CHAPTER XLIV
To the north of St. Isidore’s Gate the road expanded into a broad platform, capable of holding some hundred men. Many boulders were strewn around, with squared stones fallen from the ruined parapet that had once edged the sharp precipice. Tristan and his men were quickly at work, carrying stones towards the Gate, and piling a rampart from the rock to the cliff. The peasant who had served them as guide had swarmed up the stem of the great fir and was perched amid the branches, watching the Saracens as they climbed the pass. Meanwhile, Tristan had sent a messenger to warn Sir Bertrand on the heights above that Serjabil was upon them with his host.
Soon a broad bulwark, a Cyclopean wall, closed the mouth of St. Isidore’s Gate. Tristan stood under the shadow of the tree with Blanche the Bold at his side. The melancholy that had possessed the man but an hour before had passed with the stir of the coming battle. He was once more that Tristan of dogged will who had slain Ogier the giant in fair fight and trodden down Jocelyn into the dust.
He spread his shoulders and smiled at the moon as he stood with Blanche upon the rough stone wall. His nostrils dilated with his deep breathing as he watched the columns climb the pass.
“But a day and a night,” he said, “and Lothaire should come. We could hold this wall for a week, I trow.”
“Even so,” she answered him; “yet before the moon climbs up again all my rough children from the north should tumble up to save their lady.”
“If only Bertrand holds the mountain path.”
“Bertrand will stand to the last sword.”
“And, by Heaven, we shall not fail him. God willing, I would hold the pass alone.”
The moon had passed behind one of the western peaks when Serjabil’s men came climbing up to where the fir tree grew by the Gate. A broad shadow was thrown athwart the pass, so that the road was plunged in gloom. Tristan had ordered his force into five companies, each numbering some fifty men. They were to reinforce each other from hour to hour, so that all could rest in turn. They lay quiet behind the wall, waiting calmly for Tristan’s orders.
Tristan crouched behind a boulder, his shield on his arm, his sword in his hand. Around him were stretched the motionless figures of his men, like leopards crouching for the spring. The stars were very bright in the sky, since the moon had sunk behind the peak.
Then above the distant roar of the streams came the sound of voices, the jingling of steel, the dull padding of a thousand feet. Tristan, peering round a rock, saw a man on a white mule turn an angle of the cliff with a long line of lances at his back. White robes showed in shadows as the men marched up, recking nothing of what would follow. When they were within twenty yards of the Gate, the emir on the white mule drew rein in the road, and looked ahead into the darkness. Tristan could see a broad turban wreathing a dusky oval face. It was plain that the man had marked the barrier before him, and was debating its nature and what lay behind.
He spoke some words to his men, and pointed them towards the tree and the rock overhanging the precipice. Then figures sprang forward, came running up the road towards the wall across the Gate. Tristan heard them muttering one to another as they clambered up the rough pile of stones; a turbaned head showed above the summit; another followed it, and yet another.
Tristan sprang up with a great shout.
“God and the Cross!”
Fifty shields heaved up around him. There was the shrill whistle of whirling blades, the sound of strokes that went heavily home. Several white-robed bodies rolled back from the rampart, and the first blood had been shed for the Cross.
Down the pass under the moonlight the long columns could be seen to waver and halt as the trumpets screamed amid the mountains, the echoes tonguing from crag to crag. The emir on the white mule rode back among his men, pointing them towards the Gate with his naked scimitar. The advance guard raised a great shout, and came pouring up with bucklers forward, calling on Allah and Mohammed the Prophet. Lithe, dusky warriors in quilted tunics and shirts of mail came clambering up the rude stone rampart, to take the spear-thrusts in their faces and meet the swing of the pitiless swords. Not a single man of them could top the parapet. Soon white-clad figures lay piled against the wall, like snow driven there by the wind.
These light-armed folk gave back by their emir’s orders to make way for Serjabil’s guard, the choice troops of the Caliph’s provinces, harnessed in chain mail and finely armed. They came up the road in a long column, their bucklers blinking at the moon, to be eclipsed in the shadows athwart the Gate. Like foam they dashed against the wall, with its ranks of shields and spears above. Vain was their fatalistic valour, the courage that claimed an eastern paradise. Time after time they clambered up to melt away before the wall. The dead were piled in the narrow road with cloven bucklers and broken spears. Many a man grudged not his blood that night for the languorous glances of the black-eyed girls.
