At this question Ronan the Vagre remained silent; his head drooped and tears again suffused his eyes.
Deep silence reigned hereat among the descendants of Joel. All eyes wept.
Kervan was the first to overcome his grief, and broke the silence, addressing his nephew:
"Is it long since my brother Karadeucq died?"
"Three months, dear uncle."
"Was his end peaceful? Did he remember me and Roselyk, who loved him so dearly?"
"His last words were: 'I die without having been able to fulfill my part of the duty imposed by my ancestor Joel upon his descendants. Promise me, my son Ronan, you who are familiar with my own life and that of your brother Loysik, to fulfill that duty in my stead, and to write down, without concealing aught, both the good and the evil that we have done. When you have done that, promise me that you will proceed to the cradle of our family, near the sacred stones of Karnak. My father Jocelyn and my mother Madalen are certainly dead by this time. You shall deliver the narrative that will have been written, either to my good brother Kervan, if he survives our aged parents, or to his eldest son. If Kervan should have died without posterity, ask his heirs or his wife's to deliver to you, obedient to the orders of our ancestor Joel, our family's legends and relics, and you are then to transmit them to your descendants. If, however, my brother Kervan and my sweet sister Roselyk still live, tell them that I die with their names upon my lips and dear to my heart.' Such were the last words uttered by my father."
"And have you the account of your own and my brother's lives?"
"Here it is," answered Ronan opening his traveling bag.
And he drew from it a parchment which he handed over to Kervan. The latter took the scroll with deep emotion, while, taking from his belt the long poniard with an iron hilt that Loysik and after him the Master of the Hounds had worn, and on the hilt of which were engraven the Saxon word Ghilde and the two Gallic words Friendship, Community, Ronan passed the weapon to his uncle, saying: