The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane - Alain René le Sage (best fiction books of all time .txt) 📗

fraternity. One joke

brought on another. These rascals, especially the fellow who had

retired from the church to our subterraneous hermitage, began to

make themselves merry on the subject. They said a thousand good

things, such as showed at once the sharpness of their wits and

the profligacy of their morals. They were all on the broad grin

except myself. It was impossible to be butt and marksman too.

They each of them shot their bolt at me, and the captain said:

Faith, Gil Blas, I would advise you as a friend not to set your

wit a second time against the church: the biter may be bit; for

you must live some time longer among us, before you are a match

for them.

 

CH. IX. — A more serious incident.

 

WE lounged about the wood for the greater part of the day,

without lighting on any traveller to pay toll for the friar. At

length we were beginning to wear our homeward way, as if

confining the feats of the day to this laughable adventure, which

furnished a plentiful fund of conversation, when we got

intelligence of a carriage on the road drawn by four mules. They

were coming at a hard gallop, with three outriders, who seemed to

be well armed. Rolando ordered the troop to halt, and hold a

council, the result of whose deliberations was to attack the

enemy. We were regularly drawn up in battle-array, and marched to

meet the caravan. In spite of the applause I had gained in the

wood, I felt an oozing sort of tremour come over me, with a chill

in my veins and a chattering in my teeth that seemed to bode me

no good. As it never rains but it pours, I was in the front of

the battle, hemmed in between the captain and the lieutenant, who

had given me that post of honour, that I might lose no time in

learning to stand fire. Rolando, observing the low ebb of my

animal spirits, looked askew at me, and muttered in a tone more

resolute than courtly: Hark ye! Gil Blas, look sharp about you! I

give you fair notice, that if you play the recreant, I shall

lodge a couple of bullets in your brain. I believed him as firmly

as my catechism, and thought it high time not to neglect the

hint; so that I was obliged to lay an embargo on the expression

of my fears, and to think only of recommending my soul to God in

silence.

 

While all this was going on, the carriage and horsemen drew near.

They suspected what sort of gentry we were; and guessing our

trade by our badge, stopped within gun-shot. They had carabines

and pistols as well as ourselves. While they were preparing to

give us a brisk reception, there jumped out of the coach a well-looking gentleman richly dressed. He mounted a led horse, and put

himself at the head of his party. Though they were but four

against nine, for the coachman kept his seat on the box, they

advanced towards us with a confidence calculated to redouble my

terror. Yet I did not forget, though trembling in every joint, to

hold myself in readiness for a shot: but, to give a candid

relation of the affair, I blinked and looked the other way in

letting off my piece; so that from the harmlessness of my fire, I

was sure not to have murder to answer for in another world.

 

I shall not give the particulars of the engagement; though

present, I was no eye-witness; and my fear, while it laid hold of

my imagination, drew a veil over the anticipated horror of the

sight. All I know about the matter is, that after a grand

discharge of musquetry, I heard my companions hallooing Victory!

Victory! as if their lungs were made of leather. At this shout

the terror which had made a forcible entry on my senses was

ejected, and I beheld the four horse men stretched lifeless on

the field of battle. On our side, we had only one man killed.

This was the renegade parson, who had now filled the measure of

his apostasy, and paid for jesting with scapularies and such

sacred things. The lieutenant received a slight wound in the arm;

but the bullet did little more than graze the skin.

 

Master Rolando was the first at the coach-door. Within was a lady

of from four to five-and-twenty, beautiful as an angel in his

eyes, in spite of her sad condition. She had fainted during the

conflict, and her swoon still continued. While he was fixed like

a statue on her charms, the rest of were in profound meditation

on the plunder. We began by securing the horses of the defunct;

for these animals, frightened at the report of our pieces, had

got to a little distance, after the loss of their riders. For the

mules, they had not wagged a hair, though the coachman had jumped

from his box during the engagement to make his escape. We

dismounted for the purpose of unharnessing and loading them with

some trunks tied before and behind the carriage. This settled,

the captain ordered the lady, who had not yet recovered her

faculties, to be set on horseback before the best mounted of the

robbers; then, leaving the carriage and the uncased carcases by

the road-side, we carried off with us the lady, the mules, and

the horses.

 

CH. X. — The lady’s treatment from the robbers. The event of the

great design, conceived by Gil Blas.

