the Dutch fever, others said he had worn himself out with the fatigues
of war and the delights of Italy.
The fever increased on him; he wrote to Mendoza, the Spanish agent at
Genoa; he wrote to Andrea D’Aria, his companion in arms of Lepanto; he
wrote to the King. But with little hope, for he felt himself abandoned.
Monseigneur François D’Anjou, brother of the King of France, was
at Mons and had taken on himself the title of Defender of the Low
Countries against the Spanish Tyranny; Don Juan had only eighteen
thousand men, of which six thousand were Spanish, old, tried troops,
and the rest merely Walloon and German mercenaries of doubtful loyalty.
They had scarcely any artillery and but little powder.
The plague appeared in the camp, numbers of the small army sickened and
died.
There came news that the English were sailing for Flushing and that
William of Orange was advancing on Namur.
Don Juan of Austria lay in the pigeon-house, prostrate with fever, sad
and silent.
It was the end of September; day after day was sunny, with a
honey-coloured peaceful light resting on the camp, on the two rivers,
on the fortifications of Namur; the windmills stood motionless in the
stagnant air; the few willows by the river turned from grey-green to
dull amber and shook their long leaves on the soft, muddy bank; the
horizon was veiled in mist, yellow, soft and mournful; at night the
moon rose pale gold through languid dusky vapours; in the morning the
sun rose, glimmering through melancholy mists, and above the camp hung,
day and night, the fumes of the plague, of fever, the exhalations of
decay and sickness, the close odours of death.
Juan of Austria loathed this place as passionately as he had loved
Naples and Sicily; the plain with the two rivers embracing the frowning
town of Namur seemed to him hateful as some roadway to Hell; he dreaded
the warm moist nights, the long misty days, the veiled Northern skies,
the flat, distant melancholy horizon, and he hated these things more
because he sometimes felt that he would never see any other skies or
fields but these, never see any moon or sun rise over any town but this
high battlemented fortress of Namur.
He was trapped, abandoned, forgotten; the hero of Lepanto, the
conqueror of Tunis, was left to die miserably in this vile
swamp–forsaken!
He resolved, when the fever left his mind clear, that he would not die,
that he would live to face Philip in the Escurial and demand an account
for this–and for other things.
On September 28th he confessed, on the 28th he received the communion.
His confessor, Francisco Orantes, told him that he was dying, but he
laughed that away.
In the evening of that day he fell into a delirium and for two days
tossed unconscious, in great torments, talking continually of wars, of
soldiers, of conquests and arms.
On the first of October the fever abated and he seemed much recovered;
he fell into a little sleep about the dawn, and when it was fully light
he woke and sent for the Prince of Parma.
When that general came, Juan of Austria raised himself on his elbow and
looked at him with a searching kind of eagerness, and Farnese stood
arrested, in the poor doorway, glaring at the sick man.
The pigeon-house, in which Don Juan lay, was the size of a small tent,
of clay with niches in the walls for the birds; part of the tiled roof
and a portion of one wall had gone, and through this the early, misty
Northern sunlight streamed, for the canvas that had been dragged over
the aperture was drawn away to admit the air.
On the rough mud floor a carpet of arras had been flung; there were a
couple of camp chairs of steel and leather; a pile of armour, helmet,
greaves, cuirass, cruises, vambraces, damascened in black and gold and
hung with scarlet straps, was in one corner; above swung a lantern and
a crucifix.
Facing the entrance the Emperor’s son lay on a pile of rich cloaks
and garments embroidered with a thousand colours in a thousand shapes
of fantasy; two cloth of gold cushions served to support his head and
gleamed incongruously against the dull clay wall.
He was himself swathed to the breast in a mantle of black and orange,
and covering his lower limbs was a robe of crimson samite lined with
fox’s fur.
The fine ruffled shirt he wore had been torn in his delirious struggles
and showed his throat and the gaunt lines of his shoulders.
His face was colourless with the pure pallor of a blonde complexion,
and his long, pale waving hair clung to his damp forehead and hung
dishevelled either side of his hollow cheeks; his large grey eyes,
whose usual expression was so joyous, careless and ardent, now shone
with the brilliancy of fever and were sunk and shadowed beneath with
the bluish tinge that stained his close-drawn lips.
His right hand, on which sparkled an emerald ring, clutched at the
linen over his heart; the other was taut on the ground with the effort
of supporting his body.
In the niche above him a solitary white pigeon sat contented and
surveyed his invaded home.
