“I await your commands.”
“Rest to-day and to-morrow. The day after to-morrow you shall have the letter for the Bishop.”
As the road to Rouen led directly through the English district it was practically impossible for a messenger to make the journey on horseback. Jean therefore decided to go on foot, disguised as a peasant. As the cities around Orleans were in possession of the English, he was continually forced to take divergent routes. He made a wide circuit around Paris, and at last approached Rouen from the east. While on this part of his journey he stopped in a forest one noon to rest and enjoy his simple meal. While thus engaged, he suddenly heard a female voice crying for help. He sprang up, and ran to the road whence the cry had come. Concealing himself behind some bushes, he watched and listened. He heard the distant rattle of a carriage and the clatter of armor toward the east. A heavy travelling carriage soon came lumbering along the rough road, accompanied by half a dozen men at arms.
“Has a shameful crime been committed, and did the cry come from that carriage?” said Jean to himself. “What! I think I know the arms on the carriage door. Why, certainly. They are the Duke of Luxemburg’s. But I must be sure of it.” With this he rushed from his hiding-place. “Halt!” he shouted, brandishing his knobbed stick.
The coachman and attendants were astonished. It seemed incredible that a single man, armed with such a weapon, should dare to order them to halt. While they prepared for resistance they watched, not so much the young man as the thickets, for they were suspicious that other peasants might make their appearance. During this brief waiting Jean discovered what he had feared, and what he was so anxious to ascertain. Scarcely had his “halt” died away when a girl’s face appeared at the carriage door.
“Help! help!” she cried, in terror. “Help! They are dragging me to a convent—”
A smothered exclamation of pain followed the last word. Some one inside the carriage had pulled her back and stifled her cries. Instead of the girl’s face there now appeared at the door the wrathful face of a knight.
“Seize the dog,” he shouted. “Do not kill him. I must have him alive.”
The men at arms prepared for action at once, but Jean did not stir. He stood immovable as a statue, staring at the door. The distress which he was powerless to relieve threatened his own undoing, but he remained as if glued to the spot, trying to identify the personality of the victim. He had only caught a fleeting glance of her, but that glance left an impression that could not be effaced. She was a girl of fifteen or sixteen years, and so radiantly beautiful that even her expression of poignant suffering and fear could not diminish her charm.
Meanwhile the men at arms were arranging their plan. They evidently intended to surround and overpower him, but their movements were too slow to suit the knight in the carriage. “Well,” he roared, “what are you waiting for? Seize him!”