"And now," Gaëlo resumed after his champions had finished the martial refrain, "if a swine-herd serf could become the master of a province, do you hold it impossible for fifteen resolute champions to take possession of the abbey of St. Denis, the richest abbey of all Gaul?"
"No! No!" cried the pirates fired with the prospect of pillage, and again smiting with their oars the bucklers that hung from the sides of the holker. "To St. Denis! To St. Denis! Death to its tonsured masters! Pillage! Pillage! Fire and blood!"
The thundering voice of Lodbrog the Giant dominated the din that proceeded from the Northmans' throats and the clangor of the smitten shields. Standing on his bench and whirling in one hand his long oar with the ease that he would have handled a reed, he bellowed at the top of his voice: "To St. Denis! To St. Denis!" And intoxicating and lashing himself into a fury with his own clamor, his savage features speedily betokened a degree of exaltation that developed into a kind of delirium. His eyes rolled rapidly in their orbits; his lips whitened with foam; and finally, emitting a terrible cry, he bent his oar in his hands and broke it in two as if it had been a cane.
At the sight of such a display of superhuman strength, the Northmans, who had for some little while before been observing Lodbrog with anxious looks, now cried out in chorus:
"Beware all! He is berserk! He will kill us all!" And before Gaëlo had time to prevent it, all the pirates threw themselves upon the giant, and by their united efforts rolled him overboard into the Seine.
Gaëlo had anchored his vessel at a short distance from one of the woody islets, washed by the river. Lodbrog fell heels over head into the water between the holker and the nearby shore. With one bound the giant leaped out of the river, which was deep and rapid at that spot, and gained the shore, where he ran about shouting: "To St. Denis! To St Denis!" The frenzy that possessed the giant increased ten-fold the man's prodigious strength. He uprooted a twenty-foot poplar, and armed with the tree as with a mace, smote and crushed the other trees within his reach. The largest branches flew into splinters, the trunks broke in two, and still the furious vertigo of the colossus was on the increase. Not far from the shore stood the ruins of a house still partly covered by its roof; its walls arrested for a moment the demented course of the berserker. But the obstacle redoubled his rage. The trunk of the poplar served him for a ram. Its repeated blows broke through a portion of the lower wall, which thereupon came tumbling down with a great crash. Held up by the iron work in the opposite wall, a portion of the roof still remained in place. The giant clambered over the debris, grasped the beams of the roof with both hands and shook them furiously, ever bellowing: "To St. Denis! To St. Denis!" At last the beams yielded, and the worm-eaten roof, still partly covered with tiles, sank down upon Lodbrog with a deafening crash. For an instant the raging maniac disappeared under a cloud of dust, but presently reappeared unscathed from the falling timber and tiles. His casque and iron armor had protected him. He mounted the heap of ruins, looked around, and seeing nothing more to destroy, descended, pulled up the joists and beams, lifted up enormous stones and hurled them about with the irresistible force of those engines of war that are called catapults. Suddenly the berserker was heard to emit a roar like that of a lion; he raised his powerful arms heavenward, his body became rigid; for a moment he remained motionless like a gigantic iron statue, and then, like a colossus about to tumble from its base, swayed for an instant in air, dropped to the ground and rolled like a solid block from the top of the heap of ruins down to its foot, where he lay prone, seemingly as inanimate as a corpse.
Gaëlo and the Northman pirates were not amazed at the frenzy of Lodbrog. They knew well that many a Northman mariner was subject to these frightful fits, frightful like the fury of the insane, a sort of epilepsy peculiar to the berserkers, with whom the anticipation or the ardor of battle, anger or drunkenness brought on the spell. Simon Large-Ears and Robin Jaws, however, now witnessed the spectacle for the first time; they gazed at it with surprise and affright. Finally, seeing from the distance that Lodbrog lay unconscious and rigid amidst the wreck that he had wrought, Simon cried:
"He is now fortunately dead! We have nothing more to fear!"
"The Northmans are right," put in Robin; "such frantic folks are as dangerous to their friends as to their enemies. If that berserker had remained among us in the holker, he would have strangled or drowned us all!"
"After which he would have flung the vessel over his head like a wooden shoe. He could have done it. I saw him flinging around beams and rocks that must have surely weighed three times as much as any man," added Large-Ears. "What an amount of strength all wasted! How he would have scattered about death and desolation in the abbey of St. Denis, where he thought he was fighting. After all, it is a pity that he is dead and gone."
"He is not dead—weigh anchor, my champions! With two strokes of the oars we can reach the isle, and presently you will see Lodbrog return to himself as if awakening from a dream."
"By the horns of the devil!" exclaimed Simon. "Out of fear that he may take to dreaming again and harpoon me, I prefer to stay on the vessel with my friend Robin;" and Large-Ears never once took his eyes off the berserker who continued motionless only a hundred feet from the shore and in plain sight of his companions.
"The Northmans may go alone to the assistance of the maniac, if they so desire," observed Robin as the holker approached the shore. "It will be a sweet sensation for Lodbrog to recognize the faces of folks from his native land, when he regains consciousness, will it not?"
"It sometimes happens that fires, thought to be extinct, suddenly flame up," Large-Ears rejoined sagely.
The vessel touched land, and Gaëlo and the Northmans approached the colossus, not, however, without caution. One of the pirates took off his casque, filled it half-full with water, threw into it a handful of sand that he picked up from the shore and shook up the mixture, while his companions vainly sought to raise Lodbrog into a sitting posture. The body was rigid like a bar of iron. They found it impossible to extract from his clenched fist a stone that he still held as firmly as in a vise between his fingers. His face, surrounded by the borders of his casque, was livid and motionless, his jaws were set, his lips were covered with froth, his eyes fixed, dilated, glassy. The Northman, dipping out of his casque the sand moistened with cold water, threw it by handfuls upon the prostrate giant's face.
"Be careful!" called out Gaëlo. "You will blind him with the moist sand."
"No, no!" confidently answered the pirate, redoubling his sandy douches. "It is especially when the fine gravel enters the eye that the good effect is produced."
The pirate's experience did not deceive him. Soon slight convulsive tremors began to agitate the lines on Lodbrog's face. His rigid fingers loosened and allowed the stone that they clenched to roll off. A few minutes later his limbs became supple. One of the Northmans ran to the river and dipped up some fresh water and dashed it in the berserker's face. The latter was soon heard to mumble in a ruffled voice while he rubbed his eyelids:
"My eyes burn me. Am I in the celestial Walhalla promised by Odin to departed warriors?"
"You are here among your companions of war, my brave champion," Gaëlo answered him. "You have broken down a score of huge trees and demolished a house. Was that enough to limber up your strength? What do you still want?"
"Oh! Oh!" mumbled the giant, shaking his enormous head, and without ceasing to rub his eyes with his fists. "I am not at all surprised at having played such havoc. I began to feel myself berserk when I cried out, 'To St. Denis!' and all the time after I imagined myself demolishing the abbey and slaughtering the monks and their soldiers. I was trying to exterminate them all."
"Do not be disappointed, my Hercules," Gaëlo replied encouragingly. "The moon will rise early; we shall row all night; to-morrow evening we shall be at St. Denis, and day after to-morrow at Paris."
The abbey of St. Denis resembled a vast fortified castle. The high and thick walls that enclosed it, the only entrance through which was a vaulted gate, covered with heavy sheets of iron and, like the walls, pierced with narrow loop-holes through which the archers could reach the enemy with their arrows, rendered the place safe against any surprise. In order to take this fortress, large engines of war would be required and a powerful attacking force.
