besiegers, while the one party was preparing to pursue their advantage
and the other to strengthen their means of defence, the Templar and De
Bracy held brief counsel together in the hall of the castle.
"Where is Front-de-Boeuf?" said the latter, who had superintended the
defence of the fortress on the other side; "men say he hath been
slain."
"He lives," said the Templar, coolly--"Lives as yet; but had he worn
the bull's head of which he bears the name, [Footnote: _Front-de-Boeuf_
means _Bull's Head_.] and ten plates of iron to fence it withal, he must
have gone down before yonder fatal axe. Yet a few hours, and Front-de-
Boeuf is with his fathers--a powerful limb lopped off Prince John's
enterprise." [Footnote: Prince John was scheming to usurp the throne of
England while King Richard, his brother, was absent on one of the
Crusades.]
"And a brave addition to the kingdom of Satan," said De Bracy; "this
comes of reviling saints and angels, and ordering images of holy things
and holy men to be flung down on the heads of these rascaille yeomen."
"Go to, thou art a fool," said the Templar; "thy superstition is upon a
level with Front-de-Boeuf's want of faith; neither of you can render a
reason for your belief or unbelief. Let us think of making good the
castle. How fought these villain yeomen on thy side?"
"Like fiends incarnate," said De Bracy. "They swarmed close up to the
walls, headed, as I think, by the knave who won the prize at the
archery, for I knew his horn and baldric. Had I not been armed in
proof, the villain had marked me down seven times with as little
remorse as if I had been a buck in season. He told every rivet on my
armor with a cloth-yard shaft, that rapped against my ribs with as
little compunction as if my bones had been of iron. But that I wore a
shirt of Spanish mail under my platecoat, I had been fairly sped."
"But you maintained your post?" said the Templar. "We lost the outwork
on our part."
"That is a shrewd loss," said De Bracy; "the knaves will find cover
there to assault the castle more closely, and may, if not well watched,
gain some unguarded corner of a tower, or some forgotten window, and so
break in upon us. Our numbers are too few for the defence of every
point, and the men complain that they can nowhere show themselves, but
they are the mark for as many arrows as a parish-butt on a holyday
even. Front-de-Boeuf is dying too, so we shall receive no more aid from
his bull's head and brutal strength. How think you, Sir Brian, were we
not better make a virtue of necessity, and compound with the rogues by
delivering up our prisoners?"
"How!" exclaimed the Templar; "deliver up our prisoners, and stand an
object alike of ridicule and execration, as the doughty warriors who
dared by a night attack to possess themselves of the persons of a party
of defenceless travelers, yet could not make good a strong castle
against a vagabond troop of outlaws, led by swineherds, jesters, and
the very refuse of mankind? Shame on thy counsel, Maurice de Bracy! The
ruins of this castle shall bury both my body and my shame, ere I
consent to such base and dishonorable composition."
"Let us to the walls, then," said De Bracy, carelessly; "that man never
breathed, be he Turk or Templar, who held life at lighter rate than I
do. But I trust there is no dishonor in wishing I had here some two
scores of my gallant troop of Free Companions? Oh, my brave lances! if
ye knew but how hard your captain were this day bested, how soon should
I see my banner at the head of your clump of spears! And how short
while would these rabble villains stand to endure your encounter!"
"Wish for whom thou wilt," said the Templar, "but let us make what
defence we can with the soldiers who remain. They are chiefly Front-de-
Boeuf's followers, hated by the English for a thousand acts of
insolence and oppression."
"The better," said De Bracy; "the rugged slaves will defend themselves
to the last drop of their blood, ere they encounter the revenge of the
peasants without. Let us up and be doing, then, Brian de Bois-Guilbert;
and, live or die, thou shalt see Maurice de Bracy bear himself this day
as a gentleman of blood and lineage."
