"Jump on the milestone yourself," said the old man, "in case we can not see with our own eyes, we shall be able to see with yours. Myself and Guyrion will stay close to Anne."
As Eidiol spoke the distant sound of clarions was heard mingling with the redoubled clanging of the nearby bells, and a wild clamor of joy went up from the crowd.
"Here is the procession," cried Rustic from his perch; "it has turned into the square; clarion blowers on horseback head the march; they are followed by Frankish cavaliers, armed with lances bearing streamers; they carry painted gilt bucklers hanging from their necks. Oh, here come the Northman pirates clad in their armor and carrying the standard of old Rolf. The standard has a seagull with open beak and claws for its device. Well may you screech your cry of triumph, old sea bird! Your prey is magnificent: a province of Gaul and the daughter of a King!"
"Oh, Rustic, how can you joke in that way!" remarked Anne the Sweet in a tone of sad yet affectionate reproach. "Poor little Ghisèle! To wed that old monster! Do you see the poor girl? Poor victim!"
"No; I see nothing of her as yet. Ah, here come the female pirates! How martial they look in their armor of steel scales, with their azure bucklers on their arms! Now come the seigneurs of the suite of the Count of Paris, in their long robes embroidered with gold and ornamented with fur. Hold! They stop! They are looking back uneasily. What can have happened?" and leaning against the wall Rustic raised himself on the tips of his feet in order to see further. A minute later he cried: "Oh, the poor girl! Anne, you were right! Although she is the daughter of a King the girl is to be pitied. She looks like a victim led to death!"
"Is it of Ghisèle that you are talking, Rustic?" inquired the young girl. "What has happened to her? How I pity the poor child!"
"She was marching, leaning on the arm of Charles the Simple and paler than a corpse under her white bridal robe, when suddenly her strength entirely failed her. She collapsed and fell in a swoon into the arms of the seigneurs who stood near her."
"Oh, father!" said Anne the Sweet to Eidiol, her eyes moist with tears, "Is not that wretched girl's fate shocking!"
"And yet less shocking than the fate of millions of the women of our own race who have been violated by the seigneurs and the ecclesiastics. Those wretched women left their master's couch only to return to the exhausting and even crushing toils of servitude. Degraded, dejected, bought and sold like cattle, dying of grief or under their master's blows, ignorant of the joys of family life and depraved, they were brutified by slavery. Such, for centuries past, has been the condition of the women of our race, and still continues to be. How many millions of the women of our class die macerated, body and soul!"
"Alas! This poor King's daughter is surely guiltless of all these crimes! She is much to be pitied!"