Kitabı oku: «In the Days of Chivalry: A Tale of the Times of the Black Prince», sayfa 26

CHAPTER XXVI. THE RESCUE OF RAYMOND

The appointed hour had arrived. No signal had fallen upon Gaston's listening ears; no note of warning had rung through the still night air.

From the direction of the Castle sounds of distant revelry arose at intervals – sounds which seemed to show that nothing in the shape of watch or ward was being thought of by its inmates; and also that Constanza's promise had been kept, and potations of unwonted strength had been served out to the men.

Now the appointed hour had come and gone, and Gaston commenced his preparations for the rescue of his brother. That he might be going to certain death if he failed, or if he had been betrayed, did not weigh with him for a moment. If Constanza were false to him, better death than the destruction of his hopes and his trust. In any case he would share his brother's fate sooner than leave him in the relentless hands of these cruel foes.

He had selected six of his stoutest followers, all of them excellent swimmers, to accompany him across the moat; and Roger, as a matter of course, claimed to be one of the party. To Roger's mysterious power of vision they owed their rapid tracing of Raymond to this lonely spot. It was indeed his right to make one of the rescue party if he desired to be allowed to do so.

The rest of their number were to remain upon this farther side of the moat, and the horses were all in readiness, rested and refreshed, about half-a-mile off under the care of several stout fellows, all stanch to their master's interests. The story they had heard from Gaston of what had been devised against his brother filled the honest soldiers with wrath and indignation. Rough and savage as they might show themselves in open warfare, deliberate and diabolical cruelty was altogether foreign to their nature. And they all felt towards Raymond a sense of protecting and reverent tenderness, such as all may feel towards a being of finer mould and loftier nature.

Raymond had the faculty of inspiring in those about him this reverential tenderness; and not one of those stalwart fellows who were silently laying aside their heavy mail, and such of their garments as would be likely to hinder them in their swim across the moat, but felt a deep loathing and hatred towards the lord of this grim Tower, and an overmastering resolve to snatch his helpless victim from his cruel hands, or perish in the attempt.

All their plans had been very carefully made. Lanterns and the wherewithal for kindling them were bound upon the heads of some of the swimmers; and though they laid aside most of their defensive armour and their heavy riding boots, they wore their stout leather jerkins, that were almost as serviceable against foeman's steel, and their weapons, save the most cumbersome, were carried either in their belts or fastened across their shoulders.

Dark though it had become, Gaston had not lost cognizance of the spot whither they were to direct their course; and one by one the strong swimmers plunged into the sullen waters without causing so much as a ripple or plash, which might betray their movements to suspicious ears upon the battlements (if indeed any sort of watch were kept, which appeared doubtful). They swam with that perfect silence possible only to those who are thoroughly at home in the water, till they had crossed the dark moat and had reached the perpendicular wall of the Tower, which rose sheer upon the farther side – so sheer that not even the foot of mountain goat could have scaled its rough-hewn side.

But Gaston knew what he had to search for, and with outstretched hand he swam silently along the solid masonry, feeling for that aperture just above watermark which he had seen before the daylight faded. It took him some little time to find it, but at last it was discovered, and with a muttered word of command to the men who silently followed in his wake, he drew himself slowly out of the water, to find himself in a very narrow rounded aperture like a miniature tunnel, which trended slightly upwards, and would only admit the passage of one human being at a time, and then only upon hands and knees.

It was pitchy dark in this tunnel, and there was no space in which to attempt to kindle a light. Once the thought came into Gaston's head that if he were falling into a treacherous pitfall laid for him with diabolic ingenuity by his foes, nothing could well be better than to entrap him into such a place as this, where it would be almost impossible to go forward or back, and quite out of his power to strike a single blow for liberty or life.

But he shook off the chill sense of fear as unworthy and unknightly. His Constanza was true; of that he was assured. The only possible doubt was whether she herself were being used as an unconscious tool in the hands of subtle and perfectly unscrupulous men.

But even so Gaston had no choice but to advance. He had come to rescue his brother or to die with him. If the latter, he would try at least to sell his life dearly. But he was fully persuaded that his efforts would be crowned with success.

