Eugène Sue

“ Long live Hastain! All is possible!" cried Simon Large-Ears, saying which he joined his piercing voice to the deep voices of the pirates, who, striking with their oars upon the row of bucklers that hung from the sides of the holker, sang fit to rend the welkin:
"And now," Gaëlo resumed after his champions had finished the martial refrain, "if a swine-herd serf could become the master of a province, do you hold it impossible for fifteen resolute champions to take possession of the abbey of St. Denis, the richest abbey of all Gaul?" ”

“ Until then, Lodbrog the berserker had fought valiantly without his intellect being clouded. But the intoxication of the battle, the odor of carnage, the sight of the Frankish reinforcement that poured down from the ramparts and rushed toward the main door of the basilica crying: "Death! Death! Kill the Northmans!"—all this combined threw the giant into a new attack of frenzy. Brandishing a spiked iron mace, the Northman, leaped forward with a roar and dashed upon the compact group of Franks. ”

“ To inordinary strength she coupled skill, coolness and intrepidity. Carried away by the ardor of the struggle, the pirate forgot his passionate love. If he at all kept in mind that he was fighting with a woman, he only felt all the more nettled at finding in her such indomitable powers of resistance. After a long exchange of parried thrusts, Gaëlo succeeded in dealing so violent a blow with his sword upon the virgin's skull that neither her hair-net of linked iron, nor her thick head of hair, through both of which the pirate's sword cut its way, could save her from a severe scalp wound. ”

“ Let the seigneurs defend themselves!"
"By the death of Christ! This old man has gone crazy!" cried Rothbert beyond himself with rage and yet not daring fully to give a loose to his pent-up anger. "How could we defend ourselves without the aid of the people! Could I repel thirty thousand Northmans with the two thousand soldiers that I keep in my duchy of France?"
"Oh, I know it! You can do nothing without the people. Your brother, Count Eudes, knew it also. At the approach of the pirates he sought to propitiate the people, and convoked the deans of the guilds at his little castle of Paris. ”

“ Twenty arms holding twenty swords rose at once to smite the giant. But towering above those arms and swords appeared the cuirassed bust of the colossus, and his iron mace rose and descended, splintering swords, cracking heads, crushing limbs, pulverizing arms! Gaëlo, the others of his band and the surviving Buckler Maidens precipitated themselves upon the rear of the soldiers who besieged Lodbrog. Suddenly the berserker was heard to emit a fresh roar, throw his mace into the air, stoop down and immediately rise again holding a soldier by the hair and belt. ”

“ At the foot of the dais, and facing the King and this assemblage of seigneurs and prelates, stood Rolf, accompanied by Gaëlo and Shigne, together with the leading Northman chiefs. The old pirate still had on the white shirt of the neophyte over his armor. His demeanor was triumphant, insolent and sly. Charles the Simple, on the contrary, looked sad and dejected, and furtively wiped away the tears that insisted on forcing themselves to his eyes. Despite his imbecility, the man loved his daughter; and the fate of Ghisèle overpowered him with grief. ”

“ Will there not always be enough land left to you in which to live in peace with your daughter who loves and your servants who are attached to you?"
The King looked fixedly at Ghisèle, and wiping his eyes with the back of his hand said in a voice broken with sobs: "Do you know what Count Rothbert—" but suddenly breaking off he proceeded with an explosion of idle rage: "I abhor this family of the Counts of Paris! It is they who robbed us of the duchy of France.—Those people are our most dangerous enemies! ”

“ And there will be no lack for a bishop to consecrate the new usurper, just as there was found one to consecrate Count Eudes, not so, Francon?" cried Charles the Simple with bitterness. "Such is the gratitude of the priests towards the descendants of the Frankish Kings that have made the Church so rich!"
"The Church owes nothing to Kings; the Kings owe to the Church the remission of their sins!" was the disdainful reply of the archbishop. "The Kings have bestowed wealth upon the Church here below, on earth; they have been rewarded a hundredfold in heaven and all eternity. ”

