CHAPTER XXDoomed
At sight of that well-known face a thrill of superstitious terror pulsed through the savage band, in all but the very worst of whom the feelings and beliefs of their childhood had not been wholly extinguished even by a life of rapine and crime. They still retained their instinctive awe of the Church and all belonging to it, and feared the grey frock far more than the coat of mail.
But their present panic had another and a deeper source. Now that these fierce and lawless robbers, who were wont to spread terror wherever they came, had at last met a man who was not afraid of them, they at once began to be afraid of him. One who could thus venture among them alone and unarmed must be strong in the possession of some supernatural power; and they shrank from this solitary and defenceless old man as if he had an armed host at his back.
Mingling with this terror came another of a different kind. Many of them had heard Croquart utter his cruel vow to torture to death the first man who passed; and the first man was the “Pilgrim of God” himself! Would the savage dare to lay hand on him? and if he did, what then?
The ruffians began to whisper uneasily to each other, and to cast nervous glances at their ferocious chief, who had not yet caught sight of the new-comer.
But he for whom they feared seemed to have no fear for himself. Quietly and steadfastly he went forward through the terrible camp, right up to its grim leader, whom he singled out at once; and meeting without flinching the glare of mingled amazement and fury cast at him by the arch-murderer’s fiery eyes, said, mildly but firmly—
“Peace be with thee, my son.”
“That is as who should say ‘Starvation be with thee!’” growled the ruffian. “What have we to do with peace?”
“What, indeed?” said the monk, in a tone so sad and solemn that even the soulless brute whom he addressed found no reply.
By this time all the bandits were flocking to the spot, and hundreds of silent and terrified spectators were gathered round the two men as they stood facing each other.
Then, amid that hush of awe-stricken expectation, Brother Michael spoke.
“Hear me, unhappy man, for thine own sake! Thou hast shed seas of innocent blood, and blighted the homes and harvests of the poor, and robbed holy churches, and profaned the sacred vessels of the altar; and now am I sent by Heaven to warn thee to repent of thy misdeeds ere it be too late; for lo! even now is God’s judgment hanging over thy head, ready to fall and crush thee!”
Croquart fairly gasped with amazement and rage. Never yet had the boldest and fiercest of the armed ruffians around dared even to contradict him; and here was a solitary man, aged, feeble, unarmed, bearding him in his own camp! What could this mean?
For one moment a thrill of vague terror shook the robber’s iron heart; and then, as usual with such base and brutal natures, he hastened to right himself in his own eyes for what he deemed a weakness by a fresh burst of blustering fury.
“Prate not to me, shaveling, but bethink thee how thou wilt face the doom that hangs over thy head! Know’st thou I have vowed to set up as a target for our arrows the next man who passed, and thou art he? How lik’st thou that?”
“I cannot believe,” said the old man, as calmly as ever, “that thou couldst do so base a deed as harm an aged man who stands unarmed before thee, and hath done thee no wrong. But if thou wilt do it, work thy will. I fear thee not. Thou canst but kill the body, and God will give me strength to die.”
Croquart stamped till the earth flew up in showers from beneath his armed heel. Like other such monsters, he loved cruelty for its own sake, and enjoyed as a luxury the agony of his victims at the prospect of torture and death; but when, as now, he had to do with a man who had no fear of death, and seemed rather eager to be tortured than otherwise, the sport lost all its savour.
All at once a new thought struck him, and, turning hastily to the old monk, he said—
“From what place didst thou come hither to us?”
“From Carcassonne,” said the monk. “I heard thou wert here, and came to visit thee.”
The look of dismay deepened visibly on the faces of the listening robbers as they heard this aged and solitary man talk so calmly of “coming to visit” one whose very name was the terror of the whole district. Surely this marvellous stranger, whom nothing could daunt, must be a saint—perhaps the great St. Denis of France himself!
But the words that acted so powerfully on the rest passed almost unnoticed by Croquart, who heard only the one word “Carcassonne.”
“Thou hast been in the town, then,” he cried, “and hast seen the strength of the defences and of the garrison? Hark ye, old mole; on one condition I give thee thy life. Aid us to take the town, and, once we are in it, thou shalt go free. Refuse, and thou diest!”
“I refuse,” said the old man, without a moment’s hesitation.