"To the walls!" answered the Templar; and they both ascended the
battlements to do all that skill could dictate, and manhood accomplish,
in defence of the place. They readily agreed that the point of greatest
danger was that opposite to the outwork of which the assailants had
possessed themselves. The castle, indeed, was divided from that
barbican by the moat, and it was impossible that the besiegers could
assail the postern door, with which the outwork corresponded, without
surmounting that obstacle; but it was the opinion both of the Templar
and De Bracy that the besiegers, if governed by the same policy their
leader had already displayed, would endeavor, by a formidable assault,
to draw the chief part of the defenders' observation to this point, and
take measures to avail themselves of every negligence which might take
place in the defence elsewhere. To guard against such an evil, their
numbers only permitted the knights to place sentinels from space to
space along the walls in communication with each other, who might give
the alarm whenever danger was threatened. Meanwhile, they agreed that
De Bracy should command the defense of the postern, and the Templar
should keep with him a score of men or thereabouts as a body of
reserve, ready to hasten to any other point which might be suddenly
threatened. The loss of the barbican had also this unfortunate effect,
that notwithstanding the superior height of the castle walls, the
besieged could not see from them, with the same precision as before,
the operations of the enemy; for some straggling underwood approached
so near the sallyport of the outwork that the assailants might
introduce into it whatever force they thought proper, not only under
cover, but even without the knowledge of the defenders. Utterly
uncertain, therefore, upon what point the storm was to burst, De Bracy
and his companion were under the necessity of providing against every
possible contingency, and their followers, however brave, experienced
the anxious dejection of mind incident to men inclosed by enemies who
possessed the power of choosing their time and mode of attack.
Meanwhile, the lord of the beleaguered and endangered castle lay upon a
bed of bodily pain and mental agony. He had not the usual resource of
bigots in that superstitious period, most of whom were wont to atone
for the crimes they were guilty of by liberality to the church,
stupefying by this means their terrors by the idea of atonement and
forgiveness; and although the refuge which success thus purchased was
no more like to the peace of mind which follows on sincere repentance
than the turbid stupefaction procured by opium resembles healthy and
natural slumbers, it was still a state of mind preferable to the
agonies of awakened remorse. But among the vices of Front-de-Boeuf, a
hard and griping man, avarice was predominant; and he preferred setting
church and churchmen at defiance to purchasing from them pardon and
absolution at the price of treasure and of manors. Nor did the Templar,
an infidel of another stamp, justly characterize his associate when he
said Front-de-Boeuf could assign no cause for his unbelief and contempt
for the established faith; for the baron would have alleged that the
church sold her wares too dear, that the spiritual freedom which she
put up to sale was only to be bought, like that of the chief captain of
Jerusalem, "with a great sum," and Front-de-Boeuf preferred denying the
virtue of the medicine to paying the expense of the physician.
But the moment had now arrived when earth and all his treasures were
gliding from before his eyes, and when the savage baron's heart, though
hard as a nether millstone, became appalled as he gazed forward into
the waste darkness of futurity. The fever of his body aided the
impatience and agony of his mind, and his death-bed exhibited a mixture
of the newly-awakened feelings of horror combating with the fixed and
inveterate obstinacy of his disposition--a fearful state of mind, only
to be equalled in those tremendous regions where there are complaints
without hope, remorse without repentance, a dreadful sense of present
agony, and a presentiment that it cannot cease or be diminished!
"Where be these dog-priests now," growled the baron, "who set such
price on their ghostly mummery? I have heard old men talk of prayer--
prayer by their own voice--such need not to court or to bribe the false
priest. But I--I dare not!"
"Lives Reginald Front-de-Boeuf," said a broken and shrill voice close
by his bedside, "to say there is that which he dares not?"
The evil conscience and the shaken nerves of Front-de-Boeuf heard, in
this strange interruption to his soliloquy, the voice of one of those
demons who, as the superstition of the times believed, beset the beds
of dying men, to distract their thoughts, and turn them from the
meditations which concerned their eternal welfare.
He shuddered and drew himself together; but, instantly summoning up his
wonted resolution, he exclaimed, "Who is there? what art thou, that
darest to echo my words in a tone like that of the night raven? Come
before my couch that I may see thee."
"I am thine evil angel, Reginald Front-de-Boeuf," replied the voice.
"Let me behold thee then in thy bodily shape, if thou be'st indeed a
fiend," replied the dying knight; "think not that I will blench from
thee. By the eternal dungeon, could I but grapple with these horrors
that hover round me as I have done with mortal danger, Heaven or Hell
should never say that I shrunk from the conflict!"
"Think on thy sins, Reginald Front-de-Boeuf," said the almost unearthly
voice--"on rebellion, on rapine, on murder! Who stirred up the
licentious John to war against his grayheaded father--against his
generous brother?"
