In the Days of Chivalry Part 28

What did it all mean? What had Raymond told him from time to time about the enmity of this man? Did not Gaston himself well remember the adventure of long ago, when he and his brother had entered Basildene by stealth and carried thence the wretched victim of the sorcerer's art?

Was not that the beginning of an enmity which had never been altogether laid to sleep? Had he not heard whispers from time to time all pointing to the conclusion that Sanghurst had neither forgotten nor forgiven, and that he felt his possession of Basildene threatened by the existence of the brothers whose right it was? Had not Raymond placed himself almost under vow to win back his mother's lost inheritance? And might it not be possible that this knowledge had come to the ears of the present owner?

Gaston ground his teeth in rage as he realized what might be the meaning of this cowardly attack. Treachery and cowardice were the two vices most hateful in his eyes, and this vile attack upon an unsuspecting comrade filled him with the bitterest rage as well as with the greatest anxiety.

Plain indeed was it that Raymond had been carried off; but whither? To England? that scarce seemed possible. It would be a daring thing indeed to bring an English subject back to his native land a prisoner. Yet where else could Peter Sanghurst carry a captive? He might have friends amongst the French; but who would be sufficiently interested in his affairs to give shelter to him and his prisoner, when it might lead to trouble perhaps with the English King?

One thought of relief there was in the matter. Plainly it was not Raymond's death that was to be compa.s.sed. If they had wished to kill him, they would have done so upon the battlefield and have left him there, where his death would have excited no surprise or question. No; it was something more than this that was wanted, and Gaston felt small difficulty in guessing what that aim and object was.

"He is to be held for ransom, and his ransom will be our claim upon Basildene. We both shall be called upon to renounce that, and then Raymond will go free. Well, if that be the only way, Basildene must go.

But perchance it may be given to me to save the inheritance and rescue Raymond yet. Would that I knew whither they had carried him! But surely he may be traced and followed. Some there must be who will be able to give me news of them."

Of one thing Gaston was perfectly a.s.sured, and that was that he must now act altogether independently, gain permission to quit the expedition, and pursue his own investigations with his own followers. He had no difficulty in arranging this matter. The leaders had already resolved upon returning to Bordeaux immediately, and taking s.h.i.+p with their spoil and prisoners for England. Had Gaston not had other matters of his own to think of, he would most likely have urged a farther advance upon the beleaguered town, to make sure that it was sufficiently relieved. As it was, he had no thoughts but for his brother's peril; and his anxieties were by no means relieved by the babble of words falling from Roger's lips when he returned to see how it fared with him.

Roger appeared to the kindly soldiers, who had made a rude couch for him and were tending him with such skill as they possessed, to be talking in the random of delirium, and they paid little heed to his words. But as Gaston stood by he was struck by the strange fixity of the youth's eyes, by the rigidity of his muscles, and by the coherence and significance of his words.

It was not a disconnected babble that pa.s.sed his lips; it was the description of some scene upon which he appeared to be looking. He spoke of hors.e.m.e.n galloping through the night, of the Black Visor in the midst and his gigantic companion by his side. He spoke of the unconscious captive they carried in their midst -- the captive the youth struggled frantically to join, that they might share together whatever fate was to be his.

The soldiers naturally believed he was wandering, and speaking of his own ride with his captors; but Gaston listened with different feelings.

He remembered well what he had once heard about this boy and the strange gift he possessed, or was said to possess, of seeing what went on at a distance when he had been in the power of the sorcerer. Might it not be that this gift was not only exercised at the will of another, but might be brought into play by the tension of anxiety evoked by a great strain upon the boy's own nervous system? Gaston did not phrase the question thus, but he well knew the devotion with which Roger regarded Raymond, and it seemed quite possible to him that in this crisis of his life, his body weakened by wounds and fatigue, his mind strained by grief and anxiety as to the fate of him he loved more than life, his spirit had suddenly taken that ascendency over his body which of old it had possessed, and that he was really and truly following in that strange trance-like condition every movement of the party of which Raymond was the centre.

At any rate, whether he were right or not in this surmise, Gaston resolved that he would not lose a word of these almost ceaseless utterings, and dismissing his men to get what rest they could, he sat beside Roger, and listened with attention to every word he spoke.

Roger lay with his eyes wide open in the same fixed and gla.s.sy stare. He spoke of a halt made at a wayside inn, of the rousing up with the earliest stroke of dawn of the keeper of this place, of the inside of the bare room, and the hasty refreshment set before the impatient travellers.

"He sits down, they both sit down, and then he laughs -- ah, where have I heard that laugh before?" and a look of strange terror sweeps over the youth's face. "'I may now remove my visor -- my vow is fulfilled! My enemy is in my hands. My Lord of Navailles, I drink this cup to your good health and the success of our enterprise. We have the victim in our own hands. We can wring from him every concession we desire before we offer him for ransom.'"

