The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, Alain René le Sage [most read books .txt] 📗
- Author: Alain René le Sage
- Performer: -
Book online «The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, Alain René le Sage [most read books .txt] 📗». Author Alain René le Sage
brought on another. These rascals, especially the fellow who had
retired from the church to our subterraneous hermitage, began to
make themselves merry on the subject. They said a thousand good
things, such as showed at once the sharpness of their wits and
the profligacy of their morals. They were all on the broad grin
except myself. It was impossible to be butt and marksman too.
They each of them shot their bolt at me, and the captain said:
Faith, Gil Blas, I would advise you as a friend not to set your
wit a second time against the church: the biter may be bit; for
you must live some time longer among us, before you are a match
for them.
CH. IX. — A more serious incident.
WE lounged about the wood for the greater part of the day,
without lighting on any traveller to pay toll for the friar. At
length we were beginning to wear our homeward way, as if
confining the feats of the day to this laughable adventure, which
furnished a plentiful fund of conversation, when we got
intelligence of a carriage on the road drawn by four mules. They
were coming at a hard gallop, with three outriders, who seemed to
be well armed. Rolando ordered the troop to halt, and hold a
council, the result of whose deliberations was to attack the
enemy. We were regularly drawn up in battle-array, and marched to
meet the caravan. In spite of the applause I had gained in the
wood, I felt an oozing sort of tremour come over me, with a chill
in my veins and a chattering in my teeth that seemed to bode me
no good. As it never rains but it pours, I was in the front of
the battle, hemmed in between the captain and the lieutenant, who
had given me that post of honour, that I might lose no time in
learning to stand fire. Rolando, observing the low ebb of my
animal spirits, looked askew at me, and muttered in a tone more
resolute than courtly: Hark ye! Gil Blas, look sharp about you! I
give you fair notice, that if you play the recreant, I shall
lodge a couple of bullets in your brain. I believed him as firmly
as my catechism, and thought it high time not to neglect the
hint; so that I was obliged to lay an embargo on the expression
of my fears, and to think only of recommending my soul to God in
silence.
While all this was going on, the carriage and horsemen drew near.
They suspected what sort of gentry we were; and guessing our
trade by our badge, stopped within gun-shot. They had carabines
and pistols as well as ourselves. While they were preparing to
give us a brisk reception, there jumped out of the coach a well-looking gentleman richly dressed. He mounted a led horse, and put
himself at the head of his party. Though they were but four
against nine, for the coachman kept his seat on the box, they
advanced towards us with a confidence calculated to redouble my
terror. Yet I did not forget, though trembling in every joint, to
hold myself in readiness for a shot: but, to give a candid
relation of the affair, I blinked and looked the other way in
letting off my piece; so that from the harmlessness of my fire, I
was sure not to have murder to answer for in another world.
I shall not give the particulars of the engagement; though
present, I was no eye-witness; and my fear, while it laid hold of
my imagination, drew a veil over the anticipated horror of the
sight. All I know about the matter is, that after a grand
discharge of musquetry, I heard my companions hallooing Victory!
Victory! as if their lungs were made of leather. At this shout
the terror which had made a forcible entry on my senses was
ejected, and I beheld the four horse men stretched lifeless on
the field of battle. On our side, we had only one man killed.
This was the renegade parson, who had now filled the measure of
his apostasy, and paid for jesting with scapularies and such
sacred things. The lieutenant received a slight wound in the arm;
but the bullet did little more than graze the skin.
Master Rolando was the first at the coach-door. Within was a lady
of from four to five-and-twenty, beautiful as an angel in his
eyes, in spite of her sad condition. She had fainted during the
conflict, and her swoon still continued. While he was fixed like
a statue on her charms, the rest of were in profound meditation
on the plunder. We began by securing the horses of the defunct;
for these animals, frightened at the report of our pieces, had
got to a little distance, after the loss of their riders. For the
mules, they had not wagged a hair, though the coachman had jumped
from his box during the engagement to make his escape. We
dismounted for the purpose of unharnessing and loading them with
some trunks tied before and behind the carriage. This settled,
the captain ordered the lady, who had not yet recovered her
faculties, to be set on horseback before the best mounted of the
robbers; then, leaving the carriage and the uncased carcases by
the road-side, we carried off with us the lady, the mules, and
the horses.
CH. X. — The lady’s treatment from the robbers. The event of the
great design, conceived by Gil Blas.
