To the north of St. Isidore’s Gate the road expanded into a broad
platform, capable of holding some hundred men. Many boulders were strewn
around, with squared stones fallen from the ruined parapet that had once
edged the sharp precipice. Tristan and his men were quickly at work,
carrying stones towards the Gate, and piling a rampart from the rock to
the cliff. The peasant who had served them as guide had swarmed up the
stem of the great fir and was perched amid the branches, watching the
Saracens as they climbed the pass. Meanwhile, Tristan had sent a
messenger to warn Sir Bertrand on the heights above that Serjabil was
upon them with his host.
Soon a broad bulwark, a Cyclopean wall, closed the mouth of St.
Isidore’s Gate. Tristan stood under the shadow of the tree with Blanche
the Bold at his side. The melancholy that had possessed the man but an
hour before had passed with the stir of the coming battle. He was once
more that Tristan of dogged will who had slain Ogier the giant in fair
fight and trodden down Jocelyn into the dust.
He spread his shoulders and smiled at the moon as he stood with Blanche
upon the rough stone wall. His nostrils dilated with his deep breathing
as he watched the columns climb the pass.
“But a day and a night,” he said, “and Lothaire should come. We could
hold this wall for a week, I trow.”
“Even so,” she answered him; “yet before the moon climbs up again all my
rough children from the north should tumble up to save their lady.”
“If only Bertrand holds the mountain path.”
“Bertrand will stand to the last sword.”
“And, by Heaven, we shall not fail him. God willing, I would hold the
pass alone.”
The moon had passed behind one of the western peaks when Serjabil’s men
came climbing up to where the fir tree grew by the Gate. A broad shadow
was thrown athwart the pass, so that the road was plunged in gloom.
Tristan had ordered his force into five companies, each numbering some
fifty men. They were to reinforce each other from hour to hour, so that
all could rest in turn. They lay quiet behind the wall, waiting calmly
for Tristan’s orders.
Tristan crouched behind a boulder, his shield on his arm, his sword in
his hand. Around him were stretched the motionless figures of his men,
like leopards crouching for the spring. The stars were very bright in
the sky, since the moon had sunk behind the peak.
Then above the distant roar of the streams came the sound of voices, the
jingling of steel, the dull padding of a thousand feet. Tristan, peering
round a rock, saw a man on a white mule turn an angle of the cliff with
a long line of lances at his back. White robes showed in shadows as the
men marched up, recking nothing of what would follow. When they were
within twenty yards of the Gate, the emir on the white mule drew rein in
the road, and looked ahead into the darkness. Tristan could see a broad
turban wreathing a dusky oval face. It was plain that the man had marked
the barrier before him, and was debating its nature and what lay behind.
He spoke some words to his men, and pointed them towards the tree and
the rock overhanging the precipice. Then figures sprang forward, came
running up the road towards the wall across the Gate. Tristan heard them
muttering one to another as they clambered up the rough pile of stones;
a turbaned head showed above the summit; another followed it, and yet
another.
Tristan sprang up with a great shout.
“God and the Cross!”
Fifty shields heaved up around him. There was the shrill whistle of
whirling blades, the sound of strokes that went heavily home. Several
white-robed bodies rolled back from the rampart, and the first blood had
been shed for the Cross.
Down the pass under the moonlight the long columns could be seen to
waver and halt as the trumpets screamed amid the mountains, the echoes
tonguing from crag to crag. The emir on the white mule rode back among
his men, pointing them towards the Gate with his naked scimitar. The
advance guard raised a great shout, and came pouring up with bucklers
forward, calling on Allah and Mohammed the Prophet. Lithe, dusky
warriors in quilted tunics and shirts of mail came clambering up the
rude stone rampart, to take the spear-thrusts in their faces and meet
the swing of the pitiless swords. Not a single man of them could top the
parapet. Soon white-clad figures lay piled against the wall, like snow
driven there by the wind.
These light-armed folk gave back by their emir’s orders to make way for
Serjabil’s guard, the choice troops of the Caliph’s provinces, harnessed
in chain mail and finely armed. They came up the road in a long column,
their bucklers blinking at the moon, to be eclipsed in the shadows
athwart the Gate. Like foam they dashed against the wall, with its ranks
of shields and spears above. Vain was their fatalistic valour, the
courage that claimed an eastern paradise. Time after time they clambered
up to melt away before the wall. The dead were piled in the narrow road
with cloven bucklers and broken spears. Many a man grudged not his blood
that night for the languorous glances of the black-eyed girls.
When dawn came they rolled back baffled from St. Isidore’s Gate.
