Fergan looked at Azenor, who, somber, pensive, her arms crossed upon her palpitating breast, seemed to brave death. Turning to the child: "Was this woman embracing you?"
"Yes, father; and since I have been here she has been kind to me. She has sought to console me. She even often rocked me in her arms."
"Why, then," said the quarryman to the sorceress, "did you have my child kidnapped? What have you to say!"
Azenor the Pale, without answering the question of the serf, and pursuing the thought that turned in her head, said: "Where does the passage run out through which you have penetrated to this turret?"
"What's that to you!"
The young woman stepped to a cabinet of massive oak, took from it a casket, opened it, and displaying before the quarryman the gold pieces that it was filled with, said: "Take this casket and let me accompany you. You have been able to enter this donjon by a secret passage, you will be able to get out again. We shall escape together from this accursed den. I pay a rich ransom."
"You ... you mean to accompany me?"
"I wish to flee from this castle, where I am a prisoner, and run to rejoin at Angers William IX., Duke of Aquitaine——" Stopping short and leaning her ear towards the door, Azenor made a sign of silence to Fergan, and proceeded in a whisper: "I hear voices and steps on the staircase. Someone is coming up here.... It is Neroweg!"
"The count!" exclaimed the quarryman, with savage joy, stepping towards the door: "Oh, Worse than a Wolf, you will no longer bite! I shall kill the wretch!"
"Keep still or we are lost," interrupted Azenor in a low voice. "The Count is not alone; think of your child!" and pointing with rapid gesture to the cabinet of massive oak, she hastily whispered to the serf: "Push that piece of furniture across the door. Be quick! We shall have time to flee! Your enemy, Neroweg, has only a few more steps to climb! I hear his spurs clank upon the stone floor!"