The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, Alain René le Sage [most read books .txt] 📗

debate.

 

Thus it was determined that we should take the direction of

Requena; and all hands were piped to make the necessary

arrangements. We made our meal after the same fashion as in the

morning, and the horse was laden with the bottle, and with the

remnant of our provisions. After a time, the approach of night

seemed to promise us that darkness so friendly, and even so

necessary, to the safety of our retreat; and we were beginning

our march through the wood: but before we had gone a hundred

paces, a light among the trees gave us a subject of anxious

speculation. What can be the meaning of that? said Don Raphael;

these surely must be bloodhounds of the police from Cuen�a,

uncoupled and eager for the sport, with a fresh scent of us in

this forest, and in full cry after their game. I am of a very

different opinion, said Ambrose; they are more likely to be

benighted travellers taking shelter in the thicket till daybreak.

But there is no trusting to conjecture: I will examine into the

real truth. Stay you here all three of you; I will be back again

instantly. No sooner said than done; he stole, just as if he had

been used to it, towards the light, which was not far off; no

brute or human thief of forest or city could have done it better.

With a gentle removal of the leaves and branches which obstructed

his passage, the whole scene was laid open to his silent

contemplation; and it afforded sufficient food. On the grass,

round about a lighted candle with a clod for its candlestick,

were seated four men, just finishing a meat pie, and hugging a

pretty large bottle, which was at its last gasp, after having

sustained their alternate embraces for successive rounds. At some

paces from these gentry, he espied a lady and gentleman tied to

the trees, and a little further off, a carriage with two mules

richly caparisoned. He determined at once in his own mind that

the fellows carousing on the ground were banditti; and the tenor

of their talk assured him that he had not belied their trade by

his conjecture. The four cut-throats all avowed a like desire of

possessing the female who had fallen into their hands; and they

were proposing to draw lots for her. Lamela, having made himself

master of the business, came back to us, and gave an exact

account of all he had seen and heard.

 

My friends, said Don Alphonso on his recital, that lady and

gentleman whom the robbers have tied to trees, are probably

persons of the first condition. Shall we suffer scoundrels like

these to triumph over their honour and take away their lives? Put

yourselves under my direction: let us assail the desperate

outlaws, and they will perish under our attack. With all my

heart, said Don Raphael. It is all one to me, I had just as soon

engage on the right side as on the wrong. Ambrose, for his part,

protested that he wished for nothing better than to lend a hand

in so moral an enterprise, as it promised to combine much profit

with some share of honour. And indeed, if a man may speak a good

word for himself, danger stood better recommended than usual to

my comprehension; all the boiling courage of knighthood, pledged

up to the knuckles of the chin on the behalf of female innocence,

was oozing out at every pore of this chivalrous person. But, if

we are to state facts in the spirit of history rather than of

romance, the danger was more in imagination than in reality.

Lamela having brought us word that the arms of the robbers were

all piled up at the distance of ten or twelve paces out of their

reach, there was no difficulty in securing the mastery of the

field. We tied our horses to a tree, and drew near, as softly as

possible, to the spot where the robbers were seated. They were

debating with some impetuosity, and their vociferous argument was

all in favour of our covert attack. We got possession of their

arms before they had any suspicion of us. But the enemy was

nearer than they imagined: too near to miss aim, and they were

all stretched lifeless on the ground.

 

During the conflict the candle went out, so that we proceeded in

our business by guess-work. We were not remiss, however, in

unbinding the prisoners, of whom fear had got such complete

possession, that they had not their wits enough about them to

thank us for what we had done for them. It must be allowed that

they could not at first distinguish whether they were to consider

us as their deliverers, or as a fresh gang who had taken them out

of one furnace to cast them hissing into another. But we

recovered their spirits by the assurance, that we should lodge

them safely in a public-house which Ambrose mentioned as not

being more than half a mile off, whence they might take all

necessary measures to pursue their journey in whatever direction

they thought proper. After these words of comfort, which seemed

to sink deep, we placed them in their carriage, and conducted

them out of the wood, holding their mules by the bridle. Our

clerical friends instituted a ghostly visitation to the pockets

of the vanquished banditti. Our next step was to recover Don

Alphonso’s horse. We also took to ourselves the steeds of the

robbers, waiting as they were to be released from the trees to

which they were tied near the field of battle. With this

extensive cavalcade we followed brother Anthony, mounted on one

of the mules, and conducting the carriage to the inn, whither we

did not arrive in less than two hours, though he had pledged his

credit that the distance from the wood was very short.

