In the Days of Chivalry: A Tale of the Times of the Black Prince by Everett-Green (best romantic books to read TXT) 📖

cherished a hope that it might fall into his hands through strategy if he were patient, and if Roger still retained that marvellous faculty of second-sight which revealed to his eyes things hidden from the vision of others.

He slept all that night without moving or speaking, and when he awoke in the morning it was in a natural state, and at first he appeared to have no recollection of what had occurred either to himself or to Raymond. But as sense and memory returned to him, so did also the shadow of some terrible doom hanging over his beloved young master; and though he was still weak and ill, and very unfit for the long journey on horseback through the heat of a summer's day, he would not hear of being left behind, and was the one to urge upon the others all the haste possible as they rode along southward after the foes who had captured Raymond.

On, on, on! there were no halts save for the needful rest and refreshment, or to try to get fresh horses to carry them forward. A fire seemed to burn in Gaston's veins as well as in those of Roger; and the knowledge that they were on the track of the fugitives gave fresh ardour to the pursuit at every halting place.

Only a few hours were allowed for rest and sleep during the darkest hour of the short night, and then on -- on -- ever on, urged by an overmastering desire to know what was happening to the prisoner behind those gloomy walls.

Roger's sleep that night had been disturbed by hideous visions. He did not appear to know or see anything that was passing; but a deep gloom hung upon his spirit, and he many times woke shivering and crying out with horror at he knew not what; whilst Gaston lay broad awake, a strange sense of darkness and depression upon his own senses. He could scarce restrain himself from springing up and summoning his weary followers to get to horse and ride forth at all risks to the very doors of Saut, and only with the early dawn of day did any rest or refreshment fall upon his spirit.

Roger looked more himself as they rode forth in the dawn.

"Methinks we are near him now," he kept saying; "my heart is lighter than it was. We will save him yet -- I am assured of it! He is not dead; I should surely know it if he were. We are drawing nearer every step. We may be with him ere nightfall."

"The walls of Saut lie betwixt us," said Gaston, rather grimly, but he looked sternly resolute, as though it would take strong walls indeed to keep him from his brother when they were so near.

The country was beginning to grow familiar to him. He picked up followers in many places as he passed through. The name of De Brocas was loved here; that of De Navailles was loathed, and hated, and feared.

Evening was drawing on. The woods were looking their loveliest in all the delicate beauty of their fresh young green. Gaston, riding some fifty yards ahead with Roger beside him, looked keenly about him, with vivid remembrance of every winding of the woodland path. Soon, as he knew, the grim Castle of Saut would break upon his vision -- away there in front and slightly to the right, where the ground fell away to the river and rose on the opposite bank, crowned with those frowning walls.

He was riding so carelessly that when his horse suddenly swerved and shied violently, he was for a moment almost unseated; but quickly recovering himself, he looked round to see what had frightened the animal, and himself gave almost as violent a start as the beast had done.

And yet what he saw was nothing very startling: only the light figure of a young girl -- a girl fair of face and light of foot as a veritable forest nymph -- such as indeed she looked springing out from the overhanging shade of that dim place.

For one instant they looked into each other's faces with a glance of quick recognition, and then clasping her hands together, the girl exclaimed in the Gascon tongue:

"The Holy Saints be praised! You have come, you have come! Ah, how I have prayed that help might come! And my prayers have been heard!"

CHAPTER XXV. THE FAIRY OF THE FOREST

Gaston sat motionless in his saddle, gazing at the apparition as though fascinated. He had seen this woodland nymph before. He had spoken with her, had sat awhile beside her, and her presence had inspired feelings within him to which he had hitherto been a complete stranger. As he gazed now into that lovely face, anxious, glad, fearful, all in one, and yet beaming with joy at the encounter, he felt as if indeed the denizens of another sphere had interposed to save his brother, and from that moment he felt a full assurance that Raymond would be rescued.

Recovering himself as by an effort, he sprang from his saddle and stood beside the girl.

"Lady," he said, in gentle accents, that trembled slightly through the intensity of his emotion -- "fairest lady, who thou art I know not, but this I know, that thou comest ever as a messenger of mercy. Once it was to warn me of peril to come; now it is to tell us of one who lies in sore peril. Lady, tell me that I am not wrong in this -- that thou comest to give me news of my brother!"

Her liquid eyes were full of light. She did not shrink from him, or play with his feelings as on a former occasion. Her face expressed a serious gravity and earnestness of purpose which added tenfold to her charms. Gaston, deeply as his feelings were stirred with anxious care for his brother's fate, could not help his heart going out to this exquisite young thing standing before him with trustful upturned face.

