"Death to the commissioners! death to the executioners!" Then the guns of the fort, loaded with grape, were pointed toward the people. "What shall I do?" asked Waters. "Strike," answered the same voice which had always spoken. Pontcalec threw himself on his knees; the assistants placed his head upon the block. Then the priests fled in horror, the soldiers trembled in the gloom, and Waters, as he struck, turned away his head lest he should see his victim. Ten minutes afterward the square was empty--the windows closed and dark. The artillery and the fusiliers, encamped around the demolished scaffold, looked in silence on the spots of blood that incarnadined the pavement. The priests to whom the bodies were delivered recognized that there were indeed, as Waters had said, five bodies instead of four. One of the corpses still held a crumpled paper in his hand. This paper was the pardon of the other four. Then only was all explained--and the devotion of Gaston, which he had confided to no one, was divined. The priests wished to perform a mass, but the president, Chateauneuf, fearing some disturbance at Nantes, ordered it to be performed without pomp or ceremony. The bodies were buried on the Wednesday before Easter. The people were not permitted to enter the chapel where the mutilated bodies reposed, the greater part of which, report says, the quick lime refused to destroy. And this finished the tragedy of Nantes. CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE END. A fortnight after the events we have just related, a queer carriage, the same which we saw arrive at Paris at the commencement of this history, went out at the same barrier by which it had entered, and proceeded along the road from Paris to Nantes. A young woman, pale and almost dying, was seated in it by the side of an Augustine nun, who uttered a sigh and wiped away a tear every time she looked at her companion. A man on horseback was watching for the carriage a little beyond Rambouillet. He was wrapped in a large cloak which left nothing visible but his eyes. Near him was another man also enveloped in a cloak. When the carriage passed, he heaved a deep sigh, and two silent tears fell from his eyes. "Adieu!" he murmured, "adieu all my joy, adieu my happiness; adieu Helene, my child, adieu!" "Monseigneur," said the man beside him, "you must pay for being a great prince; and he who would govern others must first conquer himself. Be strong to the end, monseigneur, and posterity will say that you were great." "Oh, I shall never forgive you," said the regent, with a sigh so deep it sounded like a groan; "for you have killed my happiness." "Ah! yes--work for kings," said the companion of this sorrowful man, shrugging his shoulders. "'Noli fidere principibus terræ nec filiis eorum.'" The two men remained there till the carriage had disappeared, and then returned to Paris.