The Iron Arrow Head or The Buckler Maiden Part 9

added Eidiol, again embracing Anne the Sweet.

"The young chief Gaelo quitted us to join old Rolf, the chief of all the Northman forces," rejoined Guyrion, "who had just disembarked near the abbey. He entered the place and now holds it with a large body of men.

The pirates are now hastily throwing up earth-works above the abbey on the side of Paris. Before sailing up towards the city they wish to fortify themselves here so as to have a safe place of refuge."

"Halloa! Halloa, there! Where are the Parisian skippers?" Gaelo's voice was at this moment heard calling out from a distance. "Come here, my worthy men; Rolf wishes to see you!"

"Young man," said Eidiol to the pirate who was approaching them, "we thank you for having set us free. We shall follow you. But grant that my son remain near his sister and mother, who, like ourselves, were locked up in this underground prison. They need his protection."

"Let it be so," answered Gaelo.

While Anne the Sweet and her brother walked to the cell where Martha lay, the dean of the Skippers' Guild of Paris, together with Rustic the Gay and his other men, followed Gaelo to be presented to Rolf, who was feasting in the apartment recently occupied by the gourmandizing and craven Abbot of St. Denis. On their way thither, the young pirate left Eidiol and his men for an instant, and ran to one of the lower apartments of the abbey whither the Beautiful Shigne, whose wound, although serious, was not mortal, had been transported and was being tended. When Lodbrog the berserker, still under the spell of his vertigo of fury dashed into the crypt of the mausoleum of Clovis where the wounded warrior maid lay, the structure would inevitably have been demolished had he not stumbled at the first step of the short stone stairs that led down into the cell, and rolled to the bottom where he fell prostrate, bleeding to death from the wounds that he had received, not a few of which would have even singly proved mortal.

CHAPTER IX.

THE NORTHMAN SEA-KING.

Rolf, the Sea-King and supreme Chief of the Northman pirates, was a man far advanced in years. His beard and hair, naturally of a yellow blonde, were heavily streaked with grey. Numerous scars criss-crossed his face, which was of a brick-red hue, tanned and copper-colored by the sun and the sea air. His physiognomy was rendered hideous by a saber cut that put out his left eye and cut his nose off to the bone. His single eye glistened like a burning coal under its bushy eye-brow; his heavy lips, half-hidden under his bristling moustache and by his s.h.a.ggy beard, imparted to his mouth a scoffing and sensuous expression. Rolf was of middle size and of athletic frame. His arms were abnormally long. Like his champions, the Northman Chieftain wore an armor of iron scales. But, in order to feast and frolic more at ease, he had doffed his cuira.s.s, and now kept on only a jacket of reindeer-skin, blackened at several places by the friction of his armor, and that fell open from time to time, exposing his shirt and, under his shirt, a chest as hirsute as that of the bears of the northern sea. The pirate chieftain was just finishing his repast. Canons and a few other surviving dignitaries of the abbot served Rolf upon their knees. The friars looked haggard and were pale with fear. He allowed them to move about only on all fours, or upon their knees when they were wanted to reach out dishes and wine cups to him. Every time that the movements of these servitors seemed too slow, either the pirates themselves, or former serfs of the abbey, who now saw their opportunity to avenge the ill-treatments that they had been subjected to, quickened, with kicks and sticks, the motions of the holy men.

Rolf, just finishing his sumptuous feast, seemed to be in great good humor. Half seas over with the old wines of Gaul, he was indulging himself in the well upholstered easy-chair of the abbot. He had just placed a woman on each knee, when, back from his call upon the Beautiful Shigne, and at ease concerning her recovery, Gaelo entered the banquet-hall, accompanied by Eidiol, Rustic and the other skippers whom he was to present to Rolf.

"So the priests of this place were keeping you prisoners!" remarked Rolf to the skippers while wiping with the back of his hand his thick moustache, still wet with wine. "You should side with us against the church rats and the castle falcons!"

"We river-pikes can escape the rats and the falcons easy enough,"

answered Eidiol. "Nevertheless, we love to see the falcons transfixed with arrows, and the rats drowned in their traps. We applaud your victory over the monks of St. Denis."

"Are you of the city of Paris?"

"Yes, seigneur; I am the dean of the Skippers' Guild."

"Will the Parisians defend their city?"

"If you injure the poor folks, yes; if, however, all you mean to do is to burn down the churches, levy ransoms on the rich abbeys and on the palaces of the Frankish seigneurs, then the people will not budge."

"So, then, the good people of Paris will offer us no resistance. That will be wise on their part. What with the reserve that I shall leave in this fortified abbey, and my two thousand vessels that will ascend the Seine as far as Paris, resistance could come neither from Count Rothbert nor from Charles the Simple. Your King will pay us ransom, after which we shall wing our flight towards the North on the tracks of the swans,--unless I should take it into my head to settle down in this country of Gaul, the same as my comrade Hastain did when he settled down in the country of Chartres. He! He! my champions! I am growing old.

Perhaps I should settle down in this country, in some fat province rich in pretty girls and good wine! Oh, my champions! As our saga sings: 'I am an old sea-crow; for nearly forty years I have grazed with my wings the fresh waters of rivers and the briny waves of the sea'. Now, then, there must be an end of this, my brave champions! Charles the Simple has a daughter called Ghisele. She is a girl of fourteen, and pretty enough to make one's head swim. Maybe I shall take the daughter of Charles the Simple to wife and demand of him a whole province for dower. What think you of this project?"

No less intoxicated than their chieftain, the pirates emitted loud roars of laughter and answered vociferously:

"We shall drink to your wedding, old Rolf! A handsome maid belongs in your couch. Glory to the husband of Ghisele, the daughter of Charles the Simple."

