ulsed with suffering,
made no reply; he took out his beads and began to say his prayers.

"The Gars is no doubt that young _ci-devant_ with the black
cravat,--sent by the tyrant and his allies Pitt and Coburg."

At that words the Chouan raised his head proudly and said: "Sent by God
and the king!" He uttered the words with an energy which exhausted his
strength. The commandant saw the difficulty of questioning a dying man,
whose countenance expressed his gloomy fanaticism, and he turned
away his head with a frown. Two soldiers, friends of those whom
Marche-a-Terre had so brutally killed with the butt of his whip, stepped
back a pace or two, took aim at the Chouan, whose fixed eyes did not
blink at the muzzles of their guns, fired at short range, and brought
him down. When they approached the dead body to strip it, the dying man
found strength to cry out loudly, "Vive le roi!"

"Yes, yes, you canting hypocrite," cried Clef-des-Coeurs; "go and make
your report to that Virgin of yours. Didn't he shout in our faces, 'Vive
le roi!' when we thought him cooked?"

"Here are his papers, commandant," said Beau-Pied.

"Ho! ho!" cried Clef-des-Coeurs. "Come, all of you, and see this minion
of the good God with colors on his stomach!"

Hulot and several soldiers came round the body, now entirely naked, and
saw upon its breast a blue tattooing in the form of a swollen heart.
It was the sign of initiation into the brotherhood of the Sacred Heart.
Above this sign were the words, "Marie Lambrequin," no doubt the man's
name.

"Look at that, Clef-des-Coeurs," said Beau-Pied; "it would take you a
hundred years to find out what that accoutrement is good for."

"What should I know about the Pope's uniform?" replied Clef-des-Coeurs,
scornfully.

"You worthless bog-trotter, you'll never learn anything," retorted
Beau-Pied. "Don't you see that they've promised that poor fool that
he shall live again, and he has painted his gizzard in order to find
himself?"

At this sally--which was not without some foundation--even Hulot joined
in the general hilarity. At this moment Merle returned, and the
burial of the dead being completed and the wounded placed more or less
comfortably in two carts, the rest of the late escort formed into two
lines round the improvised ambulances, and descended the slope of the
mountain towards Maine, where the beautiful valley of La Pelerine, a
rival to that of Couesnon lay before it.

Hulot with his two offi