by Eugène Sue
“I marvel that so important a pass as this is not defended.”
“I furnished you the reason when I delivered to you Morvan’s plan of campaign, that was forwarded to me by Kervor, a pious Catholic who came over to the Frankish side and submitted to the authority of our King. He is the chief of the southern tribes whose territory we have just crossed.”
“I loved to see those people so docile to the priests; they furnished us with supplies, and at your voice knelt down as we passed.”
“At the time of the other wars you would have dropped fully one-half of your troops in this region so cut up with bogs, hedges and woods. The change between now and then is great. The Catholic faith penetrates little by little these people, formerly so intractable. We have preached to them submission to Louis the Pious, and menaced them with the fires of hell if they attempted to resist your arms.”
“Indeed, more than one of the troopers of the old bands who fought here at the time of Charles the Great, have told me they could no longer recognize the Bretons, who, in their days, were almost invincible. But for all your explanations, monk, I cannot understand how this pass comes to be abandoned.”
“And yet nothing is simpler. According to his plan of campaign, Morvan counted with the resistance of the tribes that we have just crossed. In one day, without drawing your sword, you have cleared a track that would otherwise have cost you three days’ hard fighting, and a fourth of your troops. Morvan, never apprehending your early arrival at the defile of Glen-Clan, will not think of having it occupied until this evening, or to-morrow. He has not enough forces at his disposal to place them where they would lie idle while he himself is being attacked from two other sides by as many army corps.”
“To that argument I have nothing to say, my father in Christ, you know the country better than I. If this war succeeds, I shall have my share of the conquered territory; and, according to the promise of Louis the Pious, I shall become a powerful seigneur in Brittany, as my elder brother, Gonthran, is in Auvergne.”
“And you will not forget to endow the Church.”
“I shall not be ungrateful to the priests, good father. I shall employ a part of the booty in building a chapel to St. Martin, for whom our family has ever entertained a particular devotion. Could you, who are well acquainted with the customs of the Bretons, tell me what corners they hide their money in? It is claimed that they remove all their treasures when they are forced to flee from their houses, and that they bury them in inaccessible hiding places. Is that so?”
“When we shall have arrived in the heart of the country, I shall acquaint you with the means to discover those treasures, which are, almost always, concealed at the foot of certain druid stones, for which these pagans preserve an idolatrous reverence.”
“But where shall we find those stones? By what signs are they to be recognized?”
“That is my secret, Neroweg. It will become ours after we shall have reached the heart of the country.”
Thus conversing, the monk and the Frankish chief slowly ascend the craggy slope of the defile. From time to time, some of the horsemen, or foot soldiers, detached as scouts, ride back to acquaint Neroweg with their observations. Finally, Hugh himself returns and informs his master that there is nothing to cause any apprehension on the score of an ambuscade. Completely reassured by these reports, and by the explanations of the monk, Neroweg gives the order for the advance of his troops, the footmen first, the horsemen next, then the baggage, and last of all a rear corps of foot soldiers.
