"'Tis simple why we follow," a second put in. "Is there a man of our
faith who will not, when he hears the tale, rise up and stab the nearest
of this black brood--though it be his brother? If so, God's curse on
him!"
"Amen! Amen!"
"So, and so only," cried the first, "shall there be faith in our land!
And our children, our little maids, shall lie safe in their beds!"
"Amen! Amen!"
The speaker's chin sank on his breast, and with his last word the light
died out of his eyes. La Tribe looked at him curiously, then at the
others. Last of all at Tignonville, on whose face he fancied that he
surprised a faint smile. Yet Tignonville's tone when he spoke was grave
enough.
"You have heard," he said. "Do you blame us?"
"I cannot," the minister answered, shivering. "I cannot." He had been
for a while beyond the range of these feelings; and in the greenwood,
under God's heaven, with the sunshine about him, they jarred on him. Yet
he could not blame men who had suffered as these had suffered; who were
maddened, as these were maddened, by the gravest wrongs which it is
possible for one man to inflict on another. "I dare not," he continued
sorrowfully. "But in God's name I offer you a higher and a nobler
errand."
"We need none," Tignonville muttered impatiently.
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