At the very moment when Sigefrid was handing the key to the Frankish warrior his eyes fell upon Karadeucq.
"What are you doing there, old vagabond?"
"Noble youth, frightened by the fire, my bear has escaped; I am running after him—he has crouched down yonder not far from the railing. Alas, what a misfortune this fire is!"
"Sigefrid, I have unlocked the railing," said one of the Franks; "shall we begin with the men or the women?"
"I shall begin with the men!" cried Karadeucq, planting his dagger in the breast of Sigefrid.
"I also!" cried the Master of the Hounds, stabbing another one of the Franks.
"Vagrery! Vagrery! To us, all brave slaves! Death to the Franks! War upon the seigneurs! Liberty to the slaves! Long live all Gaul!"
"The Vagres!" cried the thunder-struck Franks, dumbfounded at the death of the two leudes. "The Vagres! These demons seem to rise from underground and from the depth of hell!"
"This way!" cried Ronan in a thundering voice. "This way, my Vagres! Kill the Franks!"
The cry was addressed to the Vagres, whom Ronan saw pouring in. Attracted by the light of the conflagration, the signal that was agreed upon, the good, brave Vagres had crossed the fosse; but how? Was not that fosse filled with such deep slime that a man would be swallowed up in it if he attempted to cross it? Certainly, but Ronan's Vagres had, since nightfall, been prowling like wolves around a sheep fold, and carefully sounded the fosse; after which the clever lads hewed down with their axes two large ash trees that stood straight as arrows nearby, stripped off the flexible branches and with them bound the trunks closely together. The long and light improvised bridge was thrown across the fosse, and nimble as cats they crept one after another over the two trunks and reached the opposite side. During the aerial perilous passage two of the Vagres fell off and immediately disappeared in the bottom of the fosse; they were Wolve's-Tooth and Symphorien, the rhetorician—may their names live and be blessed in Vagrery! Their companions had no sooner arrived on the other side of the fosse, than they met, running towards the ergastula to liberate the prisoners, about thirty revolted slaves armed with clubs, scythes and forks. After the warriors of Chram and those of Neroweg had long fought in the dark in the banquet hall, they suddenly dropped their quarrel, and leaving the dead and wounded on the field of battle, gave no thought but to the fire—the men of the count to extinguish it, the men of Chram to save the horses and baggage of their master and take them out of the burning stable. The Franks who had hastened to the ergastula in order to put the prisoners to death were only a score at the most; they were surrounded and cut to pieces by Ronan's Vagres and by the slaves, after offering a desperate resistance. Not one of these Franks escaped; no, not one! Two of the slaves took Ronan upon their shoulders, two others raised Loysik on theirs, and at the request of his bishopess the Master of the Hounds took up little Odille in his vigorous arms as one might raise a child from its cradle, the young girl being too weak to walk. Old Karadeucq followed his two sons.