“Ah! poor lady!  I remember her not.  She died when I was a babe, and all I know of her was from an old hag, the only woman in the Castle, to whom the charge of me was left.  My mother was a noble Navarrese damsel whom my father saw at a tourney, seized, and bore away as she was returning from the festival.  Poor lady! our grim Castle must have been a sad exchange from her green valleys—­and the more, that they say she was soon to have wedded the Lord of Montagudo, the victor of that tourney.  The Montagudos had us in bitter feud ever after, and my father always looked like a thunderstorm if their name was spoken.  They say she used to wander on the old battlements like a ghost, ever growing thinner and whiter, and scarce seemed to joy even in her babes, but would only weep over them.  That angered the Black Wolf, and there were chidings which made matters little better, till at last the poor lady pined away, and died while I was still an infant.”

“A sad tale,” said Eustace.

“Ay!  I used to weep at it, when the old crone who nursed me would tell it over as I sat by her side in the evening.  See, here is holy relic that my mother wore round her neck, and my nurse hung round mine.  It has never been parted from me.  So I grew up to the years of pagehood, which came early with me, and forth I went on my first foray with the rest of them.  But as we rode joyously home with our prey before us, a band of full a hundred and fifty men-at-arms set on us in the forest.  Our brave thirty—­down they went on all side.  I remember the tumult, the heavy mace uplifted, and my father’s shield thrust over me.  I can well-nigh hear his voice saying, ‘Flinch not, Gaston, my brave wolf-cub!’ But then came a fall, man and horse together, and I went down stunned, and knew no more till a voice over me said, ’That whelp is stirring—­another sword-thrust!’ But another replied, ’He bears the features of Alienor, I cannot slay him’”

“It was your mother’s lover?”

“Montagudo?  Even so; and I was about to beg for mercy, but, at my first movement, the other fellow’s sword struck me back senseless once more, and when I recovered my wits, all was still, and the moonlight showed me where I was.  And a fair scene to waken to!  A score of dark shapes hung on the trees—­our trusty men-at-arms —­and my own head was resting on my dead father’s breast.  Us they had spared from hanging—­our gentle blood did us that service; but my father and my three brethren all were stone dead.  The Count de Bearn had sworn to put an end to the ravages of the Black Wolf, and, joining with the Montagudos, had done the work, like traitor villains as they were.”

“And yourself, Gaston?”