The Messenger of the Black Prince 26

The Messenger of the Black Prince 26

“We’ll have to get away from here.”

 

“Tomorrow,” he replied. “We can rest here till dawn.”

 

“I’m chilled through,” I said, “That fellow has left his clothes lying

here somewhere. I’ll dry them and put them on. After that we can sit by

the fire.” Charles took me by the shoulder. “Ah, Henri!” he said in a

shaking voice. “We’ll battle it through together, you and I. And we’ll

win yet!”

 

We sat by the fire, with each of us telling of his adventures, till far

into the night. Then in turns we lay down on a couch of twigs and leaves

that Charles had built for himself in the hollow of an overhanging rock.

In the morning I had new life. We went down to a cove on the side of the

island where Charles had a boat fastened and hidden among the roots of

overhanging trees. It was the one, he explained, that my captor had

searched for to carry us across the river.

 

We landed on the other bank and stepped ashore. We went up the steep

bank as far as the brow of a hill. The whole country,—wooded and

wild,—stretched before us. Whether we would come upon friend or enemy we

had yet to learn. We turned and looked back at the river winding in long

slow curves at our feet. We saw the island in all its outline as green

and peaceful as you could wish.

 

My eye was caught by an object moving on the opposite shore. When my

gaze grew accustomed to the distance I counted six men. Some of them

were armed with bows and arrows. The rest were cutting down young trees

and dragging them to the river. Now and then I saw the flash of a

sword-blade in the light of the sun.

 

There was no doubt of it. Our enemies were on foot. They were building a

raft to carry armed men over to the island. They would search it from

end to end. When they learned that we were gone, they would make for our

side of the stream. They would leave no stone unturned to find us. They

would examine every blade of grass for traces of us. They would be on

our heels like hounds. We were in a country that was unknown to us,

while they were as familiar with it as I was with my own.

 

The Black Prince with his army lay twenty or at most thirty leagues to

the west. I had information that would save them. One thought drove us

headlong on and on—if our enemies should come upon us, there would be no

parleying or hesitation. They would shoot us down like dogs.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XX

NO MAN’S LAND

 

 

That day we went on as fast as our legs could carry us. We gauged our

position by the sun. During the morning we kept it in our rear while in

the afternoon we made sure of ourselves by the shine of it (when there

was an opening in the woods) in our faces.

 

There were no roads that you could speak of—only rutted trails of mud

hardly wide enough for two ox-carts to pass without touching the hubs of

each other’s wheels. Once in a while we saw the hut of a peasant or a

charcoal burner. These we carefully avoided, for we hoped to leave no

sign behind us for our enemies to follow, nor did we wish to fall

stupidly into a trap. Fortunately it was the season of the year when the

nuts were beginning to ripen and we contented ourselves with what we

could get of these.

 

We slept curled up beside each other at the root of a tree. The next

morning we were on our way again, but I may say with less speed, for our

feet were sore from the unevenness of the ground and our bodies were

stretched and tired from the uncomfortable position in which we had

spent the night.

 

About noon we halted for a rest. There was a little brook running over

irregular stones down the hill-side where we washed ourselves and drank

of the fresh water. I was sitting on a boulder with my back to a tree as

limp and wearied as an old cloth. My stomach was rumbling and growling

from hunger. I was wishing with all my heart that there would soon be an

end to my difficulties. To amuse myself I picked up a stone and threw it

aimlessly at a tree. It struck the bark with a resounding crack. I threw

another. It missed and went on far beyond. But where it lighted on the

ground, I noticed that it stirred up a cloud of dust like fine ashes and

with it a few scattered sparks—the smouldering remnants of a fire.

 

I jumped from my rock. I went over to the place to examine it. Sure

enough there was a dying fire on a bare spot among the trees and all

about it were the marks where men had trodden the grass with their heavy

boots. Besides I saw two pieces of the rind of cheese that had been cut

off and thrown away.

 

“They must have traveled in the night,” I said to Charles. “They’ve

passed us and gone on ahead.”

