The Knight of Malta

If the nobleman, Pog, a silent and morose man, made a remark of unusual bitterness, suddenly the nostrils of Erebus would dilate, his upper lip curl disdainfully, and his whole face express the most contemptuous sarcasm.

On the contrary, if Erebus did not come under these two fatal influences, or an absurd boasting did not make him appear the advocate of vice, his face would become sweet and serene, – an attractive dignity beamed from his beautiful features; for cynicism and irony only passed over his soul, – noble and pure instincts soon resumed their sway, as a pure fountain regains its clearness when the disturbing element no longer troubles its crystal waters. Such were these three distinguished persons.

They were walking, as we have said, from Marseilles to Toulon.

Erebus, silent and thoughtful, walked a few steps in front of his companions. The road plunged into the defiles of Ollioules, and hid itself in the midst of these solitary rocks.

Erebus had just reached a small open space, where he could overlook a great part of the route, which at this point was very steep and formed a sort of elbow around the eminence upon which the young man stood. Interrupted in his reverie by the sound of singing in the distance, Erebus stopped to listen.

The voice came nearer and nearer.

It was a woman’s voice, with a resonance of wonderful power and beauty.

The air and the words she sang expressed an unaffected melancholy. Soon, at a sudden turn of the road, Erebus could see, without being seen, a company of travellers; they quietly accommodated themselves to the step of their saddle-horses, that climbed the steep road with difficulty.

If the coast of Provence was often desolated by pirates, the interior of the country was as little safe, for the narrow passes of Ollioules, solitudes almost impenetrable, had many times served as a refuge for brigands. Erebus was not astonished to see the little caravan advance with a sort of military circumspection.

The danger did not seem to be imminent, for the young girl continued to sing, but the cavalier who led the march took the precaution to adjust his musket on his left thigh, and at frequent intervals to test his firearms, leaving behind him a little cloud of bluish smoke.

This man, a military figure in the full strength of manhood, wore an old leather jerkin, a large gray cap, scarlet breeches, heavy boots, and rode a small white horse; a hanger or hunting-knife was fastened to his belt, and a tall black hound, with long hair and a leather collar bristling with iron points, walked in front of his horse.

About thirty steps behind this forward sentinel came an old man and a young girl.

The latter was mounted on an ambling nag, as black as jet, elegantly caparisoned with a silk net and a blue velvet cloth; the silver mounting of the bridle glittered in the rays of the setting sun; the reins, scarcely held by the young girl, fell carelessly upon the neck of the nag, whose gentle and regular step by no means interrupted the harmonious measure of the beautiful traveller’s song.

She wore right royally the charming riding-habit so often reproduced by painters in the reign of Louis XIII. On her head was a large black hat with blue feathers, which fell backward on a wide collar of Flanders lace; her close-fitting coat of pearl-gray taffeta, with large, square basques, had a long skirt of the same material and colour, both skirt and waist ornamented with delicate lace-work of sky-blue silk, whose pale shade matched admirably the colour of the habit If one ever doubted the fact that the Greek type had been preserved in all its purity among a few of the families of Marseilles and lower Provence, since the colonisation of the Phoenicians, – the rest of the population recalling more the Arabian and Ligurian physiognomy, – the features of this young girl would have presented a striking proof of the transmission of the antique beauty in all its original perfection.

Nothing could be more agreeable, more delicate, or purer than the exquisite lines of her lovely countenance; nothing more limpid than the blue of her large eyes, fringed with long black lashes; nothing whiter than the ivory of her queenly brow, around which played the light chestnut curls that contrasted beautifully with the perfect arch of eyebrows as black as jet, and soft as velvet; the proportions of her well-rounded form resembled Hebe, or the Venus of Praxiteles, rather than the Venus of Milo.

As she sang she yielded herself to the measured step of her steed, and every movement of her charming and graceful body revealed new treasures of beauty.

Her small, arched foot, encased in a boot of cordovan leather, laced to the ankle, appeared from time to time beneath the ample folds of her long skirt, while her hand, as small as that of a child, gloved in embroidered chamois-skin, carelessly played with the switch by which she urged the gait of her nag.

It would be difficult to picture the frankness which shone from the pure brow of this young girl, the serenity of her large blue eyes, bright with happiness and hope and youth, the unsophisticated sweetness of her smile, and, above all, the look of solicitude and filial veneration which she often directed toward the aged but robust father who accompanied her.

The eager, hardy, and joyous air of this old gentleman contrasted not a little with his white moustache, and the vinous colour of his cheeks announced the fact that he was not indifferent to the seductions of the generous wines of Provence.

A black cap with a red plume, a scarlet doublet trimmed with silver, and mantle of the same, a shoulder-strap of richly embroidered silk, supporting a long sword, and high boots of white sheepskin, with gilded spurs, testified to the quality of Raimond V., Baron des Anbiez, chief of one of the most ancient houses of Provence, and related or allied to the most illustrious baronial houses of Castellane, Baux, Frans, and Villeneuve.

The road which the little caravan followed was so narrow that it permitted two horses to walk abreast with difficulty; a third person rode a few steps behind the baron and his daughter. Two servants, well-mounted and well-armed, closed the march.

This third person, a young man of about twenty-five years, tall and well-made, with a handsome and amiable face, managed his horse with grace and ease. He wore a green hunting-habit, trimmed with gold lace.

