OF COUNT RICHARD, AND THE FIRES BY NIGHT


I choose to record how Richard Count of Poictou rode all through one
smouldering night to see Jehane Saint-Pol a last time. It had so been
named by the lady; but he rode in his hottest mood of Nay to that, yet
careless of first or last so he could see her again. Nominally to remit
his master's sins, though actually (as he thought) to pay for his own,
the Abbot Milo bore him company, if company you can call it which left
the good man, in pitchy dark, some hundred yards behind. The way, which
was long, led over Saint Andrew's Plain, the bleakest stretch of the
Norman march; the pace, being Richard's, was furious, a pounding gallop;
the prize, Richard's again, showed fitfully and afar, a twinkling point
of light. Count Richard knew it for Jehane's torch, and saw no other
spark; but Milo, faintly curious on the lady's account, was more
concerned with the throbbing glow which now and again shuddered in the
northern sky. Nature had no lamps that night, and made no sign by cry of
night-bird or rustle of scared beast: there was no wind, no rain, no
dew; she offered nothing but heat, dark, and dense oppression. Topping
the ridge of sand, where was the Fosse des Noyées, place of shameful
death, the solitary torch showed a steady beam; and there also, ahead,
could be seen on the northern horizon that rim of throbbing light.

'God pity the poor!' said Count Richard, and scourged forward.

'God pity me!' said gasping Milo; 'I believe my stomach is in my head.'
So at last they crossed the pebbly ford and found the pines, then
cantered up the path of light which streamed from the Dark Tower. As
core of this they saw the lady stand with a torch above her head; when