The army corps breaks up and enters the pass that is so narrow as to allow a passage to only four men abreast. The long and winding column of men covered with iron, crowded together, and moving slowly, presents a strange spectacle from the top of the rocks that dominate the narrow route. It might be taken for some gigantic serpent with iron scales, deploying its sinuous folds in a ravine cut between two walls of granite. The misgivings of the Franks, somewhat alarmed when they first began threading their way through a passage so propitious to an ambush, are presently removed and make place for unquestioning confidence. Already the vanguard that precedes Neroweg and the monk is drawing near the issue of the defile, while at the other end the baggage wagons, drawn by oxen, begin to set themselves in motion followed by the rear guard that consists of Thuringian horsemen and Saxon archers. The last wagons and the rear guard have barely entered the defile, when suddenly the lugubrious cry of the night bird, resembling that which had greeted the first arrival of the Frankish army, resounds again, and is echoed from peak to peak, along the whole length of the overtopping rocks. Immediately thereupon, pushed by invisible arms, several enormous boulders detach themselves from the surrounding rocks that an instant before seemed a solid part of themselves, roll and bound with the rattle of thunder from the top of the crest down to the foot of the mountain, and fall crashing upon the wagons, crushing a large number of soldiers to death, mutilating many more and disabling the train. In their paroxysms of death, or rendered furious by their wounds, the oxen crowd upon or roll over one another, and throw the rear guard of the Franks into such frightful disorder that it is wholly unable to make another step in advance; it is cut off from the gross of the troops by the lumber in its way; it is reduced to utter impotence. All along the rest of the length of the defile of Glen-Clan the Franks are in similar plight. All along the line, fragments of rocks roll down from the overtopping crests, crushing and decimating the compact mass of soldiers below. The gigantic serpent of iron is mutilated, cut into bleeding sections; it writhes convulsively at the bottom of the ravine, while from the summits on either side, now crowned with a swarm of Bretons, who kept themselves until then concealed, a hailstorm of arrows, boar-spears and stones rains down upon the bewildered, panic-stricken and impotent Frankish cohorts, caught and hemmed in between the two granite walls, from whose tops our men deal prompt and unavoidable death to their invaders. Vortigern is in command of these resolute and watchful Bretons. His bow in one hand, his quiver by his side, not one of his bolts misses its mark.
The butchery is frightful! The carnage superb! The Gallic war-songs and cries of triumph from above answer the imprecations of the Franks from below. A frightful butchery!
A superb carnage! It lasts as long as our men have a stone to throw, a bolt or a spear to hurl at the foe. His own, and the munitions of his companions being exhausted, Vortigern cries down from the summit of the rocks to the frantic Franks below, accompanying the cry with a gesture of defiance:
“We will thus defend our soil, inch by inch; every step you take will be marked by your blood or our own; all our tribes are not like those of Kervor!”
Saying this, Vortigern struck up the martial song of his ancestor Schanvoch:
“This morning we asked:
‘How many are there of these Franks?
How many are there of these barbarians?’
This evening we say:
‘How many were there of these Franks?
How many were there of these barbarians?’”[E]
CHAPTER V.
THE MARSH OF PEULVEN.
VAST IS THE marsh of Peulven. To the east and the south its shape is like a bay. From that side its edges are bordered by the skirts of the dense forest of Cardik. To the north and west, it waters the gentle slopes of the hills that succeed upon the last spurs of the Black Mountains, whose tops, empurpled by the rays of the westering sun, rise in the distant horizon. A jetty, or tongue of land that runs into the edge of the forest, traverses the marsh through its whole length. Silence is profound in this desert place. The stagnant waters reflect the inflamed tints of the ruddy twilight. From time to time flocks of curlews, herons and other aquatic birds, rise from amidst the reeds that cover the marsh in spots, hover about and fly upward, emitting their plaintive cries. Several Frankish horsemen appear from the side of the mountain. They climb the hill, reach its top, and rein in their horses. They sweep the marsh with their eyes, examine it for a moment, then turn their horses’ heads and ride b
ack to join Neroweg and the monk, whose forces, decimated shortly before in the defile of Glen-Clan, have been subsequently harassed without let on their further march by little Breton bands, who, placed in ambush behind hedges, or in ditches covered with dry wood, unexpectedly fell upon either the vanguard or the rear guard of the Franks, and, after bloody encounters, again vanished in that region so interspersed with obstacles of all sorts, impracticable for cavalry, and with which the Frankish foot soldiers are so utterly unfamiliar that they ventured not to separate themselves from the main column, ever fearing to fall into some fresh ambush. On horseback behind the monk, Neroweg stands on the summit of a hill not far behind the one that the scouts have just ascended. He awaits their return in order to continue his march. The vanguard has halted at a little distance from the chief. Further away rest the bulk of his troops. A small detachment of the rear guard was ordered to take its stand about a league further back in order to guard the baggage, the wagons and the wounded of the sorely harassed army.
