The Story of Francis Cludde

"I fear we must go back," I said, assenting sorrowfully.

Even the Duchess agreed, and we were in the act of turning to retrace our steps with what spirit we might, when a distant sound brought us all to a standstill again. The wind was blowing from the quarter whence we had come-from Emmerich; and it brought to us the sound of voices. We all stopped to listen. Yes, they were voices we heard-loud, strident tones, mingled now with the sullen plash of horses tramping through the water. I looked at the Duchess. Her face was pale, but her courage did not fail her. She understood in a trice that the danger we had so much dreaded was upon us-that we were followed, and the followers were at our heels; and she turned her horse round again. Without a word she spurred it back toward the deep part. I seized Anne's rein and followed, notwithstanding that the poor girl in her terror would have resisted. Letting the guides go as they pleased, we four in a moment found ourselves abreast again, our horses craning over the stream, while we, with whip and spur, urged them on.

In cold blood we should scarcely have done it. Indeed, for a minute, as our steeds stumbled, and recovered themselves, and slid forward, only to draw back trembling-as the water rose above our boots or was flung by our fellows in our eyes, and all was flogging and scrambling and splashing, it seemed as if we were to be caught in a trap despite our resolve. But at last Master Bertie's horse took the plunge. His wife's followed; and both, partly floundering and partly swimming, set forward snorting the while in fear. To my joy I saw them emerge safely not ten yards away, and, shaking themselves, stand comparatively high out of the water.

"Come!" cried my lady imperatively, as she turned in her saddle with a gesture of defiance. "Come! It is all right."

Come, indeed! I wanted nothing better, for I was beside myself with passion. But, flog as I might, I could not get Anne's brute to take the plunge. The girl herself could give me no aid; clinging to her saddle, pale and half-fainting, she could only beg me to leave her, crying out again and again in a terrified voice that she would be drowned. With her cry there suddenly mingled another, the hail of our pursuers as they sighted us. I could hear them drawing nearer, and I grew desperate. Luckily they could not make any speed in water so deep, and time was given me for one last furious effort. It succeeded. My horse literally fell into the stream; it dragged Anne's after it. How we kept our seats, how they their footing, I never understood; but, somehow, splashing and stumbling and blinded by the water dashed in our faces, we came out on the other side, where the Duchess and her husband, too faithful to us to save themselves, had watched the struggle in an agony of suspense. I did but fling the girl's rein to Master Bertie; and then I wheeled my horse to the stream again. I had made up my mind what I must do. "Go on," I cried, waving my hand with a gesture of farewell. "Go on! I can keep them here for a while."

"Nonsense!" I heard the Duchess cry, her voice high and shrill. "It is-"

"Go on!" I cried. "Go on! Do not lose a moment, or it will be useless."

Master Bertie hesitated. But he too saw that this was the only chance. The Spaniards were on the brink of the stream now, and must, if they passed it, overtake us easily. He hesitated, I have said, for a moment. Then he seized his wife's rein and drew her on, and I heard the three horses go splashing away through the flood. I threw a glance at them over my shoulder, bethinking me that I had not told the Duchess my story, and that Sir Anthony and Petronilla would never-but, pish! What was I thinking of? That was a thought for a woman. I had only to harden my heart now, and set my teeth together. My task was very simple indeed. I had just to keep these men-there were four-here as long as I could, and if possible to stop Clarence's pursuit altogether.

For I had made no mistake. The first man to come up was Clarence-Clarence himself. He let fall a savage word as his horse stopped suddenly with its fore feet spread out on the edge of the stream, and his dark face grew darker as he saw the swirling eddies, and me standing fronting him in the moonlight with my sword out. He discerned at once, I think, the strength of my position. Where I stood the water was scarcely over my horse's fetlocks. Where he stood it was over his horse's knees. And between us it flowed nearly four feet deep.

He held a hasty parley with his companions. And then he hailed me. "Will you surrender?" he cried in English. "We will give you quarter."

"Surrender? To whom?" I said. "And why-why should I surrender? Are you robbers and cutpurses?"

"Surrender in the name of the Emperor, you fool!" he answered sternly and roughly.

"I know nothing about the Emperor!" I retorted. "What Emperor?"

