Sir Mortimer Part 20

"So!" said Mexia. "Well! 'Twas falsely sworn. Desmond was the man."

Sir John turned with rapid speech to his host. Alonzo Brava addressed Mexia, who roused himself to a fair appearance of sobriety. "Worthy Don Pedro, all here, on both sides, have heard somewhat of this story. I understand that the English hidalgo concerned is dead. Don Luiz de Guardiola is in Spain. We all know that a simple vengeance never sufficed for him who was of those who by their cruelties have brought such defamation upon our name in the Indies. I see not that you do injury to Spanish honor by giving to our friends of one night as much as you know of this history."

"Your relation will make us so greatly your debtor, Don Pedro," said Drake, "that to-morrow, ere we sail, we will think of some such token as may justly show our appreciation of the trouble we now give you. Wilt drink with me?"

The tankards clinked, the wine went down, and the flattered Mexia turned his round, empurpled countenance to Nevil. "Why, see you," he said, "'twas easy for Desmond to find the secret door in the upper room in the Friar's house, and, stealing down by the stair between the walls to listen at the hidden grating until he had by heart your every plan--but 'twas not so easy to escape to us! It lacked half an hour of sunset when be brought that news which since noon Don Luiz had sought with fury to wring from the other."

"From the other?"

"From Sir Mortimer Ferne."

An Englishman cried out, "Then were there two traitors?" but Mexia, who by now was somewhat in love with his part of raconteur, had a grim smile. "There was one Don Luiz de Guardiola.... Oh, I will tell you what you wish to know, senors! Be not so impatient. It was without the room where lay his prisoner that he gathered from Desmond news indeed; and it was from that room that he sent Desmond away, and wrote very swiftly order after order to his lieutenants. Then he went to the other door and called out Miguel, who says, 'Now and then he raves, but nothing to the point!' to which Don Luiz: 'I am going to stand beside him. You are skilful. Make him babble like a child, scarce knowing what he says.

What I wanted from him matters no longer; but make him speak--words, broken sentences, cries!--I care not what. Make him aware that he holds his tongue no longer, make him struggle for silence there beneath my eyes.'

"'He calls on G.o.d at present,' answers Miguel. 'I thought these Lutherans held with Satan.'

"'When I sign to you--thus,' goes on De Guardiola, 'bring him with suddenness into a short swoon. Then at once dash water upon his face and breast. When he cometh to himself, which (look you) must be shortly, busy yourself with putting away your engines, or be officious to loosen his bonds, keeping a smiling mien as of one whose day's work is done; in short, in what subtle fashion you may, do you and your helpers add to that a.s.surance that I myself shall give him. Do your part well and there will be reward, for I have at heart a whim that I would gratify.' So we went into the next room."

"We!" said Nevil deeply, and "By G.o.d, this man was there!" breathed Drake, and Arden ground his teeth. The silence which had spellbound the company broke sharply here or there, then, breathless, men again bent forward, waiting for the last word of the story whose ending they already guessed. Alonzo Brava, a knightly soul enough, sat grim and red, repentant that he had given loose rein to Mexia's tongue. Mexia, undisturbed, genial with his wine, and of a retrospective turn of mind, went smoothly, even dreamily on with his episode of a four-years-past struggle. He had scarcely noticed the slip of the tongue by which he had included himself with Luiz de Guardiola and his ministers.

"Well.... He lay there indeed, and called upon G.o.d; and now and then he cried to men and women we knew not of. But when he saw that De Guardiola was in the room, he fell silent--like that!

"'Tell me this--and this--and this,' says Don Luiz at his side. 'Then shall you go free. You are your Admiral's dearest friend; you are high in the English council. Even before you became my prisoner was there not a general attack planned for to-night? Tell me its nature and the hour.

What force will be left upon the ships? What will be the word of the night? Tell me if you know aught of a secret way by which the battery may be flanked!'

"Well, he was silent, and Don Luiz stamped upon the floor. 'You are too slow of speech, senor. Miguel, make him speak. I have no time to loiter here!'"

Mexia moistened his lips with his wine. "What do you ask with your white faces and great eyes, senors?... Oh, yes, he was made to speak--to cry out to the Lutheran's G.o.d, to gasp his defiance to Don Luiz waiting with folded arms--to wander, as they sometimes do, thinking friends about him, making appeal to the living and the dead to pluck him out of h.e.l.l!

at last, with froth upon his lips, to murmur like a child who knows not War nor one of its usages; like a heretic who communes with G.o.d direct.... I am no better than I am, but I know courage when I see it, and I tell you, Don Alonzo, that in his torment and his weakness that man was strong to sweep clear his mind of aught that was to De Guardiola's purpose. If nature must give voice to her anguish, then, with bound hands, he kept her far from the garden of his honor. This until the very last, when he lost knowledge indeed of what the tongue might say, and bit at his bound arms struggling to hold his peace. Then De Guardiola signed for the turn of the screw."

