Ricarik. "You have too numerous a family to feed;
that is what is ruining you.... When you will have only your own needs
to attend to, you will be able to pay your rent, and with Mordecai's
loan you will be enabled to continue to work." Turning thereupon to one
of his men: "Take the wife and children of Sebastian to the Jew
Mordecai, he happens to be here now."

Bonaik sought to mollify the Frank, but in vain, and Ricarik proceeded
to call up by their names other colonists who were in arrears with their
rent. The intendant was at this work when a lad of from seventeen to
eighteen was dragged before him. The lad offered violent resistance to
his captors and cried: "Let me go! I have brought three falcons and two
goshawks for the abbess' perch as my father's rent.... I took them from
their nests at the risk of breaking my bones.... What is it you want?"

"Ricarik," said one of the slaves of the abbey who was dragging the lad,
"we were near the fence of the abbey's perch when we saw a sparrow-hawk,
still hooded, that had escaped from the falconer's hand. The bird flew
only a little distance. Being impeded by its hood, it fell down close to
the fence. This lad immediately threw his cap upon the bird and put it
into his bag. We caught the thief in the act. Here is the bag. The
sparrow-hawk is inside with its hood still on."

"What have you to say?" asked Ricarik of the young lad who remained
somber and silent. "Do you know how the law punishes the theft of a
sparrow-hawk? It condemns the thief to pay three silver sous or to allow
the bird to eat six ounces of flesh from his breast. I have a good mind
to apply the law to you as a salutary example to other hawk thieves....
What have you to say?"

"If our abbess," the lad answered boldly, "gives our flesh for pasture
to her hunting birds, as true as my name is Broute-Saule, sooner or
later I shall have my revenge on her and you!"

"Seize him!" cried Ricarik. "Let him be tied down to a bench outside of
the shed so that his punishment be public.... Let the flesh on his
breast be offered to the sparrow-hawk for pasture!"

"Butcher!" cried the lad. "If I ever catch you or your abbess of the
devil alone, you will make the acquaintance of my knife!"

The crowd of slaves who witnessed the scene broke out into violent
shouts against Broute-Saule, who was impious enough to express himself
in such terms on the abbess Meroflede, and the wretches crowded each
other in their curiosit