"The old brigand is drunk as a thrush in autumn, Master Eidiol; what wild scheme is that which he pursues?" whispered Rustic to the old skipper.

A great tumult interrupted the answer. The noise proceeded from without, it grew louder and approached the apartment. Imprecations and threats were vociferated wildly. Presently the door burst open and several pirates rushed in, dragging after them Guyrion the Plunger, his face bathed in blood.

"My son!" cried Eidiol running towards the lad. "My son is wounded!"

"And your mother--your sister--where are they?" added Rustic, rushing upon the heels of the old skipper. "Oh! I fear me a great misfortune has happened!"

"These bandits have killed my mother from whose arms they strove to drag my sister," answered Guyrion in despair. "I sought to defend them--these men struck me over the head with a saber and knocked me senseless!"

"My wife dead!" exclaimed the old man stupefied; and turning to the chieftain of the pirates, he cried out in a thundering voice: "Rolf!

Justice! Justice! I demand vengeance!"

"Yes, Rolf, justice and vengeance!" cried several of the pirates who rushed in with Guyrion. "This dog whom we bring here to you has killed one of our companions. We want justice!"

Rolf, more and more under the influence of the heady wine, seeing that he continued to empty cup after cup, answered in a husky voice: "Yes, my champions; I shall order that justice be done. Only let me finish this flagon of wine."

At the same moment other pirates rushed in. They carried Anne the Sweet unconscious in their arms and deposited her at the feet of the Northman chieftain saying:

"Old Rolf, here is a beautiful girl that we have reserved for you. She belongs to your part of the booty."

Eidiol, Rustic, Guyrion and the other skippers in their company ran to the rescue of Anne, but they were violently repelled and held back by the pirates.

"My champions, I shall administer justice!" cried Rolf from his seat in a maudlin voice; and addressing himself to Guyrion the Plunger, who, forgetful of his wound that bathed his forehead in blood, looked alternately with despairing eyes from his father to his sister who lay prostrate in a swoon: "Who are you? Where do you come from? Answer, young man!"

"He is my son," answered Eidiol, choking with rage. "He is a skipper, like myself, and he came to join me at the abbey, where I was retained a prisoner."

"And as truly as I have managed the oar since my childhood," cried Rustic, "seeing that you, Rolf, and your men, ill-treat us poor people in such a manner, our Skippers' Guild will call the other guilds of Paris to arms against you."

Rolf received the threat with a loud roar of laughter. He rose, and trying to steady himself upon his feet answered in a voice frequently interrupted by hiccoughs:

"I pardon all these fellows; but I shall keep the girl. And now, you, Parisians, return to your city; you are free. I forbid my champions do you the least harm."

"Rolf!" cried Eidiol imploringly, "return my daughter to me! Allow us to carry away in our vessel the body of my wife!"

"My champions, cast these dogs out at the gate of the abbey, and let them hurry to announce to Charles the Simple that--I want--to marry his daughter Ghisele--Yes, I want that maid for my wife."

"Yes, yes! You shall wed the princess!" cried the pirates, delighted at the whim of their chief; and dragging the Parisian skippers despite all the resistance that they offered, drove them out of the abbey of St.

Denis at the point of their swords.

CHAPTER X.

ROLF'S COURTSHIP.

The large fleet of the pirates pulled from the banks on which the abbey of St. Denis rose, and, driven by a favorable wind, steered for Paris since early sunrise of the next morning. The fleet numbered more than two thousand vessels, carrying twenty-five thousand combatants. The sailing order was determined by the river's channel. The light vessels of the draft of _holkers_ navigated close to the two banks; toward the center of the river sailed the "_snekars_", vessels with twenty oarsmen's benches; finally along the deepest part of the channel came the "_drekars_", men-of-war that greatly resembled the Roman galleys.

Thick sheets of iron defended the flanks of the latter; a "_kastali_", a semicircular wooden tower from eight to ten feet high, rose at their p.o.o.p. Posted upon the platform of these towers, the Northmans hurled against their foe stones, bolts, javelins, fire-brands, heavy beams of wood, and also fragile little vases filled with a corrosive dust that blinded whoever sought to board them, while other pirates, armed with long scythes, cut the cordage of the hostile ships.

The Northman vessels, that, ascending the Seine, made sail for Paris, covered the river from bank to bank, and a full league in length. Its waters disappeared under the ma.s.s of craft of all sizes, and all filled with pirates. As the fleet moved up it presented the aspect of a huge swarm of men, of casques, of arms, of cuira.s.ses, of bucklers and of uncouth figures, painted or gilded and placed either at the prow or the p.o.o.p of the vessels, sometimes on the tops of the masts. Pavilions of all colors surmounted with large painted streamers on which fabulous animals were depicted--winged dragons, double-headed eagles, fishes with the heads of lions, and other monsters--floated in the wind. The savage war-songs of the Northmans resounded far and wide, and were answered by and mingled with the joyful cries of the revolted serfs who followed the banks of the river and regulated their march by the progress of the fleet. At last the Northmans reached a part of the river whence were seen in the distance, across the evening haze, the steeples, towers and walls of the city of Paris, enclosed within a fortified island, at the extremity of which rose the cathedral. On the opposite sides, and along either arm of the river, where the open fields and the suburbs lay, the belfries of churches were discernible, as well as the numerous buildings of the abbeys of St. Germain-d'Auxerre, St. Germain-des-Pres, and St.

Etienne-des-Gres, while further away along the distant horizon loomed the high hill on which stood the basilica of St. Genevieve. At the sight of the city that had during the last century been so often attacked, ravaged, pillaged and levied ransom upon by the men of their race, the Northmans uttered wild shouts of triumph, and cried out: "Paris!"

"Paris!"