He heard her voice and threw up his head. ‘Cheerly, my bird, cheerly!’ he called. ‘I shall be with you in a little!’
She leaned against the door, sobbing and laughing at once. Might she not have known that he would come, and come in time, too.
Downstairs in the hall Don Diego had recovered from his first daze of horror. The colour came back into his cheeks. He tore his dagger from its sheath, and crouched, facing Beauvallet. ‘Dog of a pirate! You shall speed to hell this night!’
‘After you, señor, after you!’ said Sir Nicholas blithely, and caught the thrusting rapier point on his blade. There was a scuffle of daggers, steel clashed against steel, and Don Diego sprang back, disengaging over the arm.
Sir Nicholas drove him rigorously; they circled a little; there was a lunge, and a dexterous parry, the flash of an upthrust dagger, scurry of blades, and the quick shifting of light feet on the wooden floor.
Don Diego fought furiously, lips drawn back in a snarling grimace, brows close knit. He lunged forward to the heart, was parried by that lightning blade from the hand of Ferrara, and recovered his guard only just in time. Sir Nicholas was on his toes; the laugh was back in his eyes, and on his lips; larger issues were forgot in the present joy of battle. He had made no idle boast to his brother when he had said he was a master of the art of foiling with the point. Don Diego had thought himself no mean swordsman, but he knew himself outmatched. This man, sprung on wires; this devil who laughed as he lunged, had a dashing skill that brought Diego face to face with death a dozen times. He was fighting for very life, and he had thought to run through his opponent almost at once.
‘Laugh, laugh, dog!’ he gasped, beating aside that flickering blade for an instant. ‘You shall laugh soon in hell!’
‘Go warn them there of my coming, señor,’ said Sir Nicholas gaily, and seemed to quicken.
The fight grew more desperate; Don Diego was losing ground, and knew it. It was all he could do to keep that dancing sword-point at bay, and ever he fell back before it. The point quivered to his throat, he sprang back, was forced on farther still, hard-breathing, sweating, but fighting every inch of the way.
Faintly in the distance came the thud of galloping horses. Joshua's voice called urgently: ‘Master, master, make an end!’
Don Diego thrust viciously to the heart. ‘You shall go hence – shackled!’ he gasped.
The steel blades hissed together; one of them snaked out in a straight lunge, driven by a strong wrist. ‘My bite is sure! ’ quoth Sir Nicholas, and wrenched his sword free of the deep wound.
Don Diego's weapon fell clattering; he threw up his hands with a choking sound, and pitched forward on to his face.
The thud of the horses’ hooves was drawing nearer; Sir Nicholas was down on his knee, turning Don Diego over. The black eyes were glazing fast, but gleamed hatred still. Sir Nicholas felt in the elegant doublet, found the key he sought, and sprang up.
Joshua ran in. ‘Trapped, trapped!’ he cried. ‘They are hard on us!’
‘Round with you to the back!’ Beauvallet answered instantly. ‘Wait beneath my lady's window, and when I send her down to you, off with you!’
Joshua made a gesture of despair and ran out. Plainly to be heard now were the galloping hooves.
Sir Nicholas went bounding up the stairs. ‘Where, my heart, where?’ he called.
Her voice led him to the door. He fitted the key into the
272 lock and turned it, listening to the thunder of hooves drawing closer and ever closer.
The door was open, and Dominica sobbing on his breast.
‘You are safe?’ he asked urgently.
‘Safe! safe!’ she answered.
‘God be praised!’ He put her quickly aside and strode to the bed. The heavy quilt was flung off, the sheets snatched up and knotted. ‘The chase is hard upon me. I must let you down through your window, my bird.’ He jerked at his knot. The horses were at hand, and trampling now as they were pulled up outside the lodge. Sir Nicholas reached the window, ‘Joshua?’
‘Ready, master!’ came the stealthy whisper.
He turned. ‘Come, fondling! Trust me to let you safely down.’
She let him lift her on to the window-ledge, but her hands clung to him. Downstairs blows were being rained on the shut door. ‘But you? But you?’
‘Never fear,’ he said. His voice was cool and reassuring. ‘Twist the sheet about your hands, so, and hold fast, child. Brave lass! Are you ready?’
Clinging tightly to her improvised rope she was lowered over the sill, hung dangling on the end of the sheet, and was let down into Joshua's ready arms. He set her down, caught her hand, and led her away at the double across the garden to the hedge that shut it off from the forest.
