rom him, lest he should swoop down upon the mill with his armed
retainers and carry us off thence -- so hates he the whole family that
bears the name of De Brocas? What could we do against power such as his?
I trow nothing. We should be but as pygmies before a giant."

Gaston's face had darkened. He could not gainsay his brother's reluctant
words, but he chafed beneath them as a restive horse beneath the curb
rein tightly drawn.

"Yet our mother bid us watch and be ready. She spoke often of our lost
inheritance, and she knew all the peril, the danger."

Raymond's eyes sought his brother's face. He looked like one striving to
recall a dim and almost lost memory.

"But thinkest thou, Gaston, that in thus speaking our mother was
thinking of the strong fortress of Saut? I can scarce believe that she
would call that our birthright. For we are not of the eldest branch of
our house. There must be many whose title would prove far better than
our own. We might perchance win it back to the house of De Brocas by act
of conquest; but even so, I misdoubt me if we should hold it in peace.
We have proud kinsfolk in England, they tell us, whose claim, doubtless,
would rank before ours. They care not to cross the water to win back the
lands themselves, yet I trow they would put their claim before the King
did tidings reach them that their strong and wily foe had been ousted
therefrom. We win not back lands for others to hold, nor would we
willingly war against our own kindred. Methinks, my Brother, that our
mother had other thoughts in her mind when she spoke of our rightful
inheritance."

"Other thoughts! nay, now, what other thoughts?" asked Gaston, with
quick impatience. "I have never dreamed but of Saut. I have called it in
my thoughts our birthright ever since we could walk far enow to look
upon its frowning battlements perched upon yon wooded crag."

And Gaston stretched out his hand in the direction in which the Castle
of Saut lay, not many leagues distant.

"We have heard naught save of Saut ever since we could run alone. What
but that could our mother's words have boded? Sure she looked to us to
recover yon fortress as our father once meant to do?"

"I know not altogether, and yet I can scarce believe it was so. Would
that our father had left some commands we might have followed. But,
Brother, canst thou not recall that other name she spoke so many a time
and oft as she lay a-dying? Sure it was some such name as Basildo