On the road to France, this little party had met the first check, in the only tavern of Mockern village.  Not only had a wild beast showman, known as Morok the lion-tamer, sought to pick a quarrel with the inoffensive veteran, but that failing, had let a panther of his menagerie loose upon the soldier’s horse.  That horse had carried Dagobert, under General Simon’s and the Great Napoleon’s eyes, through many battles; had borne the General’s wife (a Polish lady under the Czar’s ban) to her home of exile in Siberia, and their children now across Russia and Germany, but only to perish thus cruelly.  An unseen hand appeared in a manifestation of spite otherwise unaccountable.  Dagobert, denounced as a French spy, and his fair young companions accused of being adventuresses to help his designs, had so kindled at the insult, not less to him than to his old commander’s daughters, that he had taught the pompous burgomaster of Mockern a lesson, which, however, resulted in the imprisonment of the three in Leipsic jail.

General Simon, who had vainly sought to share his master’s St. Helena captivity, had gone to fight the English in India.  But notwithstanding his drilling of Radja-sings sepoys, they had been beaten by the troops taught by Clive, and not only was the old king of Mundi slain, and the realm added to the Company’s land, but his son, Prince Djalma, taken prisoner.  However, at length released, he had gone to Batavia, with General Simon.  The prince’s mother was a Frenchwoman, and among the property she left him in the capital of Java, the general was delighted to find just such another medal as he knew was in his wife’s possession.

The unseen hand of enmity had reached to him, for letters miscarried, and he did not know either his wife’s decease or that he had twin daughters.

By a trick, on the eve of the steamship leaving Batavia for the Isthmus of Suez, Djalma was separated from his friend, and sailing for Europe alone, the latter had to follow in another vessel.

The missionary priest trod the war trails of the wilderness, with that faith and fearlessness which true soldiers of the cross should evince.  In one of these heroic undertakings, Indians had captured him, and dragging him to their village under the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, they had nailed him in derision to a cross, and prepared to scalp him.

But if an unseen hand of a foe smote or stabbed at the sons of Rennepont, a visible interpositor had often shielded them, in various parts of the globe.

A man, seeming of thirty years of age, very tall, with a countenance as lofty as mournful, marked by the black eyebrows meeting, had thrown himself—­during a battle’s height—­between a gun of a park which General Simon was charging and that officer.  The cannon vomited its hail of death, but when the flame and smoke had passed, the tall man stood erect as before, smiling pityingly on the gunner, who fell on his knees as frightened as if he beheld Satan himself.  Again, as General Simon lay upon the lost field of Waterloo, raging with his wounds, eager to die after such a defeat, this same man staunched his hurts, and bade him live for his wife’s sake.