CHAPTER IV.

THE DEFILE OF GLEN-CLAN.

The defile of Glen-Clan is the only practicable passage across the last links of the Black Mountains--a mountain chain that constitutes a veritable girdle of granite as a natural protection to the heart of Brittany. The defile of Glen-Clan is so narrow that a wagon can barely thread it; it is so steep that six yoke of oxen are barely able to drag a wagon up its craggy incline, from the top of which a stone of considerable size would roll rapidly down to the bottom of the pass--a pass cut, like the bed of a mountain torrent, at the feet of immense rocks that rise on either side perpendicular over a hundred feet in the air.

A distant rumbling noise, confused at first, and becoming more and more distinct as it draws nearer and nearer, disturbs one day, shortly after the angry departure of Abbot Witchaire from Brittany, the otherwise profound silence of the solitude. By little and little the dull tramp of cavalry is distinguished; presently also the clanking of iron arms upon iron armor, and finally the rythmic tread of large troops of foot soldiers, the lumbering of wagon wheels jolting upon the stony ground, the neighing of horses and the bellowing of yoke-oxen. All these various sounds draw nearer, grow louder, and are finally blended into one steady roar. They announce the approach of an army corps of considerable proportions. Suddenly the mournful and prolonged cry of a night bird is heard from the crest of the rocks that overhang the defile. Other similar, but more distant cries answer the first signal, like an echo that loses itself in the distance. Silence ensues thereupon--except for the tumultuous din of the advancing army corps. A small troop appears at the entrance of the tortuous passage; a monk on horseback guides the scouting party. At the monk's side rides a warrior of tall stature, clad in rich armor. His white buckler, on which three eagle's talons are designed, hangs to one side from the pommel of his saddle, while an iron mace dangles from the other. Behind the Frankish chief ride several cavalrymen accompanied by about a score of Saxon archers, distinguishable by their long quivers.

"Hugh," says the chief of the warriors to one of his men, "take with you two horsemen, and let five or six archers precede you to make certain that there is no ambush to fear. At the slightest sign of an attack fall back upon us and give the alarm. I do not wish to entangle the gross of my troop in this defile without the necessary precautions."

Hugh obeys his chief. The little vanguard quickens its step and soon disappears beyond one of the windings of the pass.

"Neroweg, the measure is wise," observes the monk. "One could not advance with too much precaution into this accursed country of Brittany, where I have lived long enough to know that it is extremely dangerous."

"At the end of this defile, I am told, we enter upon even ground."

"Yes, but before that we shall have to cross the marsh of Peulven and the forest of Cardik; we then arrive at the vast moor of Kennor, the rendezvous of the two other armed bodies of Louis the Pious, who are marching to that point across the river Vilaine and over the defile of Mount Orock, as we are to penetrate through this one. Morvan will be attacked from three sides, and will not be able to resist our forces."

"I marvel that so important a pass as this is not defended."

"I furnished you the reason when I delivered to you Morvan's plan of campaign, that was forwarded to me by Kervor, a pious Catholic who came over to the Frankish side and submitted to the authority of our King. He is the chief of the southern tribes whose territory we have just crossed."

"I loved to see those people so docile to the priests; they furnished us with supplies, and at your voice knelt down as we passed."

"At the time of the other wars you would have dropped fully one-half of your troops in this region so cut up with bogs, hedges and woods. The change between now and then is great. The Catholic faith penetrates little by little these people, formerly so intractable. We have preached to them submission to Louis the Pious, and menaced them with the fires of hell if they attempted to resist your arms."

"Indeed, more than one of the troopers of the old bands who fought here at the time of Charles the Great, have told me they could no longer recognize the Bretons, who, in their days, were almost invincible. But for all your explanations, monk, I cannot understand how this pass comes to be abandoned."

"And yet nothing is simpler. According to his plan of campaign, Morvan counted with the resistance of the tribes that we have just crossed. In one day, without drawing your sword, you have cleared a track that would otherwise have cost you three days' hard fighting, and a fourth of your troops. Morvan, never apprehending your early arrival at the defile of Glen-Clan, will not think of having it occupied until this evening, or to-morrow. He has not enough forces at his disposal to place them where they would lie idle while he himself is being attacked from two other sides by as many army corps."

"To that argument I have nothing to say, my father in Christ, you know the country better than I. If this war succeeds, I shall have my share of the conquered territory; and, according to the promise of Louis the Pious, I shall become a powerful seigneur in Brittany, as my elder brother, Gonthran, is in Auvergne."