"Be thou fiend, priest, or devil," replied Front-de-Boeuf, "thou liest
in thy throat! Not I stirred John to rebellion--not I alone; there were
fifty knights and barons, the flower of the midland counties, better
men never laid lance in rest. And must I answer for the fault done by
fifty? False fiend, I defy thee! Depart, and haunt my couch no more.
Let me die in peace if thou be mortal; if thou be demon, thy time is
not yet come."
"In peace thou shalt NOT die," repeated the voice; "even in death shalt
thou think on thy murders--on the groans which this castle has echoed--
on the blood that is engrained in its floors!"
"Thou canst not shake me by thy petty malice," answered Front-de-Boeuf,
with a ghastly and constrained laugh. "The infidel Jew--it was merit
with Heaven to deal with him as I did, else wherefore are men canonized
who dip their hands in the blood of Saracens? The Saxon porkers whom I
have slain--they were the foes of my country, and of my lineage, and of
my liege lord. Ho! ho! thou seest there is no crevice in my coat of
plate. Art thou fled? art thou silenced?"
"No, foul parricide!" replied the voice; "think of thy father!--think
of his death!--think of his banquet-room flooded with his gore, and
that poured forth by the hand of a son!"
"Ha!" answered the Baron, after a long pause, "an thou knowest that,
thou art indeed the Author of Evil, and as omniscient as the monks call
thee! That secret I deemed locked in my own breast, and in that of one
besides--the temptress, the partaker of my guilt. Go, leave me, fiend!
and seek the Saxon witch Ulrica, who alone could tell thee what she and
I alone witnessed. Go, I say, to her, who washed the wounds, and
straighted the corpse, and gave to the slain man the outward show of
one parted in time and in the course of nature. Go to her; she was my
temptress, the foul provoker, the more foul rewarder, of the deed; let
her, as well as I, taste of the tortures which anticipate Hell!"
"She already tastes them," said Ulrica, stepping before the couch of
Front-de-Boeuf; "she hath long drunken of this cup, and its bitterness
is now sweetened to see that thou dost partake it. Grind not thy teeth,
Front-de-Boeuf--roll not thy eyes--clench not thy hand, nor shake it at
me with that gesture of menace! The hand which, like that of thy
renowned ancestor who gained thy name, could have broken with one
stroke the skull of a mountain-bull, is now unnerved and powerless as
mine own!"
"Vile, murderous hag!" replied Front-de-Boeuf--"detestable screech-owl!
it is then thou who art come to exult over the ruins thou hast assisted
to lay low?"
"Ay, Reginald Front-de-Boeuf," answered she, "It is Ulrica!--it is the
daughter of the murdered Torquil Wolfganger!--it is the sister of his
slaughtered sons! it is she who demands of thee, and of thy father's
house, father and kindred, name and fame--all that she has lost by the
name of Front-de-Boeuf! Think of my wrongs, Front-de-Boeuf, and answer
me if I speak not truth. Thou hast been my evil angel, and I will be
thine: I will dog thee till the very instant of dissolution!"
"Detestable fury!" exclaimed Front-de-Boeuf, "that moment shalt thou
never witness. Ho! Giles, Clement, and Eustace! Saint Maur and Stephen!
seize this damned witch, and hurl her from the battlements headlong;
she has betrayed us to the Saxon! Ho! Saint Maur! Clement! false-
hearted knaves, where tarry ye?"
"Call on them again, valiant baron," said the hag, with a smile of
grisly mockery; "summon thy vassals around thee, doom them that loiter
to the scourge and the dungeon. But know, mighty chief," she continued,
suddenly changing her tone, "thou shalt have neither answer, nor aid,
nor obedience at their hands. Listen to these horrid sounds," for the
din of the recommenced assault and defence now rung fearfully loud from
the battlements of the castle; "in that warcry is the downfall of thy
house. The blood-cemented fabric of Front-de-Boeuf's power totters to
the foundation, and before the foes he most despised! The Saxon,
Reginald!--the scorned Saxon assails thy walls! Why liest thou here,
like a worn-out hind, when the Saxon storms thy place of strength? Thou
shalt die no soldier's death, but perish like the fox in his den, when
the peasants have set fire to the cover around it."
"Hateful hag! thou liest!" exclaimed Front-de-Boeuf; "my followers bear
them bravely--my walls are strong and high--my comrades in arms fear
not a whole host of Saxons. The war-cry of the Templar and of the Free
Companions rises high over the conflict! And by mine honor, when we
kindle the blazing beacon for joy of our defence, it shall consume thee
body and bones."
