They sat on books, and ate what there was. Outside the wind had freshened; it buffeted fitfully but fiercely at the window, and came with dashes of rain. Down the corridor they could hear the casements swinging and banging, and over all the wind itself roaring through the great bare passages as if they had been tunnels.
"A wild night, Spiridion," said Prosper. "And what a night," thought he, "for a surprise."
"Wild enough," replied Spiridion, "but I am indifferent to weather, being seldom abroad. How do you find this wine?"
"Excellent," said Prosper, and drained his glass.
"Of this Galors, whom I think you know," Spiridion continued, "I hear bad reports. Not only has he cut the throats of my household, but from the account given me by my fair friend (concerning whom," he said with a bow, "we are agreed to differ), I fear he is otherwise of a wild and irregular conversation."
"You are right there, my friend," laughed Prosper.
"If he murders me," the other went on, sipping his wine, "it will be on some such night as this."
"I have just said as much to myself," Prosper replied; "but I will do my best to prevent him, I assure you."
"You are so courteous a defender, fair sir," said Spiridion, "I could wish you a more worthy client."
Prosper inwardly agreed with him. Shortly afterwards Spiridion bowed him to bed. For himself he carefully undressed and put on his night-shirt; then, lying down, he was asleep in a moment. The storm was by this time a gale, the noise of it continuous out doors and in. Prosper judged it expedient to have his arms within reach; the more so as he could not help fancying he had heard the sound of rowlocks on the mere. He stripped himself therefore to his doublet and breeches, heaped his armour by the bedside, slung his shield and sword over the foot, and then lay down by his peaceful companion. He had not forgotten either to look to the trimming and feeding of the lamp.
Sleep, however, was miles from him in such a pandemonium of noise. The wind wailed and screamed, the windows volleyed, wainscots creaked, doors rattled on their locks. Sometimes with a shock like a thunder-clap the body of the storm hurled against the walls; the great house seemed to shudder and groan; then there would be a lull as if the spirits of riot had spent themselves. In one of these pauses Prosper was pretty sure he heard a step on the stairs. Not at all surprised, for it was just such a night as he would have chosen, he listened painfully; but the noise drowned all. Came another moment of recoil, he heard it again, nearer. He got out of bed, went to the door, opened it silently, and listened. There were certainly movements in the house, feet coming up the stairs; he thought to catch hoarse whisperings, and once the clang of metal. There was no time to lose, He shut, bolted, and locked the door; then turned to his armour. A swift step undisguised in the corridor put all beyond question; there was an attack preparing. He had no time to do any more than snatch up shield and sword, before he saw the flame of a torch under the door and heard the voices of men.
Prosper stood sword in hand, waiting.
"Spiridion," he said, "wake up!"
Spiridion moaned, stirred a little, and sank again. A high voice called out—
"Spiridion, thou thin traitor, open the door and deliver up him thou harbourest."
The wind shrieked and mocked; then Spiridion woke up with a shiver.
"The hour is come before my God is ready. Now I must die unknowing," said he, and sat up in bed with his yellow hair all about his face.
"It is me they seek," said Prosper. "Now then if it will save thee I will open and go out to them." He went straight to the door, put his face against the key-hole, and cried out—"If I come out, will ye save Spiridion alive?"
There followed a babble of voices speaking all at once; afterwards the same shrill voice took up his challenge, wailing like the wind—"Spiridion, open the door before we break it in."
Prosper said again—"Will you have me for Spiridion?"
"We will have both, by God," rang a deep note, the voice of Galors.
As if at a signal swords began to batter at the door, pommels and blades. One pierced the panel and struck through on the inside. Prosper snapped it off short. "One less," he said; "but they will soon be done with it."
"My friend," said Spiridion, who was shivering with cold (his night-shirt being over short for the season), "my friend, I must die. What can I do for thee? The time is short."
"Brother," answered Prosper, "get a sword and harness, and I will keep the door till thou art ready. Then we will open it suddenly, and do what becomes us."
"Dear friend," Spiridion said mildly, "I have no sword. And since I am to die, I will die as well in my shirt as in a suit of mail."
"Certainly you are a great fool," said Prosper. "Yet I will defend you as well as I can. Get behind me now, for the door is shaking, and cannot hold out much longer."
Their assailants, without any further speech among themselves, beat at the door furiously, or with short runs hurtled against it with their shoulders. It seemed impossible it should stand, yet stand it did. Then one, Galors, cried suddenly out, "Fetch a hatchet!" and another ran helter-skelter down the corridor. The rest seemed to be waiting for him; the battering ceased.
"Here," said Spiridion, standing in his night-shirt before the shelf of images, "here are images of Christ on the Cross, of Mahound (made by a Maltese Jew), of Diana of the Ephesians, and Jupiter Ammon. Here too, are a Thammuz wrought in jade, and a cat-faced woman sitting naked in a chair. All are gods, and any one of them may be very God. Before which should I kneel? For to one I will as surely kneel as I shall surely die."
Prosper flushed red with annoyance. "Brother," said he, "thou art a greater fool than I thought possible. Die how you will. God knows how little of a god am I; but I will do what I can. Hey, now! look about!" he called out the next minute, and leapt back into the room. The door split in the midst and fell apart. Two men fully armed, with their vizors down, burst into the light; they were upon him in a flash. Prosper up with his shield and drove at them. They were no match for him with swords, as they very soon found when he penned them back in the entry. One of the pair, indeed, lost his arm in the first passes of the game, but the press of men behind forced them suddenly and violently forward whether they would or no. Prosper skewered one of them like a capon, against his own will, for he knew what must happen of that. Precisely; before he could disengage his weapon two more were at him in front, and one dodging round behind him with the hatchet slogged at his head with the back of it. Prosper tottered; it was all up with him. Another assailant slipped in under his guard with a pike, which he drove into his ribs. A second stinging blow from the hatchet dropped him. Prone on his face he fell, and never knew of the trampling he had from the freed pass.
They cut down and slew Spiridion as he was kneeling in his shirt before the crucifix; and then Galors came into the room to see that the work was done.
Prosper was lying on his face as he had fallen, with a great hole in his head. Galors suffered a contempt which he could not afford to such an enemy. He kicked the body. "Rot there, carrion," he said; then, with an after-thought, "No—rot in the water. Throw the pair of them by the window," he ordered his men, "and wait outside the gates for, me. I have things to do here." This was done.
When he was alone he stripped off all his armour, and put on instead Prosper's equipment. The defaced shield vexed him. Nothing was left of the blazon; nothing was left at all but the legend, "I bide my time."
"That, is what I will do no longer," said Galors with a heavy oath. "I have bided long enough; now, friend Prosper, do you bide yours. As for the cognizance, I know it very well by this; it shall be on again by the morning. Then we will see if I can do as Prosper what I have failed to do as Galors."
He headed his troop for Hauterive, reached it before daylight, and ended (as he thought) a signal chapter in his progress. As for Prosper, he bided his time with a broken head in Peering Pool.
