"The sight is worth the music!" remarked Adam the Devil listening to the sound of the bells. Crossing his arms behind him, spreading out his legs, and poising himself on his robust loins he swept with an eager eye the flaming curtain of the distant conflagrations. "There they are on fire and in ruins, those proud donjons cemented in the blood and the sweat of our people, and that for centuries have been the terror of our fathers! Ha! Ha! Ha!" and laughing boisterously the serf proceeded: "What mournful scenes must now be enacting at those manors!"
"At this hour," observed Caillet, "in Beauvoisis, in Laonnais, in Picardy, in Vermandois, in Champagne, everywhere, in the Isle of France, Jacques Bonhomme is making similar bonfires! Everywhere the nobility and their supporting priests are being massacred!"
"I wish I could see all the fires!" exclaimed Adam the Devil, raising his head. "I would like to hear all the cries uttered by these nobles!"
"Oh!" observed Jocelyn, with profound sorrow, "if the cries of our fathers, the male and female serfs and vassals, who for so many hundreds of years have endured martyrdom, could reach us across the centuries!... Oh! if the cries of our mothers, borne down by serfdom, starved in misery, and outraged by the seigneurs, could now reach us across these many centuries.... If that could be, then the frightful concert of maledictions, of imprecations and of cries of pain that would reach us would drown that which now goes up from these feudal strongholds!... The hour of justice has come at last!"
"Brother," said Mazurec, sad and dejected, while hastening his steps so as to leave Caillet and Adam the Devil behind and snatch a few moments of privacy with Jocelyn, "I have an admission to make to you ... and perhaps also to pray your indulgence for a weakness of my heart.... When I had dragged the bride of Conrad into her nuptial chamber ... and after the door was closed behind us, Gloriande threw herself at my feet, and with joined hands she implored mercy. I said to myself: 'My poor Aveline must have prayed for mercy ... she must have suffered terribly.' I wept at the thought of Aveline; I forgot my hatred and my vengeance. Seeing me weep, Gloriande redoubled her supplications. I then said to her: 'In my condition of serf I had but one joy in the world, the love of Aveline-who-never-lied.... She was outraged by my seigneur, your bridegroom.... After months of suffering and despair she died, smothered by smoke in the cavern of Nointel shortly before being delivered of the child of her shame.... It seems to me I see my poor Aveline, on her knees, like you now, asking for mercy.... It is her whom I pity.... You need not fear me!' And Gloriande took my hands in hers, kissed and moistened them with her tears.... She begged me to allow her to escape by a secret passage. I consented. I remained in the room, thinking of Aveline until they set fire to the castle. I did not wish to outrage my seigneur's bride.... Vengeance would not have restored to me my lost happiness."
"Oh, my poor brother! Gentle soul! Generous heart!" answered Jocelyn, deeply moved. "You whom nature made Mazurec the Lambkin and whom your master's ferocity transformed into Mazurec the Wolf! You were born to love, not to hate! Oh, you speak truly! Vengeance does not return the lost happiness! Sublime martyr, you need no indulgence for your generous conduct! Your heart did not fail you; it inspired itself with the principle of mercy proclaimed by the young carpenter of Nazareth!" And seeing that Adam the Devil and Caillet were approaching, Jocelyn added, in a low voice: "Brother, let none know that you respected Gloriande; above all, Conrad must, for his punishment, believe that his bride was dishonored!" Turning then to Caillet, who had just joined the two, Jocelyn observed: "We shall soon be at the Orville bridge. Our friends are anxious we should reach the spot quickly. The work of punishment is not yet finished."
The slanting rays of the sun now glisten in the rapid waters of the Orville that the previous year had swallowed up Mazurec pinioned and tied in a bag. On its banks still stand the trunks of the old willow trees from which were hanged the serfs caught in the riot of the tourney. The morning breeze agitates the reeds that concealed Adam the Devil and Jocelyn during the preparations for the death of Mazurec, and from behind which they had succeeded in rescuing him.
The Jacques arrived at the bridge, crossed it and stepped upon the broad meadow in the middle of which the last year's tourney given by the seigneur of Nointel was held. They halted there. A large number of them had been spectators of the passage of arms, and had afterwards witnessed the judicial duel between Mazurec and the knight of Chaumontel. Obedient to the orders of Caillet, several peasants proceeded to cut it with their scythes young tree branches, that they stuck in the ground, forming an enclosure about thirty feet square, in imitation of the fence or barrier of tourneys. The enclosure being ready, the Jacques crowded in dense ranks around it.
At a signal, William Caillet approached the men who led the pinioned Sire of Nointel and the knight of Chaumontel. The latter, though pale, still preserved his resoluteness; the former, however, looking dejected and discouraged, was now a prey to superstitious terror. He sees verified the sinister prophecy of his vassal, who the year before had said to him: "You have outraged my bride, your bride shall be outraged."
Of all his attire, the Sire of Nointel has preserved only his jerkin and velvet shoes, now in shreds from the roughness of the road. Cold drops of perspiration gather at his temples. Caillet addresses him: "Last year my daughter was forcibly placed in your bed ... last night Mazurec, the wronged bridegroom whom we saved from the watery grave that you decreed to him, returned outrage for outrage.... My daughter and many other victims died an atrocious death in the cavern of the forest of Nointel, last night your bride and many other nobles died in the underground dungeons of the castle of Chivry that Jacques Bonhomme set on fire.... But that is not yet enough. Mazurec was sentenced to make the amende honorable to you because he insulted you; seeing that you insulted Mazurec when he dragged away your wife, you shall now make the amende honorable on your knees before Mazurec. If you refuse," added Caillet, seeing the enraged seigneur stamp the ground with his feet, "if you refuse, I shall then sentence you to the same death that you have inflicted upon several of your vassals. Two young and strong trees shall be bent, you shall be tied by the feet to the one and by the arms to the other, the saplings will then be let free to straighten themselves up again.... You are forewarned, Sire of Nointel!"