"Yes," answered Victorin, deeply moved by the veteran's loyal and touching words; "it is agreed."

"Your hand!" replied Douarnek, "in the name of our comrades."

"Here it is," said the young general, stooping down over his horse's neck in order cordially to clasp the veteran's hand. "I thank you for your frankness, my children. I shall be to you as you are to me for the glory and peace of Gaul. Without you I can do nothing; although it is the general who carries the triumphal chaplet, it is the soldier's bravery that weaves it, and imparts to it the purple of his own blood!"

"It is, then, agreed, Victorin," Douarnek replied with moistening eyes. "Our blood belongs to you, to the last drop—and to our beloved Gaul—to your glory!"

"And to my mother who made me what I am," interrupted Victorin with increasing emotion; "and to my mother our respect, our love, our devotion, my children!"

"Long live the Mother of the Camps!" cried Douarnek in a resonant voice. "Long live Victorin, her glorious son!"

Douarnek's companions, the rest of the soldiers and officers, in short, all of us present at this scene joined in the cheers of Douarnek:

"Long live the Mother of the Camps! Long live Victorin, her glorious son!"

It was a superb summer's night, that in which the army struck the road to Mayence. As it marched, the banks of the Rhine re-echoed to the chant of the bard:

In his haste to inform his mother of our splendid victory, Victorin passed the command of the troops to one of the oldest chiefs. We changed our tired horses for two fresh ones which were always led by the reins ready for Victorin's use, and he and I rode rapidly towards Mayence.

The night was serene; the moon shone superbly among myriads of stars—those unknown worlds where we shall proceed to live when we leave this world. Strange! In the very midst of the ineffable bliss that I experienced at the triumph of our army, a triumph that insured the peace and prosperity of Gaul; in the very midst of the pleasurable thoughts of soon again seeing your mother and you, my son, after a hard day's fighting; in the very midst of all these pleasing emotions a sudden fit of profound melancholy came over me, a painful presentiment saddened my heart.

The merry voice of Victorin drew me from my meditations:

"What are you dreaming about? How can you, one of the vanquishers in this fair day's battle, be as mute as one of the vanquished?"

"Victorin, I was thinking of days that are no more—of events that took place during the centuries that have rolled by—"

"Listen, Victorin. So long as the cares of battle lay upon your mind, I saw you wise, thoughtful and grave, as becomes a Chief of Gaul, and at all points worthy of your mother and yourself—"

"And by the beautiful eyes of Kidda, am I not still worthy of myself when my thoughts turn to her after battle?"

"Do you know, Victorin, that Douarnek's mission to you in the name of the whole army is an evidence of the proud independence that animates our soldiers, whose free will alone made you a general? Do you realize that such words, pronounced by such men, are not, and will not be vain—and that it will be fatal to forget them?"

"Why, Schanvoch! It was a whim of veterans who grieve over their lost youth—old men's words, censuring pleasures that their age can no longer taste."

"Victorin, you affect an indifference that your heart does not share. I saw you touched, deeply affected by the language of that old soldier—and also by the attitude of his comrades."

"One feels so happy on the evening of a battle won, that everything pleases. Besides, although his words were peevish enough, did they not betoken the army's affection for me?"

"Do not deceive yourself, Victorin! The army's affection for you ebbed—it returned at floodtide with to-day's great victory. But, be careful! Fresh acts of imprudence will furnish the basis for fresh calumnies, started by those who would wish to undo you—"

"And who wishes to undo me?"

"All the better, Schanvoch! All the better! Becoming again one of Gaul's most obscure citizens, and hanging my sword, that will have become useless, beside that of my father, I shall then be free to empty innumerable cups without restraint, and to make love to all the Bohemian girls of the universe!"

"Victorin! Be careful, I repeat! Remember the words of the old soldier!"

"The devil take the old soldier and his foolish harangue! At this hour I think only of Kidda! Ah! Schanvoch, if you only saw her dance with her short skirt and her silvery corsage!"

"Be careful! Both the camp and the town have their eyes upon those Bohemian dancers! Your friendly relations with them will make a scandal! Take my advice! Be reserved in your conduct; at any rate, veil your amours in secrecy and obscurity!"

"Obscurity? Secrecy? No hypocrisy! I love to display to the eyes of all, the sweethearts that I am proud of! And I am even prouder of Kidda than of to-day's victory!"

"Victorin! Victorin! Be careful, or that woman will be fatal to you!"

