Читать книгу The Sword of Gideon - John Bloundelle-Burton - Страница 9

That night Bevill Bracton slept well, and as he had not slept since he first went on board Le Grand Roi at Harwich two days ago. For the vessel had been full of persons, and especially children, who suffered from the sea; the passage had been rough and, consequently, noisy; while, although the wind was favourable for reaching the Dutch coast, it had rendered sleep impossible.

But this night had made amends for all, and Bevill Bracton, springing out of bed as he heard the clock of St. Peter's striking seven, prepared to make himself ready for the day's journey. Overnight, before he had sought sleep, he had thanked Heaven devoutly for having allowed him to penetrate so far as even this old city of Louvain, and into what was, in truth, the enemy's country--by seizure, though not by right. Now once more he prayed that, as he had been thus far favoured, so he might still be.

One thing he observed at once as he threw back the heavy shutters from his windows, which looked down into the great courtyard. He saw that the great travelling coach was gone. The Comtesse, whose title he had learnt from the landlord ere he sought his bed overnight was De Valorme, had departed with any following she might have other than the ancient domestic he had seen at table, and the woman, Jeanne, of whom they had spoken.

"Yet," Bevill said to himself, "at the pace La Rose," as he had now named the mare, "can travel as against the speed that heavy lumbering coach can attain, I should pass her ere she has accomplished half the distance to Liége--long before she has reached St. Trond, indeed. And," for still there was in his mind a thought, a fear--engendered doubtless by the dangers with which he must be now surrounded, and would be doubly surrounded as he progressed farther, and when he had entered Liége--that in this woman there might be hidden something that would imperil his safety, "and if she is a spy, at least it is as well I should be there before her. Let me waste no time therefore."

He folded up his haversack and cloak, although, as he could see by the courtyard, which was wet and had little pools of rain lying in the hollows between the old, worn stones, it must have rained during the night or early morning, although it was now a fair, sweet day. The late May sun was shining down fiercely on the red roofs; a thrush was singing blithely in its wicker cage as though rejoicing in the warmth and light; one or two of the heavy, clownish domestics of the inn were making an early meal of black bread and blacker beer at a table below him; all nature smiled.

He descended, therefore, carrying his haversack and cloak, and with his recently purchased pistols thrust in his sash under his coat, since no traveller left such weapons far from his hand when he slept in strange houses, and, going once more to the Speiseraum, ordered some breakfast. Then he went out to see that all was well with La Rose.

Half an hour later he was on the way to Liége, and was riding along roads that passed through orchards which were now losing all their pink and white blossoms as the fruit slowly developed on the trees.

Because he was young and strong and healthy; because, too, he had great hopes before him, he took a keen delight in all that was around him--in the fresh morning air that he drew into his lungs in great draughts, in the sight of the full-leaved, half blossom and half fruit gardens and orchards, even in the brooks that had been cut by the sides of those orchards in long past days, and through which the water ran with a swishing sound--he was jocund. He felt how good it was to live and to be passing through the land on such a morning as this, to hear the birds singing and twittering, and to see the cattle already seeking shade from the morning sun; to cry out "Good-morning" to the peasants in the fields or "God be with you" to the old people sitting outside their houses, their life's labour done. He felt thus because he was young, and strong, and full of life; because, too, his blood was stirred by the thought of the adventures which must surely lie before him; because almost he felt as though he were some young knight-errant of dead and long-forgotten centuries riding forth to rescue a lady fair who, immured in some gloomy town or fortalice, waited for him with longing, eager eyes.

"And if the miniature does not belie sweet Sylvia Thorne," Bevill murmured to himself as the mare cantered along the white roads which the sun had now dried, "then no knight in armour ever rode in far-off days to the assistance of woman more fair than she. As a child she was winsome. I wonder if this stately woman, whose portrait I have gazed on so of ten since my lord gave it into my charge, is winsome still? Winsome--yes, it may well be so. But grave, almost austere, as those eyes that look out at me whenever I gaze on the portrait proclaim; stately in her bearing, almost cold. Well! Cold let her be. What matters it to me? She is not the guerdon that I seek to win, but only the means by which I shall win the guerdon I would have. Let me but do my best, and all will be very well. Mistress Thorne may freeze me with one glance from those calm eyes, and yet my lord Marlborough shall warm me back to life with his approval."