On the morning after the storm at Goltres, July 18, Galors sat in the hall of his stronghold habited as he had ridden in but a few hours before. In came a red-haired peasant, asking to be made his man.
"Why so, fellow?" asked Galors.
"Lording," said Falve, "because my mother hath done me a wrong."
"Why, thou dog?" cried Galors. "Would'st thou cut thy mother's throat under my flag?"
"Lording," Falve answered, "I would not cut my mother's throat under the Pope's flag. But I know thee to be a great lord, master of all these walks of Morgraunt. If I were made free of thy company I could ask thee a mercy; and if I asked thee a mercy it would be that thou should'st order my mother to give me back my wife."
"How, thy wife, rogue?" said Galors, who was weary of the man.
"Lording, she was to have been my wife this day. But she lay last night with my mother, and by the show of a certain token, which unknown to me she wore about her, prevailed upon my mother to let her go. So now she has escaped into the forest, and I am beggared of her without thy help."
By this Galors was awake. He leaned forward in his chair, put chin to hand, and asked quietly—"How was she called, this wife of thine, my knave?"
"Lording," replied the poor eager rogue, "she was a boy at first, called Roy; then she revealed herself a maiden."
"I asked her maiden name, red fool."
"Her name, my lording, was Isoult la Desirous."
"Ah! At last!"
He got up from his chair, saying shortly, "Take me this instant to thy mother."
"But lord—"
"Silence, lout, or I swing you sky-high. To your mother without a word."
Poor Falve, in a cold sweat, obeyed. They found the old lady making breathless preparations for departure.
"Mother," began Falve, "my Lord Galors—"
"Peace, fool!" broke in Galors. "Dame," he said civilly, "I must thank you for the great charge you have been at with a certain lady much in both our hearts. No doubt she has spoken to you of Messire Prosper le Gai. Madam, I am he."
"As God is great," Falve cried, "I could have sworn the lord of this town was Messire Galors de Born."
"And so he was but yesterday," said Galors. "But now I hold it for theCountess Isabel."
The old woman was convinced at this name. She caught Galors by the arm.
"And will you take back the lamb to the dam?" she bleated.
"That is all I ask," replied Galors, speaking the truth.
"You may catch her, Messire—you may catch her. Ah, if I could only have known of you yester-e'en! She's had but seven hours' start of you. Take the path for Thornyhold Brush, and you'll find her. Jesu Christ! when I saw the bleeding bird again I could have died, had there not been better work before me."
"The bleeding bird? Ah! the token, you would say."
"Yes, Messire, yes! The pelican in piety—the torn breast! The I and F. Ah! blood enough shed, blood enough. Go quickly, Sir Prosper, and testify for your name; 'tis of good omen and better report. And have you killed that sick wolf Galors, Messire? There, there, God will bless you for that, and prosper you as you have prospered us!"
Galors swallowed the pill and went out with no more ceremony. Falve ran after him.
"Eh, eh, Messire!" he spluttered. Galors let him splutter till they were within the courtyard. Then he called to a trooper.
"Take this man and flog him well," said he. Falve was seized.
"Ah, my lording," cried he, "what do you there? Must I be flogged because I have lost my wife?"
"No, dog. But because you have married mine."
"Nay, nay, mercy, my lording! I have not yet married her."
"Ha!" said Galors, "then you shall be flogged for jilting her."
And flogged he was. And the flogging cost Galors his prize.
Galors now bestirred himself. First he sat down and wrote a letter to the Countess, thus conceived.
"To the high lady, the Lady Isabel de Forz, Countess of Hauterive,Countess Dowager of March and Bellesme, Lady of Morgraunt—Galors deBorn, Lord of Hauterive, Goltres, and West Wan, sendeth greeting in theLord everlasting.
"That which your Serenity lost early is not too late found, and by us. The crystal locket, having the pelican in the Crown of Thorns, when we bring it upon the bosom where it hath ever slept waiting for the day which shall reveal it to you, will testify whether we lie or lie not. Know, however, that she shall assuredly come, and not unattended; but as, befits her condition, under the hand of him who, having found her, will provide that she be not lost again. It is not unknown to you, High Mightiness, how our power and estate have grown in these days to the threatening of your own. So it is, indeed, that now, in blood, in fees, in renown, in power of life and member, we are near enough to you to seek alliance still more close. And this is the last word of Galors; let the wearer of the crystal locket come home as the betrothed of the Lord Galors de Born, and heiress of High March and Morgraunt, Countess of Hauterive in time to be, and she shall come indeed. Otherwise she comes not; but Hauterive wears the crown which High March looks to put on. Thus we commend you to the holy keeping of God. From our tower of Hauterive, on the feast of Saint Arnulphus, bishop and martyr, the 15th calends of August, in the first year of our principality West of Wan."
This letter, sealed with the three wicket-gates and the circumscript,Entra per me, he sent forward at once by a party of six riders, one of whom carried a flag of truce. Then with but three to follow him, he rode out of the town, taking the path for Thornyhold Brush.
Isoult, so soon as she had seen the last of old Ursula, turned her face to the south and the sun. She walked a mile through bush and bramble with picked-up skirts; then she sat down and took off her scarlet shoes and stockings, threw them aside, and went on with a lighter tread. Not that she was above the glory of silk robes and red slippers, or unconscious that they heightened the charm of her person—the old woman's glass, the old woman's face had told her better than that. Indeed, if she could have believed she would meet with Prosper at the end of that day, she would have borne with them, hindrance or none. But this was not to be. Her hair was yet a good six inches from her knees. So now, bare-legged and bare-footed, her skirts pulled back and pinned behind her, she felt the glad tune of the woods singing in her veins, and ran against the stream of cool air deeper into the fountain-heart whence it flowed, the great silence and shade of the forest. The path showed barer, the stems more sparse, the roof above her denser. Soon there was no more grass, neither any moss; nothing but mast and the leaves of many autumns. Keeping always down the slope, and a little in advance of the sun, by mid-day she had run clear of the beech forest into places where there grew hornbeams, with one or two sapling oaks. There was tall bracken here, and dewy grass again for her feet. She rested herself, sat deep in shade listening to the murmur of bees in the sunlight and the gentle complaining of wood-pigeons in the tree-tops far toward the blue. She lay down luxuriously in the fern, pillowed her cheek on her folded hands, closed her eyes, and let all the forest peace fan her to happy dreaming. It was impossible to be ill at ease in such a harbour. The alien faces and brawl of the town, the grime, the sweat, the blows of the charcoal-burners, her secret life there in the midst of them, the shame, the hooting and the stunning of her last day at distant High March, Maulfry, Galors, leering Falve—all these grim apparitions sank back into the green woodland vistas; all the shocks and alarums of her timid little soul were subdued by the rustling boughs and the crooning voices of the doves. She saw bright country in her dreams. Prosper was abroad on a spurred horse; his helmet gleamed in the sun; his enemies fell at his onset. The deer browsed about her, from the branches a squirrel peeped down, the woodbirds with kindly peering eyes hopped within reach of her cradled arms. Soon, soon, soon, she should see him! She would be sitting at his knees; her cheek would be on his breast, his arm hold her close, his kind eyes read all her love story. What a reward for what a little aching! She fell asleep in the fern and smiled at her own dreams. When she awoke two girls sat sentinel beside her.
