JUSTICE
I
Don Ramon de Linea was one of the last to leave the Town House. He was
on duty until all the Spanish officers of State had left the building,
and it was long past midnight before he wended his way through the
narrow streets of the city till he reached the house of the High-Bailiff
in the Nieuwstraate not far from the new bridge.
The outward appearance of the house suggested that most of its occupants
were abed, although there was a light in one of the windows on the
ground floor, and through the uncurtained casement don Ramon caught
sight of the High-Bailiff and his two sons sitting together over a final
cup of wine.
All the pent-up wrath against Mark van Rycke, which Ramon had been
forced to keep in check under the eye of senor de Vargas, gave itself
vent now in a comprehensive curse, and forgetting every code of decency
toward his host and hostess he went up to the front door and gave the
heavy oak panels a series of violent kicks with his boot.
"Hey there!" he shouted roughly, "open, you confounded louts! What
manners are these to close your doors against the soldiers of the King?"
He had not finished swearing when the serving man's shuffling footsteps
were heard crossing the tiled hall. The next moment there was a great
rattle of bolts being drawn and chains being unhung, whereupon don
Ramon--still impatient and wrathful--gave a final kick to the door, and
since Pierre had already lifted the latch, it flew open and nearly
knocked the poor man down with its weight.
"Curse you all for a set of lazy louts," shouted don Ramon at the top of
his voice. "Here, fellow," he added flinging himself into a chair,
"take off my boots and cloak."
He held out his leg, and Pierre, dutiful and obedient, took off the long
boots of untanned leather which protected the slashed shoes and silk
trunk-hose beneath, against the mud of the streets.
"Where is your master?" queried the Spaniard roughly.
"In the dining hall, so please you, senor," replied the man.
"And my men?"
"They went to the tavern over the way about an hour ago, after they had
their supper--and they have not yet returned. They are making merry
there, senor," added old Pierre somewhat wistfully.
And--as if in direct confirmation of the man's words--there came from
the tavern on the opposite side of the street a deafening noise of wild
hilarity. The peace of the night was broken and made hideous by hoarse
shouts and laughter, a deafening crash as of broken glass, all
intermixed with a bibulous song, sung out of tune in a chorus of male
voices, and the clapping of empty mugs against wooden tables.
Don Ramon cursed again, but this time under his breath. The order had
gone forth recently from the Lieutenant-Governor himself that the
Spanish troops quartered in Flemish cities were to behave themselves in
a sober and becoming manner. The tavern of the "Three Weavers" being
situated just opposite the house of the High-Bailiff, it was more than
likely that the latter would take it upon himself to complain of the
ribaldry and uproar which was disturbing his rest, and as the
High-Bailiff was in high favour just now a severe reprimand for don
Ramon might ensue, which prospect did not appeal to him in the least.
For a moment he hesitated whether he would not go back across the road
and order the men to be silent; but as luck or fate would have it, at
that very moment the High-Bailiff opened the door of the dining-room and
stepped out into the hall. Seeing the young Spaniard standing there,
sullen and irresolute, he bade him courteously to come and join him and
his two sons in a tankard of wine.
Don Ramon accepted the invitation. The spirit of quarrelsome fury still
brooded within him, and it was that spirit which made him wish to meet
Mark van Rycke again and either provoke him into that quarrel which
senor de Vargas' timely intervention had prevented before, or, at any
rate, to annoy and humiliate him with those airs of masterfulness and
superiority which the Spaniards knew so well how to wield.
II
Mark and Laurence greeted their father's guest with utmost politeness.
The former offered him a tankard of wine which don Ramon pushed away so
roughly that the wine was spilled over the floor and over Mark van
Rycke's clothes, whereupon the Spaniard swore as was his wont and
murmured something about "a clumsy lout!"
