"Oh, no! There may be fifteen or twenty of them among the hundred that we are in the domestic service, and I suppose there may be two or three hundred of them among the four thousand and more colonists and field slaves whom the count owns on his domains."
"My good friends, do you know it seems to me that it will bring me good luck to spend a few hours in a house peopled with such good slaves as you are? I wish you would announce me to the count's steward. If the noble seigneur is willing to amuse himself with the capers of my bear, he will issue orders to admit me."
"We shall announce you. The steward will decide.":
And the two slaves, who, streaming with sweat, had laid down for a moment the net in which they carried a mess of large fish, freshly taken from the pond, and some of which were still seen wriggling, through the meshes, again lifted up their heavy burden and resumed their way to the burg.
As soon as the two slaves disappeared from sight, the bear raised himself on his legs, pulled off his head, dashed it on the road, and cried:
"Blood and massacre! They are to burn my beautiful bishopess to-morrow! And Ronan, our brave Ronan, he also is to be executed! Shall we allow that, Karadeucq?"
"I shall avenge my sons—or shall die beside them! O Loysik! O, Ronan! Tortured! Tortured! And executed to-morrow!"
"As true as the remembrance of the bishopess sets my heart aflame, the torture of to-day, the executions of to-morrow, the arrival of that Chram with his armed men—all these events upset our plans. Instead of being taken to Clermont for trial, Ronan and the bishopess are to be executed at the burg to-morrow morning—instead of being healed of their wounds and able to use their legs, Ronan and his brother are rendered helpless. The leudes of Chram, together with those of the count and the foot soldiers, constitute a garrison of more than three hundred armed men; they occupy the burg—and who is there to set free Ronan and Loysik, neither of whom can walk, the little dying slave, and my beautiful bishopess. Only you and I! Karadeucq, if I can see how we are to come out of this fix, I shall be willing to become a bear in truth—not a trick bear, as now I am, but a real bear! Oh, if anyone had said to me, when, disguised like so many others in some animal form, I celebrated the saturnalia of January nights—if anyone had said to me: 'My gay lad, you will celebrate the calends of winter in midsummer,' I would have answered: 'Go to, good man, it will be warm, then!' And I would have spoken the truth. I would be cooler in an oven than in this hide! Rage and heat make one swelter. You are silent, my old Vagre—what are you thinking about?"
"About my children. What is to be done—what is to be done?"
"I am better in action than in council, especially at this moment, when rage is making me crazy. Poor, brave woman! Burned to-morrow! Oh, how came I to be separated from her at the fastness of Allange during the combat engaged in by our archers from the branches of the oak trees against the soldiers of the count! Poor, poor woman! I thought she was killed! Our rout was complete, it was impossible for me to assure myself concerning the fate of my sweetheart! Too happy to be able to escape the massacre with a few others of our band, and to dive into the thickest of the woods, after giving ourselves one of our haunts, the rocks on the peak of Mont-Dore, for rendezvous—I fled. Finally, after the lapse of a few days, about a dozen of our band met at the appointed place; it was there that we met you also in the company of two runaway slaves—you, our old Vagre, whom we had given up for lost over two years ago. It was from you that we learned of the fate of your two sons, the little slave and the bishopess. Strange, what sentiments I experience for that brave woman! The memory of her never leaves me. My heart breaks with grief at the knowledge that she is in the hands of the count and the bishop. In all Vagrery there is no Vagre more Vagre than myself for a life of adventures; nevertheless, were some unforeseen accident to cast the bishopess and myself in some solitary corner of the earth, I believe I would live there quietly with her ten, twenty, a hundred years! You surely take me for a fool, old Karadeucq, or better yet for a ninny, seeing that I weep and act stupidly! But, the devil take grief! The hour calls for action!"