"What say you, Fergan!"
"My father remained here, at this hovel, unable to work by reason of his wounds. During that interval the donjon was finished. But the artisan serfs, instead of returning every evening to their respective villages, no longer left the castle. The seigneur of Plouernel wished, so it was said, to hasten the completion of the works and to save the time lost in the morning and evening by the traveling of the serfs. For about six months the people of the plain saw the movement of the workingmen gathered upon the last courses of the donjon, which rose ever higher. After that, when the platform and the turrets which crown it were finished, nothing more was seen. The serfs never re-appeared in their villages, and their bereaved families are still awaiting them."
"What became of them?"
"Neroweg IV, fearing they might reveal the secret issue constructed by themselves, had them locked up in the subterraneous place, that I stated to you. It is there that my grandfather, together with his fellow workingmen, twenty-seven in number, perished, a prey to the tortures of hunger."
"That's horrible! What barbarity!"
"Yes, it is horrible! My father, kept at home by his injuries, alone escaped this fearful death, overlooked, no doubt, by the seigneur of Plouernel. Trying to fathom the mystery of my grandfather's disappearance, my father recalled the information he had received from his father on the plan of the donjon and its secret issue. One night, accordingly, my father betook himself to that secluded spot, and succeeded in discovering an airhole concealed amid brushwood. He slid down this opening, and after walking long in a narrow gallery, he was arrested by an enormous iron grating. Seeking to break it, he passed his arm through the bars. His hand touched a mass of bones—human bones and skulls—"
"Good God! Poor victims!"
"It was the bones of the serfs, who, locked up in this subterraneous passage with my grandfather, had died of hunger. My father did not try to penetrate further. Certain of the fate of my grandfather, but lacking the energy to avenge him, he made to me this revelation on his death-bed. I went—it is a long time ago—to inspect the rocks. I discovered the subterraneous issue. Through it, to-night, will I enter the donjon and look for our child."
"Fergan, I shall not try to oppose your plan," observed Joan after a moment of silence and suppressing her apprehensions; "but how will you clear that grating which prevented your father from entering the underground passage? Is it not above your strength?"
"That grating has been fastened in the rock, it can be unfastened with my iron pick and hammer. I have the requisite strength for that job."