At the end of the table, a few moments before, a man had left his place with no noise, and stooping was now slowly making his way behind the forward bent row of guests, towards the table of honor. Mexia, making full stop, drank his wine, and, leaning back in his chair, stared thoughtfully before him. Amongst his auditors there was an instant of breathless expectation, then Drake cried impatiently, "Make a finish, man!"

"There is no more," said Mexia. "He never told, never betrayed. When he awoke from that momentary swoon there was surcease of torment, there were Miguel and his fellows making ready to take leave of the day's work; his bonds were loosed, wine held to his lips; Don Luiz stood over him with a smile, and still smiling sent for the Commandant of the battery. All that Desmond had brought to Don Luiz was told over, orders were written and sent in haste, naught was left undone that De Guardiola's guile might suggest. He believed--he could not choose but to believe--that in his madness of words and half-conscious utterances, from very failure of will and weakness of soul and lack of knightly honor, he had refused to endure, and had betrayed the English to surprise and death."

The man who had moved from his seat was now so near to the notable guests that when, drawing himself up, he placed his hand upon Arden's shoulder, he came face to face with Pedro Mexia. The latter, uttering a strangled cry, threw up his hands as though to ward off an apparition.

With a sudden spring, one booted foot upon Arden's heavy chair, the figure leaped upon the table, disarranging all its glittering array, and for a second facing the company which had arisen with excitement and outcry. The next, like a dart, he crossed the intervening s.p.a.ce and threw himself upon Mexia, dragging the bulky form from the table and hurling it to the floor. Weaponless, the a.s.saulter had used his hands, and now with a knee upon Mexia's breast he strove to throttle him. When, Spanish and English, those that were nearest of Don Alonzo's guests were upon him, the face that he turned over his shoulder showed an intolerable white fury of wrath. "Thy sword, John Nevil!" he gasped.

"Thou seest I wear none! Arden, thou'rt no friend of mine if thou flingst me not thy dagger!... Ah dog! that companied with the h.e.l.l-hound of the pack, loll _thy_ tongue out now! Let _thy_ eyeb.a.l.l.s start from the socket--"

When the two men were separated, the one lay huddled and unconscious against his chair, and the other stood with iron composure, glancing from the unconscious envoy to his host Alonzo Brava. "I know not who you are, senor," spoke the latter, with anger hardly controlled, "but you have broken truce and done bodily injury to my guest, who not being able at the moment to speak for himself--"

"Your pardon, senor, for any discourtesy towards my host," answered Ferne. "And I would give you satisfaction here and now if--if--" He looked down upon his empty hands. The gesture was seen of all. Made by him, it came as one of those slight acts which have a power to pierce the heart and enlighten the understanding. Unconscious as it was, the movement rent away the veil of four years, broke any remnant of the spell that was upon the English, set him high and clear before them--the peer of Francis Drake, of John Nevil, of Raleigh and of Sidney. This was Sir Mortimer Ferne, and there was that which he lacked!

Up and down the room there ran a sudden sound of steel drawn swiftly from metal, leather, or velvet sheaths. "My sword, Sir Mortimer Ferne!"

"Mine!" "And mine!" "Do mine honor, Sir Mortimer Ferne!" "Sir Mortimer Ferne, take mine!"

Ferne's hand closed upon the hilt which Nevil had silently offered, and he turned to salute his antagonist, whose pallor now matched his own.

"Are you that English knight?" demanded Brava with dry lips. "Then in courtesy alone will we cross blades--no more!"

The steel clashed, the points fell, and Spaniard and Englishman bowed gravely each to the other. "I thank you," said Ferne hoa.r.s.ely. "With your permission, senor, I will say good-night. You will understand, I think, that I would be alone."

"That we must all understand," said Alonzo Brava. "Our good wishes travel with you, senor."

Sir Mortimer turned, and from the younger, more heedless adventurers broke a ringing shout, a repeated calling of his name until it echoed from the lofty roof, but his friends spoke not to him, only made an aisle through which he might pa.s.s. His arm was raised, Nevil's sword a gleaming line along the dark velvet of his sleeve. The face seen below the lifted arm was very strange, written over with a thousand meanings.