"Hold thy belief," replied Ulrica, "till the proof reach thee. But no!"
she said, interrupting herself, "thou shalt know even now the doom
which all thy power, strength and courage is unable to avoid, though it
is prepared for thee by this feeble hand. Markest thou the smouldering
and suffocating vapor which already eddies in sable folds through the
chamber? Didst thou think it was but the darkening of thy bursting
eyes, the difficulty of thy cumbered breathing? No! Front-de-Boeuf,
there is another cause. Rememberest thou the magazine of fuel that is
stored beneath these apartments?"
"Woman!" he exclaimed with fury, "thou hast not set fire to it? By
heaven, thou hast, and the castle is in flames!"
"They are fast rising at least," said Ulrica, with frightful composure,
"and a signal shall soon wave to warn the besiegers to press hard upon
those who would extinguish them. Farewell, Front-de-Boeuf! But know, if
it will give thee comfort to know it, that Ulrica is bound to the same
dark coast with thyself, the companion of thy punishment as the
companion of thy guilt. And now, parricide, farewell for ever! May each
stone of this vaulted roof find a tongue to echo that title into thine
ear!"
[Illustration: ULRICA LOCKS THE DOOR ]
So saying, she left the apartment; and Front-de-Boeuf could hear the
crash of the ponderous keys as she locked and double-locked the door
behind her, thus cutting off the most slender chance of escape. In the
extremity of agony, he shouted upon his servants and allies--"Stephen
and Saint Maur! Clement and Giles! I burn here unaided! To the rescue--
to the rescue, brave Bois-Guilbert, valiant De Bracy! It is Front-de-
Boeuf who calls! It is your master, ye traitor squires! Your ally--your
brother in arms, ye perjured and faithless knights! All the curses due
to traitors upon your recreant heads, do you abandon me to perish thus
miserably! They hear me not--they cannot hear me--my voice is lost in
the din of battle. The smoke rolls thicker and thicker, the fire has
caught upon the floor below. O, for one draught of the air of heaven,
were it to be purchased by instant annihilation! The red fire flashes
through the thick smoke! the demon marches against me under the banner
of his own element. Foul spirit, avoid! I go not with thee without my
comrades--all, all are thine that garrison these walls. Thinkest thou
Front-de-Boeuf will be singled out to go alone? No; the infidel
Templar, De Bracy, Ulrica, the men who aided my enterprises, the dog
Saxons and accursed Jews who are my prisoners--all, all shall attend
me--a goodly fellowship as ever took the downward road."
But it were impious to trace any further the picture of the blasphemer
and parricide's death-bed.
When the barbican was carried, the Sable Knight sent notice of the
happy event to Locksley, the archer, requesting him at the same time to
keep such a strict observation on the castle as might prevent the
defenders from combining their force for a sudden sally, and recovering
the outwork which they had lost. This the knight was chiefly desirous
of avoiding, conscious that the men whom he led, being hasty and
untrained volunteers, imperfectly armed and unaccustomed to discipline,
must, upon any sudden attack, fight at great disadvantage with the
veteran soldiers of the Norman knights, who were well provided with
arms both defensive and offensive; and who, to match the zeal and high
spirit of the besiegers, had all the confidence which arises from
perfect discipline and the habitual use of weapons.
The knight employed the interval in causing to be constructed a sort of
floating bridge, or long raft, by means of which he hoped to cross the
moat, in despite of the resistance of the enemy. This was a work of
some time, which the leaders the less regretted, as it gave Ulrica
leisure to execute her plan of diversion in their favor, whatever that
might be.
When the raft was completed, the Black Knight addressed the besiegers:
"It avails not waiting here longer, my friends; the sun is descending
to the west, and I have that upon my hands which will not permit me to
tarry with you another day. Besides, it will be a marvel if the
horsemen come not upon us from York, unless we speedily accomplish our
purpose. Wherefore, one of ye go to Locksley, and bid him commence a
discharge of arrows on the opposite side of the castle, and move
forward as if about to assault it; and you, true English hearts, stand
by me, and be ready to thrust the raft endlong over the moat whenever
the postern on our side is thrown open. Follow me boldly across, and
aid me to burst yon sallyport in the main wall of the castle. As many
of you as like not this service, or are but ill armed to meet it, do
you man the top of the outwork, draw your bowstrings to your ears, and
mind you quell with your shot whatever shall appear to man the rampart.
