They did not start early in the morning. The caravan was drawn into a barn for the night; and soon after midnight Saint-Quentin was awakened by the pungent fumes of smoke and a crackling. He jumped up. The barn was on fire. He shouted and called for help. Some peasants, passing along the high road by a happy chance, ran to his assistance.
It was quite time. They had barely dragged the caravan out of the barn when the roof fell in. Dorothy and her comrades were uninjured. But One-eyed Magpie half roasted, refused firmly to let himself be harnessed; the shafts chafed her burns. It was not till seven o'clock that the caravan tottered off, drawn by a wretched horse they had hired, and followed by One-eyed Magpie. As they crossed the square in front of the church, they saw the woman and her child kneeling at the end of the porch, and the tramp on his quest. For them the adventure would go no further.
There were no further incidents. Except Saint-Quentin on the box, they went to sleep in the caravan, leaning against one another. At half-past nine they stopped. They had come to a cottage dignified with the name of an inn, on the door of which they read "Widow Amoureux. Lodging for man and beast." A few hundred yards away, at the bottom of a slope which ended in a low cliff, the little peninsula of Périac stretched out into the ocean five promontories which looked like the five fingers of a hand. On their left was the mouth of the Vilaine.
For the children it was the end of the expedition. They made a meal in a dimly lighted room, furnished with a zinc counter, in which coffee was served. Then while Castor and Pollux fed One-eyed Magpie, Dorothy questioned the widow Amoureux, a big, cheerful, talkative country-woman about the ruins of Roche-Périac.
"Ah, you're going there too, are you, my dear?" the widow exclaimed.
"I'm not the first then?" said Dorothy.
"Goodness, no. There's already an old gentleman and his wife. I've seen the old gentleman before at this time of year. Once he slept here. He's one of those who seek."
"Who seek what?"
"Who can tell? A treasure, according to what they say. The people about here don't believe in it. But people come from a long way off who hunt in the woods and turn over the stones."
"It's allowed then, is it?"