Laurence sitting at the opposite side of the table clenched his fists
till the knuckles shone like ivory and the skin was so taut that it
threatened to crack; the blood rushed up to his cheeks and his eyes
glowed with the fire of bitter resentment and of indignation not easily
kept under control. But Mark ignored the insult, his face expressed
nothing but good-humoured indifference, and a careless indulgence for
the vagaries of a guest, like one would feel for those of an
irresponsible child. As for the High-Bailiff, he still beamed with
amiability and the determination to please his Spanish masters in every
way that lay in his power.
"We would ask you, senor," said Laurence after a slight pause during
which he had made almost superhuman efforts to regain his self-control,
"kindly to admonish the soldiery in the tavern yonder. My mother is an
invalid, the noise that the men make is robbing her of sleep."
"The men will not stay at the tavern much longer," said don Ramon
haughtily, "they are entitled to a little amusement after their arduous
watch at the Town Hall. An Madame van Rycke will exercise a little
patience, she will get to sleep within the hour and can lie abed a
little longer to-morrow."
"It is not so much the lateness of the hour, senor," here interposed the
High-Bailiff urbanely, noting with horror that his son was about to lose
his temper, "neither I nor my sons would wish to interfere with the
innocent pleasures of these brave men, but..."
"Then what is the pother about, sirrah?" queried the Spaniard with
well-studied insolence.
"Only that..." murmured the unfortunate High-Bailiff diffidently, "only
that..."
"There are only two women in charge of the tavern at this hour," broke
in Mark quietly, "two young girls, whose father was arrested this
morning for attending a camp-meeting outside the city. The girls are
timid and unprotected, therefore we entreat that you, senor, do put a
stop to the soldiers' brawling and allow the tavern to be closed at this
late hour of the night."
Don Ramon threw back his head and burst into loud and affected laughter.
"By the Mass, Messire!" he said, "I find you vastly amusing to be thus
pleading for a pair of heretics. Did you perchance not know that to
attend camp meetings is punishable by death? If people want to hear a
sermon they should go to church where the true doctrine is preached.
Nothing but rebellion and high-treason are preached at those meetings."
"We were pleading for two defenceless girls," rejoined Laurence, whose
voice shook with suppressed passion. Even he dared not say anything
more on the dangerous subject of religious controversy which Don Ramon
had obviously brought forward with the wish to provoke a
discussion--lest an unguarded word brought disaster upon his house.
"Pshaw!" retorted don Ramon roughly, "surely you would not begrudge
those fine soldiers a little sport? Two pretty girls--did you not say
they were pretty?--are not to be found in every street of this
confounded city: and by the Mass! I feel the desire to go and have a
look at the wenches myself."
He rose, yawned and stretched. Laurence was white with passion: there
was a glow of deadly hate in his eyes--of fury that was almost maniacal:
with a mechanical gesture he tore at the ruff at his throat. Don Ramon
looked on him with contempt in his eyes and a malicious smile round his
full lips. He shrugged his shoulders and laughed softly--ironically to
himself. The next moment Laurence, unable to control himself, had
sprung to his feet: he would have been at the other's throat, but that
Mark who had been quietly watching him was just in time to seize him
round the shoulders and thus to prevent murder from being done.
Don Ramon had not failed to notice Laurence's unreasoning rage, nor the
gesture which for one instant had threatened his own life, but he showed
not the slightest sign of fear. The sarcastic laugh did not wholly die
down on his lips, nor did the look of contempt fade out of his eyes. He
looked on--quite unmoved--whilst Mark succeeded, if not in pacifying his
brother, at least in forcing him back to his seat and regaining some
semblance of control over himself. The High-Bailiff, white as a sheet,
was holding out his hands in a pathetic and futile appeal to his son and
to the Spaniard. Then as Laurence overcome with the shame of his own
impotence threw himself half across the table and buried his face in his
hands, don Ramon said coldly:
"Your senseless rage has done you no good, my friend. After half a
century, you Netherlanders have, it seems, yet to learn that it is not
wise to threaten a Spanish gentleman either by word or gesture. Perhaps
I would have protected the two females in the tavern yonder from the
brutality of my soldiery--perhaps I wouldn't--I don't know! But now,
since you chose to raise an insolent hand against me I certainly will
not raise a finger to save them from any outrage--I'll even countenance
my men's behaviour by my presence in the tavern. Understand? That is
what you have gained by your impudence--both you and your brother--for
with him too I have a score to settle for impudence that literally
passes belief. If your father were not so well-accredited as a good
Catholic and a loyal subject of the King, I would ... But enough of
this. Let the lesson be a fruitful one: and you Messire
High-Bailiff--an you are wise--will inculcate into your sons a clearer
notion of respect, duty and obedience toward their superiors."