‘Hist, bist for your life!’ he breathed. ‘Do as I bid you, mistress, and not a word out of you!’
Behind them the guards were in at the door of the lodge, stumbling over Don Diego's body.
‘Ah, he has been here, the villain!’ cried Cruza. ‘He is here still! search the house!’
Upstairs Beauvallet tore the key from the lock of Dominica's door, and fitted it in again on the inside. He pulled the door to behind him just as Cruza came bounding up the stairs, a drawn sword in his hand.
‘Well met, Señor Cruza!’ said Beauvallet cheerfully, and held sword and dagger ready.
Cruza sent a shout echoing through the house. ‘To me! To me!’
The men came stamping up the stairs. ‘Why, what a pack of you!’ said Sir Nicholas, amused.
‘Yield you, señor!’ Cruza cried. ‘You are outmatched!’
‘Yield?’ said Sir Nicholas. Up went his comical eyebrow. ‘God's Son, Cruza, do you know who I am?’
‘You are El Beauvallet, and I have sworn to take you! We are six to your one. Yield, yield!’
‘You will be forsworn, good señor. I am El Beauvallet, so the odds are fair enough. Now who will take Nick Beauvallet?’ He looked inquiringly, and wondered whether Joshua had got Dominica away yet.
‘Insolent dog!’ Cruza dashed in with levelled sword. ‘On to him, and take him alive!’ he cried.
Sir Nicholas’ blade swept a circle before him. He laughed and shook the sweat from his eyes. ‘Alas, alas, for vain ambition! So-so! What, winded, my man?’ A guard fell back with a slash across the forearm. Sir Nicholas beat down a big double-edged sword, and slipped his dagger-hand behind him, feeling for the handle of the door.
The Toledo blade bit shrewdly and sure indeed. Cruza staggered as the point went home in his shoulder, and recovered again. ‘Alive, I want him alive!’ he gasped out.
Sir Nicholas’ fingers had found the door-handle, and turned it now in one quick movement. The door was flung open; he sprang back, fighting his way, sent the foremost guard sprawling with a wound in the breast, and slammed the door home behind him.
Cruza threw himself upon it, thrusting with all his might. ‘Quick fools!’ he cried, and heard the key grate in the lock. ‘Two of you down into the garden, under the window!’ he jerked out. ‘Break down this door, you others. Break it down!’
Two of the guards went running down the stairs and round to the back; the rest set their shoulders to the door. The lock gave under the weight, the door flew wide, and the guards were in.
The room was empty. An overturned chair lay asprawl by the window; a casement swung open on its hinge, and the curtain beside it was rent from end to end.
With one accord his men followed Cruza to the window and tried to crane out. From the arras behind the door Sir Nicholas slipped out, kissed his fingers silently to the backs of the guards, and was off without a sound across the upper hall to the stairs.
He went down in a series of bounds, reached the hall, and stepped over Don Diego's body to the door. A beam of light cast through the opening showed him a guard standing to the horses’ heads. He went forward in a rush then, and his sword-hilt took the guard on the chin almost before he was aware, and sent him sprawling in the road. Sir Nich
olas caught a bridle, vaulted into the saddle, and stood up in his stirrups.
‘Come then, ye dogs!’ he cried. ‘Follow El Beauvallet if ye dare, and take Reck Not for the word!’ He wheeled about as the two guards came dashing round the corner of the house, and galloped off down the way by which he had come, eastwards towards the Frontier.
Twenty-four
The horse he had snatched was a fleet curtal bay, and responded readily enough to the clap of heels to his flanks. Sir Nicholas held him on his course with a hard hand, heard behind him shouts and the trampling of the horses he had cut loose by his sudden onslaught on the guard who held them, and pressed on. The noise died away, only the pounding of the bay's hooves on the track now broke the stillness.
Where the track came out on the post-road a crowd was gathered, peering and listening. The news of the guards’ coming and the prey they sought had spread through the village; there were assembled now some peasants, a-gape, and servants of the Carvalho estate, fingering staves. Lanterns bobbed and twinkled amongst them, but the moon was coming up, and a faint grey light already made the lanterns superfluous.
