But his adversary did not appear to notice their departure.  She gave a sharp glance in the direction of the oak, and the now discrowned girl was quickly at her side.  Receiving some rapid instructions, the latter disappeared into the wood, and shortly returned with some herbs, which she passed to her companion; she then resumed her position by the stone.  The old woman placed some leaves, which she selected, on the wound:  the bleeding at once ceased; squeezing juice from the herbs, she applied an ointment made from it; then, opening a phial attached to her waist-belt, she poured some drops of liquid into the girl’s mouth, gently parting her lips.  This done, she stood erect and began an incantation, or rather a supplication, in an unknown tongue.  As she proceeded her form became rigid, her eye gleamed, her arms, the hands clenched, were raised above her head.  The sun flashed on the circlet, glittered on the embossed girdle:  on the right arm was a heavy bracelet, composed of a golden serpent winding in weird folds round a human bone; the head was towards the wearer’s wrist, and the jewelled eyes which, being of large size, must have been formed of rare stones, glowed and shot fire as the red beams struck on them through the branches.  It seemed that a forked tongue darted in and out, but this may have been imagined by the heated fancies of the bystanders.  The prayer ended; the stillness of death rested a moment on man and nature; then a wild gust of wind, striking the oak without any preliminary warning, bent and snapped the upper branches, and crashed inland through the swaying forest.  The watchers saw the colour return to the cheeks of the wounded girl, who opened her eyes and sate up.  “Take her home,” said the sorceress, now quite composed, to the mother; “she is yours again!—­till Marie calls her!” she added in a low voice to herself.  The happy mother, shedding tears of joy, but in vain attempting to get her thanks accepted, obeyed the injunction.

As she and her friends disappeared, the old woman, turning to the awed people who seemed more than ever disposed to look on her as a supernatural being, said sternly—­“Why linger you here?  Are you unmindful of your duties?  See you not how the shadows lengthen?” These words produced a magical effect:  the deep emotions by which the mass had been recently swayed were swiftly replaced by equally profound feelings of a different nature, as cloud succeeds cloud in a storm-swept sky.

And now a singular scene was enacted.  A procession was formed, headed by the old men, bare-headed; the musicians followed, behind whom walked with solemn step the younger members of the community.  This procession, emerging from the western border of the forest, slowly climbed the slopes of the Rocque du Guet, and arriving at the summit bent its way seaward, halting at the edge of the precipitous cliff.