He nodded curtly to the High-Bailiff, took no further notice of Mark and
Laurence, but turned on his heel and went out of the room slamming the
door behind him.
After he had gone, the three men remained silent for a while: the
High-Bailiff feeling deeply resentful against his son, would not trust
himself to speak. Mark was leaning against the window sill and staring
moodily out into the darkness. Laurence still held his head buried in
his hands.
The Spaniard's loud voice was heard giving orders to Pierre, then there
came the sound of bolts being pushed back, of the heavy oaken door
groaning on its hinges, then the reclosing of the door and Pierre's
shuffling footsteps crossing the hall.
Laurence rose and passed the back of his hand once or twice across his
eyes: "And to think," he murmured dully, "that brutes such as that are
allowed to live. Has God turned the light of His countenance quite away
from us?" He remained standing for a while gazing out blankly before
him, and with trembling fingers he traced intricate patterns upon the
table-top. Then with a heavy sigh he bade father and brother
"good-night" and quietly went out of the room.
"Mark!" said the High-Bailiff quickly, "keep an eye on that hot-headed
young ruffian. In his present state of mind there's no knowing what he
might do."
Whereupon Mark, in his usual good-tempered, indolent way also bade his
father good-night, and followed his brother out of the room.
III
The scene which met don Ramon's eyes when he entered the tavern of the
"Three Weavers"--which was situate, be it remembered, almost opposite
the house of the High-Bailiff of Ghent--was, alas! not an unusual one
these days.
For five years now--ever since the arrival of the Duke of Alva in the
Low Countries as Lieutenant-Governor and Captain-General of the
Forces--the Netherlander had protested with all the strength and the
insistence at their command against the quartering of Spanish troops
upon the inhabitants of their free cities. The practice was a flagrant
violation of all the promises made to them by the King himself, and an
outrage against their charters and liberties which the King had sworn to
respect. But it also was a form of petty tyranny which commended itself
specially to Alva, and to the Spanish ministers and councillors of State
who liked above all to humiliate these Dutch and Flemish free men and
cow them into complete submission and silent acquiescence by every means
which their cruel and tortuous minds could invent.
Don Ramon knew quite well that he could offer no greater insult to the
High-Bailiff of Ghent and to his sons--or, for the matter of that, to
the whole city--than to allow his soldiery to behave in a scandalous and
ribald manner in one of the well-accredited and well-conducted taverns
of the town. And to him this knowledge gave but additional zest to what
otherwise would have been a tame adventure--two women to bully and eight
men to do it was not nearly as exciting as he could wish. But that fool
Laurence van Rycke had to be punished--and incidentally don Ramon hoped
that Mark would feel that the punishment was meted out to him more than
to his brother.
On the whole don Ramon de Linea felt, as he entered the tap-room of the
"Three Weavers," that the presence of the two van Ryckes was all that he
needed to make his enjoyment complete.
That the Spanish provost and the six men under his command were already
drunk there was no doubt: some of them were sitting at a long trestle
table, sprawling across it, lolling up against one another, some singing
scraps of bibulous songs, others throwing coarse, obscene jests across
the table. Two men seemed to be on guard at the door, whilst one and
all were clamouring for more wine.
"Curse you, you..." the provost was shouting at the top of his voice
when don Ramon entered the tap-room, "why don't you bring another bottle
of wine?"
