They had left their horses on the lower slopes, and by midnight had reached the summit of the pass, where the road narrowed rapidly under the shadow of the cliff. A great rock hung like a bartizan over the precipice, narrowing the track still further so that a natural gate gave passage betwixt two walls of stone. A storm-twisted pine, clinging to the cliff, cast a broad shadow over the path, while over the thin grass the blue gentians grew even to the edge of the great ravine.
A sudden cry topped the far thunder of the torrents. Tristan’s guide stood beyond the rock, his tall figure outlined by the moon. He was pointing with his staff towards the south, beckoning them on with eager gestures.
“The Saracens, the Saracens!”
Tristan sprang up beside him, his melancholy gone in the flash of an eye. To the south a broad valley stretched up betwixt the spurs of the mountains, flooded by the tranquil light of the moon. Crag upon crag fell away to the distant scene where torrents ran like strands of flax into forests that stood like early bracken. From the dim depths where the pass began amid rolling woods there came a sense of movement under the moon. Columns of steel like shining beetles crawled up the rugged slopes from the edge of the forest. Nearer still under the bluff shoulder of a cliff the mountain road lay clear before their eyes.
Tristan whistled and laid his hand on his sword, for there to the south in the pale moonlight came long lines of armed men toiling up the pass towards the Saint’s Gate. Buckler and lance caught the moonbeams from afar; white tunics splashed the sable rocks; glittering corselets were merged together till the long columns of moving men seemed like dragons of steel climbing the mountains. Above stood the calm and silent peaks steeped in the stillness of the heavens. Below, the many torrents muttered, as though they cheered on the advancing host.
CHAPTER XLIV
To the north of St. Isidore’s Gate the road expanded into a broad platform, capable of holding some hundred men. Many boulders were strewn around, with squared stones fallen from the ruined parapet that had once edged the sharp precipice. Tristan and his men were quickly at work, carrying stones towards the Gate, and piling a rampart from the rock to the cliff. The peasant who had served them as guide had swarmed up the stem of the great fir and was perched amid the branches, watching the Saracens as they climbed the pass. Meanwhile, Tristan had sent a messenger to warn Sir Bertrand on the heights above that Serjabil was upon them with his host.
Soon a broad bulwark, a Cyclopean wall, closed the mouth of St. Isidore’s Gate. Tristan stood under the shadow of the tree with Blanche the Bold at his side. The melancholy that had possessed the man but an hour before had passed with the stir of the coming battle. He was once more that Tristan of dogged will who had slain Ogier the giant in fair fight and trodden down Jocelyn into the dust.
He spread his shoulders and smiled at the moon as he stood with Blanche upon the rough stone wall. His nostrils dilated with his deep breathing as he watched the columns climb the pass.
“But a day and a night,” he said, “and Lothaire should come. We could hold this wall for a week, I trow.”