The sacred fire died out on our altars, while recreant priests slept, and so there came upon the nation a breath of pestilence from the sky which swept away the people as if by fire.

It has been told to me that our dead lay everywhere; that whole villages were destroyed in a single night; that those who survived wandered in the woods foodless, until only a pitiful remnant of those who were once so powerful lived in that tainted air, poisoned by decaying bodies.

Then the surviving slaves banded themselves together, fell upon their wandering masters, driving and killing, until the few who were left drew together on the banks of the great river.

Here, by lighting the sacred fire again, they made peace and were saved.

It was there I was born." I fail utterly to picture the true solemnity of the scene, as the aged priest, white-haired and evil-eyed, slowly mumbled it forth in his broken, halting French, leaning with his back against the rough stones of the great altar, on the summit of which flamed the sacred fire he had passed his life in guarding.