AS if this had been a concerted signal, the back door was struck as
rudely the next instant. They were hemmed in. But at these alarming
sounds Margaret seemed to recover some share of self-possession. She
whispered, "Say he _was_ here, but is gone." And with this she seized
Gerard and almost dragged him up the rude steps that led to her father's
sleeping-room. Her own lay next beyond it.
The blows on the door were repeated.
"Who knocks at this hour?"
"Open, and you will see!"
"I open not to thieves--honest men are all abed now."
"Open to the law, Martin Wittenhaagen, or you shall rue it."
"Why, that is Dirk Brower's voice, I trow. What make you so far from
Tergou?"
"Open, and you will know."
Martin drew the bolt, very slowly, and in rushed Dierich and four more.
They let in their companion who was at the back door.
"Now, Martin, where is Gerard Eliassoen?"
"Gerard Eliassoen? Why he was here but now?"
"Was here?" Dierich's countenance fell. "And where is he now?"
"They say he has gone to Italy. Why? What is to do?"
"No matter. When did he go? Tell me not that he went in such a storm as
this!"
"Here is a coil about Gerard Eliassoen," said Martin contemptuously.
Then he lighted the candle, and, seating himself coolly by the fire,
proceeded to whip some fine silk round his bow-string at the place
where the nick of the arrow frets it. "I'll tell you," said he
carelessly. "Know you his brother Giles--a little misbegotten imp all
head and arms? Well, he came tearing over here on a mule, and bawled out
something. I was too far off to hear the creature's words, but only its
noise. Anyway, he started Gerard. For as soon as he was gone, there was
such crying and kissing, and then Gerard went away. They do tell me he
has gone to Italy--mayhap you know where that is; for I don't."
Dierich's countenance fell lower and lower at this account. There was no
flaw in it. A cunninger man than Martin would, perhaps, have told a lie
too many, and raised suspicion. But Martin did his task well. He only
told the one falsehood he was bade to tell, and of his own head invented
nothing.
"Mates," said Dierich, "I doubt he speaks sooth. I told the burgomaster
how 'twould be. He met the dwarf galloping Peter Buyskens' mule from
Sevenbergen. 'They have sent that imp to Gerard,' says he, 'so, then,
Gerard is at Sevenbergen.' 'Ah, master!' says I, ''tis too late now. We
should have thought of Sevenbergen before, instead of wasting our time
hunting all the odd corners of Tergou for those cursed parchments that
we shall never find till we find the man that took 'em. If he was at
Sevenbergen,' quoth I, 'and they sent the dwarf to him, it must have
been to warn him we are after him. He is leagues away by now,' quoth I.
Confound that chalk-faced girl! she has out-witted us bearded men: and
so I told the burgomaster, but he would not hear to reason. A wet jerkin
apiece, that is all we shall get, mates, by this job."
Martin grinned coolly in Dierich's face.
"However," added the latter, "to content the burgomaster, we will search
the house."
Martin turned grave directly.
This change of countenance did not escape Dierich. He reflected a
moment.
"Watch outside two of you, one on each side of the house, that no one
jump from the upper windows. The rest come with me."
And he took the candle and mounted the stairs, followed by three of his
comrades.
Martin was left alone.
The stout soldier hung his head. All had gone so well at first: and now
this fatal turn! Suddenly it occurred to him that all was not yet lost.
Gerard must be either in Peter's room or Margaret's; they were not so
very high from the ground. Gerard would leap out. Dierich had left a man
below; but what then? For half a minute Gerard and he would be two to
one, and in that brief space, what might not be done?
Martin then held the back door ajar and watched. The light shone in
Peter's room. "Curse the fool!" said he, "is he going to let them take
him like a girl?"
The light now passed into Margaret's bedroom. Still no window was
opened. Had Gerard intended to escape that way he would not have waited
till the men were in the room. Martin saw that at once, and left the
door, and came to the foot-stair and listened. He began to think Gerard
must have escaped by the window while all the men were in the house. The
longer the silence continued the stronger grew this conviction. But it
was suddenly and rudely dissipated.
Faint cries issued from the inner bedroom--Margaret's.
"They have taken him," groaned Martin; "they have got him."
* * * * *
It now flashed across Martin's mind that if they took Gerard away his
life was not worth a button; and that, if evil befell him, Margaret's
heart would break. He cast his eyes wildly round like some savage beast
seeking an escape, and in a twinkling formed a resolution terribly
characteristic of those iron times and of a soldier driven to bay. He
stepped to each door in turn, and imitating Dirk Bower's voice, said
sharply, "Watch the window!" He then quietly closed and bolted both
doors. He then took up his bow and six arrows; one he fitted to his
string, the others he put into his quiver. His knife he placed upon a
chair behind him, the hilt towards him; and there he waited at the foot
of the stair with the calm determination to slay those four men, or be
slain by them. Two, he knew, he could dispose of by his arrows, ere they
could get near him, and Gerard and he must take their chance
hand-to-hand, with the remaining pair. Besides, he had seen men
panic-stricken by a sudden attack of this sort. Should Brower and his
men hesitate but an instant before closing with him, he should shoot
three instead of two, and then the odds would be on the right side.
He had not long to wait. The heavy steps sounded in Margaret's room, and
came nearer and nearer.
The light also approached, and voices.
Martin's heart, stout as it was, beat hard, to hear men coming thus to
their death, and, perhaps to his; more likely so than not; for four is
long odds in a battle-field of ten feet square, and Gerard might be
bound, perhaps, and powerless to help. But this man, whom we have seen
shake in his shoes at a Giles-o'-lanthorn, never wavered in this awful
moment of real danger, but stood there, his body all braced for combat,
and his eyes glowing, equally ready to take life and lose it. Desperate
game! to win which was exile instant and for life, and to lose it was to
die that moment upon that floor he stood on.
Dierich Brower and his men found Peter in his first sleep. They opened
his cupboards; they ran their knives into an alligator he had nailed to
his wall; they looked under his bed: it; was a large room, and
apparently full of hiding places, but they found no Gerard.
Then they went on to Margaret's room, and the very sight of it was
discouraging--it was small and bare, and not a cupboard in it; there
was, however, a large fireplace and chimney. Dierich's eye fell on these
directly. Here they found the beauty of Sevenbergen sleeping on an old
chest, not a foot high, and no attempt made to cover it; but the sheets
were snowy white, and so was Margaret's own linen. And there she lay,
looking like a lily fallen into a rut.
Presently she awoke, and sat up in the bed, like one amazed; then,
seeing the men, began to scream faintly, and pray for mercy.
She made Dierich Brower ashamed of his errand.
"Here is a to-do," said he, a little confused. "We are not going to hurt
you, my pretty maid. Lie you still, and shut your eyes, and think of
your wedding-night, while I look up this chimney to see if Master Gerard
is there."
"Gerard! in my room?"
"Why not? They say that you and he--"
"Cruel; you know they have driven him away from me--driven him from his
native place. This is a blind. You are thieves; you are wicked men; you
are not men of Sevenbergen, or you would know Margaret Brandt better
than to look for her lover in this room of all others in the world. Oh
brave! Four great hulking men to come, armed to the teeth, to insult one
poor honest girl! The women that live in your own houses must be
naught, or you would respect them too much to insult a girl of good
character."
"There, come away, before we hear worse," said Dierich, hastily. "He is
not in the chimney. Plaster will mend what a cudgel breaks; but a
woman's tongue is a double-edged dagger, and a girl is a woman with her
mother's milk still in her." And he beat a hasty retreat. "I told the
burgomaster how 'twould be."