Slowly and sadly the party returned homewards to attend to their duties but early next morning the baron and a chosen band rode to the scene again.

Thick clouds of smoke ascended to the skies; a pungent smell overpowered all the sweet odours of the forest; blackened beams and stones, cracked and shivered by the heat, lay all around.

What had caused the fire?  Could it have been accidental?

They soon decided that it could not.

Two things seemed conclusive on this point—­the first, the simultaneous outbreak in all parts of the buildings; the second, the fact that no one had escaped, save the man who bore the news, and died, his story but half told.

But what had been the fate of the rest?  Had they been shut in the buildings, and so left to die as the flames reached them?

The terrible conviction that such had been the case became general; but at the same time the similarity of the circumstances with those under which the Monastery had been burnt would necessitate a like conclusion in that case also; and if so, who had then been the incendiary?

There were those amongst the retainers of Baron Hugo who could have answered this question, but they were all puzzled concerning the latter conflagration, for they knew of no gathering of their conquered foes, and they imagined they were acquainted with every nook of the forest, save the impenetrable morass in its centre.

On the morrow there was to have been a great hunt; but instead of the chase of beasts, the more exciting one of men was now substituted—­the “murderers” should be hunted out, cost what it might—­“The vermin should be extirpated.”

The majority of the guests had departed the previous night, but many yet remained, the guests of Hugo, and with some of the wisest and most valiant of these he was taking counsel the following morning how best to track the outlaws, who had dared to commit this insolent deed, when Etienne appeared to announce that several of their people had not returned home from the fire, and amongst them his own fellow page, the minstrel of the previous night, Louis de Marmontier.

“We will find them; perchance they yet linger there.  Bid a troop of horse be ready.”

They mounted, rode, arrived on the scene, and found no one there.  Then they separated in all directions, two or three in each group, to find their missing comrades.

Etienne and Pierre, with a dozen men at arms—­for the baron would not let them go forth less strongly attended—­were eager in the search, for they loved their companion, and were very anxious about his safety.

Midway between the castle and the burnt farm, slightly out of the track, was a huge oak, and around it a slight space clear of undergrowth.  A brook ran close by—­a stream of sweet sparkling water—­and Etienne rode thither to give the horses drink, when, as he approached, he saw the form of a youth leaning down, as if drinking, and thought he knew the dress.