Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France. Weyman Stanley John
here, Mademoiselle's horse barring the way, might be fatal.
There was but one way. I turned my horse straight at the steep bank, and he breasted it. One moment he hung as if he must fall back. Then, with a snort of terror and a desperate bound, he topped it, and gained the level, trembling and snorting.
It was as I had guessed. Seventy paces away on the road lay one of my men. He had fallen, horse and man, and lay still. Near him, with his back against a bank, stood his fellow, on foot, pressed by four horsemen, and shouting. As my eye lighted on the scene, he let fly with a carbine and dropped one.
I snatched a pistol from my holster, cocked it, and seized my horse by the head-I might save the man yet. I shouted to encourage him, and in another second should have charged into the fight, when a sudden vicious blow, swift and unexpected, struck the pistol from my hand.
I made a snatch at it as it fell, but missed it; and before I could recover myself, Mademoiselle thrust her horse furiously against mine, and with her riding-whip, lashed the sorrel across the ears. As my horse reared madly up, I had a glimpse of her eyes flashing hate through her mask; of her hand again uplifted; the next moment, I was down in the road, ingloriously unhorsed, the sorrel was galloping away, and her horse, scared in its turn, was plunging unmanageably a score of paces from me.
I don't doubt that but for that she would have trampled on me. As it was, I was free to draw; and in a twinkling I was running towards the fighters. All I have described had happened in a few seconds. My man was still defending himself; the smoke of the carbine had scarcely risen. I sprang with a shout across a fallen tree that intervened; at the same moment, two of the men detached themselves, and rode to meet me. One, whom I took to be the leader, was masked. He came furiously at me, trying to ride me down; but I leaped aside nimbly, and evading him, rushed at the other, and scaring his horse, so that he dropped his point, cut him across the shoulder before he could guard himself. He plunged away, cursing, and trying to hold in his horse, and I turned to meet the masked man.
"You double-dyed villain!" he cried, riding al. me again. And this time he manœuvred his horse so skilfully that I was hard put to it to prevent him knocking me down; and could not with all my efforts reach him to hurt him. "Surrender, will you!" he continued, "you bloodhound!"
I wounded him slightly in the knee for answer; but before I could do more his companion came back, and the two set upon me with a will, slashing at my head so furiously and towering above me with so great an advantage that it was all I could do to guard myself. I was soon glad to fall back against the bank-as my man had done before me. In such a conflict my rapier would have been of little use, but fortunately I had armed myself before I left Paris with a cut-and-thrust sword for the road; and though my mastery of the weapon was not on a par with my rapier-play, I was able to fend off their cuts, and by an occasional prick keep the horses at a distance. Still they swore and cut at me, trying to wear me out; and it was trying work. A little delay, the least accident, might enable the other man to come to their help, or Mademoiselle, for all I knew, might shoot me with my own pistol; and I confess, I was unfeignedly glad when a lucky parade sent the masked man's sword flying across the road. He was no coward; for unarmed as he was, he pushed his horse at me, spurring it recklessly; but the animal, which I had several times touched, reared up instead and threw him at the very moment that I wounded his companion a second time in the arm, and made him give back.
This quite changed the scene. The man in the mask staggered to his feet, and felt stupidly for a pistol. But he could not find one, and was, I saw, in no state to use it if he had. He reeled helplessly to the bank, and leaned against it. He would give no further trouble. The man I had wounded was in scarcely better condition. He retreated before me for some paces, but then losing courage, he dropped his sword, and, wheeling round, cantered off down the road, clinging to his pommel. There remained only the fellow engaged with my man, and I turned to see how they were getting on. They were standing to take breath, so I ran towards them; but, seeing me coming, this rascal, too, whipped round his horse, and disappeared in the wood, and left us masters of the field. The first thing I did-and I remember it to this day with pleasure-was to plunge my hand into my pocket, take out half the money I had in the world, and press it on the man who had fought for me so stoutly, and who had certainly saved me from disaster. In my joy I could have kissed him! It was not only that I had escaped defeat by the skin of my teeth, – and his good sword, – but I knew, and thrilled with the knowledge, that the fight had altered the whole position. He was wounded in two places, and I had a scratch or two, and had lost my horse; and my other poor fellow was dead as a herring. But speaking for myself, I would have spent half the blood in my body to purchase the feeling with which I turned back to speak to M. de Cocheforêt and his sister. I had fought before them.
Mademoiselle had dismounted, and with her face averted and her mask pushed on one side, was openly weeping. Her brother, who had scrupulously kept his place by the ford from the beginning of the fight to the end, met me with raised eyebrows and a peculiar smile. "Acknowledge my virtue," he said airily. "I am here, M. de Berault-which is more than can be said of the two gentlemen who have just ridden off."
"Yes," I answered, with a touch of bitterness. "I wish they had not shot my poor man before they went."
He shrugged his shoulders. "They were my friends," he said. "You must not expect me to blame them. But that is not all."
"No," I said, wiping my sword. "There is this gentleman in the mask." And I turned to go towards him.
"M. de Berault!" There was something abrupt in the way in which Cocheforêt called my name after me.
I stood. "Pardon?" I said, turning.
"That gentleman?" he answered, hesitating, and looking at me doubtfully. "Have you considered-what will happen to him, if you give him up to the authorities?"
"Who is he?" I said sharply.
"That is rather a delicate question," he answered, frowning, and still looking at me fixedly.
"Not from me," I replied brutally, "since he is in my power. If he will take off his mask, I shall know better what I intend to do with him."
The stranger had lost his hat in his fall, and his fair hair, stained with dust, hung in curls on his shoulders. He was a tall man, of a slender, handsome presence, and though his dress was plain and almost rough, I espied a splendid jewel on his hand, and fancied I detected other signs of high quality. He still lay against the bank in a half-swooning condition, and seemed unconscious of my scrutiny. "Should I know him if he unmasked?" I said suddenly, a new idea in my head.
"You would," M. de Cocheforêt answered simply.
"And?"
"It would be bad for every one."
"Ho, ho!" I said softly, looking hard, first at my old prisoner, and then at my new one. "Then, what do you wish me to do?"
"Leave him here," M. de Cocheforêt answered glibly, his face flushed, the pulse in his cheek beating. I had known him for a man of perfect honour before, and trusted him. But this evident earnest anxiety on behalf of his friend touched me. Besides, I knew that I was treading on slippery ground; that it behoved me to be careful. "I will do it," I said, after a moment's reflection. "He will play me no tricks, I suppose? A letter of-"
"Mon Dieu, no! He will understand," Cocheforêt answered eagerly. "You will not repent it, I swear. Let us be going."
"Well, – but my horse?" I said, somewhat taken aback by this extreme haste.
"We shall overtake it," he replied urgently. "It will have kept to the road. Lectoure is no more than a league from here, and we can give orders there to have these two fetched in and buried."
I had nothing to gain by demurring, and so it was arranged. After that we did not linger. We picked up what we had dropped, M. de Cocheforêt mounted his sister, and within five minutes we were gone. Casting a glance back from the skirts of the wood, as we entered it, I fancied that I saw the masked man straighten himself and turn to look after us; but the leaves were beginning to intervene, the distance was great and perhaps cheated me. And yet I was not disinclined to think the unknown a little less severely injured and a trifle more observant than he seemed.
CHAPTER XII
AT