Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France

by Stanley John Weyman

  CHAPTER XXXIII.

  THE AMBUSH.

  The start they made at daybreak was gloomy and ill-omened, through oneof those white mists which are blown from the Atlantic over the flatlands of Western Poitou. The horses, looming gigantic through the fog,winced as the cold harness was girded on them. The men hurried to andfro with saddles on their heads, and stumbled over other saddles, andswore savagely. The women turned mutinous and would not rise; or,being dragged up by force, shrieked wild unfitting words, as they weredriven to the horses. The Countess looked on and listened, andshuddered, waiting for Carlat to set her on her horse. She had goneduring the last three weeks through much that was dreary, much thatwas hopeless; but the chill discomfort of this forced start, withtired horses and wailing women, would have darkened the prospect ofhome had there been no fear or threat to cloud it.

  He whose will compelled all stood a little apart and watched all,silent and gloomy. When Badelon, after taking his orders anddistributing some slices of black bread to be eaten in the saddle,moved off at the head of his troop, Count Hannibal remained behind,attended by Bigot and the eight riders who had formed the rearguard sofar. He had not approached the Countess since rising, and she had beenthankful for it. But now, as she moved away, she looked back and sawhim still standing; she marked that he wore his corselet, and in oneof those revulsions of feeling--which outrun man's reason--she who hadtossed on her couch through half the night, in passionate revoltagainst the fate before her, took fire at his neglect and his silence;she resented on a sudden the distance he kept, and his scorn of her.Her breast heaved, her colour came, involuntarily she checked herhorse, as if she would return to him, and speak to him. Then theCarlats and the others closed up behind her, Badelon's monotonous"Forward, madame, _en avant!_" proclaimed the day's journey begun, andshe saw him no more.

  Nevertheless, the motionless figure, looming Homeric through the fog,with gleams of wet light reflected from the steel about it, dwelt longin her mind. The road which Badelon followed, slowly at first, andwith greater speed as the horses warmed to their work, and the women,sore and battered, resigned themselves to suffering, wound across aflat expanse broken by a few hills. These were little more thanmounds, and for the most part were veiled from sight by the low-lyingsea-mist, through which gnarled and stunted oaks rose mysterious, tofade as strangely. Weird trees they were, with branches unlike thoseof this world's trees, rising in a grey land without horizon or limit,through which our travellers moved, jaded phantoms in a clingingnightmare. At a walk, at a trot, more often at a weary jog, theypushed on behind Badelon's humped shoulders. Sometimes the fog hung sothick about them that they saw only those who rose and fell in thesaddles immediately before them; sometimes the air cleared a little,the curtain rolled up a space, and for a minute or two they discernedstretches of unfertile fields, half-tilled and stony, or long tractsof gorse and broom, with here and there a thicket of dwarf shrubs or awood of wind-swept pines. Some looked and saw these things; more rodeon sulky and unseeing, supporting impatiently the toils of a flightfrom they knew not what.

  To do Tignonville justice, he was not of these. On the contrary, heseemed to be in a better temper on this day; and, where so many tookthings unheroically, he showed to advantage. Avoiding the Countess andriding with Carlat, he talked and laughed with marked cheerfulness;nor did he ever fail, when the mist rose, to note this or thatlandmark, and confirm Badelon in the way he was going.

  "We shall be at Lege by noon!" he cried more than once, "and if M. leComte persists in his plan, may reach Vrillac by late sunset. By wayof Challans!"

  And always Carlat answered, "Ay, by Challans, monsieur, so be it!"

  He proved, too, so far right in his prediction that noon saw themdrag, a weary train, into the hamlet of Lege, where the road fromNantes to Olonne runs southward over the level of Poitou. An hourlater Count Hannibal rode in with six of his eight men, and, after afew minutes' parley with Badelon, who was scanning the horses, hecalled Carlat to him. The old man came.

  "Can we reach Vrillac to-night?" Count Hannibal asked curtly.

