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Amen!" Neroweg and a few of the leudes rose upon their knees open-mouthed. As they did so they perceived two bearded Vagres with their bows between their teeth crawling like serpents along a large branch in order to reach a spot from which, skilful archers that they were, they could take deliberate aim at their foes and nail them to the sod.
"What you demand of me, if I understand you rightly, is that I pledge myself, in my own name and the name of my leudes and pursuivants, to obey your mouth, as we express it in Germany?" "Yes, that is my demand." "But what fate do you reserve for your father?" "His own bodyguard came near cutting him to pieces just before the war with the Saxons. Are you aware of that?"
The casques and the cuirasses of the leudes of Chram were seen glistening in the light of the conflagration; they were running hither and thither in a joint effort with the men of Neroweg to save the horses and mules from the burning stables. What an infernal tumult, and how sweet to the ear of a Gaul! By the bones of our fathers the music and the sight were magnificent!
Oh, seigneur Count Neroweg! How sweet it is to you to thus enjoy the delights of this land that your kings conquered with their own and the swords of their leudes! You and your fellows, the new masters of this soil that our fathers' labors fecundated, live in idleness and sloth.
How do you expect me to pay you a hundred gold sous, besides feeding you, your leudes and your retinues, and keeping myself, my family and my laborers, now your slaves, alive? Threatening me with his club, the count answered me saying: 'I shall have my hundred gold sous every year if you fail, I shall have my leudes cut off your feet and hands " "Poor man!" observed the hermit sadly.
"Chram, that devil of a Ronan and his band killed nine of my bravest leudes; they pillaged and set fire to the episcopal villa and the place is to be rebuilt at my expense. As sure as the great St. Martin is in paradise, the cursed Vagre shall not be set free, he shall not escape the death that his crimes deserve!" "Who says otherwise?" "You speak of granting him grace."
"The sun of May does not more greedily pump up the dew than our topers do the full kegs of wine and beer; mountains of victuals vanish in the abysses of their stomachs they no longer talk, they yell; a little longer they will all be roaring! Chram's leudes at first affected daintiness and choice manners; but at this hour they guzzle, swallow and laugh like any of us.
By the faith of a Vagre, it was a joyful sight to watch the wild and envious looks that the leudes of the count cast at the suite of Chram, and the insolent and mocking looks that the princely retinue threw upon the count's ramshackle troop.
The streamers at the head of their lances fluttered on the breeze, while their painted and gilded bucklers dangled from the pommels of their saddles. As showy and imposing as was the appearance of the princely suite, so miserably shabby and grotesque was the aspect presented by the leudes of the count.
Only few were for flight; the majority favored immediate battle. While the council of war was being held two other pickets rushed to the clearing. They had concealed themselves in the underwood, and had been able to count with approximate accuracy the number of leudes whom the count led.
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