The day went on, the sun rose high in the cloudless sky, and, except for the various halts which Bevill made under shady trees, or on the cool side of old Lutheran churches and quaint Flemish houses, to rest La Rose--and once to refresh himself--he had wasted no time. So that he knew, not only by the sign-posts and the hamlets he had passed through, but also by a routier, or chart of the district, which hung in the dark hall of the "Duc de Brabant," that he must be nearing a small town called St. Trond, a place that lay nearer to Liége than to Louvain.

"Madame de Valorme set out at six, the landlord told me," Bevill reflected, "and I ere the clocks struck eight; I marvel much that I have not come up with her coach yet. Her horses must travel faster than I thought, or that coach be lighter than its appearance warranted."

Then, at this moment, there came an interruption to any further meditations on his part.

A shot rang out on the clear noontide air, one that caused the nervous, excitable mare to swerve and spring across the road, almost unseating Bevill; and then, while he recovered himself, to gallop wildly along the white straight road bordered by pollard trees.

"Gently, gently," Bevill exclaimed, as he endeavoured to soothe her, while, since he was a finished horseman, he knew better than to attempt to check her suddenly, but drew her up gradually. "Gently. Though, 'fore Heaven, that sudden report was enough to startle one less flighty than she. Whence," he mused, "did that shot proceed? To my left, surely, and from a side road which I passed a moment ere the report rang forth. Was," with a dark look on his face, "the ball intended for me? Well, we will see to it."

Whereupon, since now La Rose was, by the aid of much stroking of her neck and patting and soothing, restored somewhat to calmness, Bevill turned her head round in the direction they had come, and at last persuaded her, though it was not easy to do, to retrace her steps to the crossroads.

Also, he opened the covers of his holsters and threw them back, so that the butt of each of his new pistols should be ready to his hand.

"I may be indebted for a favour to some marauder," he muttered, "and I abhor debt. If I owe one, it shall be repaid in full." After which he loosened his sword in its sheath, and so reached the crossroads.

As he turned into it he saw nothing at first, unless it was the ominous twitching of the mare's ears; but a moment later he heard a voice, and that a woman's--a voice that exclaimed:

"You cowardly dastards! You--you Flemish boors! To attack a woman--to slay an old man!"

"Great powers!" exclaimed Bevill to himself, as now a touch of his knee sent La Rose forward swiftly, while at the same time he drew forth the pistol from the right holster. "'To slay an old man.' And that voice hers. Hers!"

"French! French! French!" he heard several voices exclaim together in the raucous, guttural, Low Frankish dialect of the district. "You are all French Papists, servants of the great Papist King in Paris, of the Italian Priest in Rome. We will not spare you. Or," one voice said, "not your wealth, if we spare your lives. And he, this dead one, should not have resisted us."

Whatever the ruffians who thus spoke might have intended doing was now, however, doomed to be frustrated. Bevill Bracton was amongst them--a party of seven men, armed some with great horse pistols, one or two with reaping hooks, and another with a rusty sword. In a moment they were, however, scattered, the mare knocking down two as she lashed out, while one received a bullet in the shoulder from Bevill, and, falling to the ground, vowed that he was dead.

But amidst the confusion, and while Bevill cried, "Stop, all of you. He who attempts to fly shall be shot on the spot," he was able to see at a glance what had happened.

The coach--the driver had doubtless been misdirected, or the horses' heads had not been turned down this side road--stood lower down the lane than those who had occupied it. At the feet of the horses lay the man who was undoubtedly the coachman; by his side knelt the Comtesse de Valorme, looking up at the boors who had attacked the party. Jeanne, her maid, an elderly woman, seemed to have fainted inside the coach; while old Ambroise, who was weeping and shaking all over, stood with a footman close by the side of his mistress.

