THE FACE IN THE PORCH.
"This is a serious matter," said Master Bertie thoughtfully, as we sat
in conclave an hour later round the table in the parlor. Mistress Anne
was attending to Dymphna upstairs, and Van Tree had not returned
again; so that we had been unable to tell him of the morning's
adventure. But the rest of us were there. "It considerably adds to the
danger of our position," Bertie continued.
"Of course it does," his wife said promptly. "But Master Lindstrom
here can best judge of that, and of what course it will be safest to
take."
"It depends," our host answered slowly, "upon whether the dead man be
discovered before night. You see if the body be not found----"
"Well?" said my lady impatiently, as he paused.
"Then we must some of us go after dark and bury him," he decided. "And
perhaps, though he will be missed at the next roll-call in the city,
his death may not be proved, or traced to this neighborhood. In that
case the storm will blow over, and things be no worse than before."
"I fear there is no likelihood of that," I said; "for I am told he had
a companion. One of the maids noticed them lurking about the end of
the bridge more than once this morning."
Our host's face fell.
"That is bad," he said, looking at me in evident consternation. "Who
told you?"
"Mistress Anne. And one of the maids told her. It was that which led
me to follow your daughter."
The old man got up for about the fortieth time, and shook my hand,
while the tears stood in his eyes and his lip trembled. "Heaven bless
you, Master Carey!" he said. "But for you, my girl might not have
escaped."
He could not finish. His emotion choked him, and he sat down again.
The event of the morning--his daughter's danger, and my share in
averting it--had touched him as nothing else could have touched him. I
met the Duchess's eyes and they too were soft and shining, wearing an
expression very different from that which had greeted me on my return
with Dymphna.
"Ah, well! she is safe," Master Lindstrom resumed, when he had
regained his composure. "Thanks to Heaven and your friend, madam!
Small matter now if house and lands go!"
"Still, let us hope they will not," Master Bertie said. "Do you think
these miscreants were watching the island on our account? That some
information had been given as to our presence, and they were sent to
learn what they could?"
"No, no!" the Dutchman answered confidently. "It was the sight of the
girl and her gewgaws yesterday brought them--the villains! There is
nothing safe from them and nothing sacred to them. They saw her as
they passed up in the boat, you remember."
"But then, supposing the worst to come to the worst?"
"We must escape across the frontier to Wesel, in the Duchy of Cleves,"
replied Lindstrom in a matter-of-fact tone, as if he had long
considered and settled the point. "The distance is not great, and in
Wesel we may find shelter, at any rate for a time. Even there, if
pressure be brought to bear upon the Government to give us up, I would
not trust it. Yet for a time it may do."
"And you would leave all this?" the Duchess said in wonder, her eyes
traveling round the room, so clean and warm and comfortable, and
settling at length upon the great armoire of plate, which happened to
be opposite to her. "You would leave all this at a moment's notice?"
"Yes, madam, all we could not carry with us," he answered simply.
"Honor and life, these come first. And I thank Heaven that I live here
within reach of a foreign soil, and not in the interior, where escape
would be hopeless."
"But if the true facts were known," the Duchess urged, "would you
still be in danger? Would not the magistrates protect you? The Schout
and Schepen as you call them? They are Dutchmen."
"Against a Spanish governor and a Spanish garrison?" he replied with
emphasis. "Ay, they would protect me--as one sheep protects another
against the wolves. No! I dare not risk it. Were I in prison, what
would become of Dymphna?"
"Master Van Tree?"
"He has the will to shelter her, no doubt. And his father has
influence; but such as mine--a broken reed to trust to. Then Dymphna
is not all. Once in prison, whatever the charge, there would be
questioning about religion; perhaps," with a faint smile, "questioning
about my guests."
"I suppose you know best," said the Duchess, with a sigh. "But I hope
the worst will not come to the worst."
"Amen to that!" he answered quite cheerfully.
