SIR JULIAN HARNWOOD.
Mr. Vincott knocked at the great door within the arch, and we were
presently admitted and handed over to the guidance of a gaoler.
The fellow led us across a courtyard and into a long room clouded and
heavy with the smoke of tobacco.
"Keep the hood close!" whispered my companion a second time.
I muffled my face and bent my head towards the ground. For a noisy
clamour of drunken songs and coarse merriment, and, mingled with that,
a ceaseless rattle of drinking-cans, rose about me on all sides. It
seemed that the Bridewell kept open house that night.
We traversed the room, picking out a path among the captives, for even
the floor was littered with men in all imaginable attitudes, some
playing cards, some asleep, and most of them drunk. My presence served
to redouble the uproar, and each moment I feared that my disguise
would be detected. I felt that every eye in the room was centred upon
my hood. One fellow, indeed, that sat talking to himself upon a bench,
got unsteadily to his feet and reeled towards us. But or ever he came
near, the gaoler cut him across the shoulders with his stick and sent
him back howling and cursing.
"Back to your kennel!" he shouted. "'Tis an uncommon wench that would
visit the lousy likes o' you."
At the far end of the room he unlocked a door which opened on to a
narrow flight of stairs. On the landing above he halted before a
second door of a more solid make, the panels being strengthened by
cross-beams, and secured with iron bars and a massive lock. The gaoler
unfastened it and threw it open.
"You have half an hour, mistress," he said, civilly enough. A startled
cry of pain broke from the inside, I heard a sharp clink of fetters,
and Julian confronted me through the doorway, his eyes ablaze with
passion, and every limb strained and quivering.
"What more? What more, madam?" he asked, in a hoarse, trembling voice.
"Are you not satisfied?"
He stopped suddenly with a gasping intake of the breath, and let his
head roll forward on his breast like a fainting man. Vincott pushed me
gently within the room, and I heard the door clang behind me. For a
moment I could not speak. The tears rose in my throat and drowned the
words. Julian was the first to recover his composure.
"I crave your pardon," he said, and his voice sounded in my ears with
a sad familiarity like the echo of our boyhood. "I mistook you for
another." And he sat down on a bench and covered his face with his
hands.
"Julian!" I said, finding at length my voice, and I held out my hands
to him. He uncovered his face and stared at me in sheer incredulity.
Then with a cry of joy he sprang forwards, stumbling pitifully from
the hindrance of his fetters.
"Morrice at last!" He lifted his hands and clapped them down into
mine, and the quick movement jerked the chain between his handlocks so
that it fell cold across my wrists. So we stood silent, memory
speeding to and fro between our eyes and telling the same wistful tale
within the heart of each of us. But in that brumous cell, lit only by
a smoky lamp which served rather to deepen the shadows of the space
which it left obscure than to illumine the circle immediately about
it, such thoughts could not beguile one long; and a strange,
unaccountable fear began to creep up in my mind like a mist. It seemed
to me that the chain pressed ever tighter and tighter about my wrists,
and grew cold like a ring of ice. The chill of it slipped into the
marrow of my bones. I came almost to believe that I myself was
manacled, and with that I felt once again that premonition of evil
drawing near, which had numbed my spirit in the grey dawn at London.
Now, however, the warning came to me with a clearer and more
particular message. I had a penetrating conviction that this cell
prefigured some scene in the years to come wherein I should fill the
place of Julian; and, seeing him, I saw a dim image of myself as when
a man looks into a clouded mirror. So thoroughly, indeed, did the
fancy master me that I too became, as it were, the shadow and reflex
of another, a mere counter and symbol representing one as yet unknown
to me.
"I thought you would never come," said my friend, and I woke out of my
trance.
"I started at once from Leyden," I replied; but Julian cut short my
explanation.
"I am sure of it. I never doubted you. We have but half an hour, and I
have much to tell."
He turned away and flung himself down on the bench, which was broad
and had a rail at the back, such as you may see outside a village
alehouse.
"Vincott has told you the history of my arrest?"
