The Laughing Cavalier Part 52

The Lord of Stoutenburg was the first to enter: behind him came Jan, and finally a group of soldiers above whose heads towered another broad white brow, surmounted by a wealth of unruly brown hair which now clung matted against the moist forehead.

At a word of command from Stoutenburg, Jan and the other soldiers departed, leaving him and the prisoner only before Gilda Beresteyn.

The man had told her on that first night at Leyden that his name was Diogenes--a name highly honoured in the history of philosophy.

Well!--philosophy apparently was standing him in good stead, for truly it must be responsible for the happy way in which he seemed to be bearing his present unhappy condition.

They had tied his arms behind his back and put a pinion through them, his clothes were torn, his ma.s.sive chest was bare, his shirt bore ugly, dark stains upon it, but his face was just the same, that merry laughing face with the twinkling eyes, and the gentle irony that lurked round the lines of the sensitive mouth: at any rate when Gilda--overcome with pity--looked up with sweet compa.s.sion on him, she saw that same curious, immutable smile that seemed even now to mock and to challenge.

"This is the man, mejuffrouw," began Stoutenburg after awhile, "who on New Year's day at Haarlem dared to lay hands upon your person. Do you recognize him?"

"I do recognize him," replied Gilda coldly.

"I imagine," continued Stoutenburg, "that he hath tried to palliate his own villainies by telling you that he was merely a paid agent in that abominable outrage."

"I do not think," she retorted still quite coldly, "that this ... this ... person told me that he was being paid for that ugly deed: though when I did accuse him of it he did not deny it."

"Do you hear, fellow?" asked Stoutenburg, turning sharply to Diogenes, "it is time that all this lying should cease. By your calumnies and evil insinuations you have added to the load of crimes which already have earned for you exemplary punishment; by those same lies you have caused the jongejuffrouw an infinity of pain, over and above the horror which she has endured through your cowardly attack upon her. Therefore I have thought it best to send for you now so that in her exalted presence at least you may desist from further lying and that you may be shamed into acknowledging the truth. Do you hear, fellow?" he reiterated more harshly as Diogenes stood there, seemingly not even hearing what the Lord of Stoutenburg said, for his eyes in which a quaint light of humour danced were fixed upon Gilda's hands that lay clasped upon her lap.

The look in the man's face, the soft pallor on the girl's cheek, exasperated Stoutenburg's jealous temper beyond his power of control.

"Do you hear?" he shouted once more, and with a sudden grip of the hand he pulled the prisoner roughly round by the shoulder. That shoulder had been torn open with a blow dealt by a ma.s.sive steel blade which had lacerated it to the bone; even a philosopher's endurance was not proof against this sudden rending of an already painful wound. Diogenes' pale face became the colour of lead: the tiny room began dancing an irresponsive saraband before his eyes, he felt himself swaying, for the ground was giving way under him, when a cry, gentle and compa.s.sionate, reached his fading senses, and a perfume of exquisite sweetness came to his nostrils, even as his pinioned arms felt just enough support to enable him to steady himself.

"Gilda," broke in Stoutenburg's harsh voice upon this intangible dream, "I entreat you not to demean yourself by ministering to that rogue."

"My poor ministry was for a wounded man, my lord," she retorted curtly.

Then she turned once more to the prisoner.

"You are hurt, sir," she asked as she let her tender blue eyes rest with kind pity upon him.

"Hurt, mejuffrouw?" he replied with a laugh, which despite himself had but little merriment in it. "Ask his Magnificence there, he will tell you that such knaves as I have bones and sinews as tough as their skins.

Of a truth I am not hurt, mejuffrouw ... only overcome with the humour of this situation. The Lord of Stoutenburg indignant and reproachful at thought that another man is proficient in the art of lying."

"By heaven," cried Stoutenburg who was white with fury. "Insolent varlet, take...."

He had seized the first object that lay close to his hand, the heavy iron tool used for raking the fire out of the huge earthenware stove; this he raised above his head; the l.u.s.t to kill glowed out of his eyes, which had become bloodshot, whilst a thin red foam gathered at the corners of his mouth. The next moment the life of a philosopher and weaver of dreams would have been very abruptly ended, had not a woman's feeble hand held up the crashing blow.

"Hatred, my lord, an you will," said Gilda with perfect sangfroid as she stood between the man who had so deeply wronged her and the upraised arm of his deadly enemy, "hatred and fair fight, but not outrage, I pray you."

Stoutenburg, smothering a curse, threw the weapon away from him: it fell with a terrific crash upon the wooden floor. Gilda, white and trembling now after the agonizing excitement of the past awful moment, had sunk half-swooning back against a chair. Stoutenburg fell on one knee and humbly raised her gown to his lips.

"Your pardon, Madonna," he whispered, "the sight of your exquisite hands in contact with that infamous blackguard made me mad. I was almost ready to cheat the gallows of their prey. I gratefully thank you in that you saved me from the indignity of staining my hand with a vile creature's blood."

