Mathurin and the others screamed at him and hooted. "You are a fool!"
they shouted. "You will be the undoing of us all. Do you not know that
one shot fired, nay, only one musket found, and the enemy puts a torch
to the whole place?"

"I know," said Bernadou, with a dark radiance in his azure eyes. "But
then it is a choice between disgrace and the flames; let us only take
heed to be clear of the first--the last must rage as God wills."

But they screamed and mouthed and hissed at him: "Oh yes! fine talk,
fine talk! See your own roof in flames if you will; you shall not ruin
ours. Do what you will with your own neck; keep it erect or hang by it,
as you choose. But you have no right to give your neighbours over to
death, whether they will or no."

He strove, he pleaded, he conjured, he struggled with them half the
night, with the salt tears running down his cheeks, and all his gentle
blood burning with righteous wrath and loathing shame, stirred for the
first time in all his life to a rude, simple, passionate eloquence. But
they were not persuaded. Their few gold pieces hidden in the rafters,
their few feeble sheep starving in the folds, their own miserable lives,
all hungry, woe-begone, and spent in daily terrors--these were still
dear to them, and they would not imperil them. They called him a madman;
they denounced him as one who would be their murderer; they threw
themselves on him and demanded his musket, to bury it with the rest
under the altar in the old chapel on the hill.

Bernadou's eyes flashed fire; his breast heaved; his nerves quivered; he
shook them off and strode a step forward. "As you live," he muttered, "I
have a mind to fire on you, rather than let you live to shame yourselves