"In the Queen's name, then!"

"The Duke of Cleves is queen here!" I cried. "And as the flood is rising," I added scornfully, "I would advise you to go home again."

"You would advise, would you? Who are you?" he replied, in a kind of wrathful curiosity.

I gave him no answer. I have often since reflected, with a fuller knowledge of certain facts, that no stranger interview ever took place than this short colloquy between us, that no stranger fight ever was fought than that which we contemplated as we stood there bathed in the May moonlight, with the water all round us, and the cold sky above. A strange fight indeed it would have been between him and me, had it ever come to the sword's point!

But this was what happened. His last words had scarcely rung out when my horse began to quiver under me and sway backward and forward. I had just time to take the alarm, when the poor beast sank down and rolled gently over, leaving me bestriding its body, my feet in the water. Whatever the cause of this, I had to disentangle myself, and that quickly, for the four men opposite me, seeing me dismounted, plunged with a cry of triumph into the water, and began to flounder across. Without more ado I stepped forward to keep the ford.

The foremost and nearest to me was Clarence, whose horse began, half-way across, to swim. It was still scrambling to regain its footing when it came within my reach, and I slashed it cruelly across the nostrils. It turned in an instant on its side. I saw the rider's face gleam white in the water; his stirrup shone a moment as the horse rolled over, then in a second the two were gone down the stream. It was done so easily, so quickly, it amazed me. One gone! hurrah! I turned quickly to the others, who were about landing. My blood was fired, and my yell of victory, as I dashed at them, scared back two of the horses. Despite their riders' urging, they turned and scrambled out on the side from which they had entered. Only one was left, the farthest from me. He got across indeed. Yet he was the most unlucky of all, for his horse stumbled on landing, came down heavily on its head, and flung him at my very feet.

It was no time for quarter-I had to think of my friends-and while with one hand I seized the flying rein as the horse scrambled trembling to its feet, with the other I lunged twice at the rider as he half tried to rise, half tried to grasp at me. The second time I ran him through, and he screamed shrilly. In those days I was young and hotheaded, and I answered only by a shout of defiance, as I flung myself into the saddle and dashed away through the water after my friends.

Vœ victis! I had done enough to check the pursuit, and had yet escaped myself. If I could join the others again, what a triumph it would be! I had no guide, but neither had those in front of me; and luckily at this point a row of pollard willows defined the line between the road and the river. Keeping this on my right, I made good way. The horse seemed strong under me, the water was shallow, and appeared to be growing more so, and presently across the waste of flood I discerned before me a dark, solitary tower, the tower seemingly of a church, for it was topped by a stumpy spire, which daylight would probably have shown to be of wood.

There was a little dry ground round the church, a mere patch in a sea of water, but my horse rang its hoofs on it with every sign of joy, and arched its neck as it trotted up to the neighborhood of the church, whinnying with pleasure. From the back of the building, I was not surprised, came an answering neigh. As I pulled up, a man, his weapon in his hand, came from the porch, and a woman followed him. I called to them gayly. "I fancied you would be here the moment I saw the church!" I said, sliding to the ground.

"Thank Heaven you are safe!" the Duchess answered, and to my astonishment she flung her arms round my neck and kissed me. "What has happened?" she asked, looking in my eyes, her own full of tears.

"I think I have stopped them," I answered, turning suddenly shy, though, boylike, I had been longing a few minutes before to talk of my victory. "They tried to cross, and-"

I had not sheathed my sword. Master Bertie caught my wrist, and, lifting the blade, looked at it. "So, so!" he said nodding. "Are you hurt?"

"Not touched!" I answered. Before more was said he compelled his wife to go back into the porch. The wind blew keenly across the open ground, and we were all wet and shivering. When we had fastened up the horse we followed her. The door of the church was locked, it seemed, and the porch afforded the best shelter to be had. Its upper part was of open woodwork, and freely admitted the wind; but wide eaves projected over these openings, and over the door, so that at least it was dry within. By huddling together on the floor against the windward side we got some protection. I hastily told what had happened.

