The White Company
had great good fortune in having lived in times when so much glory was
to be won, and in knowing so many valiant gentlemen and knights. But why
do you pluck my sleeve, Alleyne?”
“If it please you, my fair lord, there are in this corner two great
tubes of iron, with many heavy balls, which may perchance be those
bombards and shot of which I have heard.”
“By Saint Ives! it is true,” cried Sir Bertrand, striding across to
the recess where the ungainly, funnel-shaped, thick-ribbed engines were
standing. “Bombards they are, and of good size. We may shoot down upon
them.”
“Shoot with them, quotha?” cried Aylward in high disdain, for pressing
danger is the great leveller of classes. “How is a man to take aim with
these fool's toys, and how can he hope to do scath with them?”
“I will show you,” answered Sir Nigel; “for here is the great box of
powder, and if you will raise it for me, John, I will show you how it
may be used. Come hither, where the folk are thickest round the fire.
Now, Aylward, crane thy neck and see what would have been deemed an old
wife's tale when we first turned our faces to the wars. Throw back the
lid, John, and drop the box into the fire!”
A deafening roar, a fluff of bluish light, and the great square tower
rocked and trembled from its very foundations, swaying this way and that
like a reed in the wind. Amazed and dizzy, the defenders, clutching at
the cracking parapets for support, saw great stones, burning beams of
wood, and mangled bodies hurtling past them through the air. When they
staggered to their feet once more, the whole keep had settled down upon
one side, so that they could scarce keep their footing upon the sloping
platform. Gazing over the edge, they looked down upon the horrible
destruction which had been caused by the explosion. For forty yards
round the portal the ground was black with writhing, screaming figures,
who struggled up and hurled themselves down again, tossing this way
and that, sightless, scorched, with fire bursting from their tattered
clothing. Beyond this circle of death their comrades, bewildered and
amazed, cowered away from this black tower and from these invincible
men, who were most to be dreaded when hope was furthest from their
hearts.
“A sally, Du Guesclin, a sally!” cried Sir Nigel. “By Saint Paul! they
are in two minds, and a bold rush may turn them.” He drew his sword as
he spoke and darted down the winding stairs, closely followed by his
four comrades. Ere he was at the first floor, however, he threw up his
arms and stopped. “Mon Dieu!” he said, “we are lost men!”
“What then?” cried those behind him.
“The wall hath fallen in, the stair is blocked, and the fire still rages
below. By Saint Paul! friends, we have fought a very honorable fight,
and may say in all humbleness that we have done our devoir, but I think
that we may now go back to the Lady Tiphaine and say our orisons, for we
have played our parts in this world, and it is time that we made ready
for another.”
The narrow pass was blocked by huge stones littered in wild confusion
over each other, with the blue choking smoke reeking up through the
crevices. The explosion had blown in the wall and cut off the only path
by which they could descend. Pent in, a hundred feet from earth, with
a furnace raging under them and a ravening multitude all round who
thirsted for their blood, it seemed indeed as though no men had ever
come through such peril with their lives. Slowly they made their way
back to the summit, but as they came out upon it the Lady Tiphaine
darted forward and caught her husband by the wrist.
“Bertrand,” said she, “hush and listen! I have heard the voices of men
all singing together in a strange tongue.”
Breathless they stood and silent, but no sound came up to them, save the
roar of the flames and the clamor of their enemies.
“It cannot be, lady,” said Du Guesclin. “This night hath over wrought
you, and your senses play you false. What men are there in this country
who would sing in a strange tongue?”
“Hola!” yelled Aylward, leaping suddenly into the air with waving hands
and joyous face. “I thought I heard it ere we went down, and now I hear
it again. We are saved, comrades! By these ten finger-bones, we are
saved! It is the marching song of the White Company. Hush!”
With upraised forefinger and slanting head, he stood listening. Suddenly
there came swelling up a deep-voiced, rollicking chorus from somewhere
out of the darkness. Never did choice or dainty ditty of Provence or
Languedoc sound more sweetly in the ears than did the rough-tongued
Saxon to the six who strained their ears from the blazing keep:
We'll drink all together
To the gray goose feather
And the land where the gray goose flew.
“Ha, by my hilt!” shouted Aylward, “it is the dear old bow song of the
Company. Here come two hundred as tight lads as ever twirled a shaft
over their thumbnails. Hark to the dogs, how lustily they sing!”
Nearer and clearer, swelling up out of the night, came the gay marching
lilt:
What of the bow?
The bow was made in England.
Of true wood, of yew wood,
The wood of English bows;
For men who are free
Love the old yew-tree
And the land where the yew tree grows.
What of the men?
The men were bred in England,
The bowmen, the yeomen,
The lads of the dale and fell,
Here's to you and to you,
To the hearts that are true,
And the land where the true hearts dwell.
“They sing very joyfully,” said Du Guesclin, “as though they were going
to a festival.”
“It is their wont when there is work to be done.”
“By Saint Paul!” quoth Sir Nigel, “it is in my mind that they come too
late, for I cannot see how we are to come down from this tower.”
“There they come, the hearts of gold!” cried Aylward. “See, they move
out from the shadow. Now they cross the meadow. They are on the further
side of the moat. Hola camarades, hola! Johnston, Eccles, Cooke,
Harward, Bligh! Would ye see a fair lady and two gallant knights done
foully to death?”
