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He had not found Percy, he had no news of Jeanne; it seemed as if hell itself could hold no worse tortures than this intolerable suspense. He threw himself down on the narrow palliasse and, tired nature asserting herself, at last fell into a heavy, dreamless torpor, like the sleep of a drunkard, deep but without the beneficent aid of rest. It was broad daylight when he awoke.
Laporte, seeing two of his men killed and five or six wounded, called out loudly, "Children of God, lay down your arms: this way of going to work is too slow; let us burn the abbey and all in it. To work! to work!" The advice was good, and they all hastened to follow it: benches, chairs, and furniture of all sorts were heaped up in the hall, a palliasse thrown on the top, and the pile fired.
I agreed to her proposal, and she took me to a small closet where I found a straw palliasse on four pieces of wood. "Do you call this a bed, my child?" "I have no other, sir." "Then I do not want it, and you shall not have the crown." "Did you intend undressing yourself?" "Of course." "What an idea! There are no sheets." "Do you sleep with your clothes on?" "Oh, no!"
Then he flung himself down and crawled to his retreat behind the palliasse, convinced that the cry was in the voice of Sikkem Bruce. His sufferings were well-nigh unendurable. His very breathing caused him an exquisite pain. He even found himself wondering how much longer he could endure. But his work was not yet finished. If he must die he would die fighting.
I cannot say that I slept. The ground was hard, and it got very cold about 2 A.M. I could hear the sergeant-major snoring comfortably on the straw palliasse he had managed to "commandeer" for himself. At about 3 A.M. my ear caught the "chug-chug" of a motor-cycle. It came nearer and then stopped, and I heard the rider and our sentry talking.
Hour after hour Tresler lay awake, lost in a confusion of thought which refused his best efforts to straighten out. The acuteness of the pain in his head set his mind almost wandering. And he found himself aimlessly reviewing the events since his coming to Mosquito Bend. He tossed wearily, drearily, on his unyielding palliasse, driven to a realization of his own utter impotence.
And it might be truly said in the words of Scripture, that her days were full. We have already related that M. le Coq gave her a sleeping outfit, consisting of a mattress, palliasse, two comforters, and a pillow. Although the first winter she spent in Montreal was an unusually severe one, she never used these articles of comfort herself, but freely bestowed them on others.
A rough trestle-bed occupied the far end of the hut, and in shape and make it reminded him of his own bed in the bunkhouse. But there the resemblance ended, for the palliasse was of brown sacking, and a pair of dull-red blankets were tumbled in a heap upon its foot.
He had had a stroke a couple of years ago, and then another last summer. Now he could not move hand or foot, his tongue refused him service, he could only see and hear and eat. Otherwise he was like a log: carried from his palliasse on which he slept at night to the armchair in which he sat all day.
But I will make up a good fire, and shake out the bed. I'll let her have no more of that villainous palliasse. No, no, let her try her own way, and repent of it; then, when this matter is over, she will turn her mind to Chevalier Narcisse, and there will be no more languishing in this miserable hole.
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