Saying this, the young general gave the reins to his horse and without waiting for me rode forward to meet Victoria, who was, indeed, approaching. When I reached the group, they had both alighted. Victoria held Victorin in a close embrace, and was saying to him in accents impossible to describe:

"My son, I am a happy mother!"

It was only then that I perceived by the light of the torches of Victoria's escort that her right hand was bandaged. Victorin inquired with anxiety:

"Are you wounded, mother?"

"Only slightly," answered Victoria. And addressing me she extended her hand affectionately, saying:

"Brother, you are with us! My heart overflows with joy!"

"But who gave you the wound?"

"The Frankish woman whom Ellen and Sampso brought to my house after your departure—"

"Elwig!" I cried horrified. "Oh! The accursed creature! She has approved herself worthy of her race!"

"Mother!" cried Victorin with increased anxiety. "Dear mother! Are you certain the wound is slight?"

"Here, my son; I shall let you see it!"

And in order to reassure Victorin, she unwound the bandage in which her right hand was wrapped.

"You can see for yourself," she added. "I cut myself only in two places in the palm of my hand as I sought to disarm the woman."

Indeed, the wounds that my foster-sister exhibited were two long but by no means deep cuts. They were in no respect serious.

"And Elwig was armed?" I inquired, seeking to recollect the events of the previous evening. "Where could she have found a weapon? Unless last evening, before starting to swim after us, she picked up her knife from the beach and hid it under her clothes."

"And how and when did the woman try to stab you, mother? Were you alone with her?"

"If the casket was open," I cried, the savage cupidity of Neroweg's sister flashing through my mind, "Elwig, like the true daughter of a race of thieves, must have wished to seize some of the precious articles."

"And that was how it happened, Schanvoch. When I entered, the young Frankish woman was holding in her hand a gold necklace of exquisite workmanship. She was contemplating it greedily. The moment she saw me she dropped the necklace at her feet, and crossing her arms over her breast she looked at me for a moment in silence and with a savage expression. Her pale face became red with shame and rage. She then gave me a somber look, and pronounced my name. I supposed she asked whether I was Victoria. I nodded my head affirmatively and said: 'Yes, I am Victoria.' I had hardly uttered the words when Elwig threw herself at my feet. Her forehead almost touched the floor, as if she humbly implored my protection. The woman must doubtlessly have profited by the movement to draw her knife from under her clothes without my perceiving it. I stooped down to raise her, when she suddenly leaped up, and with eyes that shot fire sought to stab me, while saying 'Victoria!' 'Victoria!' in a tone of rooted hatred."

Although the danger was over, Victorin shuddered at the report that his mother was making; he approached her, gently took the wounded hand between his own, and kissed it tenderly and lovingly.

"You pity her, mother!" cried Victorin. "That creature thievish and savage like the rest of her kith! You pity her! I feel certain that she followed Schanvoch only in order to find an opportunity to introduce herself into your house, cut your throat and then rob you!"

"I pity her for being born of such a stock," answered Victoria sadly. "I pity her for having harbored murder in her heart."

"Believe me," I said to my foster-sister. "That woman's death is a just punishment; besides it puts an end to a life that was soiled with crimes at which nature shudders. May it have pleased the gods that, like Elwig, her brother Neroweg lost his life to-day, and that his stock may be extinguished in him. I will otherwise regret all my life that I did not finish the man when I had a chance. I have a presentiment that his descendants will be fatal to mine."

Victoria gave me a look of astonishment at hearing me utter these words, the sense of which she could not comprehend.

But Victorin turned her thoughts and mine into other channels, exclaiming:

Victorin broke off; he seemed to listen to a sound in the distance; with flashing eyes he resumed:

"Do you hear, mother? Do you hear the song that the wind carries to our ears?"

We all remained silent; and repeated in chorus by thousands of voices tremulous with the joy of triumph, the following refrain reached us across the stillness of the night:

Several years have elapsed since I wrote for you, my child, the account that closed with the great battle of the Rhine.

The utter annihilation of the Frankish hordes and the simultaneous destruction of their establishment on the other side of the river, freed Gaul of the perpetual fear that she stood in, of a threatened invasion of barbarians. Perhaps from their retreat in the woods of northern Germany the Franks are now only awaiting a favorable opportunity to swoop down again upon Gaul. But for all the joy of this deliverance, I now resume my narrative after having experienced years of bitter sorrow. Great misfortunes have befallen me across this interval. I have seen a frightful intrigue of hypocrisy and malice unfold before my eyes. Since then an incurable sadness has taken possession of my soul. I left the borders of the Rhine for Brittany; here I established myself with your second mother and you, my son, at the identical place that long ago was the cradle of our family—near the sacred stones of Karnak, the witnesses of the heroic sacrifice of our ancestress Hena.

