The serf, without noticing the presence of the sorceress, devoured Colombaik with his eyes. Presently he observed, with a profound sigh of relief: "He is pale, he has been weeping, but he does not seem to have suffered; they can't have hurt him!" Embracing Colombaik with frenzy, he repeated several times: "My poor child! How happy your mother will be!" But his paternal alarms being calmed, he remembered that he was not alone, and not doubting that Azenor was the sorceress, whose dreaded name had reached as far as the serfs of the seigniory, he put his child down, took up again his pick, approached the young woman slowly with a savage mien and said to her: "So, it is you, who have children kidnapped to serve your diabolical sorceries?" and with glistening eyes he raised his iron bar with both hands. "You will now die, infernal witch!"
"Father, do not kill her!" cried out the child impetuously, clasping the quarryman's legs with both his hands. "Oh, do not kill this good lady who was embracing me just as you came in!"
Fergan looked at Azenor, who, somber, pensive, her arms crossed upon her palpitating breast, seemed to brave death. Turning to the child: "Was this woman embracing you?"
"Yes, father; and since I have been here she has been kind to me. She has sought to console me. She even often rocked me in her arms."
"Why, then," said the quarryman to the sorceress, "did you have my child kidnapped? What have you to say!"
Azenor the Pale, without answering the question of the serf, and pursuing the thought that turned in her head, said: "Where does the passage run out through which you have penetrated to this turret?"
The young woman stepped to a cabinet of massive oak, took from it a casket, opened it, and displaying before the quarryman the gold pieces that it was filled with, said: "Take this casket and let me accompany you. You have been able to enter this donjon by a secret passage, you will be able to get out again. We shall escape together from this accursed den. I pay a rich ransom."
"I wish to flee from this castle, where I am a prisoner, and run to rejoin at Angers William IX., Duke of Aquitaine----" Stopping short and leaning her ear towards the door, Azenor made a sign of silence to Fergan, and proceeded in a whisper: "I hear voices and steps on the staircase. Someone is coming up here.... It is Neroweg!"