"By Hesus!" cried Rosen-Aër. "Did my son voluntarily renounce those goods, those lands, those favors, the accursed gifts of Charles? Did you not extract him from a prison, where, without you, he would have perished? Oh! The gods are just. My son owed his fortune to an impious ambition ... and the fortune came near being fatal to him. Glorified and enriched by the Franks, he has been shamefully punished and stripped of all by a woman of their race."
"Oh!" cried Septimine, breaking down in tears, "do you believe that Amael, even if in full possession, would not have renounced all to follow you, his mother?"
"The man who falls away from his duty to his country and his race can also fall away from his duty to his mother! I am justified to question the goodness of my son's heart!"
"Master Bonaik," suddenly cried one of the apprentices in an accent of fear, "look down below there, at the turning of the road ... there are soldiers. They are approaching rapidly. They will be here within short!"
At these words of the lad the fugitives jumped to their feet. Amael himself, forgetting for a moment the sorrow into which his mother's just severity plunged him, dried his face that was moist with tears and took a few steps forward to reconnoiter.
"Great God!" cried Septimine. "They may be in pursuit of Amael.... Good father Bonaik, let us hide in this thicket——"
"My child, that would be to expose ourselves to being pursued. The riders have seen us.... Our flight would awaken their suspicion. Besides, they come from the side opposite to Nantes; they cannot have been sent in our pursuit."
"Master Bonaik," said one of the apprentices, "three of the riders are hastening their horses' steps, and motion us with their hands to come to them."
"Perhaps a new danger now threatens us!" said Septimine, drawing close to Rosen-Aër, who had alone remained seated, and seemed indifferent to what went on around her. "Alack, what is to become of us!"
"Oh, poor child!" said Rosen-Aër, "I care little for life at this moment!... And yet the mere hope of some day finding again my son, served to sustain my sad life!"