"Yes!" said I. The lamp stood upon a stool beside the bench, and I
lifted it up and placed it on a rough bracket which was fixed to the
wall above. The light fell full upon his face, which had grown
extraordinary thin, with the skin very bloodless and tight about his
jaws, so that the bones looked to have sharpened. Only around his eyes
was there any colour, and that of a heavy purple. I sat down upon the
stool, and Julian gave something like a sigh of content.
"I am glad you have come, Morrice," he said. "It has tired me so,
waiting for you."
He closed his eyes wearily, and appeared to be falling asleep. I
touched him on the shoulder, and he sprang to his feet like one dazed,
brushing against the bracket and making the flame of the lamp spirt up
with a sudden flare. Once or twice he walked to and fro in the room,
as though ordering his speech.
"Here is the kernel of the matter," said he at last, coming back to
the bench. "I was arrested to serve no ends of justice, but the vilest
treachery and cowardice that man ever heard of. The tale, in truth,
seems well-nigh inconceivable. Even I, who have sounding evidence of
its truth," and he kicked one of his feet, so that the links of the
fetters rattled on the floor, "even I find it hard to believe that
'tis more than a monstrous fable. The man called himself my friend."
"It was Count Lukstein, then?"
"How did you find out that? Vincott could not have told you."
"He did not tell me, but yet he gave me to know it."
"Yes, it was Count Lukstein. He laid the information to spare himself
a duel and to get rid of--well, of an obstacle. I meant to kill him. I
should have killed him, and he knew it. The duel was arranged secretly
on the afternoon of Saturday, the ninth; the spot chosen--a dip in the
hill, solitary and unfrequented even at midday, for the descent is
steep--and the time six o'clock on the Sunday morning. And yet
there I was taken, on the very ground, at six o'clock on a Sunday
morning--raining, too!"
"There seems little doubt."
"There is no doubt. 'Twas his life or mine. The dispute was the mere
pretext and occasion of the duel."
"So I understood."
I was beginning to understand, besides, that the facts which Mr.
Vincott had intended to impart to me were somewhat more numerous than
he thought fit to admit.
"The cause--but I can't speak of that. In any case, 'twas his life or
mine, and he knew it, so deemed it prudent to take mine, since he had
the power, without risking his own."
"But," I objected, "could you trust your seconds? They knew the time,
the place----"
"But they did not know I was sheltering Monmouth's fugitives. Lukstein
knew it."
"You told him?"
"No!"
He stopped abruptly, and his eyes fell from my face to the ground. And
then he said, in a very sad and quiet voice:
"But I have none the less sure proof he knew."
He sat silent with bowed head, labouring his breath, and his hands
lying clasped together upon his knees. I noticed that the tips of his
fingers were pressed tight into the backs of his palms, so that the
flesh about them looked dead.
I leaned forward and took him gently by the arm.
"You must deliver me that proof, Julian," said I. For I began to have
a pretty sure inkling of the service he had it in his mind to require
of me.
He shifted his eyes to my face and then back again to the floor.
"I know, I know," he replied unsteadily. "I disclosed my secret to but
one person in the world." And as I held my peace wondering, he flashed
on me a tortured face. "Don't force me to give the name!" he cried.
"Think! Think, Morrice! Who should I have told? Who should I have
told?"
The words seemed wrung from his soul. I understood what that first
outburst meant when the gaoler had bidden me enter, and my gorge rose
against this woman who could make such foul sport of her lover's
trust. He read my thought in my face, and though he might upbraid his
mistress himself, he would not suffer me to do the same.
"You must not blame her," he said earnestly, laying a hand upon my
knee. "Blame me! Blame us who wantoned the days away at Whitehall, and
cloyed the very air with our flatteries. You chose the right part,
Morrice, a man's part--work. As for us," he resumed his restless walk
about the chamber, beating one clenched fist into the palm of the
other, "as for us, a new fashion, a new dance, were our studies,
cajoling women our work. The divine laws were sneered at, trampled
down. They were meet for the ragged who had nought but hope in the
next world to comfort them for their humiliation in this. But we--we
who had silk to wear and money to spend, we needed a different creed.
