The Norman hesitated; he well remembered his oath, against which the better feelings of his heart were perhaps sometimes rebellious. He felt, too, confused at the direct appeal the other had made to it; and to pass it by, he caught at the word forget, answering with a stave of the song—
“Forget! forget! let slaves forget
The pangs and chains they bear;
The brave remember every debt
To honour, and the fair.
For these are bonds that bind us more,
Yet leave us freer than before.
“Yes, let those that can do so, forget: but I very well remember, at the battle at Perpignan, I had charged with the advance guard, when the fire of the enemy’s musketeers, and a masked battery which began to enfilade our line, soon threw our left flank into disorder, and a charge of cavalry drove back De Coucy’s troop. Mielleraye’s standard was in the hands of the enemy, when I and five others rallied to rescue it. A gloomy old Spaniard fired his petronel and disabled my left arm, but still I held the standard-pole with my right, keeping the standard before me; but my Don drew his long Toledo, and had got the point to my breast, just going to run it through me and standard and all, as I’ve often spitted a duck’s liver and a piece of bacon on a skewer; when, turning round my head, to see if no help was near, I perceived this young Count de Blenau’s banderol, coming like lightning over the field, and driving all before it; and blue and gold were then the best colours that ever I saw, for they gave me new heart, and wrenching the standard-pole round—But hark, there is the horn!”
As he spoke, the clear full note of a hunting-horn came swelling from the south-west; and in a moment after, another, much nearer to them, seemed to answer the first. Each, after giving breath to one solitary note, relapsed into silence; and such of the robbers as were awake, having listened till the signal met with a reply, bestirred themselves to rouse their sleeping companions, and to put some face of order upon the disarray which their revels had left behind.
“Now, Sir Norman,” cried he that they distinguished by the name of Le Blanc; “we shall see how Monseigneur rates your slackness in his cause. Will you tell him your long story of the siege of Perpignan?”
“Pardie!” cried the other, “I care no more for him, than I do for you. Every man that stands before me on forest ground is but a man, and I will treat him as such.”
“Ha! ha! ha!” exclaimed his companion; “it were good to see thee bully a privy counsellor; why, thou darest as soon take a lion by the beard.”
“I dare pass my sword through his heart, were there need,” answered the Norman; “but here they come,—stand you aside and let me deal with him.”
Approaching steps, and a rustling sound in the thick screen of wood already mentioned, as the long boughs were forced back by the passage of some person along the narrow pathway, announced the arrival of those for whom the robbers had been waiting.
“Why, it is as dark as the pit of Acheron!” cried a deep voice amongst the trees. “Are we never to reach the light I saw from above? Oh, here it is.—Chauvelin, hold back that bough, it has caught my cloak.” As the speaker uttered the last words, an armed servant, in Isabel and silver, appeared at the entrance of the path, holding back the stray branches, while Chavigni himself advanced into the circle of robbers, who stood grouped around in strange picturesque attitudes, some advancing boldly, as if to confront the daring stranger that thus intruded on their haunts, some gazing with a kind of curiosity upon the being so different from themselves, who had thus placed himself in sudden contact with them, some lowering upon him with bended heads, like wolves when they encounter a nobler beast of prey.