ADRIAN COMES HOME AGAIN
They landed on the island, wading to it through the mud, which at this
spot had a gravelly bottom; all of them except Elsa, who remained on
the boat to keep watch. Following otter-paths through the thick rushes
they came to the centre of the islet, some thirty yards away. Here, at
a spot which Martha ascertained by a few hurried pacings, grew a dense
tuft of reeds. In the midst of these reeds was a duck’s nest with the
young just hatching out, off which the old bird flew with terrified
quackings.
Beneath this nest lay the treasure, if it were still there.
“At any rate the place has not been disturbed lately,” said Foy. Then,
even in his frantic haste, lifting the little fledglings—for he loved
all things that had life, and did not wish to see them hurt—he
deposited them where they might be found again by the mother.
“Nothing to dig with,” muttered Martin, “not even a stone.” Thereon
Martha pushed her way to a willow bush that grew near, and with the
smaller of the two axes, which she held in her hand, cut down the
thickest of its stems and ran back with them. By the help of these
sharpened stakes, and with their axes, they began to dig furiously,
till at length the point of Foy’s implement struck upon the head of a
barrel.
“The stuff is still here, keep to it, friends,” he said, and they
worked on with a will till three of the five barrels were almost free
from the mud.
“Best make sure of these,” said Martin. “Help me, master,” and between
them one by one they rolled them to the water’s edge, and with great
efforts, Elsa aiding them, lifted them into the boat. As they
approached with the third cask they found her staring white-faced over
the tops of the feathery reeds.
“What is it, sweet?” asked Foy.
“The sail, the following sail,” she answered.
They rested the barrel of gold upon the gunwale and looked back across
the little island. Yes, there it came, sure enough, a tall, white sail
not eight hundred yards away and bearing down straight upon the place.
Martin rolled the barrel into position.
“I hoped that they would not find it,” he said, “but Martha draws maps
well, too well. Once, before she married, she painted pictures, and
that is why.”
“What is to be done?” asked Elsa.
“I don’t know,” he answered, and as he spoke Martha ran up, for she
also had seen the boat. “You see,” he went on, “if we try to escape
they will catch us, for oars can’t race a sail.”
“Oh!” said Elsa, “must we be taken after all?”
“I hope not, girl,” said Martha, “but it is as God wills. Listen,
Martin,” and she whispered in his ear.
“Good,” he said, “if it can be done, but you must watch your chance.
Come, now, there is no time to lose. And you, lady, come also, for you
can help to roll the last two barrels.”
Then they ran back to the hole, whence Foy and Adrian, with great toil,
had just dragged the last of the tubs. For they, too, had seen the
sail, and knew that time was short.
“Heer Adrian,” said Martin, “you have the cross-bow and the bolts, and
you used to be the best shot of all three of us; will you help me to
hold the causeway?”
Now Adrian knew that Martin said this, not because he was a good shot
with the cross-bow, but because he did not trust him, and wished to
have him close to his hand, but he answered:
“With all my heart, as well as I am able.”
“Very good,” said Martin. “Now let the rest of you get those two casks
into the boat, leaving the Jufvrouw hidden in the reeds to watch by it,
while you, Foy and Martha, come back to help us. Lady, if they sail
round the island, call and let us know.”
So Martin and Adrian went down to the end of the little gravelly tongue
and crouched among the tall meadow-sweet and grasses, while the others,
working furiously, rolled the two barrels to the water-edge and shipped
them, throwing rushes over them that they might not catch the eye of
the Spaniards.
The sailing boat drew on. In the stern-sheets of it sat Ramiro, an open
paper, which he was studying, upon his knee, and still slung about his
body the great sword Silence.
“Before I am half an hour older,” reflected Martin, for even now he did
not like to trust his thoughts to Adrian, “either I will have that
sword back again, or I shall be a dead man. But the odds are great,
eleven of them, all tough fellows, and we but three and two women.”