He had time to think many such things as he slowly crept along the low passage in the black darkness. It seemed long before his hand came in contact with the door he had been told he should presently reach, and this door, as Constanza had said, yielded to his touch, and he felt rather than saw that he had emerged into a wider space beyond.

This place, whatever it was, was not wholly dark, though so very dim that it was impossible to make out anything save the dull red glow of what might be some embers on a distant hearth. Gaston did not speak a word, but waited till all his companions had reached this more open space, and had risen to their feet and grasped their weapons. Then all held their breath, and listened for any sound that might by chance reveal the presence of hidden foes, till they started at the sound of Roger's voice speaking softly but with complete assurance.

"There is no one here," he said. "We are quite alone. Let me kindle a torch and show you."

Roger, as Gaston had before observed, possessed a cat-like faculty of seeing in the dark. Whether it was natural to him, or had been acquired during those days spent almost entirely underground in the sorcerer's vaulted chamber at Basildene, the youth himself scarcely knew. But he was able to distinguish objects clearly in gloom which no ordinary eye could penetrate; and now he walked fearlessly forward and stirred up the smouldering embers, whose dull red glow all could see, into a quick, bright, palpitating flame which illumined every corner of the strange place into which they had penetrated.

Gaston and his men looked wonderingly around them, as they lighted their lanterns at the fire and flashed them here and there into all the dark corners, as though to assure themselves that there were no ambushed foes lurking in the grim recesses of that circular room. But Roger had been quite right. There was nothing living in that silent place. Not so much as a loophole in the wall admitted any air or light from the outer world, or could do so even in broad noon. The chamber was plainly hollowed out in the mass of earth and masonry of which the foundations of the Tower were composed, and if any air were admitted (as there must have been, else men could not breathe down there), it was by some device not easily discovered at a first glance.

It was in truth a strange and terrible place – the dank walls, down which the damp moisture slowly trickled, hung round with instruments of various forms, all designed with a terrible purpose, and from their look but too often used.

Gaston's face assumed a look of dark wrath and indignation as his quick eyes roved round this evil place, and he set his teeth hard together as he muttered to himself:

"Heaven send that the Prince himself may one day look upon the vile secrets of this charnel house! I would that he and his royal father might know what deeds of darkness are even now committed in lands that own their sway! Would that I had that wicked wretch here in my power at this moment! Well does he deserve to be torn in pieces by his own hideous engines. And in this very place does he design to do to death my brother! May God pardon me if I sin in the thought, but death by the sword is too good for such a miscreant!"

Words very similar to these were being bandied about in fierce undertones by the men who had accompanied Gaston, and who had never seen such a chamber as this before. Great would have been their satisfaction to let its owner taste something of the agony he had too often inflicted upon helpless victims thrown into his power. But this being out of the question, the next matter was the rescue of the captive they had come to save; and they looked eagerly at their young leader to know what was the next step to be taken.

Gaston was searching for the wheel by which the mechanism could be set in motion which would enable him to reach his brother's prison house. It was easily found from the description given him by Constanza. He set his men to work to turn the wheel, and at once became aware of the groaning and grating sound that attends the motion of clumsy machinery. Gazing eagerly up into the dun roof above him, he saw slowly descending a portion of the stonework of which it was formed. It was a clever enough contrivance for those unskilled days, and showed a considerable ingenuity on the part of some owner of the Castle of Saut.

When the great slab had descended to the floor below, Gaston stepped upon it, Roger placing himself at his side, and with a brief word to his men to reverse the action of the wheel, and to lower the slab again a few minutes later, he prepared for his strange passage upwards to his brother's lonely cell.

Roger held a lantern in his hand, and the faces of the pair were full of anxious expectation. Suppose Raymond had been removed from that upper prison? Suppose he had succumbed either to the cruelty of his foes or to the fever resulting from his injuries received on the day of the battle?

A hundred fears possessed Gaston's soul as the strange transit through the air was being accomplished – a transit so strange that he felt as though he must surely be dreaming. But there was only one thing to be done – to persevere in the quest, and trust to the Holy Saints and the loving mercy of Blessed Mary's Son to grant him success in this his endeavour.

