ty in guessing what that aim and object was.

"He is to be held for ransom, and his ransom will be our claim upon
Basildene. We both shall be called upon to renounce that, and then
Raymond will go free. Well, if that be the only way, Basildene must go.
But perchance it may be given to me to save the inheritance and rescue
Raymond yet. Would that I knew whither they had carried him! But surely
he may be traced and followed. Some there must be who will be able to
give me news of them."

Of one thing Gaston was perfectly assured, and that was that he must now
act altogether independently, gain permission to quit the expedition,
and pursue his own investigations with his own followers. He had no
difficulty in arranging this matter. The leaders had already resolved
upon returning to Bordeaux immediately, and taking ship with their spoil
and prisoners for England. Had Gaston not had other matters of his own
to think of, he would most likely have urged a farther advance upon the
beleaguered town, to make sure that it was sufficiently relieved. As it
was, he had no thoughts but for his brother's peril; and his anxieties
were by no means relieved by the babble of words falling from Roger's
lips when he returned to see how it fared with him.

Roger appeared to the kindly soldiers, who had made a rude couch for him
and were tending him with such skill as they possessed, to be talking in
the random of delirium, and they paid little heed to his words. But as
Gaston stood by he was struck by the strange fixity of the youth's eyes,
by the rigidity of his muscles, and by the coherence and significance of
his words.

It was not a disconnected babble that passed his lips; it was the
description of some scene upon which he appeared to be looking. He spoke
of horsemen galloping through the night, of the Black Visor in the midst
and his gigantic companion by his side. He spoke of the unconscious
captive they carried in their midst -- the captive the youth struggled
frantically to join, that they might share together whatever fate was to
be his.

The soldiers naturally believed he was wandering, and speaking of his
own ride with his captors; but Gaston listened with different feelings.
He remembered well what he had once heard about this boy and the strange
gift he possessed, or was said to possess, of seeing what went on at a
distance when he had been in the power of the sorcerer. Might it not be
that this gift was not only exercised a