They were ruddy, handsome, cheerful girls, with scarcely a pin's point of difference between them. They had brown eyes, brown loose hair, the bloom of healthy blood on their skin. One was more fully formed, more assured; perhaps she laughed rather less than the other; it was not noticeable. Isoult, with sleepy eyes, regarded them languidly, half awake. They sat on either side of her; each clasped a knee with her two hands; both watched her. Then the elder with a little laugh shook her hair back from her shoulders, stooped quickly forward, and kissed her. Isoult sat up.
"Oh, who are you?" she wondered.
"I am Belvisée," said the kissing girl.
"I am Mellifont," said the laugher.
"Do you live here?"
"Yes."
"Is this Thornyhold?"
"Thornyhold Brush is very near."
"Will you take me? I am to wait there."
"Come, sister."
Belvisée helped her up by the hand. When she was afoot Mellifont caught her other hand and kissed her in her turn—a glad and friendly little embrace. Friends indeed they looked as they stood hand-linked in the fern. All three were of a height, Isoult a shade shorter than the sisters.
She contrasted her attire with theirs; her own so ceremonious, theirs, what there was of it, simple in the extreme. A smock of coarse green flax, cut at a slant, which left one shoulder and breast bare, was looped on to the other shoulder, and caught at the waist by a leather strap. It bagged over the belt, and below it fell to brush the knees. Arms, legs, and feet were bare and brown. Visibly they wore nothing else. Mellifont laughed to see the scrutiny.
"We must undress you," she said.
"Why?"
"You cannot run like that."
"No, that is quite true. But——"
"Oh," said Belvisée, "you are quite safe. No men come where the king is."
"The king!"
"King of the herd."
"Ah, the deer are near by."
"All Thornhold is theirs. The great herd is here."
"Do you live with them?"
"Yes."
"And they feed you?"
"Yes."
"Ah," said Isoult, "then I shall be at peace till my lord comes, if there are no men."
"Have you a lord, a lover?"
"Yes, he is my lord, and I love him dearly."
"We have none. What is your name?"
"I am called Isoult la Desirous."
"Because you are a lover?"
"Yes. I am a lover."
"I will never love a man," said Belvisée rather gravely. "All men are cruel."
"I will never have a lover, nor be a lover, until men know what love is," said Mellifont in her turn.
"And what is love, do you think?" Isoult asked her thrilling.
"Love! Love! It is service," said Belvisée.
"Service and giving," said Mellifont.
Isoult turned aside and kissed Mellifont's cheek.
They had reached the low ground, for they had been walking during this colloquy. Oaks stood all about them, with bracken shoulder high. Into this the three girls plunged, and held on till they were stopped by a shallow brook. The sisters waded in, so did Isoult when she had picked up her skirts and petticoats. After a little course up stream through water joyfully cool they reached a place where the brook made a bend round the roots of an enormous oak; turning this they opened on a pool broad and deep.
"We will robe you here," said Belvisée, meaning rather to unrobe her.
The great gnarly roots of the oak were as pillars to a chamber which ran far into the bank. Here the two girls undressed Isoult, and here they folded and laid by her red silk gown. She became a pearly copy of themselves in all but her hair. Her hair! They had never seen such hair. Measuring it they found it almost to her knees.
"You cannot go with it loose," said they. "We must knot it up again; but we will go first to the herd."
"Let us go now," added Mellifont on an impulse, and took Isoult by the hand.
Crossing the brook below the pool, they climbed the bank and found themselves in a sunny broad place. The light glanced in and out of the slim grey trees. The bracken was thinner, the grass rich and dewy. Here Isoult saw the great herd of red deer—hundreds of hundreds—hinds and calves with some brockets and harts, busy feeding. Over all that spacious glade the herd was spread out till there seemed no end to it.
A sentinel stag left feeding as they came on. He looked up for a moment, stamped his foot, and went back to grass. One or two others copied him; but mostly the three girls could go among them without notice. Imperceptibly, however, the herd followed them feeding on their way to the king, so that by the time they reached him there was a line of deer behind them, and deer at either flank.
The great hart also stamped his foot and stood at gaze, with towering antlers and dewy nostrils very wide. Before him Belvisée and Mellifont let go of Isoult's hand: she was to make her entry alone. She put them behind her back, hardly knowing what was expected of her, shrank a little into herself and waited timidly. Slowly then the great hart advanced before his peering courtiers, pacing on with nodding head and horns. Exactly in front of Isoult he planted his forefeet, thence he looked down from his height upon her. She had always loved the deer, and was not now afraid; but she covered herself with her hair.
The king stag smelt her over, beginning at her feet. He snuffed for a long time at the nape of her neck, blew in her hair so as to spray it out like a fountain scattered to the wind; then he fell to licking her cheek. She, made bold, put a hand and laid it on his mane. Shyly she stood thus, waiting events. The great beast lifted his head high and gave a loud bellow; all the deer chorused him; the forest rang. So Isoult was made free of the herd.
Belvisée and Mellifont lay beside her on the grass. Isoult lay on her face, while Mellifont coiled and knotted up her hair.
"If love is giving, and you are a lover, Isoult," said she, "you would give your hair."
"I have given it," said Isoult, and told them her story as they all lay there together.
"And to think that you have endured all this from men, and yet love a man!" cried flushed Mellifont, when she had made an end.
But Isoult smiled wisely at her.
"Ah, Mellifont," she said, "the more you saw of men, the more you would find to love in him."
"Indeed, I should do no such thing," said Mellifont, firing up again.
"You could not help it. Everyone must love him."
"That might not suit you, Isoult," said Belvisée.
"Why should it not? Would it prevent my love to know him loved? I should love him all the more."
"Hark!" cried Mellifont on a sudden. She laid her ear to the ground, then jumped to her feet.
"Come to the herd, come to the herd," she whispered.
Belvisée was on her feet also in a trice. Both girls were hot and bright.
"What disturbs you?" asked Isoult, who had heard nothing.
"Horsemen! quick, quick." They all ran between the trees to regain the deer. Isoult could hear no horses; but the sisters had, and now she saw that the deer had. Every head was up, every ear still, every nostril on the stretch. Listening now intently, faint and far she did hear a muffled knocking—it was like a beating heart, she thought. Whatever it was, the deer guessed an enemy. Upon a sudden stamp, the whole herd was in motion. Led by the hart-royal, they trotted noiselessly down the wood, till in the thick fern they lay still. The girls lay down with them.
The sound gained rapidly upon them. Soon they heard the crackling of twigs, then the swish of swept brushwood, then the creaking of girths. Isoult hid her face, lying prone on her breast.
