Still he had actually lost not one of his men, and after the first week or two, began to have more confidence in himself, and to feel his place as their commander more than he would have done had Gaston been able to assist him.  At last his trusty Squire began slowly to recover, though nightly returns of fever still kept him very weak.

“The Pyrenean breezes would make me another man,” said he, one evening, when Eustace had helped him to the front of the tent, where he might enjoy the coolness which began to succeed the sultry heat of the day.

“I hear,” said Eustace, “that we are to return as soon as the Prince can be moved.  He is weary of waiting till this dog of a Spaniard will perform his contract.”

“By my faith,” said d’Aubricour, “I believe the butcherly rogue means to cancel his debts by the death of all his creditors.  I would give my share of the pay, were it twenty times more, for one gust of the mountain air of my own hills.”

“Which way lies your home, Gaston?” asked Eustace.  “Near the pass by which we crossed?”

“No; more to the west.  My home, call you it?  You would marvel to see what it is now.  A shattered, fire-scathed keep; the wolf’s den in earnest, it may be.  It is all that is left of the Castle d’Albricorte.”

How?” exclaimed Eustace.  “What brought this desolation?”

“Heard you never my story?” said Gaston.  “Mayhap not.  You are fresh in the camp, and it is no recent news, nor do men question much whence their comrades come.  Well, Albricorte was always a noted house for courage, and my father, Baron Beranger, not a whit behind his ancestors.  He called himself a liegeman of England, because England was farthest off, and least likely to give him any trouble, and made war with all his neighbours in his own fashion.  Rare was the prey that the old Black Wolf of the Pyrenees was wont to bring up to his lair, and right merry were the feastings there.  Well I do remember how my father and brothers used to sound their horns as a token that they did not come empty-handed, and then, panting up the steep path, would come a rich merchant, whose ransom filled our purses half a year after, or a Knight, whose glittering armour made him a double prize, or—­”

“What! you were actually—­”

“Freebooters, after the fashion of our own Quatre fils Aymon,” answered Gaston, composedly.  “Yes, Beranger d’Albricorte was the terror of all around, and little was the chance that aught would pursue him to his den.  So there I grew up, as well beseemed the cub of such a wolf, racing through the old halls at my will.”

“Your mother?” asked Eustace.