Two women were standing at the further end of the long low room, close
to the hearth: they stood hand in hand as if in an endeavour to
inculcate moral strength to one another. The eldest of the two women
might have been twenty-five years of age, the other some few years
younger: their white faces and round, dilated eyes showed the deathly
fear which held them both in its grip. Obviously the girls would have
fled out of the tap-room long before this, and equally obviously the two
men had been posted at the door in order to cut off their retreat.
At sight of their captain, the men staggered to their feet; the provost
passed the word of command, fearful lest the ribald attitude of his men
brought severe censure--and worse--upon himself. He stood up, as
steadily, as uprightly as he could; but don Ramon took little notice of
him; he called peremptorily to the two girls--who more frightened than
ever now, still clung desperately to one another.
"Here, wench!" he said roughly, "I want wine, the best you have, and a
private room in which to sit."
"At your service, senor!" murmured the elder of the two girls almost
inaudibly.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Katrine, so please your Magnificence."
"And yours?"
"Grete, at your service, Magnificence," whispered the girls one after
the other, clinging one to the other, like two miserable atoms of
humanity tossed about by the hard hand of Fate.
"At my service then, and quickly too," retorted don Ramon curtly, "go
down into the cellar, Katrine, and get me a fresh bottle of Rhine
wine--the best your heretical father hath left behind. And you, Grete,
show me to another room, and when presently I order you to kiss me, see
that you do not do it with such a sour mouth, or by Our Lady I'll
remember that your father must hang on the morrow, and that you are
nothing better than a pair of heretics too. Now then," he added
harshly, "must I repeat the order?"
He had undone the buckle of his sword-belt, and was carrying his
sheathed sword in his hand: he found it a splendid weapon for striking
further terror into the hearts of the two girls, whose shrieks of pain
and fear caused great hilarity amongst the soldiers. Don Ramon felt
that if only Mark van Rycke could have been there, all the wounds which
that young malapert had dared to inflict upon the pride of a Spanish
grandee would forthwith be healed. Indeed, don Ramon enjoyed every
incident of this exhilarating spectacle; for instance, when buxom
Katrine had at last toddled down the steps into the cellar, the soldiers
closed the trap-door upon her; whereupon the provost, who had become
very hilarious, shouted lustily:
"What ho! what are you louts doing there? His Magnificence will be
wanting the wine which he has ordered. If you lock the cellarer into her
cellar, she'll come out presently as drunk as a Spanish lord."
"All right, provost," retorted one of the men, "we'll let her out
presently. His Magnificence won't have to wait for long. But we can
levy a toll on her--do you understand?--whenever the wench is ready to
come out of prison."
"Oh! I understand!" quoth the provost with a laugh.
And don Ramon laughed too. He was enjoying himself even more than he
had hoped. He saw the other girl--Grete--turn almost grey with terror,
and he felt that he was punishing Mark van Rycke for every insolent word
which he had uttered at the Town Hall and Laurence for every threatening
gesture. He gave Grete a sharp prodding with the hilt of his sword:
"Now then, you Flemish slut," he said harshly, "show me to your best
parlour, and don't stand there gaping."
Perforce she had to show him the way out of the public _tapperij_ to the
private room reserved for noble guests.
"Send one of your men to fetch the wench away in about half an hour,
provost," called don Ramon loudly over his shoulder, "I shall have got
tired of her by then."
Loud laughter greeted this sally and a general clapping of mugs against
the table. Grete more dead than alive nearly fell over the threshold.
IV
The private room was on the opposite side of the narrow tiled hall and
was dimly lighted by a small iron lamp that hung from a beam of the
ceiling above. The door was half open and Grete pushed it open still
further and then stood aside to allow the senor captain to pass.
"Will your Magnificence be pleased to walk in," she whispered.
Great tears were in her eyes; don Ramon paused under the lintel of the
door, and with a rough gesture pinched her cheek and ear.
"Not ugly for a Flemish heifer," he said with a laugh. "Come along,
girl! Let's see if your heretical father hath taught you how to pay due
respect to your superiors."
"My humblest respect I do offer your Magnificence," said Grete, who was
bravely trying to suppress her tears.
