House of Torment Part 25

This is what he saw:

In one corner of the room, close to a large couch covered with rich silks, Elizabeth Taylor stood against the wall. They had dressed her in a long white robe of the Grecian sort, with a purple border round the hem of the skirt, the short sleeves and the low neck. Her face was a white wedge of terror, her arms were upraised, the palms of her hands turned outwards, as if to ward off some horror unspeakable.

King Philip, at the other corner of the room, standing by the debris of the broken door, was perfectly motionless, save only for his head, which was pushed forward and moved from side to side with a slow reptilian movement.

He was dressed entirely in black, his clothes in disarray, and the thin hair upon his head was matted in fantastic elf-locks with sweat.

He saw the set face of Commendone, his drawn and b.l.o.o.d.y sword. He saw the thick leathern-coated figure of the yeoman rise from the floor. Both were confronting him, and he knew in a flash that he was trapped.

Johnnie looked at his master for a moment, and then turned swiftly.

"Elizabeth," he said, "Elizabeth!"

At his voice the girl's hands fell from her face. She looked at him for a second in wild amazement, and then she cried out, in a high, quavering voice of welcome, "Johnnie! Johnnie! you've come!"

He put his arms about her, soothing, stroking her hair, speaking in a low, caressing voice, as a man might speak to a child. And all the time his heart, which had been frozen into deadly purpose, was leaping, bounding, and drumming within him so furiously, so strongly, that it seemed as if his body could hardly contain it. This mortal frame must surely be dissolved and swept away by such a tumult of feeling.

She had only seen him once. She had never received his little posy of white flowers, but he was "Johnnie" to her.

"They have not hurt you, my maid?" he said. "Tell me they have not harmed you."

She shook her head. Happiness sponged away the horror which had been upon her face. "No, Johnnie," she answered, clinging, her fingers clutching for a firmer hold of him. "No, Johnnie, only they took me away, and Alice, that is my maid. They took me away violently, and I have been penned up here in this place until that man came and said strange things to me, and would embrace me."

"Sit you here, my darling maid," the young man said, "sit you here,"

guiding her to the couch hard by. "He shall do you no harm. Thou art with me, and thy good friend there, thy father's yeoman."

She had not seen John Hull before, but now she looked up at him over Johnnie's arm, and smiled. "'Tis all well now," she murmured, drooping and half-faint. "Hull is here, and thou also, Johnnie."

Even in the wild joy of finding her, and knowing instinctively that she was to be his, that she had thought of him so much, Commendone lost nothing of his sang-froid.

He knew that desperate as had been his adventure when he started out from the Tower, it was now more desperate still. He and Hull had taken their lives in their hands when they went to Duck Lane. Their enterprise had so far been successful, their rescue complete, but--and he was in no way mistaken--the enterprise was not over, and his life was worth even a smaller price than it had been before.

With that, he turned from the girl, and strode up to the King, before whom John Hull had been standing, grimly silent.

Commendone's sword was still in his hand; he had not relinquished it even when he had embraced Elizabeth, and now he stood before his master, the point upon the floor, his young face set into judgment.

"And now, Sire?" he said, shortly and quickly.

Philip's face was flushed with shame and fear, but at these sharp words, he drew himself to his full height.

"Senor," he said, "you are going to do something which will d.a.m.n you for ever in the sight of G.o.d and Our Lady. You are going to slay the anointed of the Lord. I will meet death at your hands, and doubtless for my sins I have deserved death; but, nevertheless, you will be d.a.m.ned."

Then he threw his arms out wide, and there came a sob into his voice as the liquid Spanish poured from him.

"But to die thus!" he said. "Mother of G.o.d! to die thus! unshrived, with my sins upon me!"

Johnnie tapped impatiently with the point of his sword upon the floor.

"Kill you, Sire?" he said. "I have sworn the oath of allegiance to Her Grace, the Queen, and eke to you. I break no oaths. Kill you I will not. Kill you I cannot. I dare not raise my hand against the King."