When dawn came they rolled back baffled from St. Isidore’s Gate. Serjabil himself rode forward on a mule; his keen black eyes took in the truth, the rugged hazards of that narrow way. It seemed to him that he had spent the night in throwing snow against a rock. With the dawn he embraced a subtler means, ordered his men to bend their bows and shoot their arrows high in the air. Moreover, he sent a thousand men to climb the path that wound over the mountain where Sir Bertrand lay.
So the fight went on that day, with the whistling of arrows over the wall, where Tristan and his men lay low. From the heavens the shafts came rattling down, dancing upon the upreared shields, taking a life from time to time. There were many skirmishes upon the wall, and single combats, wherein Tristan slew seven tall Saracens born of one mother. It was Serjabil’s plan to wear the Christians out, to hold them in play while his thousand men forced the path that crossed the mountain.
Towards sunset Tristan stood under the shelter of the great rock, leaning upon his sword. He had come down from the wall to rest after the long day’s fighting in the sun. The shield that hung about his neck had been battered deviceless by the Saracen spears. A scarf was knotted round his right thigh, where an arrow had gored him, but had not sped deep.
Blanche the Bold stood at Tristan’s side. She had tended the wounded, and they had been many, under the shadow of the rock that day. Now her eyes searched Tristan’s face for foreshadowings of defeat, or wounds within. She saw no weakening of the dogged mouth, no bowing down of the massive head.
“I judge,” he said to her, leaning on his sword, “that we have lost this day some hundred men. These cursed archers have smitten us often.”
Blanche stood silent, as though her thoughts sped to the hamlets of the north, where women and children would grieve for the dead.
“Whether we live or die,” she said, “we stand here for a noble cause. Nor shall we flinch from the last blow.”
“Amen,” quoth Tristan, a smile on his mouth. “We can fight for another night and a day, if Bertrand can keep the path above.”
“By then Lothaire and the host will be here.”
“If Bertrand holds the path above.”
There was a prophetic spirit in these words, for hardly had they passed from Tristan’s lips than there came sound as of thunder from the cliffs above. Tristan looked up, rapped out an oath, pressed Blanche back against the wall. A great rock came hurtling down, scattering stones from the rugged slope. It leapt out from the last ledge, flew spinning over the narrow road, to disappear into the depths beneath. Tristan’s hand was on Blanche’s wrist. Above the mutterings of the streams they heard the great rock crash below into the branches of the trees.
“By God,” said Tristan, “they have forced the path!”
“On the mountain.”
“Bertrand has been beaten back. They are rolling the rocks on us, curse their souls!”
He set his arm about Blanche’s body and almost bore her to the foot of the cliff, where there was a shallow hollowing of the stone. They could hear the shouts of Serjabil’s men, who cheered when they saw that the heights were won. Tristan’s men were huddling up under the shelter of the cliff; they could face these Saracens on the wall, but not the rocks that smoked from the mountains.
Blanche lay back against the cliff and looked long into Tristan’s face.
“There is yet time,” she said to him suddenly.
“Ha?”
“To fly down the pass into the woods.”
He darted a look at her and threw back his head, his mouth firm, his eyes fearless.
“As for me,” he said, “I stay at the Gate. Take the rest with you and meet Lothaire on the road. Tell him and Didcart how I died.”
She spread out her arms against the cliffs, as though crucified by her own courage.
“Not so,” she said; “I will not go.”
“But——”
“Make no pleading with me, Tristan,” she said, “for my heart is fixed concerning this.”
He laid a hand upon her shoulder.
“For my sake, go, madame,” he said.
“For your sake,” she answered, “I will not stir hence.”
They stood looking for full half a minute into each other’s eyes, as though Tristan sought to read the truth that was shining on him out of her soul. Unconscious of the gesture, he laid his right hand over his forehead, for he understood of a sudden in that hour that Blanche loved him, even to the death.
“Madame,” he cried hoarsely, “what can I say to you?”
“Nothing, Tristan,” she said, with a strange smile.
Tristan was almost fearful of looking in her face. What were mere words to her but mocking symbols? Did she not know of his full love for Rosamunde? It was only at death’s gate that she had betrayed the truth.
A shower of stones came rattling down the cliff, dancing like huge hailstones on the rugged road. A great rock crashed down upon the wall, slew five men there among those who held the Gate. The rest cowered back under the cliff, while the Saracen arrows sped from the pass, dealing out death in the crowded space.
Tristan saw that it would be but slow slaughter, and that twenty men were as good as a hundred, now that the platform was swept by the stones. He stood forward and shouted to the men.
“Brothers,” he said, “I crave but a score of you to stand beside me, to hold the Gate to the bitter end. Let the rest make for the road to Agravale and tell Lothaire of how we stand.”
