"Well—pass. You will find your father. He is with the Rossignols."
Jean rode on. There were tokens of confusion on all sides. Here a rick was smouldering, and there a house was wrecked, the door broken, and the contents of the dwelling thrown out in the way before it. Pigs that had escaped from their styes ran about rooting after food, and dogs snarled and carried off fragments of meat. A few peasants were creeping about timidly, but, alarmed at the appearance in their midst of a man on horseback, and unable in the dusk to distinguish who he was, they fled to conceal themselves. Jean leaped from his horse, hitched it up, and strode on, with beating heart and bounding pulse, to a house which he knew was that of the Rossignols.
He entered the door. A light shone through the low window. It was characteristic of the times that in every village and hamlet the windows—the only windows—were so turned inwards on a street or yard that they revealed no light at night when a candle was kindled or a fire burned brightly on the hearth, lest the light should betray to a passing marauder the presence of a house which might be looted.
Jean bowed his head and entered at the low door. The fire was flashing in the large open chimney. A bundle of vine faggots had been thrown on, and the light filled the chamber with its orange glare.
By this light Jean saw a bed with a man lying on it; and a woman crying, beating her head and uttering wild words—her children clinging to her, sobbing, frightened, imploring her to desist.
Erect, with a staff in his hand, stood a grey-headed, thick-bearded man, with dark eyes shadowed under heavy brows.
He turned sharply as the lad entered.
"Hah! Jean, you are back. It is well. It is well you were not here this day earlier. If they had taken you, there would have been a heavy ransom to pay, by the Holy Napkin of Cadouin! And how to redeem those already taken I know not."
"What has been done to Rossignol, father?" asked Jean, going to the bed.
"What will be done to the rest unless the ransom be forthcoming in fourteen days. They have left him thus, to show us what will be the fate of the seven others."