Gaston gave a great start. What did this mean? Well indeed he remembered the Sieur de Navailles, the hereditary foe of the De Brocas. Was it, could it be possible, that he was concerned in this capture? Had their two foes joined together to strive to win all at one blow? He must strive to find this out. Could it be possible that Roger really saw and heard all these things? or was it but the fantasy of delirium? Raymond might have spoken to him of the Lord of Navailles as a foe, and in his dreams he might be mixing one thought with the other.

Suddenly Roger uttered a sharp cry and pressed his hands before his eyes. "It is he! it is he!" he cried, with a gasping utterance. "He has removed the mask from his face. It is he -- Peter Sanghurst -- and he is smiling -- that smile. Oh, I know what it means! He has cruel, evil thoughts in his mind. O my master, my master!"

Gaston started to his feet. Here was corroboration indeed. Roger no more knew who the Black Visor was than he had done himself an hour back. Yet he now saw the face of Peter Sanghurst, the very man he himself had discovered the Black Visor to be. This indeed showed that Roger was truly looking upon some distant scene, and a strange thrill ran through Gaston as he realized this mysterious fact.

"And the other, Peter Sanghurst's companion -- what of him? what likeness does he bear?" asked Gaston quickly.

"He is a very giant in stature," was the answer, "with a swarthy skin, black eyes that burn in their sockets, and a coal-black beard that falls below his waist. He has a sear upon his left cheek, and he has lost two fingers upon the left hand. He speaks in a voice like rolling waves, and in a language that is half English and half the Gascon tongue."

"In very truth the Sieur de Navailles!" whispered Gaston to himself.

With every faculty on the alert, he sat beside Roger's bed, listening to every word of his strange babble of talk. He described how they took to horse, fresh horses being provided for the whole company, as though all had been planned beforehand, and how they galloped at headlong pace away -- away -- away, ever faster, ever more furiously, as though resolved to gain their destination at all cost.

The day dawned, but Roger lay still in this trance, and Gaston would not have him disturbed. Until he could know whither his brother had been carried, it was useless to strive to seek and overtake him. If in very truth Roger was in some mysterious fas.h.i.+on watching over him, he would, doubtless, be able to tell whither at length the captive was taken. Then they would to horse and pursue. But they must learn all they could first.

The hours pa.s.sed by. Roger still talked at intervals. If questioned he answered readily -- always of the same hard riding, the changes of horses, the captive carried pa.s.sive in the midst of the troop.

Then he began to speak words that arrested Gaston's attention. He spoke of natural features well known to him: he described a grim fortress, so placed as to be impregnable to foes from without. There were the wide moat, the huge natural mound, the solid wall, the small loopholes.

Gaston held his breath to hear: he knew every feature of the place so described. Was it not the ancient Castle of Saut -- his own inheritance, as he had been brought up to call it? Roger had never seen it; he was almost a.s.sured of that. What he was describing was something seen with that mysterious second sight of his, nothing that had ever impressed itself upon his waking senses.

It was all true, then. Raymond had indeed been taken captive by the two bitter enemies of the house of De Brocas. Peter Sanghurst had doubtless heard of the feud between the two houses, and of the claim set up by Gaston for the establishment of his own rights upon the lands of the foe, and had resolved to make common cause with the Navailles against the brothers. It was possible that they would have liked to get both into their clutches, but that they feared to attack so stalwart a foe as Gaston; or else they might have believed that the possession of the person of Raymond would be sufficient for their purpose. The tie between the twin brothers was known to be strong. It was likely enough that were Raymond's ransom fixed at even an exorbitant sum, the price would be paid by the brother, who well knew that the Tower of Saut was strong enough to defy all attacks from without, and that any person incarcerated in its dungeons would be absolutely at the mercy of its cruel and rapacious lord.

The King of England had his hands full enough as it was without taking up the quarrel of every wronged subject. What was done would have to be done by himself and his own followers; and Gaston set his teeth hard as he realized this, and went forth to give his own orders for the morrow.

At the first glimpse of coming day they were to start forth for the south, and by hard riding might hope to reach Saut by the evening of the second day. Gaston could muster some score of armed men, and they would be like enough to pick up many stragglers on the way, who would be ready enough to join any expedition promising excitement and adventure. To take the Castle of Saut by a.s.sault would, as Gaston well knew, be impossible; but he cherished a hope that it might fall into his hands through strategy if he were patient, and if Roger still retained that marvellous faculty of second-sight which revealed to his eyes things hidden from the vision of others.

He slept all that night without moving or speaking, and when he awoke in the morning it was in a natural state, and at first he appeared to have no recollection of what had occurred either to himself or to Raymond.

