The morning call., 1891-02-15
THE TOILET or DEATH;
!" Oh
g. Gaspard Rambuteau Conversion
wsTEg FOR THE SUNDAY z0 ENGLISH ADAPTATION BY
-

eur about this picture, as these weeping
women clung 10 and knelt about the pa
triarch Roubieu. while the food beat against
the side with ever increasing fury, climbing
slowly but surely toward the roof.
Suddenly ii occurred to someone that the
servants were not on the roof with the family,
and tie women broke out with wild lamen-
tations as the truth dawned upon them that
these poor creatures had been surprised in
their quarters.
The water had now risen to within yard
OF the roofs tiles. Cyprien determined TO
abandon the farmhouse and, accompanied
by his wife and TWO little ones to make his
way across the Intervening 7, offs and reach
the church, for through the gathering gloom
voices reached us, and we were all agreed
that they must come from the church belfry
Cyprien, with his wife and children, had
safely trayersed nearly the whole distance,
when a roof upon which he alone had
mounted was swept away with crash and
lie was left clinging TO protecting beam.
"Merciful heaven" cried, hes lost, but
we must not stand here and see his wife and
children swept away. To the rescue!'
We had scarcely reached the next house
when another roof was untXed BY the Hood
and torn away almost beneath cur very feet.
Further advance was impossible. Slowly
the rising waters engulfed the wretched
Cyprien. His hold loosened and he diSap-
peaIed. The women hid their faces or
stopped their ears to shut out the agOniZing
cries of Aimee. The night came on apace.
She and her children were lost in the dark
ness.
At this moment the roof of another house
came drifting along, and throwing myself at
full length on the tiles and calling out to
the others to hold on to me, seized the
floating mass, drew it in and made it fast.
Courage! 1t will carry us ALL" | cried
out, and the work of transferring the wo-
men tr this imprOviSed raft was quickly
accomplished. We succeeded il getting
q s.nr of fhn for attA oil frN
promise well for our chances of reaching
the church, when we were suddenly seized
by counter current and dashed back
against the side of the farmhouse. In the
shock Agatha and jacques and Rose had
been hurled into the angry, seething flood.
The awful gayety of despair now seized
upon Father Roubieu.
lit 5 useless, my children!" he exclaimed
with hollow laugh that sent a chill to my
lnmoSt soul, I'VE must stick to the old house
until death OF the relief party comes to the
few left of us.
mot l, brotherw cried Pierre, who had
been an Old soldier and stood there MUNICH
ing his pipe-stem, Il shall,wait no longer.
Good night. all. | may see some of you
again., aud with his Pipe in his mouth he
plunged into the water and struck out for
the nearest point of land now dimiy visible
in the light of the rising moon. There were
but four of us now left and of the four
Marie was the only one who was able to
LOOK with perfect serenity upon the angel of
death lowering over us Veronica Law as in
swoOn. and Roubieu alternately laughed
and shook his clenched fist toward heaven.
Our fO0thold on the roof had Shrunken to
narrow space along the ridgepole. As the
waters of the flood sucked in under the
caves OF the roof they shook the structure
Warnlngly and gave forth dull, hollow
sounds, at times strangely like human
groan or deep, smothered cry of despair.
Above the flood, the surface of which
glowed like molten silver in the moonlight,
the church lifted its tall, slender spire, and
from the beltry mellowed by their flight
across the water, came the twelve strokes of
the midnight hour.
Never since my boyhood's days had the
village church bell sounded SO sweet and
conS0ling to me. 1t seemed to me as if the
food itself halted in its march of death and
listened to those tones of silver sweetness as
they fingered qulvering in the air long after
the last had left the belfry.
looked upon Marie. She was listening,
tco, with the rapt expression Of Joan,
straining every nerve to catch the whisper
ing OF heavenly voice.