The Casque's Lark Part 5

Ask my officers whether Douarnek is a liar."

"I believe you to be sincere; only you have been shamefully imposed upon."

"Morix, the secretary of Tetrik, narrated the occurrence not to me only but to other soldiers in the camp for whose wine he was paying. We all placed confidence in his words, because more than once did I myself and several others of my companions see Victorin and his friends heated with wine and indulging in crazy feats of arms."

"Does not the ardor of courage heat up young heads as much as wine?"

"Listen, Schanvoch, I have seen--with my own eyes--Victorin drive his steed into the Rhine saying that he would cross the river on horseback; and he would certainly have been drowned had not another soldier and I rushed into a boat and fished him half drunk out of the water, while the current carried his horse away. And do you know what Victorin then said to us? 'You should have let me drink; the white wine of Beziers runs in this stream.' What I am telling you now is no calumny, Schanvoch, I saw it with my own eyes, heard it with my own ears."

Despite my attachment to Victorin I could not but reply to the soldier's testimony, saying: "I knew him to be incapable of an act of cowardice and infamy; but I also knew him to be capable of certain acts of extravagance and hotheadedness."

"As to myself," replied another soldier, "more than once, as I mounted guard near Victorin's house which is separated from Victoria's by a little plot of flowers, have I seen veiled women leave his place at early dawn. They were of all colors and sizes, blondes and brunettes, tall and short, some robust and stout, others slender and thin. At least, that was the impression that the women left upon me, unless the gloaming deceived my sight, and it was always the same woman."

"I notice that you are too sincere to make any answer to that, friend Schanvoch," Douarnek said to me; indeed, I could raise no objection against the latter accusation. "You must, therefore, not feel surprised at our trust in the words of Tetrik's secretary. You must admit that the man who in a drunken fit takes the Rhine for a stream of Bezier's wine, and from whose house a procession of women is seen to issue in the morning, is quite capable, in a fit of inebriety, of doing violence to a tavern-keeper's wife."

"No!" I cried. "A man may be afflicted with the faults of his years in an aggravated degree, without therefore being an infamous fellow, a criminal!"

"See here, Schanvoch, you are the personal friend of our mother Victoria. You love Victorin as if he were your own son. Say to him--'The soldiers, even the grossest and most dissolute among them, do not like to see their own vices reproduced in the chief whom they have chosen. By your conduct, the army's affection is daily withdrawn more and more from you and is centering wholly upon Victoria.'"

"Yes," I answered thoughtfully, "and the process started since Tetrik, the Governor of Gascony, the relative and friend of Victoria, made his last visit to our camp. Until then our young chief was generally beloved, despite his little foibles."

"That is true. He is so good, so brave, so kind to all! He sat his horse so well! He had so bold a military bearing! We loved the young captain as an own child! We knew him as a babe, and rode him on our knees when still a little fellow, during the watches in the camp! Later we shut our eyes to his foibles, because parents are ever indulgent! But there can be no room for indulgence towards baseness!"

"And of this baseness," I replied, now more and more forcibly struck by the circ.u.mstance, which, recalling certain incidents to my mind, awakened a vague suspicion in me, "and of these acts of baseness there is no evidence other than the word of Tetrik's secretary?"

"The secretary repeated to us his own master's words."

During this conversation, to which I lent increasing attention, our bark, ever moving forward under the vigorous strokes of the four oarsmen, had traversed the Rhine and reached the opposite sh.o.r.e. The soldier's backs were turned to the bank on which we were about to land.

I was so wholly absorbed in what I had just learned regarding the army's increasing disaffection towards Victorin, that I never once thought of casting my eyes upon the sh.o.r.e to which we were drawing near. Suddenly a sharp whizz struck our ears. I cried out: "Throw yourselves down flat upon your benches!"

It was too late. A volley of long arrows flew over our boat. One of the oarsmen was instantly killed, while Douarnek, whose back was still turned to the sh.o.r.e received one of the arrows in the back.

"This is the way the Franks receive parliamentarians during a truce,"

remarked the veteran without dropping his oar, and even without turning around. "This is the first time I have been hit in the back. An arrow in the back does not become a soldier. Pull it out quick, comrade," he added, addressing the oarsman who sat behind him.

But despite his intrepidity, Douarnek managed his oar with less vigor.

Although the wound that he received was not serious, his face betrayed the pain that he felt; the blood flowed copiously.

"I told you so, Schanvoch," he proceeded to say. "I told you that your foliage of peace would prove a poor rampart against the treachery of the Frankish barbarians. Fall to, my lads! We must now row all the harder, seeing we are only three left. Our comrade yonder, who is b.u.mping his nose against his bench, with his limbs stiffened, can no longer count as an oarsman!"