Indeed, it was strange that we seemed to feel more sorrow at the
prospect of leaving this haven of a few weeks, than our host of
quitting the home of a lifetime. But the necessity had come upon us
suddenly, while he had contemplated it for years. So much fear and
humiliation had mingled with his enjoyment of his choicest possessions
that this long-expected moment brought with it a feeling akin to
relief.
For myself I had a present trouble that outweighed any calamity of
to-morrow. Perforce, since I alone knew the spot where the man lay, I
must be one of the burying party. My nerves had not recovered from the
blow which the sight of the Spaniard lying dead at my feet had dealt
them so short a time before, and I shrank with a natural repulsion
from the task before me. Yet there was no escaping it, no chance of
escaping it, I saw.
None the less, throughout the silent meal to which we four sat down
together, neither the girls nor Van Tree appearing, were my thoughts
taken up with the business which was to follow. I heard our host, who
was to go with me, explaining that there was a waterway right up to
the dyke, and that we would go by boat; and heard him with apathy.
What matter how we went, if such were the object of our journey?
I wondered how the man's face would look when we came to turn him
over, and pictured it in all ghastliest shapes. I wondered whether I
should ever forget the strange spasmodic twitching of his leg, the
gurgle--half oath, half cry--which had come with the blood from his
throat. When Lindstrom said the moon was up and bade me come with him
to the boat, I went mechanically. No one seemed to suspect me of fear.
I suppose they thought that, as I had not feared to kill him, I should
not fear him dead. And in the general silence and moodiness I escaped
notice.
"It is a good night for the purpose," the Dutchman said, looking about
when we were outside. "It is light enough for us, yet not so light
that we run much risk of being seen."
I assented, shivering. The moon was almost at the full, and the
weather was dry, but scud after scud of thin clouds, sweeping across
the breezy sky, obscured the light from time to time, and left nothing
certain. We loosed the smallest boat in silence, and getting in,
pulled gently round the lower end of the island, making for the fringe
of rushes which marked the line of division between river and fen. We
could hear the frogs croaking in the marsh, and the water lapping the
banks, and gurgling among the tree-roots, and making a hundred strange
noises to which daylight ears are deaf. Yet as long as I was in the
open water I felt bold enough. I kept my tremors for the moment when
we should brush through the rustling belt of reeds, and the willows
should whisper about our heads, and the rank vegetation, the
mysterious darkness of the mere should shut us in.
For a time I was to be spared this. Master Lindstrom suddenly stopped
rowing. "We have forgotten to bring a stone, lad," he said in a low
voice.
"A stone?" I answered, turning. I was pulling the stroke oar, and my
back was toward him. "Do we want a stone?"
"To sink the body," he replied. "We cannot bury it in the marsh, and
if we could it were trouble thrown away. We must have a stone."
"What is to be done?" I asked, leaning on my oar and shivering, as
much in impatience as nervousness. "Must we go back?"
"No, we are not far from the causeway now," he answered, with Dutch
coolness. "There are some big stones, I fancy, by the end of the
bridge. If not, there are some lying among the cottages just across
the bridge. Your eyes are younger than mine, so you had better go. I
will pull on, and land you."
I assented, and the boat's course being changed a point or two, three
minutes' rowing laid her bows on the mud, some fifty yards from the
landward bend of the bridge, and just in the shadow of the causeway. I
sprang ashore and clambered up. "Hist!" he cried, warning me as I was
about to start on my errand. "Go about it quietly, Master Francis. The
people will probably be in bed. But be secret."
I nodded and moved off, as warily as he could desire. I spent a minute
or two peering about the causeway, but I found nothing that would
serve our purpose. There was no course left then but to cross the
planks, and seek what I wanted in the hamlet. Remembering how the
timbers had creaked and clattered when I went over them in the
daylight, I stole across on tiptoe. I fancied I had seen a pile of
stones near one of the posts at that end, but I could not find them
now, and after groping about a while--for this part was at the moment
in darkness--I crept cautiously past the first hovel, peering to right
and left as I went. I did not like to confess to myself that I was
afraid to be alone in the dark, but that was nearly the truth. I was
feverishly anxious to find what I wanted and return to my companion.
