Leatherface Part 37

"He refused."

"Nothing will save our city," insisted Leatherface solemnly, "except if we track the Prince of Orange and bring him bound and a prisoner to the feet of Alva?"

"Nothing! save Orange's person will move Alva from his resolve."

Leatherface sits for a moment quite still, with his head buried in his hands: and the vast crowd now a.s.sembled in the room waits in breathless silence for his next word. There are far more than two thousand men here this night; the number has indeed been more than doubled. The deadly danger which threatens the city has already brought over three thousand new recruits to the standard.

Suddenly with a resolute gesture Leatherface draws his mask away and rises to his feet in full view of all the crowd.

"Mark van Rycke!" comes as one cry from several hundred throats.

"Aye!" he says with a light laugh, "your ne'er-do-well and frequenter of taverns was just the watch-dog of our n.o.ble Prince. Unknown I was able to render him some small service. Now that you are no longer called upon to throw me as a bait to the snarling lion, I'll resume mine own ident.i.ty, and hereby ask you, if--knowing me for what I am--you still trust me to lead you to victory or to death?"

"To victory!" shout the younger men enthusiastically.

"To die like men," murmur the older ones.

"To-morrow we fight, seigniors!" says Mark earnestly, "to-morrow we defend our homes, our wives, our daughters, with scarce a hope of success. To-morrow we show to the rulers of the world how those of the down-trodden race can die whilst fighting for G.o.d and liberty."

"To-morrow!" they all a.s.sent with unbounded enthusiasm.

The ardour of a n.o.ble cause is in their veins. Not one of them here hesitates for one second in order to count the cost. And yet every one of them know that theirs is a forlorn cause. How can a handful of burghers and apprentices stand up before the might of Spain? But they are men at bay! they--the sober burghers of a fog-ridden land, steady, wise of counsel, without an ounce of impetuosity or hot-headedness in their blood; and yet they are ready to go into this desperate adventure without another thought save that of selling their lives and the honour of their women folk as dearly as they can.

For leader they have a man! for help they have only G.o.d! For incentive they have their own dignity, their pride, their valour ... for weapon they have the justice of their cause, and the right to die like men.

CHAPTER XVI

THE RIGHT TO DIE

I

And after the lapse of three hundred and more years the imagination projects itself into that past so full of heroic deeds, so full of valour and of glory, and stands still wondering before the glowing pictures which the insurrection of Ghent reveals.

Memory--the stern handmaiden of unruly imagination--goes back to that 21st day in October 1572 and recalls the sounds and sights which from early dawn filled the beautiful city with a presage of desolation to come; the church bells' melancholy appeal, the deserted streets, the barred and shuttered houses, the crowds of women and children and old men sitting at prayer in their own halls, the peaceful folk of a prosperous city quietly preparing for death.

At four o'clock in the afternoon the Duke of Alva rides out of the Kasteel with his staff and his bodyguard, which consists of three squadrons of cavalry, one bandera of Spanish infantry--halberdiers and pikemen--and five companies of harquebusiers, The Bandes d'Ordonnance--the local mounted gendarmerie--are on duty in the Vridachmart, and thither the Duke repairs in slow and stately majesty through silent streets, in which every window is shuttered, and where not one idler or gaffer stands to see him pa.s.s by. A cruel, ironical smile curls his thin lips beneath the drooping moustache as he notes the deserted aspect of the place.

"Terror," he mutters to himself, "or sulkiness. But they cannot eat their money or their treasures: and there must be a vast deal of it behind those walls!"

On the Vridachmart he halts with his armed escort grouped around him, the Bandes d'Ordonnance lining the market place, his standard unfurled behind him, his drummers in the front. Not a soul out upon the mart--not a head at any of the windows in the houses round! It seems as if Don Frederic Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alva, Lieutenant-Governor of the Netherlands and Captain-General of the Forces, was about to read a proclamation to a city of the dead.

A prolonged roll of drums commands silence for His Highness--silence which already is absolute--and then the Duke, in his usual loud and peremptory voice, demands the immediate surrender of the Prince of Orange now an outlaw in the town. And suddenly from every house around the huge market comes the answering cry: "Come and take him!" And from every doorway, from every adjoining street men come rushing along--with pikes and halberds and muskets, and from end to end of the town the defiant cry arises: "Come and take him!"

