“Hark ye, good fellows; which of ye will guide me to yon haunted spot? Rich shall be his reward.”
The stupefied silence that followed was at last broken by old Pierre, who spoke the unanimous verdict of the whole party.
“Fair sir, all the gold in the king’s treasury could not bribe any man of these parts to venture yonder after nightfall; and if your worship will heed a plain man’s counsel, you will not venture it either. Think! what avails the bravest man on earth against a demon?”
“Were he the worst demon ever seen on earth,” said the knight, undauntedly, “he can do nought beyond what God permits him to do; and one man who puts his trust in God is a match for all the spirits of evil. It is not meet that the Wicked One should play his pranks in this Christian land, and hinder honest folk from their lawful goings; and if none else can be found to drive him hence, I, with the aid of Heaven, will do it myself!”
So nobly confident, yet so devoutly humble, were the speaker’s tone and bearing that a murmur of applause broke from his hearers, and even crabbed old Pierre eyed him admiringly, though still muttering—
“Would to Heaven it might be so! But bethink you, noble sir, a demon’s arm is mighty to smite.”
“So, perchance, is mine,” said the unknown, quietly; and, snatching up a battle-axe so heavy that few men could have even lifted it, he hewed, at one blow, from a tree by the window a huge limb as easily as if he were slicing a peach.
A cry of amazement broke from the lookers-on, and Paul said eagerly—
“But one man in this realm could deal such a blow! Is your worship, then, our Bertrand du Guesclin?”
“I am,” said the hero, to whose large human heart this tribute of simple affection from the down-trodden peasantry whom he had always pitied and defended was dearer than all the triumphs of his glorious life.