  "By Challans, my lord," the steward answered, "I think we can. We callit seven hours' riding from here."

  "And that route is the shortest?"

  "In time, M. le Comte, the road being better."

  Count Hannibal bent his brows. "And the other way?" he said.

  "Is by Commequiers, my lord. It is shorter in distance."

  "By how much!"

  "Two leagues. But there are fordings and a salt marsh; and with Madameand the women----"

  "It would be longer?"

  The steward hesitated. "I think so," he said slowly, his eyeswandering to the grey misty landscape, against which the poor hovelsof the village stood out naked and comfortless. A low thicket of oakssheltered the place from southwesterly gales. On the other three sidesit lay open.

  "Very good," Tavannes said curtly. "Be ready to start in ten minutes.You will guide us."

  But when the ten minutes had elapsed and the party were ready tostart, to the astonishment of all the steward was not to be found. Toperemptory calls for him no answer came; and a hurried search throughthe hamlet proved equally fruitless. The only person who had seen himsince his interview with Tavannes turned out to be M. de Tignonville;and he had seen him mount his horse five minutes before, and moveoff--as he believed--by the Challans road.

  "Ahead of us!"

  "Yes, M. le Comte," Tignonville answered, shading his eyes and gazingin the direction of the fringe of trees. "I did not see him take theroad, but he was beside the north end of the wood when I saw him last.Thereabouts!" and he pointed to a place where the Challans road woundround the flank of the wood. "When we are beyond that point, I thinkwe shall see him."

  Count Hannibal growled a word in his beard, and, turning in hissaddle, looked back the way he had come. Half a mile away, two orthree dots could be seen approaching across the plain. He turnedagain. "You know the road?" he said, curtly addressing the young man.

  "Perfectly. As well as Carlat."

  "Then lead the way, monsieur, with Badelon. And spare neither whip norspur. There will be need of both, if we would lie warm to-night."

  Tignonville nodded assent and, wheeling his horse, rode to the head ofthe party, a faint smile playing about his mouth. A moment, and themain body moved off behind him, leaving Count Hannibal and six men tocover the rear. The mist, which at noon had risen for an hour or two,was closing down again, and they had no sooner passed clear of thewood than the trees faded out of sight behind them. It was notwonderful that they could not see Carlat. Objects a hundred paces fromthem were completely hidden.

  Trot, trot! Trot, trot! through a. grey world so featureless, sounreal that the riders, now dozing in the saddle, and now awaking,seemed to themselves to stand still, as in a nightmare. A trot andthen a walk, and then a trot again; and all a dozen times repeated,while the women bumped along in their wretched saddles, and the horsesstumbled, and the men swore at them.

  Ha! La Garnache at last, and a sharp turn southward to Challans. TheCountess raised her head, and began to look about her. There, shouldbe a church, she knew; and there, the old ruined tower built bywizards, or the Carthaginians, so old tradition ran; and there, to thewestward, the great salt marshes towards Noirmoutier. The mist hidall, but the knowledge that they were there set her heart beating,brought tears to her eyes, and lightened the long road to Challans.

  At Challans they halted half-an-hour, and washed out the horses'mouths with water and a little _guignolet_--the spirit of the country.A dose of the cordial was administered to the women; and a littleafter seven they began the last stage of the journey, through alandscape which even the mist could not veil from the eyes of love.There rose the windmill of Soullans! There the old dolmen, beneathwhich the grey wolf that ate the two children of Tornic had its lair.For a mile back they had been treading my lady's land; they had onlytwo more leagues to ride, and one of those was cr
umbling under eachdogged footfall. The salt flavour, which is new life to theshore-born, was in the fleecy reek which floated by them, now thinner,now more opaque; and almost they could hear the dull thunder of theBiscay waves falling on the rocks.

