De Pean, taking advantage of the sudden shift of feeling in the crowd and anxious for the safety of Angelique, seized the bridle of her horse to drag her forcibly out of the press, telling her that her words had been heard and in another instant the whole mob would turn its fury upon her, and in order to save her life she must fly.

"I will not fly, De Pean. You may fly yourself, for you are a coward.

They are going to kill Le Gardeur, and I will not forsake him. They shall kill me first."

"But you must! You shall fly! Hark! Le Gardeur is safe for the present.

Wheel your horse around, and you will see him standing up yonder quite safe! The crowd rather believe it was I who killed the Bourgeois, and not Le Gardeur! I have a soul and body to be saved as well as he!"

"Curse you, soul and body, De Pean! You made me do it! You put those hellish words in my mouth! I will not go until I see Le Gardeur safe!"

Angelique endeavored frantically to approach Le Gardeur, and could not, but as she looked over the surging heads of the people she could see Le Gardeur standing up, surrounded by a ring of agitated men who did not appear, however, to threaten him with any injury,--nay, looked at him more with wonder and pity than with menace of injury.

He was a prisoner, but Angelique did not know it or she would not have left him. As it was, urged by the most vehement objurgations of De Pean, and seeing a portion of the crowd turning their furious looks towards herself as she sat upon her horse, unable either to go or stay, De Pean suddenly seized her rein, and spurring his own horse, dragged her furiously in spite of herself out of the tumult. They rode headlong to the casernes of the Regiment of Bearn, where they took refuge for the moment from the execrations of the populace.

The hapless Le Gardeur became suddenly sobered and conscious of the enormity of his act. He called madly for death from the raging crowd. He held out his hands for chains to bind a murderer, as he called himself!

But no one would strike him or offer to bind him. The wrath of the people was so mingled with blank astonishment at his demeanor, his grief and his despair were so evidently genuine and so deep, that many said he was mad, and more an object of pity than of punishment.

At his own reiterated command, he was given over to the hands of some soldiers and led off, followed by a great crowd of people, to the main guard of the Castle of St. Louis, where he was left a prisoner, while another portion of the multitude gathered about the scene of the tragedy, surrounded the body of the Bourgeois, which was lifted off the ground and borne aloft on men's shoulders, followed by wild cries and lamentations to the House of the Golden Dog,--the house which he had left but half an hour before, full of life, vigor and humanity, looking before and after as a strong man looks who has done his duty, and who feels still able to take the world upon his shoulders and carry it, if need were.

The sad procession moved slowly on amid the pressing, agitated crowd, which asked and answered a hundred eager questions in a breath. The two poor Recollet brothers, Daniel and Ambrose, walked side by side before the bleeding corpse of their friend, and stifled their emotions by singing, in a broken voice that few heard but themselves, the words of the solitary hymn of St. Francis d'Assisi, the founder of their order:

"Praised be the Lord, by our sweet sister Death, From whom no man escapes, howe'er he try!

Woe to all those who yield their parting breath In mortal sin! But blessed those who die Doing thy will in that decisive hour!

The second death o'er such shall have no power.

Praise, blessing, and thanksgiving to my Lord!

For all He gives and takes be He adored!"

Dame Rochelle heard the approaching noise and tumult. She looked out of the window and could see the edge of the crowd in the market-place tossing to and fro like breakers upon a rocky shore. The people in the streets were hurrying towards the market. Swarms of men employed in the magazines of the Bourgeois were running out of the edifice towards the same spot.

The dame divined at once that something had happened to her master. She uttered a fervent prayer for his safety. The noise grew greater, and as she reached out of the window to demand of passers-by what was the matter, a voice shouted up that the Bourgeois was dead; that he had been killed by the Grand Company, and they were bringing him home.

The voice passed on, and no one but God heeded the long wail of grief that rose from the good dame as she fell upon her knees in the doorway, unable to proceed further. She preserved her consciousness, however.

The crowd now swarmed in the streets about the doors of the house.

Presently were heard the shuffling steps of a number of men in the great hall, bearing the body of the Bourgeois into the large room where the sunshine was playing so gloriously.

The crowd, impelled by a feeling of reverence, stood back; only a few ventured to come into the house.

The rough habitans who brought him in laid him upon a couch and gazed for some moments in silent awe upon the noble features, so pale and placid, which now lay motionless before them.

Here was a man fit to rule an empire, and who did rule the half of New France, who was no more now, save in the love and gratitude of the people, than the poorest piece of human clay in the potter's field. The great leveller had passed his rule over him as he passes it over every one of us. The dead lion was less now than the living dog, and the Golden Dog itself was henceforth only a memory, and an epitaph forever of the tragedy of this eventful day.

"Oh, my master! my good, noble master!" exclaimed Dame Rochelle as she roused herself up and rushed to the chamber of the dead. "Your implacable enemies have killed you at last! I knew it! Oh, I knew that your precious life would one day pay the penalty of your truth and justice! And Pierre! Oh, where is he on this day of all days of grief and sorrow?"

She wrung her hands at the thought of Pierre's absence to-day, and what a welcome home awaited him.

The noise and tumult in the street continued to increase. The friends of the Bourgeois poured into the house, among them the Governor and La Corne St. Luc, who came with anxious looks and hasty steps to inquire into the details of the murder.