A quick gasp of terrified amazement hissed through the tomb-like silence, while Croquart stood for an instant literally dumb with fury.
“Ho, fellows!” he roared at last, “bind him to the nearest tree, and choose out your sharpest arrows!”
But, for the first time, his savage followers, instead of obeying, hung back with an audible murmur, and one or two slunk away outright.
“Cowards!” yelled the furious bandit. “Do ye call yourselves men, and let the prate of an old dotard scare ye all? I will bind him, then, if none else dare; and Satan himself shall not deliver him out of my hands!”
“But God may,” said the aged hero, simply.
“We shall see,” retorted Croquart, with a ferocious laugh. “I will shoot the first arrow at thee, and let God save thee if He can!”
His arm was extended to clutch his unresisting prisoner, when a cry of wonder and alarm from those on the outskirts of the crowd, instantly echoed by the whole throng, made him turn just in time for a very startling sight.
On the crest of the ridge above, as if in direct answer to the blasphemous challenge, had just appeared a single rider in full armour, so suddenly, and with such an appearance of actually issuing from the sunset glory which played around him, that he seemed to the startled robbers to be descending among them from the sky. His armour, from head to heel, was all one glow of deep, burning red, as if he were actually clothed with fire; and, in the light of the sinking sun, horse and rider seemed dilated to gigantic size, far beyond that of mortal beings.
This time the terror of the brigands was so marked and universal that it infected even their brutal leader, whose swarthy face paled to the very lips as he heard his men mutter tremulously—
“The archangel St. Michael, come down from heaven to avenge his namesake!”
Such was Croquart’s own secret conviction; and this speedy and terrible answer to his impious defiance changed the ruffian’s drunken fury to dismay.
In fact, the descent of a saint or angel in bodily form to champion right and redress wrong was, to all the witnesses of this strange scene, not merely possible, but just what was to be expected. The constant intervention of supernatural beings in natural affairs was as firm and universal a belief in that age as in the days of Homer; and the wild plunderers, terrified as they were by this celestial apparition, never thought of being surprised at it. Their chief had rashly challenged Heaven to snatch his prey from him, and Heaven had taken him at his word.
Mute and motionless, the armed hundreds stood gazing as the fiery warrior moved slowly toward them with braced shield and levelled spear, seeming to grow larger every moment. On he came, uttering no war-cry, speaking no word, and adding by this ghostly silence a tenfold horror to his apparition.
But as he drew nearer his aspect began to lose something of its terrors. His stature dwindled to that of a common man, his giant steed now seemed no larger than an ordinary horse, and the red glow of his armour was seen to be due not to celestial fire, but to the play of the sunset on the rust that coated it.
But all this did nothing to allay the superstitious fears of the bandits. If Monseigneur St. Michael did not think it worth while to avenge this audacious defiance himself, might he not have sent to do it for him some good knight who had been long dead—say one of Charlemagne’s Paladins? As the dreaded stranger approached, all fell back to right and left in silent awe, leaving Croquart and the captive monk standing alone amid the spellbound circle.
Within a few paces of the robber-captain the unknown champion halted suddenly, and at last broke the dreadful silence.
“Who dares lay hand on God’s servant?” cried he, in a deep, stern voice. “This holy man is no captive for such as you. I will lead him hence forthwith.”
“There go two words to that bargain,” retorted Croquart, who, having begun to realize that he had to do with a mortal being after all, was fast regaining his wonted swaggering insolence. “Who art thou, fellow, to dare to thrust thyself into my camp, and speak so boldly of setting free mine own captive? Here be cords enow to bind thee as well as him, and our shafts will find their way through thy coat-of-plate as easily as through his grey frock.”
“Silence, dog!” thundered the unknown, who was no other than Sir Alured de Claremont, fulfilling his vow of expiation. “If thou art not a coward as well as a thief and a murderer, I defy thee, in this holy man’s quarrel, to meet me with equal arms on this spot, man to man and lance to lance; and may God defend the right!”
Foaming with rage, the savage leader roared for his war-horse, and in a trice sat erect in his saddle with levelled lance, fiercely confronting his challenger.
The cowed robbers held their breath to watch the encounter, in terrified expectation of they knew not what. But how that encounter was to end neither they nor any man living could have foreseen.
