"Roweth on fast! who that is faint
In evil water may he be dreynt!"
They rowed hard and sung thereto
With hevelow and rumbeloo.
The boat glided through the reeds and hissed among the stalks as it
floated off into deep water.
The man-at-arms who had been pushing it scrambled over the flat stern
drenched to his waist.
Hyla and Cerdic lay bound where they had been flung at the bottom of the
boat as roughly and carelessly as sacks of meal.
They moved slowly over the deep black waters. "The priests'll wake to
find the pies flown," said Huber, emphasising his remark with a lusty
kick upon the prostrate Cerdic.
"What will they think?" asked some one.
"I neither know eke care. Perchance it will be thought the divill has
took them to his own place."
"Whence they will shortly go."
"Not before they have tasted of hell in Hilgay," and the speaker went on
to enumerate with much spirit and vividness the several tortures to
which the captives would be subjected before Death was merciful.
That these were no idle boasts to frighten them Cerdic and Hyla were
very well aware. They had seen with their own eyes how men were punished
for a far less offence than theirs. Nameless atrocities were committed
upon the serfs, and the mocking words of the soldier had a terrible
significance for them. The boat moved but very slowly. It was heavy, and
the men were all tired out. Moreover, the night was oppressively hot
even out upon the water.
Most of the rowers stripped to the waist and flung their garments down
into the bottom of the boat. Hyla and Cerdic were covered with heavy,
evil-smelling garments, and almost suffocated.
"I cannot breathe," whispered Hyla to Cerdic.
"Hist, listen! Get thy head down lower. Yes, so. Feel you my hands and
the thong. There now; bite till I am free and can get at my dog-knife.
God be praised, they did not see it!"
With a sudden leaping of his heart, forgetting the awful heat, Hyla
cautiously lowered his head and began to nibble at the thong with
strong, sharp teeth.
He could hear the muffled notes of an old Norman-French ballad telling
of the nimbleness of Taillefer, as they sang to help the oars along.
"L'un dit à l'altre ki co veit
Ke co esteit enchantement,
Ke cil fesait devant la gent,"
and so forth, the doggerel sounding very melodious as the blended voices
sent it out over the water.
The singing was an aid to their work, for it took away the attention of
their guards. The greasy strap for a time resisted all his efforts. His
teeth slid over the slippery surface and could not pierce it. Once there
was a sharp crack, a twinge of pain, and a tooth broke in two. He was
dismayed for a moment, but soon found the accident helped him.
The jagged edge of the broken bone soon made an incision in the leather,
and with considerable pain he severed it at last.
The relief to Cerdic was extreme. They had tied his wrists so tightly
that the thongs had cut deep into the flesh. For a moment or two his
hands were quite lifeless and he could not move them. Then as the blood
came flowing back into the stiffened fingers, pricking as though it were
full of powdered glass, his mind also began to recover from its torpor
and fear. He became alert, and his thoughts moved rapidly. He reached
down cautiously for his knife and, inch by inch, withdrew it from the
sheath. The jerkins which covered him were so thickly spread that more
vigorous movements could hardly have been seen, but he trusted nothing
to chance.
Soon Hyla's hands were free, and the thongs binding his ankles severed.
They began to whisper a plan of escape.
Hyla was a good swimmer, and Cerdic a poor one, but death in the lake or
the deep fen pools was far better than death with all the hideousness
that would attend it at Hilgay Castle. The plan was this: When the men
rested for a morning meal, which, they calculated would be at sunrise,
they would make a sudden dash for freedom. By that time the lake would
have been traversed, and the boat slowly threading the mazy waterways
of the fen. It would go hard with them if they could not get away from
the heavily clad men-at-arms, all unused as they were to the country.
Meanwhile the rowers had got three parts of the way over the water. The
sky was quite light now, with that cold grey-green which lasts for a few
minutes before the actual sunrise.
"Sun will soon rise," said Heraud; "it's colder now, I will put on my
jerkin."