Alessandro Farnese, tall and very slender, dark-haired, from head to
foot in black save for a great chain of linked gold and jewels over his
velvet doublet, let the improvised curtain fall into place over the
doorway and stood leaning against the wall, never moving his sombre
eyes from the Prince whose gleaming glance fiercely returned the
scrutiny.
“Your Highness is a whole man to-day,” he said; his voice was smooth,
low, carefully trained like his expression and his gestures; Philip’s
favourites always had this quiet way.
“Whether I shall get well or no I cannot tell,” answered Don Juan
hoarsely. “But this I know–that His Majesty hath forsaken me.”
The Prince of Parma took his right elbow in his left hand and put his
right hand to his pointed chin.
“You speak too plainly, señor,” he said. His subtle mind disliked
boldness of speech and action; he had always been annoyed by these
qualities in Don Juan.
“I have done with pretences,” answered the Prince. “I think I must be
dying, for I care very little what happens on earth–yet I have some
curiosity; it is because of that I sent for you—” he paused gathering
his strength. “Why hath the King forsaken me?” he asked intensely.
“Even if this were so,” said Alessandro Farnese, “how should I know it?”
“It is so and you know it,” replied Don Juan. “The King hath cast me
down, and he is putting you in my place.”
The Prince of Parma lifted his dark, arched brows.
“The mind of your Highness is still bemused by your sickness,” he
answered soothingly. “Any hour may bring a post from Madrid.”
Don Juan dropped from his elbow, and his head sank on the gold brocade
cushions.
“I was lost when they killed Escovedo,” he muttered; “there went
my last friend. It would have been more honourable to die on the
battle-field—”
Farnese answered smoothly–
“Your Highness will win many battles yet.”
The Emperor’s son smiled up at him.
“What did Philip pay you to mislead me?” he asked.
The Italian’s shallow cheek flushed faintly, and a little quiver, it
might be of rage or fear, ran through his sensitive frame.
“The fever returns on you, señor,” he said coldly.
Again Don Juan dragged himself into a sitting posture.
“No,” he answered with a terrible air, “my mind is very clear. I see
what I have been all my life. Philip’s plaything–no more. And I dreamt
to be a King! He used me till I climbed too high and then cast me away.
And you, señor, are to take my place. It was never meant that I should
leave the Low Countries. It was never meant that I should return again
a victor to Madrid–as servant and as brother I have served the King
well, and in his own fashion he hath rewarded me.”
He put his hands before his face and a shudder went through his body,
for in that moment he thought of all the glorious past that had ended
so suddenly and so terribly.
“I suffer!” he moaned. “Jésu and Maria, I suffer!”
He fell prostrate, face downwards, on the tumbled couch, and the
strengthening sunlight played with a mocking brilliance on the
scattered strands of his fair hair.
The Prince of Parma lifted the curtain before the door and spoke to one
of his servants who waited outside, then crossed and knelt beside his
general.
“Prince,” he said in a low tone, “the fever has turned your mind—”
Juan raised his head.
“I am no prince,” he answered. “I never was–but what I am your mother
is, Farnese–you and I alike are tainted.”
A sickly pallor crept into the Italian’s cheek; he clasped his fingers
together as if he prayed for patience.
“But you are too crafty to be deceived as I was,” resumed Don Juan
faintly. “You would never dream as I dreamt of being ‘Infante’ of
Spain, of being a King! Therefore Philip spares you, for you are a
useful man, Farnese, and puts his foot on me because I dared too
high–but we are both–his puppets.”
The Prince of Parma clenched his hands till the knuckles showed white
through the dark skin.
“You–always–hated–me,” gasped Don Juan.
“Are you in pain?” asked Farnese gently.
“In the torments of Hell,” answered the sick man with a ghostly smile;
“there is fire eating my heart, my blood, my brains.”
The Prince of Parma’s face changed in an extraordinary fashion; it was
a slight change, yet one that transformed his expression into that of
utter and satisfied cruelty.
But Don Juan kept his eyes closed, and did not notice this look bending
over him.
Farnese spoke, and his voice was still very gentle.
“Will your Highness drink this potion?”
The Prince lifted his burning lids and saw his page advancing with a
goblet of rock crystal, in which a pale gold liquid floated.
The boy gave this to the kneeling Farnese, who took it between his
long, dark, capable hands.
“This draught has often soothed your Highness,” he said.