“Who is there?” shouted a deep voice from below. “Who is this who speaks
with an English tongue?”
“It is I, old lad. It is Sam Aylward of the Company; and here is your
captain, Sir Nigel Loring, and four others, all laid out to be grilled
like an Easterling's herrings.”
“Curse me if I did not think that it was the style of speech of old
Samkin Aylward,” said the voice, amid a buzz from the ranks. “Wherever
there are knocks going there is Sammy in the heart of it. But who are
these ill-faced rogues who block the path? To your kennels, canaille!
What! you dare look us in the eyes? Out swords, lads, and give them the
flat of them! Waste not your shafts upon such runagate knaves.”
There was little fight left in the peasants, however, still dazed by the
explosion, amazed at their own losses and disheartened by the arrival of
the disciplined archers. In a very few minutes they were in full flight
for their brushwood homes, leaving the morning sun to rise upon a
blackened and blood-stained ruin, where it had left the night before the
magnificent castle of the Seneschal of Auvergne. Already the white lines
in the east were deepening into pink as the archers gathered round the
keep and took counsel how to rescue the survivors.
“Had we a rope,” said Alleyne, “there is one side which is not yet on
fire, down which we might slip.”
“But how to get a rope?”
“It is an old trick,” quoth Aylward. “Hola! Johnston, cast me up a rope,
even as you did at Maupertuis in the war time.”
The grizzled archer thus addressed took several lengths of rope from his
comrades, and knotting them firmly together, he stretched them out in
the long shadow which the rising sun threw from the frowning keep. Then
he fixed the yew-stave of his bow upon end and measured the long, thin,
black line which it threw upon the turf.
“A six-foot stave throws a twelve-foot shadow,” he muttered. “The keep
throws a shadow of sixty paces. Thirty paces of rope will be enow and to
spare. Another strand, Watkin! Now pull at the end that all may be safe.
So! It is ready for them.”
“But how are they to reach it?” asked the young archer beside him.
“Watch and see, young fool's-head,” growled the old bowman. He took a
long string from his pouch and fastened one end to an arrow.
“All ready, Samkin?”
“Ready, camarade.”
“Close to your hand then.” With an easy pull he sent the shaft
flickering gently up, falling upon the stonework within a foot of where
Aylward was standing. The other end was secured to the rope, so that in
a minute a good strong cord was dangling from the only sound side of the
blazing and shattered tower. The Lady Tiphaine was lowered with a noose
drawn fast under the arms, and the other five slid swiftly down, amid
the cheers and joyous outcry of their rescuers.
CHAPTER XXXII. HOW THE COMPANY TOOK COUNSEL ROUND THE FALLEN TREE.
“Where is Sir Claude Latour?” asked Sir Nigel, as his feet touched
ground.
“He is in camp, near Montpezat, two hours' march from here, my fair
lord,” said Johnston, the grizzled bowman who commanded the archers.
“Then we shall march thither, for I would fain have you all back at Dax
in time to be in the prince's vanguard.”
“My lord,” cried Alleyne, joyfully, “here are our chargers in the field,
and I see your harness amid the plunder which these rogues have left
behind them.”
“By Saint Ives! you speak sooth, young squire,” said Du Guesclin. “There
is my horse and my lady's jennet. The knaves led them from the stables,
but fled without them. Now, Nigel, it is great joy to me to have seen
one of whom I have often heard. Yet we must leave you now, for I must be
with the King of Spain ere your army crosses the mountains.”
“I had thought that you were in Spain with the valiant Henry of
Trastamare.”
“I have been there, but I came to France to raise succor for him. I
shall ride back, Nigel, with four thousand of the best lances of France
at my back, so that your prince may find he hath a task which is worthy
of him. God be with you, friend, and may we meet again in better times!”
“I do not think,” said Sir Nigel, as he stood by Alleyne's side looking
after the French knight and his lady, “that in all Christendom you will
meet with a more stout-hearted man or a fairer and sweeter dame. But
your face is pale and sad, Alleyne! Have you perchance met with some
hurt during the ruffle?”
“Nay, my fair lord, I was but thinking of my friend Ford, and how he sat
upon my couch no later than yesternight.”
Sir Nigel shook his head sadly. “Two brave squires have I lost,” said
he. “I know not why the young shoots should be plucked, and an old weed
left standing, yet certes there must be some good reason, since God hath
so planned it. Did you not note, Alleyne, that the Lady Tiphaine did
give us warning last night that danger was coming upon us?”
“She did, my lord.”
“By Saint Paul! my mind misgives me as to what she saw at Twynham
Castle. And yet I cannot think that any Scottish or French rovers could
land in such force as to beleaguer the fortalice. Call the Company
together, Aylward; and let us on, for it will be shame to us if we are
not at Dax upon the trysting day.”
The archers had spread themselves over the ruins, but a blast upon a
bugle brought them all back to muster, with such booty as they could
bear with them stuffed into their pouches or slung over their shoulders.
As they formed into ranks, each man dropping silently into his place,
Sir Nigel ran a questioning eye over them, and a smile of pleasure
played over his face. Tall and sinewy, and brown, clear-eyed,
hard-featured, with the stern and prompt bearing of experienced