THE night had another hour to run when we arrived at our
subterraneous mansion. The first thing we did was to lead our
cavalry to the stable, where we were obliged to groom them
ourselves, as the old negro had been confined to his bed for
three days, with a violent fit of the gout, and an universal
rheumatism. He had no member supple but his tongue; and that he
employed in testifying his indignation by the most horrible
impieties. Leaving this wretch to curse and swear by himself, we
went to the kitchen to look after the lady. So successful were
our attentions, that we succeeded in recovering her from her fit.
But when she had once more the use of her senses, and saw herself
encompassed by strangers, she knew the extent of her misfortune,
and shuddered at the thought. All that grief and despair together
could present, of images the most distressing, appeared depicted
in her eyes, which she lifted up to heaven, as if in reproach for
the indignities she was threatened with. Then, giving way at once
to these dreadful apprehensions, she fell again into a swoon, her
eyelids closed once more, and the robbers thought that death was
going to snatch from them their prey. The captain, therefore,
judging it more to the purpose to leave her to herself than to
torment her with any more of their assistance, ordered her to be
laid on Leonarda’s bed, and at all events to let nature take its
course.
We went into the hall, where one of the robbers, who had been
bred a surgeon, looked at the lieutenant’s arm and put a plaister
to it. After this scientific operation, it was thought expedient
to examine the baggage. Some of the trunks were filled with laces
and linen, others with various articles of wearing apparel: but
the last contained some bags of coin; a circumstance highly
approved by the receivers-general of the estate. After this
investigation, the cook set out the sideboard, laid the cloth,
and served up supper. Our conversation ran first on the great
victory we had achieved. On this subject said Rolando, directing
himself to me, Confess the truth, Gil Blas: you cannot deny that
you were devilishly frightened. I candidly admitted the fact; but
promised to fight like a crusader after my second or third
campaign. Hereupon all the company took my part, alleging the
sharpness of the action in my excuse, and that it was very well
for a novice, not yet accustomed to the smell of powder.
We next talked of the mules and horses just added to our
subterraneous stud. It was determined to set off the next morning
before daybreak, and sell them at Mansilla, before there was any
chance of our expedition having got wind. This resolution taken,
we finished our supper, and returned to the kitchen to pay our
respects to the lady. We found her in the same condition.
Nevertheless, though the dregs of life seemed almost exhausted,
some of these poachers could not help casting a wicked leer at
her, and giving visible signs of a motion within them, which
would have broken out into overt act, had not Rolando put a spoke
in their wheel by representing that they ought at least to wait
till the lady had got rid of her terrors and squeamishness, and
could come in for her share of the amusement. Their respect for
the captain operated as a check to the incontinence of their
passions. Nothing else could have saved the lady; nor would death
itself probably have secured her from violation.
Again therefore did we leave this unhappy female to her
melancholy fate. Rolando contented himself with charging Leonarda
to take care of her, and we all separated for the night. For my
part, when I went to bed, instead of courting sleep, my thoughts
were wholly taken up with the lady’s misfortunes. I had no doubt
of her being a woman of quality, and thought her lot on that
account so much the more piteous. I could not paint to myself,
without shuddering, the horrors which awaited her; and felt
myself as sensibly affected by them, as if united to her by the
ties of blood or friendship. At length, after having sufficiently
bewailed her destiny, I mused on the means of preserving her
honour from its present danger, and myself from a longer abode in
this dungeon. I considered that the old negro could not stir, and
recollected that since his illness the cook had the key of the
grate. That thought warmed my fancy, and gave birth to a project
not to be hazarded lightly: the stages of its execution were the
following.
I pretended to have the colic. A lad in the colic cannot help
whining and groaning; but I went further, and cried out lustily,
as loud as my lungs would let me. This roused my gentle friends,
and brought them about me to know what the deuce was the matter.
I informed them that I had a swinging fit of the gripes, and to
humour the idea, gnashed my teeth, made all manner of wry faces
till I looked like a bedlamite, and twisted my limbs as if I had
been going to be delivered of a heathen oracle. Then I became
calm all at once, as if my pains had abated. The next minute I
flounced up and down upon my bed, and threw my arms about at
random. In a word, I played my part so well that these more
experienced performers, knowing as they were, suffered themselves
to be thrown off their guard, and to believe that my malady was
real. All at once did they busy themselves for my relief. One
brought me a bottle of brandy, and forced me to gulp down half of
it; another, in spite of my remonstrances, applied oil of sweet
almonds in a very offensive manner: a third went and made a
napkin burning hot, to be clapped upon my stomach. In vain did I
cry mercy; they attributed my noise to the violence of my
disorder, and went on inflicting positive evil by way of remedy
for that which was artificial. At last, able to bear it no
longer, I was obliged to swear
Comments (0)