Under the Flag of France: A Tale of Bertrand du Guesclin

by David Ker

  CHAPTER IX

  Into the Dragon's Jaws

  "Draw back thy head into the leaves, wilt thou, fool? The glitter ofthat morion would scare our birds if they fly this way, to say noughtof thine ill-favoured visage, that looks like a dog robbed of a bone!"

  "Draw back thy long tongue betwixt thy teeth, I counsel thee, lest Ishorten it with my dagger!"

  "Come, no quarrelling when there is work in hand," broke in a deepergrowl, "or I brain ye both with my axe, which hath split skulls asthick ere now!"

  The ghostly effect of these hoarse whispers, which mingled so strangelywith the rush of the river and the moan of the rising storm, wasdeepened tenfold by the fact that no living thing was to be seen. Itseemed as if the very leaves of the forest were whispering to eachother some ghastly secret in the spectral twilight of that gloomyautumn evening, which was fast darkening into night.

  A child might have guessed that men who were lurking at such an hour inthe thickets that overhung the ford of the Arguenon could be after nogood; and in truth they did well to hide themselves, for it would havebeen hard to find, even in an age so fruitful in ruffians of high andlow degree, a more villainous-looking rabble of cut-throats. On eachand all of those various faces--swarthy, keen-eyed, brigand-likeSpaniards; sinewy, black-haired, sallow Genoese; sturdy, yellow-beardedFlemings; and red-haired, hard-featured Scots--was stamped the samebrand of savage violence, swaggering recklessness, and brutaldebauchery that harmonized but too well with their blood-rustedweapons, dinted steel-caps, and slovenly dress--an unsightly mixture oftawdry finery and squalid filth.

  In a word, one glance would have told the most careless observer thatthese wretches must be either brigands or pirates; and, in fact, theywere both--land-thieves and sea-thieves by turns.

  More than two years had passed since the tournament which saw the bestknights of Brittany fall before the then untried lance of young DuGuesclin, and the great national storm which was then threatening hadburst in all its fury. King Edward of England was marching throughPicardy with thousands of English archers and men-at-arms at his back;war was raging along the whole border of Flanders; France was alltumult, disorder, and senseless division; and the Channel swarmed withFrench, English, Flemish, and Spanish warships, and with the countlesscorsairs who, while pretending to belong to one side or the other,robbed both with strict impartiality, pouncing now on Sussex andDorset, now on Normandy and Brittany, and taking their chance of beinghanged like dogs if they met a stronger force than their own.

  To this class belonged the worthies now in ambush at the ford, who hadcome on a plundering cruise up the little Breton river at the mouth ofwhich lay their ship. They had been just about to go back to her withtheir booty, when they learned by chance that a lady of rank wasreturning that way with a small train from a visit to the shrine ofNotre Dame de Lamballe; and the captain, whose savage face and brutallook matched well with the dragon crest of his battered helmet, had atonce made up his mind to await and seize this new prize, whose ransomwould certainly outweigh all the other gains of their expedition puttogether.

  Just as the robbers drew back into their covert, the last gleam ofsunset was flashed back from the steel caps and lance-points of twelvestalwart men-at-arms, riding slowly down the hill toward the ford, withtwo female figures, whose dress showed them to be mistress and maid.

  "Here is the ford at last, ill betide it!" growled a grim veteran wholed the party--no other, in fact, than the Norman ex-bandit who hadtold to Bertrand du Guesclin, three years before, the strange tale ofLady Tiphaine de Raguenel. "But night will be upon us ere we can reachPloncoet."

  "And what if it be, good Blaise?" said the taller of the two women, ina clear, sweet voice, that contrasted strikingly with the oldspearman's harsh tones. "Surely thou, of all men living, fearest notwolves or robbers?"

  "I fear nought earthly, noble lady, especially in the service of one sosaintly as yourself; but you know these woods have no good name, and topass through them after dark----"

  And the rough soldier crossed himself with a trembling hand.

  "Dark or light, what matter, since we are always in the hand of God?"said the lady, with a smile so bright and fearless that it seemed tolight up her beautiful face like a saint's crown of glory. "What havewe to fear, so long as we are doing His will? But perhaps," she addedarchly, "thou art loath to venture into the haunted forest with onewhom men call 'Tiphaine the Fairy.'"

  "You do but jest, lady!" cried Blaise, with sudden fierceness. "Let anyman, be he knight or churl, dare to say in my hearing that the nobledemoiselle Tiphaine de Raguenel is akin to sprites or fairies, or aughtelse but the holiest angels of heaven, and I will so deal with himthat----"

  That challenge was never finished. A sudden crash shook the black,shadowy thicket; a wolfish yell broke through the deepening gloom;there was a tramp of feet and a clash of steel, and the Raguenelmen-at-arms found themselves suddenly attacked on all sides at once!

  But, few as they were, these men were all cool and practised soldiers,and, though not looking to be surprised at that exact spot, they hadfully expected an attack ere reaching their halting-place. Closingsternly round their young mistress, they faced their swarming foes, whowere thirty to twelve, as bravely as men could do.

  Steel rang on steel, man grappled man, blows rained at hap-hazard inthe darkness, and death came blindly, none knew whence or how. Theheavy trampling and hard breathing of the combatants amid the ghostlygloom showed how fiercely the fight was contested. More than oneruffian who had thought this handful of men an easy prey, fell writhingin the dust, and, for a few moments, arms and discipline balancedsuperior numbers.

