Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine — page 157: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

iY THE MIRACLE. 499 it by heart. And I, Pierre, tell you they also believe it! And when they shall re- turn, some day, and, fumbling amid the ashes and broken glass, shall seek to trace that place where once burned their hearth fires, think you they shall not say: ‘ If only Pére Jean, and that donkey of a Pelletier, and old doddering Pierre had but sum- moned forth Colonel de Voulx from his tomb, Breaux would have been saved!’ ” He leaned back, the breath whistling be- tween his ¢rinning lips, his shrewd, puck- ered old eyes, bright and black still, tri- umphantly seeking theirs. Abruptly the priest rose, taking one of the candles in his hand. ‘“Come!” he said. ‘‘ The thing shall be done, that my poor people may know that our thought was for them and their fire- sides, even if that thought be impious, which the good God forbid!” Pelletier said no more, but, accompanied by Pierre bearing his adz, followed the priest through a little door, down a narrow stone stair, into the crypt of the old church beneath the altar. Here slept the few notables of Breaux: a long line of De Voulxs, the departed in- cumbents of the parish of St. Leu, a locally famous avocat, half a dozen others deemed worthy of internment here. Conspicuous among them, the great casket of Colonel Eugen Etienne Ste. Marie de Voulx, the soft lead deep bitten by a die of the Na- poleonic bee, many times repeated, and one terse line beneath his name: “Of the Young Guard.” . The place was cool and dry, and the home of many shadows, pursued hither and thither as the great candle held by Pére Jean moved in his nervous grasp. Wasting no time, for there was none to be wasted, old Pierre swung his keen adz surely, and it sank into the lead casing. Maiching each succeeding cut with the skill of a forester, he proceeded entirely around the casket, and in a surprisingly short time motioned to the others that he had finished the first part of his task— whereupon they jointly and with difficulty eased the heavy lid to the floor. Under- neath was discovered a perfectly sound oak coffin. % From this, too, but without removing it from the outer casing, Pierre pried off the top—and behold! Before them lay the late colonel of the Young Guard in a sur- prisingly good state of preservation, al- though his face was swollen and nearly black. Still, one might trace a hint of the likeness to the great Napoleon, so sed- ulously cultivated by the old soldier. He was dressed in full uniform: blue, swallow-tailed coat with broad revers and tarnished brass buttons and epaulets, gloved hands crossed over his sheathed sword, cocked hat by his side, long-spurred cavalry boots upon his bandy legs. A row of medals was strung across his breast. The three men stared at him in breath- less silence. The curé and Pierre crossed themselves; Pelletier gravely touched his forehead in respectful salute. Whatever their various ideas, in one particular they felt alike. Here before them, visible to the naked eye, lay one of the officers of a fa- mous and unbeaten regiment of the great military genius of their beloved country. So absorbed were they, Pierre with his hopes, Father Jean with his apprehensions, the mayor with his respectful interest, that they failed to hear upon the cobbled street above them the faint clatter of the advance force of Uhlans, riding cautiously into Breaux; failed to hear them as, having dis- mounted, they followed the tiny candle gleam down into the crypt, and were shocked into a numb terror only when the captain of Uhlans, in excellent French, ad- dressed them mockingly as he advanced through the stairway door. “So! It is that Frenchmen rifle the graves of their own dead, that they may afterward cry out upon the German ghouls! The good pastor, too!” His teeth showing in a wolfish smile, his monocle fixed, one hand at the automatic in his belt, the officer advanced within the circle of light, followed by several of his staff, and, craning forward, gazed upon that which had so riveted the attention of the three Frenchmen. “You are wrong, my son,” Pere Jean replied with dignity. ‘‘ There are no valu- ables in these, our poor tombs, save the honored dead they hold!” ConmiclooolkS.conn