"Come! that's better," he retorted, as he pushed the girl into the room
and swaggered in behind her, closing the door after him. "Now, Grete,"
he added, as he threw himself into a chair and stretched his legs out
before him, "come and sit on my knee, and if I like the way you kiss me,
why, my girl, there's no knowing what I might not do to please you.
Come here, Grete!" he reiterated more peremptorily, for the girl had
retreated to a dark corner of the room and was cowering there just like
a frightened dog.
"Come here, Grete," he called loudly for the third time. But Grete was
much too frightened to move.
With a savage oath don Ramon jumped to his feet, and kicked the chair on
which he had been sitting so that it flew with a loud clatter half way
across the room. Grete fell on her knees.
"Good Lord deliver me!" she murmured.
Don Ramon seized her by her two hands that were clasped together in
prayer, he dragged her up from her knees, and toward the table which
stood in the centre of the small, square room. Then he let her fall
backwards against the table, and laughed because she continued to pray
to God to help her.
"As if God would take any notice of heretics and rebels and
Netherlanders generally," he said with a sneer. "Stand up, girl, and go
back to my men. I have had enough of you already. Ye gods! what a vile
crowd these Netherlanders are! Go back into the tap-room, do you hear,
girl? and see that you and your ugly sister entertain my men as you
should. For if you don't, and I hear of any psalm-singing or simpering
nonsense I'll hand you over to the Inquisition as avowed heretics
to-morrow."
But truly Grete was by now almost paralysed with fear; she was no brave
heroine of romance who could stand up before a tyrant and browbeat him
by the very force of her character and personality, she was but a mere
wreckage of humanity whom any rough hand could send hopelessly adrift
upon the sea of life. Her one refuge was her tears, her only armour of
defence her own utter helplessness.
But this helplessness which would appeal to the most elementary sense of
chivalry, had not the power to stir a single kind instinct in don Ramon
de Linea. It must be admitted that it would not have appealed to a
single Spaniard these days. They were all bred in the one school which
taught them from infancy an utter contempt for this subject race and a
deadly hatred against the heretics and rebels of the Low Countries.
They were taught to look upon these people as little better than cattle,
without any truth, honesty or loyalty in them, as being false and
treacherous, murderous and dishonest. Don Ramon, who at this moment was
behaving as scurrilously as any man, not absolutely born in the gutter,
could possibly do, was only following the traditions of his race, of his
country and its tyrannical government.
Therefore when Grete wept he laughed, when she murmured the little
prayers which her father had taught her, he felt nothing but irritation
and unmeasured contempt. He tried to silence the girl by loud shouts and
peremptory commands, when these were of no avail he threatened, to call
for assistance from his sergeant. Still the girl made no attempt either
to move or to stem the flood of tears. Then don Ramon called aloud:
"Hallo there, sergeant!" and receiving no answer, he went to the door,
in order to reiterate his call from there.
V
His hand was on the latch, when the door was suddenly opened from
without; so violently that don Ramon was nearly thrown off his balance,
and would probably have measured his length on the floor, but that he
fell up against the table and remained there, leaning against it with
one hand in order to steady himself, and turning a wrathful glance on
the intruder.
"By the Mass!" he said peremptorily, "who is this malapert who..."
But the words died on his lips; the look of wrath in his eyes gave way
to one of sudden terror. He stared straight out before him at the
sombre figure which had just crossed the threshold. It was the tall
figure of a man dressed in dark tightly-fitting clothes, wearing high
boots to the top of his thighs, a hood over his head and a mask of
untanned leather on his face. He was unarmed.
Don Ramon, already a prey to that superstitious fear of the unknown and
of the mysterious which characterised even the boldest of his country
and of his race, felt all his arrogance giving way in the presence of
this extraordinary apparition, which by the dim and flickering light of
the lamp appeared to him to be preternaturally tall and strangely
menacing in its grim attitude of silence. Thus a moment or two went by.
