"He ought well be so," cried Ravanel turning angrily towards him: "Oh my friend, he, who has once tasted the pleasure of stretching an enemy at his feet, becomes like a lion after the palatable sweetness, scarcely able to spare his keeper. I am feeble and weak when I am long without seeing blood; it ascends like the smoke of a lamp in the mournful twilight, as the rosy dawn after the darkness of night." Cavalier reprimanded the enthusiast for his cruelty, and Catinat led the remaining prisoners to the brink of a precipice, when they fell under the swords of the Camisards. Their leader the fiercest among them all, only remained alive. He now called out in a powerful voice: "Stay! far be it from me to beg for my life, I would not for once owe an obligation to such pitiable people, though, what I require, you may grant me without prejudice to yourselves." "What dost thou require, knave?" asked Cavalier, while the others clustered still closer round him, "That you unbind my arms," said the fierce, wild man with an expression of the most profound contempt: "that I may once more, and for the last time, put my flask to my parched lips, which has been a friend and comforter to me in all my sorrows, and that you will afterwards be careful to deliver me speedily from such contemptible society as yours." The Camisards murmured and would have cut him down, but at a sign from Catinat, they drew back, he himself unloosed the arms of the prisoner, and watched him with his drawn sword in his hand, lest despair, perhaps, might at the moment of his death, impel him to some fool-hardy attempt. But the powerful old man looked round him with the greatest composure, shook his arms and shoulders that he might feel his freedom after the restraint he had endured, then took a flask of wine from his bosom and emptying it jocosely, dashed it against the rock, where it broke in pieces, then turned to the bystanders, baring his neck as he said: "Now, if it please you!" Even Ravanel measured him with a look of surprise; and Edmond, who had watched all his movements, felt himself impelled by an inexplicable feeling to save the life of so ruthless a man. "Strange as I may appear to you, beloved brethren," cried he aloud advancing into the circle, "I entreat you nevertheless by the high esteem with which you honour me to make over this luckless man to me, that his fate may rest in my hands. Shall this lost creature, so unprepared, in all the nakedness of his crimes, go before his accusing Judge? shall we not try to moderate the fierce temperament and to lead the apostate closer to his Maker? Grant me this favour ye friends, do not refuse my petition and accept my own life as a pledge, that he will not repay this deliverance by treachery and falsehood?" Cavalier, from affection to Edmond, joined his entreaties to those of the youth, and after a short opposition from Ravanel and some murmurs from the troop, all unanimously consented to pardon the robber. Cavalier informed him