But I was not thinking of her, I was watching Claire—the poise of her figure, her superb grace in the saddle. Slowly she reined her horse around until she faced us, and I saw her examining the members of the troop. With feverish lips, I watched her eyes as they went from face to face—and in a moment I was looking straight into them, with the blood bounding to my temples.
For a breath she held me so, then turned her eyes away, slowly, indifferently, without a sign that she had known me!
And of a sudden I found myself shivering with cold, and remembered, for the first time that afternoon, that my clothing was still dripping with the water of the river.
CHAPTER VII
A VISION IN THE NIGHT
Dimly I saw Mademoiselle come out again into the road and mount a horse that had been provided for her. Fronsac and I were unbound, though not entrusted with our horses’ bridles, and we set forward at a more leisurely pace than had marked the first stage of the journey. Plainly there was no longer immediate fear of pursuit, and our guard relaxed somewhat, breaking now and again into a snatch of song or shouting a rude joke back and forth. I saw that our retreat was being made on some well-matured plan, and my heart sank as I realized how remote was chance of rescue.
The man at my right, who seemed to regard me with some small trace of kindness, perceiving my blue nose and chattering teeth, gave me his cloak, and this wrapped around me rendered the journey somewhat less of torture. But nothing could drive away the chill which had settled about my heart when I had looked into Claire’s eyes and caught no answering gleam of friendship and interest in them. I did not see her again, for she kept to the rear of the column with the other women, and I held my face turned resolutely to the front, for even a cadet of Gascony has his pride.
Night found us near Drovet, as I gathered from the talk of my guards, for the country was quite unknown to me, but we left that squalid village far on the right and pressed on through the darkness for an hour longer. It seemed to me, from the uneven nature of the ground, that we must have left the road, and I was about to ask whither we were bound, when the command came to halt.
I could distinguish absolutely nothing in the darkness, but my guards appeared to know the place well, and one of them, dismounting, led my horse slowly forward across what seemed to be a bridge. I caught a gleam of light ahead, and in a moment we turned a corner and I could see something of my surroundings.
We were in the inner bailey of a castle, once of no little strength, but fallen quite into decay, for the curtains were cracked and ragged and broken, and two of the corner towers had toppled over. The donjon loomed up into the darkness at one end, and alone seemed to have defied the hand of time and the despoiler.
Towards this we rode, and at the door my captors leaped from the saddle and helped me to dismount. I should have fallen had they not supported me, for my joints had lost the power of motion. They led me to a corner where a fire had just been started, and set me with my back against the wall.