[The Long Night by Stanley Weyman]@TWC D-Link book
The Long Night

CHAPTER VI
11/25

"One moment; as you say, that is not all.

The writer proceeds to warn us that the Grand Duke's lieutenant, M.d'Albigny, has taken a house on the Italian side of the frontier, and is there constructing a huge petard on wheels which is to be dragged up to the gate----" "With the ladders and rafts ?" "They seem to belong to another scheme," Fabri said, as he turned back and conned the letter afresh.
"With M.d'Albigny at the bottom of both ?" "Yes." "Well, if he be not more successful with this," Blondel answered contemptuously, "than he was with the attempt to mine the Arsenal--which ended in supplying us with two or three casks of powder--I think Captain Blandano and I may deal with him." A murmur of assent approved the boast; but it did not proceed from all.
There were men at the table who had children, who had wives, who had daughters, whose faces were grave.

Just thirty years had passed over the world since the horrors of the massacre of St.Bartholomew--to be speedily followed by the sack of Antwerp--had paled the cheek of Europe.
Just thirty years were to elapse and the sack of Magdeburg was to prove a match and more than a match for both in horror and cruelty.

That the Papists, if they entered, would deal more gently with Geneva, the head and front of offence, or extend to the Mother of Heretics mercy which they had refused to her children, these men did not believe.

The presence of an enemy ever lurking within a league of their gates, ever threatening them by night and by day, had shaken their nerves.


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