We sat by the fire, with each of us telling of his adventures, till far into the night. Then in turns we lay down on a couch of twigs and leaves that Charles had built for himself in the hollow of an overhanging rock. In the morning I had new life. We went down to a cove on the side of the island where Charles had a boat fastened and hidden among the roots of overhanging trees. It was the one, he explained, that my captor had searched for to carry us across the river.
We landed on the other bank and stepped ashore. We went up the steep bank as far as the brow of a hill. The whole country,—wooded and wild,—stretched before us. Whether we would come upon friend or enemy we had yet to learn. We turned and looked back at the river winding in long slow curves at our feet. We saw the island in all its outline as green and peaceful as you could wish.
My eye was caught by an object moving on the opposite shore. When my gaze grew accustomed to the distance I counted six men. Some of them were armed with bows and arrows. The rest were cutting down young trees and dragging them to the river. Now and then I saw the flash of a sword-blade in the light of the sun.
There was no doubt of it. Our enemies were on foot. They were building a raft to carry armed men over to the island. They would search it from end to end. When they learned that we were gone, they would make for our side of the stream. They would leave no stone unturned to find us. They would examine every blade of grass for traces of us. They would be on our heels like hounds. We were in a country that was unknown to us, while they were as familiar with it as I was with my own.
The Black Prince with his army lay twenty or at most thirty leagues to the west. I had information that would save them. One thought drove us headlong on and on—if our enemies should come upon us, there would be no parleying or hesitation. They would shoot us down like dogs.
CHAPTER XX
NO MAN’S LAND
That day we went on as fast as our legs could carry us. We gauged our position by the sun. During the morning we kept it in our rear while in the afternoon we made sure of ourselves by the shine of it (when there was an opening in the woods) in our faces.
There were no roads that you could speak of—only rutted trails of mud hardly wide enough for two ox-carts to pass without touching the hubs of each other’s wheels. Once in a while we saw the hut of a peasant or a charcoal burner. These we carefully avoided, for we hoped to leave no sign behind us for our enemies to follow, nor did we wish to fall stupidly into a trap. Fortunately it was the season of the year when the nuts were beginning to ripen and we contented ourselves with what we could get of these.
We slept curled up beside each other at the root of a tree. The next morning we were on our way again, but I may say with less speed, for our feet were sore from the unevenness of the ground and our bodies were stretched and tired from the uncomfortable position in which we had spent the night.