he lifted him, and half drew, half bore him into the house
that he had loved, and laid him down upon the hearth, and knelt by him,
caressing him as though he were once more a child, and saying softly,
"Hush!"--for her mind was gone, and she fancied that he only slept.

Without, the tumult of the soldiery increased. They found the arms
hidden under the altar on the hill; they seized five peasants to slay
them for the dire offence. The men struggled, and would not go as the
sheep to the shambles. They were shot down in the street, before the
eyes of their children. Then the order was given to fire the place in
punishment, and leave it to its fate. The torches were flung with a
laugh on the dry thatched roofs; brands snatched from the house fires
on the hearths were tossed among the dwelling-houses and the barns. The
straw and timber flared alight like tow.

An old man, her nearest neighbour, rushed to the cottage of Reine Allix
and seized her by the arm. "They fire the Berceau," he screamed. "Quick!
quick! or you will be burned alive!"

Reine Allix looked up with a smile. "Be quiet! Do you not see! He
sleeps."

The old man shook her, implored her, strove to drag her away; in
desperation pointed to the roof above, which was already in flames.

Reine Allix looked. At that sight her mind cleared, and regained
consciousness; she remembered all, she understood all; she knew that he
was dead. "Go in peace and save yourself," she said, in the old, sweet,
strong tone of an earlier day. "As for me, I am very old. I and my dead
will stay together at home."

The man fled, and left her to her choice.

The great curled flames and the livid vapours closed around her; she
never moved. The death was fierce, but swift, and even in death she and
the one whom she had loved and reared were not divided. The end soon
came. From hill to hill the Berceau de Dieu broke into flames. The
village was a lake of fire, into which the statue of the Christ, burning
and reeling, fell. Some few peasants, with their wives and children,
fled to the woods, and there escaped one torture to perish more slowly
of cold and famine. All other things perished. The rapid stream of the
flame licked up all there was in its path. The bare trees raised their
leafless branches, on fire at a thousand points. The stores of corn
and fruit were lapped by millions of crimson tongues. The pigeons flew
screaming from their roosts, and sank into the smoke. The dogs were
s