Ralph's open eyes looked only into the sky, and at the wild, wind-driven clouds fleeting across the calm, immutable heavens beyond, as the struggling hosts of mortals fleet over the face of eternity.

His soul was filled with an overwhelming sense of desolation and guilt.

He had brought his fate upon himself, and he must face the Shadow of the Valley of Death, all forsworn and blood-stained as he was; alone, helpless. No wife to comfort him, no priest to absolve him,

'Cut off even in the blossoms of his sin, Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd.'

Against the clear s.p.a.ces of the sky, he saw, high up, almost above the clouds, an ordered flight of wild swans pa.s.sing swiftly westward into the sunset glow.

Oh, that he were free as they, winged as the wind! His spirit writhed in fierce rebellion. He put forth all his force in a wild struggle to drag his limbs from the prisoning ma.s.s that detained them, but he could not lift the ghastly burden that weighted him to earth an inch.

'Mary in heaven, help me!' he groaned. 'I am scarce wounded, and so strong! It will take me hours to die, and these foul birds will perish mine eyes!'

The cold sweat burst from his brow, and, as he writhed again, he somewhat shook his head, and the bells on the jester's cap tinkled.

He quivered with astonishment, and contrived so far to lift his head as to catch a glimpse of the points of the cape which covered his shoulders. At first the idea seized him that he was no longer on earth at all, but in purgatory, and dressed in a jester's garb, in that his sin had been through the folly of pride and mad ambition. Then, with a flash, came the joyous thought of Grillonne, the faithful, the ready of wit, the fertile of resource.

A wild gladness came to him, but as the sky grew dark, and the stars were obscured by clouds, hope left him again.

'If it were he indeed, he has forgotten me, or has met his death in trying to save me.'

Then all the joys of earth pa.s.sed before him in a fair pageant, and he thought of his young bride with her clear, loving eyes that he might never see again, and to whom he had been united with such magnificence scarcely a month before, and who was but a few short miles from the scene of his present suffering; and at the thought, burning tears welled from beneath his closed lids and rolled down his bronzed cheeks, moistening the parti-coloured edges of Grillonne's cape.

'Ah, it is bitter!' he groaned.

'Not more bitter for thee than for the scores and tens of scores thou hast led into like misery,' said awakened conscience grimly.

'_Mea culpa! mea culpa!_' murmured the unfortunate warrior in his anguish. 'My days have been evil in the land. I have sought not the will of Heaven, but mine own vain-glory. But oh, Mary Mother, let not my sins be visited on the head of my sweet lady! as thou wert a woman, protect her from all harm! Sure William will be merciful to his kinswoman.'

Dismal indeed were the thoughts that chased each other across his restless brain, which seemed to make up by its activity for the enforced stillness of his body. Visions crowded upon him of his castle of Blauncheflour in flames, and his lady in the power of insulting or--and it was little less terrible to his ambitious, jealous spirit--too-courteous conquerors, some one of whom might, perchance, find favour in her eyes and drive his memory from her heart.

At length, however, as the stillness of the night fell over the plain, broken only by the moaning wind or the agonised groan of some fellow-sufferer, he grew calmer, and a deep resignation flooded his breast.

'_Mea culpa!_' he murmured again. Death seemed inevitable, and he bowed his spirit humbly to accept it.

Hark!--

The mingled anguish and joy of hope awaked once more. For the silence was broken by a sound so faint that his listening ears could scarce detect its repet.i.tion, distracted as they were by the tumultuous pulses which throbbed at the possibility of escape. Yet why hope rather than fear? Why should the sound of approaching steps mean friends rather than foes?

The fact grew certain. Steps were approaching, and were accompanied by a clash of arms that betokened soldiery.

How he strained to catch every faint sound that might indicate the direction in which these, his fellow-men, alive and strong and capable of help, were moving!

'St. Nicholas befriend me! If the miracle is wrought that I be rescued from this living tomb, I vow to make pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre before my days are done!'

Then he shuddered in sick misery lest the band should pa.s.s him by!

Better a blow from the _misericorde_ of an enemy, than the languishing torture of his present position.

Others thought so too, for he heard more than one piteous cry for help.

Then he, the proud earl, lifted up a feeble voice and craved deliverance, even by death!--

And it came.

'Here! here! This way, my lads, this way!' cried the familiar voice of the faithful jester. 'Look you, galliards, there is my famous cap and cape! Saints be praised! He wears them still. The Lord grant there is a living skull in the cap. I shrewdly thought I heard him squeak!'

'Ay, Grillonne, thou didst, sure enough!' cried the earl; and the revulsion of feeling from despair to hope was so great that he fainted again.

When he revived, his head was in Grillonne's arms, and the intolerable weight of the slain who had fallen above him was removed from his limbs, which, however, were so numbed that he could not move them.

Half-a-dozen stout fellows, archers, slingers, and spearmen, were bustling about him, dimly visible by the light of a horn lantern which one of them carried.

Grillonne, seeing his eyes open, instantly held a flask to his lips, and when the draught had helped his revival, nodded sagely.

''Tis well to be taken for a fool sometimes, nuncle.' he remarked, twitching his tinkling cap from the earl's head. 'Thy fine helmet has been carried off in triumph to the enemy's camp on the corse of poor Sir Guy de Landerneau, whom I bedecked with it; seeing that, as they had already killed him as dead as a Norwich red herring, they could do him no further hurt. 'Twill have given us time even if they discover the cheat, as most like they will, for so many of them are full well acquainted with thy n.o.ble hawk nose.'

