Rome once received, was no longer heard from the lips of pastors who disdain the polluting touch of hands more able to confer the gifts of Simon Magus than those of Simon Peter. But yet these children of a pure faith are not conquered. They leave their homes in the months of November, December, and February. Hundreds perish by the way. How could it be otherwise? At that season of the year, and after the treatment they had received in the dungeons in which they had groaned, even strong men would have shrank from crossing the Alps, to say nothing of the aged women and young children. Alas! O Rome, thy tender mercies are cruel! The Swiss Protestants did nobly to soften the horrors of the treatment awarded to their suffering co-religionists. They not only remonstrated at the Court of Turin, but provided clothing and food to assist the sufferers; they kept a solemn fast-day; they made collections; they stationed themselves, by the consent of the Piedmontese authorities (let it be said), at various places along the route. So by the end of February, 1687, some two thousand six hundred Vaudois, men, women, and children, were received within the hospitable walls of the city of Geneva. Afterwards their numbers reached three thousand, and these were all that remained out of a population of about sixteen thousand, dragged or driven from the valleys. Nine pastors had been imprisoned in the citadel of Turin with their families, and although their liberation was earnestly asked for by the Swiss commissioners, it does not appear that they were ever allowed to join their exiled brethren in Switzerland. However, the Vaudois, though deeply touched with the kindness shown them by their friends in Switzerland and Germany, yet sighed after their own dear valleys. Although Janavello could not lend them active aid by his no longer stalwart arm and heroic presence, yet he took a deep interest in the preparations for their return, and praised God that He had provided them a captain. Who this captain was, and the nature of the deliverance wrought by his instrumentality, must be left for another chapter. CHAPTER X.