"And I also," said several others, and the pile of clothes began to be
lifted from the serfs.
It was a terribly anxious moment for them. If it was seen that bonds
were cut, then they must risk everything, and jump into the lake, for
they knew the boat could not have won the fen as yet.
Once in the lake their chance was small, unless it might happen that
they were near the reeds which bordered it, and could swim to them and
be lost in the fen. The boat could go far more swiftly than they could
swim. In all probability there were cross-bows in it; they would be
hunted through the water like drowning puppies.
One by one the rowers, chilled by their exertions, lifted the heavy
leather garments from the two men. Cerdic continued to push his knife
under him, and both men lay upon their stomachs, with their hands placed
in the position they would have occupied had the thongs remained uncut.
Fortune was kind to them. When they at length lay bare to view, and the
cold air came gratefully to their sweating bodies, the soldiers saw
nothing. Heraud was the last man to take his coat, and he smote the back
of Hyla's head heavily with his clenched fist.
The sudden pain and the foul words which accompanied the blow made the
prostrate man quiver with rage. For a moment an impulse to fly at the
throat of the man-at-arms, and risk everything in one wild exultation of
combat, shook him through and through. He quivered with hatred and
desire. But a low sibilant warning from Cerdic kept him fast, and with a
mighty effort he restrained his passion.
Somewhat to the dismay of the serfs, the boat was stopped, and the
soldiers produced food and beer from a basket and began to make a meal.
Although they did not dare raise their heads to see, Cerdic and Hyla
could hear from the talk of the men above them that they were yet a
good half mile or more from the fen. The air began to grow a little
warmer, and the sky to be painted in long crimson and golden streaks
towards the East. Above their heads the heavy beating of great wings
told them that the huge wild fowl of the fen were clanging out over the
marshes for food.
Suddenly one of the soldiers, who was in the article of raising an apple
to his mouth, began to snigger with amusement. The others followed the
direction of his extended finger with their glance. He was pointing at
Heraud. "Well, Joculator," snarled that worthy, "what be you a-mouthing
at me for?"
"It's your face, Heraud," spluttered Huber. "By St Simoun, but I never
thought of it till now. Should'st have washed it off!"
"Pardieu!" said Heraud "it be the minter's paint which I had forgot. A
mis-begotten wretch I must look and no lesing! I will to the water and
wash me like a Christian."
The man presented a curious and laughable appearance. Lewin had
disguised him well, so that he might spy out where Hyla lay, but the
exertion of rowing had induced perspiration, and the dusky colouring
and painted eyebrows trickled down his hot, tired face in streaks. A
black stubble of newly sprouting beard and moustache added to the comic
effect.
"Ne'er did I see such a figure of fun as thou art, comrade!" said Huber
in an ecstasy of mirth.
"Then, by Godis rood, I will make me clean," said Heraud
good-humouredly. With that he got him to the boatside, and leaning over
the gunwale began to lave himself vigorously in the fresh water.
In an earlier part of this book occurs a passage which is at some little
trouble to explain that these men-at-arms were little more than
ferocious unthinking children. The kneeling man presented a mark not
only for quips of tongue but for a rougher and more physical wit. With a
meaning wink at the others, John Pikeman withdrew a tholepin, about a
foot long, from its socket, and with that stick did give Heraud a most
sounding thwack upon the most exposed part of him.
With a sudden yell the unlucky wretch, as might have been foreseen,
threw up his legs, and, with a loud gurgle, disappeared into the water.
Now to these men, water was a thing somewhat out of experience. Not one
in a hundred of them could swim; they were seldom put in the way of it,
and a lake or river presented far more terrors to them than any walled
town or field of battle.
The fact induces a reflection. Courage is purely relative. All of us can
be brave in dangers we know, few of us but are not cowed in perils which
are new. Poor Heraud was a striking example of the sententious truth. He
rose choking, and his face was so white with fear, his eyes so pleading,
his strong arms beat the water in such agony, that every rough heart in
that boat was filled with anguish.