Just then Ramiro’s voice reached them across the stillness of the
water.
“Down with the sail,” he cried cheerily, “for without a doubt that is
the place—there are the six islets in a line, there in front the other
island shaped like a herring, and there the little promontory marked
‘landing place.’ How well this artist draws to be sure!”
The rest of his remarks were lost in the creaking of the blocks as the
sail came down.
“Shallow water ahead, Señor,” said a man in the bows sounding with a
boat hook.
“Good,” answered Ramiro, throwing out the little anchor, “we will wade
ashore.”
As he spoke the Spanish soldier with the boat-hook suddenly pitched
head first into the water, a quarrel from Adrian’s crossbow through his
heart.
“Ah!” said Ramiro, “so they are here before us. Well, there can’t be
many of them. Now then, prepare to land.”
Another quarrel whistled through the air and stuck in the mast, doing
no hurt. After this no more bolts came, for in his eagerness Adrian had
broken the mechanism of the bow by over-winding it, so that it became
useless. They leaped into the water, Ramiro with them, and charged for
the land, when of a sudden, almost at the tip of the little promontory,
from among the reeds rose the gigantic shape of Red Martin, clad in his
tattered jerkin and bearing in his hand a heavy axe, while behind him
appeared Foy and Adrian.
“Why, by the Saints!” cried Ramiro, “there’s my weather-cock son again,
fighting against us this time. Well, Weather-cock, this is your last
veer,” then he began to wade towards the promontory. “Charge,” he
cried, but not a man would advance within reach of that axe. They stood
here and there in the water looking at it doubtfully, for although they
were brave enough, there was none of them but knew of the strength and
deeds of the red Frisian giant, and half-starved as he was, feared to
meet him face to face. Moreover, he had a position of advantage, of
that there could be no doubt.
“Can I help you to land, friends?” said Martin, mocking them. “No, it
is no use looking right or left, the mud there is very deep.”
“An arquebus, shoot him with an arquebus!” shouted the men in front;
but there was no such weapon in the boat, for the Spaniards, who had
left in a hurry, and without expecting to meet Red Martin, had nothing
but their swords and knives.
Ramiro considered a moment, for he saw that to attempt to storm this
little landing-place would cost many lives, even if it were possible.
Then he gave an order, “Back aboard.” The men obeyed with alacrity.
“Out oars and up anchor!” he cried.
“He is clever,” said Foy; “he knows that our boat must be somewhere,
and he is going to seek for it.”
Martin nodded, and for the first time looked afraid. Then, as soon as
Ramiro had begun to row round the islet, leaving Martha to watch that
he did not return and rush the landing-stage, they crossed through the
reeds to the other side and climbed into their boat. Scarcely were they
there, when Ramiro and his men appeared, and a shout announced that
they were discovered.
On crept the Spaniards as near as they dared, that is to within a dozen
fathoms of them, and anchored, for they were afraid to run their own
heavy sailing cutter upon the mud lest they might be unable to get her
off again. Also, for evident reasons, being without firearms and
knowing the character of the defenders, they feared to make a direct
attack. The position was curious and threatened to be prolonged. At
last Ramiro rose and addressed them across the water.
“Gentlemen and lady of the enemy,” he said, “for I think that I see my
little captive of the Red Mill among you, let us take counsel together.
We have both of us made this expedition for a purpose, have we
not—namely, to secure certain filthy lucre which, after all, would be
of slight value to dead men? Now, as you, or some of you, know, I am a
man opposed to violence; I wish to hurry the end of none, nor even to
inflict suffering, if it can be avoided. But there is money in the
question, to secure which I have already gone through a great deal of
inconvenience and anxiety, and, to be brief, that money I must have,
while you, on the other hand are doubtless anxious to escape hence with
your lives. So I make you an offer. Let one of our party come under
safe conduct on board your boat and search it, just to see if anything
lies beneath those rushes for instance. Then, if it is found empty, we
will withdraw to a distance and let you go, or the same if full, that
is, upon its contents being unladen into the mud.”