The Governor, after a short consultation with La Corne St. Luc, who happened to be at the Castle, fearing a riot and an attack upon the magazines of the Grand Company, ordered the troops immediately under arms and despatched strong detachments under the command of careful and trusty officers to the Palace of the Intendant, and the great warehouse of the Friponne, and also into the market-place, and to the residence of the Lady de Tilly, not knowing in what direction the fury of the populace might direct itself.

The orders were carried out in a few minutes without noise or confusion.

The Count, with La Corne St. Luc, whose countenance bore a concentration of sorrow and anger wonderful to see, hastened down to the house of mourning. Claude Beauharnais and Rigaud de Vaudreuil followed hastily after them. They pushed through the crowd that filled the Rue Buade, and the people took off their hats, while the air resounded with denunciations of the Friponne and appeals for vengeance upon the assassin of the Bourgeois.

The Governor and his companions were moved to tears at the sight of their murdered friend lying in his bloody vesture, which was open to enable the worthy Dr. Gauthier, who had run in all haste, to examine the still oozing wound. The Recollet Brother Daniel still knelt in silent prayer at his feet, while Dame Rochelle with trembling hands arranged the drapery decently over her dead master, repeating to herself:

"It is the end of trouble, and God has mercifully taken him away before he empties the vials of his wrath upon this New France, and gives it up for a possession to our enemies! What says the prophet? 'The righteous perisheth and no man layeth it to heart, and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous are taken away from the evil to come!'"

The very heart of La Corne St. Luc seemed bursting in his bosom, and he choked with agony as he placed his hand upon the forehead of his friend, and reflected that the good Bourgeois had fallen by the sword of his godson, the old man's pride,--Le Gardeur de Repentigny!

"Had death come to him on the broad, common road of mortality,--had he died like a soldier on the battlefield," exclaimed La Corne, "I would have had no spite at fate. But to be stabbed in the midst of his good deeds of alms, and by the hand of one whom he loved! Yes, by God! I will say it! and by one who loved him! Oh, it is terrible, Count! Terrible and shameful to me as if it had been the deed of my own son!"

"La Corne, I feel with you the grief and shame of such a tragedy. But there is a fearful mystery in this thing which we cannot yet unravel.

They say the Chevalier de Pean dropped an expression that sounded like a plot. I cannot think Le Gardeur de Repentigny would deliberately and with forethought have killed the Bourgeois."

"On my life he never would! He respected the Bourgeois, nay, loved him, for the sake of Pierre Philibert as well as for his own sake. Terrible as is his crime, he never committed it out of malice aforethought. He has been himself the victim of some hellish plot,--for a plot there has been. This has been no chance melee, Count," exclaimed La Corne St. Luc impetuously.

"It looks like a chance melee, but I suspect more than appears on the surface," replied the Governor. "The removal of the Bourgeois decapitates the party of the Honnetes Gens, does it not?"

"Gospel is not more true! The Bourgeois was the only merchant in New France capable of meeting their monopoly and fighting them with their own weapons. Bigot and the Grand Company will have everything their own way now."

"Besides, there was the old feud of the Golden Dog," continued the Governor. "Bigot took its allusion to the Cardinal as a personal insult to himself, did he not, La Corne?"

"Yes; and Bigot knew he deserved it equally with his Eminence, whose arch-tool he had been," replied La Corne. "By God! I believe Bigot has been at the bottom of this plot. It would be worthy of his craft."

"These are points to be considered, La Corne. But such is the secrecy of these men's councils, that I doubt we may suspect more than we shall ever be able to prove." The Governor looked much agitated.

"What amazes me, Count, is not that the thing should be done, but that Le Gardeur should have done it!" exclaimed La Corne, with a puzzled expression.

"That is the strangest circumstance of all, La Corne," observed the Governor. "The same thought has struck me. But he was mad with wine, they say; and men who upset their reason do not seldom reverse their conduct towards their friends; they are often cruelest to those whom they love best."

"I will not believe but that he was made drunk purposely to commit this crime!" exclaimed La Corne, striking his hand upon his thigh. "Le Gardeur in his senses would have lost his right hand sooner than have raised it against the Bourgeois."

"I feel sure of it; his friendship for Pierre Philibert, to whom he owed his life, was something rarely seen now-a-days," remarked the Count.

La Corne felt a relief in bearing testimony in favor of Le Gardeur.

"They loved one another like brothers," said he, "and more than brothers. Bigot had corrupted the habits, but could never soil the heart or lessen the love of Le Gardeur for Pierre Philibert, or his respect for the Bourgeois, his father."

"It is a mystery, La Corne; I cannot fathom it. But there is one more danger to guard against," said the Governor meditatively, "and we have sorrow enough already among our friends."

"What is that, Count?" La Corne stood up erect as if in mental defiance of a new danger.

"Pierre Philibert will return home to-night," replied the Governor; "he carries the sharpest sword in New France. A duel between him and Le Gardeur would crown the machinations of the secret plotters in this murder. He will certainly avenge his father's death, even upon Le Gardeur."

La Corne St. Luc started at this suggestion, but presently shook his head. "My life upon it," said he, "Le Gardeur would stand up to receive the sword of Pierre through his heart, but he would never fight him!

Besides, the unhappy boy is a prisoner."

"We will care well for him and keep him safe. He shall have absolute justice, La Corne, but no favor."