She, poor thing, the only woman with brains among the many scared

females in the garrison, might not rest or look the wonder in the

face. Fresh sufferers needed her care, and related gallant things

of 'the Duke's Englishman,' things of desperate daring and prowess

that sent the blood throbbing to her heart with exultation, but

only to be followed by a pang of anguish at having let him go back

to peril--nay, perhaps, to death--without a word of tenderness or

even recognition. She imaged him as the sunny-faced youth who had

claimed her in the royal castle, and her longing to be at his side

and cling to him as his own became every moment more fervent and

irresistible, until she gladly recollected the necessity of

carrying food to the defenders; and snatching an interval from her

hospital cares, she sped to the old circular kitchen of the

monastery, where she found the lame baker vainly trying to organize

a party of frightened women to carry provisions to the garrison of

the bridge-tower.

'Give some to me,' she said. 'My husband is there! I am come to

fetch his dinner.' The peasant women looked and whispered as if they thought that, to

add to their misfortunes, their Lady of Hope had become distracted

by grief; and one or two, who held the old faith, and were like the

crane among the sparrows, even observed that it was a judgment for

the profane name that had been given her, against which she had

herself uniformly protested.

'My husband is come,' said Eustacie, looking round with shining

eyes. 'Let us be brave wives, and not let our men famish.' She lifted a loaf and a pitcher of broth, and with the latter

poised on her erect and graceful head, and elastic though steady

step, she led the way; the others following her with a sort of awe,

as of one they fancied in a superhuman state. In fact, there was

no great danger in traversing the bridge with its lofty parapet on

either side; and her mind was too much exalted and moved to be

sensible of anything but a certain exulting awe of the battle

sounds. There was, however, a kind of lull in the assault which

had raged so fiercely ever since the fall of the officer, and the

arrival of the reinforcements. Either the enemy had paused to take

food, or were devising some fresh mode of attack; and as the line

of women advanced, there started forth from under the arch a broad-

shouldered, white-faced, golden-bearded personage, who cried

joyously, 'My dearest, my bravest! this for me!' and lifted the

pitcher from her head as he grasped her hand with a flesh and blood

clasp indeed, but the bright-cheeked, wavy-haired lad of her dream

withered away with a shock of disappointment, and she only looked

up with wistful puzzled earnestness instead of uttering the dear

name that she had so long been whispering to herself. 'Dearest,'

he said, 'this is precious indeed to me, that you should let me

feast my eyes once more on you. But you may not tarry; the rogues

may renew the attack at any moment.' She had thought of herself as insisting on standing beside him and

sharing his peril. Had he been himself she must have don so, but

this was a stranger, whose claiming her made her shrink apart till

she could feel the identity which, though she believed, she could

not realize. Her hand lay cold and tremulous within his warm

pressure, but he was too much wrought up and too full of joy and

haste to be sensible of anything but of the brave affection that

had dared all to come to him; and he was perfectly happy, even as a

trumpet-call among the foe warned him to press her fingers to his

lips and say, as his bright blue eye kindled, 'God grant that we

may meet and thank Him tonight! Farewell, my lost and found! I

fight as one who has something to fight for.' He might not leave his post, but he watched her with eyes that

could not be satiated, as she recrossed the bridge; and, verily,

his superabundant ecstasy, and the energy that was born of it, were

all needed to sustain the spirits of his garrison through that

terrible afternoon. The enemy seemed to be determined to carry the

place before it could be relieved, and renewed the storm again and

again with increasing violence; while the defenders, disheartened

by their pertinacity, dismayed at the effects of the heavy

artillery, now brought to bear on the tower, and direfully afraid

of having the bridge destroyed, would have abandoned their barbican

and shut themselves up within the body of the place, had not

Berenger been here, there, and everywhere, directing, commanding,

exhorting, cheering, encouraging, exciting enthusiasm by word and

example, winning proud admiration by feats of valour and dexterity

sprung of the ecstatic inspiration of new-found bliss, and

watching, as the conscious defender of his own most beloved,

without a moment's respite, till twilight stillness sank on the

enemy, and old Falconnet came to relieve him, thanking him for his

gallant defence, and auguring that, by noonday tomorrow at latest,

M. le Duc would succour them, unless he were hampered by any folly

of this young Navarre.




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