Sin was our God, and we worshipped and honoured it openly. When I
think of it I, a Catholic, can find it in my heart to wish that
Monmouth's cause had won. No, Morrice, you must not blame her. The
fault is ours, and I am rightly punished for my share in it. Constancy
was a burgess virtue, fit for a tradesman. We despised it in
ourselves; what right had we to expect it in the women we surrounded?"
He checked his vehement flow abruptly, and came and stood over me.
"And yet, Morrice," he said, with a smile that was infinitely tender
and sad, "and yet I loved her, with a sweet purity in the love, and a
humble thankfulness for the knowledge of it, loved her as any country
bumpkin might love the girl who rakes a furrow at his side."
"And in return," I said bitterly, "she betrayed you to Count
Lukstein?"
He nodded "yes," and sat down again on his bench.
"Why?"
"Long before the duel. She had no suspicion of the consequences of her
words," he said hastily. "She had no hand in this plot."
"Why?" I repeated.
He looked at me, imploring mercy.
"I understand," said I.
"Ah, no!" he said quickly; "your suspicions outstrip the truth. I
think so," and again with a curiously pleading voice, "I think so. The
man purred more softly than the rest, and so she----"
He broke off in the middle of the sentence and began anew.
"I must lay the whole truth bare, I see that. Only the shame of it
cuts into me like a knife."
He paused, and great beads of sweat broke out upon his forehead.
"I have told you that my dispute with Lukstein was no more than the
pretext of our quarrel. She was the cause. How long their acquaintance
had lasted I know not, or to what length of intimacy it had gone.
Lukstein was as secret as a cat, and he taught her his duplicity.
'Twas I, myself, presented him to her formally when he came first to
the Hotwell, but I think now the pair had met before in London. 'Twere
too long to describe how my fears were aroused--an exchange of glances
noted here, a letter in his hand dropped from a sachet there, a
certain guarded hesitation she evinced when Lukstein and I were both
with her, a word carelessly dropped showing knowledge of his
movements; all trifles in themselves, but summed together a very
weighty argument. So on the morning of the ninth, worn out with
disquiet, I resolved to bring the matter to an issue, and I rode over
to St. Vincent's rock. Lukstein was seated at an escritoire as I
entered the room. I saw his face blanch and his hand fly to an open
drawer, close, and lock it. He rose to greet me, and drew me to the
window, which pleased me the more for that a bell stood upon the
escritoire. I got between him and the bell and taxed him with his
treachery. He denied it, larding me with friendly protestations. I
backed to the escritoire and repeated the charge. He laughed at me for
my unmanly lack of faith. With a sudden wrench I tore open the locked
drawer. He bounded towards the bell; my sword was at his breast, and
we stood watching one another while I rummaged with my left hand in
the drawer.
"'You shall pay for this,' says he, very softly.
"'One of us will pay,' says I.
"'Yes, you! You!' and he smiled, with his lips drawn back so that I
saw the gums of his teeth on both jaws. If only I had known what he
meant! I had him there at my sword's point. I had but to lean forward
on my arm!
"'Get back to the window!' I ordered, and he obeyed me with an
affected jauntiness. Out of the drawer I drew a small gold box of an
oval shape. I had given it but a fortnight agone to--to----you will
understand; and it contained my miniature. The box fastened with a lock,
and I forgot to ask him for the key. He has it still. There were letters
besides in the drawer, and I made him burn them before my eyes. Then I
took my leave, and sent my seconds."
"Are you sure the box was the same?" I asked, when he had done. He
slipped his hand into his pocket, and brought it out and placed it in
my hand. His coat of arms was emblazoned on the cover.
"Keep it!" he said. I tried the lid, but the box was locked.
"Until I recover the key," I answered, and we clasped hands.
"Thank you!" he said simply. "Thank you!"
The smell of the Cumberland gorse was in my nostrils, my friend lay
before me traitorously fettered, and this poor, belated adjustment of
his wrong seemed the very right and fitting function of the love I
bore for him. There was, however, still one point on which I still
felt need to be assured.
For I knew the timidity of my nature, and I was minded to leave no
fissure in this wall of evidence through which after-doubts might leak
to sap my resolution.
"And the proof?" I asked. "The proof that she informed Count
Lukstein."
