Then he began to speak words that arrested Gaston’s attention.  He spoke of natural features well known to him:  he described a grim fortress, so placed as to be impregnable to foes from without.  There were the wide moat, the huge natural mound, the solid wall, the small loopholes.  Gaston held his breath to hear:  he knew every feature of the place so described.  Was it not the ancient Castle of Saut —­ his own inheritance, as he had been brought up to call it?  Roger had never seen it; he was almost assured of that.  What he was describing was something seen with that mysterious second sight of his, nothing that had ever impressed itself upon his waking senses.

It was all true, then.  Raymond had indeed been taken captive by the two bitter enemies of the house of De Brocas.  Peter Sanghurst had doubtless heard of the feud between the two houses, and of the claim set up by Gaston for the establishment of his own rights upon the lands of the foe, and had resolved to make common cause with the Navailles against the brothers.  It was possible that they would have liked to get both into their clutches, but that they feared to attack so stalwart a foe as Gaston; or else they might have believed that the possession of the person of Raymond would be sufficient for their purpose.  The tie between the twin brothers was known to be strong.  It was likely enough that were Raymond’s ransom fixed at even an exorbitant sum, the price would be paid by the brother, who well knew that the Tower of Saut was strong enough to defy all attacks from without, and that any person incarcerated in its dungeons would be absolutely at the mercy of its cruel and rapacious lord.

The King of England had his hands full enough as it was without taking up the quarrel of every wronged subject.  What was done would have to be done by himself and his own followers; and Gaston set his teeth hard as he realized this, and went forth to give his own orders for the morrow.

At the first glimpse of coming day they were to start forth for the south, and by hard riding might hope to reach Saut by the evening of the second day.  Gaston could muster some score of armed men, and they would be like enough to pick up many stragglers on the way, who would be ready enough to join any expedition promising excitement and adventure.  To take the Castle of Saut by assault would, as Gaston well knew, be impossible; but he cherished a hope that it might fall into his hands through strategy if he were patient, and if Roger still retained that marvellous faculty of second-sight which revealed to his eyes things hidden from the vision of others.

He slept all that night without moving or speaking, and when he awoke in the morning it was in a natural state, and at first he appeared to have no recollection of what had occurred either to himself or to Raymond.  But as sense and memory returned to him, so did also the shadow of some terrible doom hanging over his beloved young master; and though he was still weak and ill, and very unfit for the long journey on horseback through the heat of a summer’s day, he would not hear of being left behind, and was the one to urge upon the others all the haste possible as they rode along southward after the foes who had captured Raymond.