Yet one precaution had been taken for their journey--a precaution never neglected by those dwellers of the mountains, in case they were forced to take to flight and desired to leave no trace behind them--their animals were shod backward on their fore feet, a method which, in conjunction with the usual shoeing of the hind feet, was almost certain to baffle those who should endeavour to follow their tracks.
Beneath that moon which shone fitfully from the deep masses of rain-charged clouds the two men paced in Indian file down the narrow passes, seeing as they went that which, for now many weeks, had been visible to all eyes in the province--namely, the flames of villages on fire at different points of the compass; hearing, too, as they were borne on the winds, the distant ringing of alarm bells and tocsins from many a beleaguered church and monastery. For not only did those flames spring from edifices wherein the old faith was still maintained, but also from the villages and hamlets where some Protestants continued to dwell and worship in their own manner, hoping ever for better, happier days. Already it was calculated that more than forty Romish churches had been destroyed, with, in many cases, the bourgs in which they stood; ere all was over the number was doubled. And already, also, more than that number of Protestant places of worship, with the villages around them, had been pillaged, sacked, and burned by Montrevel and Julien, while, in their case, ere all was over the number was almost trebled.
Thinking of his newly declared love for Urbaine, thinking, too, of how, in whispered words, she had declared her love for him in return, of how in their last hasty embrace, which had been also their first, they had sworn deathless fidelity to each other, Martin took but little heed of those midnight sights telling of happy homes ruined forever which he had now been forced so often to gaze upon from the heights where the Camisards dwelt. He had grown accustomed to these beacons of horror, in spite of the unhappiness they caused him.
But now he saw a new phase of stern justice and punishment at which he could not fail to shudder.
High up upon three gibbets at the wayside by which they passed--gibbets so placed that, when their ghastly burdens should rot from the chains which held them now, they would fall down and down until they reached the bottom of the ravine a thousand feet below--there hung three corpses; swung waving to the mountain air, while ever and anon upon their white but blood-stained faces the moon glinted now and again, making those faces look as though they perspired in her rays, were clammy with sweat. And two grinned hideously in those rays, a bullet wound which had shattered the mouth of one giving to his face the appearance of a man convulsed with laughter, while the smirk of the other face was, in truth, the last grimace of the death agony. The features of the third told naught, since, from a wound in his forehead, there had run out the blood which was now caked and hardened to a mask, hiding all below.
"My God!" exclaimed Martin, with a shiver, "who are they? Men caught here and executed as spys, troopers made prisoners and done to death by the avengers?"
"Nay," replied the man, while he made a contemptuous gesture at the loathsome things that at the moment executed a weird fantastic movement in unison as a fresh gust of wind swept down from the mountains above, making them sway and dance to its cold breath, "nay, vagabonds, marauds. Murderers these, not soldiers. Those men are of our number--were of our number--Protestants--ourselves."
"What, traitors?"
"Ay, traitors--to humanity. Listen! They caught one, a good woman, Madame de Miramand, a Papist, yet a kindly creature who succoured all alike. Also she was young, not twenty, and beautiful. She was en voyage"--again Martin shuddered, thinking of another woman young and beautiful who had also been en voyage, and almost caught--"had with her her jewels, also her vaisselles. Well they slew her even as she knelt before them, stabbed her, left her to die, left her thus as she prayed God to pardon them."
"Go on," Martin said, seeing that he paused.