“Are those all your terms?” asked Foy.
“Not quite all, worthy Heer van Goorl. Among you I observe a young
gentleman whom doubtless you have managed to carry off against his
will, to wit, my beloved son, Adrian. In his own interests, for he will
scarcely be a welcome guest in Leyden, I ask that, before you depart,
you should place this noble cavalier ashore in a position where we can
see him. Now, what is your answer?”
“That you may go back to hell to look for it,” replied Martin rudely,
while Foy added:
“What other answer do you expect from folk who have escaped out of your
clutches in Haarlem?”
As he said the words, at a nod from Martin, Martha, who by now had
crept up to them, under cover of his great form and of surrounding
reeds, let go the stern of the boat and vanished.
“Plain words from plain, uncultivated people, not unnaturally irritated
by the course of political events with which, although Fortune has
mixed me up in them, I have nothing whatever to do,” answered Ramiro.
“But once more I beg of you to consider. It is probable that you have
no food upon your boat, whereas we have plenty. Also, in due course,
darkness will fall, which must give us a certain advantage; moreover, I
have reason to hope for assistance. Therefore, in a waiting game like
this the cards are with me, and as I think your poor prisoner, Adrian,
will tell you, I know how to play a hand at cards.”
About eight yards from the cutter, in a thick patch of water-lilies,
just at this moment an otter rose to take air—an old dog-otter, for it
was grey-headed. One of the Spaniards in the boat caught sight of the
ring it made, and picking up a stone from the ballast threw it at it
idly. The otter vanished.
“We have been seeking each other a long while, but have never come to
blows yet, although, being a brave man, I know you would wish it,” said
Red Martin modestly. “Señor Ramiro, will you do me the honour to
overlook my humble birth and come ashore with me for a few minutes, man
against man. The odds would be in your favour, for you have armour and
I have nothing but a worn bull’s hide, also you have my good sword
Silence and I only a wood-man’s axe. Still I will risk it, and, what is
more, trusting to your good faith, we are willing to wager the treasure
of Hendrik Brant upon the issue.”
So soon as they understood this challenge a roar of laughter went up
from the Spaniards in the boat, in which Ramiro himself joined
heartily. The idea of anyone voluntarily entering upon a single combat
with the terrible Frisian giant, who for months had been a name of fear
among the thousands that beleaguered Haarlem, struck them as really
ludicrous.
But of a sudden they ceased laughing, and one and all stared with a
strange anxiety at the bottom of their boat, much as terrier dogs stare
at the earth beneath which they hear invisible vermin on the move. Then
a great shouting arose among them, and they looked eagerly over the
gunwales; yes, and began to stab at the water with their swords. But
all the while through the tumult and voices came a steady, regular
sound as of a person knocking heavily on the further side of a thick
door.
“Mother of Heaven!” screamed someone in the cutter, “we are scuttled,”
and they began to tear at the false bottom of their boat, while others
stabbed still more furiously at the surface of the Mere.
Now, rising one by one to the face of that quiet water, could be seen
bubbles, and the line of them ran from the cutter towards the rowing
boat. Presently, within six feet of it, axe in hand, rose the strange
and dreadful figure of a naked, skeleton-like woman covered with mud
and green weeds, and bleeding from great wounds in the back and sides.
There it stood, shaking an axe at the terror-stricken Spaniards, and
screaming in short gasps,
“Paid back! paid back, Ramiro! Now sink and drown, you dog, or come,
visit Red Martin on the shore.”
“Well done, Martha,” roared Martin, as he dragged her dying into the
boat. While he spoke, lo! the cutter began to fill and sink.
“There is but one chance for it,” cried Ramiro, “overboard and at them.
It is not deep,” and springing into the water, which reached to his
neck, he began to wade towards the shore.
