Part 9 (1/2)
”Mother is right,” answered Hena sighing; ”Great is the anger of Hesus.”
”And what say you, dear child, you who are a saint,” inquired Joel, ”a saint of the Isle of Sen? What must we do to appease the wrath of the All-Powerful?”
”My father and mother honor me too much by calling me a saint,” answered the young virgin. ”Like the druids, myself and my female companions have meditated all night under the shadows of the sacred oak-trees at the hour of moon rise. We search for the simplest and divinest principles, and seek to spread them among our fellow-beings. We adore the All-Powerful in His works, from the mighty oak that is sacred to Him, down to the humble moss that grows on the rocks of our isle; from the stars, whose eternal course we study, down to the insect that is born and dies in one day; from the sourceless sea, down to the streamlet of water that glides under the gra.s.s. We search for the cure of diseases that cause pain, and we glorify those among our fathers and mothers who have shed l.u.s.tre upon Gaul. By the knowledge of the auguries and the study of the past, we seek to foresee the future to the end of enlightening those who are less clear-sighted than ourselves. Finally, like the druids, we teach childhood, we inspire the child with an ardent love of our common and beloved fatherland--so threatened to-day by the wrath of Hesus, a wrath that comes down upon them because they have forgotten that _they are all the children of the same G.o.d_, and that a brother must resent the wound inflicted upon his brother.”
”The stranger who was our guest and whom this morning I took to the Isle of Sen,” replied the brenn, ”spoke to us as you do, dear daughter.”
”My father and mother may listen as sacred words to the words of the Chief of the Hundred Valleys. Hesus and love for Gaul inspire him. He is brave among the bravest.”
”He! Is he the Chief of the Hundred Valleys?” exclaimed Joel. ”He refused to give me his name! Do you know it, daughter? Do you know which is his native province?”
”He was impatiently waited for yesterday evening at the Isle of Sen by the venerable Talyessin. As to his name, all that I am free to say to my father and mother is that the day on which our country should be subjugated will also be the day when the Chief of the Hundred Valleys will see the last drop of his blood flow from his veins. May the wrath of Hesus spare us that disastrous day!”
”Oh, my daughter, if Hesus is angry, how are we to appease him?”
”By obeying the law. He has said--_all men are the children of one G.o.d_. By offering to him human sacrifices.... May those that are to be offered to-night calm his wrath.”
”The sacrifices of to-night?” asked the brenn; ”which are they?”
”Do not my father and mother know that to-night, when the moon rises, there will be three human sacrifices at the stones of the forest of Karnak?”
”We know,” answered Joel, ”that all the tribes have been convened to appear this evening at the forest of Karnak. But who are the people that are to be sacrificed and will be pleasing to Hesus, dear daughter?”
”First of all Daoulas the murderer: he killed Houarne without a fight and in his sleep. The druids have sentenced him to die this evening. The blood of a cowardly murderer is an expiation agreeable to Hesus.”
”And the second sacrifice?”
”Our relative Julyan wishes, out of friends.h.i.+p, to rejoin Armel, whom he loyally killed in a contest. This evening, glorified by the chant of the bards, he will go, agreeable to his vow, and join Armel in the unknown worlds. The blood of a brave man, voluntarily offered to Hesus, is agreeable to him.”
”And the third sacrifice, dear child?” asked Mamm' Margarid; ”Who is it?”
Hena did not answer. She dropped her blonde and charming head upon the knees of Margarid, remained a while in a revery, kissed her mother's hands and said to her with a sweet smile that brought back old remembrances:
”How often did not little Hena, when still a child, fall asleep of an evening on your knees, mother, while you spun at your distaff, and when all of you now present, except Albinik, were gathered at the hearth, narrating the virile virtues of our mothers and our fathers of old!”
”It is true, dear daughter,” answered Margarid caressingly pa.s.sing her hand over the blonde hair of her child; ”it is true. And here among us we all loved you so much for your good heart and your infantine grace, that when we saw you had fallen asleep on my knees, we all spoke in a low voice not to awake you.”
Stumpy, who was among the crowd of relatives, put in:
”But who is that third human sacrifice, that is to appease Hesus and deliver us from war? Who, Hena, is the third to be sacrificed this evening?”
”I shall tell you, Stumpy, when I shall have had a little time to meditate upon the past,” answered the young maid dreamily, without leaving her mother's knees; and pa.s.sing her hand over her forehead as if to refreshen her memory, she looked around, pointed to the stone where stood the copper bowl with the seven twigs of mistletoe and proceeded saying:
”When I was twelve, do my father and mother remember how happy I was at having been selected by the female druids of the Isle of Sen to receive in a veil of linen, whitened in the dew of night, the mistletoe which the druids cut with a gold sickle at the moment when the moon shed its clearest light? Do my father and mother remember how, bringing home the mistletoe to sanctify our home, I was taken hither by the ewaghs in a chariot decked with flowers and greens while the bards sang the glory of Hesus? What tender embraces did not my whole family lavish upon me at my return! What a feast it was in our tribe!”
”Dear, dear daughter,” said Margarid pressing Hena's head against her maternal breast, ”if the female druids chose you to receive the sacred mistletoe in a linen veil, it was because your soul was as pure as the veil.”
”It was because little Hena was the bravest of all her companions, she almost perished in the attempt to save Janed, the daughter of Wor, who, as she was gathering sh.e.l.ls on the rocks along the sh.o.r.e of Glen'-Hek, fell into the water and was being carried away by the waves,” said Mikael the armorer, tenderly contemplating his sister.
”It was because, beyond all others, little Hena was sweet, patient and kind to the children; it was because, when only twelve, she instructed them like at matron at the cottage of the female druids of the Isle of Sen,” said Guilhern in his turn.