It occurred to me how, nearly three hundred years ago, by a strange coincidence it occurred to Sylvest and his sister Syomara to tie a rope between those identical trees in order to disport themselves. Nor were, alas! those recollections the only ones that those two centenarian trunks brought back to my mind. I said to you:

You will remember that I broke off our conversation, and that I relapsed into one of those fits of melancholy that I find it impossible to overcome every time I recall the terrible domestic catastrophes that befell us on the Rhine. But I always regain courage when I remember the duty imposed upon me by our ancestor Joel, who lived nearly three hundred years ago in the same place where we are now again established after our family's having experienced innumerable vicissitudes.

When you will be old enough to read these pages, my son, you will understand the cause of these mortal fits of sadness in which you have often seen me steeped, despite your second mother's tenderness, whom I could not cherish too dearly. Yes, when you will have read the last and solemn words of Victoria, the Mother of the Camps, dreadful words, you will then understand that, however painful may be to me the past that will throw a shadow over my path until death, the future that is perhaps in store for Gaul by the mysterious will of Hesus, must fill me with still greater anguish—and you will share my anguish, my son, when you reflect over the wise and profound observation of our ancestor Sylvest:

"Alas, every time the nation is wounded the family bleeds."

As I said before, I now resume the thread of my narrative where I dropped it several years ago.

After an extensive conversation on the events of the day, Victorin and his mother returned to Mayence, where they arrived late in the evening. Pretending great fatigue and some pain from the light wound that he received, the young general retired. The moment he reached his house he threw off his armor, and wrapping himself in his cloak repaired to the Bohemian girls.

"That woman will be fatal to you," were my words to the young general on our way from the battle field. Alas! My foresight was destined to prove true. By the way of these creatures, keep in mind, my son, a circumstance with which I later became acquainted; you will presently appreciate its importance—those Bohemian girls came to Mayence two days after the arrival of Tetrik in the same town, and they arrived from Gascony, the department that he governed.

This discovery, together with many others, imparted to me such accurate information on certain facts that I am enabled to describe them the same as if I had been present.

"Victorin, I shall not speak to you of my virtue; you will laugh at the virtue of a strolling Bohemian singer. But you may believe me when I say that long before I saw you, your glorious name had reached me. Your renown for valor and goodness made my heart beat, unworthy of you as that heart is, seeing that I am a poor, degraded creature. Believe me, Victorin," she added with tears in her eyes, "if I were pure, you would have my love and my life; but I am soiled; I do not deserve your attention. I love you too passionately, I honor you too much ever to offer to you the remains of an existence debased by men, who are not worthy of being compared with you."

About a month passed in this manner. Tetrik remained in Mayence in order to overcome Victoria's repugnance to the idea of having her grandson acclaimed the heir of his father's office. But Victoria ever answered the Governor of Gascony, saying:

"Ritha-Gaur, who made himself a blouse of the beard of the kings whom he shaved, overthrew royalty in Gaul about ten centuries ago. He held that, under royalty, it is the people and their descendants who are transmitted by hereditary right, to kings, and that these are rarely good, and generally bad. More and more enlightened by our venerable druids, the Gauls have wisely preferred to elect the chief whom they consider worthiest to govern them. They thus constituted themselves into a Republic. My grandson is still a child in his cradle; no one can know whether he will later have the qualities that are necessary for the government of a great people like ours. To acknowledge this child to-day as the heir of his father's office is tantamount to restoring the royalty that we have wisely overthrown. I hate royalty as much as did Ritha-Gaur."

"What is the matter, Ellen?" asked Sampso.

"Sister, I conjure you, never again leave me alone with Victoria's son. May it please the gods that I am mistaken! But to judge from some broken words that Victorin let drop, to judge by the expression of his face, I imagine that he is moved by a guilty love for me—and yet he is aware of my devotion to Schanvoch!"

"Sister!" exclaimed Sampso, "Victorin's excesses have ever shocked me, but latterly he seems to have changed. The sacrifice of his unregulated pleasures doubtlessly costs him much; notwithstanding the young general's changed conduct is praised by everyone, they all comment on his profound sadness. I can not believe him capable of thinking of dishonoring your husband, who loves Victorin as if he were his own child, and who even saved his life in battle. You must be mistaken, Ellen! No! Such baseness is not possible!"

