"I hope so, indeed," said the robber, laughing; "and if I had not thought that they would take you from me, I should not have taken the trouble to capture you."
"Oh, I know what you mean," said the boy. "You expect them to ransom me."
"I most certainly do," replied the other.
"But they will not do it," cried Louis. "They will come with soldiers and take me from you!"
"We shall see," returned the robber.
It was almost dark when, by many winding and sometimes almost invisible paths through the forest, the party reached a collection of rude huts, which his capture; but this matter did not enter his mind. He went to sleep with the feeling that what he wanted now was a good night's rest, and that, in some way or other, all would be right on the morrow.
Michol, the captain of the band, was very plain-spoken, the next morning, in telling Louis his plans in regard to him. "I know well," he said, "that your mother is able to pay a handsome ransom for you, and, if she is so hard-hearted that she will not do it, I can depend on Barran. He will not let a page from his castle pine away in these woods, for the sake of a handful of gold."
"My mother is not hard-hearted," said Louis, "and I am not going to pine away, no matter how long you keep me. Do you intend to send to my mother to-day?"
"Not so soon as that," replied Michol. "I shall let her have time to feel what a grievous thing it is to have a son carried away to the heart of the forest, where she can never find him, and where he must stay, month after month and year after year, until she pays his worthy captors what she thinks the boy is worth."
"I'll tell you what I'll do," said Louis. "If you will give me my horse and my falcon, which your men have taken from me, and will let me have again my dagger, I will go to Viteau, myself, and tell my mother about the ransom; and I promise you that she will send you all the money she can afford to spend for me in that way. And, if there is no one else to bring it,—for our men might be afraid to venture among so many robbers,—I shall bring it myself, on my way back to Barran's castle. I am not afraid to come."