Behind his troop of dragoons, numbering thirty-five men, there came a travelling carriage, large, roomy, and much ornamented, and drawn by four horses. In it there sat Urbaine Ducaire on her way to Langogne, the first stage on the road to Paris. By her side was seated a middle-aged gouvernante or companion, whom Baville had told off to accompany her until she reached Avignon, where she would be safe outside the troubles of Languedoc and where she was to continue her journey under the protection of the Duchess d'Uzès. Above the carriage was piled up her valises and portmanteaux; also upon it were three footmen armed with fusils, all of which were ready to their hands; also a waiting maid who was always in attendance upon Urbaine. To complete her guard, behind the great carriage marched a company of the fusileers of Barre and Pompidon, headed by a mounted officer.
Passing the broken and mutilated corpse upon the wheel, Poul pointed to it with his glove and laughed; then, reining back his horse until the dragoons had gone by, he looked in at the great window and remarked to Urbaine:
"Mademoiselle perceives the canaille are not always triumphant. As it is with that crushed rat there, so it will be with all. Time! Time! Our vengeance will come."
But the girl, after casting one horrified glance at the thing which was shrivelling in the broiling September sun, had shrunk back affrighted into the depths of the great travelling carriage and thrown up her hands before her eyes while the gouvernante, addressing Poul, said:
"Monsieur le Capitaine, why call our attention to that? It is no pleasing sight even to a devout Catholic, moreover a bitter one when we remember the fearful retaliation that has been exacted. Have you forgotten the Abbé du Chaila, the curé of Frugéres?"
"Forgotten!" exclaimed the rough Carcassonnais, "forgotten! Ventre bleu! I have forgotten nothing. Else why am I here? Beautiful as is the freight of this carriage," and he made a rough bow "it needs no Capitaine Poul to command the dragoons who escort it in safety. Any porte drapeau, or unfledged lieutenant, could do that. Nay, it is in hopes that we may meet some of these singing, snivel-nosed Calvinists that I ride with you to-day. Oh, for the chance!"
"Send him away," whispered Urbaine; "he terrifies me. Would that my father had chosen some other officer."
Ere, however, her companion could do as she requested, Poul had turned his wrist and ridden again to the head of his troops, a fierce look of eagerness on his face, a gleam in his coal-black eyes. For from ahead of where the cavalcade had now arrived--a shady part of the road, on one side of which there rose precipitously some rocks crowned with bushes, while on the other was a meadow--he heard a sound which told him his wish was very likely to be granted.
A sound of singing, of many voices in unison. Voices uttering words which reached the ears of all, causing the dragoons and fusileers to look to their arms and the women and footmen to turn white with apprehension.
A sound of singing that rose and fell upon the soft afternoon air as though somewhere a conventicle was being held. And these the words they sung: