Journeys Through Bookland Volume Iv Part 32

"The Black Knight," answered Rebecca, faintly; then instantly again shouted with joyful eagerness--"But no--but no! the name of the Lord of Hosts be blessed! he is on foot again, and fights as if there were twenty men's strength in his single arm. His sword is broken--he s.n.a.t.c.hes an axe from a yeoman--he presses Front-de-Boeuf with blow on blow. The giant stoops and totters like an oak under the steel of the woodman--he falls--he falls!"

"Front-de-Boeuf?" exclaimed Ivanhoe.

"Front-de-Boeuf," answered the Jewess. "His men rush to the rescue, headed by the haughty Templar; their united force compels the champion to pause. They drag Front-de-Boeuf within the walls."

"The a.s.sailants have won the barriers, have they not?" said Ivanhoe.

"They have--they have!" exclaimed Rebecca; and they press the besieged hard upon the outer wall; some plant ladders, some swarm like bees, and endeavor to ascend upon the shoulders of each other; down go stones, beams, and trunks of trees upon their heads, and as fast as they bear the wounded to the rear, fresh men supply their places in the a.s.sault.

Great G.o.d! hast Thou given men Thine own image that it should be thus cruelly defaced by the hands of their brethren!"

"Think not of that," said Ivanhoe; "this is no time for such thoughts.

Who yield? Who push their way?"

"The ladders are thrown down," replied Rebecca, shuddering; "the soldiers lie grovelling under them like crushed reptiles. The besieged have the better."

"Saint George strike for us!" exclaimed the knight; "do the false yeomen give way?"

"No!" exclaimed Rebecca, "they bear themselves right yeomanly. The Black Knight approaches the postern with his huge axe; the thundering blows which he deals, you may hear them above all the din and shouts of the battle. Stones and beams are hailed down on the bold champion: he regards them no more than if they were thistle-down or feathers!"

"By Saint John of Acre," [Footnote: _Saint John of Acre_ was the full name of the Syrian town usually known as _Acre_. During the Crusade which the Christians of Europe undertook to recover the Holy Land from the Saracens, Acre was one of the chief points of contest. It was held first by one party, then by the other. Owing to this importance, it was natural that its name should come to be used as an exclamation.] said Ivanhoe, raising himself joyfully on his couch, "methought there was but one man in England that might do such a deed!"

"The postern gate shakes," continued Rebecca--"it crashes--it is splintered by his blows--they rush in--the outwork is won. Oh G.o.d! they hurl the defenders from the battlements--they throw them into the moat.

O men, if ye be indeed men, spare them that can resist no longer!"

"That ridge--the ridge which communicates with the castle--have they won that pa.s.s?" exclaimed Ivanhoe.

"No," replied Rebecca; "the Templar has destroyed the plank on which they crossed; few of the defenders escaped with him into the castle-- the shrieks and cries which you hear tell the fate of the others. Alas!

I see it is still more difficult to look upon victory than upon battle."

"What do they now, maiden?" said Ivanhoe; look forth yet again--this is no time to faint at bloodshed."

"It is over for the time," answered Rebecca; "our friends strengthen themselves within the outwork which they have mastered, and it affords them so good a shelter from the foemen's shot that the garrison only bestow a few bolts on it from interval to interval, as if rather to disquiet than effectually to injure them."

"Our friends," said Ivanhoe, "will surely not abandon an enterprise so gloriously begun and so happily attained. O no! I will put my faith in the good knight whose axe hath rent heart-of-oak and bars of iron.

Singular," he again muttered to himself, "if there be two who can do a deed of such derring-do![Footnote: _Derring-do_ is an old word for daring, or _warlike deed_] A fetterlock, and a shackle-bolt on a field sable--what may that mean? Seest thou nought else, Rebecca, by which the Black Knight may be distinguished?"

"Nothing," said the Jewess; "all about him is black as the wing of the night raven. Nothing can I spy that can mark him further; but having once seen him put forth his strength in battle, methinks I could know him again among a thousand warriors. He rushes to the fray as if he were summoned to a banquet. There is more than mere strength--there seems as if the whole soul and spirit of the champion were given to every blow which he deals upon his enemies. G.o.d a.s.soilzie [Footnote: _a.s.soilzie_ is an old word for _absolve_] him of the sin of bloodshed!

It is fearful, yet magnificent, to behold how the arm and heart of one man can triumph over hundreds."

"Rebecca," said Ivanhoe, "thou hast painted a hero; surely they rest but to refresh their force, or to provide the means of crossing the moat. Under such a leader as thou hast spoken this knight to be, there are no craven fears, no cold-blooded delays, no yielding up a gallant emprize, since the difficulties which render it arduous render it also glorious. I swear by the honor of my house--I vow by the name of my bright lady-love, I would endure ten years' captivity to fight one day by that good knight's side in such a quarrel as this!"

"Alas!" said Rebecca, leaving her station at the window, and approaching the couch of the wounded knight, "this impatient yearning after action--this struggling with and repining at your present weakness, will not fail to injure your returning health. How couldst thou hope to inflict wounds on others, ere that be healed which thou thyself hast received?"

"Rebecca," he replied, "thou knowest not how impossible it is for one trained to actions of chivalry to remain pa.s.sive as a priest, or a woman, when they are acting deeds of honor around him. The love of battle is the food upon which we live--the dust of the _melee_ [Footnote: _Melee_ is a French word meaning a _hand-to-hand conflict_.] is the breath of our nostrils! We live not--we wish not to live--longer than while we are victorious and renowned. Such, maiden, are the laws of chivalry to which we are sworn, and to which we offer all that we hold dear."

"Alas!" said the fair Jewess, "and what is it, valiant knight, save an offering of sacrifice to a demon of vain glory, and a pa.s.sing through the fire to Moloch? [Footnote: _Moloch_ was the fire-G.o.d of the ancient Ammonites, to whom human sacrifices were offered.] What remains to you as the prize of all the blood you have spilled, of all the travail and pain you have endured, of all the tears which your deeds have caused, when death hath broken the strong man's spear, and overtaken the speed of his war-horse?"

"What remains?" cried Ivanhoe. "Glory, maiden--glory! which gilds our sepulchre and embalms our name."

"Glory!" continued Rebecca; "alas! is the rusted nail which hangs as a hatchment over the champion's dim and mouldering tomb, is the defaced sculpture of the inscription which the ignorant monk can hardly read to the inquiring pilgrim--are these sufficient rewards for the sacrifice of every kindly affection, for a life spent miserably that ye may make others miserable? Or is there such virtue in the rude rhymes of a wandering bard, that domestic love, kindly affection, peace and happiness, are so wildly bartered, to become the hero of those ballads which vagabond minstrels sing to drunken churls over their evening ale?"

"By the soul of Hereward!" replied the knight, impatiently, "thou speakest, maiden, of thou knowest not what. Thou wouldst quench the pure light of chivalry, which alone distinguishes the n.o.ble from the base, the gentle knight from the churl and the savage; which rates our life far, far beneath the pitch of our honor, raises us victorious over pain, toil, and suffering, and teaches us to fear no evil but disgrace.

Thou art no Christian, Rebecca; and to thee are unknown those high feelings which swell the bosom of a n.o.ble maiden when her lover hath done some deed of emprize which sanctions his flame. Chivalry! Why, maiden, she is the nurse of pure and high affection, the stay of the oppressed, the redresser of grievances, the curb of the power of the tyrant. n.o.bility were but an empty name without her, and liberty finds the best protection in her lance and her sword."

"I am, indeed," said Rebecca, "sprung from a race whose courage was distinguished in the defence of their own land, but who warred not, even while yet a nation, save at the command of the Deity, or in defending their country from oppression. The sound of the trumpet wakes Judah no longer, and her despised children are now but the unresisting victims of hostile and military oppression. Well hast thou spoken, Sir Knight: until the G.o.d of Jacob shall raise up for His chosen people a second Gideon, or a new Maccabeus, it ill beseemeth the Jewish damsel to speak of battle or of war."

The high-minded maiden concluded the argument in a tone of sorrow, which deeply expressed her sense of the degradation of her people, imbittered perhaps by the idea that Ivanhoe considered her as one not ent.i.tled to interfere in a case of honor, and incapable of entertaining or expressing sentiments of honor and generosity.

"How little he knows this bosom," she said, "to imagine that cowardice or meanness of soul must needs be its guests, because I have censured the fantastic chivalry. Would to Heaven that the shedding of mine own blood, drop by drop, could redeem the captivity of Judah! Nay, would to G.o.d it could avail to set free my father, and this his benefactor, from the chains of the oppressor. The proud Christian should then see whether the daughter of G.o.d's chosen people dared not to die as bravely as the finest Nazarene maiden, that boasts her descent from some petty chieftain of the rude and frozen north!"

She then looked toward the couch of the wounded knight.

"He sleeps," she said; "nature exhausted by suffrance, and the waste of spirits, his wearied frame embraces the first moment of temporary relaxation to sink into slumber."

She wrapped herself closely in her veil, and sat down at a distance from the couch of the wounded knight, with her back turned toward it, fortifying, or endeavoring to fortify, her mind against the impending evils.

During the interval of quiet which followed the first success of the besiegers, while the one party was preparing to pursue their advantage and the other to strengthen their means of defence, the Templar and De Bracy held brief counsel together in the hall of the castle.

"Where is Front-de-Boeuf?" said the latter, who had superintended the defence of the fortress on the other side; "men say he hath been slain."

"He lives," said the Templar, coolly--"Lives as yet; but had he worn the bull's head of which he bears the name, [Footnote: _Front-de-Boeuf_ means _Bull's Head_.] and ten plates of iron to fence it withal, he must have gone down before yonder fatal axe. Yet a few hours, and Front-de- Boeuf is with his fathers--a powerful limb lopped off Prince John's enterprise." [Footnote: Prince John was scheming to usurp the throne of England while King Richard, his brother, was absent on one of the Crusades.]

"And a brave addition to the kingdom of Satan," said De Bracy; "this comes of reviling saints and angels, and ordering images of holy things and holy men to be flung down on the heads of these rascaille yeomen."

"Go to, thou art a fool," said the Templar; "thy superst.i.tion is upon a level with Front-de-Boeuf's want of faith; neither of you can render a reason for your belief or unbelief. Let us think of making good the castle. How fought these villain yeomen on thy side?"

"Like fiends incarnate," said De Bracy. "They swarmed close up to the walls, headed, as I think, by the knave who won the prize at the archery, for I knew his horn and baldric. Had I not been armed in proof, the villain had marked me down seven times with as little remorse as if I had been a buck in season. He told every rivet on my armor with a cloth-yard shaft, that rapped against my ribs with as little compunction as if my bones had been of iron. But that I wore a shirt of Spanish mail under my platecoat, I had been fairly sped."

"But you maintained your post?" said the Templar. "We lost the outwork on our part."

"That is a shrewd loss," said De Bracy; "the knaves will find cover there to a.s.sault the castle more closely, and may, if not well watched, gain some unguarded corner of a tower, or some forgotten window, and so break in upon us. Our numbers are too few for the defence of every point, and the men complain that they can nowhere show themselves, but they are the mark for as many arrows as a parish-b.u.t.t on a holyday even. Front-de-Boeuf is dying too, so we shall receive no more aid from his bull's head and brutal strength. How think you, Sir Brian, were we not better make a virtue of necessity, and compound with the rogues by delivering up our prisoners?"

"How!" exclaimed the Templar; "deliver up our prisoners, and stand an object alike of ridicule and execration, as the doughty warriors who dared by a night attack to possess themselves of the persons of a party of defenceless travelers, yet could not make good a strong castle against a vagabond troop of outlaws, led by swineherds, jesters, and the very refuse of mankind? Shame on thy counsel, Maurice de Bracy! The ruins of this castle shall bury both my body and my shame, ere I consent to such base and dishonorable composition."

"Let us to the walls, then," said De Bracy, carelessly; "that man never breathed, be he Turk or Templar, who held life at lighter rate than I do. But I trust there is no dishonor in wishing I had here some two scores of my gallant troop of Free Companions? Oh, my brave lances! if ye knew but how hard your captain were this day bested, how soon should I see my banner at the head of your clump of spears! And how short while would these rabble villains stand to endure your encounter!"