With one accord they rushed to the side of the boat, and immediately the
inevitable happened.
The gunwale sank lower and lower, the cruel lip of black water rose
hungrily to meet it, there was a sound like a man swallowing oil, a
swirl, a rush of black water creamed into foam at its edge, and with a
loud shout of dismay and terror the whole crew were struggling furiously
in the water.
In a second the overturned boat had drifted yards away, and only the
slimy green bottom projected above the flood.
Hyla and Cerdic, not being at the side of the boat, were not flung some
distance out by the force of its turning, but sank together directly
beneath it.
They rose almost at once, and both received smart knocks on the head
from the timber. With little difficulty they dived and came up by the
boat side. Each put a hand upon the slippery curved timbers, only
obtaining a rest for the tips of the fingers, and, treading water,
looked towards the drowning crowd a few yards away. The water was lashed
into foam, as if some huge fish were disporting itself upon the surface.
Heads kept bobbing up like corks, and sinking with a gurgling noise. Now
and then a hand rose clutching the air in a death convulsion.
Amid all the confusion and tumult the wicker basket, which had held
food, floated serenely, and the oars clustered round about it.
Every second, with a long groan, some sturdy fellow would catch at an
oar end, the water pouring from his mouth and dripping from his cap. The
thin pole would tip up with a jerk, and he would sink gurgling and
coughing to his death. Meanwhile the sun came up the sky with one red
stride, and illumined all the waters. The day broke cool and glorious,
while these were dying. The day broke as it had done a thousand years
before, and will a thousand years after you and I have sunk from one
life and risen in another. Calm, glorious, unheeding, the sun rose over
the waters, smiling inscrutably on those who were to know its secret so
very soon.
In a few moments it was nearly over. Three heads remained above the
water, as the serfs watched in fear. Huber swam round and round the
other two, shouting directions and advice. One was Heraud, the other
Jame, a cut-throat dog of no value. Both had but a few strokes, and
their strength was failing fast.
The two heads sank lower and lower, the chins were submerged, the red
line of the lips for a moment rested in line with the water, and then,
with no sign or cry, they sank gently out of sight. Bubbles came up to
the surface from a ten-yard circle, burst, and disappeared, the last
sign that ten good fighting men were sinking asleep, deep down in the
mud below.
As he saw his last two comrades go to their death, Huber gave a loud
despairing cry, wrung from his very heart. Then he started slowly and
laboriously, for his strength was fast failing, to swim to the boat.
By this time Hyla and Cerdic were in a safer position. The long-armed
little man had made a great leap out of the water from Cerdic's
shoulders. He pushed his friend far down beneath the surface with the
force of his spring, but the slight resistance of Cerdic's body had
given him the necessary impetus, and his strong arms clutched the keel.
He was very soon astride it, and when Cerdic came spluttering up again
he too was easily assisted into comparative safety.
Suddenly Huber saw the two seated there, and his white face became drawn
and furrowed with despair as he saw his last hope gone.
"Hyla! Cerdic!" he called quaveringly, "ye two have beaten twelve brave
men, and me among 'em. Ye have Godis grace with you, curse you! and I am
done and over. Give you good-day."
"You fool, Huber!" said Hyla in concern, "think you we are foes in this
pass? Wait, man, keep heart a little while!" He lifted his leg from the
other side of the keel and dived into the water, sending the boat
rocking away for yards as he did so. He made the exhausted archer place
two hands upon his shoulders, and in ten exhausting minutes the three
were perched upon the boat keel, the sole survivors of that ill-fated
crew. The sun began to be hot, and they saw they were near land by now.
"I will just make a prayer," said Cerdic, with some apology. "It will do
no harm, and perhaps please Our Lady, who, I wist, has done this for
Hyla and me and Huber."
With that he fell fervently to uncouth thanksgivings, while the sun came
rushing up and dried them all.
Hyla and Huber glanced at each other in mute admiration of his
eloquence.