Two days after Broute-Saule had been delivered to the claws and beak of the sparrow-hawk, Berthoald and his men arrived near Nantes. The sun was going down, night was near. The young chief on horseback rode a few paces ahead of his companions, among whom were several fresh recruits raised by Charles from the other side of the Rhine--men as savage and fierce as the first soldiers of Clovis, and, like them, dressed in skins and wearing their hair tied at the top of their heads--just as, more than two centuries before, Neroweg, one of the leudes of the Frankish king, had worn his. The other warriors were casqued and cuirassed. Berthoald was reserved, almost haughty towards the men of his band. They grumbled at his coolness and general bearing towards them. But the ascendency of his courage, his redoubtable physical strength, his rare dexterity in arms, the promptitude of his war expedients, finally, the high favor that he enjoyed with Charles held the savage men of war in control. Accordingly, Berthoald rode alone at the head of his troop. Often, since his departure from the abbey of St. Saturnine, he had dropped into a reverie at the thought of the charming Septimine. He was thinking of the young girl when Richulf, one of his men, rode up to his chief and said to him: "According to the information that we gathered on the way, our abbey must lie hereabouts. If you will, let us interrogate the slaves that we see on the fields." Awakening from his reverie, Berthoald made an affirmative sign with his head, and the two hastened the pace of their horses. "As for me," said Richulf, a sort of German giant of an enormous girth, "I am enjoying in advance the face that our abbot will make when we shall tell him: 'We are here by the grace of Charles Martel. Vacate the place, priest of Satan, and give us the key of the cellar and pantry for us to eat and drink our fill!'" Being now near the slaves towards whom they had ridden, Berthoald asked one of them where the abbey of Meriadek was. "Not far from here, seigneur; the crossroad that you see there down below, bordered with poplars, leads straight to the abbey." "Is an abbot or an abbess at the head of the abbey of Meriadek?" "It is our holy abbess Meroflede." "An abbess!" repeated Berthoald in surprise. And laughing he asked again: "Is she young and handsome, this abbess Meroflede?" "Seigneur, I could not answer your question, never having seen her but from a distance and enveloped in her veils." "If she envelops herself in her veils she must be ugly," put in Richulf, shaking his head doubtfully. "Are the lands of the abbey fertile? Has it many herds of swine? Does it gather in good wine?" "The lands of the abbey are very fertile, seigneur ... the herds of swine and sheep are very large. Two days ago we carried our rent to the abbey and the colonists their money. It was with difficulty that the large shed of the monastery could contain all the cattle and provisions taken there."