He was a man of giant size, whose heavy, low-browed, bulldog face, seamed with scars and bloated with habitual excess, was half hidden by a shaggy beard and a mane of coarse black hair. By him lay his stained and battered armour, and his mighty limbs were thrown carelessly on a torn and muddied altar-cloth of embroidered velvet, as he drank his wine from a sacramental cup—proceedings watched with visible dismay by some of his followers, who, steeped as they were in the foulest crimes, could still tremble at the thought of sacrilege.
But whatever they might think, no one dared to say a word; for Croquart (the Cruncher)—as this ruffian was named, from the ravages that had made him the terror of the whole country—was not a safe man to provoke at any time; and just then it was plain by the black frown which darkened his low brow, that he was, if possible, in a worse temper than usual.
In fact, the worthy cut-throat was finding out, to his great disgust, that even robbers cannot get a living where there is no one to rob; and such was now the case in his present field of operations.
As soon as it was known that the dreaded Croquart and his men were encamped by Carcassonne, all alike—travellers, traders, pilgrims, labourers, and even beggars—avoided the town as if the plague were in it, preferring to make a circuit of many miles rather than risk falling into the hands of a man whose pet sport was to burn people alive, or tie them to a tree to be shot full of arrows!
For three days the wide sweep of bare upland overlooked by the robber camp had lain voiceless and lifeless as a desert. No living thing was to be seen, and Croquart, not having robbed or murdered any one for three whole days, found time hang heavy on his unwashed hands.
“Where loiter these dog scouts of mine?” growled the ruffian, glaring round with his bloodshot eyes in quest of the two swift riders whom he had sent forth to watch for any sign of prey. “If they bring not word of some game afoot, it shall go ill with them! Swords and halberds! a man may as well be a stone or a stock as sit here doing nought till his sinews wax rusty through idleness!”
Hardly had he spoken when two riders were seen approaching, but so slowly and unwillingly that it was plain they had no success to report. Keeping at a safe distance—for this savage, in his fits of drunken fury, cared as little for the lives of his own men as for those of his wretched captives—they shouted to him that they had scoured the whole district and found nothing.
Croquart growled a fearful curse, and gripped his sword-hilt as if about to kill them both. Then his mood suddenly changed, and he gave a hoarse laugh.
“Since my guests are so long in coming, it is meet they be well received when they do. May I never take plunder more if I bind not to a tree the first man who passes, and shoot as many arrows into him as there be quills on a hedge-hog!”
As the wretch uttered his cruel vow—which all who heard it knew he would keep—a single figure was seen advancing, in the dark robe of a monk. A nearer view showed the white hair and beard of an old man; and then the startled robbers recognized the pilgrim-monk, Brother Michael!