They found themselves in the ancient banqueting hall of the fortress —­ a long, lofty, rather narrow room, with a heavily-raftered ceiling, two huge fireplaces, one at either end, and a row of very narrow windows cut in the great thickness of the wall occupying almost the whole of one side of the place; whilst a long table was placed against the opposite wall, with benches beside it, and another smaller table was placed upon a small raised dais at the far end of the apartment.  On this dais was also set a heavy oaken chair, close beside the glowing hearth; and at this moment it was plain that the occupant of the chair had been disturbed by the commotion from without, and had suddenly risen to his feet, for he stood grasping the oaken arms, his wild gray hair hanging in matted masses about his seamed and wrinkled face, and his hollow eyes, in which a fierce light blazed, turned upon the intruders in a glare of impotent fury.

“Who are ye who thus dare to intrude upon me here?  What is all this tumult I hear in mine own halls?

“Seneschal, art thou there?  Send hither to me my soldiers; bid them bind these men, and carry them to the dungeons.  I will see them there.  Ha, ha!  I will talk with them there.  I will deal with them there.  What ho!  Send me the jailer and his assistants!  Let them light the fires and heat hot the irons.  Let them prepare our welcome for guests to Saut.  Ha, ha!  Ho, ho!  These brave gallants shall taste our hospitality.  Who brought them in?  Where were they found?  Methinks they will prove a rich booty.  Would that good Peter Sanghurst were here to help me in the task of entertaining these new guests!”

The man was a raving lunatic; that was plain to the most inexperienced eye from the first moment.  He knew not his own niece, he knew not the De Brocas brothers, though Raymond’s face must have been familiar to him had he been in his right senses.  He was still in fancy the undisputed lord of these wide lands, scouring the country for English travellers or prisoners of meaner mould; acting here in Gascony much the same part as the Sanghursts had more cautiously done in England, and as the Barons of both France and England had long done, though their day of irresponsible and autocratic power was well-nigh at an end.

He glared upon the brothers and their attendants with savage fury, still calling out to his men to carry them to the dungeons, still believing them to be a band of travellers taken prisoners by his own orders, raving and raging in his impotent fury till the gust of passion had worn itself out, and in a sullen amaze he sank into his seat, still gazing out from under his shaggy brows at the intruders, but the passion and fury for a moment at an end.

“He will understand better what you say to him now, Sir Knight,” whispered the old seneschal, who alone of the men belonging to the Castle dared to enter the hall where their maniac master was.  “His mind comes back to him sometimes after he has raved himself quiet.  We dread his sullen moods almost more than his wild ones.