CHAPTER VI.
FOR some days after the departure of Louis for his mother's chateau, none of his friends had the least idea of his unfortunate situation. At the castle it was supposed that he was overstaying his time with his family, and at Viteau no one knew that he had left the castle. At last, Barran, somewhat provoked that the boy should so deliberately disobey his orders,—for he had told him to return promptly,—and knowing that his mother could always furnish him an escort, sent messengers to Viteau, demanding that Louis should immediately come back with them.
This, of course, caused great consternation at the chateau, and the messengers went hurriedly home, accompanied by Raymond, to tell the news that Louis had not yet been seen at his mother's house.
The Countess wished Bernard to go with the messengers, but this he refused to do, urging that his place could be nowhere else than at Viteau, and that Raymond could confer as well as any one else with Barran, regarding the immediate steps which should be taken to find out what had become of Louis, and to rescue him from any danger he might have fallen into.
The Countess spent the time, during Raymond's absence, in tears and prayers. When he returned, there came with him a small troop of well-armed men, which Barran had sent to press on, as rapidly as possible, to the estates of the knight from the South, for it had been thought very likely that this knight had been prevented in some way from stopping at Viteau, and that he had taken Louis on with him, intending to send him back at some convenient opportunity. That the boy should have been lost, in any way, from the company of the southern knight, Barran did not consider possible.
This belief of a man so sensible as Barran partially comforted the Countess; but when the troop returned, and told how Louis had left the knight's company to ride on by himself, as none could doubt, to his mother's house, the poor lady was completely overwhelmed with grief, and thus she remained until Barran arrived at Viteau, for which place he started as soon as he heard the news.
Vigorous measures were now taken for a search after Louis. It was generally agreed that he must have been captured by robbers, for there was no other danger which was likely to befall him on the road; but what robbers had taken him, and to what place they had conveyed him, were questions not easy to answer. That a band of cotereaux might then be in the forest, within ten or fifteen miles of Viteau, was not at all improbable; but to find out their hiding-place, and, also, to find them in it, would certainly be difficult tasks. The forests of that time spread over such a vast extent of country, and were so dense, and in many places so apparently pathless, that to find anything so carefully hidden as a robber's camp would be a matter almost as much of chance as of skill and design.
Barran privately declared that, if it were not for the Countess, who seemed almost overcome with grief, he would quietly wait a few days before attempting to penetrate the forest with any force; for he was sure that, if the boy had been captured by cotereaux, their only object was to get a ransom for him, and that they would soon be heard from. Under the circumstances, however, Count de Barran saw that it would be necessary to take immediate action, and Bernard was very active in pushing forward the most warlike preparations.
Some of these appeared almost ridiculous to the Count.