HUGO OF THE BROADAXE
But as for me, sleep I could not. And indeed that is small wonder. For it
was the first night I had ever slept out of the Red Tower in my life. I
seemed to lack some necessary accompaniment to the act of going to sleep.
It was a long while before I could find out what it could be that was
disturbing me. At last I discovered that it was the howling of the
kennelled blood-hounds which I missed. For at night they even raged, and
leaped on the barriers with their forefeet, hearing mayhap the moving to
and fro of men come sleeplessly up from the streets of the city beneath.
But here, within a long day's march of Thorn, I had come at once into a
new world. Slowly the night dragged on. The candle guttered. A draught of
air blew fitfully through the corridor in which we lay. It carried the
flame of the candle in the opposite direction. I wondered whence it could
come, for the air had been still and thick before. Yet I was glad of the
stir, for it cooled my temples, and I think that but for one thing I
might have slept. And had I fallen on sleep then no one of us might have
waked so easily. What I heard was no more than this--once or twice the
flame of the candle gave a smart little "spit," as if a moth or a fat
blue-bottle had forwandered into it and fallen spinning to the ground
with burned wings. Yet there were no moths in the chambers, or we should
have seen them circling about the lights at the time of supper.
Nevertheless, ere long I heard again the quick, light "_plap_!" And
presently I saw a pellet fall to the ground, rolling away from the wall
almost to the edge of the straw on which I lay.
I reached out a hand for it, and in a trice had it in my fingers. It was
soft, like mason's putty. "Plop!" came another. I was sure now. Some one
was shooting at the flame of the candle with intent to leave us in the
dark. Jorian and Boris snored loudly, sleeping like true men-at-arms. I
need say no more.
I lay with my head in the shadow, but by moving little by little, with
sleepy grunts of dissatisfaction, I brought my face far enough round to
see through the straw the window at the far end of the passage, which, as
I had discovered upon our first coming, opened out upon a ravine running
at right angles to the street by which we had come.
Presently I could see the lattice move noiselessly, and a white face
appeared with a boy's blow-gun of pierced bore-tree at its lips.
"Alas!" said I to myself, "that I had had these soldiers' skill of the
knife throwing. I would have marked that gentleman." But I had not even a
bow--only my sword and dagger. I resolved to begin to learn the practice
of pistol and cross-bow on the morrow.
"_Plap! Scat!_" The aim was good this time. We were in darkness. I
listened the barest fragment of a moment. Some one was stealthily
entering at the window end.
"Rise, Jorian and Boris!" I cried. "An enemy!"
And leaping up I ran to relight the candle. By good luck the wick was a
sound, honest, thick one, a good housewife's wick--not such as are made
to sell and put in ordinary candles of offertory.
The wick was still red, and smoked as I put my hands behind it and blew.
"_Twang! Twang! Zist! Zist!_" went the arrows and bolts thickly about me,
bringing down the clay dust in handfuls thickly from the walls.
"Down on your stomachs--they are shooting crosswise along the passage !"
cried Jorian, who had instantly awakened. I longed to follow the advice,
for I felt something sharp catch the back of my undersuit of soft
leather, in which, for comfort, I had laid me down to sleep. But I _must_
get the candle alight. Hurrah! the flame flickered and caught at last.
"_Twang! Twang!"_ went the bows, harder at it than ever. Something
hurtled hotly through my hair--the iron bolt of an arbalest, as I knew by
the song of the steel bow in a man's hand at the end of the passage.
"Get into a doorway, man!" cried Boris, as the light revealed me.
And like a startled rabbit I ran for the nearest--that within which
Helene and the Lady Ysolinde were lying asleep. The candle, as I have
said, was set deep in a niche, which proved a great mercy for us. For our
foes, who had thought to come on us by fraud, could not now shoot it out.
Also, in relighting it, in my eagerness to save myself from the hissing
arrows behind me, I had pushed it to the very back of the shrine. I had
no weapon now but my dagger, for, in rising to relight the candle, I had
carelessly and blamefully left my sword in the straw. And I felt very
useless and foolish as I stood there to bide the assault with only a bit
of guardless knife in my hand.
Suddenly, however, there came a diversion.
"Crash !" went a gun in my very ear. Flame, smoke--much of both--and the
stifling smell of sulphur. Jorian had fired at the face of the pop-gun
knave. That putty-white countenance had a crimson plash on it ere it
vanished. Then came back to us a scream of dreadful agony and the sound
of a heavy fall outside.