“Push off,” cried Foy, and they thrust and pulled. But the gold was
heavy, and their boat had settled far into the mud. Do what they might,
she would not stir. Then uttering some strange Frisian oath, Martin
sprang over her stern, and putting out all his mighty strength thrust
at it to loose her. Still she would not move. The Spaniards came up,
now the water reached only to their thighs, and their bright swords
flashed in the sunlight.
“Cut them down!” yelled Ramiro. “At them for your lives’ sake.”
The boat trembled, but she would not stir.
“Too heavy in the bows,” screamed Martha, and struggling to her feet,
with one wild scream she launched herself straight at the throat of the
nearest Spaniard. She gripped him with her long arms, and down they
went together. Once they rose, then fell again, and through a cloud of
mud might be seen struggling upon the bottom of the Mere till presently
they lay still, both of them.
The lightened boat lifted, and in answer to Martin’s mighty efforts
glided forward through the clinging mud. Again he thrust, and she was
clear.
“Climb in, Martin, climb in,” shouted Foy as he stabbed at a Spaniard.
“By heaven! no,” roared Ramiro splashing towards him with the face of a
devil.
For a second Martin stood still. Then he bent, and the sword-cut fell
harmless upon his leather jerkin. Now very suddenly his great arms shot
out; yes, he seized Ramiro by the thighs and lifted, and there was seen
the sight of a man thrown into the air as though he were a ball tossed
by a child at play, to fall headlong upon the casks of treasure in the
skiff prow where he lay still.
Martin sprang forward and gripped the tiller with his outstretched hand
as it glided away from him.
“Row, master, row,” he cried, and Foy rowed madly until they were clear
of the last Spaniard, clear by ten yards. Even Elsa snatched a rollock,
and with it struck a soldier on the hand who tried to stay them,
forcing him to loose his grip; a deed of valour she boasted of with
pride all her life through. Then they dragged Martin into the boat.
“Now, you Spanish dogs,” the great man roared back at them as he shook
the water from his flaming hair and beard, “go dig for Brant’s treasure
and live on ducks’ eggs here till Don Frederic sends to fetch you.”
The island had melted away into a mist of other islands. No living
thing was to be seen save the wild creatures and birds of the great
lake, and no sound was to be heard except their calling and the voices
of the wind and water. They were alone—alone and safe, and there at a
distance towards the skyline rose the church towers of Leyden, for
which they headed.
“Jufvrouw,” said Martin presently, “there is another flagon of wine in
that locker, and we should be glad of a pull at it.”
Elsa, who was steering the boat, rose and found the wine and a horn
mug, which she filled and handed first to Foy.
“Here’s a health,” said Foy as he drank, “to the memory of Mother
Martha, who saved us all. Well, she died as she would have wished to
die, taking a Spaniard for company, and her story will live on.”
“Amen,” said Martin. Then a thought struck him, and, leaving his oars
for a minute, for he rowed two as against Foy’s and Adrian’s one, he
went forward to where Ramiro lay stricken senseless on the kegs of
specie and jewels in the bows, and took from him the great sword
Silence. But he strapped the Spaniard’s legs together with his belt.
“That crack on the head keeps him quiet enough,” he said in
explanation, “but he might come to and give trouble, or try to swim for
it, since such cats have many lives. Ah! Señor Ramiro, I told you I
would have my sword back before I was half an hour older, or go where I
shouldn’t want one.” Then he touched the spring in the hilt and
examined the cavity. “Why,” he said, “here’s my legacy left in it safe
and sound. No wonder my good angel made me mad to get that sword
again.”
“No wonder,” echoed Foy, “especially as you got Ramiro with it,” and he
glanced at Adrian, who was labouring at the bow oar, looking, now that
the excitement of the fight had gone by, most downcast and wretched.
Well he might, seeing the welcome that, as he feared, awaited him in
Leyden.