  Tignonville looked back at her and smiled. She caught the look; shefancied that she understood it and his thoughts. But her own eyes weremoist at the moment with tears, and what his said, and what there wasof strangeness in his glance, half-warning, half-exultant, escapedher. For there, not a mile before them, where the low hills about thefishing village began to rise from the dull inland level--hills greenon the land side, bare and scarped towards the sea and the island--sheespied the wayside chapel at which the nurse of her early childhoodhad told her beads. Where it stood, the road from Commequiers and theroad she travelled became one: a short mile thence, after windingamong the hillocks, it ran down to the beach and the causeway--and toher home.

  At the sight she bethought herself of Carlat, and calling to M. deTignonville she asked him what he thought of the steward's continuedabsence.

  "He must have outpaced us!" he answered with an odd laugh.

  "But he must have ridden hard to do that."

  He reined back to her. "Say nothing!" he muttered under his breath."But look ahead, madame, and see if we are expected!"

  "Expected? How can we be expected?" she cried. The colour rushed intoher face.

  He put his finger to his lip, and looked warningly at Badelon's humpedshoulders, jogging up and down in front of them. Then, stoopingtowards her, in a lower tone, "If Carlat has arrived before us, hewill have told them," he said.

  "Have told them!" she exclaimed.

  "He came by the other road, and it is quicker."

  She gazed at him in astonishment, her lips parted; and slowly shecomprehended, and her eyes grew hard. "Then why," she said, "did yousay it was longer? Had we been overtaken, monsieur, we had had you tothank for it, it seems!"

  He bit his lip. "But we have not been overtaken," he rejoined. "On thecontrary, you have me to thank for something quite different."

  "As unwelcome, perhaps!" she retorted. "For what?"

  "Softly, madame."

  "For what?" she repeated, refusing to lower her voice. "Speak,monsieur, if you please." He had never seen her look at him in thatway.

  "For the fact," he answered, stung by her look and tone, "that whenyou arrive you will find yourself mistress in your own house! Is thatnothing?"

  "You have called in my people?"

  "Carlat has done so, or should have," he answered. "Henceforth," hecontinued, a ring of exultation in his voice, "it will go hard with M.le Comte, if he does not treat you better than he has treated youhitherto. That is all!"

  "You mean that it will go hard with him in any case?" she cried, herbosom rising and falling.

  "I mean, madame---- But there they are! Good Carlat! Brave Carlat! Hehas done well."

  "Carlat?"

  "Ay, there they are! And you are mistress in your own land! At lastyou are mistress, and you have me to thank for it! See!" And heedlessin his exultation whether Badelon understood or not, he pointed to aplace before them where the road wound between two low hills. Over thegreen shoulder of one of these, a dozen bright points caught andreflected the last evening light; while as he spoke a man rose to hisfeet on the hill-side above, and began to make signs to persons below.A pennon, too, showed an instant over the shoulder, fluttered, and wasgone.

  Badelon looked as they looked. The next instant he uttered a low oath,and dragged his horse across the front of the party. "Pierre!" hecried to the man on his left, "Ride for your life! To my lord, andtell him we are ambushed!" And as the trained soldier wheeled aboutand spurred away, the sacker of Rome turned a dark scowling face onTignonville. "If this be your work," he hissed, "we shall thank youfor it in hell! For it is where most of us will lie to-night! They areMontsoreau's spears, and they have those with them are worse to dealwith than themselves!" Then in a different tone, and throwing off alldisguise, "Men to the front!" he shouted. "And you, madame, to therear quickly, and the women with you! Now, men, forward, and draw!Steady! Steady! They are coming!"

  There was an instant of confusion, disorder, panic; horses jostlingone another, women screaming and clutching at men, men shaking themoff and forcing their way to the van. Fortunately the enemy did notfall on at once, as Badelon expected, but after showing themselves inthe mouth of the valley, at a distance of three hundred paces, hungfor some reason irresolute. This gave Badelon time to array his sevenswords in front; but real resistance was out of the question, as heknew. And to none seemed less in question than to Tignonville.