Agreeable to her promise made to Father Fultrade, Martha and her daughter Anne the Sweet found themselves towards nightfall at the trysting place named by the monk. He also was on time. He arrived on his large horse, an animal powerful enough to carry Eidiol's wife on its crupper and in front of the saddle the young girl, whom the priest thus had an opportunity to hold in his arms. Despite its robust neck and haunches, the horse that bore the triple load could proceed only slowly along the ancient Roman route, which, connecting Paris with Amiens, led by the abbey of St. Denis. The nocturnal trip was long and made in silence. Martha, proud of finding herself riding at the crupper of a holy man, thought only of the relic whose divine influence was to preserve her as well as her daughter from all present and future ills. Anne had come with repugnance. The monk ever inspired her with a vague sense of fear. The night was dark; the route uncertain. When, as it happened from time to time, the horse seemed to take fright, the maid felt Fultrade tighten his hold upon her, and his hot breath smite her cheeks.
When, finally, the monk arrived with his two female traveling companions at the massive gate of the abbey, he knocked in a particular manner. The knock was speedily answered by the gleam of a lantern at the wicket; the wicket was then opened; a few words were exchanged in a low voice between the brother at the gate and Fultrade; the light went out; the ponderous door turned on its hinges, leaving a passage for the new arrivals, and then closed again when all three had entered.
Martha and her daughter stood in utter darkness. An invisible personage took charge of the priest's horse and led it away. Fultrade then took the arm of Martha and whispered to her:
"Give your hand to your daughter, and both follow me. Your arrival here must be kept a profound secret."
After descending a steep staircase, and following for a considerable time the windings of a vaulted passage-way, the monk stopped and groped for the orifice of the lock of a door, which he opened.
"Step in, my dear daughters in Christ," said the monk; "you may wait for me here; in the meantime say your prayers."
A few minutes later the door opened again, and returning without a light, as before, the monk said:
"Martha, you will first adore the relic; your daughter's turn will come after you."
"Oh! No!" cried Anne the Sweet in deep anxiety. "I will not remain alone here in the dark! No! I wish to remain near my mother!"
"My child, fear nothing," said Martha reassuringly; "we are in a holy abbey, and besides, under the protection of Father Fultrade."
"Moreover," interjected the monk, "one is never alone when thinking of God. Your mother will be back shortly."
"Mother, I will not leave you—I am afraid," screamed the young girl.
It was in vain. Before Anne could find her mother in the dark to cling to her, the girl felt a vigorous hand staying her off. Martha was hurried out, and the door closed behind her and upon her daughter. More and more affrighted, Anne screamed aloud. In vain again. The steps of Fultrade and Martha receded. Soon all sound ceased, and a brooding darkness reigned around the helpless girl. A minute later the blood rushed to Anne's heart. Distinctly she heard near her, as if groping about in the darkness, the respiration of one panting for breath. Immediately she felt herself seized by two vigorous arms and raised from the floor. The young girl strove to free herself and called aloud to her mother for help. The struggle was so violent and the girl's outcry so loud that it at first drowned the sound of a rap at the door. But the rapping speedily became so vehement that it soon drowned the violent struggle within and a voice was heard uttering at the door some Latin words in a hurried tone and in accents of alarm. Anne felt herself immediately delivered from the close embrace that terrified her, and soon as released fell fainting to the floor. Someone passed by her, opened and double-locked the door in great hurry, and ran away precipitately.
While, aided by another monk, his accomplice, Fultrade was locking up Martha and her daughter in separate subterranean cells of the abbey where serfs and other culprits under the jurisdiction of the abbot were usually confined, a great commotion reigned in another quarter of the holy place. Monks, suddenly shaken from their slumbers, were running about under the arches of the cloister, with torches in their hands. In the center of one of the interior courtyards a score of horsemen were seen. The sweat that streamed down the steeds gave evidence of the length and precipitancy of a recent run. They had escorted to the abbey the Count of Paris, who, arriving from his city in hot haste, proceeded immediately to the apartment of Fortunat, the Abbot of St Denis. The prelate, a man of shapeless obesity and with his eyes still half closed with sleep, was hastily donning a long and warmly furred morning robe that one of his servants was helping him into. Other menials of the abbey were lighting the candles of two candelabra made of solid silver and placed upon a richly ornamented table. There was nothing more sumptuous than the abbot's bedroom. Having finally put on his gown, the abbot rubbed his eyes, seated on the edge of his downy couch. Count Rothbert, who had been taken to the abbot, was impatiently demanding that Fultrade be called.
"Seigneur count, he has been sent for, but he was not in his cell," answered the abbot's chamberlain, who had accompanied the count to the abbot's apartment and was followed by several of his fellow officials—the marshal, the equerry, the butler and other dignitaries of the abbey.
"Father Fultrade must be in church," put in a voice, "he must have gone to early matins."
"Unless he remained in Paris, where I ran across him this morning," replied Rothbert. "Never was his presence more needed than here and now!"
"Count," said the abbot gulping down a yawn, "none of my dear brothers in Christ sleep outside of the abbey, unless sent on a mission by me. Fultrade must surely have returned home this evening. Will you not please to communicate to me the cause of this night alarm?"
"I shall give you news of a nature to make you open wide your eyes and ears. The Northmans have reappeared at the mouth of the Seine. They are advancing upon Paris with a fleet of vessels!"
Despite his enormous corpulence, Abbot Fortunat bounded up from his bed. His triple chin shivered; his large red face was blanched; he clasped his hands in terror; his lips trembled convulsively; but his fear prevented him from articulating a single word. The other personages attached to the abbey looked, like himself, terror-stricken at the tidings brought by the count. Some moaned, others fell upon their knees and invoked the intercession of the Lord. All, the abbot included, who had finally found his voice, cried:
"Almighty God, have mercy upon us! Deliver us from these pagans! From these demons! Alack! Alack! What ills are about to afflict the servitors of your Church! What ravages! Our goods will be pillaged by these sacrilegious wretches! Oh, Lord! Deliver us from the Northmans! Command your angels to exterminate these pagans!"
In the midst of these exclamations Fultrade entered, at last. He looked cross and irritated. His face was inflamed.
"Come in, Fultrade," the count called to him when he saw the monk appear at the threshold of the abbot's apartment. "Come in; you are the only man of thought and action in this place;" and turning to the abbot, whose whimpering annoyed him, the count added: "Fortunat, quit your lamentations! The hour calls for action, not for whines!"
The monks repressed their moans with difficulty, while the Count of Paris, addressing Fultrade in particular, said:
"The moments are precious—the Northmans have appeared at the mouth of the Seine. They are said to be under the command of one of their most intrepid sea-kings, named Rolf. Their fleet is so numerous that it covers the whole width of the mouth of the river. They can not now be further away than ten or twelve leagues from here. The means to repel them must be considered."
"And how comes it that we have not been apprised of the arrival of these accursed men?" inquired Fultrade in a rage. "They have passed Rouen. How comes it that the people of that city did not spread the alarm? There is treason in this!"
"Oh! What do the people of Rouen care about the arrival of the pirates? Not having been this time themselves attacked by the Northmans, they do not concern themselves about the rest of the provinces. It was only this evening that I was notified by some messengers of the seigneurs and abbots, whose lands border on the Seine, that the Northmans were here. They furthermore informed me that the vile rustic plebs, which has nothing to lose, shows itself everywhere happy at the thought of the ills that these pagans will inflict upon the Church and the seigneurs. It is for us, accordingly, for us seigneurs and clergy, to join hands and defend one another! We need not look for help from Charles the Simple, who will think of nothing but the defence of his own royal domain, if he be capable of even that. He will allow the Northmans to plunder us to their hearts' content."