'Ah, Grillonne ready-wit,' said the earl, 'St. Nicholas reward thee!

That prince of hypocrisy, Lanfranc, may say that jesters have no hope, and are doomed without fail to the worm that dieth not and the fire that knows no quenching![5] But I tell thee, Grillonne, he in h.e.l.l shall pray to thee in heaven as Dives to Lazarus!' and the groaning n.o.ble kissed the hand that lay upon his breast, albeit the member belonged to one of that despised cla.s.s, for death is a greater leveller than any democrat or republican of them all, and Ralph de Guader had held long converse with him.

[5] 'D. Have jesters hope? M. None. In their whole design they are the ministers of Satan. Of them it is said: "They have not known G.o.d, therefore G.o.d hath despised them, and the Lord shall have them in derision, for mockers shall be mocked."'--Lanfranc's _Elucidarium_, p. 256, quoted by Hook, _Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury_.

Grillonne raised the hand which had been so honoured to his own lips and added some hearty smacks to the aristocratic salute it had received.

'Nay, my dear lord,' he said in a rather husky voice, 'I would fain lay that hand up in lavender and take it to heaven with me when I die, since thou thinkest I have hope to get there. But alack! we have rough work before us to prevent thee from getting thither before thy palace is prepared for thee. Thou art not saved yet by a very long chalk. If St. Nicholas is half so generous as thou deemest, he will give me my reward at once, like a free-handed gentleman, in the shape of success to the safe ending of my undertaking; nor must we spend further time in palaver.'

He beckoned to the men who were with him, and four of them came forward with a litter roughly woven of osiers, of which a plentiful supply was near at hand. Grillonne and another lifted the earl into it, and they set off at a rapid pace, the jester guiding them along the smoothest path; and watching over his charge with tender care.

To De Guader it seemed as if he were couched on pillows of softest down, notwithstanding his wounds and the pain the motion caused him, for the joy of being rescued from his horrible entombment, and of having yet a chance of life and love, was so intense that he seemed to be in a dream of bliss.

His eyes filled with grateful tears each time that a gleam from the lantern gave him a fitful glimpse of Grillonne's face. Never had he thought to be so glad to look on that wizened, whimsical countenance, with its oblique eyes twinkling with mingled malice and affection, and which seemed almost quainter under the conical steel-cap with the nasal, in which he had ensconced it on giving up his cap to the earl, than in that strange headgear itself.

The way was no flowery one either. Slain men and horses enc.u.mbered the bearers at every step, and more than one pitiful voice from some wounded wretch, in such plight as the earl had just been rescued from, besought them in mercy to stop and give aid, for the sake of Mary Mother and the saints in heaven. Most pitiful of all was the cry for 'Water, for the love of Christ!' from men whose limbs were actually immersed in the rippling edges of the meres or engulfed in the slimy ooze, and who were so faint from wounds, or so set fast by the slain above them, that they could reach no drop wherewith to moisten their parched lips and slake the burning death-thirst which tormented them.

But they cried to deaf ears; nay, when entreating arms were thrown around the limbs of the litter-bearers, a sharp cut across the knuckles with dagger or anlace speedily unclasped the detaining fingers, whether they belonged to friend or foe.

It was rough treatment, but the men were risking their lives in their endeavour to save that of the earl, and delay would have been fatal both to him and to themselves. The fact that the body of Sir Guy de Landerneau had been removed by the enemy proved that they desired to make certain of De Guader's fate, and on finding their mistake they might at any time return to rectify it.

The moon had risen by this, and shone between the swift fleeting clouds that sped across the sky. By her light and the uncertain glimmer of the lantern, Ralph saw that two of his rescuers wore the winged helms and long moustaches and golden torcs distinguishing the costume of the Danes. His heart leapt with hope that the messengers he had despatched to the court of King Sweyn had moved the warlike monarch to seize the opportunity of striking a blow at his ancient enemy, William of Normandy, and had sent him timely reinforcements. But their progress was too rapid for speech, and whatever might be his curiosity, he had to lie pa.s.sive in his litter and allow himself to be borne whithersoever his rescuers pleased.

And by what a weird and desolate pathway did they bear him!

Heading, apparently, for the very heart of the fen that stretched westward as far as eye could reach, its level surface unbroken by tree or hill, and only varied by beds of tall reeds and snake-like pools of still, dark water, the surfaces of which were scarcely rippled by the gusty breeze, they advanced steadily for the better part of an hour.

The fitful light of the half shrouded moon cast ghastly gleams upon the waving plumes of the flowering sedges and white tufts of the meadow-sweet, whose strong and somewhat sickly perfume mingled, strangely luscious, with the dank odours of peat and decaying rushes and gra.s.ses. Now and again some frightened bird flew screaming from its roosting-place, or dusky water-rat glided hastily into thicker cover, or plunged with a flop into the water, while the pipe of the curlew, or boom of the bittern, sounded from afar off in the melancholy marshes.

The loneliness was intense, and seemed but accentuated by the presence of bird and beast.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Rescue of the Earl.]

In the dimness of the cloudy night, with the uncertain bursts of moonlight, that seemed to make the chaos of scarce divided earth and water but more difficult to distinguish, the men who bore the earl threaded their way through the bewildering maze, with an unerring celerity and absence of hesitation that proved them to be no strangers to its mysterious solitude.

At length they halted, beside a channel less overgrown with weeds and rushes than the many they had pa.s.sed, and which was, in fact, the Great Ouse River.