THE HOUR OF VICTORY
I
To the women and children shut up in the different churches and in the
houses throughout the city, during those terrible hours whilst their
husbands, brothers, sons were making their last desperate stand, it was
indeed hell let loose; for while the men were doing, they could only
wait and pray. It was impossible for them even to wander out to try and
help the wounded or to seek amongst the dead for the one dear face, the
mirror of all joy and happiness. They all sat or knelt huddled up
together, their children closely held in their arms, murmuring those
vague words of comfort, of surmise, of hope and of fear which come
mechanically to the lips when every sense is lulled into a kind of
torpor with the terrible imminence of the danger and the overwhelming
power of grief.
The danger in the houses was greater than in the churches, for
everywhere the horrible concussion of artillery and the crash of falling
masonry broke the windows and shook the floors. But many women have
that same instinct which causes the beasts of the forests to hide within
their lair; they feel that they would rather see their home fall in
about their heads, than watch its destruction from a safer distance.
Clemence van Rycke refused to leave her house when first Laurence
received Lenora's warning of the impending catastrophe; she refused to
leave it now when her sons were face to face with death and any moment a
stray cannon ball might bring the walls down with a crash.
She sat in the high-backed chair in the small withdrawing-room where,
less than a week ago, the first card was played in that desperate game
for human lives which was finding its climax at this hour; she sat quite
still--staring into the empty hearth with that stolidity peculiar to
these women of the North--and which is only another, calmer, form of
courage. The High-Bailiff, sullen and silent, sat close to the table
with his head buried in his hands. Since his return from his
humiliating errand this afternoon he had not spoken a word to anyone--he
believed that the Orangist cause was doomed, and both his sons certain
of death. What happened to him after that he really did not care.
Pierre and Jeanne sat in the hall together, quietly telling their beads.
The din outside was deafening, and the evening hour was slowly creeping
on--day yielded to twilight; a brilliant sunset lit up for a while the
desolation of an entire city, then sank into a blood-hued horizon,
adding its own lurid light to the crimson glow of burning buildings.
And as the veils of night fell more heavily over the city, gradually the
dismal sounds of cannon and musketry were stilled. Pierre came in after
a while carrying a lamp.
"Firing has ceased," he said, "men are running down the streets shouting
that the Kasteel is in our hands and that the Duke of Alva has
surrendered to Leatherface!"
He put the lamp down and prepared to go, for Clemence and the
High-Bailiff have made no comment on the joyful news--perhaps it has
failed to reach their dulled senses, perhaps they do not believe it. At
any rate, what is victory to them if two brave sons have fallen for its
sake?
But already the cries through the streets become more insistent and more
sure; men and women run hither and thither up and down the Nieuwe
Straat, and as Pierre stands by the open door, peering curiously out
into the gloom, people shout to him as they rush by:
"Van Rycke has seized the Kasteel! The Duke of Alva is a prisoner in
our hands."
Clemence hears the cries. She can no longer doubt her ears. "Mark?
Laurence?" she calls out. "Where are they?"
The High-Bailiff rouses himself from his apathy. "I will go to the Town
House," he says, "and will be back with news."
"News of Mark--and of Laurence," cries the mother.
The High-Bailiff goes, and she remains alone in the narrow room, with
just the feeble light of the lamp upon her pale face and trembling
hands. Now and then still, right through the night, a terrific crash
shakes the house to its foundations, or a sudden lurid light flares
upwards to the sky--roofs are still falling in, crumbling ruins still
burst into flames, but firing and clash of steel have ceased, and from
the various churches the peals of bells send their triumphant call
through the night.
The hours go by. It is nigh on ten o'clock now. The High-Bailiff has
not yet returned, but Laurence has just come back--wounded and exhausted
but full of the glorious victory.
"Where is Mark?" queries the mother.
"Mark is hurt ... but he will be here anon," says the boy, "the men have
made a stretcher for him--he would not be tended at the Kasteel--he
begged to be brought home--oh! mother dear, how we must love him after
this!"
Clemence hastily gives orders that Messire Mark's room be made ready for
him at once. Jeanne, buxom and capable, is rendered supremely happy by
this task.
"Mother dear," whispers Laurence, "next to Mark himself, we all owe our
salvation to Lenora."
He has no time to say more, even though Clemence's face has hardened at
mention of that name which she abhors; for Pierre has just come running
in breathless and trembling with excitement.
"Mevrouw," he stammers, "it is the noble lady ... the Spanish lady ...
it is..."
