The dryad

Through the regal quiet of the night Simon could hear, no great way off, the muffled sound of the tramping of many feet. Turning his watchful face to the white roadway, after a little while he beheld a number of gleaming specks scarcely bigger than so many glow-worms. Then came what seemed like a dark, rolling cloud starred with points of fire, and this presently resolved itself into a mass of armed men, some of them on horseback, some of them bearing torches whose light flowed ruddy over shields and helms and spears. With the help of these earthly lights and of the light of the moon in heaven he saw that the torch-bearers and the armed men formed two bodies, one preceding and one following a number of litters of which the most sumptuous was drawn by four small black horses.

As this procession moved beneath his wondering gaze along the highway, those who led the van suddenly halted and seemed to look in Simon's direction and hold conference together. Instantly Simon remembered that he stood conspicuous enough against the moonlight in the open, and that his presence in that lonely place had naturally attracted the attention of the travellers. But he did not know the meaning of fear, and, though he was ever of a prudent disposition, he felt no need for flight, easy though flight would have been into the concealment of the wood. For he was conscious that he was doing no harm, and he entertained no expectation of harm from a company so numerous, so well armed, and travelling with so many lights by night in a time of peace. In no such fashion did marauders go abroad, so Simon resolved with little self-discussion to stand where he would and see out the adventure.

The new-comers were such a little way off, and so plainly to be observed in the quavering pool of torch-light spilled on the white path, that he could see how first the leaders of van and rear left their ranks and consulted together, and how next the curtains of the leading litter were plucked aside and a woman's head thrust forth, while a woman's imperious voice said something in question which he could not catch. Then the curtains of the other litters were pulled aside and other women thrust their heads into the night, squealing out many questions with sleepy voices. Then he heard the same imperious voice speak again, and the speaker railed at the others, rating them roundly for silly fools, and telling them to hold their peace, at which the pages about the litters tittered, and the women's heads were swiftly withdrawn and their voices silent. Then she who spoke so haughtily gave a command, and immediately the pages who led the four black horses turned them from the roadway and guided them carefully across the grass in his direction. A few of the escort remained on the highway with the other litters, but most of the knights a-horseback, and the men-at-arms and the torch-bearers, accompanied the litter and formed a great circle of steel and flame around Simon, where he stood placidly guarding the sleeping body of the young Lord of Athens, and gazing into the set faces of the strangers, and wondering what was going to happen next.

What did happen was that the four black horses halted a few yards from him, that the silken curtains of the litter were sharply pulled apart, and that a very beautiful face revealed itself to him in the mingled moonlight and torch-light. It was a splendid, sensual face, of the kind that appealed to Simon's directness, skin the color of fine ivory, hair the color of smooth ebony, eyes that seemed to change with every change of light, with every mood of mind, with every phase of desire, like a cat's, and a mouth as ripely red as the berries of the rowan-tree. Such a face might Semiramis have shown nightly to her nightly changing lovers ere they glided into Tigris; such a face might Clytemnestra have shown to her impatient paramour when she had newly butchered the king of men. Simon's simple, straightforward thought was that he wished the lady were for instant sale, and that he possessed the opulence which might purchase her. Simon's reflections in such matters were always direct.

"What is the matter, Bohemond?" she asked, in a voice that was wont to govern those who heard it with the sensuous charm of strange music chanted at sunset. Her eyes were still fixed on Simon, and Simon, nothing daunted, gave her back her gaze as boldly as if she had been a staring kitchen-wench, while the knights and men-at-arms stood about as fixed and rigid as armored effigies in audience halls.

The lady whom the page hailed as "Grace" pushed aside the curtains of her litter impatiently and stepped into the moonlight. She was no more than common tall, but she carried her head high and commandingly, and Simon, still eying her steadfastly, thought that she walked like some old-time empress. Swiftly she stepped to where Rainouart lay, bent over him, and recognized him as the gallant youth whose face and form had stirred her facile pulses when he rode victorious down the lists in Paris, and who denied her as decidedly as he denied all the ladies at the court of Philip the Fair. She swung on Simon like a cat about to scratch.

