The Laughing Cavalier Part 56

"Never mind about me," whispered Diogenes hurriedly as Pythagoras and Socrates, baffled and furious, were giving forth samples of their choicest vocabularies. "You see that Chance alone can favour me an she choose, if not ... 'tis no matter. What you can do for me is far more important than cheating the gallows of my carcase."

"What is it?" they asked simply.

"The jongejuffrouw," he said, "you know where she is?"

"In the hut--close by," replied Socrates, "we saw the sledge draw up there...."

"But the house is well guarded," murmured Pythagoras.

"Nor would I ask you to run your heads in the same noose wherein mine will swing to-morrow. But keep the hut well in sight. At any hour--any moment now there may be a call of _sauve qui peut_. Every man for himself and the greatest luck to the swiftest runner."

"But why?"

"Never mind why. It is sure to happen. Any minute you may hear the cry ... confusion, terror ... a scramble and a rush for the open."

"And our opportunity," came in a hoa.r.s.e whisper from Socrates. "I think that I begin to understand."

"We lie low for the present and when _sauve qui peut_ is called we come straight back here and free you ... in the confusion they will have forgotten you."

"If the confusion occurs in time," quoth Diogenes with his habitual carelessness, "you may still find me here trussed like a fowl to this verdommte beam. But I have an idea that the Lord of Stoutenburg will presently be consumed with impatience to see me hang ... he has just finished some important work by the bridge on the Schie ... he won't be able to sleep and the devil will be suggesting some mischief for his idle hands to do. There will be many hours to kill before daylight, one of them might be well employed in hanging me."

"Then we'll not leave you an instant," a.s.serted Pythagoras firmly.

"What can you do, you two old scarecrows, against the Lord of Stoutenburg who has thirty men here paid to do his bidding?"

"We are not going to lie low and play the part of cowards while you are being slaughtered."

"You will do just what I ask, faithful old compeers," rejoined Diogenes more earnestly than was his wont. "You will lie very low and take the greatest possible care not to run your heads into the same rope wherein mayhap mine will dangle presently. Nor will you be playing the part of cowards, for you have not yet learned the A B C of that part, and you will remember that on your safety and freedom of action lies my one chance, not so much of life as of saving my last shred of honour."

"What do you mean?"

"The jongejuffrouw--" he whispered, "I swore to bring her back to her father and I must cheat a rascal of his victory. In the confusion--at dawn to-morrow--think above all of the jongejuffrouw.... In the confusion you can overpower the guard--rush the miller's hut where she is ... carry her off ... the horses are in the shed behind the hut ... you may not have time to think of me."

"But...."

"Silence--they listen...."

"One of us with the jongejuffrouw--the other to help you----"

"Silence ... I may be a dead man by then--the jongejuffrouw remember--make for Ryswyk with her first of all--thence straight to Haarlem--to her father--you can do it easily. A fortune awaits you if you bring her safely to him. Fulfil my pledge, old compeers, if I am not alive to do it myself. I don't ask you to swear--I know you'll do it--and if I must to the gallows first I'll do so with a cry of triumph."

"But you...."

"Silence!" he murmured again peremptorily, but more hoa.r.s.ely this time for fatigue and loss of blood and tense excitement are telling upon his iron physique at last--he is well-nigh spent and scarce able to speak.

"Silence--I can hear Jan's footsteps. Here! quick! inside my boot ... a wallet? Have you got it?" he added with a brief return to his habitual gaiety as he felt Socrates' long fingers groping against his s.h.i.+ns, and presently beheld his wallet in his compeer's hand. "You will find money in there--enough for the journey. Now quick into the night, you two--disappear for the nonce, and anon when _sauve qui peut_ rings in the air--to-night or at dawn or whenever this may be, remember the jongejuffrouw first of all and when you are ready give the cry we all know so well--the cry of the fox when it lures its prey. If I am not dangling on a gibbet by then, I shall understand. But quick now!--Jan comes!--Disappear I say!..."

Quietly and swiftly Socrates slipped the wallet with some of the money back into his friend's boot, the rest he hid inside his own doublet.

Strange that between these men there was no need of oaths. Pythagoras and Socrates had said nothing: silent and furtive they disappeared into the darkness. Diogenes' head sank down upon his breast with a last sigh of satisfaction. He knew that his compeers would do what he had asked.

Jan's footsteps rang on the hard-frozen ground--silently the living circle had parted and the philosophers were swallowed up by the gloom.

