第12章 WHAT BEFELL OUTSIDE OF CHINON TOWN(3)

"Only one horse would have fallen,and that had brought the others on us.The Scot is safe enough,his mouth is well shut.I will have no blood to-night;leave him to the wolves.And now,begone with you:to Fierbois,if you will;I go my own road--alone."They wandered each his own way,sullen and murmuring,starved and weary.What they had seen or fancied,and whether,if the rest saw aught strange,Brother Thomas saw nought,I knew not then,and know not till this hour.But the tale of this ambush,and of how they that lay in hiding held their hands,and fled--having come,none might say whence,and gone,whither none might tell--is true,and was soon widely spoken of in the realm of France.

The woods fell still again,save for the babble of the brook,and there I lay,bound,and heard only the stream in the silence of the night.

There I lay,quaking,when all the caitiffs had departed,and the black,chill night received me into itself.At first my mind was benumbed,like my body;but the pain of my face,smarting with switch and scratch of the boughs through which I had fallen,awoke me to thought and fear.I turned over to lie on my back,and look up for any light of hope in the sky,but nothing fell on me from heaven save a cold rain,that the leafless boughs did little to ward off.Scant hope or comfort had I;my whole body ached and shuddered,only I did not thirst,for the rain soaked through the accursed napkin on my mouth,while the dank earth,with its graveyard smell,seemed to draw me down into itself,as it drags a rotting leaf.I was buried before death,as it were,even if the wolves found me not and gave me other sepulture;and now and again Iheard their long hunting cry,and at every patter of a beast's foot,or shivering of the branches,I thought my hour was come--and Iunconfessed!The road was still as death,no man passing by it.

This night to me was like the night of a man laid living in the tomb.By no twisting and turning could I loosen the rope that Brother Thomas had bound me in,with a hand well taught by cruel practice.At last the rain in my face grew like a water-torture,always dropping,and I half turned my face and pressed it to the ground.

Whether I slept by whiles,or waked all night,I know not,but certainly I dreamed,seeing with shut eyes faces that came and went,shifting from beauty such as I had never yet beheld,to visages more and more hideous and sinful,ending at last in the worst--the fell countenance of Noiroufle.Then I woke wholly to myself,in terror,to find that he was not there,and now came to me some of that ease which had been born of the strange,sweet voice,and the strange words,"Mes Freres de Paradis.""My brethren of Paradise";who could she be that rode so late in company of armed men,and yet spoke of such great kinsfolk?That it might be the holy Colette,then,as now,so famous in France for her miracles,and good deeds,and her austerities,was a thought that arose in me.But the holy Sister,as I had heard,never mounted a horse in her many wanderings,she being a villein's daughter,but was carried in a litter,or fared in a chariot;nor did she go in company with armed men,for who would dare to lay hands on her?

Moreover,the voice that I had heard was that of a very young girl,and the holy Sister Colette was now entered into the vale of years.

So my questioning found no answer.

And now I heard light feet,as of some beast stirring and scratching in the trees overhead,and there with a light jingling noise.Was it a squirrel?Whatever it was,it raced about the tree,coming nearer and going further away,till it fell with a weight on my breast,and,shivering with cold,all strained like a harp-string as I was,I could have screamed,but for the gag in my mouth.The thing crawled up my body,and I saw two red eyes fixed on mine,and deemed it had been a wild cat,such as lives in our corries of the north--a fell beast if brought to bay,but otherwise not hurtful to man.

There the red eyes looked on me,and I on them,till I grew giddy with gazing,and half turned my head with a stifled sob.Then there came a sharp cry which I knew well enough,and the beast leaped up and nestled under my breast,for this so dreadful thing was no worse than the violer woman's jackanapes,that had slipped its chain,or,rather,had drawn it out of her hand,for now I plainly heard the light chain jingle.This put me on wondering whether they had really departed;the man,verily,thirsted for my life,but he would have slain me ere this hour,I thought,if that had been his purpose.The poor beast a little helped to warm me with the heat of his body,and he was a friendly creature,making me feel less alone in the night.Yet,in my own misery,I could not help but sorrow for the poor woman when she found her jackanapes gone,that was great part of her living:and I knew what she would have to bear for its loss from the man that was her master.

As this was in my mind,the first grey stole into the sky so that Icould see the black branches overhead;and now there awoke the cries of birds,and soon the wood was full of their sweet jargoning.This put some hope into my heart;but the morning hours were long,and colder than the night,to one wet to the bone with the rains.Now,too,I comforted myself with believing that,arrive what might,Iwas wholly quit of Brother Thomas,whereat I rejoiced,like the man in the tale who had sold his soul to the Enemy,and yet,in the end,escaped his clutches by the aid of Holy Church.Death was better to me than life with Brother Thomas,who must assuredly have dragged me with him to the death that cannot die.Morning must bring travellers,and my groaning might lead them to my aid.And,indeed,foot-farers did come,and I did groan as well as I could,but,like the Levite in Scripture,they passed by on the other side of the way,fearing to meddle with one wounded perchance to the death,lest they might be charged with his slaying,if he died,or might anger his enemies,if he lived.