It was a clear, promising morning, a light breeze blowing from the west, but the sea still and smooth, only dimpling with the puffs of wind. Tom stood on board beside the horses, soothing their fears at the strange sights and sounds about them, his own heart beating somewhat high with excitement at the thought of putting to sea for the first time.
The sailors were busy hauling in ropes, singing and shouting. The vessel gave a little start and shiver, there was a rattle of canvas overhead, and a gentle lurching movement. Then the sh.o.r.e seemed suddenly to be slipping away; and Tom knew, with a start of surprise and exhilaration, that they were off upon their voyage to unknown lands.
Presently the horses grew calm and quiet, used to their strange surroundings, and willing to nibble at the heap of fragrant hay put down at their feet. Tom was able to leave them with a clear conscience, and came over to where Lord Claud was standing in the fore part of the vessel, watching the sheets of green water that fell away from the prow as the sloop cut her way through the waves.
"Well, friend Tom, so we are off at last."
"Yes, my lord; but I have not heard yet whither."
"No; and, like a wise and prudent fellow, have not desired to know too much. You are a model of patience, Tom--an excellent companion to have. But the time has come when I can safely enlighten you as far as you need be enlightened. I shall not tell you all I know; for, in truth, you would not understand it."
"That may very well be," answered Tom humbly.
"But I will tell you this much, Tom; we are bound upon an errand of peril. We have some difficult journeyings to make, and there will be certain persons lying in wait for messengers from Marlborough; and we may be sore beset to avoid them. Tom, do you remember the tall dark man with whom my duel was fought?"
"Sir James?"
"That is the name by which he goes in England. He pa.s.ses there as one Sir James Montacute, a man of bravery and wealth. But there is another side to the picture. That man, Tom, is a spy, and in the pay of the King of France. If I had known as much that day as I have since learned from his Grace the Duke, methinks I should not have left him alive upon the field. Tom, we shall probably have to measure our wits against his in a duel of another sort ere long."
Tom threw back his head with a defiant gesture.
"Well, my lord; and I am ready!" he said.
"Very good, Tom; I thought as much. You did not love our dark-skinned friend much better than I did. I think we shall find him lurking in wait for us somewhere amid the snows of the St.
Bernard Pa.s.s. Hast ever heard of the St. Bernard, Tom, and the good monks there?"
"I think I have," answered Tom, who had heard so many new things of late that he could not be expected to keep them all in mind together.
"Well, it may be we shall have to seek their hospitality yet; although our way lies across the Little St. Bernard, as it is called, that ancient pa.s.s which Hannibal and his host crossed when they marched through the snows of Switzerland to pour themselves upon the fertile plains of Italy. It is to this very day the only route by which those snowy Alps may be crossed; and we must find our way thither, Tom, and go down to the fair city of Turin."
"Is that where we are going?"
"Ay; hast heard of Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy?"
"Is he not one of the Allies?"
"Yes; albeit for a while he sided with the French King, who did much to hold his fidelity. But now he is one of the Allies, and he is sore beset by the armies of Louis. The King of Prussia is about to send relief; but His Majesty is tardy, and the snows of winter lie thick in his land, hindering rapid action. It is our part to take the Duke news of the welcome aid, and of other matters I need not be particular to name; and we shall need all our wits about us to carry this matter to a successful issue."
"You mean that the pa.s.s will be watched?"
"Yes; we shall be certain to fall in with spies of the French King, perhaps with Sir James himself. He has left England, so much is known; and though he may be at the court of France, yet it may be our hap to light upon him at any time. He is a man of cunning and resource and ferocity. We shall want our best wits and our best swordsmanship if we are to cope with him."
Tom"s eyes sparkled with excitement and joy.
"And is the mountain pa.s.s the only way of getting into Italy, for I have heard that Savoy lies in that land?" said Tom.
"Ay; Italy has had its strange vicissitudes of fortune, and has been divided and redivided into duchies and kingdoms, till it needs a clever scholar to tell her history aright. But it is enough for our purpose that Savoy lies just beneath those grim mountains which we must scale; and that for the present no other entrance is possible."
"But there are other ways then?"