"I only hope you are right, Sampso; nevertheless, I must conjure you not to leave me alone with Victorin if he comes again. At any rate, I mean to tell all to Schanvoch."

Ellen promised her sister to follow her advice. But Victorin never returned. I learned all these details only later. This happened in the course of the fifth or sixth week after the great battle of the Rhine, and exactly eight days before the catastrophe that it is my duty, my son, to relate to you.

On that fateful day I spent the early part of the evening near Victoria conferring with her upon an urgent mission on which I was to depart on that very evening, and which might keep me several days from home. Although Victorin promised his mother to be present at the conference, the purpose of which was known to him, he remained away. I did not wonder at his absence. For some time, and without it being possible for me to fathom his whimsical conduct, he had avoided all opportunity of encountering me. Victoria said to me pathetically when I left her at the usual hour:

"Private feelings must be hushed before interests of state. I have spoken to you fully on the subject of the mission that I have charged you with, Schanvoch. And now the mother will unbosom her private grief. I had this morning a sad conversation with my son. I vainly implored him to confide to me the cause of the secret sorrow that is consuming him. He answered me with a distressful smile:

"'I want much more,' I replied to him, unable to restrain my tears. 'I want to see you happy as in the past. You suffer, my son; you suffer a pain that you conceal from me. The consciousness of a wise and thoughtful life, as becomes the chief of a great people, imparts to his face a grave yet serene expression. Your face, however, is haggard, sinister, pale, like that of a man distracted and in despair—'"

"And what did Victorin say to that?"

"Nothing. He relapsed into the gloomy brooding in which I find him so often plunged, and from which he emerges only to cast wandering looks about. I then showed him his child, whom I held in my arms. He took it, kissed it several times with great tenderness, put it back into its cradle, and left abruptly without saying a word. I believe he wished to hide his tears from me. I saw that he wept. Oh! Schanvoch, my heart breaks when I think of the future that seemed to me so rosy for Gaul, for my son and for me!"

When I reached home, my son, I found your mother Ellen and her sister Sampso seated near your cradle. The moment Sampso saw me she cried:

"You arrive in time, Schanvoch, to help me convince Ellen that her fears are groundless—she is weeping—"

"What ails you, Ellen? What afflicts you?"

She dropped her head, made no answer, and continued weeping.

"She does not dare to admit to you the cause of her affliction, Schanvoch; my sister weeps because you are about to depart."

"What?" I asked Ellen in a tone of tender reproach, "you who are always so brave even when I leave for battle, are now timorous and tearful when I am only going on a peaceful journey that will not keep me away more than a few days—a journey into Gaul, where peace reigns! Ellen, your apprehensions are groundless."

"That is exactly what I have been repeating to my sister. Your journey does not expose you to any danger; and if you depart to-night it is because the matter is urgent."

"I know all that," said Ellen in a tremulous voice. "My alarm is senseless; and yet this journey fills me with dread."

And stretching her arms towards me imploringly:

"Schanvoch, my beloved husband, do not depart; I conjure you—do not depart—"

"Ellen," I replied sadly, "for the first time in my life I am compelled to answer you with a refusal—"

"I beg you, stay near me!"

"I would sacrifice everything to you, my duty excepted. The mission with which I am charged by Victoria is important—I promised to fulfil it. I must keep my word."

"Well, then, go," answered my wife amid a paroxysm of sobs, "and let my fate come upon me; it is your will!"

"Sampso, what fate does she mean?"

"Alas! Since this morning my sister has been a prey to gloomy presentiments. She admitted them to be as unaccountable as I considered them myself, and yet she is unable to overcome them. She says she feels certain that she will never see you again—or that some grave peril threatens you during your journey."

"Ellen, my beloved wife," I said, clasping her to my heart, "need I tell you that, short as our separation may be, it is always hard for me to be away from you? Would you add to that sorrow, the even greater one of having to leave you in such a desolate state?"

Despite her apparent resignation, my wife seemed to suffer so much under the restraint that she imposed upon herself, that for a moment I thought of requesting Victoria to transfer the commission to Captain Marion, to the end that I might remain at home. One consideration held me back from putting the thought into execution; the time was too short. Seeing that the journey had to be undertaken that same night, Captain Marion could not possibly start on the spot. It would take hours in order to post the captain upon a matter of which he knew absolutely nothing, and which demanded promptness for success. Yielding to my duty, and, I must also say, convinced of the idleness of Ellen's fears, I decided to depart. I clasped her in my arms, and recommending her to the tender care of Sampso, I mounted my horse and rode off.

