Part 42

Even as they who had been in the vaward now at length joined themselves to the rear, suddenly Simon saw Duke Baldwin's great charger stagger and reel and plunge unaccountably, and the next moment Simon found that his own horse was striving to make its way through ground as muddy and pulpy as a swamp. Water was squelching and oozing and bubbling over his horse's fetlocks; the young prince's horse was in the like stress; and, looking rapidly to left and right, Simon could see that all the extending line of knights had found the same difficulty in the way of their progress. It is some ditch, Simon thought, which can soon be passed, and he urged his steed with a spur to a progress that became momentarily more difficult. Duke Baldwin was floundering and struggling in the ever-increasing bog, and Simon could hear him cursing furiously as he strove to advance. Simon's own horse and the horse of the prince were now knee-deep in the horrible morass in which by this time all the knights were floundering. They could, indeed, advance a little still, but every step was harder than the last, and every inch of way seemed to find no firmer earth, while black splashes of water spurted from the puddled soil at every pace, and little pools sucked and gurgled ominously round the legs of the frightened horses.

There must be dry land somewhere, Simon thought, too much bewildered by this singular obstacle to wonder how such a ditch as this could have remained unknown to the Athenian leader. Across the green corn he could see the Catalans still composedly standing at gaze, while on all sides of him now the heavily armed knights and the heavy horses were sinking deeper and deeper in the treacherous marsh. Duke Baldwin ahead was up to his horse's middle now in the clinging mud, and was vainly essaying with oaths and curses to urge the beast a little farther. Like flies glued in honey seemed all the chivalry of Athens, plunging and struggling to extricate themselves from the fatal fen, and then Simon saw how some of the men of the Catalan Grand Company began to move. First, the bowmen lifted their bows and drew arrow to ear, and then a cloud of shafts came over the entangled knights, who could neither advance nor retreat, but were limed helplessly in the imprisoning slime. Then swift Spanish soldiers came running nimbly towards them, picking their way easily over the sump in which the Athenians wallowed an inextricable mass of men and horses, and as the Spaniards ran the sunlight glittered on the long knives they carried in their hands.

In an instant of agony Simon realized that all was lost, that the flower of the Athenian army was snared in that mysterious marish, and that there was little chance for any man among them to come out alive. Already the Spanish knife-men were thick and busy among their victims, paddling easily where horse and armor sank, and dealing death wherever they came with their terrible knives. Already Duke Baldwin was down with twenty men upon him. Hardly a dozen yards away Simon saw the girlish face of Guy de Hainault for the first time writhen with rage. He had lifted his visor to see more clearly what had happened, and he wielded his sword in vain against his unreachable assailants, and then a dozen men were on him from behind, and a dozen knives met in his body, and he went down and Simon saw him no more. The black slush was everywhere reddening with blood, as knight after knight perished ingloriously, helpless to evade the stings that slew them, and unable to strike a good stroke in defence of his life and of Athens.

It all happened so quickly, so unexpectedly, that Simon caught himself staring at the bloody work about him in a kind of unconsciousness, a kind of indifference, such as a man might wear who came unexpectedly upon a puppet-show in a village square. Above him the sky, to which his eyes travelled unawares, shone as brightly blue as it had shone in the hours of their merry march, since the peach color of the dawn had faded. The bright Greek world was the same, and yet the bright Greek world was all different, a mud-stained, blood-stained slaughter-spot, where brave knights were being murdered. Then, in the midst of the butchery all about him, Simon thought suddenly of the greenwood and a girl with a face like a god, and of a noble youth who rode at his side and strove to force his way over the morass. Instantly a great resolve came into Simon's mind that he would save the boy Rainouart for the girl Argathona.

Long afterwards, happily settled in Rouen, Simon, when he thought over the events of that whirling hour, used to remind himself that then, for the first time in his life, he devoutly gave God thanks for having made him so strong. In those after days in peaceful Rouen, he knew the cause of the catastrophe. The subtle genius of Fernand Ximenes had prepared an amazing trap for the Athenian army. He had turned aside the current of the river Cephissus into the cornfields of the Theban plain, and so flooded them, the quagmire thus created being completely concealed by the green standing corn. It was into this swamp that Duke Baldwin had ridden to his death, and it was in this swamp that Simon was now to struggle for his life and for the life of his lord.

