The White Company
lines with under-officers and file-leaders in front and on either flank.
So they stood, silent and motionless, when their leader came riding
towards them, his face shining and his whole small figure swelling with
the news which he bore.
“Great honor has been done to us, men,” cried he: “for, of all the army,
the prince has chosen us out that we should ride onwards into the lands
of Spain to spy upon our enemies. Yet, as there are many of us, and as
the service may not be to the liking of all, I pray that those will step
forward from the ranks who have the will to follow me.”
There was a rustle among the bowmen, but when Sir Nigel looked up at
them no man stood forward from his fellows, but the four lines of men
stretched unbroken as before. Sir Nigel blinked at them in amazement,
and a look of the deepest sorrow shadowed his face.
“That I should live to see the day!” he cried. “What! not one----”
“My fair lord,” whispered Alleyne, “they have all stepped forward.”
“Ah, by Saint Paul! I see how it is with them. I could not think that
they would desert me. We start at dawn to-morrow, and ye are to have
the horses of Sir Robert Cheney's company. Be ready, I pray ye, at early
cock-crow.”
A buzz of delight burst from the archers, as they broke their ranks and
ran hither and thither, whooping and cheering like boys who have news of
a holiday. Sir Nigel gazed after them with a smiling face, when a heavy
hand fell upon his shoulder.
“What ho! my knight-errant of Twynham!” said a voice, “You are off to
Ebro, I hear; and, by the holy fish of Tobias! you must take me under
your banner.”
“What! Sir Oliver Buttesthorn!” cried Sir Nigel. “I had heard that you
were come into camp, and had hoped to see you. Glad and proud shall I be
to have you with me.”
“I have a most particular and weighty reason for wishing to go,” said
the sturdy knight.
“I can well believe it,” returned Sir Nigel; “I have met no man who is
quicker to follow where honor leads.”
“Nay, it is not for honor that I go, Nigel.”
“For what then?”
“For pullets.”
“Pullets?”
“Yes, for the rascal vanguard have cleared every hen from the
country-side. It was this very morning that Norbury, my squire,
lamed his horse in riding round in quest of one, for we have a bag of
truffles, and nought to eat with them. Never have I seen such locusts as
this vanguard of ours. Not a pullet shall we see until we are in front
of them; so I shall leave my Winchester runagates to the care of the
provost-marshal, and I shall hie south with you, Nigel, with my truffles
at my saddle-bow.”
“Oliver, Oliver, I know you over-well,” said Sir Nigel, shaking his
head, and the two old soldiers rode off together to their pavilion.
CHAPTER XXXV. HOW SIR NIGEL HAWKED AT AN EAGLE.
To the south of Pampeluna in the kingdom of Navarre there stretched
a high table-land, rising into bare, sterile hills, brown or gray in
color, and strewn with huge boulders of granite. On the Gascon side of
the great mountains there had been running streams, meadows, forests,
and little nestling villages. Here, on the contrary, were nothing but
naked rocks, poor pasture, and savage, stone-strewn wastes. Gloomy
defiles or barrancas intersected this wild country with mountain
torrents dashing and foaming between their rugged sides. The clatter
of waters, the scream of the eagle, and the howling of wolves the only
sounds which broke upon the silence in that dreary and inhospitable
region.
Through this wild country it was that Sir Nigel and his Company pushed
their way, riding at times through vast defiles where the brown, gnarled
cliffs shot up on either side of them, and the sky was but a long
winding blue slit between the clustering lines of box which fringed the
lips of the precipices; or, again leading their horses along the narrow
and rocky paths worn by the muleteers upon the edges of the chasm, where
under their very elbows they could see the white streak which marked
the _gave_ which foamed a thousand feet below them. So for two days they
pushed their way through the wild places of Navarre, past Fuente,
over the rapid Ega, through Estella, until upon a winter's evening the
mountains fell away from in front of them, and they saw the broad blue
Ebro curving betwixt its double line of homesteads and of villages. The
fishers of Viana were aroused that night by rough voices speaking in a
strange tongue, and ere morning Sir Nigel and his men had ferried the
river and were safe upon the land of Spain.
All the next day they lay in a pine wood near to the town of Logrono,
resting their horses and taking counsel as to what they should do. Sir
Nigel had with him Sir William Felton, Sir Oliver Buttesthorn, stout old
Sir Simon Burley, the Scotch knight-errant, the Earl of Angus, and Sir
Richard Causton, all accounted among the bravest knights in the army,
together with sixty veteran men-at-arms, and three hundred and twenty
archers. Spies had been sent out in the morning, and returned after
nightfall to say that the King of Spain was encamped some fourteen miles
off in the direction of Burgos, having with him twenty thousand horse
and forty-five thousand foot.
A dry-wood fire had been lit, and round this the leaders crouched, the
glare beating upon their rugged faces, while the hardy archers lounged
and chatted amid the tethered horses, while they munched their scanty
provisions.
“For my part,” said Sir Simon Burley, “I am of opinion that we have
already done that which we have come for. For do we not now know where
the king is, and how great a following he hath, which was the end of our
journey.”
“True,” answered Sir William Felton, “but I have come on this venture
because it is a long time since I have broken a spear in war, and,
certes, I shall not go back until I have run a course with some cavalier
of Spain. Let those go back who will, but I must see more of these
Spaniards ere I turn.”