The stranger now turned and carefully closed and locked the door behind
him. Key in hand he went up to the girl--Grete--who, no less terrified
than her tormentor, was cowering in a corner of the room.
"Where is Katrine," he asked quickly; then, as the girl almost paralysed
by fear seemed quite unable to speak, he added more peremptorily:
"Pull yourself together, wench; your life and Katrine's depend on your
courage now. Where is she?"
"In ... in ... the cellar ... I think," stammered Grete almost inaudibly
and making a brave effort to conquer her terror.
"Can you reach her without crossing the tap-room?"
The girl nodded.
"Well, then, run to her at once. Don't stop to collect any of your
belongings, except what money you have; then go ... go at once.... Have
you a friend or relative in this city to whom you could go at this late
hour?"
Again the girl nodded, and looked up more boldly this time: "My father's
sister..." she whispered.
"Where does she live?"
"At the sign of the 'Merry Beggars' in Dendermonde."
"Then go to her at once--you and Katrine. You will be safe there for
awhile. If any further danger threatens you or your kinsfolk, you shall
be advised ... in that case you would have to leave the country."
"I shouldn't be afraid," murmured the girl.
"That's good!" he concluded. "Come, Grete!"
He turned back to the door, unlocked it, and let the girl slip out of
the room. Then he relocked the door.
VI
While this brief colloquy had been going on, don Ramon was making great
efforts to recover his scattered wits and to steady his overstrung
nerves. The superstitious fear which had gripped him by the throat,
yielded at first to another equally terrifying thought: the hood and
mask suggested an emissary of the Inquisition, one of those silent,
nameless beings who seemed to have the power of omnipresence, who glided
through closed doors and barred windows, appeared suddenly in tavern,
church or street corner, and were invariably the precursors of arrest,
torture-chamber and death. No man or woman--however high-born, however
highly placed, however influential or however poor and humble, was
immune from the watchful eye of the Inquisition; a thoughtless word, a
careless jest--or the mere denunciation of an enemy--and the accusation
of treason, heresy or rebellion was trumped up and gibbet or fire
claimed yet another victim. Don Ramon--a Spanish grandee--could not of
course be denounced as a heretic, but he knew that the eyes of de Vargas
were upon him, that he might he thought importune or in the way now that
other projects had been formed for donna Lenora--and he also knew that
de Vargas would as ruthlessly sweep him out of the way as he would a
troublesome fly.
Thus fear of real, concrete danger had succeeded that of the
supernatural; but now that the stranger moved and spoke kindly with
Grete--the daughter of an heretic--it was evident that he was no spy of
the Inquisition: he was either an avowed enemy who chose this theatrical
manner of accomplishing a petty vengeance, or in actual fact that
extraordinary creature who professed to be the special protector of the
Prince of Orange and whom popular superstition among the soldiery had
nicknamed Leatherface.
The latter was by far the most likely, and as the stranger whoever he
was, was unarmed, don Ramon felt that he had no longer any cause for
fear. Though his sword--in its scabbard--was lying on the table, his
dagger was in his belt. With a quick movement he unsheathed it, and at
the precise moment when the masked man had his back to him in order to
relock the door, don Ramon--dagger in hand--made a swift and sudden dash
for him. But the stranger had felt rather than seen or heard the danger
which threatened him. As quick as any feline creature he turned on his
assailant and gripped his upraised hand by the wrist with such a
vice-like grip that don Ramon uttered a cry of rage and pain: his
fingers opened out nervelessly and the dagger fell with a clatter to the
ground.
Then the two men closed with one another. It was a fight, each for the
other's throat--a savage, primitive fight--man against man--with no
weapon save sinewy hands, hatred and the primeval instinct to kill. The
masked man was by far the more powerful and the more cool. Within a
very few moments he had don Ramon down on his knees, his own strong
hands gripping the other's throat. The Spaniard felt that he was
doomed: he--of that race which was sending thousands of innocent and
defenceless creatures to a hideous death--he, who had so often and so
mercilessly lent a hand to outrage, to pillage and to murder, who but a
few moments ago was condemning two helpless girls to insults and outrage
worse than death, was in his turn a defenceless atom in the hands of a
justiciary. The breath was being squeezed out of his body, his limbs
felt inert and stiff, his mind became clouded over as by a crimson mist.