We had ridden about two hours without exchanging a word; the moon due in the sky towards midnight began to show her disk behind a hill that bounded the horizon. We had arrived at a crossing where four highways, built by the Romans, met. I slackened Tom-Bras's pace in order to ascertain the road I was to take, when suddenly my traveling companion raised his voice behind me and cried:

"Schanvoch, ride back home at full tilt—a horrible crime is being committed at this hour in your house!"

"If," I thought to myself, "by some unconceivable accident the announcement to which I hearkened was as ill founded as Ellen's forebodings, with which, however, it strangely coincided; if my alarm turns out to be vain, I shall take a fresh horse at the camp and immediately resume my journey, which will have been delayed by three hours."

"Did you see a rider enter town this night?"

"About a quarter of an hour ago," the soldier answered, "a rider wrapped in a hooded mantle went by at a gallop. He rode towards the camp."

"Schanvoch—you have killed me—thanks, my friend—it is sweet to me to die at your hands—I would not have been able to survive my shame—"

It was Ellen's voice.

My wife had run, dumb with terror, to place herself under my protection. It was her arms that had clasped me. I heard her fall upon the floor. I remained thunder-struck. My sword dropped from my hand; for several seconds the silence of death reigned in the room that was perfectly dark except for a beam of pale light that fell from the moon through the lattice of one of the shutters that the wind had blown to. The shutter was suddenly thrown open again from without, and by the light of the moon I saw a tall and slender woman, clad in a short red skirt and a silvery corsage, resting with her knee upon the outer window sill and leaning her head into the room say:

"Victorin!" I cried horrified, believing myself the sport of a frightful nightmare. "It was he—I killed him!"

"The husband!" exclaimed Kidda, the Bohemian, leaping back. "It must be the devil that brought him back!"

And she vanished.

Immediately afterwards I heard the sound of a cart's wheels and the clinking of the bell of the mule that drew it rapidly away, while from another direction, from the quarter of the camp, I heard a distant roar that drew steadily nearer and resembled the hubbub of a tumultuous mob. My stupor was followed by a distressful agony lighted by a faint ray of hope—perhaps Ellen was not dead. I ran to the inside chamber; it was closed from within. I knocked and called Sampso at the top of my voice. She answered me from another room, in which she had been locked up. I set her free, crying aloud:

"I struck Ellen with my sword in the dark—the wound may not be mortal;—run for the druid Omer—"

"I shall run to him on the spot," answered Sampso without asking me any questions.

She rushed to the house door which was bolted from within. As she opened it I saw a mob of soldiers advancing over the square where my house was situated and which was close to the entrance of the camp. Several soldiers carried torches; all uttered loud and threatening cries in which the name of Victorin constantly recurred.

I recognized the veteran Douarnek at the head of the mob. He was brandishing his sword.

"And the criminal is Victorin!" cried several voices drowning mine. "Death to the infamous fellow!"

"Death to the infamous fellow, who violated the wife of his friend!"

"Just as he violated the wife of the tavern-keeper on the Rhine, who killed herself in despair."

"The cowardly hypocrite pretended to have mended his ways!"

"To dishonor a soldier's wife! The wife of Schanvoch, who loved the debauché as if he were his own son!"

"And who, moreover, saved his life in battle!"

"Death! Death to the wretch!"

I found it impossible to dominate the furious cries with my voice; Sampso vainly sought to cross the crowd.

"For pity's sake, let me pass!" Sampso implored them. "I wish to fetch a physician druid. Ellen still breathes; her wound may not be mortal! Let me bring her help!"

Her words only served to redouble the indignation and fury of the soldiers. Instead of opening a passage for my wife's sister, they drove her back as they crowded towards the door. A compact and enraged mass stood there brandishing their swords, shaking their fists and vociferating:

"Death! Death to Victorin!"

"He slew Schanvoch's wife after doing violence to her!"

"She has died as the tavern-keeper's wife on the Rhine!"

"Victorin!" thundered Douarnek. "You will not this time escape punishment for your crimes!"

"We shall be your executioners!"

"Death! Death to Victorin!"

"I shall try to get out by the window," said Sampso.

