by David Ker
CHAPTER XXI
The Black Wolf
On the same day on which Alured perilled his life to save the monk, aman was sitting alone, beside a dying fire, in the gloomy depths of thegreat forest which then covered a large part of that wild region southof the Loire, which was to be terribly famous, four centuries later,under the name of La Vendee.
This solitary forester was an apt figure for that background of gloomytrees and matted thickets. He was a man of high stature and powerfulbuild, whose huge frame, though gaunt as a wolf, showed in everymovement a tiger-like strength and elasticity with which few men couldhave coped. His ragged clothing, and rusty, dinted steel-cap, matchedwell with his grim, sullen, shaggy-bearded face, and the restlesswatchfulness of his keen black eyes, which had the half-cowed,half-ferocious look of a trapped beast of prey; and altogether, he wasthe last man that a timid wayfarer would have wished to meet in such aplace.
All at once he raised his head with a quick, sharp movement, as if hehad just caught some distant sound, though the faint and far-offhoof-tramp would have escaped any ear less keen and practised. But thathe heard it was plain from the cruel smile that lighted up his darkface as he muttered, after listening intently for a moment--
"He is alone--good luck!"
The business-like alacrity with which he caught up his heavy ghisarme(long-handled battle-axe), and stood facing the point where the comingrider would appear, gave an ominous meaning to his words.
Nearer and nearer came the measured tramp, and at last a single riderin full armour, with visor closed, issued from the wall of leaves rightin front of the grim watcher.
"Stand!" shouted the latter, with a menacing flourish of his weapon.
But the new-comer, though his short figure looked quite dwarfish besidethe giant forester, seemed not a whit dismayed at this rude greeting,or at the grim aspect of his challenger. There was even a tinge ofscorn in his voice as he asked--
"Who art thou, to be so bold as bid me stand?"
"I am one," said the woodsman, with another flourish of his axe, and agrowl like a wounded bear, "who will walk the good green wood as Iwill, and ask no leave of thee!"
"Thou art right, for these woods be none of mine," laughed thetraveller; "but they are not thine either, so I will forth on my way,and ask no leave of thee!"
"Wilt thou? Two words to that bargain," roared the giant, stung to furyby this quiet scorn. "If thou wilt pass hence, thou must pass over mybody."
"Aha! thou would'st fight me man to man?" cried the stranger, asgleefully as a boy invited to join a cricket-match. "Art thou an outlawof the wood?"
"I am, and I care not who knows it. I have vowed never to spare knightor noble, wherefore look well to thyself."
"And how know'st thou I am either?"
"Because thou fearest nothing," said the robber, simply.
"Well said!" cried the stranger, heartily. "Thou art a fellow worthfighting, and gladly will I have a bout with thee; but tarry till Ialight, for 'twixt horseman and footman is no fair fight."
As he sprang from his horse, and tied him to a tree, the bandit eyedhim in blank amazement, and said--
"Art thou indeed knight and noble?"
"Why ask?" cried the other, with a hearty, boyish laugh. "Fear'st thouI am of too low degree for the worshipful sword of a knightly outlaw?"
"Not so; but because thou art the first of them who ever showedknightly courtesy to such as I."
The knight winced as if the words stung him, and said gravely--
"A good knight is bound to show courtesy to every man for his own sake."
His tone and manner had a quiet dignity that abashed the savage inspite of himself; and the latter's keen eye had noted the ease withwhich this stranger moved in his heavy armour, his nimbleness inleaping from his horse, and the formidable weight of spear, shield, andbattle-axe. He began to guess (though this only heightened hiseagerness for the fray) that he had for once met his match.
But as he advanced with lifted axe, the knight stopped him once more.
"Aid me first, comrade, to doff this steel harness of mine, for thouhast no body-armour, and it behoves us to fight fairly. My helmet Imust needs keep, for I have vowed that my face shall not be seen till Ihave achieved the quest on which I am bound; but it matters not, asthou hast a steel cap."
Again the bandit looked wonderingly at this man, who was conceding tohim point after point of vantage, in a combat for life and death.
"Wilt thou then trust me so far?" said he, as he aided the knight todoff his heavy panoply. "Fear'st thou not that I may stab thee in theback unawares?"
"Not I," said the stranger, coolly; "I have trusted thee, and thou wiltnot betray my trust. In a brave man is no treachery."
For the first time, the savage's sullen face brightened, and assumed ahigher and more human expression than it had yet worn.
"Thou art a true man, whoever thou be'st!" said he, in a tone of grimand half-unwilling admiration; "and thou hast spoken such words as noman ever spake to me yet. 'Tis pity of my vow to spare neither knightnor noble, else would I spare thee!"
"Not so!" cried the other, in just the same jovial tone in which hewould have challenged a friend to a game of bowls. "Do thy best, andspare not; and even so will I."
And at it they went like giants.
Strong, active, used to hand-to-hand fights, the outlaw showered hisblows like hail; but all in vain. Some of his strokes were avoided witha nimbleness quite amazing in a man of the stranger's thickset, clumsybuild, and others were warded with a strength that made the assailantreflect with inward dismay how terrible in attack must be thatsurpassing force which, even in defence, made itself so formidably felt.
