monk Douillard and General Caraguel,
embracing each other, formed a sublime group. The market women and
laundry women with spits, shovels, tongs, beetles, and kettles full of
water might be seen running acros