CHAPTER XI.

By what means I was delivered from _Le Grand Sarrasin_, and how I found shelter with the priest of _St. Apolline's_.

The cell had been dark before. Now it was black as night, and having eaten my friend's goodly parcel of food, I was refreshed, and eagerly awaited his return. Presently he was with me, and softly rolling the great door on its hinge, let me swiftly through into the long earthy passage that led upward. We traversed many yards, and I know not what treasures I saw heaped hastily on this side or on that, and I saw at the end, where the path passed forth, the form of the sentinel at his post. Now all our hope lay in what that moment chanced. He lolled easily against the rock, gazing forth, as I thought dreamily, into the open. My companion drew me along on tiptoe till we were even a pace behind him. We were so close that I think I heard him breathe. Then rapidly the man felt a scarf round his mouth and wiry fingers at his throat, so that he could make no sound.

"Strike, Nigel!" said my comrade. "There is little time for mercy!"

So I drew my companion's dagger from his waist and used it swiftly, though it went sore against my nature thus to strike a sentinel at his post by surprise.

He fell heavily backward. I drew forth the dagger, and we ran swiftly for the cover of the side of a building. Along the wall we crept warily and without sound, and the next moment I saw my deliverer swing himself upon a bough that hung within his reach. In his train I followed, as he caught wondrous craftily in the darkness now at this branch, now at that, and more than once passed like an ape or squirrel of the woodland from tree to tree. At last I looked down and saw the wall loom from below, and the branch whereon I clung spread across the wall into the open. There we dropped down right nimbly as I remember a full ten feet, and the branch swung back from our hands noiselessly, and without sound we passed swiftly on hands and knees for a space under the near shelter of the forest brushwood.

Nothing was said till we were a round two hundred yards within, and then my friend pointed to a little path, for the moon was risen.

"Yonder, dear lad," he said, "lies thy way to the Vale, and I must now be for a space a dead man in the woods, outcast even of the pirates."

"Nay, friend," said I, "I go not back to the Vale till I come with force to release them from their woes."

"What!" said he. "Thou still art minded to journey to Normandy? Oh, dear and knightly lad!"

"Yea," I said, "thither must lie my road, and I pray thee to help me on my way, for indeed I fear to fall into Geoffrey's jaws again; and now three days are lost that should have brought me nearer to William."

"If it be indeed thy will," he said, "and indeed thou couldst not will better, since, as the case is, yonder castle could not many weeks withstand the Sarrasin, thou must come with me, and on the road to my good friend, to whom I journey for safety, I will ponder over this matter, and concert a scheme, whereby the wish of thy heart may be carried out. Meanwhile, trust me, good child, as so far thou hast nobly done."

"One thing, good friend," I said, as we swung along southward, "what is thy name, that I may know whom I may thank for this wonderful deliverance."

My comrade laughed strangely at my words, and answered hastily--

"For names, lad, we are not over-ready with them in the château yonder. Ofttimes their sound, compared with their ring in other days, bringeth more pain than joy. You may call me, if thou wilt, Des Bois, for indeed I love the woodland. And for thanks, lad, thank me with a kind word and trustful look, and a good stroke of the sword, if that be needful ever for mine honour."

So we strode on, and as the moonlight made silvery passages amid the trees, I watched him as he knitted his brows in thought, whether on my account or his own I knew not. I thought I saw in him all that I dreamed of knightly spirit, and I guessed that in Des Bois lay hidden one like Brother Hugo, who for some reason masked a great and noble name in this poor, paltry disguise. Ay, but it was a visage that not long rested serious. A smile broke over its furrows, making it like a field that smiled in the sunlight, and he said right gaily in my ear--

"Ay, good lad, we will weave thee a rope to Normandy both strong and subtle, and witty withal, and thou shalt hear its texture when we arrive yonder; but as the night wears on, we must ride faster, or trot ourselves, since steed are lacking, so let us not lose time."

With that indeed he broke into a nimble run, and I followed. And ere half a mile was passed, we were out of the forest and by the shore of the sea, hard by Cobo Bay, and keeping still close to cover, lest danger should arise--for the pirates had their sentinels in huts in every small harbour of the isle--we ere long were by La Perelle Bay, and I could see on Lihou the dim outline of the monastery.

Soon Des Bois turned sharply to the left, and we were soon in a trim wood that ran up almost from the shore. The blind, thick wall of a small building lay in our path, and by its side a little low-roofed hut of daub and wattle.

