"Oh, these two must never be spent. We must preserve them carefully. One of them, the copper one, was struck the year of my birth; the other, the silver one, was struck this year, when I shall be fifteen. Fabius, my father's astronomer, has engraved upon these pieces certain magical signs corresponding to planets of happy influence. The Bishop of Aix-la-Chapelle blessed them. They are a talisman."
"If it were not that they are a talisman, Thetralde, I would have requested these two little pieces from thee as a souvenir of this day."
"To what purpose wouldst thou keep a souvenir of this day rather than of the next days to follow? Dost thou not desire that all should resemble one another? If thou desirest these two little pieces, here, take them; I give them to thee. A talisman is a useful thing on a journey. Place them in the pocket of thy jacket."
Vortigern obeyed almost mechanically, while the young girl, after ingenuously counting up her little hoard, resumed, saying: "We here have five gold sous, eight silver deniers, and twelve copper deniers; besides my bracelets, my necklace and my earrings. With that we shall have money enough to journey as far as Brittany. Night is upon us; we shall spend it under the shelter of this hut. To-morrow we shall have the woodcutter slave lead us to Werstern, a little burg situated on the skirt of the forest, about two leagues from Aix-la-Chapelle. We shall buy some simple clothing for myself, a traveling cloak of cloth. To-morrow at daybreak we shall start on our route. Do not fear that I shall recoil before fatigue. I am neither as tall nor as strong as my sister Hildrude, and yet, if thou shouldst be tired or wounded, I am sure I could carry thee on my back, just as my sister Imma once carried her lover Eginhard on hers. But our chestnuts are now all shelled. Come and help me to put them under the hot ashes. We shall eat them when roasted."
Raising with one hand the fold of her robe in which lay the nuts, Thetralde ran to the brasier. Vortigern followed her. He felt as in a dream. At times his reason gave way under the spell of an ardent and intoxicating vertigo. He knelt down silently, disturbed in mind, beside Thetralde before the brasier, into which the girl, steeped in thought, was slowly throwing the chestnuts one by one. Without, the rain had stopped; but the mist, now thickened to a fog with the approach of night, rendered the darkness complete. The reflection of the brasier only lighted up the charming faces of the two children on their knees beside each other. When the last chestnut had followed the others under the cinders, Thetralde rose, and leaning with familiar candor on Vortigern's shoulders said to him, taking his hand:
"And now, while thy supper is cooking, let us go back and sit down upon the bench of moss for me to finish telling thee my prospects. I have thought over what we are to do."
The night became profound. The flickering, vacillating flame in the expiring brasier seemed to cry for fresh fuel. The chestnuts, that had been consigned to its warmth, snapped noisily from their hulls into the air, announcing that their toothsome pulp was ready to be partaken of. Without, the horse and the palfrey of Vortigern and Thetralde pawed the ground and neighed impatiently, as if calling for their provender. The fire finally went out. The chestnuts changed to charcoal. The neighings of the horses resounded ever louder in the midst of the nocturnal silence of the forest. Thetralde and Vortigern did not issue from the hut.
CHAPTER IX.
AT THE MORT.
From the start of the hunt, the Emperor of the Franks had rushed headlong on the heels of the hounds. Amael, at first somewhat uneasy at the disappearance of his grandson in the midst of so large a concourse of cavaliers, was taken by accident towards that part of the forest whither the stag was leading the hounds from cover to cover. Amael even had the opportunity to assist, shortly before nightfall, at the killing of the stag, which, exhausted with fatigue after four hours of breathless running, turned at bay before the hounds when they had reached him at last, and strove to defend himself against them with the aid of the magnificent spread of antlers that crowned his head. The Emperor had not for a moment lost track of the hounds. He followed them speedily at the mort, together with a few others of the hunters. Jumping from his horse, he ran limping towards the animal at bay that already had gored several hounds with his sharp horns. Choosing with an experienced eye the opportune moment, Charles drew his hunting knife, and, rushing upon the desperate animal, plunged the weapon into the stag just above its shoulder, threw it down and then abandoned it to the hounds, that fiercely precipitated themselves upon the warm quarry and devoured it amidst the sonorous fanfare of the hunters' horns that thus announced the close of the chase and called their scattered fellows to reassemble. With his bloody knife in his hand, and after having contemplated with lively satisfaction the wild pack now red at their nozzles and contending with one another for the shreds of the stag's flesh, the Emperor's eyes fell upon Amael, to whom he called out gaily: