to the rear, suddenly Simon saw Duke Baldwin's great charger stagger
and reel and plunge unaccountably, and the next moment Simon found that
his own horse was striving to make its way through ground as muddy
and pulpy as a swamp. Water was squelching and oozing and bubbling
over his horse's fetlocks; the young prince's horse was in the like
stress; and, looking rapidly to left and right, Simon could see that
all the extending line of knights had found the same difficulty in
the way of their progress. It is some ditch, Simon thought, which can
soon be passed, and he urged his steed with a spur to a progress that
became momentarily more difficult. Duke Baldwin was floundering and
struggling in the ever-increasing bog, and Simon could hear him cursing
furiously as he strove to advance. Simon's own horse and the horse of
the prince were now knee-deep in the horrible morass in which by this
time all the knights were floundering. They could, indeed, advance a
little still, but every step was harder than the last, and every inch
of way seemed to find no firmer earth, while black splashes of water
spurted from the puddled soil at every pace, and little pools sucked
and gurgled ominously round the legs of the frightened horses.
There must be dry land somewhere, Simon thought, too much bewildered
by this singular obstacle to wonder how such a ditch as this could
have remained unknown to the Athenian leader. Across the green corn he
could see the Catalans still composedly standing at gaze, while on all
sides of him now the heavily armed knights and the heavy horses were
sinking deeper and deeper in the treacherous marsh. Duke Baldwin ahead
was up to his horse's middle now in the clinging mud, and was vainly
essaying with oaths and curses to urge the beast a little farther. Like
flies glued in honey seemed all the chivalry of Athens, plunging and
struggling to extricate themselves from the fatal fen, and then Simon
saw how some of the men of the Catalan Grand Company began to move.
First, the bowmen lifted their bows and drew arrow to ear, and then a
cloud of shafts came over the entangled knights, who could neither
advance nor retreat, but were limed helplessly in the imprisoning
slime. Then swift Spanish soldiers came running nimbly towards them,
picking their way easily over the sump in which the Athenians wallowed
an inextricable mass of men and horses, and as the Spaniards ran the
sunlight glittered on the long knives they carried in their hands.
In an instant of agony Simon realized that all was lost, that the
flower of the Athenian army was snared in that mysterious marish, and
that there was little chance for any man among them to come out alive.
Already the Spanish knife-men were thick and busy among their victims,
paddling easily where horse and armor sank, and dealing death wherever
they came with their terrible knives. Already Duke Baldwin was down
with twenty men upon him. Hardly a dozen yards away Simon saw the
girlish face of Guy de Hainault for the first time writhen with rage.
He had lifted his visor to see more clearly what had happened, and
he wielded his sword in vain against his unreachable assailants, and
then a dozen men were on him from behind, and a dozen knives met in
his body, and he went down and Simon saw him no more. The black slush
was everywhere reddening with blood, as knight after knight perished
ingloriously, helpless to evade the stings that slew them, and unable
to strike a good stroke in defence of his life and of Athens.
It all happened so quickly, so unexpectedly, that Simon caught himself
staring at the bloody work about him in a kind of unconsciousness, a
kind of indifference, such as a man might wear who came unexpectedly
upon a puppet-show in a village square. Above him the sky, to which
his eyes travelled unawares, shone as brightly blue as it had shone in
the hours of their merry march, since the peach color of the dawn had
faded. The bright Greek world was the same, and yet the bright Greek
world was all different, a mud-stained, blood-stained slaughter-spot,
where brave knights were being murdered. Then, in the midst of the
butchery all about him, Simon thought suddenly of the greenwood and a
girl with a face like a god, and of a noble youth who rode at his side
and strove to force his way over the morass. Instantly a great resolve
came into Simon's mind that he would save the boy Rainouart for the
girl Argathona.
Long afterwards, happily settled in Rouen, Simon, when he thought over
the events of that whirling hour, used to remind himself that then, for
the first time in his life, he devoutly gave God thanks for having made
him so strong. In those after days in peaceful Rouen, he knew the cause
of the catastrophe. The subtle genius of Fernand Ximenes had prepared
an amazing trap for the Athenian army. He had turned aside the current
of the river Cephissus into the cornfields of the Theban plain, and so
flooded them, the quagmire thus created being completely concealed by
the green standing corn. It was into this swamp that Duke Baldwin had
ridden to his death, and it was in this swamp that Simon was now to
struggle for his life and for the life of his lord.
Now when in an age-long instant Simon saw how things stood, and how
certain were the Athenian chivalry to perish before the eyes of
their enemies in that slough and snare, he caught at the bridle of
Rainouart's horse, so that though the beast trampled and stumbled
sinking in the mud, it could at least go no farther.
"In God's name," Rainouart cried at him, "why do you hold me back? Ride
on. Athens, Athens!"
He strove hotly to urge his struggling horse farther into the field of
carnage, but Simon would not have it so.
"My lord," he shouted--for the din was so great with the neighing of
frightened horses and the cries of dying men that it was hard for a
voice to prevail above it even in a neighbor's ear--"my lord, all is
lost; we are all trapped rabbits; turn your rein and we may escape."
Rainouart turned on him in a red rage of despair.
"You are mad," he screamed. "We can ride and die with our fellows," and
he gave a heavy groan.
"You can do nothing," Simon answered. "Come with me if you would ever
see the greenwood again and the face of your girl."
"A coward's call," Rainouart shouted. "Good-bye, love. Athens, Athens!"
and again he strove to urge his horse a little farther in the sucking
sludge. But the horse could scarce stir for all his plunging, and
though Simon's hand was still on the bridle, it was not Simon's hand
that stayed advance.
"Few men have called me coward with comfort to themselves," Simon
grumbled, inwardly. "Yet I will take it from this man for the maid's
sake, and save him if I may. This quarrel is none of mine, and I
care not a rap for Athens, and it argues me no dastard to fly from a
hopeless fight."
Nimbly the thoughts skipped through his brainpan, but now Rainouart,
seeing Simon's hand still on his bridle, menaced him with his sword,
and shrieked at him through the din that he would kill him if he did
not let go his hold. Simon's thoughts were still furiously busy,
furiously swift, and they ran to this intent: "Since you think it a
coward's part to fly, then you were a coward in flight. But if I,
that feel no shame in escaping from such a shambles, pluck you hence
willy-nilly, all is well."
By now Rainouart, beside himself with wrath at sight of such a
massacre, had lifted up his sword to strike at Simon, but Simon did
not give him time to strike. Swift as an arrow Simon's right arm
straightened, and heavy as a blacksmith's hammer Simon's right hand,
a huge and cruel fist in steel, delivered the young prince a giant's
blow upon his helmed head. Under that mighty stroke Rainouart's head
rattled in its iron case as a kernel rattles in a nut. Courage and
consciousness alike were silenced, and Simon caught in his arms a
senseless man as Rainouart reeled helpless from his saddle.
"It was high time to be making up our minds," Simon grunted, as he
addressed himself to the terrible attempt to extricate his companion
and himself from their desperate peril.
He leaped off his horse on to the squashy earth, and, though his great
weight drew him deep over ankles into the loathsome slush, he was
nearer to the edge of the terror than the main of the cavalry, and
better able to move and act. With carnage raging ahead of him, Simon,
as coolly as if he had been in a tent at a tournament, stripped most of
the mail from the body of his unresisting lord, taking care to leave
him his sword girded about his middle. Then, with a like composure and
a like rapidity, he ripped the armor from his own limbs, and, picking
up Rainouart from the slough where he lay senseless, flung him on to
his shoulder as easily as he might have lifted a woman. Even in that
moment, however, he showed his campaigning spirit. Knight or no knight,
Simon had a fine appreciation for the merits of a ripe old wine, and,
as fighting was ever hungry work, he had not thought it beneath his new
dignity to make a filled wallet and a leather bottle of red wine part
of his equipment. Now he snatched both from his saddle-bow and hooked
them to his belt before beginning on his desperate enterprise of escape
from the mouth of the pit.
The mouth of the pit was like the mouth of hell. There were little
lanes of oozy earth running in all directions behind him, green with
trampled corn and red with Frankish blood. In front of him the bog
he had crossed spluttered and gurgled, and across its treacherous
surface he essayed, at all adventure, to reach some firmer soil. Up to
this time Simon's doings had passed unchallenged. All around him the
morning was made hideous by the screams of the dying and the shrieks
of the triumphant Catalans as they drove home their pitiless knives,
and knight after knight of those that had been the glories of Duke
Baldwin's court went unprepared on the path to paradise. If any of the
enemy noticed Simon at his work they may, seeing one man stripping the
armor from another, have taken him heedlessly for one of themselves,
who, having slain, was prompt to plunder. But now some five or six of
the Catalan stabbing rabble, having worked ahead of their fellows, and
seeing a man with another man on his shoulders wading through blood
and mud towards the dry land, where the main strength of the Athenian
army was still standing, came rapidly to head him off, running quickly
and securely on the ridges familiar to them that divided the different
fields of wheat and barley, or wading through the bog itself with ease
in their nearly naked condition.
They chose their prey unwisely, for Simon had his great sword bare
in his hand, and, as the rascals came at him, Simon, wielding his
terrible weapon, struck off head after head of his assailants till
none were left to face him, and then made use of their bodies as
convenient stepping-stones to help him a little farther to his desired
haven, while such others as were tempted to join in the chase, seeing
the havoc he wrought upon their comrades, turned with alacrity to
less-resisting victims.
Little by little, inch by inch, through what seemed an eternity of
effort, Simon struggled with his burden, every muscle of his great
body strained, every vein in his great body throbbing as he strove
inch by inch to gain a firmer foothold. At last, with the shrieks of
the dying and the cries of the triumphant well behind him, he felt his
heels tread upon a firmer foothold. A little more, and, with the sweat
raining off him like a deluge, he staggered to sound earth, and stood
dripping and stained and aching, but free. He paused for a moment to
draw breath and to see what lay before and behind him. The view either
way was disastrous for the future of Athens. Behind him, as it seemed,
every man of the gorgeous company that had ridden with Duke Baldwin
from Athens that morning had fallen a victim to the cunning and the
fury of the Catalans. Before him the bulk of the Athenian army was by
now in ignoble flight towards the city. Dismayed by what it saw, puffed
by a panic terror and spurred by a conviction that the Catalans must
be irresistible, the war-used army of Duke Baldwin fell asunder like
a pack of frightened children. The road to Athens was free for the
Catalans to march on; the city itself was free for the Catalans to deal
with as they pleased.
Not far from where Simon now stood, a great war-charger wandered
quietly and bit unconcernedly at the sweet grass. Doubtless it had
unhorsed its rider in the first struggle in the concealed wash, and
had made its way back again instinctively to the firm soil it had just
quitted. Simon, still carrying his unconscious load, advanced towards
the horse, holding out his hand, and trying to speak to it caressingly,
and it startled him as he did so to find what a thin thread of a voice
came from between his burning lips.
The horse did not start or shy, but went on cropping the grass
unconcernedly until Simon was close beside it, and then, with no show
of fear, it allowed Simon to seize its bridle. In another moment
Simon was astride the saddle with the young prince lying limp on the
saddle-bow. In yet another he had turned the great horse's head to
the west, and was making at the best speed he could compel for the
woodlands.
XXVI
THE ANCHORITE
In a waste and desolate place of the Eleusinian wood, aloof alike
from highway and byway, there stood a little shrine, with a little
hut hard by it. The shrine was rudely shaped of heavy stones, piled
one upon another with scant skill but with great pains, evidently the
handiwork of an untrained but persistent artificer. All day the shrine
enclosed a goodly image in wrought silver of our Lord upon the tree,
the which image was always carried reverently at nightfall within the
shelter of the hut. This hut was the habitation of an anchorite who had
dwelled there for many years in little less than absolute solitude,
and the place where he abode so lonely was reputed of great sanctity.
The travellers were rare who passed that way by mischance, for it
neighbored no pathway leading directly anywhere, and was far from the
beaten path of trade or travel or use. But such as, passing, paused and
prayed before the shrine that sheltered the silver image were wont to
aver that they renewed their journey with a strange exaltation of the
spirit and exhilaration of the flesh.