His face expressed an indescribable delight in the contemplation of Mlle. Reine des Anbiez, who, without discontinuing her song, every now and then turned to him with a charming glance, to which the Chevalier Honorât de Berrol responded with all the ardour of an infatuated and betrothed lover.

The baron listened to his daughter’s singing with joy and paternal pride; his genial and venerable countenance beamed with happiness.

His contemplative felicity was, nevertheless, not a little disturbed by the sudden jumps of his little horse, brought from the island of Camargne, – a bay stallion with long mane and a long black tail, a wicked eye and ferocious disposition, full of fire, and evidently possessed with a desire to unhorse his master and regain his liberty in the solitary swamps and wild heath where he was born.

Unfortunately for the designs of Mistraon, – named for the impetuous northwest wind, on account of the rapidity of his gait and his bad character, – the baron was an excellent horseman.

Although suffering from the consequences of a wound in the hip, received in the civil war, Raimond V., seated on one of those ancient saddles which in our day we call picket-saddles, answered these vicious caprices of the untamable animal with sound blows of whip and spur. Mistraon, with that patient and diabolical sagacity which horses carry to the point of genius, after several vain attempts, stolidly waited a more favourable occasion for dismounting his rider.

Reine des Anbiez continued to sing.

Like a child, she amused herself by waking the echoes in the gorges of Ollioules, making by turn loud and soft modulations, which would have put a nightingale to despair.

She had just made a most brilliant and musical arpeggio, when suddenly, anticipating the echo, a male voice, sweet and melodious, repeated the young girl’s song with incredible exactness.

For some moments these two charming voices, meeting by chance in a marvellous union, were repeated by the many echoes of this profound solitude.

Reine stopped singing, and blushed as she looked up at her father.

The baron, astonished, turned to Honorât de Berrol, and said, with his habitual exclamation: “Manjour! chevalier, who in the devil is imitating the voice of an angel?”

In the first moment of surprise the baron had unfortunately let the reins fall on Mistraon’s neck.

For some time the deceitful animal kept his step with a gravity and dignity worthy of a bishop’s mule, then in two vigorous bounds, and before the baron had time to recover himself, he climbed up an escarpment which shut in the road.

Unhappily, the horse had made such an effort in ascending this steep acclivity, that he fell upon his head, the reins went over his ears, and floated at random. All this happened in less time than is required to write it.

The baron, an excellent master of horse, although not a little surprised by the adventure of Mistraon, reseated himself in the saddle; his first effort was to try to seize the reins, – he could not reach them. Then, notwithstanding his courage, he shuddered with horror, as he saw himself at the mercy of an unbridled horse that in his frenzy was trying to leap the precipitous edge of a torrent bed.

This deep and wide gulf lay parallel with the road, and was separated from it only by a space of fifty feet.

Seated in his saddle, and by reason of his wound unable to get out of it before the horse could plunge into the abyss, the old man gave his last thought to his God and his daughter, – made a vow of a weekly mass and an annual pilgrimage to the Chapel of Notre Dame de la Garde, and prepared to die.

From the height where he was standing, Erebus saw the danger of the baron; he saw that he was separated from him by the deep bed of the torrent, ten or twelve feet wide, toward which the horse was plunging.

With a movement more rapid than thought, and an almost desperate leap, Erebus cleared the abyss, and rolled under the animal’s feet The baron screamed with terror, – he believed his saviour would be carried over into the golf, for, notwithstanding the pain and fright which this violent jerk had given him, Mistraon was not able to arrest the impetuosity of his spring, and dragged Erebus several steps.

The latter, endowed with extraordinary strength and admirable presence of mind, had, as he fell, wound the reins around his wrists, while the horse, overcome by the enormous weight which hung upon him, seated himself on his haunches, having exhausted the impulse which instigated such activity.

Scarcely ten steps separated the baron from the edge of the gulf, when Erebus slowly raised himself, seized the bloody bridle-bit with one hand, and with the other threw over the smoking neck of Mistraon the reins which he offered to the old man.

All this transpired so rapidly that Reine des Anbiez and her betrothed, climbing the escarpment, arrived near the baron without having suspected the frightful danger he had just escaped.

Erebus, having replaced the reins in the old man’s hands, picked up his cap, shook the dust from his clothes, and readjusted his hair, and, save the unnatural flush upon his cheeks, nothing in his appearance revealed the part he had taken in this event.

“My God, father, why did you climb this steep? What imprudence!” cried Reine, excited but not frightened, as she bounded lightly from her nag, without seeing the unknown person standing on the other side of the baron’s horse.

Then, seeing the pallor and emotion of the old man as he made a painful descent from his horse, the young girl perceived the danger which had threatened the baron, and throwing herself into his arms, she exclamed:

“Father, father, what has happened to you?” “Reine, my darling child,” said the lord of Anbiez with a broken voice, embracing his daughter with effusion. “Ah, how frightful death would have been, – never to see you again!”

Reine withdrew herself suddenly from her father’s arms, put her two hands on the old man’s shoulders, and looked at him with a bewildered air.

“But for him,” said the baron, cordially pressing in his own hands the hand of Erebus, who had stepped forward, gazing with admiration on the beauty of Reine, “but for this young man, but for his courageous sacrifice, I should have been dashed to pieces in this gulf.”