Suddenly I paused and held my breath. A slight sound had fallen on my
ears, nervously ready to catch the slightest. I paused and listened.
Yes, there it was again; a whispering of cautious voices close by me,
within a few feet of me. I could see no one. But a moment's thought
told me that the speakers were hidden by the farther corner of the
cottage abreast of which I stood. The sound of human voices, the
assurance of living companionship, steadied my nerves, and to some
extent rid me of my folly. I took a step to one side, so as to be more
completely in the shadow cast by the reed-thatched eaves, and then
softly advanced until I commanded a view of the whisperers.
They were two, a man and a woman. And the woman was of all people
Dymphna! She had her back to me, but she stood in the moonlight, and I
knew her hood in a moment. The man--surely the man was Van Tree then,
if the woman was Dymphna? I stared. I felt sure it must be Van Tree.
It was wonderful enough that Dymphna should so far have regained nerve
and composure as to rise and come out to meet him. But in that case
her conduct, though strange, was explicable. If not, however, if the
man were not Van Tree----
Well, he certainly was not. Stare as I might, rub my eyes as I might,
I could not alter the man's figure, which was of the tallest, whereas
I have said that the young Dutchman was short. This man's face, too,
though it was obscured as he bent over the girl by his cloak, which
was pulled high up about his throat, was swarthy; swarthy and
beardless, I made out. More, his cap had a feather, and even as he
stood still I thought I read the soldier in his attitude. The soldier
and the Spaniard!
What did it mean? On what strange combination had I lit? Dymphna and a
Spaniard! Impossible. Yet a thousand doubts and thoughts ran riot in
my brain, a thousand conjectures jostled one another to get uppermost.
What was I to do? What ought I to do? Go nearer to them, as near as
possible, and listen and learn the truth? Or steal back the way I had
come, and fetch Master Lindstrom? But first, was it certain that the
girl was there of her own free will? Yes, the question was answered as
soon as put. The man laid his hand gently on her shoulder. She did not
draw back.
Confident of this, and consequently of Dymphna's bodily safety, I
hesitated, and was beginning to consider whether the best course might
not be to withdraw and say nothing, leaving the question of future
proceedings to be decided after I had spoken to her on the morrow,
when a movement diverted my thoughts. The man at last raised his head.
The moonlight fell cold and bright on his face, displaying every
feature as clearly as if it had been day. And though I had only once
seen his face before, I knew it again.
And knew him! In a second I was back in England, looking on a far
different scene. I saw the Thames, its ebb tide rippling in the
sunshine as it ripples past Greenwich, and a small boat gliding over
it, and a man in the bow of the boat, a man with a grim lip and a
sinister eye. Yes, the tall soldier talking to Dymphna in the
moonlight, his cap the cap of a Spanish guard, was Master Clarence!
the Duchess's chief enemy!
* * * * *
I stayed my foot. With a strange settling into resolve of all my
doubts I felt if my sword, which happily I had brought with me, was
loose in its sheath, and leaned forward scanning him. So he had
tracked us! He was here! With wonderful vividness I pictured all the
dangers which menaced the Duchess, Master Bertie, the Lindstroms,
myself, through his discovery of us, all the evils which would befall
us if the villain went away with his tale. Forgetting Dymphna's
presence, I set my teeth hard together. He should not escape me this
time.
But man can only propose. As I took a step forward, I trod on a round
piece of wood which turned under my foot, and I stumbled. My eye left
the pair for a second. When it returned to them they had taken the
alarm. Dymphna had started away, and I saw her figure retreating
swiftly in the direction of the house. The man poised himself a moment
irresolute opposite to me; then dashed aside and disappeared behind
the cottage.
I was after him on the instant, my sword out, and caught sight of his
cloak as he whisked round a corner. He dodged me twice round the next
cottage, the one nearer the river. Then he broke away and made for the
bridge, his object evidently to get off the island. But he seemed at
last to see that I was too quick for him--as I certainly was--and
should catch him half way across the narrow planking; and changing his
mind again he doubled nimbly back and rushed into the open porch of a
cottage, and I heard his sword ring out. I had him at bay.