Now when in an age-long instant Simon saw how things stood, and how certain were the Athenian chivalry to perish before the eyes of their enemies in that slough and snare, he caught at the bridle of Rainouart's horse, so that though the beast trampled and stumbled sinking in the mud, it could at least go no farther.

"In God's name," Rainouart cried at him, "why do you hold me back? Ride on. Athens, Athens!"

He strove hotly to urge his struggling horse farther into the field of carnage, but Simon would not have it so.

"My lord," he shouted--for the din was so great with the neighing of frightened horses and the cries of dying men that it was hard for a voice to prevail above it even in a neighbor's ear--"my lord, all is lost; we are all trapped rabbits; turn your rein and we may escape."

Rainouart turned on him in a red rage of despair.

"You are mad," he screamed. "We can ride and die with our fellows," and he gave a heavy groan.

"You can do nothing," Simon answered. "Come with me if you would ever see the greenwood again and the face of your girl."

"A coward's call," Rainouart shouted. "Good-bye, love. Athens, Athens!" and again he strove to urge his horse a little farther in the sucking sludge. But the horse could scarce stir for all his plunging, and though Simon's hand was still on the bridle, it was not Simon's hand that stayed advance.

"Few men have called me coward with comfort to themselves," Simon grumbled, inwardly. "Yet I will take it from this man for the maid's sake, and save him if I may. This quarrel is none of mine, and I care not a rap for Athens, and it argues me no dastard to fly from a hopeless fight."

Nimbly the thoughts skipped through his brainpan, but now Rainouart, seeing Simon's hand still on his bridle, menaced him with his sword, and shrieked at him through the din that he would kill him if he did not let go his hold. Simon's thoughts were still furiously busy, furiously swift, and they ran to this intent: "Since you think it a coward's part to fly, then you were a coward in flight. But if I, that feel no shame in escaping from such a shambles, pluck you hence willy-nilly, all is well."

By now Rainouart, beside himself with wrath at sight of such a massacre, had lifted up his sword to strike at Simon, but Simon did not give him time to strike. Swift as an arrow Simon's right arm straightened, and heavy as a blacksmith's hammer Simon's right hand, a huge and cruel fist in steel, delivered the young prince a giant's blow upon his helmed head. Under that mighty stroke Rainouart's head rattled in its iron case as a kernel rattles in a nut. Courage and consciousness alike were silenced, and Simon caught in his arms a senseless man as Rainouart reeled helpless from his saddle.

"It was high time to be making up our minds," Simon grunted, as he addressed himself to the terrible attempt to extricate his companion and himself from their desperate peril.

He leaped off his horse on to the squashy earth, and, though his great weight drew him deep over ankles into the loathsome slush, he was nearer to the edge of the terror than the main of the cavalry, and better able to move and act. With carnage raging ahead of him, Simon, as coolly as if he had been in a tent at a tournament, stripped most of the mail from the body of his unresisting lord, taking care to leave him his sword girded about his middle. Then, with a like composure and a like rapidity, he ripped the armor from his own limbs, and, picking up Rainouart from the slough where he lay senseless, flung him on to his shoulder as easily as he might have lifted a woman. Even in that moment, however, he showed his campaigning spirit. Knight or no knight, Simon had a fine appreciation for the merits of a ripe old wine, and, as fighting was ever hungry work, he had not thought it beneath his new dignity to make a filled wallet and a leather bottle of red wine part of his equipment. Now he snatched both from his saddle-bow and hooked them to his belt before beginning on his desperate enterprise of escape from the mouth of the pit.

The mouth of the pit was like the mouth of hell. There were little lanes of oozy earth running in all directions behind him, green with trampled corn and red with Frankish blood. In front of him the bog he had crossed spluttered and gurgled, and across its treacherous surface he essayed, at all adventure, to reach some firmer soil. Up to this time Simon's doings had passed unchallenged. All around him the morning was made hideous by the screams of the dying and the shrieks of the triumphant Catalans as they drove home their pitiless knives, and knight after knight of those that had been the glories of Duke Baldwin's court went unprepared on the path to paradise. If any of the enemy noticed Simon at his work they may, seeing one man stripping the armor from another, have taken him heedlessly for one of themselves, who, having slain, was prompt to plunder. But now some five or six of the Catalan stabbing rabble, having worked ahead of their fellows, and seeing a man with another man on his shoulders wading through blood and mud towards the dry land, where the main strength of the Athenian army was still standing, came rapidly to head him off, running quickly and securely on the ridges familiar to them that divided the different fields of wheat and barley, or wading through the bog itself with ease in their nearly naked condition.