  When the truth, and what he had done, broke on the young man, he sat amoment motionless with horror. It was only when Badelon had twicesummoned him with opprobrious words that he awoke to the relief ofaction. Even after that he hung an instant trying to meet theCountess's eyes, despair in his own; but it was not to be. She hadturned her head, and was looking back, as if thence only and not fromhim could help come. It was not to him she turned; and he saw it, andthe justice of it. And silent, grim, more formidable even than oldBadelon, the veteran fighter, who knew all the tricks and shifts ofthe _melee_, he spurred to the flank of the line.

  "Now, steady!" Badelon cried again, seeing that the enemy werebeginning to move. "Steady! Ha! Thank God, my lord! My lord is coming!Stand! Stand!"

  The distant sound of galloping hoofs had reached his ear in the nickof time. He stood in his stirrups and looked back. Yes, Count Hannibalwas coming, riding a dozen paces in front of his men. The odds werestill desperate--for he brought but six--the enemy were still three toone. But the thunder of his hoofs as he came up checked for a momentthe enemy's onset; and before Montsoreau's people got started againCount Hannibal had ridden up abreast of the women, and the Countess,looking at him, knew that, desperate as was their strait, she had notlooked behind in vain. The glow of battle, the stress of the moment,had displaced the cloud from his face; the joy of the born fighterlightened in his eye. His voice rang clear and loud above the press.

  "Badelon! wait you and two with madame!" he cried. "Follow at fiftypaces' distance, and, when we have broken them, ride through! Theothers with me! Now forward, men, and show your teeth! A Tavannes! ATavannes! A Tavannes! We carry it yet!"

  And he dashed forward, leading them on, leaving the women behind; anddown the sward to meet him, thundering in double line, cameMontsoreau's men-at-arms, and with the men-at-arms, a dozen pale,fierce eyed men in the Church's black, yelling the Church's curses.Madame's heart grew sick as she heard, as she waited, as she judgedhim by the fast-failing light a horse's length before his men--withonly Tignonville beside him.

  She held her breath--would the shock never come? If Badelon had notseized her rein and forced her forward, she would not have moved. Andthen, even as she moved, they met! With yells and wild cries and amare's savage scream, the two bands crashed together in a huddle offallen or rearing horses, of flickering weapons, of thrusting men, ofgrapples hand-to-hand. What happened, what was happening to anyone,who it was fell, stabbed through and through by four, or who werethose who still fought single combats, twisting round one another'shorses, those on her right and on her left, she could not tell. ForBadelon dragged her on with whip and spur, and two horsemen--whoobscured her view--galloped in front of her, and rode down bodily theonly man who undertook to bar her passage. She had a glimpse of thatman's face, as his horse, struck in the act of turning, fell sidewayson him; and she knew it, in its agony of terror, though she had seenit but once. It was the face of the man whose eyes had sought hersfrom the steps of the church in Angers; the lean man in black, who hadturned soldier of the Church--to his misfortune.

  Through? Yes, through, the way was clear before them! The fight withits screams and curses died away behind them. The horses swayed andall but sank under them. But Badelon knew it no time for mercy;iron-shod hoofs rang on the road behind, and at any moment thepursuers might be on their heels. He flogged on u
ntil the cots of thehamlet appeared on either side of the way; on, until the road forkedand the Countess with strange readiness cried "The left!" on, untilthe beach appeared below them at the foot of a sharp pitch, and beyondthe beach the slow heaving grey of the ocean.

  The tide was high. The causeway ran through it, a mere thread lippedby the darkling waves, and at the sight a grunt of relief broke fromBadelon. For at the end of the causeway, black against the westernsky, rose the gateway and towers of Vrillac; and he saw that, as theCountess had said, it was a place ten men could hold against tenhundred!

