His arm was extended to clutch his unresisting prisoner, when a cry of wonder and alarm from those on the outskirts of the crowd, instantly echoed by the whole throng, made him turn just in time for a very startling sight.
On the crest of the ridge above, as if in direct answer to the blasphemous challenge, had just appeared a single rider in full armour, so suddenly, and with such an appearance of actually issuing from the sunset glory which played around him, that he seemed to the startled robbers to be descending among them from the sky. His armour, from head to heel, was all one glow of deep, burning red, as if he were actually clothed with fire; and, in the light of the sinking sun, horse and rider seemed dilated to gigantic size, far beyond that of mortal beings.
This time the terror of the brigands was so marked and universal that it infected even their brutal leader, whose swarthy face paled to the very lips as he heard his men mutter tremulously—
“The archangel St. Michael, come down from heaven to avenge his namesake!”
Such was Croquart’s own secret conviction; and this speedy and terrible answer to his impious defiance changed the ruffian’s drunken fury to dismay.
In fact, the descent of a saint or angel in bodily form to champion right and redress wrong was, to all the witnesses of this strange scene, not merely possible, but just what was to be expected. The constant intervention of supernatural beings in natural affairs was as firm and universal a belief in that age as in the days of Homer; and the wild plunderers, terrified as they were by this celestial apparition, never thought of being surprised at it. Their chief had rashly challenged Heaven to snatch his prey from him, and Heaven had taken him at his word.
Mute and motionless, the armed hundreds stood gazing as the fiery warrior moved slowly toward them with braced shield and levelled spear, seeming to grow larger every moment. On he came, uttering no war-cry, speaking no word, and adding by this ghostly silence a tenfold horror to his apparition.
But as he drew nearer his aspect began to lose something of its terrors. His stature dwindled to that of a common man, his giant steed now seemed no larger than an ordinary horse, and the red glow of his armour was seen to be due not to celestial fire, but to the play of the sunset on the rust that coated it.
But all this did nothing to allay the superstitious fears of the bandits. If Monseigneur St. Michael did not think it worth while to avenge this audacious defiance himself, might he not have sent to do it for him some good knight who had been long dead—say one of Charlemagne’s Paladins? As the dreaded stranger approached, all fell back to right and left in silent awe, leaving Croquart and the captive monk standing alone amid the spellbound circle.
Within a few paces of the robber-captain the unknown champion halted suddenly, and at last broke the dreadful silence.