The Black Douglas by Samuel Rutherford Crockett (digital ebook reader .txt) 📕

place vulnerable, but finding none. The ramparts rose as it had been to heaven, and the flanking towers were crowded night and day with men on the watch. Round the walls for the space of a bow-shot every way there ran a green space fair and open to the view, but in reality full of pitfalls and secret engines. From the battlements began the arrow hail, so soon as any attempted to approach the castle along any other way than the thrice-defended road to the main gate.
The wolves howled in the forests by night, and more than once came so near that one of the three men had to take it in turns to keep watch in the cave's mouth. But for a reason not clear to them at the time they were not again attacked by the marshal's wild allies of the wood.
The third time they had tried to enter the castle in their pilgrim's garb, and the outer picket courteously received them. But when they were come to the inner curtain, one Robin Romulart, the officer of the guard, a stout fellow, suddenly called to his men to bind and gag them--in which enterprise, but for the great strength of Malise, they might have succeeded. For the outer gates had been shut with a clang, and they could hear the soldiers of the garrison hasting from all sides in answer to Robin's summons.
But Malise snatched up the bar wherewith the winding cogs of the gate were turned, and, having broken more than one man's head with it, he forced the massive doors apart by main force, so that they were able all unharmed to withdraw themselves into the shelter of the woods. So near capture had they been, however, that over and over again they heard the shouting of the parties who scoured the woods in search of them.
It was the worst feature of their situation that the Marshal de Retz certainly knew of their presence in his territories, and that he would be easily able to guess their errand and take measures to prevent it succeeding.
Their last and most fatal failure had happened several days before, and the first eager burst of the search for them had passed. But the Scots knew that the enemy was thoroughly alarmed, and that it behoved them to abide very closely within their hiding-place.
The Lord James took worst of all with the uncertainty and confinement. Any restraint was unsuited to his jovial temper and open-air life. But for the present, at least, and till they could gain some further information as to the whereabouts of the maidens, it was obvious that they could do no better than remain in their seaside shelter.
Their latest plan was to abide in the cave till the marshal set out again upon one of his frequent journeys. Then it would be comparatively easy to ascertain by an ambush whether he was taking the captives with him, or if he had left them behind. If the maids were of his travelling company, the three rescuers would be guided by circumstances and the strength of the escort, as to whether or not they should venture to make an attack.
But if by any unhoped-for chance Margaret and Maud were left behind at Machecoul, it would at least be a more feasible enterprise to attack the fortress during the absence of its master and his men.
Alone among the three Scots Malise faced their predicament with some philosophy. Sholto ate his heart out with uncertainty as to the fate of his sweetheart. The Lord James chafed at the compulsory confinement and at the consistent ill success which had pursued them. But Malise, unwearied of limb and ironic of mood as ever, fished upon the tidal flats for brown-spotted flounders and at the rocky points for white fish, often remaining at his task till far into the night. He constructed snares with a mechanical ingenuity in advance of his age. And what was worth more to the company than any material help, he kept up the spirits of Sholto and of Lord James Douglas both by his brave heart and merry speech, and still more by constantly finding them something to do.
At the hour of even, one day after they had been a fortnight in the country of Retz, the three Scots were sitting moodily on a little hillock which concealed the entrance to their cave. The forest lay behind them, an impenetrable wall of dense undergrowth crowned along the distant horizon by the solemn domes of green stone pines. It circumvented them on all sides, save only in front, where, through several beaker-shaped breaks in the high sand dunes they could catch a glimpse of the sea. The Atlantic appeared to fill these clefts half full, like Venice goblets out of which the purple wine has been partially drained. To right and left the pines grew scantier, so that the rays of the sunset shone red as molten metal upon their stems and made a network of alternate gold and black behind them.
The three sat thus a long time without speech, only looking up from their tasks to let their eyes rest wistfully for a moment upon the deep and changeful amethyst of the sea, and then with a light sigh going back to the cleaning of their armoury or the shaping of a long bow.
It chanced that for several minutes no sound was heard except those connected with their labour, the low whistle with which the Lord James accompanied his polishing, the _wisp-wisp_ of Malise's arms as he sewed the double thread back and forth through a rent in his leathern jack, and the rasp of Sholto's file as he carved out the finials of the bow, the notched grooves wherein the string was to lie so easily and yet so firmly.
