Rafael Sabatini - The Greatest Works of Rafael Sabatini

I sighed as I turned to mount the horse Michelot held for me; but methinks 't was more a sigh of satisfaction than of pain.

… . … .

All that night we travelled and all next day until Tours was reached towards evening. There we halted for a sorely needed rest and for fresh horses.

Three days later we arrived at Nantes, and a week from the night of the Chevalier's rescue we took ship from that port to Santander.

That same evening, as I leaned upon the taffrail watching the distant coast line of my beloved France, whose soil meseemed I was not like to tread again for years, Yvonne came softly up behind me.

“Monsieur,” she said in a voice that trembled somewhat, “I have, indeed, misjudged you. The shame of it has made me hold aloof from you since we left Blois. I cannot tell you, Monsieur, how deep that shame has been, or with what sorrow I have been beset for the words I uttered at Canaples. Had I but paused to think—”

“Nay, nay, Mademoiselle, 't was all my fault, I swear. I left you overlong the dupe of appearances.”

“But I should not have believed them so easily. Say that I am forgiven, Monsieur,” she pleaded; “tell me what reparation I can make.”

“There is one reparation that you can make if you are so minded,” I answered, “but 'tis a life-long reparation.”

They were bold words, indeed, but my voice played the coward and shook so vilely that it bereft them of half their boldness. But, ah, Dieu, what joy, what ecstasy was mine to see how they were read by her; to remark the rich, warm blood dyeing her cheeks in a bewitching blush; to behold the sparkle that brightened her matchless eyes as they met mine!

“Yvonne!”

“Gaston!”

She was in my arms at last, and the work of reparation was begun whilst together we gazed across the sun-gilt sea towards the fading shores of France.

If you be curious to learn how, guided by the gentle hand of her who plucked me from the vile ways that in my old life I had trodden, I have since achieved greatness, honour, and renown, History will tell you.

Table of Contents Table of Contents Novels NOVELS Table of Contents Scaramouche SCARAMOUCHE Table of Contents Captain Blood CAPTAIN BLOOD Table of Contents The Lovers of Yvonne THE LOVERS OF YVONNE Table of Contents The Tavern Knight THE TAVERN KNIGHT Table of Contents Bardelys the Magnificent The Trampling of the Lilies Love-at-Arms The Shame of Motley St. Martin's Summer Mistress Wilding The Lion's Skin The Strolling Saint The Gates of Doom The Sea Hawk The Snare Fortune's Fool The Carolinian Short Stories The Justice of the Duke The Banner of the Bull Other Stories Historical Works The Life of Cesare Borgia Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition The Historical Nights' Entertainment – First Series The Historical Nights' Entertainment – Second Series

Table of Contents

Chapter I. On the March

Chapter II. Arcades Ambo

Chapter III. The Letter

Chapter IV. At the Sign of the Mitre

Chapter V. After Worcester Field

Chapter VI. Companions in Misfortune

Chapter VII. The Tavern Knight's Story

Chapter VIII. The Twisted Bar

Chapter IX. The Bargain

Chapter X. The Escape

Chapter XI. The Ashburns

Chapter XII. The House that was Roland Marleigh's

Chapter XIII. The Metamorphosis of Kenneth

Chapter XIV. The Heart of Cynthia Ashburn

Chapter XV. Joseph's Return

Chapter XVI. The Reckoning

Chapter XVII. Joseph Drives a Bargain

Chapter XVIII. Counter-plot

Chapter XIX. The Interrupted Journey

Chapter XX. The Converted Hogan

Chapter XXI. The Message Kenneth Bore

Chapter XXII. Sir Crispin's Undertaking

Chapter XXIII. Gregory's Attrition

Chapter XXIV. The Wooing of Cynthia

Chapter XXV. Cynthia's Flight

Chapter XXVI. To France

Chapter XXVII. The Auberge du Soleil

Table of Contents

He whom they called the Tavern Knight laughed an evil laugh—such a laugh as might fall from the lips of Satan in a sardonic moment.

He sat within the halo of yellow light shed by two tallow candles, whose sconces were two empty bottles, and contemptuously he eyed the youth in black, standing with white face and quivering lip in a corner of the mean chamber. Then he laughed again, and in a hoarse voice, sorely suggestive of the bottle, he broke into song. He lay back in his chair, his long, spare legs outstretched, his spurs jingling to the lilt of his ditty whose burden ran:

On the lip so red of the wench that's sped

His passionate kiss burns, still-O!

For 'tis April time, and of love and wine

Youth's way is to take its fill-O!

Down, down, derry-do!

So his cup he drains and he shakes his reins,

And rides his rake-helly way-O!

She was sweet to woo and most comely, too,

But that was all yesterday-O!

Down, down, derry-do!

The lad started forward with something akin to a shiver.

“Have done,” he cried, in a voice of loathing, “or, if croak you must, choose a ditty less foul!”

“Eh?” The ruffler shook back the matted hair from his lean, harsh face, and a pair of eyes that of a sudden seemed ablaze glared at his companion; then the lids drooped until those eyes became two narrow slits—catlike and cunning—and again he laughed.

“Gad's life, Master Stewart, you have a temerity that should save you from grey hairs! What is't to you what ditty my fancy seizes on? 'Swounds, man, for three weary months have I curbed my moods, and worn my throat dry in praising the Lord; for three months have I been a living monument of Covenanting zeal and godliness; and now that at last I have shaken the dust of your beggarly Scotland from my heels, you—the veriest milksop that ever ran tottering from its mother's lap would chide me because, yon bottle being done, I sing to keep me from waxing sad in the contemplation of its emptiness!”

There was scorn unutterable on the lad's face as he turned aside.

“When I joined Middleton's horse and accepted service under you, I held you to be at least a gentleman,” was his daring rejoinder.

For an instant that dangerous light gleamed again from his companion's eye. Then, as before, the lids drooped, and, as before, he laughed.

“Gentleman!” he mocked. “On my soul, that's good! And what may you know of gentlemen, Sir Scot? Think you a gentleman is a Jack Presbyter, or a droning member of your kirk committee, strutting it like a crow in the gutter? Gadswounds, boy, when I was your age, and George Villiers lived—”

“Oh, have done!” broke in the youth impetuously. “Suffer me to leave you, Sir Crispin, to your bottle, your croaking, and your memories.”

“Aye, go your ways, sir; you'd be sorry company for a dead man—the sorriest ever my evil star led me into. The door is yonder, and should you chance to break your saintly neck on the stairs, it is like to be well for both of us.”

And with that Sir Crispin Galliard lay back in his chair once more, and took up the thread of his interrupted song

But, heigh-o! she cried, at the Christmas-tide,

That dead she would rather be-O!

Pale and wan she crept out of sight, and wept

'Tis a sorry—

A loud knock that echoed ominously through the mean chamber, fell in that instant upon the door. And with it came a panting cry of—

“Open, Cris! Open, for the love of God!”

Sir Crispin's ballad broke off short, whilst the lad paused in the act of quitting the room, and turned to look to him for direction.

“Well, my master,” quoth Galliard, “for what do you wait?”

“To learn your wishes, sir,” was the answer sullenly delivered.