The men crowding under the cliff heard him in silence, half ashamed of their own fears. First one stood out and then another, till twenty were mustered at Tristan’s side. He bade the rest make haste to depart lest they should be caught in the pass and cut off from Agravale. Thus he was left with but twenty swords to hold the Saint’s Gate against the Saracens.
Again the moon rose on the snowy peaks and on the solemn foreheads of the mountains. Clouds passed slowly over its surface, building caverns and deep forests of silver in the magic silence of the sky. Ever and anon the Saracen trumpets screamed exultantly on the heights above. The mountains awoke to the roar of the rocks forced from their sleep on the wind-swept slope to thunder down into the depths beneath.
Tristan kept his twenty men under the cliff, that they might escape these grinding, hurtling bolts that leapt out of the calm sky into the pass. He had climbed the wall, and lay prone in the angle under the trunk of the great tree. Thence he could watch the stormers on the road beneath and warn his men when the tide rolled up.
Nor was he left long in such a posture, with the flat of his sword under his chin. A clarion wailed in the darkness of the pass, warning those on the heights above to cease from hurling down the rocks. Spear and buckler flashed up once more as the moon’s eye was uncovered by a cloud. With a great shout Tristan sprang up with sword aloft, his men thronging round him on the wall.
Again the moon sank into the west and huge shadows covered the cliffs. About St. Isidore’s Gate the dead lay thick, where Serjabil’s Saracens had recoiled once more. Yet empty of triumph was that desperate rally for those score heroes who held the wall. Tristan stood alone there on the bloody rampart, bleeding from a spear-thrust in his throat as he leant heavily upon his sword.
A voice called to him out of the gloom, and Blanche’s hand was on his shoulder.
“God help you, Tristan,” she said in his ear. “Is it death with you, soul of my soul?”
He staggered back against the cliff, while she held a wine-flask to his lips, then tore the scarf from off her bosom, and strove to staunch the blood from his throat. He leant heavily against the cliff, fighting for his breath, half dead with travail. Blanche’s arms went about his body, and she half bore his weight as she watched him suffer.
“Tristan,” she said, “Tristan, Tristan.”
He turned his head wearily, so that it half rested upon her bosom.
“I am athirst,” he said, “give me more wine.”
She reached down and held the flask again to his lips, drawing his right arm over her shoulder so that he leant his weight upon her.
“Tristan, look up,” she said at length. “Is it death with you? Great heart, take courage.”
“I am very weary,” he said, closing his eyes.
“Rest here, then,” she answered; “I can bear your weight.”
Slowly the dawn was streaming up, calm and clear after that night of travail. The peaks were glistening in the sky, the heavens mellowing from grey to blue. Under the white brows of the mountains, Tristan and Blanche were alone together, among the stricken and the dead. In death it seemed they would not be parted, though love and life had denied the dream.
Suddenly the woman’s arm tightened about Tristan’s body. The colour returned to her weary face; her eyes grew bright like the eyes of one who hears deliverance in the wind.
“Listen,” she said, “listen, listen!”
From afar came the stirring cry of a horn, a wild blast echoing among the mountains. From afar seemed to rise the shouts of men, strong and vigorous, hurrying to battle. A faint clamour came from the heights whence Bertrand had been driven by Serjabil’s Saracens.
“It is Lothaire,” Blanche said; “they are climbing the pass. Hear how the heathen give tongue above us.”
Tristan struggled up and gripped his sword. A second life seemed to breathe in his body; a second courage filled his heart.
“By God, they come at last!” he cried, with his eyes taking fire. “Give me a shield and I will hold the Gate.”
She hesitated a moment, then did his bidding, groping among the dead men by the wall. She thrust a shield on Tristan’s arm, her hands trembling, her eyes dim with tears. For the sake of his glory she was sending him forth to die in the pass for Christ and the Cross. Even as she armed him; she heard the sound of men storming towards the wall.
Tristan turned to her with the smile of a hero.
“One more fight,” he said, “and I shall have fought my fill.”
Tears were shining on Blanche’s cheeks.
“Go, Tristan,” she said, “and I will follow.”
He bent towards her and kissed her lips.
Therewith, he sprang up towards the parapet, and set his shield before his face. A hundred bucklers were surging up, with corselet and tunic playing beneath. Over the death wrack of the place the sons of the Crescent came streaming up. A single warrior held the wall as the dawn deepened and the night elapsed. Thus did Tristan take his stand with Blanche the Bold at St. Isidore’s Gate.