Marcelle’s hand trembled as she put it into the ballot-box.  She let it stay there so long that some of the soldiers began to laugh.  But the village women, gathered in a dense crowd at the back of the hall, gazed at her with tears in their eyes.  They knew what she was doing.  She was praying that she might draw a lucky number for her lover, Rohan.  Twenty-five conscripts were wanted, and those who drew a paper numbered twenty-six or upwards were free.

“Come, come, my dear!” said the mayor, stroking his moustache, and nodding encouragingly at Marcelle.

She slowly drew forth a paper, and handed it to her uncle, who opened it, read it with a stare, and uttered his usual expletive.  “Soul of a crow!” in an awstricken whisper.

“Read it, corporal!” said the mayor, while Marcelle looked wildly at her uncle.

“It is incredible!” said Corporal Derval, handing the paper to the sergeant, with the look of amazement still on his face.

“Rohan Gwenfern—­one!” shouted the sergeant, while Marcelle clung to her uncle, and hid her face upon his arm.

Rohan Gwenfern, who had taken a solemn oath that he would never go forth to slay his fellow-men at the bidding of Napoleon, whom he regarded as a horrible, murderous monster, found himself, when he returned to Kromlaix late that evening, in the sorry position of King of the Conscripts.  He was a young man who had led a very solitary life, but solitude, instead of making him morbid, had strengthened his natural feelings of pity and affection.  His immense physical strength had never been exerted for any evil, and even in the roughest wrestling matches he had never fought brutally or cruelly.

He certainly rejoiced in his splendid powers of body; but he had the gentleness of soul of a poetic mind, as well as the magnanimity that often goes with great strength.  There was, indeed, something lion-like about him as he strode up to the door of his cottage, with his mane of yellow hair floating over his broad brows and falling on his shoulders.  An eager crowd was waiting for him, and when he appeared, they all shouted.

“Here he is at last!” cried a voice, which he recognised as that of Mikel Grallon.  “Three cheers for the King of the Conscripts!”

Some bag-pipe players struck up a merry tune, but Rohan, with a wild face and stern eyes, pushed his way through the throng into his cottage.  On a seat by the fire his mother sat weeping, her face covered with her apron; round her was a band of sympathising friends.  The scene explained itself in one flash, and Rohan Gwenfern knew his fate.  Pale as death, he rushed across the floor to his mother’s side, just as a troop of young girls flocked into the house singing the Marseillaise.  At their head was Marcelle.