"No! no!" cried Gerard. "Death together, or safety. Ah! the mule! mount her, you, and I"ll run by your side."
In a moment Martin was on Ghysbrecht"s mule, and Gerard raised the fainting girl in his arms and placed her on the saddle, and relieved Martin of his bow.
"Help! treason! murder! murder!" shrieked Ghysbrecht, suddenly rising on his hams.
"Silence, cur," roared Gerard, and trode him down again by the throat as men crush an adder.
"Now, have you got her firm? Then fly! for our lives! for our lives!"
But even as the mule, urged suddenly by Martin"s heel, scattered the flints with his hind hoofs ere he got into a canter, and even as Gerard withdrew his foot from Ghysbrecht"s throat to run, Dierich Brower and his five men, who had come back for orders, and heard the burgomaster"s cries, burst roaring out of the coppice on them.
CHAPTER XXI
SPEECH is the familiar vent of human thoughts: but there are emotions so simple and overpowering, that they rush out not in words, but in eloquent sounds. At such moments man seems to lose his characteristics, and to be merely one of the higher animals; for these, when greatly agitated, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e, though they cannot speak.
There was something terrible and truly animal, both in the roar of triumph with which the pursuers burst out of the thicket on our fugitives, and the sharp cry of terror with which these latter darted away. The pursuers" hands clutched the empty air, scarce two feet behind them, as they fled for life. Confused for a moment, like lions that miss their spring, Dierich and his men let Gerard and the mule put ten yards between them. Then they flew after with uplifted weapons. They were sure of catching them; for this was not the first time the parties had measured speed. In the open ground they had gained visibly on the three this morning, and now, at last, it was a fair race again, to be settled by speed alone. A hundred yards were covered in no time. Yet still there remained these ten yards between the pursuers and the pursued.
This increase of speed since the morning puzzled Dierich Brower. The reason was this. When three run in company, the pace is that of the slowest of the three. From Peter"s house to the edge of the forest Gerard ran Margaret"s pace; but now he ran his own; for the mule was fleet, and could have left them all far behind. Moreover youth and chaste living began to tell. Daylight grew imperceptibly between the hunted ones and the hunters. Then Dierich made a desperate effort, and gained two yards; but in a few seconds Gerard had stolen them quietly back. The pursuers began to curse.
Martin heard, and his face lighted up. "Courage, Gerard! courage, brave lad! they are straggling."
It was so. Dierich was now headed by one of his men, and another dropped into the rear altogether.
They came to a rising ground, not sharp, but long; and here youth, and grit, and sober living, told more than ever.
Ere he reached the top, Dierich"s forty years weighed him down like forty bullets. "Our cake is dough," he gasped. "Take him dead, if you can"t alive": and he left running, and followed at a foot"s pace. Jorian Ketel tailed off next; and then another, and so, one by one, Gerard ran them all to a standstill, except one who kept on stanch as a bloodhound, though losing ground every minute. His name, if I am not mistaken, was Eric Wouverman. Followed by him, they came to a rise in the wood, shorter, but much steeper than the last.
"Hand on mane!" cried Martin.
Gerard obeyed, and the mule helped him up the hill faster even than he was running before.
At the sight of this manuvre Dierich"s man lost heart, and, being now full eighty yards behind Gerard, and rather more than that in advance of his nearest comrade, he pulled up short, and, in obedience to Dierich"s order, took down his crossbow, levelled it deliberately, and just as the trio were sinking out of sight over the crest of the hill, sent the bolt whizzing among them.
There was a cry of dismay; and, next moment, as if a thunderbolt had fallen on them, they were all lying on the ground, mule and all.
CHAPTER XXII
THE effect was so sudden and magical, that the shooter himself was stupefied for an instant. Then he hailed his companions to join him in effecting the capture, and himself set off up the hill: but, ere he had got half way, up rose the figure of Martin Wittenhaagen with a bent bow in his hand. Eric Wouverman no sooner saw him in this att.i.tude, than he darted behind a tree, and made himself as small as possible. Martin"s skill with that weapon was well known, and the slain dog was a keen reminder of it.
