"Drink, fair lord," he commanded, "for you have proved a right noble seigneur of St. Julien. None but a cavalier of wondrous valor is suffered to drink from this."
So Richard drained the great horn. "To the perdition of every Valmonter, and to the bright eyes of Mary Kurkuas!"
Then he went to the chamber of his grandfather, who had sat all that night, gnawing his nails, crying to the varlets to run to the parapet to see if the sky was aglow toward Valmont. As Richard came in the old man staggered up to him, caught him by the arm, and sniffled piteously when Richard told how they won the outwork and the bridge and the keep.
"By the Cross!" swore the Baron, half laughing, half moaning, "I would have given half my life to be there,—there and strike one good blow, and feel the steel eat through Raoul de Valmont."
"Raoul de Valmont will never feel another sword," said Richard, softly; "he is gone to his account."
"Aye," cried the Baron; "gone, so the varlets who ran here told me; gone, and a long time St. Peter will have of it reading off the list of his sins. By Our Lady, they were not a few; and perhaps mine are as many, ha! Well, even the devil will not frighten me much, after what I have lived through!"
"You must live and undo your misdeeds if you can, dear grandfather," said Richard, whose own conscience was as yet very easy.
"Yes, I must have a talk with the abbot. Live like a demon, then square at the end with the priests! Two or three fields added to the glebe, a few sols ready money, and the saints forget all about you, and let you crawl under the gate of heaven—that is the way a man of spirit should live and die! But the Valmonters—the boy Gilbert?"
"I killed him," said Richard, deliberately.
"Good; he had never done any harm; neither have wolf whelps; but we kill them just the same. And John of the Iron Arm?"