Into the Dragon’s Jaws
“Draw back thy head into the leaves, wilt thou, fool? The glitter of
that morion would scare our birds if they fly this way, to say nought
of thine ill-favoured visage, that looks like a dog robbed of a bone!”
“Draw back thy long tongue betwixt thy teeth, I counsel thee, lest I
shorten it with my dagger!”
“Come, no quarrelling when there is work in hand,” broke in a deeper
growl, “or I brain ye both with my axe, which hath split skulls as
thick ere now!”
The ghostly effect of these hoarse whispers, which mingled so strangely
with the rush of the river and the moan of the rising storm, was
deepened tenfold by the fact that no living thing was to be seen. It
seemed as if the very leaves of the forest were whispering to each
other some ghastly secret in the spectral twilight of that gloomy
autumn evening, which was fast darkening into night.
A child might have guessed that men who were lurking at such an hour in
the thickets that overhung the ford of the Arguenon could be after no
good; and in truth they did well to hide themselves, for it would have
been hard to find, even in an age so fruitful in ruffians of high and
low degree, a more villainous-looking rabble of cut-throats. On each
and all of those various faces—swarthy, keen-eyed, brigand-like
Spaniards; sinewy, black-haired, sallow Genoese; sturdy, yellow-bearded
Flemings; and red-haired, hard-featured Scots—was stamped the same
brand of savage violence, swaggering recklessness, and brutal
debauchery that harmonized but too well with their blood-rusted
weapons, dinted steel-caps, and slovenly dress—an unsightly mixture of
tawdry finery and squalid filth.
In a word, one glance would have told the most careless observer that
these wretches must be either brigands or pirates; and, in fact, they
were both—land-thieves and sea-thieves by turns.
More than two years had passed since the tournament which saw the best
knights of Brittany fall before the then untried lance of young Du
Guesclin, and the great national storm which was then threatening had
burst in all its fury. King Edward of England was marching through
Picardy with thousands of English archers and men-at-arms at his back;
war was raging along the whole border of Flanders; France was all
tumult, disorder, and senseless division; and the Channel swarmed with
French, English, Flemish, and Spanish warships, and with the countless
corsairs who, while pretending to belong to one side or the other,
robbed both with strict impartiality, pouncing now on Sussex and
Dorset, now on Normandy and Brittany, and taking their chance of being
hanged like dogs if they met a stronger force than their own.
To this class belonged the worthies now in ambush at the ford, who had
come on a plundering cruise up the little Breton river at the mouth of
which lay their ship. They had been just about to go back to her with
their booty, when they learned by chance that a lady of rank was
returning that way with a small train from a visit to the shrine of
Notre Dame de Lamballe; and the captain, whose savage face and brutal
look matched well with the dragon crest of his battered helmet, had at
once made up his mind to await and seize this new prize, whose ransom
would certainly outweigh all the other gains of their expedition put
together.
Just as the robbers drew back into their covert, the last gleam of
sunset was flashed back from the steel caps and lance-points of twelve
stalwart men-at-arms, riding slowly down the hill toward the ford, with
two female figures, whose dress showed them to be mistress and maid.
“Here is the ford at last, ill betide it!” growled a grim veteran who
led the party—no other, in fact, than the Norman ex-bandit who had
told to Bertrand du Guesclin, three years before, the strange tale of
Lady Tiphaine de Raguenel. “But night will be upon us ere we can reach
Ploncoët.”
“And what if it be, good Blaise?” said the taller of the two women, in
a clear, sweet voice, that contrasted strikingly with the old
spearman’s harsh tones. “Surely thou, of all men living, fearest not
wolves or robbers?”
“I fear nought earthly, noble lady, especially in the service of one so
saintly as yourself; but you know these woods have no good name, and to
pass through them after dark——”
And the rough soldier crossed himself with a trembling hand.
“Dark or light, what matter, since we are always in the hand of God?”
said the lady, with a smile so bright and fearless that it seemed to
light up her beautiful face like a saint’s crown of glory. “What have
we to fear, so long as we are doing His will? But perhaps,” she added
archly, “thou art loath to venture into the haunted forest with one
whom men call ‘Tiphaine the Fairy.’”
“You do but jest, lady!” cried Blaise, with sudden fierceness. “Let any
man, be he knight or churl, dare to say in my hearing that the noble
demoiselle Tiphaine de Raguenel is akin to sprites or fairies, or aught
else but the holiest angels of heaven, and I will so deal with him
that——”
That challenge was never finished. A sudden crash shook the black,
shadowy thicket; a wolfish yell broke through the deepening gloom;
there was a tramp of feet and a clash of steel, and the Raguenel
men-at-arms found themselves suddenly attacked on all sides at once!
But, few as they were, these men were all cool and practised soldiers,
and, though not looking to be surprised at that exact spot, they had
fully expected an attack ere reaching their halting-place. Closing
sternly round their young mistress, they faced their swarming foes, who
were thirty to twelve, as bravely as men could do.
Steel rang on steel, man grappled man, blows rained at hap-hazard in
the darkness, and death came blindly, none knew whence or how. The
heavy trampling and hard breathing of the combatants amid the ghostly
gloom showed how fiercely the fight was contested. More than one
ruffian who had thought this handful of men an easy prey, fell writhing
in the dust, and, for a few moments, arms and discipline balanced
superior numbers.
But the pirate captain was not a man to be lightly baulked of his prey.
