II

Once more the roar of artillery and of musketry fills the air with its awe-inspiring sound. It is early morning, and the sky heavily overcast. To the anxious watchers, that grim struggle out there is only a dimly-perceived confusion, a medley of sights and sounds, a clash of arms, the dull thunder of culverines and sharp report of musketry. And, as the grey light of day begins to pick out with crude precision the more distant objects, a kaleidoscope of colour vies in brilliancy with the flash of steel, and tears asunder the drab mist which lies upon the bosom of the plain.

The yellow and red of the Spaniards becomes easily distinguishable, then the white and blue and gold of the French, the green of the arquebusiers, the black of the archers, and even that tiny moving speck, more brilliant even than the gleam of metal, the white banner of France, sown with her Fleur de Lys.

But the watchers up on the ramparts vainly strain their hollow eyes to see the man who has come to save Cambray. They can only guess that he is there, where the fight is fiercest, where death stands most grim and most relentless. They have a knowledge of his presence keener than sight can give, and though voices at this hour are spent and hoarse with pain, yet to every roar of cannon, to every volley of musketry, there comes, like an answering murmur, the triumphant call, which now sounds like a prayer and which their hero taught them four months ago: 'Fleur de Lys and Liberty!'

The French lancers and halberdiers rush the Spanish forts. The arquebusiers are fighting foot by foot; the musketeers and archers stand firm—a living wall, which deals death and remains unmoved, despite furious onslaughts from a foe who appears to be desperate. The plain around is already strewn with dead.

The French have fought valiantly for close on six hours, have repelled nine assaults against their positions, and now, at one hour after noon, they still stand or crouch or kneel on one knee, crossbow in hand or musket, they fire, fall out, reform and fire again. Shaken, battered, decimated, they still shoot with coolness and precision, under the eye of one who never tires. Their ranks are still unbroken, but the Spaniards are giving ground at last.

'This time we are undone!' Parma cries in the excess of his rage.

He himself has been twice wounded; four of his young officers have been killed. The French musketeers, the finest the world has ever seen, work relentlessly upon his finest positions. And he feels—this great captain, who hitherto hath not known defeat—he feels that now at last he has met his match. Not a great leader like himself, perhaps, not the victorious general in an hundred fights; but a man whose stubbornness and daring, whose blind disregard of danger and sublime defiance of evil fortune, gives strength to the weakest and valour to the least bold.

'I thought you had rid me once of that pestilential rebel!' he exclaims to de Landas, pointing to where Gilles de Crohin's tall figure towers above the pressing mass of Spanish halberdiers.

De Landas murmurs an imprecation, crosses himself in an access of superstitious fear.

'My God!' he says under his breath. 'He hath risen from the dead!'

In truth, Gilles appears endowed at this hour with superhuman strength. His doublet and jerkin are torn, his breastplate riddled with arrow-shot, he bleeds profusely from the hand, his face is unrecognizable under a coating of smoke and grime. Enthusiasm and obstinacy have given him the power of giants; his hatred of the foe is supreme; his contempt of death sublime. De Landas sees in him the incarnation of his own retributive destiny. 'Oh, that God's thunder would smite him where he stands!' he mutters fervently.

''Tis too late now,' retorts Parma, with ferocious spite. 'Too late to call to God to help you. You should have bargained with the devil four months ago, when you missed your aim. Risen from the dead, forsooth!' he adds, purple with fury. 'Very much alive now, meseems, and with the strength of Satan in his arm.'

He strikes at de Landas with his sword, would have killed him with his own hand, so enraged is he with the man for his failure to murder an enemy whom he loathes and fears.

'Unless those cowards rally,' he calls savagely, and points to where, in the heart of the mêlée, confusion and disorder wield their grisly sceptres, 'we shall have to retreat.'

But de Landas does not stop to hear. The fear of the supernatural which had for the moment paralysed his thinking faculties, is soon merged in that boundless hatred which he feels for the rival whom he had thought dead long ago. In the heart of that confusion he has spied Gilles, fighting, pursuing; slashing, hitting—intrepid and superb, the centre and the life of the victorious army. De Landas sets spurs to his horse and, calling to his own troop of swordsmen to follow, dashes into the mêlée.

