forth into the sunlight close to where Fulk de Lisle stood waiting.
Martin Valliant covered his eyes with his forearm, and Swartz, who had
put his eye to his squint-hole, rolled aside, and stared at the sky.
Martin Valliant said never a word. A new and wonderful strength seemed
to come to him; he uncovered his eyes, stood up calmly with a face that
was like a great white light. His lips moved, but no sound came.
They had fastened a rope about Mellis’s neck, and the man who held the
end of the rope had crowned himself with a wreath of wild flowers.
Another fellow who walked behind had a garland on his spear. Fulk de
Lisle’s allegory burned itself into Martin Valliant’s brain. This
beautiful nakedness was to be sacrificed to shame him.
Old Swartz was cursing to himself. He glanced up at Martin and stared in
an awed way at the man’s white and shining face.
He saw Martin cross himself.
“Some day I shall kill that man,” he said, as though he were praying; “I
shall not die till I have killed him.”
Mellis was led through the long grass to the green bower. She looked at
the ground, but once her eyes lifted to the tower with one tremulous
glance of appeal. And Martin’s soul struggled like a live thing in a
cage.
“It shall not happen!” he said. “By the greatness of God, it shall not
happen!”
The men led her into the bower and made her lie down upon the bed. One
of them tossed a riding-cloak over her. They cut the rope into four
pieces, and tied her by her wrists and ankles to the four stakes. Their
work was done; they threw their garlands on the ground, and went off
laughing and looking mockingly at Woodmere tower.
Martin was watching Fulk de Lisle, who came pacing with all the airs of
a great lord toward the place where Mellis lay.
“What a chance to shoot the red devil!”
Swartz rubbed his hands together.
“Ah! I thought so.”
De Lisle was playing a part, and his swaggering was mere whimsical
insolence. He marched up and down in front of the lodge of leaves,
pointing his toes and cocking his head, the male thing in possession. A
servant came down from the wood with a silver cup full of wine, and Fulk
de Lisle made a great parade of his drinking. He walked into the bower
and drank to Mellis, turned again, and drank to Martin on the tower. He
was in high favor with himself. Life was a dissolute jest.
Martin Valliant heard Swartz whispering to him.
“Have you come by any plan, brother?”
“Only that I am going yonder to-night.”
His face was gray and hard as a winter dawn.
“I can better that plan.”
“How?”
“They will be too much on the alert to give you an honest chance. If you
open the gate and cross the bridge they will be waiting for you. We must
make them face two ways—scare them a little.”
“Go on.”
“I have my horn with me. Picture us stripped, comrade, you with a sharp
knife, and I with my horn. We swim the moat after dark, and before the
moon is up. I creep through the grass into the woods, get around behind
the gentry, blow my horn like the last trump, and shout to my imaginary
men to cut the rogues to pieces. We must trust to them getting a trifle
ruffled. You will have to take your chance of saving the child.”
Martin stared at him fixedly.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Why? Why do we eat and sleep, man? Because we must. To cheat that red
rogue over there is as natural as eating. Thunder! but I have forgotten
one thing. The girl would not be able to swim.”
Martin hid his knowledge.
“I could carry her over. That is nothing.”
“Love could carry the moon! What say you to my plan, Martin Valliant?”
Martin stooped and caught Swartz by the shoulders.
“And I was near killing you two days ago!”
“Hard blows have begun many a good friendship. My heart’s with you,
Martin Valliant.”
And so it was agreed between them, that they should try this desperate
venture when darkness came.
To Martin Valliant it seemed very long in the coming, though the shadow
of the tower lengthened itself across the water till it touched the
grassland beyond the mere. He watched the fish leaping in the water, and
the swallows skimming the surface and calling shrilly to each other. As
for the sunset, it seemed to set the earth afire and make everything
burn with miraculous color, so that the grasslands were a great green
carpet dusted with precious stones, and the beech trees all glowing with
yellow light. In that little shelter of leaves Mellis lay white and
still like a sweet saint sleeping in a tomb cut out of crystal, while
Martin Valliant’s fierce restlessness longed for all this beauty to be
blotted out. He could have pulled the sun down out of the sky, and
thrown it into the mere for the quicker quenching of the day.
Fulk de Lisle had had a seat made of sods and branches on the edge of
the wood, and he sat there like a great lord while the men built two
fires, one for themselves and one for their captains, and with the
coming of the darkness these two fires were like great red eyes under
the black brow of the beech wood. A pot was slung over the flames, and a
table set for Fulk de Lisle and John Rich, and covered with a white
cloth. The shelter of leaves lay a hundred paces or more away from the
fires and beyond the edge of the light. It showed as a dark blur on the
open grassland.