"She confessed that to me herself. She came to me here on the evening
of the day that I was taken."
I placed the gold box in the fob of my waistcoat, and as I did so I
felt a book. I drew it out, wondering what it might be. 'Twas the
small copy of Horace which I had thrust there unwittingly when I
waited for the doctor's report at Leyden. I held it in my hands and
turned over the pages idly.
"Count Lukstein has left Bristol," I said.
"Ay; he got little good out of his treachery beyond the saving of
his carcase. But he left his servant here--Otto Krax. That is why I
bade you come disguised. He knew I could not make the matter public
for--for her sake. But I suppose that he feared I might reveal it to
some friend if the trial went against me, entrust to him the just work
I am forced to leave undone. Perchance he had some hint of Swasfield's
departure; I know not. This only I know: Krax has been at Vincott's
heels, keeping close watch on all who passed in with him to me; and
should he find out that you had come from Holland in this great haste,
it might prove an ill day's work for you, and, in any case, Lukstein
would be forewarned."
"He lives in the Tyrol?"
"At Schloss Lukstein, six miles to the east of Glurns, in the valley
of the Adige. But, Morrice, he is master there. The spot is remote,
there's no one to gainsay him. You must needs be careful. He hath no
love for honest dealing, and you had best take him privately."
He spoke with so sombre a warning in his tone that the shadows
appeared to darken about the room.
"He is cunning," Julian went on; "you must match him in cunning. Nay,
over-match him, for he has power as well."
"You have visited this castle?"
"Yes. 'Tis built in two wings which run from east to west, and north
to south, and form a right angle at the north-east corner. At the
extreme end of the latter wing there is a tower; a window opens on to
the terrace from a small room in this tower. There are but two doors
in the room; that on the left gives on to a passage which leads to the
main hall. The servants sleep on the far side of the hall. The other
door opens on to a narrow stairway which mounts to the Count's
bedroom. 'Tis his habit of a night to sit in this small room."
"I understand. And the entrance to this terrace?"
"That is the danger, for the place is built upon a rock sheer and
precipitous. However, there is one spot where the ascent may be
contrived. I discovered the way by chance. The climb is hazardous, yet
not more so than some that we attacked out of mere sport on Scafell
crags. Ah, me! Morrice, those were the best days of my life. I wonder
whether 'twill be the same with you!"
Something like a shiver ran through me, but before I could answer him
the key grated in the lock and the door was flung open. I turned, and
saw in the shadow of the entrance the sombre figure of a priest. He
was tall, and the cassock which robed him in black from head to foot
made him show yet taller. In his hand he held a gleaming crucifix. He
raised it above his head as he crossed the threshold, and in the
twilight of the room it shone like a silver flame.
Julian sprang from his bench; his shoulder caught the bracket, the
lamp rocked once or twice, and then crashed to the ground. In the
darkness no one spoke; the rustle of our breathing was marked like the
ticking of a clock.
After a while the gaoler fetched in a taper. Julian looked at me in
some embarrassment The priest waited patiently by the door, and it was
impossible for us to renew our discourse. In rising, however, I had
let fall the Horace on to the floor, and the book lay open at my feet.
Julian caught sight of it, and a plan occurred to him. He fumbled in
his pocket for a pencil, picked the volume up, and drew a rapid sketch
upon the open page.
"That will make all clear," he remarked.
I took the book from him, and we clasped hands for the last time.
"At this hour to-morrow?" he said, with a little catch in his voice. I
was still holding his hand. I could feel the blood beating in his
fingers. At this hour to-morrow! It seemed incredible. "Morrice!" he
cried, clinging to me, and his voice was the voice of a child crying
out in the black of the night. In a moment he recovered his calm, and
dropped my hand. I made my reverence to the priest, and the door
clanged to between us.
Vincott was waiting for me at the foot of the stairs, and we hurried
silently to the gates. The porter came forward to let us out, but I
noticed that he fumbled with his keys which he carried upon an iron
ring. He tried first one and then another in the lock, as though he
knew not which fitted it. His ignorance struck me as strange until
Vincott pulled me by the sleeve.
