A TERRIBLE ORDEAL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXIX, Issue 7733, 1 March 1909, Page 1

A TERRIBLE ORDEAL.

I An officer in the French army, during the reign of Napoleon, having incurred the suspicion or resentment of the Emperor, thought it expedient to abandon his country and take refuge in one of the Austrian provinces, and here he became advised of and initiated into a society, the object of whose formation was to hurl to the ground the Colossus whose arm smote and governed the whole continent of Europe with a sceptre of iron. One day a letter was brought to him containing the usual signs and passwords of the society, and requiring him to repair, on the following night, to a secluded spot in a forest, where ho would meet some of his associates. He went, but he found nobody. The orders were repeated four times. The officer sought the appointed place with no better success than the first. On the fifth night of his appearance at the rendezvous, after waiting some time, he was on the point of returning, vrhen loud cries suddenly arrested his attention. Drawing his sword, he hastened to the spot whence they seemed to proceed, and was;'fired upon by three men, who, on seeing that he remained unwounded, instantly took to flight; but at his feet lay a bleeding corpse, in which, by the feeble light of :theihoon, he in vain sought for tokens of returning animation. He was yet bending over the dead mail, When a detachment of chasseurs, summoned apparently, by the noise of the pistol that had been discharged at himself," came up s\iddenly and arrested him as the assassin. He was loaded with chains/tried the next day, and condemned to die for his supposed crime. His execution was ordered to take place at midnight. Surrounded by the- ministers of justice, he was led at a slow* pace, by the light of torches, and the funeral tolling of bells, -to a vast square, in the centre of which was a scaffold environed by horsemen. Beyond these were a numerous group of spectators, who .muttered impatiently, and at intervals sent forth a cry of abhorrence. The victim mounted the scaffold, and his sentence was read, and the first act of tragedy was on the point of fulfilment, when an officer let fall a word of hope. An edict had just been promulgated by the Government offering a pardon and life to any condemned criminal who should disclose the members and secret tokens of a particular association, the existence of whom the Frenchman to whom these words were addressed had lately become aware of, and of which he had become, a,member. He was questioned, but he denied all knowledge. They urged him to confess, with promises of additional reward. -His only, reply was/ a dema.nd for immediate death—and his initiation was completed. All that had passed was a terrible trial of fidelity. Those who surrounded him were members of the society, and every incident that ha 6 been described, from the summons to the last moment of expected death, was only a step in the progress of the fearful ordeal by which the society sought to determine the trustworthiness of the neophyte.