The ghostly effect of these hoarse whispers, which mingled so strangely with the rush of the river and the moan of the rising storm, was deepened tenfold by the fact that no living thing was to be seen. It seemed as if the very leaves of the forest were whispering to each other some ghastly secret in the spectral twilight of that gloomy autumn evening, which was fast darkening into night.
A child might have guessed that men who were lurking at such an hour in the thickets that overhung the ford of the Arguenon could be after no good; and in truth they did well to hide themselves, for it would have been hard to find, even in an age so fruitful in ruffians of high and low degree, a more villainous-looking rabble of cut-throats. On each and all of those various faces—swarthy, keen-eyed, brigand-like Spaniards; sinewy, black-haired, sallow Genoese; sturdy, yellow-bearded Flemings; and red-haired, hard-featured Scots—was stamped the same brand of savage violence, swaggering recklessness, and brutal debauchery that harmonized but too well with their blood-rusted weapons, dinted steel-caps, and slovenly dress—an unsightly mixture of tawdry finery and squalid filth.
In a word, one glance would have told the most careless observer that these wretches must be either brigands or pirates; and, in fact, they were both—land-thieves and sea-thieves by turns.
More than two years had passed since the tournament which saw the best knights of Brittany fall before the then untried lance of young Du Guesclin, and the great national storm which was then threatening had burst in all its fury. King Edward of England was marching through Picardy with thousands of English archers and men-at-arms at his back; war was raging along the whole border of Flanders; France was all tumult, disorder, and senseless division; and the Channel swarmed with French, English, Flemish, and Spanish warships, and with the countless corsairs who, while pretending to belong to one side or the other, robbed both with strict impartiality, pouncing now on Sussex and Dorset, now on Normandy and Brittany, and taking their chance of being hanged like dogs if they met a stronger force than their own.
To this class belonged the worthies now in ambush at the ford, who had come on a plundering cruise up the little Breton river at the mouth of which lay their ship. They had been just about to go back to her with their booty, when they learned by chance that a lady of rank was returning that way with a small train from a visit to the shrine of Notre Dame de Lamballe; and the captain, whose savage face and brutal look matched well with the dragon crest of his battered helmet, had at once made up his mind to await and seize this new prize, whose ransom would certainly outweigh all the other gains of their expedition put together.
Just as the robbers drew back into their covert, the last gleam of sunset was flashed back from the steel caps and lance-points of twelve stalwart men-at-arms, riding slowly down the hill toward the ford, with two female figures, whose dress showed them to be mistress and maid.
“Here is the ford at last, ill betide it!” growled a grim veteran who led the party—no other, in fact, than the Norman ex-bandit who had told to Bertrand du Guesclin, three years before, the strange tale of Lady Tiphaine de Raguenel. “But night will be upon us ere we can reach Ploncoët.”
“And what if it be, good Blaise?” said the taller of the two women, in a clear, sweet voice, that contrasted strikingly with the old spearman’s harsh tones. “Surely thou, of all men living, fearest not wolves or robbers?”
“I fear nought earthly, noble lady, especially in the service of one so saintly as yourself; but you know these woods have no good name, and to pass through them after dark——”
And the rough soldier crossed himself with a trembling hand.