trode rapidly forward in the
lead of the three monks.

Night drew on. Karouer and the dignitaries whom he guided, having been
all day on the march, were now approaching one of the highest points on
the mountain path that they had been following, when, struck by an
unexpected spectacle, Witchaire suddenly reined in his horse.

The sight that took the abbot by surprise was, indeed, startling. A
flame, hardly distinguishable by reason of its great distance, and yet
perceptible on the horizon, whose outlines the dusk had not yet wholly
blotted out, had barely arrested his attention, when, almost
instantaneously, similar tongues of fire gradually shot up from the
distant tops of the long chain of the Black Mountains. The fires gained
in brilliancy and size in the measure that they broke out nearer and
nearer to the spot where the abbot stood. Suddenly, only twenty paces
away from him, the startled prelate perceived a bluish gleam through a
dense smoke. The gleam speedily changed into a brilliant flame, that,
shooting upwards toward the starry sky, spread a light so bright that
the abbot, his monks, his guide, the rocks round about and a good
portion of the crag of the mountain stood illumined as if at noon. A few
minutes later similar bonfires continued to be kindled from hill to
hill, tracing back, as it seemed, the route that the travelers had left
behind, and losing themselves in the distance in the evening haze. The
abbot remained mute with stupefaction. Karouer emitted three times a
gutteral and loud cry resembling that of a night bird. A similar cry,
proceeding from behind the plateau of rocks where the nearest bonfire
was burning, responded to the signal from Karouer.

"What fires are these that are springing up from hill-top to hill-top?"
the abbot inquired with intense curiosity the moment he recovered from
his astonishment. "It must be some signal."

"At this moment," answered Karouer, "similar fires are burning from all
the hill-tops of Armorica, from the mountains of Arres to the Black
Mountains and the ocean."

"But to what purpose?"

As was his wont, Karouer made no answer to such pointed interrogatories,
but striking up some Breton song, quickened his steps, while he whirled
his _pen-bas_ in the air.

CHAPTER II.

THE BRETON CHIEF.

The home of Morvan, the husbandman, who was chosen Chief of the Chiefs
of Brittany, was located about the middle of the valley of Lokfern, and
nestled among the