The wonderful adventures of Phra the Phœnician. Retold by Edwin Lester Arnold ... by Edwin Lester Linden Arnold

Author:Edwin Lester Linden Arnold [Arnold, Edwin Lester Linden]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harper & Brothers
Published: 2012-02-10T18:28:06+00:00

Not a whit disconcerted, my peaceful gallant rode up to the grim purveyor of that melancholy chattel, and having paid the silver, with a calm indifference which it shocked me much to see, unwound a few feet of the halter-rope depending from his Fleming's crupper. The loose end of this the man wound round and tied upon the twisted withes wherewith the maid's white wrists were fastened.

Such an escape from the difficulty had never occurred to my slower mind, and now, when my lad turned towards the quarter where his tent lay, and apparently mighty content with himself, stepped his charger out with the unhappy girl trailing along at his side, his lightness greatly pained me. Nor was I pleasured by the laughter and gibes of English squires and knights who met us.

"Holloa! you valorous two," called out a mounted captain, "whose hen-roosts have you been robbing?" And, then, another said, " Faith! they've been recruiting;" and again, "'Tis a new page they've got to buckle them up and smooth their soldier pillows." All this was hard to bear, and I saw that even Flamaucosur hung his head a little and presently rode along by by-ways less frequented. At one time he turned to me most innocent-like and said:

"Such a friend as this is just what I have been needing ever since I left the English shore."

"Indeed," I answered, sardonically, " I do confess I am more surprised than perhaps I should be. It is as charming a handmaid as any knight could wish. Shall you send one of those long raven tresses home to thy absent lady with thy next budget of sighs and true-love tokens?"

But Flamaucoeur shook his head, and said I misunderstood him bitterly. He was going on to say he meant to free the maid "tomorrow or the next day," when we turned a corner in our martial village street, and pulled up at our own tent doors.

Now, that Breton girl had submitted so far to be dragged along in a manner of lethargy born of her sick heart and misery, but when we stayed our chargers the very pause aroused her. She drew her poor frightened wits together and glared first at us, and then at our knightly pennons fluttering over the white lintels of our lodgment; then, jumping to some dreadful, sad conclusion, she fired up as fierce and sudden as a trapped tigress when the last outlet is closed upon her. She stamped and raged, and twisted her fair white arms until the rough withes on her wrist scut deep into the tender flesh, and the red blood went twining down to her torn and open bodice; she screamed, and writhed, and struggled against the glossy side of that gentle and mighty war-horse, who looked back wondering on her, and sniffed her flagrant sorrow with wide velvet nostrils—no more moved than a gray crag by the beating of the summer sea—and then she turned on us.

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