Noble Cedric, wilt thou take the direction of those which remain?"
"Not so!" said the Saxon; "lead I cannot; but may posterity curse me in
my grave, if I follow not with the foremost wherever thou shalt point
the way. The quarrel is mine, and well it becomes me to be in the van
of the battle."
"Yet, bethink thee, noble Saxon," said the knight, "thou hast neither
hauberk, nor corselet, nor aught but that light helmet, target, and
sword."
"The better!" answered Cedric; "I shall be the lighter to climb these
walls. And--forgive the boast, Sir Knight--thou shalt this day see the
naked breast of a Saxon as boldly presented to the battle as ever ye
beheld the steel corselet of a Norman."
"In the name of God, then," said the knight, "fling open the door, and
launch the floating bridge."
The portal, which led from the inner wall of the barbican to the moat,
and which corresponded with a sallyport in the main wall of the castle,
was now suddenly opened; the temporary bridge was then thrust forward,
and soon flashed in the waters, extending its length between the castle
and outwork, and forming a slippery and precarious passage for two men
abreast to cross the moat. Well aware of the importance of taking the
foe by surprise, the Black Knight, closely followed by Cedric, threw
himself upon the bridge, and reached the opposite side. Here he began
to thunder with his axe upon the gate of the castle, protected in part
from the shot and stones cast by the defenders by the ruins of the
former drawbridge, which the Templar had demolished in his retreat from
the barbican, leaving the counterpoise still attached to the upper part
of the portal. The followers of the knight had no such shelter; two
were instantly shot with cross-bow bolts, and two more fell into the
moat; the others retreated back into the barbican.
The situation of Cedric and of the Black Knight was now truly
dangerous, and would have been still more so but for the constancy of
the archers in the barbican, who ceased not to shower their arrows upon
the battlements, distracting the attention of those by whom they were
manned, and thus affording a respite to their two chiefs from the storm
of missiles which must otherwise have overwhelmed them. But their
situation was eminently perilous, and was becoming more so with every
moment.
"Shame on ye all!" cried De Bracy to the soldiers around him; "do ye
call yourselves cross-bowmen, and let these two dogs keep their station
under the walls of the castle? Heave over the coping stones from the
battlement, an better may not be. Get pickaxe and levers, and down with
that huge pinnacle!" pointing to a heavy piece of stone carved-work
that projected from the parapet.
At this moment the besiegers caught sight of the red flag upon the
angle of the tower, which Ulrica raised to show that she had fired the
castle. The stout yeoman Locksley was the first who was aware of it, as
he was hasting to the outwork, impatient to see the progress of the
assault.
"Saint George!" he cried--"Merry Saint George for England! To the
charge, bold yeomen! why leave ye the good knight and noble Cedric to
storm the pass alone? Make in, brave yeomen!--the castle is ours, we
have friends within. See yonder flag, it is the appointed signal--
Torquilstone is ours! Think of honor--think of spoil! One effort, and
the place is ours!"
With that he bent his good bow, and sent a shaft right through the
breast of one of the men-at-arms, who, under De Bracy's direction, was
loosening a fragment from one of the battlements to precipitate on the
heads of Cedric and the Black Knight. A second soldier caught from the
hands of the dying man the iron crow with which he heaved at and had
loosened the stone pinnacle, when, receiving an arrow through his
headpiece, he dropped from the battlements into the moat a dead man.
The men-at-arms were daunted, for no armor seemed proof against the
shot of this tremendous archer.
"Do you give ground, base knaves!" said De Bracy. "Give me the lever!"
And, snatching it up, he again assailed the loosened pinnacle, which
was of weight enough, if thrown down, not only to have destroyed the
remnant of the drawbridge which sheltered the two foremost assailants,
but also to have sunk the rude float of planks over which they had
crossed. All saw the danger, and the boldest avoided setting foot on
the raft. Thrice did Locksley bend his shaft against De Bracy, and
thrice did his arrow bound back from the knight's armor of proof.
"Curse on thy Spanish steel-coat!" said Locksley, "had English smith
forged it, these arrows had gone through, as if it had been silk or
sendal." He then began to call out. "Comrades! friends! noble Cedric!
bear back and let the ruin fall."