For a while they rowed on in silence. All that they had gone through
during the last four and twenty hours and the seven preceding months of
war and privation, had broken their nerve. Even now, although they had
escaped the danger and won back the buried gold, capturing the
arch-villain who had brought them so much death and misery, and their
home, which, for the present moment at any rate, was a strong place of
refuge, lay before them, still they could not be at ease. Where so many
had died, where the risks had been so fearful, it seemed almost
incredible that they four should be living and hale, though weary, with
a prospect of continuing to live for many years.
That the girl whom he loved so dearly, and whom he had so nearly lost,
should be sitting before him safe and sound, ready to become his wife
whensoever he might wish it, seemed to Foy also a thing too good to be
true. Too good to be true was it, moreover, that his brother, the
wayward, passionate, weak, poetical-minded Adrian, made by nature to be
the tool of others, and bear the burden of their evil doing, should
have been dragged before it was over late, out of the net of the
fowler, have repented of his sins and follies, and, at the risk of his
own life, shown that he was still a man, no longer the base slave of
passion and self-love. For Foy always loved his brother, and knowing
him better than any others knew him, had found it hard to believe that
however black things might look against him, he was at heart a villain.
Thus he thought, and Elsa too had her thoughts, which may be guessed.
They were silent all of them, till of a sudden, Elsa seated in the
stern-sheets, saw Adrian suddenly let fall his oar, throw his arms
wide, and pitch forward against the back of Martin. Yes, and in place
of where he had sat appeared the dreadful countenance of Ramiro,
stamped with a grin of hideous hate such as Satan might wear when souls
escape him at the last. Ramiro recovered and sitting up, for to his
feet he could not rise because of the sword strap, in his hand a thin,
deadly-looking knife.
“_Habet!_” he said with a short laugh, “_habes_, Weather-cock!” and he
turned the knife against himself.
But Martin was on him, and in five more seconds he lay trussed like a
fowl in the bottom of the boat.
“Shall I kill him?” said Martin to Foy, who with Elsa was bending over
Adrian.
“No,” answered Foy grimly, “let him take his trial in Leyden. Oh! what
accursed fools were we not to search him!”
Ramiro’s face turned a shade more ghastly.
“It is your hour,” he said in a hoarse voice, “you have won, thanks to
that dog of a son of mine, who, I trust, may linger long before he
dies, as die he must. Ah! well, this is what comes of breaking my oath
to the Virgin and again lifting my hand against a woman.” He looked at
Elsa and shuddered, then went on: “It is your hour, make an end of me
at once. I do not wish to appear thus before those boors.”
“Gag him,” said Foy to Martin, “lest our ears be poisoned,” and Martin
obeyed with good will. Then he flung him down, and there the man lay,
his back supported by the kegs of treasure he had worked so hard and
sinned so deeply to win, making, as he knew well, his last journey to
death and to whatever may lie beyond that solemn gate.
They were passing the island that, many years ago, had formed the
turning post of the great sledge race in which his passenger had been
the fair Leyden heiress, Lysbeth van Hout. Ramiro could see her now as
she was that day; he could see also how that race, which he just failed
to win, had been for him an augury of disaster. Had not the Hollander
again beaten him at the post, and that Hollander—Lysbeth’s own son by
another father—helped to it by her son born of himself, who now lay
there death-stricken by him that gave him life. . . . They would take
him to Lysbeth, he knew it; she would be his judge, that woman against
whom he had piled up injury after injury, whom, even when she seemed to
be in his power, he had feared more than any living being. . . . And
after he had met her eyes for the last time, then would come the end.
What sort of an end would it be for the captain red-handed from the
siege of Haarlem, for the man who had brought Dirk van Goorl to his
death, for the father who had just planted a dagger between the
shoulders of his son because, at the last, that son had chosen to be
true to his own people, and to deliver them from a dreadful doom? . . .
