X.
Margot was sentenced to transportation, but weeks passed before the sentence was carried out. At length, on the appointed day, she was conducted from the prison to the boat. Her face was besmeared with dust and tears; her clothes were disordered and torn; her hair hung all dishevelled upon her shoulders. When she reached the boat, in which several other victims of the war were already embarked, she was pushed over the side by the guards, and received by the soldiers aboard with a shout of derision.
"I claim that girl for my wife."
The preparations were all complete, the boatmen in the very act of pushing from the shore, when a young soldier, flushed and panting, forced his way through the crowd, plunged into the water, seized the prow of the boat, and cried in a loud voice: "Stop! stop! I claim that girl for my wife!" The object of his choice shrieked at sight of him, and, as he held out his arms to receive her, fell into them fainting. A roar of ironical laughter went up from the onlookers. But La Crosse—for it was he, who had been only stunned, not killed, by the Vendéan ball, and had now recovered from his wound—cared not a whit for their jeers. He believed that "Handsome is as handsome does," and, as Margot had acted handsomely by him, he was bent upon behaving handsomely to her. They were married that very day, and "lived happy ever after!"
