"Send me, sire! Me!" he cried.

"I have never asked a favour of you, and never will again.

But I am the man who could break this people.

Send me with your message to the people of the Cevennes." "God help the people of the Cevennes!" muttered Louis, as he looked with mingled respect and loathing at the emaciated face and fiery eyes of the fanatic.

"Very well, abbe," he added aloud; "you shall go to the Cevennes." Perhaps for an instant there came upon the stern priest some premonition of that dreadful morning when, as he crouched in a corner of 'his burning home, fifty daggers were to rasp against each other in his body.
He sunk his face in his hands, and a shudder passed over his gaunt frame.