She knelt before him with her face transfigured.
"And death, death can touch me also."
XXXIV
August came in with storm and rain, and a dreary wind blew from the south-west, huddling masses of cloud over a spiritless sky. Southwards, the sea tumbled, a grey expanse edged with foam, its great breakers booming dismally upon the cliffs. The wind swept over Gambrevault, moaning and wailing over battlement and tower, driving the rain in drifting sheets. The bombards still belched and smoked under their penthouses, and the arms of the catapults rose and fell against the sullen sky.
The eighteenth night of the siege came out of the east like a thunder bank, and the grey shivering ghost of the day fled over the western hills. When darkness had fallen, the walls of Gambrevault were invisible from the trenches. Here and there a light shone out like a spark in tinder; the sky above was black as a cavern, unbroken by the crack or cranny of a star.
Flavian, fully armed, kept watch upon the breach with a strong company of men-at-arms. He had taken the ugly measure of the night to heart, and had prepared accordingly. Under the shelter of the wall men slept, wrapped in their cloaks, with their weapons lying by them. The sentinels had been doubled on the battlements, though little could be seen in the blank murk, and even the keep had to be looked for before its mass disjointed itself from the background of the night.
It was treacherous weather, and just the season for an adventurous enemy to creep from the trenches and attempt to rush the breach. Flavian leant upon his long sword, and brooded. The black ends of the broken wall stood up hugely on either hand; rubble and fallen masonry paved the breach, and a rough rampart of debris had been piled along the summit. Around him shone the dull armour of his men, as they stood on guard in the rain.
The storm deadened soul and body, yet kept Flavian vigilant with its boisterous laughter, a sound that might stifle the tramp of stormers pouring to the breach. He was not lonely, for a lover can do without the confidences of others, when he has a woman to speak with in his heart. In fancy he can lavish the infinite tenderness of the soul, caress, quarrel, kiss, comfort, with all the idealisms of the imagination. The spirit lips we touch are sweeter and more red than those in the flesh. To the true man love is the grandest asceticism the world can produce.
Flavian's figure straightened suddenly as it leant bowed in thought upon the sword. He was alert and vigilant, staring into darkness that baffled vision and hid the unknown. A dull, characterless sound was in the air. Whether it was the wind, the sea, or something more sinister, he could not tell. Calling one of his knights to his side, they stood together listening on the wreckage of the wall.
A vague clink, clink, came in discord to the wind, a sound that suggested the cautious moving of armed men. A hoarse voice was growling warily in the distance, as though giving orders. The shrilling noise of steel grew more obvious each moment; the black void below appeared to grow full of movement, to swirl and eddy like a lagoon, whose muddy waters are disturbed by some huge reptile at night. The sudden hoarse cries of sentinels rose from the walls. Feet stumbled on the debris at the base of the breach; stormers were on the threshold of Gambrevault.