The Man-at-Arms; or, Henry De Cerons. Volumes I and II

by G. P. R. James

It is needless for me to pause upon all the movements that subsequently took place. They have met with historians more competent to treat of military details than myself; nor would my own personal narrative for several weeks, nay, for months, present many matters of interest. No sooner had Angoulême capitulated and order been restored in the town, than Monsieur de Blaye found means easily to procure the money for his ransom, and paid me the sum of four thousand crowns, which was certainly far more than I had ever possessed before in my life. In the arrangements which had been made between myself and Moric Endem, and which he communicated to the men as we engaged them, the ransom of prisoners, it may be remembered, had been held apart as belonging to the actual captors. Nevertheless, I determined to endeavour, as far as possible, to attach the men to me by liberality, and to show that I could recompense good service, in order that, if necessity required it, I might be the more fully justified in punishing bad conduct.

I accordingly called the men together as soon as I had received the ransom of my prisoner; and explaining to them what I was about to do, and the reason why, I divided the money into two equal portions, and, having reserved one for myself, I again divided the other half into two, whereof I bestowed one upon my good lieutenant, Moric Endem, to whom I owed so much, and distributed the residue among the men who accompanied me to the breach. The others, who had chosen to wait till they saw me tried, looked a little foolish and mortified upon the occasion, but acknowledged it was all just; and, to give them some consolation, I bestowed ten crowns a man upon them out of my own stock, only requiring that each two should provide themselves with a small tent, and each five with a baggage-horse, and a boy to ride it.

After this was done, my next thought was to redeem the dagger which I had left in the hands of the Jew; but the matter was somewhat difficult to be arranged; for how was I to obtain the weapon without going myself to Bordeaux, or without sending some one in whom I could fully trust? I thought of Andriot, of whose honesty I felt as certain as of my own; but then he was by far too illiterate and simple in his nature to deal with so shrewd a personage as the Jew; and the specimen which I had had of good Solomon Ahar's proceedings was not very well calculated to increase my confidence in his probity. Although the weapon might be considered as a mere gewgaw, yet I clung to the thought of regaining it as speedily as possible with feelings which some people will easily enter into. It seemed as if it were my inheritance; it was the only thing I possessed of my father's; it was the tie between me and past years. I meditated over this for some time, without coming to any satisfactory conclusion; and at length remembering that there were many other things to think of, I proceeded to the bedside of young Martin Vern, to prepare him for removal on the following day.

Since the extraction of the ball he had been daily recovering strength. The great quantity of blood he had lost had in all probability been the cause that no great fever had ensued; and he had been able to lie and talk to me at various times during the preceding day without any apparent inconvenience. I now found him still better; and he heard that the siege of Angoulême was over, and that we were preparing to make a retrograde movement, to attack the small town of Pons, with apparent pleasure. He expressed himself perfectly willing and able to be moved; but only desired to find a messenger to bear intelligence of his state to his uncle, and to tell him in what direction we were likely to proceed.

I instantly caught at the opportunity of communicating with the Jew through Martin Vern; and, after consulting with the young man upon the subject, and telling him the whole facts, the matter was very easily arranged. Andriot was sent back to Bordeaux with a mere verbal message concerning the movements of the army, but with a letter from me to the merchant, which told him of his nephew's improved health, and of my own wishes with regard to the Jew, and also enclosed both the receipt which the worthy Solomon had given me, and the requisite sum for redeeming the dagger.

Andriot by this time had nearly enough of military service, and was not at all sorry to lay aside the cuirass and helmet. He did not even affect to conceal that such was the case; but, at the same time, begged that I would let him return and join me in the capacity of a servant as before.

Early on the following morning we began our march for Pons; and that city was besieged in form, the garrison expressing its determination to hold out to the last extremity. They kept their word in the town; the place was taken by assault; and for the first time I beheld the most awful scene that war, always terrible, can display. Death, and destruction, and cold-blooded massacre surrounded me on every side; but, terrible as it all was, I had the satisfaction of contributing, in some degree, to the cessation of the evil. One or two of the officers joined with me; and we endeavoured, as far as possible, to shelter even the officers and soldiers that surrendered.

This attempt was nearly vain, however; but it prepared the way for more successful efforts when the pillage of houses commenced. To prevent plunder was impossible, I found; but to stop massacre was less difficult, and most of my soldiers were beginning to listen to the repeated commands that they received, and form into some order, when, suddenly, a girl rushed from one of the houses, pursued by a trooper whom I had engaged at Barbazieux, and who had shown himself somewhat slack in the combat and eager in the pillage.

Both the girl and the man heard clearly the orders I was in the very act of repeating, to abstain from outrage, and, rushing forward, she clung to my knees. The man darted on after her, swearing that he would have his lawful prey; that the town was taken by assault, and nobody should stop him. There was a large body of soldiers coming up at the time under Monsieur de Boucard, and I knew that at that moment example was everything. The man had the insolence to seize the woman by the shoulder at my very feet; but my heavy double-edged sword was naked in my hand at the instant, and his foul fingers had scarcely touched her when his spirit went to its dark account.

"Rightly done, rightly done, Monsieur de Cerons!" cried Boucard, turning partly towards his men and partly towards me. "The same punishment for any one who commits such excesses."