"So Clarence is gone!" My lady's voice as she said the words trembled, but not in sorrow or pity as I judged. Rather in relief. Her dread and hatred of the man were strange and terrible, and so seemed to me then. Afterward, I learned that something had passed between them which made almost natural such feelings on her part, and made natural also a bitter resentment on his. But of that no more. "You are quite sure," she said-pressing me anxiously for confirmation-"that it was he!"

"Yes. But I am not sure that he is dead," I explained.

"You seem to bear a charmed life yourself," she said.

"Hush!" cried her husband quickly. "Do not say that to the lad. It is unlucky. But do you think," he continued-the porch was in darkness, and we could scarcely make out one another's faces-"that there is any further chance of pursuit?"

"Not by that party to-night," I said grimly. "Nor I think to-morrow."

"Good!" he answered. "For I can see nothing but water ahead, and it would be madness to go on by night without a guide. We must stay here until morning, whatever the risk."

He spoke gloomily-and with reason. Our position was a miserable, almost a desperate one, even on the supposition that pursuit had ceased. We had lost all our baggage, food, wraps. We had no guides, and we were in the midst of a flooded country, with two tender women and a baby, our only shelter the porch of God's house. Mistress Anne, who was crouching in the darkest corner next the church, seemed to have collapsed entirely. I remembered afterward that I did not once hear her speak that night. The Duchess tried to maintain our spirits and her own; but in the face of cold, damp, and hunger, she could do little. Master Bertie and I took it by turns to keep a kind of watch, but by morning-it was a long night and a bitter one-we were worn out, and slept despite our misery. We should have been surprised and captured without a blow if the enemy had come upon us then.

I awoke with a start to find the gray light of a raw misty morning falling upon and showing up our wretched group. The Duchess's head was hidden in her cloak; her husband's had sunk on his breast; but Mistress Anne-I looked at her and shuddered. Had she sat so all night? Sat staring with that stony face of pain, and those tearless eyes on the moonlight, on the darkness which had been before the dawn, on the cold first rays of morning? Stared on all alike, and seen none? I shuddered and peered at her, alarmed, doubtful, wondering, asking myself what this was that had happened to her. Had fear and cold killed her, or turned her brain? "Anne!" I said timidly. "Anne!"

She did not answer nor turn; nor did the fixed gaze of her eyes waver. I thought she did not hear. "Anne!" I cried again, so loudly that the Duchess stirred, and muttered something in her sleep. But the girl showed no sign of consciousness. I put out my hand and touched her.

She turned sharply and saw me, and in an instant drew her skirt away with a gesture of such dread, loathing repulsion as froze me; while a violent shudder convulsed her whole frame. Afterward she seemed unable to withdraw her eyes from me, but sat in the same attitude, gazing at me with a fixed look of horror, as one might gaze at a serpent, while tremor after tremor shook her.

I was frightened and puzzled, and was still staring at her, wondering what I had done, when a footstep fell on the road outside and called away my attention. I turned from her to see a man's figure looming dark in the doorway. He looked at us-I suppose he had found the horses outside-gazing in surprise at the queer group. I bade him good-morning in Dutch, and he answered as well as his astonishment would let him. He was a short, stout fellow, with a big face, capable of expressing a good deal of astonishment. He seemed to be a peasant or farmer. "What do you here?" he continued, his guttural phrases tolerably intelligible to me.

I explained as clearly as I could that we were on the way to Wesel. Then I awoke the Duchess and her husband, and stretching our chilled and aching limbs, we went outside, the man still gazing at us. Alas! the day was not much better than the night. We could see but a very little way, a couple of hundred yards round us only. The rest was mist-all mist. We appealed to the man for food and shelter, and he nodded, and, obeying his signs rather than his words, we kicked up our starved beasts and plodded out into the fog by his side. Anne mounted silently and without objection, but it was plain that something strange had happened to her. Her condition was unnatural. The Duchess gazed at her very anxiously, and, getting no answers, or very scanty ones, to her questions, shook her head gravely.

But we were on the verge of one pleasure at least. When we reached the hospitable kitchen of the farmhouse it was joy indeed to stand before the great turf fire, and feel the heat stealing into our half-frozen bodies; to turn and warm back and front, while the good wife set bread and hot milk before us. How differently we three felt in half an hour! How the Duchess's eyes shone once more! How easily rose the laugh to our lips! Joy had indeed come with the morning. To be warm and dry and well fed after being cold and wet and hungry-what a thing this is!

