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Rh The despairing peasants have armed themselves almost in greater numbers than the soldiers. Ah! poor François, the child has been torn by the beasts, Anton, and the flute player, Stephen, have had their heads smashed, one of the villains threw my brother, when the poor fellow was already wounded, into the fire, even the wretched clerk was massacred by our Everard, whereupon I pitched the rogue head over heels directly into a deep well."

"And the aged priest?" asked Edmond, scarcely audible.

"Him," said one of the troop, "I saw for a long while standing with his prayer-book, in the midst of the tumult on the common; right and left men and women were slain by his side, so that I thought, now, now this one or that must strike him. But it was as if they did not see him at all. I afterwards lost sight of him; surely he must be lying there among the dead bodies. Do you know anything of him, brother Christophe?"