"A warrior who is always terrible to his enemies," explained one of the Northmans, "and sometimes dangerous to his friends." The giant Lodbrog nodded his head affirmatively, while Simon and Robin looked at him in astonishment, not having understood the mysterious words of the pirates. At this moment Gaëlo approached his men. He had awakened from the profound revery into which the disappearance of the Buckler Maiden plunged him. The Northman chieftain looked determined. "My champions," said Gaëlo in a resonant voice, "we must be ahead of the Beautiful Shigne and seize the abbey of St. Denis ourselves! Yours shall be the booty, mine the glory!" "Gaëlo," observed Simon, "when I heard you mention the feat to your warrior maid, I, who am well acquainted with the abbey of St. Denis, where I have recently been more than once, when I was a serf of the fishery of St. Paterne, may hell consume it, I took your words simply as a lover's jest. Guarded as the abbey is, and fortified with thick walls, the place can resist five or six hundred determined men. How can you think of taking it with only fifteen? Come, Gaëlo, you must give up the plan." "My braves," resumed Gaëlo, after a moment's silence, "if I were to tell you that a serf, a swine-herd, is at this very hour a count, the seigneur and master of a province that Charles the Bald, grandfather of Charles the Simple, who is now king of the Franks, presented him with, you would answer me: 'A serf, a swine-herd, become master and seigneur of a province? It is impossible!'" "By the faith of Large-Ears, that would, indeed, be my answer. A swine-herd can never become a count!" "You think not?" replied Gaëlo. "And who is the present Count of Chartres and master of the country if not a pirate who one time was a swine-herd at Trancout, a poor village located near Troyes?"[2] "Oh! Oh! Chief," put in Robin Jaws, "you have Hastain in mind, the old bandit who fought in the ranks of the Northman pirates! We know the song: "When he had sacked the Franks, Saw all his ships full rigged, Hastain of Rome heard tell, Vowed he would go there. Vowed he would take the place, Plunder and pillage it, And make of Rome the King His friend Boern Iron Sides." "Simon," said Gaëlo, interrupting Robin's song, "listen well with both your large ears to the end of the song! Proceed my champion!" "The song ends well," answered Robin, resuming the thread of the ballad: "Down Into Italy, Plundering, the pirates went, Laded their ships with rich Spoils of the Churches. Then Hastain gave the word, For the return to France, And to the Frankish shores Steered they their way back. "But the old Frankish King, Dreading the pirates' band, Quoth unto Hastain then: 'Strike not the abbeys; Touch not nor plunder them, Nor the seigniorial burgs,-- I shall establish you Count of the Chartres.'