The beauty and the value of the image had, according to country-side
gossip, on more than one occasion tempted the cupidity of thieves, but
each essay to steal the sacred emblem had resulted in the discomfiture
of the would-be plunderers. For on each occasion the hermit, whom
the robbers hoped to take unawares abed and asleep, issued from his
dwelling as the enemies came creeping up, and made such strange
manifestations of physical strength and spiritual influence as
effectually scared the sacrilegious rascals into flight. Now there was
no thief in Athens bold enough to renew the enterprise, and the holy
man was left to his loneliness, while weeks and even months passed
without a living human creature passing by his hut. This loneliness
seemed to be to the liking of the ancient man.
No one knew who the hermit was, and those few who ever had speech with
him and sought to question him gained little by their pains. Even Duke
Baldwin fared no better than the rest. For Duke Baldwin once rode that
way by chance, a-hawking on a summer day, and some one of his company
telling him of the recluse, the duke condescended to halt for a moment
and hold speech with the holy man. But he found that his questions won
him answers unsatisfactory and enigmatical, and that even the pompous
announcement of his title and state had no more effect than to bring a
faint smile to the thin lips of the hermit. So Duke Baldwin rode away
in something of a huff, and spoke severely of recluses for some time
afterwards.
It was believed that the hermit came from abroad; it was believed that
he was exceedingly aged; it was believed, no one quite knew why or
wherefore, that in a distant past he had been neither hermit nor holy;
and it was whispered by a few beneath their breath on winter evenings,
when there was leisure to loll by the fire and talk gossip, that the
stranger had practised in his youth the black art and had been an
accomplished sorcerer. Whatever the old man had been, and whencesoever
he had come, there could at least be no doubt of his present sanctity.
He fasted, vigilled, prayed, macerated his nature, lacerated his
flesh, read on the Great Book till far into the night, and was at his
devotions in the open at the earliest coming of the day, be the weather
fair or be the weather foul. The few who ever saw him found in his
reverent features no trace of dissatisfaction with his lot, and Sir
Jaufre de Brabant, who rode with Duke Baldwin on the occasion when Duke
Baldwin spoke with the hermit, declared that the anchorite had the
peacefullest face for an old man that he had ever beheld.
On the morning of the day when slaughter reigned in the distant
Theban plain, the hermit was sitting in the open air after his first
devotions, quietly conscious of the freshness of the air and the color
of the hour. He was busy in scattering the larger part of his scanty
meal as a pasture for a multitude of birds that fluttered and hopped
around him, and chirped and twittered, and sometimes, to his pathetic
consternation, battled among themselves as they scrambled for the
spoil. "My little brothers," he began, the phrase of St. Francis in his
mind, as he observed with sorrow the contest of one large bird with
three smaller ones for the solace of a single crumb. But even as he
began to speak he became aware that his familiar solitude was invaded.
A girl was coming towards him down the slope, a girl tall, stalwart,
blue-eyed and yellow-locked, a girl with naked arms and legs, in a
kirtle of white stuff. Though the girl came running rapidly towards him
over the grass, the birds a-nigh him showed no signs of disturbance at
the stranger's coming, but picked and chirruped as unconcernedly as if
they were still alone in their timidity with their ancient friend.
It was Argathona who came thus upon the old solitary and his untroubled
birds. The moon was still shining when she gained the shelter of her
forest on the night of her flight from Athens, and she made at once
for the cave where she had so often lain through the ages, her cave in
the heart of the wood. There she hid the golden apple, and there she
stripped off her male attire and clothed herself in her woman's weeds,
according to the old wont. Then she lay down on a couch of fern and
slept the dreamless sleep of the immortals that have no need to double
their little lives with false seeming. Indeed, she was very weary of
the world of men, and wished to forget it and all that belonged to it,
save only her lover, who she was very sure must come to her soon in
the woodland.
Being of the immortals, she had her will, and awoke refreshed and free
of the contamination of the city. But yet her mind was troubled because
of her lover and her longing for him, and though she knew that his
hurt was nothing, and though she knew that he was fated to escape from
danger till he obeyed her call to the woodland, she was conscious for
the first time in her young-old life of the length of a long day. She
wandered in the forest, visiting all the haunts and hollows, grottos
and thickets, that she loved, talking with beast and bird and insect,
every creature of the wood. But always in her divine heart she stifled
the human desire for her lover, and that day of late spring lagged
tardier in his passage than ever yet day of spring had travelled.