Don Juan dragged himself to a sitting posture; as he moved such a weak
giddiness seized him that the clay walls, the rift of sky and the
figure of Farnese swung round him like reflections in troubled water.
He set his teeth and put out his hot hands for the goblet; as he drank
a sweet languor and a grateful cessation of pain swept over him; he
drained the last drop and gave a little sigh as Farnese took the
shining cup from his feeble grasp.
As he sank back on his cushions he noticed that a drop of the liquid
had fallen on the brocade cushion, and lay there like an amber bead
holding a spark of sunlight.
The Prince of Parma rose silently, and beckoning to the page, left the
sick man alone.
An exquisite lassitude crept over Don Juan; his limbs relaxed, his
breath came easily, he became certain that there were long years of
glorious and pleasant life before him; it was only necessary for him
to regain his health–to defeat the heretics and return to Spain to
confound that villain Perez.…
He was slipping out of consciousness; the blue sea of Italy began to
rise before his eyes–an endless expanse of celestial colour over which
sailed the galleys of Spain, Genoa and Venice bearing down on the
infidel fleet.
The victor of Lepanto quivered with joy; he thought he was back in
Naples, in Sicily; the warm scent of a thousand flowers floated round
the rose and amber pillars of the heathen temples, and from the high
windows of gold and painted palaces dark-eyed women looked, leaning on
folds of glimmering tapestry and twisting wreaths of roses and laurels
in gemmed fingers.
He saw the myrtle with the frail bridal blossoms, he saw the vineyards
with the opulent grapes, he saw ladies in dresses stiff with jewels and
heavy sleeves slipping from polished shoulders, he saw peasant girls
with flushed faces and dusky hair.…
Then these pictures faded; he was in the dark silence of the Escurial;
his terrible brother was speaking to him, caressing him; then Perez
pulled a curtain back, and he saw his confidant Escovedo, lying mangled
on a bier, bloody, with a fearful face.
Don Juan moaned and opened his eyes; he was light-headed; he beat his
hands on the cushions.
“Escovedo!” he muttered. “Escovedo!”
The pigeon above, startled by his sudden movement, flew out over his
head and away into freedom through the broken wall.
Juan of Austria shivered and blenched before the swift flash of the
white wings as if an angel had passed him.
“I am a great sinner,” he said with trembling lips. He remembered how
the Pope had embraced and blessed him after Lepanto; he hoped that,
in case he died, God would remember it too, and how he had slain the
infidel on the coast of Africa. His mind cleared, he looked round for
Farnese, he called his secretary, his page, but no one came.
He lay quite still, thinking now of the great ambition, the great
chimera of his life, the passionate desire to be recognised as royal,
as a Prince, to one day be a King.
He had dreamt that he might be King of many countries, even King of
England with Marie Stewart for wife, but he had never attained even
recognition as a Prince of Spain.
All Philip’s promises, all Philip’s flatteries had amounted to nothing.
While he was useful he was caressed; when he grew too great he was
forsaken, left without arms, without money, without men, left with
Farnese watching him night and day.
And they had killed the man he loved, his friend, his confidant
Escovedo.
That fact rose up horrid, insistent, burning his heart with rage.
He could not forgive Perez; he could not forgive Philip.
In discomfort of mind and body he tossed from side to side. One of the
gold cushions slipped from beneath him, and he was too weak to recover
it; he lay with his eyes vacantly on it, and presently sat up with
sudden strength and pointed at it with a quivering finger.
On the gold brocade was a round black hole where the stuff had been
burnt away.
Don Juan began to laugh; he remembered the yellow drop of liquid that
had gleamed on the rich fabric; he shouted for some one to come.
There was no answer; he supposed that they, thinking he suffered from
the plague, would not through fear approach him.
He waited; his attention wandered from the cushion; he heard the
trumpets without and smiled.
Presently a party of horsemen galloped past; he could catch a glimpse
of them through the aperture in the wall; one carried his flag–a cross
on the royal standard with the proud legend: “In hoc haereticos signo
vici Turcos; in hoc signo vincam haereticos.” The heavy silk folds
recalled these words to the Prince’s mind; he thought of his success at
Gembloux.
“I could defeat them now,” he murmured, “if I was–on horseback–with a
thousand men–behind me—”
The Lowland sun was creeping across the floor and glimmering in the
armour in the corner, showing the dints and marks in it, the worn
straps, the beautiful gold inlay and the long pure white plumes
floating above the helmet.
