CHAPTER VIII.
A MESSAGE FROM THE ENEMY.
"'Tis true, unruffled and serene I've met
The common accidents of life, but here
Such an unlooked-for storm of ills falls on me
It beats down all my strength—I cannot bear it."
ADDISON.
This was not the first occasion on which Quentin had enacted the part of sentinel; but never had he done so with the knowledge that the enemy was before him, and perhaps at that moment closer than he had any idea of, among the mist that obscured the landscape.
All was quiet in front and rear; save the drip of the last night's rain from an over-charged leaf, or the croaking of the bull-frogs in a marsh close by, not a sound broke the stillness.
The dull grey winter morning stole slowly in; the distant mountain peaks of the Guadarama grew red, but all else remained opaque and dim, save the jagged summits of that lofty sierra—a Spanish word very descriptive of a range of conical hills, being evidently (as we are informed by a letter of the dominie) derived from serra, the Latin word for a saw.
On the slope of a hill, at a little distance from where Quentin stood, was a gibbet, a strong post about twenty feet high, having two horizontal beams crosswise on its summit, and from these four arms there hung four robbers, each by the neck, and their long black hair waved over their faces as they swung slowly to and fro in the morning wind, with the ravens wheeling around them, and perching on the arms of the gibbet.
The bull-frogs in the marsh croaked vigorously, and like every other place in Spain, even this fetid swamp had its legend; for here it was that the Cid, Rodrigo de Bivar, when proceeding at the head of twenty young and brave hidalgoes, on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint James at Compostella, saw an aged and half-naked leper in the midst of the slough. Leaping from his horse, Rodrigo dragged the poor man forth, and to the wrath and disgust of his mail-shirted companions, seated him on his own charger, Babieca; thereafter he set him at table with them, and finally, in the extremity of his humility and Christian charity, shared his bed with him. In the night the cavalier awoke, and beheld the leper standing on a cloud above his bed, midway between the floor and ceiling, surrounded by a blaze of light and clad in white and shining robes; and ere he vanished he informed the Cid that he was Saint Lazarus, who had taken the form of a leper to test his charity, which was so commendable that God had granted he should prosper in all things, but chiefly in his wars against the infidel dogs who were troubling all Spain.
As the mists drew upward, Quentin could see about half a mile distant in front, a line of French cavalry videttes, each sitting motionless in his saddle, and both horse and rider looking like one huge and mis-shapen figure, as the scarlet cloak of the latter was spread over the crupper of his charger behind him.
While gazing steadily and with deep interest at the enemy, he was somewhat surprised to see two French dragoons suddenly ride from their own lines straight along the road towards his post.
That they were deserters—his first idea—was impossible, as they rode leisurely and were not fired on by their picquets. By their light green uniforms and brass helmets with flowing plumes he soon saw that they were Chasseurs à Cheval, and that one, who rode a few paces in front of the other, was an officer, with a white handkerchief tied as an extempore flag of truce to the point of his sabre.