The young girl to whom the bishopess gave the flask answered with a nod of intelligence, leaped down from the cart, and looked for Cautin. Most of the ecclesiastical slaves fled into the mountains when the bishop's house was set on fire; they feared the wrath of heaven if they joined the Vagres; the others, however, being of a less timorous turn, resolutely accompanied the troop of the lusty men. They should have been seen--alert, frisk as if they had just risen from a restful night spent under the foliage of the wood, they marched with elastic step, despite the orgy of the previous night, and went and came, and skipped and chatted, and exchanged kisses with the women who were willing or with the pouches of wine that they carried along, and bit lustily into the hams, the chunks of venison and the episcopal cakes. "How good it is to live a Vagre's life!" On the last wagon, under the special watch of Wolf's-Tooth and a few companions who brought up the rear, Cautin, bishop and Vagre's cook, accustomed to strut on his traveling mule, or to ride through the forest on his vigorous hunting steed, found the road rough, dusty and unpleasant. He perspired, panted, tossed himself about, moaned, grumbled, grunted under the weight of his heavy paunch and invoked to his aid all the saints of paradise. "Seigneur bishop," said the young girl whom the bishopess charged with the amphora of wine, "here is some good spiced wine; drink it; it will give you strength to support the fatigue of the journey." "Give it to me! Give it to me, my daughter! God will reward you for your attachment to your father in Christ, who finds himself obliged to drink by stealth the wine of his own cellar--" And clapping the amphora to his lips, he drained it at one draught. When the flask was empty he dashed it against the floor, and looking at the young girl cried: "And so you propose to run the Vagrery, little she-devil, confounded wench?" "Yes, seigneur bishop; I am now twenty years of age, and this is the first day of my life that I have been able to say: 'I belong to myself--I can go and come, jump, sing, dance, just as I please'--" "You belong to yourself, do you, brazen minx? You belong to me! But with the aid of God you will yet be re-captured either by the Church, or by some Frankish seigneur--and I hope you may fall into even worse slavery, God-forsaken wench!" "I will then, at least, have tasted freedom--" And the young woman dashed off, jumping and singing, in pursuit of a butterfly that fluttered in the bush.