"Turn your back to the hutch," he whispered suddenly. Instinct made me
face it instead, and I perceived, gazing curiously into my face, the
very man who had tracked Vincott in the afternoon: Otto Krax, as I now
knew him to be, Count Lukstein's servant. So startled was I by the
unexpected sight of him that I let the volume of Horace fall from my
fingers to the ground. On the instant he ran forward and picked it up.
I snatched it from his hand before he could do more than glance at its
cover, whereupon he made me a polite bow and returned to the
embrasure. At last the porter succeeded in opening the door, and we
got us into the street. Vincott was for upbraiding me at first in that
I followed not his directions, but I cut him short roughly, and bade
him hold his peace. For the world seemed very strange and empty, and I
had no heart for talking. So we walked in silence back towards the
inn.
Of a sudden, however, Vincott stopped.
"Listen!" he whispered.
I strained my ears until they ached. Behind us, in the quiet of the
night, I could hear footsteps creeping and stealthy, not very far
away. Vincott drew me into an angle of the wall, and we waited there
holding our breaths. The footsteps slid nearer and nearer. Never since
have I heard a sound which so filled me with terror. The haunting
secrecy of their approach had something in it which chilled the
blood--the sound of a man on the trail. He passed no more than six
feet from where we stood. It was Otto Krax; and we remained until we
could hear him no more. Vincott wiped his forehead.
"If he had stopped in front of us," I said, "I should have cried out."
"And by the Lord," said he, "I should have done no less."
A hundred yards further on, Vincott stopped again.
"He has found out his mistake," he exclaimed in a low, quavering
voice.
We listened again; the footsteps were returning swiftly, but with the
same quiet stealth.
"Quick!" said Vincott, "against the wall!"
"No," said I, "he is tracking along the side of it. Let us face and
pass him."
We walked on at a good pace, and made no effort at concealment. The
man stopped as soon as we had gone by, turned, and came after us. My
heart raced in my breast. He quickened his pace and drew level.
"Tis a strange time for women to run these streets." He spoke with a
guttural accent, and his face leered over my shoulder. In a passion of
fear I swung my arm free from the cloak, and hit at the face with all
my strength. The dress I was wearing ripped at the shoulder as though
you had torn a sheet of brown paper. My blow by good fortune caught
him in the neck at the point where the jaw curves up into the cheek,
and he fell heavily to the ground, his head striking full upon a
rounded cobble. I waited to see no more, but tucked up my skirts and
ran as though the fiend were at my heels, with Vincott panting behind
me. We never halted until we had reached the alley which led to the
back-door of the inn.
I invited Vincott to come in with me and recruit his energies with a
second dose of Bristol milk.
"No! no!" he returned. "'Tis late already, and you have to start
betimes in the morning."
"There is the ceiling," I suggested.
He laughed softly.
"Mr. Buckler, I exaggerated its beauties," he said, "and I fear me if
I went in with you I should be forced to repeat my error. It is just
that which I wish to avoid."
"There are other and indifferent topics," I replied, "on which we
might speak frankly." For a change had come over my spirit, and I
dreaded to be left alone. Vincott shook his head.
"We should not find our tongues would talk of them."
However, he made no motion of departure, but stood scraping a toe
between the stones. Then I heard him chuckle to himself.
"That was a good blow, my friend," he said; "a good, clean blow, pat
on the angle of the jaw. I would never have credited you with the
strength for it. The man has been a plaguy nuisance to me, and the
blow was a very soothing compensation. Only conduct your undertaking
with the like energy throughout, and I do believe----" He pulled
himself up suddenly.
"What do you believe?" I asked.
"I believe," he replied sententiously, "that Lucy will need a new
Sunday gown;" and he turned on his heel and marched out of the alley.
The next morning came a foreigner to the inn, and made inquiry
concerning a woman who had stayed there over-night. Lucy, faithful to
her promise, stoutly declared that no woman had rested in the house
for so little as an hour, and, not content with that asseveration, she
must needs go on to enforce her point by assuring him that the inn had
given shelter to but one traveller, and that traveller a man. But the
traveller by this time was well upon his way to London, and so learnt
nothing of the inquiry until long afterwards.