ce in the name of the King of
France, and if he will not hear, then in the name of the folk of
Brittany. And if still because of his kinship he will not listen, go
to the Bishop of Nantes, who hates Gilles de Retz. Better than any he
knows how to stir the people, and he will send with you trusty men to
cause the country to rise in rebellion. Then they will overturn all
the castles of de Retz, and the hidden things shall come to light.
This do, and for this time depart from Machecoul, and entrust me (as
indeed you must) with the honour and lives of those you love. I will
keep them with mine own until destruction pass upon him who is outcast
from God, and whom now his own fiend from hell hath deserted."

Then, having sworn to do her bidding, the three Scots conducted the
Lady Sybilla with honour and observance to her white palfrey, and like
a spirit she vanished into the sea mists which had sifted up from the
west, going back to the drear Castle of Machecoul, but bearing with
her the burden of her revenge.

CHAPTER LIV

THE CROSS UNDER THE APRON

The face of Gilles de Laval, Lord of Retz, had shone all day with an
unholy lustre like that of iron in which the red heat yet struggles
with the black. In the Castle of Machecoul his familiars went about,
wearing expressions upon their countenances in which disgust and
expectation were mingled with an overwhelming fear of the terrible
baron.

The usual signs of approaching high saturnalia at Machecoul had not
been wanting.

Early in the morning La Meffraye had been seen hovering like an
unclean bird of prey about the playing grounds of the village children
at Saint Benoit on the edges of the forest. At nine the frightened
villagers heard the howl of a day-hunting wolf, and one Louis Verger,
a woodman who was cutting bark for the tanneries in the valley, saw a
huge grey wolf rush out and seize his little son, Jean, a boy of five
years old, who came bringing his father's breakfast. With a great cry
he hurried back to alarm the village, but when men gathered with
scythes and rude weapons of the chase, the beast's track was lost in
the depth of the forest.

Little Jean Verger of Saint Benoit was never seen again, unless it
were he who, half hidden under the long black cloak of La Meffraye,
was brought at noon by the private postern of the baron into the
Castle of Machecoul.

So the men of Saint Benoit went not back to their work, but abode
together all that day,