"Alack! Alack!" resumed the Abbot of St. Denis with a fresh outburst of moans. "What direful calamities are again in store for us!—Did we not see Charles the Bald grant the country of Chartres to that execrable Hastain! to that chieftain of Northman pirates! to that vile revolted serf! to that bandit, soiled with all crimes and abominable sacrileges! Alack!—What horrible times these are in which we live!—What shall we do, Oh, Lord!—What else can we do but invoke your holy name!"
"What we are to do?—It is plain! We must rely upon ourselves alone! Organize ourselves for our own defence; arm our colonists and our towns-people; and lead them out, under pain of death, to do battle with the Northman!—You, Fultrade, are a man of energy and intelligence. Immediately take horse and ride at full gallop with some of my officers and a good escort, to summon in my name the bishops and abbots of my duchy of France to arm their serfs and towns-men. A portion of these men is to be left in the abbeys and castles as a garrison, the others are to be marched to Paris in small detachments, to defend the Commune."
"Count, what are you thinking of!" exclaimed the abbot, raising his hands to heaven. "At so dangerous a moment, would you send Father Fultrade from my side!"
"You need not be afraid," answered Rothbert. "Before leaving Paris I issued orders to one hundred of my men at arms to march hither at the double quick, in order to defend this post which dominates the Seine."
"Alack!" murmured the abbot, breaking out in tears. "Already, five times has this abbey been invaded, sacked and pillaged by these pagans. Although the place has been surrounded by new fortifications, it never could resist the Northmans! Alack! The thickest walls crumble down before these demons! We are lost!"
"Fear is deranging your mind, Fortunat. I tell you again that nothing short of a regular siege will take the place. My hundred soldiers will suffice for the defence against these Northmans. And, now, Fultrade, to horse! If you succeed in your mission you will receive from me a rich bishopric in reward."
The monk had until then looked troubled and given but scant attention to the words of the count. The moment, however, that he heard an abbey promised to him his eyes brightened and his forehead smoothed. With sparkling eyes he answered:
"Seigneur, if our holy abbot allows me, I shall carry out his orders and yours. May heaven protect me! I trust I may be able to carry your commission to a successful issue."
At this point one of the count's officers entered, saying:
"Agreeable to your orders, several archers whom our riders brought on the cruppers of their horses were posted on the river bank. By the light of the moon they noticed a large vessel ascending the Seine. They compelled the sailors to land, threatening them, in case of refusal, to treat them to a volley of arrows. The master of the vessel is being brought in."
"Have him come here immediately," answered Rothbert; and turning to the abbot he explained: "I have issued orders to allow no vessel to pass without questioning the skippers. They may be able to furnish us with some information on the fleet of the pirates; they may have picked up something."
The master who was forthwith introduced was Eidiol, the dean of the Skippers' Guild, who had been so brutally treated by the count on that very day. Assuming a look of surprise, mingled with cordiality, Rothbert said to Eidiol:
"I did not expect to see you quite so soon again, my trusty skipper!" and waving his hand towards the aged man, he said to the abbot: "This man is the dean of the honorable Skippers' and Mariners' Guild of Paris."
Greatly astonished at the cordial and respectful reception that he now received at the hand of Rothbert, who, that very forenoon had treated him with so much contempt, Eidiol looked suspiciously at the count and sought to explain to himself the cause of so sudden a change in his favor. As to Fultrade, the monk at first seemed nailed to the floor with stupefaction at the sight of the father of Anne the Sweet, but speedily recovering his self-control, said to Rothbert:
"Time presses. I shall depart instantly on the mission that you have charged me with."
"Make it clear to the seigneurs and the abbots that we can not choose but win, provided we act concertedly."
The monk vanished, and redoubling his affability toward Eidiol, Rothbert resumed: "Be welcome, my trusty skipper. You could not possibly have arrived at a more opportune moment. Your advice will be useful to us."
"Your archers must, no doubt, have thought so, seeing they threatened to let fly a volley of arrows at us if our vessel did not promptly land where they ordered."
"Such severe measures are unavoidable at this moment, my worthy skipper. No doubt you have heard the news? The Northmans have reappeared at the mouth of the Seine."
"Oh!" exclaimed Eidiol with perfect indifference. "It is the Northmans, is it? Yes, I have learned of their approach. I even know, from the master of a lighter that was pulling up the river, that the pirates' fleet dropped anchor this evening near the isle of Oissel, one of their former and favorite rendezvous."
"By the sword of my great father, Rothbert the Strong!" cried Rothbert, stupefied and indignant at the unconcern of the skipper with regard to the invasion of the Northman pirates. "This upsets me! What do you mean by such a display of apathy at the prospect of the terrible ills that are about to fall over our heads?!"
"Oh, I am by no means unconcerned touching the arrival of the pirates. Instead of descending the river as far as St. Audoin, whither I was taking a cargo, I am now ascending the river to return to Paris, where I thought my presence might be needed."
"That is right, my brave skipper! I was mistaken. You were not indifferent but calm, like all brave people in sight of danger."
"To speak truly, I can not see wherein lies the danger."
"Are you not fleeing before the approach of those pagans?"
"No, I am not fleeing. I am returning to Paris to embrace my wife and daughter. And I am all the happier about it, seeing I did not expect to be with them again until to-morrow evening. I meant, after that, to take council with my compères upon what to do."
"And who are your compères?"
"Why, of course, the deans of the other guilds of the city of Paris—of the blacksmiths, carpenters, armorers, weavers, curriers, stone-cutters, and others."
"Of course, the purpose of such a council is to organize the defense of Paris against the pirates! Glory to you, my towns-men! I feel proud of numbering such stalwarts as yourselves in my city!"
"Blessed be they who defend the Church! All their sins will be remitted!" put in the abbot who, until now overwhelmed with grief and fear, seemed to gather some hope from the words of the count.
"Oh!" repeated Rothbert, pointing proudly at Eidiol, "at the head of such men, we shall be invincible!"
"And yet," replied the aged skipper, "only this forenoon, you were ordering your knights to break their lances upon our backs!"
Rothbert bit his lips, puckered his brow, and answered with embarrassment:
"You must excuse an accidental outburst of excitement."
"Your present glorifications contrast singularly with the insolent words that you bestowed upon me this forenoon."
"Fortunat," rejoined the count, turning to the abbot and with difficulty suppressing his anger: "This good fellow loves to banter. I think, however, he should choose his time better. We must run to arms, not joke, when these accursed Northmans threaten our peace."
"Well! well! They are not so deserving of curses, after all," remarked Eidiol, smiling with nonchalance. "Thanks to these very Northmans, you are now treating me with civility and courting my friendship. The noble is flattering the villein!"
"Quit your raillery, old man!" commanded Rothbert, relapsing, despite himself, into his wonted haughty and violent temper.
"Seigneur count, I am speaking to the point because I am in a hurry to embrace my wife and daughter. It is now about twenty-seven years ago, in the year 885, when the Northmans, under the lead of Hastain, to-day master and Seigneur of the country of Chartres, invaded the country and laid siege to Paris for the fifth or sixth time."