Martin Valliant had been stripping off his harness, but Swartz was still
on the watch.
“They are guarding the causeway. Fulk de Lisle would not lose his supper
for any woman. It is time we made a beginning.”
Martin gathered up his armor, and they went down into the courtyard.
Swartz was fumbling at the points of his hose.
“Curse these knots! Give me your knife, man.”
He cut himself out of his clothes, chuckling fiercely. Martin had laid
his armor and his sword beside the postern leading into the garden; he
had stripped himself of everything save his short cassock, for the thing
would not spoil his swimming, and it hid the whiteness of his body. Old
Swartz came out haired like an ape, his horn slung to his neck by a
stout cord.
“Here is your knife, man. We had best take to the water on the farther
side, and paddle across softly.”
They passed through the orchard where the grass and weeds brushed their
knees, and Swartz talked in a whisper.
“Crawl around and get as near as you can to the child. Then, wait—and
have patience. I shall have to make a wide sweep. When you hear me
blowing my horn and shouting, you must be ready to make your dash.”
Martin Valliant was grimly cool.
“I shall waste no time,” he said.
They stood for a moment to look at the two fires and the men gathered
around them. The blaze lit the trunks of the beech trees and made the
lower branches shine like brass. A man was fishing meat out of the iron
pot with a dagger. Fulk de Lisle’s red figure was the color of blood; he
had a cup in his hand and was about to drink.
“While gluttons eat, wise men are up and doing. The hour is ripe for
us.”
They struck the water on the far side of the island, where willows grew.
“Well, God’s good luck to us, comrade.”
Their hands met. Then Martin let himself down into the water, and Swartz
followed him. They paddled slowly and softly across with hardly a
splash, Martin swimming with his knife in his right hand. The mere was
as black as a well, and the willows hid them from the men who watched
the causeway.
When they reached the shallows under the farther bank they crouched and
listened. There was no shouting; no alarm—not a sound save the faint
lapping of a few ripples among the reeds and sedges. Martin climbed out,
and gave Swartz his hand. There was a thorn tree growing within a few
paces of the water, and they took cover under it before parting.
“Give me a minute’s start, Valliant. I shall make a track well out into
the open, and then turn toward the woods. God grant the mud has not got
into this horn of mine.”
He slipped away into the long grass, and Martin knew that all that he
held most dear hung on the good faith of Peter Swartz.
_Chapter XXX_
Martin Valliant did not tarry long under the thorn tree. He knelt for a
moment to listen, and then started on his way around the mere, crawling
on hands and knees through the rich rank grass that grew near the water.
It was wet with dew, and the brown sorrel and the great white daisies
brushed against his face. The smell of the green growth touched him like
a subtle, clinging memory. He did not think of death or wounds, but only
of Mellis and what might happen to her if he failed.
Skirting the mere, he came to the sluice ditch, all choked with shrubs
and brambles. The ditch was less than two hundred paces from the
causeway, and about the same distance from the shelter of leaves, and
Martin scrambled down and took cover in spite of the thorns and
brambles. He half stood and half lay, with his head and shoulders above
the bank, and a stunted thorn stretching a canopy above him. He could
see the two fires, and Fulk de Lisle’s red figure. Mellis’s bower lay
between the sluice ditch and the camp fires; Martin could not pick it
out of the darkness, though he strained his eyes till the lids began to
flicker.
Still, he knew where she lay, and there was nothing for him to do but to
lie still and wait for Swartz’s horn. He could feel his heart beating as
he leaned against the grassy bank. Every nerve and muscle in him seemed
a-quiver. He fingered the point and edge of his knife, and smiled.
Then a strange thought came to him. What if he failed—what if he found
the adventure hopeless?
He would die—he meant to die in such a case—but Mellis would be
living. He would go out into the great darkness leaving her alone. Rough
hands might do what they pleased with her. Fulk de Lisle would come down
full of his wine, violent and inflamed.
Martin fondled his knife. One blow, and all that would be saved. And yet
he recoiled from the thought with a spasm of tenderness and horror. To
strike that white body of hers, to hear her cry out, to know that her
blood was flowing! The passion in him hardened to an iron frenzy. He
would not fail; no strength should master him; nothing should say him
nay.