Now, as Bevill dismounted, Madame de Valorme, looking up at him, exclaimed:

"Ah! The Capitaine Le Blond. Heaven be praised!"

"By his side knelt the Comtesse."

But Bevill had no time to be startled at hearing himself addressed thus, nor to speculate as to whether the Comtesse had discovered his assumed name from the landlord, or had herself searched for it in the register. His attention was otherwise needed.

"You brute dogs!" he exclaimed in the best Dutch he could muster. "So 'tis thus war begins with you--by attacks on women and old men." While, as he spoke, he thrust his discharged pistol back into the right holster and drew out that in the left.

"We are starving," one man said. "You--you--French trample us down, take all--you, who are as bad as the Spaniards were. We retaliate when we can."

"Is there a rope?" Bevill asked, looking down from his seat on the horse and addressing Ambroise and the younger man, the footman. "One used in the coach? If so, fetch it."

"A rope!" the men howled now, while two of them flung themselves on their knees and whined and screamed for mercy. "A rope! Spare us--spare us! We have taken nothing."

"Except a life," Bevill exclaimed, glancing at the body of the coachman.

Meanwhile, the footman had mounted the box of the coach and was busily engaged in uncording the valises piled up on top of it. But while he did so the Comtesse de Valorme had risen to her feet and had held out her hand to Bevill, which he, after dismounting, took in his.

"How shall a helpless woman, travelling with only serving men in attendance on her, thank one who is strong and brave enough to rescue her?" madame asked. "How? Ah! monsieur----"

"Madame in Comtesse." Bevill replied, "I have but done that which every man would do for a woman. I beseech you say no more."

"It may be that at Liége," the Comtesse continued (and Bevill could not but observe how, as she spoke, her blue eyes looked into his as though endeavouring to read, to decipher, what impression her words might make on him), "at Liége I can return----"

"Madame!"

"----Some of your chivalrous service. Even though proffered to a French officer," and now those eyes shone like sapphires, "in safety--in--a French garrison, a woman's assistance may be worth acceptance."

"She knows me for what I am," Bevill thought; "or, rather, for what I am not. And she will not betray me."

The few words that had been exchanged between him and the Comtesse de Valorme were uttered in low tones, though, even had they been spoken clearly, it is doubtful if the boors who were trembling close by them would have heard, or, in hearing, have understood. For now their courage, their Dutch courage, had left them; they deemed their fate at hand, since, armed as this man was and with a horse on which to pursue them, flight would have been vain.

At this moment their fears were at their height; their whimpers were turned into shrieks and supplications. The footman had descended, bearing in his hand a rope some ten or twelve feet long; while, as the man who had shot one of them and, in a moment, terrified the rest into abject fear, took it in his own hands, they saw that his eyes were directed towards an elm that grew by the side of the road.

"In mercy's sake," the Comtesse whispered, since she, too, saw Bevill's glance, "in the name of Him Who forgives all sinners, proceed to no extremities. And--and--Joseph, my coachman, is not truly dead. The ball has but grazed his face and stunned him. Monsieur, I beseech you--nay, I----"

"Madame," Bevill replied, turning his back to the men who were, in absolute fact, his prisoners, "I had no thought of executing them. But still punishment is their meed. Therefore, I will have them bound to that tree and, at the next village or town--it should be one called St. Trond--there may be some Prévôt-Maréchal or Captain of Maréchaussée to whom we can denounce them. The French, our troops----"

"Yes. Our troops?" with another swift glance.

"Are all about. The line stretches from Antwerp to Cologne, and across the Rhine. Into their hands shall these ruffians be delivered. They shall be the instruments of justice."

Half an hour after this decision had been come to the coach of the Comtesse de Valorme was on its way once more; but now it was driven by the young footman, at whose side Ambroise sat. Outside was Joseph also, who had recovered from the shock he had received, and was now engaged in thanking Heaven for the narrow escape that had been vouchsafed to him, and in calling down blessings on the Comtesse and Jeanne (on whose shoulder his head rested) and Bevill indiscriminately.

