Jean at once knelt, and drawing a phial from his breast, poured into Ogier's mouth a spirit distilled from the juniper berries that grow on the Causse.
His father drew a deep inspiration.
"It is a long night, and a bad dream," he said. "Where are the tansy and the butterfly?"
"Father, no time is to be lost. Can you rise?"
The old man scrambled to his feet. He was as one in a trance. Jean led him to the cords, and thrust his father's arms through the loops.
"Mind and hold your hands down," he said. "Father, you will see the light of day! the light of day! Be quick! you will see it before it is gone."
"The light—the sun?" asked Ogier, eagerly.
"The sun is set, father; but you will see the evening sky and the stars."
"The light! O my God! the light, do you say?"
"Draw him up!" ordered Jean, and watched with great anxiety as the ropes were strained and the old Seigneur's feet left the ground. Then Ogier was carried up, and passed with head, then shoulders through the orifice in the vault.