"On that occasion, at least, and it was the only time, the plebs of Paris, under the command of Eudes, my brother, offered a brave resistance, since when the pirates have no longer ravaged the city. It will be so again now. I swear it to God, will ye, nill ye, villeins, you shall be marched to the ramparts to give battle!"
"Until that year of which you speak, Paris had never offered any resistance to the pirates. The reason was simple. The people, the guilds and the artisans did not care to undertake the defence—"
"Yes, yes!" broke in Rothbert with concentrated rage "That plebs allowed the churches, the abbeys and the castles to be pillaged and set on fire!"
"The Northmans only plunder the rich. They surely do not care to load their barks with our rags, our rough furniture and our sand-stone pots when they can load them to overflowing with vases of gold and silver and all manner of costly things with which the castles, the churches and the abbeys are gorged. They attack the seigneurs. Let the seigneurs defend themselves!"
"By the death of Christ! This old man has gone crazy!" cried Rothbert beyond himself with rage and yet not daring fully to give a loose to his pent-up anger. "How could we defend ourselves without the aid of the people! Could I repel thirty thousand Northmans with the two thousand soldiers that I keep in my duchy of France?"
"Oh, I know it! You can do nothing without the people. Your brother, Count Eudes, knew it also. At the approach of the pirates he sought to propitiate the people, and convoked the deans of the guilds at his little castle of Paris. My father, the then dean of the skippers, said to your brother: 'You, kings, seigneurs and clergymen, need us to protect your goods from the pillage of the Northmans. Well, then, let us strike a bargain. Lighten our taxes, render our lives less hard, and we shall defend your riches.' 'Agreed!' answered Count Eudes, and certain franchises and other measures of relief for the plebs of the city were agreed on. On the morrow that good plebs rushed to the ramparts and fought with intrepidity. Many of them were killed, many more were wounded. My father and myself were among the latter. The Northmans were repelled. But the danger being over, the King, the seigneurs and the dignitaries of the Church forgot their promise."
While Eidiol spoke the Count of Paris controlled his indignation with difficulty; finally he broke forth pale with rage: "Do you mean that your plebs will refuse to defend the city?"
"I think so. We, the skippers, will take on board our vessels our own families and those of our friends who are willing to follow us. We shall sail out of the waters of Paris on one side while the Northmans enter by the other, and we shall calmly ascend the Seine towards the Marne, leaving you, seigneurs and abbots, to arrange matters with the Northmans the best way you may know how."
"Listen to him! The infamous poltroon! Is your vile slave's heart moved neither with anger nor shame at the bare idea of the disgrace of seeing the foreigners, the Northmans, in Paris!"
At these insulting words a slight flush suffused Eidiol's face, a spark of lightning glistened in his eyes. But the self-possessed old man controlled himself and answered:
"Count, my grandfather read in the old parchments of our family that a small colony of men of my race, now more than three centuries ago, lived free and happy in a corner of Burgundy when the Arabs invaded and ravaged Gaul[3]—"
"And that colony of cravens," broke in the count, "trembling before the Arabs, like you now before the Northmans, of course left the pagans to ravage, pillage and burn down the country!"
"Count," proceeded the old skipper proudly, "the people of that colony were killed to the last man because they fought in defence of their rights, their families, their soil and their liberty. But, seeing that that handful of brave men were, with the single exception of the indomitable Bretons, the only free men in all Gaul, the Arabs were able to ravage the other provinces and to settle down in Languedoc. In this century the same thing will happen with the Northmans. The population—a horde of slaves on the field, a mass of wretched beings in the towns—is indifferent to the ills that smite you—you rich seigneurs and prelates. And now, adieu. I am in a hurry to return to Paris and embrace my wife and daughter."
While Eidiol was uttering these last sentences, the count issued some orders in a low voice to one of his officers, who thereupon hurriedly left the apartment. The old man moved towards the door, but Rothbert, motioning his men to bar the passage, cried in a menacing tone:
"You shall not go to introduce disturbance and revolt in my city of Paris!" And addressing the abbot: "Have you a prison in the place?"
"We have cells, and quite strong, too, in which to keep the impious criminals who dare resist our will."
"Let one of your clerks show the way to my men, who will lock this insolent skipper in one of these cells of the abbey."
Eidiol was unable to suppress a first impulse of astonishment and sorrow.
"My son," said he, "has remained on board of my vessel; allow me to see him and apprise him of what has happened to me, that he may inform my wife and daughter. They will otherwise feel uneasy at my absence."
"Your wishes," answered Rothbert with a cruel smile, "shall be satisfied. I have sent to fetch the other skippers from your vessel."
"Treason!" cried Eidiol. "They will come confident that no harm is meant, and a prison cell awaits them!"
"You have said it," replied the Count of Paris, and, pointing his finger at Eidiol, he ordered his officers: "To prison with him!"
"My dear wife, my sweet daughter! How uneasy will you not feel when to-morrow you see neither my son nor myself coming back home," murmured the old man sadly, and, without offering any resistance, he followed the officer who took him in charge and conducted him to the subterranean cells of the abbey.
Shortly after the count's departure from the abbey, the reinforcement of a hundred soldiers promised by him arrived at the place. Their captain spent the night in preparing the fortifications for the defence. Under the physical lash of their foreman, above all intimidated by the fear of the fiery furnace of hell, the serfs and villeins transported to the platform of the walls large stones, logs of wood and heavy beams, intended to serve as projectiles against the expected assailants. They were also made to carry heavy barrels of oil and pitch, which, boiled in large caldrons, were held ready to be poured over the heads of the enemy; besides a large number of bags full of chalk dust, whose contents, dropped upon the besiegers, would serve to blind them.
During the night and part of the morning the cattle of the abbey's domain were driven within its walls. Thither also a large number of the abbey's serfs and villeins congregated, summoned by the abbot to its defence. Many more, however, took to flight, determined to join the Northmans the moment they disembarked and to glean whatever they could in the wake of the invaders' tracks.
Many "Franks", as the free holders of little farms were styled, who lived in the environs of St. Denis, bundled up their most valuable havings and went for shelter behind the walls of the abbey. The court-yards and galleries of the cloister became by the hour more encumbered with a frightened crowd, whose baggage was piled up high hither and thither, while cattle of every description were huddled close together in the garden and on a spacious meadow that was enclosed within the fortifications.
Finally, the abbot himself, helped by his canons who were armed with spades and mattocks, was busily engaged in the work of hastily burying under the ground of a little sequestered court all the rich paraphernalia of the church—vases, reliquaries, chalices, monstrances, statues, crosses, candelabra, chalice-covers, and other holy utensils wrought in silver or solid gold, and enriched with costly ornaments,—all proceeding from the toil and taxes of the serfs and villeins. A small group of priests were upon their knees in the basilica, imploring, amid moans, the assistance of heaven and invoking all manner of maledictions upon the heads of the Northmans.
The larger part of the day had been spent in continual frights. The men at the lookout, who kept watch on the ramparts above the gate, saw it frequently open in order to give passage to belated serfs and herds of cattle, or to wagons filled with the fodder needed for feeding the large number of horses and other animals that had been crowded within the walls. Two of these conveyances, loaded with hay, and each drawn by a double yoke of oxen, were conducted by a man of sinister face and barely dressed in rags. The man was well known in the abbey. So soon as he hove in sight, a monk of large paunch, who was placed at the wicket of the gate, cried:
"Blessings upon you and your load! We have so many cattle within that we have been in fear of want of provender for them. Have you any tidings of those pagan Northmans? Have their vessels been seen on the Seine? Are they near or still far away?"
