By one of these fires, in a secluded street--for I had come a
roundabout way--were a number of soldiers of Languedoc's regiment
(I knew them by their trick of headgear and their stoutness), and
with them reckless girls, who, in their abandonment, seemed to me
like those revellers in Herculaneum, who danced their way into the
Cimmerian darkness. I had no thought of staying there to moralize
upon the theme; but, as I looked, a figure came out of the dusk
ahead, and moved swiftly towards me.
It was Mathilde. She seemed bent on some errand, but the
revellers at the fire caught her attention, and she suddenly
swerved towards them, and came into the dull glow, her great black
eyes shining with bewildered brilliancy and vague keenness, her
long fingers reaching out with a sort of chafing motion. She did
not speak till she was among them. I drew into the shade of a
broken wall, and watched. She looked all round the circle, and
then, without a word, took an iron crucifix which hung upon her
breast, and silently lifted it above their heads for a moment.
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