"I, shaved like a vile slave! I, undergo such an outrage! I prefer to do battle with you, vile bandit; give me the axe!"
"Here it is, count. And you, my brave Vagres, widen the circle--and long live Gaul!"
Neroweg precipitated himself upon the Vagre; the combat was engaged; it was frightful, stubborn. Loysik, Ronan, little Odille and the bishopess followed trembling and with anxious eyes the events of the struggle. It did not last long. Karadeucq spoke truly. The axe did not weigh heavy in his vigorous hand; it swung in the air and fell with a crash upon the forehead of Neroweg, who rolled down upon the grass with his skull cleaved in twain.
"Die!" cried Karadeucq with a triumphant air. "The stock of the Terrible Eagle will no longer pursue the stock of Joel!"
"You lie, Gallic dog! My stock is not extinct. I have a son of my second wife at Soissons--and my present wife, Godegisele, is with child. My stock will live!"
And with a feeble voice, the dying man added:
"Hermit laborer, give me paradise--my good Bishop Cautin, have pity upon me! Oh, I am going to hell! to hell! the demons!"
And Neroweg expired, his face contracted in diabolical terror.
Missing the count, his leudes must have concluded that he lay buried under the smoldering ruins; some feared that the revolted slaves captured and took him with them. If they searched for him, they must have found the count's body at the outskirts of the forest, with his skull cleaved in twain by an axe blow, and stretched out at the foot of a tree, with the outward bark ripped off and on the bare trunk of which the following words were engraved with the point of a dagger:
"_Karadeucq, the Vagre, a descendant of the Gaul Joel, the brenn of the tribe of Karnak, killed this Frankish count, a descendant of Neroweg, the Terrible Eagle. Long live Gaul._"
Two years have passed since the death of Count Neroweg. We are now in winter; the wind moans, the snow falls. It was on the day following a similar night that, nearly fifty years ago, Karadeucq, the grandson of old Araim left the paternal roof, under which the following narrative takes place, in order to run the Bagaudy, seduced thereto by a peddler's story.
Old Araim died long ago, never ceasing to sorrow over the loss of Karadeucq, his pet. Jocelyn and Madalen, Karadeucq's father and mother also are dead. His elder brother Kervan and his sweet sister Roselyk still live and inhabit the same homestead situated near the sacred stones of Karnak. Kervan is over sixty years of age; he married late; his son, now fifteen years of age, is called Yvon. The blonde Roselyk, sister of Kervan, is nearly as old as her brother; her hair has turned white; she has remained single and lives with her brother and his wife Martha.