Château-Foix with his contingent brought up the rear. By his side, at the moment, walked Louis, holding to his stirrup leather; he had given up his own horse to one of his followers, a young man named Toussaint Lelièvre, whom, shot through the leg, he had contrived to bring into safety under a considerable fire. The cousins were silent; they could not discuss the conduct of their men in the midst of them, and there was not much else to say. The rain streamed down Gilbert’s hair, for he was bareheaded, making it of a polished blackness. At times he raised a bandaged bridle hand and wiped away the drops falling into his eyes. He was wet, hungry, dispirited, anxious . . . and yet not unhappy. He looked down at the plodding figure by his side.
“Are you tired, Louis?” he asked in a low voice. “Take my horse for a little.”
Louis raised a face not so wet but much dirtier; a bullet striking a bank had bespattered him with mud, which the rain, partially washing off, had transformed to an uniform grime.
“No, thanks,” he said with a sort of resigned cheerfulness. “Besides, if I am, I can have my own back again; my protégé ought not really to be riding, I suspect, but I thought it would spare the men’s carrying him.” And they relapsed into silence.
Gilbert had arranged to bivouac at the hamlet of L’Oie, a little nearer to Chantonnay, and consequently a more dangerous post. But there was no alarm that night from the direction of Chantonnay, and the wearied, disheartened peasants slept in peace. The Marquis, whose injured hand kept him awake, lay long looking at his cousin, stretched on a couple of chairs in the profound slumber of youth and fatigue.
The dawn saw them both afoot, somewhat in expectation of marching orders from the Four Roads. But none came, and Gilbert, when he rode over there, found the elder soldiers determined to give their men a day’s rest and to attack De Marcé again on the morrow. Towards evening, everything being quiet, the Marquis suggested to his cousin the propriety of making a little reconnaissance from the slightly rising ground to the north of their cantonments, a proposal to which Louis readily assented.
They were mounting this slight eminence when, without warning, Gilbert’s mare shied violently at a clump of bracken.
“What is it?” queried Louis, quieting Saladin.
Gilbert pulled up. “I will see,” he said, tossing his reins to his cousin, and, dismounting, went back to the fern. “It is a woman—dead, I fear,” he said over his shoulder. He went round to the other side of the clump, stooped, and gave a violent exclamation.
Roused by his tone, Louis flung himself off Saladin, and, dragging the two horses after him, came to the place.