Galors and his men came thundering through the wood. Their horses were reeking, dripping from the flanks. The riders, four of them, looking neither right nor left, past over the open ground, where a few minutes before she whom they desperately sought had been lying at their mercy. But Galors, fled by all things living in Morgraunt, scourged on like a destroying wind and was gone. Isoult little knew how near she had been to the unclean thing. If she had seen him she would have run straight to him without a thought, for he bore the red feathers in his helmet, and behind him, on the shield, danced in the glory of new gilt thefesse dancettée.
It may be doubted if the instincts of the earth-born can ever pierce the trappings of a knight-at-arms. They trust in emotions which such gear is designed to hide or transfigure. Isoult, observe, had caught Prosper out of his harness, when before the face of the sky she had thrilled him to pity. But when once he had stooped to her, for the very fact, she made haste to set him up on high in her heart, and in more seemly guise. There and thenceforward he stood on his pedestal figured, not as a pitiful saviour (whom a girl must be taught to worship), but as an armed god who suffered her homage. She was no better (or no worse, if you will) than the rest of her sex in this, that she loved to love, and was bewildered to be loved. So she would never get him out of armour again. Her god might not stoop.
The story returns to Prosper le Gai and his broken head. The blow had been sharp, but Peering Pool was sharper. It brought him to consciousness, of a sort sufficient to give him a disrelish for drowning. Lucky for him he was unarmed. He found himself swimming, paddling, rolling at random; he swallowed quantities of water, and liked drowning none the better. By the little light there was he could make out the line of the dark hull of Goltres, by the little wit he had he remembered that the water-gate was midway the building or thereabouts. He turned his face to the wall and, half clinging, half swimming, edged along it till he reached port. The last ebb of his strength sufficed to drag him up the stair; then he floated off into blankness again.
When he stirred he was stiff, and near blind with fever. A cold light silvered the pool; it was not yet dawn. His plight was pitiable. He ached and shivered and burned, he drowsed and muttered, dreamed horribly, sweated and was cold, shuddered and was hot. One of his arms he could not lift at all; at one of his sides, there was a great stiff cake of cloth and blood and water. He became light-headed, sang, shouted, raved, swore, prayed.
"To me, to me, Isoult! Ah, dogs of the devil, this to a young maid! Yes, madam, the Lady Isoult, and my wife. Love her! O God, I love her at last. Hounded, hounded, hounded out! Love of Christ, how I love her! Bailiff, Galors will come—a white-faced, sullen dog. Cut him down, bailiff, without mercy, for he hath shown no mercy. The man in the wood—ha! dead—Salomon de Born. Green froth on his lips—fie, poison! She has killed Galors' only son. Galors, she has poisoned him—oh, mercy, mercy, Lord, must I die?" And then with tears, and the whining of a child—"Isoult, Isoult, Isoult!"
In tears his delirium spent itself, and again he was still, in a broken sleep. The sun rose, the sky warmed itself and glowed, the crispy waves of Peering Pool glittered, the white burden it bore floated face upwards, an object of interest and suspicion for the coots; soon a ray of generous heat shot obliquely down upon the sleeper on the stairs. Prosper woke again, stretched, and yawned. Most of his pains seemed now to centre in the pit of his stomach, a familiar grief. Prosper was hungry.
"Pest!" said the youth, "how hungry I am. I can do nothing till I have eaten."
He tried to get up, and did succeed in raising himself on all fours. But for the life of him he could do no more. He sat down again and thought about eating. He remembered the bread and olives, the not unkindly red wine of the night before. Then he remembered Spiridion, dispenser of meat and many questions.
"That poor doubting rogue!" he laughed. But he sobered himself. "I do ill to laugh, God knows! The man must be dead by now, and all his doubts with him. I must go find him. But I must eat some of his bread and olives first."
Once more he got on all fours, and this time he crawled to the stop of the stairway. Clinging to the lintel and hoisting himself by degrees, he at last stood fairly on his feet—but with a spinning head, and a sickness as unto death. He tottered and flickered; but he stuck to his door-post.
"Bread and olives!" he cried. "I am to die, it seems, but by the Lord I will eat first."
He made a rush for it, gained so the great hall, dizzied through it somehow, and out into the corridor. He flung himself at the stone stairs with the desperation of his last agony, half crawled, half swarmed up to the top (dragging his legs after him at the end, like a hare shot in the back), and finished his course to Spiridion's chamber on hands and knees. He had probably never in his life before worked so hard for a breakfast. He was dripping with sweat, shaking like gossamer; but his fever had left him. Bread and a bottle of wine did wonders for him. He felt very drunk when he had done, and was conscious that pot-valiancy only gave him the heart to tear off his clothes. A flask of sweet oil from Spiridion's shelf helped him here. Next he probed the rents. He found a deepish wound in the groin, a sword-cut in the fleshy part of his left arm; then there was his head! He assured himself that the skull was whole.
"I never respected my ancestors before," he cried. "Such a headpiece is worthy of a Crusader."
He kindled a fire, heated water, washed out his hurts, oiled them and bound them up with one of Spiridion's bed-sheets.
"Now," he reflected, "by rights I should go and hunt for my poor host. But I am still drunk unfortunately. Let me consider. Spiridion must pass for a man. If he is dead he will wait for me. If he is not dead he is no worse off than I am. Good. I will sleep." And he slept round the clock.
Next morning when he awoke he was stiff and sore, but himself. He finished the bread, drank another bottle of wine, and looked about for his armour. It was not there. Instead, the white wicket-gates gleamed at him from a black shield, white plumes from a black headpiece, and the rest of a concatenation.
"Entra per me," he read. "Enter I will," said Prosper, "and by you. This device," he went on, as he fitted thecuisses, "this device is not very worthy of Dom Galors. It speaks of hurry. It speaks, even, of precipitation, for if he must needs wear my harness, at least he might have carried his own. Galors was flurried. If he was flurried he must have had news. If, having news, he took my arms, it must have been news of Isoult. He intended to deceive her by passing for me. Good; I will deceive his allies by passing for himself. But first I must find Spiridion."
He had too much respect for his enemy, as you will observe if I have made anything of Galors. Galors was no refiner, not subtle; he was direct. When he had to think he held his tongue, so that you should believe him profound. When he got a thought he made haste to act upon it, because it really embarrassed him. None of Prosper's imaginings were correct. If the monk had been capable of harbouring two thoughts at a time, there would not have been a shred of mail in the room.
That sodden thing lipped by the restless water was Spiridion. He lay on his back, thinner and more peaked than ever in life; his yellow hair made him an aureole. He looked like some martyred ascetic, with his tightened smile and the gash half-way through his neck.
Prosper leaned upon his punt-pole looking sorrowfully at him.
"Alas, my brother," he said half whimsically, "do you smile? Even so I think God should smile that He had let such a thing be made. And if, as I believe, you know the truth at last, that is why you also smile. But shut your eyes, my brother," he added, stooping to do the office, "shut your eyes, for you wore them thin with searching and now can see without them. Let them rest."
