"Look toward the west!" Turning his eyes in the direction indicated by the priest, the Frankish chief notices behind him tall columns of ruddy smoke rising at intervals from the hills that the army has left behind it. "Look yonder! Everywhere a conflagration marks our passage. The burgs and villages, abandoned by the fleeing inhabitants, have, at my orders, been delivered to the flames. The Bretons have not, like the Northman pirates, the resource of vessels on which to flee with their booty back to the ocean. We are driving the fleeing population before us. The two other army corps of Louis the Pious are, from their side, following similar tactics. Accordingly, we and they will meet to-morrow morning at the village of Lokfern. There we will find, driven back and heaped together, the populations that have been attacked from the south, the east and the north during these last days. There, surrounded by a circle of iron, they will be either annihilated or reduced to slavery! Ah! This time without fail, Brittany, never before overcome, will be subjected to the Catholic Church and to the power of the Franks. What if your soldiers have been decimated in the struggle for the triumph of the faith and royalty! The troops that you still have, will, when joined to the other army corps, suffice to exterminate the Bretons!" "Monk," answers Neroweg impatiently, "your words do not console me for the death of so many brave Frankish warriors whose bones have been left to bleach in the defile of Glen-Clan and on the hills of this accursed country!" "Rather envy their fate. They have died for religion; they are now in paradise, in the midst of a chorus of seraphim." Neroweg shrugs his shoulders with an air of incredulity, and after a moment of silence proceeds: "You promised to point out to me where these pagans conceal their treasures." "On the other side of the marsh of Peulven which we are now to traverse, lies a vast forest in which a large number of druid stones are found. Have the earth removed at their foot, and you will find large sums of money in silver and gold, and many precious articles that have been hidden there since the beginning of the war." "When will we arrive at that forest?" "This evening before nightfall." "I do not wish to risk my troops in that forest, and fall into another ambush like the one of the defile!" cries Neroweg. "The day is drawing to its close. We shall encamp to-night in the midst of the bare hills where we now are, and where no surprise is to be feared." "Here are your scouts back," observes the monk to the Frankish chief. "Interrogate them before you make up your mind definitely." "Neroweg," reports one of the riders who had scouted to the edge of the marsh, "as far as the eye reaches, nothing is seen on the marsh; there is no sign of any men; there is not a boat in sight. On the shores there is not a single hut, and there is no evidence of any entrenchment."