Martin Valliant had fought through those moments of a man’s strong
anguish when Swartz’s horn brayed in the deeps of the beech wood. Martin
did not wait to see what would happen. He was out of the ditch and
running through the long grass like a greyhound loosed after a hare. He
knew where the shelter of leaves should be; that was all that mattered.
And yet his senses were dimly aware of other things that were happening.
Swartz was shouting like a madman, “At them! At them! Cut the swine to
pieces!” Fulk de Lisle had sprung to his feet and was facing toward the
beech wood; his men were rushing to arms. The fellows on the causeway
had left their post and were trailing across the grass to join their
comrades by the fires.
Martin went like the wind, conscious of a wild exultation. A black shape
loomed in front of him, like a hay-cock in a field. He reached it, fell
on his knees, and crawled into its shadow.
“Mellis!”
He heard her cry out.
“Martin—Martin—oh, my comrade!”
“Don’t speak, child. I must cut those ropes.”
He groped for her right arm, found it, and cut the thong that fastened
her wrist to the stake. To free her left arm he had to lean over her
body, but the second rope was cut, and of a sudden he felt her arms
about him.
“Martin!”
Her great joy and her love would not be stifled. Her arms held him
close, and for a moment he lay on her bosom, feeling her breath on his
face, and the beating of her heart answering his.
“My own dear mate——”
“Child, it is life and death.”
He freed himself, and cut the ropes that bound her ankles.
“Come.”
She was up like a blown leaf, holding the cloak over her bosom with one
hand, and running at his side. Martin looked back at the fires.
Confusion still fooled Fulk de Lisle and his men. There was much running
to and fro and shouting under the beech trees, and no grasping, as yet,
of the trick that had been played them.
Martin felt himself touched upon the shoulder.
“You are all wet, dear comrade.”
“I had to swim across.”
She gave an exquisite, shy laugh.
“The mere is an old friend. You will not have to carry me.”
There flashed on Martin Valliant a swift new consciousness of her as a
woman, a woman who trusted him as a bird flies to its mate. A great
white light had blazed for him, lighting such an awe of her that the
very thought of touching her had seemed sacrilege. And now a miraculous
thing had happened. Her arms had held him; she was not afraid; and in
the soft darkness her eyes sought his. His awe of her melted to a deep
and exultant tenderness. He wanted to tell her how beautiful she was,
that he was ready to die for her, that she was the most wonderful and
adorable thing in the whole world.
He touched her hand.
“Have no fear,” he said, “for no harm shall come to you.”
“Fear! I have no fear of you.”
“God be thanked. We have been close to the edge of hell, Mellis, you and
I, to-day.”
He heard her draw her breath as though in pain.
“Let me forget it—let me forget it.”
The mere lay at their feet, black and still and welcoming. There was no
pursuit as yet, though Fulk de Lisle was turning his eyes and his
thoughts to Mellis and the shelter of leaves.
“Blessed water!”
She stepped confidently into the mere, and went forward till the water
rose above her waist.
“S-sh! How sweet and cold it is! Martin—my cloak!”
She had folded it over her bosom and shoulders.
“There is no saving it,” and she laughed softly; “the thing must get
soaked.”
“Give it to me. I can carry it above my head.”
“No, no; something else must serve. Mother of Heaven—they are after
us—at last!”
She let the cloak drop, and left it floating as she dipped to the water
and struck out for the island. Martin caught it up and followed her,
blessing the darkness for its friendliness. He glanced over his shoulder
as he swam, and saw a dozen red lights tossing toward them over the
grassland. Fulk de Lisle had sent a man to the shelter of leaves, and
its emptiness had been discovered.
Mellis was swimming so swiftly that he had to strike out hard to
overtake her. Her arm came out and cut the water like a silver sickle,
each stroke striking a little splash of foam. Martin drew to her, and
they swam side by side.
“We shall beat them.”
“Please God. The torches will not show the farther bank.”
“How you can swim!”
“I always loved this side stroke. I could beat my brother in a race.”
Her whiteness played near him under the black swirl of the water.
“This way. The bank is low by the orchard; we can land there. That man!
I was forgetting him.”
“Swartz?”
“Yes.”
Her sudden, sensitive trepidation thrilled him. He found that he had
forgotten Swartz.
“Swartz is in the woods over yonder. He swam across with me. It was his
horn that you heard. We owe—this—to him.”
“What! He is on our side now?”
“Yes.”
“That is noble.”
They reached the shallows just as Fulk de Lisle’s torches came flaring
to the landward bank. The men could see nothing but ripples; the light
did not carry to the island. One of the fellows hurled his torch out
into the darkness at a venture. It kissed the water, threw out a
momentary radiance, and went out.