Very tenderly he pulled him out of the water, very reverently took him to land. He buried him before his own gates, and over him set the crucifix, which in the end he had found grace to see. He was too good a Christian not to pray over the grave, and not sufficient of a hero to be frank about his tears. At the end of all this business he found his horse. Then he rode off at a canter for Hauterive.
* * * * *
It is one thing to kindle military fires in the breast of a High Bailiff, quite another to bid them out. Prosper had overstepped his authority. The High Bailiff of Wanmeeting held himself in check for the better part of a week after his generalissimo's departure; at the end of five days he could endure it no more. His harness clamoured, his sword tarnished for blood; he had fifteen hundred men in steel. That would mean fifteen hundred and one tarnishing blades, and the unvoiced reproaches of fifteen hundred and one suits of mail. In a word, the High Bailiff itched to try a fall with the redoubtable Galors de Born.
He sent, therefore, a man to ring the great bell of the parish church. This assembled the citizens pell-mell, for the times were stirring. The High Bailiff, being assured of his auditory, summoned the garrison, put himself at the head of them on a black stallion, sounded trumpets, and marched into the Market-place. The cheers clipped him like heady wine; but it was the eloquence of the women's handkerchiefs that really gave him heart. Standing in his stirrups, hat in hand, he made a short speech.
"Men of Wanmeeting and brothers," he said, "to-day you shall prove yourselves worthy of your Lady Paramount, of your late master, and of me. Galors de Born, the arch-enemy, is skulking in his strong tower, not daring to attack us. Men of Wanmeeting, we will go and bait him. Hauterive is ours. Follow me, crying, Ha! Saint James!"
"Ha! Saint James!" shouted the men, with their caps pike-high.
The Bailiff glowed in his skin. He drew his sword.
"Forward!" He gave the word.
The entire ardent garrison marched out of the town, and Wanmeeting was left with its women and elders, anybody's capture.
The consequence of these heroical attitudes was, that Prosper, riding hard to Hauterive, came in sight of a besieging army round about it—a tented field, a pavilion, wherefrom drooped the saltire of De Forz, a long line of attack, in fine, a notable scheme of offence. He saw a sortie from the gates driven back by as mettlesome a cavalry charge as he could have wished to lead.
"The Bailiff of Wanmeeting, as I live by bread!" he cried out.
He stayed for some time watching the fray from a little rising ground. The cavalry, having beaten in the defenders, retired in good order; the archers advanced to cover a party of pikemen with scaling-ladders.
"Now is my time to board the Bailiff," said Prosper, and rode coolly across the field.
The High Bailiff saw, as he thought, Galors himself riding unattended towards him.
"Ha! negotiations," said he; "and in person! I have hit a mark it seems. I may take a high tone. Unconditional surrender and all arms, hey?"
Prosper rode up, saluting.
"Messire de Born," said the Bailiff.
"Prosper le Gai," said the other.
"Madam Virgin! I thought you had perished, Messire."
"Not at all, Bailiff. Was that why you took over my command?"
The Bailiff bowed. "I gladly relinquish it, Messire."
Prosper nodded pleasantly.
"That last charge of yours could hardly have been bettered, though I think you might have got in. How many men did you drop?"
"Ten, Messire. We brought off the wounded."
"Ten is enough. You shall lose no more. Call off that scaling party."
The Bailiff repeated the order.
"Your men know their work," said Prosper; "but why do they cry forSaint James?"
The High Bailiff coloured.
"Well, Messire," he said, "there is undoubtedly a Saint James, anApostle and a great Saint."
"Of the greatest," said Prosper. "But, pardon. I thought your burgh was devoted to Saint Crispin?"
"Messire, it is so. But there were reasons. First, your battle-cry should be familiar——"
"As Saint Crispin to Wanmeeting?"
"As the name of James, Messire. For it is my own poor name."
"Ah," said Prosper, "I begin to see."
"Then," said the Bailiff, pursuing his reasons, "a battle-cry should be short, of one syllable——"
"Like Saint Dennis?" Prosper asked.
"Like Saint George, Messire."
"Or Saint Andrew?" said Prosper sweetly.
"Or—"
"Or Montjoy, or Bide the Time, eh, Bailiff?"
"Messire, you have me at a disadvantage for the moment. The name is, however, that of a Saint."
"Say no more, Bailiff, but listen. There need be no more bloodshed over this place. Get your men together, to advance at a signal from within. I will go alone into the town. Now, do you notice that little square window in the citadel? When you see the Saltire hang there you will march in and meet me at the Bishop's Gate."
"Oh, Messire, what will you do?"
"Leave that to me," Prosper said, as he rode off.
He rode close to the moat and kept by it, making a half circuit of the walls. He had calculated on Galors' armour, and calculated well, for nobody molested him from the defenders' side. At the Bishop's Gate he reined up, and stood with his spear erect at the length of his arm.
"Who comes?" cried the sentry.
"Entra per me," growled Prosper, with a shot for Galors' sulky note.
The gate swung apart, the bridge fell, the portcullis was drawn up. Prosper rode through the streets of Hauterive amid the silence of the inhabitants and the cheers of the garrison—two very different sets of persons. He went into the citadel, displayed the appointed signal, then returned on horseback to the Bishop's Gate. He had not a word to say, but this was quite in character. So he stood waiting.
There was presently a fine commotion at the gate; a man came running up to him.
"Messire, they are going to attack the gate!"
"Open it," said Prosper.
"Messire?"
"Open it, hound!"
The man reeled, but carried the order. Prosper rode stately out; and when he returned a second time it was at the head of the Countess Isabel's troops.
"Bailiff," said he, when they were in the citadel and all the news out, "I am no friend of your mistress, as you know; but I am not a thief. Hauterive is hers. To-morrow morning I shall declare it so; until then Galors, if you please, is Lord. Let me now say this," he continued. "I admire you because you have a high heart. But you lack one requisite of generalship, as it appears to me. You have no head. Get back at once to Wanmeeting with one thousand of your men, and leave me five hundred of them to work with. You may think yourself lucky if you find one stone on another or one man's wife as she should be. By the time you are there you will no doubt have orders from High March. You may send news thither that this place is quiet and restored, as from to-morrow morning, to its allegiance. Good morning, Bailiff."
The Bailiff was very much struck with Prosper's sagacity, and went at once. Prosper and his five hundred men held the citadel.
He confided his secret to those whom he could trust; the remainder fraternized in the wine shops and dealt liberally in surmise. The general opinion seemed to be that Galors had married the Countess Isabel.