"They are said to be drawing nearer. But thanks to God, the abbey is impregnable. Oh! A curse upon these Northmans!" answered the serf, whose name was Savinien. As the man spoke, a strange smile flitted over his careworn countenance; he cast a sly side-smile upon the load of hay that was heaped up high on the wagons and added: "I have driven my oxen so fast, in order to place myself at the order of our holy abbot, that, I fear, the poor brutes are foundered.—See how heavy they breathe!"
"They will not have to blow long. They will be speedily killed to feed the large number of noble Franks who have fled hither for refuge," replied the monk.
As the monk spoke, he began to remove, with the assistance of several other brothers, the enormous iron bars and chains that reinforced the massive gate from within. About to throw open the gate, however, he heard, from a short distance without, mournful moans and canticles rising from female voices. Such was the panic that the approach of the Northmans threw the church people into, that the gate-monk, frightened out of his senses by the feminine lamentations which were slowly drawing nearer, did not venture, despite all insistence on the serfs part, to open the gate of the abbey, and refused admittance even to Savinien's welcome load. In the midst of the altercation between the monk and the serf, there appeared from behind a clump of trees, that rose at a distance from the abbey, a short procession of nuns distinguishable by their black and white robes, as well as by the long veils that covered their faces and that were intended to withdraw the saintly maids from the gaze of the profane. Four of the nuns carried on a stretcher, improvised of recently felled tree-branches, the inert body of one of their companions. The pall-bearers, together with the other eight or ten nuns who composed the funeral cortège, emitted incessant and heart-rending lamentations. Another young nun, whose veil was partly raised, preceded the body by a few steps, wringing her hands in despair, and from time to time crying out distracted:
"Lord! Lord! Have mercy upon us! Our holy abbess is killed!"
Savinien, who, from the moment admission into the abbey was refused him, had been casting increasingly anxious and uneasy looks at his load, piously dropped down on his knees the moment he saw the mortuary procession, led by the weepful nun, approach. Stepping more rapidly ahead of her suite, the latter walked up to the gate of the abbey, and, with a voice broken by sobs, cried through the wicket:
"My dear brothers, open this holy place of asylum to the poor lambs who are fleeing before ravaging wolves. Already our venerable mother in God has succumbed. We are carrying her mortal remains. Open the gate of the sacred monastery!"
"Is that you, Sister Agnes?" inquired the big gate-monk through the wicket "Are those Northman demons so near that they have invaded the convent of St. Placida?"
"Alack, my dear brother! Last night, about a score of the accursed pagans disembarked not far from our convent," answered the nun with an outburst of sobs. "Awakened by the light of the flames that shot up from the conflagration, and by the cries of terror of the serfs who occupied the outside buildings, a few of us managed to throw on our clothes and to flee in all haste with our holy abbess through a gate that opened on the field. But alack! alack! so severe was the shock upon our venerable mother, already enfeebled by disease, that after about a quarter of an hour's march she fainted in our arms,—and immediately," proceeded Sister Agnes after she had overcome a fresh fit of heart-rending sobs, "immediately our venerable mother passed from the earth to heaven!—We are bringing her body with us in order that the last rites may be performed over her remains, and that they may be buried in consecrated ground."
The gate-brother listened to the distressful tale, sobbing no less loudly than Sister Agnes and smiting his chest. When she finished he quickly opened the gate and sent one of his assistants to notify the abbot of the misfortune. The body of the deceased mother-superior entered the abbey, together with the nuns who accompanied it, and followed by Savinien's two wagons of hay. The somber face of the serf seemed to lighten up with a sinister joy, which he had no little difficulty in suppressing, when at last he found himself within, and the abbey gate closed behind him.
The fugitives who crowded the court-yard of the abbey dropped upon their knees at the passage of the nuns. The latter, led by one of the monks, marched to the parvis of the basilica, followed by the crowd who sang in chorus the prayer that for fully a century had been repeated in all the abbeys and all the castles of Gaul:
"Lord, have mercy upon us! Lord, deliver us from the Northmans! Lord, exterminate the accursed pagans!"
The funeral cortège arrived at the entrance of the basilica and was received by one of the deacons. The prelate had hastily donned his sacerdotal robes. Priests bearing the cross aloft and carrying candles stood behind the officiating prelate. They looked down-cast and pale, and trembled. They repeated the funeral psalms with precipitation and absent-mindedly. The evidence before them of the pirates' being nigh, made them shudder. The first prayers being finished, the body, still carried by the nuns upon the improvised stretcher of branches, was taken to the choir and deposited upon the flagstones, not far from the chanters' desk.
An indescribable disorder reigned in the interior of the vast church. Monks, assisted by serfs, were in hot haste finishing the removal of the precious ornaments of the splendid basilica. Ranged in the transepts, or aisles, that extended to either side of the nave, were a number of crypts, subterranean grooves, above which rose numerous mausoleums erected to the memory of kings and queens of the stock of Clovis and of Charles Martel. The frightened faces of the monks of St. Denis, the lamentations that they uttered while at work removing the sacred ornaments from the altars, the funeral chants that were sung in muffled voices for the repose of the soul of the mother-superior, whose body had just been carried into the church by the nuns, the moans of the noble Franks and their families, who had taken refuge in the holy place—all these lugubrious notes added fuel to the general feeling of dread.
Attracted, probably, more by curiosity than piety, the larger number of the soldiers, who were sent by the Count of Paris for the defense of the abbey, had followed the funeral procession into the church. These men of war, savage, coarse and as impious as either the Northmans or the Arabs, brusquely pushed their way forward as far as the choir where the body of the mother-abbess lay surrounded by her nuns. Little affected by the religious character of the ceremony or by the solemnity of the sacred place, these soldiers fastened their licentious glances upon the daughters of the Lord, whose faces they sought to discover across the transparency of their lowered veils. On his knees beside one of these, who, likewise on her knees and her forehead bowed down, seemed steeped in prayer, Sigefred, a captain of the soldiers, made bold to touch the elbow of the holy maid. The latter was for an instant startled, but controlled herself, and remained silent. Encouraged by his success, Sigefred quietly raised the veil which fell from the head of the nun down to her waist, and carried his audacity to the point of sliding a profane hand up to the collar of the maid's robe. No sooner had he committed the indignity than he quickly withdrew his hand as if it had touched a piece of burning coal.
"By the navel of the Pope!" growled Sigefred in an undertone, "This nun has a skin of iron!"
The venturesome ruffian had no time for another word. He dropped dead, stabbed with a dagger by the nun of the skin of iron. For an instant the other soldiers remained dumb with stupefaction, seeking to explain how the long and large sleeves of the saintly maid could conceal an arm and hand whose epidermis seemed of metal.
"A miracle!" cried some of the witnesses of Sigefred's attempt. "A miracle! The Lord protects the chastity of his virgins by covering them with a tissue of steel mail!"
"Treason!" cried the less credulous warriors, drawing their swords. "These nuns are soldiers dressed like women! Treason! To arms! To arms! Revenge Sigefred! To the devil with miracles and maids!"
"Skoldmoë!" suddenly shouted with resonant voice the mother-abbess whose funeral was being celebrated, and rising to her full length, freeing herself from her long veil and dropping her black robe to her feet, Shigne the Buckler Maiden stood there in her battle armor, with her bold face framed in a hair-net of iron mail that replaced her usual casque. "Skoldmoë!" she shouted again, repeating her war-cry. "Up, my virgins! Mercy for the women! Exterminate the men! Kill them all, to the last one!" and brandishing a double-edged axe, she bounded forward like a panther and struck down one of the Frankish warriors who rushed upon her.
