"Courage, Franks! Courage, my sons in God!" shouted Cautin from the cart-wheel to which he was bound fast. "Exterminate those Moabites! Above all cut to pieces that she-devil wife of mine, that brazen woman with the orange dress with the blue sash and silver embroidered stockings. No mercy for the Jezebel! the shameless wench! the slattern! Hack her to pieces!—"
"Bishop! Bishop! Your words are inhuman. Remember the mercifulness of Jesus towards Magdalen and the adulteress!" exclaimed the hermit, while Odille, with her head resting on the breast of that true disciple of the young man of Nazareth murmured:
"They will kill Ronan! They will kill him!"
"Here I am back to you, little Odille! The Franks did not kill me. The people whom they brought in chains are all set free!"
Who said this? It was Ronan. What? Back so soon? Yes! The Vagres do their work quickly. With one bound Odille was in the arms of her friend.
"I killed one of them—he was just about to run my Vagre through with his sword!" cried the bishopess returning from the encounter. And throwing down her blood-stained sword, her eyes sparkling, her bosom half covered by her long black tresses that, together with her robe, were thrown into disorder by the heat of the combat, she said to the Master of the Hounds: "Are you satisfied with your wife?"
"Strong in the embrace of love, and strong in battle are your arms!" answered the young man delighted. "And now, a full cup of wine!"
"To drink in my very face wine that was mine! To court and caress before my own eyes that impure woman who was my wife!" murmured the bishop. "Oh, monstrous! These are the signs that foretell frightful calamities about to afflict the earth."
Three of the Vagres were wounded. The hermit attended them with so much skill that he might have been taken for a physician. He was about to proceed to another of the wounded men when his eyes fell upon the people whom the leudes had brought with them and who were now set free by the men of Ronan. These unhappy folks who only a few minutes before were prisoners, were covered with rags; nevertheless the joy of deliverance shone upon their faces. Invited by their liberators to eat and drink in order to recruit their strength, they were eagerly acquitting themselves of their task. While they drained the pouches of wine and caused the loaves of bread and the hams to vanish, the monk said to one of them, a robust man despite his grey hair:
"Brother, who are you? Whence do you come?"