CHAPTER IX.
ORLEANS—HER SAINT AND HER SIEGE.
The day after the interview of Baithene and Ethne with the monk, they left Tours, and rowed up the river in a small boat to Orleans. It was fresh life to Baithene to take his place at an oar, to feel delivered from the passive condition of following Eleazar about, interpreting bargains he detested, and picking up fragments of the talk around him in the streets. As he pulled up against the stream, straining every muscle in the contest with wind and water, he felt a man again, and something of a king.
The little boat made good way under his vigorous strokes. But at one point they ran some risk of being seized to act as a ferry-boat for a troop of fugitives, women and children, who were crowded together on the bank on the north side of the river.
“Have mercy on us, have mercy,” they cried, “and carry us across.”
Baithene laid up his oars for a moment and paused. Eleazar with violent gestures urged him forward, but having the power for the moment in his own hands, Baithene gave no heed, but still waited to listen.
They soon gathered that these were fugitives from the Huns, who were rapidly sweeping down on Aquitaine from the north. Their village had been burnt; they had friends in Aquitaine, and were seeking safety by putting the Loire between them and the foe. Miriam’s heart softened at once. Baithene thought the women and children might be ferried over in three or four crossings, while the few men among them must swim. This was accomplished, and the little rescued company, kneeling on the southern bank, showered benedictions on them as they again pulled up the river.
They had to halt twice for the night, and they took care to make their halting-places on the southern shore. On the third evening they reached Orleans.