Now when she had slept again through the same sweet oblivion, and had
wakened to greet a new day, she found her spirit so troubled with
unfamiliar regrets and with unwonted fears that there suddenly came
upon her a strange sense of loneliness, such as she had never known
before, and a wish for the wisdom of another. And even as she wished,
there came into her mind the thought of the hermit of whom her lover
had spoken to her on the night of their first meeting. She knew,
indeed, that such an one dwelt in the confines of the forest, unheeded
by her. She did not remember when he came there; he was no more to
her than the distant shepherds and yet more distant citizens. But
since her lover had urged her to come with him to visit this ancient
stranger, her troubled heart inclined towards him, and she resolved to
seek him out, she scarce knew why, if it were not that perchance she
might speak to him of her lover. Thus it came about that the hermit
beheld her descending the slope, what time he was feeding his birds.
As Argathona approached the ancient and saw that he was aware of her
coming, she gave him good-morrow in her sweet, clear voice, and the old
man, looking steadfastly upon her, thought her indeed the loveliest
creature that he had ever seen, even in days when his eyes were daily
familiar with loveliness.
"Good-morrow, daughter," he said, gently. "Of what kin are you that are
not of my kind?"
Argathona marvelled that the glamour of the woodland could not prevail
against the old man.
"Why are you so wise, father," she asked, "that you seem to know what
no others have known?"
"Daughter," answered the hermit, "you speak to me with a speech that is
not spoken of men, and yet I understand you, and when I speak to you,
you understand my tongue though it is unlike yours. Also the birds have
no fear of you, the shy birds that fly from a shadow or a sigh."
"Why should the birds fear me," asked Argathona, "that have never hurt
living thing? And who has given you the gift to know that I speak the
speech of the gods?"
The old man turned, and, going towards the shrine, knelt for a moment
before the image of the Redeemer. Then he rose again and faced the girl.
"My Lord and yours," he said, pointing to the crucifix, "has granted me
to see and know the things of this world as they truly are. Time was
when my eyes were blinded by pride and my heart was big with evil, but
the time has been, and I, long dead to the world, wait in patience for
the hour of my true translation."
Argathona pointed to the figure on the cross, which she was looking at
with a childlike curiosity.
"Is that your Lord?" she questioned, gently. She remembered that
she had seen kindred images at Athens, and that Simon had told her
hurriedly how they made part of the new faith that had usurped the
ancient rule. But she had paid them little heed, being so busy on her
own purposes. Now, however, in the silence of the lonely woodside, the
image to which its guardian paid so profound a reverence seemed to
assume a new significance. So, "Is that your Lord?" she asked.
"Your Lord and mine," the old man answered, "and the Lord of all the
souls living in the world."
Argathona looked from the image to the old man, and from the old man
again to the image. If that face in its beauty presented the features
of a god, why was that god so slaughtered? Why was the brow of divinity
crowned with a crown of thorns? For the first time since she passed
into the world of men, Argathona felt herself in the presence of
something that was higher than herself and her kindred, and for the
first time, she knew not why, she felt abashed and astray.
"I know little of the world of men," she faltered. "Few and bitter have
been the hours I passed among them, and in those few hours I heard
little speech of any lord of the world, though, indeed, I can remember
seeing images like unto this to which men paid a kind of reverence,
though not with that joy and humility wherewith we of the woodland
reverenced our gods. Your Athens seemed only to care for laughter and
banquets, and the making of false love, and the waging of false war,
and from first to last I heard little speech of this Lord of the world,
save when now and then one strengthened an oath with His name. Will you
tell me of Him, for of Him I am ignorant?"
The old man saw that he had to deal with a daughter of simplicity that
was yet no simpleton. So he addressed her with all gentleness, as a
father to a child.
"Yours must have been a strange life," he said, "if the story of our
Lord be strange to you. Tell me first your tale, my daughter."