  They stumbled down the beach, reached the causeway and trotted alongit; more slowly now, and looking back. The other women had followed byhook or by crook, some crying hysterically, yet clinging to theirhorses and even urging them; and in a medley, the causeway clearbehind them and no one following, they reached the drawbridge, andpassed under the arch of the gate beyond.

  There friendly hands, Carlat's foremost, welcomed them and aided themto alight, and the Countess saw, as in a dream, the familiar scene,all unfamiliar: the gate, where she had played, a child, aglow withlantern-light and arms. Men, whose rugged faces she had known ininfancy, stood at the drawbridge chains and at the winches. Othersblew matches and handled primers, while old servants crowded roundher, and women looked at her, scared and weeping. She saw it all at aglance--the lights, the black shadows, the sudden glow of a match onthe groining of the arch above. She saw it, and turning swiftly,looked back the way she had come; along the dusky causeway to the low,dark shore, which night was stealing quickly from their eyes. Sheclasped her hands.

  "Where is Badelon?" she cried. "Where is he? Where is he?"

  One of the men who had ridden before her answered that he had turnedback.

  "Turned back!" she repeated. And then, shading her eyes, "Who iscoming?" she asked, her voice insistent. "There is someone coming. Whois it? Who is it?"

  Two were coming out of the gloom, travelling slowly and painfullyalong the causeway. One was La Tribe, limping; the other a rider,slashed across the forehead, and sobbing curses.

  "No more!" she muttered. "Are there no more?"

  The minister shook his head. The rider wiped the blood from his eyes,and turned up his face that he might see the better. But he seemed tobe dazed, and only babbled strange words in a strange _patois_.

  She stamped her foot in passion. "More lights!" she cried. "Lights!How can they find their way? And let six men go down the _digue_, andmeet them. Will you let them be butchered between the shore and this?"

  But Carlat, who had not been able to collect more than a dozen men,shook his head; and before she could repeat the order, sounds ofbattle, shrill, faint, like cries of hungry seagulls, pierced thedarkness which shrouded the farther end of the causeway. The womenshrank inward over the threshold, while Carlat cried to the men at thechains to be ready, and to some who stood at loopholes above, to blowup their matches and let fly at his word. And then they all waited,the Countess foremost, peering eagerly into the growing darkness. Theycould see nothing.

  A distant scuffle, an oath, a cry, silence! The same, a little nearer,a little louder, followed this time, not by silence, but by the slowtread of a limping horse. Again a rush of feet, the clash of steel, ascream, a laugh, all weird and unreal, issuing from the night; thenout of the darkness into the light, stepping slowly with hanging head,moved a horse, bearing on its back a man--or was it a man!--bendinglow in the saddle, his feet swinging loose. For an instant the horseand the man seemed to be alone, a ghostly pair; then at their heelscame into view two figures, skirmishing this way and that; and nowcoming nearer, and now darting back into the gloom. One, a squatfigure, stooping low, wielded a sword with two hands; the othercovered him with a half-pike. And then beyond these--abruptly as itseemed--the night gave up to sight a swarm of dark figures pressing onthem and after them, driving them before them.

  Carlat had an inspiration. "Fire!" he cried; and four arquebusespoured a score of slugs into the knot of pursuers. A man fell, anothershrieked and stumbled, the rest gave back. Only the horse came onspectrally, with hanging head and shining eyeballs, until a man ranout and seized its head, and dragged it, more by his strength than itsown, over the drawbridge. After it Badelon, with a gaping wound in hisknee, and Bigot, bleeding from a dozen hurts, walked over the bridge,and stood on either side of the saddle, smiling foolishly at the manon the horse.

  "Leave me!" he muttered. "Leave me!" He made a feeble movement withhis hand, as if it held a weapon; then his head sank lower. It wasCount Hannibal. His thigh was broken, and there was a lance-head inhis arm.

  The Countess looked at him, then beyond him, past him into thedarkness. "Are there no more?" she whispered tremulously. "No more?Tignonville--my----"

  Badelon shook his head. The Countess covered her face and wept.