“ You will tell the count that my fleet will cast anchor under the walls of Paris; and that if, to-morrow, before sunset, you and Shigne are not back on my drekar, I shall set the city on fire, sack it, and kill all its inhabitants. If to-morrow, before the close of day, Charles the Simple has not granted me his daughter, Neustria, and ten thousand pounds of silver for the ransom of Paris, there will be left not one stone upon the other in the city. That is my message."
"Rolf, we shall immediately depart to carry out your orders. To-morrow we shall be either dead or back to you before sunset. ”

“ A curse upon these Northmans!" answered the serf, whose name was Savinien. As the man spoke, a strange smile flitted over his careworn countenance; he cast a sly side-smile upon the load of hay that was heaped up high on the wagons and added: "I have driven my oxen so fast, in order to place myself at the order of our holy abbot, that, I fear, the poor brutes are foundered.—See how heavy they breathe!"
"They will not have to blow long. They will be speedily killed to feed the large number of noble Franks who have fled hither for refuge," replied the monk. ”

“ I have since learned that they make up one-fourth of my province."
"The goods of the Church are the goods of God," retorted the archbishop haughtily. "What is God's, is God's; no human power can lay hands on it."
"Priest!" cried Rolf puckering his brows with mingled anger and slyness, "take care lest the humor seize me to chase the whole pack of tonsured gentry from their nests in the abbeys, in order to prove to you once more that Rolf and his champions take and keep whatever it may please Rolf and his champions to take or to keep, without asking leave of your Church." ”

“ As to you, Gaëlo, you shall tell the Count of Paris that I shall want, together with the daughter, and for dower, the territory of Neustria. It is a rich and fertile region, and it is washed by the sea, exactly suitable to a mariner who loves the ocean. Old Hastain obtained from Charles the Bald the country of Chartres; Rolf, the Chief of the Northmans will have Neustria, which we shall call Northmandy, and where I shall establish you both, my champions! ”

“ Not daring to disobey the aged man, both Martha and Anne rose and returned sobbing into the house.
"Rothbert," resumed Eidiol, when his wife and daughter had re-entered the house, "you have no right to hold us prisoners. Thanks to God, we are not left to the utter mercy of our masters, like the serfs of the field. We enjoy certain franchises in the city. If we are guilty, we must, as skippers, be tried before the bourgeois Court of the water merchants." ”

“ The Count of Paris, as I was saying, informed me that the Northmans were before the city. 'What would you have me do against it?' I asked him; 'I have neither soldiers nor men; you, seigneurs, who are the masters of almost all Gaul, have nothing else to do but to defend your own possessions; that is your concern.' Rothbert answered me: 'The Northmans threaten to burn down Paris, massacre the people, and to overrun Gaul ravaging and sacking the fields and towns. ”

“ The priests marched near the reliquaries, either moaning with grief, or frantically ejaculating maledictions on the invaders and their seconders, the revolted serfs. Among the serfs themselves, some joined in the lamentations of the priests, but less anxious to mount the ramparts and do battle with the Northmans, they answered the pressing urgings of the clericals with the submissive exclamation: "The will of God be done!" Within the city the emissaries of the Count of Paris were no more successful in evoking the martial ardor of the people. ”

“ And before Gaëlo had time to prevent it, all the pirates threw themselves upon the giant, and by their united efforts rolled him overboard into the Seine.
Gaëlo had anchored his vessel at a short distance from one of the woody islets, washed by the river. Lodbrog fell heels over head into the water between the holker and the nearby shore. With one bound the giant leaped out of the river, which was deep and rapid at that spot, and gained the shore, where he ran about shouting: "To St. Denis! To St Denis!" The frenzy that possessed the giant increased ten-fold the man's prodigious strength. ”

“ What evidences of misery do we not see on all sides!"
"To your oars, my champions! To your oars!" cried Gaëlo. "You need not worry about your share in the pillage. Now, however, row!" saying which Gaëlo pointed to the holker of Shigne which had taken the lead of them, and he added: "Will you allow yourselves to be beaten by the Buckler Maidens? Fall to, champions!"
Grumbling at Gaëlo's orders the pirates bent to their oars and strove to overtake the white holker. ”

