The King's Esquires Part 13

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

FIRST BLOOD.

Denis was in no trim for running, but he ran.

"This would wake anyone up," he muttered to himself. "The villain! The dog! I see it all: he must have given those two fellows drink till they were helpless, and then led the horses quietly away. Oh, if I had only been ten minutes sooner, instead of sleeping like the untrusty cur I was! I never dare face the King now! I'm running now as hard as ever I can run, not to bring back the horses, but to go right away. I never dare show my face before him again. Here," he thought, "am I to go on whining like some foolish girl? I can--I will get there first, in time to stop him. I never used my sword in earnest yet, but if I can only get face to face with that insolent hound I'll make him bleed, or he shall me. Too late! Too late!" he groaned, for the man's head had disappeared beyond the hedge.

"There must be some turning yonder, and he has gone; and once out there in the open country he, a man who rides with such horses as ours, it will be folly ever to expect to see him again."

The boy ran on, not growing breathless, but nerved as it were to the highest pitch of excitement, seeing nothing now, but reaching the hedge at last close by a rough gate, over which he vaulted lightly, to find himself in a winding green lane, but with nothing in sight to his left, nothing to his right, and no turning visible, and stretching right away.

"There hasn't been time for him to get to here, for the horses were only walking," he argued to himself, and then with sinking heart, "Oh!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, half aloud. "Perhaps it was only my mistake. I jumped at the conclusion that it was the man we saw."

There was nothing for it but to continue along the lane till he met Saint Simon, and then he felt that they must go back to the inn and rouse people to a pursuit.

He began running at a gentle trot now, to husband his strength for what might come, when all at once his heart seemed to give a violent leap and then stand still; for coming round a bend he caught sight of the black, heavily maned head of the King's horse, and then of the soft, pointed cap of the horse-dealer whom he had credited with the theft.

He was not looking forward, but bending over to his right, evidently doing something to the rein of another horse he was leading--Denis's own--while, in the middle of the three abreast, he was mounted on Saint Simon's. The three horses were fully in sight some fifty yards away, just as the man sat up again and began to urge them on from their walk, when he suddenly caught sight of Denis in the act of drawing his sword in the middle of the lane to bar his way.

The effect was to make him pull up short, and then with a cry to the horses he swung them round and set off back at a canter, to disappear round the bend directly after, with Denis running far in his rear.

"Now," panted the lad, "if Saint Simon has only done his work we have him between us." And he tried to utter a prolonged whistle, which he hoped might reach his charger's ear; but he had not breath to give more than the faintest call.

"Oh, if I could only run ten times as fast!" he groaned. "I know what he'll do. He will get them into a gallop, and ride my poor comrade down. If I were only at his side! And I seem to crawl!"

But he was running pretty fast, though to his misery he heard the dull _thud, thud_ of the cantering horses grow fainter and fainter till it seemed to die right away.

"Sim's let them pa.s.s him," he groaned piteously. "_No_! No! No!" he literally yelled. "They are coming back! Saint Simon's turned them, and it will be my chance after all."

For still invisible, after the thudding of the hoofs had quite died out, the sounds came again; then louder, louder, and louder still, coming nearer and nearer, till all at once the n.o.ble animals swept into sight again round the curving lane, galloping excited and snorting, Saint Simon's horse right in the centre being urged forward by the rider, while the other two hung away right and left to the full extent of their reins. While perfectly unconscious of his peril, thinking of nothing but checking the headlong gallop, the lad stood with extended blade right in the middle of the lane.

It seemed an act of madness. Certainly he was a well-built youth, accustomed to athletic exercises, but as a barrier to three fine chargers urged by the rider of the centre one forward at a hand gallop, and armed only with a long thin Andrea Ferrara blade, he seemed but a fragile reed to stem the charge. But the unexpected happens more often than the reverse, and it was so here. One minute the horses were tearing along as far apart as the reins would allow; the next they seemed to have pa.s.sed over the brave youth, and went galloping down the lane at increasing speed, leaving Denis flat upon his back in the middle of the road and his sword-arm outstretched in a peculiar way above his head, with the keen blade pointing in the direction taken by the steeds.

He lay perfectly motionless for some moments as if dead, while the horses tore on with the rider bending forward over his mount's neck till they had gone about a couple of hundred yards, when the man suddenly began to sway in his saddle to right, then to left, recovered himself, to sit upright for a few moments, and then with a sudden lurch went headlong down, to fall with a thud in the gra.s.sy track, roll over once or twice, and then begin to crawl to the hedge on his left, creep painfully through a gap, and disappear; while the horse he had ridden stopped short, like the well-trained beast he was, and turned to follow his late rider towards the hedge, snuffling and snorting in alarm.

The others continued their gallop for some seventy or eighty yards before, missing the guidance and companionship of their fellow, they too stopped short, to utter a low whinnying neigh, which was answered from behind and drew them trotting back to the halted beast.