Wouverman peered round the bark cautiously: there was the arrow"s point still aimed at him. He saw it shine. He dared not move from his shelter.
When he had been at peep-bo some minutes, his companions came up in great force.
Then with a scornful laugh, Martin vanished, and presently was heard to ride off on the mule.
All the men ran up together. The high ground commanded a view of a narrow but almost interminable glade.
They saw Gerard and Margaret running along at a prodigious distance; they looked like gnats; and Martin galloping after them _ventre a terre_.
The hunters were outwitted as well as outrun. A few words will explain Martin"s conduct. We arrive at causes by noting coincidences: yet, now and then, coincidences are deceitful. As we have all seen a hare tumble over a briar just as the gun went off, and so raise expectations, then dash them to earth by scudding away untouched, so the burgomaster"s mule put her foot in a rabbit-hole at or about the time the cross-bow bolt whizzed innocuous over her head: she fell and threw both her riders.
Gerard caught Margaret, but was carried down by her weight and impetus; and behold, the soil was strewn with dramatis personae.
The docile mule was up again directly, and stood trembling. Martin was next, and looking round saw there was but one in pursuit; on this he made the young lovers fly on foot, while he checked the enemy as I have recorded.
He now galloped after his companions, and, when after a long race he caught them, he instantly put Gerard and Margaret on the mule, and ran by their side till his breath failed, then took his turn to ride, and so in rotation. Thus the runner was always fresh, and, long ere they relaxed their speed, all sound and trace of them was hopelessly lost to Dierich and his men. These latter went crest-fallen back to look after their chief, and their winged bloodhound.
CHAPTER XXIII
LIFE and liberty, while safe, are little thought of: for why? they are matters of course. Endangered, they are rated at their real value. In this, too, they are like sunshine, whose beauty men notice not at noon when it is greatest, but towards evening when it lies in flakes of topaz under shady elms. Yet it is feebler then; but gloom lies beside it, and contrast reveals its fire. Thus Gerard and Margaret, though they started at every leaf that rustled louder than its fellows, glowed all over with joy and thankfulness as they glided among the friendly trees in safety and deep tranquil silence, baying dogs and brutal voices yet ringing in their mind"s ears.
But presently Gerard found stains of blood on Margaret"s ankles.
"Martin! Martin! help! they have wounded her: the crossbow!"
"No, no," said Margaret, smiling to re-a.s.sure him. "I am not wounded, nor hurt at all."
"But what is it, then, in Heaven"s name?" cried Gerard, in great agitation.
"Scold me not then!" and Margaret blushed.
"Did I ever scold you?"
"No, dear Gerard. Well, then, Martin said it was blood those cruel dogs followed; so I thought, if I could but have a little blood on my shoon, the dogs would follow me instead, and let my Gerard wend free. So I scratched my arm with Martin"s knife--forgive me! Whose else could I take? Yours, Gerard? Ah, no. You forgive me?" said she beseechingly, and lovingly and fawningly, all in one.
"Let me see this scratch first," said Gerard, choking with emotion.
"There, I thought so. A scratch? I call it a cut--a deep terrible, cruel cut."
Gerard shuddered at sight of it.
"She might have done it with her bodkin," said the soldier. "Milksop!
that sickens at sight of a scratch and a little blood."
"No, no. I could look on a sea of blood; but not on hers. Oh, Margaret!
how could you be so cruel?"
Margaret smiled with love ineffable. "Foolish Gerard," murmured she, "to make so much of nothing." And she flung the guilty arm round his neck.
"As if I would not give all the blood in my heart for you, let alone a few drops from my arm." And, with this, under the sense of his recent danger, she wept on his neck for pity and love: and he wept with her.