"
"Yes, but the import of those letters?"
"No."
"And yet, should they be written in letters of blood!" the minister
exclaimed, his face kindling. "They should scorch the hands that hold
them and blister the eyes that read them. They are the fire and the
sword! They are the King's order to do at Angers as they have done in
Paris. To slay all of the religion who are found there--and they are
many! To spare none, to have mercy neither on the old man nor the unborn
child! See yonder hawk!" he continued, pointing with a shaking hand to a
falcon which hung light and graceful above the valley, the movement of
its wings invisible. "How it disports itself in the face of the sun! How
easy its way, how smooth its flight! But see, it drops upon its prey in
the rushes beside the brook, and the end of its beauty is slaughter! So
is it with yonder company!" His finger sank until it indicated the
little camp seated toy-like in the green meadow four hundred feet below
them, with every man and horse, and the very camp-kettle, clear-cut and
visible, though diminished by distance to fairy-like proportions. "So it
is with yonder company!" he repeated sternly. "They play and are merry,
and one fishes and another sleeps! But at the end of the journey is
death. Death for their victims, and for them the judgment!"
She stood, as he spoke, in the ruined gateway, a walled grass-plot behind
her, and at her feet the stream, the smiling valley, the alders, and the
little camp.
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