Thus they continued to work, absorbed, each of them in the sadness of his own thought, till suddenly a shadow seemed to strike between them and the red light of the western sky. They looked up, and before them, as it were ascending out of the very glow of sunset, they saw a woman on a white palfrey approaching them by the way of the sea.
So suddenly did she appear that the Lord James uttered a low cry of wonder, while Malise the practical reached for his sword. But Sholto had seen this vision twice already, and knew their visitor for the Lady Sybilla.
"Hold there!" he said in an undertone. "Remember it is as I said. This woman, though we have no cause to love her, is now our only hope. Her words brought us here. They were true words, and I believe that she comes as a friend. I will stake my life on it."
"Or if she comes as an enemy we are no worse off," grumbled sceptical Malise. "We can at least encourage the woman and then hold her as an hostage."
The three Scots were standing to receive their guest when the Lady Sybilla rode up. Her face had lost none of the pale sadness which marked it when Sholto last saw her, and though the look of utter agony had passed away, the despair of a soul in pain had only become more deeply printed upon it.
The girl having acknowledged their salutations with a stately and well-accustomed motion of the head, reached a hand for Sholto to lift her from her palfrey.
Then, still without spoken word, she silently seated herself on the grey-lichened rock rudely shaped into the semblance of a chair, on which Malise had been sitting at his mending. The strange maiden looked long at the blue sea deepening in the notches of the sand dunes beneath them. The three men stood before her waiting for her to speak. Each of them knew that lives, dearer and more precious than their own, hung upon what she might have to say.
At last she spoke, in a voice low as the wind when it blows its lightest among the trees:
"You have small cause to trust me or to count me your friend," she said; "but we have that which binds closer than friendship--a common enemy and a common cause of hatred. It were better, therefore, that we should understand one another. I have never lost sight of you since you came to this fatal land of Retz. I have been near you when you knew it not. To accomplish this I have deceived the man who is my taskmaster, swearing to him that in the witch crystal I have seen you depart. And I shall yet deceive him in more deadly fashion."
Sholto could restrain himself no longer.
"Enough," he said roughly; "tell us whether the maidens are alive, and if they are abiding in this Castle of Machecoul."
The Lady Sybilla did not remove her eyes from the red west.
"Thus far they are safe," she said, in the same calm monotone. "This very hour I have come from the White Tower, in which they are confined. But he whom I serve swears by an oath that if you or other rescuers are heard of again in this country, he will destroy them both."
She shuddered as she spoke with a strong revulsion of feeling.
"Therefore, be careful with a great carefulness. Give up all thought of rescuing them directly. Remember what you have been able to accomplish, and that your slightest actions will bring upon those you love a fate of which you little dream."
"After what we remember of Crichton Castle, how can we trust you, lady?" said Malise, sternly. "Do you now speak the truth with your mouth?"
"You have indeed small cause to think so," she answered without taking offence. "Yet, having no choice, you must e'en trust me."
She turned sharply upon Sholto with a strip of paper in her outstretched hand.
"I think, young sir, that you have some reason to know from whom that comes."
Sholto grasped at the writing with a new and wonderful hope in his heart. He knew instinctively before he touched it that none but Maud Lindesay could have written that script--small, clear, and distinct as a motto cut on a gem.
"_To our friends in France and Scotland,_" so it ran. "_We are still safe this eve of the Blessed Saint Michael. Trust her who brings this letter. She is our saviour and our only hope in a dark and evil place. She is sorry for that which by her aid hath been done. As you hope for forgiveness, forgive her. And for God's dear sake, do immediately the thing she bids you. This comes from Margaret de Douglas and Maud Lindesay. It is written by the hand of M. L._"
The wax at the bottom was sealed in double with the boar's head of Lindesay and the heart of Margaret of Douglas.
Sholto, having read the missive silently, passed it to the Lord James that he might prove the seals, for it was his only learning to be skilled in heraldry.
"It is true," he said; "I myself gave the little maid that ring. See, it hath a piece broken from the peak of the device."
"My lady," said Sholto, "that which you bring is more than enough. We kiss your hand and we will sacredly do all your bidding, were it unto the death or the trial by fire."
Then, as was the custom to do to ladies whom knights would honour, the Lord James and Sholto kneeled down and kissed the hand of Sybilla de Thouars. But Malise, not being a knight, took it only and settled it upon his great grizzled head, where it rested for a moment, lightly as upon some grey and ancient tower lies a flake of snow before it melts.
"I thank you for your overmuch courtesy," the girl said, casting her eyes on