“ Rothbert went on to say, interrupting the sergeant, "were on top of a wagon that obstructed the street in its whole breadth. There can be no question of right side or left."
"In that case, seigneur count, the culprits belong to the bishop as well as to yourself."
"And I," rejoined Eidiol, "claim that only the bourgeois court has jurisdiction over us."
"I care a fig for the bourgeois court, and not a whit more for the bishop's court!" cried the count. "The prisoners are mine! Make room there, canaille!" ”

“ More than ever did they now realize the void made at their hearth by the death of Martha, good housekeeper that she was. The street was silent; the night dark. A rap was heard at the door. Rustic opened it and Gaëlo, accompanied by Shigne, now his wife, stepped in, with their cloaks closely wrapped over their armor. The old skipper had not met the young couple since the night when they returned to Eidiol's house, in order there to await the return of Count Rothbert, who departed in hot haste to Compiegne in order to inform Charles the Simple of the pirate's will. ”

“ Ten blacksmiths' hammers beating upon ten anvils could not produce the deafening sound produced by Lodbrog's mace falling, falling again, rising only to fall again and again upon the casques and the armors of the soldiers. Some sink to the earth, crushed under the thundering blows, without uttering a sound: their skulls are ground into pulp within their casques like nuts in their shells; others roll to the ground emitting shrieks of pain and rage. The corpses are heaped up high at the feet of Lodbrog. ”

“ Simon Large-Ears and Robin Jaws, however, now witnessed the spectacle for the first time; they gazed at it with surprise and affright. Finally, seeing from the distance that Lodbrog lay unconscious and rigid amidst the wreck that he had wrought, Simon cried:
"He is now fortunately dead! We have nothing more to fear!"
"The Northmans are right," put in Robin; "such frantic folks are as dangerous to their friends as to their enemies. ”

“ I belong to you; I am proud that I do; I could belong to no braver man. Rolf has been a father to me. I should consult him on your request. If he says yes, I will say yes, and from to-night I shall be yours." Without another word the warrior maid preceded Gaëlo to the platform of the kastali where the old pirate stood awaiting them.
"Gaëlo," said Rolf, "you and Shigne shall precede the fleet; ply your oars and reach Paris with your two holkers." ”

“ Immediately take horse and ride at full gallop with some of my officers and a good escort, to summon in my name the bishops and abbots of my duchy of France to arm their serfs and towns-men. A portion of these men is to be left in the abbeys and castles as a garrison, the others are to be marched to Paris in small detachments, to defend the Commune."
"Count, what are you thinking of!" exclaimed the abbot, raising his hands to heaven. "At so dangerous a moment, would you send Father Fultrade from my side!"
"You need not be afraid," answered Rothbert. ”

“ An orphan since the death of her father and mother, both of whom were killed at a sea battle, the young female warrior-maid had been adopted by Rolf, an old Northman pirate chief, who was celebrated for his numerous excursions into Gaul. This year he had come in less than a fortnight from his northern seas to the mouth of the Seine, and was now ascending the river with the intent to lay siege to Paris at the head of a fleet of two thousand ships of war that were leisurely advancing under the strokes of their oars and were preceded by the holkers of Gaëlo and Shigne. ”

“ Struck with sympathy, Simon and Robin approached Gaëlo to offer him their services, when a new cry arose from the distance, and again dominated the lingering clash of arms between the Northman pirates and the small remnant of the rapidly diminishing garrison of the abbey. It was the cry of "Berserk!" "Berserk!" warningly uttered by the pirates themselves.
"Lodbrog the Giant is again in a fit of fury!" cried Simon Large-Ears in terror. "The berserker is as terrible to his friends as to his enemies. Gaëlo, the fray may roll this way; your sweetheart is perhaps not dead ”

“ Simon Large-Ears, seated at the poop, and, as pilot, holding the rudder in his hand, said to one of his companions surnamed Robin Jaws, by reason of his lower jaw-bones protruding like a Molossian's:
"Did you hear the conversation between the Beautiful Shigne and Gaëlo? What savage she-devils are these Northman virgins! They must be courted with rough sword whacks, caressed with battle-axe cracks, and their hearts can be reached only by boring through their breasts, and if you don't, then these furies make you wed death. ”