He tried to call for help, but the cry died in his throat. And through
the mist which gradually obscured his vision he could still see the
silhouette of that closely-hooded head and a pair of eyes shining down
on him through the holes of the leather mask.
"Let me go, miscreant," he gasped as for one moment the grip on his
throat seemed to relax. "By heaven you shall suffer for this outrage."
"'Tis you will suffer," said the other coldly, "even as you would have
made two helpless and innocent women suffer."
"They shall suffer yet!" cried don Ramon with a blasphemous oath, "they
and their kith and kin--aye! and this accursed city which hath given
_you_ shelter! Assassin!"
"And it is because you are such an abominable cur," came a voice
relentlessly from behind the leather mask, "because you would hunt two
unfortunates down, them and their kith and kin and the city that gave
them shelter, that you are too vile to live, and that I mean to kill
you, like I would any pestilential beast that befouled God's earth. So
make your peace with your Creator now, for you are about to meet Him
face to face laden with the heavy burden of your infamies."
In don Ramon now only one instinct remained paramount--the instinct of a
final effort for self-defence. When he fell, his knee came in contact
with the dagger which he had dropped. It cost him a terrible effort,
but nevertheless he succeeded in groping for it with his right hand and
in seizing it: another moment of violent struggle for freedom, another
convulsive movement and he had lifted the dagger. He struck with
ferocious vigour at his powerful opponent and inflicted a gashing wound
upon his left arm--the dagger penetrated to the bone, cutting flesh and
muscle through from wrist to elbow.
But even as he struck he knew that it was too late; he had not even the
strength to renew the effort. The next moment the vice-like grip
tightened round his throat with merciless power. He could neither cry
for help nor yet for mercy, nor were his struggles heard beyond these
four narrow walls.
The soldiers whom he himself had bidden to be merry and to carouse, were
singing and shouting at the top of their voice, and heard neither his
struggles nor his cries. The dagger had long since slipped out of his
hand, and at last he fell backwards striking his head against the leg of
the table as he fell.
VII
In the tap-room the soldiers had soon got tired of waiting for Katrine.
At first some of them amused themselves by reopening the trap-door, then
sitting on the top step of the ladder that led to the cellar and thence
shouting ribald oaths, coarse jests and blasphemies for the benefit of
the unfortunate girl down below.
But after a time this entertainment also palled, and a council was held
as to who should go down and fetch the girl. The cellar was vastly
tempting in itself--with no one to guard it save a couple of
wenches--and the captain more than half-inclined to be lenient toward a
real bout of drunkenness. It was an opportunity not to be missed;
strange that the idea had not occurred to seven thirsty men before.
Now the provost declared that he would go down first, others could
follow him in turn, but two must always remain in the tap-room in case
the captain called, their comrades would supply them with wine from
below. The provost descended--candle in hand--so did four of the men,
but Katrine was no longer in the cellar. They hunted for her for
awhile, and discovered a window, the shaft of which sloped upwards to a
yard at the back of the house. The window was open and there was a
ladder resting against the wall of the shaft.
The men swore a little, then went back to investigate the casks of wine.
With what happened in the cellar after that this chronicle hath no
concern, but those soldiers who remained up in the tap-room had a
curious experience which their fuddled brains did not at first take in
altogether. What happened was this: the door which gave on the passage
was opened, and a man appeared under the lintel. He was dressed in
sombre, tight-fitting doublet and hose, with high boots reaching well
above his knees; he had a hood over his head and a mask on his face.
The soldiers stared at him with wide-open, somewhat dimmed eyes.
The masked man only spoke a few words:
"Tell your provost," he said, "that senor captain don Ramon de Linea
lies dead in the room yonder."
Then he disappeared, as quietly as he had come.