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.