The pirate's brutal horse-play was received with a loud outburst of joy by his Northmans, while the Frankish seigneurs and prelates, so far from thinking of avenging the outrage done to their King, remained silent and motionless. The descendant of Charles, the great emperor, rose unaided, weeping with humiliation and physical pain. He had hurt his head with the fall. The blood flowed. CHAPTER XIV. ON THE SWAN'S ROUTE. Eidiol, his son, his daughter, and Rustic the Gay, back from Rouen two days past, were congregated in the evening at their humble home in Paris. More than ever did they now realize the void made at their hearth by the death of Martha, good housekeeper that she was. The street was silent; the night dark. A rap was heard at the door. Rustic opened it and Gaëlo, accompanied by Shigne, now his wife, stepped in, with their cloaks closely wrapped over their armor. The old skipper had not met the young couple since the night when they returned to Eidiol's house, in order there to await the return of Count Rothbert, who departed in hot haste to Compiegne in order to inform Charles the Simple of the pirate's will. "Good father," said Gaëlo to Eidiol, "my wife and I have come to bid you good-bye and to bring you tidings that will no doubt cheer your heart. I heard you deplore the sudden disappearance of a daughter, the first born of all your children. She is not dead. I have seen her--" "My daughter!" cried the old skipper in wonderment and clasping his hands. "What! Jeanike is alive! You have seen her?" "Where is our sister?" cried Anne and Guyrion at once. "Where can we see her?" "She is near Ghisèle, the wife of Rolf, Duke of Northmandy." "Can it be possible!" again exclaimed Eidiol with increasing astonishment. "And how does she come to be near Ghisèle?" "According to her vague recollections, your daughter was carried off by some of those mendicants who kidnap children in order to sell them. She was disposed of to the intendant of the royal domain. It therefore happened that she lived and grew up in Kersey-on-the-Oise. Later she was married to a serf of the place. Jeanike was soon afterwards attached to the palace among the domestics. There she gave birth to two children, a boy, who now is a forester serf of the forest of Compiegne, and a girl whom she had at her breast at the same time that the Queen-mother nursed Ghisèle. The Queen having died of fright on the occasion of one of the Northman descents upon Kersey, the baby was placed in charge of Jeanike, whose own baby thus shared its nourishment with the princess. Jeanike, as the princess' foster-mother, was afterwards manumitted; but she never left the side of the poor creature, who to-day is the wife of Rolf." "What a strange accident!" said Eidiol deeply moved. "But why did not Jeanike accompany you hither? Did you not inform her that we were relatives and that I lived in Paris?"