"Come, Anne," said madame softly.
"Let me watch," said Anne. "I have always loved him."
They buried Victor under the hill, at the foot of a kingly pine where a
hawk had builded his eery home. A loving hand had carved upon the tree
these words: "Here lies Victor de Saumaise, a brave and gallant
Frenchman, a poet, a gentleman, and soldier. He lived honorably and he
died well." Close to the shores of the lake they buried the vicomte
and the last of the D'Herouvilles. But only a roll of earth tells
where they lie. Thus, a heart of sunshine and two hearts of storm
repose in the eternal shadow, in peace, in silence. The same winds
whisper mournfully above them, or sing joyously, or breathe in thunder.
The heat of summer and the chill of winter pass and repass; the long
grasses grow and die; the sun and the moon and the throbbing stars
spread light upon these sepulchers. Two hundred and fifty years have
come and gone, yet do they lie as on that day. After death,
inanimation; only the inanimate is changeless.
CHAPTER XXXIII
HOW GABRIELLE DIANE DE MONTBAZON LOVED
How Brother Jacques, the Chevalier, Madame de Brissac and Anne de
Vaudemont, guided by the Black Kettle, reached Quebec late in November,
passing through a thousand perils, the bitter cold of nights and the
silence of days more terrifying than the wolf's howl or the whine of
the panther whose jaws dripped with the water of hunger, is history, as
is the final doom of the Onondaga mission, which occurred early the
following year.
Pages:
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551