The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1893-10-18
CHAPTER VII.
AT THE SHRINE.

After few hours more journeying
the party reached their destination. For
Marie it was time of blessed peace. for
the kind words of the sergeant had
brought her such relief that Wearied
nature asserted her power, and she slept.
So weary was she that she lay as one
dead, and even bad dreams came not to
her. The road had got somewhat
smoother as they drew nearer to the val
ley, so that she was less jolted than had
been the experience hitherto on the jour
ney
When they arrived at the gendar-
merle, the sergeant would not have Marie
awakened. ''Let her sleep, poor soul,
while she can," he said. So a couple of
men lifted without awakening her and
placed her in room, where the SER
geant's wife had her laid on a bed as
good as was to be had. The door was
locked, and she was left alone to sleep
until the morning, when she was to be
taken before the magistrate.
When she awOl1e, after a long sleep,
the sergeant's wife gave her comfort
able meal, and in many little ways such
DIS hl1l(l NOlIIcll hllOW ISlptu W case Hex
distress.
In the morning she was taken before
the magistrate and charged with the
theft of the money. Of course the SER
geant had to tell the story of the escape of
the other prisoner. Those in the court
room were much interested in the recital,
and when his description was given one Of
the gendarmes who had newly come to
the station said:
"That must be the very man who es-
capped from the galleys at Marseilles
after killing two of the guards"
He was Immediately Intercepted as
to the antecedents of the murderer, and
Marie had to listen while the whole cat
alogue of her husbands iniquity was I'M
folded. With growing horror she learned
that he had been many times in prison,
from which he had by some trick or sub
terfuge escaped on each occasion; that
he was q criminal of the deepest dye
-remOrseless, pitileSs, cruel; that his
want of gratitude to those who had
helped him in his times of trouble had
alienated even those who had chung to
him the longest; that he had been &C
cused Of several murders and suspected
of many more, but that his cunning had
been such that he had been able to prove
on nearly every occasion that the guilt
had rested with some of his dupes; that
he had never hesitated to betray his fell
lows and accomplices when it had
served his purpose. In the opinion of
the speaker there was not so black a
criminal in the whole roll of crime
Finally he had been convicted on
charge of murder aQd condemned to
the galleys for life. He had been in the
gang at Marseilles for only short time
when he had escaped by an effort of des-
perate courage, having in the doing so
murdered two of the guards under cir
cumstances of peculiar atrocity.
When the recital had come to an end.
the magistrate said that so far as the
charge of the theft was concerned he
would have been content to let it lie over
until later time had there not been di.
rect evidence of the woman having taken
the money and its being discovered in
her possession. AS from the fact of her
husband being such a desperate charac-
ter it would have been presumably as a
tool in his hands that she had committed