"Being foolish enough to overstay sunset near these woods in the reading of silly verses, he was set upon by footpads who thought to kill and strip him, but a girl who lives in these woods scared them away. The rascals took her for a witch, tumbling plump on them from the thicket, and gave leg-bail. It was the devil take the hindermost, I promise you; you would have laughed to see them scamper. The maid tended his wounds, that were little enough save for an ugly clip on the crown, and what should my young gentleman do but fall in love with his sweet nurse and she with him. I think they have plighted their troth, for he has proffered her a ring, and this daughter of the forest bids fair to end her days as Duchess of Athens."

The red blood raged in the woman's face, staining its ivory. "That she shall never be," she said in her heart. "I love this youth, and will not yield him." For, indeed, she had loved him with what Esclaramonde called love, in those painted days in Paris, before in despite she had taken Nemours for her husband, the old Duke of Thebes, who had lately left her an eager widow. What she spoke aloud was:

"She is no peasant, I promise you," Simon answered, doggedly. He did not choose to tell what the girl had told him, for he was very far from sure that he believed it himself, and he was very sure, indeed, that no one else would believe it. "She is no peasant, whatever she be. These ears heard him ask her in marriage, and here lies the ring he proffered her."

Simon held out the rosary ring on his brown palm. The duchess's white hand dived at it as a peregrine dives on his prey, and caught it before he could guess or prevent her purpose. He had ever been used to dealing with damsels ready to snatch any trifles they might spy from their chance companions, and, being of a business-like humor in such matters, he made now as if to clutch the ring back again, just as if he were toying with a Corinthian doxy. But the duchess gave a sidelong glance at her escort, and in an instant a dozen swords were naked and aimed at Simon's breast, and Simon, being a sensible man, gave up the idea of further argument or expostulation. The duchess moved nearer to one of the torch-bearers, and in the orange light she looked at the ring covetously, much for its own rich beauty, for she loved all costly toys, and more because it seemed to mean a man's love for another woman, a man's love that should be, might be, hers. For the sanctity of the symbolism of the ring she had no thought at all.

"I will take better care of it," she said, with a queer smile, as she came near again to Simon and the youth at Simon's feet. Her evil wits, shuttles in the loom of deadly sins, were nimbly weaving a web of guile. Rainouart stirred uneasily as she came near, for the sleep that the woodland creatures can give may be molested by the coming of a hostile presence. The duchess looked down into his twitching face.

At her command the duchess's people, knights and men-at-arms and torch-bearers, taking Simon, very reluctant, with them, drew away a little distance to the edge of the forest. He could see how, on the high-road eager heads peeped again from between the curtains of the litters of the duchess's women, and he grinned to think how little they could see of the business. But he was heartily wishing himself well out of the whole bother, and was casting about for a means of escape from it.

Meanwhile the Duchess Esclaramonde kneeled down on the grass beside Rainouart, watching him with malign eyes. The ring that she had taken from Simon she placed deliberately on her left hand. Then she drew from her right a ring set with a royal ruby, and, taking Rainouart's limp hand in hers, thrust it onto the finger where the red mark showed her that he had been wont to wear the ring she now wore. At her touch the youth turned his head once or twice like a man who dreams bad dreams, and then opened his eyes heavily. He groped with his arms as if seeking some dear presence.

Rainouart, his senses hurriedly returning, gazed with wonder into her fair, familiar face, and for an instant deemed himself in France, in Paris, at the court of King Philip. He lifted himself a little on one arm, for he was stronger now with the strength given by deep sleep, and realized that he was in the forest, but that Esclaramonde was bending over him.

"I was journeying to Athens, travelling by night for my whim and pleasure, and by happy chance passed by here at the time when you were bested. The coming of my people frightened the knaves from you, and they fled, with some of mine in pursuit. We were alone together"—she lowered her eyelids for a moment, craftily modest—"and I tended your wounds."

The prince made to free himself bodily from those embracing arms, mentally from the net-work of those bewildering words. It was easy to free himself from her clasp, though he did so with all courtesy and rather as one unwilling and unworthy to be so greatly honored, but it was harder to free his spirit from the meshes of her lying tale.