Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes by Robert Louis Stevenson
page 77 of 110 (70%)
Here was a good reason for the last; but in the course of his
inspectorship he had given many stronger which all told in a contrary
direction; and these he was now to hear. One by one, Seguier first, the
Camisards drew near and stabbed him. 'This,' they said, 'is for my
father broken on the wheel. This for my brother in the galleys. That
for my mother or my sister imprisoned in your cursed convents.' Each
gave his blow and his reason; and then all kneeled and sang psalms around
the body till the dawn. With the dawn, still singing, they defiled away
towards Frugeres, farther up the Tarn, to pursue the work of vengeance,
leaving Du Chayla's prison-house in ruins, and his body pierced with two-
and-fifty wounds upon the public place.

'Tis a wild night's work, with its accompaniment of psalms; and it seems
as if a psalm must always have a sound of threatening in that town upon
the Tarn. But the story does not end, even so far as concerns Pont de
Montvert, with the departure of the Camisards. The career of Seguier was
brief and bloody. Two more priests and a whole family at Ladeveze, from
the father to the servants, fell by his hand or by his orders; and yet he
was but a day or two at large, and restrained all the time by the
presence of the soldiery. Taken at length by a famous soldier of
fortune, Captain Poul, he appeared unmoved before his judges.

'Your name?' they asked.

'Pierre Seguier.'

'Why are you called Spirit?'

'Because the Spirit of the Lord is with me.'

DigitalOcean Referral Badge