For traveling companion he had a young warrior of agreeable mien, bold and mercurial, alert and frolicsome. The mobility of his face recalled in nothing the stolidity of the German. His name was Octave. Roman by birth, in appearance and character, his inexhaustible Southern wit often succeeded in unwrinkling the brow of his young companion. The latter, however, would soon again relapse into a sort of silent and somber revery. Thus for some time absorbed in sadness, he walked his horse slowly, when Octave broke in gaily in a tone of friendly reproach: "By Bacchus! You still are preoccupied and silent." "I am thinking of my mother," answered the youth, smothering a sigh. "I am thinking of my mother, of my sister and of my country." "Come now; you should, on the contrary, chase away, such saddening thoughts. To the devil with sadness. Long live joy." "Octave, gayness ill beseems a prisoner. I cannot share your light-heartedness." "You are no prisoner, only a hostage. No bond binds you but your own word; prisoners, on the contrary, are led firmly pinioned to the slave market. Your grandfather and yourself ride freely, with us for your companions, and we are escorting you, not to a slave market, but to the palace of the Emperor Charles the Great, the mightiest monarch of the whole world. Finally, prisoners are disarmed; your grandfather as well as yourself carry your swords." "Of what use are our swords now to us?" replied Vortigern with painful bitterness. "Brittany is vanquished." "Such are the chances of war. You bravely did your duty as a soldier. You fought like a demon at the side of your grandfather. He was not wounded, and you only received a lance-thrust. By Mars, the valiant god of war, your blows were so heavy in the melee that you should have been hacked to pieces." "We would not then have survived the disgrace of Armorica." "There is no disgrace in being overcome when one has defended himself bravely--above all when the forces that one resisted and decimated, were the veteran bands of the great Charles." "Not one of your Emperor's soldiers should have escaped." "Not one?" merrily rejoined the young Roman. "What, not even myself? Not even I, who take such pains to be a pleasant traveling companion, and who tax my eloquence to entertain you? Verily, you are not at all grateful!" "Octave, I do not hate you personally; I hate your race; they have, without provocation, carried war and desolation into my country." "First of all, my young friend, I am not of the Frankish race. I am a Roman. Gladly do I relinquish to you those gross Germans, who are as savage as the bears of their forests. But, let it be said among ourselves, this war against Brittany was not without reason. Did not you Bretons, possessed of the very devil as you are, attack last year and exterminate the Frankish garrison posted at Vannes?"