er mount
her mule that was led by a black slave. From the distance the martial
bray of the Saracen clarions was heard. Abd-el-Kader waved his last
adieu to Rosen-Aer, and the Arab, with whom age had not weakened the
martial ardor of younger years, leaped upon his horse and galloped off,
followed by his five sons. For a few moments longer the Gallic woman
followed with her eyes the long white cloaks that the rapid course of
the Arab and his five children raised to the wind. When they had
disappeared in a cloud of dust at a turning of the street, Rosen-Aer
ordered the black slave to lead the mule towards the main gate of the
town in order to ride out and reach the colonist's house.

PART I.

THE CONVENT OF ST. SATURNINE

CHAPTER I.

THE LAST OF THE MEROVINGIANS.

About a month had elapsed since the departure of Abd-el-Kader and his
five sons to meet Charles Martel in battle.

A boy of eleven or twelve years, confined in the convent of St.
Saturnine in Anjou, was leaning on his elbows at the sill of a narrow
window on the first floor of one of the buildings of the abbey, and
looking out upon the fields. The vaulted room in which the boy was kept
was cold, spacious, bare and floored with stone. In a corner stood a
little bed, and on a table a few toys roughly cut out of coarse wood. A
few stools and a trunk were its only furniture. The boy himself, dressed
in a threadbare and patched black serge, had a sickly appearance. His
face, biliously pale, expressed profound sadness. He looked at the
distant fields, and tears ran down his hollow cheeks. While he was
dreaming awake, the door of the room opened and a young girl of about
sixteen stepped in softly. Her complexion was dark brown but extremely
fresh, her lips were red, her hair as well as her eyes jetty black, and
her eyebrows were exquisitely arched. A more comely figure could ill be
imagined, despite her drugget petticoat and coarse apron, the ends of
which were tucked under her belt and which was full of hemp ready to be
spun. Septimine held her distaff in one hand and in the other a little
wooden casket. At the sight of the boy, who remained sadly leaning on
his elbows at the window, the young girl sighed and said to herself:
"Poor little fellow ... always sorry ... I do not know whether the news
I bring will be good or bad for him.... If he accepts, may he never
have cause to look back with regret to this convent." She softly
approached the child