"Because," and Martin's withered face softened, "I suppose I loved Solignac as well as you did. I was born there as you were, and we poor devils of servants have hearts to suffer and souls to be saved as well as our masters. To-day, too, you say you would put Brigitta the swineherd into my lady's place! With great respect, Monsieur Gaspard, till to-day I had not thought you such a fool; but God be thanked for Jan Meert, and be merciful to him." Then, as if by an afterthought, he added, "God be merciful to me, too, and give me five minutes of Jan Meert's throat though I die for it. Ah! look, Monsieur Gaspard; what did I tell you?" Above the trees that lay between us and Solignac a pall of smoke hovered, its edges feathered by the wind. CHAPTER III FIRE AND SACK My first dismayed instinct was to pull Roland back upon his haunches, my second to urge him through the wood by the shortest path he could find. But Martin called me back. "Not that way, Monsieur Gaspard. Never look rogues in the face if you can see their backs, and perhaps old Babette has news." Caution was wisest, and I followed him upstream. Five minutes' delay could matter little to Solignac, and Babette's curiosity might be trusted to have kept her informed of Jan Meert's doings. But we drew the copse blank, though we hunted through it, crying her name cautiously, there was no answer. To me silence was assurance. Jan Meert and his fellow-rogues had left the chateau, having done their worst, and the way was clear. No doubt we would find her waiting helplessly before the ruin wrought by the Hollander, for she, too, loved Solignac. The wonder was we had not already heard her outcry. "Come," said I, driving Roland through the bushes. "Better leave the horses behind," advised Martin. But I would not. "No," I answered curtly. "If Jan Meert is yonder we shall need their legs; if not, why leave them?" The time, be it remembered, was the verge of summer, almost summer itself, with the foliage full and green, so it was not until the trees thinned that I got my first sight of Solignac, a grey bulk of weather-beaten stone between the columns of the oaks and pines. But it was only when we had fairly cleared the wood that it dawned upon me what and how much I owed the Hollander. Through Martin's message, delivered at a time when no man likes to be interrupted--for I talked with Brigitta in the shade, Roland's bridle hooked over my arm--there had been a covert satisfaction that blunted its edge. My recollection of what passed there differed from Martin's. "Come, Monsieur Gaspard," said he, his sour look turned not on me, but on the girl, "Solignac's a-fire, and there's a man's work to do."