He dropped on one knee. "Sire," he said again, "I am your Gentleman, and you will go free from this vile house as you came into it."

Then he rose, took his sword, snapped it across his knee--staining his hands in doing so--and flung it into the corner of the room.

"And that is that," he said, with a different manner. "So now as man to man, as from one gentleman to another, hear my voice. You are a gentleman of high degree, and you are King also of half this globe, named, and glad to be named His Most Catholic Majesty. Of your kings.h.i.+p I am not at this moment aware. I am not Royal. But as a gentleman and a Christian, I tell you to your face that you are low and vile. You deceive a wife that loveth you. You take maidens to force them to your will. If you were a simple gentleman I would kill you where you stood.

No! If thou wert a simple gentleman, I would not cross swords with thee, because thou art unworthy of my sword. I would tell my man here to slit thee and have done. But as thou art a King"--he spat upon the floor in his disgust--"and I am sworn to thee, I cannot punish thee as I would, thou son of h.e.l.l, thou very scurvy, lying, and most dirty knave."

The King's face was a dead white now. He lifted his hands and beat with them upon his breast. "_Mea culpa! Mea culpa!_ What have I done that I should endure this?"

"What no King should ever do, what no gentleman could ever do."

The King's hands dropped to his side.

"I am wearing no sword," he said quietly, "as you see, Senor, but doubtless you will provide me with one. If you will meet me here and now, as a simple gentleman, then I give you licence to kill me. I will defend myself as best I am able."

Johnnie hesitated, irresolutely. All the training of his life was up in arms with the wishes and the emotions of the moment--until he heard the voice of common sense.

John Hull broke in. The man had not understood one word of the Spanish, but he had realised its meaning, and the keen, untutored intelligence, focused upon the flying minutes, saw very clearly into the future.

"Master," he said, "cannot ye see that all this is but chivalry and etiquette of courts? Cannot ye see that if ye kill His Highness, England will not be big enough to hide thee? Cannot ye see, also, that if thou dost not kill him, but let him go, England will not be big enough to hide thee either? Master, we must settle this business with speed, and get far away before the hue and cry, for I tell thee, that this b.l.o.o.d.y night's work will bring thee, and Mistress Elizabeth, and myself to the rack and worse torture, to the stake, and worse than that. Haste! speed!

we must be gone. There is but one thing to be done."

"And what is that, John Hull?"

"Why, thou art lost in a dream, master! To tie up His Highness so that he cannot move or speak for several hours. To send that Spaniard which is his man, away from the door outside, and then to fly from this accursed house, you, I, and the little mistress, and hide ourselves, if G.o.d will let us, from the wrath to come."

The quick, decisive words were so absolutely true, so utterly unanswerable, that Johnnie nodded, though he shuddered as he did so.

Upon that, John Hull strode up to the King.

"Put your hands behind you, Sire," he said.

The King was wearing a dagger in his belt. As Hull came up to him, his face was transfixed with fury. He drew it out and lunged at the man's heart.

Hull was standing a little obliquely to the blow, the dagger glanced upon his leather surcoat, cut a long groove, and glanced harmlessly away.

With that, Hull raised his great brown fist and smote King Philip in the face, driving him to the floor. He was on him in a moment, crouching over him with one hand upon the Royal throat.

"Quick, master; quick, master! Quick, master! Bonds! Bonds! We must e'en truss him up, as we did her ladys.h.i.+p below."

It was done. The King was tied and bound. It was done as gently as possible, and they did not gag him.

Together they laid him upon the floor.

Slow, half-strangled, and venomous words came, came in gouts of poisonous sound, which made the sweet Spanish hideous....

"The whole world, Mr. Commendone, will not be wide enough to hide you, your paramour, and this villain from my vengeance."

Johnnie would have heard anything but that one word--that shameful word.