Sir Nicholas saw what awaited him, and rode down into the small crowd like a thunderbolt. There was a surge forward to cut him off, a flurry of agitated shouting, and the scurry of feet, and the bay horse was amongst them. Confusion reigned, some trying to fling themselves out of the way of the plunging hooves, others striking wildly at the lithe figure atop of the maddened horse. The bay was rearing and snorting with fright, wrenched aside to evade a murderous blow from a club, backing into a group of peasants, who gave precipitately, gripped by an insistent pair of knees. Sir Nicholas’ sword flashed aloft, wielded like a flail. He forced a way through, the serfs falling back before his irresistible path, tumbling over one another in their haste to get away from this demon's reach. The hand on the bridle was slackened, the bay horse was away, ridden hard to the south, towards the track that led eastwards to the Frontier.
There were men on the road, dotted here and there, stragglers hurrying to see the capture of a pirate; they sprang aside instinctively to give place to the mad, runaway horse that bore down on them, and saw in the grey light a straight rider with a naked sword in his hand. Some crossed themselves, some yelled in alarm, but no one offered El Beauvallet hindrance.
The road to the east was found; Sir Nicholas forced the bay into a more sober pace, and turned down the track. By the shout that was raised behind him he knew that his way was marked. The villagers might be trusted to direct the soldiers aright. Sir Nicholas settled down to a canter, feeling his way, as it were, along the track. The ground seemed level enough, grown over here and there with sparse, shifting turf. To either side scrubby bushes were scattered, with a few trees rearing up amongst them.
Behind came gradually the muffled sound of the pursuit. Sir Nicholas spurred on, mile upon mile, left the road for the flat pasture-land that ran beside it, and galloped on, the sound of his flight deadened by the soft earth. The curtal horse shook his fine head a little, feeling a race in the air as the hand on his bridle slackened, lengthened his easy stride, and took hold of the bit in good earnest.
The trees grew more thickly now, oaks, Sir Nicholas guessed, and presently a black wall seemed to rise up ahead. The track curved slightly, and plunged into a great forest of oak trees. The branches, in full leaf, shut out the moonlight from the depths of the forest; only the track was faintly illuminated where the silver light filtered through the almost interlocking branches.
Sir Nicholas reined in, head up and ears straining, listening. Faintly, very far away, came the sound of horses on the road.
He swung himself down from the saddle, passed a hand over the bay's steaming neck, and led him into the dusk of the forest.
The horse was restless and fidgetting, but a gentling hand stilled him after a while. He stood quiet, stretched down his neck, and began lipping at some fallen leaves on the ground.
Nearer and nearer, like approaching thunder came the sound of horses on the road, ridden desperately. Up came the bay's head; the ears went forward. Sir Nicholas’ hand slid to the satin nose; the pursuit sounded closer still, and Sir Nicholas’ long fingers gripped tightly, checking the imminent whinny.
The riders swept up and past; they were so close Sir Nicholas could hear the horses’ hard breathing and the creak of the saddle-girths. He held tight to the bay's nose, and waited for the soldiers to pass.
They were gone in a moment, riding close-wedged, hell-for-leather. In a little while all sound of them had died; they were away, making for the Frontier road, and it would take a deal to stop them with their dogged purpose firm in their minds.
Sir Nicholas relaxed his grip on the bay's nose and laughed. ‘Oh, ye bisson fools!’ he said. ‘Ride on, ride on: ye will have but a cold welcome at the end. So, boy, so!’ He led the bay back on to the road, mounted again, and set him at an easy canter along the track towards Vasconosa.
Dominica, tossed up on to a horse before Joshua, clung tight by the saddle-bow, and tried to speak. Joshua's hand covered her mouth imperatively; he struck off through the wood at a walking pace, making westwards.
As soon as he judged it to be safe he bore round a little to meet the track again, came upon it some quarter of a mile beyond the lodge, and kicked his horse to a gallop.
Dominica tried to see his face. ‘No, no, back, I say! back! What, will you leave him? Coward! Oh, base! Back to him, I implore you!’
Joshua torn with anxiety, sore at his enforced flight, was in no humour to be patient. ‘Rest you, mistress, we must make Villanova.’
She leaned forward to tug at the bridle. ‘You are leaving him to be slain! Turn, turn! Oh dastard, cur, craven!’
‘Ho! Fine holiday and lady terms these!’ said Joshua, bristling. ‘Know then, mistress, that were it not for you I would be beside Sir Nicholas now, and had liefer be there, God wot! A plague on all women, say I! What, do I bear you off for my pleasure? Out, out, señorita! These are my master's orders, and an evil day it is that hears him give such ones. Let go the rein, I tell you!’