Before Laurence could further question him, he has uttered a cry of
surprise, which is echoed by one of horror from Clemence. Lenora was
standing under the lintel of the door. Clemence rose from her chair as
if moved by a spring and stood up, rigid, and with arm raised, pointing
straight to the door:
"Go!" she commanded sternly.
But Lenora advanced slowly into the room. She was whiter than the ruff
at her throat, her black mantle hung round her in heavy folds, but the
hood had fallen back from her head, and her golden hair with the yellow
light of the lamp falling full upon it looked like a gleaming aureole
which made her eyes appear wonderfully dark by contrast and her beauty
more ethereal than it had been before. Laurence gazed on her in
speechless wonder, but Clemence, full of hatred for the woman whom she
believed to be the author of all the misery of the past few days, still
pointed to the door, and sternly, relentlessly, in a voice which
quivered with the passion of intense hatred, she reiterated her command:
"Go!"
"They are bringing Mark home," said Lenora quietly; "he is wounded ...
perhaps to death ... I could not get to hear ... but when he opens his
eyes he will ask for me. I cannot go unless he sends me away."
"They are bringing Mark home," assented the mother, "and 'tis I who will
tend him. Never shall thy treacherous hand touch my son..."
"Mother," broke in Laurence firmly, "she is Mark's wife and she has
saved us all."
Clemence gave a loud sob and fell back in her chair. Laurence tried in
vain to comfort her. But Lenora waited quietly until the worst of
Clemence's paroxysm of tears had passed away, then she said with the
same patience and gentleness:
"I know, mevrouw, that from the first I was an intruder in your house.
I, too, have oft in the last few miserable days longed in vain that Mark
and I had never met. But do you not think, mevrouw, that our destinies
are beyond our ken? that God ordains our Fate, and merely chooses His
tools where He desires?"
"And Satan, too, chooses his tools," murmured Clemence through her
tears. "Oh go! go! I beg of you to go," she added with sudden
passionate appeal; "cannot you see that the sight of you must be torture
to us all?"
"Will you let me stay until I have seen Mark?" said Lenora calmly, "and
then I will go."
"I will not let you see him," protested Clemence with the obstinacy of
the weak. "I would not allow a spy like you to come near him ... aye! a
spy ... an assassin mayhap ... how do I know that you are not an
emissary of our tyrants? how do I know that beneath your cloak you do
not hold a dagger?..."
Laurence was trying his best to pacify his mother and throwing pathetic
looks of appeal to Lenora the while, whilst the girl herself was bravely
trying to hold herself in check. But at this last cruel taunt she
uttered a cry of pain, like a poor wild creature that has been hurt to
death. In a moment she was across the room, down on her knees beside the
old woman and holding Clemence's trembling hands imprisoned in her own.
"Hush! Hush!" she implored wildly, "you must not say that ... you must
not ... Heavens above, have you not realised that when I acted as I did,
I did so because I believed God Himself had shown me the way? You call
me base and vile ... I swear to you by all that I hold most sacred that
I would gladly die a thousand deaths to undo the work of the past few
days ... you speak of an assassin's dagger ... I believed that my cousin
Ramon was murdered ... foully and in the dark ... by the man who was
known as Leatherface ... my father made me swear that I would avenge
Ramon's death ... what could I do? what could I do? I believed that God
was guiding me ... I spied upon you, I know ... I found out your secrets
and gave them to my father ... but he had commanded me and I had no one
else in the world ... no one ... only my father ... and I believed in
him as I believe in God...."
Her voice broke in a sob, her head fell forward upon her hands and those
of the older woman, and a pitiable moan of pain came from her
overburdened heart. Laurence, with his head buried in his hands, would
have given his life to spare her all this misery. But Clemence said
nothing--she did not repulse the girl nor did she draw her to her heart;
whether she still mistrusted her or not it were impossible to say,
certain it is that she listened, and that words of hatred no longer rose
to her lips.
"You will not let me see Mark," continued Lenora, trying to speak more
calmly, "you are afraid that I would go to him as an enemy ... a spy ...
an assassin.... Ah! you have chosen the weapon well wherewith to punish
me! An enemy, ye gods!--I who would give the last drop of blood in my
veins to help him at this hour, I who love him with every fibre of my
heart, with every aspiration of my soul! ... Don't you understand?
cannot you understand that he has forced his way right into my very
being, that I have left my people, my father, to come to him ... to warn
him, to help him ... to be with him in the hour of danger.... Let me
stay.... Let me be with him! ... Cannot you see that Love for him is
all that I live for now?..."