* * * * *
Having thus ridded him of all his charges, Prosper could steer the ship of his mind whither his soul had long looked—to Isoult and marriage. Marriage was become a holy thing, a holy sepulchre of peace to be won at all costs. No crusader was he, mind you, fighting for honour, but a pitiful beaten wayfarer longing for ease from his aching. He did not seek, he did not know, to account for the change in him. It had come slowly. Slowly the girl had transfigured before him, slowly risen from below him to the level of his eyes; and now she was above him. He shrined her high as she had shrined him, but for different reasons as became a man. What a woman loves in man is strength, what a man loves in women is also strength, the strength of weak things. The strength of the weak thing Isoult had been that, she had known how to hold him off because of her love's sake. There is always pity (which should become reverence) in a man's love. He had never pitied her till she fought so hard for the holiness of her lover.
Oddly enough, Isoult loved him the more for the very attack which she had foiled. Odd as it may be, that is where the truth lies. As for him, gratitude for what she had endured for his sake might go for nothing. Men do not feel gratitude—they accept tribute. But if they pity, and their pity is quickened by knowledge of the pitiful, then they love. Her pleading lips, her dear startled eyes stung him out of himself. And then he found out why her eyes were startled and why her lips were mute. She was lovely. Yes, for she loved. This beseeching child, then, loved him. He knew himself homeless now until she took him in.
The Abbot Richard of Malbank Saint Thorn went hunting the deer in Morgraunt with a good company of prickers and dogs. In Spenshaw he unharboured a stag, and he followed him hard. The hart made straight for Thornyhold Brush where the great herd lay; there Mellifont, who was sentry for the time, heard him and gave the alarm. Fern brakes will hide man from man, but here were dogs. The hunted hart drove sheer into the thicket on his way to the water; a dog was at his heels, half-a-dozen more were hard on him. The herd had scattered on all hands long before this. Mellifont saved herself with them, but Belvisée tarrying to help Isoult was caught. A great hound snapped at her as he passed; she limped away with a wounded side. Isoult, too much of a woman and too little of a hind, stood still. She had closed with Fate before.
Up came the Abbot's men with horns and shouting voices for the baying of the deer. He, brave beast, was knifed in the brook and broken up, the dogs called off and leashed. Then one of the huntsmen saw Isoult. She had let down her hair for a curtain and stood watching them intently, neither defiant nor fearful, but with a long, steady, unwinking gaze. Her bosom rose quick and short, there was no other stressful sign; she was flushed rather than white. One of the men thought she was a wood-girl—they all knew of such beings; he crossed himself. Another knew better. Her mother Mald was a noted witch; he whistled.
A third thought she was uncommonly handsome; he could only look. The dogs whimpered and tugged at the leash; they doubtless knew that there was blood in her. So all waited till the Abbot came up much out of breath.
Isoult, cloaked in her panoply of silence, saw him first. In fact theAbbot had eyes only for the dead hart which had led him such a race.One of the prickers ran forward and caught at his stirrup-leather.
"Lord Abbot, here is the strangest thing my eyes have ever seen in Morgraunt. As we followed the chase we drove into a great herd which ran this way and that way. And in the thick of the deer were three young women scantily attired, as the one you see yonder, going with the beasts. Of whom two have got clear (one bitten by the mouse-coloured hound), and this one remains speechless. And who the others were, whether flesh and blood or wind and breath, I cannot tell you; but if this laggard is not Isoult, whom we call La Desirous, Matt-o'-the-Moor's daughter, I am no fit servant for your Holiness' diversions."
The Abbot had pricked up his ears; now he looked sharply at Isoult.
"You are right, Sweyn," he said; "leave her to me. Girl," he turned to her, "this time it shall likely go hard with thee. Trees are plenty and ropes easy to come by. I warned thee before. I shall not warn thee now."
Isoult bowed her head.
"What dost thou do here, herding in the wood with wild beasts?" he went on.
"Lord, none but the beasts will give me food or rest or any kindness at all. There is no pity in man nor woman that I have seen, save in two, and one is dead. Prosper le Gai, my lord, and husband, hath pity, and will come to me at last. And whether he shall come to my body alone or my spirit alone, he will come. And now, lord, hang me to a tree."
"Dost thou want to be hanged?" he asked.
"Nay, lord, I am too young to be hanged," she said. "Moreover, though I am wedded to my lord, I am not a wife. For only lately he hath loved me, and that since we were put apart."
"Wed, and a virgin, girl? Where is thy husband?"
"Lord, he is searching for me."
"Where hath he been, what hath he done—or thou, what hast thou done, for such a droll fate as this?"
Isoult very simply told him everything. Of Galors he already had some news—enough to dread more. But when he heard that the girl had actually been in High March Castle, had been expelled from it, he crossed himself and thanked God for all His mercies. He became a devout Christian at this critical point in Isoult's career, whereby her neck was saved a second time from the rope. He felt a certain pity—she a handsome girl, too, though his type for choice was blonde—for her simplicity, and, as he certainly wished to obtain mercy, reflected upon the possible blessings of the merciful. Besides, Galors was at large, Galors who knew the story, to say nothing of Prosper, also at large, who did not know the story, but did know, on the other hand, the Countess Isabel. Difficult treading! But so the habits of a lifetime for once chimed in with its professions. Even as he stood pitying he roughed out another set of shifts. Prosper and his unconsummated marriage might be set aside—the fool, he thought with a chuckle, deserved it. There remained Galors. He would get the girl married to a mesne of the abbey, or stay! he would marry her elsewhere and get a dowry. She had filled out astonishingly, every line of her spoke of blood: there would be no trouble about a dowry. Then he might supplant Galors by being beforehand with him at the Countess's ear. Gratitude of the mother, gratitude of the daughter, gratitude of the son-in-law! Thus Charity walked hand in hand with Policy. The girl was a beauty. What a picture she made there, short-frocked, flushed and loose-haired, like an Amazon—but, by Mars, not maimed liked an Amazon. The Abbot was a connoisseur of women, as became a confessor and man of the world.
"If I do not hang thee, Isoult, wilt thou come with me to Saint Thom?"
"Yes, lord, I will come."
"Up with you then before me," said the Abbot, and stooped to lift her. Her hair fell back as she was swung into the saddle. "My lady," thought the Abbot, "it is clear you are no Amazon; but I should like to know what you wear round that fine little neck of yours."
He bided his time, and sent the men and dogs on ahead. Then at startinghe spurred his horse so that the beast plunged both his riders forward.The burden of the chain slipt its harbourage, and the next minute theAbbot had ring and locket in the palm of his hand.
"What is this ring, my girl?" he asked.
"My lord, it is my wedding-ring, wherewith I was wed in the cottage."
"Ah, is that it? Well, I will keep it until there is need."
Isoult began to cry at this, which cut her deeper than all the severances she had known. She could confess to the ring.
"Don't cry, child," said the Abbot, whom women's tears troubled; "believe me when I say that you shall have it for your next wedding."
"Oh, my ring! my ring! What shall I do? It is all I have. Oh, my lord, my lord!"
This pained the Abbot extremely. He got what satisfaction there was from the thought that, having dropt it behind him, he could not give it back for all the tears in the world. He was busy now examining the other token—a crystal locket whereon were a pelican in piety circled with a crown of thorns, and on the other side the letters I and F interlaced. He knew it better than most people.
