"Priest, my answer will not burden your memory: RETURN AND TELL THE KING THAT WE WILL PAY HIM TRIBUTE--IN IRON." "You want war! Very well, you shall have it without mercy or pity!" cried the abbot furiously, and leaping on his horse which the monks held ready for him he added, turning again to the Chief of the Chiefs: "Brittany will be laid waste with fire and sword! Not a house will be left standing! The last day of this people has arrived!" As the priest uttered these words, his gestures seemed to call down curses and anathemas upon the Breton chief. Angrily putting the spurs to his horse and followed by the two monks, the prelate rode rapidly away. The abbot had hardly been a quarter of an hour on the road, when he heard the gallop of an approaching horse behind him. Turning, he saw a rider coming towards him at full speed. It was Vortigern. The abbot drew in his reins, yielding to a last ray of hope. "May your coming be propitious. Morvan regrets, I hope, the insensate resolution that he took?" "Morvan regrets that in your hurry you and your two monks should have departed without a guide. You might easily lose your way in our mountains. I am to accompany you as far as the city of Guenhek. There I shall furnish you with a safe guide for the rest of the journey; he will take you to our frontiers." "Young man, you are, I am told, the brother of Morvan's wife. I conjure you, in the name of the safety of Brittany, to endeavor to change the insensate and fatal resolution of this man who happens to be the chief of your nation." "Monk, the fires lighted last night on our mountains, and which, no doubt, you must have seen, were the signals of alarm, given to our tribes to prepare for war. Your King wants war--let his will be done. But, now, answer me a question. You come from the court at Aix-la-Chapelle. Could you tell me what has become of the daughters of the Emperor Charles?" The abbot cast a look of surprise at Vortigern: "What is it to you what may have become of the Emperor's daughters?" "It is now about eight years ago that I accompanied my grandfather to Aix-la-Chapelle. I there saw the daughters of Charles. That is the reason for my curiosity concerning them." "The daughters of Charles have been consigned to nunneries by order of their brother, Louis the Pious,"[D] was the sententious answer of Witchaire. "May they, by dint of repentance, merit the pardon of heaven for their past and abominable libertinage." "And Thetralde, the youngest of Charles' daughters, did she share the fate of her sisters?" "Thetralde died long ago." "She died!" exclaimed Vortigern, unable to conceal his emotion. "Poor child! So beautiful--and to die so young!" "She, at least, never gave Charles cause to blush." "And what was the cause of the death of that child? Could you tell me?"