"My beautiful bishopess, are you there? Come, give me a kiss across the railing!--Your lips have pressed mine. I now feel stronger. We two, Karadeucq, will have to tear down this railing. I have set fire to the four corners of the burg--stables, barns, lofts, all is aflame. The count's main building that is now full of Franks, who are mutually slaying one another, and which is built of frame, has also taken fire; it is beginning to burn like a faggot stuck into a furnace." "Woe is us! it is impossible to break down the railing!" "Free us, father!" "Oh, my sons, I shall die of rage before I fall under the axe of the Franks, if I cannot set you free." "Come, old Karadeucq, one more effort; the Franks who guarded the _ergastula_ are now thinking of nothing else but to extinguish the fire; let us dig a hole under the railing with our poniards, with our nails." "The Franks! There they are--they are coming back to the _ergastula_; they are running this way." "I can see their weapons glistening by the light of the conflagration." "Father, there is no hope left! You are lost! Blood and death, lost! And here we are, sore and incapable to defend you!" About a score of men at arms and several leudes ran with their arms in the direction of the _ergastula_; one of them was heard to say: "A part of these dogs of slaves are profiting by the fire in order to revolt; I heard them say that they were going to set the chief of the Vagres and the rest of the prisoners free. Quick, quick, let us put them all to death--we shall afterwards see to the slaves. Who has the key to the railing?" At the very moment when Sigefrid was handing the key to the Frankish warrior his eyes fell upon Karadeucq. "What are you doing there, old vagabond?" "Noble youth, frightened by the fire, my bear has escaped; I am running after him--he has crouched down yonder not far from the railing. Alas, what a misfortune this fire is!" "Sigefrid, I have unlocked the railing," said one of the Franks; "shall we begin with the men or the women?" "I shall begin with the men!" cried Karadeucq, planting his dagger in the breast of Sigefrid. "I also!" cried the Master of the Hounds, stabbing another one of the Franks. "Vagrery! Vagrery! To us, all brave slaves! Death to the Franks! War upon the seigneurs! Liberty to the slaves! Long live all Gaul!" "The Vagres!" cried the thunder-struck Franks, dumbfounded at the death of the two leudes. "The Vagres! These demons seem to rise from underground and from the depth of hell!" "This way!" cried Ronan in a thundering voice. "This way, my Vagres! Kill the Franks!"