From the foot of the oak tree where the girl took her seat between Ronan and the hermit, only the dim noise was heard of the giddy dance and songs of Ronan's companions, the Vagres and Vagresses. The moon, now on her decline, shed her silvery rays under the somber verdure of the leaves and lighted the hermit, Ronan and the young slave as if the sun shone through the trees. The child-like voice of Odille was soon heard striking up the first couplet of the chant:
"She was young, she was fair, and holy was she; Hena her name, Hena the maid of the Island of Sen."
At these words both the hermit and the Vagre lowered their heads, and without noticing the tears that the other was shedding, both wept. Odille sang the second couplet, but broken with the fatigue of the last twenty-four hours, and yielding to the influence of the chant's melancholy rhythm, that so often had lulled and rocked her to sleep on her mother's knees, the little slave's voice became fainter and fainter, while, at the distance the Vagres suddenly struck up in chorus and with resonant voices the refrain of another ancient chant of Gaul. These latter accents sent a new thrill through the frames of Ronan and the hermit. Without wholly drowning Odille's voice, the words reached their ears:
"Flow, flow, thou blood of the captive! Drop, drop, thou dew of gore! Germinate, sprout up, thou avenging harvest!"
The two men seemed struck with the singular coincidence: at a distance, the chant of revolt, of war and blood; close to them, the girl's angelic voice, singing the praises of Hena, one of the sweetest glories of Armorican Gaul. Presently, however, as Odille yielded more and more to the gentle pressure of slumber, her voice was heard ever fainter until from a murmur, it became hardly audible. The girl's head drooped on her breast, and with her back sustained by the trunk of the tree she fell into profound sleep.
"Poor child!" said Ronan as he covered her with his cloak. "She is overcome with fatigue. May her sleep give her rest and strength!"
"Ronan," observed the hermit fastening a penetrating look upon the Vagre, "the chant of Hena made you weep--"
"A family remembrance--if a Vagre, a 'Wand'ring Man,' a 'Wolf,' a 'Wolf's-Head' can be at all said to have a family--"
