“Dark or light, what matter, since we are always in the hand of God?” said the lady, with a smile so bright and fearless that it seemed to light up her beautiful face like a saint’s crown of glory. “What have we to fear, so long as we are doing His will? But perhaps,” she added archly, “thou art loath to venture into the haunted forest with one whom men call ‘Tiphaine the Fairy.’”
“You do but jest, lady!” cried Blaise, with sudden fierceness. “Let any man, be he knight or churl, dare to say in my hearing that the noble demoiselle Tiphaine de Raguenel is akin to sprites or fairies, or aught else but the holiest angels of heaven, and I will so deal with him that——”
That challenge was never finished. A sudden crash shook the black, shadowy thicket; a wolfish yell broke through the deepening gloom; there was a tramp of feet and a clash of steel, and the Raguenel men-at-arms found themselves suddenly attacked on all sides at once!
But, few as they were, these men were all cool and practised soldiers, and, though not looking to be surprised at that exact spot, they had fully expected an attack ere reaching their halting-place. Closing sternly round their young mistress, they faced their swarming foes, who were thirty to twelve, as bravely as men could do.
Steel rang on steel, man grappled man, blows rained at hap-hazard in the darkness, and death came blindly, none knew whence or how. The heavy trampling and hard breathing of the combatants amid the ghostly gloom showed how fiercely the fight was contested. More than one ruffian who had thought this handful of men an easy prey, fell writhing in the dust, and, for a few moments, arms and discipline balanced superior numbers.
But the pirate captain was not a man to be lightly baulked of his prey. Growling a curse too horrible to be repeated, he thrust himself into the thick of the fight, and came hand to hand with Blaise himself, who stood like a tower before the daughter of his lord, shielding her with his own body. A stamp, an oath, a clang of steel, a quick, convulsive gasp, and the brave old Norman lay at Tiphaine’s feet, with his life-blood gushing through his iron-grey hair.
But ere the final blow could fall, the girl thrust herself between the murderer and his victim, and, standing over the fallen man, waved back the pirate’s dripping blade with her bare hand as boldly as if she were invulnerable.
“Begone, impious men!” she cried, with stern and solemn emphasis. “Will ye peril your souls by molesting the pilgrims of God? Too much blood have ye shed already; shed no more, I charge ye! Go and repent, ere it be too late!”
The murderers recoiled in sudden awe, and even their ferocious leader himself wavered and hung back for a moment.
Then, through that dead hush of dismay, broke a voice mighty as a trumpet-blast—