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Bernadou stooped his tall, fair, curly head, and she laid her hands on him and blessed him. That evening, as the sun set, Reine Allix kept her word, and went to the young maiden who had allured the eyes and heart of Bernadou.
Suddenly a voice arose from the armed mass: "Bring me the peasant hither." Bernadou was seized by several hands and forced and dragged from his door out to the place where the leader of the uhlans sat on a white charger that shook and snorted blood in its exhaustion. Bernadou cast off the alien grasp that held him, and stood erect before his foes.
List of the killed: Worth Bagley, ensign; John Daniels, first- class fireman; John Tunnel, cabin cook; John Varveres, oiler. The wounded: J. B. Bernadou, lieutenant, commanding the Winslow; R. E. Cox, gunner's mate; D. McKeowan, quartermaster; J. Patterson, fireman; F. Gray.
Bernadou said nothing, but he straightened his tall limbs, and in his grave blue eyes a light gleamed. Reine Allix looked at him as she sat in the doorway of her house. "Thy hands are honest, thy heart pure, thy conscience clear. Be not afraid to die if need there be," she said to him. He looked down and smiled on her. Margot clung to him in a passion of weeping.
She feared that she should scarce be so willing to go to her last sleep under the trees on the hillside as she used to be. She could not help a desire to see this child, this second Bernadou, grow up to youth and manhood; and of this she knew it was wild to dream. It was ripe midsummer. The fields were all russet and amber with an abundance of corn.
The little wooden shutter of the house was closed. Some winter roses bloomed in a pot beneath the little crucifix. Bernadou's flute lay on a shelf; he had not had heart enough to play it since the news of the war had come. Suddenly a great sobbing cry rose without the cry of many voices, all raised in woe together. Bernadou rose, took his musket in his hand, undid his door, and looked out.
She told the truth, reared her offspring in honesty, and praised God always had praised Him when starving in a bitter winter after her husband's death, when there had been no field work, and she had had five children to feed and clothe; and praised Him now that her sons were all dead before her, and all she had living of her blood was her grandson Bernadou. Her life had been a hard one.
And his eyes, as he spoke, went softly to the little porch where the light glowed from that hearth beside which he would never again sit with the creatures he loved around him. The German looked at him. "Is that a boast, or a fact?" "I am no traitor," Bernadou answered, simply, once more. The Prussian gave a sign to his troopers. There was the sharp report of a double shot, and Bernadou fell dead.
They had nothing, neither money nor watches. Salvette still held hidden in the seam of his mantle a post-order for forty francs. But that was for the day when they should be free and the first halt they should make in a cabaret of France. That was sacred; not to be touched! But poor Bernadou is so sick. Who knows whether he will ever be able to return?
But he had no apt pupil except Bernadou, who soon learned to handle a musket with skill and with precision, and who carried his straight form gallantly and well, though his words were seldom heard and his eyes were always sad. "You will not be called till the last, Bernadou," said the old soldier; "you are married, and maintain your grandam and wife and child.
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