The girl ran back to the Balsille, and, panting, told her tale. Gaspard’s face flushed with proud joy as he heard her; he rejoiced that it was his Rénée that was bringing help to the Vaudois, that it should be the grandchild of Janavel who was the bearer of the best news that could come to the starving and half-desperate people.
‘It is our God’s granary!’ said Henri Botta, solemnly. ‘Our Father, who Himself stored His corn for us thus.’
And were not the words true? The God who feedeth the young lions when they cry had not forgotten His servants in the time of their need.
So the silent mill-stones of Marcel revolved once more, and the scent of the dry grain was as fragrance in the nostrils of the mountaineers. ‘We shall be ready for the foe at Easter,’ they said, and their light-hearted laughter rung out on the wind.
But their case was too grave and their position too perilous for a few acres of rye to be their salvation. When Easter came they were still holding the Balsille; but as Arnaud called them together for the daily service of prayer, he noted how their ranks had shrunk, and he saw how sickness had reduced the strength of such as still called themselves fighting men.
The foe returned in early spring; a foe numbering now no less than twenty-two thousand! Arnaud and his feeble garrison could muster but about six hundred! surely an insignificant garrison to call forth such an armament for its reduction. Cannon were planted on the opposite hill; batteries were cast up on all sides. The Balsille must be taken now, were the Vaudois as obstinate as the barbets their enemies had scoffingly likened them to. A flag of truce was sent to them, and they were summoned for the last time to surrender.
Arnaud’s answer is historical. ‘We are no subjects of the King of France,’ he said. ‘We cannot treat with his officers. We are in the heritage left us by our fathers from times unknown; by the aid and grace of the Lord of Hosts we will live and die therein. Discharge your artillery; our rocks will not be terrified, and we will listen to the thunder with calmness, should there be but ten of us left!’
The defiance was as lofty in tone as ever, but yet the heart of the man who sent that proud answer had been brought very low. His trust did not fail him, nor his submission to God’s will, but he had begun to think that it must be this will of God that he and his men should die there on the hills of their country, and that the race of the Vaudois should perish from the earth. ‘Even so, Father, since it is good in Thy sight!’
On the 14th of May they saw the Balsille could no longer be defended. Flight only remained; and once more they must begin the weary wanderings amongst caves and holes in the rocks, chased as David was chased by Saul on the hills of Palestine. Covered by a dense fog, they crept through the French lines, a woeful wreck and remnant, flying to their hill hiding-places, afraid lest word or step should betray them to immediate slaughter. Southwards they fled; down through Prali towards the mountains of Angrogna.
‘Mother,’ said Rénée, ‘this wild journeying will kill thee. We women can never keep up with the march of our troops. Is it not better to stay here where we stand? we can but die.’