happy effect upon us in distracting our minds from what had happened;
for I think that if we had sat still and gazed at the dark city we
should soon have gone mad, as some did. In our ceaseless patrols and
attempts to find a way of entrance, we distracted ourselves from the
enquiry, Who would dare to go in if the entrance were found? In the
meantime not a gate was opened, not a figure was visible. We saw
nothing, no more than if Semur had been a picture painted upon a canvas.
Strange sights indeed met our eyes--sights which made even the bravest
quail. The strangest of them was the boats that would go down and up the
river, shooting forth from under the fortified bridge, which is one of
the chief features of our town, sometimes with sails perfectly well
managed, sometimes impelled by oars, but with no one visible in them--no
one conducting them. To see one of these boats impelled up the stream,
with no rower visible, was a wonderful sight. M. de Clairon, who was by
my side, murmured something about a magnetic current; but when I asked
him sternly by what set in motion, his voice died away in his moustache.
M. le Curé said very little: one saw his lips move as he watched with us
the passage of those boats. He smiled when it was proposed by some one
to fire upon them. He read his Hours as he went round at the head of
his patrol. My fellow townsmen and I conceived a great respect for him;
and he inspired pity in me also. He had been the teacher of the Unseen
among us, till the moment when the Unseen was thus, as it were, brought
within our reach; but with the revelation he had nothing to do; and it
filled him with pain and wonder. It made him silent; he said little
about his religion, but signed himself, and his lips moved. He thought
(I imagine) that he had displeased Those who are over all.

When night came the bravest of us were afraid. I speak for myself. It
was bright moonlight where we were, and Semur lay like a blot between
the earth and the sky, all dark: even the Cathedral towers were lost in