... Ah, mon grand homme de Calvaire--bon
soir!" He sank back again, but I roused him with one question more,
vital to me. I must have the countersign.
"Labrouk! Labrouk!" said I sharply.
He opened his dull, glazed eyes.
"Qui va la?" said I, and I waited anxiously.
Thought seemed to rally in him, and, staring--alas! how helpless
and how sad: that look of a man brought back for an instant from
the Shadows!--his lips moved.
"France," was the whispered reply.
"Advance and give the countersign!" I urged.
"Jesu--" he murmured faintly. I drew from my breast the cross that
Mathilde had given me, and pressed it to his lips. He sighed softly,
lifted his hand to it, and then fell back, never to speak again.
After covering his face and decently laying the body out, I mounted
the horse again. Glancing up, I saw that this bad business had
befallen not twenty feet from a high Calvary at the roadside.
I was in a painful quandary. Did Labrouk mean that the countersign
was "Jesu," or was that word the broken prayer of his soul as it
hurried forth? So strange a countersign I had never heard, and yet
it might be used in this Catholic country. This day might be some
great feast of the Church--possibly that of the naming of Christ
(which was the case, as I afterwards knew).
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