She had ceased speaking, and over the high, oak-panelled room there fell
a silence which soon became oppressive. A few moments ago while Lenora
was pouring out her heart in wild words of passionate longing, Clemence
and Laurence had suddenly uttered a cry--half of horror and half of
joy--a cry which was quickly suppressed and which the girl did not hear.
Now the tension on her nerves was suddenly relaxed and she broke down
utterly--physically and mentally she felt like one who has received a
blow with a pole-axe and is only just alive--no longer sentient, hardly
suffering. She was crouching on the ground with her head on the older
woman's knee, a pathetic picture of hopelessness. She felt indeed as if
this earth could hold no greater suffering than what she endured now--to
have dreamed for one brief while that she had helped the man she loved
in the hour of his greatest danger, and then to be made to feel that she
was still an enemy in the sight of all his people.
She lost count of time, it might have been but a few seconds that she
knelt there broken-hearted; it might have been a cycle of years; the din
from the streets outside, the bustle inside the house only reached her
ears like sounds that come in a dream. A kind of torpor had fallen over
the broken-hearted girl's senses and mercifully saved her from further
pain. She closed her eyes and semi-consciousness wrapped her in a
kindly embrace. Semi-consciousness or a happy dream. She could not
tell. All that she knew was that suddenly all misery and all suffering
fell away from her; that an invisible presence was in the room which was
like that of the angel of peace, and that strong, kind arms held her
closely, so that she no longer felt that an awful chasm yawned before
her and that she was falling into a hideous abyss where there was
neither hope nor pardon. Of course it must have been a dream--such
dreams as come to the dying who have suffered much and see the end of
all their woe in a prescient glimpse of heaven--for it seemed to her
that the kind grey eyes which she loved were looking on her now, that
they smiled on her with infinite tenderness and infinite understanding,
and that the lips which she had longed to kiss whispered gentle,
endearing words in her ear.
"It is your love, Madonna, which led me to victory. Did I not say that
with it as my shield I could conquer the universe?"
"Mark," she murmured, "you are hurt?"
"Not much, dear heart," he replied with that quaint laugh of his which
suddenly turned this delicious dream into exquisite reality, "kind hands
have tended me and gave me some clean clothing. I would have had you in
my arms ere now, but was too dirty an object to appear before you."
Then the laughter died out from his eyes, they became intent, searching,
desperately anxious.
"Madonna," he whispered--and he who for three days had faced every kind
of danger, trembled now with apprehension--"what you said to my
mother--a moment ago--did you mean it?"
"Your love, Mark," she murmured in reply, "is all that I live for now."
Then he folded her in his arms once more.
"Mother, dear," he said, "you must love her too. My whole happiness
hangs upon her kiss."
EPILOGUE
Many there are who hold to the belief that the death of Alva would have
saved the unfortunate Netherlanders many more months of woe and
oppression at his hands, and that mayhap it would have deterred the
royal despot over in Madrid from further acts of perfidious tyranny.
Therefore Mark van Rycke--the responsible leader of the successful
insurrection of Ghent--has often been blamed for his leniency to a man
who--if he had been victorious--would not have spared a single woman or
child in the city.
With the right and wrongs of that contention this chronicle hath no
concern. Mark van Rycke led the men of Ghent to victory, and having
done that he fell sick from wounds and exhaustion, and after being
hastily tended by his friends, he was taken home where for many days he
hovered between life and death.
It was the civic dignitaries--the High-Bailiff, the Aldermen and
Sheriffs of the Keure who assumed the responsibility of dealing with the
tyrant, and they remained true apparently to their principles of
conciliation and of loyalty, for within two days of their heroic and
desperate stand for liberty and while the ruins of their beautiful city
were still smouldering, the men of Ghent had the mortification of seeing
the Duke of Alva ride--humiliated but unscathed--out of the town.
Just as fifty years ago the town of Brueges held the Archduke
Maximilian, King of the Romans, a prisoner till he ordered the
withdrawal of all foreign troops from their gates, so did the men of
Ghent now exact the same undertaking from the Duke of Alva.
For the moment Ghent was freed from the immediate danger of
annihilation, and the departure of Alva from Belgium less than a year
later saved her perhaps altogether from the fate of many of her sister
cities; certain it is that the High-Bailiff and the older burghers
extracted from their prisoners--among whom was senor de Vargas and
several members of the Blood Council--concessions and privileges for
which they had clamoured in vain for half a century; but beyond that the
tyrant was allowed to go free, and against this decision of their
magistrates and their Griet Mannen the heroes of the insurrection did
not raise a protest. Perhaps they had suffered too much to thirst for
active revenge.
END