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They lingered there in the darkness a moment, unconscious of the amazed but humourous glances of the cook; then Jack went out and found Tricasse, and walked with him to the top of the tree-clad ridge. A road ran under the overhanging bank. "I didn't know we were so near a road," said Jack, startled. Tricasse laid his finger on his lips. "It is the high-road to Saint-Lys.
All these doubts could not but trouble these soft natures; and on that evening, before separating, the two notables had "decided" to see each other the next day. On the next morning, then, before dinner, the Burgomaster Van Tricasse proceeded in person to the Counsellor Niklausse's house. He found his friend more calm. He himself had recovered his equanimity. "Nothing new?" asked Van Tricasse.
The burgomaster, as he spoke, under the influence of extraordinary excitement, elevated his voice to the pitch of anger. He was furious, the worthy Van Tricasse, and might certainly be heard outside. At last, beside himself, and seeing that Doctor Ox did not reply to his challenge, "Come, Niklausse," said he.
It seems as if the spectators are about to rush upon the stage, the Burgomaster Van Tricasse at their head, to join with the conspirators and annihilate the Huguenots, whose religious opinions, however, they share. They applaud, call before the curtain, make loud acclamations! Tatanémance grasps her bonnet with feverish hand. The candles throw out a lurid glow of light.
The circle of gaunt, sallow faces grew friendly, and, as Lorraine stood up, looking questioningly from one to the other, caps were doffed, rifle-butts fell to the ground. "Why, it's Monsieur Tricasse of the Saint-Lys Pompiers!" she said. "Oh, and there is le Père Passerat, and little Émile Brun! Émile, my son, why are you not with your regiment?"
As for Frantz's rival, he generously abandoned the charming Suzel to her lover, who hastened to wed her five or six years after these events. And as for Madame Van Tricasse, she died ten years later, at the proper time, and the burgomaster married Mademoiselle Pélagie Van Tricasse, his cousin, under excellent conditions for the happy mortal who should succeed him.
As he spoke his expression became exalted. He, Tricasse, ex-pompier and exempt, was posing as the saviour of his province, and he felt that, though German armies stretched in endless ranks from the Loire to the Meuse, he, Tricasse, was the man of destiny, the man of the place and the hour when beauty was in distress.
"You say?" asked the Burgomaster Van Tricasse of the Counsellor Niklausse. "I say that this war is necessary," replied Niklausse, firmly, "and that the time has come to avenge this insult." "Well, I repeat to you," replied the burgomaster, tartly, "that if the people of Quiquendone do not profit by this occasion to vindicate their rights, they will be unworthy of their name."
Frantz Niklausse, then, loved Suzel Van Tricasse, but quietly, as a man would love when he has ten years before him in which to obtain the beloved object. Once every week, at an hour agreed upon, Frantz went to fetch Suzel, and took a walk with her along the banks of the Vaar.
When Lotchè, however, who was lighting her master, was about to draw the bars of the door, an unexpected noise arose outside. Yes! Strange as the thing seems, a noise a real noise, such as the town had certainly not heard since the taking of the donjon by the Spaniards in 1513 terrible noise, awoke the long-dormant echoes of the venerable Van Tricasse mansion.
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