But on one neither food nor warmth seemed to have any effect. Mistress Anne did, indeed, in obedience to my lady's sharp words, raise her bowl to her lips. But she set it down quickly and sat looking in dull apathy at the glowing peat. What had come over her?

Master Bertie went out with the farmer to attend to the horses, and when he came back he had news.

"There is a lad here," he said in some excitement, "who has just seen three foreigners ride past on the road, along with two Germans on pack-horses; five in all. They must be three of the party who followed us yesterday."

I whistled. "Then Clarence got himself out," I said, shrugging my shoulders. "Well! well!"

"I expect that is so," Master Bertie answered, the Duchess remaining silent. "The question arises again, what is to be done?" he continued. "We may follow them to Wesel, but the good man says the floods are deep between here and the town, and we shall have Clarence and his party before us all the way-shall perhaps run straight into their arms."

"But what else can we do?" I said. "It is impossible to go back."

We held a long conference, and by much questioning of our host learned that half a league away was a ferry-boat, which could carry as many as two horses over the river at a time. On the farther side we might hit a road leading to Santon, three leagues distant. Should we go to Santon after all? The farmer thought the roads on that side of the river might not be flooded. We should then be in touch once more with our Dutch friends and might profit by Master Lindstrom's advice, on which I for one was now inclined to set a higher value.

"The river is bank full. Are you sure the ferry-boat can cross?" I asked.

Our host was not certain. And thereupon an unexpected voice struck in.

"Oh, dear, do not let us run any more risks!" it said. It was Mistress Anne's. She was herself again, trembling, excited, bright-eyed; as different as possible from the Anne of a few minutes before. A great change had come over her. Perhaps the warmth had done it.

A third course was suggested, to stay quietly where we were. The farmhouse stood at some little distance from the road; and though it was rough-it was very rough, consisting only of two rooms, in one of which a cow was stalled-still it could furnish food and shelter. Why not stay there?

But the Duchess wisely, I think, decided against this. "It is unpleasant to go wandering again," she said with a shiver. "But I shall not rest until we are within the walls of a town. Master Lindstrom laid so much stress on that. And I fancy that the party who overtook us last night are not the main body. Others will have gone to Wesel by boat perhaps, or along the other bank. There they will meet, and, learning we have not arrived, they will probably return this way and search for us."

"Clarence-"

"Yes, if we have Clarence to deal with," Master Bertie assented gravely, "we cannot afford to lose a point. We will try the ferry."

It was something gained to start dry and warm. But the women's pale faces-for little by little the fatigue, the want of rest, the fear, were telling even on the Duchess-were sad to see. I was sore and stiff myself. The wound I had received so mysteriously had bled afresh, probably during last night's fight. We needed all our courage to put a brave face on the matter, and bear up and go out again into the air, which for the first week in May was cold and nipping. Suspense and anxiety had told in various ways on all of us. While I felt a fierce anger against those who were driving us to these straits. Master Bertie was nervous and excited, alarmed for his wife and child, and inclined to see an enemy in every bush.

However, we cheered up a little when we reached the ferry and found the boat could cross without much risk. We had to go over in two detachments, and it was nearly an hour past noon before we all stood on the farther bank and bade farewell to the honest soul whose help had been of so much importance to us. He told us we had three leagues to go, and we hoped to be at rest in Santon by four o'clock.

But the three leagues turned out to be more nearly five, while the road was so founderous that we had again and again to quit it.

The evening came on, the light waned, and still we were feeling our way, so to speak-the women tired and on the verge of tears; the men muddy to the waist, savage, and impatient. It was eight o'clock, and dusk was well upon us before we caught sight of the first lights of Santon, and in fear lest the gates might be shut, pressed forward at such speed as our horses could compass.

"Do you go on!" the Duchess adjured us. "Anne and I will be safe enough behind you. Let me take the child, and do you ride on. We cannot pass the night in the fields."