Why did it come back to him, that horrible dream which had risen in his
mind when, for the first time after many years, he met Lysbeth face to
face there in the Gevangenhuis, that dream of the pitiful little man
falling, falling through endless space, and at the bottom of the gulf
two great hands, hands hideous and suggestive, reaching through the
shadows to receive him?
Like his son, Adrian, Ramiro was superstitious; more, his intellect,
his reading, which in youth had been considerable, his observation of
men and women, all led him to the conclusion that death is a wall with
many doors in it; that on this side of the wall we may not linger or
sleep, but must pass each of us through his appointed portal straight
to the domain prepared for us. If so, what would be his lot, and who
would be waiting to greet him yonder? Oh! terrors may attend the wicked
after death, but in the case of some they do not tarry until death;
they leap forward to him whom it is decreed must die, forcing attention
with their eager, craving hands, with their obscure and ominous voices.
. . . About him the sweet breath of the summer afternoon, the skimming
swallows, the meadows starred with flowers; within him every hell at
which the imagination can so much as hint.
Before he passed the gates of Leyden, in those few short hours, Ramiro,
to Elsa’s eyes, had aged by twenty years.
Their little boat was heavy laden, the wind was against them, and they
had a dying man and a prisoner aboard. So it came about that the day
was closing before the soldiers challenged them from the watergate,
asking who they were and whither they went. Foy stood up and said:
“We are Foy van Goorl, Red Martin, Elsa Brant, a wounded man and a
prisoner, escaped from Haarlem, and we go to the house of Lysbeth van
Goorl in the Bree Straat.”
Then they let them through the watergate, and there, on the further
side, were many gathered who thanked God for their deliverance, and
begged tidings of them.
“Come to the house in the Bree Straat and we will tell you from the
balcony,” answered Foy.
So they rowed from one cut and canal to another till at last they came
to the private boat-house of the van Goorls, and entered it, and thus
by the small door into the house.
Lysbeth van Goorl, recovered from her illness now, but aged and grown
stern with suffering, sat in an armchair in the great parlour of her
home in the Bree Straat, the room where as a girl she had cursed
Montalvo; where too not a year ago, she had driven his son, the traitor
Adrian, from her presence. At her side was a table on which stood a
silver bell and two brass holders with candles ready to be lighted. She
rang the bell and a woman-servant entered, the same who, with Elsa, had
nursed her in the plague.
“What is that murmuring in the street?” Lysbeth asked. “I hear the
sound of many voices. Is there more news from Haarlem?”
“Alas! yes,” answered the woman. “A fugitive says that the executioners
there are weary, so now they tie the poor prisoners back to back and
throw them into the mere to drown.”
A groan burst from Lysbeth’s lips. “Foy, my son, is there,” she
muttered, “and Elsa Brant his affianced wife, and Martin his servant,
and many another friend. Oh! God, how long, how long?” and her head
sank upon her bosom.
Soon she raised it again and said, “Light the candles, woman, this
place grows dark, and in its gloom I see the ghosts of all my dead.”
They burned up—two stars of light in the great room.
“Whose feet are those upon the stairs?” asked Lysbeth, “the feet of men
who bear burdens. Open the large doors, woman, and let that enter which
it pleases God to send us.”
So the doors were flung wide, and through them came people carrying a
wounded man, then following him Foy and Elsa, and, lastly, towering
above them all, Red Martin, who thrust before him another man. Lysbeth
rose from her chair to look.
“Do I dream?” she said, “or, son Foy, hath the Angel of the Lord
delivered you out of the hell of Haarlem?”
“We are here, mother,” he answered.
“And whom,” she said, pointing to the figure covered with a cloak, “do
you bring with you?”
“Adrian, mother, who is dying.”
“Then, son Foy, take him hence; alive, dying, or dead, I have done
with——” Here her eyes fell upon Red Martin and the man he held, “Martin
the Frisian,” she muttered, “but who——”
Martin heard, and by way of answer lifted up his prisoner so that the
fading light from the balcony windows fell full upon his face.
