Argosy and Railroad Man's Magazine — page 158: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ee ee 500 ARGOSY AND RAILROAD MAN’S MAGAZINE, The Uhlan stared insolently upon him. “Perhaps you will then explain the trouble to which you put yourself in open- ing this casket?” ‘“T will do so,” Pere Jean responded with 2. quiet nobility of demeanor. ‘ Tradition in our little town has it that this son of the Church and of France, and one-time officer of the great Napoleon, would, if brought from his sepulcher, save Breaux in its day of need from impious hands, even as his ancestors did in ancient times.” The officer laughed harshly. “And your theology swallows these chil- drens’ fairy tales, worthy pastor?” The mayor, Pelletier, answered him. “ Neither he nor I, but this descendant of De Voulx’s orderly. To humor a good and faithful citizen we assented. That is all.” The German rubbed his hands gleefully. “Well, well! And why not? Let us see if there be any truth in it. Come forth, my Gallic Lazarus! Save thy ugly hamlet of Breaux! Many prettier towns have gone up in smoke this past week.” Then began a scene such as no other war but this could match. The Uhlan’s Teu- tonic sense of humor rose to the surface. After an orgy of blood and rapine the sur- feited beast chose to be good- naturedly facetious for the moment. Obeying a curt command, two big cav- alrymen laid hold upon De Voulx, and twitched him from the wooden bed where he had slept so long. They held him erect, clapped his cocked hat upon his head; then, their captain catching. the travesty of the emperor in the bloated features, he bent cne arm—the brittle bone cracking sharply —and thrust the hand within his breast. His sword was buckled on; the officer saluted him mockingly, hailed him as ““kamerad!” and, entering into the spirit of the occasion, the gruesome figure was pushed and pulled about, complimented upon his winning so many medals as colonel of so distinguished a regiment, and then kicked and buffeted for failing to reply to the queries or to return the salutes. ~ It was to be noted that throughout the incredible buffoonery the little figure of De Voulx seemed to maintain an unshaken dignity which no insult could degrade. Dead this century and more, the deathless panoply of birth and character never for an instant failed to make cheap and bestial his living mockers! Meanwhile Pere Jean had been twitching at the sleeves of his two companions, and step by stealthy step, moving backward to- ward the little door, they slipped up the crooked stairs, and through the sacristy, and out into the black night, sick at heart, and with the uncouth shouts of the Uhlans sounding fainter and fainter in their horri- fied ears. This was the story that Lieutenant Para- dis told me as we rode away. from Breaux; and at this point we reined up for a final back-flung look at it. The moon was riding high in the heavens now; and beneath its rays the little town seemed a fragile toy, fabricated of beaten silver. “Yet you have not told me,” I com- plained, “ what really saved Breaux?” “Colonel Eugen Etienne Ste. Marie de Voulx saved it!’ replied my guide. “ But—but how—” He turned and looked me in the eye. “A miracle, so they are already saying. So say I—for of such stuff are dreams and miracles made! De Voulx, as has been learned by painstaking investigation of con- temporary records, died of the black death, the germs of which he brought home with him from Asia. His orderly, who had served long in the East, recognized the symptoms, and warned the physician who attended De Voulx and the priest who shrived him. “ He was able to prevent them from con- tracting the plague, and it was by his ad- vice that the body was hermetically sealed in lead and the secret kept from the village. ‘When the casket was opened the germs — were still virulent, still lying in wait. None of the three Frenchmen touched the body; but the Uhlans, who did, contracted the black death by contagion; and when the German Medical Staff learned the truth, and had cremated their numerous victims, they drew a circle about Breaux, forbid- ding, under severest penalties, any crossing oi the dead line. And as this order was not countermanded, De Voulx kept his promise, and Breaux stands inviolate to-day!” ty comicbooks-com