Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/195

Rh heard a shout rise from the woods—a keen, angry cry, like the tonguing of a hound that has seen the quarry.

Alain reached the bridge, turned for a moment and stared back towards the forest. A dark mass was moving over the snow, grim and serrate, silvered with steel. They of Avray made little sound as they came galloping over the winter-cushioned grass. He footed it fast across the bridge, bent down at the last span and tugged at the boards. The bolts were home, and he could not stir the limbers. He fumbled at the fastenings, found them frozen to his stiff fingers. With a little gulp of despair, he sprang in through the open yawn of the gate, swung it to with a crash, hitched up the chain, and rammed home the bolts.

By the door he stumbled over the carcass of Croquart the porter. He bent down and pulled his beard, screamed into his ear. The man was drunk, torpid as a stone; he only muttered in his sleep inarticulate oaths, and turned his hairy muzzle to the wall.

Alain sprang into the guard-room, shouting as he ran. The fire had burned low under the great chimney, and a single cresset smoked and spluttered on the wall. Two men were dozing on a settle before the red embers of the fire. A score more were sprawling about the table or snoring on the rushes, drunk on this wassail night, helpless as hogsheads. Alain cursed them in a whimpering treble, and shook the men sleeping on the settle by the shoulders. They started up, fiery-faced and voluble. One of them was Hanotin the sergeant—a man with a beard like a black bear's hide, burly as Og of Bashan, strong as an oak. Alain squealed in his face, out of breath, beside himself:

"Arm! arm! Guiscard is at the gate!"

Hanotin stared like a sleepy ogre.

"Quick, you scullions! Fifty spears from Avray are pricking over the snow. I caught them in the forest by Fulk's Oak. They are crossing the bridge. Quick, I say!"

Black Hanotin swore, kicked sundry of his comrades, swore again. There were but two fit men and a boy to hold Terabil. The giant blundered to the arm-rack, slipped on steel cap and hauberk, took an axe from the wall, and went out with his comrade to the gate. Alain saw them squinting through the grill as he made for the court and the state quarters.

Even as Alain crossed the court he heard the thunder of steel upon the gate. The sound echoed through the castle in the hush of the night, mingled with the hoarse clamor of many voices. The lad plunged up a stairway and came into a long gallery, lighted by mullioned windows towards the court. Moonlight streamed in, calling dim colors into the scutcheons on the glass. He passed along the gallery, and beat with his fist upon a door at the end thereof.

Anon the latch slipped, the door opened a very little, giving view of a woman, whose white face peered from a fleece of dishevelled hair. She had a cloak cast over her shoulders as though she had but that moment risen from her bed.

"Dame Jake!" cried the boy.

The thunder against the gate echoed through the night-darkened place. The woman heard it, came out into the gallery, shivering, and staring into Alain's eyes.

"What is it—tell me?"

"Guiscard and his men are breaking in. The guards are drunk, save Hanotin and the Gascon. They of Avray will take the castle. The Lady Maude, what of her?"

The woman tossed her hair from her shoulders with a gesture of despair. Her mouth showed a circle of jet in the half-gloom; her eyes dilated. She stood holding her throat, listening like one dazed to the din beneath. Alain, rigid and white of face, was staring at the distorted visage of the moon, his jaw thrust forward, his fingers twisting the buttons of his tunic.

"I have it," he said.

"What?"

"Take me in quickly—"

"Where?"

"We must hide Sire Bertrand's wife. See, my hair is long; I will put on woman's gear and play the lady. Quick; it is the last hope."

The woman gripped his shoulder, kissed him suddenly on the lips. They passed in together, bolting the door after them. Groping in the dark through an anteroom, overturning an embroidery-frame, they came into an inner chamber,