The poise of the figure and the light upon the sword increased the effect of height, the effect of the one-night-whitened hair. There was, moreover, the gleam and shadow of the countenance, evident forgetfulness of time or place, the desire of the soul to be out with night and storm and miracles. The English drew farther back, and he went by them like an apparition.

Later in the night Nevil and Arden, after fruitless search, came upon a s.p.a.ce where the wall of Cartagena rose sheer above the water. To-night the sea roared in their ears, but the storm had gone by, leaving upon the horizon a black and rugged bank of cloud rimmed by great beacon stars. Down through a wide rift in the clouds streamed light from a haloed moon. Beneath it, seated upon the stone, his hands clasped about his knees and a gleaming sword laid across them was the man they sought.

His head was lifted and the moon gave light enough by which to read the lineaments of a good knight and true, brave, of stainless honor, a lover of things of good repute, pure gold to his friends, generous to his foes, gentle to the weak, tender and pitiful of all who sinned or suffered. He heard their footsteps on the stone, and, rising, went to meet them. "It hath been a wonderful night," he said. "Look, how great is the ring about the moon! and the air after the storm blows from far countries.... They have come to me one after another--all the men of the _Cygnet_, and the _Phoenix_, and the land force. Henry Sedley sat beside me, with his arm about my shoulder; and Captain Robert Baldry and I have clasped hands, foregoing our quarrel. And the crew of the _Sea Wraith_ went by like shadows. I know not if I did wrongly by them, but if it be so I will abide G.o.d's judgment between us when I, too, am dead. And I am not yet for the Low Countries, Arden! I am for England--England, England!"

They leaned against the parapet and looked out upon the now gleaming sea, the rack of the clouds and the broken cohorts of the stars. They looked out to the glistening line where the water met the east.

"Homeward to-morrow!" said Arden, and Ferne asked, "What are thy ships, John?" and Nevil answered, "The one is the _Mere Honour_, the other I have very lately renamed the _Cygnet_. Wilt be her captain, Mortimer, from here to Plymouth Port?"

The Countess of Pembroke, in mourning for her parents, was spending a midsummer month in leafy Penshurst. It was a drowsy month, of roses fully blown and heavy lilies, of bees booming amongst all honey flowers, of shady copses and wide sunlit fields; and it was a quiet month because of the Countess's mourning and because Philip Sidney was Governor of Flushing. Therefore, save for now and then a messenger bringing news from London or Wilton or from that loved brother in the Netherlands, the Countess, her women, and a page or two made up the company at Penshurst.

The pages and the young gentlewomen (all under the eye of an aged majordomo) moved sedately in the old house, pacing soberly the gardens beneath the open cas.e.m.e.nts; but when they reached the sweet rusticity of the outward ways, fruit-dropping orchards and sunny s.p.a.ces, they were for lighter spirits, heels, and wits. With laughter young hand caught at young hand, and fair forms circled swiftly an imaginary May-pole. Tall flowers upon the Medway's brim next took their eye, and they gathered pink and white and purple sheaves; then, limed by the mere joy of work, caught up and plied the rakes of the haymakers. The meadows became lists, their sudden employment a joust-at-arms, and some slender youth crowned the swiftest workwoman with field flowers, withering in the nearest swathe. All wove garlands, then made for the shade of the trees and shared a low basket of golden apples. One had a lute and another sang a love ditty with ethereal pa.s.sion. They were in Arcadia,--silken shepherdesses, slim princes in disguise,--and they breathed the sweetness, the innocent yet lofty grace which was the country's natal air.

"Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother," kept much, in her gentle, filial sorrow, to her great chamber above the gardens, where she wrote and studied, and to her closet, where before an eastern window was set the low chair beside which she kneeled in prayer for her living and her dead. She prayed much alone, but once a day, when the morn was young, she sent for one who was named her gentlewoman indeed, but to whom all her train gave deference, knowing of the love between this lady and their mistress. The lady came, beautiful, patient, with lips that smiled on life, and wonderful dark eyes in which the smile was drowned. The Countess took her morning kiss and the fair coolness of her pressed cheek, then praised the flowers in her hands, all jewelled with the dew--a lovely posy to be set amongst the Countess's little library of pious works. Then on this as on other days the two fair women read together, their soft voices making tremulous music of the stately Latin.

The reading done, they kneeled side by side, dark hair against light, praying silently, each her own prayers. It was a morning rite, poignantly dear to them both; it began and helped upon its way the livelong lingering day. They arose and kissed, and presently the Countess spoke of letters which she must write. "Then," said the other, "I will go sit by the fountain until you wish for me."

