his face,
leaving it now almost wholly covered.

"You are right, my brave fellow, to lower your cape and conceal your
tears."

"I shall not long treat you to the spectacle of my weakness, Charles;
allow me to depart immediately with my men for the abbey of Meriadek."

"Go, my good companion in arms. I excuse your impatience. Be vigilant!
Keep your men in daily exercise; let them be ever ready to answer my
first call. I may have to use them against the accursed Bretons who have
withstood our arms since the days of Clovis. You are the count of the
county of Nantes, close to the frontiers of that bedeviled Armorica.
Your loyal sword may yet have occasion to render me such service that in
the end it may yet be I who will be your debtor. May we soon meet again!
A happy trip and a fat abbey are my best wishes to you."

Thanks to the cape that almost wholly veiled Berthoald's face, he was
able to conceal from Charles the cruel agony that he became a prey to
the moment he heard Charles say that some day he might receive orders to
invade the country of the Bretons that had so far remained indomitable.
He bent a knee before the chief of the Franks and left the refectory in
such a state of wild and complex anxiety that he did not even have a
parting look for Septimine, who remained upon her knees amidst the
Saracen gold pieces that lay strewn around her.

The young officer crossed the courtyard of the abbey to reach his horse,
when, turning the corner of a wall, he found himself face to face with a
little grey-bearded man. It was the Jew Mordecai. Berthoald shivered and
walked quickly by; but although his face was hidden under the cape of
his cloak, his eyes encountered the piercing ones of the Jew, who smiled
sardonically while the young chief walked rapidly away.

The Jew had recognized Berthoald.

PART II.

THE ABBEY OF MERIADEK

CHAPTER I.

ELOI THE GOLDSMITH.

A gold and silversmith's shop is a sight agreeable to the eye of the
artisan who, freeman or slave, has grown old at the beautiful art made
illustrious by Eloi, the most celebrated of all Gallic goldsmiths. The
eye rests with pleasure upon the burning furnace, upon the crucible
where the metal boils, upon the anvil that seems to be of silver veined
with gold--so much gold and silver has been beaten on it. The
work-bench, equipped with its files, its hammers, its chip-axes, its
burins, its bloodstone and agate polishing stones is no less plea