At bay indeed! But ready as I was, and resolute to capture or kill
him, I paused. I hesitated to run in on him. The darkness of the porch
hid him, while I must attack with the moonlight shining on me. I
peered in cautiously. "Come out!" I cried. "Come out, you coward!"
Then I heard him move, and for a moment I thought he was coming, and I
stood a-tiptoe waiting for his rush. But he only laughed a derisive
laugh of triumph. He had the odds, and I saw he would keep them.
I took another cautious step toward him, and shading my eyes with
my left hand, tried to make him out. As I did so, gradually his face
took dim form and shape, confronting mine in the darkness. I stared
yet more intently. The face became more clear. Nay, with a sudden
leap into vividness, as it were, it grew white against the dark
background--white and whiter. It seemed to be thrust out nearer and
nearer, until it almost touched mine. It--his face? No, it was not his
face! For one awful moment a terror, which seemed to still my heart,
glued me to the ground where I stood, as it flashed upon my brain that
it was another face that grinned at me so close to mine, that it was
another face I was looking on; the livid, bloodstained face and stony
eyes of the man I had killed!
With a wild scream I turned and fled. By instinct, for terror had
deprived me of reason, I hied to the bridge, and keeping, I knew not
how, my footing upon the loose clattering planks, made one desperate
rush across it. The shimmering water below, in which I saw that face a
thousand times reflected, the breeze, which seemed the dead man's hand
clutching me, lent wings to my flight. I sprang at a bound from the
bridge to the bank, from the bank to the boat, and overturning, yet
never seeing, my startled companion, shoved off from the shore with
all my might--and fell a-crying.
A very learned man, physician to the Queen's Majesty has since told
me, when I related this strange story to him, that probably that burst
of tears saved my reason. It so far restored me at any rate that I
presently knew where I was--cowering in the bottom of the boat, with
my eyes covered; and understood that Master Lindstrom was leaning over
me in a terrible state of mind, imploring me in mingled Dutch and
English to tell him what had happened. "I have seen him!" was all I
could say at first, and I scarcely dared remove my hands from my eyes.
"I have seen him!" I begged my host to row away from the shore, and
after a time was able to tell him what the matter was, he sitting the
while with his arm round my shoulder.
"You are sure that it was the Spaniard?" he said kindly, after he had
thought a minute.
"Quite sure," I answered shuddering, yet with less violence. "How
could I be mistaken? If you had seen him----"
"And you are sure--did you feel his heart this morning? Whether it was
beating?"
"His heart?" Something in his voice gave me courage to look up, though
I still shunned the water, lest that dreadful visage should rise from
the depths. "No, I did not touch him."
"And you tell me that he fell on his face. Did you turn him over?"
"No." I saw his drift now. I was sitting erect. My brain began to work
again. "No," I admitted; "I did not."
"Then how----" asked the Dutchman roughly--"how do you know that he
was dead, young sir? Tell me that."
When I explained, "Bah!" he cried. "There is nothing in that! You
jumped to a conclusion. I thought a Spaniard's head was harder to
break. As for the blood coming from his mouth, perhaps he bit his
tongue, or did any one of a hundred things--except die, Master
Francis. That you may be sure is just what he did not do."
"You think so?" I said gratefully. I began to look about me, yet still
with a tremor in my limbs, and an inclination to start at shadows.
"Think?" he rejoined, with a heartiness which brought conviction home
tome; "I am sure of it. You may depend upon it that Master Clarence,
or the man you take for Master Clarence--who no doubt was the other
soldier seen with the scoundrel this morning--found him hurt late in
the evening. Then, seeing him in that state, he put him in the porch
for shelter, either because he could not get him to Arnheim at once,
or because he did not wish to give the alarm before he had made his
arrangements for netting your party."
"That is possible!" I allowed, with a sigh of relief. "But what of
Master Clarence?"
"Well," the old man said; "let us get home first. We will talk of him
afterward."