Quietly and dispa.s.sionately Gilda drew her skirts away from him.

"An you have recovered your temper, my lord," she said coldly, "I pray you ask the prisoner those questions which you desired to put to him. I am satisfied that he is your enemy, and if he were not bound, pinioned and wounded he would probably not have need of a woman's hand to protect him."

Stoutenburg rose to his feet. He was angered with himself for allowing his hatred and his rage to get the better of his prudence, and tried to atone for his exhibition of incontinent rage by a great show of dignity and of reserve.

"I must ask you again, fellow--and for the last time," he said slowly turning once more to Diogenes, "if you have realized how infamous have been your insinuations against mine honour, and that of others whom the jongejuffrouw holds in high regard? Your calumnies have caused her infinite sorrow more bitter for her to bear than the dastardly crime which you did commit against her person. Have you realized this, and are you prepared to make amends for your crime and to mitigate somewhat the grave punishment which you have deserved by speaking the plain truth before the jongejuffrouw now?"

"And what plain truth doth the jongejuffrouw desire to hear?" asked Diogenes with equal calm.

Stoutenburg would have replied, but Gilda broke in quietly:

"Your crime against me, sir, I would readily forgive, had I but the a.s.surance that no one in whom I trusted, no one whom I loved had a hand in instigating it."

The ghost of his merry smile--never very distant--spread over the philosopher's pale face.

"Will you deign to allow me, mejuffrouw," he said, "at any rate to tell you one certain, unvarnished truth, which mayhap you will not even care to believe, and that is that I would give my life--the few chances, that is, that I still have of it--to obliterate from your mind the memory of the past few days."

"That you cannot do, sir," she rejoined, "but you would greatly ease the load of sorrow which you have helped to lay upon me, if you gave me the a.s.surance which I ask."

The prisoner did not reply immediately, and for one brief moment there was absolute silence in this tiny room, a silence so tense and so vivid that an eternity of joy and sorrow, of hope and of fear seemed to pa.s.s over the life of these three human creatures here. All three had eyes and ears only for one another: the world with its grave events, its intrigues and its wars fell quite away from them: they were the only people existing--each for the other--for this one brief instant that pa.s.sed by.

The fire crackled in the huge hearth, and slowly the burning wood ashes fell with a soft swishing sound one by one. But outside all was still: not a sound of the busy life around the molens, of conspiracies and call to arms, penetrated the dense veil of fog which lay upon the low-lying land.

At last the prisoner spoke.

"'Tis easily done, mejuffrouw," he said, and all at once his whole face lit up with that light-hearted gaiety, that keen sense of humour which would no doubt follow him to the grave, "that a.s.surance I can easily give you. I was the sole criminal in the hideous outrage which brought so much sorrow upon you. Had I the least hope that G.o.d would hear the prayer of so despicable a villain as I am I would beg of Him to grant you oblivion of my deed. As for me," he added and now real laughter was dancing in his eyes: they mocked and challenged and called back the joy of life, "as for me, I am impenitent. I would not forget one minute of the last four days."

"To-morrow then you can take the remembrance with you to the gallows,"

said Stoutenburg sullenly.

Though a sense of intense relief pervaded him now, since by his a.s.sertions Diogenes had completely vindicated him as well as Nicolaes in

Gilda's sight, his dark face showed no signs of brightening. That fierce jealousy of this nameless adventurer which had a.s.sailed him awhile ago was gnawing at his heart more insistently than before; he could not combat it, even though reason itself argued that jealousy of so mean a knave was unworthy, and that Gilda's compa.s.sion was only the same that she would have extended to any dog that had been hurt.

Even now--reason still argued--was it not natural that she should plead for the villain just as any tender-natured woman would plead even for a thief. Women hate the thought of violent death, only an amazon would desire to mete out death to any enemy: Gilda was warm-hearted, impulsive, the ugly word "gallows" grated no doubt unpleasantly on her ear. But even so, and despite the dictates of reason, Stoutenburg's jealousy and hatred were up in arms the moment she turned pleading eyes upon him.

"My lord," she said gently, "I pray you to remember that by this open confession this ... this gentleman has caused me infinite happiness. I cannot tell you what misery my own suspicions have caused me these past two days. They were harder to bear than any humiliation or sorrow which I had to endure."

"This varlet's lies confirmed you in your suspicions, Gilda," retorted Stoutenburg roughly, "and his confession--practically at the foot of the gallows--is but a tardy one."

"Do not speak so cruelly, my lord," she pleaded, "you say that ... that you have some regard for me ... let not therefore my prayer fall unheeded on your ear...."

"Your prayer, Gilda?"

"My prayer that you deal n.o.bly with an enemy, whose wrongs to me I am ready to forgive...."

"By St. Bavon, mejuffrouw," here interposed the prisoner firmly, "an mine ears do not deceive me you are even now pleading for my life with the Lord of Stoutenburg."

"Indeed, sir, I do plead for it with my whole heart," she said earnestly.

"Ye G.o.ds!" he exclaimed, "and ye do not interfere!"