Martin was up the bank, and reaching for Mellis’s hands. They heard Fulk
de Lisle cursing.
“Martin, we have fooled them.”
She came out to him like a child, dim, dripping, exultant. Her hands
held his without shame.
“Mellis.”
He threw the wet cloak over her, but she cast it off.
“Not that clammy thing. The night is warm, and I am all aglow.”
She put up her hands, and in a second her hair came clouding down.
“What now? Dear man, they will be mad. You must get your harness and
stand ready.”
Martin was moving away when new sounds came out of the darkness of the
night. A horn blared in the woods; a man screamed in agony; there was
the noise of men running, and shouting as they ran.
Martin turned and looked across the water.
“Listen!”
Mellis was at his side.
“Did you hear that cry? ‘Richmond! Richmond!’ It is John Falconer.”
A man in armor, whose horse was half unmanageable, blundered out into
the light of the fires. It was John Rich. He waved his sword, and
shouted to Fulk de Lisle,
“To us! To us! We are attacked.”
Fulk de Lisle’s torches went tossing up the hill; but before he and his
men reached the beech wood, the fight came tumbling out like a drove of
swine. John Rich was down with an arrow through his throat, and his
horse went charging straight at the torches. Fulk de Lisle caught the
beast by the bridle, swung himself into the saddle, and snatched a spear
from one of his men.
“Troy! Troy! Hold together, lads!”
But that rough and tumble on the edge of the wood was no fitting stage
for flamboyant feats of arms. Falconer’s men poured out in a black
swarm. The fighting was at close quarters, a wild swirl of jerking and
grotesque figures, a tangle of men and horses, torches, flying embers,
oaths and blows. The fires were kicked out, smothered by the bodies of
men who fell on them, and rolled away—cursing. Torches were flung,
tossed back again, trampled under foot. There was no knightliness in the
game. It was a battle of wild beasts who were in a mad haste to kill. My
Lord of Troy’s men had raped and bullied the Forest, and the Forest was
taking its vengeance.
Mellis’s head was close to Martin’s shoulder, and his arm had slipped
about her body. Neither of them spoke. The work up yonder was too grim,
too breathless. The fires were scattered; a few torches flared in the
grass; the dance of death became a thing of darkness.
Then a horse went galloping down past the mere, a dim, hurrying shape.
“Who was that?”
Martin strained his eyes. A faint radiance was stealing over the
grassland, the light of the rising moon. The horse became a gray ghost
carrying a man who rode for safety.
“Who should it be?”
“Fulk de Lisle.”
“That devil!”
The bloody game under the black shadows of the beeches seemed to be
losing its fury. Men were calling to each other in the darkness; there
was a kind of whimpering murmur, a vague scattering of voices. Once a
man shrieked aloud, and Martin felt Mellis shiver.
“It is over. Look, you can see men running. One, two, and another—over
there, in the open.”
“Is it with us, or against us?”
“Troy is beaten. Hear them shouting—our people, ‘Richmond! Richmond!’”
“What a night, comrade, what a night!”
_Chapter XXXI_
A broad silver radiance spread above the black tops of the beech trees.
It was the moon rising behind the wood, throwing long slants of light
across the grasslands, and making a glimmer of mystery everywhere. The
towering shadow of the beech wood still lay upon the island and the
mere, leaving them all black in a world of tremulous white light.
Mellis drew aside suddenly, her arms over her bosom, her eyes looking
toward the tops of the beech trees.
“Martin!”
A something in her voice kept him from looking at her.
“I must become a man. This adventure has shipwrecked me.”
He was most desperately and dearly perplexed.
“Is there no cloth anywhere?”
She could not help laughing at his immense seriousness.
“Have you forgotten? Ah!”
The moon seemed to glide suddenly above the beech wood, huge, and
yellow, and stealthy. The shadows slipped away from the island; the long
grass glimmered like silver wire; the mere shone like a shield.
Mellis threw herself in the long grass.
“Have you forgotten all our gear in that cellar? If you love me,
man—hasten.”
“What shall I bring?”
“A suit of light armor, and a wadded coat—and—and—things to go under
it.”
He blundered off, calling himself the most imbecile fool that ever was;
but before he had got across the orchard he heard Falconer hailing him.
“Martin Valliant—Martin Valliant!”
Martin had other matters to attend to. John Falconer could wait. But he
gave him an answering shout,
“Is that Master Falconer?”
