“I see small chance of it,” Tignonville answered contemptuously.

“I know it as certainly as I knew before you came, M. de Tignonville, that you would come!”

“That I should come?”

“That some one would come,” La Tribe answered, correcting himself.  “I knew not who it would be until you appeared and placed yourself in the doorway over against me, even as Obadiah in the Holy Book passed before the hiding-place of Elijah.”

The two lay on their faces side by side, the rafters of the archway low on their heads.  Tignonville lifted himself a little, and peered anew at the other.  He fancied that La Tribe’s mind, shaken by the horrors of the morning and his narrow escape, had given way.

“You rave, man,” he said.  “This is no time for visions.”

“I said naught of visions,” the other answered.

“Then why so sure that we shall escape?”

“I am certified of it,” La Tribe replied.  “And more than that, I know that we shall lie here some days.  The time has not been revealed to me, but it will be days and a day.  Then we shall leave this place unharmed, as we entered it, and, whatever betide others, we shall live.”

Tignonville shrugged his shoulders.  “I tell you, you rave, M. la Tribe,” he said petulantly.  “At any moment we may be discovered.  Even now I hear footsteps.”

“They tracked me well-nigh to this place,” the minister answered placidly.

“The deuce they did!” Tignonville muttered, with irritation.  He dared not raise his voice.  “I would you had told me that before I joined you, Monsieur, and I had found some safer hiding-place!  When we are discovered—­”

“Then,” the other continued calmly, “you will see.”

“In any case we shall be better farther back,” Tignonville retorted.  “Here, we are within an ace of being seen from the lane.”  And he began to wriggle himself backwards.

The minister laid his hand on him.  “Have a care!” he muttered.  “And do not move, but listen.  And you will understand.  When I reached this place—­it would be about five o’clock this morning—­breathless, and expecting each minute to be dragged forth to make my confession before men, I despaired as you despair now.  Like Elijah under the juniper tree, I said, ’It is enough, O Lord!  Take my soul also, for I am no better than my fellows!’ All the sky was black before my eyes, and my ears were filled with the wailings of the little ones and the lamentations of women.  ‘O Lord, it is enough,’ I prayed.  ’Take my soul, or, if it be Thy will, then, as the angel was sent to take the cakes to Elijah, give me also a sign that I shall live.’”

For a moment he paused, struggling with overpowering emotion.  Even his impatient listener, hitherto incredulous, caught the infection, and in a tone of awe murmured—­

“Yes?  And then, M. la Tribe!”

“The sign was given me.  The words were scarcely out of my mouth when a hen flew up, and, scratching a nest in the hay at my feet, presently laid an egg.”