But still, all around, the fight went on; the sabres swung and the volleys rattled, while from the tower there rose now the death song of those within it. Above all else that was heard a hymn of praise to the God of Battles, the God also of the outcasts--a hymn blessing and magnifying his name. And as it rolled through the fumes and the grime there came next an awful roar, a vast uprising of a monstrous sheet of fresh flame, and, with a crash, the tower came to earth, burying beneath its ruins not only those within it, but also many others around, Camisards and royalists.
"They are bringing their culverins," cried one now above all the tumult, "to play upon the house," and in answer there rang out now another voice which all knew, the voice of Cavalier, the words he shouted being: "Disperse, disperse, my brethren! Children of the mountains and the clouds, disperse as do the clouds themselves. Not to-night is our triumph, yet it will come. It must come."
He spoke truly. The triumph was to come ere long now. The Camisards were to gain their cause at last, but it was not to be to-night, nor by the sword. Instead, by the gentle mediation and mercy of one whose name is still spoken gently in the Cévennes--the name of the great and good Villars.
"You can go no farther?" Urbaine said an hour later to Martin Ashurst, "no farther. Oh, my God, my God, that it should come to this! And for me, for my sake!"
"Nay, dear one, what matter? We are together to the last. And you love me. What more is there to ask?"
"Alas! Alas! I can not live without you, stay behind alone. My love, my love, you must not leave me. Shall not go before. If you die, then must I die too."
And as she spoke she loosened his vest and sought for the wound in his shoulder which had brought him to this pass.
They had found the fosse the Camisards knew of in the old farmhouse. Even as the attack began, Martin, seeking for a place of refuge for her, had thrust open a door at the back of the great old kitchen in which they were, and had led her out of the dangerous room that gave upon the spot where the conflict had begun. Had led her on through a passage sloping down into the earth from behind the house, until, by following it, they found themselves in a place which none could have supposed would have been there; a place like a crypt, stone-flagged, the stones themselves roughly hewn, the pillars dwarfed, yet strong enough to bear a vast fabric above them; a place so old, so long since built, that it may have been some Roman sepulchre, or hiding-place of Albigenses in long-forgotten days, or secret chapel of worship beneath the old feudal castle that had once existed.
Yet there it was, calm and quiet. Even the sounds of the battle now waging in all its fury without came gently to their ears, was scarce heard more strongly than the murmur in a shell or the breaking of the ocean on a far-off shore. Calm and quiet, with, through a recess in the farther wall, perhaps once a niche or shrine, a moonbeam streaming brightly and making the dull flame of the lantern Martin had brought with him, snatching it off the nail where it hung, burn dull and rustily.
And Urbaine, entering with him this haven into which they had penetrated--surely none of those soldiers knew of it, would find it, surely God in his mercy would not permit that--flung herself on her lover's breast sobbing that they were saved again; again were saved by him whom she so loved with her whole heart and soul.