"What, then, do you fear? Think of the past! First bent down under the Roman conquest, Gaul re-rises through the courage of her sons and becomes again free and redoubtable! Let the past give you faith in the future! Perchance that future is still far away. What is time to us--to us, who at this supreme moment have but the last few hours of our life to count! Oh, my brother, I have a profound faith, an invincible faith, in the final rejuvenation and enfranchisement of Gaul!--centuries are centuries to man; they are but instants in the eternal progress of mankind!" "Loysik, you reassure me, you confirm my confidence. Aye, I shall leave this world with my eyes fixed upon the radiant vision of renascent Gaul! Still one sorrow I carry with me--our uncertainty regarding the fate of our father. What may have become of him?" "If he still lives, Ronan, may he never know of our end! He loved us so tenderly--his was a large heart. At a season of national insurrection and at the head of a province risen in arms, he might have become a hero like the Chief of the Hundred Valleys, who was his idol! At the head of a band of men in revolt, our father could be nothing but a chief of Bagauders or Vagres.[B] You know my sentiments with regard to those terrible reprisals, which, however legitimate they may be, leave only ruins and disaster behind them. But without approving his conduct, I feel inclined to acquit him of blame, because his vengeance never smote but the wicked." [B] "I do not know by what diabolical influence they accomplished it, but they seduced in this fashion an immense multitude of men, who set themselves to pillaging and despoiling all whom they met on their way, and distributed their spoils among those who had nothing."--Bishop Gregory of Tours. Histoire des Franks, IV., 10. "Brother," said Ronan, "they seem to be in high feather at the burg! Do you hear the distant din of their merriment? Oh, by the bones of our ancestor Sylvest, the young and brilliant Roman seigneurs, who, crowned with flowers laughed with cruel laughter and careless of the future on the gilded balcony of the circus, while their slaves, who were consigned to the wild beasts, awaited death in the sombre vault of the amphitheatre, just as we to-night await it in this underground prison--they were also quite hilarious. Aye, those Roman seigneurs were indeed hilarious; and yet from the depths of their dungeons the Gallic slaves shook their chains in cadence and sang the prophetic words: 'Flow, flow, thou blood of the captive! Drop, drop, thou dew of gore! Germinate, sprout up, thou avenging harvest! Hasten, thou mower, hasten! It is ripe! Whet your scythe, whet it! Whet your scythe!'" CHAPTER VIII. IN THE BANQUET HALL.