Up, up into the darkness of the vaulted roof he passed, and then a yawning hole above their heads, which looked too small to admit the passage of the slab upon which they stood, swallowed them up, and they found themselves passing upwards through a shaft which only just admitted the block upon which they stood. Up and up they went, and now the creaking sound grew louder, and the motion grew perceptibly slower. They were no longer in a narrow shaft; a black space opened before their eyes. The motion ceased altogether with a grinding sensation and a jerk, and out of the darkness of a wider space, pitchy dark to their eyes, came the sound of a familiar voice.

"Gaston – Brother!"

Gaston sprang forward into the darkness, heedless of all but the sound of that voice. The next moment he was clasping his brother in his arms, his own emotion so great that he dared not trust his voice to speak; whilst Raymond, holding him fast in a passionate clasp, whispered in his ear a breathless question.

"Thou too a prisoner in this terrible place, my Gaston? O brother – my brother – I trusted that I might have died for us both!"

"A prisoner? nay, Raymond, no prisoner; but as thy rescuer I come. What, believest thou not? Then shalt thou soon see with thine own eyes.

"But let me look first upon thy face. I would see what these miscreants have done to thee. Thou feelest more like a creature of skin and bone than one of sturdy English flesh and blood.

"The light, Roger!

"Ay, truly, Roger is here with me. It is to him in part we owe it that we are here this night. Raymond, Raymond, thou art sorely changed! Thou lookest more spirit-like than ever! Thou hast scarce strength to stand alone! What have they done to thee, my brother?"

But Raymond could scarce find strength to answer. The revulsion of feeling was too much for him. When he had heard that terrible sound, and had seen the slab in the floor sink out of sight, he had sprung from his bed of straw, ready to face his cruel foes when they came for him, yet knowing but too well what was in store for him when he was carried down below, as he had been once before. Then when, instead of the cruel mocking countenance of Peter Sanghurst, he had seen the noble, loving face of his brother, and had believed that he, too, had fallen into the power of their deadly foes, it had seemed to him as though a bitterness greater than that of death had fallen upon him, and the rebound of feeling when Gaston had declared himself had been so great, that the whole place swam before his eyes, and the floor seemed to reel beneath his feet.

"We will get him away from this foul place!" cried Gaston, with flaming eyes, as he looked into the white and sharpened face of his brother, and felt how feebly the light frame leaned against the stalwart arm supporting it.

He half led, half carried Raymond the few paces towards the slab in the floor which formed the link with the region beneath, and the next minute Raymond felt himself sinking down as he had done once before; only then it had been in the clasp of his most bitter foe that he had been carried to that infernal spot.

The recollection made him shiver even now in Gaston's strong embrace, and the young knight felt the quiver and divined the cause.

"Fear nothing now, my brother," he said. "Though we be on our way to that fearful place, it is for us the way to light and liberty. Our own good fellows are awaiting us there. I trow not all the hireling knaves within this Castle wall should wrest thee from us now."

"I fear naught now that thou art by my side, Gaston," answered Raymond, in low tones. "If thou art not in peril thyself, I could wish nothing better than to die with thine arm about mine."

"Nay, but thou shalt live!" cried Gaston, with energy, scarce understanding that after the long strain of such a captivity as Raymond's had been it was small wonder that he had grown to think death well-nigh better and sweeter than life. "Thou shalt live to take vengeance upon thy foes, and to recompense them sevenfold for what they have done to thee. I will tell this story in the ears of the King himself. This is not the last time that I shall stand within the walls of Saut!"

By this time the heavy slab had again descended, and around it were gathered the eager fellows, who received their young master's brother with open arms and subdued shouts of triumph and joy. But he, though he smiled his thanks, looked round him with eyes dilated by the remembrance of some former scene there, and Gaston set his teeth hard, and shook back his head with a gesture that boded little good for the Sieur de Navailles upon a future day.

"Come men; we may not tarry!" he said. "No man knows what fancy may enter into the head of the master of this place. Turn the wheel again; send up the slab to its right place. Let them have no clue to trace the flight of their victim. Leave everything as we found it, and follow me without delay."

