"You sing about prey," said he, as the other concluded the last stanza of his ditty--"You sing about prey, and yet you are no great falcon, after all; if we may judge from to-day."
"And why not, Monsieur Pierrepont Le Blanc?" demanded the Norman, without displaying aught of ill-humour in his countenance: "though they ought to have called you Monsieur Le Noir--Mr. Black, not Mr. White.--Nay, do not frown, good comrade; I speak but of your beard, not of your heart. What, art thou still grumbling, because we did not cut the young Count's throat outright?"
"Nay, not for that," answered the other, "but because we have lost the best man amongst us, for want of his being well seconded."
"You lie, Parbleu!" cried the Norman, drawing his sword, and fixing his thumb upon a stain, about three inches from the point. "Did not I lend the youth so much of my iron toothpick? and would have sent it through him, if his horse had not carried him away. But I know you, Master Buccaneer--You would have had me stab him behind, while Mortagne slashed his head before. That would have been a fit task for a Norman gentleman, and a soldier! I whose life he saved too!"
"Did you not swear, when you joined our troop," demanded the other, "to forget every thing that went before?"
The Norman hesitated; he well remembered his oath, against which the better feelings of his heart were perhaps sometimes rebellious. He felt, too, confused at the direct appeal the other had made to it; and to pass it by, he caught at the word forget, answering with a stave of the song--
"Forget! forget! let slaves forget The pangs and chains they bear; The brave remember every debt To honour, and the fair. For these are bonds that bind us more, Yet leave us freer than before.
"Yes, let those that can do so, forget: but I very well remember, at the battle at Perpignan, I had charged with the advance guard, when the fire of the enemy's musketeers, and a masked battery which began to enfilade our line, soon threw our left flank into disorder, and a charge of cavalry drove back De Coucy's troop. Mielleraye's standard was in the hands of the enemy, when I and five others rallied to rescue it. A gloomy old Spaniard fired his petronel and disabled my left arm, but still I held the standard-pole with my right, keeping the standard before me; but my Don drew his long Toledo, and had got the point to my breast, just going to run it through me and standard and all, as I've often spitted a duck's liver and a piece of bacon on a skewer; when, turning round my head, to see if no help was near, I perceived this young Count de Blenau's banderol, coming like lightning over the field, and driving all before it; and blue and gold were then the best colours that ever I saw, for they gave me new heart, and wrenching the standard-pole round--But hark, there is the horn!"