Serjabil himself rode forward on a mule; his keen black eyes took in the
truth, the rugged hazards of that narrow way. It seemed to him that he
had spent the night in throwing snow against a rock. With the dawn he
embraced a subtler means, ordered his men to bend their bows and shoot
their arrows high in the air. Moreover, he sent a thousand men to climb
the path that wound over the mountain where Sir Bertrand lay.
So the fight went on that day, with the whistling of arrows over the
wall, where Tristan and his men lay low. From the heavens the shafts
came rattling down, dancing upon the upreared shields, taking a life
from time to time. There were many skirmishes upon the wall, and single
combats, wherein Tristan slew seven tall Saracens born of one mother. It
was Serjabil’s plan to wear the Christians out, to hold them in play
while his thousand men forced the path that crossed the mountain.
Towards sunset Tristan stood under the shelter of the great rock,
leaning upon his sword. He had come down from the wall to rest after the
long day’s fighting in the sun. The shield that hung about his neck had
been battered deviceless by the Saracen spears. A scarf was knotted
round his right thigh, where an arrow had gored him, but had not sped
deep.
Blanche the Bold stood at Tristan’s side. She had tended the wounded,
and they had been many, under the shadow of the rock that day. Now her
eyes searched Tristan’s face for foreshadowings of defeat, or wounds
within. She saw no weakening of the dogged mouth, no bowing down of the
massive head.
“I judge,” he said to her, leaning on his sword, “that we have lost this
day some hundred men. These cursed archers have smitten us often.”
Blanche stood silent, as though her thoughts sped to the hamlets of the
north, where women and children would grieve for the dead.
“Whether we live or die,” she said, “we stand here for a noble cause.
Nor shall we flinch from the last blow.”
“Amen,” quoth Tristan, a smile on his mouth. “We can fight for another
night and a day, if Bertrand can keep the path above.”
“By then Lothaire and the host will be here.”
“If Bertrand holds the path above.”
There was a prophetic spirit in these words, for hardly had they passed
from Tristan’s lips than there came sound as of thunder from the cliffs
above. Tristan looked up, rapped out an oath, pressed Blanche back
against the wall. A great rock came hurtling down, scattering stones
from the rugged slope. It leapt out from the last ledge, flew spinning
over the narrow road, to disappear into the depths beneath. Tristan’s
hand was on Blanche’s wrist. Above the mutterings of the streams they
heard the great rock crash below into the branches of the trees.
“By God,” said Tristan, “they have forced the path!”
“On the mountain.”
“Bertrand has been beaten back. They are rolling the rocks on us, curse
their souls!”
He set his arm about Blanche’s body and almost bore her to the foot of
the cliff, where there was a shallow hollowing of the stone. They could
hear the shouts of Serjabil’s men, who cheered when they saw that the
heights were won. Tristan’s men were huddling up under the shelter of
the cliff; they could face these Saracens on the wall, but not the rocks
that smoked from the mountains.
Blanche lay back against the cliff and looked long into Tristan’s face.
“There is yet time,” she said to him suddenly.
“Ha?”
“To fly down the pass into the woods.”
He darted a look at her and threw back his head, his mouth firm, his
eyes fearless.
“As for me,” he said, “I stay at the Gate. Take the rest with you and
meet Lothaire on the road. Tell him and Didcart how I died.”
She spread out her arms against the cliffs, as though crucified by her
own courage.
“Not so,” she said; “I will not go.”
“But——”
“Make no pleading with me, Tristan,” she said, “for my heart is fixed
concerning this.”
He laid a hand upon her shoulder.
“For my sake, go, madame,” he said.
“For your sake,” she answered, “I will not stir hence.”
They stood looking for full half a minute into each other’s eyes, as
though Tristan sought to read the truth that was shining on him out of
her soul. Unconscious of the gesture, he laid his right hand over his
forehead, for he understood of a sudden in that hour that Blanche loved
him, even to the death.
“Madame,” he cried hoarsely, “what can I say to you?”
“Nothing, Tristan,” she said, with a strange smile.
Tristan was almost fearful of looking in her face. What were mere words
to her but mocking symbols? Did she not know of his full love for
Rosamunde? It was only at death’s gate that she had betrayed the truth.
A shower of stones came rattling down the cliff, dancing like huge
hailstones on the rugged road. A great rock crashed down upon the wall,
slew five men there among those who held the Gate. The rest cowered back
under the cliff, while the Saracen arrows sped from the pass, dealing
out death in the crowded space.
Tristan saw that it would be but slow slaughter, and that twenty men
were as good as a hundred, now that the platform was swept by the
stones. He stood forward and shouted to the men.
“Brothers,” he said, “I crave but a score of you to stand beside me, to
hold the Gate to the bitter end. Let the rest make for the road to
Agravale and tell Lothaire of how we stand.”