 

THE night had another hour to run when we arrived at our

subterraneous mansion. The first thing we did was to lead our

cavalry to the stable, where we were obliged to groom them

ourselves, as the old negro had been confined to his bed for

three days, with a violent fit of the gout, and an universal

rheumatism. He had no member supple but his tongue; and that he

employed in testifying his indignation by the most horrible

impieties. Leaving this wretch to curse and swear by himself, we

went to the kitchen to look after the lady. So successful were

our attentions, that we succeeded in recovering her from her fit.

But when she had once more the use of her senses, and saw herself

encompassed by strangers, she knew the extent of her misfortune,

and shuddered at the thought. All that grief and despair together

could present, of images the most distressing, appeared depicted

in her eyes, which she lifted up to heaven, as if in reproach for

the indignities she was threatened with. Then, giving way at once

to these dreadful apprehensions, she fell again into a swoon, her

eyelids closed once more, and the robbers thought that death was

going to snatch from them their prey. The captain, therefore,

judging it more to the purpose to leave her to herself than to

torment her with any more of their assistance, ordered her to be

laid on Leonarda’s bed, and at all events to let nature take its

course.

 

We went into the hall, where one of the robbers, who had been

bred a surgeon, looked at the lieutenant’s arm and put a plaister

to it. After this scientific operation, it was thought expedient

to examine the baggage. Some of the trunks were filled with laces

and linen, others with various articles of wearing apparel: but

the last contained some bags of coin; a circumstance highly

approved by the receivers-general of the estate. After this

investigation, the cook set out the sideboard, laid the cloth,

and served up supper. Our conversation ran first on the great

victory we had achieved. On this subject said Rolando, directing

himself to me, Confess the truth, Gil Blas: you cannot deny that

you were devilishly frightened. I candidly admitted the fact; but

promised to fight like a crusader after my second or third

campaign. Hereupon all the company took my part, alleging the

sharpness of the action in my excuse, and that it was very well

for a novice, not yet accustomed to the smell of powder.

 

We next talked of the mules and horses just added to our

subterraneous stud. It was determined to set off the next morning

before daybreak, and sell them at Mansilla, before there was any

chance of our expedition having got wind. This resolution taken,

we finished our supper, and returned to the kitchen to pay our

respects to the lady. We found her in the same condition.

Nevertheless, though the dregs of life seemed almost exhausted,

some of these poachers could not help casting a wicked leer at

her, and giving visible signs of a motion within them, which

would have broken out into overt act, had not Rolando put a spoke

in their wheel by representing that they ought at least to wait

till the lady had got rid of her terrors and squeamishness, and

could come in for her share of the amusement. Their respect for

the captain operated as a check to the incontinence of their

passions. Nothing else could have saved the lady; nor would death

itself probably have secured her from violation.

 

Again therefore did we leave this unhappy female to her

melancholy fate. Rolando contented himself with charging Leonarda

to take care of her, and we all separated for the night. For my

part, when I went to bed, instead of courting sleep, my thoughts

were wholly taken up with the lady’s misfortunes. I had no doubt

of her being a woman of quality, and thought her lot on that

account so much the more piteous. I could not paint to myself,

without shuddering, the horrors which awaited her; and felt

myself as sensibly affected by them, as if united to her by the

ties of blood or friendship. At length, after having sufficiently

bewailed her destiny, I mused on the means of preserving her

honour from its present danger, and myself from a longer abode in

this dungeon. I considered that the old negro could not stir, and

recollected that since his illness the cook had the key of the

grate. That thought warmed my fancy, and gave birth to a project

not to be hazarded lightly: the stages of its execution were the

following.

 

I pretended to have the colic. A lad in the colic cannot help

whining and groaning; but I went further, and cried out lustily,

as loud as my lungs would let me. This roused my gentle friends,

and brought them about me to know what the deuce was the matter.

I informed them that I had a swinging fit of the gripes, and to

humour the idea, gnashed my teeth, made all manner of wry faces

till I looked like a bedlamite, and twisted my limbs as if I had

been going to be delivered of a heathen oracle. Then I became

calm all at once, as if my pains had abated. The next minute I

flounced up and down upon my bed, and threw my arms about at

random. In a word, I played my part so well that these more

experienced performers, knowing as they were, suffered themselves

to be thrown off their guard, and to believe that my malady was

real. All at once did they busy themselves for my relief. One

brought me a bottle of brandy, and forced me to gulp down half of

it; another, in spite of my remonstrances, applied oil of sweet

almonds in a very offensive manner: a third went and made a

napkin burning hot, to be clapped upon my stomach. In vain did I

cry mercy; they attributed my noise to the violence of my

disorder, and went on inflicting positive evil by way of remedy

for that which was artificial. At last, able to bear it no

longer, I was obliged to swear