"'We could not be joined in this world--we decided to be joined in death! in death, the mysterious dawn of our eternal re-birth! This expiatory union of a daughter of the conquering Franks with a son of the subjugated Gauls being impossible in the sight of man, we consecrate it before Thee. Our two souls are merged into one. May it please Thee, Oh, Almighty! that it may be likewise henceforth with our two races which have so long been enemies! May it please Thee to cause the one to regret the iniquities it has committed for these many centuries, and the other to pardon them! May it please Thee to cause this revolt, to which the oppressed were driven by an excess of hardships, to be a lesson to the vanquishers. May it please Thee so to ordain it that this shall be the last time blood is shed in these impious conflicts! May it please Thee that in the future the children, whether of the conquerors or the conquered, be forever equal in rights, equal in duties, equal in justice, and be like brothers in a broad humanity, Oh, God our Father! Freedom, equality, fraternity--the Universal Republic!' "Having finished our prayer, Bertha and I--" "Your pen, my friend!" said Mademoiselle Plouernel. "Give me your pen!" And leaning over the table she wrote at the bottom of the page which Nominoë had begun: "I, Bertha of Plouernel, close the narrative of what is to happen in a few minutes. Our prayer being finished, Nominoë and I, both upon our knees and filled with confident joy, will approach our lips to the magic philter which is to give us admission to the starry spheres; we shall soon thereupon feel our souls untrammeling themselves from their terrestrial wrappage, and fly radiant towards the Infinite. Death is but the separation of the body from the soul." As Bertha was tracing these last lines the clock of the manor struck three in the morning. "Nominoë," said Mademoiselle Plouernel, "let us make haste; it will not be long before daylight. Place this paper and the iron hammer head in your traveling wallet. We shall leave them upon the table, addressed to the person that you may designate. My old servant will forward it to him, as I shall instruct him by a last word from my hand," she added, as she wrote the instructions to Du Buisson. While Nominoë placed the papers and the iron hammer head in his wallet, Bertha opened her casket, took from it a little flask filled with a bluish liquid, hid the same in her bosom, wrapped herself in a silk mantle, and reaching out her hand to Nominoë, said with a celestial smile: "Come, my friend, let us depart for those mysterious worlds that none knows--and which we shall know at the hour of our re-birth!" "Let us depart, Bertha!" Mademoiselle Plouernel and Nominoë Lebrenn left the hall of the manor of Mezlean to descend into the underground passage. * * * * *