"Why, yes, we could at other times go by sea; but now that the Spaniards are seeking to win back the rock of Gibraltar, which we have lately reft from them, and which Marlborough says must never be yielded up again, we cannot safely try that way; for we might well fall into the hands of some Spanish vessel, and languish, unknown and uncared for, in Spanish dungeons. We cannot travel through France, and reach it from the sh.o.r.es of Genoa; because it were too great peril for Englishmen to ride through the dominions of the French monarch. So we must needs land at some friendly Dutch port, and ride through their country, and so into Westphalia, and thence to these mountain regions which cut us off from our destination.
"Have you ever seen snow mountains, Tom, towering to the very skies in virgin whiteness, with the rivers of ice, miles in width, flowing silently down their rocky sides? It is a strange and marvellous sight when viewed for the first time. I could find it in my heart to wish I stood in your shoes, that all these new things might be seen and heard for the first time!"
"And I would that I knew more of these strange lands, and the ways of the people there," answered Tom; "for I fear me lest mine ignorance may lead us into peril. But if such a thing as that were to befall, I would lay down my life to save yours, my lord."
"I believe you, Tom," answered the other very gravely. He was silent a while, and then he said slowly, "Tom, I am going to say a strange thing to yon--at least it would sound strange to some; and, indeed, I should not dare to say it to every companion in peril.
But I believe you to be stanch and true."
"I trust you will ever find me so, my lord."
"Well, Tom, this is the word that I would say to you. It may chance that things come to this pa.s.s with us, that one of us twain must needs fall into the hands of the enemy, and die; for there is little hope of any other end when that befalls. And if we know and can so arrange matters, it must be you and not I who will fall into that peril."
Tom looked back without flinching.
"You speak well, my lord," he said. "It must be my lot to die. You will not find me hold back when the moment comes."
Lord Claud took his hand and held it in both of his.
"It must be you, Tom; and yet I would rather it were myself. But I have that intrusted to me which I must speak in the Duke"s ear. The despatches are as little compared with what I have had from Marlborough"s own lips--what may not be trusted upon paper.
Moreover, I could find my way through the countries, where you would be lost for lack of words to ask your way. If one of us has to be delivered over to death, it must be you."
"It must. I see it well."
"Yet we may both succeed in getting through, or we may both leave our bones lying amid the eternal snows. Perhaps in years to come it will matter little enough. Just now it seems a matter of more importance. But I have told you this to show my trust in you, Tom.
There are not many comrades to whom I could have thus unburdened myself. I should have had to use subtlety where now I use truth and openness."
"You shall not find me fail you, my lord," answered Tom.
CHAPTER X. IN PERIL.
"Halt! and declare yourselves!" cried a hoa.r.s.e voice speaking in the French tongue.
"Now for it, Tom," said Lord Claud quietly, speaking between his shut teeth. "Remember what I have told you. Be wary, be ready. We shall get through all right. There are but two or three score, and none of them mounted."
The travellers were pa.s.sing now through the narrow territory of the Margrave of Baden, with the Rhine upon their right, the only protection from the frontier of France with all its hostile hosts.
The slow and inactive policy of the Margrave of Baden naturally encouraged the enemy to send small parties of soldiers across to harry his country; and already Tom and his master had had to dodge and hide, or go out of their way, to avoid meeting with these bands of inimical marauders. They were not the cla.s.s of opponents whom Lord Claud most dreaded, still they might well fall upon and make prisoner the two English travellers; and if despatches were found upon the person of either, they would almost certainly be shot as spies. Indeed, so bitter was the feeling on the part of the French after their defeat at Blenheim, that any travellers belonging to the hated English nation went in danger of their lives.
For some time now Tom had been wearing the garb of a serving man.
His peruke had disappeared, and he wore a little dark wig that looked like his natural hair. It excited less comment for master and servant to travel from town to town together than for two English gentlemen to be riding unattended through such a disturbed country; and as they pursued their way, Lord Claud would give minute and precise directions to Tom how to act in the event of their falling in with one of these scouting or marauding parties, showing such a wonderful knowledge of the tactics of forest warfare that Tom was often astonished at him, and would have liked to ask where he had obtained his experience.
And now, for the first time, Tom was face to face with a real foe--no mere antagonist of the hour, with whom he had exchanged some angry word, and was ready to follow it up with blows, but with armed foes of a hostile race, whose blood was stirred by the hatred bred of long-continued warfare, and who would think as little of taking the lives of two Englishmen as Tom would of shooting a fat buck in his native woodlands.
Again came the word of command in the hoa.r.s.e voice.