Growling a curse too horrible to be repeated, he thrust himself into
the thick of the fight, and came hand to hand with Blaise himself, who
stood like a tower before the daughter of his lord, shielding her with
his own body. A stamp, an oath, a clang of steel, a quick, convulsive
gasp, and the brave old Norman lay at Tiphaine’s feet, with his
life-blood gushing through his iron-grey hair.
But ere the final blow could fall, the girl thrust herself between the
murderer and his victim, and, standing over the fallen man, waved back
the pirate’s dripping blade with her bare hand as boldly as if she were
invulnerable.
“Begone, impious men!” she cried, with stern and solemn emphasis. “Will
ye peril your souls by molesting the pilgrims of God? Too much blood
have ye shed already; shed no more, I charge ye! Go and repent, ere it
be too late!”
The murderers recoiled in sudden awe, and even their ferocious leader
himself wavered and hung back for a moment.
Then, through that dead hush of dismay, broke a voice mighty as a
trumpet-blast—
“Notre Dame! Notre Dame! to the rescue!”
Mingling with that shout came the thunder of charging hoofs, and a
single rider, in black armour, burst into the midst of the ruffianly
throng, with closed visor and levelled lance.
Down went the first robber who met that terrible charge, pierced
through steel and bone and body, till the good lance stood out a full
yard behind his back. Ere the next man’s uplifted sword could descend,
the black rider’s battle-axe flashed and fell, and sword and hand
dropped in the trampled dust together. With a crash like the fall of an
oak, the terrible axe smote the head of a third ruffian, who fell dead
where he stood, cloven through steel-cap and skull to the teeth.
“It is Monseigneur St. Michael, the Prince of Angels!” shouted the
Raguenel men, with one voice; “he is sent to our aid by Our Blessed
Lady herself. At them, comrades! Heaven fights for us!”
The same conviction pulsed like an electric shock through the terrified
corsairs, and, giving up all thought of resistance, they turned to fly,
some even flinging away their arms as they ran.
But it was too late. Before them was a rushing river, behind them the
avenging swords of their pursuers; and few, very few, ever reached the
boats. Two were cut down while actually springing on board, and a
third, missing his leap, fell headlong into the water, and was dragged
down by the weight of his armour to rise no more, shrieking in vain for
the help which no one had any thought of giving; for, in an age when
men were daily falling by each other’s hands in scores and hundreds,
what mattered one life more or less?
But the unknown champion whose prowess had turned the fray, where was
he? Standing motionless among the dead, like one spellbound, glancing
in wondering awe from the livid features of the last man that he had
struck down (no other than the pirate captain himself) to the calm,
sweet face of the lady he had rescued. At last, as if half-stifled by
his own contending emotions, he threw open his visor; and at sight of
the face thus revealed, one of the wounded Raguenel men, who lay near,
muttered tremulously—
“Had I not heard him utter a holy name, I had assuredly taken him for
the Evil One himself!”
But just then the dying Blaise, with that sudden return of perfect
consciousness which is so often, in such cases, the immediate
forerunner of death, looked up with a glance of joyful recognition at
the grim visage that frowned from beneath the black warrior’s helmet,
and cried with the last effort of his failing strength—
“Messire Bertrand du Guesclin! Then is my lady’s prophecy made good,
and the hour of my death hath seen the coming of our deliverer. God’s
blessing be on him!”
And, with that blessing on his lips, the stern old spearman sank back
and died.
“He is gone!” said Lady Tiphaine, looking down with a sigh on the
rugged face that would never move again. “Truer heart never beat; God
rest his soul. Noble knight,” she added, turning to her rescuer, “to
whom I have too long delayed owning a debt of gratitude that I can
never repay, art thou in very deed Sir Bertrand du Guesclin, who did
his devoir so manfully in the tournament at Rennes two years agone, and
overthrew all comers?”
“Knight am I none as yet,” said the future hero of Brittany, with a
slight flush; “but I am he of whom thou art pleased to speak so far
beyond his deserving. Tell me, I pray, art thou a lady of mortal birth,
or that holy one whose name was my war-cry even now?”
“Nay, give not such honour to mine unworthy self; I am of mortal birth,
and they call me Tiphaine de Raguenel. Why tak’st thou me for one from
heaven?”
“Because,” said the young noble, solemnly, “I saw thee, years agone, in
a dream sent from God.”
Then he told briefly the strange vision that had presented to him, on
the memorable night of his first meeting with the pilgrim-monk, a lady
whose appearance matched in every point her who now stood beside him,
trampling down a dragon with a human face, which was that of the slain
pirate at their feet!
“And then,” he ended, “meseemed this lady who wore thy semblance set a
laurel wreath on my head, and hailed me as the champion of France.”
Into the girl’s large bright eyes, as he spoke, crept a shadow of
sudden awe; but with it came a glow of deep and solemn joy.
“And when was this vision?” she asked eagerly.
“On the Eve of St. John, five years since.”
“This is in very deed the hand of God,” said Tiphaine, solemnly. “Five
years since, on the Eve of St. John, I beheld in a dream one in thy
likeness, and methought a voice from heaven bade me crown him as the
deliverer of our oppressed land from all her foes. Hail to thee,
champion of France! Let thy war-cry henceforth be as it hath been this
day, ‘Notre Dame!’ in proof that thou art truly the soldier of heaven;
and let this sacred rosary, brought by a holy pilgrim from Mount
Carmel, hang on thy neck from this day in token that God is with thee
for the deliverance of France, for alas! she standeth in sore need of
it.”