Swords of the Red Brotherhood. Robert Ervin Howard

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СКАЧАТЬ haze of dawn that rose over the misty beaches. It was not dawn now, but the sun was not long up, and the pearl-grey mist which drifted over the waters had not yet been dispelled.

      Francoise lifted her splendidly shaped head and stared out over a scene alien and repellent to her, yet drearily familiar in every detail. From her feet the tawny sands ran to meet the softly lapping waves which stretched westward to be lost in the blue haze of the horizon. She was standing on the southern curve of the bay, and south of her the land sloped upward to the low ridge which formed one horn of that bay. From that ridge, she knew, one could look southward across the bare waters-into infinities of distance as absolute as the view to west and north.

      Turning landward, she absently scanned the fortress which had been her home for the past year. Against the cerulean sky floated the golden and scarlet banner of her house. She made out the figures of men toiling in the gardens and fields that huddled near the fort, which, itself, seemed to shrink from the gloomy rampart of the forest fringing the open belt on the east, and stretching north and south as far as she could see. Beyond it, to the east, loomed a great mountain range that shut off the coast from the continent that lay behind it. Francoise feared that mountain-flanked forest, and her fear was shared by every one in the tiny settlement. Death lurked in those whispering depths, death swift and terrible, death slow and hideous, hidden, painted, tireless.

      She sighed and moved listlessly toward the water's edge. The dragging days were all one color, and the world of cities and courts and gaiety seemed not only thousands of miles, but long ages away. Again she sought in vain for the reason that had caused a Count of France to flee with his retainers to this wild coast, exchanging the castle of his ancestors for a hut of logs.

      Her eyes softened at the light patter of small bare feet across the sands. A young girl quite naked, came running over the low sandy ridge, her slight body dripping, and her flaxen hair plastered wetly on her small head. Her wistful eyes were wide with excitement.

      "Oh, my Lady!" she cried. "My Lady!"

      Breathless from her scamper, she made incoherent gestures. Francoise smiled and put an arm about the child. In her lonely life Francoise bestowed the tenderness of a naturally affectionate nature on the pitiful waif she had picked up in the French port from which the long voyage had begun.

      "What are you trying to tell me, Tina? Get your breath, child."

      "A ship!" cried the girl, pointing southward. "I was swimming in a pool the sea had hollowed in the sand on the other side of the ridge, and I saw it! A ship sailing up out of the south!"

      She tugged at Francoise's hand, her slender body all aquiver. And Francoise felt her own heart beat faster at the thought of an unknown visitor. They had seen no sail since coming to that barren shore.

      Tina flitted ahead of her over the yellow sands. They mounted the low, undulating ridge, and Tina poised there, a slender white figure against the clearing sky, her wet hair blowing about her thin face, a frail arm outstretched.

      "Look, my Lady!"

      Francoise had already seen it---a white sail, filled with the freshening wind, beating up along the coast, a few miles from the point. Her heart skipped a beat. A small event can loom large in colorless and isolated lives; but Francoise felt a premonition of evil. She felt that this sail was not here by mere chance. The nearest port was Panama, thousands of miles to the south. What brought this stranger to lonely d'Chastillon Bay?

      Tina pressed close to her mistress, apprehension pinching her thin features.

      "Who can it be, my Lady?" she stammered, the wind whipping color into her pale cheeks. "Is it the man the Count fears?"

      Francoise looked down at her, her brow shadowed.

      "Why do you say that, child? How do you know my uncle fears anyone?"

      "He must," returned Tina naively, "or he would never have come to hide in this lonely spot. Look, my Lady, how fast it comes!"

      "We must go and inform my uncle," murmured Francoise. "Get your clothes, Tina. Hurry!"

      The child scampered down the low slope to the pool where she had been bathing when she sighted the craft, and snatched up the slippers, stockings and dress she had left lying on the sand. She skipped back up the ridge, hopping grotesquely as she donned them in mid-flight.

      Francoise, anxiously watching the approaching sail, caught her hand and they hurried toward the fort.

      A few moments after they had entered the gate of the log stockade which enclosed the building, the strident blare of a bugle startled both the workers in the gardens and the men just opening the boat-house doors to push the fishing boats down their rollers to the water's edge.

      Every man outside the fort dropped whatever he was doing and ran for the stockade, and every head was twisted over its shoulder to gaze fearfully at the dark line of woodland to the east. Not one looked seaward.

      They thronged through the gate, shouting questions at the sentries who patrolled the firing-ledges built below the points of the upright logs.

      "What is it? Why are we called in? Are the Indians coming'?"

      For answer one taciturn man-at-arms pointed southward. From his vantage point the sail was now visible. Men climbed on the ledge, staring toward the sea.

      On a small lookout tower on the roof of the fort, Count Henri d'Chastillon watched the onsweeping sail as it rounded the point of the southern horn. The Count was a lean man of late middle age. He was dark, somber of countenance. His trunk-hose and doublet were of black silk; the only color about his costume were the jewels that twinkled on his sword hilt, and the wine-colored cloak thrown carelessly over his shoulder. He twisted his thin black mustache nervously and turned gloomy eyes on his majordomo, a leather-featured man in steel and satin.

      "What do you make of it, Gallot?"

      "I have seen that ship before," answered the majordomo. "Nay, I think - look there!"

      A chorus of cries below them echoed his ejaculation; the ship had cleared the point and was slanting inward across the bay. And all saw the flag that suddenly broke forth from the masthead-a black flag, with white skull and crossbones gleaming in the sun.

      "A cursed pirate!" exclaimed Gallot. "Aye, I know that craft! It is Harston's War-Hawk. What is he doing on this naked coast?"

      "He means us no good," growled the Count. The massive gates had been closed and the captain of his men-at-arms, gleaming in steel, was directing his men to their stations, some to the firing-ledge, others to the lower loop-holes. He was massing his main strength along the western wall, in the middle of which was the gate.

      A hundred men shared Count Henri's exile, both soldiers and retainers. There were forty soldiers, veteran mercenaries, wearing armor and skilled in the use of sword and arquebus. The others, house-servants and laborers, wore shirts of toughened leather, and were armed mostly with hunting bows, woodsmen's axes and boar-spears. Brawny stalwarts, they took their places scowling at the oncoming vessel, as it swung inshore, its brass work flashing in the sun. They could see steel twinkling along the rail, and hear the shouts of the seamen.

      The Count had left the tower, and having donned helmet and cuirass, he betook himself to the palisade. The women of the retainers stood silently in the doorways of their huts, built inside the stockade, and quieted the clamor of their children. Francoise and Tina watched eagerly from an upper window in the fort, and Francoise felt the child's tense little СКАЧАТЬ