"Skoldmoë!" cried back the other Buckler Maidens, likewise disengaging themselves of their veils and their monastic robes, and like Shigne, they forthwith charged upon the soldiers with their axes and swords.
The faithful, only a minute before absorbed in prayer, fled in dismay towards the doors of the basilica; the monks hid themselves behind the mausoleums over the royal crypts or embraced the altars—their last refuge. The vault of the church resounded with cries of terror, with hysterical moans, and with invocations to the Supreme Being, while above the confused noise rose the din of the Northman virgins' battle-cry, the thud of their heavy blows, the shrieks of the soldiers whom they smote.
Sister Agnes, who had introduced the pirate women into the abbey, was a poor victim of sacerdotal authority. She had been compelled to enter the convent of St. Placida. The previous night the Northman warrior maids forced open the doors of the monastery. She saw her opportunity to regain her freedom, and aided the Buckler Maidens in carrying out the strategem which Shigne devised in order to capture the abbey of St. Denis.
More numerous than the pirate women, the soldiers in the abbey strove to break a passage through the frightened mass at the door and join their comrades in the interior of the church in order to overpower their assailants. But the prodigy of a combat with woman warriors, some of whom were of surpassing beauty, struck the younger of the men with amazement. Their arms were involuntarily stayed in the act of striking the beautiful maids. These, on the contrary, fired by the example of Shigne, who was making havoc among the soldiers with her battle-axe, fought with matchless heroism. The older soldiers, being less susceptible to the emotions of some of their younger companions at the thought of a struggle to the death with young women, fell upon these with fury. Several of Shigne's virgins were killed, others were wounded. But the latter did not seem to feel their wounds, and only fought with increased ardor.
The mêlée was still at its height when Fultrade arrived back at the abbey from the mission that the Count of Paris had charged him with. The noise of the battle in the church drew him thither. When he entered he saw Shigne with her back against the mausoleum of Clovis battling with intrepidity against two Frankish soldiers. The heroine whirled her weapon with such agility and dexterity that every time her battle-axe struck the swords of her two adversaries the sparks were made to fly by the shock of the iron against the steel. During this struggle the sword of one of the soldiers was broken. At the moment when Shigne was about to let her axe descend upon his head and kill her disarmed adversary, Fultrade, who had glided silently behind the mausoleum, seized her by the legs. Thus taken by surprise, Shigne fell to the ground and dropped her axe. The two Frankish soldiers threw themselves upon her and made desperate efforts to keep her under their knees.
"Skoldmoë!—To me, my sisters!"
But the voice of the Buckler Maiden was drowned in the general clash of arms and in the furious roars of the soldiers, mingled with the war-cry of the other virgins who still continued the fray under the fretted vaults of the basilica. In vain the heroine called to her companions. Fultrade, who had knelt down beside her in order to assist the two soldiers in keeping her on the floor, placed both his hands upon her mouth, and yielding to his licentious instinct, whispered to the two men at arms:
"Comrades, this witch is young and beautiful; let us drag her into the crypt of this mausoleum; she shall be ours!"
The two Franks broke into a savage laugh of approval, and aided by Fultrade dragged the Buckler Maiden, despite the superhuman resistance that she offered, into a cavity that was dug under the mausoleum—an underground nook perpetually lighted by a sepulchre lamp.
The monk and the two soldiers had barely stretched the Buckler Maiden upon the slab-stones of the crypt, when an icy terror ran through their frames. A noise, at first heard indistinctly, now smote their ears with all its formidable meaning. It was the war-cry of the Northman pirates. "Koempe!" "Koempe!" resounded from the court-yard of the abbey. The cry grew louder; it invaded the church; it presently reached clear, powerful, distinct into the underground recess of the crypt.
"Malediction upon us!" exclaimed the monk listening. "It is the war-cry of the Northmans! They have invaded the abbey!"
"Where could they have entered by?" asked one of the soldiers with chattering teeth. "The demons must have leaped out of hell!"
"To me, my virgins!" the warrior maid now cried with renewed vigor, although still held pinioned to the ground under the knees of the monk and the soldiers. "To me, my sisters! Skoldmoë! Skoldmoë!"
The last words of Shigne were answered by the sonorous voice of Gaëlo:
"Shigne, here I am!" and almost immediately the young pirate appeared at the entrance of the crypt, followed by Simon Large-Ears, Robin Jaws and Savinien, the serf who had driven the two wagons loaded with hay into the abbey. All three shouted at the top of their voices: "Koempe! To death and to the sack! Pillage! Pillage!"
At the sight of the unexpected reinforcement that rushed to the aid of their fair prisoner, Fultrade and his accomplices quitted their intended victim. Shigne leaped to her feet, seized the sword of one of the soldiers, plunged it into the breast of the monk, who dropped stone dead, and, still trembling with rage and shame, rushed sword in hand upon the young pirate.
"Either I shall kill you, or you will kill me, Gaëlo! You shall not be allowed to say that you saw me exposed to extreme outrage!"
Stupefied at the sudden attack of a young woman to whose aid he had hastened to come, Gaëlo at first contented himself with parrying Shigne's blows, but wounded in the face by her weapon, he precipitated himself upon her crying:
"Your will be done! Either you shall kill me, or I shall kill you!"
The combat between Gaëlo and Shigne was furious. Simon Large-Ears and Robin Jaws, who had turned their first attention to the two soldiers hidden in the remotest corner of the crypt under Clovis' mausoleum, killed them both. As they stepped out, Simon Large-Ears said:
"These nuns who came whining to the gate of the abbey while we were concealed under the hay of Savinien's wagons, turned to strategem like ourselves in order to get in. Theirs was a feminine ruse!"
"Oh, Simon," answered Robin pointing to the Buckler Maiden and Gaëlo, who were engaged in a deadly duel; "what a pity! To think of such a magnificent lad and so beautiful a girl seeking to kill each other, instead of making love!"
"And if they survive they will love each other but hobblingly. It is clear that in their rage both will lose some member. Just watch the blows that they deal to each other!"
Never had Gaëlo met more redoubtable an adversary than Shigne. To inordinary strength she coupled skill, coolness and intrepidity. Carried away by the ardor of the struggle, the pirate forgot his passionate love. If he at all kept in mind that he was fighting with a woman, he only felt all the more nettled at finding in her such indomitable powers of resistance. After a long exchange of parried thrusts, Gaëlo succeeded in dealing so violent a blow with his sword upon the virgin's skull that neither her hair-net of linked iron, nor her thick head of hair, through both of which the pirate's sword cut its way, could save her from a severe scalp wound. The blood poured down Shigne's face, her weapon slipped from her grasp, and she dropped down first upon both her knees and then on her side.
"Unhappy me!" cried Gaëlo in despair. "I have killed her!" and kneeling down beside the young woman, he raised her beautiful head, now pale, bleeding and with eyes half closed.
"Gaëlo," murmured the Buckler Maiden in a fainting voice, "you were able to vanquish me; I love you!" and her eyes closed.
Struck with sympathy, Simon and Robin approached Gaëlo to offer him their services, when a new cry arose from the distance, and again dominated the lingering clash of arms between the Northman pirates and the small remnant of the rapidly diminishing garrison of the abbey. It was the cry of "Berserk!" "Berserk!" warningly uttered by the pirates themselves.