"Wish for whom thou wilt," said the Templar, "but let us make what defence we can with the soldiers who remain. They are chiefly Front-de- Boeuf's followers, hated by the English for a thousand acts of insolence and oppression."

"The better," said De Bracy; "the rugged slaves will defend themselves to the last drop of their blood, ere they encounter the revenge of the peasants without. Let us up and be doing, then, Brian de Bois-Guilbert; and, live or die, thou shalt see Maurice de Bracy bear himself this day as a gentleman of blood and lineage."

"To the walls!" answered the Templar; and they both ascended the battlements to do all that skill could dictate, and manhood accomplish, in defence of the place. They readily agreed that the point of greatest danger was that opposite to the outwork of which the a.s.sailants had possessed themselves. The castle, indeed, was divided from that barbican by the moat, and it was impossible that the besiegers could a.s.sail the postern door, with which the outwork corresponded, without surmounting that obstacle; but it was the opinion both of the Templar and De Bracy that the besiegers, if governed by the same policy their leader had already displayed, would endeavor, by a formidable a.s.sault, to draw the chief part of the defenders' observation to this point, and take measures to avail themselves of every negligence which might take place in the defence elsewhere. To guard against such an evil, their numbers only permitted the knights to place sentinels from s.p.a.ce to s.p.a.ce along the walls in communication with each other, who might give the alarm whenever danger was threatened. Meanwhile, they agreed that De Bracy should command the defense of the postern, and the Templar should keep with him a score of men or thereabouts as a body of reserve, ready to hasten to any other point which might be suddenly threatened. The loss of the barbican had also this unfortunate effect, that notwithstanding the superior height of the castle walls, the besieged could not see from them, with the same precision as before, the operations of the enemy; for some straggling underwood approached so near the sallyport of the outwork that the a.s.sailants might introduce into it whatever force they thought proper, not only under cover, but even without the knowledge of the defenders. Utterly uncertain, therefore, upon what point the storm was to burst, De Bracy and his companion were under the necessity of providing against every possible contingency, and their followers, however brave, experienced the anxious dejection of mind incident to men inclosed by enemies who possessed the power of choosing their time and mode of attack.

Meanwhile, the lord of the beleaguered and endangered castle lay upon a bed of bodily pain and mental agony. He had not the usual resource of bigots in that superst.i.tious period, most of whom were wont to atone for the crimes they were guilty of by liberality to the church, stupefying by this means their terrors by the idea of atonement and forgiveness; and although the refuge which success thus purchased was no more like to the peace of mind which follows on sincere repentance than the turbid stupefaction procured by opium resembles healthy and natural slumbers, it was still a state of mind preferable to the agonies of awakened remorse. But among the vices of Front-de-Boeuf, a hard and griping man, avarice was predominant; and he preferred setting church and churchmen at defiance to purchasing from them pardon and absolution at the price of treasure and of manors. Nor did the Templar, an infidel of another stamp, justly characterize his a.s.sociate when he said Front-de-Boeuf could a.s.sign no cause for his unbelief and contempt for the established faith; for the baron would have alleged that the church sold her wares too dear, that the spiritual freedom which she put up to sale was only to be bought, like that of the chief captain of Jerusalem, "with a great sum," and Front-de-Boeuf preferred denying the virtue of the medicine to paying the expense of the physician.

But the moment had now arrived when earth and all his treasures were gliding from before his eyes, and when the savage baron's heart, though hard as a nether millstone, became appalled as he gazed forward into the waste darkness of futurity. The fever of his body aided the impatience and agony of his mind, and his death-bed exhibited a mixture of the newly-awakened feelings of horror combating with the fixed and inveterate obstinacy of his disposition--a fearful state of mind, only to be equalled in those tremendous regions where there are complaints without hope, remorse without repentance, a dreadful sense of present agony, and a presentiment that it cannot cease or be diminished!

"Where be these dog-priests now," growled the baron, "who set such price on their ghostly mummery? I have heard old men talk of prayer-- prayer by their own voice--such need not to court or to bribe the false priest. But I--I dare not!"

"Lives Reginald Front-de-Boeuf," said a broken and shrill voice close by his bedside, "to say there is that which he dares not?"