"By heaven! That is a singular coincidence! And how did the bandit kill Neroweg?"
"Your ancestor and mine fought valiantly with axes, and the count succumbed. The Gaul triumphed over the Frank!"
"Indeed ... you refresh the recollections of my childhood. Did not your ancestor cut some words in the trunk of a tree with the point of a dagger after the combat?"
"Yes—'Karadeucq, a descendant of Joel, killed Count Neroweg'!"
"A few months after her husband's death, the count's wife, Godegisele, gave birth to a son, who was the grandfather of my grandfather."
"Strange coincidence, indeed ... and you, my beautiful abbess, listen to the story with great calmness!"
"What are those combats of our ancestors and of our races to me? By Venus! By her beautiful hips! I know but one race in all the world—the race of lovers! Empty your cup, my valiant warrior, and let us sup merrily. To-night there is a truce between us two.... War to-morrow!"
"Shame! Remorse! Reason! Duty!—let them all be drowned in wine!... I know not whether I am awake or dreaming on this strange night!" cried the young chief, and taking up his full cup, he rose and proceeded with an air of feverish defiance while turning towards the somber and savage portrait of the Frankish warrior: "To you, Neroweg!" Having emptied his cup, Berthoald felt seized with a vertigo and threw himself upon the lounge, saying to Meroflede: "Long live Love, abbess of the devil! Let us love each other to-night, and fight to-morrow!"
"We shall fight on the spot!" cried a hoarse and strangling voice, that seemed to proceed from the extremity of the large hall that lay in utter darkness, and, the curtains of one of the doors being thrust aside, Broute-Saule, who, without the knowledge of the abbess and driven by savage jealousy, had managed to penetrate into the apartment, rushed forward agile like a tiger. With two bounds he reached Berthoald, seized him by the hair with one hand and raised a dagger over him with the other, determined to plunge the weapon into the young chief's throat. The latter, however, although taken by surprise, quickly drew his sword, held with his iron grip the armed hand of Broute-Saule, and ran his weapon through the unfortunate lad. Deadly wounded, Broute-Saule staggered about for a few seconds and then dropped, crying: "Meroflede ... my beautiful mistress ... I die under your eyes!"
Still holding his bloody sword in his hand, and aware that the powerful wine was making further inroads upon his senses, Berthoald mechanically fell back upon the lounge. The dazed chief for a moment scrutinized the darkness of the apartment, apprehensive of further attempts upon his life, when he saw the abbess knock over with her fist the candelabrum which alone lighted the room, and in the midst of the total darkness that now pervaded the place he felt himself in the close embrace of the monster. Hardly any recollection remained to him of what happened during the rest of that night of drunkenness and debauchery.