 

We knocked roughly at the door. Every living creature was

napping, except the fleas. The landlord and landlady got on their

clothes in a hurry, and were not at all annoyed at finding their

rest disturbed by the arrival of an equipage, which promised to

do more for the good of the house than it eventually did. The

whole inn was lighted up in an instant. Don Alphonso and the

stage-bred son of Lucinda lent their assistance to the gentleman

and lady in alighting from the carriage, and acted as their

ushers in leading the way to the room prepared for them by the

landlord. Compliments flew backwards and forwards like

shuttlecocks; but we were not a little astonished at discovering

the Count de Polan himself and his daughter Seraphina, in the

persons we had just rescued. It would be difficult to represent

by words the surprise of that lady, as well as of Don Alphonso,

when they recognized each other’s features. The count took no

notice of it, his attention being engrossed by other matters. He

set about relating to us in what manner the robbers had attacked

him, and how they secured his daughter and himself, after having

killed his postilion, a page, and a valet-de-chambre. He ended

with declaring how deeply he felt his obligation; and that if we

would call upon him at Toledo, where he should be in a month, we

should judge for ourselves whether he felt as a grateful heart

ought to feel.

 

His lordship’s daughter was not backward in her acknowledgments

for her timely rescue; and as we were of opinion, that is,

Raphael and myself, that we should do a good turn to Don Alphonso

by giving him an opportunity of a minute’s private parley with

the young widow, we contrived to keep the Count de Polan in play.

Lovely Seraphina, said Don Alphonso to the lady in a low voice, I

no longer lament over the lot which obliges me to live like a man

banished from civil society, since I have been so fortunate as to

assist in the important service just rendered you. What then!

answered she, with a sigh, is it you who have saved my life and

honour? Is it to you that we are so indebted, myself equally with

my father? Ah! Don Alphonso, why were you the instrument of my

brother’s death? She said no more upon the subject; but he

conceived clearly by these words, and by the tone in which they

were pronounced, that if he was over head and ears in love with

Seraphina, she was equally out of her depth in the same passion.

 

BOOK THE SIXTH.

 

CH. I. — The fate of Gil Blas and his Companions after they

took leave of the Count de Polan. One of Ambrose’s notable

contrivances set off by the manner of its execution.

 

THE Count de Polan, after having exhausted half the night in

thanking us, and protesting that we might reckon upon his

substantial acknowledgments, sent for the landlord to consult him

on the best method of getting safely to Turis, whither it was his

intention to go. We had nothing to do with this nobleman’s

further progress, and therefore left him to take his own

measures. Our departure from the inn was now resolved on; and we

followed Lamela like sheep after the bell-wether.

 

After two hours’ travelling, the day overtook us near Campillo.

We made as expeditiously as possible for the mountains between

that hamlet and Requena. There we wore out the day in taking our

rest and reckoning up our stock, which the spoil of the robbers

had considerably replenished, to the amount of more than three

hundred pistoles, the lawful ravage of their pockets. We began

our march again with the setting-in of the night; and on the

following morning reached the frontier of Valencia in safety. We

got quietly into the first wood that offered as a shelter. The

inmost recesses of it were best suited to our purpose, and led us

on by winding paths to a spot where a rivulet of transparent

water was meandering in its slow and silent course, to

incorporate with the waters of Guadalaviar. The refreshing shade

afforded by the foliage, and the rich pasturage in which our

toil-won beasts so much delighted, would have fixed this for the

place of our halting, if our resolution had not been previously

taken to that effect.

 

We therefore alighted, and were preparing to pass the day very

pleasantly, but a good breakfast was amongst the foremost of our

intended pleasures; and we found that there was very little

ammunition left. Bread was beginning to be a nonentity; and our

bottle was becoming an evidence of the material system, mere

carnal leather without a vivifying soul. Gentlemen, said Ambrose,

scenery and the picturesque have but hungry charms for me, unless

Bacchus and Ceres preside over the landscape. Our provisions must

be lengthened out. For this purpose, away post I to Xelva. It is

a very pretty town, not more than two leagues off. I shall soon

make this little excursion. Speaking after this manner, he slung

the bottle and the wallet over a horse’s back, leaped merrily

into his seat, and shot out of the wood with a rapidity which

seemed to bid fair for a speedy return,

 

He did not, however, come back quite so soon as he had given us

reason to expect. More than half the day had elapsed; nay, night

herself was already pranking up her dun and gloomy wings, to

overshadow the thicket with a denser horror, when we saw our

purveyor once again, whose long stay was beginning to give us

some uneasiness. Our extreme wishes were lame and impotent,

compared with the abundance of his stores. He not only produced

the bottle filled with some excellent wine, and the wallet

stuffed with game and poultry ready dressed, to say nothing of