The importance of securing admission was so great that Master Bertie and I agreed; and cantered on, soon outstripping our companions, and almost in the gloom losing sight of them. Dark masses of woods, the last remnants, apparently, of a forest, lay about the road we had to traverse. We were passing one of these, scarcely three hundred paces short of the town, and I was turning in the saddle to see that the ladies were following safely, when I heard Master Bertie, who was a bow-shot in front of me, give a sudden cry.

I wheeled round hastily to learn the reason, and was just in time to see three horsemen sweep into the road before him from the cover of the trees. They were so close to him-and they filled the road-that his horse carried him amongst them almost before he could check it, or so it seemed to me. I heard their loud challenge, saw his arm wave, and guessed that his sword was out. I spurred desperately to join him, giving a wild shout of encouragement as I did so. But before I could come up, or indeed cross half the distance, the scuffle was over. One man fell headlong from his saddle, one horse fled riderless down the road, and at sight of this, or perhaps of me, the others turned tail without more ado and made off, leaving Master Bertie in possession of the field. The whole thing had passed in the shadow of the wood in less than half a minute. When I drew rein by him he was sheathing his sword. "Is it Clarence?" I cried eagerly.

"No, no; I did not see him. I think not," he answered. He was breathing hard and was very much excited. "They were poor swordsmen, for Spaniards," he added-"very poor, I thought."

I jumped off my horse, and, kneeling beside the man, turned him over. He was badly hurt, if not dying, cut across the neck. He looked hard at him by such light as there was, and did not recognize him as one of our assailants of the night before.

"I do not think he is a Spaniard," I said slowly. Then a certain suspicion occurred to my mind, and I stooped lower over him.

"Not a Spaniard?" Master Bertie said stupidly. "How is that?"

Before I answered I raised the man in my arms, and, carrying him carefully to the side of the road, set him with his back to a tree. Then I got quickly on my horse. The women were just coming up. "Master Bertie," I said in a low voice, as I looked this way and that to see if the alarm had spread, "I am afraid there is a mistake. But say nothing to them. It is one of the town-guard you have killed!"

"One of the town-guard!" he cried, a light bursting in on him, and the reins dropping from his hand. "What shall we do? We are lost, man!"

CHAPTER XIV

AT BAY IN THE GATEHOUSE

What was to be done? That was the question, and a terrible question it was. Behind us we had the inhospitable country, dark and dreary, the night wind sweeping over it. In front, where the lights twinkled and the smoke of the town went up, we were like to meet with a savage reception. And it was no time for weighing alternatives. The choice had to be made, made in a moment; I marvel to this day at the quickness with which I made it for good or ill.

"We must get into the town!" I cried imperatively. "And before the alarm is given. It is hopeless to fly, Master Bertie, and we cannot spend another night in the fields. Quick, madam!" I continued to the Duchess, as she came up. I did not wait to hear his opinion, for I saw he was stunned by the catastrophe. "We have hurt one of the town-guard through a mistake. We must get through the gate before it is discovered!"

I seized her rein and flogged up her horse, and gave her no time to ask questions, but urged on the party at a hand gallop until the gate was reached. The attempt, I knew, was desperate, for the two men who had escaped had ridden straight for the town; but I saw no other resource, and it seemed to me to be better to surrender peaceably, if that were possible, than to expose the women to another night of such cold and hunger as the last. And fortune so far favored us that when we reached the gate it was open. Probably, the patrol having ridden through to get help, no one had thought fit to close it; and, no one withstanding us, we spurred our sobbing horses under the archway and entered the street.

It was a curious entry, and a curious scene we came upon. I remember now how strange it all looked. The houses, leaning forward in a dozen quaint forms, clear cut against the pale evening sky, caused a darkness as of a cavern in the narrow street below. Here and there in the midst of this darkness hung a lantern, which, making the gloom away from it seem deeper, lit up the things about it, throwing into flaring prominence some barred window with a scared face peering from it, some corner with a puddle, a slinking dog, a broken flight of steps. Just within the gate stood a brazier full of glowing coal, and beside it a halbert rested against the wall. I divined that the watchman had run into the town with the riders, and I drew rein in doubt, listening and looking. I think if we had ridden straight on then, all might have been well; or, at least, we might have been allowed to give ourselves up.