fresh incident had taken place. Very dimly through the darkness I
perceived a crowd, which increased every moment, in front of the
Cathedral. After watching it for a few minutes, I got my hat and went
out. The people whom I saw--so many that they covered the whole middle
of the _Place_, reaching almost to the pavement on the other side--had
their heads all turned towards the Cathedral. 'What are you gazing at,
my friend?' I said to one by whom I stood. He looked up at me with a
face which looked ghastly in the gloom. 'Look, M. le Maire!' he said;
'cannot you see it on the great door?'

'I see nothing,' said I; but as I uttered these words I did indeed see
something which was very startling. Looking towards the great door of
the Cathedral, as they all were doing, it suddenly seemed to me that I
saw an illuminated placard attached to it, headed with the word
'_Sommation_' in gigantic letters. '_Tiens!_' I cried; but when I
looked again there was nothing. 'What is this? it is some witchcraft!' I
said, in spite of myself. 'Do you see anything, Jean Pierre?'

'M. le Maire,' he said, 'one moment one sees something--the next, one
sees nothing. Look! it comes again.' I have always considered myself a
man of courage, but when I saw this extraordinary appearance the panic
which had seized upon me the former night returned, though in another
form. Fly I could not, but I will not deny that my knees smote together.
I stood for some minutes without being able to articulate a word--which,
indeed, seemed the case with most of those before me. Never have I seen
a more quiet crowd. They were all gazing, as if it was life or death
that was set before them--while I, too, gazed with a shiver going over
me. It was as I have seen an illumination of lamps in a stormy night;
one moment the whole seems black as the wind sweeps over it, the next
it springs into life again; and thus you go on, by turns losing and