صفحة 599 من 896

The escort and the universal watchfulness had completely isolated

him.

That he had fallen among far greater dangers than those which had

developed themselves when he left England, he of course knew now.

That perils had thickened about him fast, and might thicken

faster and faster yet, he of course knew now. He could not but

admit to himself that he might not have made this journey, if he

could have foreseen the events of a few days. And yet his

misgivings were not so dark as, imagined by the light of this

later time, they would appear. Troubled as the future was, it was

the unknown future, and in its obscurity there was ignorant hope.

The horrible massacre, days and nights long, which, within a few

rounds of the clock, was to set a great mark of blood upon the

blessed garnering time of harvest, was as far out of his

knowledge as if it had been a hundred thousand years away. The

"sharp female newly-born, and called La Guillotine," was hardly

known to him, or to the generality of people, by name.