"Isoult, stop crying," he said. "Take off this chain and locket and give them to me."
So she did.
"Ah, my lord," she pleaded as she tendered, "I ask only for the ring."
"Plague take the ring," cried the Abbot very much annoyed. "I will throw it away if you say another word about it."
The threat chilled her. She dried her eyes, hoping against hope, for even hope needs a sign.
When he had his prize safe in Holy Thorn, the Abbot Richard, who had a fantastic twist in him, and loved to do his very rogueries in the mode, set himself to embroider his projects when he should have been executing them. His lure was a good lure, but she would be none the worse for a little gilding; there must be a pretty cage, with a spice of malice in its devising, to excite the tenderer feelings. It should be polite malice, however—a mere hint at a possible tragedy behind a smirk.
He dressed her in green silk because she was fresh-coloured and had black hair. If she had been pale, as when he first knew her, and as she was to be again before he knew her no more, the dress would have been red, depend upon it. He put a gold ring on her finger, a jewel on her forehead, a silver mirror and a Book of Hours bound in silver leaves to swing at her girdle. Her chamber was hung with silk arras,—the loving history of Aristotle and a princess of Cyprus;—she had two women to wait upon her, to tire her hair in new ways and set new crowns upon it; she had a close garden of her own, with roses and a fountain, grass lawns, peacocks. She had pages to serve her kneeling, musical instruments, singing boys and girls. He gave her a lap-dog. Finally he kissed her and said—
"You are to be queen of this place, Isoult the Much-Desired."
All this the Abbot did. This also he did—his crowning piece. He caused her to wear round her waist a girdle made of bright steel in which was a staple. To the staple he fixed a fine steel chain—a toy, a mimicry of prisons, but in fact a chain—and the other end of a chain was fixed to a monk's wrist. The chain was fine and flexible, it was long, it could go through the keyhole—and did—but it was a chain. Wherever the girl went, to the garden, to table, to music, to bed, abroad, or to Mass, she was chained to a monk and a monk to her. The Abbot Richard rested on the seventh day, contemplating his labours with infinite relish. It seemed to him that this was to be politic with an air. So far as he might he did everything in that manner.
Isoult bore the burden much as she had borne the thwackings of the charcoal-burners, with ingrained patience. Seriously, one only cross fretted her—the loss of her ring. This indeed cried desertion upon her. Prosper had never seemed so far, nor his love so faint and ill-assured. It would seem that kindness really killed her by drugging her spirit as with anodyne. As she had fallen at Gracedieu, so she fell now into a languid habit where tears swam in flood about the lids of her eyes, where the eyes were too heavy for clear sight and the very blood sluggish with sorrow. She grew pale again, hollow-eyed, diaphanous—a prism for an unearthly ray. Her beauty took on its elfin guise; she walked a ghost. Night and day she felt for the ring; though she knew it was not there, her hand was always in her vest, her bosom always numb and cold. Sometimes her urgent need was more than she could bear. A trembling took her, an access of trembling which she could not check. At such times, if others were about her, she would sit vacant and speechless, smiling faintly for courtesy; her eyes would brim over, the great drops fall unchecked. There would be no sobbing, very little catching of the breath. The well of misery would fill and overflow, gently and smoothly irresistible. Then the shaking would cease and the fount be dry for a season. So she grew more a spirit and less a maid; her eyes waxed larger, and the pupils whelmed the grey in jet.
The people of Malbank frankly took her for a saint. Martyrs, virgins, and such rare birds do not hop in every cage; but what more reasonable than that the famous Abbot of Saint Thorn should catch one in his own springes? Those who maintained that the chained white creature, who knelt folded at the Mass, or on a white palfrey rode out on the heath guarded by two monks, was the stormy girl who had kept swine about the middens, Matt's bad daughter Isoult la Desirous, those were leagued with the devil and his imps, who would not see a saint if all heaven walked the earth.
The report fell in excellently with the Abbot's calculation. No one believed in the Isoult fable save Mald, whom the girl had seen once or twice, and himself; every one talked rather of the Chained Virgin of Saint Thorn. She became an object of pilgrimage. The Abbot grew to call her chamber the feretory; the faithful gave alms, particularly the seamen from Wanmouth. Then others came to behold, more to his liking, proposing barter. She was observed of the Lord of Hartlepe, the young Lord of Brokenbridge, the Lord of Courthope Saint James; of the Baron of Starning and Parrox, also, from the East Demesne. This Baron Malise, thin and stooping, having Prosper's quick eyes without his easy lordship over all who met them, and Prosper's high voice twisted querulous, came to view his young brother's wife. She pleased, but the price did not please. He and the Abbot haggled over the dowry; Malise, as obstinate as Prosper, would not budge. So they haggled. Finally came Galors de Born, Lord of Hauterive and many other places in the north, not to be denied.
When Galors overshot his mark in Thornyhold he flew very wide. It is well known there are no roads. Thornyhold is but the beginning of the densest patch of timber in all the forest. Malbank is your nearest habitation; Spenshaw, Heckaby, Dunsholt Thicket, Hartshold, Deerleap are forest names, not names of the necessities of men. You may wander a month if you choose, telling one green hollow from another; or you may go to Holy Thorn at Malbank, or endure unto Wanmouth and the sea. If you were Galors and needed counsel you would not choose the wood; naturally you would avoid Malbank. There would remain to you Wanmouth.
Galors went to Wanmouth. It was the Countess's country of course; but his disguise was good enough. People read the arms and hailed a le Gai or one of that house. It was at Wanmouth that he learned what he wanted. Malise, after one of his interminable chafferings with the Abbot Richard, took it on his way to the east.
"My Lord Baron of Starning," said the Vice-Admiral of the port, "we have had a friend of your house here a week or more."
"Eh, eh!" said Malise, feeling his pocket, "what does the rogue want with his friendship? I'm as poor as a rat. Who is he?"
"Oh, for that," replied the other, "he seems a great lord in his way, wears your blazon, is free with his money, and he swears like a Fleming."
"Bring him to me, Admiral, bring him to me. I shall like this man."
So Galors was brought in, to be graciously received by the head of the house of Gai. His blunt manner deceived Malise at once. In his experience people who wanted to borrow dealt differently. Here was a lofty soul, who might, on the other hand, be guided to lend! In the course of a long conversation Melise unbosomed. He was newly a lover and liked the part. The Baron ended his confession thus—
"So, my dear friend, you see how it is with me. I have never met you before—the more's the pity. I accept your civilities, but I make no promises—you know our legend? Well, I bide my time—he—he! No boasting, but upon my honour, my reputation does not make me out ungrateful. I say to you, go to Malbank; observe, watch, judge, then report to me. The detail I leave to you. I should recommend a disguise. The place has become one of pilgrimage—go as a pilgrim! You will see whether the prize is worth my while. I am sure you have taste—I know it. Observe, report. Then we will act."