Jan looks suspiciously at the groups of men who now stand desultorily around.

"Who was standing beside the prisoner just now?" he asks curtly.

"When, captain?" queries one of the men blandly.

"A moment ago. I was descending the steps. The lanthorn was close to the prisoner; I saw two forms--that looked unfamiliar to me--close to him."

"Oh!" rejoined Piet the Red unblus.h.i.+ngly, "it must have been my back that you saw, captain. Willem and I were looking to see that the ropes had not given way. The prisoner is so restless...."

Jan--not altogether re-a.s.sured--goes up to the prisoner. He raises the lanthorn and has a good and comprehensive look at all the ropes. Then he examines the man's face.

"What ho!" he cries, "a bottle of spiced wine from my wallet. The prisoner has fainted."

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

DAWN

What a commotion when dawn breaks at last; it comes grey, dull, leaden, scarce lighter than the night, the haze more dense, the frost more biting. But it does break at last after that interminable night of excitement and sleeplessness and preparations for the morrow.

Jan has never closed an eye, he has scarcely rested even, pacing up and down, in and out of those gargantuan beams, with the molens and its secrets towering above his head. Nor I imagine did those n.o.ble lords and mynheers up there sleep much during this night; but they were tired and lay like logs upon straw pailla.s.ses, living over again the past few hours, the carrying of heavy iron boxes one by one from the molens to the wooden bridge, the unloading there, the unpacking in the darkness, and the disposal of the death-dealing powder, black and evil smelling, which will put an end with its one mighty crash--to tyranny and the Stadtholder's life.

Tired they are but too excited to sleep: the last few hours are like a vivid dream; the preparation of the tinder, the arrangements, the position to be taken up by Beresteyn and Heemskerk, the two chosen lieutenants who will send the wooden bridge over the Schie flying in splinters into the air.

Van Does too has his work cut out. General in command of the forces--foreign mercenaries and louts from the country--he has Jan for able captain. The mercenaries and the louts know nothing yet of what will happen to-morrow--when once the dawn has broken--but they are well prepared; like beasts of the desert they can scent blood in the air; look at them polis.h.i.+ng up their swords and cleaning their cullivers!

they know that to-morrow they will fight, even though to-night they have had no orders save to see that one prisoner tied with ropes to a beam and fainting with exposure and loss of blood does not contrive to escape.

But the Lord of Stoutenburg is more wakeful than all. Like a caged beast of prey he paces up and down the low, narrow weighing-room of the molens, his hands tightly clenched behind his back, his head bare, his cloak cast aside despite the bitter coldness of the night.

Restless and like a beast of prey; his nostrils quiver with the l.u.s.t of hate and revenge that seethes within his soul. Two men doth he hate with a consuming pa.s.sion of hatred, the Stadtholder Prince of Orange, sovereign ruler of half the Netherlands, and a penniless adventurer whose very name is unknown.

Both these men are now in the power of the Lord of Stoutenburg. The bridge is prepared, the powder laid, to-morrow justice will be meted out to the tyrant; G.o.d alone could save him now, and G.o.d, of a surety, must be on the side of a just revenge. The other man is helpless and a prisoner; despite his swagger and his insolence, justice shall be meted out to him too; G.o.d alone could save him, and G.o.d, of a surety, could not be on the side of an impudent rogue.

These thoughts, which were as satisfying to the Lord of Stoutenburg as food placed at an unattainable distance is to a starving beast, kept him awake and pacing up and down the room after he had finished his work under the bridge.

He could not sleep for thinking of the prisoner, of the man's insolence, of the humiliation and contempt wherewith every glance he had brought shame to his cheeks. The Lord of Stoutenburg could not sleep also for thinking of Gilda, and the tender, pitying eyes wherewith she regarded the prisoner, the gentle tone of her voice when she spoke to him, even after proof had been placed before her that the man was a forger and a thief.

The Lord of Stoutenburg could not sleep and all the demons of jealousy, of hatred and of revenge were chasing him up and down the room and whispering suggestions of mischief to be wrought, of a crime to be easily committed.

"While that man lives," whispered the demon of hate in his ear, "thou wilt not know a moment's rest. To-morrow when thy hand should be steady when it wields the dagger against the Stadtholder, it will tremble and falter, for thoughts of that man will unsettle thy nerves and cause the blood to tingle in thy veins."

"While that man lives," whispered the demon of revenge, "thou wilt not know a moment's rest. Thou wilt think of him and of his death, rather than of thy vengeance against the Stadtholder."