small detachment
of the rear guard was ordered to take its stand about a league further
back in order to guard the baggage, the wagons and the wounded of the
sorely harassed army.

The lines on the face of the Frankish chief denote deep concern. He says
to the monk:

"What a war! What a war! I have fought against the Northmans, when they
attacked our fortified camps at the confluence of the Somme and the
Seine. Those accursed pirates are terrible foes. They are as dashing in
attack as they are cautious in retreat, and they ever find a safe
shelter in the light craft in which they come over the seas of the North
as far south as Gaul. But by St. Martin! these accursed Bretons are
fuller of the devil, and harder to get at than even the pirates! They
were a source of trouble to Charles the great Emperor; they have become
the desolation of his son!" And Neroweg repeats dejectedly: "What a war!
What a war!"

The monk turns upon his saddle, and stretching out his hand in the
direction traversed by the Frankish troop, says to Neroweg:

"Look toward the west!"

Turning his eyes in the direction indicated by the priest, the Frankish
chief notices behind him tall columns of ruddy smoke rising at intervals
from the hills that the army has left behind it. "Look yonder!
Everywhere a conflagration marks our passage. The burgs and villages,
abandoned by the fleeing inhabitants, have, at my orders, been delivered
to the flames. The Bretons have not, like the Northman pirates, the
resource of vessels on which to flee with their booty back to the ocean.
We are driving the fleeing population before us. The two other army
corps of Louis the Pious are, from their side, following similar
tactics. Accordingly, we and they will meet to-morrow morning at the
village of Lokfern. There we will find, driven back and heaped together,
the populations that have been attacked from the south, the east and the
north during these last days. There, surrounded by a circle of iron,
they will be either annihilated or reduced to slavery! Ah! This time
without fail, Brittany, never before overcome, will be subjected to the
Catholic Church and to the power of the Franks. What if your soldiers
have been decimated in the struggle for the triumph of the faith and
royalty! The troops that you still have, will, when joined to the other
army corps, suffice to exterminate the Bretons!"

"Monk," answers Neroweg impatiently, "your words do not console me for
the