"Unhappy we! That was Colombaik."
"The knight then climbed the hill that leads to the manor of Plouernel, and went in."
"But what can they do to our child?"
"What will they do!" exclaimed the serf shivering, "they'll strangle him, and use his blood for some infernal philter. There is a sorceress stopping at the castle."
Joan uttered a cry of fright, but rage swiftly followed upon her fright. Delirious and running to the door she cried out: "Fergan, let's go to the manor—we shall enter even if we have to tear up the stones with our nails—I shall have my child—the sorceress shall not throttle him—no! no!" The serf, holding her by the arm, drew her back. Almost immediately she fainted away in his arms. Still, in a muffled voice, the poor woman muttered: "It seems to me I see him die—if my heart were torn in a vice I could not suffer more—it is too late—the sorceress will have strangled the child—no—who knows!" Presently seizing her husband by the hand, "You meant to go to the castle—come—come!"
"I shall go alone when the moon is down."
"Oh, we are crazy, my poor man! Pain leads us astray. How can one penetrate into the lair of the count?"
"By a secret entrance."
"And who has informed you of it?"
"My grandfather Den-Brao accompanied his father Yvon the Forester in Anjou during the great famine in 1033. Den-Brao, a skillful mason, after having worked for more than a year in the castle of a lord of Anjou became his serf, and was exchanged by his master for an armorer of Neroweg IV, an ancestor of the present lord. My grandfather, now a serf of the lord of Plouernel, was engaged in the construction of a donjon which was attached to the castle. The work lasted many a year. My father, Nominoe, almost a child at the commencement of the structure, had grown to manhood when it was finished. He helped his father in his work, and became a mason himself. After his day's work, my grandfather used to trace upon a parchment the plan of the several parts of the donjon which he was to execute. One day my father asked him the explanation of certain structures, the purpose of which he could not understand. 'These separate stone works, connected by the work of the carpenter and the blacksmith,' answered my grandfather, 'will constitute a secret staircase made through the thick of the wall of the donjon, and it will ascend from the lowest depth of this edifice to the top, while it furnishes access to several reducts otherwise invisible. Thanks to this secret issue, the Lord of Plouernel, if besieged in his castle, and unable to resist his enemies, will be able to escape, and reach a long subterraneous gallery which comes out at the rocks that stretch to the north, at the foot of the mountain, where the seigniorial manor-house rises.' Indeed, Joan, during those days of continual wars, similar works were executed in all the strongholds: their owners always looked to preserving the means of escape from their enemies. About six months before the completion of the donjon, and when all that was left to do was the construction of the staircase and the secret issue, traced upon the plan of my grandfather, my father broke both of his legs by the fall of an enormous stone. That grave accident became the cause of a great piece of good fortune."