"The fountain!" answered Mary Sidney. "Ah, Damaris! I would that thou mightst forget the fountain. I would that other blooms than red roses were planted there!"

"That would not I!" the other answered. "I love the fountain. And once a red rose meant to me--Paradise!"

"Then go thy ways, and gather thy roses," said the Countess fondly. "I would give thee Heaven an I could--so that thou stayed upon earth with thy fairing!"

The Countess sat herself down to write to Philip Sidney, not knowing that he was so near the frontier whence no living messenger, no warm and loving cry could ever draw him back. Damaris, a book in her hand, pa.s.sed through the silent, darkened house out to the sunlit lawns. Her skirt swept the enamelled turf; she touched the tallest flowers as she pa.s.sed, and they bloomed no worse for that light caress. Poetry was in her every motion, and she was too beautiful a thing to be so sad. She made no parade of grief. Faint smiles came and went, and all things added to her birthright of grace. She was the Countess's almoner: every day she did good, lessening pain, whispering balm to the anguish-stricken, speaking as with authority to troubled souls. Back from the hovel to stately houses she went, and lo! the maid of honor, exquisite, perfect as a flower. Men wooed, but might not win her. They came and went, but to her it was no matter. In her eyes still burned the patient splendor with which she waited for the tide to take her, bearing her out beyond the shallows to one who also tarried.

With a gentle sound the fountain rose and fell in a gray stone basin.

Around it were set the rose-trees, and beyond the roses tall box and yew most fantastically clipped screened from observation the fairy spot.

Damaris, slowly entering, became at once the spirit of the place. She paced the fountain's gra.s.sy rim to a rustic seat and took it for her chair of state, from which for a while, with her white hands behind her head, she watched the silver spray and the blue midsummer sky. A lark sang, but so high in the blue that its joyous note jarred not the languor of the place. Damaris opened her book--but what need of written poesy? The red roses smelled so sweet that 'twas as though she lay against the heart of one royal bloom. She left her throne and trod the circle, and in both hands she took the heavy blossoms and pressed them to her lips. The odor was like warm wine. "Now and for all my life,"

said Damaris, "for me one faded rose! Afterwards, two in a garden like this--like this!"

The gra.s.s was so green and warm that presently she lay down upon it, her head pillowed upon her arm, her eyes gazing through the fountain mist and down the emerald slopes to where ran the elmwood avenue. She gazed in idleness, through half-shut eyelids, wrapped in lullabies and drowsy warmth. Hoof-beats between the elms troubled her not. When through the mist of falling water and the veil of drooping leaves she saw riding towards the house a youth clad in blue, the horse and rider seemed but figures in a piece of tapestry. Her satin eyelids closed, and if other riders presently showed in the tapestry she saw them not, for she was sound asleep. She dreamed of a masque at Hampton Court, long ago, and of the gown she had worn and how merry she had been, and she dreamed of the Queen. Then her dream changed and she sat with Henry Sedley on the sands of a lost sea-coast, stretching in pale levels beyond the ken of man.

The surf raced towards them like shadowy white horses, and a red moon hung low in the sky. There was music in the air, and his voice was speaking, but suddenly the sea and its champing horses and the red moon pa.s.sed away. She stirred, and now it was not her brother's voice that spoke. Green gra.s.s was beneath her; splendid roses, red and gold, were censers slowly swinging; the silver fountain leaped as if to meet the skylark's song. Slowly Damaris raised herself from her gra.s.sy bed and looked with widening eyes upon an intruder. "I--I went to sleep," she said. "Is't Heaven or will this rose also fade?" She closed her eyes for a moment, then, opening them, "O my dream!" she cried. "Go not away!"

The sunlight fell upon his lifted head, and on his dress, that was as rich as any bridegroom's, and on a sword-knot of silver gauze. "Look you thus in Heaven, O my King?" she breathed.

Sir Mortimer approached her very slowly, for he saw that her senses strayed. As he came nearer she shrank against the wall of bloom. "Dear heart," he said, "I am a living man, and before all the world I now may wear thy silver sleave." But the rose you gave me once before hath withered into dust. I could not hold it back. "Break for me another rose--_Dione_!"

She put out her hand and obeyed. Into her eyes had come a crescent splendor, upon her lips the dawn of an ineffable smile; but yet troubled, yet without full understanding, she, trembling, held out the flower at arm's length. But when Ferne's hand closed upon hers, when she felt herself drawn into his arms and his kiss upon her lips, his whisper in her ears, she awoke, and thought not less of Heaven, but only that Heaven had come to earth.

THE END