The lines on the face of the Frankish chief denote deep concern. He says to the monk:
“What a war! What a war! I have fought against the Northmans, when they attacked our fortified camps at the confluence of the Somme and the Seine. Those accursed pirates are terrible foes. They are as dashing in attack as they are cautious in retreat, and they ever find a safe shelter in the light craft in which they come over the seas of the North as far south as Gaul. But by St. Martin! these accursed Bretons are fuller of the devil, and harder to get at than even the pirates! They were a source of trouble to Charles the great Emperor; they have become the desolation of his son!” And Neroweg repeats dejectedly: “What a war! What a war!”
The monk turns upon his saddle, and stretching out his hand in the direction traversed by the Frankish troop, says to Neroweg:
“Look toward the west!”
Turning his eyes in the direction indicated by the priest, the Frankish chief notices behind him tall columns of ruddy smoke rising at intervals from the hills that the army has left behind it. “Look yonder! Everywhere a conflagration marks our passage. The burgs and villages, abandoned by the fleeing inhabitants, have, at my orders, been delivered to the flames. The Bretons have not, like the Northman pirates, the resource of vessels on which to flee with their booty back to the ocean. We are driving the fleeing population before us. The two other army corps of Louis the Pious are, from their side, following similar tactics. Accordingly, we and they will meet to-morrow morning at the village of Lokfern. There we will find, driven back and heaped together, the populations that have been attacked from the south, the east and the north during these last days. There, surrounded by a circle of iron, they will be either annihilated or reduced to slavery! Ah! This time without fail, Brittany, never before overcome, will be subjected to the Catholic Church and to the power of the Franks. What if your soldiers have been decimated in the struggle for the triumph of the faith and royalty! The troops that you still have, will, when joined to the other army corps, suffice to exterminate the Bretons!”
“Monk,” answers Neroweg impatiently, “your words do not console me for the death of so many brave Frankish warriors whose bones have been left to bleach in the defile of Glen-Clan and on the hills of this accursed country!”
“Rather envy their fate. They have died for religion; they are now in paradise, in the midst of a chorus of seraphim.”
Neroweg shrugs his shoulders with an air of incredulity, and after a moment of silence proceeds: “You promised to point out to me where these pagans conceal their treasures.”
“On the other side of the marsh of Peulven which we are now to traverse, lies a vast forest in which a large number of druid stones are found. Have the earth removed at their foot, and you will find large sums of money in silver and gold, and many precious articles that have been hidden there since the beginning of the war.”
“When will we arrive at that forest?”
“This evening before nightfall.”
“I do not wish to risk my troops in that forest, and fall into another ambush like the one of the defile!” cries Neroweg. “The day is drawing to its close. We shall encamp to-night in the midst of the bare hills where we now are, and where no surprise is to be feared.”
“Here are your scouts back,” observes the monk to the Frankish chief. “Interrogate them before you make up your mind definitely.”
“Neroweg,” reports one of the riders who had scouted to the edge of the marsh, “as far as the eye reaches, nothing is seen on the marsh; there is no sign of any men; there is not a boat in sight. On the shores there is not a single hut, and there is no evidence of any entrenchment.”
Impatient to judge by himself of the nature of the field, the Frankish chief, followed by the monk, immediately rides forward and reaches the top of the hill shortly before occupied by the scouts. From the eminence Neroweg beholds a vast expanse of marshy ground in whose numerous pools of stagnant water the last rays of the sinking sun are mirrored. The jetty, covered with sward and lined with a thick fringe of reeds, reaches clear to the other side, and is lost on the edge of the forest. “There is not the slightest fear of an ambush in crossing this solitude,” says Neroweg with visible mental relief. “The march across can only take up half an hour, at the most.”