Her fingers were on his bridle hand, clinging, cajoling. ‘No, no, I did not mean it, but turn, Joshua! For the love of God, set me down and go you back! I will lie close, I will do as you bid me, only go you back to aid Sir Nicholas!’
‘And get a broken head for my pains,’ said Joshua. ‘My master's an ill man to cross, señorita. Nay, nay, we who sail with Laughing Nick must do as we are bid, come weal, come woe. Content you, he has his plans well laid, I warrant you.’
Words tumbled from her lips. She begged, stormed, commanded and coaxed. ‘I am not the worth of his life!’ she said again and again.
‘Well, I doubt there would be a fine reckoning between us if Sir Nicholas heard me agree with you,’ remarked Joshua. ‘Therefore I keep a still tongue in my head.’
‘God knows what I said or did not say upon that ride,’ he afterwards recounted. ‘Maybe my mistress and I bandied some hard words to and fro, but I bore her no malice, nor did she ever after hold it against me. Which is something remarkable in a woman, I hold.’
No sound of pursuit came after them; Joshua allowed his horse to slacken the pace somewhat, and presently drew in to a steady trot. Dominica was quiet now, but her face looked pinched in the moonlight. Joshua, himself not much lighter-hearted, was moved to offer words of comfort. ‘Cheerly, mistress, we shall have Sir Nicholas with us this night.’
She turned her eyes towards him. ‘How can he fight all those men single-handed?’
‘Mark me, if he does not fob them off with some trick,’ said Joshua stoutly. ‘Maybe you did not believe that he would break free of that prison, señorita, but he did it. Keep a good heart.’ He saw her clouded eyes. ‘By your good leave, mistress, and with respect, I would say that El Beauvallet's lady should wear a smiling face.’
She did smile, but faintly. ‘Yes, she should indeed,’ she answered. She bit her lip. ‘I saw him for so fleeting a moment!’
r /> ‘Patience, mistress; I am bold to say you will hear the bustle of his coming in a little while.’
They came to Villanova past ten o’clock at night and fetched up at the inn. ‘More lies!’ said Joshua. ‘Leave all to me, lady.’ He lifted her down from the saddle and proceeded to create a stir. ‘Ho, there! Room for the noble señora! What, I say! Landlord!’
A portly individual came out of the lighted tap-room and stared in amazement at Dominica. She reflected that she must look oddly enough, riding over the countryside at such an hour without cloak or hood or even horse.
‘The good-year!’ cried out Joshua, voluble. ‘Eh, me, but this has been an evening's work! A chamber for my mistress, and supper on the instant! The noble señor follows us close.’
The landlord's eyes slowly ran over Dominica. ‘What's this?’ he said suspiciously.
Dona Dominica stepped forward; she, too, could play a part. ‘A chamber, landlord, and at once,’ she said haughtily. ‘Do you keep me standing in the road?’
Joshua bowed his lady into the inn. ‘Brigands, man!’ he shot over his shoulder. ‘A party of three, and my lady's horse shot under her. Ah, what an ill-chance!’
‘Brigands? Jesu preserve us!’ The landlord crossed himself. ‘But the señor?’
‘Oh, be sure my master is on the villains’ heels!’ Joshua invented. ‘“What,” cries he, “shall this go unpunished?” The rogues made off with our sumpters, and nothing will do but my master must give chase, leaving me to get the gracious señora under cover. Oh, a very fire-eater!’
Dominica interposed in the voice of one accustomed to command. ‘A bed-chamber with your best speed, host, and supper against Don Tomas’ coming.’
Her tone had its calculated effect. She was evidently a lady of quality, and as such the landlord bowed to her. That he was suspicious, however, was plain.
‘And well he might be!’ said Joshua Dimmock. ‘An unlikely tale, I grant you, but by this time I was grown barren of lies, an uncommon thing in me.’
Dona Dominica was shown upstairs to a chamber of fair size and appointments. She sank into a chair, and said pettishly for the benefit of the landlord: ‘It was you who should have chased those knaves, Pedro.’ She hunched a shoulder. ‘Don Tomas is too impetuous. To send me off so, and himself to tarry!’ She became aware of the puzzled landlord. ‘Well, fellow, well? What do you want?’ she demanded.