The men crowding under the cliff heard him in silence, half ashamed of
their own fears. First one stood out and then another, till twenty were
mustered at Tristan’s side. He bade the rest make haste to depart lest
they should be caught in the pass and cut off from Agravale. Thus he was
left with but twenty swords to hold the Saint’s Gate against the
Saracens.
Again the moon rose on the snowy peaks and on the solemn foreheads of
the mountains. Clouds passed slowly over its surface, building caverns
and deep forests of silver in the magic silence of the sky. Ever and
anon the Saracen trumpets screamed exultantly on the heights above. The
mountains awoke to the roar of the rocks forced from their sleep on the
wind-swept slope to thunder down into the depths beneath.
Tristan kept his twenty men under the cliff, that they might escape
these grinding, hurtling bolts that leapt out of the calm sky into the
pass. He had climbed the wall, and lay prone in the angle under the
trunk of the great tree. Thence he could watch the stormers on the road
beneath and warn his men when the tide rolled up.
Nor was he left long in such a posture, with the flat of his sword under
his chin. A clarion wailed in the darkness of the pass, warning those on
the heights above to cease from hurling down the rocks. Spear and
buckler flashed up once more as the moon’s eye was uncovered by a cloud.
With a great shout Tristan sprang up with sword aloft, his men thronging
round him on the wall.
Again the moon sank into the west and huge shadows covered the cliffs.
About St. Isidore’s Gate the dead lay thick, where Serjabil’s Saracens
had recoiled once more. Yet empty of triumph was that desperate rally
for those score heroes who held the wall. Tristan stood alone there on
the bloody rampart, bleeding from a spear-thrust in his throat as he
leant heavily upon his sword.
A voice called to him out of the gloom, and Blanche’s hand was on his
shoulder.
“God help you, Tristan,” she said in his ear. “Is it death with you,
soul of my soul?”
He staggered back against the cliff, while she held a wine-flask to his
lips, then tore the scarf from off her bosom, and strove to staunch the
blood from his throat. He leant heavily against the cliff, fighting for
his breath, half dead with travail. Blanche’s arms went about his body,
and she half bore his weight as she watched him suffer.
“Tristan,” she said, “Tristan, Tristan.”
He turned his head wearily, so that it half rested upon her bosom.
“I am athirst,” he said, “give me more wine.”
She reached down and held the flask again to his lips, drawing his right
arm over her shoulder so that he leant his weight upon her.
“Tristan, look up,” she said at length. “Is it death with you? Great
heart, take courage.”
“I am very weary,” he said, closing his eyes.
“Rest here, then,” she answered; “I can bear your weight.”
Slowly the dawn was streaming up, calm and clear after that night of
travail. The peaks were glistening in the sky, the heavens mellowing
from grey to blue. Under the white brows of the mountains, Tristan and
Blanche were alone together, among the stricken and the dead. In death
it seemed they would not be parted, though love and life had denied the
dream.
Suddenly the woman’s arm tightened about Tristan’s body. The colour
returned to her weary face; her eyes grew bright like the eyes of one
who hears deliverance in the wind.
“Listen,” she said, “listen, listen!”
From afar came the stirring cry of a horn, a wild blast echoing among
the mountains. From afar seemed to rise the shouts of men, strong and
vigorous, hurrying to battle. A faint clamour came from the heights
whence Bertrand had been driven by Serjabil’s Saracens.
“It is Lothaire,” Blanche said; “they are climbing the pass. Hear how
the heathen give tongue above us.”
Tristan struggled up and gripped his sword. A second life seemed to
breathe in his body; a second courage filled his heart.
“By God, they come at last!” he cried, with his eyes taking fire. “Give
me a shield and I will hold the Gate.”
She hesitated a moment, then did his bidding, groping among the dead men
by the wall. She thrust a shield on Tristan’s arm, her hands trembling,
her eyes dim with tears. For the sake of his glory she was sending him
forth to die in the pass for Christ and the Cross. Even as she armed
him; she heard the sound of men storming towards the wall.
Tristan turned to her with the smile of a hero.
“One more fight,” he said, “and I shall have fought my fill.”
Tears were shining on Blanche’s cheeks.
“Go, Tristan,” she said, “and I will follow.”
He bent towards her and kissed her lips.
Therewith, he sprang up towards the parapet, and set his shield before
his face. A hundred bucklers were surging up, with corselet and tunic
playing beneath. Over the death wrack of the place the sons of the
Crescent came streaming up. A single warrior held the wall as the dawn
deepened and the night elapsed. Thus did Tristan take his stand with
Blanche the Bold at St. Isidore’s Gate.