Duke of Brittany has
given orders that they shall be searched. His soldiers are forsaking
him. The names of the dead have been written in black and white, and
are in the hands of the headmen of the villages. Hasten--it is the
hour of vengeance! Let us overwhelm him! Rise up and let us seek our
lost ones, even if we find no more than their bones!"

And terrible as had been the gathering of the were-wolves in the dark
forests around Machecoul upon the night of the fight by the hollow
tree, far more threatening and terrible was the uprising of the angry
commons.

In whole villages there was not a man left, and mothers too marched in
that muster armed with choppers and kitchen knives, wild eyed and
angry hearted as lionesses robbed of their cubs. From the deep glens
and deeper woods of the country of Retz they poured. They disgorged
from the caves of the earth whither the greed and rapacity of their
terrible lord had driven them.

Schoolmasters were there with the elder of their pupils. For many of
the vanished children had disappeared on their way to school, and
these men were in danger of losing both their credit and occupation.

Towards Tiffauges, Champtoce, Machecoul, the angry populace, long
repressed, surged tumultuously, and with them, much wondering at their
orders, went the soldiers of the Duke.

But it is with the columns that concentrated upon Machecoul that we
have chiefly to do. Our three Scots accompanied these, and here, too,
marched John of Brittany himself with his Councillor Pierre de
l'Hopital by his side.

Night fell as they journeyed on, ever joined by fresh contingents from
all the country round. In the van pressed forward the folk of Saint
Philbert, warm from the utter destruction of the house of the witch
woman, La Meffraye, so that not one stone was left upon another.
Guided by these the Duke and his party made their way easily through
the forest, even in the darkness of the night. And as they passed
hamlet or cottage ever and anon some frenzied mother would rush upon
them and fall on her knees before the Duke, praying him to look well
for her darling, and bringing mayhap some pitiful shred of clothing or
lock of hair by which the searchers might identify the lost innocent.

As they went forward the soldiers pricked on ahead, and caused the
people to fall to the rear, lest any foreknowledge of their purpose
might reach the wizard and warn him to escape.

The woods of Machecoul were dark a