"End of act the first! The Wicked Angels--hum, hum--go to hell! All in
the day's work!" cried Jorian, cheerily, recharging his pistolet and
driving home the wadding as he spoke.
It may well be imagined that during our encounter with the assailants of
the candle, whose transverse fire had so nearly finished me, the company
out in the great kitchen had not been content to lie snoring on their
backs. We could hear them creeping and whispering out there beyond the
doors; but till after the shot from the soldier's pistolet they had not
dared to show us any overt act of hostility.
Suddenly Jorian, once more facing the door, now that the passage was
clear, perceived by the rustling of the straw that it began to open
gradually. He waited till in another moment it would have been wide
enough to let in a man.
"Back there, dog, or I fire!" he bellowed. And the door was
promptly shut to.
After that there came another period of waiting very difficult to get
over. I wished with all my heart for a cross-bow or any shooting weapon.
Much did I reproach myself that I had not learned the art before, as I
might easily have done from the men-at-arms about the Wolfsberg, who, for
my father's sake (or Helene's), would gladly have taught me.
The women folk in the room behind my back were now up and dressed.
Indeed, the Lady Ysolinde would have come out and watched with us, but I
besought her to abide where she was. Presently, however, Helene put her
head without, and seeing me stand by the door with my sword, she asked if
I wanted anything. She appeared to have forgotten her unkind good-night,
and I was not the man to remind her of it.
"Only another weapon, Sweetheart, besides this prick-point small-sword!"
said I, looking at the thing in my hand I doubt not a trifle scornfully.
Helene shut to the door, and for a space I heard no more. Presently,
however, she opened it again, and thrust an axe with a long handle
through to me. It was the very fellow of the weapon I had used on the
pendent calf in the kitchen. I understood at once that it was her apology
and her justification as well. For the Little Playmate was ever a
straight lass. She ever did so much more than she promised, and ever said
less than her heart meant. Which perhaps is less common than the other
way about--especially among women.
"I found it on my incoming and hid it under the bed!" she said.
Then judge ye if I sheathed not my small-sword right swiftly, and made
the broadaxe blade, to the skill of which I had been born, whistle
through the air. For a mightily strange thing it is that, though I had
ever a rooted horror at the thought of my father's office itself, and
from my childhood never for a moment intended to exercise it,
nevertheless I had always the most notable facility in cutting things.
Never to this day have I a stick in hand, when I walk abroad among the
ragweed waving yellow on the grassy pastures below the Wolfsberg, but I
must need make wagers with myself to cut to an inch at the heads of the
tallest and never miss. And this I can do the day by the length, and
never grow weary. Then again, for pleasaunce, my father used to put me
to the cutting of light wood with an axe, not always laying it upon a
block or hag-clog, but sometimes setting the billet upright and making
me cut the top off with a horizontal swing of the axe. And in this I
became exceedingly expert. And how difficult it is no one knows till he
has tried.
So it is small wonder that as soon as I gripped the noble broadaxe which
Helene passed me I felt my own man again.
Then we were silent and listened--and ever again listened and held our
breaths. Now I tell you when an enemy is whispering unseen without,
rustling like rats in straw, and you wonder at what point they will break
in next, thinking all the while of the woman you love (or do not yet
love, but may) in the chamber behind--I tell you a castle is something
less difficult to hold at such a time than just one's own breath.
Suddenly I heard a sound in the outer chamber which I knew the meaning
of. It was the shifting of horses' feet as they turn in narrow space to
leave their stalls. Our good friends were making free with our steeds.
And, if we were not quick about it, we should soon see the last of them,
and be compelled to traverse the rest of the road to Plassenburg upon our
own proper feet.
"Jorian," cried I, "do you hear? They are slipping our horses out of the
stalls! Shall you and I make a sortie against them, while Boris with that
pistol of his keeps the passage from the wicks of the middle door?"
"Good!" answered Jorian. "Give the word when you are ready."
With axe in my right hand, the handle of the door in my left, I gave
the signal.
"When I say 'Three!' Jorian!"
"Good!" said Jorian.
Clatter went the horses' hoofs as they were being led towards the door.
"One! Two! Three!" I counted, softly but clearly.