I felt he had more in his mind than appeared, and I obeyed; growing
ashamed now of my panic, and looking forward with no very pleasant
feelings to hearing the story narrated. But when we reached the house,
and found Master Bertie and the Duchess in the parlor waiting for
us--they rose startled at sight of my face--he bade me leave that out,
but tell the rest of the story.
I complied, describing how I had seen Dymphna meet Clarence, and what
I had observed to pass between them. The astonishment of my hearers
may be imagined. "The point is very simple," said our host coolly,
when I had, in the face of many exclamations and some incredulity,
completed the tale; "it is just this! The woman certainly was not
Dymphna. In the first place, she would not be out at night. In the
second place, what could she know of your Clarence, an Englishman and
a stranger? In the third place, I will warrant she has been in her
room all the evening. Then if Master Francis was mistaken in the
woman, may he not have been mistaken in the man? That is the point."
"No," I said boldly. "I only saw her back. I saw his face."
"Certainly, that is something," Master Lindstrom admitted reluctantly.
"But how many times had you seen him before?" put in my lady very
pertinently. "Only once."
In answer to that I could do no more than give further assurance of my
certainty on the point. "It was the man I saw in the boat at
Greenwich," I declared positively. "Why should I imagine it?"
"All the same, I trust you have," she rejoined. "For, if it was indeed
that arch scoundrel, we are undone."
"Imagination plays us queer tricks sometimes," Master Lindstrom said,
with a smile of much meaning. "But come, lad, I will ask Dymphna,
though I think it useless to do so. For whether you are right or wrong
as to your friend, I will answer for it you are wrong as to my
daughter."
He was rising to go from them for the purpose, when Mistress Anne
opened the door and came in. She looked somewhat startled at finding
us all in conclave. "I thought I heard your voices," she explained
timidly, standing between us and the door. "I could not sleep."
She looked indeed as if that were so. Her eyes were very bright, and
there was a bright spot of crimson in each cheek. "What is it?" she
went on abruptly, looking hard at me and shutting her lips tightly.
There was so much to explain that no one had taken it in hand to
begin.
"It is just this," the Duchess said, opening her mouth with a snap.
"Have you been with Dymphna all the time?"
"Yes, of course," was the prompt answer.
"What is she doing?"
"Doing?" Mistress Anne repeated in surprise. "She is asleep."
"Has she been out since nightfall?" the Duchess continued. "Out of her
room? Or out of the house?"
"Out? Certainly not. Before she fell asleep she was in no state to go
out, as you know, though I hope she will be all right when she awakes.
Who says she has been out?" Anne added sharply. She looked at me with
a challenge in her eyes, as much as to say, "Is it you?"
"I am satisfied," I said, "that I was mistaken as to Mistress Dymphna.
But I am just as sure as before that I saw Clarence."
"Clarence?" Mistress Anne repeated, starting violently, and the color
for an instant fleeing from her cheeks. She sat down on the nearest
seat.
"You need not be afraid, Anne," my lady said smiling. She had a
wonderfully high courage herself. "I think Master Francis was
mistaken, though he is so certain about it."
"But where--where did he see him?" the girl asked. She still trembled.
Once more I had to tell the tale; Mistress Anne, as was natural,
listening to it with the liveliest emotions. And this time so much of
the ghost story had to be introduced--for she pressed me closely as to
where I had left Clarence, and why I had let him go--that my
assurances got less credence than ever.
"I think I see how it is," she said, with a saucy scorn that hurt me
not a little. "Master Carey's nerves are in much the same state
to-night as Dymphna's. He thought he saw a ghost, and he did not. He
thought he saw Dymphna, and he did not. And he thought he saw Master
Clarence, and he did not."
"Not so fast, child!" cried the Duchess sharply, seeing me wince.
"Your tongue runs too freely. No one has had better proofs of Master
Carey's courage--for which I will answer myself--than we have!"
"Then he should not say things about Dymphna!" the young lady
retorted, her foot tapping the floor, and the red spots back in her
cheeks. "Such rubbish I never heard!"