  But the pirate captain was not a man to be lightly baulked of his prey.Growling a curse too horrible to be repeated, he thrust himself intothe thick of the fight, and came hand to hand with Blaise himself, whostood like a tower before the daughter of his lord, shielding her withhis own body. A stamp, an oath, a clang of steel, a quick, convulsivegasp, and the brave old Norman lay at Tiphaine's feet, with hislife-blood gushing through his iron-grey hair.

  But ere the final blow could fall, the girl thrust herself between themurderer and his victim, and, standing over the fallen man, waved backthe pirate's dripping blade with her bare hand as boldly as if she wereinvulnerable.

  "Begone, impious men!" she cried, with stern and solemn emphasis. "Willye peril your souls by molesting the pilgrims of God? Too much bloodhave ye shed already; shed no more, I charge ye! Go and repent, ere itbe too late!"

  The murderers recoiled in sudden awe, and even their ferocious leaderhimself wavered and hung back for a moment.

  Then, through that dead hush of dismay, broke a voice mighty as atrumpet-blast--

  "Notre Dame! Notre Dame! to the rescue!"

  Mingling with that shout came the thunder of charging hoofs, and asingle rider, in black armour, burst into the midst of the ruffianlythrong, with closed visor and levelled lance.

  Down went the first robber who met that terrible charge, piercedthrough steel and bone and body, till the good lance stood out a fullyard behind his back. Ere the next man's uplifted sword could descend,the black rider's battle-axe flashed and fell, and sword and handdropped in the trampled dust together. With a crash like the fall of anoak, the terrible axe smote the head of a third ruffian, who fell deadwhere he stood, cloven through steel-cap and skull to the teeth.

  "It is Monseigneur St. Michael, the Prince of Angels!" shouted theRaguenel men, with one voice; "he is sent to our aid by Our BlessedLady herself. At them, comrades! Heaven fights for us!"

  The same conviction pulsed like an electric shock through the terrifiedcorsairs, and, giving up all thought of resistance, they turned to fly,some even flinging away their arms as they ran.

  But it was too late. Before them was a rushing river, behind them theavenging swords of their pursuers; and few, very few, ever reached theboats. Two were cut down while actually springing on board, and athird,
missing his leap, fell headlong into the water, and was draggeddown by the weight of his armour to rise no more, shrieking in vain forthe help which no one had any thought of giving; for, in an age whenmen were daily falling by each other's hands in scores and hundreds,what mattered one life more or less?

  But the unknown champion whose prowess had turned the fray, where washe? Standing motionless among the dead, like one spellbound, glancingin wondering awe from the livid features of the last man that he hadstruck down (no other than the pirate captain himself) to the calm,sweet face of the lady he had rescued. At last, as if half-stifled byhis own contending emotions, he threw open his visor; and at sight ofthe face thus revealed, one of the wounded Raguenel men, who lay near,muttered tremulously--

  "Had I not heard him utter a holy name, I had assuredly taken him forthe Evil One himself!"

  But just then the dying Blaise, with that sudden return of perfectconsciousness which is so often, in such cases, the immediateforerunner of death, looked up with a glance of joyful recognition atthe grim visage that frowned from beneath the black warrior's helmet,and cried with the last effort of his failing strength--

  "Messire Bertrand du Guesclin! Then is my lady's prophecy made good,and the hour of my death hath seen the coming of our deliverer. God'sblessing be on him!"

  And, with that blessing on his lips, the stern old spearman sank backand died.

  "He is gone!" said Lady Tiphaine, looking down with a sigh on therugged face that would never move again. "Truer heart never beat; Godrest his soul. Noble knight," she added, turning to her rescuer, "towhom I have too long delayed owning a debt of gratitude that I cannever repay, art thou in very deed Sir Bertrand du Guesclin, who didhis devoir so manfully in the tournament at Rennes two years agone, andoverthrew all comers?"

  "Knight am I none as yet," said the future hero of Brittany, with aslight flush; "but I am he of whom thou art pleased to speak so farbeyond his deserving. Tell me, I pray, art thou a lady of mortal birth,or that holy one whose name was my war-cry even now?"

  "Nay, give not such honour to mine unworthy self; I am of mortal birth,and they call me Tiphaine de Raguenel. Why tak'st thou me for one fromheaven?"

  "Because," said the young noble, solemnly, "I saw thee, years agone, ina dream sent from God."

  Then he told briefly the strange vision that had presented to him, onthe memorable night of his first meeting with the pilgrim-monk, a ladywhose appearance matched in every point her who now stood beside him,trampling down a dragon with a human face, which was that of the slainpirate at their feet!

  "And then," he ended, "meseemed this lady who wore thy semblance set alaurel wreath on my head, and hailed me as the champion of France."

  Into the girl's large bright eyes, as he spoke, crept a shadow ofsudden awe; but with it came a glow of deep and solemn joy.

  "And when was this vision?" she asked eagerly.

  "On the Eve of St. John, five years since."

  "This is in very deed the hand of God," said Tiphaine, solemnly. "Fiveyears since, on the Eve of St. John, I beheld in a dream one in thylikeness, and methought a voice from heaven bade me crown him as thedeliverer of our oppressed land from all her foes. Hail to thee,champion of France! Let thy war-cry henceforth be as it hath been thisday, 'Notre Dame!' in proof that thou art truly the soldier of heaven;and let this sacred rosary, brought by a holy pilgrim from MountCarmel, hang on thy neck from this day in token that God is with theefor the deliverance of France, for alas! she standeth in sore need ofit."