Leatherface Part 45

"Oh! of everything ... of insults and violence and death?"

"No, n.o.ble lady," said Grete simply. "I trust to G.o.d to protect me."

"Then wilt come with me?"

"Whither, n.o.ble lady?"

"Into the city ... alone with me ... we'll pretend that we go to Benediction...."

"Into the city...?" exclaimed the girl. "Alone?"

"Art afraid?"

"No."

"Then put up my hair and get hood and cloak and give me mine...."

Grete did as she was ordered. She pinned up Lenora's fair hair and brought her a mantle and hood and wrapped them round her: then she fastened on her own.

"Come!" said Lenora curtly.

She took the girl by the hand and together the two women went out of the room. Their way led them through endless corridors and down a long, winding staircase; hand in hand they ran like furtive little animals on the watch for the human enemy. Down below the big flagged hall was full of soldiers: the two women only realised this when they reached the last landing.

"Will they let us pa.s.s?" murmured Grete.

"Walk beside me and hold thy head boldly," said Lenora, "they must not think that we are afraid of being challenged."

She walked down the last flight of the stairs with slow majestic steps: her arms folded beneath her cloak, looking straight ahead of her with that air of calm detachment and contempt of others which the Spanish _n.o.blesse_ knew so well how to a.s.sume.

Captain de Avila was below: at sight of donna Lenora he came forward and said with absolute respect:

"La senora desires to go out?"

"As you see," she replied haughtily.

"Not further than the precincts of the Kasteel, I hope."

"What is that to you, whither I go?" she queried.

"My orders..." he stammered, somewhat taken aback by this grand manner on the part of the senora who had always been so meek and silent hitherto.

"What orders have you had, seigneur capitaine?" she queried, "which warrant your interference with my movements?"

"I ... truly..." he murmured, "senor de Vargas..."

"My father, I presume, has not given you the right to question my freedom to go and come as I please," she retorted, still with the same uncompromising hauteur.

"No ... but..."

"Then I pray you let me pa.s.s.... I hear the bells of St. Pharalde ...

I shall be late for Benediction...."

She swept past him, leaving him not a little bewildered and completely abashed. He watched her tall, graceful figure as she sailed through the portico and thence across the castle-yard, then he shrugged his shoulders as if to cast aside any feeling of responsibility which threatened to worry him, and returned to the guard-room and to his game of hazard. It was only then that he recollected that it lacked another two hours to Benediction yet.

In the yard Lenora had more serious misgivings.

"There's the guard at the gate-house," she murmured. "Keep up thy look of unconcern, Grete. We can only win if we are bold."

As she antic.i.p.ated the provost at the gate-house challenged her.

"I go to St. Pharalde," she said calmly, "my father is with me. He hath stopped to speak with Captain de Avila. Lower the bridge, provost, and let us pa.s.s. We are late enough for Benediction as it is."

The provost hesitated for a moment.

"The seigneur capitaine sent me orders just now that no one was to leave the Kasteel," he said.

"Am I under the seigneur capitaine's orders," she retorted, "or the daughter of senor de Vargas, who will punish thee, sirrah, for thine insolence?"

The provost, much disturbed in his mind, had not the courage to run counter to the n.o.ble lady's wish. He had had no orders with regard to her, and as she very rightly said, she was not under the orders of the seigneur capitaine.

He ordered the bridge to be lowered for her, vaguely intending not to let her pa.s.s until he a.s.sured himself that senor de Vargas was nigh: but Lenora gave him no time for reflection: she waited until the bridge was down, then suddenly she seized Grete's hand and quick as a young hare she darted past the provost and the guard before they thought of laying hands on her, and she was across the bridge before they had recovered from their surprise.

Once on the open ground Lenora drew breath. The provost and the guard could not very well run after her, and for the moment she was safe from pursuit. On ahead lay the sharp bend of the Lower Schelde, beyond it the ruined ma.s.s of the Vleeshhuis, and the row of houses, now all shattered to pieces, where the Orangists held their watch. Her heart was beating furiously, and she felt Grete's rough little hand quivering in hers. She felt such a tiny atom, a mere speck in this wide open s.p.a.ce.

In front of her was the city, which seemed even in the silence of this Sunday afternoon to be quivering in the throes of oncoming death: to right and left of her the great tract of flat country, this land of Belgium which she had not yet learned to love but for which she now felt a wonderful pity.

It was a rude lesson which she had been made to learn within the last hour: the lesson that the idols of her childhood and girlhood had not only feet of clay but that they were steeped to the neck in the mire of falsehoods and treachery: she had also learned that the man whom she had once hated with such pa.s.sionate bitterness was worthy of a pure woman's love: that happiness had knocked at the gateway of her own heart and been refused admittance: and that G.o.d was not wont to give very obvious guidance in the terrible perplexities which at times beset His creatures.

Therefore now she no longer lured herself with the belief that she was acting at this moment under the direct will of G.o.d, she knew that she was guided by an overmastering and blind instinct which told her that she must see Mark--at once--and warn him that the perfidy of the Duke of Alva had set a deathly trap for him and for his friends.

A few more minutes and she and Grete were over the Ketel Brughe and under the shadow of the tall houses on the river embankment beyond.

"Take me!" she said to Grete peremptorily, "to the house of the High-Bailiff of Ghent."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE LAST STAND

I

The word has gone round, we must all a.s.semble in the cathedral church--every burgher, every artisan, every apprentice who belongs by blood to Ghent must for the nonce cast aside pick and shovel: the dead can wait! the living claim attention.

Quite a different crowd from that which knelt at prayer this morning!