“What!” she cried. “Juan de Montalvo as well as his son Adrian, and in
this room——” Then she checked herself and added, “Foy, tell me your
story.”
In few words and brief he told it, or so much as she need know to
understand. His last words were: “Mother, be merciful to Adrian; from
the first he meant no ill; he saved all our lives, and he lies dying by
that man’s dagger.”
“Lift him up,” she said.
So they lifted him up, and Adrian, who, since the knife pierced him had
uttered no word, spoke for the first and last time, muttering hoarsely:
“Mother, take back your words and forgive me—before I die.”
Now the sorrow-frozen heart of Lysbeth melted, and she bent over him
and said, speaking so that all might hear:
“Welcome to your home again, Adrian. You who once were led astray, have
done bravely, and I am proud to call you son. Though you have left the
faith in which you were bred, here and hereafter may God bless you and
reward you, beloved Adrian!” Then she bent down and kissed his dying
lips. Foy and Elsa kissed him also in farewell before they bore him,
smiling happily to himself, to the chamber, his own chamber, where
within some few hours death found him.
Adrian had been borne away, and for a little while there was silence.
Then, none commanding him, but as though an instinct pushed him
forward, Red Martin began to move up the length of the long room, half
dragging, half carrying his captive Ramiro. It was as if some automaton
had suddenly been put in motion, some machine of gigantic strength that
nothing could stop. The man in his grip set his heels in the floor and
hung back, but Martin scarcely seemed to heed his resistance. On he
came, and the victim with him, till they stood together before the
oaken chair and the stern-faced, white-haired woman who sat in it, her
cold countenance lit by the light of the two candles. She looked and
shuddered. Then she spoke, asking:
“Why do you bring this man to me, Martin?”
“For judgment, Lysbeth van Goorl,” he answered.
“Who made me a judge over him?” she asked.
“My master, Dirk van Goorl, your son, Adrian, and Hendrik Brant. Their
blood makes you judge of his blood.”
“I will have none of it,” Lysbeth said passionately, “let the people
judge him.” As she spoke, from the crowd in the street below there
swelled a sudden clamour.
“Good,” said Martin, “the people shall judge,” and he began to turn
towards the window, when suddenly, by a desperate effort, Ramiro
wrenched his doublet from his hand, and flung himself at Lysbeth’s feet
and grovelled there.
“What do you seek?” she asked, drawing back her dress so that he should
not touch it.
“Mercy,” he gasped.
“Mercy! Look, son and daughter, this man asks for mercy who for many a
year has given none. Well, Juan de Montalvo, take your prayer to God
and to the people. I have done with you.”
“Mercy, mercy!” he cried again.
“Eight months ago,” she said, “I uttered that prayer to you, begging of
you in the Name of Christ to spare the life of an innocent man, and
what was your answer, Juan de Montalvo?”
“Once you were my wife,” he pleaded; “being a woman, does not that
weigh with you?”
“Once he was my husband, being a man did that weigh with you? The last
word is said. Take him, Martin, to those who deal with murderers.”
Then that look came upon Montalvo which twice or thrice before Lysbeth
has seen written in his face—once when the race was run and lost, and
once when in after years she had petitioned for the life of her
husband. Lo! it was no longer the face of a man, but such a countenance
as might have been worn by a devil or a beast. The eyeball started, the
grey moustache curled upwards, the cheek-bones grew high and sharp.
“Night after night,” he gasped, “you lay at my side, and I might have
killed you, as I have killed that brat of yours—and I spared you, I
spared you.”
“God spared me, Juan de Montalvo, that He might bring us to this hour;
let Him spare you also if He will. I do not judge. He judges and the
people,” and Lysbeth rose from her chair.
“Stay!” he cried, gnashing his teeth.
“No, I stay not, I go to receive the last breath of him you have
murdered, my son and yours.”
He raised himself upon his knees, and for a moment their eyes met for
the last time.
