The abbé laughed, if not merrily, at least long. "Do you not know who this Dénéthoirtier is?" he asked. "Dénéthoirtier is the father of Villefaramir!"
The thunderbolt, swooping upon Gamgès and carving at his feet an abysm that opened on the gates of hell or Morie, would have produced in Samouard an effect less sudden, less electric, less overwhelming than these words.
"Clearly," concluded the abbé, "Sacqueville-Danglars and Pippand plotted to have you charged with treason and imprisoned, and Villefaramir had you sent here to conceal some dark secret from his past that was contained in your letter. Voilà the reason why he was so eager to burn it."
The knowledge of who had effected his imprisonment filled Samouard's heart with a cold fury. Could he but tear himself away from that place of horror, he would embark on a lonely journey – for vengeance. His anger would bear him down all the roads of the world, until he had them at last: Pippand, Sacqueville-Danglars, and Villefaramir. Then those traitors would die in a corner. But that was not what he would set out to do. Far more terrible than that would be his revenge, and far more pleasurable. And so he swore an oath that none shall break, and none should take, in the name of Iluvatar, calling upon him the Ténèbres Sempiternelles d'Absinthe, if he kept it not; and Manvre and Varde he named in witness, vowing to pursue to the ends of the earth those who had betrayed him.
