the curtains of the bed where the last Marquis had slept. East,

West, North, and South, through the woods, four heavy-treading,

unkempt figures crushed the high grass and cracked the branches,

striding on cautiously to come together in the courtyard. Four

lights broke out there, and moved away in different directions, and

all was black again.

But, not for long. Presently, the chateau began to make itself

strangely visible by some light of its own, as though it were

growing luminous. Then, a flickering streak played behind the

architecture of the front, picking out transparent places, and

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showing where balustrades, arches, and windows were. Then it

soared higher, and grew broader and brighter. Soon, from a score

of the great windows, flames burst forth, and the stone faces

awakened, stared out of fire.

A faint murmur arose about the house from the few people who

were left there, and there was a saddling of a horse and riding

away. There was spurring and splashing through the darkness,

and bridle was drawn in the space by the village fountain, and the

horse in a foam stood at Monsieur Gabelle’s door. “Help, Gabelle!

Help, every one!” The tocsin rang impatiently, but other help (if

that were any) there was none. The mender of roads, and two

hundred and fifty particular friends, stood with folded arms at the

fountain, looking at the pillar of fire in the sky. “It must be forty

feet high,” said they, grimly; and never moved.

The rider from the chateau, and the horse in a foam, clattered

away through the village, and galloped up the stony steep, to the

prison on the crag. At the gate, a group of officers were looking at

the fire; removed from them, a group of soldiers. “Help, gentleman

officers! The chateau is on fire; valuable objects may be saved

from the flames by timely aid! Help, help!” The officers looked

towards the soldiers who looked at the fire; gave no orders; and

answered with shrugs and biting of lips, “It must burn.”

As the rider rattled down the hill again and through the street,

the village was illuminating. The mender of roads, and the two

hundred and fifty particular friends, inspired as one man and

woman by the idea of lighting up, had darted into their houses,

and were putting candles in every dull little pane of glass. The

general scarcity of everything, occasioned candles to be borrowed

in a rather peremptory manner of Monsieur Gabelle; and in a

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moment of reluctance and hesitation on that functionary’s part,

the mender of roads, once so submissive to authority, had

remarked that carriages were good to make bonfires with, and

that post-horses would roast.

The chateau was left to itself to flame and burn. In the roaring

and raging of the conflagration, a red-hot wind, driving straight

from the infernal regions, seemed to be blowing the edifice away.

With the rising and falling of the blaze, the stone faces showed as

if they were in torment. When great masses of stone and timber