He was all anxiety now to get his brother from the shadow of this hideous place. The whiteness of Raymond's face, the hollowness of his eyes, the lines of suffering traced upon his brow in a few short days, all told a tale only too easily read.

The rough fellows treated him tenderly as they might have treated a little child. They felt that he had been through some ordeal from which they themselves would have shrunk with a terror they would have been ashamed to admit; and that despite the youth's fragile frame and ethereal face that looked little like that of a mailed warrior, a hero's heart beat in his breast, and he had the spirit to do and to dare what they themselves might have quailed from and fled before.

The transit through the narrow tunnel presented no real difficulty, and soon the sullen waters of the moat were troubled by the silent passage of seven instead of six swimmers. The shock of the cold plunge revived Raymond; and the sense of space above him, the star-spangled sky overhead, the free sweet air around him, even the unfettered use of his weakened limbs, as he swam with his brother's strong supporting arm about him, acted upon him like a tonic. He hardly knew whether or not it was a dream; whether he were in the body or out of the body; whether he should awake to find himself in his gloomy cell, or under the cruel hands of his foes in that dread chamber he had visited once before.

He knew not, and at that moment he cared not. Gaston's arm was about him, Gaston's voice was in his ear. Whatever came upon him later could not destroy the bliss of the present moment.

A score of eager hands were outstretched to lift the light frame from Gaston's arm as the brothers drew to the edge of the moat. It was no time to speak, no time to ask or answer questions. At any moment some unguarded movement or some crashing of the boughs underfoot might awaken the suspicions of those within the walls. It was enough that the secret expedition had been crowned with success – that the captive was now released and in their own hands.

Raymond was almost fainting now with excitement and fatigue, but Gaston's muscles seemed as if made of iron. Though the past days had been for him days of great anxiety and fatigue, though he had scarce eaten or slept since the rapid march upon the besieging army around St. Jean d'Angely, he seemed to know neither fatigue nor feebleness. The arm upholding Raymond's drooping frame seemed as the arm of a giant. The young knight felt as though he could have carried that light weight even to Bordeaux, and scarce have felt fatigue.

But there was no need for that. Nigh at hand the horses were waiting, saddled and bridled, well fed and well rested, ready to gallop steadily all through the summer night. The moon had risen now, and filtered in through the young green of the trees with a clear and fitful radiance. The forest was like a fairy scene; and over the minds of both brothers stole the softening remembrance of such woodland wonders in the days gone by, when as little lads, full of curiosity and love of adventure, they had stolen forth at night into the forest together to see if they could discover the fairies at their play, or the dwarfs and gnomes busy beneath the surface of the earth.

To Raymond it seemed indeed as though all besides might well be a dream. He knew not which of the fantastic images impressed upon his brain was the reality, and which the work of imagination. A sense of restful thankfulness – the release from some great and terrible fear – had stolen upon him, he scarce knew how or why. He did not wish to think or puzzle out what had befallen him. He was with Gaston once more; surely that was enough.

But Gaston's mind was hard at work. From time to time he turned an anxious look upon his brother, and he saw well how ill and weary he was, how he swayed in the saddle, though supported by cleverly-adjusted leather thongs, and how unfit he was for the long ride that lay before them. And yet that ride must be taken. They must be out of reach of their implacable foe as quickly as might be. In the unsettled state of the country no place would afford a safe harbour for them till Bordeaux itself was reached. Fain would he have made for the shelter of the old home in the mill, or of Father Anselm's hospitable home, but he knew that those would be the first places searched by the emissaries of the Navailles. Even as it was these good people might be in some peril, and they must certainly not be made aware of the proximity of the De Brocas brothers.

But if not there, whither could Raymond be transported? To carry him to England in this exhausted state might be fatal to him; for no man knew when once on board ship how contrary the wind might blow, and the accommodation for a sick man upon shipboard was of the very rudest. No; before the voyage could be attempted Raymond must have rest and care in some safe place of shelter. And where could that shelter be found?

As Gaston thus mused a sudden light came upon him, and turning to Roger he asked of him a question:

"Do not some of these fellows of our company come from Bordeaux; and have they not left it of late to follow the English banner?"

