Part 43 (1/2)

With a quick backward step, Sholto slashed his last a.s.sailant across the upper arm, effectually disabling him. Then, catching his heel in a rut, he fell backward, and it would have gone ill with him but for the action of his father. The brawny one was profoundly disgusted at having to waste his strength and science upon such a rabble, and now, at the moment of his son's fall, he suddenly dropped his sword and seized a couple of torches which had fallen upon the pavement. With these primitive weapons he fell like a whirlwind upon the foe, taking them unexpectedly in flank. A sweep of his mighty arms right and left sent two of the a.s.sailants down, one with the whole side of his face scarified from brow to jaw, and the other with his mouth at once widened by the blow and hermetically closed by the blazing tar.

Next, Sholto's pair of a.s.sailants received each a mighty buffet and went down with cracked sconces. The rest, seeing this revolving and decimating fire-mill rus.h.i.+ng upon them as Malise waved the torches round his head, turned tail and fled incontinently into the narrow alleys which radiated in all directions from the Hotel de p.o.r.nic.

CHAPTER XLIV

LAURENCE TAKES NEW SERVICE

”Look to them well, Malise,” said the Lord James; ”'twas you who did the skull-cracking at any rate. See if your leechcraft can tell us if any of these young rogues are likely to die. I would not have their deaths on my conscience if I can avoid it.”

First picking up and sheathing his sword, then bidding Sholto hold a torch, Malise turned the youths over on their backs. Four of them grunted and complained of the flare of the light in their eyes, like men imperfectly roused from sleep.

”Thae loons will be round in half an hour,” said Malise, confidently.

”But they will hae richt sair heads the morn, I'se warrant, and some o' them may be marked aboot the chafts for a Sabbath or twa!”

But the swarthy youth whom the others called De Sille, he who had been spokesman and who had fallen first, was more seriously injured. He had worn a thin steel cap on his head, which had been cracked by the buffet he had received from the mighty fist of the master armourer.

The broken pieces had made a wound in the skull, from which blood flowed freely. And in the uncertain light of the torch Malise could not make any prolonged examination.

”Let us tak' the callant up to the tap o' the hoose,” he said at last; ”we can put him in the far ben garret till we see if he is gaun to turn up his braw silver-taed shoon.”

Without waiting for any permission or dissent, the smith of Carlinwark tucked his late opponent under his arm as easily as an ordinary man might carry a puppy. Then, sheathing their swords, the other three Scots made haste to leave the place, for the gleaming of lanthorns could already be seen down the street, which might either mark the advent of the city watch or the return of the enemy with reinforcements.

It was to a towering house with barred windows and great doors that the four Scots retreated. Entering cautiously by a side portal, Malise led the way with his burden. This mansion had been the town residence of the first Duke of Touraine, Archibald the Tineman. It had been occupied by the English for military purposes during their tenancy of the city, and now that they were gone, it had escaped by its very dilapidation the fate of the other possessions of the house of Douglas in France.

James Douglas had obtained the keys from Gervais Bonpoint, the trusty agent of the Avondales in Paris, who also attended to the foreign concerns of most others of the Scottish n.o.bility. So the four men had taken possession, none saying them nay, and, indeed, in the disordered state of the government, but few being aware of their presence.

Upon an old bedstead hastily covered with plaids, Malise proceeded to make his prisoner comfortable. Then, having washed the wound and carefully examined it by candlelight, he p.r.o.nounced his verdict:

”The young cheat-the-wuddie will do yet, and live to swing by the lang cord about his craig!”

Which, when interpreted in the vulgar, conveyed at once an expectation of a life to be presently prolonged to the swarthy de Sille, but after a time to be cut suddenly short by the hangman.

Every day James Douglas and Sholto haunted the precincts of the Hotel de p.o.r.nic and made certain that its terrible master had not departed.

Malise wished to leave Paris and proceed at once to the De Retz country, there to attempt in succession the marshal's great castles of Machecoul, Tiffauges, and Champtoce, in some one of which he was sure that the stolen maids must be immured.

But James Douglas and Sholto earnestly dissuaded him from the adventure. How did they know (they reminded him) in which to look?

They were all fortresses of large extent, well garrisoned, and it was as likely as not that they might spend their whole time fruitlessly upon one, without gaining either knowledge or advantage.

Besides, they argued it was not likely that any harm would befall the maids so long as their captor remained in Paris--that is, none which had not already overtaken them on their journey as prisoners on board the marshal's s.h.i.+ps.

So the Hotel de p.o.r.nic and its inhabitants remained under the strict espionage of Sholto and Lord James, while up in the garret in the Rue des Ursulines Laurence nursed his brother clerk and Malise sat gloomily polis.h.i.+ng and repolis.h.i.+ng the weapons and secret armour of the party.

It was the evening of the third day before the ”clout” showed signs of healing. Its recipient had been conscious on the second day, but, finding himself a prisoner in the hands of the enemy, he had been naturally enough inclined to be a little sulky and suspicious. But the bright carelessness of Laurence, who dashed at any speech in idiomatic but ungrammatical outlander's French, gradually won upon him. As also the fact that Laurence was clerk-learned and could sing and play upon the viol with surprising skill for one so young.

The prisoner never tired of watching the sunny curls upon the brow of Laurence MacKim, as he wandered about trying the benches, the chairs, and even the floor in a hundred att.i.tudes in search of a comfortable position.

”Ah,” the sallow youth said at last, one afternoon as he lay on his pallet, ”you should be one of the choristers of my master's chapel.