"The Queen Faileube, espoused to our king, Chilperic—Queen Faileube, learning that Septimanie, the governess of the young princes, had conspired against the king's life—Queen Faileube said to the lord, 'My lord, the viper waits until you are asleep to give you a mortal wound. She has conspired with Sinnégisile and Gallomagus against your life! She has poisoned her husband, your faithful Jovius, to live with Dröckteufel. Let your anger come down upon her like lightning, and your vengeance with a bloody sword!' And Chilperic, assembling all his council in the castle of Nideck, said, 'We have cherished a viper; she has plotted our death. Let her be cut into three pieces. Let Dröckteufel, Sinnégisile, and Gallomagus perish with her! Let the ravens rejoice!' And the vassals cried, 'So let it be! The wrath of Chilperic is an abyss into which his enemies fall and perish!' Then Septimanie was brought to be put to the torture and examined; a ring of iron was bound around her temples; it was tightened; her eyes started; her blood-dropping mouth murmured, 'Lord king, I have offended. Dröckteufel, Gallomagus, and Sinnégisile have also conspired!' And the following night a festoon of corpses dangled and swung from the towers of Nideck! The foul birds of prey rejoiced over the rich spoil. Dröckteufel, what would I not have done for thee? I would have had thee King of Austrasia, and thou hast forgotten me!"
The guttural voice sank down, and my uncle Bernard, more dead than alive, breathing a sigh of terror, murmured—
"Oh, I have never done anybody any wrong! I am only a poor old chronicler! Let me not die without absolution, far from the succour of the Church!"
The great wooden box full of heather seemed at every effort to escape to sink deeper and deeper. The poor man thought he was going down into a gulf, when, happily, Christian reappeared, crying—
"Well, Maître Bernard, what did I say? here is the storm."
And now the hut was for an instant full of dazzling light, and my worthy uncle, who was lying facing the door, could see the whole valley lighted up, with its innumerable fir-trees crowded along the slopes down the valley as close as the grass of the fields, its rocks piled up on the banks of the river, which was rolling its sulphurous blue waves over the rounded boulders of the ravine, and the towers of Nideck rising proudly in the air fifteen hundred feet above.
Then the darkness covered all up again. That was the first flash.
But in that instant of time he caught sight of a strange figure crouching at the end of the hut without being able to make out what it really was.
Great drops were beginning to patter on the roof. Christian lighted a rush, and seeing Maître Bernard with his hands convulsively clutching the edge of his box of heather, and his face covered with beads of cold sweat, he cried—
"Why! Master Bernard! what is the matter with you?"