Part 8 (2/2)
CHAPTER VIII.
THE RESCUE.
A night and almost a whole day had pa.s.sed since Anne the Sweet, taken into one of the underground cells of the abbey of St. Denis by Father Fultrade, had escaped the outrageous purposes of the monk.
Deepest darkness reigned in the dungeon in which Anne the Sweet was confined. The feelings of terror and despair that at first seized her at being separated from her mother, had been followed by mental and physical prostration. Her tears had run dry. Seated on the stone slabs of the cell with her back to the wall, the young girl dropped into a feverish slumber agitated by sinister dreams. One time, it was the monk Fultrade who appeared before her, and then she awoke shuddering with horror--a horror that was intensified by the brooding darkness around her. At other times Anne dreamed that she had been forgotten in the underground chamber, and felt herself a prey to the agonies of hunger while her torture was rendered still more excruciating by the heart-rending cries of her mother, likewise a prey to the torments of famine. Suddenly the young girl was awakened from her cruel dreams by a loud noise of voices and steps that tumultuously drew near. She leaped up, listened, and recognizing the voices of Eidiol and of Guyrion the Plunger, she bounded towards the door which she struck with all her strength, crying:
”Father! Brother! Deliver me! Come, come to my help!”
”Step back from the door, my child!” answered the skipper. ”We shall break it in.”
Beside herself with joy, the young girl fell back a few steps. Shaken from its hinges by the blows of the iron bars that Eidiol and Guyrion and Rustic the Gay wielded with energy, the door soon fell over and Anne rushed into the arms of her father and brother; but looking around as if missing someone she had expected to see, she asked with fear:
”And my mother? Where is my dear mother?”
”You will see her in an instant, my child. It is from her I just learned about the treason of the infamous monk,” answered the dean of the Skippers' Guild, who could not bestow sufficient caresses upon the daughter whom he feared to have lost. ”When she saw me,” continued the happy father, ”poor Martha felt such a pang that she lost consciousness.
Fortunately she returned to her senses, but her weakness is such that she could not walk out of the cell in which she also was confined. It is near by.”
”But you here, father, in this abbey?” the young girl inquired, as soon as her first emotions were calmed. ”And you, too, brother? And you, Rustic? Am I dreaming? Is it yourselves I see in this dungeon?”
”The Count of Paris posted some archers along the banks of the Seine in order to stop all the vessels that ascended the river,” the old man explained. ”Two of his soldiers took me to Rothbert. I had an altercation with him, and he ordered me locked up here.”
”And the traitor thereupon sent us one of his men to say that my father wanted to see us immediately,” added Guyrion; ”we came without suspecting any harm--”
”And we had hardly set foot inside the abbey,” broke in Rustic the Gay, ”when the count's soldiers fell upon us unexpectedly and took us also prisoners.”
”But you are now free,” replied Anne. ”Who set you free?”
”The Northman pirates, my dear child.”
”Great G.o.d!” cried the young girl affrighted and clasping her hands.
”Oh! father! were those pagans merciful to you?”
”Pagans who set us free are better than Christians who imprison us.
Moreover, these brave and wily folks entered the abbey by strategem, and have slaughtered about a hundred Frankish soldiers, without counting the monks whom they despatched.”
”After which, sister,” proceeded Guyrion, ”they started to pillage the basilica and the abbey. There is a heap of booty, as high as the portal of the cloister, piled up in the court-yard.”
”And then,” said Rustic, ”the Northmans descended into the cellar to stave in the heads of the casks of wine that the abbot kept there. In this way they landed at the entrance of the gallery that leads to these underground dungeons. Expecting to find large treasures locked up there, they broke in the door. They found us huddled together in the gallery.
Their chief, a magnificent young warrior whom they call Gaelo, ordered them to treat us well and to a.s.sist us in setting the rest of the prisoners free. That is the history of our own deliverance.”
”Thus, my child, we reached the cell in which your mother was confined,”
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