"The chapel of good St. Apolline!" I said in surprise, for I knew well that little shrine by the coast, where the fisher-people made supplication for good weather and success in their craft, and hung up their poor offerings for the holy saint's honour.

"Ay, that it is," said Des Bois. "Now will we find its guardian at his vigils."

He oped with ease the latch of the lowly door of the hut, and we found, indeed, no saint at matins or prime, but only the priest of St. Apolline, curled on his wood settle in honest slumber, and snoring lustily withal.

Des Bois gazed at him with a merry smile, and presently tweaked him merrily by the ear, crying out--

"Up, good hog! up, griskin-knave! up, lubber! and provide meet entertainment for honest men."

"Ralf! Ralf!" sang out the priest in alarm, as he leapt from his poor couch. "What make you here at this hour of night?"

"Often hast thou," answered Des Bois, "with sage reproof bid me turn to an honest and a sober life, and now I have turned to the side of the holy saints. Lo! I have cut my ropes this night, and am free again. Free, that is to say, if thou wilt hide me for a season, and do thy good offices for Nigel here, who indeed hath saved me, as I him."

The good priest grasped his hand, and I thought he wept, as though Des Bois' words conveyed more than I could understand. The two men drew aside together and whispered seriously for a time.

But I was glad, before they ceased, to wash away the blood from my wounds, and all the dust and sweat of my capture and escape. And after much washing in the brook, I felt well-nigh a new man; and sitting down at the priest's rough board, we next refreshed ourselves with such store as the good man had. And after we had eaten, Des Bois, whose name I now knew was Ralf, began to explain the plan by means of which I was still to journey safely to Normandy.

"Hark you, good Nigel," said Ralf. "I have discovered a rare likeness betwixt you and our Father, this dear Augustine. Indeed, saving for the marks of time, ye might be brothers of one birth. Now, it likes me not to cast away prodigally such rare aid given by Mother Nature to our designs. So, look you, you shall journey to Normandy as Father Augustine, priest of St. Apolline's in Guernsey, while Father Augustine and I, dear yoke-fellows of old, shall betake ourselves, as once or twice before, to the nether-world for a season."

Father Augustine smiled his assent to the scheme, as I asked hastily--

"But, even so, how will the knaves yonder let me pass?"

Ralf smiled as he replied, "Ay, they will not molest thee. Augustine hath a gift of walking warily, so that all men count him their friend, and, earnest man, he hath full oft his own good designs, that carry him to and fro across the seas. Thou hast but to stride with his smart step boldly by yon château gate, and so to Pierre Port, and none will forbid thy passage on any vessel that thou pleasest, if thou but give good word to all thou meetest, Moor and islander alike, good man and good dame. Pat, too, the little innocents on the head with a paternal blessing. Answer not save in words of hearty jest. Keep a front unconcerned and free, though thy heart rap hard against thy chest-bones, and, in good faith, within a sennight or twain thou wilt be back in the isle, with Duke William at thy tail."

"And it is well for thee, good lad," said Augustine, "that thou art better suited than this rogue to figure harmlessly as a priest that men trust. But surely it will aid thee much in carrying through this scheme that thou wast bred amid monks, and churchmen, and art used to their ways of act and speech. Yea, lad, with a bold step and an easy manner thou wilt be safer beneath my cloak in the open than if by secret paths thou essayedst never so warily to cheat the Sarrasin's sentinels."

What could I do but thank them, and yield myself with all despatch into their hands, to be turned by means of razor and paint, of cunning dye, still nearer like the priest of St. Apolline? In the end, as I drew the good father's cowl around my pate, and essayed to imitate his careless stride and easy gait, they both swore that the good saint himself, were he to escape from the skies and visit his earthly shrine, would be hard put to it to know which was his own priest and which the counterfeit.

But ere this the sun was up, and there were sounds of fishermen already moving in the bay below. We knew that by this time our escape must be discovered, and so with hurried counsel my friends betook themselves away--at least, they were with me at one moment, and then of a sudden, like dreams, were lost to my sight. And I, as it were to try the strength of my disguise, went down for a short space among the huts of the fisher-people.

There goodman and goodwife alike gave me friendly greeting, and I cheerily told them they must spare me for one sennight, if that might be; whereupon the children, running up, stayed further question, and in a moment I, in my long, sober cloak, was a war-horse, or a crazy bull at the least, that went ramping among their blue-eyed chivalry, carrying little affright, but rather earning peals of merry laughter.