Douarnek had not finished his sentence before I dashed forward to the prow of the bark, and pa.s.sing over the corpse of the soldier who lay dead across his bench seized one of the oak branches and waved it over my head as a signal of peace.

A second volley of arrows, that came flying from behind an embankment of the river, was the only answer to my appeal. One of the missiles grazed my arm, another broke off its point against my iron casque; but none of the soldiers was. .h.i.t. We were then only a short distance from the sh.o.r.e.

I threw myself into the water, swam a little distance, and as soon as my feet struck ground called out to Douarnek:

"Pull the bark safely beyond the reach of the arrows and drop anchor, then wait for me. If I am not back after sunset, return to camp and inform Victoria that I have either been made prisoner or killed by the Franks. She will take my wife Ellen and my son Alguen under her protection."

"I do not at all like the idea of leaving you alone in the hands of those barbarians, friend Schanvoch," answered Douarnek; "but to stay where we can be killed would be to deprive you of all possible means of return to our camp, should you be lucky enough to escape with your life.

Courage, Schanvoch! We shall await the evening!"

And the bark pulled away, while I clambered up the embankment.

CHAPTER III.

THE HORDES OF THE FRANKS.

I had hardly reached the sh.o.r.e, always holding the green oak branch aloft, when I saw a large number of Franks, belonging to the hordes of their army, rush forward from behind the rocks where they had lain in ambush. They carried black bucklers and wore casques made of black calves' skin. Their arms, legs and faces were dyed black in order to escape detection when they march in the shadow of the forests or contemplate an attack in the night. Their appearance was rendered all the more hideous and strange, seeing that their chiefs were tattooed with a bright red on their foreheads, their cheeks and around their eyes. My long sojourn along the Rhine enabled me to speak the Frankish tongue with sufficient fluency.

The black warriors emitted savage yells, surrounded me from all sides and threatened me with their long knives, the blades of which also were blackened in the fire.

"A truce has been concluded, several days ago," I cried out to them; "I have come in the name of the chief of the Gallic army with a message to the chiefs of your hordes. Lead me to them. You surely will not kill an unarmed man?"

Saying this I drew my sword and threw it away. The barbarians immediately precipitated themselves upon me, redoubling their cries for my blood. Some of them unwound the cords of their bows, and, despite all my remonstrances, threw me to the ground and bound me fast.

"Let us flay him," said one. "We shall carry his skin to the chief Neroweg, the Terrible Eagle. It will serve him as a bandage to wrap his legs in."

I was well aware that the Franks often skinned their enemies alive with great dexterity, and that the chiefs of their hordes decked themselves triumphantly with such human spoils. The proposition that I be skinned alive was received with shouts of approval; those who held me down began to cast about for a convenient place to perform the operation; others started to sharpen their knives upon the pebbles.

At this juncture, the warrior in command of the band approached me. The man was horrible to behold. A bright red tattoo encircled his eyes and streaked his cheeks. The marks looked like bleeding wounds, standing off strongly against his blackened face. His hair, raised after the Frankish style over his forehead and tied in a knot on top of his head, fell back like the plume of a helmet over his shoulders, and was of a coppery yellow, due to the lime-water that those barbarians used in order to impart a warm bright color to their hair and beard.[1] Around his neck and his wrists he wore a necklace and bracelets of rough wrought tin.

His raiment consisted of a casque of black calfskin; strips of black calfskin fastened with criss-cross bandelets, covered his thighs and lower extremities. A sword and a long knife hung from his belt. After fixedly looking at me for a moment, he raised his hand and letting it down on my shoulder said:

"I shall take and keep this Gaul for Elwig. He is my prisoner."

m.u.f.fled growls from several of the other black warriors greeted these words of their chief, who, raising his voice, proceeded to say:

"I, Riowag, will take this Gaul to the priestess Elwig. Elwig needs a prisoner for her auguries."

The chief's decision was acquiesced in by the majority of the black warriors; the growls ceased; and a mob of voices repeated in chorus:

"Yes, yes; the Gaul must be kept for Elwig!"

"He must be taken to Elwig!"

"It is many days since she consulted our tutelary deities!"

"And we," cried one of the black warriors who had bound me, "we object to having the prisoner delivered to Elwig. We want to flay him and present his skin in token of homage to the chief Neroweg, the Terrible Eagle; he will reward us with some present."

There is small choice between being skinned alive and being boiled in a bra.s.s caldron. I did not feel called upon to manifest my preferences, and took no part whatever in the debate. Already those who wished to flay me cast savage glances at those who insisted that I be boiled, and carried their hands to their knives, when one of the black warriors proposed a compromise to the chief:

"Riowag, do you want to deliver the Gaul to the priestess Elwig?"

"Yes," answered the chief; "yes, I want to, and it shall be done as I order!"

"And the rest of you," proceeded the conciliatory black warrior, "you wish to offer the Gaul's skin to the chief Neroweg?"