"Lodbrog the Giant is again in a fit of fury!" cried Simon Large-Ears in terror. "The berserker is as terrible to his friends as to his enemies. Gaëlo, the fray may roll this way; your sweetheart is perhaps not dead; let us carry her into the crypt; she will be there safer than here."
Gaëlo hastened to follow Simon's advice. Raising the insensible warrior maid in his arms, he laid her down gently in a remote corner of the sepulchral recess.
A prodigious spectacle, a giant battle, was elsewhere taking place at that moment. The Frankish soldiers posted on the ramparts had left their posts to run to the assistance of their companions, first engaged by the Buckler Maidens and subsequently attacked by the band under Gaëlo that emerged out of Savinien's hay wagons. Until then, Lodbrog the berserker had fought valiantly without his intellect being clouded. But the intoxication of the battle, the odor of carnage, the sight of the Frankish reinforcement that poured down from the ramparts and rushed toward the main door of the basilica crying: "Death! Death! Kill the Northmans!"—all this combined threw the giant into a new attack of frenzy. Brandishing a spiked iron mace, the Northman, leaped forward with a roar and dashed upon the compact group of Franks. Ten blacksmiths' hammers beating upon ten anvils could not produce the deafening sound produced by Lodbrog's mace falling, falling again, rising only to fall again and again upon the casques and the armors of the soldiers. Some sink to the earth, crushed under the thundering blows, without uttering a sound: their skulls are ground into pulp within their casques like nuts in their shells; others roll to the ground emitting shrieks of pain and rage. The corpses are heaped up high at the feet of Lodbrog. He mounts the heap. He mounts it as on a pedestal, and his size assumes still more gigantic proportions. The tops of the casques of the soldiers who still dare sustain the contest with him, barely reach his belt. Gaëlo, who rushed out of the basilica, thinking his aid needed in the general battle that he imagined was in progress, arrived at the moment when the surviving soldiers were surrounding the berserker, then at the climax of his fury. The spectacle presented looked like assailants trying to scale a tower. Twenty arms holding twenty swords rose at once to smite the giant. But towering above those arms and swords appeared the cuirassed bust of the colossus, and his iron mace rose and descended, splintering swords, cracking heads, crushing limbs, pulverizing arms! Gaëlo, the others of his band and the surviving Buckler Maidens precipitated themselves upon the rear of the soldiers who besieged Lodbrog. Suddenly the berserker was heard to emit a fresh roar, throw his mace into the air, stoop down and immediately rise again holding a soldier by the hair and belt. Vainly did the luckless Frank struggle to escape from the giant's clutch. He was hurled wrathfully from on high against the handful of soldiers who still assailed the Northman. Several of them rolled over the ground. Lodbrog despatched them by trampling over their prostrate bodies with his colossal feet like an enraged elephant that tramples upon and pounds his victims to death. Thereupon, seeing no more enemies to fight, all his opponents having been killed or wounded by himself or the other pirates, but still a prey to his own vertigo of destruction, riddled with wounds that he did not feel, but the gushing blood of which reddened his armor that was broken through in twenty places, Lodbrog's eyes fell upon a large black mausoleum just within the basilica. It was the tomb of Fredegonde.[4] The giant rushed in headlong; he seized with both his mighty hands one of the pillars that supported the entablature; shook it; loosened it with an effort of superhuman strength; the pillar yielded and carried down with it a portion of the architecture of the mausoleum, which thereupon crumbled to the ground. The loud crash of the ruin added fuel to the rage of the berserker. His eyes encountered the sepulchral light that escaped from the crypt where the Beautiful Shigne lay. The berserker rushed thither with the roar of a goaded bull, and vanished from sight.
A night and almost a whole day had passed since Anne the Sweet, taken into one of the underground cells of the abbey of St. Denis by Father Fultrade, had escaped the outrageous purposes of the monk.
Deepest darkness reigned in the dungeon in which Anne the Sweet was confined. The feelings of terror and despair that at first seized her at being separated from her mother, had been followed by mental and physical prostration. Her tears had run dry. Seated on the stone slabs of the cell with her back to the wall, the young girl dropped into a feverish slumber agitated by sinister dreams. One time, it was the monk Fultrade who appeared before her, and then she awoke shuddering with horror—a horror that was intensified by the brooding darkness around her. At other times Anne dreamed that she had been forgotten in the underground chamber, and felt herself a prey to the agonies of hunger while her torture was rendered still more excruciating by the heart-rending cries of her mother, likewise a prey to the torments of famine. Suddenly the young girl was awakened from her cruel dreams by a loud noise of voices and steps that tumultuously drew near. She leaped up, listened, and recognizing the voices of Eidiol and of Guyrion the Plunger, she bounded towards the door which she struck with all her strength, crying:
"Father! Brother! Deliver me! Come, come to my help!"
"Step back from the door, my child!" answered the skipper. "We shall break it in."
Beside herself with joy, the young girl fell back a few steps. Shaken from its hinges by the blows of the iron bars that Eidiol and Guyrion and Rustic the Gay wielded with energy, the door soon fell over and Anne rushed into the arms of her father and brother; but looking around as if missing someone she had expected to see, she asked with fear:
"And my mother? Where is my dear mother?"
"You will see her in an instant, my child. It is from her I just learned about the treason of the infamous monk," answered the dean of the Skippers' Guild, who could not bestow sufficient caresses upon the daughter whom he feared to have lost. "When she saw me," continued the happy father, "poor Martha felt such a pang that she lost consciousness. Fortunately she returned to her senses, but her weakness is such that she could not walk out of the cell in which she also was confined. It is near by."
"But you here, father, in this abbey?" the young girl inquired, as soon as her first emotions were calmed. "And you, too, brother? And you, Rustic? Am I dreaming? Is it yourselves I see in this dungeon?"
"The Count of Paris posted some archers along the banks of the Seine in order to stop all the vessels that ascended the river," the old man explained. "Two of his soldiers took me to Rothbert. I had an altercation with him, and he ordered me locked up here."
"And the traitor thereupon sent us one of his men to say that my father wanted to see us immediately," added Guyrion; "we came without suspecting any harm—"
"And we had hardly set foot inside the abbey," broke in Rustic the Gay, "when the count's soldiers fell upon us unexpectedly and took us also prisoners."
"But you are now free," replied Anne. "Who set you free?"
"The Northman pirates, my dear child."
"Great God!" cried the young girl affrighted and clasping her hands. "Oh! father! were those pagans merciful to you?"
"Pagans who set us free are better than Christians who imprison us. Moreover, these brave and wily folks entered the abbey by strategem, and have slaughtered about a hundred Frankish soldiers, without counting the monks whom they despatched."
"After which, sister," proceeded Guyrion, "they started to pillage the basilica and the abbey. There is a heap of booty, as high as the portal of the cloister, piled up in the court-yard."
"And then," said Rustic, "the Northmans descended into the cellar to stave in the heads of the casks of wine that the abbot kept there. In this way they landed at the entrance of the gallery that leads to these underground dungeons. Expecting to find large treasures locked up there, they broke in the door. They found us huddled together in the gallery. Their chief, a magnificent young warrior whom they call Gaëlo, ordered them to treat us well and to assist us in setting the rest of the prisoners free. That is the history of our own deliverance."
"Thus, my child, we reached the cell in which your mother was confined," added Eidiol, again embracing Anne the Sweet.
