Under the Red Robe, Stanley John Weyman [pdf to ebook reader txt] 📗

fallen tree that intervened, and at the same moment two of the men detached themselves and rode to meet me. One, whom I took to be the leader, was masked. He came furiously at me to ride me down, but I leaped aside nimbly, and, evading him, rushed at the other, and scaring his horse, so that he dropped his point, cut him across the shoulder, before he could guard himself. He plunged away, cursing and trying to hold in his horse, and I turned to meet the masked man.

‘You villain!’ he cried, riding at me again. This time he manoeuvred his horse so skilfully that I was hard put to it to prevent him knocking me down; while I could not with all my efforts reach him to hurt him. ‘Surrender, will you?’ he cried, ‘you bloodhound!’

I wounded him slightly in the knee for answer; before I could do more his companion came back, and the two set upon me, slashing at my head so furiously and towering above me with so great an advantage that it was all I could do to guard it. I was soon glad to fall back against the bank. In this sort of conflict my rapier would have been of little use, but fortunately I had armed myself before I left Paris with a cut-and-thrust sword for the road; and though my mastery of the weapon was not on a par with my rapier play, I was able to fend off their cuts, and by an occasional prick keep the horses at a distance. Still, they swore and cut at me; and it was trying work. A little delay might enable the other man to come to their help, or Mademoiselle, for all I knew, might shoot me with my own pistol. I was unfeignedly glad when a lucky parade sent the masked man’s sword flying across the road. On that he pushed his horse recklessly at me, spurring it without mercy; but the animal, which I had several times touched, reared up instead, and threw him at the very moment that I wounded his companion a second time in the arm, and made him give back.

The scene was now changed. The man in the mask staggered to his feet, and felt stupidly for a pistol. But he could not find one, and he was in no state to use it if he had. He reeled helplessly to the bank and leaned against it. The man I had wounded was in scarcely better condition. He retreated before me, but in a moment, losing courage, let drop his sword, and, wheeling round, cantered off, clinging to his pommel. There remained only the fellow engaged with my man, and I turned to see how they were getting on. They were standing to take breath, so I ran towards them; but on seeing me coming, this rascal, too, whipped round his horse and disappeared in the wood, and left us victors.

The first thing I did—and I remember it to this day with pleasure—was to plunge my hand into my pocket, take out half of all the money I had in the world, and press it on the man who had fought for me so stoutly. In my joy I could have kissed him! It was not only that I had escaped defeat by the skin of my teeth—and his good sword; but I knew, and felt, and thrilled with the knowledge, that the fight had, in a sense, redeemed my character. He was wounded in two places, and I had a scratch or two, and had lost my horse; and my other poor fellow was dead as a herring. But, speaking for myself, I would have spent half the blood in my body to purchase the feeling with which I turned back to speak to M. de Cocheforet and his sister. Mademoiselle had dismounted, and with her face averted and her mask pushed on one side, was openly weeping. Her brother, who had faithfully kept his place by the ford from the beginning of the fight to the end, met me with raised eyebrows and a peculiar smile.

‘Acknowledge my virtue,’ he said airily. ‘I am here, M. de Berault; which is more than can be said of the two gentlemen who have just ridden off.’

‘Yes,’ I answered with a touch of bitterness. ‘I wish that they had not shot my poor man before they went.’

He shrugged his shoulders.

‘They were my friends,’ he said. ‘You must not expect me to blame them. But that is not all, M. de Berault.’

‘No,’ I said, wiping my sword. ‘There is this gentleman in the mask.’ And I turned to go towards him.

‘M. de Berault!’ Cocheforet called after me, his tone strained and abrupt.

I stood. ‘Pardon?’ I said, turning.

‘That gentleman?’ he said, hesitating and looking at me doubtfully. ‘Have you considered what will happen to him if you give him up to the authorities?’

‘Who is he?’ I asked sharply.

‘That is rather a delicate question,’ he answered frowning.

‘Not for me,’ I replied brutally, ‘since he is in my power. If he will take off his mask I shall know better what I intend to do with him.’

The stranger had lost his hat in his fall, and his fair hair, stained with dust, hung in curls on his shoulders. He was a tall man, of a slender, handsome presence, and, though his dress was plain and almost rough, I espied a splendid jewel on his hand, and fancied that I detected other signs of high quality. He still lay against the bank in a half-swooning condition, and seemed unconscious of my scrutiny.

‘Should I know him if he unmasked?’ I said suddenly, a new idea in my head.

‘You would,’ M. de Cocheforet answered.

‘And?’

‘It would be bad for everyone.’

‘Ho! ho!’ I replied softly, looking hard first at my old prisoner, and then at my new one. ‘Then—what do you wish me to do?’

‘Leave him here!’ M. de Cocheforet answered, his face flushed, the pulse in his cheek beating.

I had known him for a man of perfect honour before, and trusted him. But this evident earnest anxiety on behalf of his friend touched me not a little. Besides, I knew that I was treading on slippery ground: that it behoved me to be careful.

‘I will do it,’ I said after a moment’s reflection. ‘He will play me no tricks, I suppose? A letter of—’

‘MON DIEU, no! He will understand,’ Cocheforet answered eagerly. ‘You will not repent it. Let us be going.’

‘Well, but my horse?’ I said, somewhat taken aback by this extreme haste. ‘How am I to—’

‘We shall overtake it,’ he assured me. ‘It will have kept the road. Lectoure is no more than a league from here, and we can give orders there to have these two fetched and buried.’

I had nothing to gain by demurring, and so, after another word or two, it was arranged. We picked up what we had dropped, M. de Cocheforet helped his sister to mount, and within five minutes we were gone. Casting a glance back from the skirts of the wood I fancied that I saw the masked man straighten himself and turn to look after us, but the leaves were beginning to intervene, the distance may have cheated me. And yet I was