More clearly every moment did the outlaw realize that, with all hiscourage and strength, he was hopelessly overmatched; and the worst ofit was that this mysterious foe, whose face he had never seen, made noattempt to strike in return, and seemed to watch, with cold composure,the doomed man wasting his strength in vain efforts, as if meaning towait till he was utterly spent, and then despatch him with a singleblow.
What face was hidden by that barred helmet? A spectre? a demon? theghost of one of his countless victims, risen from the grave forvengeance? the Evil One himself, come to snatch him away with all hissins on his head? Conscience made a coward of this man of a thousandcrimes; and, bold as he was, he felt his heart sink as it had neversunk before.
Driven to desperation, he dealt a fearful blow at his foe's unarmedbody. But the stroke was wasted on the empty air, and ere the outlawcould recover his guard, the knight sprang in and clutched his weaponwith both hands, and, with one mighty wrench, snapped the strong shaftlike a twig!
The disarmed bandit was at his foe's mercy; but in place of killing himat a blow, as he expected, the knight threw down his axe, saying--
"True battle calls for equal arms. As thou hast lost thy weapon, let ustry it with our bare hands."
This time the outlaw's amazement was too great for words; and it wasmechanically rather than from any reasoning impulse that he closed withhis strange foe in a desperate grapple.
But he fared no better than before; for, once clutched in hisopponent's terrible grasp, he had no more chance than a deer in thecoils of a boa. A frantic, useless struggle, which left him weaker andmore breathless than ever--a dizzy whirl--a sudden shock--and he waslying flat on the earth, sick and giddy, and gasping for breath, withhis foeman's knee on his chest.
"Slay me if thou wilt," panted he, with a defiant scowl; "I ask nomercy."
"Not I!" cried the victor, with a loud, jovial laugh. "Good men-at-armslike thee are too rare to be wasted. Hark ye, friend; I will make abargain with thee. If thou be a rover of these woods, thou must knowone called 'The Black Wolf of the Forest,' who hath haunted them thismany a day, and done much ill to many. Him have I bound me to seek out,and if thou wilt guide me to his haunt, the moment he and I stand faceto face, thou art free to go whither thou w
ilt."
"Dost thou jest?" said the staring robber. "Thou art the first who everwished to meet him whom all men shun."
"I jest not with men's lives," said the knight, simply. "As I havesaid, so shall it be."
"As thou wilt," said the other, rising slowly from the ground. "Followme."
Away they went through the black depths of the wood, the outlaw keepingbeside his companion's horse with a long, swinging stride.
On their way, the knight, seeing that his guide looked hungry and worn,shared his own scanty stock of food with him; and ere long (as oftenhappened in that wild age with men who had just stood sword-point tosword-point) the two became quite confidential, and were soon talkingas frankly as old friends.
At last the knight hinted to his new acquaintance that a stout fellowlike himself might be better employed in defending his country againsther foes, than in robbing peaceful travellers.
"So have I ofttimes thought," said the outlaw; "but in all this land isbut one knight under whom I would serve--to wit, Messire Bertrand duGuesclin."
"And why under him specially?" asked the cavalier.
"Because," said the robber, with bitter emphasis, "he is the only noblewho careth for us common folk, whom all the rest scorn and trampledown; and also because he once saved the life of my poor brother, whois now a saint in heaven."
"Ay? How came that about?" asked the other, in a tone of undisguisedinterest.
The bandit, visibly pleased, told how his brother, a half-witted lad ofthe Rennes district, had once been attacked in the forest by a hugewolf; how Du Guesclin, then a mere boy, had slain the brute with hisown hand; how the pilgrim-monk, Brother Michael, had appeared at thatmoment, and had bidden the simpleton follow him; and how the latter hadthenceforth been his constant attendant.
"Meanwhile," went on the robber, with a black frown, "my father wascast into a boiling caldron at Dinan,[2] for defacing the king's coin;and my mother, who had gone thither to beg mercy for him, found none,and fell down and died where she stood. Then I, being left desolate,and having small love for the great folk who had made me so,became--what I am now, and must always be!"
The knight's voice failed as he strove to reply; but the hearty,sympathizing clasp in which he seized the outcast's hard brown handsaid more than any words.
"What? Wilt thou take _my_ hand?" said the felon, eyeing himwonderingly. "But thou knowest not all, even now."
Just then a fierce red glare broke through the deepening gloom, as asudden turn brought them out in front of a huge fire, round which satthirty wild forms armed to the teeth, who shouted hoarsely--
"Welcome back, captain; we have waited long for thee!"
"My task is done, and my pledge redeemed," said the grim guide to theknight. "I am the Black Wolf of the Forest!"
"And I," said the knight, raising his visor, "am Bertrand du Guesclin!"
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Footnote 2:
See chap. v. The outlaw had probably had no chance to learn that his father had been saved by Brother Michael.