The Iron Arrow Head or The Buckler Maiden: A Tale of the Northman Invasion

ken into one of the underground cells of the abbey of St. Denis by

sinister dreams. One time, it was the monk Fultrade who appeared before her, and then she awoke shuddering with horror-a horror that was intensified by the brooding darkness around her. At other times Anne dreamed that she had been forgotten in the underground chamber, and felt herself a prey to the agonies of hunger while her torture was rendered still more excruciating

Deliver me! Come

y child!" answered the skip

that Eidiol and Guyrion and Rustic the Gay wielded with energy, the door soon fell over and Anne rushed into the a

r? Where is m

ot bestow sufficient caresses upon the daughter whom he feared to have lost. "When she saw me," continued the happy father, "poor Martha felt such a pang that she lost

soon as her first emotions were calmed. "And you, too, brother? And

all the vessels that ascended the river," the old man explained. "Two of his soldiers

say that my father wanted to see us immediately," a

e in Rustic the Gay, "when the count's soldiers fel

ee," replied Anne.

n pirates, m

ghted and clasping her hands. "Oh! fath

ese brave and wily folks entered the abbey by strategem, and have slaughtered ab

lage the basilica and the abbey. There is a heap of booty, as

allery that leads to these underground dungeons. Expecting to find large treasures locked up there, they broke in the door. They found us huddled together in the gallery. Their chief,

which your mother was confined," added

r the abbey. He entered the place and now holds it with a large body of men. The pirates are now hastily throwing up earth-works above the

a?lo's voice was at this moment heard calling out from a di

set us free. We shall follow you. But grant that my son remain near his sister and mother,

so," answ

irate left Eidiol and his men for an instant, and ran to one of the lower apartments of the abbey whither the Beautiful Shigne, whose wound, although serious, was not mortal, had been transported and was being tended. When Lodbrog the berserker, still under the spell of his vertigo of fury dashed into the crypt of the mausoleum of Clovis w