By this time the marauder had disappeared, and the three chargers seemed to hold a consultation, uttering low whinnying neighs, and then, as if moved by one impulse, they trotted back slowly to where Denis lay with his head towards them, apparently dead. As they stopped short the youth's charger lowered its muzzle to begin to snuff at his face, when all at once the lad made a sudden movement to jerk back his outstretched arm into a more natural position, making his bright rapier describe an arc in the air, giving forth a bright flash in the afternoon sunshine and making a whistling sound like the lash of a whip. The consequence was that all three chargers started violently, to move off for a short distance; but as the lad was motionless again they stopped short and began to return, led by their companion, which seemed drawn to its fallen master. But before it could reach him there was the sound of feet, and Saint Simon came panting up to the group.

"Hah!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed breathlessly, as he dropped on one knee by Denis's side. "Don't say you are hurt, lad! Not wounded, are you? Ah!

There's blood upon his sword! Denis, lad, where are you wounded? For Heaven's sake speak! Oh, my poor brave lad! He's dead--he's dead!"

The drops that started to his eyes were a brave man's tears, blinding him for the time being as they fell fast, while he eagerly felt Denis's breast and neck, ending by unfastening his doublet and thrusting his hand within to feel for the beatings of his heart.

Those hot blinding tears fell fast, several of them upon Denis's upturned face, and at the fourth the nerves therein twitched; at the fifth there was a quick motion; and when six and seven fell together the lad's left hand came up suddenly to give an irritable rub where he felt a tickling sensation; and he opened his eyes, stared hard and blankly for some moments in the countenance so near his own, and exclaimed angrily:

"What are you doing?"

"Ah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Saint Simon, with a cry of joy. "Then the horses were worth winning back, after all."

"Horses? Winning?" faltered Denis wonderingly; and then as his companion s.n.a.t.c.hed a hand from his breast, he cried again impatiently, "Here, what are you doing to my face?"

Saint Simon dashed his hand hastily across his own, his already ruddy countenance glowing of a deeper red, as he stammered out confusedly:

"Drops--perspiration--I have been having such a run."

"Drops? Run? My head's all of a buzz. Who ran? What have you been doing to my neck?" continued the lad, pa.s.sing his left hand across his throat. "Something seemed to jerk across me just here. Ah, how it hurts!"

He made an effort then to raise his sword-arm, but it fell back upon the gra.s.s.

"Here, my shoulder's bad too," he cried. "Just as if my arm was wrenched out of the socket." Then as his wandering eyes fell upon his horse, "Oh!" he cried, "I understand now. I have been thrown."

"Never mind now," cried Saint Simon, in a choking voice, as he mastered the hysterical emotion that had seized upon him. "You're alive, boy, and we have saved the horses, and our credit with the--with the--"

"Comte," said Denis faintly. "I am beginning to recollect now. Here, where's that ruffian who was galloping away?"

"You've killed him, I suppose," cried Saint Simon, "for there's blood upon your sword. How was it, boy?"

"I don't know," said Denis dreamily; and then in an excited voice, "Yes, I do!" he cried. "I remember it all now. He came galloping along on the centre horse, with the others on each side at the full extent of their reins. I stood there to stop them, and he came right at me to ride me down. But I started a little on one side and thrust at him, when my horse's tight rein caught me right below the chin, and at the same moment my right arm was jerked upwards, and--that's all. Where is he now?"

"Gone," said Saint Simon, "and with your mark upon him too. Why, you brave old fellow! You, a mere boy! I daren't have faced three galloping horses like that. But you are not wounded?"

"My right arm seems to be gone. Is it broken, Sim?"

The young man began to feel it gently from shoulder to wrist, raised it, and laid it down again, while the boy bore it for a time, flinching involuntarily though again and again, till he could bear no more.

"Oh!" he groaned at last. "Don't! It's horrible! How you do hurt! I suppose I shall have no arm. It's horrible, Sim. I wish he had killed me out of hand."

"What! Why, my dear brave old fellow, it's only a horrible wrench, and will soon come right."

"Not broken?" cried the boy wildly.

"Broken? No, or it wouldn't move like that. Why, Denis, lad, when you gave point you must have run him through, and as he tore on your arm must have been wrenched round while he dragged himself or was carried away--of course, as the horses galloped on."

"But where is he?" cried Denis.

"I don't know. He wasn't here when I came up. He must have taken flight--I mean, crawled away, for he must have been wounded badly."

"But the horses are all right?" said Denis faintly.

"Yes; the brave beasts were as you see them now, standing round you.

Ah! Stop a moment. What does this mean?"

He had been looking from side to side as he spoke, and caught sight of the crushed-down herbage which grew densely at the foot of the hedge, nettle and towering dock and hemlock looking as if something had crawled through; and, rising quickly, he found somewhat of a gap through which a person might have pa.s.sed.

And he found ruddy traces which made him go on a few paces to where the hedge seemed thinner, so that he could force his way through, to return on the other side to the gap and see traces again in the gra.s.s where some one had crawled. This track he followed for a few yards to a spot where the long gra.s.s was a good deal trampled, and beyond that there were regular footprints, as if some one had risen and walked light across the field.