"Ravishment of ward?" asked Galors dryly.
"Ward! She is not his ward. How can she be? Who is she? Nobody knows. The thing is a crying scandal, my dear friend. A woman in an abbey parlour! An alcove at Holy Thorn! Are we Mohammedans, infidels, Jews of the Old Law? Fie!"
"You do not know her name, Baron?"
"She is the Chained Virgin of Saint Thorn, I tell you. She has no other name. She sits in a throne in choir, pale as milk, with burning grey eyes as big as passion-flowers! She is a chained Andromeda on the rock of Peter. Be my Perseus!"
"Hum," said Galors, half to himself, "hum! Yes, I will go at once."
"My dear friend——"
"Not a word more, Baron. Go home to Starning, go where you like, and wait. If you see me again the lady will be with me."
"You shall not find me ungrateful, I promise," cried Malise, going out.
"Damn your gratitude," said Galors, when the door was shut.
A mortified Perseus in drab cloak and slouch hat, he went to Malbank next day and verified his prognosis. The Abbot sang Mass, his old colleagues huddled in choir; the place echoed with the chastened snuffling he knew so well. Galors had no sentiment to pour over them. Standing, bowing, genuflecting, signing himself at the bidding of the bell, he had no eyes for any but the frail apparition whose crown of black seemed to weigh her toward the pavement. The change wrought in her by a year's traffic might have shocked, as the eyes might have haunted him; but she was nothing but a symbol by now. A frayed ensign, she stood for an earldom and a fee. The time had been when her beauty had bewitched him; that was when she went flesh and blood, sun-browned, full of the sap of untamed desires. Now she was a ghost with a dowry; stricken, but holding a fief.
He judged the chain, the time, the place, the chances. He had three men. It was enough. Next Sunday he would act. Then for the forest roads and High March!
That next Sunday was Lammas Day and a solemn feast. All Malbank was in the nave, a beaten and weather-scarred bundle of drabs packed in one corner under the great vaulting ribs. Within the dark aisles the chapels gloomed, here and there a red lamp made darkness darker; but the high altar was a blaze of lights. The faces, scared or sharp-set, of the worshippers fronted the glory open-mouthed, but all dull. Hunger makes a bad altar-flame; when it burns not sootily it fires the fabric.
Afterwards came something which they understood—Isoult between her two women, the monk behind. A girl chained by the middle to a monk—Oh, miracle! She sat very still in her carved chair, folding her patient hands. So thin, so frail, so transparent she was, they thought her pure spirit, a whisp of gossamered breath, or one of those gauzy sublimations which the winter will make of a dead leaf. The cowed audience watched her wonderfully; some of the women snivelled. The white monks, the singing boys, the banners and tapers, Ceremoniar, Deacon, Subdeacon, the vested Abbot himself, passed like a shining cloud through the nave. All their light came from the Chained Virgin of Saint Thorn. And then the Mass began.
There was a ring of hoofs outside, but no one looked round, and none came in. A shadow fell across the open door. At aDominus Vobiscumyou might have seen the ministrant falter; there might have been a second or two of check in his chant, but he mastered it without effort, and turned again with displayed hands to his affair. The choir of white hoods, however, watched the shadow at the west door. Isoult saw nothing and heard nothing; she was kneeling at prayer. It may be doubted if any prayed but the girl and the priest.
The holy office proceeded; the Sanctus bell shrilled for the first time. Hoofs shattered scandalously on the flags, and Galors, with an armed man on either hand of him, rode into the nave. The choir rose in a body, the nave huddled; Isoult, as she believed, saw Prosper, spear, crest, and shield. Her heart gave a great leap, then stood still. Perhaps there was a flicker in the Abbot's undertone; his lips may have been dry; but his courage was beyond proof. He held on.
Isoult was blanched as a cloth; lips, fingers and ears, the tongue in her open mouth—all creeks for the blood were ebbed dry. Her awful eyes, fixed and sombre stars, threatened to gulf her in their dark. Love was drowned in such horror as this.
Galors swung out of the saddle. In the breathless place the din of that act came like a thunder-peal, crackling and crashing, like to wreck the church. He drew his sword, with none to stay him, and strode forward. If the Abbot Richard heard his step up the choir the man is worthy of all memory, for he went on with his manual acts, and his murmur of prayer never ceased. He may have heard nothing—who knows what his motions were? He was a brave man.
The bell rang—rang again—God beamed in the Host. The people wavered, but use held. They bowed prone before God in His flake of new flesh.
"Deus in adjutorium," muttered the Abbot to himself.
"Entra per me!" thundered Galors, and ran him through the body.
After the first shudder had swept through the church there was no sound at all, until some woman hidden began a low moan, and keened the Abbot Richard. No one dared to stir while those grim horsemen in the nave sat like rocks.
Galors turned to Isoult where she froze rigid in her throne, severed the chain at a blow, and went to take her. Some sudden thought struck him; he turned her quickly round to the light and without ceremony fumbled at her neck. She grew sick to feel him touch her.
"The Abbot hath it." Her lips formed the words. Galors went back to the dead priest and pulled off chain and locket.
"Oh, my ring, my ring!" whined the girl as he slipt the chain over her. He did not seem to hear her, but snatched her up in his arms as if she had been a doll and set her on his horse. He swung himself into the saddle behind her as he had swung himself out of it, reined up short and turned. The three men rode out with their burden. When they had gone the Deacon (who got a mitre for it) solemnly laid the fallen host between his lord's lips. The act, at once pious and sensible, brought up the congregation from hell to earth again. At such times routine is the only saving thing.
Once free of the Abbey precincts the three horsemen forded Wan. At a signal pre-arranged one of them fell back to keep watch over the river. Galors went forward with one in his company on to the heath, dropped him after three or four hours' steady going, and rode on still. His third man was to meet him at the edge of Martle Brush. Never a word had he spoken since his great "Entra per me!" but without that the act had been enough to tell his prize, that whatever her chains had been before, the sword-stroke had riveted them closer. There had been no chain like his mailed arm round her body.
Nothing could be done. Indeed she was as yet paralyzed; for wild work as had been done in her sight, this was savagery undreamed. She could get no comfort, she never thought of Prosper. Even Prosper, her lord, could not stand before such a force as this. As for good Saint Isidore, the pious man became a shade, and vanished with his Creator into the dark.
Night came on, but a low yellow moon burnt the fringe of the rising woods. They were retracing almost the very stones of the track she and Prosper had followed a year before.
Matt's intake they passed, she saw a light in the window. The heath loomed ghostly before them, with the dark bank of trees rising steadily as they neared. Athwart them rose also the moon; there was promise of a fine still night. They entered the trees, heading for Martle Brush.
Suddenly Galors pulled up, listening intently. There was no sound save that strange murmur the night has (as if the whole concave of heaven were the hollow of a shell), and the secret rustling of the trees. Still Galors listened. It was so quiet you might almost have heard two hearts beating.