Once she stumbled and struck her head and breast with a dull blow against a pile of wood which, in the furious weather, was unseen by her. It stunned her for the instant, but she rallied and looked up with eyes as used to pierce the deepest gloom as any goshawk's; she discerned the outline of the Calvary, towering high and weirdlike above the edge of the river, where the priests and people had placed it, so that the boatmen could abase themselves and do it honor as they passed the banks.
The lantern on the cross shone far across the stream, but shed no rays upon the path she followed.
At its foot she had stumbled and been bruised upon her errand of mercy; the reflection of its light streamed across to the opposing shore, and gave help to a boat-load of smugglers landing stolen tobacco in a little creek.
She recovered herself and trudged on once more along the lonely road.
"How like their god is to them!" she thought; the wooden crucifix was the type of her persecutors; of those who flouted and mocked her, who flung and pierced her as a witch; who cursed her because she was not of their people. The cross was the hatred of the world incarnated to her; it was in Christ's name that Marcellin's corpse had been cast on the dung and in the ditch; it was in Christ's name that the women had avenged on her the pity which she had shown to Manon Dax; it was in Christ's name that Flamma scourged her because she would not pass rotten figs for sweet.
For the name of Christ is used to cover every crime, by the peasant who cheats his neighbor of a copper coin, as by the sovereign who massacres a nation for a throne.
She left the black cross reared there against the rushes, and plodded on through sand and rain and flood, bearing her load:—in Christ's name they would have seized her as a thief.
The storm abated a little, and every now and then a gleam of moonlight was shed upon the flooded meadows. She gained the base of the tower, and, by means of the length of rope, let by degrees the firewood and the basket through the open portion of the window on to the floor below, then again followed them herself.
Her heart thrilled as she entered.
Her first glance to the desolate hearth showed her that the hours of her absence had brought no change there. The gods had not kept faith with her, they had not raised him from the dead.