The Bandes d'Ordonnance, hastily summoned by the Duke to keep back the rabble, turn their arms against the Spanish halberdiers. Taking up the cry of "Come and take him!" they go over in a body to the side of the insurgents.

At once the Walloon arquebusiers are ordered to fire. The rebels respond this time with their own battle cry of "Orange and Liberty!" and a death-dealing volley of musketry. Whereupon the melee becomes general; the cavalry charges into the now serried ranks of the Orangists who are forced momentarily to retreat. They are pushed back across the mart as far as the cemetery of St. Jakab. Here they unfurl their standard, and their musketeers hold their ground with unshakable valour, firing from behind the low encircling wall with marvellous precision and quickness whilst two bodies of halbertmen and pikemen pour out in numbers from inside the church, and their artillerymen with five culverins and three falconets emerge out of the Guild House of the Tanners which is close by, and take up a position in front of the cemetery.

Alva's troops soon begin to lose their nerve. They were wholly unprepared for attack, and suddenly they feel themselves both outnumbered and hard-pressed. The Duke himself had been unprepared and had appeared upon the Vridachmart with less than two thousand men, whilst the other companies stationed in different portions of the city had not even been warned to hold themselves in readiness.

And just when the Spanish cavalry upon the Market Square is beginning to give ground the cry of "_Sauve qui peut_" is raised somewhere in the distance.

The Spanish and Walloon soldiery quartered in the various guild-houses, the open markets or private homesteads were just as unprepared for attack as was the garrison of the Kasteel. They had been promised that as soon as the evening Angelus had ceased to ring they could run wild throughout the city, loot and pillage as much as they desired, and that until that hour they could do no better than fill their heads with ale so as to be ready for the glorious sacking and destruction of the richest town in the Netherlands. Therefore, a goodly number of them--fresh from Mechlin--have spent the afternoon in recalling some of the pleasurable adventures there--the trophies gained, the treasure, the money, the jewels all lying ready to their hand. Others have listened open-mouthed and agape, longing to get to work on the rich city and its wealthy burghers, and all have imbibed a great quant.i.ty of very heady ale which has fuddled their brain and made them more and more drowsy as the afternoon wears on. Their captains too have spent most of the day in the taverns, drinking and playing hazard in antic.i.p.ation of loot, and thus the men are not at the moment in touch with their commanders or with their comrades, and all have laid aside their arms.

And simultaneously with the melee in the Vridachmart, the insurgents have made a general attack upon every guild-house, every market, every tavern where soldiers are quartered and congregated. With much shouting and to-do so as to give an exaggerated idea of their numbers they fall upon the unsuspecting soldiers--Walloons for the most part--and overpower and capture them before these have fully roused themselves from their afternoon torpor; their provosts and captains oft surrender without striking a blow. In almost every instance--so the chroniclers of the time aver--fifty and sixty men were captured by a dozen or twenty, and within half an hour all the guild-houses are in the hands of the Orangists, and close on fifteen hundred Walloons are prisoners in the cellars below; whilst all the arms stowed in the open markets go to swell the stores of the brave Orange men.

But some of the Walloons and Spaniards contrive to escape this general rounding up and it was they who first raised the cry of "_Sauve qui peut!_"

Now it is repeated and repeated again and again: it echoes from street to street; it gains in volume and in power until from end to end of the city it seems to converge toward the Vridachmart in one huge, all dominating wave of sound: "_Sauve qui peut!_" and the tramp of running feet, the calls and cries drown the clash of lance and pike.

Suddenly the bowmen of the Orangists scale the low cemetery wall as one man and their defence is turned into a vigorous onslaught: the cavalry is forced back upon the market square, they catch up the cry: "_Sauve qui peut_! They are on us! _Sauve qui peut!_" They break their ranks--a panic hath seized them--their retreat becomes a rout. The Orangists are all over the cemetery wall now: they charge with halberd and pike and force the Spaniards and Walloons back and back into the narrow streets which debouch upon the Schelde. Some are able to escape over the Ketel Brughe, but two entire companies of Spanish infantry and a whole squadron of cavalry are--so Messire Vaernewyck avers--pushed into the river where they perish to the last man.