 

“There’ll be more of them behind us,” he answered. “We must——”

 

The words stuck in his throat. He looked far off over my shoulder at

something in the distance. Like a flash he dropped to his hands and

knees. I was about to turn when an arrow whizzed through the air and

sped over his shoulder and fastened itself in the trunk of the nearest

tree. I thought that caution was the best plan to follow so I ducked

likewise. It was a lucky pass, for I had no sooner bent my head when

another arrow whistled past me and shot out into the distance beyond me.

 

We exchanged no words. There was little need for them. With our heads as

close to the ground as was possible, we made for it into a deeper

section of the woods. In a few seconds a third arrow hummed towards us,

but struck the smooth surface of a rock well to one side.

 

We were out of shot at last, but the terror we were in gave speed to our

heels. After about a quarter of an hour we drew up, puffing and panting

like tired horses.

 

“To the south,” said Charles between breaths. “We must hold to the

south.”

 

I knew what he meant. We had betrayed ourselves by keeping in a straight

line towards the west, for it was the direction where lay the Black

Prince.

 

We went on again, but now more slowly than before. At almost each step,

one or the other of us turned to see if we were followed. At the same

time our eyes penetrated every bush and behind every tree in search of a

lurking foe. After an hour we could go no further. The pace had been too

hot for us, so we settled ourselves on a stone to rest and collect our

frightened senses.

 

Hunger like a gnawing pain bore into the pit of my stomach. Since we had

left the island on the morning before, we had eaten no food except the

few nuts that we came upon. A kind of sickening weakness overtook me. My

legs were trembling as though they were made of straw and the soles of

my feet ached as though I were standing over a burning fire.

 

“If they catch us now,” I said, “it’s all over with me. I can go no

further.”

 

Charles clapped me on the shoulder and laughed, but it was a laugh that

was meant only to encourage me and had no heart to it.

 

“We’ll snap our fingers in their faces yet, Henri,” he said. “Look what

we’ve passed through already.”

 

I only shook my head and stared hopelessly towards the ground.

 

“We have no weapons,” I replied. “Even the dagger that I was to carry to

the Abbot of Chalonnes is with my clothes at the bottom of the river.”

 

There was no more said. We were both worn out. We went forward through

the trees. There was no path. Indeed, the ground seemed to have been

trodden now for the first time since the beginning of the world. The

moss was everywhere on the earth. The little unexpected stones, as sharp

as the tips of arrows, cut into our feet. Above all the darkness and

sombreness of the forest was about us like a blanket as gloomy as the

night.

 

We came upon an irregular rising in the ground. There was a solid piece

of rock as big as an ordinary house, but with no shape to it. All about,

it was cut into crevices. The earth itself broke into risings and

depressions. Parts of it were like an uneven wall of stone with great

blocks of the rock in a rounded line. It seemed as though nature had

begun to build a fortress here, but for some reason or other had left

off.

 

We climbed in among the boulders and found ourselves on smooth ground

covered with coarse grass and weeds, with great trees over and about us.

Through the middle flowed a stream that had its starting place in a

spring that bubbled up like a fountain from the earth.

 

For a moment we stood gaping in amazement.

 

“If we only had a few bows and arrows here,” said Charles, “we could

hold off an army.”

 

“At any rate,” I answered, “we can hide here and rest. They will think

we have gone on through the woods.”

 

We turned and faced the great rock which, I said, was as big as a house.

The front of it was like an overhanging shed. Underneath was what seemed

an opening to the mouth of a cavern—dark and smelling of dampness.

 

Step by step we ventured forward. The ground under our feet grew sticky

like wet clay. The light slowly faded. A mustiness like the odor of the

cellar of an old inn crept into our nostrils. The opening widened and as

we advanced the light was so far gone that we had to feel along the

rough wall with our hands.

 

Suddenly the wall turned and shut us off. I groped on further and

further in the hope that the opening was only narrowing and not entirely

closed. I was running my fingers from one stone to the other when I felt

something flat. There was no dampness to it and it had the evenness of

smooth wood. I was about to examine it further when my hand touched a

latch.