“I will not leave you, Sir William,” returned Sir Simon Burley; “and
yet, as an old soldier and one who hath seen much of war, I cannot but
think that it is an ill thing for four hundred men to find themselves
between an army of sixty thousand on the one side and a broad river on
the other.”
“Yet,” said Sir Richard Causton, “we cannot for the honor of England go
back without a blow struck.”
“Nor for the honor of Scotland either,” cried the Earl of Angus. “By
Saint Andrew! I wish that I may never set eyes upon the water of
Leith again, if I pluck my horse's bridle ere I have seen this camp of
theirs.”
“By Saint Paul! you have spoken very well,” said Sir Nigel, “and I have
always heard that there were very worthy gentlemen among the Scots, and
fine skirmishing to be had upon their border. Bethink you, Sir Simon,
that we have this news from the lips of common spies, who can scarce
tell us as much of the enemy and of his forces as the prince would wish
to hear.”
“You are the leader in this venture, Sir Nigel,” the other answered,
“and I do but ride under your banner.”
“Yet I would fain have your rede and counsel, Sir Simon. But, touching
what you say of the river, we can take heed that we shall not have it
at the back of us, for the prince hath now advanced to Salvatierra, and
thence to Vittoria, so that if we come upon their camp from the further
side we can make good our retreat.”
“What then would you propose?” asked Sir Simon, shaking his grizzled
head as one who is but half convinced.
“That we ride forward ere the news reach them that we have crossed the
river. In this way we may have sight of their army, and perchance even
find occasion for some small deed against them.”
“So be it, then,” said Sir Simon Burley; and the rest of the council
having approved, a scanty meal was hurriedly snatched, and the advance
resumed under the cover of the darkness. All night they led their
horses, stumbling and groping through wild defiles and rugged valleys,
following the guidance of a frightened peasant who was strapped by the
wrist to Black Simon's stirrup-leather. With the early dawn they found
themselves in a black ravine, with others sloping away from it on either
side, and the bare brown crags rising in long bleak terraces all round
them.
“If it please you, fair lord,” said Black Simon, “this man hath misled
us, and since there is no tree upon which we may hang him, it might be
well to hurl him over yonder cliff.”
The peasant, reading the soldier's meaning in his fierce eyes and harsh
accents dropped upon his knees, screaming loudly for mercy.
“How comes it, dog?” asked Sir William Felton in Spanish. “Where is this
camp to which you swore that you would lead us?”
“By the sweet Virgin! By the blessed Mother of God!” cried the trembling
peasant, “I swear to you that in the darkness I have myself lost the
path.”
“Over the cliff with him!” shouted half a dozen voices; but ere the
archers could drag him from the rocks to which he clung Sir Nigel had
ridden up and called upon them to stop.
“How is this, sirs?” said he. “As long as the prince doth me the honor
to entrust this venture to me, it is for me only to give orders; and,
by Saint Paul! I shall be right blithe to go very deeply into the
matter with any one to whom my words may give offence. How say you, Sir
William? Or you, my Lord of Angus? Or you, Sir Richard?”
“Nay, nay, Nigel!” cried Sir William. “This base peasant is too small
a matter for old comrades to quarrel over. But he hath betrayed us, and
certes he hath merited a dog's death.”
“Hark ye, fellow,” said Sir Nigel. “We give you one more chance to
find the path. We are about to gain much honor, Sir William, in this
enterprise, and it would be a sorry thing if the first blood shed were
that of an unworthy boor. Let us say our morning orisons, and it may
chance that ere we finish he may strike upon the track.”
With bowed heads and steel caps in hand, the archers stood at their
horse's heads, while Sir Simon Burley repeated the Pater, the Ave, and
the Credo. Long did Alleyne bear the scene in mind--the knot of knights
in their dull leaden-hued armor, the ruddy visage of Sir Oliver, the
craggy features of the Scottish earl, the shining scalp of Sir Nigel,
with the dense ring of hard, bearded faces and the long brown heads of
the horses, all topped and circled by the beetling cliffs. Scarce had
the last deep “amen” broken from the Company, when, in an instant, there
rose the scream of a hundred bugles, with the deep rolling of drums and
the clashing of cymbals, all sounding together in one deafening uproar.
Knights and archers sprang to arms, convinced that some great host was
upon them; but the guide dropped upon his knees and thanked Heaven for
its mercies.
“We have found them, caballeros!” he cried. “This is their morning call.
If ye will but deign to follow me, I will set them before you ere a man
might tell his beads.”
As he spoke he scrambled down one of the narrow ravines, and, climbing
over a low ridge at the further end, he led them into a short valley
with a stream purling down the centre of it and a very thick growth of
elder and of box upon either side. Pushing their way through the dense
brushwood, they looked out upon a scene which made their hearts beat
harder and their breath come faster.
In front of them there lay a broad plain, watered by two winding streams
and covered with grass, stretching away to where, in the furthest
distance, the towers of Burgos bristled up against the light blue
morning sky. Over all this vast meadow there lay a great city of
tents--thousands upon thousands of them, laid out in streets and in
squares like a well-ordered town. High silken pavilions or colored
marquees, shooting up from among the crowd of meaner dwellings, marked