Hardly had this skilful operation been performed, and before Sir Richard Pendragon could reinvest his skin with that doublet which was wont to enclose the blood of kings, when our ears were assailed with the sounds of armed men approaching rapidly in the darkness.
“Here comes John Castilian’s wasp nest about our ears,” said the Englishman grimly.
It was not a season for speech, however. Lifting the Count of Nullepart into his saddle, we tarried not an instant, but led our horses off the track. Rising sheer on either side of the road loomed the face of a steep mountain. It seemed well-nigh impossible to traverse it; and we had gone but a short distance along this difficult ascent when we stayed our progress to listen to our enemies, who passed noisily by us in the road below. To judge by the jingling of swords and bridles and the beating of hoofs against the stones, they formed a considerable mounted company. And I think had they not been riding carelessly they must have seen us, so short a distance were we from them.
When they had passed we continued to ascend the mountain. Yet this adventure was fraught with great peril. There was no road to go upon; trees and rough boulders were strewn everywhere; and the higher we rose the more imminent it became that we should step over some steep precipice that lay concealed in the darkness. Sir Richard Pendragon made use of his scabbard in the same way that a blind man uses his staff. He tried every yard of the ground before his feet passed over it, for, as he said, “he desired not to fall into the Devil’s Kitchen, lest he met man’s Evil Adversary who was bound to perplex a good Catholic.”
The Englishman being spared this calamity, owing to the exercise of much skill, we came at last to a large wood. Very grateful we felt for its promise of protection, yet its precincts looked so black that Sir Richard Pendragon said it would not surprise him at all if a wicked ogre dwelt in it, or a fell magician, or even a wizard or a salamander. In spite of these forebodings which he declared to be the natural fruit of a brain that had been nourished upon the Roman authors in its youth, we felt ourselves to be quite safe from detection among the thick trees and with the dark night also to cover us. We led our weary horses within the wood and tied them up. Then, seeking out a dry and sheltered place, we spread our own weariness upon the green earth and folded our cloaks about us.
All through these long yet sweet hours of utter darkness my two comrades continued to sleep—the Count of Nullepart lightly and fitfully, Sir Richard Pendragon with the perseverance of the fabled ones of Ephesus. And as thus I was stretched upon what I was fain to consider my first battlefield, with this fragrant redress never farther from my eyes, I was minded to resummon the image of the night’s wild business; and with that natural instinct for the foibles of my fellowmen—a habit of philosophy which I can only ascribe to my mother—I proceeded to ruminate on the nature of those who lay by my side.
I think I may say these reflections were not unpleasant. My companions were strange, diverse, and foreign men; and one of them was certainly barbarous in the comparison with the gentlemen of our peninsula, who in matters of high civility are allowed to be the first in the world. Yet I found that I had already come to entertain towards them a sentiment of liberal fellowship, nay, even of love. The dangers we had already shared together, and perhaps the thought of those which were to come, which made my heart beat high as I lay upon the bare ground, caused me to forget their nation and their idiosyncrasy, and to cherish a feeling towards them which the gentle reader will hardly think consistent in one who boasted the sangre azul of Spain.
At the first sign of dawn Sir Richard Pendragon awoke, rose from his couch, and shook himself like a dog. He then announced that we must get upon our road at once, since our proximity to the King of Castile’s chief city was highly perilous. It was with a tender concern that we awakened the poor Count of Nullepart, who was still dozing fitfully. His face looked ashen pale in the grey morning light, but he gave us his assurance that he was fit to take the saddle.
Whether this was the case or not, and his looks denied him, the Count of Nullepart was a brave man, and he disdained our aid in mounting his horse. But never was a path so difficult and painful as the one we took that day. We dared not descend the mountain to the public road, lest we fell in with our foes, but were compelled to move by stealth across an almost insurmountable country, like a company of robbers skulking from lawful men.
In the soreness of our travail, which was such that on many occasions we had to dismount and lead our horses along places they could not take alone, we needed much resolution to support the pains of our journey. I know not what were the sufferings of our stricken companion, yet not a word of complaint escaped from his lips. As for Sir Richard Pendragon, his demeanour had become that of a brave man and a redoubtable leader.