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He ordered me to bring it to you, in order that it be joined to our family relics." "My brother's death was brave, like his life. A curse upon that Chram, son of Clotaire! Had he not raided Burgundy, my brother Karadeucq might still be alive!" "Like you, Kervan, I say a curse upon Chram! But, at any rate, he met on the frontiers of our Brittany the merited punishment for his criminal life."
I, Kervan, the son of Jocelyn, who died seven years after he bequeathed to me our family archives have this to add: The narrative that follows was brought to me here, at my house, near Karnak, by Ronan, one of the sons of my brother Karadeucq, who left our house to run the Bagaudy, the year after the death of Clovis.
We two, Karadeucq, will have to tear down this railing. I have set fire to the four corners of the burg stables, barns, lofts, all is aflame. The count's main building that is now full of Franks, who are mutually slaying one another, and which is built of frame, has also taken fire; it is beginning to burn like a faggot stuck into a furnace."
Old Karadeucq, who had preserved his vigor, looked youthed by fully twenty years. The joy of having saved his sons and of having Neroweg in his power seemed to impart new life to him. His eyes sparkled, his cheeks were aflame, he contemplated the count with greedy looks. "We shall be revenged," said Ronan, "you will be revenged, little Odille."
"To the beam; tie the bear to the beam!" Karadeucq led the lover of the bishopess to a corner of the hall, chained him to one of the beams of the colonnade, put between his paws the knotty club on which he had been riding and said to him: "Come, my poor Mont-Dore; courage; you will have to defend yourself well, seeing that you have to fight against two dogs for the amusement of the noble seigneurs; show yourself worthy of your race."
The lover of the beautiful bishopess straddled the cane which he held between his two fore paws, and led by the chain which Karadeucq held he commenced to prance with grotesque clumsiness around the hall amid the loud laughter of the assembled leudes.
In all Vagrery there is no Vagre more Vagre than myself for a life of adventures; nevertheless, were some unforeseen accident to cast the bishopess and myself in some solitary corner of the earth, I believe I would live there quietly with her ten, twenty, a hundred years! You surely take me for a fool, old Karadeucq, or better yet for a ninny, seeing that I weep and act stupidly!
The two sons of old Karadeucq whom the slaves were carrying on their backs, as well as little Odille, in the arms of the Master of the Hounds, finally crossed the bridge over the fosse, closely preceded and followed by all the Vagres and the revolted slaves who joined them. They had all successfully threaded their way through the crowds of scurrying Franks around the burning buildings.
The old man is at work on a net for fishing; his son Jocelyn is fashioning a plough handle; Kervan is adjusting new thongs to a yoke; Karadeucq is sharpening the points of his arrows on a flint-stone. The tempest will last till morning if not longer, because the sun went down like a ball of fire behind thick black clouds that wreathed the isle of Sen like a dense fog.
"It is Count Neroweg, whom your father dexterously kidnapped from the very midst of the leudes with the aid of two of his comrades." "Neroweg in our power! In the power of Ronan, Loysik and Karadeucq, the descendants of Schanvoch! Heaven and earth!" "Hello, old Karadeucq, come this way Ronan will not believe that we kidnapped the Frankish wild-boar."
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