Now, as I saw Brother Hugo on the ramparts and knew, though full of matters now, he grudged not a word to us lads whom he loved full well, I spake to him thus—
"What news to-day, brother, of 'Le Grand Sarrasin'?" I spake half in jest indeed, for long ere this, this very brother had made great sport of pirates and their dark deeds, and especially, ere this name I spake had risen to such a sound of evil omen, had he delighted to tease the children of the cloister therewith. As on some dangerous path he would whisper, "Go not that way for fear of Le Grand Sarrasin!" or out in the fishing-smack, he would point to some cosy, full-bottomed trading ship with a "Hist, lads, the great Geoffroy there astern!" But now Brother Hugo liked not the jest, but looked sternly at me from beneath his great brows.
"Le Grand Sarrasin!" said he, "if so thou lovest to call the vilest foam of filth on these Norman seas, this day last week rode into St. Brieuc by night with eighteen ships, climbed into the fort, none letting him, slit the throat of a sentinel and warder, barred the garrison into its own quarters, and poured like a midnight pestilence through the streets, bidding his Paynim hounds of slaughter, without pity and without fear, enter where they listed, and that they did. And there by night in St. Brieuc, good men and good wives, who never harmed man or beast were knifed as they lay, the young maids led captive, and the babes flung like useless baggage through windows into the gutter, and that is the last I have heard of Le Grand Sarrasin!" said Brother Hugo, sadly enough.
I stood beside him silently, and the salt tears burst painfully under my eyelids as I heard the fate of that poor town by the Breton coast.
"Ay, weep, lad, weep!" he said. "And God give strength to our arms to show him better than tears, if he come our way, this fiend that fears not God nor man."
"But the monks, brother, are they not safe? The worst pirates ofttimes fear to touch holy men and holy places," I interposed.
"The monks of St Brieuc," he said solemnly and sadly, "holy men and servants of the poor, lie cold and still in their dormitories, brother by brother, saint by saint. And the sun looks in on them and sees their faces agonized in death, and the blind eyes staring with horror at the fate that woke them but for death. In such wise the Sarrasin's devils fear holy men and holy places."
I saw Brother Hugo as he looked far out to sea in his turn dash the drops of salt from his eyes, and strive to master his sorrow.
"Should they come our way?" I asked, in bitter questioning.
"Surely, ere long!" he answered, "and we shall be prepared. I pray to God, and—smile not at it, lad—some sort of vision in a dream has come to me that the downfall of 'the Grand Sarrasin' shall be through us, brethren of the Vale, and perhaps through me."