"The young chief Gaëlo quitted us to join old Rolf, the chief of all the Northman forces," rejoined Guyrion, "who had just disembarked near the abbey. He entered the place and now holds it with a large body of men. The pirates are now hastily throwing up earth-works above the abbey on the side of Paris. Before sailing up towards the city they wish to fortify themselves here so as to have a safe place of refuge."
"Halloa! Halloa, there! Where are the Parisian skippers?" Gaëlo's voice was at this moment heard calling out from a distance. "Come here, my worthy men; Rolf wishes to see you!"
"Young man," said Eidiol to the pirate who was approaching them, "we thank you for having set us free. We shall follow you. But grant that my son remain near his sister and mother, who, like ourselves, were locked up in this underground prison. They need his protection."
"Let it be so," answered Gaëlo.
While Anne the Sweet and her brother walked to the cell where Martha lay, the dean of the Skippers' Guild of Paris, together with Rustic the Gay and his other men, followed Gaëlo to be presented to Rolf, who was feasting in the apartment recently occupied by the gourmandizing and craven Abbot of St. Denis. On their way thither, the young pirate left Eidiol and his men for an instant, and ran to one of the lower apartments of the abbey whither the Beautiful Shigne, whose wound, although serious, was not mortal, had been transported and was being tended. When Lodbrog the berserker, still under the spell of his vertigo of fury dashed into the crypt of the mausoleum of Clovis where the wounded warrior maid lay, the structure would inevitably have been demolished had he not stumbled at the first step of the short stone stairs that led down into the cell, and rolled to the bottom where he fell prostrate, bleeding to death from the wounds that he had received, not a few of which would have even singly proved mortal.
Rolf, the Sea-King and supreme Chief of the Northman pirates, was a man far advanced in years. His beard and hair, naturally of a yellow blonde, were heavily streaked with grey. Numerous scars criss-crossed his face, which was of a brick-red hue, tanned and copper-colored by the sun and the sea air. His physiognomy was rendered hideous by a saber cut that put out his left eye and cut his nose off to the bone. His single eye glistened like a burning coal under its bushy eye-brow; his heavy lips, half-hidden under his bristling moustache and by his shaggy beard, imparted to his mouth a scoffing and sensuous expression. Rolf was of middle size and of athletic frame. His arms were abnormally long. Like his champions, the Northman Chieftain wore an armor of iron scales. But, in order to feast and frolic more at ease, he had doffed his cuirass, and now kept on only a jacket of reindeer-skin, blackened at several places by the friction of his armor, and that fell open from time to time, exposing his shirt and, under his shirt, a chest as hirsute as that of the bears of the northern sea. The pirate chieftain was just finishing his repast. Canons and a few other surviving dignitaries of the abbot served Rolf upon their knees. The friars looked haggard and were pale with fear. He allowed them to move about only on all fours, or upon their knees when they were wanted to reach out dishes and wine cups to him. Every time that the movements of these servitors seemed too slow, either the pirates themselves, or former serfs of the abbey, who now saw their opportunity to avenge the ill-treatments that they had been subjected to, quickened, with kicks and sticks, the motions of the holy men.
Rolf, just finishing his sumptuous feast, seemed to be in great good humor. Half seas over with the old wines of Gaul, he was indulging himself in the well upholstered easy-chair of the abbot. He had just placed a woman on each knee, when, back from his call upon the Beautiful Shigne, and at ease concerning her recovery, Gaëlo entered the banquet-hall, accompanied by Eidiol, Rustic and the other skippers whom he was to present to Rolf.
"So the priests of this place were keeping you prisoners!" remarked Rolf to the skippers while wiping with the back of his hand his thick moustache, still wet with wine. "You should side with us against the church rats and the castle falcons!"
"We river-pikes can escape the rats and the falcons easy enough," answered Eidiol. "Nevertheless, we love to see the falcons transfixed with arrows, and the rats drowned in their traps. We applaud your victory over the monks of St. Denis."
"Are you of the city of Paris?"
"Yes, seigneur; I am the dean of the Skippers' Guild."
"Will the Parisians defend their city?"
"If you injure the poor folks, yes; if, however, all you mean to do is to burn down the churches, levy ransoms on the rich abbeys and on the palaces of the Frankish seigneurs, then the people will not budge."
"So, then, the good people of Paris will offer us no resistance. That will be wise on their part. What with the reserve that I shall leave in this fortified abbey, and my two thousand vessels that will ascend the Seine as far as Paris, resistance could come neither from Count Rothbert nor from Charles the Simple. Your King will pay us ransom, after which we shall wing our flight towards the North on the tracks of the swans,—unless I should take it into my head to settle down in this country of Gaul, the same as my comrade Hastain did when he settled down in the country of Chartres. He! He! my champions! I am growing old. Perhaps I should settle down in this country, in some fat province rich in pretty girls and good wine! Oh, my champions! As our saga sings: 'I am an old sea-crow; for nearly forty years I have grazed with my wings the fresh waters of rivers and the briny waves of the sea'. Now, then, there must be an end of this, my brave champions! Charles the Simple has a daughter called Ghisèle. She is a girl of fourteen, and pretty enough to make one's head swim. Maybe I shall take the daughter of Charles the Simple to wife and demand of him a whole province for dower. What think you of this project?"
No less intoxicated than their chieftain, the pirates emitted loud roars of laughter and answered vociferously:
"We shall drink to your wedding, old Rolf! A handsome maid belongs in your couch. Glory to the husband of Ghisèle, the daughter of Charles the Simple."
"The old brigand is drunk as a thrush in autumn, Master Eidiol; what wild scheme is that which he pursues?" whispered Rustic to the old skipper.
A great tumult interrupted the answer. The noise proceeded from without, it grew louder and approached the apartment. Imprecations and threats were vociferated wildly. Presently the door burst open and several pirates rushed in, dragging after them Guyrion the Plunger, his face bathed in blood.
"My son!" cried Eidiol running towards the lad. "My son is wounded!"
"And your mother—your sister—where are they?" added Rustic, rushing upon the heels of the old skipper. "Oh! I fear me a great misfortune has happened!"
"These bandits have killed my mother from whose arms they strove to drag my sister," answered Guyrion in despair. "I sought to defend them—these men struck me over the head with a saber and knocked me senseless!"
"My wife dead!" exclaimed the old man stupefied; and turning to the chieftain of the pirates, he cried out in a thundering voice: "Rolf! Justice! Justice! I demand vengeance!"
"Yes, Rolf, justice and vengeance!" cried several of the pirates who rushed in with Guyrion. "This dog whom we bring here to you has killed one of our companions. We want justice!"
Rolf, more and more under the influence of the heady wine, seeing that he continued to empty cup after cup, answered in a husky voice: "Yes, my champions; I shall order that justice be done. Only let me finish this flagon of wine."
At the same moment other pirates rushed in. They carried Anne the Sweet unconscious in their arms and deposited her at the feet of the Northman chieftain saying:
"Old Rolf, here is a beautiful girl that we have reserved for you. She belongs to your part of the booty."
Eidiol, Rustic, Guyrion and the other skippers in their company ran to the rescue of Anne, but they were violently repelled and held back by the pirates.
"My champions, I shall administer justice!" cried Rolf from his seat in a maudlin voice; and addressing himself to Guyrion the Plunger, who, forgetful of his wound that bathed his forehead in blood, looked alternately with despairing eyes from his father to his sister who lay prostrate in a swoon: "Who are you? Where do you come from? Answer, young man!"
"He is my son," answered Eidiol, choking with rage. "He is a skipper, like myself, and he came to join me at the abbey, where I was retained a prisoner."