[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them. D.W.]





WHEN VALMOND CAME TO PONTIAC

The Story of a Lost Napoleon

By Gilbert Parker

Volume 3.



CHAPTER XIII

The sickness had come like a whirlwind: when it passed, what would be
left? The fight went on in the quiet hills--a man of no great stature
or strength, against a monster who racked him in a fierce embrace. A
thousand scenes flashed through Valmond's brain, before his eyes, while
the great wheel of torture went round, and he was broken, broken-mended
and broken again, upon it. Spinning--he was for ever spinning, like a
tireless moth through a fiery air; and the world went roaring past. In
vain he cried to the wheelman to stop the wheel: there was no answer.
Would those stars never cease blinking in and out, or the wind stop
whipping the swift clouds past? So he went on, endless years, driving