The battle now is at its fiercest. A proud army, superior in numbers, in arms, in knowledge, feels itself weakening before an enemy whose greatest power is his valour. The retreat has not yet sounded, but the Spanish captains all know that the humiliating end is in sight. Already their pikemen have thrown down their cumbersome weapons. Pursued by the French lancers, they turn and fight with hands and fists, some of them; whilst others scatter in every direction. The ranks of their archers are broken, and the fire of their musketeers has become intermittent and weak. Even the horsemen, the flower of Parma's army, gentlemen all, are breaking in the centre. With reins loose, stirrup-leathers flapping, swords cast away and mantles flying loose, they are making a stand which is obviously the last, and which within the next few minutes will with equal certainty turn into rout.

Here it is that Gilles is holding his own with a small troop of French horsemen. His steel bonnet has been knocked off, his wounded arm roughly bandaged, the sleeves of his jerkin fly behind him like a pair of wings, his invincible sword strikes and flashes and gleams in the grey afternoon light.

For a few seconds, while the distance between himself and his enemy grows rapidly less, de Landas sees and hears nothing. The blood is beating in his temples, with a weird thumping which drowns the din of battle. His eyes are blinded by a crimson veil; his hand, stiff and convulsed, can scarcely grasp the pistol. The next instant he is in the very thick of the turmoil.

'For Spain and Our Lady!' he cries, and empties his pistol into the seething mass of Spanish horsemen who bar the way twixt him and his enemy. The horsemen are scattered. Already on the verge of a stampede, they are scared by this unexpected onslaught from the rear. They fear to be taken between cross-fires, are seized with panic, turn and flee to right and left. Two of them fall, hit by that madman's pistol. All is now tumult and a whirling ferment. The air is thick with smoke and powder, horses, maddened with terror, snort and struggle and beat the air with their hoofs. De Landas' own troop join in the mêlée; the French horsemen dash in pursuit; there is a scrimmage, a stampede; men fight and tear and hit and slash, for dear life and for safety.

But de Landas does not care, is past caring now. Another disaster more or less, another scare, final humiliation, what matters? The day is lost anyhow, and all his own hopes finally dashed to the ground by the relief of Cambray and the irrevocable loss to him of Jacqueline and her fortune. Already he has thrown aside his smoking pistol, seized another from the hand of his nearest follower, and points it straight at Gilles.

'For Spain and Our Lady!'

'Fleur de Lys and Liberty!'

The two cries rang out simultaneously—then the report of de Landas' pistol, and Gilles' horse hit in the neck, suddenly swerves, rears and paws the air, and would have thrown its rider had not the latter jumped clean out of the saddle.

To de Landas' maddened gaze the smoke around appears to be the colour of blood. Blindly he gropes for another pistol. His henchman is near him, thrusts a weapon into the young Spaniard's trembling hand. For the fraction of a second, destiny, waiting, stays her hand. Gilles is free of his struggling horse, he has his sword in his hand; but de Landas once more points a pistol straight at him.

'Satan! guide thou my hand this time!' he calls out, in a passion of fury.

Then suddenly a raucous cry rises above the din; there is a double, sharp report, a loud curse, a final groan of despair and of rage, and de Landas, struck in the breast by an almost savage blow from a lance, throws up his arms, falls, first on his knees, then backwards on the soft earth, would have been buried then and there under a seething mass of struggling men and beasts, had not Gilles rushed to him with one bound, caught him by the shoulders and dragged his now lifeless body to comparative shelter a few paces away. Now Gilles picks up a fallen cloak from the ground and lays it reverently over his fallen foe.

'Because Jacqueline loved you once,' he murmurs under his breath.

Then he turns to his faithful Jehan. 'You were just in time,' he says simply.

Jehan has been glancing down with mingled rage and contempt on the man whom in his loyal heart he hated in life with a wellnigh ferocious intensity. Now he looks at his master—his friend whom he loves—sees him on one knee by the side of that abominable murderer, trying to struggle back to his feet, but evidently weak and dizzy.

With a cry like an enraged tiger, Jehan casts his still streaming lance away, is already kneeling beside Gilles, supporting him in his arms as gently as a mother would shelter her child.

'H-h-h-hurt?' he stammers laconically. 'That d-d-d-devil hit you?'

'Only in the thigh,' replies Gilles. 'You diverted his aim right enough, my dear Jehan! And once more I owe my life to you. Just help me to get up,' he adds with his wonted impatience. 'Do not let me miss another second of the glorious spectacle of our victory!'