“Do you remember?” she said in a quiet voice, “many years ago, in this
very room, after you had bought me at the cost of Dirk’s life, certain
words I spoke to you? Now I do not think that it was I who spoke, Juan
de Montalvo.”
And she swept past him and through the wide doorway.
Red Martin stood upon the balcony gripping the man Ramiro. Beneath him
the broad street was packed with people, hundreds and thousands of
them, a dense mass seething in the shadows, save here and again where a
torch or a lantern flared showing their white faces, for the moon,
which shone upon Martin and his captive, scarcely reached those down
below. As gaunt, haggard, and long-haired, he stepped upon the balcony,
they saw him and his burden, and there went up such a yell as shook the
very roofs of Leyden. Martin held up his hand, and there was silence,
deep silence, through which the breath of all that multitude rose in
sighs, like the sighing of a little wind.
“Citizens of Leyden, my masters,” the Frisian cried, in a great, deep
voice that echoed down the street, “I have a word to say to you. This
man here—do you know him?”
Back came an answering yell of “_Aye!_”
“He is a Spaniard,” went on Martin, “the noble Count Juan de Montalvo,
who many years past forced one Lysbeth van Hout of this city into a
false marriage, buying her at the price of the life of her affianced
husband, Dirk van Goorl, that he might win her fortune.”
“We know it,” they shouted.
“Afterwards he was sent to the galleys for his crimes. He came back,
and was made Governor of the Gevangenhuis by the bloody Alva, where he
brought to death your brother and past burgomaster, Dirk van Goorl.
Afterwards he kidnapped the person of Elsa Brant, the daughter of
Hendrik Brant, whom the Inquisition murdered at The Hague. We rescued
her from him, my master, Foy van Goorl, and I. Afterwards he served
with the Spaniards as a captain of their forces in the siege of Haarlem
yonder—Haarlem that fell three days ago, and whose citizens they are
murdering to-night, throwing them two by two to drown in the waters of
the Mere.”
“Kill him! Cast him down!” roared the mob. “Give him to us, Red
Martin.”
Again the Frisian lifted his hand and again there was silence; a
sudden, terrible silence.
“This man had a son; my mistress, Lysbeth van Goorl, to her shame and
sorrow, was the mother of him. That son, repenting, saved us from the
sack of Haarlem, yea, through him the three of us, Foy van Goorl, Elsa
Brant, and I, Martin Roos, their servant, are alive to-night. This man
and his Spaniards overtook us on the lake, and there we conquered him
by the help of Martha the Mare, Martha whom they made to carry her own
husband to the fire. We conquered him, but she—she died in the fray;
they stabbed her to death in the water as men stab an otter. Well, that
son, the Heer Adrian, he was murdered in the boat with a knife-blow
given by his own father from behind, and he lies here in this house
dead or dying.
“My master and I, we brought this man, who to-day is called Ramiro, to
be judged by the woman whose husband and son he slew. But she would not
judge him; she said, ‘Take him to the people, let them judge.’ So judge
now, ye people,” and with an effort of his mighty strength Martin swung
the struggling body of Ramiro over the parapet of the balcony and let
him hang there above their heads.
They yelled, they screamed in their ravenous hate and rage; they leapt
up as hounds leap at a wolf upon a wall.
“Give him to us, give him to us!” that was their cry.
Martin laughed aloud. “Take him then,” he said; “take him, ye people,
and judge him as you will,” and with one great heave he hurled the
thing that writhed between his hands far out into the centre of the
street.
The crowd below gathered themselves into a heap like water above a boat
sinking in the heart of a whirlpool. For a minute or more they snarled
and surged and twisted. Then they broke up and went away, talking in
short, eager sentences. And there, small and dreadful on the stones,
lay something that once had been a man.
Thus did the burghers of Leyden pass judgment and execute it upon that
noble Spaniard, the Count Juan de Montalvo.