“Who speaks my name?” asked a hollow voice, as the sick man started half erect, with a visible gleam of reviving reason in his haggard eyes. “I was called thus while I lived; but now I am a dead man, and given over, body and soul, to the powers of evil.”
The simple, downright intellects of the fourteenth century knew nothing of “immutable laws of being,” “workings of nature,” “fortuitous conjunction of atoms,” and the other neat little phrases with which God’s creatures are now doing their best to blot Him out of His own world. To them, God was God, and Satan Satan; and whatever befell them, good or ill, was directly traceable to one or the other.
Hence Bertrand never doubted for a moment that the wretched man’s fearful words were literally true; nor would he have been surprised had the Evil One started up in bodily form to claim his prey. But this only made the devout warrior all the more determined to wrest from Satan a soul that belonged to God.
“Not so!” cried he, sturdily. “There can be no true compact with one that is a liar from the beginning, and Satan hath nought to do with a soul that our Lord hath redeemed. I tell thee, if the Wicked One were to rise before us this moment, and claim thee for his, he should not have thee! In a cause that is good and holy, I fear neither man nor foul fiend!”
“And who art thou who speak’st so boldly?” asked Alured, gazing admiringly at the glow of manly enthusiasm which, for the moment, fairly transfigured the other’s harsh features.
“I am a poor knight of Brittany, named Bertrand du Guesclin.”
“Du Guesclin?” echoed Alured, with the first sign of returning energy that he had yet shown. “Art thou indeed he?”
“I am; and thou and I are acquainted of old. Thou wert a guest long since in my father’s castle of Motte-Brun, and I met thee afterwards at Rennes and Dinan. Tell me thy tale, I pray; and whatever aid I can give thee shall be given right gladly.”
“No help can avail me now,” replied the other, relapsing into his former gloom. “Hast thou the courage to hear what I have done?”
“I have,” said the hero, simply. “When a man hath done amiss, what better can he do than confess and repent? And Heaven forbid that I, a sinful man, should be harsh to thee when God hath been merciful to us all. Tell thy tale, and when it is told we will take counsel what to do.”