Prayed long and silently, while from outside the bourg--yet advancing, approaching nearer every moment--there came a deep sound. At first a hum, then, next, a clearer, more definite noise, and next, they being distinguishable, the words of a hymn sung by many voices.
Upon the soft night air, so calm and peaceful a moment earlier, those words rolled, the cadence falling and rising until it seemed as though it must reach the mountain tops o'erhanging the village. Rolled up and swelled, and sunk and rose again, telling how the Lord set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who came against Judah; telling how, when they had made an end of one of their particular foes, each helped to destroy another.
Again the pastor moaned: "They have risen. They have risen. God help us all!"
"Who?" asked Martin. "Who? Our own faith? The Protestants? The Camisards? Risen at last."
"At last! At last!" the old man said, glancing up from his prayers. And he began to pray aloud to God to avert the horrors of battle and murder and sudden death.
The tramp of many men came nearer. Past the foot of the garden those men went, a compact mass; in their hands and belts, and borne also upon their shoulders, swords, old halberds, musketoons and pistols, in some cases scythes and reaping hooks. And ahead of all marched three gaunt, weird men, the inspired ones, the prophets of the Cevennes, of the Camisards.
"Keep all within doors," a deep-toned voice exclaimed from out the throng, "on pain of death. Disturb not the children of God, his persecuted ones. No harm is meant to those who interfere not. Keep within doors, also appear not at the windows. All will thereby be well."
And again the psalm uprose, though now there were some who shouted: "To the vile abbé's! To the murderer's! To the house on the bridge! On! On! The soldiers first, the abbé next! On! On! To avenge the Lord!"
Then from farther ahead there rang the report of musketry, and one man fell dead pell-mell among the moving crowd, and was left lying in the white dust of the roadway, as from the window Martin could well see. But still the others shouted: "On! On! God's will be done!"
And again the pastor lifted his hands from where he knelt and cried aloud, "From battle, murder, and sudden death, good Lord deliver us."