on his head powerful enough to break the
skull?"

At these words Josserande fell her full length upon the tiles, as if she
had been stabbed to the heart; but in the very depth of her agony--for
she thought herself dying--she replied,--

"If you should order me to do it, I would."

"You have this great confidence in me, poor woman?" cried Gildas, much
moved.

"You are a man of God," answered Josserande, "and I have faith in God."

Gildas the Wise prostrated himself on the ground and struck his breast,
knowing that he had felt a movement of pride. Then, standing up, he
raised Josserande, and kissed the hem of her robe, saying,--

"Woman, I adore you in the most holy faith. Prepare your axe, and
sharpen it!"

XI.

In the days of Gildas the Wise, intense silence always reigned at night
through the dense oak forest of the Armorican country. One of the most
lonely places was Caesar's camp, the name was given to the huge masses of
stone that encumbered the barren heath; and it was the common opinion
that the pagan giants, supposed to be buried under them, rose from their
graves at midnight and roamed up and down the long avenues, watching for
the late passers-by, to twist their necks.

This night, however,--the night after Christmas,--many persons could be
seen, about eleven o'clock, on the heath before the stones of Carnac,
all around the Great Basin or circle, whose irregular outline was
clearly visible by moonlight. The enclosure was entirely empty. Outside
no one was seen, it is true; but many could be heard gabbling in the
shadow of the high rocks, under the shelter of the stumps of oaks, even
in the tufts of thorny brambles; and all this assemblage watched for
something, and that something was the wolf, Sylvestre Ker. They had come
from Plouharnel, and also from Lannelar, from Carnac, from Kercado, even
from the old town of Crach, beyond La Trinite.

Who had brought together all these people, young and old, men and women?
The legend does not say; but very probably Matheline had strewn around
the cruel pearls of her laughter, and Pol Bihan had not been slow to
relate what he had seen after the midnight Mass.

By some means or other, the entire country around for five or six
leagues knew that the son of Martin Ker, the tenant of the abbey, had
become a man-wolf, and that he was doomed to expiate his crime in the
spot haunted by the phantoms,--the Great Basin of the Pagans, between
the tower and the Druid st