Juan of Austria shivered at the sight of the pale sky, the pale
sunlight; he longed passionately for the South, for all the purple
heat, the violet shade, the soft hours of noonday silence in a marble
chamber overlooking the sea, the glossy darkness of laurel and ilex.
“I will not die here,” he said in his throat.
Presently his confessor came, a slow-footed priest, and asked him if he
would not make his will.
“No, for I have nothing to leave,” he answered, “so I am spared that
trouble.”
Francisco Orantes then asked if he would have the canvas drawn over the
broken roof and wall, for the sun was creeping very near his face.
He answered yes, and it was done; the barn was now only lit by the
glimmer from the one small window.
“Father, I am not dying,” said Don Juan. “When I die it will be in
Spain or Italy; tell the King so–tell him I know that he wants me
dead–but that I will not die like this.”
The priest, seeing he was out of his wits, made no answer, but
approached and felt his wrist and brow.
“Poison,” said Don Juan rapidly. “Poison–why not the sword–as with
Escovedo? I have made my peace with heaven–but when shall Philip clear
himself before God?”
The priest moved away silently as he had come; the sick man lay staring
at the partial darkness; his blood was flaming with a returning agony.
“Philip!” he cried. “Philip! Will you bury me in the Escurial? If I
die will you put me next my father? My father as well as yours, Philip!
Hold my hand, some one–are you all afraid? This is not the plague. I
have watched the heretics burning–I am burning now–I shall not go to
Hell; I am absolved. Who will absolve Philip? Give me a little ease—”
The priest stood motionless beside the entrance, watching him; Juan
dropped into silence, and then Francisco Orantes came again to his
side and gazed as intently as the dim light allowed into the young,
distorted and beautiful face.
The Prince was unconscious; the priest’s bloodless hand crept gently to
his heart, which still beat, though reluctantly and faintly.
Farnese entered.
“He sleeps,” said Francisco Orantes.
The Prince of Parma made no answer; a slight convulsion shook him, and
his face was swept with a look of limitless pride and ambition which
distorted his fine features hideously.
The priest glanced up at him and shrunk away.
“This seems a foul end for one who loved life so,” he muttered.
Farnese fingered his long gemmed chain.
“You serve Philip,” he answered coldly.
Don Juan struggled back to consciousness, opened his eyes and looked up
at the two bending over him; a sensation that he had never known before
in all his life overcame him–a sensation of wild fear.
He fought with his weakness and dragged himself up.
“Is there no one to help me?” he implored. “To save me from Philip and
Philip’s men! Jésu whom I served in Africa do not let me die this way!”
Farnese leant swiftly down and caught the Prince by the shoulder.
“Hush!” he said, “Hush!” and forced him gently back into the cushions.
Juan resisted him with all his feeble strength, his eyes glittering
with terror.
“You are murdering me as Carlos was murdered–and Escovedo,” his voice
was hoarse, broken, but tense with fear, “as you will be murdered when
Philip is weary of you. I do not want to die–I–will–not—”
“Hush!” said Farnese again.
Juan dragged away from him and crouched back against the wall.
“I leave you heir,” he panted, “to all my honours, all my commands.
Philip meant you as my successor. I leave you heir to my death of
loneliness and exile. When did one of Philip’s servants escape this
reward?”
The priest shivered and his figure bowed together, but Farnese listened
patiently like a man waiting for the cessation of something that soon
must end.
The Prince’s fear rose and swelled to a stronger passion, hate.
He thought that he saw in these two instruments of the King a symbol
of the two things that had dogged his glory all his life, the powerful
cruelty of his brother that had used his gifts, his successes, his
popularity for his own ends, lured him with the promise of rewards and
always withheld them, and the opinion of the world that the degradation
of his mother equalled the splendour of his father and would always
prevent him taking that last step into royal rank.
It _had_ prevented him; he saw that now, he saw how hopeless his
ambition had been from the first.…
“If I had my life again I would not serve Philip,” he muttered.
Then pain began to seize and grip him, and he became unconscious of
everything save the physical agony; he fell on his face and clutched
the rich mantles on which he lay, groaned and shrieked in blasphemous
ravings.
“He hath not much fortitude after all,” said Farnese, who had looked on
suffering so often that no anguish could move him; his cold eyes had
many times rested on men and women flaming at the stake with the same
expression of cruel indifference with which they now rested on this man
of his own blood, who had served his turn and was no longer useful to
the policies of Spain.