Saying this the distracted girl rushed into the mortuary chamber, and I, making superhuman efforts to prevent the infuriated soldiers from invading my house in search of the general, for whose blood they thirsted, cried out to them:

"Withdraw! Leave me alone in this house of mourning! Justice has been done! Withdraw, comrades, withdraw!"

An ever heightening tumult drowned my words. I saw Sampso issuing from your mother's room carrying you, my son, in her arms. She was sobbing aloud and said:

"Brother, there is no hope! Ellen is rigid—her heart has stopped beating—she is dead!"

"Dead! Oh, dead! Hesus, have pity upon me!" I moaned and leaned against the wall of the vestibule; I felt my strength leaving me. Suddenly, however, a thrill ran through my frame. From mouth to mouth these words began to circulate among the soldiers:

"Here is Victoria! Here comes our mother!"

As the words were uttered the crowd swayed back from the entrance of my house to make room for my foster-sister. Such was the respect that the august woman inspired in the army, that silence speedily succeeded the tumultuous clamors of the soldiers. They realized the terrible position of that mother, who, attracted by the cries for justice and vengeance uttered against her own son, accused of an infamous crime, approached the scene in all the majesty of her maternal grief.

The crowd of soldiers parted; they formed a long passage; and by the light of the moon and the torches I saw Victoria, clad in her long black robe and her little grandson in her arms, advancing slowly. She doubtlessly hoped to soothe the exasperation of the soldiers by presenting the innocent creature to their sight. Tetrik, Captain Marion and several other officers, who had notified Victoria of the tumult and its cause, followed behind her. They seemed to succeed in calming the seething fury of the troops. The silence grew solemn. The Mother of the Camps was only a few steps from my house when Douarnek approached her, and bending his knee said:

"Mother, your son has committed a great crime—we pity you from the bottom of our hearts. But you will see to it that justice is rendered us—we demand justice—"

"Yes, yes, justice!" cried the soldiers, whose irritation, after being checked for a moment, now broke out with renewed violence. The cry broke forth from all parts: "Justice! Or we will do justice ourselves!"

"Death to the infamous wretch!"

"Death to the man who dishonored his friend's wife!"

"Cursed be the name of Victorin!"

"Yes, cursed—cursed!" repeated a thousand threatening voices. "Cursed be his name forever!"

It was then that the cries broke forth with fiercest violence:

"Death to Victorin! Cursed be his name!"

And immediately I perceived my recent traveling companion, recognizable by his cloak and hood, in which he still kept himself closely wrapped, push himself with a menacing air toward Victoria, and shaking his fist at her, cry:

"Yes, cursed be the name of Victorin! Let his stock be uprooted!"

"You demand justice? Justice has been done. I, Schanvoch, I have killed Victorin myself. He is innocent of my wife's death. Now, withdraw. Allow the Mother of the Camps to enter my house that she may weep over the bodies of her son and grandson."

Victoria thereupon said to me in a firm voice as she stood at the threshold of my house:

"You killed my son; you were right to avenge the outrage done to you."

"Yes," I answered her in a hollow voice, "yes, and in the dark I also killed my wife."

Victoria entered the house amidst the religious silence of the soldiers who stood grouped without. Captain Marion and Tetrik followed her in. She motioned to them to remain outside of the death room, where she wished to be left alone with me and Sampso.

At the sight of my wife, lying dead upon the floor, I fell upon my knees sobbing beside her. I raised her beautiful head, now pale and cold; closed her eyes; and taking the beloved body in my arms I laid it on my bed. Again I knelt down, and with my head resting upon the pillow on which hers reclined, I could no longer restrain my grief. I sobbed and moaned. I remained there long weeping and disconsolate; I could hear the suppressed sobs of Victoria.

Finally her voice recalled me to myself; I thought of what she must be suffering; I looked around. She was seated on the floor near the corpse of Victorin, whose head rested on her maternal knees.

"Schanvoch," said my foster-sister as she gently brushed back with her hands the hair that fell over Victorin's forehead, "my son is no more; I may weep over him, despite his crime. Here he lies dead—dead—dead and not yet twenty-three years old!"

"Brother, you avenged your honor—you have my pardon and pity—"

"Alas! I struck Victorin in the dark—I struck him in a fit of blind rage—I struck him without knowing that it was he! Hesus is my witness! Had I recognized your son, Oh, sister! I would have cursed him, but my sword would have dropped at my feet—"

Victoria gazed at me in silence. My words seemed to lift a heavy weight from her heart. She looked relieved at learning that I had killed her son without knowing him. She reached out her hand to me feelingly, and I carried it respectfully to my lips. For several minutes we remained silent. She then said to Ellen's sister:

"Sampso, were you here this fatal night? Speak, I pray you. What happened?"

