"How did he know her? Where did he see her?"
"At the halt that you made at the convent of St. Saturnine with Charles Martel; it was there that the Jew recognized you."
"God was merciful to me! My mother did not live to know my shame. Her death would have been doubly terrible.... And now, monster, deliver me of your presence and of life. I am in a hurry to die!"
"Have patience! I have prepared for you a refined punishment, and a prolonged agony."
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MIRACLE OF ST. LOUP'S TEETH.
On the morning of the fateful day when the abbess Meroflede drowned, as in a mouse-trap, the troop of Frankish warriors that had presumed to dispossess her, the goldsmith Bonaik entered his workshop at the accustomed hour. He was soon joined by his slave apprentices. After lighting the fire in the forge, the old man opened the window that looked over the fosse, to let the smoke escape. With no little astonishment Bonaik observed that the water in the moat had risen so high as to be within a foot of the window sill. "Oh, my lads," said he to the apprentices, "I fear some great calamity happened last night! For very many years the water of this moat did not reach the height of to-day, and then it happened when the dike of the upper lake broke, and caused widespread disasters. Look yonder at the other end of the moat. The water is almost up to the air-hole cut into the cavern under the building opposite us."
"And it looks as if the water were still rising, Father Bonaik."
"Alack, yes, my lad! It is still rising. Oh, the bursting of the dikes will bring on great calamities. There will be many victims!"
While Bonaik and his apprentices were looking at the rising water in the moat, the voice of Septimine was heard calling on the outside: "Father Bonaik, open the door of the workshop!" One of the apprentices ran to the door and the girl entered, supporting a woman whose long hair streamed with water; her clothes were drenched, her face livid; she was barely able to drag herself along; so weak was she that after taking a few steps in the shop she fell fainting in the arms of the old goldsmith and Septimine.
"Poor woman! She is cold as ice!" exclaimed the old man, and turning to his apprentices: "Quick, quick boys! Fetch some coal from the vault, ply the bellows and raise the fire in the forge to warm up this unfortunate woman. I thought so! This inundation must have caused much damage."