Ere the signal for the charge could be given, Croquart’s noble horse (which had borne him gallantly through countless frays) was all at once seen to give a violent start, and began to rear and plunge as if maddened with sudden terror. Then, heedless of its rider’s cruel spurs, and the grasp of his iron hand on its bridle, it gave one frantic bound, and tore away straight toward the spot where the curving ridge ended abruptly in a sheer precipice of more than a hundred feet.
The cry of horror from the lookers-on was barely heard when, with one headlong rush, horse and rider were seen to vanish over the brink of the abyss. There was a stifled cry, a dull crash, and man and beast lay together at the foot of the precipice, a crushed, shapeless, mangled mass.
“It is the hand of Heaven!” said Brother Michael, solemnly. “May God have mercy on his soul!”
But the pitying words were drowned in the clamorous cries with which the terrified robbers threw themselves at the feet of this fearful man, who they firmly believed had destroyed their leader by supernatural power, and was able to bring down at any moment the same swift and certain destruction on themselves.
“Have mercy and spare us, holy father, and we will do what penance thou wilt.”
“Kneel not to me, your fellow-sinner, my children,” said the old man, kindly. “Repent of your misdeeds, and I will tell ye how ye may prove your repentance sincere, and do good service to God and man. Beyond yon mountains” (and he pointed to the dim and far-off outline of the blue, shadowy Pyrenees) “your Christian brethren of Spain are warring for the cause of God against the Moorish unbelievers, hard pressed and sore beset. Go ye thither to aid the warriors of the Cross; and he among you who seeks reward shall find rich spoil there, and he who hath higher thoughts shall win the favour of Heaven. Children, will ye go?”
The last words rang out like a trumpet-blast, and with one voice the fierce men answered—
“We will! we will!”
“Come thou with us, father, and be our captain!” shouted a black-bearded Gascon giant, in a voice like the bellow of a bull, “and if any man dare cross thee, I’ll cut him to joints with my own hand!”
“I thank you right heartily for your goodwill to me, my sons,” said the monk, as the faintest glimmer of a smile flitted over his thin, worn face; “but my weapons are not of this world, and he who shall lead ye must fight as well as pray. Heaven itself hath sent you a captain in your need, and here he stands.”
And he pointed to Sir Alured, who, not yet recovered from his stupefaction at this sudden and fearful tragedy, sat motionless on his horse like an armed statue.
This unlooked-for election was received with clamorous applause.
“Well chosen, holy father!” cried the big Gascon. “In truth, he who could venture singly into our camp to rescue thee, and face hundreds all alone, must be a captain worth following; and follow him we will, through fire and water. Long live our captain!”
“Long live our captain!” echoed hundreds of voices, with a mighty shout.
At that shout, Alured’s haggard face lighted up for a moment with all the fire of former days; but it clouded again at once, and he replied sadly—
“Right glad should I be to lead ye in a good cause; but there lies heavy guilt on my soul, and till that guilt is confessed and absolved (if absolved it may be), I am not worthy to lead Christian men in the cause of God.”
“It is well spoken, my son,” said the monk; “and he that humbleth himself, as thou hast done, shall be exalted. Come hither with me apart, and tell thy tale freely.”
Briefly and clearly, De Claremont told of the fatal combat on Calais sands, the fall of his brother Hugo by his hand, and his own headlong flight from the accursed spot. More he could not tell, for (perhaps in mercy) all that had followed was blotted out as if it had never been, and of what had befallen in the interval, up to his encounter with Du Guesclin, he had no recollection whatever.
The good old man heard the dismal tale with close attention, and, as it ended, laid his thin hand on the penitent’s bowed head with the tenderness of a father.
“I say not that thou hast not sinned deeply, my son,” said he, gently; “but, thank God, thou art free from the brand of Cain, for not in envious malice and of set purpose, like that wicked one, hast thou slain thy brother. It was a hasty quarrel, fought out with equal arms, and he might well have taken thy life instead. Sinner thou may’st be, but murderer art thou none. This day will I myself cleanse the rust from thine armour, in token that the Evil One hath no power over thee; for God sends not the bondmen of Satan to rescue the servants of Heaven, as thou hast done this day. Go forth, and lead these men southward with a good courage; for know that yonder in the south some great and unthought-of blessing awaits thee, though it hath not been given me to know what it shall be. Go, then, and God be with thee!”