"Isn't it a pity," sneered Mikel Grallon, "to see a pretty girl wasting herself on a coward, when----"
He did not complete the sentence, for Rohan stretched out his hand and smote him down. Grallon fell like a log.
A wild cry arose from all the men, the women screamed, even Marcelle shrank back; and Rohan strode to the door, pushing his way out.
"Hold him! Kill him!" shouted some.
"Arrest him!" cried Corporal Derval.
Rohan hurled his opponents right and left like so many ninepins. They fell back and gasped. Then, turning his white face for an instant on Marcelle, her lover passed unmolested out into the darkness.
II.--In the Cathedral of the Sea
Along the wild, rugged shore, a little way from Kromlaix, was an immense cavern of crimson granite, hung with gleaming moss, and washed by the roaring tides of the sea. Its towering walls had been carved by wind and water into thousands of beautiful, fantastical forms, and a dim religious light fell from above through a long, funnel-shaped hole running from the roof of the cavern to the top of the great cliff.
It was here that Rohan Gwenfern hid from the band of soldiers sent in pursuit of him. The air was damp and chill, but he breathed it with the comfort of a hardy animal. He made a bed of dry seaweed on the top of the precipice leading to the hole in the cliff, where his mother came and lowered food to him every evening; and Jannedik, a pet goat that used to follow him everywhere in the days when he was a free man, was his only companion. Strange and solitary was the life he led, but he slept as soundly in his bed of seaweed on the wild precipice as he did in his bed at home.
But one morning, when he awoke, a confused murmur broke upon his ear. Peering over the ledge, he saw a crowd of soldiers standing on the shingle at the mouth of the cavern.