Sometimes ahead of the great travelling carriage, and sometimes--though not often--by the side of the open window, where Madame sat, Bevill Bracton rode now as escort. But, as he did so, while keeping ever a vigilant look-out to right and left and in front of him--for he knew not if other groups similar to those who were now, with the exception of the man wounded by him, all tied firmly and back to back to the elm tree, might be about--his thoughts did not dwell on the rescue he had by chance effected, but on the woman he had preserved from outrage and insult. Also, they dwelt on what must be the state of that woman's mind at this time.

"For she is French, and I am a subject of her country's bitterest foe--and she knows it. Or, not knowing, still suspects. And yet--and yet--if I mistake her not, if I have read her aright, I have rendered her harmless. Likewise, she is a good woman. She pleaded for mercy for those vagabonds, not knowing that there was no need for pleading, since I am no hangman; she spoke of Him Who pardons all sinners. 'Tis not of such stuff as this that spies, denouncers, women who rend the hand that is held out to them, are made. Yet, knowing all, she must be torn with vastly conflicting feelings. How shall she reconcile herself to befriending one who is of those who would render her ambitious, evil King harmless? How shall she, a Frenchwoman, bring herself to be the ally of an Englishman?"

But still, even as Bevill mused, he knew that he and his secret, or as much as she knew or could guess of it, were safe in this woman's hands.

A moment later, he had certain proof that he had divined aright.

They were drawing near St. Trond now; ahead of them they could see the smoke curling up in the afternoon air, and they could also see the men lounging at the barrier through which admission was gained to the town.

"We shall be there," the Comtesse said to Bevill, who was at this time riding by the window of the coach, while directing her glance to the little place, "ere many moments are passed. Monsieur," and she put her gloved hand upon the sash and leant forward towards him, "those men will have suffered enough by the time they are released from that tree. I ask you not to call the attention of any Prévôt or officer of Maréchaussée to their being there, or to their attack on me."

"Madame is truly of a forgiving nature. Yet, since it is her concern, not mine----"

"It would be best, even though, unhappily, forgiveness plays no part in my desire. Questions might be asked, explanations required; nay," and once more the deep blue eyes looked full into Bevill's, "some of monsieur's brother mousquetaires may be here." And now those eyes looked strangely; almost it seemed as though they conveyed a menace. Yet, Bevill asked himself, even as a chill seemed to strike to his heart, as icy fingers seemed to clutch at it, could this woman be false; a traitress to one who had helped and succoured her? Was she no better than a female Sparmann?

"She spoke," he said to himself, "of Him Who pardons all sinners; she besought mercy for those who had molested her. Can such as she be a spy? I will never believe it."

Then, suddenly gazing down at her--and now the intensity of his glance equalled her own, while he saw she did not blench beneath it--he said, not roughly, yet determinately:

"Have done with equivocations, madame, with pointed words," remembering the accentuation of those words "monsieur's brother mousquetaires." "Speak plainly. Truth, openness, are ever best."

"If," the Comtesse said now, though still all was not open, her meaning not altogether apparent, "if you are what I believe--nay, what I know you to be--and you are discovered, your life is in awful danger. If you reach Liége you will, if betrayed, never quit it alive."

"Who shall betray me to my death? Answer me. Since you have told so much, tell more. What is it you know, and who and what are you?"

"A woman," the Comtesse answered. "One who does not betray gallant men to their deaths."

"This death you speak of is certain?"

"Certain. Beyond all doubt. For you are----"

"What?"

"Listen. Bend down from your horse. Not even they," with a glance above to where the servants were, "must hear."

"Great Heaven!" Bevill exclaimed when he had done so and she had whispered in his ear.

For the words she had thus whispered were: "You are an Englishman, and your name is not Le Blond. Have I not said truly? If you are discovered your doom is certain."