"Yes, yes! Long live our King! Three cheers for wine, dice and wenches!" responded the bandits. "The devil take the vagabond, who, rich to-day, keeps for the morrow aught but his skin and his knife! Long live our great King, Corentin the Gibbet-cheater!"
And the savage troop marched towards the gate of Agra and entered the city of Marhala shouting and singing: "Glory to the brave Crusaders!"
Luckily disentangled from the fury of the guests of the Duke of Aquitaine by the nocturnal attack of the Saracens, Fergan the Quarryman had profited by the confusion to escape from the Emir's palace with Joan and Colombaik. While the Crusaders were hurrying to the ramparts of the gate of Agra, the serf turned his steps with wife and child, far away from the spot of the battle. Before sunrise, quiet reigned again in Marhala. Descrying one of those numerous taverns, that generally sprang up after the capture of a city, and were set up in some Saracen house by the camp-followers of the army, Fergan stepped in. To the great astonishment of Joan, he pulled out of his belt a gold piece, which he exchanged with the tavern-keeper for silver coin, to pay for his lodging. Once more alone with his family, the quarryman could give a loose to his tender feelings and relate to them how, after being separated from them by the sand-spout, he found himself half buried under the sand, and losing consciousness. In the darkness of the night he was shaken out of his lethargy by a sharp scratch on his shoulder. It was a hyena, that, pawing up the sand under which he lay, prepared to devour him, taking him for dead, but instantly fled seeing him sit up. Thus, delivered from a double danger, the serf had wandered about during dark, amidst the mournful yelpings of the wild beasts at their quarry over the corpses that they dug up. At dawn he saw, already half devoured, the remains of Neroweg VI.
After vainly searching for Joan and his child, Fergan considered them lost forever, and followed the route marked out by the human bones. At the end of several hours' marching, he came across the corpse of some seigneur, to judge by the richness of his clothes, torn to shreds by the beasts of prey. Among the tatters was an embroidered purse full of gold. He appropriated it without scruple, and was soon joined by a troop of travelers bound for Marhala. He journeyed in their company. Upon his arrival in the city, and learning that several other travelers who escaped the disaster of the sand-spout had come in ahead of him, he inquired after a deformed woman with a child. A beggar, who had accidentally seen Joan and her son enter the palace of the Emir, gave him the information, and he was enabled to arrive in time to wrest them from the danger they were just threatened with.