Dieu! que Juda connait: Dieu! qu' Israel adore
Salem est ta demeure et Sion ton autel!
Ton bras de nos tyrans a rompu Tare sonore,
La glaive qui dévore
Et le combat mortel.
"Ha!" called out Poul, his dark face now more suffused with rage than before, "they are near at hand. Swords out, mes dragons, avancez--en double ligne de Colonne; here is more garbage for the wheel. En avance les fusiliers--the carriage behind. Tambours battants. En avant!"
And while the women screamed, Urbaine burying her fair head for a moment on the gouvernante's shoulder, the dragoons fell into double line, and the fusileers of Barre and Pompidon, passing swiftly on on either side of the great carriage formed up behind them, their drums beating scornfully.
At first they saw no enemy, scarce expected to see any, since all knew by now that these mountaineers fought on the system of those dreaded Indians whom some of this force had already encountered on the shores of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi--namely, by sheltering themselves behind every available tree or rock, or even shrub, from which they fired on their foes with deadly effect. But they heard them. Heard again the solemn hymn they sang in the hour of battle, of death, and of vengeance:
Aux éclairs de ta foudre, à sa fumante trombe Le cœur manque an vaillant, le bras échappé au fort Le char d'airain se brise, et le coursier succombe,
Et le guerrier qui tombe
S'assoupit dans la mort!
Then a moment later they saw their foes, or some of them.
Upon the summit of the rock sixty feet above their heads, amid the stunted trees and bushes that grew thereon, they saw appear a strange crowd. Men, tall and swarthy, some old, some almost boys, while there was one of the latter whose fantastic attire--a vest of bleached Holland garnished with silver buttons, culottes of chamois leather, gold-gallooned, ivory-hilted sword, scarlet mantle and black felt hat, with long white ostrich feather--would better have become one of Luxembourg's dandy cavaliers than an attroupé of the mountains. Also three men, venerable-looking, yet fierce and stern, two having beards that flowed over their chests, all of whom joined in the hymn that was being sung by a larger body that was ahead of the place where the Royalist troops were--ahead, yet advancing toward those who had been caught in the snare, advancing singing and firing. And by the side of these three, who were Prophets--Inspirés--there stood a girl, black and swarthy, too, a bracelet on her arm and in her hands a musketoon, which she raised and, aiming at the carriage below, fired.
With a shriek the gouvernante fell back on to the cushions dead; with another, Urbaine flung her arms about her, moaning, while now, from all around, the sound of firing was heard, and, pealing high, above all else, the voice of Poul, howling orders, yelling curses, laughing defiantly. Yet why he laughed none knew, for already the saddles of the dragoons were being emptied rapidly; the ground was strewn, too, with the bodies of the fusileers of Barre and Pompidon, those who still lived being driven back.