"It was midnight," Sampso answered in a voice broken with sobs. "Schanvoch had left the house two hours before on his journey. I was lying here beside my sister—I heard a rap at the house door—I threw a cloak over my shoulders and went to the door to ask who it was. A woman's voice with a foreign accent answered—"

"A woman's voice?" I asked in a tone of surprise shared by Victoria. "Are you sure it was a woman's voice that answered you, Sampso?"

"Yes; that was the snare. The voice said to me: 'I come from Victoria with a very important message for Ellen, the wife of Schanvoch, who left on a journey two hours ago.'"

At these words of Sampso's, Victoria and I exchanged looks of increasing astonishment. Sampso proceeded:

"Oh! The unhappy boy! The unhappy boy!" I cried. "He was not in his senses! Only so! Oh, only so! He never could otherwise have attempted such a crime!"

"Proceed, Sampso," said Victoria with a profound sigh; "proceed with your account—"

"Without saying a word to me, Victorin pointed to the door of my own room, the room I always occupied when I did not share my sister's room during the absence of Schanvoch. In my terror I guessed all. I cried to Ellen: 'Sister, lock your door!' and I began to call for help as loud as I could. My cries exasperated Victorin. He seized and threw me into my room. Just as he was about to lock me in I saw Ellen hurrying out of her room. She looked pale and frightened; she was almost naked. I afterwards heard the distressing cries of my sister calling for help—I heard them struggle—I fainted away. I know not how long I remained in that state. I regained consciousness when someone knocked at my door and called me by name. It was Schanvoch. I answered him. He must have opened it for me—I saw him—"

"And you," Victoria said, turning to me. "How was it that you returned so suddenly?"

"At about four leagues from Mayence, I was notified that a crime was being committed in my house."

"And who could have notified you?"

"A soldier; my escort."

"I know not—he vanished across the forest the instant that he gave me the sinister information. That soldier got back to town before me—he was the same man who tore your grandchild from your arms and killed it at your feet—"

"Schanvoch," resumed Victoria with a shudder and carrying both her hands to her forehead, "my son is dead—I shall neither accuse nor excuse him—but a horrible mystery underlies this crime—"

"Listen," I replied, as several circumstances that had slipped my memory at the first pangs of my grief now came back to my mind. "When I arrived before the door of my house, I knocked; only the distant sound of Sampso's cries answered me. A moment later the lower window of my wife's room was opened. I ran thither. The shutters were being pushed aside to give passage to a man, while Ellen cried for help. I pushed the man back into the room, which was dark as a tomb—in the darkness I struck and killed your son. Almost immediately after I felt two arms thrown around my neck—I imagined myself attacked by a new assailant—I made another thrust in the dark—it was Ellen, my beloved wife, whom I killed—"

And my sobs choked me.

"Brother—brother," said Victoria to me, "this has been a fatal night to us all—"

"Listen further—above all to this," I said to my foster-sister, controlling my emotion: "At the very moment when I recognized the voice of my expiring wife, I saw by the light of the moon a woman perched on the casement of the window—"

"It is she probably whose voice deceived me," observed Sampso, "by announcing to me a message from Victoria."

"I think so too," I replied; "and that woman, doubtlessly the accomplice of Victorin's crime, called to him, saying it was time to flee, and that she now was his, seeing he had kept the promise that he made to her."

"A promise?" Again Victoria pondered. "What promise could he have made to her?"

"To dishonor Ellen—"

My foster-sister shuddered and said:

"I repeat it, Schanvoch, this crime is wrapped in some horrible mystery. But who may that woman have been?"

"One of the two Bohemian dancers who recently arrived at Mayence. Listen. Seeing that she received no answer from Victorin, and hearing the distant but approaching clamors of the soldiers who were angrily hastening to my house, she leaped down and vanished. A second after the rumbling of her cart informed me of her flight. In my despair it never occurred to me to pursue her. I knew I had just killed Ellen near the cradle of our son—Ellen, my dearly beloved wife!"

I could not continue. Tears and sobs deprived me of speech. Sampso and Victoria remained silent.

"This is a veritable abyss!" resumed the Mother of the Camps. "An abyss that my mind can not fathom. My son's crime is great—his intoxication, so far from excusing, only serves to render the deed all the more shameful. And yet, Schanvoch, you know not what love this poor child had for you—"

"It is not a reproach that I make, brother," replied Victoria. "Had I been a witness of my son's crime, I would have killed him with my own hands, to the end that he cease to dishonor his mother, and Gaul, that chose him chief. I refer to Victorin's love for you because I believe that, without his being in a state of inebriety and without some dark machination, he never would have committed such a misdeed—"

"As for me, sister, I believe I see through this infernal plot—"

"You do? Speak!"

"Before the great battle of the Rhine an infamous calumny was spread over the camp against Victorin. The army's affection for him was being withdrawn. Your son's victory regained for him the soldiers' affection. See how that old calumny becomes to-day a frightful reality. Victorin's crime cost him his life—and also his son's. His stock is extinct. A new chief must now be chosen for Gaul. Is this not so?"

"Yes, brother, all that is true."

"Did not that unknown soldier, my traveling companion, know when he revealed to me that a crime was being committed in my house—did he not know that unless I arrived in time to kill Victorin myself in the first access of my rage, your son would certainly be slaughtered by the troops who would undoubtedly rise in revolt at the first tidings of the felony?"

"But how," put in Sampso, "was the army apprised so soon of the felony, seeing that no one left the house?"

Struck by Sampso's observation the Mother of the Camps started and looked at me. I proceeded:

"His name!" cried Victoria, fixing upon me a look of intense agony. "The name of the man whom you suspect—"

"His name is Tetrik, your relative, the Governor of Gascony."

For the first time since I first expressed my suspicions of her relative, did Victoria seem to share them. She cast her eyes upon the corpse of her son with an expression of pitiful sorrow, kissed his icy forehead several times, and after a moment of profound reflection she seemed to take a supreme resolution. She rose and said to me in a firm voice:

"Where is Tetrik?"

"He awaits your orders in the next room, I presume, with Captain Marion. What are your orders?"

"I wish them both to come in, immediately."

"In this chamber of death?"

"I have thought of that—" and struck with a sudden thought, I added: "It was Captain Marion who chose the rider that was to escort me."

"We shall question the captain. Go, brother. Order them in! Order them in!"

I obeyed Victoria and called in Tetrik and Marion. Both hastened to answer to the summons.

Despite the grief that rent my heart I had the fortitude to watch attentively the face of the Governor of Gascony. The moment he stepped into the room, the first object he seemed to notice was the corpse of Victorin. Tetrik's features immediately assumed the appearance of unspeakable anguish; tears flowed copiously down his cheeks; clasping his hands he dropped on his knees near the body and cried in a voice that seemed rent with grief:

"Dead at the prime of his age—dead—he, so brave—so generous! The hope, the strong sword of Gaul. Ah! I forget the foibles of this unhappy youth before the frightful misfortune that has befallen my country!"

Tetrik could not proceed. Sobs smothered his voice. On his knees and cowering in a heap, his face hidden in his hands and dropping scalding tears he remained as if crushed with pain near Victorin's body.

"What a calamity! Ah! poor child! Poor mother!"

Captain Marion then took a few steps forward and said in short and broken words:

"Victoria—you are to be pitied—I pity you. Victorin loved you—he was a worthy son—I also loved him. My beard has turned grey, and yet I found a delight in serving under that young man. He was the first captain of our age. None of us can replace him. He had but two vices—the taste for wine and, above all, the pest of profligacy. I often quarreled with him on that. I was right, you see it! Well, we must not quarrel with him now. He had a brave heart. I can say no more to you, Victoria. And what would it boot? A mother can not be consoled. Do not think me unfeeling because I do not weep. One weeps only when he can; but I assure you that you have my sympathy from the bottom of my heart. I could not be sadder or more cast down had I lost my friend Eustace—"

And taking a few steps, Marion again looked from Victoria to her little grandson, repeating as his eyes wandered from the one to the other:

"Oh! the poor child! Oh! the poor mother!"

Still upon his knees beside Victorin, Tetrik did not cease sobbing and moaning. While his grief was as demonstrative as Captain Marion's was reserved, it seemed sincere. Nevertheless, my suspicions still resisted the test, and I saw that my foster-sister shared my doubts. Again she made a violent effort over herself and said:

The Governor of Gascony did not seem to hear the voice of his relative.

"Tetrik," Victoria repeated, leaning over to touch the man's shoulder, "I am speaking to you; answer me."

"Who speaks?" cried the governor as if his mind wandered. "What do they want? Where am I?"