"And you will not forget to endow the Church."

"I shall not be ungrateful to the priests, good father. I shall employ a part of the booty in building a chapel to St. Martin, for whom our family has ever entertained a particular devotion. Could you, who are well acquainted with the customs of the Bretons, tell me what corners they hide their money in? It is claimed that they remove all their treasures when they are forced to flee from their houses, and that they bury them in inaccessible hiding places. Is that so?"

"When we shall have arrived in the heart of the country, I shall acquaint you with the means to discover those treasures, which are, almost always, concealed at the foot of certain druid stones, for which these pagans preserve an idolatrous reverence."

"But where shall we find those stones? By what signs are they to be recognized?"

"That is my secret, Neroweg. It will become _ours_ after we shall have reached the heart of the country."

Thus conversing, the monk and the Frankish chief slowly ascend the craggy slope of the defile. From time to time, some of the horsemen, or foot soldiers, detached as scouts, ride back to acquaint Neroweg with their observations. Finally, Hugh himself returns and informs his master that there is nothing to cause any apprehension on the score of an ambuscade. Completely reassured by these reports, and by the explanations of the monk, Neroweg gives the order for the advance of his troops, the footmen first, the horsemen next, then the baggage, and last of all a rear corps of foot soldiers.

The army corps breaks up and enters the pass that is so narrow as to allow a passage to only four men abreast. The long and winding column of men covered with iron, crowded together, and moving slowly, presents a strange spectacle from the top of the rocks that dominate the narrow route. It might be taken for some gigantic serpent with iron scales, deploying its sinuous folds in a ravine cut between two walls of granite. The misgivings of the Franks, somewhat alarmed when they first began threading their way through a passage so propitious to an ambush, are presently removed and make place for unquestioning confidence. Already the vanguard that precedes Neroweg and the monk is drawing near the issue of the defile, while at the other end the baggage wagons, drawn by oxen, begin to set themselves in motion followed by the rear guard that consists of Thuringian horsemen and Saxon archers. The last wagons and the rear guard have barely entered the defile, when suddenly the lugubrious cry of the night bird, resembling that which had greeted the first arrival of the Frankish army, resounds again, and is echoed from peak to peak, along the whole length of the overtopping rocks. Immediately thereupon, pushed by invisible arms, several enormous boulders detach themselves from the surrounding rocks that an instant before seemed a solid part of themselves, roll and bound with the rattle of thunder from the top of the crest down to the foot of the mountain, and fall crashing upon the wagons, crushing a large number of soldiers to death, mutilating many more and disabling the train. In their paroxysms of death, or rendered furious by their wounds, the oxen crowd upon or roll over one another, and throw the rear guard of the Franks into such frightful disorder that it is wholly unable to make another step in advance; it is cut off from the gross of the troops by the lumber in its way; it is reduced to utter impotence. All along the rest of the length of the defile of Glen-Clan the Franks are in similar plight. All along the line, fragments of rocks roll down from the overtopping crests, crushing and decimating the compact mass of soldiers below. The gigantic serpent of iron is mutilated, cut into bleeding sections; it writhes convulsively at the bottom of the ravine, while from the summits on either side, now crowned with a swarm of Bretons, who kept themselves until then concealed, a hailstorm of arrows, boar-spears and stones rains down upon the bewildered, panic-stricken and impotent Frankish cohorts, caught and hemmed in between the two granite walls, from whose tops our men deal prompt and unavoidable death to their invaders. Vortigern is in command of these resolute and watchful Bretons. His bow in one hand, his quiver by his side, not one of his bolts misses its mark.

The butchery is frightful! The carnage superb! The Gallic war-songs and cries of triumph from above answer the imprecations of the Franks from below. A frightful butchery!

A superb carnage! It lasts as long as our men have a stone to throw, a bolt or a spear to hurl at the foe. His own, and the munitions of his companions being exhausted, Vortigern cries down from the summit of the rocks to the frantic Franks below, accompanying the cry with a gesture of defiance:

"We will thus defend our soil, inch by inch; every step you take will be marked by your blood or our own; all our tribes are not like those of Kervor!"

Saying this, Vortigern struck up the martial song of his ancestor Schanvoch:

"This morning we asked: 'How many are there of these Franks? How many are there of these barbarians?' This evening we say: 'How many were there of these Franks? How many were there of these barbarians?'"[E]