"Ay, verily," answered Roger quickly. "There be some of them who came forth thence expressly to fight under the young knight of De Brocas. The name of De Brocas is as dear to many of those Gascon soldiers as that of Navailles is hated and cursed."

"Send then to me one of those fellows who best knows the city," said Gaston; and in a few more minutes a trooper rode up to his side.

"Good fellow," said Gaston, "if thou knowest well you city whither we are bound, tell me if thou hast heard aught of one Father Paul, who has been sent to many towns in this and other realms by his Holiness the Pope, to restore amongst the Brethren of his order the forms and habits which have fallen something into disuse of late? I heard a whisper as we passed through the city a week back now that he was there. Knowest thou if this be true?"

"It was true enow, Sir Knight, a few days back," answered the man, "and I trow you may find him yet at the Cistercian Monastery within the city walls. He had but just arrived thither ere the English ships came, and men say that he had much to do ere he sallied forth again."

"Good," answered Gaston, in a tone of satisfaction; and when the trooper had dropped back to his place again, the young knight turned to his brother and said cheerily:

"Courage, good lad; keep but up thy heart, my brother, for I have heard good news for thee. Father Paul is in the city of Bordeaux, and it is in his kindly charge that I will leave thee ere I go to England with my tale to lay before the King."

Raymond was almost too far spent to rejoice over any intelligence, however welcome; yet a faint smile crossed his face as the sense of Gaston's words penetrated to his understanding. It was plain that there was no time to lose if they were to get him to some safe shelter before his strength utterly collapsed, and long before Bordeaux was reached he had proved unable to keep his seat in the saddle, and a litter had been contrived for him in which he could lie at length, carried between four of the stoutest horsemen.

They were now in more populous and orderly regions, where the forest was thinner and townships more frequent. The urgent need for haste had slightly diminished, and though still anxious to reach their destination, the party was not in fear of an instant attack from a pursuing foe.

The Navailles would scarce dare to fall upon the party in the neighbourhood of so many of the English King's fortified cities; and before the sun set they hoped to be within the environs of Bordeaux itself – a hope in which they were not destined to be disappointed.

Nor was Gaston disappointed of his other hope; for scarce had they obtained admission for their unconscious and invalided comrade within the walls of the Cistercian Monastery, and Gaston was still eagerly pouring into the Prior's ears the story of his brother's capture and imprisonment, when the door of the small room into which the strangers had been taken was slowly opened to admit a tall, gaunt figure, and Father Paul himself stood before them. He gave Gaston one long, searching look; but he never forgot a face, and greeted him by name as Sir Gaston de Brocas, greatly to the surprise of the youth, who thought he would neither be recognized nor known by the holy Father. Then passing him quickly by, the monk leaned over the couch upon which Raymond had been laid – a hard oaken bench – covered by the cloak of the man who had borne him in.

Raymond's eyes were closed; his face, with the sunset light lying full upon it, showed very hollow and white and worn. Even in the repose of a profound unconsciousness it wore a look of lofty purpose, together with an expression of purity and devotion impossible to describe. Gaston and the Prior both turned to look as Father Paul bent over the prostrate figure with an inarticulate exclamation such as he seldom uttered, and Gaston felt a sudden thrill of cold fear run through him.

"He is not dead?" he asked, in a passionate whisper; and the Father looked up to answer:

"Nay, Sir Knight, he is not dead. A little rest, a little tendance, a little of our care, and he will be restored to the world again. Better perhaps were it not so – better perchance for him. For his is not the nature to battle with impunity against the evil of the world. Look at him as he lies there: is that face of one that can look upon the deeds of these vile days and not suffer keenest pain? To fight and to vanquish is thy lot, young warrior; but what is his? To tread the thornier path of life and win the hero's crown, not by deeds of glory and renown, but by that higher and holier path of suffering and renunciation which One chose that we might know He had been there before us. Thou mayest live to be one of this world's heroes, boy; but in the world to come it will be thy brother who will wear the victor's crown."

"I truly believe it," answered Gaston, drawing a deep breath; "but yet we cannot spare him from this world. I give him into thy hands, my Father, that thou mayest save him for us here."