“Messieurs!” It was Badehorn who spoke, or rather shouted. “Messieurs! We are all wrong. There is the light of Beaulieu to our right! It should be to our left!”
“Light! There is no light there!” I said, “though we may well be all wrong, as you say;” but even as I spoke, something flared and sputtered redly out of the night.
“That is not Beaulieu; the light is too low,” said Marcilly, “but Beaulieu or not, let us make for it, in God’s name! ’Tis useless wandering here like evil spirits!”
We hastened toward the light, the position of which we marked as it flashed once more through the darkness. I said hastened—I should have said stumbled toward it. It was necessary, so steep was the slope, to dismount here, and lead the horses, which we did, going down in single file, Marcilly and I groping before us with the points of our drawn swords.
Finally we reached level ground, and headed towards our refuge. It was close at hand, and the horses seemed to know, too, for they neighed shrilly, and there was an answering call—the strange, harsh cry of a mule.
In a few steps more we came to a gate that lay open, and saw the house again clearly by a blaze of lightning. It seemed a large, low, rambling building, with a tower at one end, from which the beacon flared, and Marcilly, who knew every inch of the country, recognized it.
“’Tis the old Château Juvigny, now the abbey farm of Larçon,” he exclaimed, “the largest farmhouse in Touraine. I knew it well. ’Twas here I lay the day before Renaudie died, and but escaped by the skin of my teeth. Gilles de Randan and his Light Horse swooped on the place while my bed was yet warm. I wonder a rafter was spared!”
“It was well left for our sakes,” I made answer, and battered at the door with the hilt of my sword.
We had to knock long and loudly ere we were heard. A dog barked furiously from within, and at last a shutter opened overhead, a man leaned out, swinging a pine torch in his hand, and called out to us; but the storm bore away his voice. Marcilly began to swear, and Badehorn to kick at the door with his heavy boots; but realizing that this was not the way to make things run smoothly, and having no mind to have a brace of slugs through me, I bade them desist, and called out loudly that we were belated travellers in search of a night’s lodging, and that we were prepared to pay handsomely for the favor. I had to repeat this twice, so furious was the storm; but at last my voice reached the ears of the clod above, and with a gruff “Wait,” he put down the shutter and vanished.
“This will never do!” exclaimed Marcilly, and he was about to sound a reminder on the door, when we heard the dog yell as if being beaten off, the clanking of chains, the dropping of a bar, and the door opened, letting in a gust of wind and a sheet of snow that all but extinguished the torch held by a man in the hall. Behind his figure we saw three or four others, farm-servants apparently, armed with clubs and pitchforks. It was no time to hesitate, however, and we stepped in, while the farmer himself, a short, thickset man, who carried a light axe in his hand, reassured us at once.