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"At any rate," said the sergeant, when they had all got safely back to land, "we can stop Mother Gwenfern from bringing the mad rebel any more food."
Rising wildly to his feet, full of the strange strength and the strange powers of madness, Rohan Gwenfern climbed up the precipice to his bed of seaweed, and then took a path that no man had taken and lived the sheer, precipitous path from the roof of the cavern to the top of the cliff. III. Rohan Meets Napoleon
When Napoleon awoke, a long knife was lying at his feet; but he heeded it not, and little dreamt that a few minutes ago it had been pointed at his heart. Ah, Rohan Gwenfern had done well to leave the mighty emperor in the hands of God, and go back, a wild, tattered, mad beggar to his sweetheart Marcelle, in the little Breton village of Kromlaix.
He could not kill even Cain, when God had sanctified the murderer with sleep. God had made Napoleon, and God had sent him; bloody as he was, he, too, was God's child. Opening the great casement window of the room in the farmhouse, Gwenfern gazed for a moment with wild eyes and quivering lips on the pale, worn face of the great conqueror, and then leaped out into the darkness.
Kill him, Rohan, kill him!" Perhaps if Napoleon had not prayed before he slept, his enemy would have carried out his purpose. But he had prayed; his face had become beautiful for a moment, and he fell asleep as fearlessly as a child. No! Rohan Gwenfern was not made of the stuff of which savage assassins are formed; though there was madness in his brain, there was still love in his heart.
"It is incredible!" said Corporal Derval, handing the paper to the sergeant, with the look of amazement still on his face. "Rohan Gwenfern one!" shouted the sergeant, while Marcelle clung to her uncle, and hid her face upon his arm.
Rohan Gwenfern, who had taken a solemn oath that he would never go forth to slay his fellow-men at the bidding of Napoleon, whom he regarded as a horrible, murderous monster, found himself, when he returned to Kromlaix late that evening, in the sorry position of King of the Conscripts.
"Rohan Gwenfern!" cried the sergeant, in a voice that rang like a trumpet through the length of the town hall. No one answered. The crowd of young Kromlaix men looked at each other in consternation. Was the handsomest, the strongest, and the most daring lad in their village a coward? It was the dark year of 1813, when Napoleon was draining France of all its manhood.
Its towering walls had been carved by wind and water into thousands of beautiful, fantastical forms, and a dim religious light fell from above through a long, funnel-shaped hole running from the roof of the cavern to the top of the great cliff. It was here that Rohan Gwenfern hid from the band of soldiers sent in pursuit of him.
Yet, when he rose up his face was wonderfully changed and softened by the religious light which had shone on it for a few moments. Then, throwing himself into the armchair, he closed his eyes. And, as the fire burnt low, Rohan Gwenfern silently descended from the loft, and something gleamed in his hand. He crept up to the sleeping emperor, and stared at his face, reading it line by line.
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