“We have about an hour more of daylight left us,” observes the monk. “The forest you see yonder is called the forest of Cardik. It stretches far away to the right and left of the marsh, seeing that, towards the west, it reaches the borders of the Armorican Sea. But that portion of the forest that faces the jetty is at the utmost a quarter of a league long. We could easily put it behind us before night, and we would then be on the moor of Kennor, an immense plain where you could encamp in absolute security. To-morrow at daybreak if it should please you, we can ride back into the forest and rummage at the foot of the druid stones for the treasures hidden there by the Bretons. Glory to your arms, and may the booty be large!”
After a few minutes of hesitation, Neroweg, tempted by cupidity, sends a man of his escort to give to his troops the order to march and traverse the jetty, a narrow walk of about three feet wide, perfectly even, covered with thin grass, and lying in plain view from one end to the other. Neroweg feels easy in mind. Nevertheless, remembering the rocks of Glen-Clan, he prudently orders several horsemen to precede the troops by about a hundred paces. Marching behind their chief, Neroweg’s troops begin to defile along the jetty, which soon is covered with soldiers from end to end. Massed from the foot to the top of the hill, behind the advancing column, are the last detachments of Neroweg’s army. They break ranks as fast as it is their turn to enter upon the passage.
Suddenly, from the midst of the clumps of reeds that rise at irregular intervals along the length of the tongue of land, the cry of night-birds goes up — cries identical with those that had resounded from the summits of Glen-Clan. Upon the signal, the muffled sounds of rapid hatchet strokes are heard. They teem to be the answer given to the cries of the night-birds. Instantly the seemingly solid walk sinks at scores of places under the feet of the marching soldiers. Woe is those who happen to find themselves over these hidden traps, that are constructed of wooden beams and strong chains concealed under a layer of sward! The scheme, devised by Vortigern, proves successful. The movable bridges can, at will, either support the weight of the troops that march over them, or tip over under their tread, by the dexterous knocking from under the loose boards the wooden pegs that are their only support.
Plunged in the water up to their necks, Vortigern and a large number of stout-hearted men of his tribe have held themselves motionless, mute and invisible in the center of the clumps of reeds that border the jetty near each of the traps. When the jetty is entirely covered with Frankish soldiers, the hatchets are, at a signal, plied with energy; the pegs drop out; and the passage is suddenly cut up by scores of gaps twenty feet wide. Pell-mell foot soldiers, cavalrymen and their horses tumble to the bottom of these suddenly opened ditches, and
are received thereupon by the sharp points of piles providently sunk at the bottom.
At the sight of these death-dealing traps, suddenly gaping before them at their feet, and at the sound of the wild cries and imprecations uttered by the wounded and by those who are being pushed forward into the abysses by the crowding ranks behind, a tremendous disorder, followed by a panic, spreads among the Franks. Fearing the path to be everywhere undermined, the soldiers crowd back and forward upon one another in a frenzy of despair. The frightened horses rear, tumble down, or rush furiously into the marsh where they vanish together with their riders. The confusion and rout being at its height, the Bretons rise from their places of concealment among the reeds, and hurl promiscuously a shower of bolts upon the confused heaps of soldiers, now rendered insane with fear, and in their panic either trampling upon one another, or themselves being trampled upon by their uncontrollable steeds. Other war-crys respond from a distance to the war-cries struck up by Vortigern and his men. A troop of Bretons issues from the forest and ranks itself in battle array at the border of the marsh ready to dispute the passage if the Franks dare to attempt it The sight of these fresh foes carries the panic of Neroweg’s troops to its acme. Instead of marching onward towards the edge of the forest, the front rank faces about, anxious only to join the body of the army that still finds itself massed at the entrance of the fatal causeway. The rush is effected with such fury that the deep trenches are speedily filled with the bodies of a mass of wounded, dead and dying warriors. The heaped-up corpses soon serve as a bridge to the fleeing Franks, whose rear the Breton bolts assail unpityingly. At the spectacle of the routed Franks, Vortigern and his braves strike up anew the war song with which they had assailed the ears of the distracted Franks at the defile of Glen-Clan:
