“Always suffering. The sad ceremony of the baptism yesterday affected her so deeply! Monseigneur wished her to be with him sponsor to this poor young pagan whom they called Erebus, so that he can die a Christian. My God! at his age never to have been baptised! Fortunately, Father Elzear has given him the sacrament! Ah, poor young man, he will bear the Christian names that monseigneur and mademoiselle have given him only until this evening.” “And how is monseigneur?” asked Luquin. “Oh, as to monseigneur, he would be on his feet and with the commander if we would listen to him. Abbé Mascarolus says an ordinary man would have been killed by such a wound, and that monseigneur must have a head as hard as iron to have resisted that heavy club. Thank God, he who gave that blow will not give any more.” “Speaking of that, Stephanette, you know they have not been able to find the body of Pog-Reis under the ruins of the abbey?” “He was only an infidel, but, oh, to die without burial!” said Stephanette, with a shudder. “How was he buried under the ruins?” “This is what M. Honorât told me, and he ought to know. The moment the unfortunate young man fell, wounded by the commander, Pog-Reis, as they called him, seized M. Honorât, so as to prevent his separating the two combatants. Suddenly, as you know, the thunderbolt burst in the middle of the bay It struck the _Red Galleon_; her powder took fire, and she was blown up, and carried with her the other galley, already seriously damaged by the culverin of Master Laramée. Not a pirate escaped. The waves of the bay were so high and so powerful that the best swimmer would have been drowned a thousand times over.” “But, Pog-Reis?” asked Stephanette. “The explosion was so tremendous that the earth trembled. M. Honorât told me this: ‘The pirate, startled, then left me. I ran to the commander, who had already been thrown on the body of his son. He was embracing him, as he sobbed. At the time of the explosion Pog-Reis was standing on the ruins. Those old walls, shaken by the commotion and violence of the wind, suddenly fell and crushed him beneath their weight’ This morning, some fishermen coming from the bay said the stones were so enormous that they could not be moved, and so they had given up all hope of finding the body of the brigand.” “My God! my God! What a disaster, Luquin, and how it proves that Heaven is just See, the two galleys of these brigands were struck and not one escaped! And Pog-Reis crushed under the ruins of the abbey!” “No doubt, no doubt, Stephanette, Heaven has done much; but it has not done all, there remains yet another account to settle.” “What do you mean?” “When we heard this explosion at sea, and when we set sail for Maison-Forte, and a little faster, too, than I wished, for the tempest was driving my polacre over the waves like a feather in the air, you see--”