CHAPTER IX

Into the Dragon’s Jaws

“Draw back thy head into the leaves, wilt thou, fool? The glitter of that morion would scare our birds if they fly this way, to say nought of 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 I shorten it with my dagger!”

“Come, no quarrelling when there is work in hand,” broke in a deeper growl, “or I brain ye both with my axe, which hath split skulls as thick ere now!”

The ghostly effect of these hoarse whispers, which mingled so strangely with the rush of the river and the moan of the rising storm, was deepened tenfold by the fact that no living thing was to be seen. It seemed as if the very leaves of the forest were whispering to each other some ghastly secret in the spectral twilight of that gloomy autumn evening, which was fast darkening into night.

A child might have guessed that men who were lurking at such an hour in the thickets that overhung the ford of the Arguenon could be after no good; and in truth they did well to hide themselves, for it would have been hard to find, even in an age so fruitful in ruffians of high and low degree, a more villainous-looking rabble of cut-throats. On each and all of those various faces—swarthy, keen-eyed, brigand-like Spaniards; sinewy, black-haired, sallow Genoese; sturdy, yellow-bearded Flemings; and red-haired, hard-featured Scots—was stamped the same brand of savage violence, swaggering recklessness, and brutal debauchery that harmonized but too well with their blood-rusted weapons, dinted steel-caps, and slovenly dress—an unsightly mixture of tawdry finery and squalid filth.

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

More than two years had passed since the tournament which saw the best knights of Brittany fall before the then untried lance of young Du Guesclin, and the great national storm which was then threatening had burst in all its fury. King Edward of England was marching through Picardy with thousands of English archers and men-at-arms at his back; war was raging along the whole border of Flanders; France was all tumult, disorder, and senseless division; and the Channel swarmed with French, English, Flemish, and Spanish warships, and with the countless corsairs who, while pretending to belong to one side or the other, robbed both with strict impartiality, pouncing now on Sussex and Dorset, now on Normandy and Brittany, and taking their chance of being hanged like dogs if they met a stronger force than their own.

To this class belonged the worthies now in ambush at the ford, who had come on a plundering cruise up the little Breton river at the mouth of which lay their ship. They had been just about to go back to her with their booty, when they learned by chance that a lady of rank was returning that way with a small train from a visit to the shrine of Notre Dame de Lamballe; and the captain, whose savage face and brutal look matched well with the dragon crest of his battered helmet, had at once made up his mind to await and seize this new prize, whose ransom would certainly outweigh all the other gains of their expedition put together.

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

“Here is the ford at last, ill betide it!” growled a grim veteran who led the party—no other, in fact, than the Norman ex-bandit who had told to Bertrand du Guesclin, three years before, the strange tale of Lady Tiphaine de Raguenel. “But night will be upon us ere we can reach Ploncoët.”

“And what if it be, good Blaise?” said the taller of the two women, in a clear, sweet voice, that contrasted strikingly with the old spearman’s harsh tones. “Surely thou, of all men living, fearest not wolves or robbers?”

“I fear nought earthly, noble lady, especially in the service of one so saintly as yourself; but you know these woods have no good name, and to pass 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 to light up her beautiful face like a saint’s crown of glory. “What have we to fear, so long as we are doing His will? But perhaps,” she added archly, “thou art loath to venture into the haunted forest with one whom men call ‘Tiphaine the Fairy.’”

“You do but jest, lady!” cried Blaise, with sudden fierceness. “Let any man, be he knight or churl, dare to say in my hearing that the noble demoiselle Tiphaine de Raguenel is akin to sprites or fairies, or aught else but the holiest angels of heaven, and I will so deal with him that——”

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 Raguenel men-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 had fully expected an attack ere reaching their halting-place. Closing sternly round their young mistress, they faced their swarming foes, who were thirty to twelve, as bravely as men could do.

Steel rang on steel, man grappled man, blows rained at hap-hazard in the darkness, and death came blindly, none knew whence or how. The heavy trampling and hard breathing of the combatants amid the ghostly gloom showed how fiercely the fight was contested. More than one ruffian who had thought this handful of men an easy prey, fell writhing in the dust, and, for a few moments, arms and discipline balanced superior 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 into the thick of the fight, and came hand to hand with Blaise himself, who stood like a tower before the daughter of his lord, shielding her with his own body. A stamp, an oath, a clang of steel, a quick, convulsive gasp, and the brave old Norman lay at Tiphaine’s feet, with his life-blood gushing through his iron-grey hair.

But ere the final blow could fall, the girl thrust herself between the murderer and his victim, and, standing over the fallen man, waved back the pirate’s dripping blade with her bare hand as boldly as if she were invulnerable.

“Begone, impious men!” she cried, with stern and solemn emphasis. “Will ye peril your souls by molesting the pilgrims of God? Too much blood have ye shed already; shed no more, I charge ye! Go and repent, ere it be too late!”

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

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

“Notre Dame! Notre Dame! to the rescue!”

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

Down went the first robber who met that terrible charge, pierced through steel and bone and body, till the good lance stood out a full yard behind his back. Ere the next man’s uplifted sword could descend, the black rider’s battle-axe flashed and fell, and sword and hand dropped in the trampled dust together. With a crash like the fall of an oak, the terrible axe smote the head of a third ruffian, who fell dead where he stood, cloven through steel-cap and skull to the teeth.

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

The same conviction pulsed like an electric shock through the terrified corsairs, 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 the avenging swords of their pursuers; and few, very few, ever reached the boats. Two were cut down while actually springing on board, and a third, missing his leap, fell headlong into the water, and was dragged down by the weight of his armour to rise no more, shrieking in vain for the help which no one had any thought of giving; for, in an age when men 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 was he? Standing motionless among the dead, like one spellbound, glancing in wondering awe from the livid features of the last man that he had struck 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 by his own contending emotions, he threw open his visor; and at sight of the 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 for the Evil One himself!”

But just then the dying Blaise, with that sudden return of perfect consciousness which is so often, in such cases, the immediate forerunner of death, looked up with a glance of joyful recognition at the 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’s blessing be on him!”

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

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

“Knight am I none as yet,” said the future hero of Brittany, with a slight flush; “but I am he of whom thou art pleased to speak so far beyond 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 from heaven?”

“Because,” said the young noble, solemnly, “I saw thee, years agone, in a dream sent from God.”

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

“And then,” he ended, “meseemed this lady who wore thy semblance set a laurel 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 of sudden 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. “Five years since, on the Eve of St. John, I beheld in a dream one in thy likeness, and methought a voice from heaven bade me crown him as the deliverer of our oppressed land from all her foes. Hail to thee, champion of France! Let thy war-cry henceforth be as it hath been this day, ‘Notre Dame!’ in proof that thou art truly the soldier of heaven; and let this sacred rosary, brought by a holy pilgrim from Mount Carmel, hang on thy neck from this day in token that God is with thee for the deliverance of France, for alas! she standeth in sore need of it.”