"Your bravery will never throw mine into amazement."
"Yesterday an old Gallic fugitive serf notified old Rolf that the Franks had fortified the abbey of St. Denis in such a manner that it was impregnable."
"There is no fortress, town or abbey that is impregnable. All that may happen is that we may be detained several days before the monastery of St. Denis, which Rolf had expected to capture by surprise. It is an important post. It lies close to Paris."
"Will you love me if I seize the abbey of St. Denis, single-handed with my companions?"
The face of the Buckler Maiden became purple. The throbs of her marble bosom raised the mail of her armor. Straightening up to her full length, she haughtily answered Gaëlo: "I will capture the abbey of St. Denis, reputed to be impregnable."
Immediately upon these words, the Beautiful Shigne ordered her virgins to row back and join the fleet of Rolf, whither the white hull of her holker darted like an arrow.
CHAPTER IV.
A BERSERKER.
Following with saddened eyes the light holker that carried away the warrior maid, Gaëlo remained silent and pensive, while his champions rested upon their oars. The steersman, a man of about thirty years, of a merry face and clad in the coat and wide breeches of the skippers of the Seine, was named Simon Large-Ears. He owed his surname to an enormous pair of ears, that stood out far from his temples, and which were as red as his nose. Simon, once a serf of the fisheries attached to the abbey of St. Paterne, had, jointly with three other companions, who were seated on the oarsmen's benches, and who wore the Northman pointed casque and cuirass of iron scales, run away to the pirates and offered them their services in the capacity of pilot and oarsmen, the moment that the numerous Northman fleet had appeared at the mouth of the Seine. Simon and his comrades, as well as many other Gallic serfs, who availed themselves of the opportunity to drop their servitude and revenge upon their masters the ill-treatment that the latter subjected them to, only demanded from their Northman allies a share of the prospective booty.[1]
Leaning on his harpoon, silent and pensive, Gaëlo contemplated the holker of the Beautiful Shigne as it rowed back and became indistinct in the light mist that frequently rises at sunset from the surface of the river's waters. Simon Large-Ears, seated at the poop, and, as pilot, holding the rudder in his hand, said to one of his companions surnamed Robin Jaws, by reason of his lower jaw-bones protruding like a Molossian's:
"Did you hear the conversation between the Beautiful Shigne and Gaëlo? What savage she-devils are these Northman virgins! They must be courted with rough sword whacks, caressed with battle-axe cracks, and their hearts can be reached only by boring through their breasts, and if you don't, then these furies make you wed death. How do you like such betrothals?"