Who she was he knew not and cared not. She was the one woman in the world for him. He had thought so when he had found her in the forest in wayward tricksy mood; he knew it without doubt now that he saw her at his side, her sweet face full of deep and womanly feeling, her arch shyness all forgotten in the depth and resolution of her resolve.

"I do!" she answered, in quick, short sentences that sounded like the tones of a silver bell. "You are Gaston de Brocas, and he, the prisoner, is your twin brother Raymond. I know all. I have heard them talk in their cups, when they forget that I am growing from a child to a woman. I have long ceased to be a child. I think that I have grown old in that terrible place. I have heard words -- oh, that make my blood run cold! that make me wish I had never been born into a world where such things are possible! In my heart I have registered a vow. I have vowed that if ever the time should come when I might save one wretched victim from my savage uncle's power -- even at the risk of mine own life -- I would do it. I have warned men away from here. I have done a little, times and again, to save them from a snare laid for them. But never once have I had power to rescue from his relentless clutch the victim he had once enclosed in his net, for never have I had help from without. But when I heard them speak of Raymond de Brocas -- when I knew that it was he, thy brother, of whom some such things were spoken -- then I felt that I should indeed go mad could I not save him from such fate."

"What fate?" asked Gaston breathlessly; but she went on as though she had not heard.

"I thought of thee as I had seen thee in the wood. I said in my heart, 'He is noble, he is brave. He will rest not night nor day whilst his brother lies a captive in these cruel hands. I have but to watch and to wait. He will surely come. And when he comes, I will show him the black hole in the wall -- the dark passage to the moat -- and he will dare to enter where never man has entered before. He will save his brother, and my vow will be fulfilled!'"

Gaston drew his breath hard, and a light leaped into his eyes.

"Thou knowest a secret way by which the Tower of Saut may be entered -- is that so, Lady?"

"I know a way by which many a wretched victim has left it," answered the girl, whose dark violet eyes were dilated by the depth of her emotion. "I know not if any man ever entered by that way. But my heart told me that there was one who would not shrink from the task, be the peril never so great. I will see that the men-at-arms have drink enough to turn their heads. I have a concoction of herbs which if mingled with strong drink will cause such sleep to fall upon men that a thunderbolt falling at their feet would scarce awaken them. I will see that thou hast the chance thou needest. The rest wilt thou do without a thought of fear."

"Fear to go where Raymond is -- to share his fate if I may not rescue him!" cried Gaston. "Nay, sweet lady, that would be indeed a craven fear, unworthy of any true knight. But tell me more. I have many times wandered round the Tower of Saut in my boyhood, when its lord and master was away. Methinks I know every loophole and gate by heart. But the gates are so closely guarded, and the windows are so narrow and high up in the walls, that I know not how they may be entered from without."

"True: yet there is one way of which doubtless thou knowest naught, for, as I have said, men go forth that way, but enter not by it; and the trick is known only to a few chosen souls, for the victims who pass out seek not to come again. They drop with sullen plash into the black waters of the moat, and the river, which mingles its clearer water with the sluggish stream encircling the Tower, bears thence towards the hungry sea the burden thus entrusted to its care."

Gaston shivered slightly.

"Thou speakest of the victims done to death within yon gloomy walls. I have heard dark tales of such ere now."

"Thou hast heard nothing darker than the truth," said the girl, her slight frame quivering with repressed emotion and a deep and terrible sense of helpless indignation and pity. "I have heard stories that have made my blood run cold in my veins. Men have been done to death in a fashion I dare not speak of. There is a terrible room scarce raised above the level of the moat, into which I was once taken, and the memory of which has haunted me ever since. It is within the great mound upon which the Tower is built; and above it is the dungeon in which the victim is confined. There is some strange and wondrous device by which he may be carried down and raised again to his own prison house when his captor has worked his hideous will upon him. And if he dies, as many do, upon the fearful engines men have made to inflict torture upon each other, then there is this narrow stairway, and this still narrower passage down to the sullen waters of the moat.

"The opening is just at the level of the water. It looks so small from the opposite side, that one would think it but the size to admit the passage of a dog; you would think it was caused by the loosening of some stone in the wall -- no more. But yet it is large enough to admit the passage of a human body; and where a body has passed out, sure a body may pass in. There is no lock upon the door from the underground passage to the moat; for what man would be so bold as find his way into the Castle by the grim dungeons which hold such terrible secrets? If thou hast the courage to enter thus, none will bar thy passage --"

"If!" echoed Gaston, whose hand was clenched and his whole face quivering with emotion as he realized the fearful peril which menaced his brother. "There is no such thing as a doubt. Raymond is there. I come to save him."

The girl's eyes flashed with answering fire. She clasped her hands together, and cried, with something like a sob in her voice:

"I knew it! I knew it! I knew