II

At this hour all is confusion. The picture which the mind conjures up of the stricken city is a blurred ma.s.s of pikes and lances, of muskets and crossbows, of Spaniards and Walloons and Flemings, of ragged doublets and plumed hats--a medley of sounds: of arrows whizzing with a long whistling sound through the air, of the crash of muskets and clash of lance against lance, the appeal of those who are afraid and the groans of those who are dying--of falling timber and sizzling woodwork, and crumbling masonry, and through it all the awful cry of "_Sauve qui peut!_" and the sound of the tocsin weirdly calling through the fast gathering night.

And amidst this helter-skelter and confusion, the Duke of Alva upon his black charger--untiring, grim, terrible--tries by commands, cajoleries, threats, to rally those who flee. But the voice which erstwhile had the power to make the stoutest heart quake had none over the poltroon. He shouts and admonishes and threatens in vain. They run and run--cavalry, infantry, halbertmen and lancers--the flower of the Spanish force sent to subdue the Netherlands--they run; and in the general vortex of fleeing cavalry the Duke is engulfed too, and he is carried along as far as the Ketel Brughe, where he tries to make a stand.

His doublet and hose are covered with mud and grime; his mantle is torn, his hat has fallen off his head and his white hair floats around his face which is as pale as death.

"Cowards!" he cries with fierce and maddened rage: "would you fly before such rabble?" But his voice has lost its magic; they do not heed him--they fly--past him and over the bridge to the safety of Het Spanjaard's Kasteel.

Then prudence dictates the only possible course, or capture might become inevitable. Cursing savagely and vowing more bitter revenge than ever before, the Duke at last wheels his horse round and he too hastens back to the stronghold--there to work out a plan of campaign against the desperate resistance of that handful of Flemish louts whom His Highness and all Spanish grandees and officials so heartily despise.

III

Half an hour later, and we see courier after courier sent flying from Het Spanjaard's Kasteel to every corner of the city.

The city gates--thank the G.o.d of the Spaniards!--have been well garrisoned and well supplied with culverins and b.a.l.l.s, it is from there that help must come, for--strange to tell--those louts have actually invested the Kasteel and have the pretension to lay a regular siege to the stronghold.

Was there ever such a farce? A couple of thousand of an undisciplined rabble--they surely cannot be more--daring to pit themselves against a picked guard! Courier to the Waalpoort where Lodrono is in command!

courier to the Braepoort!--Serbelloni is there with two culverins of the newest pattern and two hundred musketeers, the like of whom are not known outside the Spanish army!

The only pity is that the bulk of the forces inside the city are Walloons! such poltroons as they have already proved themselves, surrendering in their hundreds to those confounded rebels! they have been scattered like flies out of a honey-pot, and the entire centre of the city is in the hands of the Orangists. But, anyway, the whole affair is only a question of time; for the moment the evening is closing in fast and the position cannot therefore be improved before nightfall; but in the morning a general closing-in movement, from the gates toward the centre would hold the rebels as in a claw and break their resistance within an hour. In the meanwhile the morale of the troops must be restored. Attend to that, ye captains at the city gates!

Courier follows courier out of the gate-house of the Kasteel: naked men, ready to crawl, to swim, or to dive, to escape the vigilance of the Orangist lines. Impossible! Not one is able to cross the open ground beyond the castle moat; the houses on the further bank of the Schelde are filled with Orangists; bows and muskets are levelled from every window. The culverins are down below, covered by the angles of the cross-streets; the messengers either fall ere they reach the Schelde or are sent back the way they came.

Attend to the morale of your men, ye captains at the city gates! The Duke of Alva, with some three or four thousand men, is inside the Kasteel, and no orders or communication can be got from him now before morning. And just like the flies when driven out of the honey, fly, scared, to the edges of the pot, so the Walloon soldiers, those who have escaped from the guild-houses, go and seek refuge in the shadow of the guard-houses at the gates. But the tactics of the Orangists have worked upon their nerves. At first there had appeared but a rabble upon the Vridachmart, but since then the numbers are swelling visibly; insurgents seem to be issuing out of every doorway, from under every arch in the city ... they rush out with muskets and crossbows, with pikes and halberds; and to the Walloons--already unnerved and fatigued--their numbers appear to be endless and their arms of a wonderful precision.