Yvon rested a few moments; he then bound the hind legs of the buck with a flexible twig and dragging his booty, not without considerable effort by reason of its weight, he arrived with it at his hut near the Fountain of the Hinds. His family was now for a long time protected from hunger. The buck could not yield less than three hundred pounds of meat, which carefully prepared and smoked after the fashion of foresters, could be preserved for many months.
Two days after these two fateful nights, Yvon learned from a woodsman serf, that one of his fellows, a forester of the woods of Compiegne like himself, having discovered the next morning the body of Gregory the Hollow-bellied pierced with an arrow that remained in the wound, and having identified the weapon as Yvon's by the peculiar manner in which it was feathered, had denounced him as the murderer. The bailiff of the domain of Compiegne detested Yvon. Although the latter's crime delivered the neighborhood of a monster who slaughtered the travelers in order to gorge himself upon them, the bailiff ordered his arrest. Thus notified in time, Yvon the Forester resolved to flee, leaving his son and family behind. But Den-Brao as well as his wife insisted upon accompanying him with their children.
The whole family decided to take the road and place their fate in the hands of Providence. The smoked buck's meat would suffice to sustain them through a long journey. They knew that whichever way they took, serfdom awaited them. It was a change of serfdom for serfdom; but they found consolation in the knowledge that the change from the horrors they had undergone could not but improve their misery. The famine, although general, was not, according to reports, equally severe everywhere.
The hut near the Fountain of the Hinds was, accordingly, abandoned. Den-Brao and his wife carried the little Jeannette by turns on their backs. The other child, Nominoe, being older, marched besides his grandfather. They reached and crossed the borders of the royal domain, and Yvon felt safe. A few days later the travelers learned from some pilgrims that Anjou suffered less of the famine than did any other region. Thither they directed their steps, induced thereto by the further consideration that Anjou bordered on Britanny, the cradle of the family. Yvon wished eventually to return thither in the hope of finding some of his relatives in Armorica.
The journey to Anjou was made during the first months of the year 1034 and across a thousand vicissitudes, almost always accompanied by some pilgrims, or by beggars and vagabonds. Everywhere on their passage the traces were met of the horrible famine and not much less horrible ravages caused by the private feuds of the seigneurs. Little Jeannette perished on the road.
EPILOGUE.
The narrative of my father, Yvon the Forester, breaks off here. He could not finish it. He was soon after taken sick and died. Before expiring he made to me the following confession which he desired inserted in the family's annals:
"I have a horrible confession to make. Near by the grave to which I took the body of Julyan, lay a large heap of wood that was to be reduced to coal by the woodsmen. My family was starving in the hut. I saw no way of prolonging their existence. The thought then occurred to me: 'Last night the abominable food that I carried to my family from Gregory's human charnel house kept them from dying in the agonies of starvation. My grandson is dead. What should I do? Bury the body of little Julyan or have it serve to prolong the life of those who gave him life?'
"After long hesitating before such frightful alternatives, the thought of the agonies that my family were enduring decided me. I lighted the heap of dried wood. I laid upon it the flesh of my grandson, and by the light cast from the pyre I buried his bones, except a fragment of his skull, which I preserved as a sad and solemn relic of those accursed days, and on which I engraved these fateful words in the Gallic tongue: Fin-al-bred—The End of the World. I then took the broiled pieces of meat to my expiring family!... You all ate in the dark.... You knew not what you ate.... The ghastly meal saved your lives!"
My father then delivered to me the parchment that contained his narrative, accompanied with the lettered bone from the skull of my poor little Julyan, and also the iron arrow-head which accompanied the narrative left by our ancestor Eidiol, the skipper of Paris. Some day, perhaps, these two narratives may be joined to the chronicle of our family, no doubt held by those of our relatives who must still be living in Britanny.