faction. For some time his wife, who was infirm and deformed, might be
seen going from house to house asking alms for him, who had been for two
months the arbiter of civil war and assassination. Then came a day when
she ceased her quest, and was seen sitting, her head covered by a black
rag: Pointu was dead, but it was never known where or how. In some
corner, probably, in the crevice of a rock or in the heart of the forest,
like an old tiger whose talons have been clipped and his teeth drawn.

Naudaud and Magnan were sentenced to the galleys for ten years. Naudaud
died there, but Magnan finished his time and then became a scavenger,
and, faithful to his vocation as a dealer of death, a poisoner of stray
dogs.

Some of these cut-throats are still living, and fill good positions,
wearing crosses and epaulets, and, rejoicing in their impunity, imagine
they have escaped the eye of God.

We shall wait and see!




CHAPTER IX

It was on Saturday that the white flag was hoisted at Nimes. The next
day a crowd of Catholic peasants from the environs marched into the city,
to await the arrival of the Royalist army from Beaucaire. Excitement was
at fever heat, the desire of revenge filled every breast, the hereditary
hatred which had slumbered during the Empire again awoke stronger than
ever. Here I may pause to say that in the account which follows of the