nd anxious
converse in the Castle, and already we were bid to move very many of our
holy things that bedecked the Church, or were used in God's service,
within the Castle wall, and the builders had set up among the ramparts
long sheds of wood, wherein began to be stored all manner of com,
brought in from all the granaries around.

For the abbot had received from St. Michael's Mount and other places on
the Breton coast most portentous accounts of a gathering together of the
pirates of the sea and marauders of the land, and that some devil's
bond had been forged between them, and that the wildest and most daring
of these villains of every race and land had elected as their chief
captain one whom they named "the Grand Sarrasin," one born of that black
race, the deadliest enemy of Christendom. Others called him "Le Grand
Geoffroy" as though they would save him at least from the black stamp of
Paynim birth; but for us he was ever the Grand Sarrasin, and still the
Grand Sarrasin, cursed a hundred times a day by every tongue in our
cloister and island.

Now, as I saw Brother Hugo on the ramparts and knew, though full of
matters now, he grudged not a word to us lads whom he loved full well, I
spake to him thus--

"What news to-day, brother, of 'Le Grand Sarrasin'?" I spake half in
jest indeed, for long ere this, this very brother had made great sport
of pirates and their dark deeds, and especially, ere this name I spake
had risen to such a sound of evil omen, had he delighted to tease the
children of the cloister therewith. As on some dangerous path he would
whisper, "Go not that way for fear of Le Grand Sarrasin!" or out in the
fishing-smack, he would point to some cosy, full-bottomed trading ship
with a "Hist, lads, the great Geoffroy there astern!" But now Brother
Hugo liked not the jest, but looked sternly at me from beneath his great
brows.

"Le Grand Sarrasin!" said he, "if so thou lovest to call the vilest
foam of filth on these Norman seas, this day last week rode into St.
Brieuc by night with eighteen ships, climbed into the fort, none letting
him, slit the throat of a sentinel and warder, barred the garrison into
its own quarters, and poured like a midnight pestilence through the
streets, bidding his Paynim hounds of slaughter, without pity and
without fear, enter where they listed, and that they did. And there by
night in St. Brieuc, good men and good wives, who never harmed man or
beast were knifed as they lay,