But as sense and memory returned to him, so did also the shadow of some terrible doom hanging over his beloved young master; and though he was still weak and ill, and very unfit for the long journey on horseback through the heat of a summer's day, he would not hear of being left behind, and was the one to urge upon the others all the haste possible as they rode along southward after the foes who had captured Raymond.

On, on, on! there were no halts save for the needful rest and refreshment, or to try to get fresh horses to carry them forward. A fire seemed to burn in Gaston's veins as well as in those of Roger; and the knowledge that they were on the track of the fugitives gave fresh ardour to the pursuit at every halting place.

Only a few hours were allowed for rest and sleep during the darkest hour of the short night, and then on -- on -- ever on, urged by an overmastering desire to know what was happening to the prisoner behind those gloomy walls.

Roger's sleep that night had been disturbed by hideous visions. He did not appear to know or see anything that was pa.s.sing; but a deep gloom hung upon his spirit, and he many times woke s.h.i.+vering and crying out with horror at he knew not what; whilst Gaston lay broad awake, a strange sense of darkness and depression upon his own senses. He could scarce restrain himself from springing up and summoning his weary followers to get to horse and ride forth at all risks to the very doors of Saut, and only with the early dawn of day did any rest or refreshment fall upon his spirit.

Roger looked more himself as they rode forth in the dawn.

"Methinks we are near him now," he kept saying; "my heart is lighter than it was. We will save him yet -- I am a.s.sured of it! He is not dead; I should surely know it if he were. We are drawing nearer every step. We may be with him ere nightfall."

"The walls of Saut lie betwixt us," said Gaston, rather grimly, but he looked sternly resolute, as though it would take strong walls indeed to keep him from his brother when they were so near.

The country was beginning to grow familiar to him. He picked up followers in many places as he pa.s.sed through. The name of De Brocas was loved here; that of De Navailles was loathed, and hated, and feared.

Evening was drawing on. The woods were looking their loveliest in all the delicate beauty of their fresh young green. Gaston, riding some fifty yards ahead with Roger beside him, looked keenly about him, with vivid remembrance of every winding of the woodland path. Soon, as he knew, the grim Castle of Saut would break upon his vision -- away there in front and slightly to the right, where the ground fell away to the river and rose on the opposite bank, crowned with those frowning walls.

He was riding so carelessly that when his horse suddenly swerved and s.h.i.+ed violently, he was for a moment almost unseated; but quickly recovering himself, he looked round to see what had frightened the animal, and himself gave almost as violent a start as the beast had done.

And yet what he saw was nothing very startling: only the light figure of a young girl -- a girl fair of face and light of foot as a veritable forest nymph -- such as indeed she looked springing out from the overhanging shade of that dim place.

For one instant they looked into each other's faces with a glance of quick recognition, and then clasping her hands together, the girl exclaimed in the Gascon tongue:

"The Holy Saints be praised! You have come, you have come! Ah, how I have prayed that help might come! And my prayers have been heard!"

CHAPTER XXV. THE FAIRY OF THE FOREST

Gaston sat motionless in his saddle, gazing at the apparition as though fascinated. He had seen this woodland nymph before. He had spoken with her, had sat awhile beside her, and her presence had inspired feelings within him to which he had hitherto been a complete stranger. As he gazed now into that lovely face, anxious, glad, fearful, all in one, and yet beaming with joy at the encounter, he felt as if indeed the denizens of another sphere had interposed to save his brother, and from that moment he felt a full a.s.surance that Raymond would be rescued.

Recovering himself as by an effort, he sprang from his saddle and stood beside the girl.

"Lady," he said, in gentle accents, that trembled slightly through the intensity of his emotion -- "fairest lady, who thou art I know not, but this I know, that thou comest ever as a messenger of mercy. Once it was to warn me of peril to come; now it is to tell us of one who lies in sore peril. Lady, tell me that I am not wrong in this -- that thou comest to give me news of my brother!"

Her liquid eyes were full of light. She did not shrink from him, or play with his feelings as on a former occasion. Her face expressed a serious gravity and earnestness of purpose which added tenfold to her charms.

Gaston, deeply as his feelings were stirred with anxious care for his brother's fate, could not help his heart going out to this exquisite young thing standing before him with trustful upturned face.

Who she was he knew not and cared not. She was the one woman in the world for him. He had thought so when he had found her in the forest in wayward tricksy mood; he knew it without doubt now that he saw her at his side, her sweet face full of deep and womanly feeling, her arch shyness all forgotten in the depth and resolution of her resolve.

"I do!" she answered, in quick, short sentences that sounded like the tones of a silver bell. "You are Gaston de Brocas, and he, the prisoner, is your twin brother Raymond. I know all. I have heard them talk in their cups, when they forget that I am growing from a child to a woman.

I have long ceased to be a child. I think that I have grown old in that terrible place. I have heard words -- oh, that make my blood run cold!