"Thus did Aveline call me to her help," said William Caillet with his foot on the Count of Chivry. "You shall drain the cup to the lees!"
"Oh, death! rather than to witness such atrocities!" cried the Sire of Nointel. "Heaven and earth! To see that miserable vassal dare to lay hands upon Gloriande! The scamp is tearing down the curtains! He means to violate my bride!"
"Oh! Oh! You are a rebel!" cried Adam the Devil laughing loudly. "We now sentence you to make the amende honorable on both knees before your master and seigneur, Jacques Bonhomme, in the person of Mazurec; and you shall beg his pardon for having insulted him ... for calling him scamp!"
"Conrad, let us know how to die!" cried the knight of Chaumontel. "We shall soon be revenged upon these scamps; not one of them will escape the lances of the knights."
Jocelyn the Champion, who had until then stood by an impassive witness, now stepped forward and heavily laying his iron gauntlet upon the knight's shoulder said to him: "You fought cased in iron against my brother Mazurec who was half naked and armed only with a stick. I have decided that you shall now fight him, yourself half naked and armed with a stick, he cased in iron. If you are vanquished you shall be thrown into a bag and drowned. To-day, from appellee, Jacques Bonhomme has become appellant."
"But before the combat," cried Adam the Devil, "let us take supper, my Jacques; the table is set; plenty of wine is still left in the flagons; also meats on the dishes!... Let us feast before the eyes of these seigneurs, the fathers, brothers or husbands of yonder dames and damosels!... Fall to, my Jacques! Long live love and wine! After the feast we shall lock up this whole nobility, men, women and children, in the underground prisons of the castles! The ruins of the burnt-down manor shall be their fitting tombstone.... Fall to, Jacques Bonhomme.... Long live love and wine, and ours be the dames and damosels of these nobles!"
CHAPTER V.
THE ORVILLE BRIDGE.
Night is about to yield to day; the moon is setting; the first glimmerings of dawn begin to crimson the eastern sky. The troop of Jacques, who fired the manor of Chivry after putting its noble tenants to the sword, is now marching towards the bridge that spans the Orville river, and from which, the year before, tied in a bag, Mazurec was thrown into the water. At the head of the troop march William, Mazurec, Jocelyn and Adam the Devil. Behind them follow the Jacques leading the Sire of Nointel and the knight of Chaumontel, half naked, unarmed and pinioned. His head covered with the casque, clad in the cuirass and coat of mail, and armed with the dagger and sword of the knight of Chaumontel, Mazurec marches between Jocelyn the Champion and Caillet. Halting at the crest of the hill they had just ascended, and which commanded a wide view of the surrounding country, the latter cried pointing in several directions of the horizon that was either lighted with flames or darkened with black clouds:
"Do you see the castles of Chivry, of Bourgeuil, of Saint-Prix, of Montsorin, of Villiers, of Rochemur and so many others, aye, so many others, set this night on fire, sacked and their noble masters put to the sword by bands of revolted serfs?... Do you hear the village bells summoning the serfs to arms?... They sound still! They are summoning the Jacques to the hunt of the nobles!"
Indeed, the hurried peals of the bells, loudly sounding from a large number of villages that lay scattered in the fields and forests, reached the hill, carried thither by the morning breeze. The horizon, reflecting the flames that were devouring so many feudal manors, itself seemed on fire. Hardly were the first rays of the sun able to penetrate the thickness of the somber mass of smoke.