They chose their prey unwisely, for Simon had his great sword bare in his hand, and, as the rascals came at him, Simon, wielding his terrible weapon, struck off head after head of his assailants till none were left to face him, and then made use of their bodies as convenient stepping-stones to help him a little farther to his desired haven, while such others as were tempted to join in the chase, seeing the havoc he wrought upon their comrades, turned with alacrity to less-resisting victims.

Little by little, inch by inch, through what seemed an eternity of effort, Simon struggled with his burden, every muscle of his great body strained, every vein in his great body throbbing as he strove inch by inch to gain a firmer foothold. At last, with the shrieks of the dying and the cries of the triumphant well behind him, he felt his heels tread upon a firmer foothold. A little more, and, with the sweat raining off him like a deluge, he staggered to sound earth, and stood dripping and stained and aching, but free. He paused for a moment to draw breath and to see what lay before and behind him. The view either way was disastrous for the future of Athens. Behind him, as it seemed, every man of the gorgeous company that had ridden with Duke Baldwin from Athens that morning had fallen a victim to the cunning and the fury of the Catalans. Before him the bulk of the Athenian army was by now in ignoble flight towards the city. Dismayed by what it saw, puffed by a panic terror and spurred by a conviction that the Catalans must be irresistible, the war-used army of Duke Baldwin fell asunder like a pack of frightened children. The road to Athens was free for the Catalans to march on; the city itself was free for the Catalans to deal with as they pleased.

Not far from where Simon now stood, a great war-charger wandered quietly and bit unconcernedly at the sweet grass. Doubtless it had unhorsed its rider in the first struggle in the concealed wash, and had made its way back again instinctively to the firm soil it had just quitted. Simon, still carrying his unconscious load, advanced towards the horse, holding out his hand, and trying to speak to it caressingly, and it startled him as he did so to find what a thin thread of a voice came from between his burning lips.

The horse did not start or shy, but went on cropping the grass unconcernedly until Simon was close beside it, and then, with no show of fear, it allowed Simon to seize its bridle. In another moment Simon was astride the saddle with the young prince lying limp on the saddle-bow. In yet another he had turned the great horse's head to the west, and was making at the best speed he could compel for the woodlands.

XXVI

THE ANCHORITE

In a waste and desolate place of the Eleusinian wood, aloof alike from highway and byway, there stood a little shrine, with a little hut hard by it. The shrine was rudely shaped of heavy stones, piled one upon another with scant skill but with great pains, evidently the handiwork of an untrained but persistent artificer. All day the shrine enclosed a goodly image in wrought silver of our Lord upon the tree, the which image was always carried reverently at nightfall within the shelter of the hut. This hut was the habitation of an anchorite who had dwelled there for many years in little less than absolute solitude, and the place where he abode so lonely was reputed of great sanctity. The travellers were rare who passed that way by mischance, for it neighbored no pathway leading directly anywhere, and was far from the beaten path of trade or travel or use. But such as, passing, paused and prayed before the shrine that sheltered the silver image were wont to aver that they renewed their journey with a strange exaltation of the spirit and exhilaration of the flesh.

The beauty and the value of the image had, according to country-side gossip, on more than one occasion tempted the cupidity of thieves, but each essay to steal the sacred emblem had resulted in the discomfiture of the would-be plunderers. For on each occasion the hermit, whom the robbers hoped to take unawares abed and asleep, issued from his dwelling as the enemies came creeping up, and made such strange manifestations of physical strength and spiritual influence as effectually scared the sacrilegious rascals into flight. Now there was no thief in Athens bold enough to renew the enterprise, and the holy man was left to his loneliness, while weeks and even months passed without a living human creature passing by his hut. This loneliness seemed to be to the liking of the ancient man.

No one knew who the hermit was, and those few who ever had speech with him and sought to question him gained little by their pains. Even Duke Baldwin fared no better than the rest. For Duke Baldwin once rode that way by chance, a-hawking on a summer day, and some one of his company telling him of the recluse, the duke condescended to halt for a moment and hold speech with the holy man. But he found that his questions won him answers unsatisfactory and enigmatical, and that even the pompous announcement of his title and state had no more effect than to bring a faint smile to the thin lips of the hermit. So Duke Baldwin rode away in something of a huff, and spoke severely of recluses for some time afterwards.