The Argosy, April 1912 — page 123: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

WITH SWORD AND STRATEGY. 109 Even as he spoke the last of the Bretons fell, and Philip realized that the sounds of battle no longer came from the wings of the monastery, showing that his men there were all dead. “Good, lay on!” he growled and at- tacked the men in front of him so fiercely that they fell back. “Now!” cried Fardulf, and they leaped backward to the doorway in which Hilde- garde stood. Philip made to seize her and take her with him, but she avoided him. “Go in, quickly,” she cried, “and shut the door. There is no lock, and I will stand here and hold them at bay. They will not harm me. For my love’s sake, let me save you, Philip!” And again he could not refuse her, though it irked him sorely to give her her way in this. But in the flash of his brain he knew that hers was the wiser course, so he leaped inside, throwing the mighty door to after him. : Fardulf did not hesitate a moment. Leaping to one of the walls, he pressed a spring and the stones swung out. “Tn here,” he ordered, and Philip en- tered to find a stone staircase leading down- ward. An instant later Fardulf had come in beside him and the light of day was ob- literated as the secret door swung back into place. Fumbling forward slowly, Philip felt the touch of the other on his shoulder. “Let me pass, I will lead,” said the anchorite, and the Breton glued his huge form to the wall. Then catching at the other’s robe as he wormed by, he followed more rapidly. Fardulf seemed to have no hesitation, and acted as though he had traversed the path before. “Where are we going?” gasped Philip after a while, almost suffocated by the lack of air in the tunnel. “You will see presently,” replied the monk. “You seem to be familiar with the place.” “T ought to be. I told the order in the monastery to build it for just such an emergency as this. I little thought that it would save my own life.” Philip remained silent. The more of this man’s personality he saw, the more he realized that he was a born ruler—one who not only saw everything, but foresaw it. With his equipment of brains and intui- tion he borrowed on future emergencies, ) and Philip felt a tinge of envy. Though a skilled and enthusiastic fighter, if need be, Fardulf much preferred to furnish the di- vine spark of intelligence that moved the puppets across the field. “Were I a king,” thought the Breton, “he should be my archbishop and prime minister.” Finally the ground under their feet be- gan to slope upward, and a faint glow told them that the light of day was being ad- mitted somewhere. ‘The monk proceeded more slowly now, and with great caution, mounting steadily. At last he put back a hand and stayed the soldiers. Then he reached up, gripped a couple of hand-holds, and stood on what appeared, in the dim light, to be the roots of a tree. Suddenly he stepped forward and disappeared, calling to Philip to follow. Mounting the roots some four feet, the Breton found himself standing in the midst of a gigantic tree-trunk that had been hol- lowed out up to the first great split of the limbs. The bark, however, had been re- tained and cleverly masked the entrance. When Philip stepped to the ground Far- dulf swung back this improvised door, whose own toughness was its hinge, and they found themselves alone in the quiet forest. After the turmoil and excitement of battle, and the nervous tension incident upon their escape, this sudden entrance into a scene of complete peace brought with it a reaction. Without warning, Philip’s knees began to knock together and he found it necessary to sit down on the soft moss at the foot of the great walnut. There, in the weakened condition of his body, his mind became a prey to the blackest despair. “What is there in life for me?” he fnally asked the monk. “I now have neither position, honor, love, nor even a body of men at my back. Job, in his most miserable hour, was no worse off than I am, for I have been stripped clean of every- thing except your friendship. And that has kept me alive when I would much rather be dead.” “Tut, tut!” reproved the other religious man, producing some food and a flask of wine from his capacious robes. ‘“ Have some of this, and then growl afterward.” Little by little he forced Philip to eat, and as the warmth and nourishment mount- ed in his famished body, the Breton came to a more wholesome view of: the situation. comicaoolks