"His last words were: 'I die without having been able to fulfill my part of the duty imposed by my ancestor Joel upon his descendants. Promise me, my son Ronan, you who are familiar with my own life and that of your brother Loysik, to fulfill that duty in my stead, and to write down, without concealing aught, both the good and the evil that we have done. When you have done that, promise me that you will proceed to the cradle of our family, near the sacred stones of Karnak. My father Jocelyn and my mother Madalen are certainly dead by this time. You shall deliver the narrative that will have been written, either to my good brother Kervan, if he survives our aged parents, or to his eldest son. If Kervan should have died without posterity, ask his heirs or his wife's to deliver to you, obedient to the orders of our ancestor Joel, our family's legends and relics, and you are then to transmit them to your descendants. If, however, my brother Kervan and my sweet sister Roselyk still live, tell them that I die with their names upon my lips and dear to my heart.' Such were the last words uttered by my father." "And have you the account of your own and my brother's lives?" "Here it is," answered Ronan opening his traveling bag. And he drew from it a parchment which he handed over to Kervan. The latter took the scroll with deep emotion, while, taking from his belt the long poniard with an iron hilt that Loysik and after him the Master of the Hounds had worn, and on the hilt of which were engraven the Saxon word _Ghilde_ and the two Gallic words _Friendship_, _Community_, Ronan passed the weapon to his uncle, saying: "It was my father's wish that this poniard be added to our family relics. When you will have read this narrative you will admit that the weapon deserves being placed together with the other articles that our ancestors have bequeathed to us--pious relics, that I must ask you to show me and which I shall contemplate with veneration. It is now getting late. I must leave you again day after to-morrow morning. I must, therefore, request you to read this very evening the narrative that I have delivered to you. I shall relate to you to-morrow what remains to be said and that I have not had the time to write down. I, on my part, have a strong wish to read our family chronicles, the principal incidents of which my father often narrated to me." "Come," said Kervan taking up a lamp. Ronan followed him. The two stepped into one of the chambers of the house. On a table lay a small iron coffer, the gift of Victoria the Great to Schanvoch. Kervan took from the coffer the gold sickle of Hena, the Virgin of the Isle of Sen, the little brass bell left by Guilhern, Sylvest's iron collar, Genevieve's silver cross and the casque's lark of Victoria the Great. He deposited all these articles near the poniard of Loysik. Kervan also produced from the little coffer the several family parchments, ranked them in order before Ronan, and then rejoined his family.