“How long will this last?” asked the priest.
“I cannot tell,” answered the Prince of Parma. “He must have great
strength.”
“He had until he used it in the delights of Italy,” said Francisco
Orantes. “Such a life as his, señor, does not make for old age—”
“Escovedo! Escovedo!” moaned Don Juan. “Help me! Succour me! I am
burning–burning to the bone, the marrow! Jèsu! Jèsu and Maria!”
“Ay, pray for your sins,” remarked Farnese sombrely, “or you will go to
light the flames that burn to all eternity.”
“Nay, señor,” said the priest; “he confessed and received absolution.”
“Who shall absolve Philip?” murmured Don Juan, who had caught the
sentence. “I wish I had not betrayed Don Carlos. How awful it is to
die!”
Drops of sweat stood out on his forehead, and his fingers trembled on
the brocade covering him.
“The war,” he whispered, “the war.”
He thought of the great armies sweeping to and fro over the Low
Countries, of all the toss and turmoil of Europe through which he had
moved so gaily, so splendidly, of the infidel smitten in Africa; he did
not think of his childhood at all. Life seemed to have begun for him on
the day on which he had first met the King in the green forest glade.
“Pray,” urged the priest, “pray, señor.”
He shook his head feebly; he was not at all afraid of God–only of
Philip. Besides, he did not mean to die.
The dreadful pain was lessening in his veins; he turned over on his
side and looked up at Farnese.
“Where shall we put your body when your soul has left us?” asked the
priest.
The sick man’s eyes gleamed.
“The Escurial,” he muttered. “Philip, remembering Lepanto might
give me that–if not, then Our Lady of Montserrat–but I am not
dying,” he added. “My life is not finished–you must see that–my life
is–not–finished.”
An extraordinary feeling of peace came over him; he wondered at it and
closed his eyes; he again saw the blue Sicilian seas encompassing him
and heard their lapping waves in his ears.
“I will sleep now,” he thought, “and when I wake I will plan a
victory–life is so long and I am so young—”
He smiled, for all the agony had ceased, and he was no longer conscious
of his body; his head sank to one side so that his face was turned
towards the wall.…
Francisco Orantes rose from his knees.
“He died very gently,” he said; “his soul passed as lightly as a bird
to the bough.”
Farnese made the sign of the cross, and his figure dilated with pride,
ambition and power; he went to the armour in the corner and picked up
the dead man’s bâton of command.
* * * * *
Philip buried his brother in the Escurial near the great Emperor who
was their father.
THE POLANDER
The Polander was a very innocent fellow who came out of Germany to
enter the service of my lord Conningsmarke, a Gentleman of a great
Quality at this moment in _London_.
He had taught the Polander some while ago at the instance of Captain
Vratz, who was an old retainer of his, and who gave this youth a good
character, especially for dressing Horses after the German Fashion. The
Polander knew nothing of my lord Count Conningsmarke, and nothing about
_England_, for he was very simple and ignorant, being but of Peasant
birth, but the Captain he knew and loved, for this man had brought him
out of Evil Days in Poland, and his heart held little else but a deep
Affection for this Captain Vratz.
On a Friday he came to London and inquired for the Governor of my Lord
at the Academy of M. Flaubert and this gentleman sent for the Count’s
Secretary; and there the Polander lay on Saturday night feeling very
strange in this new City and constantly praying that he might meet with
Captain Vratz soon, who had been to him such a Benefactor.
The next day being the 11th of _February_ and bitter cold, Mr. Hanson,
the Governor of my Lords, the young Counts of Conningsmarke, came to
the Polander and bid him make ready to be carried to the Lodging of my
Lord Charles.
This Governor seemed in a great Confusion of mind; he went over words
twice when he spoke, which was in the _German_ language (for the
Polander knew not _English_) and the colour was up and down in his Face
and his hands a-tremble.
The Polander stood before him, very tall and strong and humble, with
his blue eyes clouded with Bewilderment and Disappointment; for he
hoped he would be taken to Captain Vratz, and presently dared to say as
much, very timidly.
Upon this Mr. Hanson broke out in a kind of Excitement.
“Would to God!” said he, “that this Swede Vratz had stayed out of
England, for I think he will be the Engine of some harm to my Lord.”
Then he went on to say that he was in no way responsible for the Count
Charles but only for the other lord, Philip his younger Brother.
“But I must help a great man where I can,” he added, and seemed
Troubled.