“Aye.”
“All’s well.”
“Let down the bridge, man.”
“All in good season.”
Martin ran to the tower, groped for the ring of the great stone, found
it, and then remembered that he would need a light. The tinder-box and
the candles were in Mellis’s room. He was about to go for them when he
heard a sound of soft footsteps, and some one glided up the stairs.
“Martin!”
“I need a light.”
“The tinder-box is above. Come to me in a moment.”
He lifted the stone out, rolled it aside, and waited. He could hear the
ring of the flint against the steel, and then her voice calling to him
softly,
“Here. It is lighted.”
Martin climbed the stairs and found a candle burning outside her door.
He picked it up, holding it in one big hand and shading it as though
that flame was one of the most precious things in the world. The light
played upon his solemn face, and mirrored itself in his grave, intent
eyes. He held his breath all the way down the stairs; the flame was a
flickering soul, and he was guarding it.
So Martin lowered himself into the vault, and setting that precious
candle on a stone bracket let into the wall, he made a great disorder
among the stuff that was stored there. The idea of thoroughness obsessed
him, of not letting Mellis lack for anything that might be of use in
such a crisis. He made three journeys to the landing outside her chamber
door, and the merchandise that was piled there testified to his
sincerity. It included a suit of light mail; a woolen doublet and hose
to be worn beneath it; a belt, sword and dagger; leather shoes; an odd
piece of green cloth that bows had been wrapped in; some strips of
leather; a green and blue banner rolled in a canvas bag. He left the
candle burning there, and went down to lower the bridge for Falconer and
his men.
John Falconer had torches with him, and the causeway was a glare of
light. Martin lowered the bridge and swung the gate open; Falconer came
across.
He stared at Martin Valliant.
“Hallo! This is a queer way to go harnessed.”
“There is much to be told.”
“Is the child safe?”
“She is in her chamber. Her men were ambushed this morning, and she was
taken.”
Falconer nodded understandingly.
“You have been in the water, my friend?”
“Swartz and I swam across to rescue her.”
“Swartz? Peter Swartz?”
“He is with us now. He went into the woods to raise an alarm, while I
saved Mellis. Warn your men that he is a friend.”
Martin and John Falconer passed on into the courtyard, and the Forest
followed them with a tossing of torches, and much grim jubilation. The
men were as diverse and rustic as their weapons. Oak clubs, scythe
blades on poles, axes, spits, wooden mallets, all came dancing into the
yard of Woodmere. Many of the men had bows on their backs and arrows
stuck in their belts. Not a few were wounded. There were bloody faces,
arms that hung limp, stockings soaked all red. But the crowd was hot,
triumphant, and fiercely merry; they had tasted blood; many vile things
had been avenged.
“Look to your wounds, lads. Lay a fire, some of you. We have come far,
and no man is grudged his supper.”
Several of the Forest gentry gathered around Falconer, and looked
curiously at Martin Valliant.
“Is this the fellow?”
“He has some limbs on him.”
“But a runaway priest, gentles, is black company. What say you?”
Falconer answered them gruffly:
“And what are we but traitors, so long as Crookback wears the crown! Men
who can fight are the blood and muscle of such a venture as ours. Use
your wits, gentlemen. We are not women to tilt our noses and screw up
our mouths.”
Martin had drawn aside. He felt a stranger and almost an outcast under
the eyes of these mesne lords who stared at him and did not lower their
voices. The mysterious and solitary nights and days had vanished. He saw
Mellis surrounded by a crowd of figures, knights, yeomen, foresters.
They seemed to thrust him back into the darkness; he had served his
purpose and no one held out a hand.
He gathered up his harness from the spot where he had left it by the
gate that led into the garden, and made his way into the orchard. The
life had gone out of him for the moment; this secret and love-enchanted
island had been seized by a hundred rough fellows who shouted and
crowded in the courtyard. He did not belong to them; he was a thing to
be eyed with distrust.
The moonlight flooded the orchard, and Martin sat down under an apple
tree and began to arm himself, but there was no pride of purpose in his
hands. Bitter thoughts crowded into his heart, and he sank in a slough
of self-abasement. He had been in heaven, and suddenly he found himself
in hell. What was he but an outcast, a murderer, a thing that was
neither priest nor man? And he had believed for one short hour that
Mellis loved him. What madness! What could he be to her, or she to him?
He had mistaken a child’s gratitude for the love of the woman. The
danger was past, for she was in the midst of friends; he had played his
part, and the dream was ended.